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Post by Bannanachair on Oct 15, 2018 23:09:35 GMT -4
You watch as your brother sits atop your father's throne, hearing the plea from the peasant before him. This must have been the thirtieth plea today about some minor happening. "Please, m'lord," he said, slurring the words "my" and "lord" so much that it sounded like a single word. "Please, my neighbour killed my crops, and then he went and slaughtered my best dairy cow. Your father's been to my farm before, let him hear my plea. He'll tell you to believe me, he will."
"My father is not feeling well," Kallian replied, clearly holding back the anger that he must be feeling at this peasant trying to make such claims. "Do you want me to rouse him now, when all the doctors of the court say that he should be resting? Are you saying that the son of Thander Mallowater is not making a fair judgement?"
"Of course I'm not saying that m'lord's not making a fair judgement, m'lord," the peasant said in response, "But if ye come and see my farm for yerself, m'lord will see with his own eyes what my neighbour did to me. He's been out to get me for years, he has. Aye, this isn't even the first time he's spread them pests through my crops."
"I have duties to attend to, but, if it will placate you, I shall send a knight of my household to head back with you and take a look for himself," Your brother said at last. It seems like a waste of knights to you, sending them off on silly affairs that peasants dream up, but the peasant likely would have taken all day if it weren't for that minor concession. "Are there any volunteers to go and check out this dispute?" Kallian asked the audience and the court, though there wasn't a large cry of volunteers for this particular mission.
"Nobody at all?" He asked. "Very well then. I shall send Sir Delwin Ludall, a knight of some renown, to investigate your dispute. He shall act as arbiter in my absence, just as I am in my father's absence, upon seeking the truth or falsehoods of all of your claims. If he finds your neighbour to be guilty of these crimes, I charge him with bringing the man to justice. If he finds that you've wasted my time and his, I charge him with bringing you to justice."
One of the younger knights gave a grumble from the audience. The family name Ludall seemed vaguely familiar to you, but Sir Delwin was not a name that you recognized. It is common practice to try to inflate people's egos, both the ego of the peasant and the knight going to investigate the quandry, so you're not altogether surprised by the fact. What surprises you more is just how many household knights your brother has memorized the name of in his political flattering.
You don't know why you're watching this procession today, though your brother told you over the morning's breakfast that he would be making an important announcement and that it would be improper of you not to attend it.
"A storm's coming, cap'n," said Garry, your first mate. "Artie told us a few hours ago that there's a storm coming, but we chose to set sail anyway." Artie is the new navigator that you hired for the ship, and apparently he has quite a bit of experience accurately guessing the weather. Your crew of hardened sailors can probably weather the storm, and it's lucky for you that this is much more of a cargo trip than a trip with passengers. Still, though, you'll want to ensure that the merchants who hired you to transport them are below decks and safe enough that they don't die, so that you get paid.
This is the third day of a six-day voyage that you set off on, sailing from the port of Oakwell in the Duchy of Datha all the way to Estermere, a large Eredallian port-city near the mouth of the Nubarb. The storms normally don't start for another full month, but if this is as big a storm as Artie claimed it would be, you're in for trouble. The merchants aboard your ship are carrying various goods, such as cloth and wool and metals and spices and grains, that need to travel up the Nubarb to get to their destination. You'd be charged for all lost and damaged cargo, for any injured persons on board your ship and for anything else that could possibly hurt the business of the merchants who you're carrying.
Ahead in the distance, you see the storm that Artie and then Garry told you about. It would be useless to try to get to a port to weather the storm; the shore is only a speck on the horizon, and the nearest port is up in the direction of the storm. The hours go by slowly, with more similar petitions. Two insignificant landed knights came up with a minor border dispute which resulted in a skirmish which resulted in the deaths of three peasants, and both were scolded by Kallian for allowing their petty squabbles to cost the life of valuable peasant farmers. A tanner within the city was accused of murdering his business partner, and in turn he accused their rival of the murder. Raethus Shan came by about an hour before the end of court for that day, which was an unusually busy one.
"As there are no more petitions, I should like to make several announcements about upcoming events," Kallian said. "As has been our tradition for centuries, even during the reign of the Nerathi Empire and before, the Great Tourney of Mallowater will be held in a month's time. There will be jousting, fencing, archery, tennis, running, javelins, swimming, wrestling, horseback racing, dog racing, hunting and competitions of artisanship at this once-a-decade event. My father, who has organized and hosted the past several of these tournaments, will be unable to host it this time. That said, this tournament, the guest of honour will be our great lord, the formidable dragon and our great king Nizeston himself. As a result of the trade that tourneys like this bring, tariffs on various imported goods will increase..."
You've stopped listening. That must have been the news that your brother demanded you attend court for. Nizeston was flying to Mallowater for the tourney.
"Did you know about this, Othan?" asked Raethus, who was standing beside you. "I can't believe that Nizeston himself is offering his patronage of the tourney. I thought he was still plotting against the Owls and Lemurrath in the Hyst forest. I had been hoping to resume the Galbror War. "Of course. Before this revelation, I had planned to invite you to dinner anyways, alongside logisticians like Hartwig Almerry and Hedrek Talverton to discuss how to most efficiently move your army to Galbror if need be. I suppose, though, that as we're not going to be fighting the Third Galbror War anytime soon I ought to reschedule our meeting with them. They're good men despite your arguments with them, but it would hardly be a private meeting if they're in attendance."
Hartwig and Hedrek, who Raethus mentioned, are notable military commanders within the Mallowater armies, both landless knights and younger sons. Hartwig, a man about half a decade older than you father, and you have had a minor feud since the Second Galbror War over some of your tactics, particularly your crop burning, which he deemed to be not only unethical but impractical as well, as it makes it significantly harder for your own army to forage. Hedrek likewise disagreed with some of your tactics, though he was less insistent about it than Hartwig was. That said, despite your differences with the two men, they are your army's foremost experts on logistics and moving from one place to another quickly and efficiently, and given Raethus's desire to lead an army again, it makes sense that he would be talking to them about getting the army to Galbror.
As for the tourney itself, it has an old history. According to written records, this would be the fifty-second or fifty-third Great Tourney of Mallowater (you forget off the top of your head). At the last tourney your father led the procession and the pomp of the ceremonies and your brother Northan ended up winning the jousting and fencing competitions, and getting second place on the horseback riding competition. He was in the top twenty for all athletic categories.
Kallian mentioned all of the various components of the tournament, and the prizes are enough to make a man rich for life. First place in anything wins ten thousand gold pieces, second wins five thousand gold pieces, third wins two thousand gold pieces and anyone in the top twenty places wins one thousand gold pieces. As it is quite an affair, people from all over the Earldom tend to flock to Mallowater to try their hand at winning their fortune, and often people from all over Orevod make the journey. Local business booms and, despite the immense size of the prizes and the expenses required to host the tourney, it actually fills up the Mallowater coffers.
Those who win in any of the athletic categories often receive dignified positions in the army when there is a war, thus increasing the incentives for knights and nobles to compete. Last time the tourney was held Ballus Clearden used it as an excuse to come by, and after the tourney the two of you rode to Galbror together to fight in the Second War. "Alright then, I suppose we ought to get going," Raethus said. Your brother was droning on about specific information relating to the taxation of various items for the Tourney, increasing the tax on some goods and lowering it on others. This information seemed to captivate members of the merchant class who were in attendance, but some knights had begun shuffling out already. There were no hard and fast rules about when people were meant to be at court, and people come and go somewhat regularly.
"Aye, Cap'n," Garry said, and began shouting specific orders to specific crewmembers: Two men were to get certain crates below deck, another few men were in charge of helping get the handful of merchants that you had below deck, and so forth. "I may compete in the joust and see if I can get back at your brother for the humiliating defeat he dealt me in the last tournament. Of course, as the Great Dragon Nizeston is in attendance, I shall compete to the best of my ability in all the various components of the tournament, for his glory. I've never learned to paint or sculpt or carve or write, though, so I imagine that I shall fail at all the competitions of artisanship." As you and Raethus walk, you notice that you're walking towards the exit of the palace, and out into the city.
"I'll set up a game at the tavern where we'll be meeting. I have a table at the Windy Rope, and my father's guard have already ensured the security of the location. Dinner's going to be at around sundown, but as Hedrek Talverton's attending with us, maybe aim to be two hours early." The Windy Rope is one of the more upscale taverns in Mallowater, located a very short walk away from the palace. It tends to be where visiting Earls and Barons stay if the palace's guest rooms are filled up, along with foreign dignitaries from other kingdoms and rich merchants. It's not a place that often has brawls, but given some of Raethus's actions during the Second Galbror War - and, indeed, some of the things that you ordered him to do - people who recognize him often hate him.
Unfortunately, you struggle to think of anything immediately pressing. There are numerous chores that you could do, and many things that you could take the initiative in doing, but unfortunately one of the downsides to being a wealthy heir is that you have nobody planning your day for you and telling you what to do. Doubtless you could help with your brother's load of petitioners, but that hardly sounds fun. You could see what your other brother is up to, and deliver the news of Nizeston's impending arrival to him. You could help your younger children in their studies, particularly of history and strategy. You could visit your father, or ensure that the city guard is being trained properly, or do something else entirely.
You arrive at your quarters without incident, and find that there is nobody else in your room. Not only do you have a cloak, but you have several cloaks, some of which are nicer than others. I'm assuming that you're going for a stealthy, incognito approach to information gathering and put on a plain brown cloak. People in the palace itself will still likely recognize you, but most peasants don't know you enough to recognize you out of your finery. As you exit the palace you walk out onto the streets of Mallowater. Mallowater is the smallest of the six cities in Orevod, being so close to the capital of Ostcliff. That said, there are still about a dozen or so smaller neighbourhoods that make up the city, some of which aren't as wealthy as the Noble District. Presumably, in order to find out what the peasants have to say, you'd want to go closer to the city gates to where the farmers from the outlying farms go to trade their produce, or to the docks where sailors and merchants are to discus news of places both near and far. Mallowater has three different docks. The Golden Docks are nearest the palace and are where the wealthiest merchants come to deliver their wares and sell them to noblemen and knights, and tend to be able to house up to thirty or so ships, though it never truly reaches full capacity. The Silver Docks are where much of the upper-middle classes go to trade, and are somewhat further away than the Royal Docks, but still about half an hour's walk from the palace. The Copper Docks are where the lowliest of sailors go to sell their cheap wares to peasants unable to afford anything better, and are probably one of the most crime-ridden neighbourhoods in the city. They're not safe for you to go alone dressed in finery, but if you go disguised, and carry a knife, you should be safe.
Well, in truth there are five docks, but the Fisherman's Docks are reserved for those who go out to catch fish, and the War Docks are where the navy is maintained. As you arrive at the gold docks, you see about a dozen large and fancy ships in port. Some men are unloading cargo from two of the ships, and merchants are set up very close to the docks to try to sell their wares. There's one man selling silk from Yhendorn, another is selling golden figurines of naked women and yet a third salesman is selling undoubtedly the cheapest holy relics from the Cavelands that you've ever seen. Vendors are selling street-food as well, to help replenish the stomachs of hungry walkers.
Ahead, you see some knights walking while having a conversation, browsing through a selection of goods, both weapons and other things, ostensibly made of Spiderwood. Many in their group weren't in court today, and you recognize one of the knights briefly in passing as Sir Taran Gulyard, a notable tourney knight and warrior who served under you during the Second Galbror War. He's grown a full beard and a few inches since then, and he might recognize you through your disguise, but it's also been almost a decade since the last war and you haven't been keeping up with all of your knights and subcommanders. You know for a fact that he's an honest man.
Something bumps into you and says "Excuse me sir, but would you like to buy some fish? My father prepared them just this morning, and they're still warm." She's a small girl with a small pushcart full of small fish wrapped in small dried leaves. She's likely been working at the docks all day, and would have overheard as much gossip as anyone.
Artie looked at the storm, and then said "Maybe two hours, cap'n. No more'n three. It's a big storm, but it'll likely not last too long." Most people are below deck now, anxiously awaiting the storm, but your sails are still up and you're still headed directly for the storm. "If it don't damage the ship none, it won't delays us any," Artie said, in that funny way of talking that he has.
"I'm treated very well when people buy my fish," she said. "If I don't sell enough fish daddy hits me and tells me to sell more tomorrow, but I've been selling lots of fish today. Sometimes the captains will show me interesting things on their ships and tell me tales of far away lands. Did you know that Sylathus is ruled by evil demons?" It's very likely that she was referring to the Yhendorn city of Sylathneus but simply didn't know how to pronounce the name. "The great dragon Niz... Niston! The great Dragon Niston rules us, with the help of his best friend Earl Thander!" The girl must not be any older than six or seven. "I heard one knight tell me that Niston is going to be flying over soon and watching him win the jousting. I think that Niston is just coming over to visit his friend, though. After all, Earl Thander lives here." "The sailors come from all over! There are sailors from Eriport and Ostcliff and Kraken Island and one boat is even from Yhendorn! That's where that man got the silk he's selling from!" "I don't know that!" Said the girl. "They must be doing good, though, because they live with the Great Dragon Niston." "That boat came from Ostcliff," said the little girl, pointing at one of the ships, and handing you the fish. One man, wearing rather nice clothing, is the one to answer. "Our wares are in crates that we're unloading now. What are you after?" "I have a set of pieces and dice for Seasons onboard my ship, but that's the set that I use to play. I'll tell you what; I have large shipments of various raw materials on board my ship, and I know a man in the city who sells games. If you'd like, I can give him some of my materials and ask him to make something particularly artistic just for you. His shop's in The Pebbles, and he's an old man, over seventy, and has been at it for years. His name's Kallian, named after old Earl Othan's son before either of them died. It's a damned shame that his ship went down, you know. Earl Thander is great and all, but he was so young when he took over from his grandfather... But now I'm rambling, and nobody wants to listen to the ramblings of an old man."
"Ostcliff is doing well, by-and-large. Trade is booming, especially with Elusia, and people from all over the kingdom are flocking to the city. Though it's only about six or seven times as big as Mallowater, it has ten times as many knights, many of them young and hoping for war against Eredal sometime soon so that they can prove their glory. Most big cities have an underbelly of crime, but not Ostcliff: Most petty thieves, I guess, would rather not have to receive punishment directly from the Great Dragon. This is probably old news by now, but two Yhendorn diplomats were found dead in dark alleyways shortly before I left for here. That, coupled with this news that the Great Dragon himself is going to be flying down here for the tourney very soon, makes me a little bit worried for the security of our capital. That's not even to mention that many of those knights will likely flock here for the tourney. My money's on Earl Thander's son, Sir Northan, for the jousting. Sure, he's ten years older than he was back then, but at the tournament in Ernmore - a castle nearby to Eriport, in case you don't know it - at the tournament in Ernmore about a year ago that he was in, he managed to win yet again. Sure, it was a much smaller tourney, but you have to admit that there's something to it, right? How about you, who do you think will win the tourney?" "I haven't the faintest idea why the Great Dragon is so interested in this tourney. You'll hear some people talking about how after the last tourney we went to war with Eredal, and how that might have something to do with it, but I don't buy that. Some are saying that he's just interested in reminding Mallowater that he's the king, not Earl Thander, but Thander's never done anything to make anyone think otherwise. It might be that he wants to get the measure of the Earl's sons, those who will be ruling here after Thander. Truthfully I haven't the faintest idea in the world why he wants to come down, but that doesn't stop anyone from speculating. The diplomats were from Nasathalus and... Bugger me, I forget where the second was from. Asnenas or Mytfanoras, I think. Wherever House Casmeros is from. Either way, everyone's blaming everyone else, but nobody can see the obvious culprit - there was a ship from Sylathneus docked in Ostcliff for a few days before the murders, and she left the very same night." "Nobody knows why demons do what they do, or why they order men to do what they do. But the fact is that it was definitely Sylathneus behind the murders, I'd bet my life on it."
"Aye Cap'n," Garry said, "Ever'thing's secure. We should be able to weather the storm."
"Aye Cap'n," Artie said in response to your order, "I'll sail us through a'right, all the way through the other end of that there storm." "I'll be in port a few days, then I'm headed up to Eriport. Your name's Othan, you said, right? I'm Braga. Braga Torpin, a cousin of the Torpin family of Ostcliff." Yhendorn ships don't often sail as far as Orevod, and today was no exception - in the Gold Docks, not a single ship from that far away is here. There is, however, a ship from one of the Trade Cities of Eplune.
Artie took the wheel of the ship, and the crew went about their business as the storm continued to approach. Within an hour you can feel the winds growing stronger and the first drops of rain begin to splash coldly across your face. The grey clouds directly overhead still allow a small amount of light through, but as you look forward, you can see that they're completely opaque, blocking out the sunlight. You hear a crack of thunder and see a flash of lightning, maybe three miles away. The storm might be even worse than you thought it would be, you realize as you hear another burst of thunder and see another crack of lightning.
"Cap'n," You hear Garry say quietly, though you know that he's shouting - he has to shout to be heard over the wind. "We need to get the crew below deck! This has to be one of the worst storms I've ever seen in my entire life, and I've seen me some storms!" Another blast of thunder is heard, and it sounds like someone broke a set of drums, then you see a bright flash of lightning illuminate the sky once again. The ship from the Trade Cities is loading things onto it - lots of barrels of wine and several types of finished goods made from a variety of raw materials including everything from weaponry to tapestries. From the looks of things, they're preparing to head back to the Trade Cities.
"Aye Cap'n!" Yelled Garry, as he then turned to the crew. "Men, get below decks!" A burst of thunder struck out as Garry spoke, drowning it out, but everyone knew what he said anyway, and you saw that he was going around the deck helping people find the hatch.
"Cap'n, don't man the sails!" Artie yelled, barely audible. "We need to take down the sails to prevent them from catching fire! This is the worst storm I've ever seen!" A flash of lightning struck, less than half a mile away from the bow of the ship. Despite the fact that it's around midafternoon, the lightning was the only source of light in the sky.
As you arrive at the Silver Docks, you realized just how much time has gone by. The sun is low in the sky, and you probably don't have too long before you need to head back towards the noble district of the city and the Windy Rope - maybe half an hour, maybe slightly longer if you can walk briskly. The silver docks at this time are much more respectable than they are at night, but they're still not the Gold Docks. You see ships, many of them from much closer to Mallowater than many of the ships in the Gold Docks, unloading more mundane but still good items, like fruits and cloths. You see finished goods of a quality attainable by the middle class being loaded back onto those ships.
In the buildings around you, you see a number of taverns and inns where sailors might stay for the night, and one establishment that looks like a brothel (though it's much too early for it to be open). There are storehouses as well, where many of the goods that are being taken off of the ships are going to and where items being put onto the ships are coming from. Peculiarly enough there is also a bookseller, and you can't possibly fathom why the Silver Docks are the ideal place for a bookseller to set up shop. You struggle to take down the sail due to the strength of the winds. "I'll help with that, cap'n!" Garry said, and grabbed a hold of the rope to add his strength to yours. As thunder cracked all around you, the two of you finally managed to take down the first sail, and then, after an even harder time on the second sail, you manage to take that down too. "This ought to keep the ship from straying too far off course," Garry shouted, though you couldn't hear him: You only saw that that's what he said by the way his lips moved. The roaring, deafening winds got stronger, and as you looked up at the wheel, you saw that Artie was having an even worse time of it, having to hold onto the wheel or risk flying away in the wind.
You begin heading back, walking past all the places where you had walked earlier. You arrive at the Windy Rope about an hour before the sun goes down, and look at the building from the outside. It's a large, three-story building made out of expensive stones and solid oak. It's large doors are intricately decorated, a gift from a master carpenter who stayed at the tavern once. As you walk in, you notice the gleam of the marble floors and the sheen of the freshly-polished furniture. Each table is uniquely designed, and has an associated set of matching chairs. One table has carvings of dragons, and another has flowers, and yet another has unusual geometric patterns. Raethus Shan is sitting down at a table in the corner with carvings depicting a ship at sea, lost in a storm. There are six chairs at the table, though it's not uncommon for people to get larger tables than they need in case people they weren't expecting to see arrived. The tavern is otherwise empty aside from barmaids cleaning up in preparation for the inevitable influx of people in a few hours.
You notice that your friend, tall and of darker skin than most in Orevod (due to having very mixed blood and coming from a family of traveling adventurers, according to him), is sipping from a goblet of wine already and reading a book. Set up on the table is a game of Thaira, a two-player game played on a tessellating triangle board. The board is ten equilateral triangles per side, with a variety of pieces that move in different ways set up on the triangles and the corners where six meet. The objective of the "edge player" is to get either a knight, a noble or his king to the far point of the board, and the objective of the "point player" is to kill the enemy's king. Knowing Raethus, he's probably reading a book about Thaira strategy right now in order to try something completely new.
"My lord," He says as he sees you enter, "Please sit down with me. Baron Talverton and Sir Hartwig Almerry will be joining us in about an hour. I've allowed either of them to bring a retainer, a guard or a squire or for that matter even a wife, though I don't know whether they'll be doing that. That's why I'm seated at the Shipwreck Table and not the Dragon Table." The Dragon Table has four chairs. "Anyway," he added, "you said that you had something that you wanted to talk with me about before they arrived?" "Well, why does anyone go anywhere at all? To do things or to talk to people. Now, surely The Great Dragon can just send a messenger if it's unimportant, and order his capable vassals to do any work that needs to be done, but that's not what's happened. As such, it seems to me that The Great Dragon wants to do something himself, something that requires his Draconic presence and that can't be done by mere mortals such as ourselves, or he wants to talk to someone here who can't go to Ostcliff. Of course, it's your turn to move now, and I can't offer anything beyond that simple statement that's not just mere speculation." Garry goes to help Artie, but due to the wind and the heavy rain, ends up slipping and falling, injuring his shoulder on the staircase leading up to the helm. For once, you're able to hear him over the wind and the thunder - a scream of agonizing pain as blood begins to gush from the wound and mingle with the rainwater, a scream of pain as the rainwater quickly washed away some of the blood from the wound and revealed part of his shoulder bone sticking out.
As for the rope, any loose rope has long since flown overboard, but there are some pieces of rope tied down to parts of the ship that don't seem to be fulfilling any immediate purpose. "Those three seem to be the most obvious conclusions to reach, though we shouldn't discount other possibilities. Of course, given how fast it must be to fly down from Ostcliff, you could simply ask the Great Dragon yourself in a handful of days. I propose that, rather than making speculation our primary purpose for these days, we set about ensuring that the city is presentable for the Great Dragon's arrival - after all, it could just be that he wants to check up on the realm that he rules. Oh, that's an interesting move that you've made there. You don't normally do that this early. I'm going to try this as a countermeasure." "Either way, I've been feeling that some of the countryside near Castle Shan should be brushed up upon anyway and a handful of outlaws hanged. If we have a couple days before the Great Dragon arrives, you're invited to come with me to root them out. It's your turn." "It's settled, then. I'll just quickly kill your archer like that," He moved one of his spearmen to take the place of the piece that had just been killed, "And then, depending on when your brother says the Great Dragon is going to arrive, we'll plan a couple of days to go kill the outlaws. It's about a day's journey to Castle Shan by horseback, we'll spend a day or two there in the surrounding countryside looking for and hanging outlaws and then a day to get back to Mallowater. Well, it's not even a day's journey, in truth - once we leave the gates it's about seven hours by horseback, or six if we take two horses each and change horses halfway."
The rope manages to secure you, and Artie, seeing what you've done, begins searching around for some rope of his own.
Rather than fall into the trap, Raethus moves a second piece into position to attack your piece. "Sure. I'm up in the city enough that I probably ought to just buy myself a residence here, but I won't mind stealing one of your guest rooms again. On the topic of your guest rooms, where will the Great Dragon stay when he visits? You don't happen to have a dragon-sized guest room that I'm unaware of, do you, my lord?" He added the last bit, much more formal, as the door opened and an elderly man walked in. When the man took off the hood of his cloak it turned out that he obviously wasn't one of your dining companions, though it was a safe bet by Raethus to add the formality there in case it was Almerry or Talverton joining the two of you.
Garry weakly grabbed your arm with his good hand, and his skin has already become noticeably paler due to the blood loss, and noticeably colder due to having to withstand the elements here. He managed to get himself free of the now-broken staircase, though you can see some large splinters still sticking out of the skin. Thunder and lightning continued to break out all around you, and Artie, who managed to tie himself to the ship, is white-knuckled due to how tightly he's gripping the wheel. As you continue playing the game over the course of the next hour the inn slowly starts to fill up. A group of young merchants were seated at the Dragon Table. An elderly couple with well-behaved young children in tow, likely their grandkids, all sat down at the Flower Table. A wealthy-looking man and two women sat down at the Lion Table and immediately started drinking, and the old man who had come in earlier and was seated at the bar got up to leave. By the time you won the first game, the tavern was about a quarter full, and by the time Raethus won the second the tavern was half full. As the two of you were playing your third game, your dining companions arrived.
Hartwig Almerry and Hedrek Talverton arrived together but otherwise unaccompanied, wearing expensive cloaks that they took off to reveal clothing matching their station underneath. The two men both looked old, Hartwig with his greyish white hair and Hedrek with a beard the colour of snow. Hartwig was the taller of the two by several inches, and he was surprisingly spry for his age. Hedrek, on the other hand, needed to walk with a cane in order to not fall over. Both men were older than your father, though Hartwig looked slightly younger. Hedrek, being twenty years older than your sixty-one year-old father, was likely the oldest man in the entire city, and it's honestly surprising that he made the journey up from his grandnephew's castle.
"Sir Hedrek, Sir Hartwig, I'm glad that the two of you were able to join us this evening," Raethus said, standing up to help pull out Hedrek's chair.
"I wouldn't very well miss the tournament, Sir Raethus, nor refuse an invitation to dinner with either of you, my Lords," Hartwig said in response, pulling out his own chair and sitting down. The man was a squire during the War of Gagh Buldir, and yet he still carried a sword on his hip, and he would likely still be able to use it somewhat effectively against the average fighter. Hedrek, who was already a renowned knight by that time and a veteran of the Siege of Eriport, was entirely unarmed. "As you command, my lord," Hartwig said, waving by a waitress, likely to get some food to feast on or wine to drink.
Sir Hedrek was the next one to speak. "I hope that you'll be happy to know that the majority of your barons are enforcing your suggestion to have the peasants training in spear fighting formations while not working the fields. Baron Osric Celnaer is claiming that famine has taken lots of his crop and is working his peasants hard on the fields, and Barons Lakewell and Elverston had already been training their peasants as archers for about four years by now, but those are the only ones who refuse to train their peasants as spearmen in as large numbers as you wanted. Oh yes, and Baron Marthus Mirador has shown initiative in training his peasants to move effectively and efficiently, vacating and rotating entire villages within the span of hours."
"I'll have a bottle of red wine from the Shan vineyards, please," Hartwig said to the waitress when she arrived, "And my elderly friend will be drinking beer."
"You start buttering us up with good news and now you're attempting to flatter me by drinking wine made by my peasants," Raethus said. "What's the bad news? How bad is it?"
"The other Earls won't be as prepared for a war as we would be. No matter how fast we move our armies, if we're the first ones there and have to meet the entire Eredal forces by ourselves, we'll be outmatched. Earl Ballus Clearden is trying his best, but his barons can be unruly. As with the barons of Nargon, Runhild's grandson Afoth - your brother in law, my lord. The Earl of Galbror, despite paying his taxes and helping quell minor rebellions, is likely to side with Eredal, alongside most of his vassals. That idiot glutton who inherited Eriport wastes his time drinking and whoring and will be woefully unprepared for the Third Galbror War. The Barons nearest the Hyst Forest are too concerned with Lemmurath to risk moving their armies to the Crebehl Forest for the war. It would take a miracle to win this war."
"I'll try!" Garry shouted back, much louder given that you're closer now. The storm is getting worse and worse, and the boat is starting to tip on it's sides. Garry went down on his knees and the elbow of his good arm and began crawling towards the hatch to below deck.
"You should get below as well, Cap'n! Artie can handle the steering for the time being, and you don't want to end up injured like me!" Despite the fact that he was merely five feet further away from you when he shouted that, he was much quieter and barely audible. Bright blue lightning kept striking in the air around you and striking the sea nearby you, narrowly missing the ship. "That's what I was thinking as well, my lord, though we would also be aided by the Barons sworn directly to Ostcliff," Hedrek said.
"Of course I've brought a map," Raethus said, laying out on the table first his map of Orevod and then his map specifically of the Crebehl Forest.
"Eredal is much less centralized than Orevod is, though it is much more powerful," Hartwig said. "Any of their Dukes would have an army larger than that of two Orevodian Earls, and there are nine Dukes to our five Earls. We thankfully won't have to deal with the entire army of Eredal, however: The Owl King's personal levies raised from around Belgate, the Earl of Galbror, who to them is the Duke of the Crebehl Forest, the Duke of Strongvale and the Duke of Estermere will hopefully be all that we have to face.
"The Duke of the Truqolp Mountains won't move his army for fear of Goldport being attacked by Cyclopes, and the Duke of Spiderwood has similar concerns of his own. Of the others, I'd wager that the Duke of Clovewood and the Duke of Cannersley might be tempted to join the war for their king with proper incentives, which will doubtless be provided if it seems that we're winning the war. The Duke of Cainfield has his head too far up his arse to be bothered with joining in the fight. None of my agents in Faerseton have gotten back to me, so I think that they may have been compromised in some way."
"So where would our navy be?" Hedrek asked. "If we're sending troops to Clearden, it would seem that we'd also be sending ships there, but if we send our ships to Clearden it would be fairly difficult to perform a naval blockade of the enemy forces. If we send our army to Clearden by land that would simply waste too much time and too many resources. As a counter-proposal, I suggest instead making landings somewhere in the Crebehl Forest, maybe here or here," Hedrek pointed at two places that looked promising for such a strike, "and we'll close in from the north-east while forces from Clearden come in from the south-west and from Nargon come in from the north-west."
"That's a bad plan, Hedrek," Raethus said in response to Hedrek's counterproposal. "You'd leave our troops in the middle of enemy territory with no supply lines, surrounded not just by Galbror but by any armies from the rest of Eredal that come along to aid our primary foe. If Galbror were our only enemy that would be a perfectly fine plan, but if Galbror were our only enemy we would have won the war twenty years ago anyway."
"Either way," Hedrek replied, "stationing our troops in Clearden and Nargon would be a drain on their resources and that wouldn't help us in our fight at all. Sure, they'd have food and supplies, but enough for their armies only."
"We're also not factoring in the distinct advantage that we have over them," Hartwig added. "Our army is going to be led by a dragon that breathes lightning and controls storms, theirs isn't. The Great Dragon Nizeston, in addition to being our leader, is also our greatest tactical advantage, and would certainly greatly alter any strategies that we employ."
Artie, drenched in rainwater, didn't see or acknowledge what you indicated, being too busy staring at the lightning in the sky striking the river all around you and steering clear of currents that would be dangerous to the ship. Garry winces in pain at every movement that his shoulder is forced to make, and the boat continues rocking and tipping, the wind continues howling and the thunder and lightning continue to burst out loudly. As you're nearly at the hatch, a powerful wave breaks out, sending water tumbling all over the deck, throwing you and Garry another thirty feet away from the hatch. Garry screams in pain as the water enters his wound, and on your lips you taste salt. This time, you managed to carry him to the hatch and open it, and two other crew members - Arvid and Gerhard - are there to help you pull Garry down. "This is a bloody bad injury," Gerhard says in reference to the wound on Garry's shoulder. All the flesh has been ripped away from it and the bone is jutting out at an awkward angle. Below the deck, the ship continues to rock and turn, and you can still hear the thunder crackling outside. Your passengers, merchants and their families for the most part, are all visibly terrified just at the sound of the thunder outside, and the appearance of Garry as damaged as he is was not helping things in the slightest.
One of the merchants, a rather tall Vrelonian, noticed you come down and decided to speak to you. "Captain," he said, "What the hell is up with this weather? Some of these men brought their gods-damned families, and your first mate's going to need to get his arm amputated from the looks of things!" It didn't look to you like he'd need to get his arm amputated if he gets medical care as soon as possible, but this man may have a different opinion of that.
"And how do we go about slaying Lemurrath? He's older and larger than Nizestan, and nearly slew him during the War of Gagh Buldir. Runhild may have slain Esulnoc, but Esulnoc was younger than Lemurrath and Lemurrath now would be larger than he was back then. Besides, Runhild's dead, and his grandkids and their kids aren't the fighters that he is," Hedrek said. Hedrek first gained prominence during the War of Gagh Buldir when he was young, fighting on the front near the Hyst Forest.
"I didn't mean to discredit bringing up Lemurrath, my lord," Hedrek said, "and I do firmly believe that he will be a problem. Not immediately, but it is better to be preemptive in these things. The fact of the matter, though, is that I just don't have a solution in mind."
"Some foreign kingdoms with dragons less noble than the Great Dragon Nizeston employ dragonslayers on occasion. When I was his squire, Runhild mentioned that he himself had squired for one such knight in Elusia. I forget his name, but I know the dragons that he's slain - Mosocron the Nocturnal, Geldresdyt and Ekontyss. Sir Denkahm Graverson, that was his name! A Tedalian, not an Elusian."
"Sir Hartwig, I mean you no disrespect at all, but that must have been over a hundred years ago," Raethus said. "Tedal stopped being a kingdom at almost the same time as Mallowater, some of its land becoming Vrelonian and one or two duchies joined Legia. I don't recognize the names Geldresdyt nor Ekontyss either, and I've read every catalogue of dragons written this century. Mosocron the Nocturnal sounds familiar, but I'll have to do some research in the library to jog my memory of who he is."
"No need," the grizzled warrior replied, "Mosocron the Nocturnal was a fearsome black dragon that lived in a swamp far to the north-east of here in what was then the Duchy of Sivil in the Kingdom of Tedal, but would nowadays be on the northern border of Vrelon and Slairis. He was cunning and cruel and wicked, and would redirect unsuspecting travelers away from the road and into his swamp, where he acquired a love of the chase. He would keep his prey up all night, haunting them and chasing them, and then finally eating them alive with the sunrise. Before that he had done the same thing in various parts of Legia (including , and before that he lived in Vrelon for some years, and I think he may have been born in Eredal, though I don't actually know for sure. He may have also been in Traketus very briefly, but most accounts of most dragons simply specify the colours of the scales and the size of the dragon rather than trying to find out the name of the dragon, so these chronologies get hard to keep track of.
"Anyway, instead of simply chasing out the dragon, the duke of Sivil at the time, Duke Hunum III, petitioned the king of Tedal for a force to kill Mosocron. So King Tahrir sent a force of twenty of his best-trained knights to augment Hunum's forces. He was Tahrir IV or V, I think. The boy one who died at twenty. Hunum accepted the twenty men and sent them alongside his twenty best men into the swamp to find Mosocron. For the first week that they were in the swamp, they couldn't find the Nocturnal Beast, but he could find them. Then, every night for the next thirty-five nights, a man from the expedition would go missing. Eventually there were only five knights left, and the five knights knew that they would only have five nights left to live, so they left.
"One of those knights was Hunum's only son, a man named Viluhm. To avenge his fallen friends, Viluhm asked his father and the king for eighty men, and they each gave him forty men. Keep in mind that none of these men were untrained peasants, but each and every one of them a proven fighter. With his new troupe of eighty men, Viluhm set out into the swamp again to look for Mosocron, and again the knights vanished night by night. Viluhm wasn't stupid, however, and as such ordered his men to pair off so that one would always watch another. This time, when a man would go missing, his partner would be found blinded, his eyes taken out by acid and his face scarred, but the man otherwise intact. Then the injured man would be taken the next night. After seventy-five days in the swamp, looking for Mosocron, Viluhm left again, and his father gave up and ordered that none were to go into the swamp.
"Viluhm was unsatisfied with his father's response, as he knew that Mosocron the Nocturnal would not be deterred of humans that easily. In a last-ditch effort he wrote to the most renowned dragonslayer in Tedal, Sir Denkahm Graverson, who had already slain Geldresdyt and Ekontyss by this stage, and implored him for help. Sir Denkahm wasn't at all what Viluhm had expected, however: Where Viluhm had expected a big and powerful warrior, Denkahm was a man of average build, if a bit on the scrawnier end. Where Viluhm had expected a man who fought with a lance or longsword, Denkahm had a shortsword, two knives a bow and some arrows. However, Denkahm was Viluhm's only option, and so the two of them set out into the swamp together.
"Denkahm and Viluhm both knew that Mosocron was watching them, however, and neither particularly wanted to be eaten. So on that very first night, when Viluhm had his back turned on Denkahm, Denkahm drew his sword and used it to subdue Viluhm."
As tends to happen when old men talk of faraway kingdoms and even older knights, a number of children had gathered to hear Hartwig tell this tale. "That can't be what happened!" interrupted one such child, "Viluhm is the hero of the story!"
"Let me finish the story!" Hartwig said in response. "Anyway, Denkahm subdued Viluhm, and then called out to Mosocron, offering a deal. In exchange for some of the riches, Denkahm would help lure as many rich merchants as possible into the swamp despite Hunum's decree. 'And it would be easy for me to get some glory-hungry knights as well,' Denkahm said, 'because I could just say that they have the opportunity to succeed where I failed.'
"Mosocron considered for a moment, but that moment of consideration was all that Denkahm needed. For in that moment of hesitation, Denkahm drew his bow and blinded Mosocron with two arrows, one in each eye, and then he used his knives to cut Viluhm free as the two knights slew Mosocron together. At least, that's how Runhild told me the story, and I can only assume it to be a slightly exaggerated version of how Denkahm would have made himself sound better than reality."
The Vrelonian seemed like he was going to challenge you further, but then backed down, acknowledging that you likely knew more about what was going on than he did. That being said, he was likely still one that you ought to keep an eye on, as if things keep getting worse, he might become troublesome.
One of the other merchants stood up after your speech, however. "I have some basic medical knowledge," he said in an Ayomorian accent, "but I don't have much. I'll see what I can do for him, though." Ayomor is a semi-autonomous vassal of Kraken Island, and so it is likely that this merchant may have some magical training, though he is obviously not a wizard by the way that he dresses.
"I have some salves and potions in one of those chests over there," He said, pointing at where the cargo is. "If you lads could bring me the one with the spiderwood boarding and the silver lock, I'll see if I can help save your first mate." "Actually, my lord," Hartwig said, "We don't need the support of Earl Artris Eriport at all. Just as the bulk of the Great Dragon's army is from his Earls and the bulk of your army is from your Barons and Knights, the same goes for the other Earldoms."
"Do you propose making overtures directly towards Eriport's earls?" Hedrek asked. "That would anger the man. They're his vassals, not Earl Thander's. The last thing we need is a civil war between our Earldoms right now!"
Hedrek disagreeing with Hartwig wasn't a thing that happens a lot, though when it does happen, it tends to be Hedrek advocating for a more peaceful or merciful solution than Hartwig's proposal.
"We could send messengers into the Crebehl Forest, though." Raethus proposed. "Sirs Hedrek and Hartwig, you both have very good points. The bulk of an army are raised by the vassals of vassals of vassals, and attempting to coerce an Earl's barons out from under him will be sure to anger him. If we can simultaneously weaken Galbror, strengthen ourselves and force Eredal into a war in conditions unfavourable to them we might have a chance. Unfortunately, I know little of the personalities of Galbror's vassals."
That's a thing that Kallian might be best suited for, you think, given how eerily close it is to politics.
Despite your unfamiliarity with the wood, it was unmistakable and more striking than even the silver lock. Though mostly the same colour as oak, there were numerous blue veins that almost seemed to glow despite emanating no light of their own. The material had a peculiar beauty to it, and despite your lack of magical training, you could immediately tell that many of the stories that you've heard over the years of it's magical properties were undoubtedly true.
"Is there any other pressing business that needs to be addressed, or shall we adjourn the meeting for today?" Hedrek asked.
The man opens the box which is internally divided into several compartments. One of the compartments contains a number of potions and salves alongside some bandages. He mutters some words under his breath and Garry's eyes briefly glow with white light, and then he falls unconscious. "I'm sorry, but you were thrashing about, and what follows would be too painful." He proceeded to apply one of the salves to the injury, then physically move the bone so that it's where it's meant to be with just his bare hands and then applies yet another salve, before wrapping up the injury in a cloth blanket.
"He'll be out for a couple days, and he'll have a nasty scar, but he'll otherwise be fine."
"I'm an old man, all that I do with my time is relax," Hedrek said, "But I suppose that we are adjourned for today." And with that, he got up and left.
"Raethus, do you mind if we have a private conversation between just the two of us?" Hartwig asked, as he got up. "Assuming, of course, that Lord Othan doesn't have any other plans with you?"
"None that I know of, Sir Hartwig. I think that he was going to be discussing something with his brother..." You stopped being able to hear them as they walked out the door, Raethus seemingly having forgotten his Thaira board and pieces at the table.
"I'm not one of your crew members to order around. I'll want payment of some kind for saving your first mate's life," the Ayomoran said. Based on the way that the boat is rocking and the fact that you can still hear thunder outside, the storm still hasn't settled, and Artie is probably still out there alone. One of the barmaids agrees to look after Raethus's board and set for him, and was slightly flirtatious towards you while agreeing to do so despite your lack of interest or reciprocation. Upon arriving back in the palace, you find that your brother is no longer holding court.
The winds howled around you in a terrible cacophony on the thirtieth day of the siege of Norbury. Despite how easy it was for you to scatter the Atrekaran armies earlier in this campaign, it's taken you a whole month to starve out their capital of Norbury. Part of the reason for that is that halfway through the siege their armies regrouped under Foreth var Norbury, a favoured nephew of the self-styled Count of Atrekara and a descendant of one of the bastards that destroyed your ancestor's realm all those decades ago. Still, his assault was stopped and his life ended, and your siege went on.
The storm likely would have been better off on the ground than on the air, you figured, but riding Solmyr made you not only the best general and soldier in the army, but also the best scout by a significant margin. The walls are still heavily manned, but not as heavily manned as they appeared to be - half of the soldiers lining the city walls were made of straw and a third of the remainder have never seen combat before this siege. But Norbury doesn't know that you know this, nor do they know just how much of an advantage Solmyr grants you.
"He's in your father's solar, my lord," the servant said in reply.
Once you arrive at your father's solar, you find it much more crowded than you expected. It seems that an impromptu family night was being held, with Kallian entertaining Thander Marthus, Kallia and a few of his own younger children with stories, while Ielle and Kallian's wife Roheia were playing a game of seasons against your father and your youngest brother Horthon. Northan's son Thurum was also there, a lad of eight years old, doting over his youngest cousin, Kallian's youngest son Marthus, still a babe.
You look to see if your own wife is there, but she isn't. If she were, she might not have let Ielle play as she is, with a glass of wine and some gambling dice. Despite her drunkenness, your eighteen-year-old daughter is the first to notice you as her face blushed red. "Father, I wasn't drinking that much..." she said, as if in anticipation of punishment "Uncle Kallian said that I could! And it was just one glass! Please don't tell mother!"
At that, the younger children noticed that you were there. Kallia shouted an excited "Daddy!" as she ran up to you to hug you, while Thander Marthus, too old and cool for hugs, barely acknowledged your presence. Your nephews and nieces were also rather excited to see that their Uncle Othan was there.
"Who's Hedrek?" You hear your father ask, before Horthon answers on your behalf.
"Probably Hedrek Talverton, knowing my brother. He's been in love with your old war council for as long as I can remember."
"That old bastard's still alive?" Your father exclaims, leading to your sister-in-law berating him for his use of foul language around her young children.
"Othan, it's good to see you," Kallian said to you. "I'm sorry that I didn't get to talk to you in private before I made the announcement."
"Of course not. Now's the time to spend time with family - I don't know how much time we'll have left to do that." Whatever Kallian meant by that crpytic comment you didn't have time to ask, because immediately Kallian's eldest son, twelve-year-old Arnfried, named for your uncle, spoke to you.
"Uncle Othan, father was just telling me a story of the two of you during the First Galbror War! Can you tell us about the Siege of Treehold? Please?"
As you land your winged horse and trot him back into the stables, many of your soldiers stand there gaping. Despite having fought alongside you for all the months that this campaign has gone on for, none of them were used to seeing Solmyr. The storm on the ground, however, is almost as bad as it was in the air, and you're soaking wet in your clothes. You'll want to have Solmyr's armour taken off before it rusts. You find that many of the men that are to be there are already there, though there are still some that have yet to arrive. Sir Wallace Oakheart was there, alongside several of your vassals, Barons Ballus Hordrigg, Bernard Darham, Maldir Talsworth, Humphrey var Capvering and Herwig Otterberg, and the leader of the mercenary company that Wallace talked you into hiring, a distinguished warrior nicknamed the Redscar for a physical feature on his jaw. Among those who have yet to arrive are another two barons, the head of your spy network within the city and the engineer in charge of constructing your siege engines. Despite not wanting to mingle, you can hear their conversations as they relate to strategy. "It's been thirty days," Herwin Otterberg said, "they weren't expecting a siege and we already destroyed their supply lines. It's perfectly safe to storm the city now."
"And I assume that you want the expendable mercenaries up front to take the brunt of the damage as well?" The Redscar replied. "We're not being paid enough for that. I'd want a full two hours of unimpeded looting for my men with full pardons before anyone else gets any if I were serving in my own company, and I know that my men would likely want more."
"That's simply too much," Wallace Oakheart said. "We're already paying you incredibly handsomely for your men - "
" - Because they're the best mercenary company in Elusia!" Redscar interrupted.
Other conversations were also transpiring simultaneously, some about the tactics, some about politics and some about other things.
As soon as the shiphands open up the hatch to get out, a lot of water started pouring in and the two of them were drenched immediately, alongside everyone else in a six foot radius. The winds continued roaring and the breaks in the thunder were more uncommon than hearing the thunder itself now, and by all indications the storm has only gotten worse. Despite that, the two of them managed to climb out and close the hatch behind them anyway.
"You've just sent those men to their deaths!" The troublemaking Vrelonian merchant from earlier exclaimed, barely audible over the storm. "You're the captain, you should have been the one to go and captain your own bloody ship!" Despite the fact that the meeting hasn't officially begun, and that there are people not yet there, the war council seems to have unofficially begun the strategic talks.
As you climb out of the hatch, you hear the deafening sound of thunder near constantly, and the light that you see isn't from the sun but rather from bursts of lightning, constantly breaking out in various different places all around the ship. If the thunder wasn't so loud you would probably be able to hear the howl of the wind, but as it is, when it's bright enough, you're able to physically see it: Instead of the raindrops falling down, they're falling almost to the side. Suffice to say that if you don't have a very good grip you will probably just simply blow away in the breeze.
"Well, your majesty? Do you accept?" The Redscar asked you, and you noticed that you haven't been paying attention to the conversation that he was having. "That is, that I would agree to allow my men to take part in a storm of the city today in exchange for an hour of uninterrupted and entirely sanctioned by you looting and raping, before any other men get their share?"
"That's an absurd proposal," Baron Maldir Talsworth said. "The people of the city will resent us if we do that. If they resent us, then as soon as our army leaves to conquer - sorry, your majesty, I meant reconquer, more of Thasia, they'll rise in rebellion and force us to retake the city."
Everyone's reaction to the story was different, but very few were positive. Roheia was covering the ears of her youngest daughter Galliele so that she didn't have to hear it, and Ballise and Kallia were covering their own ears and crying at how the story terrified them. The boys Thander Marthus, Arnfried and Thurum were initially intrigued in the beginning, but as you talked about having the peasant district of the city slaughtered they all grew somewhat sickened at your actions as well, with Thander Marthus the only one putting on a good enough face to fool you into thinking that they were unphased by it.
"Father, you're a fucking monster!" Ielle shouted at you between sobs. It's occurred to you that she's never actually heard you tell a war story, simply due to her feminine uninterest in matters of combat very much unlike her aunt Jayla. "You just fucking allowed them to be fucking slaughtered? You're a horrible fucking person, you know that?" She and the other women eventually had to be whisked aside by Horthon, who, despite having a stronger stomach for the stories than the children, still didn't seem to like the reminder of his older brother's complete lack of a moral compass.
With just you, Kallian, Thander Marthus and your father left in the room, Kallian spoke. "Shit, that was intense..." Kallian said. "I had heard rumours of what happened at Treehold, but I was squiring for Baron Orryk of Parverhill at the time and fighting alongside father's main host and trying to retake Galbror for what must have been the third time in five months. I thought that they must have been exaggerated, but those situations were horrendous." Kallian had fought in both Galbror wars and seen things firsthand that were nearly as bad (if not quite as bad). He shouldn't have been as shaken as he was, and something else was clearly on his mind.
Your father was the only one who was entirely unphased by the brutality of what you described, being a veteran of wars as old as Gagh Buldir, but his response wasn't exactly positive either. "You were stupid, son. Telling a story like that to the women and the girls... Most women aren't Jayla, and you don't want to make your own family think poorly of you. Your son, and maybe little Arnfried, should have heard that story with a battlemap to learn from your successes and your failures as part of their education, but you're a fool if you think that it was a good idea to tell your daughter the tough necessities of war. Furthermore, your quick thinking is to be commended, but your complete disregard for the value of human life is troubling - if our own peasants or even our commoners get word of how Treehold was a calculated maneuver instead of a ploy to gain allies that went sour, there is nothing that anybody, even the Great Dragon himself, could do to stop them from putting your head on a spike." He delivered almost the exact same warning to you when you were next at his war council after Treehold, when Hartwig, Hedrek and the rest first learned what you were capable of and first grew concerned about your apparent cruelty that was truly just apathy.
Your son also had a couple questions. "Father, if peasants are such a burden to the realm, why do we tolerate them to begin with, and why did you allow Darrien Gast to be rid of his own?" "It's not just for the purposes of lining my own pockets that I make this request of you," the Redscar said, "But for three other reasons as well. The first is that, despite how unmanned you say the walls are, storming a fortified city is never free of casualties, and the first wave will be hit the hardest. I could easily lose a hundred men climbing ladders and towers while if the siege were to be prolonged I doubt I'd lose more than another five. My men deserve to be rewarded justly for their bravery. The second and third reasons are that it benefits you, not hurts you. A quarter of the monetary value of what my men loot will go to your war coffers and a fifth to mine to better supply them. I doubt that after conquering Atrekar you just want to end the campaigning for a few years to refill your coffers and continue later. This is how to fund a war while fighting it. The third reason is that it works as an intimidation tactic - sack the cities that dare defy you but leave the cities that don't alone, and eventually only those who think that they'll be able to withstand your army will make the attempt."
"Baron Otterberg was the one to propose a storm just now," Talsworth said, "If he leads his levies in the first wave he'll get the glory, and I doubt he'll request free reign to loot the city in the same way that the Redscar is proposing. After that it should be much easier for the rest of us to get our men into Norbury to occupy it and take the palace - I doubt anyone would object to being in the second wave if the first is successful."
"It's because peasants are a vital part of the economy. They till the crops and provide manual labour and comprise the bulk of your father's army," Kallian says to Thander Marthus, after realizing what he had asked and how you answered it. "Obviously those that commit crimes ought to be dealt with accordingly, but... I can't believe that I'm having this argument with you again. I know I'll never be able to change your mind on the issue because you're an absolute fucking psychopath incapable of empathy, but you should at least try to pretend to feel empathy," Kallian said to you.
Baron Horthon Draydon (baron of Fishford) has arrived, as has your spymaster Sir Herwin Talsworth (a nephew of the Baron of Talsworth) and Sir Oswald, your head of engineers who was formerly a peasant before being knighted for his valour and lacks a surname as a result of that.
At your proclamation that whoever takes the gates of Norbury gets Atrekara, the tone of all the discussions shifted significantly. Suddenly, your barons seemed engaged in a political competition with eachother to determine what they'll be doing, with the less powerful barons making alliances and deals to try to team-up for the gates. Only Humphrey var Capvering and the Redscar seemed uninterested in wanting to take the gates for themselves.
Suddenly, you hear a burst of thunder and a large tree branch tears through the roof of your tent, hitting Maldir Talsworth over the head. He collapses to the ground immediately, bleeding profusely from the injury to his skull as rainwater mixes with his blood and brains and the dirt around where he died. His death silenced everyone instantly, and you notice the winds intensifying and the rain getting stronger.
Artie is clinging on for his life, barely managing to survive against the torrent of the storm that's breaking out all around you. He is drenched to the bone, and probably would be due to sweat even if it weren't raining. He's still tied to his place by the ropes that he had been using previously, but given the strength of the winds around you, you're surprised that that hasn't helped kill him. As for the men who you had sent up ahead of you, you could clearly see Gerhard's hands clinging onto the side of the ship, though he's likely hanging outside of it. You can not see Matt at all, and so you can only assume that whatever gust of wind blew Gerhard overboard ended up killing Matt - or flinging him into the river, which would likely kill him.
As you step outside, you notice that the wind and rain had picked up quite a bit. There was some thunder and lightning, and it was certainly a bad storm, but not the worst that you've ever seen. "I wasn't expecting this weather at this time of year," Sir Oswald said to you as you and your war council were running to your tent. "I hadn't built the siege engines to be able to withstand such a storm. If it doesn't end soon, it will potentially set the siege back by weeks."
"Thander Marthus, leave us," Kallian said to your son.
"I can stay. I'm an adult."
"And you're a man," Earl Thander said in reply. "Your uncle Horthon is sickly and Little Arnfried is still young. Someone needs to look after the women and girls of the family, especially after how shaken they were." Your father refers to Kallian's son as 'Little Arnfried" to distinguish between him and your late Uncle Arnie.
"Uncle Horthon's not that sickly, and Arnfried isn't that young. I can stay with you guys."
"It's not a matter of whether you can. You don't have a brother, so you don't know this very well, but there are some conversations that can only be had with one's brother," Kallian replied.
"I..." Thander Marthus was going to protest, but realized that there was no point in arguing it. After he begrudgingly left to join the rest of the family, Kallian spoke to you again.
"It's not like you to participate in family day, Othan," Kallian said. "You're absolutely terrible at it anyway, and you already knew that. You came here for a specific reason. So, spit it out - what do you want?" "I don't have the faintest idea why Nizeston is flying here," Kallian said. "However, he doesn't care in the slightest for the tourney, that much is obvious to anyone who's paying attention to events in Ostcliff. I wish that I knew what he was planning. I have my suspicions, and even those terrify me."
"He'll be wanting to speak with me, I assume," your father said. "He said something to me years ago about his strategy to invade Eredal... Hope for your sake that it's something else, or that he has a different strategy in mind this time."
"You mean to invade Galbror and the rest of the Crebehl Forest, right?" Kallian asked. This was a thing that they had done for as long as you can remember, Kallian finding something incorrect with something that your father said and correcting him on it.
"No. His strategy to invade and hold Eredal. Of course, it could be something else, for all I know." Your father tacked that last sentence on at the end half-heartedly and as if to avoid any further probing from Kallian on the matter.
A wave crashed into the side of the ship silently as the thunder continued to boom all around you, and the water broke out over the deck of the ship and started carrying you to the side of the ship. The brackish water stung your eyes, and you could see Artie struggling to keep the ship on course. It's a miracle that he's lasted as long as he has. One of Gerhard's hands slipped, but he grabbed a hold of the side again quickly. You also managed to get a handhold - a piece of a broken rail - as the water was trying to carry you away.
You arrive in your tent as the weather seemed to be getting worse, and then what remained of your war council managed to catch up to you. Before everyone managed to catch their breath, the messenger that you sent after Hallon Talsworth arrived, accompanied by the young man himself. Hallon was the exact image of what you would imagine his father would have looked like when he was younger, and a young man who, at only fifteen, has already distinguished himself twice in this campaign so far.
"Your majesty, you summoned me?" He asked, then he looked around and saw who was there and who wasn't. "Where's my father, your majesty?" Upon hearing that his father was dead, Hallon broke into tears for a solid minute, before managing to hold them back. "I want to be done with this siege, your majesty," Hallon said. "I don't ever want to have to see Norbury again."
"He did tell me what it is that made him think that it was possible," Your father said, answering a literal version of the question that you had asked in an attempt to not have to talk about it. You see his mouth open to shout something as he grabs your arm, but you can't hear the words that he's saying. The thunder around you is defeaning, and it's gone from the breaks in the thunder being notable to the lulls where it's quiet enough for you to hear yourself shout being your moments of relief.
"If the storm continues any longer, then unfortunately the lad may have to remain in this siege for even longer," Sir Oswald said again, piping the same tune that he was piping again.
"How long would it take you to repair the damage to some battering rams?" Baron Humphrey var Capvering asked Sir Oswald.
"It depends on how many get damaged. It would likely take a full day just to assess all the damage, and then it depends on how much damage is sustained by the water ruining the wood and any lightning strikes."
"Could we use the siege engines that you built right now?" Hallon said, tears still mingling with the rainwater on his face. "Storm the city during this terrible storm?"
"Are you suicidal, lad?" the Redscar asked. "I get that your father's dead and you're angry, I've seen it a lot in soldiers - hell. I was that man once. But your father wouldn't want you to immediately throw your life away."
"I'll see what I can do," Kallian said. "I don't have a particularly large spy network - we're probably the least powerful Earldom in all of Orevod in terms of military and economic strength, but I'll do what I can. I'll start work on establishing a spy network in Galbror and the Crebehl Forest to find who's the easiest to bribe or the most conflicted about their loyalties to Eredal, and then I'll do what I can. Churnbry is one of the most powerful baronies under Eredal, so I'll try to use Ballus's marriage with Gisela as a starting point, but... Well, you know Ballus. He has more mistresses than bastards, and he has half a dozen bastards. His wife's not too fond of him." "I'm assuming something relating to Sylathneus, right?" Kallian said. "Yhendorn is so far away and so self-isolating that I highly doubt anything that we know of that place is accurate. In fact, I'm skeptical that any society nowadays can worship demons at all - I sometimes even go so far as to doubt the legitimacy of historical claims relating to Bael Turath."
"Arkhosia was real," Your father said in response. "Nizeston wants to recreate Arkhosia, not make a new empire from scratch. I don't see why Bael Turath can't also have been real."
Nobody had any questions, though a few people started having some conversations. You notice that the Redscar cornered Hallon to have a conversation, which you overheard a few words of as they walked past you. "You shouldn't fight after what happened... Take time to grieve and I'll..."
As your vassals all started to leave your tent to rally their armies, Sir Wallace spoke to you. "Your majesty, would you like us to attack the main gate as well, or shall we attack elsewhere on the wall?" "As you command, your majesty," Sir Wallace says, as he goes to begin rallying your men. All around you you see your vassals organizing their men as best they can in the storm, and some of the smaller hosts - those of Ballus Horddrigg and Horthon Drayden, specifically - were already nearly mobilized already with some of Sir Oswald's siege engines, moving towards the gates, as the storm raged all around you. Two of the siege towers seem to have caught fire due to being struck by lightning already.
"So how are Hart and Sir Hedrek doing?" Your father asked you. Sir Hedrek was significantly older than your father, but Sir Hartwig was close enough in age that the two of them reportedly had some camaraderie with one another during the War of Gagh Buldir.
"None at all, to my knowledge. I suppose that Northan will be going with you?" Kallian asked. Raethus's sister and Northan's wife, Kirsa Shan, is rather late in her pregnancy and has been at Castle Shan for a number of months now. During the duration of that pregnancy, Northan has been going back and forth between Castle Shan, Mallowater and other castles sworn to your father with some frequency, in an attempt to serve his duties both as a well-respected knight under your father and as a husband.
"Where is Northan right now anyway?" Your father asked.
"He's out drinking with some of his friends from the Second Galbror War and other tournaments. Taran Gulyard, Denick Talverton, Orris Ludall and the likes of those. He had wanted to be here towards the end of family night, but seeing as Othan ruined it, it seems that he'll unfortunately miss it tonight."
The winds rage against you with as much strength as they can muster (evidently quite a lot), and the rainwater makes your grip on your crewmate tenuous at best, but you still somehow manage to pull him up over the railing as the waves crashed over the two of you. Gerhard seemed traumatized, but all in all in a much better state than Garry was in the last time you saw him.
Before you got an opportunity to rest after pulling Gerhard up, the thunder got to the loudest that it's been so far - a deafening roar so loud that it makes your ears hurt - and lightning struck the helm of the ship, less than a foot away from where Artie was standing, destroying the wheel and sending him flying backwards. Thankfully a number of his ropes remained intact, though with nobody steering the ship, you began to notice it being taken by the waves significantly more than it had been previously. As you arrive at the stables, you find the stablehands already trying to put on Solmyr's peculiar armour. It seems that a lot of your knights had come through to get their horses as well, and there were some still retrieving theirs, their squires by them and helping them.
"I don't mind at all," Kallian said as you left to go wait for him in the hall. About a third of an hour passed before Northan arrived, dressed slightly flamboyantly as he tends to and otherwise looking a lot like a younger, clean-shaven version of yourself.
"Othan! It's good to see you! I hadn't expected you to be here."
Gerhard left you to go back down below deck. As for getting to Artie, there are two staircases to the helm, one on the portside nearest to you which was damaged when Garry was injured and one on the starboard side a bit farther away from you but in otherwise not terrible condition. You might be able to make your way up the more damaged remnants of the staircase on the portside quicker than the starboard side, but it would be more risky. "I had been planning to head back to Castle Shan soon myself. Kirsa is expecting in a little over a week, and I want to be with her when my new son or daughter comes into this world. I don't know what I'll name him or her yet. When I've been away from her side I've corresponded with her and we have a number of ideas that we're trying to decide between... Well, you know how it is." Northan then chuckled a bit. "It's not even our first child and we're still panicking about it. It's all that I can think about, and I've been told that I just don't shut up about my kids. And to your question, yes, I'll go with you. If the outlying villages or roads around Castle Shan are plagued by bandits, it is my duty to bring them to justice."
The assault on the main gate was proceeding well, with a number of siege towers deployed in position to scale the walls near the gate and several thousand soldiers attacking it. More men from all around the walls were moving towards the gate to help amplify the defense, and you saw throughout the streets the local militia that wasn't patrolling the walls being rallied to get into position to help with the defense.
The only men not attacking the walls were your own thousand, Redscar's thousand and Hallon Tallsworth's six hundred men. The nearly five thousand other soldiers were all attacking near the gate under the banners of your various vassals and their much less significant vassals. It's exceptionally difficult do to so, as the wind and the waves kept trying to push you portside, but you eventually managed to make it to the starboard side and to the staircase that was there. For the duration of this movement you were unable to see Artie, as you were too focused on getting there yourself to even be able to look at him as you moved, but as you glance over at him for what seems to be the first time in ten minutes you see that he was trying to fix the wheel broken by the storm.
"Thank you for telling me. It would be terrible if I arrived at Castle Shan just as you left, after all," Northan said. Of all your siblings, in addition to being the best fighter, Northan probably admired and loved you the most of all of them - Kallian was great with people and cared about the kids, Jayla was a strategist of comparable intellect to yourself and there was mutual respect there, Horthon was almost always ill and on the brink of death and so garnered a lot of sympathy from everyone and Laia, being a typical lady of the court, didn't care much for anything of interest to you. Northan, however, was the only one able to truly look past your peculiar oddities and accept them as part of you - or maybe he didn't even notice them at all.
Your men seem to be separated from Redscar's and Talsworth's men, though you notice that those two are moving their armies into different locations as well. It seems that, in addition to storming the gate, there will be three separate simultaneous attacks on different parts of the wall where it is now weakest. The defenders of the gate, despite being outnumbered three-to-one, are managing to still hold the gate due to holding the higher ground, though in fairness the storm is less than half an hour in (the military storm, that is - you're regularly having to dodge strikes of lightning from atop Solmyr).
Artie didn't seem to notice nor hear you, as he continued working on fixing the completely destroyed wheel, or at least putting something together that resembled a steering mechanism.
As you begin firing arrows down below you, the defenders notice what you're doing and begin firing arrows up at you. However, most of them don't have any experience trying to shoot at a flying target, so they tend to miss you or else simply glance off of Solmyr's armour without doing much damage.
Northan nodded, and entered the solar as you left him. When you arrive at your bedchambers, you find that Thalla wasn't there. Maybe she was off doing something else. Either way, today was a very long day, and so you're probably lucky not to have to deal with her. As you drift off to sleep, you have a peculiar dream. The dream is of you and your family: You begin running with Northan down a dark hallway in a castle that you've never been to before. The man chasing you is of the same foreign ethnicity that Raethus is half of and that is evident in his father Wyst: Cavelander, maybe Riftlander. The man has a cut down his jaw, and Northan's sword was covered in blood. Was it Northan who cut the man? The man managed to catch up to you and sliced Northan, and then you fell.
You fell into a court led by Kallian. You couldn't figure out the words that he was saying, but when he saw you, you were suddenly just before his throne, Kallian with a knife in his hand, as he was stabbing at you.
"Help!" Shouted Northan's voice from afar. Where was he?
You fell again into the middle of a battle in a storm. This was wrong, you shouldn't be in the midst of the fighting, you're a strategist. By the time you got your bearing you noticed what appeared to be a draconic figure fighting against the storm, with laughter cackling all around you in the place of thunder. Darrien Gast was at the head of the opposing army, and he sighted you and charged straight at you, seemingly cured of his limp.
"Help!" Shouted Northan's voice yet again, and once again the scene shifted. A sickhouse, where Horthon lay dying and where your father lay dying and where your son lay dying, each of different ailments: Horthon dying of disease, Earl Thander dying of age and Thander Marthus dying of injuries.
"Help!' Shouted Northan's voice, but he couldn't be shouting at you, the man with the bloody red gape in his face killed him years ago. You're in Nargon, with Laia and her children in stocks being humiliated by the public, and her husband's bastard son chained to a throne being carried by common people.
"Help!" Shouted the now familiar voice of a dead man as you saw your daughters, both fully grown, in slavery, being raped by dozens of men. Ielle's breast was cut and both girls were screaming as their captors had their way with them.
HELP! Shouted a voice, and suddenly you were back in the castle you were first in, kneeling over Northan's lifeless form. He darted up and, still wounded, spoke several more words. HELP ME BACK HOME.
A cold hand was placed upon your shoulder from behind, a bony hand bare of flesh sending a chill down your spine, and you awoke in a sweat. Thalla was lying in her slip next to you in your bed. Looking out your window, you suppose that you probably have half an hour before the sun rises.
As soon as you grabbed him, he looked at you, suddenly aware of your presence. He tried to speak, but you couldn't hear him, so he leaned closer and shouted in your ear - still barely audible over the cacophony around you. "The wheel's been destroyed, cap'n! We'll die if we can't steer the ship and we can't steer the ship! We need to fix the wheel!" You manage to find a small landing strip that meets your requirements, and you manage to trample several men before they caught on to what you were doing and moved their shields to block you. This exposed their flanks and allowed your men climbing ladders an easier time getting a foothold on the wall and an easier time killing the defenders of Norbury.
Both Northan and Raethus would likely be up either at this time or soon. Northan is probably in the courtyard practicing his horsemanship or dueling skills while Raethus is probably making preparations for the two of you to depart later today. The ride is only going to be six hours, so you probably have an opportunity to do things with your morning if you'd like to. "I don't have a fucking clue what to do, cap'n, pardoning my language!" At his apology for cursing you realized just how young Artie really was given that most experienced sailors curse... Well, like sailors. "I'm not an engineer or a shipbuilder and I'm not even a good helmsman!"
As you arrive in the kitchens, you notice that Northan was still eating his breakfast. "Othan, you're up earlier than normal. Trouble sleeping?" And then, almost as if it were an afterthought, he added "Oh, and don't worry about the kids. They were worried about what the necessities of war had done to you, but I explained to them that ultimately you made the hard choices that are required in a leader - almost a thousand enemy men died in your ploy to take Treehold, which was important for supply lines to be able to get to the bulk of father's army to save thousands of our - well, yours and father's, because I was too young to fight then - men. Ielle was still fairly pissed off at you, but given how much she had to drink, I doubt she'll remember much of the story anyway. Thander Marthus, Arnie and Thurum are back to idolizing you as the pinnacle of strategic forethought."
"We have time," Northan said. "I'm not meeting my friends at the practice yard for another hour, and though your son's a good squire, he tends to sleep in. What was the outlandish dream about?"
The mechanism was completely obliterated by the lightning strike. Attempting to repair it would be essentially futile. You'd probably have an easier time of operating the rudder and the sails manually than you would of fixing the helm. "Not at all. He'll be ready to be knighted within the year, I reckon. I've started having men of average ability fight him two against one in his training, and he can beat the likes of Dornar Coalweir and Vithol Haerbur in single combat more often than not." The Coalweirs are minor landed knights sworn to your mother's family, the Darfields, and Sir Dornar is a competent fighter, though no match against Northan. Vithol Haerbur is a name that you recognize in passing as having fought alongside Northan in a handful of battles in the Second Galbror War, though you wouldn't be able to pick his face out of a crowd. Artie nods, and then begins untying what remains of his ropes so that he can move more freely. The waves are only getting stronger, however, and you have a hard time remaining stable and standing, not to mention moving towards the rudder to operate manually in this storm.
You see that your men are attacking along part of the wall that looks like it would have been less occupied a while ago. Redscar's men and the Talsworth men are nowhere to be seen, but it's likely that they're attacking along different parts of the wall as well. You arrive to see Wallace not on the front lines, but riding between his centre and flanks giving orders to subcommanders under him. "Your majesty, it's good to see you," Wallace says, shouting over the thunder. "Our men have very nearly taken the wall here. Barely more than seventy deaths out of the thousand men under my command. Your arrival has actually been a great boon, as it's distracted their archers and made the job easier for those climbing ladders. I wouldn't go into the palace single-handedly, however - Darmen var Norbury won't be alone, and you don't want to be outnumbered in that fight."
"He does take after you in regards to strategy, though - I don't think I've won a game of Thaira against him in over two years, which admittedly isn't saying that much. The only non-physical endeavour that I'm still better than him at would have to be languages, but that's not altogether surprising - I learned twice as many as you did, after all." The servant brings you the same meal as what your brother had been eating, which is scrambled heron's eggs with some ham and hard cheese. After what feels like an eternity of trying, you at last manage to make it to the rudder. There were strikes of lightning and thunder all around you, trying to fight you back, and the wind howled at you, trying to throw you off. You still managed to find the fortitude and constitution to make your way to the rudder, but it was hard to move it yourself. Over the next several hours that felt like several years, you and Artie managed to successfully steer the ship, despite it recieving two more strikes of lightning and taking more damage from the waves.
Eventually the storm became less intense, and you could hear Artie's voice calling out at you. "Captain, we're going to steer in the starboard direction to avoid a rock!" Was the first thing that you could hear from him after all those hours, and he was very shocked when you replied as well. Apparently he had called out what he was doing to you throughout the whole storm, it was just that the storm was too loud for you to hear. After a while of that some other members of your crew came out to relieve Artie and you of your duties.
"Let's hope that he won't be the heir soon, though," Northan said.
It takes you maybe ten minutes to finish your breakfast with some intermittent conversation about the specifics of your son's training: How good he is at archery (a skill that he inherited from you, unfortunately), his skill with riding horses (thankfully much more akin to Northan's), his knowledge of information about the various feudal lords of Orevod and especially Mallowater and major feudal lords in Eredal, Elusia, Vrelon, Argolon and Traketus and his learning in matters of history, both recent and ancient.
As you and Northan arrive in the courtyard, you find that the only ones there are a small handful of knights. Taran Gulyard, with a sword and a scabbard that look newly-purchased, was there, alongside Dennick Talverton, Orris Ludall, Vithol Haerbur, Darmen Dinton, Chester Pelsley and three others who you didn't recognize.
"Bode, it's good to see you here!" Northan said upon seeing one of the ones you don't recognize. "I was afraid that I'd manage to just miss you. Othan, this is my friend Boderick Craentitch, a master with the lance. Bode, this is my brother Othan, the famous tactician." "Yours too, my lord," Sir Boderick said. "Assuming that you're the father of Northan's squire, from the things that I've heard of the lad, I'd say that you should be proud. Northan, Taran told me that you wanted to fight him, Chester and another three on-one. As I'd quite like to finally beat you in a fight, you surely wouldn't mind if I'm the third in this dueling practice of yours, do you?"
"Not at all," Northan said, walking off with his acquaintance to a more open part of the courtyard.
For the next half an hour Northan dueled his three friends, winning some bouts but losing more often. It was still impressive how much of a fight he could put up, especially considering that you remember from the Second Galbror War that Taran Gulyard is worth two average soldiers and that Chester and Boderick didn't seem too much far behind Taran in terms of skill.
After that half-an-hour your son arrived, and Northan finished the last of those bouts by tripping Boderick over and punching him on the nose (with a hand that obviously wasn't gauntleted). Your brother's squire didn't immediately go to him, though, but rather walked to you to ask a question. "Father, what are you doing here? You don't normally come out to the courtyard." "Uncle Northan and uncle Kallian were talking about it last night with grandfather. I'm assuming that, as Uncle Northan's squire, I'll be going with you three."
"Thander, are you here to talk or are you here to fight?" Northan shouted at your son from afar, as he was helping his fallen opponents up. "You're going to fight... Those two over there!" Northan said, indicating quickly towards two fighters of seemingly average quality who arrived between you and your son had.
"Yes sir!" Thander Marthus shouted back, before running off to fight the two men who Northan indicated to. Your son managed to fare against them significantly better than you would have, though he lost his first bout. He won his next one against them after Northan gave him a reminder of some advice, and then he won a second bout against them. He lost the next one when they caught onto one of his tactics, and the fights continued on for a while longer. Your son could probably easily beat you in a duel, yet your brother could still probably easily beat your son and both of his opponents blindfolded.
"If I can weather this kind of storm, cap'n, the only thing you'll have to worry about is me losing my hearing," Artie said in reply. "Most storms hopefully won't be nowhere near as bad as this one."
As you and Artie got below deck you saw that Garry was in much better shape than you left him a few hours ago. In fact, except for the bandaging covering his entire torso, you wouldn't be able to tell that he was injured at all. "I still think that I should go up there," Garry said to the Ayomoran man who had healed him as you went below deck.
"Just because you feel better doesn't mean that you are better. You'll want to rest that shoulder for at least two weeks," was the response.
"I get that, but I could be up there helping organise... Captain, you're alive!" Garry changed his sentence as he saw you going down the ladder. "Gerhard said that with the conditions out there our best course of action would have been just to stay below deck and pray, and that you, Artie and Matt were surely dead! I'm glad that he was wrong!" From below the deck you could still hear the bursts of thunder as they broke out, finally less frequent than the now-eerie moments of silence between them. Before you get an opportunity to go to sleep, one of your crewmembers comes down the ladder. "Cap'n, the helm's gone. It looks like it's been completely destroyed. We'll have to try to find a port soon to make repairs, and we'll probably take a loss on refunding the merchants."
"The captain managed to weather the worst of the storm himself out there. If he managed that, then there's a chance that we could still get to Estermere in two days."
Your son trains with swords for another hour while your brother continues fighting against his opponents, but eventually it stops and Northan orders him to do archery practice. Your son is not quite as dismal at archery as you are, though his arrows still fly past the target more often than they land anywhere on it. After about half an hour of that dismal performance, a servant comes up to you and begins speaking.
"My lord, I have been informed recently by Sir Raethus that you're going to be heading to Castle Shan for a week. Would you like to have your bags packed, or do you want to have more say in the matter yourself?"
You drift off into a slumber and dream of a storm, but you're sailing on an open sea this time and the waves are even worse than what you've experienced while awake. The waves keep crashing against you with the constant cacophony of thunder around you, but the strikes of lightning and the clouds seem to be making a face. You're distracted for a moment, staring into the eyes that the storm has, then a wave crashes into you and throws you overboard. You can hear the thunder laugh at you as you drown...
You're woken up hours later by the sounds of a heated argument.
"We have to make for port to repair the damages! We can't keep sailing like this!" Said the voice of one of your crew members.
"The storm's nearly died down completely, it's just a drizzle. We were paid to sail to Estermere, dammit, we'll sail to Estermere!" Shouted Garry's voice. The man's nothing if not stubborn. "Aye, cap'n!" They both said, saluting you and your air of authority. The sailor was looking at you with more awe in his expression than usual, likely because of what you had just weathered, and then walked off to attend his other duties or his recreation.
"It's good to see that you're alive, cap'n. Naroth, the man who healed my shoulder, said that Artie was likely to have pneumonia thanks to his experience, but that you're mostly fine. Still, he advised that all three of us rest until we're at Estermere."
The servant acknowledged your orders and ran off to go see them done. Your son did a full two more hours of archery, with your brother going back and forth between giving him advice on how to shoot better and doing his own duelling practice. After the archery, Northan trained your son in doing some specific advanced swordfighting move over and over again, trying to make it a natural reflex of Thander Marthus.
After an hour of that, Northan said some words to your son and he ran off. Your brother then approached you. "Othan, I reckon it's about time to head to the stables. Did Raethus tell you how many bandits there were? The four of us should be a match for a small group, but if it's a larger band I might want to get some backup." "I'll check with the lads here. Bode, who I introduced you to earlier, might be willing to go. Lots would probably rather remain to practice for the tourney, unless you or I order them to go, but I'd still say that I could probably get one or two. Thander's getting my horse ready for me, and his own and Thurum's, but I hadn't told him to saddle yours. Don't worry about Thurum, by the way - he's just going to visit his mother, not to fight the bandits."
The merchant nods and goes off below deck to the storage, presumably to check his inventory. "I set up rotating shifts of men to work the sails, rudders and oars. I got Ballus and Fritz to go through all the passengers and see if anyone knows how to repair a ship, though so far they've found nobody. You've also missed a few arguments about whether or not we should stop at another port before Estermere, but it's all the same as the one that you did manage to catch." "As you command, your majesty," Wallace says, riding off to go shout orders at another column of soldiers under him. As for your shots, they generally strike their intended targets, though Solmyr stands out from among other horses and as such you are shot at just as much, with one shot glancing off of your armour.
"None at all since he went up. The waves had probably killed 'im." You and Solmyr land on and trample some of Norbury's guards, allowing some of your men to climb up the ladders. The first man up one of the ladders was struck by lightning and fell off, but the men below him and on other ladders managed to climb up to the walls of Norbury safely. From atop the wall you can see in the distance that the combined Redscar-Talsworth forces managed to take a similarly sized section of the wall, setting a wooden watchtower in their vicinity on fire, and that the rest of your vassals have very nearly managed to take the gate.
In fact, the only thing that's really of concern for you is the worry that your vassals will start fighting amongst eachother in trying to get the gatehouse and thus Atrekara for themselves, and that's highly unlikely.
On either side of you along the wall your men have scaled it enough to form small lines three men across and fight the remainders of the Atrekaran army stationed in Norbury. Your men are being continually reinforced and are fully fed, while they're fighting starving men who they outnumber. The entire wall should be yours within an hour, and storming during the storm seems to have been a gambit that's paid off for you. "Thurum's still a young boy and his notion of war is still that people always fight for glory and always come home alive. I thought that as well, once, but when our cousin Thurum died... Well, it's better for him to know what war is really like from some stories than to only learn about the ugly reality of it the way that I did, and that his namesake did."
"I'll go with you when we deliver it. He was a good kid, and a good sailor." "I'll check with some of the knights here to see who's interested in hanging outlaws and meet you at the stables."
As you arrive at the stable, you see a young boy, maybe thirteen years old, who you don't recognise doing something with Raethus's stuff that's on his packhorse.
Your men march in the city towards the palace, with very little resistance. It seems like as many men as could be mustered were sent to the city walls once it was apparent that you had started storming the city, leaving very few to try to stop you.
"Aye, and I don't thin that you want to be out in the rain again. It's dying down some, but it's still pouring."
There was a knock on your door, and the Ayomoran man from earlier walked in after Garry opened it. "Captain, I want to discus the payment that you said you would give me for saving your first mate's life, and for then saving your navigator. I don't want money or gold, as I have as much of that as I could want. What I want instead is a favour. I'll be disembarking at Estermere and riding north for Belgate, but I feel that I may have need of a ship on the Nubarb again at some point, and probably not too far from now. I want a promise that you'll take me where I need to go when I need to go there." Despite the fact that the streets were empty, the palace evidently was not. The doors to the palace were shut and seem like they would take a battering ram to open. All the first-floor windows were boarded shut tight as well, something that would have taken substantially longer than the few hours you were storming the city to accomplish.
"You'll take me anywhere on the Nubarb that I desire at all? My destination is not likely to be any major port, which is why I need this as a specific favour."
"My name is Tammen, my lord. Tammen Almerry, that is," He said. "I'm be- "
He was cut off by the arrival of Raethus Shan. "He's my new squire. Hartwig's grandson." "I know who you are, my lord. Sir Raethus had me saddle your horse."
"I don't quite know precisely where, but I know that, if I do need to call in this favour, it will be rather far upstream. As I said, I'll be heading north to Belgate first, where I'll find out if I'm right or wrong about something. If I'm right, then I'll call in the favour. If I'm wrong, you'll never hear from me again."
Some battering rams manage to get sent through, though most of your siege equipment was damaged in the storm - both the whether and the fighting. It takes several minutes, but eventually the battering rams manage to burst open the front door and Wallace's men are sent in. Some of your vassals who were still trying to take the gate the last time you saw them have since come to join you here, assisting the men who are fighting inside. From what you can tell nobody is trying to escape the palace that you can shoot at from the air.
"Your son was here and he was fast," Raethus said. "He saddled three horses and then took off with them in a very short amount of time. It think that he went to get Thurum. Do you know who else your brother's bringing along?"
"I understand that. It's been a pleasure speaking with you in better weather conditions. My name's Naroth, by the way." As you enter the palace, you immediately see that there were close to a hundred enemy soldiers inside the entry hall, in a shieldwall against the crowd of soldiers that you sent in before you. It's extraordinarily difficult to move around in the mass of people, but the battle line is moving towards the interior of the palace. "Your majesty, I'm glad that you could make it!" Sir Wallace shouted over the clanging of swords and the screams of the dying.
"As many men as he could get would be useful, but what we mostly need is organization," Raethus said. "Between the four villages under my protection there are probably close to a thirty peasant families, which would each have maybe one or two fighting men apiece. The difficulty is that, though I've been forcing them to train in using weapons, not one of them would make for a half-decent officer. Fifteen well-organised bandits versus sixty unorganised fighting men spread across four villages each slightly over an hour's ride away from eachother doesn't bode well for us, at the risk of making a pun on your brother's friend's name."
Your son, covered in bruises from training, arrived about a minute later. He was on horseback with Thurum and with three other horses in tow. One of them would be your brother's horse and one a packhorse.
"Father, it's good to be going on this trip with you. Both uncle Kallian and uncle Northan have been saying that I should do more father-son bonding things with you, so this will be good for us." It is true that they have both been saying that, though likely for different reasons. His eyes then turned to young Tammen. "I don't believe we've met before. Are you my father's new squire or Sir Raethus's?" He asked, dismounting and going to initiate conversation with the younger man.
"Uncle Othan! Uncle Raethus!" Thurum shouted, excited and happy as only an eight-year-old could be, having forgotten about last night's spectacle. "We're going to see mother and Aldona and my new baby brother! What do you think his name will be? Thanner's told me all about him!" He momentarily dropped his reigns and moved forward as if to try to hug you or Raethus, then he remembered that he was on horseback and corrected himself.
After several minutes of idle chitchat among the squires and between Raethus and your mutual nephew, your brother arrived with three other knights and their squires. Sir Boderick was one of the knights, and the only one who didn't seem to have an accompanying squire. You recognised another as one-armed Galad Forsnith, who lost his right hand under your command during the Battle of Estermere in the Second Galbror War but has since been training with his left. You don't recognise the other knight, though you're certain that you'll become acquainted over the journey.
Naroth took your hand and shook it. "Even if I don't need to go where I fear that I may, if I ever have need of a ferry on this great river of yours again, you've proven yourselves to be some of the most reliable and stalwart sailors that I've ever met. You're Eredalian, right?" Everything that you requested is indeed there. "Then take this as my call," Raethus said. "We ride out now!"
Initially you couldn't find any openings because you were a few rows of men behind the fighting itself, but as your men form the wedge that you had ordered you could feel the battle move forward, and the frontline got larger and closer to you. Eventually, however, you found yourself in the centre of the wedge with only one man in front of you. When he was cut down, you became the frontline, and you fought ferociously, eventually managing to fight so deep into enemy forces that you split them into two groups surrounded by your men, one pinned to the wall left of you and one to the wall right of you. There was also a third group, those who routed down the hallway in front of you to try to get away from you and your men. "I've never seen a storm like that at all," Garry said. "I'd reckon most men haven't, and that those who have haven't been able to tell anyone about it."
The eleven men of your party ride out of the city of Mallowater, with some conversations breaking out as you ride. Your son, Tammen and the other two squires seemed to be laughing and joking amongst themselves. Boderick, Northan and the other knight whom you haven't met were also conversing between themselves, but Northan was also entertaining his son quite a bit. You and Raethus had a few briefer conversations, though for the most part both of you were content to ride in silence. Galad was characteristically untalkative, listening to some conversations but never saying more than a few words at a time.
Eventually you and your group arrived at Castle Shan on the foot of the Qhirst Mountains. The castle, despite being on the smaller end for castles, was still rather unique. Wyst Shan's father immigrated into Orevod from the Cavelands during the War of Gagh Buldir, fighting valiantly under your grandfather Kallian and his father Othan. He was granted some land right on the edge of the mountain range and some small villages to protect, and he modelled his castle after those from his homeland.
The castle itself was small and unimpressive, but an artificial cave was carved out of the mountain and connected to the interior of the castle. Wyst has been dead for a few years, and Raethus spends much of his time maintaining a court presence in Mallowater and helping you manage military affairs. As such, the castle has been largely maintained by some of the women of the family - Raethus's sister Kirsa and his daughter Melery have been doing much of the administrative work of maintaining the castle, with Melery taking over more and more as Kirsa was getting increasingly pregnant.
The men repeat your warcry as they follow you, chasing after the enemy men and killing and capturing some of them as they retreat. Much of the rest of the palace is empty, and it seems like all of the remaining manpower of the Atrekaran army was grouped together in that one entrance hall in an attempt to stop you as quickly as possible. After chasing after them for about an hour, Wallace approaches you.
"My lord, we've captured Darmen Var Norbury. He was wearing the uniforms of his soldiers and fighting alongside them inside of the palace." "Aye, your majesty," Sir Wallace says, bowing quickly then hurrying off to do as you had bid. The throne room in Norbury was somewhat less grand than what you were used to having grown up in Thasi, but it was still a rather nice room. The throne itself was an ornate chair of gold with red velvet pillows, and there was a carpet of red and gold that ran along the centre of the hall. Tapestries of battles fought by the old empire of Nerath hung to the walls on either side of you (The Battle of the Nubarb was depicted on one side and The Battle of the North adorned the other).
Sir Walace Oakheart entered the throne room several minutes after you were seated, alongside Sir Barrian Murton, Sir Ornith var Pradingly and the captive Count Darmen var Norbury, bound in ropes and being guarded by the two knights accompanying Wallace.
Barons Bernard Darham, Humphrey var Capvering, Herwig Otterberg and Horthon Drayden arrived shortly after, with some retainers, arguing amongst themselves. "I was the one who raised my standard upon the gatehouse first!" the Baron of Fishford shouted, as var Capvering retorted "But it was I who slew the last remaining grandson of Arlon var Norbury to take the bloody gate! It's thanks to me that there will be nobody left to lay claim to Atrekara after Darmen var Norbury's death!" Darham was the only one not advocating for himself, but instead arguing in favour of granting the title to Otterberg.
A messenger arrived several minutes later bearing some bad news. "Your majesty, three of your barons have died today. Baron Worth Clifton was struck by lightning making his way to your war council this morning, Maldir Talsworth was struck by a branch and Ballus Horddrigg was slain trying to storm part of the wall."
As the four barons were still making their cases to you, the Redscar arrived. "Your majesty, the lad's not willing to set foot within the walls of Norbury. He's convinced that some forces within the city conspired to have his father killed, and he told me to inform you that he'll have no part in the bickering over, in his words, this fucking terrible shithole of a city."
Naroth nodded and walked off, and Garry also went off to do some work on the ship.
"Dinner's first," Raethus said as he dismounted, "And then we'll go over the specifics of the bandit problem and discus how to best deal with it. Melery, show my new squire the way to the stables, and then get dinner ready for us."
"I've already prepared food in anticipation of your arrival, father," Melery said. She was Raethus's eldest daughter at sixteen years old and, from what you can tell, much better at behaving ladylike than your own eldest daughter.
"Melery, is your aunt Kirsa up?" Northan asked.
"She is, uncle Northan. Would you like me to go get her for you?"
"No, I'll go and see her myself. Thurum, come with me," Northan said, as he and his son walked into the castle. "Within a few days, you'll be a big brother."
"I'm already a big brother!" You heard, as your nephew's and brother's voices trailed off.
Melery, Thander Marthus, Tammen and the two other squires went off to go to the stables, and likely to have fun doing what kids do. Whatever it is that kids do, that is. "There are about twenty of them, and they've gone into each of my villages in turn, demanding valuables, and leaving. Ten of then have been described as having armour, fifteen with horses and all of them have swords. They're probably mercenaries who haven't been hired for a while or ex-soldiers. With my men mostly working the farms or the mines, they're not organised in military fashion frequently enough to be able to combat the bandits, so to save their lives, they've simply been ceding the demanded goods and trying to appeal to me to come here to reclaim them."
They are all silenced immediately, and stunned for a minute before responding. "You can't be serious, your majesty," Baron Darham said. "You've already lost half of your primary vassals today. The sheer amount of instability that that alone will cause is going to be astonishing, and you want to put even more of your vassals into such situations?" You find Artie resting in his quarters, coughing loudly. When you walk in, he shouts. "Captain! Thank you for saving my life!"
Your four barons glance at eachother, at you, at Wallace and at the Redscar (who seemed rather amused by the situation), seemingly trying to figure out what would happen next.
Your chained prisoner, still in the room, spoke. "I'll bend my knee and kneel before you, your majesty, giving you taxes and my armies in war if you allow me to keep Atre - " He was cut off by Sir Barrian Murton punching him in the face and growling curses at him.
Your barons got back to arguing among themselves, though now that it was clear that you were willing to allow violence there were threats of violence being thrown in.
After a few minutes of that, the Redscar walked up to them, punched var Capvering (by far the loudest and most obnoxious of the arguers) in the face and spoke. "His majesty has wars to fight, and so can't afford for you lot to fight among yourselves. There will be more lands for you to gain as the campaign goes on. If you lot will shut the fuck up about which one deserves Atrekara I guarantee that you'll get more lands. If you won't, then his Majesty is likely to make counts out of men more loyal to him and less prone to useless infighting - hell, he might even try to give me lands!"
"You don't really believe that the campaign will continue much longer, do you?" var Capvering said. "The duke's already almost doubled his lands, and he'll need to hold them now."
"As soon as Mel got word to me of what's happening here I ordered her to keep track of everything stolen, but I was in Mallowater when the bandits showed up so I don't know the specifics of it. They were mostly demanding gold and some farm equipment, though they were also asking questions about the defences of this castle."
"It sounds like they're setting up a trap," Galad said, apparently having listened to what you were saying. Galad was older than Northan but slightly younger than Kallian, and a veteran of the same two wars as you were - and something of an expert of falling into traps, or so the stories go. "If they got you to come back here by yourself they'd have jumped you on the road and held you for ransom. Or snuck into the castle and gotten you that way. Either way, with Lord Othan and Lord Northan here as well as some more knights, there's no telling what they'll do. Maybe they'll be scared off by our numbers. Maybe they'll be encouraged by the possibility of not one but four wealthy targets."
"If they wanted hostages, they could have just taken Kirsa and Aldona," Raethus said. The other two knights must have left a while ago, as it was just the three of you talking there. "The daughter-in-law and granddaughter of Earl Thander Mallowater? The sister-in-law and niece of the famous Othan and Kallian Mallowater? The beloved younger sister of one of the most accomplished tacticians in Orevod? There's plenty of money to be made from that. They didn't need to bait me here."
"Maybe they're greedy," Was all that Galad had to say to that. "Tomorrow, we'll go to each of my villages in turn to ask detailed questions in an attempt to figure out their motives and goals," Raethus said. "From there, speculation should be much easier, allowing us to do so more accurately and to thus make our strategies from a better informed standpoint."
"I can barely hear you, captain!" Artie said, as loudly as he spoke earlier. "You don' 'ave to whisper just because we're out of the thunder!" "We'll hold a meeting to discus out strategy over dinner, or maybe after dinner," Raethus said, as you, he and Galad walked into the castle and towards the dining hall. At the dining hall, you see some familiar faces already there - Northan and Thurum were there, alongside Northan's four-year-old daughter Aldona and very pregnant wife Kirsa. Two of Raethus's children, Einein and Alys, were already there, though his eldest two daughters were not. Sir Boderick and the other knightly friend of Northan, who introduced himself during the journey as Sir Arthel Haiderling, were also there. The only people missing were the squires and Raethus's two eldest daughters.
Despite your silence, many of the others in the room seem to be enjoying themselves, laughing and telling stories of wars and fights they've been in (though nothing as dark as Treehold), of hunts they've gone on and of tourneys that they either won or lost to only Northan in. After the first course of the meal, other people notice the absence of the teenagers. "Thurum, go get your cousins and their friends. Tell them that we're eating," Northan says, and his son gleefully departs to go get them.
The first course was of cheeses and some cured meats, accompanied by a small cup of a slightly sweet wine made from grapes grown by the Shan peasants. You're halfway into the second course, which is enough roasted beef for the table to have likely taken an entire cow to make, when they finally show up. Melery and Nerys were giggling to themselves about something when they arrived, and the squires were somehow louder and more rambunctious than the knights who had actual proper stories to tell.
Baron Otterberg knelt before you. "I, Count Herwig of Atrekara, Lord of Norbury, swear fealty to Duke Jonos of Thasia as your loyal vassal."
"That's not fair!" Horthon Drayden shouted. "It was my standard that was up first!"
"Shut the hell up! What part of stop squabbling and wage war for more territory do you not understand!" Redscar said in retort, clearly just as annoyed with feudal politics as you are.
Otterberg, seemingly ignoring the Baron of Fishford's protests, walked over to the chained Darmen var Norbury. "Bastard pretender," he said, in a voice slightly deeper than one would assume from his white hair and walrus moustache, "Before you are to be executed, I would like to know as much information as possible about my new Barons and the state of my County."
"Fuck yourself!" Darmen shouted in response. "You slaughtered my sons and nephews and raped my land over a conflict that happened when my grandfather's grandfather was a child! You stripped me of all my titles because our mutual ancestor had more land than you hold now a hundred and fifty years ago?" "As you command, your majesty," Sir Wallace says. Then he, Darmen var Norbury and the other knights there to guard him depart from the room, as Darmen shouted curses and insults at everyone in attendance, vowing vengeance.
"Your majesty, as much as I would enjoy remaining in court with you, I believe that I should immediately see to administering my realm," Count Herwig said. "I'll need to go over all the laws already in place and adjust them to fit Thasia, I'll need to find out as much as possible about the primary and secondary vassals under my command now and I'll need to get them to swear fealty to me, I'll need to see what's in the treasury and... Well, you get the idea."
He departed the room at that, leaving you alone with the other three barons and the Redscar.
Raethus doesn't broach the topic of the bandits until after the meal is done. The third and final course was a sickly sweet pudding that the ladies and children in attendance enjoyed, but which was far too sweet for you to stomach. The wine wasn't bad, though it too was on the sweeter end.
"I think that we're done with the meal," Raethus said. "Melery, Kirsa, if you wouldn't mind escorting the younger children and other women out of the room, I would very much appreciate it."
They do as Raethus instructed, but Thurum refused to go. "I'm not young! I'm a big kid!" He said.
"Thurum, we talked about this," Northan said in response. "You can sit in on war council meetings when you become a squire. You know that war councils are for squires and knights only." Thurum left sulking about being excluded, but he left nonetheless.
"So, the reason that we're here is to deal with some bandits who are plaguing the area," Raethus began, "As of right now, I have no idea where they are laired. The way in which they rob me is not by camping out on highways, but by riding directly into villages to demonstrate their martial abilities and demand gold and equipment."
"Have they visited the same village twice?" Boderick asked. Clearly some thoughts were forming in everyone's head.
"To my knowledge, they have," Raethus responded.
"Did they bring their full force on the return trips? They've already demonstrated that they're capable of overpowering the villagers if they need to, so they wouldn't have to demonstrate it again."
"I do not know that," Raethus said in answer to Boderick's next question.
"Are they striking at only your villages, or are they also targeting villages under the protection of other knights?" Arthel asked.
"I've asked others with estates near mine, but people tend to be embarrassed about bandits and unwilling to disclose that," Raethus said. "My men survived, for the most part. I was unscathed despite fighting on the frontlines - I'm still the Redscar, not the Redscars. Those old men are bickering fools who don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it - essentially, they're the perfect politicians. I'd much rather not be granted any land, however. My lot in life is to kill people for gold to spend on alcohol and whores."
"There's six of us and four villages," Northan said. "One man to each village tomorrow, to investigate what was stolen, what forces can be mustered and what defences can be implemented might be a good idea."
"That would leave two of us without things to do," Raethus said. "That's hardly an efficient way to use our resources."
"The other two of us could search the countryside, or the mountainside, for any trace of where they might be lairing," Boderick suggested. "With the squires helping us, we would very easily be able to operate in five groups of two," Sir Boderick said. "Each man with his squire, and then you and I to either search the countryside or visit another village." The squires were indeed sitting in on the war council and lit up at being called helpful, but as befits their position, they were remaining silent and simply listening. "Be that as it may, we don't have enough information to look for the patterns. The messengers that my daughter sent simply described the bandits and details of their number and equipment. We would still need to visit each village to find out when these bandits first arrived and how often they've returned, if at all."
"There's nothing wrong with fluidity when it makes people more powerful. People only dislike it when it's to their disadvantage," the Redscar said. Wallace went off to the dungeon with Darmen var Norbury and the other knights under your command. "It's hard to tell specifically, in part because the peasants don't actually bother knowing the names of their villages and in part because it seems like sometimes multiple are visited by them on the same day."
"If they're doing that, then they'd also be splitting up their number," said Sir Arthel, apparently a master of stating the obvious.
"Can I take a shore leave in Estermere?" Artie half-asked half-shouted at you. "I want to live a bit before I die in the next storm!" "I think that Othan's plan should work," Raethus said. "Tomorrow, we should all plan to be back here by evening-time before the sun sets so that we can discus our findings."
"I have one minor suggestion to add to the plan," Northan said. "As far as I'm aware, Galad and Arthel are unfamiliar with the countryside here. Raethus, do you have any guides or anyone of that nature who may be able to assist them?"
"Would the younger lads, Einian and Thurum, be able to help?" Bode asked. "Einian lives here and Thurum spends a large amount of his time here with his mother, so they'd know the area better than I would."
"Einian might be old enough, but Thurum's only eight," Northan said. "Maybe if these bandits had come two years down the line I'd be willing to let my son be involved, but right now I say he's too young."
"I might have some farmhands or stablemen able to help with that," Raethus said. "I'll go through the personnel who are here tonight and decide who's best suited for the task. Does anyone else have any other quarries?" "As there seem to be no further objections, that is the plan. This war-council is, I think, adjourned for today, unless anyone else has any suggestions or objections," Raethus said, as several of the knights started getting up.
Artie remains silent for a few seconds, and just as you're thinking of leaving, he breaks down into tears. "I'm sorry for letting the helm get destroyed, captain," He said. "You gave me th' one job and I failed at it, I did!"
As you head to the dungeons to find Wallace, you actually encounter him heading up from the dungeons on his way back to the throne room. "Which county are you planning on invading next, your majesty? We're in a good position to flank Norvera, but Demara is ruled by a sickly old man and has been for as long as I can remember. Herwin mentioned to me, in passing, that he'd heard rumours of trade alliances between Norvera and Eredal, so that might not be the right place to strike at next. Maybe Aflaria or Mescor? Sciania would be politically difficult for now, as Othye var Sweiton is married to the sister of the duke of Tivell, and his nephew is serving in the Threun Guard." "Captain, I have a question," Artie asked after a minute. "Did you hear laughter during the storm?"
"Unfortunately, our main problem is the lack of information that we have on the bandits. Hopefully we'll have a better plan tomorrow."
"It's probably noth'n, cap'n," Artie said. "Probably just the noise and the weather and me bein' tired getting to me."
"If we can find out where the bandits will be somewhere and when they'll be there, we can easily move people into position to outnumber them three-to-one or four-to-one. It's not the positioning and tactics that I'm concerned about, but the movements and timings," Raethus said. "We actually should have brought Hedrek along, come to think of it."
"That makes sense, your majesty," Wallace said. "I'm planning on checking on what storage is in this palace, especially what alcohol is stored. From my best guess Darmen barricaded himself in weeks ago and left the rest of the city to starve, so he probably has some good stuff that he was working his way through." "As you command, your majesty. I'm going to be looking for some desert wines for myself - just a bottle or two, nothing that will cut into public opinion. Is there anything that you'd like for yourself?"
"Aye, cap'n. We'll be sailing past Forfait soon, maybe this evening or tomorrow mornin'. From there, you'll want to try to keep land visible on the starboard, and to keep sailing with the current instead of against it, and we'll be in Estermere in time for supper the next day." Forfait is an islet within the Nubarb itself, and, according to local legend, the location of the ruined capital of a great kingdom conquered by Tarthel nine hundred years ago. "Tammen is Hartwig's grandson," Raethus said, correcting your mistake. A second passed, before he added, "At least, I think he is. Hartwig's been wanting me to take one of his family members as a squire for years, and has been wanting me to betroth one of my daughters to one of his descendants for just as long. It would be a terrible mistake if I got one of Hedrek's instead..."
As you step outside, the storm seems to be dying down, though it is still very much stronger than you noticed during the fight itself. Some houses were burning and there was some damage, but overall your armies were much more restrained than many you've seen in the past. As a matter of fact, they were significantly more restrained than they themselves were after some of your previous clashes with the var Norbury family.
It's been several hours since you've woken up this morning (assuming that you slept for the whole night after the storm, that is) and you have yet to have eaten. Your stomach grumbles as you notice that you were too caught up with your duties as captain to eat. Raethus let out a chuckle at that, before veering the conversation back on-topic. "I advise getting some rest tonight, given that we'll be heading out to the villages and probably the outlying farms basically all day tomorrow. You know where the library and my thairaboards are, if you want something else to do before sleeping. I'd play, but I have to find people to act as guides for sirs Galad and Arthel, then I'll do some mundane things such as making sure my account books are in order and the like."
As you're eating your clump of bread, you're approached by the troublemaking Vrelonian merchant. "Captain, I would like to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I had no idea how bad the storm was when I spoke to you, and I panicked."
"On the bright side, at least we're alive," The man said. "And, surprisingly, most of my cargo is rather intact." He then departed to let you finish your food in peace.
You're directed to a room that seems to have been inhabited by one of the daughters or nieces of Darmen var Norbury, and likely a favoured child given the softness of the bed and the level of decoration in the room. Most of the other bedrooms, especially of the male heirs, were being used for storage during the siege.
You fall asleep almost immediately, and suddenly you're at dinner as a child conversing with your sister, waiting for your father to arrive from some matter of court or another. Daela looks to have been nine, and you must have been seven. You can hear Daela's words, and you know that they're in the Elusian language, but you can't make sense of what the sounds mean.
The wooden door is opened, and a man steps through. He has your family's distinctive emerald-green eyes, but he is not your father. He looks like he could be your long lost and more unruly brother, in fact, with his tall, athletic frame and his unkempt beard and hair. You recognise him from family portraits that you've seen, however, as your ancestor and not your brother: Balon Dawburn, the only trueborn son of Ramsey Dawburn to have any children.
He dies, full of arrows to his back, and another man comes to take his place. Morm Dawburn walked in then, standing on his father's corpse. He looked around the room for a minute, and then his head fell off, shattering into a million pieces like porcelain upon hitting the ground.
The man to walk in next was initially unrecognizable to you, until his eye rolled out of his skull and his legs vanished from underneath him. Upon that happening, you immediately recognized him as Ayvon, your parents' grandfather. "You're trying to reunite my father's grandfather's lands," He said, looking at you with his one remaining eye. "I shouldn't have tried. I told my sons not to try, and Gareth told his sons not to try. And yet you try anyway. You'll end up just like me, you know?" He aged continually throughout his speech, until eventually he also died in middle age.
Your father walked in then, looking as he did over twenty years ago and yet still older than any of the three corpses on the ground were when they died. Without saying a word, he grabbed your sister and dragged her away from you, to marry her off to some minor foreign nobleman. You'll never see her again if you let him do that, you know, and yet it transpires all the same.
Then you wake up. The sunlight beams through the windows, and at first you think that you barely slept at all. Then it occurs to you that it's sunrise, not sunset, and the next day.
You sleep a dreamless sleep, which comes as a welcome change from that of the previous night. You're awoken, however, by a knocking on your door what looks like an hour before the sun will be up. "Othan!" Said your brother's voice. "If we're going to ask questions, we'll need to get to the village before the peasants leave to start working the fields. Wake up!" Your brother opened his mouth to speak, but your son chimed in first. "We do know which village we're leaving for," he said, without specifying which village. Northan thwacked him lightly in the back of the head for that, though his grin was still on his face, and Northan had nearly let out a bit of a chuckle anyway.
"We're headed for Wyst's Town," Northan said. Wyst's Town was a fairly old village, though the name is less than ten years old. In his old age, and as he was nearing his death, Wyst Shan had gone ever so slightly crazy. Renaming that town was just one of his numerous and foolhardy attempts to attain immortality: He also commissioned an eight-foot tall statue of himself (which Raethus hid away as soon as he inherited the castle) and "wrote" a book comprised of insane ramblings at it's best and nonsensical scribbles at it's worst, to name but two others. The village itself was the largest on the Shan estate, with almost sixty families living in the town and working the land.
And it was indeed a turbulent journey. The remaining two-and-a-half days of the voyage were thankfully nowhere near as intense as that storm on the third day, though there were a few gusts of wind and instances of minor rainfall that scared you into thinking that that storm would repeat itself. Naroth forbade Artie and Garry from doing anything above deck other than look at the scenery (including the island of Forfait and other islets further in the Nubarb Delta). That said, your injuries were somehow not quite as bad as those accrued by your fellow crewmembers, and so you were able to do the things that you wanted to do yourself, with Naroth's begrudging admittance that it wouldn't kill you.
The merchants finished inventorying their inventory and your crew finished sorting your rations, and you found that even with the losses of some insured cargo you were still somehow breaking even on this voyage. That said, the repairs to your ship would set you back significantly anyway, but probably not as much as the shipwrecks that you passed during the remainder of your trip.
It was early afternoon when you arrived in Estermere, the city of twenty-six thousand people that was also the capital of the Eredalian duchy of the same name. The dockhands there were overloaded with damaged ships, and so the cost to dock was slightly higher than usual. The rest of the day was spent overseeing the dockhands who were unloading your cargo and giving it to your passengers and answering questions asked by the engineer who went onboard your ship to assess the damage caused by the storm.
It was maybe an hour until sunset by the time everything was finally taken care of. It takes several hours for the war council to assemble, given that some of the older men were sleeping in. Eventually, however, you managed to assemble everyone other than Hallon Talsworth. "The kid's refusing to step foot in the city, your majesty," the messenger who you sent told you. "He seems to think that it was Norbury that killed his father, not the storm that we were all caught in. He said to say that he would be willing to obey any order that you gave him other than entering this city, and will march his troops wherever you want to strike next."
"Your majesty, he might be willing to pacify the countryside and ensure that the Atrekaran barons will to swear fealty to you," Sir Wallace suggested.
You reach the stables and mount your horses without any issue, and you see that some of yesterday's party has already departed - Sir Galad's horse and his squire's horse were already gone. You also passed Sirs Boderick and Raethus and young Tammen Almerry, who entered the stables just as you were leaving them.
The ride to Wyst's Town was equally uneventful, with Northan taking the hour that it took to drill your son on some matters of language. He was asking questions in Elusian too fast for you to make out, and he seemed to be occasionally changing his dialect - you heard Ayomoran, Thasian, Dathan, Tivellian and Threun, and two others that you couldn't understand. He then swapped to Eredalian, which you're much more proficient in, but the questions he was asking weren't about Eredal or the Eredalian language - he was quizzing your son on Argolonian, having him translate simple sentences from that tongue into Eredalian.
Northan then changed to a northern dialect of Vrelonian that you could barely understand, then to a language that must have been Old Nerathi. It was while he was speaking Old Nerathi that you finally arrived in Wyst's Town a bit after the break of dawn, but while many of the villagers were still getting ready for their days of work. "There's a knight who's meant to watch over us," Said one man. "Sir Raethus Shan. He lives in that castle, back the way you came from, my lord,"
Northan, already dismounted from his horse, gave a response. "Raethus is my brother-in-law. Unfortunately, he does not know the specifics of the bandits. Could you tell us how many there are?"
"Aye. There were four on horseback that came to Wyst's Town and ten on foot, all armed dangerously."
You and your crew make your way to The Ugly Rose, a tavern that's quite popular among sailors. The innkeeper and bartender, Gutrum, was an old friend of yours and had briefly served on your ship before inheriting the tavern. "Alfred! Welcome back to Estermere!" Gutrum said in Eredalian. "How are you? I heard rumours of a bad storm and had feared the worst, but here you are."
Farlyn leaves to deliver the message that you had ordered him to deliver immediately. After he left and you turned onto bigger matters, the first person to speak was Count Herwin Otterberg, not Sir Herwin Talsworth.
"Your majesty, I don't think that it would be prudent to attack anywhere next. You've doubled the size of your realm already - are you not content with that?" He asked.
Bernard Darham responded immediately. "We're not stupid, you greedy bastard!" He shouted.
"That's 'my lord' to you, Bernard," Otterberg said. Being a count has already gotten to his head, it seems. "You had best remember that."
"Your majesty, we should attack Norvera next," Bernard said, ignoring Count Otterberg. "Cross the river today and we'll pin Prydell between Thasia, the Nubarb and our army. Norvera will fall as fast as Atrekara did."
"I would avoid attacking Prydell for the time being, your majesty," said Herwin Talsworth.
"And why is that?" Asked Baron Darham.
"I don't know much about military tactics and strategies, because I just find out information for his majesty, so I may be wrong in what I'll say next. However, I assume that you don't want to have to fight a war against the Duke of Spiderwood, who conducts a small amount of trade through Prydell. Even if he could be convinced not to fight against us, Norvera still has a lot of spiderwood from that trade."
"Mescor is the shortest march from here," Redscar offered. "Just one short river crossing and a march just as short and you'll already be at the city of Mescor. From there you'll be in a better position to strike at Norvera as well."
"Be that as it may," Sir Wallace interjected, "Demara is probably the best course of action. Demara is politically weak and is ruled by an old man who must be a hundred years old by now. I read an old book that says that there's a small grove of Spiderwood trees in Demara as well that could be very militarily useful."
"Was the book about the travels of Gunnar the Grey-Skinned?" Herwin Talsworth said. "He's some folk hero who may have lived four hundred years ago, or may never have existed at all. His stories aren't very popular any more, but they're still just stories."
"Either way, a weak old man seems like the perfect person to strike."
"He's not very weak," Herwin said. "I have put more resources into building a spy network in Greymorn than in anywhere else and yet my agents still consistently and regularly go silent on me. And when they do send things, they don't send information but rather... Some more disturbing items." "Most had swords, my lord. Some had spears," The peasant said. "The ones on horseback all had swords."
"When did they come here?" Northan asked.
"They were first here two weeks ago, my lord. They were back six days ago, but only four of them. They still said that if they were hampered their friends would all be here and would burn the town to the ground, so we gave them more gold then."
"Free drinks for all of Alfred's crew!" Gutrum shouted to some applause. He then continued speaking to you. "You weren't the only ship in that storm. It was worse further up the Nubarb, near where you were, than it was down here. Rumours have been coming in for days that everything 'tween Forfait and Oakwell was just shipwrecks. How did you survive that?" So, you'll be in Estermere for a while then, I suppose," Gutrum said, pouring himself a pint of beer as well.
"A formation like when Sir Raethus makes us stand in a line when we practice with spears? No, my lord, they weren't in a line like that." This man, despite his age, seems to not have fought in any wars.
"They came from the east, your majesty, but I don't think that that means anything. Forlon went out to look for them, he's the best tracker in the town. He said that the hoofprints and footprints look like they circled around a bunch before coming in."
It's been just one whole week since you left the realm of faerie and entered the forests of man, but already details of your time in that transient place are escaping your mind. The elves warned you that mortals who to the land of the fey often have hazy memories of their time there, but the sprites assured you that with the amount of time you've spent there you'd be immune - after all, you'd have to lose everything since you were a baby.
The city of Calbourne, however, is just as big as all the faeries said that it would be. It's the capital of Argolon, and is surrounded by a beautiful hedge maze that a guide had to help you find your way through. The buildings were as tall as some trees and the people on the streets were just as exciting. A naked child ran past you, playing in puddles left over by some rain with his friends. A merchant was shouting about wine that he was selling. "Elusian wines! Elusian wines! We've god Mescor reds, Lyrroth whites and even a cask of Corvale black wine!" He shouted to passersby.
Some people, like you, were riding horses. These must have been the famous Knights of Calbourne that you heard so much about growing up in the Autumn Court. King Arthel XI of Argolon had a host of knights in his capital, armoured men riding armoured horses who fight dragons and other evil things for glory, romance and the honour of their king. In fact, you rode to Calbourne to take your rightful place among these knights as Sir Kainer the Autumn Knight - the sprites told you that that's probably how you would be remembered in ballads as long as people still know how to play the harp, after all.
"The wizards might, but when they heard about the storm they all tried to leave. Some talk's that they fled, some talk's that they went there to stop it and some says that they're just going and looking," Gutrum said. There are four wizards who live in Estermere and call it home, a far cry from the number that it was a few hundred years ago but a substantial number nonetheless. "The priests also might know, but they've been locked up in prayer for two days. Some say it's that damned blue dragon from Orevod causing it, but that's crap. I'd've seen a dragon if there was a dragon there, and if it was a military thing, why not attack Belgate?"
"Does the Duke of Estermere know?" Asked Garry, who sat down beside you. "E's smart, and apparently reads a lot."
"If he does he's said nothing. Instead he's sending people to see how bad the storm was, to see what was damaged and how to fix it and who died and how much to pay the grieving widows."
Your father, Duke Varron II of Datha, died three weeks ago. You were coronated the day after his funeral as Duke Verous III of Datha. You still have to remind yourself of that every morning when you wake up from a dream of waking up from this dream where you were put on the throne so young.
Two days ago you received a letter from the Count of Oakwell, your most powerful vassal, of a devastating storm that struck all along the Nubarb. Yalan suggested that you head up there with a party as fast as possible to see what damage was done, how to mitigate it and to strengthen your fledgling reign over Datha. He also suggested that you leave him in charge in Courtdell in your absence, and that he would rule as your father would have until you returned.
That's why the four of you took eight horses north. Perrin was there to guard you, of course - you're the Duke now, after all, and it would not be right for you to go without an escort. Darryl was the fastest ranger that you know and went with you to scout and forage, though there was nothing dangerous. Your last companion was your old friend Prue, who Yalan suggested that you take with you to make up for lost time due to conflicting schedules. You'd ride for six hours, stop and lunch and then mount the other four horses for the next six hours. You rode twelve hours a day, cutting travel time from Courtdell to Oakwell by half, though you still have a day's ride ahead of you.
"I still can't believe that I have to call you 'Your Majesty' now, Ver!" Darryl said with a laugh.
"I can," Perrin said. "I've been calling him 'My Lord' for the past fifteen years, though, so it's an easy change for me."
"Aye. Mescor's not a particularly powerful realm, but it's not a weak one either. They recently lost a war and ceded some land to Norvera, and Count Arnil took that war as an opportunity to prove how inept he is as a commander. That said, when his barons are left to command their own armies, they tend to be significantly smarter than Arnil is. The difficulty in fighting Mescor won't be in defeating and killing Arnil but in defeating his barons."
"Like Baron Cirthil the third of Holmsbury and the Baronness Vena of Norven?" Redscar asked.
"Yes, those two especially," Herwin said. "Redscar, do you have agents of your own in Mescor?"
"No, but I run a mercenary company and drink with my men. One or two of them fought on either side of that war, and I like to keep track of when I'm within a hundred miles of any particularly important military minds."
"Be that as it may, those two are by far the best military strategists in Mescor. They're old families as well - Duke Herwin of Thasia appointed Cirthil's family to Holmsbury two hundred and fifty odd years ago, and Vena's family is not bad either. They're prideful due to their old names and greater competence than the Count they serve."
"If we can win them to our side the war will be over before it starts, is what you're saying," Wallace said.
"I'm not offering military advice, I'm offering information," Herwin said. "It's up to his majesty the Duke of Thasia what to do with that information." "He should be, my lord. Sir Raethus occasionally has him track game when there are visiting knights who want to hunt, and because of the rumours of a troupe of knights in Castle Shan he might be up there, but he didn't tell anyone that he was leaving for the castle. That said, he's been talking a lot about the tourney in the city, so he might have gone there. His pa would know where he is, that's for sure."
"And where is Forlon's father?" Northan asked.
"He lives in that house over there," the peasant said, pointing at one of the homes. "Marl, his name is."
"The Black Goose is right there," The lady said. "They have rooms and drinks and food."
The building that she indicated was a large four-storey building in a moderate state of repair, cleaner than many of the buildings that you saw around you but not as magical as anything where you grew up. There was a sign on the front of the tavern, with a painting of a goose with black feathers. There was also lots of noise coming from within the building, sounds of merriment and people.
Inside the inn was rather crowded. There were people drinking and throwing dice and holding cards. In one back corner you saw a fat man kiss a much younger and prettier girl, and people tended to leave those two alone. At some tables people were eating as well, and talking to the people who were giving people their food and drinks. One drunk man tried to touch one of those ladies, who smacked his hand away, shouting that this place wasn't a brothel.
There was also music. There was a bard who lots of people were listening to, playing a lute and singing tales of Kellian of Aldfair, a folk hero who some of the faeries told you about. Kellian was a man who lived in Pronait at some point in the past, and he fought against bandits and druids and unseelie fey in the Greenbark Forest. Despite being Kellian of Aldfair, the stories have him popping up all over Pronait, from Bluewall to Vertton, sometimes alongside a merchant named Gerwin or other characters of legend. Marl's house was as small and unsuspecting as the others in this village, and after you opened up the door the interior of the home was also fairly humble. Marl himself was sitting down on a chair in the living room, an old man with grey in his hair. He was also missing one of his legs, and had the look of someone who actually had fought in a war.
"You're Marl, I'm assuming?" Northan asked.
"Aye, I am. What do you want?"
"Well, we were hoping to be able to speak with your son, Forlon. Do you know where he is?"
"What, did he do something wrong?"
"No, not at all! I'm Northan, the son of Earl Thander, and this is my older brother Othan. This lad here is my nephew and squire, but he'll be quiet and stay out of the way until he's knighted. We were asked by Sir Raethus to investigate the bandits and to then do something about them, and we were told that your son had done a bit of investigating on his own."
The old man turned to face one of the doors instead of replying to Northan directly. "Forlon, get your lazy ass out of bed now! There are visitors here for you! Lords and knights at that!"
"You can try dancing into Calbourne Castle and asking the king himself during court to knight you," The innkeeper said with a chuckle.
"Aye, but the sun's almost down. Might be best to do that tomorrow, after having a hot meal and a good night's rest."
"That's alright, your majesty," Perrin said, "Not everyone is destined to have a face as magnificent as mine!" He stroked his own well-maintained beard at having said that, which got a laugh out of Darryl.
"I think that you're handsome enough as it is, your majesty," Prue said in response to the beard talk.
"And what about me? Am I also handsome?" Darryl asked.
"Darryl, there's a reason that all the ladies of the court told you to go live in the forest," She said in response, which prompted hearty laughs from everyone. The man who emerged from that back room was half-dressed and seemed to be about Northan's age. Upon seeing you, he knelt down on one knee, as though being knighted. "My lord, what brings you here?" He asked.
"We're here in search of the bandits that have been plaguing your village and others," Northan said.
"Oh no, they won't mind at all."
"What do you want to eat? I have cheese and porridge and bread and quite a few fish, just to name part of the choices that you can get."
The day drags on as you and your friends keep riding to Oakwell, until eventually the sun begins to set down. "If we push ourselves and the horses, we can make it to Oakwell by midnight," Darryl said. "Otherwise, it might be best to set up camp here for the night. It's your call, your majesty."
" As you command, your majesty. I assume, of course, that these parleys are to be secret, and that the two are not to know we're meeting with the other?" Herwin Talsworth said.
"Does anyone have anything else to bring up?" Wallace asked, to no response from anyone. "They came about two weeks ago, and ours was the first village that they hit. They had a loose formation, but it was highly effective - cavalry on the flanks, two rows of infantry with spears, shields and swords. It's actually very similar to a formation that you had used once during the Second War," Forlon said.
"You fought in the Second?" Northan asked. Colloquially, the Galbror Wars are sometimes shortened to the First War and the Second War, or sometimes even just the First and the Second if people understand the context.
"Aye, I did, your majesty. I was a scout. In fact, Lord Othan actually spoke to me once, during the war, though I doubt you'd remember it."
"What did my father say to you?" Thander Marthus said, breaking his silence at last.
"It was at the Battle of Arlan's Field. He was giving orders to about a dozen other men, and he turned to me and said the words that I'll never forget: 'You, scout, go deliver this letter to Sir Taran Gulyard'. I think it was battle commands, but the letter was sealed so I never got to read it. Sir Taran then sent me to convey some information to Sir Raethus, who had me ride out to see when the reinforcements from Estermere were to be arriving."
"I apologise for my squire," Northan said. "He's normally quiet and obedient, but if he can get someone to talk about a story of an old battle, he'd be more than happy to do anything to get them to do so. Aside from their formation, what news can you tell us?"
"When they first came, I was having a hard time tracking them. They covered their tracks well. When they returned, however, they were sloppier in covering their trail. Maybe they didn't bring with them the one with enough brains to give them good commands. Maybe I was just lucky. Either way, the tracks seem to indicate that they're hiding somewhere in the Qhirst Mountains. There's also some other tidbits of news that come in from time to time, but they're all just rumours - they struck other towns, but nobody can make sense of which other towns they struck at. They lie on the road to Eriport as well, according to some rumours, preying off of those too poor to get a boat, but I doubt that."
"Eight 'cops for a room for a night," The innkeepr said. "Food and drink's not in that number, of course." A 'cop is short for a miscop, a copper coin not of the lowest denomination but not out-of-reach of common folk. Certain coins effect faerie magic, and a miscop kept on a windowsill can keep sprites from flying in through that window even if it's open, and will-o-wisps from luring people out of their homes.
In your bags are all the equipment that you packed, but also three other things of curiosity that you didn't pack yourself. The first is a sealed letter addressed to King Arthel of Argolon, who some of the more important Autumn Elves claim is a friend of the fey-folk. The second is a curved dagger in an intricate sheath with patterns of trees and leaves in iron, gold and red enamel, and the hilt bore an orange-brown ruby. The third item is an autumn leaf made of glass.
Your announcement was met by cheers from your crew, who all clamoured to place their orders of good meals. You were served fish filleted and filled with various vegetables, and another pint of beer to go with it. As you were eating, you heard your crew singing shanties and entertaining some people with romantic tales of life at sea. The song they were singing wasn't one that you heard before, though: It seems to have been made up very recently, and is about a captain riding his ship through a storm.
"Well then," Darryl said, "If I'm to call you Verous, that makes us equals. That means that it's your turn to get first watch!" After he said that, everyone got off their horses and began to lie down - you didn't bring tents or bedrolls, which would weigh down the horses and take time to set up. The news from Oakwell sounded like an emergency, so you could waste no time. However, Darryl did start a campfire and cook two rabbits that he caught, giving everyone half a hare. You'll probably get rained on again tonight, but your clothes are already muddy from the ride enough that it probably wouldn't matter.
"So," Prue began, speaking between bites of food, "What's our plan once we're in Oakwell? One of the villages that we passed through had people telling stories of half the town being flooded, and another said that the Count of Oakwell and all his family had drowned in the storm."
"Those are just stories and rumours," Perrin responded. "They spread because they're exciting tales, not because they're true. I heard one man say that the storm was so big that it stretched from Estermere to Thasi, and another said that the storm was caused by a god worshipped by our pagan ancestors being slighted by our worship of Lord Ynedar. It's best to just see what it's really like for ourselves." "Their leader. He was barking orders and keeping them in formation. A tall man, with dark hair and bright eyes and a sullen look in his face, riding a black horse. The men under him weren't stupid, but they aren't geniuses either. I'd bet on an out-of-luck hedge knight or someone close to command during one of the Wars. Or maybe he's an Eredalian mercenary, but he didn't speak with an accent."
Calbourne Castle was one of the most magnificent buildings that you have ever seen. It was as beautiful as an Elven fortress, yet much larger as well. You weren't, however, able to just waltz through the gates - there were two guards stationed at the main entrance to the castle who denied everyone entry. "The king's supping right now, then afterwards he'll be headed to bed. You can deliver your letter or your petition tomorrow, when he holds court."
"I'll have my agents send word immediately," Herwin said, as he and the rest of the military council got up to leave to attend to other business.
One man who didn't leave, however, was the Redscar. "Your majesty, there is a matter that I would like to discus with you, if you have the time for it. It's a matter relating to my contract - you had initially hired me for a period of three months, to determine the worth of paying mercenaries. We're now slightly over two months into the campaign, and I hope that I have proven my worth to you. That, combined with the length of the upcoming campaign, has led me to propose a new contract, to be signed upon the completion of the three months allocated to our original contract.
"Right now you're paying me fifty silver pounds a month for three months. I would like to propose that, under the new contract, you're paying me and my men forty silver pounds a month over the next five years. Mescor might be just as easy as Atrekara, but the other counts will catch on quickly to what you're doing and that will greatly prolong the length of the next handful of campaigns. Furthermore, even after the campaign, you'll have expanded your realm sixfold through reconquest, greatly upsetting the balance of power in Elusia - for the past hundred years Datha has been the dominant power on the Elusian side of the Nubarb, and we'd be major rivals for them. Tivell probably won't be too happy with you either. Not to mention any barons discontent under your rule, or greedy idiots like Otterberg wanting even more than you've already given him. You have two hundred men in your personal guard after all the levied soldiers go back to their farms, but a mercenary company of a thousand professional soldiers would probably be very helpful for pacifying vassals not used to your rule." "I'll take you there, my lord," Forlon said. "I need to put on proper riding clothes first, though." At that, he got up and went back into his room for several minutes. When he returned, he was fully dressed, and began leading you to the town's stables. He got on his horse, and you, Northan and Thander Marthus all got on yours, and you rode slightly north-east towards the Qhirst Mountains for an hour. When you finally arrived at the foot of the mountains, Forlon dismounted.
"I followed this trail for a while further, up the slope of the mountain, until I reached a crevasse. My guess is that I'd have to scale down the crevasse in order to find where they're hiding, or that they gave me a false trail to try to kill me. We're actually closer to Castle Shan than we are to Wyst's Town right now, my lord."
"An hour after sunrise, seven out of eight days except on holidays or if the king's busy with some other affair," the guard said.
"You're paying for the thousand men and not the name of the company," The Redscar said, contemplatively. "That makes sense. I had been preparing myself to haggle on the prices, your majesty, so those stipulations are much preferred. Of course, due to those stipulations, I have one other request - that my men aren't sent into deadly situations just so that you have to pay less. Loyalty and trust have to work both ways, and the reason for me wanting the five-year contract is so that my men are continually employed - I'm certain that they'd rather be unemployed than dead."
"Here's the key for ya," Gutrum said, handing you a brass key. "Same room as you normally get. I expect you'll have a longer stay than you usually do because of the weather." "Well, what else could it be?" Prue asked.
"It could be a lightning dragon," Darryl suggested. "We're just across the river from Eredal, who have been at war with a dragon for a hundred years."
"I'm much less than a hundred years old and I remember hearing about the First Crebehl War as a boy," Perrin said. "It was two separate wars, the second of which happened ten years ago and the first ten before that. Besides, why would Nizeston - the lightning dragon that I assume you're thinking of - why would Nizeston attack along the Nubarb? He has no bad blood with anyone in Elusia that I know of."
"It could be a different lightning dragon," Darryl suggested. "They're meant to be more common along the coast, but it could be that one decided to fly up to Oakwell to cause some destruction." “Then I agree to the stipulations. This new contract shall begun upon the conclusion of our current one. I'll have one of my scribes write it up and send it to you by this evening, to read over and sign and seal."
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, as did the next day, and the one after that. It was nearly a full week when Hallon Talsworth returned with the Atrekaran hostages, and that very day the messenger that you sent to Baron Cirthil returned with a letter.
Duke Jonos Dawburn of Datha,
I will meet with you in secret, on neutral ground. There is a village called Fishston on your side of the river, less than a day's ride from Norbury. Wear a grey cloak with a green sash and I will find you. Keep your hood drawn. Ride a horse. When you receive this I will already be there. Bring no more than three men with you or the parley is off and I will notify the Count.
Baron Cirthil Holmsbury
No message from Baronness Vena has arrived, but her keep is slightly farther away from Norbury than Cirthil's is, so that is understandable.
"If this is where they are then we won't attack today," Northan said. "There are twenty bandits and four of us, and they know the terrain. We'll return later, with more men from the villages and the rest of the knights."
As you return to the Black Goose, you see the innkeeper talking to another patron when he sees you walk in. "How was your urgent business with the king?" He asked you.
As you drift off to sleep, you find yourself back on your ship and back in the storm. Artie and Garry won't be able to help you steer the ship - they, and the rest of the crew and the passengers, were all swept overboard, scattering in the ocean and drowned. You're running back and forth from the sails to the rudder, because your ship doesn't have a wheel. Then it's struck by lightning, and so are you, and the ship sinks and you feel yourself struck by lightning again and again as you drown and hear the thunder laugh at you...
You wake up the next morning covered in sweat and tangled in your bedsheets.
"Or it could just be a bad storm," Perrin said. "We haven't experienced one like this for some time, and so that means that we're probably overdue for one." “As you command, my lord," Forlon said.
Northan looked up at the sky. "It's still midmorning, and we've only talked to three people. It might be worth talking to more people in Wyst's Town about the bandits, to see what else we can find out."
"Here's your key, lad. I didn't get your name earlier, actually," The innkeeper said, handing you your key and asking you your name.
The rest of your party finished eating as well, and began to lie down to sleep for the night. Darryl managed to trick you into getting first watch, so you took it uneventfully over the four hours that your companions slept before waking him up to take the second shift. You didn't dream, and woke up somewhat tired.
Some of your war council is in attendance, but others are dealing with other tasks that have come up over the week. Otterberg is dealing with some bookkeeping and some of your other barons are dealing with issues within their armies. Redscar, Wallace Oakheart, Herwin Talsworth and Barons Horthon Drayden and Humphrey var Capvering were the only ones able to assemble, and Hallon Talsworth still had a hatred of Norbury. The ride to Fishston was short and uneventful, aside from several remarks from Horthon Drayden about how places have similar names: "I'm the baron of Fishford, and this village is called Fishston. Isn't that peculiar?" The village itself was small, with a few houses, an alehouse, some shelters for the wooden fishing boats and other simple amenities. Some of the peasants who were going about their daily lives looked at you, but most gave you no attention at all.
"Astin keeps track of how much food is produced on the farms and calculates the taxes and that other stuff," Forlon suggested. "He might have a good estimate as to how much money was stolen. Bertha says she knows one of the bandits, but she's known to make stuff up. Take anything she tells you with a grain of salt. Beyond those two, I don't know who else might be useful, but asking around wouldn't hurt."
"I'm Blyane," the innkeeper said.
"I'm Sir Trihem," Said the man that the innkeeper - Blyane - was talking to when you returned. "The name 'Adderant' sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure I can recall it."
"Your room's on the second floor, second door on the left," Blyane said to you, "But if you want a drink, a cup of wine or a cup of ale is six nostins." Nostins are another unit of currency, the smallest that you're aware of, where two dozen nostins make a miscop.
The tavern had a few people breakfasting - some from your crew, some not - but it was overall not very busy. Gutrum wasn't at the bar, but instead his son, Gus, was. It's likely that Gutrum stayed up late for his patrons and is now sleeping in, as tends to happen frequently.
Your sleep that night was dreamless, but short - it was just under four hours, and you and Darryl were particularly sleep-deprived due to taking turns on watch. That said, the remainder of the ride to Oakwell was as short as you thought it would be, and you and your party arrived by noontime. You ride back to Wyst's Town from where you were in the Qhirst mountains, and spend some time there searching out Astin. Astin was somewhat helpful in clearing up the specifics of what was stolen and how much was stolen, though not very useful for much else. Bertha wasn't very useful either, but she did confirm that at least one of the bandits - who she claims to have had an affair with before he turned to banditry in a romantic tale that might be truly touching if it weren't for the circumstances - was a former soldier who served under Sir Raethus during the Second Galbror War.
After several more hours of questioning people, you, Northan and Thander Marthus decide that you've collected as much information as you can and to head back to Castle Shan. About four of the ten daytime hours you have were spent riding back and forth (From Castle Shan to Wyst's Town to the Qhirst Mountains to Wyst's Town back to Castle Shan), and another five were spent asking people questions and collecting information.
Back at Castle Shan, you find that you weren't the first group to get back, but nor were you the last. One-armed Sir Galad Forsnith and his squire were back before you were, and Raethus, Sir Boderick Craentitch and Hartwig's grandson arrived shortly after you did. Sir Arthel Haiderling arrived a quarter of an hour after sunset, apparently having gotten lost at some point on his return trip.
Raethus decided to host the strategy meeting before dinner, and the ladies and younger children - including your very pregnant sister-in-law - were all ushered out of the main hall to discus the findings of the day's expeditions.
Your sleep that night was dreamless, as most of your nights are. Nightmares used to plague your nights, but when you were a child some of the elves used their magic to prevent you from dreaming. The only time since then that you've so much as had a dream was when some of the sprites swapped out your bed's headboard with one made of Spiderwood, which apparently interfered with the spell. That night you had a nightmare, but this night your sleep was safe and dreamless.
The sun shone through the curtains to wake you up the next morning.
You ate your regular breakfast in peace, and Garry joined you about halfway through. "My arm's fine," Garry said after you told him of your plans for the day, though he always had a tendency to understate bad things that happen to him. "Really, we should just go to see the Duke of Estermere."
From the outside, Oakwell appeared as if something were off, but when the guards let you through the gates you saw that it was a city that was nearly destroyed. The southern end of the city was very crowded and densely packed, and there was debris everywhere. As you got further into the city, though, things were in worse and worse condition. Many of the cobble roads were damaged, and all the dirt was mud. Further on in the city it was less populated, with many damaged buildings, water up to a man's ankles and several corpses lying in the streets, seemingly drowned. That was the condition that you found the famous Oakwell Square in, a large public area in the centre of the city.
There is no further into the village - it is a very small village, and not one with many amenities. The population can't be more than a hundred people.
"Your majesty, I don't think that Cirthil is going to show up," Said Humphrey.
"Shut up!" Horthon said, half-whispering and half-shouting so that nobody else could hear. "What part of 'secret' do you not understand?"
"The Baron is probably in the inn," Wallace suggested. "His letter indicated that he was already here, so he'd have to be staying somewhere. Hence, the inn - seemingly the only one in town."
The inn was not the sort of place that you would expect to see a nobleman, but that was likely by design on the part of Baron Cirthil. Likewise, you were unable to see Cirthil, but you suspected that he was able to see you. After several minutes of looking around and waiting, a short man with a dark beard and a hood covering his eyes approached you.
"I'm to take you to the Baron, I was told. Just you, not your friends."
"Aye captain, that's understood," Garry said.
"And if this is the damage that the storm caused here, then cities further downriver should all be destroyed," Prue added. "And yet, from the rumours that we heard, Oakwell was hit the hardest of anywhere, and Estermere was barely effected."
"We shouldn't stay here very long, your majesty," Darryl said. "It's not good for the horses to stand around in water like this, and it wouldn't be good for us to dismount. We should head to somewhere where the ground's sturdier and safer." Garry arrives outside with you several minutes later, and you make your way together to the Stone Tower, where the King of Esteremere lives. Despite its name, it is not one of the famous Towers where wizards live, but it was one of five towers made in imitation of them during a time between the reigns of Ghoril and Tarthel when both sides of the Nubarb called the same man "King". The others have fallen into ruin, but the Dukes of Estermere and those who came before them have preserved this one over the millennia.
Despite it being merely an imitation, it was still a grand structure in its own right. It must have been two hundred feet tall from the base to the top, well-fortified and grand. The top three stories have fallen into ruin due to disuse, and truthfully hardly anything above the first four are ever used, but it was still an incredible sight. You've only been within it several times, though everyone in Estermere and for a dozen miles around can look up and marvel at it.
You had to pay a nominally small fee to be able to get in to the grand courtroom, but the guards let you through nonetheless to see the Duke of Esteremere, seated upon his throne, answering petitioners from throughout his realm.
Darryl lead you back through the streets of Oakwell, past the destroyed homes and the homeless, the flooded shops and the corpses, to a manor. Despite the manner being closer to the river than you were earlier, it lay atop a hill and so was spared the worst of the storm. "If I'm not mistaken, this is where the Count of Oakwell lives, Ver," Darryl said, "But I've never been here. The pub that I normally go to for a room when I'm in Oakwell was probably destroyed, though, so I don't know if he has any spare rooms."
Wallace seemed about to object to the danger of it, but he remained silent about it. Your other two vassal-companions didn't offer any objections at all.
The bearded man threw a pouch onto the bar, which made the clinking sound that coins tend to make when it landed, and the barkeeper allowed the two of you through into his back store room. The bearded man looked around some more until he found a box, which you presume was full of food. "Could you help me move this out?" He asked, and as you did so you noticed something peculiar. The box was attached to a rope which was attached to a small hole in the wall, and underneath the box was a man-sized hole in the ground and a ladder leading downwards.
He led you down the ladder into a secret cellar. The cellar must have been twenty or thirty feet underground, and smelled terrible. Whatever it stored smelled more like feces than food, and when the man lit a torch, you saw what the room you were in really was. It was a hallway, with two cells on either side. The cells seemed to be newer than the underground room itself, just iron bars attached to the walls and floor and ceiling. They were empty for the time being, the doors closed, but there was more evidence than just an unchanged chamberpot that there were prisoners here recently.
The man put his torch in a place that could hold it, and then started pulling on a rope. You heard what sounded like wood scraping on wood above you as you realised that the man was closing the way in and out, likely to maintain his secret lair in case anyone were to go here to look for you. Then, he turned to you and knelt down.
"I am sorry for my deception, your majesty," The bearded man said, "And the scenery, but this meeting is very dangerous for me. I am Baron Cirthil Holmsbury. I know what you're going to ask of me, and I will swear fealty to you and aid you in conquering Mescor, on one condition. I desire to be named Count of Mescor."
"They're all very clearly former soldiers," Arthel Haiderling said. "When the men of Bistown tried to fight back, they were outflanked and surrounded before surrendering. Most are wounded, and some died. Whoever's in charge is a strategic thinker." Surrounding your enemy is one of the most basic rules of tactical warfare, so the bandit may not have been a very good strategic thinker, but you have heard of bandits who can't even accomplish that. He went into more detail about the skirmish, and from what you could gather, the men of Bistown only lost because they didn't even have anyone giving them orders. You'll be able to outthink this bandit with ease.
"I have nothing quite like that to report, except that they stole all of the horses that were in Mayweir," Galad Forsnith offered. "They had maybe four or five horses between the twenty of them when they arrived, but they've been using the stolen horses from Mayweir for a couple weeks now. There's no telling where their leaders got the first couple horses from, though - maybe they had a little bit of money before turning to banditry, or maybe they stole individual horses as highwaymen before attacking these villages."
"Sir Boderick and I found a small mountain pass in the Qhirst range that looks like it may lead to their lair," Sir Raethus said, "Though I haven't a clue where they're putting their horses if that is their lair."
"Bread for six 'tins, an egg for eight, some meat for a dozen." "I wasn't quick to jump ship, your majesty. I received your note days before I sent my response, guessing at what you would ask me and what reasons would be there for me to change sides. I convinced myself that it's to my own benefit to side with you after days of private deliberation. And it's true that you don't need me to conquer Mescor, but you will need me to hold it - I grew up in the County of Mescor, I know all the politicians there and many people, and I more than anyone else know how to convince them not to rebel. Besides, if you grant me Mescor, you may encourage other noblemen throughout Old Thasia to flock to your banners instead of those of your enemies, if they think that you're likely to grant lands to them."
"It was confirmation of the rest of our findings, at least," Raethus said. "One source may be faulty, but not two. We know where the bandits are, how they move and where they might attack. Now all we ned to do is come up with a plan."
"We'll also need to mobilise the peasants into some force that might be able to fight," Northan suggested. "The men of Bistown, unfortunately, may be unable to assist us, but Wyst's Town and Mayweir will be able to offer men, from the sounds of things."
You eat breakfast without incident, and manage to pay for access to Calbourne Castle. The interior of the castle was just as beautiful as the exterior, with a high-vaulted ceiling and lots of sitting space for people to observe as the king presented his court. One of the guards inside, who seemed to be in charge of crowd control, approached you and asked you a question. "Are you a petitioner, or simply here to watch the king's judgements?"
Before you had an opportunity to respond, however, a familiar face approaches and answers for you. "His father was Baron Gavance Adderant," Sir Trihem says for you. "The Adderants may have lost their land decades ago, but the lad's still of noble birth. Lad, I told you your name seemed familiar yesterday, didn't I?"
Basically the only thing that people talked about was the storm. Farmers talked about how it destroyed their harvests, fishermen talked about how it lost their ship and knights and minor noblemen talked about how it scared people away from the river and chased them to their lands. However, nobody who spoke was actually in the worst of the Great Storm, as they were calling it, but rather were effected by it more indirectly. To each of the petitions, the Duke made a decision to send men or resources or money to help the problem, until at last it was your turn.
Darryl and Perrin did as you asked, leading all eight of your horses towards the stables. When the door was opened, you were able to look in and see the great hall of the castle. Rather than the neat rows of petitioners that you were used to in Courtdell and other places you visited, you were instead met with what appeared to be a makeshift hospital. Even the throne area was replaced by hospital beds and surgical equipment.
A man in red clothing approached you. "Are you or your companion injured?" He asked, his voice muffled through a thick cloth mask that covered his mouth and nose.
"Neither of us are injured," Prue said. "We're here to see Count Ballus. This is Duke Verous III, of Datha."
"I didn't know, your majesty," The surgeon said. "I'll take you to him now." "We seem to have two main options," Raethus suggested, "Either we can rally up and arm the peasants to attack them, or we can try to figure out which town they'll attack next, fortify that and stop them there."
"The court of... Autumn? As in the season?" The guard asked.
"You don't mean... The court of autumn as in the faerie court, do you?" Sir Trihem asked.
The surgeon led you and Prue to a back room, full of food rations in crates being moved about. The surgeon led the two of you to the portly, bald man in finery who was organizing the whole operation, and you heard a bit of what he was saying before he saw you.
"Three barrels of apples... That won't last very long, with the number of sick. We need more shipments of food, Al, no matter what the cost to me personally is."
"My lord," The surgeon said to the man - presumably Count Ballus - "I present to you Duke Verous, and his companion..."
"Prue," She finished for him.
"And his companion Prue. They have come to aid you in your efforts," The surgeon said.
The count turned at that and looked at you, sizing you up. He was slightly taller than you, and not quite as bald as he first appeared - his thin blonde hair was just too similar in colour to his skin for you to see it at first, and though he looked ugly, he was at the very least seeming to be doing his best to help the people.
"Your majesty," The count said, "I am sorry that I was unable to attend your father's funeral. He was a friend of mine once, though it's been years since I've seen him. I had important matters to attend to here, and then the storm tried to destroy my city and I'm glad I was here so that I could help my citizens. People are displaced, foodstores were destroyed, farmland as well, and whole crops lost. The forest to the west of my city has turned into a bog, and people are starving."
The man who Count Ballus was speaking to earlier seems to have gone to do his task, whatever it was. "I have an option even better than siding with you openly. When Arnil var Mescor sees you crossing into his territory, he will call his war-councils and try to force a pitched battle. I can be your agent within Arnil's war councils, I can turn other barons and knights over to the idea of surrendering more quickly in the event of Arnil seeming to lose and then, when he inevitably gives my men an important position within his ranks, I can turn on him, taking him by surprise. If he positions me in the rear, which is a position I will try to acquire, we can much more easily surround his forces. If he puts me on a flank you can focus your armies on the other, leading to another easy victory. If he puts me in the centre, we'll be effectively splitting his army in two."
The way that he spoke it seemed already a foregone conclusion that he was on your side, and not that of Count Arnil. Whether he was greedy, or if he thought that you simply had the best chance of winning, or if he had some personal enmity against Arnil, he seemed to have gone past the negotiations on whether he'd swap sides and onto how he'd do so.
"Right in the centre of the storm, you say?" Asked the Duke. He was a tall, thin man, with pale-blonde hair cut short and done neatly, and his inquisitive voice sounded just as you'd have expected from his appearance. "I've been dealing with many questions about the storm for days now, and your account would be very helpful. My wizards have gone to look for magical causes closer to where the storm itself had hit, but I will have a messenger convey your account to them. I believe that Brother Norin, a priest of Lord Ynedar, is in attendance today as well, and he will surely be listening for any religious, godly or cosmological aspects of your story... Anyway, please tell us all everything that you can remember of the storm. It will be of great help to me in dealing with its aftermath."
"I'm keeping a close watch on the food already, your majesty," The count said, "It's just that we don't seem to have enough of it. Most locations that would be good for treating large numbers of injured were right on the riverfront. My palace isn't normally a hospital, you know."
"What about inns and taverns?" Prue offered, "We could use any spare beds there to house the homeless and injured, and pay the innkeepers for letting them stay there from royal funds - if you don't mind the expense, that is, Ver."
"It's no use," The Count said. "There were manors and other wealthy estates near the river, and those rich enough to afford to do so have already rented out what rooms are available."
"Then we need to mobilise the peasants and move to attack the bandits in their hide-out," Raethus said. "I've instructed them to practice fighting with spears and in basic formations, but they're not soldiers. Further, they have harvesting to attend to. If we get word out tomorrow that we need to mobilise them the day after, we can strike then, but they won't be able to attack on a moment's notice."
"There are twenty bandits," Galad said, "And eight of us who can fight." He was counting you, Raethus, Northan, Arthel, Boderick and the four squires - they don't call him one-armed Galad Forsnith for nothing. "If we can split them into groups, pick them off more slowly, we won't even need a peasant army."
"If we could get Nizeston to fly down here and personally eat the bandits, we wouldn't have to do anything," Sir Boderick said. "It's all well and good to suggest that we do something, but what matters is how we do that. How do you propose... What, quartering them might be the easiest safe option? Without them finding out about it? We lure off and beat up five of them, the rest figure out what's happening and don't split up."
"I've dealt with fey powers before, lad, but only individually. You say you have a letter from the whole court?" Sir Trihem asked.
"It seems like the right season for the autumn court, at least," The guard said, in a slightly different tone than the one he used earlier. "It makes more sense than the spring court sending letters at this time of year."
"That's... That's not exactly how faeries work, I think," Trihem said. "Then again, the rules with them seem to change from pixie to pixie, so what do I know? Anyway, you'll probably want a private audience with King Arthel rather than to deliver your letter as publicly as this."
"You two are being serious?" The guard asked, changing his tone of voice back to his earlier one. "I can't tell if this is some elaborate prank or not. I'll put you down for a private audience, then. If Sir Trihem vouches for you, which it seems he does, you'll have no troubles getting that." He then left to bother the rest of the crowd.
"What in God's name is your history with the fey, lad?" Sir Trihem asked. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, but I want answers. Your family was destroyed years ago, you were presumed dead, and now you come out of nowhere with a letter for the king from a faerie queen?"
"I will let you out now," The Baron said. He walked back towards the ladder and pulled on a lever, which caused the crate covering his underground bunker to open back up. "Don't bother with the trapdoor, I'll deal with it myself," He said after the two of you exited his secret chamber. You left the inn's storeroom to find Sir Wallace and barons Horthon and Humphrey spread throughout the inn, watching it for any potential ambushes or attacks.
Wallace greeted you as you saw him. "Your majesty, how did the meeting go?" He asked after the four of you left the inn.
"Then tomorrow we could split up again," Raethus suggested. "One group, led by Othan, will travel to each of the villages, rallying the peasants, ensuring that they're properly armed and equipped and ready to attack the following day. I'll lead the other group, a scouting mission to go along the mountain trail that we discovered and find out what we can about the bandits numbers and defences from firsthand observation."
"You were raised by faeries?" Sir Trihem asked. "While this is a good story, I would very much appreciate the truth." It's clear that he didn't believe you.
"I... I have never heard of a storm laughing," Duke Palron said, taken aback by the intensity of your tale, "But I've never heard of a storm quite that bad either. I would like to hear your navigator's account of the story, and accounts from your other crew and the passengers aboard your ship. Your vessel was the Fortuna, you said? Garin, would you please hand me the logbook... The one bound in red leather, yes..." He looked in the logbook, and then spoke again. "The damage you reported is the same that the dockhands found in the assessment of your ship. And from these dates you certainly could have been in the middle of the storm.
"Laughter, you said?" He asked again. "I've read in a book on physiology that oftentimes hearing a loud sound will make you hear a quieter sound within it, even one that's not there. Sounds that loud can often make people go deaf, though, or cause even worse damage."
The next man to speak was Brother Norin, the priest. "Your majesty, captain, good people of Estermere, the laughter that captain Melling heard was none other than the laughter of Ybris. He was laughing at the destruction that he caused through the storm, and at his attempt to foil Lord Ynedar."
"As you command, your majesty," Prue said. "I'll be right on it."
"Clean drinking water as well, please," Count Ballus added. "We used to get it primarily from the river, but the riverwater is not very clean anymore due to the storm and the wells that weren't damaged aren't enough to support the entire city. Actually, wine might be best, to avoid any confusion about what water is clean."
"Medics, food, blankets, water and wine. I don't think I should leave immediately, in case there's anything that we're not thinking of right now, so that we don't need to send Darryl after me." "Forlon... Ah yes, I know Forlon. He'd be a good addition," Raethus said. "What should the split be? I was thinking it would be Northan, Boderick and I doing the scouting, while you, Galad and Arthel travel to the villages."
"Can you prove it?" Trihem asked. "Maybe your letter contains some proof of that, but it's for the king to read, you said."
"Hopefully Vena will also turn to our side," Humphrey said. "Mescor might be even easier than Atrekara if we have both of them."
"I'd be very concerned if both Cirthil and Vena changed to our side that easily," Wallace said. "If Mescorian barons are too fickle, what's to stop them from changing sides yet again when someone offers them a better deal?"
"Because Ybris is evil," Brother Norin said, as though it were the most obvious statement in the world.
"There are maybe two thousand men in able condition, but most are working to save themselves and their families. There are maybe five hundred people volunteering to repair the flooded sections of the city, but many of them are rescuing people, ensuring that the food stores remain safe and dealing with other tasks. Oakwell doesn't have the manpower that we need right now." The ride back to Norbury was uneventful, though it would have been much faster on Solmyr's back. Norbury was much as you left it when you returned. Hallon Talsworth greeted you briefly outside of the city, but didn't go in with you. Hallon's cousin, Herwin, was in the entry hall of the palace, having a conversation with Sir Oswald of your engineering corps. The Redscar was nowhere to be seen, but you were quickly approached by your highest-ranked vassal.
"Your majesty," Count Herwig Otterberg began, "I have some pressing matters of state to discus with you, if you have the time to hear me out. It has to do with the books and supply of Darmen var Norbury. The city and surrounding countryside can not continue to support your army for much longer without some significant rationing. You'll either have to press on with the campaign soon - and I mean within a handful of days - or disband the armies, raising them back up come springtime. Count Darmen did not stock for winter properly at all."
It was as you said would happen - nobody offered any further objections. Instead, all that occurred was simply a matter of clarification. "Our squires are going to be accompanying us, right?" Sir Arthel asked.
"Of course they are," Raethus answered. "And the numbers work out nicely as well - there will be five men in each party, three knights and two squires each. Well, six in our party, once we recruit Forlon.
"If nobody has any further questions about or objections to the plan, the women and children can rejoin us for dinner," Raethus said.
Trihem unsheathed the dagger about halfway, revealing a blade just as curious as the sheath. The metal was blacker than any that you've ever seen, and was both a gaping pit of nothing and something that shone in the light. There was something that you at first thought to be a fuller, but upon closer inspection was actually an engraving of a tree-trunk, with branches of a stark white colour contrasting beautifully with the rest of the dagger.
"This is unlike any blade that I've ever seen," Trihem said, looking at some of the light that refracted off of the orange ruby in the pommel. "It could very well have been faerie made, and it has patterns here on the sheath indicating autumn... It's amazing. You clearly have some tie to the Autumn Court, and I don't see why you'd lie about what that tie is. Your next drink at the Black Goose is on me, to make up for questioning you and doubting your honour like that."
He resheathed the blade and handed it back to you, though he seemed slightly hesitant to let go of it.
It wasn't Brother Norin who answered, but Duke Palron. "Not a blue dragon by himself, but if they were aided by magic of some kind it might be possible. If your immediate thoughts are of Nizeston, the dragon-king of Orevod, then I would cast those aside quickly - I have reached an arrangement with a rival of his, so that should he attempt to strike at us he will be attacked by his rival. If it was a different dragon, however, the most likely cause would be a natural death - many have a tendency to release some elemental energy into the world upon their death, or so I've read. Still, that would be unlikely, as there are no blue dragons of that age anywhere near the Nubarb. King Malcolm has kept a very meticulous list of all dragons in the Eredalian countryside, and of most in Vrelon, Traketus, Elusia and Orevod."
"It might be best to let the horses rest first, at least, so that they don't die on the road back," Prue said. "It would slow me down tremendously more to have to walk to Courtdell without a horse because mine died under me than to wait a day for them to be at least somewhat rested."
"I'll give you one of my palfreys," Count Ballus proposed. "Quite a few drowned in the flood, but the ones that are still alive are well-rested and would be able to take you to Courtdell very quickly - maybe not quite as quickly as you rode down here, but in short time nonetheless."
"Even so, I think that Darryl would be faster than I would be," Prue said. "Nobody is more experienced with the countryside than he is, and if speed is of the utmost importance - which it seems to be - there are few who are faster riders than he is." She seemed almost as if she were searching for excuses to remain in Oakwell.
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