End of Empires - N3S III
- Thread starter North King
- Start date
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
“I heard he wields an axe of ice that never melts.”
“Hah! That is a lie. He kills with his hands, like a wild ape of the jungle.”
“Excuse me tradesman, do you know of the one whom we seek?”
“By the mask, I am a godfearing man.”
“We are not wolves, or Sensora. A simple question.”
“Ten sini, ten sini, fresh flanks of beef! Ten sini, ten sini, fresh flanks of beef!”
“I give you eight.”
“Tsch! And starve like a slave? Nine or the back of you.”
“Please, my shop…”
“So you do know this man?”
“I heard he calls the storm, and it carries him where he wills.”
“Watch where you walk, caste-blood.”
“Lampreys and eels, fruits of the sea kingdom! Live lampreys, live eels!”
“I heard he prays to darker gods in secret.”
“I saw the man, once. Only once! We never spoke, I swear it by snake and tree!”
“He is the next Avatar, he is…”
“Would you come with us? You will be safe.”
“Back to work!”
---
The boy was raised in the Temple District, in a home watched over by the Oracles of the God. The Redeemer had ordained several such homes be built for abandoned children, and they were put to useful work throughout the capital that large men could not easily do. For the thousandth time the stupid called the Redeemer weak, and the wise saw him as he truly was. But that is another story.
He woke up, as he did every day, in a great pile of blankets and cushions and children. His job began early, so he stepped quickly and quietly over the splayed limbs of his brothers and sisters with the unconscious dexterity that only children have. Passing out of the sleeping rooms, he stepped lightly into the temple courtyard in the grey twilight, his feet patting lightly on the stone. Two mourning doves pecked at the ground in front of the small fountain, fluttering into the trees as he ran by. The boy quickly ran through this cool space of trickling water and dappled tree-shadows, not even noticing the two Oracles on the other side of the fountain, their bodies balanced motionlessly on one leg in the Form of Preparation. They noticed him.
His feet now slapped on blue tiles as he ran through the long stone entryway, the sounds of the outside world growing louder, and louder still. There was an old man dozing behind the gates, whose existence the child took for granted as much as the temple and the world that he lived in. He poked him in the shoulder, and the man started, blinking sleepily. The boy waited, silent and impatient, as the old man creakily unlocked the gates, and the boy was off like a shot, weaving between a flock of goats being driven to the market for slaughter and a trundling cart piled high with pottery.
Temple District was only a few decades old, but it was already densely populated. Unlike the wide, planned streets of Eshvadai and High Harbor, the District was a chaotic tangle of narrow, twisting alleyways that had grown up around the temples, pure and pagan, that had been built in the center of the city. In thirty seconds the boy ran past a Ytauzi prayer hall which jostled next to a lighthouse of Manin, and several small shrines to fertility deities, some probably crypto-Aitahist in nature. Mendicant priests of Yleth were sometimes seen as well, but were not allowed a temple. Towering over these were a variety of Ardavani religious buildings, some monastic and some oracular. The rivalry between the two sects had grown fierce in recent years, with many monks accused of treason after the failed rebellion of the Aspect Master.
But the boy did not know these things. He simply ran through the packed streets of his world, darting up a public staircase, ducking into an alleyway, and then bursting out into the clear at the Jahanai, the great square before the inner walls of High Harbor. There stood a massive bronze statue of Jahan the Conqueror astride his horse, wearing symbols of the Accans, Vithana, and Satar, and pointing his sword to the north. The boy did not take note of the impressive statue, or of the men burning incense before it. He ran up to the open gates of High Harbor, where the guards, Accans with wickedly sharp halberds, waved him through. His mask, vertically divided into blue and white with silver runes painted on, was his passage into High Harbor.
Within these walls, there was no more cart traffic, wandering priests or penitents. A warship glided hawk-like across a glittering bay. Men marched in lockstep to commands delivered in curt Accan that sounded strange to his ears. The high walls stretched along the arms of the bay into the sea itself in a great arc, ending in two identical towers, the leftmost one still surrounded by a cloud of scaffolding. Between them was nothing but empty sky, colored pink with the onset of the dawn, and a great chain of metal links.
He climbed up a staircase, accidentally jostling a guard who cursed, and trotted along the top of the walls, jumping over half-assembled ballistae as he went. The towers were his object, for two reasons.
One, they gave him food there. Lentil stew and brown bread. If he came late, he would not eat until sundown. Second, his job was here, a job that earned him a precious copper sini every five days.
He stared into the sun.
This day was like every other day. The boy watched the horizon from a tiny balcony atop the tower as the wind harshly blew into his face. He knew the difference between warships and transports, merchant haulers and fishing boats. Certain arrivals warranted the pulling of a string that rang a bell, and men would make decisions about whether to lower or raise the harbor chain, to send a ship to hail the stranger or fire a warning shot.
He was given a horn, which he was to blow under one condition. If he made an error, he would be badly beaten. If he delayed long enough for less keen eyes to see what was coming, he would be replaced. So, it was a fun job. He had a treasure, a small piece of dark glass he had stolen from one of the glaziers serving the ever-expanding Sephashim. Holding it over his eyes, he could see clearly.
Something was coming, he could see, as the sun finally crested the waves. Out of the north.
Something…no…somethings.
He hesitated for a brief moment, staring with all his might at the sea. And then he grabbed the horn, lifted it up, and blew with all his might.
Below in High Harbor, military drills ground to a halt. And then chaos.
Within the hour the word was passed up the chain of command. A rider had been sent to the Eshvada. From there he bullied his way through the typically labyrinthine bureaucratic processes that consumed any palace, and strode into the Chamber of Binding itself, the inner sanctum of private audiences and councils. A masked man and a woman sat alone.
“My scion,” the exhausted rider gasped. “The Prince of Bone comes.”
The Redeemer rose, placing his hand on the rider’s shoulder. He trembled, to be so close to the human model of perfection.
“Give me your name and your tribe, boy.”
“K…Karhae. Of the Shield.”
“You have done well, Karhae of the Shield. Rest and eat in my palace barracks, and do the same for your horse. Elikas will hear of your perseverance.”
The man bowed at the waist, tears shining in his eyes. “My life is but a seed in your hands, o Redeemer.” He strode out.
“You were not so kind to me when I told you the news,” said the woman, wryly but warmly. “What of MY horse?”
“He might be called upon to die for me one day, idiot or not,” said the Redeemer.
The woman cocked her head in a gesture that even outside of mask-culture denoted skepticism. “And I am told Cyve is a very safe place for beautiful women.”
Avetas laughed. “Well put. Then are you ready to embrace your fate, Lady Nekelia?”
The young woman tilted her head upwards in acceptance.
---
“Great walls never hide great warriors.”
The Prince of Bone sniffed and spat over the rail of his ship, refusing to be cowed by the Redeemer’s city. If he was privately impressed by the scale of the fortifications, he refused to give it away.
But his eyes did flick over the battlements, taking in the movement of troops in thick silver plate armor on the shore, their outlandishly long pikes, and the siege engines.
“You look like we are sailing into a battle,” wheezed Artaxeras. “This is no trap, my friend. It is home.”
Beneath his mask Fulwarc’s expression darkened further.
“Welcome home.”
“Hah! That is a lie. He kills with his hands, like a wild ape of the jungle.”
“Excuse me tradesman, do you know of the one whom we seek?”
“By the mask, I am a godfearing man.”
“We are not wolves, or Sensora. A simple question.”
“Ten sini, ten sini, fresh flanks of beef! Ten sini, ten sini, fresh flanks of beef!”
“I give you eight.”
“Tsch! And starve like a slave? Nine or the back of you.”
“Please, my shop…”
“So you do know this man?”
“I heard he calls the storm, and it carries him where he wills.”
“Watch where you walk, caste-blood.”
“Lampreys and eels, fruits of the sea kingdom! Live lampreys, live eels!”
“I heard he prays to darker gods in secret.”
“I saw the man, once. Only once! We never spoke, I swear it by snake and tree!”
“He is the next Avatar, he is…”
“Would you come with us? You will be safe.”
“Back to work!”
---
The boy was raised in the Temple District, in a home watched over by the Oracles of the God. The Redeemer had ordained several such homes be built for abandoned children, and they were put to useful work throughout the capital that large men could not easily do. For the thousandth time the stupid called the Redeemer weak, and the wise saw him as he truly was. But that is another story.
He woke up, as he did every day, in a great pile of blankets and cushions and children. His job began early, so he stepped quickly and quietly over the splayed limbs of his brothers and sisters with the unconscious dexterity that only children have. Passing out of the sleeping rooms, he stepped lightly into the temple courtyard in the grey twilight, his feet patting lightly on the stone. Two mourning doves pecked at the ground in front of the small fountain, fluttering into the trees as he ran by. The boy quickly ran through this cool space of trickling water and dappled tree-shadows, not even noticing the two Oracles on the other side of the fountain, their bodies balanced motionlessly on one leg in the Form of Preparation. They noticed him.
His feet now slapped on blue tiles as he ran through the long stone entryway, the sounds of the outside world growing louder, and louder still. There was an old man dozing behind the gates, whose existence the child took for granted as much as the temple and the world that he lived in. He poked him in the shoulder, and the man started, blinking sleepily. The boy waited, silent and impatient, as the old man creakily unlocked the gates, and the boy was off like a shot, weaving between a flock of goats being driven to the market for slaughter and a trundling cart piled high with pottery.
Temple District was only a few decades old, but it was already densely populated. Unlike the wide, planned streets of Eshvadai and High Harbor, the District was a chaotic tangle of narrow, twisting alleyways that had grown up around the temples, pure and pagan, that had been built in the center of the city. In thirty seconds the boy ran past a Ytauzi prayer hall which jostled next to a lighthouse of Manin, and several small shrines to fertility deities, some probably crypto-Aitahist in nature. Mendicant priests of Yleth were sometimes seen as well, but were not allowed a temple. Towering over these were a variety of Ardavani religious buildings, some monastic and some oracular. The rivalry between the two sects had grown fierce in recent years, with many monks accused of treason after the failed rebellion of the Aspect Master.
But the boy did not know these things. He simply ran through the packed streets of his world, darting up a public staircase, ducking into an alleyway, and then bursting out into the clear at the Jahanai, the great square before the inner walls of High Harbor. There stood a massive bronze statue of Jahan the Conqueror astride his horse, wearing symbols of the Accans, Vithana, and Satar, and pointing his sword to the north. The boy did not take note of the impressive statue, or of the men burning incense before it. He ran up to the open gates of High Harbor, where the guards, Accans with wickedly sharp halberds, waved him through. His mask, vertically divided into blue and white with silver runes painted on, was his passage into High Harbor.
Within these walls, there was no more cart traffic, wandering priests or penitents. A warship glided hawk-like across a glittering bay. Men marched in lockstep to commands delivered in curt Accan that sounded strange to his ears. The high walls stretched along the arms of the bay into the sea itself in a great arc, ending in two identical towers, the leftmost one still surrounded by a cloud of scaffolding. Between them was nothing but empty sky, colored pink with the onset of the dawn, and a great chain of metal links.
He climbed up a staircase, accidentally jostling a guard who cursed, and trotted along the top of the walls, jumping over half-assembled ballistae as he went. The towers were his object, for two reasons.
One, they gave him food there. Lentil stew and brown bread. If he came late, he would not eat until sundown. Second, his job was here, a job that earned him a precious copper sini every five days.
He stared into the sun.
This day was like every other day. The boy watched the horizon from a tiny balcony atop the tower as the wind harshly blew into his face. He knew the difference between warships and transports, merchant haulers and fishing boats. Certain arrivals warranted the pulling of a string that rang a bell, and men would make decisions about whether to lower or raise the harbor chain, to send a ship to hail the stranger or fire a warning shot.
He was given a horn, which he was to blow under one condition. If he made an error, he would be badly beaten. If he delayed long enough for less keen eyes to see what was coming, he would be replaced. So, it was a fun job. He had a treasure, a small piece of dark glass he had stolen from one of the glaziers serving the ever-expanding Sephashim. Holding it over his eyes, he could see clearly.
Something was coming, he could see, as the sun finally crested the waves. Out of the north.
Something…no…somethings.
He hesitated for a brief moment, staring with all his might at the sea. And then he grabbed the horn, lifted it up, and blew with all his might.
Below in High Harbor, military drills ground to a halt. And then chaos.
Within the hour the word was passed up the chain of command. A rider had been sent to the Eshvada. From there he bullied his way through the typically labyrinthine bureaucratic processes that consumed any palace, and strode into the Chamber of Binding itself, the inner sanctum of private audiences and councils. A masked man and a woman sat alone.
“My scion,” the exhausted rider gasped. “The Prince of Bone comes.”
The Redeemer rose, placing his hand on the rider’s shoulder. He trembled, to be so close to the human model of perfection.
“Give me your name and your tribe, boy.”
“K…Karhae. Of the Shield.”
“You have done well, Karhae of the Shield. Rest and eat in my palace barracks, and do the same for your horse. Elikas will hear of your perseverance.”
The man bowed at the waist, tears shining in his eyes. “My life is but a seed in your hands, o Redeemer.” He strode out.
“You were not so kind to me when I told you the news,” said the woman, wryly but warmly. “What of MY horse?”
“He might be called upon to die for me one day, idiot or not,” said the Redeemer.
The woman cocked her head in a gesture that even outside of mask-culture denoted skepticism. “And I am told Cyve is a very safe place for beautiful women.”
Avetas laughed. “Well put. Then are you ready to embrace your fate, Lady Nekelia?”
The young woman tilted her head upwards in acceptance.
---
“Great walls never hide great warriors.”
The Prince of Bone sniffed and spat over the rail of his ship, refusing to be cowed by the Redeemer’s city. If he was privately impressed by the scale of the fortifications, he refused to give it away.
But his eyes did flick over the battlements, taking in the movement of troops in thick silver plate armor on the shore, their outlandishly long pikes, and the siege engines.
“You look like we are sailing into a battle,” wheezed Artaxeras. “This is no trap, my friend. It is home.”
Beneath his mask Fulwarc’s expression darkened further.
“Welcome home.”
Kraznaya
Princeps
The town of dreams, the Savirai called it, and on a day such as this, Amritan could see why. Caon was calm as the sea breeze blew in with the coming of sunset, splashing the waves with red and orange and casting long shadows behind the houses of mud brick. On the bluffs of Hightown, he could make out the common-folk returning home from market, but he heard only the cries of gulls and pelicans, soaring over the horizon in search of their supper.
It was not always this calm, he knew. Almost forty years ago, the late Moon-Emperor had come west, demanding the submission of his uncle, pressing an old claim of the Nahari from which the Nahsjad had long protected them. But by then the Nahsjad had broken and splintered, and the one the Savirai called their Goddess, that they claimed was daughter of Manin, rode at his side in brilliant red, and the wards urged the old king to battle to oppose what they saw as her sacrilegious claims. Lynatir, who had always known pride far more than prudence, had ridden out to meet him in the dusty plains east of the city .The King of Astria was drowned in the field of blood and fire, along with the heart of his army and all but one of his brothers: Symmachus, who bent his knee to Savirai Emperor and remained king to this day. For a few years, Caon had become a hub of activity: the base of operations from which the Moon-Emperor had supplied his attack on the Peko to the west. But then the Moon-Emperor’s health waned and his star fell from the sky, his widow-regent and his son turned their attention elsewhere, and the Savirai left the little kingdom to slumber in its own dreams.
His father. So many had called him a traitor, but he had brought them peace, and Caon had been saved from the true fury of war. And for that, Amritan was glad. The Savirai had hung the bright red banners emblazoned with the likeness of their goddess from their temples and keeps, a goddess Amritan was unsure would ever be his, but Caon was still very much the same, pious and peaceful and undisturbed. And now… Symmachus was dying. He had been dying, slowly, for months now, and the realization made Amritan feel a chill crawl down his spine in fear and uncertainty. The new Moon-Emperor had been only a boy when he had taken the throne, and he was as ambitious as his father, seizing the reins of war with forceful certainty. Those who still feared and hated the goddess in their hearts also hated him, Amritan knew, for the emperor marched not south or even west, but north, into the heart of the old faith itself, into Gallat. And they hated his family too, for they had knelt to the emperor, and renounced the wards and their influence. If they smelled an opportunity… there would be blood on Caon’s mud-brick walls.
The temple of the goddess in Hightown had long been a temple of the Light, raised by the Astrians in a gesture of gratitude to the Faith and its adherents who had protected them from great enemies. Beyond the great keep of Caon, it was the tallest building in the city, overlooking the bluffs with solemn clay walls and muted arches arranged in colonnade. When that protection finally failed and the Savirai entered the city, they had draped red banners from its ceilings, and carved a likeness of their goddess in marble to serve as its centerpiece. The priests of the goddess did not discriminate amongst their flock, however, and many who still prayed only to the Light remained there to worship on holy days.
Today, however, was not a holy day. Amritan had never felt the calling, of either the old Faith or the new, but at the temple there was peace. A prayer for my father, and for Astria, he thought as he walked into Hall of Contemplation.
No priest greeted him. Something was wrong. The temple was a place of quiet, but there was an eerie stillness here, something inhuman that filled his gut with fear.
“Taran?” He called into the temple. “Are you here?”
No voice answered. Amritan walked deeper into the sanctuary.
“Prince Amritan. I… expected to see you here. It is my pleasure,” The voice came cool and quiet, from the direction of the central alter.
Amritan turned. “Chancellor…? Serkitus, I had not expected to find you here,” he said stiffly. A jolt ran up his spine as he saw that the chancellor was clothed in the white robes of the old Faith, which a member of the king’s council had not worn in decades. “You have… soiled your sword.”
“Indeed, Amritan. But the blood of the idolaters will soon be purified from all that remains holy,” Serkitus raised his weapon, pointing it at the marble statue of the goddess which towered before the alter of the temple. “Soon, all will be purified before the totality of the Light.”
Amritan glanced up, his mortal eyes meeting the goddess’s of stoic stone. This rendition had been done by an Astrian sculptor, he remembered, who had modeled her after Juliana, an old Astrian goddess of justice from the days before the Light. Her hands held the scales of justice. Aitah was not blind like Juliana, but her eyes stared straight ahead, aloof and divine.
He saw that the rafters above her head were empty, to his dismay.
“My father swore an oath, Serkitus. The Savirai bestowed upon us the gift of mercy, and we owe them their loyalty,” Amritan did not move.
“Mercy? You call this mercy?” Serkitus gestured furiously with his bloodied sword at the marble idol. “This… insult… is the furthest thing from mercy. To see us kneel and play out this farce of obeisance as we dance to their puppeteer strings… I can no longer abide by this. Will no longer.”
“You have abided it for all your life, and your father before you,” Amritan said coolly.
“No longer,” Serkitus spat. “Your father is dead, yes, I have made very sure of that, and soon you will join him, in the hell of your whore goddess. Once we knelt to the Moon-Emperors at the point of the sword, but that sword is pointed at us no longer. The Nahsjad are joined from across the seas by the Opulensi and the Satar, and soon they will burn the idolaters from the desert holes from whence they came…”
Six well armed men, all dressed in white robes, joined the chancellor. They dragged the bodies of priests and priestesses in red robes, their throats cut. They began upending gigantic jugs, pouring oil onto the stone floor.
“Yes, yes,” Serkitus nodded, his eyes frantic with hate. “This place… must be purified. Your time is at an end. We will never kneel again. The bltch goddess will burn.” He pointed his sword forward, and his men stepped forward toward Amritan, swords drawn. Now all of the ground around them had been covered slick with oil.
Amritan turned his back on the conspirators. “We knelt to the wards and to the Nahsjad before we knelt to the Emperor. You do not truly seek vengeance, Serkitus. Not when there was no true crime done to us, not when you and your ilk have enjoyed this peace of nearly four decades. You seek power, as the wards always have. Your treason will be answered. Astria will endure.”
Serkitus screamed in rage at his insouciance, and dropped a torch to the ground, setting it alight. The men came after him, running behind him to block his escape. “You will die here, traitor!”
“I think not. I still have friends in my home, Serkitus.”
The arrows rained down from the rafters, and Amritan was already, running, running, running for the exit as the flames snapped at his feet.
“COWARD!” Serkitus screeched after him, even as his body was consumed by a rain of arrows and the flood of his own flames. "COWARD!" the word echoed between the clay walls, before it was drowned by shrieks of pain and death.
* * *
“Your father passed away this morning, your exce- majesty. We thought to alert your majesty, but we could not find you within the keep.”
“I- I understand. We will mourn him - I will mourn him - and they who killed him will pay in kind. But we have urgent matters to attend. Send my regards to the captain of the north guard tower. Tell him to go to the old hovel down by the fishing wharf, the third house from the cypress tree. He is to arrest everyone that finds there, and bring them to the keep. Send a fast rider to Hrn, thanking the empress for her counsel and confirming what has happened. She will understand how to proceed from there.”
“As I hear, I do. Anything else, your majesty?”
“Convene the council. Assemble the army.”
It was not always this calm, he knew. Almost forty years ago, the late Moon-Emperor had come west, demanding the submission of his uncle, pressing an old claim of the Nahari from which the Nahsjad had long protected them. But by then the Nahsjad had broken and splintered, and the one the Savirai called their Goddess, that they claimed was daughter of Manin, rode at his side in brilliant red, and the wards urged the old king to battle to oppose what they saw as her sacrilegious claims. Lynatir, who had always known pride far more than prudence, had ridden out to meet him in the dusty plains east of the city .The King of Astria was drowned in the field of blood and fire, along with the heart of his army and all but one of his brothers: Symmachus, who bent his knee to Savirai Emperor and remained king to this day. For a few years, Caon had become a hub of activity: the base of operations from which the Moon-Emperor had supplied his attack on the Peko to the west. But then the Moon-Emperor’s health waned and his star fell from the sky, his widow-regent and his son turned their attention elsewhere, and the Savirai left the little kingdom to slumber in its own dreams.
His father. So many had called him a traitor, but he had brought them peace, and Caon had been saved from the true fury of war. And for that, Amritan was glad. The Savirai had hung the bright red banners emblazoned with the likeness of their goddess from their temples and keeps, a goddess Amritan was unsure would ever be his, but Caon was still very much the same, pious and peaceful and undisturbed. And now… Symmachus was dying. He had been dying, slowly, for months now, and the realization made Amritan feel a chill crawl down his spine in fear and uncertainty. The new Moon-Emperor had been only a boy when he had taken the throne, and he was as ambitious as his father, seizing the reins of war with forceful certainty. Those who still feared and hated the goddess in their hearts also hated him, Amritan knew, for the emperor marched not south or even west, but north, into the heart of the old faith itself, into Gallat. And they hated his family too, for they had knelt to the emperor, and renounced the wards and their influence. If they smelled an opportunity… there would be blood on Caon’s mud-brick walls.
The temple of the goddess in Hightown had long been a temple of the Light, raised by the Astrians in a gesture of gratitude to the Faith and its adherents who had protected them from great enemies. Beyond the great keep of Caon, it was the tallest building in the city, overlooking the bluffs with solemn clay walls and muted arches arranged in colonnade. When that protection finally failed and the Savirai entered the city, they had draped red banners from its ceilings, and carved a likeness of their goddess in marble to serve as its centerpiece. The priests of the goddess did not discriminate amongst their flock, however, and many who still prayed only to the Light remained there to worship on holy days.
Today, however, was not a holy day. Amritan had never felt the calling, of either the old Faith or the new, but at the temple there was peace. A prayer for my father, and for Astria, he thought as he walked into Hall of Contemplation.
No priest greeted him. Something was wrong. The temple was a place of quiet, but there was an eerie stillness here, something inhuman that filled his gut with fear.
“Taran?” He called into the temple. “Are you here?”
No voice answered. Amritan walked deeper into the sanctuary.
“Prince Amritan. I… expected to see you here. It is my pleasure,” The voice came cool and quiet, from the direction of the central alter.
Amritan turned. “Chancellor…? Serkitus, I had not expected to find you here,” he said stiffly. A jolt ran up his spine as he saw that the chancellor was clothed in the white robes of the old Faith, which a member of the king’s council had not worn in decades. “You have… soiled your sword.”
“Indeed, Amritan. But the blood of the idolaters will soon be purified from all that remains holy,” Serkitus raised his weapon, pointing it at the marble statue of the goddess which towered before the alter of the temple. “Soon, all will be purified before the totality of the Light.”
Amritan glanced up, his mortal eyes meeting the goddess’s of stoic stone. This rendition had been done by an Astrian sculptor, he remembered, who had modeled her after Juliana, an old Astrian goddess of justice from the days before the Light. Her hands held the scales of justice. Aitah was not blind like Juliana, but her eyes stared straight ahead, aloof and divine.
He saw that the rafters above her head were empty, to his dismay.
“My father swore an oath, Serkitus. The Savirai bestowed upon us the gift of mercy, and we owe them their loyalty,” Amritan did not move.
“Mercy? You call this mercy?” Serkitus gestured furiously with his bloodied sword at the marble idol. “This… insult… is the furthest thing from mercy. To see us kneel and play out this farce of obeisance as we dance to their puppeteer strings… I can no longer abide by this. Will no longer.”
“You have abided it for all your life, and your father before you,” Amritan said coolly.
“No longer,” Serkitus spat. “Your father is dead, yes, I have made very sure of that, and soon you will join him, in the hell of your whore goddess. Once we knelt to the Moon-Emperors at the point of the sword, but that sword is pointed at us no longer. The Nahsjad are joined from across the seas by the Opulensi and the Satar, and soon they will burn the idolaters from the desert holes from whence they came…”
Six well armed men, all dressed in white robes, joined the chancellor. They dragged the bodies of priests and priestesses in red robes, their throats cut. They began upending gigantic jugs, pouring oil onto the stone floor.
“Yes, yes,” Serkitus nodded, his eyes frantic with hate. “This place… must be purified. Your time is at an end. We will never kneel again. The bltch goddess will burn.” He pointed his sword forward, and his men stepped forward toward Amritan, swords drawn. Now all of the ground around them had been covered slick with oil.
Amritan turned his back on the conspirators. “We knelt to the wards and to the Nahsjad before we knelt to the Emperor. You do not truly seek vengeance, Serkitus. Not when there was no true crime done to us, not when you and your ilk have enjoyed this peace of nearly four decades. You seek power, as the wards always have. Your treason will be answered. Astria will endure.”
Serkitus screamed in rage at his insouciance, and dropped a torch to the ground, setting it alight. The men came after him, running behind him to block his escape. “You will die here, traitor!”
“I think not. I still have friends in my home, Serkitus.”
The arrows rained down from the rafters, and Amritan was already, running, running, running for the exit as the flames snapped at his feet.
“COWARD!” Serkitus screeched after him, even as his body was consumed by a rain of arrows and the flood of his own flames. "COWARD!" the word echoed between the clay walls, before it was drowned by shrieks of pain and death.
* * *
“Your father passed away this morning, your exce- majesty. We thought to alert your majesty, but we could not find you within the keep.”
“I- I understand. We will mourn him - I will mourn him - and they who killed him will pay in kind. But we have urgent matters to attend. Send my regards to the captain of the north guard tower. Tell him to go to the old hovel down by the fishing wharf, the third house from the cypress tree. He is to arrest everyone that finds there, and bring them to the keep. Send a fast rider to Hrn, thanking the empress for her counsel and confirming what has happened. She will understand how to proceed from there.”
“As I hear, I do. Anything else, your majesty?”
“Convene the council. Assemble the army.”
Kraznaya
Princeps
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight.
The horn again. It won't be long now.
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven.
They are the prey. You are the hunter. Forward, fast, strong. Ride.
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six.
The sky is clear. The air is crisp. Breathe in. Do you feel alive?
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two, Three, Four, Five.
Red moon, bright stars. They shine light upon your glory.
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two, Three, Four.
Your heart sees what your eyes cannot. Your heart hears what your ears cannot. You are ready.
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two, Three.
You sense their fear.
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHHHH
One, Two.
Death is not the end. Fear no evil.
oh-OHH, oh-OHHHHHHHHHHHH
One.
Now. Arrows away.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
A Prince in Every Corner
Part 1
Atracta, 543 SR
His brother’s wheeze distracted him. The hand that once bore the spear now clutched to his chest, fighting the sickness within. A flock of gulls soared overhead, swooping down for scraps from barrels and bowls, but retreating at the sign of any man. Fat and craven, he observed, as the Redeemer now is. He ran his hands across the rails, taking in the sights. The boiled bone decorations that he had promised Marak sat in the engraved wood. A ship of bone, the True Lord of the Sea, was his tribute to his liege.
“This is not my home, Artaxeras,” he said, solemn. He eyed the battlements that encircled the High Harbor, and the silver-plated soldiers that now awaited him on the docks. “No gold mask,” he noted, grinning.
Artaxeras drew a deep breath, hand upon his chest. The sound of phlegm boiling deep in his lungs forced a sigh from the Prince of Bone. “In his palace, my prince, where else? He may not show favor to one prince over another. We must go to him. This is not a slight.”
Fulwarc laughed at that. “If only he knew the quality of his princes, heh?” He looked about the High Harbor, viewing the ships that had been allowed in with him. Six warships with a hundred men, they were his host now. The other eighty odd of his fleet remained in the deep waters off the Accan coast, well away from the siege engines and arrows that the Redeemer had on his walls. What an old fool I am, to be drawn into this cage.
His men threw ropes to the soldiers on the docks, and his ships were moored. They poured onto the wooden docks like bees from a hive. Fulwarc had the spirit of youth in him as the audience of soldiers gathered on the docks, near the barracks and along the high walls. He leapt from the ship to the wooden structure below. A sharp pain shot through his ankle, but he hid it from the world. He gave a great laugh to his men, who returned their own in kind. They all donned the finest armor he could afford, polished steel scale with the occasional chest plate. He reached behind him, to the ramp that now fell from his ship, to aid his tarkan down the slender path. He felt no embarrassment in this, only pride. But the eyes of the Satar burned holes in his back with every cough that came from Artaxeras. His men’s eyes showed the same anger at the gawking.
The Spearsong would not be mocked, even silently.
“Sing something, loud,” Fulwarc roared in Cyvekt. The hundred odd men on the docks, bees of his hive, wasted no time in breaking into song. It was loud, and baffling to the Satar men that looked on, but it was sweet to the ear. They sang of the Spearsong. They sang of the True Lord of the Sea. They even sang of the Redeemer’s calls for help, a sweet mockery that the southern princes would never understand.
A lowborn man stood between a half dozen silver-plated soldiers with tall pikes. He looked nervous, but it wasn’t his nervousness that confused Fulwarc, it was his presence. He had paler skin, from north of here more like, but the same dark hair and eyes that dominated the southern world. There were many colored masks amongst the soldiers. Bronze was everywhere, but a few reds shone through like his brave tarkan. Their masks were newer, their armor more polished, but the men behind them could no more match the Spearsong as an insect.
Fulwarc stepped up the gentle stairs of the dock, to the stone sea walls that housed the barracks and buildings before another set of high walls. He wore no armor this day. Why should he? He’d come in peace, to bend the knee on the wishes of his tarkan and on order of the Redeemer. There were no battles to fight, yet the men with their lowborn seemed ready for one.
“Pr. . . Prince of Bone,” the lowborn man spoke slowly in Satar, heavy with southern accent. The guards about him barked about, and then he’d repeat it. “I am to be yours, to serve as translator.”
Fulwarc raised his hand at this, ashamed at this greeting. “Do you take me for a child?” he replied in Satar as crisp as an autumn apple.
The lowborn man gulped. The guards had not expected Fulwarc to speak so well, that much was clear. He couldn’t admit his own failings with the language of Princes, so instead he raised his hand, as if to strike.
A sweet sound steadied him.
“Forgive them, Prince of Bone,” she said. The slender figure passed the guards, escorted by her own retainer. The fine clothing she wore hugged close to her skin. Blue-and-hand-faded purples mixed to give the illusion of a hot flame that coiled about her from feet to neck. A silver mask shielded her precious face. She waved the merchant off. A guard in her retainer handed him a golden coin marked with calligraphy as he left. “Surely, a prince of the Exatai can forgive such insults as this.” She ran her fine tanned fingers along her neck. Her eyes saw past him, to the flagship of his fleet. “A man defies you and you make him a lord all the same.”
He liked that comment. Her voice carried a lack of seriousness that he’d not heard in the Satar tongue, only spoken. Artaxeras would never have made the effort to find a laugh. Fulwarc thought hard over the names that his tarkan had taught him. He found hers quick enough. “Zelarri Atteri,” he said. He turned to Artaxeras and said, “Perhaps Avetas has not been unkind after all.” He returned his gaze to her, taking in everything about her. He closed his eyes as a scent of southern perfume found his nostrils. I’ve raped for less, he thought. “When will Avetas see me?”
“Now, if it pleases you, or later should you find something more… entertaining to bide the time.” She had no subtleness to her words. Her hands played the fabrics of her clothing with skill, as a bard and his instrument.
“Many things please me, princess. War pleases me. The death of my enemies, by my own hands.” He stepped closer to her, passing her on the smooth stone seawall. “Women, too.” She tilted her head in acceptance of the comment. “Avetas did not come to me, so I shall enjoy my time in going to him.”
“A prince has that right,” she said. “We have established a household near Eshvadai. A palace built for you, Fulwarc. It is staffed, fully, with the finest servants, slave and free, that the Redeemer could muster. The finest wines fill your cellars, too. You are fond of drink, yes?”
“It is fond of me.” He corrected. “They say the first grapes grew for the first men to make wine. Nay, the first grapes grown and the first wine made were preparations for my birth. What a shame it would have been if the Prince of Bone had come into a world with unskilled brewers.” He laughed. “Taleldil had mercy on these first men with this gift. For there’d be no men left if I lacked the drink to stay my axe.”
She laughed at this. He knew her game well. He didn’t doubt what he’d heard. “Every Prince has taken of her warmth,” Artaxeras had said. “And the Redeemer.” Had this been Lexevh, she’d be on her back already. A woman’s ambitions should not go unchecked for so long, he knew. She’s more Redeemer than Avetas.
She gestured, showing him the stone-paved road through the thick walls of the High Harbor. They walked slowly, his men and hers blending as one. Artaxeras had the worst of it. He bent over a cane of warped sweet gum, wrapped in bands of iron. His life light grows dimmer. Fulwarc had to play the optimist in public, but inside he knew his friend walked a short road towards memory. He hated the thought of being left alone in this foreign world.
Their path brought them under the walls, over streets so clean and barren of filth that he thought himself dead and in the halls of Taleldil himself. Bronze masks melted in with the maskless. The city housed men of every birth, it seemed. From the Elephant Lords of the far south to the Evyn in the north, men from the sunrise and men from the last kiss of light on the far steppes.
They were met with courteous bows wherever they walked. Zelarri lead their company to the statue of Redeemer Jahan. There she grew tired of Artaxeras’ sickness. “Send your tarkan to the oracles, my prince,” she said. And he did. His companion limped off, aided by a half dozen soldiers of her personal guard. He left with sourness in his eyes.
The statue of Jahan stood high above the streets, mounted on his warhorse. His figure cast in bronze would stand the test of time that his flesh could not. The memorial to the Conqueror stood in a circle of lemon trees that reached Fulwarc’s brow. They flowered. He stopped to pay his respect to the Redeemer he should have met, his equal.
“He died too young,” he commented.
She glided to his side. Her guard spread about the lemon trees to keep the unworthy from their presence. They cheered in unrefined Satar. “Prince of Bone!” This amused him. No doubt his legend preceded him to this great city. Zelarri placed her hands on the stone platform beneath the horse’s hooves.
“He died as he should.” Her tone was uncertain.
“He is the reason I wear the mask,” he told her. He did not break his gaze from the masked face of Jahan the Conqueror. “Take it in, Isathmaeyr. See what stands of your empire now.” He laughed. “He suffers a great shame, you know. The last Lawgiver,” he said to her. “He must see what I see, from beyond. The shame of what became of it all. His walls torn asunder by the Exatai.”
A glint of admiration forced itself from her eyes. The silver mask gave no hints to the expression beneath, and neither did she. As cold as any words he’d ever heard, she said, “We are in the final days of this age. The great men that built this empire shrivel and grey before our eyes.” She looked him over, sliding closer with every word. “A dawn of change is coming, I fear.” She ran her hands over his chest, flowing by him as her fingers found a path over his shoulder. She walked to a lemon tree. There she fiddled with the leaves, coercing them with a silent song.
Their guards paid no mind to their conversation, intent on keeping the onlookers away from their superiors. He saw where the fabrics of her dress grasped her legs, climbing slowly to meet at the sweetest spot. She made no moves uncalculated, he observed. Every flick of the wrist plays to her strengths. Insulting. He drew a deep breath, awaiting whatever chirps the bird would sing next.
“The flowers will turn to fruit, with time,” said Zelarri. “The branches grow stronger by the day. New leaves sprout from them, and flowers too. The Exatai is much the same.”
“As a tree?” he scoffed.
“Not a tree, Fulwarc, the tree. The tree that binds the world,” she said, cooing. She played the leaves, fingering the branches with sly intentions. “These are the shield,” she said, gesturing to the maze of growth above the trunk. “And here.” She pointed to the trunk itself. “The arm that holds.” She swept her hand over the leaves. “These are the people of the Exatai, brother Prince. They are numerous. They are ever growing and beautiful. You may,” she began, plucking a leaf with grace, “cut one down, but two more will fill the void.” She bent to one knee before the tree. Her hands wrapped around the young trunk, groping for something Fulwarc could not see. “Avetas, the Redeemer, you see him here? He holds the Exatai on his shoulders, like the lemon tree holds her flowers. It is strong, resilient and full of purpose. Yet, there is a great flaw that every man of the steppe, of the sea and the city, too, are aware.” She straightened her hand, flat like a blade, and tapped it against the trunk.
“How poetic can you Satar make a man’s life? And I thought my tarkan’s words were smoke. No fire, but the heat burns the same.”
“The Redeemer is the mortar between the bricks, on which the foundation is held. We are the bricks, Prince of Bone. Should he fall, unprepared, we may never hold the empire as one. Old ways die hard, Fulwarc,” she said, standing to face him. “It is all too easy to lose what we have built… without friends. One axe blow could send it all crumbling around us. The world in darkness, at the mercy of our enemies, and then where would our efforts lie? They say you are a hard man to please. They say you speak ill of Avetas.”
“I’ve never shied from the truth,” he said, grinding his teeth.
“You should,” she snapped, but cooled quickly. Her hands found his loosely hanging arms, squeezing them through his cotton sleeves. “We princes-“
“We?”
“We are the roots of the tree, Fulwarc. We hold it together. We give strength to the Redeemer. Power to his cause. We grow stronger as he grows stronger. Infighting destroys the great empires of the steppe. Over and over they fight, brother against brother, father against son. We must toss away our silly pride and work as one. Or we shall meet Taleldil before our time.”
Fulwarc laughed. Not any laugh, but a deep and long laugh. She squeezed his arms a bit tighter to rein him in, but he would not allow that. With but a jerk he caught her forearms in his hands, twisting them away from his person. She did not struggle. He liked that.
“Do you know of the Butcher of Talore?”
He towered over her. She was tiny, a twig like those she plucked so elegantly. He could force her against the great stone stand that held Jahan in bronze without effort. She might like that, though, he thought. She has the look of a sadist.
“Is this one of your myths? A song sung that you take for truth?”
Even restrained she talked as his equal. He pulled her close, so their masks could meet, and then released her. Red marks showed on her tan forearms where he had held her. She did nothing to soothe them. He smirked.
“When I first joined Jahan against the Lawgiver in the War of the Three Gods, I set sail with thirty-eight ships and near seven thousand raiders.” Her hand returned to her neck now, playing at the tan flesh beneath her right ear. “I swore I’d take the city of Talore from the Evyni garrison, and I did. We fought for months on those beaches, raiding every fishing village and harbor along the way. I sired more bastards in that campaign than I could if I lived in a brothel now,” he said, boasting. “The men of the Lawgiver gave little mind to mine as we took town after town, until we came to Talore. They gave us our dues there. The storm of all storms raged off the coast, pushing my ships round the seaward side to land raiders at the docks. I scarcely knew Artaxeras then. He came to prove his worth, to do his master’s bidding in the icy north. Heh, if only he had known. The Lawgiver ordered the forests cut and walls thrown up. He said the north men would never face walls. Do you know what I did?”
She did not speak.
“I stormed the walls to the beat of thunder with four thousand men. I cut through the outer line of spears and archers. I led my men to those palisades and tore them down with a beast’s strength. The streets behind ran with rain waters, red with blood. There was only one man that did not run when the walls fell. He wore no armor. He held no shield. He had but a great curved blade meant for gutting swine and cattle. He stood a head higher than I, with a great black beard.”
He stepped away from her. He turned his back, fiddling with the layers of cotton that covered his chest.
She stepped forward, curious, “And you cut him down?”
“No,” he said. “The Spearsong ran him through. You are a fool of a woman, Zelarri Atteri. You speak to me of roots and branches. You flatten your hand like a blade and make smart quips about the state of affairs. You mock me as headstrong, unknowing. I am not here to bed Avetas. I am here to prove my worth. You talk of great men greying, yet you speak of our strength. The Butcher was no normal man, no, he was a message.”
“A message?” she asked.
“Are you faithful?”
“I am.” She sounded sincere.
He turned to face her, baring his chest. Black hairs, sprinkled with whites, covered it. His muscles were as solid as they had ever been. When she saw it, he knew. Her eyes gave all the emotion he needed.
“Do you know what my enemies call me?”
“The Dead King, I recall.”
She raised her hand to his chest. Now you see, he told himself. Her fingers were unusually cold as she felt the length of the great scar. It ran from his shoulder to his groin like an arcing streak of lighting, cut jagged from flesh.
“The Butcher struck me down, but I was reborn in the Eye of Taleldil. A champion of the Exatai. I have lost no battle, met no equal. I will ride with Taleldil when it pleases me to do so,” he said, stern. Her fingers traced the entirety of the scar. “Your words twist the air in a sweet way, I give you that. You are young, ambitious and overreaching. Yet, you are afraid,” he said, laughing. “I fear not of these Princes. When Avetas’ sun dips below the steppe and he is gone from this world to the next, it may be so what you say. The whole thing, all of this, may crumble. The princes of this council may take a corner, and hold for a while, that much is true. But they will break. They will bend the knee in fear at what greying men can do.”
She smiled at him. He did not know if he had given her the answer she wanted, or more questions, but either way she changed the subject.
“Avetas will make a show of you,” she said. “He will ask you to kneel before him in the council of princes. You know that?”
“Yes.”
“It is not a show of strength, or weakness, mind, but a show of loyalty and power from the both of you. He needs your knee as you need his acceptance. You are as much a prince as any other.”
He covered his chest once more, straightening his clothing. She did not back away. She is too bold, he thought.
“What does that make you?” he asked.
“Whatever I am destined to be, Fulwarc. I am what is called for, nothing else.” She turned once more to the lemon tree. “A gardener, perhaps?”
He nodded. “A gardener. Make no mistake, Zelarri Atteri, I will call for you.”
“And I will answer, Prince of Bone.”
Part 1
Fulwarc, Prince of Bone
Atracta, 543 SR
His brother’s wheeze distracted him. The hand that once bore the spear now clutched to his chest, fighting the sickness within. A flock of gulls soared overhead, swooping down for scraps from barrels and bowls, but retreating at the sign of any man. Fat and craven, he observed, as the Redeemer now is. He ran his hands across the rails, taking in the sights. The boiled bone decorations that he had promised Marak sat in the engraved wood. A ship of bone, the True Lord of the Sea, was his tribute to his liege.
“This is not my home, Artaxeras,” he said, solemn. He eyed the battlements that encircled the High Harbor, and the silver-plated soldiers that now awaited him on the docks. “No gold mask,” he noted, grinning.
Artaxeras drew a deep breath, hand upon his chest. The sound of phlegm boiling deep in his lungs forced a sigh from the Prince of Bone. “In his palace, my prince, where else? He may not show favor to one prince over another. We must go to him. This is not a slight.”
Fulwarc laughed at that. “If only he knew the quality of his princes, heh?” He looked about the High Harbor, viewing the ships that had been allowed in with him. Six warships with a hundred men, they were his host now. The other eighty odd of his fleet remained in the deep waters off the Accan coast, well away from the siege engines and arrows that the Redeemer had on his walls. What an old fool I am, to be drawn into this cage.
His men threw ropes to the soldiers on the docks, and his ships were moored. They poured onto the wooden docks like bees from a hive. Fulwarc had the spirit of youth in him as the audience of soldiers gathered on the docks, near the barracks and along the high walls. He leapt from the ship to the wooden structure below. A sharp pain shot through his ankle, but he hid it from the world. He gave a great laugh to his men, who returned their own in kind. They all donned the finest armor he could afford, polished steel scale with the occasional chest plate. He reached behind him, to the ramp that now fell from his ship, to aid his tarkan down the slender path. He felt no embarrassment in this, only pride. But the eyes of the Satar burned holes in his back with every cough that came from Artaxeras. His men’s eyes showed the same anger at the gawking.
The Spearsong would not be mocked, even silently.
“Sing something, loud,” Fulwarc roared in Cyvekt. The hundred odd men on the docks, bees of his hive, wasted no time in breaking into song. It was loud, and baffling to the Satar men that looked on, but it was sweet to the ear. They sang of the Spearsong. They sang of the True Lord of the Sea. They even sang of the Redeemer’s calls for help, a sweet mockery that the southern princes would never understand.
A lowborn man stood between a half dozen silver-plated soldiers with tall pikes. He looked nervous, but it wasn’t his nervousness that confused Fulwarc, it was his presence. He had paler skin, from north of here more like, but the same dark hair and eyes that dominated the southern world. There were many colored masks amongst the soldiers. Bronze was everywhere, but a few reds shone through like his brave tarkan. Their masks were newer, their armor more polished, but the men behind them could no more match the Spearsong as an insect.
Fulwarc stepped up the gentle stairs of the dock, to the stone sea walls that housed the barracks and buildings before another set of high walls. He wore no armor this day. Why should he? He’d come in peace, to bend the knee on the wishes of his tarkan and on order of the Redeemer. There were no battles to fight, yet the men with their lowborn seemed ready for one.
“Pr. . . Prince of Bone,” the lowborn man spoke slowly in Satar, heavy with southern accent. The guards about him barked about, and then he’d repeat it. “I am to be yours, to serve as translator.”
Fulwarc raised his hand at this, ashamed at this greeting. “Do you take me for a child?” he replied in Satar as crisp as an autumn apple.
The lowborn man gulped. The guards had not expected Fulwarc to speak so well, that much was clear. He couldn’t admit his own failings with the language of Princes, so instead he raised his hand, as if to strike.
A sweet sound steadied him.
“Forgive them, Prince of Bone,” she said. The slender figure passed the guards, escorted by her own retainer. The fine clothing she wore hugged close to her skin. Blue-and-hand-faded purples mixed to give the illusion of a hot flame that coiled about her from feet to neck. A silver mask shielded her precious face. She waved the merchant off. A guard in her retainer handed him a golden coin marked with calligraphy as he left. “Surely, a prince of the Exatai can forgive such insults as this.” She ran her fine tanned fingers along her neck. Her eyes saw past him, to the flagship of his fleet. “A man defies you and you make him a lord all the same.”
He liked that comment. Her voice carried a lack of seriousness that he’d not heard in the Satar tongue, only spoken. Artaxeras would never have made the effort to find a laugh. Fulwarc thought hard over the names that his tarkan had taught him. He found hers quick enough. “Zelarri Atteri,” he said. He turned to Artaxeras and said, “Perhaps Avetas has not been unkind after all.” He returned his gaze to her, taking in everything about her. He closed his eyes as a scent of southern perfume found his nostrils. I’ve raped for less, he thought. “When will Avetas see me?”
“Now, if it pleases you, or later should you find something more… entertaining to bide the time.” She had no subtleness to her words. Her hands played the fabrics of her clothing with skill, as a bard and his instrument.
“Many things please me, princess. War pleases me. The death of my enemies, by my own hands.” He stepped closer to her, passing her on the smooth stone seawall. “Women, too.” She tilted her head in acceptance of the comment. “Avetas did not come to me, so I shall enjoy my time in going to him.”
“A prince has that right,” she said. “We have established a household near Eshvadai. A palace built for you, Fulwarc. It is staffed, fully, with the finest servants, slave and free, that the Redeemer could muster. The finest wines fill your cellars, too. You are fond of drink, yes?”
“It is fond of me.” He corrected. “They say the first grapes grew for the first men to make wine. Nay, the first grapes grown and the first wine made were preparations for my birth. What a shame it would have been if the Prince of Bone had come into a world with unskilled brewers.” He laughed. “Taleldil had mercy on these first men with this gift. For there’d be no men left if I lacked the drink to stay my axe.”
She laughed at this. He knew her game well. He didn’t doubt what he’d heard. “Every Prince has taken of her warmth,” Artaxeras had said. “And the Redeemer.” Had this been Lexevh, she’d be on her back already. A woman’s ambitions should not go unchecked for so long, he knew. She’s more Redeemer than Avetas.
She gestured, showing him the stone-paved road through the thick walls of the High Harbor. They walked slowly, his men and hers blending as one. Artaxeras had the worst of it. He bent over a cane of warped sweet gum, wrapped in bands of iron. His life light grows dimmer. Fulwarc had to play the optimist in public, but inside he knew his friend walked a short road towards memory. He hated the thought of being left alone in this foreign world.
Their path brought them under the walls, over streets so clean and barren of filth that he thought himself dead and in the halls of Taleldil himself. Bronze masks melted in with the maskless. The city housed men of every birth, it seemed. From the Elephant Lords of the far south to the Evyn in the north, men from the sunrise and men from the last kiss of light on the far steppes.
They were met with courteous bows wherever they walked. Zelarri lead their company to the statue of Redeemer Jahan. There she grew tired of Artaxeras’ sickness. “Send your tarkan to the oracles, my prince,” she said. And he did. His companion limped off, aided by a half dozen soldiers of her personal guard. He left with sourness in his eyes.
The statue of Jahan stood high above the streets, mounted on his warhorse. His figure cast in bronze would stand the test of time that his flesh could not. The memorial to the Conqueror stood in a circle of lemon trees that reached Fulwarc’s brow. They flowered. He stopped to pay his respect to the Redeemer he should have met, his equal.
“He died too young,” he commented.
She glided to his side. Her guard spread about the lemon trees to keep the unworthy from their presence. They cheered in unrefined Satar. “Prince of Bone!” This amused him. No doubt his legend preceded him to this great city. Zelarri placed her hands on the stone platform beneath the horse’s hooves.
“He died as he should.” Her tone was uncertain.
“He is the reason I wear the mask,” he told her. He did not break his gaze from the masked face of Jahan the Conqueror. “Take it in, Isathmaeyr. See what stands of your empire now.” He laughed. “He suffers a great shame, you know. The last Lawgiver,” he said to her. “He must see what I see, from beyond. The shame of what became of it all. His walls torn asunder by the Exatai.”
A glint of admiration forced itself from her eyes. The silver mask gave no hints to the expression beneath, and neither did she. As cold as any words he’d ever heard, she said, “We are in the final days of this age. The great men that built this empire shrivel and grey before our eyes.” She looked him over, sliding closer with every word. “A dawn of change is coming, I fear.” She ran her hands over his chest, flowing by him as her fingers found a path over his shoulder. She walked to a lemon tree. There she fiddled with the leaves, coercing them with a silent song.
Their guards paid no mind to their conversation, intent on keeping the onlookers away from their superiors. He saw where the fabrics of her dress grasped her legs, climbing slowly to meet at the sweetest spot. She made no moves uncalculated, he observed. Every flick of the wrist plays to her strengths. Insulting. He drew a deep breath, awaiting whatever chirps the bird would sing next.
“The flowers will turn to fruit, with time,” said Zelarri. “The branches grow stronger by the day. New leaves sprout from them, and flowers too. The Exatai is much the same.”
“As a tree?” he scoffed.
“Not a tree, Fulwarc, the tree. The tree that binds the world,” she said, cooing. She played the leaves, fingering the branches with sly intentions. “These are the shield,” she said, gesturing to the maze of growth above the trunk. “And here.” She pointed to the trunk itself. “The arm that holds.” She swept her hand over the leaves. “These are the people of the Exatai, brother Prince. They are numerous. They are ever growing and beautiful. You may,” she began, plucking a leaf with grace, “cut one down, but two more will fill the void.” She bent to one knee before the tree. Her hands wrapped around the young trunk, groping for something Fulwarc could not see. “Avetas, the Redeemer, you see him here? He holds the Exatai on his shoulders, like the lemon tree holds her flowers. It is strong, resilient and full of purpose. Yet, there is a great flaw that every man of the steppe, of the sea and the city, too, are aware.” She straightened her hand, flat like a blade, and tapped it against the trunk.
“How poetic can you Satar make a man’s life? And I thought my tarkan’s words were smoke. No fire, but the heat burns the same.”
“The Redeemer is the mortar between the bricks, on which the foundation is held. We are the bricks, Prince of Bone. Should he fall, unprepared, we may never hold the empire as one. Old ways die hard, Fulwarc,” she said, standing to face him. “It is all too easy to lose what we have built… without friends. One axe blow could send it all crumbling around us. The world in darkness, at the mercy of our enemies, and then where would our efforts lie? They say you are a hard man to please. They say you speak ill of Avetas.”
“I’ve never shied from the truth,” he said, grinding his teeth.
“You should,” she snapped, but cooled quickly. Her hands found his loosely hanging arms, squeezing them through his cotton sleeves. “We princes-“
“We?”
“We are the roots of the tree, Fulwarc. We hold it together. We give strength to the Redeemer. Power to his cause. We grow stronger as he grows stronger. Infighting destroys the great empires of the steppe. Over and over they fight, brother against brother, father against son. We must toss away our silly pride and work as one. Or we shall meet Taleldil before our time.”
Fulwarc laughed. Not any laugh, but a deep and long laugh. She squeezed his arms a bit tighter to rein him in, but he would not allow that. With but a jerk he caught her forearms in his hands, twisting them away from his person. She did not struggle. He liked that.
“Do you know of the Butcher of Talore?”
He towered over her. She was tiny, a twig like those she plucked so elegantly. He could force her against the great stone stand that held Jahan in bronze without effort. She might like that, though, he thought. She has the look of a sadist.
“Is this one of your myths? A song sung that you take for truth?”
Even restrained she talked as his equal. He pulled her close, so their masks could meet, and then released her. Red marks showed on her tan forearms where he had held her. She did nothing to soothe them. He smirked.
“When I first joined Jahan against the Lawgiver in the War of the Three Gods, I set sail with thirty-eight ships and near seven thousand raiders.” Her hand returned to her neck now, playing at the tan flesh beneath her right ear. “I swore I’d take the city of Talore from the Evyni garrison, and I did. We fought for months on those beaches, raiding every fishing village and harbor along the way. I sired more bastards in that campaign than I could if I lived in a brothel now,” he said, boasting. “The men of the Lawgiver gave little mind to mine as we took town after town, until we came to Talore. They gave us our dues there. The storm of all storms raged off the coast, pushing my ships round the seaward side to land raiders at the docks. I scarcely knew Artaxeras then. He came to prove his worth, to do his master’s bidding in the icy north. Heh, if only he had known. The Lawgiver ordered the forests cut and walls thrown up. He said the north men would never face walls. Do you know what I did?”
She did not speak.
“I stormed the walls to the beat of thunder with four thousand men. I cut through the outer line of spears and archers. I led my men to those palisades and tore them down with a beast’s strength. The streets behind ran with rain waters, red with blood. There was only one man that did not run when the walls fell. He wore no armor. He held no shield. He had but a great curved blade meant for gutting swine and cattle. He stood a head higher than I, with a great black beard.”
He stepped away from her. He turned his back, fiddling with the layers of cotton that covered his chest.
She stepped forward, curious, “And you cut him down?”
“No,” he said. “The Spearsong ran him through. You are a fool of a woman, Zelarri Atteri. You speak to me of roots and branches. You flatten your hand like a blade and make smart quips about the state of affairs. You mock me as headstrong, unknowing. I am not here to bed Avetas. I am here to prove my worth. You talk of great men greying, yet you speak of our strength. The Butcher was no normal man, no, he was a message.”
“A message?” she asked.
“Are you faithful?”
“I am.” She sounded sincere.
He turned to face her, baring his chest. Black hairs, sprinkled with whites, covered it. His muscles were as solid as they had ever been. When she saw it, he knew. Her eyes gave all the emotion he needed.
“Do you know what my enemies call me?”
“The Dead King, I recall.”
She raised her hand to his chest. Now you see, he told himself. Her fingers were unusually cold as she felt the length of the great scar. It ran from his shoulder to his groin like an arcing streak of lighting, cut jagged from flesh.
“The Butcher struck me down, but I was reborn in the Eye of Taleldil. A champion of the Exatai. I have lost no battle, met no equal. I will ride with Taleldil when it pleases me to do so,” he said, stern. Her fingers traced the entirety of the scar. “Your words twist the air in a sweet way, I give you that. You are young, ambitious and overreaching. Yet, you are afraid,” he said, laughing. “I fear not of these Princes. When Avetas’ sun dips below the steppe and he is gone from this world to the next, it may be so what you say. The whole thing, all of this, may crumble. The princes of this council may take a corner, and hold for a while, that much is true. But they will break. They will bend the knee in fear at what greying men can do.”
She smiled at him. He did not know if he had given her the answer she wanted, or more questions, but either way she changed the subject.
“Avetas will make a show of you,” she said. “He will ask you to kneel before him in the council of princes. You know that?”
“Yes.”
“It is not a show of strength, or weakness, mind, but a show of loyalty and power from the both of you. He needs your knee as you need his acceptance. You are as much a prince as any other.”
He covered his chest once more, straightening his clothing. She did not back away. She is too bold, he thought.
“What does that make you?” he asked.
“Whatever I am destined to be, Fulwarc. I am what is called for, nothing else.” She turned once more to the lemon tree. “A gardener, perhaps?”
He nodded. “A gardener. Make no mistake, Zelarri Atteri, I will call for you.”
“And I will answer, Prince of Bone.”
Kraznaya
Princeps
I quit.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Um, why?
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
Guess I'll be taking The Dual Thrones next turn.
das
Regeneration In Process
The New Good Story [Part Three].
Kleo the Prophet was born in the south, in Thearak, which has since then become a part of the Empire’s Krato lands. Back then, however, it was a land separate from both the Moti and Old Krato. The people there live in cities, despise thieves and speak a thousand different dialects, all of which are alien; their writing is more familiar, however. They live now more or less as they did hundreds of years ago, except that now, instead of squabbling kings and clans, they are ruled by the Emperor through the Krato chiefs and local magistrates. In truth, if not for the Prophet, they might well be thought as petty and vicious people; but Kleo was a native of this land, and it was he brought the Good Teaching to the world of men.
I will not recount to you the True and False Stories of the Prophet here, and I should hope you have studied the official Church canons in more detail since we last spoke, as you are now a man. Instead I want you to understand this: though the Good teaching, Iralliam, rose in the south, and though the Prophet himself was a foreigner (though he would have been a subject and a valued advisor to the Emperor if he had lived today), it could not achieve its true potential before it reached the Moti. For the people of Thearak had no connections to the wisdom of their ancestors; they lived in their cities and had no true families as we understand them. Without a divinely inspired social order, even the Prophet’s teachings were merely capable of saving individuals – not nations. And one man’s salvation is a fragile and dubious thing when he cannot spread it to his family, and cannot be pulled to safety by it if he should fall astray.
So it was doubtless through the Good God’s providence that the Prophet’s wisdom spread among the Uggor. From First-Frei’s time onwards, our ancestors became familiar with the Good Teaching, and the most perceptive of them understood that it was in tune with the wisdom of the Ancestor Chiefs. There had been conflicts in the succeeding years, as you know, between those who mistook the Prophet Kleo for a foreign charlatan and resisted the teachings of the Prophet’s Church, cleaving solely to the old animal wisdom, and those who saw that, in spite of some confusion, there was no true conflict between the Ancestor Chiefs and the Prophet, and indeed that the next step in putting together the shattered world would be in joining those two sources of wisdom – the Uggor Soul and the Opporian Mind, as spoken of by rhetorician Thirono. Likewise, up until Third-Gaci’s blessed Imperial reign, the Church that had established itself among the Moti was divided by another conflict – between the proud foreigners and those who wished to be more like them, who could not see how the Ancestor Chiefs were the servants of the Good God just as surely as the Prophet, and called themselves “Pure Iralliam”, daring to suggest that our traditions were an impurity to be washed away; and those who held fast to the Ancestor Chiefs and Uggor pride and glory, seeing that Iralliam was strengthened, not weakened, by being merged with our native way of life and religion.
Remember that throughout this conflict, the Cow Family held the line set by our great Godlike Family Chief Fourth-Frono. Ever since he rose to power, the Family was a strong ally of the Church – and an enemy of the heretics who would twist its teachings to dishonour the Cow Family’s origins and customs. Fourth-Frono was a pious convert to Iralliam, but despite allegations to the contrary, he was never one of the so-called Pure, for we know he had always honoured our ancestors as well. His treasonous death at the hands of the Pure Iralliam-favouring members of the Horse Family (ruthless and rootless people that moved beyond the mountains to further separate themselves from other Families) did not dissuade those that came later. Indeed, rhetorician Thirono, who had advised Third-Gaci during his righteous church reform, was one of the Cow Family as well, and in truth the whole reform was a matter of giving the entire Great Family the benefits of our familial wisdom.
Know then, that those who seek to cause conflict by claiming that Iralliam is not a part of our rightful tradition, or that, contrarily, the Ancestor Chiefs are not a part of Iralliam are not only criminals and traitors in mind, but also heretics, unwitting (at best) pawns of Istria the Evil God. The Moti Empire is an Opporian empire, however, and so the odds are never in their favour; the Empire, the Families and the Church alike are united and resolute when it comes to such threats that would undo all that we worked for since the days of Second-Gaci, the conquering Chief-of-Chiefs who took the next step towards Empire by going into Bisria.
To be continued.
Kleo the Prophet was born in the south, in Thearak, which has since then become a part of the Empire’s Krato lands. Back then, however, it was a land separate from both the Moti and Old Krato. The people there live in cities, despise thieves and speak a thousand different dialects, all of which are alien; their writing is more familiar, however. They live now more or less as they did hundreds of years ago, except that now, instead of squabbling kings and clans, they are ruled by the Emperor through the Krato chiefs and local magistrates. In truth, if not for the Prophet, they might well be thought as petty and vicious people; but Kleo was a native of this land, and it was he brought the Good Teaching to the world of men.
I will not recount to you the True and False Stories of the Prophet here, and I should hope you have studied the official Church canons in more detail since we last spoke, as you are now a man. Instead I want you to understand this: though the Good teaching, Iralliam, rose in the south, and though the Prophet himself was a foreigner (though he would have been a subject and a valued advisor to the Emperor if he had lived today), it could not achieve its true potential before it reached the Moti. For the people of Thearak had no connections to the wisdom of their ancestors; they lived in their cities and had no true families as we understand them. Without a divinely inspired social order, even the Prophet’s teachings were merely capable of saving individuals – not nations. And one man’s salvation is a fragile and dubious thing when he cannot spread it to his family, and cannot be pulled to safety by it if he should fall astray.
So it was doubtless through the Good God’s providence that the Prophet’s wisdom spread among the Uggor. From First-Frei’s time onwards, our ancestors became familiar with the Good Teaching, and the most perceptive of them understood that it was in tune with the wisdom of the Ancestor Chiefs. There had been conflicts in the succeeding years, as you know, between those who mistook the Prophet Kleo for a foreign charlatan and resisted the teachings of the Prophet’s Church, cleaving solely to the old animal wisdom, and those who saw that, in spite of some confusion, there was no true conflict between the Ancestor Chiefs and the Prophet, and indeed that the next step in putting together the shattered world would be in joining those two sources of wisdom – the Uggor Soul and the Opporian Mind, as spoken of by rhetorician Thirono. Likewise, up until Third-Gaci’s blessed Imperial reign, the Church that had established itself among the Moti was divided by another conflict – between the proud foreigners and those who wished to be more like them, who could not see how the Ancestor Chiefs were the servants of the Good God just as surely as the Prophet, and called themselves “Pure Iralliam”, daring to suggest that our traditions were an impurity to be washed away; and those who held fast to the Ancestor Chiefs and Uggor pride and glory, seeing that Iralliam was strengthened, not weakened, by being merged with our native way of life and religion.
Remember that throughout this conflict, the Cow Family held the line set by our great Godlike Family Chief Fourth-Frono. Ever since he rose to power, the Family was a strong ally of the Church – and an enemy of the heretics who would twist its teachings to dishonour the Cow Family’s origins and customs. Fourth-Frono was a pious convert to Iralliam, but despite allegations to the contrary, he was never one of the so-called Pure, for we know he had always honoured our ancestors as well. His treasonous death at the hands of the Pure Iralliam-favouring members of the Horse Family (ruthless and rootless people that moved beyond the mountains to further separate themselves from other Families) did not dissuade those that came later. Indeed, rhetorician Thirono, who had advised Third-Gaci during his righteous church reform, was one of the Cow Family as well, and in truth the whole reform was a matter of giving the entire Great Family the benefits of our familial wisdom.
Know then, that those who seek to cause conflict by claiming that Iralliam is not a part of our rightful tradition, or that, contrarily, the Ancestor Chiefs are not a part of Iralliam are not only criminals and traitors in mind, but also heretics, unwitting (at best) pawns of Istria the Evil God. The Moti Empire is an Opporian empire, however, and so the odds are never in their favour; the Empire, the Families and the Church alike are united and resolute when it comes to such threats that would undo all that we worked for since the days of Second-Gaci, the conquering Chief-of-Chiefs who took the next step towards Empire by going into Bisria.
To be continued.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Welcome Zamak! While this NES is still alive and running, it is one of the slowest updating NESes on the forum. (Although also one of the longest running. And the most epic!) Once it took six months, I think, before an update. I'd suggest you join here, write a story to inspire North_King and then check out other similar NESes now that you're on the forums. I know that Terrance88 is currently hosting a pretty swell Earth "fresh start"; it is slowing down, too, but more active than this one.
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
You're quite welcome to join, though as everyone and their uncle is quick to point out, I update at a glacial pace. I'd also suggest waiting until after the update to join, particularly joining as Suran, which may be in something of a pickle soon. Other countries are somewhat safer bets.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
We reply quickly despite the glacial pace because we think this NES really is that awesome, and every time someone posts in this thread, we jump at the chance North King has actually updated. 
Well if it's really is that awesome, then I'll have to join this turn!
North King, I noticed earlier you suggested that the Airani Roshate had potential. If I only do internal improvements, as to not disrupt your writing, could I join this turn?
North King, I noticed earlier you suggested that the Airani Roshate had potential. If I only do internal improvements, as to not disrupt your writing, could I join this turn?
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
End of Empires - Update Eighteen
Prisoner to Promise
Ten Years
540 - 550 SR by the Seshweay Calendar
429 - 439 RM by the Satar Calendar
255 - 265 IL by the Leunan Calendar
Prisoner to Promise
Ten Years
540 - 550 SR by the Seshweay Calendar
429 - 439 RM by the Satar Calendar
255 - 265 IL by the Leunan Calendar
The Ward had always told me that Manin was not a spirit, not a god, not a human, and that to think otherwise was foolish idolatry, only conceived by the ignorant and the delusional. But now I knew truth that they know not. Manin has a face unto this Earth. We must save her, so that she may save us all. Aitah! – Tauras Equilim
* * * * * * * * *
From the walls of Gallasa, dead eyes were watching.
They'd belonged to some traitor, before he died, trying to slip through the walls in the twilight hours to deliver some message or aid in the machinations of the Savirai who threatened the city. Always, war brings out the opportunists, who know that if they should lend aid to those on the other side, they might be handsomely rewarded. Sometimes, though, the reward was death.
The dead eyes watched as the corpse swayed on the end of a long rope. Two long poles extended from the walls – on the one, the traitor; on the other, an empty noose, silhouetted against the moonlight... empty, to remind any new traitors of what awaited them.
Nevertheless, they could replace the body almost once a week.
How not, when the cause of the foe looked so very tempting? For years now, their assailants had ravaged eastern Gallat, almost unopposed. Certainly victory in the war seemed far away indeed, while defeat looked like the inevitable outcome – even if the inevitable was delayed longer and longer, the desert people advancing slower and slower as they came into the settled regions of the country.
The High Ward gave the body an almost incurious look, as if to simply confirm it was there. The bodies hung within view of his palace, close as it was to one of the inner walls. Corpses did not concern him in the least; he had long since grown inured to the death that ravaged his dominion. It was the men that got through uncaught that bothered him.
Long ago, the Letoratta had promised him that he would deliver Marona into their hands, and that the Satar attacks would draw the Savirai away. Soon, he said, they would surely abandon their conquest of Gallat, and their country could resume its peaceful ways. Soon, this girl claiming to be the red goddess would tumble from her new throne. Soon. But Arto Rutarri had left for Marona months past, and though the city had finally fallen, little had changed. Savirai raids, though somewhat lessened of late, continue to prod at their lines. Only the wine harvest from the far north and southwest had remained untouched; the rest of the vineyards lay untended or burned. Grain was hard to come by, and what little was left had been diverted to the armies that march to and fro across the landscape.
It is hard to rule over a starving people, and the High Ward knew it.
He continued to pace, the red moon and dead eyes alike watching his progress. The impious were swarming about him, and he'd made common cause with the infidel. A strange thought, when a dozen of his predecessors had fought wars to bring the faith to the other side of the sea. Now, that side of the sea had come here to... knock the idols from the throne of Manin? The thought was so laughable as to make him smile. He was a puppet, as surely as was this new “king” of Tarena. Better that, he supposed, than dead.
He gave the body a long look, and nodded.
* * * * * * * * *
Far from the High Ward, the war continued to rage. Savirai armies plagued the interior of Gallat, rending apart the landscape, making it into a wasteland of mud, rock, and flame. The Satar had entrusted the difficult task of defense to their old stalwart general, Arto Rutarri, whose ability to conjure victories with nearly nothing was growing famous. But though his infantry force had managed to capture Marona without too much difficulty, overwhelming the Tarenan garrison with a huge array of siege machines, it stalled there. Lines of fortifications were built into the countryside, and if it came to a pitched battle, Rutarri might have surprised the Savirai with his combined arms. But here there was too much ground to cover, and without a significant cavalry contingent, they simply could not pin down Emperor Khatai's army.
Which might have – or perhaps should have – made Khatai wonder where the Satar cavalry had gone. And though he did, from time to time, mostly he counted his good fortune, launching the raids deeper and deeper into the League's territory, threatening the city of Gallassa, and at points even arriving underneath the walls of Sirasona, setting fire to villages within sight of the ancient city.
Then, word came of where the Satar had gone.
It was a classic Satar battle plan – striking at weakness. Led by Elikas, the Redeemer's right hand man, a massive force of Karapeshai cavalry had quietly sailed to the Airani Roshate, and then marched quickly for the valley of the Peko. Savirai agents tracked their movements diligently, but had trouble reporting to their superiors – thus, the severity of the situation had not quite impressed the Savirai defenders in the valley until it was almost too late.
Fortunately for the Dual Empire, their garrisons in the Peko valley had been reinforced by an enormous contingent of Carohans, sufficiently large to stymie the advance of even the combined forces of the Airani and the Satar – for a while. Thus, they were not caught completely off-guard by the attack, though the initial Satar raids – down the east side of the Peko – struck at the settlements there and destroying the largest city before the Carohans had sufficiently redeployed. The Sesh general Pau'se in command of the garrisons was not fooled, and did not shift to meet the previous attacks. They were fully ready for the second Satar strike, down the west bank.
Well, as fully ready as they might be.
For the combined forces of that alliance were truly a terror to behold, taking the minor city of Puri... not with ease, but certainly in a minimal time frame. The Carohans reeled from this blow, and readied their forces at Reppaba in preparation for the expected assault – the city lay at the mouth of the river, and indeed, probably served as the keystone of the entire Aitahist alliance at this point, securing the easiest lines of communication between the Farubaida and Khatai. Moreover, the fall of the city would likely doom the entire Peko valley, and much of the most recent Savirai gains.
Elikas knew this full well, and arrived at the city with an enormous army, investing it and readying the Satar siege train.
Then, curiously enough, he waited.
For Elikas had no intention of attacking this ludicrously well-fortified city at full strength, with an enormous garrison. The Carohans, he knew, would soon be distracted. And so they were.
The Opulensi Empire, having ended its last war on rather poor terms, faced an enormous amount of discontent from the Daharai warrior class. Aiming to placate them – oddly, given his later actions – the Emperor decided to resume the war, with the assistance of the Satar now.
Mobilizing the enormous armies that only the Opulensi could bring to bear, he channeled them almost exclusively at one of the ancient twin poles of the Dual Empire – Nahar. Comparatively lightly garrisoned, the city fell to an amphibious assault a mere day after the first islanders landed at its shores, and the Opulensi victory was only slowed by the triumphant looting spree that celebrated their victory over an ancient rival. Soon, though, the old capital of Ruman well in hand, they pressed onwards, striking inland, dangerously far from their ships, and though they met with considerable backlash from the desert clans in the area, they reached Hrn without seeing a significant Savirai army.
At this point, the armies at Caon and in the Peko had begun to react, but not in time. The Dowager Empress and her garrison had to abandon the southern capital of the Empire, stripping it of almost all its valuables and the imperial bureaucracy, leaving it open but almost worthless to the Opulensi attack. Triumphant once again, the Opulensi armies occupied the city. Soon, however, they found it to be more burden than blessing. Savirai raiders circled the city like vultures, picking off any attempts at Opulensi projection into the countryside, and leaving them beleaguered and running low on supplies.
Annoyed at the waste of manpower and resources, the Opulensi general unilaterally decided to withdraw from the capital back to the coastline – firstly, of course, burning it to the ground.
The Opulensi had taught the desert dwellers a lesson, but still had much work to do – with their main force, they decided to launch an attempt on Zirais, with the hope being that they could eliminate all Savirai bases directly north of the Hulinui. As for that peninsula, their forces began a slow series of probes, with the hopes of drawing off the Farubaida's forces from the Peko Valley.
Nearly simultaneously, Kothari raids from Subal intensified into Faronun territory – almost, but not quite, to the point where they could be called an invasion. Fortifications had long been built and strengthened all along the southern frontier, so anything less than an all-out attack could not really threaten the heartland of the Farubaida, but it still distracted the Carohans, especially the paranoid Faerouhaiaouans, who noted nervously that, no matter how strongly held, their lands lay squarely in the way of any Kothari advance.
In what by now must have seemed to the Farubaida like a grand plot to pull them in a thousand directions at once, yet another distraction arrived from a most unlikely quarter.
The Prince of Bone, Fulwarc of Cyve, having thoroughly thrashed the Lusekt host in the far north, ventured into the larger conflict. He arrived in the Satar capital of Atracta with a grand fleet of nearly a hundred ships, where he made a great show of insisting the Redeemer should treat him as an equal – something that did not entirely amuse Avetas. Despite their friction, both hid whatever annoyance they felt with one another. Avetas handed Fulwarc a daring plan, one he said would be well-suited for his talents, being both risky and potentially quite profitable.
The Cyvekt fleet sailed southward, arriving at the straits of Caroha on a moonless night, passing between the lands into the Lovi Sea under cover of darkness, with the intent of laying waste to the rich and manifold trade routes here. Fulwarc's first target was Dremai, a city on the rise ever since the end of the last war, a port filled with hundreds of trade ships – and a brand new fleet, crafted to replace the one sunk at Alma.
The arrival of Fulwarc might have signaled a knockout blow for the distracted northern Faronun, but the Assembly of Dremai cleverly turned the raiders around with a well-timed deal. They offered Fulwarc – already somewhat disgruntled at his treatment in Atracta – all the ships in their harbors, as well as a bevy of supplies to kee them operational, in return for his agreeing to turn about, sail through the straits at Caroha again, and raid the Satar merchant fleet instead. Fulwarc was only too pleased to accept their deal; it smacked of the sort of cleverness that a northern raider would dream to hear put in some bard's song. Fulwarc, the man who could win a war with a boast.
One threat dealt with, the Carohans turned to the other ones. Raising emergency levies against the increased raids from the Kothari, they drew off some of the garrison in Reppaba to defend the Hulinui from Opulensi attacks. The Opulensi proved somewhat distracted anyway, and consequently the Farubaida actually outnumbered their ships in the region – and used this to fend off the fairly minor raids into the peninsula.
As for the force in Reppaba, it had to withstand an enormous array of siege machinery directed against it, though not forever.
For Khatai, having heard of this Satar invasion of the Peko, quickly judged that his men could probably hold the lines in Gallassa with far fewer men than he had devoted to the task. He left a significant garrison, to be sure, wary of the wiles of Rutarri, but he took a great host south with him, rounding the Crene Sea and intending to take Elikas' armies from the rear.
Almost simultaneously, Fulwarc's raiders hit a major convoy from the Satar mainland to their southern forces. Naturally, the Satar drew most of their food from the local land, and so there was little chance Elikas could starve in the Peko Valley – itself a perennially productive grain exporter – but replacement equipment, horses, and most of all, payment for his professional soldiers certainly did not improve their effectiveness.
But Elikas had learned war the hard way – through endless years of experience. Leaving a covering force to ensure that Reppaba's siege would not be broken, he took the greater part of his army north, to face the inexperienced Khatai, whom, he hoped, would be young enough and rash enough to bite at the chance for a decisive battle, despite the fact that the odds would be stacked in Elikas' favor. Khatai, naturally enough, saw this coming, and did not oblige him, instead intending to nibble away at the corners of the Satar army with his light cavalry – but that strategy did not work quite as well here as it might have in Gallat. The significant Airani forces, and indeed a large contingent of Xieni cavalry, meant the Satar had easily as much mobility at their disposal as did their desert counterparts.
It was a proverbial game of kalis, and in time, the experience of Elikas might prove true... though in truth, the longer the war went on, considering the failures of Satar allies in other quarters, it might benefit Khatai more than Elikas.
Obviously, neither of them were conscious of this when, almost accidentally, their armies came together at the city of Lumeyat, at the north of the Peko. To call the ensuing clash a “battle” would have been an exaggeration – in truth it was merely a series of skirmishes.
Nonetheless, obviously neither general wanted to lose, and so they prodded one another with cavalry strikes. The Savirai began as the more successful side, with their camelry frightening the enormous horses of the Satar cavalry in melee, though Elikas attempted to diffuse these problems temporarily by engaging primarily with his lighter cavalry from a distance, giving ground rather than risking his army in a melee. Of course, this also minimized his cataphracts, but it was a worthwhile tradeoff in his eyes.
In time, however, it was untenable. Elikas decided to withdraw for the moment, to see where the situation stood later, and the Savirai secured the city without too much trouble, menacing the northern flank of the Satar and hopefully distracting them from the potential capture of Reppaba. Certainly, Elikas' position looked increasingly awkward – until at long last, the raids and general mischief prompted exactly what the Satar had hoped for at the beginning – a rising by the former Khivani elites, convinced at long last that the presence of the Satar was more than just an ephemeral dream.
Their betrayal and the subsequent confusion in Reppaba prompted a final Satar assault on the city, forcing the evacuation of the Carohan garrison, which was almost entirely salvaged – but also almost entirely driven out of the Peko valley. With the support of the Maninist population behind him, Elikas could finally feel somewhat secure.
While everything was maneuver and wit in the south, Arto Rutarri's force of pikes and bow plodded across the denuded terrain of Gallat, long lines of blockhouses proving a match for the raiders that Khatai had left there – though the cavalry certainly inflicted significant losses, and the destruction wrought in Gallasa could not be underestimated. After some time, Rutarri arrived at Sern, something of a linchpin for the Savirai strategy in Gallat, and lay siege – and though the lines of circumvallation were breached repeatedly by Savirai probes, the city finally fell to the Accans.
Of course, the Satar had their own distractions. The most important one was in the far west, where the Prince of the Moon, Xardan, had launched an ill-advised war against the ancient khaganate of the Vischa. The invasion had gotten surprisingly far, most likely due to the Vischa's distraction against their own western neighbors – the Adanai steppe tribe. But when the Vischa had finally reshuffled, Xardan was exposed, far from any of the support that the Redeemer might have offered, and with few spoils to show for his troubles.
Naturally, Xardan was quickly assassinated by his own bodyguards before he could get much further, and the Vithana were quick to crown Karal Prince of the Moon – a boy, to be certain, but the eldest son of the late Redeemer Jahan, and very much a son of his father.
The Vithana were still badly outnumbered, and the Vischa did not stop at the old border, instead continuing onward remorselessly, fighting all the way to the shores of Lake Nasara, the traditional spiritual center of Satar empires (though something of an afterthought in this modern era). Karal did not bother to block the Vischa advance, instead choosing to harass the forces of the oncoming High King as best he could, but the best he could was not enough to stop the Vischa from taking Asikhar.
Hardly content with this, the Vischa High King Dathed struck northwards across the steppe, easily shrugging off any raids by Karal, and arriving in short order at the borders of the Princedom of the Wind.
The Xieni, of course, were among the least loyal of the Satar princedoms – so obviously so that they had been granted numerous concessions to keep them in line, and in return, supplying significant forces to the war effort across the Kern Sea. But this had the effect of a double-edged sword: on the one hand, the Xieni could not easily rise in rebellion in support of the Vischa advance, but on the other, they had limited resources to resist it.
What happened next was difficult to discern by anyone in Atracta, but the gist of it seemed to be that limited groups of Xieni nobility rose in support of Dathed's advance, while Prince Laeng as ever was playing his cards close to his chest, fighting the Vischa in a limited capacity, but insisting his forces were too limited to deal with it adequately. Supporting his sincerity were the levies he raised from the Ming areas of the Princedom, though of course Avetas had little reason to trust the Xieni lord.
To say the least, as the campaigns started to wind down, the situation had grown quite interesting for all parties...
* * * * * * * * *
While the other major powers in the cradle clawed and fought with one another on every conceivable battlefield, the Holy Moti Empire watched with mild interest, for once not fighting a War For All Existence. In his newfound spare time, the Ayasi did not rest easy, traveling from city to city, sponsoring the foundation of several new academies, and creating a new imperial observatory on one of the high hills near Gaci, modeled after those which had already been established in the Kothari and Carohan cities.
Naturally, of at least equal concern was the rash of assassinations of high-flying nobility in the Empire. The Ayasi duly responded, founding an elite imperial bodyguard, promptly dubbed the “Golden Hats”. These individuals, he only too happily lent out to the various nobility who lived in paranoia of the strikes, though it should be noted that a fair number of the nobles refused the bodyguards out of fear that the Golden Hats themselves would put them under the thumb of the Ayasi. One way or another, the deaths trickled to a halt, and rumors of discontent among the upper nobility fell away to almost nothing.
Ongoing war aside – and given that most of the fighting was concentrated in the valley of the Peko and Gallat, the war was very much an aside for most people – the nascent golden age in the two main river valleys and the Lovi rose to still greater heights. Easy credit had never been more available, and the prosperity of the littoral and the river valleys showed in numerous new religious buildings – a series of Aitahist temples across the southern coast of the Lovi Sea, and a particularly notable domed one in Reppaba across the sea; meanwhile the Had and Sesh saw a rash of new Iralliamite churches.
Government patronage of the arts had largely fallen off in the Farubaida, but the many theaters still had sufficient wealth to survive on their own at this point; of particular note was a famous work entitled Para Coraeda (The March of the Shipwrecked), dealing with the famed survivors of the Battle of the Bays who had fought their way to the Sesh Delta successfully; this, too, inspired a rash of poetry and sculpture, the latter of which started to adorn every civic institution in the entire Farubaida – not least, a lovely Assembly Hall in Caroha, fashioned of red sandstone and paneled with marble.
In the upper Had, priests filled the new churches with strains of polyphonic music, with interwoven lines of melody. This art had already been perfected in the mountain monasteries of the easternmost Kotthorns under the patronage of the Kothari Exatai; only now did it start to spread to the more western reaches of the Iralliamite fold.
Comparatively, though, the real meat of the cultural flowering lay in a great scientific inquiry undertaken by Carohan investigators, who started to unpackage the physical underpinnings of the universe – from physics, to theoretical mathematics, to astronomy, and even, somewhat, to biology. Here, sadly, the war did intrude a little – enough to separate them from their potential colleagues in the Kothari Exatai and the Opulensi Empire. This mostly impacted astronomy – where separate catalogs of the stars, planets, and comets would be passed down for years – and biology, where long years of Opulensi monastic studies (on the verge, indeed, of understanding genetics) would be ignored by the west, and fell in danger of being lost forever with the turmoil that enveloped that state.
In the far south, the teachings of Jitanu had by now become something of a norm rather than radical new ideas; his disciples traveled far and wide throughout the reaches of Indagahor. Rival musical traditions sprang up here, south of the Kothai: the aforementioned polyphonies of the Iralliamite convention, and more meditative soundscapes composed for the famous bells of the Indagahor temples in Jipha – these bell-hymns traveled as well, finding their way to Spitos in only a few years: thus would their dulcet melodies be heard in the background of clashes between Daharai and Imperial troops in the Opulensi Empire.
Inspired by the works of Jitanu, a new Indagahor temple complex housing some of his sculpture was raised in the capital of Kilar – though this one modeled itself after the monastery of Arasos in its scope – it sought to not only preach Enlightenment, but also to serve as a place of study, bringing in a few scholars from as far as Caroha to teach the sciences.
In the far north, delegations of Aitahist missionaries would arrive in the capital of the little kingdom of Brunn, though only history would decide if this was actually worth noting – more importantly to the notables of the day was the final destruction of the Frelesti, and the disappearance of Treuben at the hands of the larger Stettin states.
The Karapeshai lands, meanwhile, saw war on many sides. Even so, in the center, Atracta rose from its foundations, with the central dome of the Sephashim finally seeing completion, and the new, well defended harbor starting to attract traders from around the Kern, particularly when piracy started to rise after a few years. A new slave code marked increased progressiveness, and the Tepecci banks started to inspire imitators as far away as Leun.
The departure of Fulwarc and Aelona from the Cyvekt lands did not mean they lay dormant – far from it. In fact, the heir apparent, Glynt, took his father's absence as an opportunity... to spend the little kingdom to the brink of bankruptcy, with feasts and monuments galore. The numerous disgruntled lords did little to dissuade him from this course; nor did a brief visit from his father intended to chastise him. Despite all that, Cyve did receive a number of refugees from the war in Gallat as well: Maninists fleeing the continuing slaughter, though what the end result would be, no one was entirely sure. The western part of the Cyvekt empire fared a little better, seeing the founding of a small vassal state at Yevel, which wiped out most of the remnants of the old Lusekt kingdom.
Aelona's arrival in the Dual Empire led directly to her being crowned Empress – quite a feat for a northern girl still not even fifteen. She had already more or less been anointed the next Aitah, though some of the more pious in the Empire grumbled at this incredible religious turnaround. Nonetheless, the Emperor's successes in the field meant few were inclined to bring it up with him.
* * * * * * * * *
There is a place where the river flows on two sides, where by day the children wade out into the currents, playing in the waters that wash over an ever-changing spit of sand to soak away the heat of summer. They call this place Nashehta, from Na-sheh-ta or Na-sesh-ta, old Arkage for “where the Sesh splits,” but barely anyone remembers that one word was once three, or even who the Arkage were anymore. The man who lives in the house nearest the split is named Wanesk, and is so old that some joke he must be immortal – though he knows the difference, feeling every year in the creak of his bones. He tells his children that they are descended from Te'esh, a mighty conqueror, though he worries that they will forget it is through his mother, for human memory works through the broad strokes, not the narrow – even he does not know how the name “Nashehta” was born.
He does remember many things, though – when he was young, the horse-lords ruled this land. He knew a man who knew a man, and together they gathered in the secret warrens beneath the old fort (for the Satar had occupied the citadel but never truly owned it) to worship the statue with the ancient rites – “Sleep kindly, for thou hath deserved it, thy people prosper yet, thy world while broken is not yet finished, and will in time be repaired...” Wa. And when the elephants came from the high mountain passes, they raised old swords in upright fists, and struck off the chains that bound their people.
He did not fight at Karhat, but he did fight in the tunnels beneath Magha, flushing out the aspect masters, who emerged from the smoke, masked like demons and fighting like gods. He lost two fingers in the catacombs that day, red blood soaking into the red sandstone, and accounted himself lucky, for his oldest friend had died fighting beside him, the sword that had taken Wanesk's digits taking his head.
The old memories were like some ancient litany, running through his head in much the same way that the words of the Aitah did – as though they had happened to some other being, some young god, who had once run swiftly and hewn sinew from bone with sword and spear – not to him. Here he was, decades later, only a broken sigh of that dead deity, ancient, bones outlined clearly beneath the flesh, sometimes unable to stand when he had sat for too long, and yet still working the nets in the river, scooping out the fish that had collected there. His eldest son would do most of the work, shearing off their scales and hooking out the guts, but Wanesk refused to allow his usefulness to die entirely.
And sometimes he just sat beneath the lemon tree, yellow fruit falling when the youngest children shook its limbs. He would peel it then and there and eat it as he watched his daughter, almost a woman grown, throwing her sweetheart from down the road into the water, and laughing as he surfaced, indignant. He never felt so old as he did when watching them – and never felt so happy as he did then, for he saw himself and his dearest Pa'asa in their faces – Pa'asa, whose bones fed the lemons that fed him.
Old age healed old wounds, for they became like familiar smells – sometimes unpleasant, but still comforting.
* * * * * * * * *
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
* * * * * * * * *
Note: A continuation of the traditional Dulama tale of the twin brothers Ain and Glaide.
I do not know if you remember where we were in the story. It has been some time. Ain and Glaide, the twins born under a red-horned moon, had received an impossible mission from their father the king – charged with stealing a gem from a witch who lived by the sea, a witch who could divine their every move before they made it. Indeed, she knew of their journey before they made it, before they had been born. She had been born knowing of this ending, and had all her life to plan for it.
How could they possibly succeed? Well, that is the story.
Ain and Glaide had done battle with a great water snake so large it had stoppered the river and flooded the city of Tiagho; they had fought the charms of sirens who lured them to near-starvation in the forest glens at the last cataract of the Abreya. All that, really, is not the heart of the Dulama legend.
For Ain and Glaide had overcome what other mortals never could, but now they faced the immortal witch, and their hearts filled with trepidation as they neared the sea, beating as they never had when wrestling with the water snake, or when stroked by the wood sirens, or when Ain nearly drowned in the cataract, or when Glaide was almost turned to stone by a venomous wind-dragon. For this was different.
Even when they came within sight of the sea, and saw that the witch's home was only a mere hut, sitting on a lonely spit of land between the rivermouth and the sea, even when no magic seized them nor stormclouds brewed, despite all the innocence of those moments, their hearts were filled with fear, and each of them had to stop the other from fleeing.
Glaide was the first to approach the threshold, and pounded the butt of his father's spear on the ground thrice. “Witch!” He called. “Witch!” His twin unslung the greatsword that was as tall as he was, and both readied themselves for some sort of combat, though they could not imagine what they might fight, or how they would fight it.
The voice in response was musical, but somehow tinged with sadness. “Glaide. Ain.”
It stopped them in their tracks. “Come forth, witch,” Ain said, uncertainly. “Try none of your tricks. We do not wish to harm you.”
“Worry not, warrior. I do not wish to harm you as well. Alas, though, for I must – you should not have stopped one another from fleeing.”
“You would fight us? We, who have destroyed the great water snake of Tiagho, who have –”
“I know what you have done, and what you will do, Glaide, son of an ailing king, you who left the highlands and can never return. I do not intend to fight you, but I must harm you one way or another. Should I give you the gem you seek, one of you will die. If I stop you, both of you will die. And even now, I cannot say which is the crueler option.”
“What do you mean? If you give us the gem and do not attack us –”
“Then one of you will die on the journey home. I do not seek to discourage you, brave warriors, nor to make you rage against that which fate has chosen for you. I merely say this so that you know the choice you are making. Take the gem, if you will. I will await your return, and cook a meal for two, not three.”
And then before them stepped the witch, and it seemed to them that she was youthful, with an uncanny beauty, even though they knew from the stories that she was undying, and they knew without asking that she had used the gem, and that it worked. Their father's plan was not in vain! But what to make of her strange prophecy?
Ain and Glaide exchanged a long look, and in low voices, Ain spoke, “Let us not fight her, brother. We will take the gem back to our father, and we will avert her prophecy. Just because a witch has spoken does not make it so.” And Glaide nodded, and held out his hand. With a look that told a thousand tragedies, the witch turned over her hand above his, and a tiny sapphire fell into it – sparkling with stunning radiance, as though it contained an entire ocean under the sun, or maybe some star imprisoned in a crystalline night.
She watched them leave, and the teas sparkled on her cheeks, for she knew that there would be no way to avert the prophecy. One would die, and there would be no way for them to change it. Only one thing she did not know – and that was which of the twins would die.
For another choice awaited them on the river, darker than that which they had just made.
* * * * * * * * *
It is a strange sort of peace that reigns in the west: a peace not of contentment but of discontent, of men who believe they are wronged but know that now is not the time to settle their scores.
The Emperor of the Dulama surely chafed at the humiliating restrictions that the aristocracy had put on his power, and longed to continue his reforms, but there was nothing to be done; those same aristocrats surely desired to finally replace their lord with a puppet of their own, but they, too, knew a move would likely cost them more than they could gain. Predators prowled on every edge of the old Empire: old generals who thought they could conquer swathes of territory, or the grandsons of madmen who dreamed of greater power, or kings who take the center of the world and reshape it in their own image.
But none were willing to risk defeat, and the status quo prevailed – an ailing empire, slowly bleeding as a swarm of sharks gathered.
In contrast to the stagnation of the Empire, the cosmopolitan cities of the Toasha flourished under Hai Vithana rule, and with lapsing trade regulations on the heterogeneous Dulama frontier, they actually saw an increase in profits. Unusual even in the constant stream of eastern and western merchants, a ragtag band of warriors and their families arrived on horseback near Amhatr, their leader welcomed with open arms by the khagan. Unnoticed by almost everyone who might have remarked on it in the east, Satores and his faithful band of followers had finally given up their fight for Satara.
The Haina contented themselves with the rule of the south sea, expanded now, as they attacked the poor nascent empire of Suran, nipping it neatly in the bud. A vast fleet of ships easily overpowered a navy that had little to no idea of an approaching menace, while the Surani army succumbed almost before it had even taken up arms. A few petty chiefs remained in power throughout the old empire, claiming that they would defend the honor of the old empire, but that was surely just a way to avoid subservience to the intruders.
For their part, the westerners found that Suran had rather little of value, at least to the great trading empire. Certainly, the ports were in a lovely location, and trade to the west increased slightly as a result, but no great new market was opened up, and the outlay of capital and forces was deemed unacceptably large by many of the trading companies, who regarded the seizure of more land as largely frivolous.
Moreover, even with the settlement of large numbers of Haina in the Surani coastal regions, a relatively large garrison had to be maintained in the face of continuing resistance from inland chiefs. In the end, the new provinces lost rather more money than they made, and many advocated their abandonment even as a few pushed for their expansion to find more valuables in the jungle archipelago.
Rumors of a deranged but prophetic king among the Kayana had to be dismissed as ludicrous.
More rumors spoke of a new kingdom rising deep within the jungles south of the Laitra Empire, but few believed them, least of all the Laitra Emperors themselves, who fixated on a much more valuable, if risky, prize...
* * * * * * * * *
Much removed from the center of the world, the backwater Ilfolk still saw a decade of momentous change. The arrival of strange voyagers bearing goods from the far north had undoubtedly taken all of them by surprise, but within a few years, everyone had grown quite used to the traders selling their wares and buying up both trinkets and piles of raw material from the islanders. It was only after a few years that the ruling priests began to question why the Opulensi were so happy to buy these goods at what they had assumed were fair prices – and began to levy the first tariffs.
Naturally, this displeased the Opulensi a great deal, and they sought to overthrow the rule of the Temple of the Snake. At first, they attempted to hire Baribai mercenaries to do their work for them, but this quickly got out of hand. Several dozen bands of the northern islanders remained faithfully in the employ of the merchants, and intimidated the Ilfolk priest-chiefs into tacit acceptance of the Opulensi merchants as overlords, but a dozen more decided to start unilaterally raiding the southern island. Coupled with a rebellion of the southernmost chiefs, this threw the Ilfolk into a chaotic three-way conflict.
It quickly became apparent that the priests of the Slangtempl and their Opulensi allies could not control the situation; they had more soldiers and better weapons than their foes, but couldn't subdue the southerners for fear of Baribai raids, nor fend off the Baribai wholly without opening themselves to southern attacks. Isolated from official Opulensi existence – after all, the Empire was fighting a rather more important war at that point, they were left exploring subtler paths to victory – or perhaps merely to slog out what looked to be a long and difficult war.
* * * * * * * * *
He'd never wanted to get drawn into a conspiracy. He'd been a mediocre monk, at best, never rivaling the pursuits of more famous persons like Arasos or Jitanu. But it was fulfilling to walk in their footsteps, to devote his life to the pursuit of Enlightenment. He would ask for no more, and so too, he hoped, would the universe.
And then the man arrived, and told him to fight, and his life seemed shipwrecked.
The bells sang soft in the heights, quiet reminders from the monastery towers that the hours were passing. The noonday hymn, he realized. He was late.
Quickening his pace, he nearly ran down the rock-cut steps of the seaside towers, teetering precariously on the edge of the cliff. Murals sprawled across the stone, pictures of heaven, murals for sailors, perhaps, or foreign gods. In a few seconds, he entered the caverns that tunneled into the mountain. Here he had to pull up short, and pause. Panting from the effort, he reminded himself to move quietly. The Daharai, they said, had the ears of hares. He heard them now, sparring in one of the deeper recesses out of sight, shouts mingling with the clash of wood on wood.
He traced his hand along the wall, searching until he felt the telltale crack. Here it was. Slowly, he pulled a hammer from the folds of his cloak, feeling still with his left hand for the widest gap. Faint hints of fighting rang behind him now, too, metal on metal this time, with the keening edge of screaming. He knew then that his time was limited.
Pulling out a chisel, he went to work. Tap, tap, tap, tap. He only needed to make the simplest of cuts in the mortar here; the long dead builders of the monastery had meant this cave as a tomb, and built this tunnel to collapse. One way in, one way out, and a tomb it would be. Clink, clink, clink. It was a wonder, he thought, that the warriors within could not hear those without – or at least couldn't hear his chisel. He probably only had a minute, if that, and though he knew he only had to cut a small section, he started to sweat.
The Emperor had ordered a “show of force” against the troublesome Daharai, and though he had been careful to specify that they should avoid killings, it had mostly confused his loyal servants. Moreover, it had been completely impossible to conceal from the slightly more unsavory elements of the military. The monk, of course, had only the faintest awareness of this, and had been told only this: kill the Daharai, else they might destroy the Empire, and all Indagahor.
A grinding noise startled him and he jumped back; otherwise, his foot might have been flattened by the tremendous block of stone that crashed down into the burrow, blinding him in a cloud of dust.
The garrison was trapped.
Despite himself, he smiled. He wasn't entirely sure if he believed in the Daharai plot in the first place, but it was a smile of success. It was only then that he heard the footsteps behind him, a voice snarling, “Traitor.”
His smile hadn't quite faded as blood bubbled through it.
* * * * * * * * *
With the news of the attacks and the inevitable Daharai rebellions, the Opulensi Emperor was furious. The warrior monks had not reacted kindly to imperial meddling in their affairs, even though it had only been aimed at the most extreme elements, and had seized power in a few of the most central cities in the Empire – worryingly close to Epichirisi itself. They had only launched into this latest war to placate the cursed order in the first place, after all, and now they had become a critical distraction to the very same war. It didn't make sense.
Not that the situation had spiraled out of control yet. To the contrary, word had it that his greatest field army verged on taking Hrn from the Nahari, and not for the first time, his people could dream of ridding themselves of their northern neighbors once and for all. And the Farubaida had been distracted on so many other fronts that even their token efforts in Hulinui threatened to break through and undo every one of the humiliating losses from the last war.
But should the tide turn – even if it didn't, really – the Daharai lingered, or rather, grew. Feeding off latent discontentment among dozens of segments of Opulensi society, they seized Ormiskos and Kalos first, then a series of fortress-monasteries north of Dar, in the almost forgotten province of Leheb. Doubtless, worse might have followed, but the forces nearest the front lines (and nearest the potential front line against Leun) showed some sense, and stayed banded together, remaining united against the many foes of the Empire.
Then, the tide turned.
* * * * * * * * *
What of the Leunan menace?
Leun, too, had moved against an undesirable element of its government, but here, the situation was reversed, and with much happier results. The Emperor of Leun for some time had been a mere figurehead, viewed by many if not most as an ancient appendage long atrophied of any usefulness, and when the final, unfortunate man in that line chose to make a pilgrimage to display his piety in the new faith of Aitah, his assets were quickly seized.
Of course, the transition was not so easy as that. Even if the Emperor had been a figurehead, he had also been a symbolic restriction on the ever-growing power of the Merchant Council. With him removed, it seemed, they would have no real opponent in all of Leun.
Unfortunately for the opposition, this is exactly what proved true. The lesser aristocracy tried to block the maneuver, but found themselves outmuscled by the Council, brushed aside all too easily. A few minor shows of rebellion were crushed by the Leunan army, which, after all, had no distractions to the west, and had recently made peace with Iolha – indeed, the north seemed altogether wrapped up; a surprisingly fair plebiscite led to the city of Araña joining the Republic, and Iolha had been mostly bottled up.
Meanwhile, the nascent government modeled itself after Aitahist models from the west, a conscious adoption of not only the confession, but also the culture of the western religion. They established a powerful Assembly, staffed almost exclusively by the former Council or the merchants who had sufficient money to elect themselves. A triumvirate sat at its head in a somewhat empty gesture towards executive rule, but no one was really fooled – power clearly lay with the senators and their lifetime terms.
Only then, funded by the emperor's seized assets (though these amounted to rather less than the Council had initially hoped), did the Republic begin to completely overhaul its bureaucracy, shedding the various, more outmoded systems of the old Empire, and establishing much sleeker-looking ones in their place. Of course, corruption was difficult to stem, given that most of the taxable wealth in the country was held by none other than the merchants who had recently become senators.
On a slightly more positive note, the merchants founded a new bank in the city of Leun proper, ostensibly modeled on ancient Seshweay economic concepts, but incorporating many of the new developments from faraway Acca.
North of them, the Parthecan government sent a new expedition to the mysterious northern island town, conquering quite some land, and securing a new trade route northwards – though thus far it is mostly small matters of shipping off steel tools and getting hardwood timber in return.
Of unusual interest were developments in the east, where the Kitaluk had long lurked, but mostly been content to trade back and forth at a few Leunan and Parthecan ports. The policy's sudden reversal took everyone in the region by surprise – the Kitaluk unilaterally declared that all trade from henceforth would have to be conducted by transferring goods from ship to shore via a rope pulled between the two. No Kitaluk ship would make port in Parthe or the Leunan colonies, and they warned the other powers that any attempt to approach Kitaluk lands would be met with a show of force.
The disjunction caused the price of indigo to plummet in Parta, and put the new bank in Leun into dangerous straits in its very first year of operation, but observers noted that once the new trade system was in place, it would function well enough – if less efficiently than before. More worrying, perhaps (to those with an imagination) was what strange terror must have taken the Kitaluk so wholly that they would close their profitable western trade venture to a trickle.
For all that, a few Kitaluk chose to trap themselves on the western side of the blockade, and rumor had it that several “missing” Leunan or Parthecan merchants had in fact chosen to reside with the Kitaluk, apparently earning their trust sufficiently to surmount the blockade.
Undoubtedly someone would write a sad poem about a starcrossed couple caught on either side.
Very sad.
* * * * * * * * *
Then, at long last, acting for the good of their alliances, the new Leunan Republic and old Farean Kingdom struck at the Opulensi holdings on Auona, attacking simultaneously against the garrisons that had been left there. The Opulensi were not few in number, but they were outnumbered, and lacked a coherent strategy to repel the attacks – wanting instead to merely minimize the losses. This proved quite difficult, as ample numbers of the Cyntal aristocracy conspired to open the gates to their city, which fell into chaos against a coordinated allied assault. Even while the Opulensi garrison abandoned the city to reinforce Tars and Cheidia, the Daharai and Imperial soldiers blamed one another for the failure.
The northern cities came under siege almost immediately afterward, though the Leunan hesitance to engage against the Opulensi fleet ensured that they could be supplied by sea, and thus resist indefinitely. Nevertheless, with Paulinth surrounded and the last few Opulensi strongholds in the region coming under attack, it seemed like the old empire had finally reached its final hours.
Attempting to land a knockout blow in a single campaign, the Leunans simultaneously launched a huge invasion of Gadia, attempting to bring their ancient rival to heel. The Gadians, however, proved a little more intractable than expected, fighting on every frontier far beyond what their numbers implied would be possible. Leunan numbers had only just begun to tell when Iolha got wind of the attack and decided to join in, refusing to allow their fellow Acayans fall completely under Leunan domination.
With a full complement of Berathi auxiliaries, the Iolhans marched down the Acayan coast, fending off Tazari raids from the west with skill, and crashed directly into the northern lines of the besiegers around the city of Gade itself. Though the Leunans still held a slim numerical advantage, they had been outmaneuvered here, and the siege of the city fell apart. Even so, the city of Ischya fell to the invaders, and it looked here, too, like Leun's foes were on their last legs despite everything.
* * * * * * * * *
A snow-crested hill caught the glint of the sunset like another evening star, burning a soft red-white over the steppe. The riders' breath turned to crystal in the frozen air, feet stamped on soil hard as stone to bring warmth. Grasses of the plain thrust through a thin blanket of snow, yellow spears against the dying of the day, and in the hands of an old warrior, the fiddle of the horse-tribes began to play. Softly it lowed, an old song, older than these people who roamed these hills from their earliest days. Melody without harmony, a single line, stretching upward and downward, lifting and lilting by equal turns. Three of the warriors joined in the song, their voices so deep, the very snow seemed to settle about their feet – though perhaps that was the heat of the cookfire as it burned against the coming nightfall.
By the time the song had died, the stars had come out in earnest. A few clouds still lay near the horizon, and the world had that curiously well-lit quality of a snow-covered landscape, but there was no mistaking the glint of northern stars, especially on a moonless and Veil-less night. Wordlessly, one of the older warriors passed a skein of kumiss about the circle. Each took a deep drink before handing it onward, last of all the enormous youth they had called “Little-Girl-Who-Cannot-Bend-A-Bow” in jest.
“Sunrise soon,” commented one of the elders. “Always comes too soon.” His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply; the chill of the night air seemed to carry – even magnify – the stench of pony manure. Their steeds had been tied only feet away, ready to mount at a moment's notice.
Little-Girl looked at the eastern horizon nervously. His name had been funny at the beginning of the campaign, even to him, but he was all-too-aware that he had never fought in a battle... not really. The skirmishes that had come before had been meaningless, especially as the great war was concerned. Killing a man had been rather like killing a deer – stick him with enough arrows, and eventually the little points will bleed him white, he will fall off his horse, and die quietly and feverishly.
“I hear the enemy king is dead. Murdered by his own bodyguards.”
“He was never a king, just a Prince,” grumbled the old man again. “And make no mistake, his kin still leads the easterners. They will be ready.”
“Never said they wouldn't be,” the other growled back. “But if they think they can send a pittance against us and survive –”
“No need to bluster here. We are not your foe.”
That silenced the old man, and each of them watched the fire as it struggled against the cold, little waves of heat shimmering over the flames. Wasted heat, wandering into the night, licking at the stars and giving nothing to the men around it.
“Time to sleep, I think,” one of the old men said. “Little-Girl, you get first watch.”
Little-Girl shifted slightly by the fire. He had gotten first watch every night for the past twenty, ever since the old men realized how raw and pliable he truly was, and like all those nights, he simply accepted it placidly. He turned his back to the fire, so that his eyes might adjust while the others shuffled towards the two tents.
Only a few minutes later, the chill had already begun to set into his cheeks and hands. Only his back remained warm – roasting, in fact – but the heat simply stayed there, like a slab of meat left on a fire, unturned, one side charring and the other still cold.
By the time the rest of his company had drifted off to sleep, the chill had taken on a surreal, solid quality to it. Movement hurt, as though the fluid in his joint had frozen solid, ice shattering and refreezing with every turn, while the taut skin stretched over wrist and cheekbone – the only exposed parts of his body now – seemed to peel, as though after a bad sunburn. This was surely the coldest night he had ever been chosen to sit watch, and even as he looked toward the horizon, the stars shimmered with the blur of tears.
His mind drifted back to a few nights before. He kept watch, but in his mind he could hear the inane screams of the Vithana boy who had tried to crawl away after he had fallen on his horse, see the other men pushing a spear into his hand, feeling how there was almost no resistance as the razor tip sliced through leathers and skin easier than cutting a chicken. Little-Girl didn't want people to think he was a coward (imagine how much worse his nickname would become), but he did not want to kill, either...
Long hours stretched into longer ones, even if the cold became somehow more bearable, and he had nearly begun to crawl into one of the tents to wake one of the old men when a silhouette blocked a couple of the low-lying stars. Sitting up, Little-Girl squinted into the night. A few seconds more was all he needed – it was a rider.
It had begun.
“Ay! Ay!” he hissed. Slowly, his brothers woke, stirring deep within their tents. Not quickly enough. “Ay! A rider!” That started them moving, slinking from the hide-bound tents like she-bears emerging from hibernation. The eldest took one look at the rider and set his teeth.
“Only a scout, but we must slay him nonetheless.”
The rest of the men nodded, and mounted in one smooth motion, readying their bows even as they wheeled their horses to face the new intruder. Only then did the newcomer shout.
“Hail! I am no Satar!”
This gave them pause.
“Then who are you, you who come in the black of the night, you who come from the distant east?”
“Hear me out, for I have been borne on the wind and ridden the storm. There are more princes than Moon or Scroll in the Exatai.”
* * * * * * * * *
Maps
City Map
Economic Map
Religious Map
Political Map
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OOC:
As is the norm, I apologize for the long wait and hope it was at least somewhat worth it. As is also the norm, let me know about concerns or mistakes. This update is not necessarily up to snuff so... there may be many.
By the way, Kraznaya, I'll keep the Savirai open for one week in case you want to change your mind and return. Next claim will go to Luckymoose for the sake of his blonde babies.
Oh, and a general note: orders both military and domestic could be a tad more ambitious across the board. Just look at the fact that our turn length right now is ten years – [most of] you can do a whole lot more than you seem to be willing to try. Looking back on it, I think Matt is the only one who tried to do a decade's worth of stuff. Part of that is on me, for hurrying you guys to get orders in (for, as it turns out, no good reason), but do keep that in mind for this upcoming turn.
das
Regeneration In Process
I cannot help but think that the title of the update is referring to you, NK. 
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
You should have seen some of the rejected titles. "Not Dead Yet." "This Isn't Over." "From the Sky."
