I think what MilitantBird means is that in a world with griffin riders who are able to soar above the battlefield and fully assess the situation, as well as issue orders from above, this should allow for some actual command during combat. Although I can see that enemy riders could interfere with this.
Given the opportunity for that sort of thing generals will absolutely do that. Historical generals in fact did do exactly that, Major General Walton Walker did exactly that with a spotter plane rather than griffin mind, but he absolutely did shout orders down to flagging troops during the defense of Pusan.
Jewel weathered the arrows, she spat wyrmflame recklessly and widely. She tried to rally the soldiers around her.
And for the most part she simply occupied the efforts of the opposing Weird of Fortification and kept the soldiers too frightened to close with her.
Her jaws snapped in the air before them. Her tail cracked over their heads.
She could hear dying.
Screams of men and horses piling on top of one another in her ears from all directions and distances.
She could smell their sweat, blood and organs spilling
The places where armies were meeting stank of pierced guts and many of the bodies laying on the ground yet breathed and still cried.
Jewel tried to think about the wheat harvest. Tried to remember how scared she had been and how inconsequential and normal it became.
If she could learn to weather the screams of the fields she could overcome this.
She needed too, Father needed her too.
Just a bit longer here in the melee and then they would give the signal and she could launch herself into the air.
Join the wheeling shapes in the sky.
Get above the stink and the screams of the ground.
Kraok was making a solid showing on her left.
Bromthil pairing well with him on her right.
Amidst, behind and ahead of her the levy and other footmen moved.
Stepping in to stab with a spear, or planting their feet and taking shots with arrows.
Jewel's presence and size drove back retaliation. Her wings and coils offered shelter and protection.
And Tsulogothulan's workings held firm for the men of Viznove and their horses. Falling away into sucking mud and bog for all others. And shooting up from the waters around them were more dangers than simply ill footing or suffocating mud. There were lashing reeds that shredded open the first few layers of cloth armor and cut jagged gashes into unprotected skin. Strange squirming shapes that struck unarmored legs or shins and set those unfortunate enough to dare to intrude too deeply into the Bog Weird's domain with shakes and wailing pain.
Jewel's presence and her childish blasts of white flame intermixed with the bog that surrounded her was keeping the men of Rochford safe.
Their only injury so far was one of the younger boys who was caught before Jewel could intercede a wing or flank to block the stray arrow that struck his thigh.
Tsulogothulan had slapped something sticky, black and according to the Weird purifying onto the wound. It stunk of sulfur but stopped the bleeding of the wound even after the arrow was torn free and even let him stand in spite of what should have been agonizing pain.
His elders still had him move back into the middle of the formation near Jewel, where the uncertainty of his stance would be less of a liability.
He smelled a bit off now as far as Jewel was concerned, but she had too many other things to worry about.
She had to hold on and wait for her signal.
Just had to-
Zephyrvam's cry from on high and behind her filled Jewel with relief so strong her scales trembled in waves down from her head to her tail and made her mane stand on end all along her spine.
Finally!
She took in a heavy breath and let her wyrmfire course properly through her coils and wings.
One flap was already driving her upwards.
Two more and she ascended three times her length in altitude.
In a dozen she is already rising up over the battlefield, drawing ineffectual if stinging pricks of arrows on her scales.
As she rose Jewel could see the lay of the forces of Viznove, Zhekhedge and Thurzó. Or at least she assumed that was them. But there was so much confusion. If not for the banners she had come to know along the march it would be impossible to discern anything in the writhing tangle of fury. Bouts curdling up and down the valley.
The works of sorcery just further complicated it all. What she had once thought of as soft whispers spoken in silence beneath things had been raised up into a torrent of near shouting on all sides.
They clashed and overwhelmed the now distant screaming and whimpering of the men and beast injured or harried on the battlefield.
Without that distraction it made the desperate, violent, angry pleas spinning up and down the line even sharper and clearer to her.
Jewel rose and as she did two Gryphons moved to rake her with claws and beak. She spun before even fully recognizing that it was an enemy act. Muscle and flame twisting as Father had trained her too.
Her reflex letting off the gentle flashing burst of light on each and sending unaccustomed Gryphons screaming and wheeling up and away into the sky erratically.
That was a mistake.
She was not supposed to hold back like that now.
This was a real battle!
Father on Zephyrvam finally swept past her with a flight cant of greeting. Praise despite her letting instinct rule her and fail to follow through with her flame.
Her Father was too kind.
Looking over all the writhing lines and formations all the order of the march and the offering of battle was lost.
The only sense left was where sorcery met sorcery and no man dared to cross. But everywhere else Knights made charges, archers attempted to form ranks on whoever had the wrong colors. Footmen and Levy bundled and bunched together then dived into each other and lost all coherence.
In places Jewel (and she suspected the men below) did not even know if they were fighting friend or foe.
It was chaos and even up here she could still hear as a murmur the suffering and anguish, all mingled together. Man and beast alike dying, fearing, bleeding.
It was like the butchery of a wheat harvest all over again.
She had to be strong.
Jewel could feel Euewyn's familiar voice on the wind around her and Father. She could see the other Gryphon Lords and Riders spinning and struggling now. How they were outnumbered by the forces of Thurzó.
There were four trying to harry and bloody Cloudspear and count Fiebron just now!
Jewel looked around, she could not tell where she should go, what she should do.
The noise, the blood, the chaos of everything under and around her.
There was none of the clarity or assurance the histories had made about battle.
Even in the air she was unsure of where or how she should proceed.
Gryphons wheeling up into the sky drew her eye.
Unfamiliar and making for a dive.
Two more were sweeping high and towards her after it.
The crumpled form of one of the Riders that she had traded riddles with had just crashed into the ground so hard that feather, bone, blood and earth fountained and then barreled over horse and men alike with the pinwheeling corpse.
Jewel tried to focus, to still herself, to listen as her Father had taught her, to push harder. She could see Father flying in position above her, taking height for his own strike, positioning where at least one side of her attackers would prefer to ride.
She tried to push the sounds and scents of death away. Like she had when she was young.
It was much harder to ignore the suffering of men than that of wheat and grass and other crops.
But she had too.
The first of the enemy fliers was diving towards her.
The second and third close behind.
Father and Zephyrvam were not diving to intercept them with an arrow or claw.
That was her task.
Jewel mustered her flame, she focused to try and keep it mastered. To watch and see them as they speared towards her. One from the front, the other two coming at her from the left and right.
Denied a full rear flank by Zephyrvam's threatening presence.
Euewyn's autumn winds were around her but not buffeting or interfering.
Jewel reached out and felt the currents in the wake of the diving Gryphons.
She willed her own flame in answer to them up her throat. Shaped it as she had not when she had rebuked the last strike.
Held the presence of it in her mouth with more to spare bundling and coiling up behind in her throat.
The Gryphons closed and though the speed of the dives from all three devoured leagues in a moment it all felt so slow.
Jewel thought of how she had missed her chance at this when the Terror Boar closed.
How it had cost the simple footman Gimletson his life.
How a knight she had not even known the name of but traded wit and jokes with just a few days ago was thrown broken and certainly dead in the roiling chaos below her.
How it was the acts of those closing with her.
How they harassed Fiebron even now across the sky from her.
Jewel waited until it was too late for them to turn from their course.
And then she breathed without restraint.
Pushing Wyrmflame from her mouth and throat in a sharp spear. Lancing out and across the sky hard and fast before barely any of it could catch and burn in the air.
Three Gryphons move to pass and rake claws and beak over her coils one right after another.
Set to close and cross paths in her body.
Her neck twisted from left to right.
The air bursts open with the stink of petrichor and thunder.
The still smoldering wings and one head of the Gryphons fall past her.
Eyes widening in shock, beak opening in silence.
Tumbling in the air.
Of their bodies and riders only ash swirling past her wings remains.
Jewel stared.
She looked around.
Her coils were tense, ready for another returning pass.
But...
There is none.
She had struck and now her opponents were no more.
Just gone.
Faster and more utterly than even wood.
Not even time for them to make their dismay known
Even wheat under sickle had more chances to cry then three Gryphon Knights had.
That was-
Jewel had read of many battles but none had been like this.
She felt like she was being smothered in the quiet of the sky and the cries from below. In the stink of her own thunderous scent and the blood and sweat of man and horse rising on the summer winds.
Zephyrvam had to call to draw her gaze as she just hung in the air flapping her wings like an absolute fool leaving herself open for another strike.
But none of the enemy fliers were moving to close with her. Steering clear of Jewel and her Father.
She watched them circling, recognized their flight cant as they flailed in confusion and panic of just what they had witnessed her do.
Signaling Danger.
Sky Death.
Lightning.
Unseen/Uncertain.
Her Father's steed had to call again to get her to turn to him once more.
What was wrong with her?! She was in a battle!
Why was she so addled?!
Focusing hard, pushing the sound and smell of everything away Jewel looked at her Father and held her gaze there.
Saw at last the flight cant he was making. Read his gesture and the subtle extensions of them in Zephyrvam's wings.
The point of a hand/finger. The emphasis of a tilted wing.
The facing of a beak.
Jewel replied with her own arms and wings in affirmation and then spun high to gain altitude.
She had practiced this before.
She knew what she had to do and he had told her where to do it.
Jewel is dealing with a wee bit of shell shock I think, but powering through it pretty well by compartmentalizing it into her "just like the wheat fields" mantra.
I'm also sure that the enemies are horrified at even just the inkling that Jewel can Godzilla Atomic Breath with near perfect accuracy, at the speed of thought and flame the only defense is avoiding her *aim* and not the attack.
And now for the Wyrmdoom, which is going to be just *wonderful* for all those "militiamen" (read as: normal dudes not really trained for this) to watch actual human people just EVAPORATE in front of them.
That had been the words which rang through him like a temple bell that day.
Standing in the levy with a hundred other men from his village, together as a wall, spears held strong. It was what he had wished to be true.
It is what he had come to realize was so.
He had a name for his flesh then, but like every other fort it was not really his. Something said of him. But since when has his flesh been bone and meat instead of stone and timbre?
Since when did he have legs instead of foundations?
What even were legs but spindler, lesser, weaker foundations?
Since when did he hold a shield instead of a wall?
Since when did he move instead of maneuver and rise?
Since when did he stand instead of fortify?
What was being clothed if not weaker, useless reinforcement?
He was the fortress.
And the fortress was him.
He swelled beneath the earth and carried the armies to their place.
He guarded them from the arrows and fire of the Invader.
He overturned and speared assaults.
He stood tall with roots like the mountain.
His stones carved and made solid within him.
As him.
His foundations were struck, his towers tangled, his bulwarks undermined. His parapets were circumvented.
He was under siege and gathered in himself the weapons to counter. To reinforce, to support, to protect.
He was the fortress and no fortress was complete without those to protect.
A city drove into him like a battering ram against rotten timbres.
One single building corroding his stone with bricks, grappling his foundations into cobbles.
Stripping his timbres for doors, tables and cheap shingle.
He struck back, walls of the mind enclosing and squeezing that spur of a city.
Digging over the feeble foundations and rising anew, stronger than before.
The bog was damned, solid earthworks diverting it, aqueducts draining it, stone shaped to turn water. Timbre and works of man stronger than mere earth and mud.
Except then the bog swelled with floods that had washed away lesser forts.
Sunk them.
Drowned them in silt and time.
But he was not so poorly built a structure to be found in such a place.
His roots were the mountains, his stones were solid, they fit together tight and their mortar was sure.
His timbres were from strong old trees and aged well besides.
And within him he had guards and villagers, the protected giving him strength beyond even his stones.
For what was a fortress without those it guarded?
Without soldiers and granaries and villagers.
He felt a tremor within him.
He felt his stones come undone.
Wild wyrmfire was a danger all its own. It was not the place of stones to hold against the anathema.
He called to the knights within. He called to the armies, to his other half.
He tried to reinforce their footing, he tried to harden their steel and wood and shields.
But flesh and bone was not stone and timbre.
And only so much weight could be born by such foundations.
He was a fortress but he could only be as strong as the place he stood.
Flesh made for poor ground to build a wall and as he watched from his many narrow windows, rising up behind the lines of battle he saw the knights and men of arms faltering against the wild wyrm and the invader bog.
He pressed on anyway, supporting everywhere, on all lines.
He was a fortress and today he was a serpentine wall, dancing and weaving, rising and sinking away in roiling combat with five of his number.
A younger construction of mere earth might be overwhelmed, untested and green wooded such a bulwark would fail to cover so much land as he.
But Stone Fortresses were old, and so was he.
He had time to sink deep and become whole.
His foundations touched the very spine of the mountain here.
He had stones stacked tall from there and braced in a flesh of earth. And he was full of traps and snares.
Poised wood, solid iron teeth and the waiting knives in the dark of his halls.
Foul things and filth ready to be vomited on any that dared breach his walls.
Belly full of provisions and grains to last a half year and slay those that dared encircle him with starvation.
His Patience is sharper than any sword or spear.
The wind howled helplessly against his stones.
Gryphons soared from him and struck fiercely against their own numbers beyond his reach. He held their roosts in confidence ready to welcome them home, to restore and fortify their flesh such as could be done.
He was the Fortress and he would stand for all of them.
Whether against bogs, cities, winds or words, all were ephemeral to his stones.
Even their fire was nothing as long as he held his timbres safe, close behind stone skin.
His charges were far outnumbering the invaders. His foundations were stronger than the many elements gathered against him.
Only the feral wyrm that had been driven against him was a concern.
It was not acting as it should.
It lashed at only him and his.
It shielded the invaders from arrows no matter how high he raised towers to aid them.
It spewed its devouring breath on his stones and left them undone and the stones held above them loosened.
It harmed none but him and his.
That was not the act of a beast.
This was concerning. He had never found a wall yet that stood well against a wild wyrm. It was best to just go for thickness of earth and patience with such beasts and wait for them to leave or the Knights to slay them.
But something was wrong.
He was the fortress and the fortress was him.
He could guard his charges from wind and fire, from spears and arrows, from sword and steel.
But how would he guard against this?
He was the fortress and the fortress was him.
But what was a fortress that could not protect?
Was that anything at all?
He felt a shifting tilt in his foundations deeper than the mountains and stone.
The wild wyrm was rising.
The Gryphons flew as they should and moved to intercept the clumsy creature in the air.
But there was grace in it that had not been there before.
He pulled in his stones to consider, to plan and plot himself as defenders did. Penned in and surrounded in thought if not force.
Invaders were sometimes clever.
They set traps, they dug with patience to undermine less wakeful forts then he.
He tasted a snare in this.
He tasted maneuvers and ploys.
He tasted poisoned water in the wells and refugees sent to his gates to sap his strength.
There was a trap here.
The Gryphons swung by again and then they fell before the wild wyrm.
It was over almost before his windows could catch sight of it.
He felt cold creeping through his timbres.
His foundations felt even more unsettled.
For the first time in a dozen sieges, and twice more wars where he had been more encampment than solid walls, he felt something that he could never shed.
For every fortress was as much a thing of fear as stone.
One did not protect without something to defend against.
And even the strongest walls did not always hold against the works of a siege.
Whether by draining hunger of his charges or terrible power to break his walls, he had not always held.
And he felt the tremor in the deep at the spine of the mountain where his foundations stood. He felt a crumbling deeper still.
There was something he needed to do, a thing with wind blowing through empty halls and echoing over stones and the groaning creaking wooden timbres.
It was difficult.
Harder then pressing back the bricks of the city, or closing ranks against the waters of the bog.
Harder than hiding his timbres from the searing fire of spilled blood.
But he needed to do it.
He needed to wrench himself from his place in the order of the world and do what he almost could no longer remember.
But he had other memories then his own, huddled memories seeking shelter from storms and armies. Beasts and fury.
He gripped the memories of those he sheltered hard and slowly ground from those moments the secret puzzle of it.
Erecting it like a tower, shining meaning into it like a signal fire.
He had to give a warning.
To send word to his brother towers distant.
But not to a tower or other fort, but to a man.
A thing of flesh poorly suited to bear the burden of his stones and the weight of his power.
The wild wyrm that was not a wild wyrm released a curtain of death beneath it.
Slaying those he was made to protect in their thousands.
Shattering and breaking his walls.
Finally the labor finished and he managed to bring all the parts together in the correct order.
To give warning.
Just in time.
"Lord Thurzó, I fall."
And then the all destroying anathema filled him.
And his timbres came undone, his stones became dust, his will unraveled.
RIP Veoul?
What an intriguing look into the mind of a Weird. How much they grow not only to resemble and encompass, but to be the very concepts they are following.
What an intriguing look into the mind of a Weird. How much they grow not only to resemble and encompass, but to be the very concepts they are following.
I guess you don't reach the extremes of power without delving into the extremes of specialisation.
I'd be, "Er, guess I'll be the weird of 'can't we all like get on without being crazy about it'" and the universe will be 'Nope! You'll be the weird of hive minds and like it'.
I guess you don't reach the extremes of power without delving into the extremes of specialisation.
I'd be, "Er, guess I'll be the weird of 'can't we all like get on without being crazy about it'" and the universe will be 'Nope! You'll be the weird of hive minds and like it'.
I guess you don't reach the extremes of power without delving into the extremes of specialisation.
I'd be, "Er, guess I'll be the weird of 'can't we all like get on without being crazy about it'" and the universe will be 'Nope! You'll be the weird of hive minds and like it'.ff
You don't synchronize with what is effectively a transcendental TRUTH of reality without being at least 1 cuil off of normal people's thinking. Which is probably why some people choose not to quite pursue becoming a Weird and stick to still being "just" a Wizard.
Jewel swept the fields with her flame as Father ordered.
It seemed wrong that men, horses and armor smelled little different under her fire than the shrubs that grew in the waste of a fallow field.
That there was hardly any difference between the way mens' flesh burned under wyrmfire then the simple rotten posts and scraps she had rendered to dust for the Countess and her war council.
Why were they the same?
Shouldn't men fighting honorably in war smell differently than grass when they were felled?
She swept a third time but Father had stopped ordering her to fly over the fleeing men.
Sweeping over empty fields and fallen bodies, the torn and twisted landscape where Wizards had clashed.
The enemy lines were broken.
Had been crumbling since her opening pass.
The first strike had been against a tower that had been rising by sorcery during the battle.
A tower which had whispered to the earth and the stones around the line of the battlefield.
A single line of her flame had cut through that tower and the embankments and hills past it.
Leaving dust and crumbling stonework in its passing.
And from that first pass half the sorcery arrayed against them had faltered and stalled.
The whispers that had been running so subtly through all the valley silenced.
It left Jewel feeling sad.
But not just her, the very stones and grass around her cried in a way she had never heard before.
Mourned the quiet voice that had been whispering to them the entire time.
A lamenting wail that rose and fell through the air, through the earth, through the stones and trees. It washed over everything around Jewel and dragged on her thoughts, going back to the feathered wings sheared through and the blankly staring and gaping head of the Gryphons she had fully unleashed her wroth upon.
The valley was still ringing with the cries of the world at its loss.
At the wound of silence that Jewel had made when she toppled the tower.
Jewel needed no one to explain.
A Weird had died in this place.
The world would miss them.
And Jewel knew it was she that had slain it.
After her second pass where she confirmed that men and horse flesh absolutely did burn with the same scent as wood and fallow waste shrubs, any sorcerous support for Thurzó's men vanished.
Not accompanied by the sucking wounded sorrow that had come when Jewel had struck one down.
No this was just the muted absence of sorcerous voices that opposed those on their side.
Bereft this support, the Weirds and Wizards drove deep wedges and in many places on the line Knights and Lords broke and fled the field as if they were too youthful levies.
And without the Knights and Lords?
All but the most stalwart of warriors ran together as one panicked mass when the very blood in their veins might tear itself loose and strike them in defection to their enemies.
Jewel saw close to four hundred men melting away amidst a teeming mass of black cats wielding sharp shining knives in the dark. Ankles, thighs or groins cut through as the felines leapt through them.
The bodies vanished after they fell and were briefly covered by the river-like flow of black fur.
Father failed to order her to make another pass of Wyrmdoom and Jewel could not find it in herself to do anything but hover in the air.
The skies were theirs.
The enemy Gryphon Riders had fled shortly after the Wizards.
Jewel looked to her Father, she gave a cant to ask if she had missed another order.
But he replied in the negative and gestured to return to roost.
Jewel shook her head and waved out a negation. Pointed to the still teeming knots of battle and bloodshed even as the enemy was broken and fleeing the field.
Footmen were fighting.
Knights were charging down fleeing levy.
Some of their force were encircling and mustering at the still closed gates of the Fortress.
Wounded and dead were either being recovered or stripped for armor and valuables.
There was so much more she could do here.
But Father ordered more firmly that it was time for them to return to camp.
And Jewel could only look at the scattered lines where fleeing men had been cut down, or charges had failed.
From up here she could not really tell apart who was with Viznove or Zekhedge or from the forces of Thurzó. All were bodies, horse and man and the terribly torn and tumbled mess that showed where Gryphons and their riders had been thrown from the skies by their melee.
The battlefield was a contrast of pristine farmland, fields, the still risen hills that the Weird of Fortresses had made yet touched by grass.
And the patchwork tangled landscape that each particular Wizard had passed through.
Cobblestones and collapsed brickwork with strangely feline shadows cast amongst them where Fizzbunches had fought.
Pale barked trees unseasonably flush in red and golden yellow from saplings to elder heights where Euewyn had struck.
The stink of iron and burning blood where Jaksa the Red had slain men. Bodies torn in half, steaming hot or burnt black.
One field was strewn with bodies that looked as if the illustrations of a great war had been taken from the page and left tumbled among the grass and dirt.
The only sign they had been men was the very real and wet blood soaking the soil around them and the rends which showed once living flesh and bone beneath the painted parchment made of their skin and armor.
And then marking along the battle lines were three wide gashes of powdery ash where Jewel had released her Wyrmdoom.
Zephyrvam called sharply to get her attention and Father turned towards the camp.
Jewel followed.
Trying to focus away from it, trying to remember what she had learned when she was five. It was just like the harvest fields.
The men were simply wheat under her sickle.
Nothing more.
But it was so much harder than it had been to ignore the cries of the wheat
She was failing in her duty as a Daughter and Lady of Rochford.
This was what she was supposed to do.
What she had trained for.
It's what would keep her and Rochford safe.
Though she was faltering now she would strive to do what was right going forward.
It was her Duty.
And Jewel was a Dutiful Daughter.
One of my editors/beta readers insisted that I share this with you all.
The ruse has worked and the armies of the fiendish witch march into our trap. The Weird Veoul of Fortresses has had all of two years to set his sorcery into the land and when reports can be forced from him, the War Mage appears confident that he alone could hold against both the vile wizard employed by the Blood Countess and the newly gained fealty of the Weird.
I am, as you so often admonish me for, yet suspicious of the confidence of Sorcerers. Their mettle is unbreakable right up until it isn't. Especially the more powerful Weirds.
But in the Council of War Wizards Thun and Hazgaul assure me that although powerful and learned, this Tsulogothulan of Bogs is not a martial worker of sorcery. And that our ground is not suited to their nature. They agree that all three of them should be more than enough if on even ground with the two set against us.
And we are offering no fair contest for the star-cursed countess and her army. On prepared ground The Weird of Fortresses is unmatched and it is expected that with his aid we will sap and destroy the forces arrayed against us.
Of the concerns about the Countess' Pet Wyrm, our immediate scouting brings doubt to the word from those eyes and ears loyal to the Realm in Viznove.
After we finish breaking her army here and have later secured capture of the monster in her capital I will put pointed questions towards the exaggerated tales that reached me on the danger presented by the Wyrm.
I will see that murderous beast in the shape of a woman burnt and her ashes mixed in sacred salt and scattered to the cardinals when this campaign is over.
And all survivors of her line will be put under question to ensure that her evil died with her.
The High King promises me support in pacifying the other counts and securing my position after the concern of the Countess is settled but I honestly do not care.
I promise you she will pay for her crimes against us.
But enough of those matters, how are the lands of Árva in my long absence?
How is little Imre?
Give Ilona and Borbála their fathers love too.
And save some yet for yourself.
Your Husband.
Your Count and Soon to be Low-King of Ridgevaul
György Thurzó
- A Letter from Count György Thurzó of Árva to Countess Erzsébet Czobor of Árva
It is good of you to temper your distrust of the sorcerers. Though you struggle I as always plead you try to remember it is not their fault. For it is the price the stars take from them in exchange for power. The Council of Sorcery across the realm are loyal to the King and will serve well.
It is good tidings that the war will swiftly be over, the girls and Imre miss their father terribly. You were already away for half a year in council with the king on this matter, and then another year in your investigations and marshaling of the army.
You are missing their best and brightest years in this. And though I know you do it out of love and just fury for the crimes committed against us please remember you have yet children that live and wish to know their father before they are fully grown.
Imre especially is growing bigger every day and he is nearly sure enough in standing now that I expect he will be walking and swinging a practice sword by the time you return from the campaign.
Also you have explained before that it is a clever reference to some provincial language or another spoken in the highlands, but is the name Ridgevaul really the best that could be made by the King for our new title and lands?
Surely something with a better pedigree would serve better?
Maybe the Kingdom of Aung Erie?
I can already hear the tittering of the ladies in court over the absurdity of the name. It is not the best start to a dynasty.
But as always I will endeavor to make do with what may.
I will do my best dear husband.
As to your concerns of the domain fret not, I have it in hand as well as I did in my last letter.
The weather stayed fair for the grain in all but the south-easternmost lands where the wet forced a harvest.
The concerns of Árva and the demesne in particular otherwise are good, the baronies report heavy yields even where rain interfered and the merchant's guild here in the capital is docile for once over the tax on their goods.
I have already given all of our and your daughters your love and promises of gifts and especially promised Imre his father would bring him a special trophy from the war.
Please find something suitably impressive amidst the spoils for him as well as baubles for the girls.
Your Wife.
Your Steward of Árvaand Countess.
Erzsébet Czobor
- A Letter from Countess Erzsébet Czobor of Árva to Count György Thurzó of Árva
Hmm... Either the High King has some very good propaganda or countess did something genuinely nasty. Thurzo seems to genuinely believe she is a monster.
Hmm... Either the High King has some very good propaganda or countess did something genuinely nasty. Thurzo seems to genuinely believe she is a monster.
I doubt it's that simple, otherwise, we would see exactly what her crime is. It is quite possible that the whole crime of the Countess is that she took the throne of her husband, instead of giving way to Thurzó, who has the right of succession through some distant ancestor or something like that. Considering he's going to kill her entire family, I doubt he's the good guy in this story.
I doubt it's that simple, otherwise, we would see exactly what her crime is. It is quite possible that the whole crime of the Countess is that she took the throne of her husband, instead of giving way to Thurzó, who has the right of succession through some distant ancestor or something like that. Considering he's going to kill her entire family, I doubt he's the good guy in this story.
The whole greater narrative of the story seems to be an aristocratic power struggle. If taken with any degree of realism, those rarely feature true good/bad guys.
Hmm... Either the High King has some very good propaganda or countess did something genuinely nasty. Thurzo seems to genuinely believe she is a monster.
It would be very hard to hide crimes with Jewel being in the same place that they supposedly took place - especially that Jewel capabilities were not known beforehand to be able to hide them, and some of them are still unknow (that the stone "talks" to her).
So it looks like a propaganda. In Real Life historical inspiration for Countess Bathory, historians disagree (at least according to me browsing the Wikipedia).
I would remind everyone that Jonathan's liege-lady's name is 'Elizabeth Bathory,' so her being some kind of fucked up serial killer would be entirely appropriate, and would comport with Jewel's assessment that Countess Bathory sees the people around her as little more than particularly useful animals.
Honestly, the only reason why I'm not convinced she's a literal vampire is that Jewel would be able to see through a vampire's glamour, and I don't think that even with her inexperience that she'd fail to notice the discrepancy between the Countess's appearance and how people treated her if she was a vampire.
I would remind everyone that Jonathan's liege-lady's name is 'Elizabeth Bathory,' so her being some kind of fucked up serial killer would be entirely appropriate, and would comport with Jewel's assessment that Countess Bathory sees the people around her as little more than particularly useful animals.
On the other hand, many modern researchers express the opinion that the charges against Elizabeth Bathory were fabricated by her political opponents, György Thurzó and Matthias, the King of Hungary and the Holy Roman Emperor. History knows many such examples, one of the most notable of which is probably the trial of Gilles de Rais, one of the closest companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. I would say that it is premature to draw any conclusions.
Jewel did not feel ready to march out again, she had slept poorly despite the leaden exhaustion and the nearly drained embers of her Wyrmfire.
The earth felt tender and agitated everywhere, so she favored to float more than usual. Yet even the wind seemed curdled somehow.
But she was called.
Breakfast was not preceded by the riders needing to tend the Gryphon during feeding.
Now counted only as nine from the thirteen that had set out with them.
Jewel did not focus on the names. As was usual of death in flight there was little of either Gryphon or Rider recognizable or even intact and what could be found of either would be burned in an honorable pyre tomorrow with all the lost riders both on their side and not.
Returned to the air and the stars enemy and ally would be.
All of the fraternity of Gryphon Riders were one in death.
Besides that and the securing of their own dead, be they Knight, Footman or Levy, the rest was left afield.
Stripped of armor and weapons, the naked bodies were scattered among the ruins of Wizard Fire and other stranger wreckage from the battle.
And it was through this Jewel traveled.
As they marched over the torn and warped landscape none of its strangeness impeded their pace. They strode a road of stone pavers drawn up out of the earth that leveled out the hills, sorcerous detritus and fortifications from the day before.
Smoothing and kneading back the twisted and rumpled land to level as if it was dough under the hands of a baker preparing a pie.
Jewel felt a hitch in those stones where they had once been raised as walls.
A subtle resistance to being changed.
They were led by Fizzbunches as he performed the working to ensure easy footing for the entourage.
The stones grumbled and almost seemed like they might hiss and snap at his whispers for a seeming offense.
Which was something new for Jewel.
She'd never imagined stone could actually be angry.
Well more lethargic and grumpy and upset to be asked to do anything right now, but still it was more malice then she had ever felt before from any mineral.
Unsurprisingly, Fizzbunches seemed to ignore it and pressed his whispers on til they complied begrudgingly to his sorcery.
The Cat Wizard marched tail high and face smug as ever. He preened with every step despite the torrent of sorcerous whispers pouring out of him like water from a never ending bucket.
He moved like he thought himself the lord of all the armies of Viznove and Zehkhedge and had conquered this land by his will alone and no other.
Even though he had to cajole and plead and yell silently in places to make some of the timbres and earth move as he wished.
After the smug wizard came the rest of their party.
It was a small showing, many soldiers from the army were already settled into the fortress ahead of them.
Where they did the necessary jobs of securing both grain stores and prisoners that could not wait for the ceremony.
But this party was the official claimant force in the war.
Banners were held high in victory.
Viznove and Zehkhedge most prominent, followed just behind by Rochford and Kliatbatrn.
And then the flag of the house of each lord that had joined battle from either county and the few foreign knights that joined on their side.
Thirty seven riders were needed to make a showing of every house that had contributed to the muster across the vassals of both counts.
Jewel strode at a place of honor just behind Fiebron on his land steed.
It was strange to see the small man astride a horse instead of Cloudspear.
But there were no gryphons for this entourage. Busy as they were in their own postwar feast.
She could see Cloudspear and Zephyrvam freely tearing into the belly of a horse across the twisted and rumpled fields.
The rider was already half devoured, the Gryphons leaving no bones of what they eat.
The rest of the war beasts were scattered in little knots of one or two as their own sociability and preference allowed.
Jewel was led to understand it was mostly mothers or fathers with their now fledged offspring that allowed such.
Siblings amongst gryphons apparently had far less love for one another than Jewel and Alexander did.
She turned her attention back to the entourage, trying to focus on something other than the gray tinged furrows and pits where her own flames had touched the battlefield.
Father for his part rode Midnight Justice. Holding the Rochford Banner proudly.
Jewel had been surprised to discover that Jaksa the Red knew how to ride quite well and joined them to represent the Countess. His horse had a hide and mane almost the same color as his own hair. A crimson so deep it was nearly black.
He had been given the honor of carrying the banner of Viznove and thus rode directly to Fiebron's left ahead of Jewel.
She was relieved that the Red Wizard had the propriety to perform the honor of banner-bearing in a more wizardly way at least. She had half expected him to hold it like a knight or herald in his hands.
But no, blood in thick strands and threads carried the pole of the flag aloft behind him. Holding it properly higher than even the one for Zhekhedge.
Jewel's flame was as bright and strong as ever and yet she felt heavier than she had even in the Countess Bathory's dinner when all of Kaeketeh seemed to plot against her Father's life.
She had been so drained last night that she had nothing to say to Father, could not even muster words. Even this morning the weight seemed to just sit inside her like she'd swallowed lodestone.
But now, walking the far too freshly cut stones that pretended to be worn, trying to ignore the battlefield and the bodies of men, horse and fragments of gryphon scattered amidst peaceful fields and warped sorcerous refuse she suddenly felt the pressure of it all building up in her throat and grappling her tongue for the words that seemed impossible to contain.
For all the force that they dragged their way out of her, Jewel's voice was reedier and softer then she had ever spoken before.
"Is war always like this?"
Father is quiet, she can't see his face behind his ceremonial helm but she can smell the pain he feels and the sadness.
"It can be, but normally there is far less sorcery on either side. Even in the campaigns to the south."
His back stiffened and she could smell some ease under the sorrow. His voice settled into a familiar tone of lecture.
"Until our arrangement with Lord Sorcerer Fizzbunches there was only one wizard pledged directly to the service of any lord or lady for a thousand miles and that was the Countess Bathory. The others are all either completely independent or have their own arrangements as vassals of the King."
Jewel nodded, listening intently and looking at his helmed face. It was not strictly speaking why she had asked.
To be honest Jewel could still not feel why the question had burned so fiercely inside her. But to hear her Father speak at all somehow helped with the weight that dragged like it wished to pull her down and bury her beneath the earth and stone.
"Only full musters of the Realm would normally draw any of them from their duties or domains. So in that, no War is not often like this."
Jewel brought her gaze back to surveying the field of bodies, as far as her eye could see. Blood spilled on grass, man and horse speared, cut, crumpled, crushed.
Gryphon corpses tangled and shattered.
Feathers broken and askew as easily as bone.
Sometimes in single bursts where their fall had been direct.
Other times great gouges as their flight had propelled them on even in death.
As often as not their deaths bringing more of the same to those unfortunate enough to be at their final resting place.
Bodies scattered or torn asunder from the passing or arrival.
The smell of an abattoir was already rising in the morning heat of summer. A butchery of men and horses that smelled far too much like pig for Jewel's comfort. Especially where it was still charred from Wizard Fire.
Father's voice rose again.
"But in other ways, yes. This is exactly what war is like, Daughter. But do not fear."
She turned her gaze back to him where he was turned around to meet her eyes with his own behind his helm.
"You did very well. All the mustered men from Rochford live because of you. Scarred for certain but not even maimed. You guarded them well and true as a martial lady should. And you fulfilled your duty to the orders given with a stalwart nature even Knights thrice over your age have faltered to uphold. I'm proud of you for your bravery and honor."
And that was true Jewel supposed.
She tried to focus on the good in this, not a single levy or footman lost to battle in war?
By even the greatest ballads and most celebrated lords in the histories that was an astonishing accomplishment.
Yes, Kraok's horse had been lost, but it was ultimately just a beast.
Jewel nodded hard to that and focused on the good in it.
They had fought in war, She had met the enemy and they had fallen before her.
That was right and good.
Remembering that helped.
But as they approached the fortress that was now claimed for Viznove on a path paved in still grumpily confused stones woken from deep sleep beneath the earth and freshly cut then polished, worn and smoothed by sorcerous whispers she could not seem to shake the terrible sense of weight.
All the histories and ballads said that one should feel exalted to have felled a great many warriors in battle.
But looking at the battlefield that ostensibly only still held the bodies of their foes Jewel could not see much of any difference between them and the people she had grown up with in Rochford.
It did not feel triumphant, just confusing, distressing and sad.
Far worse than she had felt from the felling of the wheat fields.
But that was not what was proper.
So she must be mistaken.
Her Father was Good.
He was Proud of her.
So this must be Right.
Somehow.
The story has been fully written and had a full editor pass for a few days now, So I say screw it, lets do daily updates to get through to the end.
As they marched over the torn and warped landscape none of its strangeness impeded their pace. They strode a road of stone pavers drawn up out of the earth that leveled out the hills, sorcerous detritus and fortifications from the day before.
Smoothing and kneading back the twisted and rumpled land to level as if it was dough under the hands of a baker preparing a pie.
Jewel felt a hitch in those stones where they had once been raised as walls.
A subtle resistance to being changed.
They were led by Fizzbunches as he performed the working to ensure easy footing for the entourage.
The stones grumbled and almost seemed like they might hiss and snap at his whispers for a seeming offense.
Which was something new for Jewel.
She'd never imagined stone could actually be angry.
Well more lethargic and grumpy and upset to be asked to do anything right now, but still it was more malice then she had ever felt before from any mineral.
Unsurprisingly, Fizzbunches seemed to ignore it and pressed his whispers on til they complied begrudgingly to his sorcery.
The Cat Wizard marched tail high and face smug as ever. He preened with every step despite the torrent of sorcerous whispers pouring out of him like water from a never ending bucket.
He moved like he thought himself the lord of all the armies of Viznove and Zehkhedge and had conquered this land by his will alone and no other.
Even though he had to cajole and plead and yell silently in places to make some of the timbres and earth move as he wished.
Fizzbunches is mighty but it's interesting to know that an entity purported to be as mighty as he is still can have trouble commanding things outside his domain. Jewel is the only one likely even amongst the Weirds that can always tell how much effort any particular sorcerous working requires.
It's also really something that Jewel uses the term malice, because that's a very specific and active form of anger that desires harm. The stones and plants are not merely annoyed but actively furious and wishing to hurt on the Weird for forcing/persuading them to follow his commands and requests.
I wonder how this kind of thing actually effects things long-term when you piss off the very rocks you live on?
Father is quiet, she can't see his face behind his ceremonial helm but she can smell the pain he feels and the sadness.
"It can be, but normally there is far less sorcery on either side. Even in the campaigns to the south."
His back stiffened and she could smell some ease under the sorrow. His voice settled into a familiar tone of lecture.
"Until our arrangement with Lord Sorcerer Fizzbunches there was only one wizard pledged directly to the service of any lord or lady for a thousand miles and that was the Countess Bathory. The others are all either completely independent or have their own arrangements as vassals of the King."
Jewel nodded, listening intently and looking at his helmed face. It was not strictly speaking why she had asked.
To be honest Jewel could still not feel why the question had burned so fiercely inside her. But to hear her Father speak at all somehow helped with the weight that dragged like it wished to pull her down and bury her beneath the earth and stone.
"Only full musters of the Realm would normally draw any of them from their duties or domains. So in that, no War is not often like this."
Another point in favor that what is happening is potentially more dangerous than the original terms of the War. So many weirds and wizards all working on one side or the other contesting with their sorcery and imprinting facets of their Truths onto the world and then the complication of Jewel being a fulcrum that breaks those Truths into some strange either primordial form or a final-shape. This kind of war going to change the face of the local political as well as geological text books I feel.
And Jewel being given some assurance that this not normal, that this is exceptional is a good touch by her father to avoid her becoming too despondent given she still is a child.
"But in other ways, yes. This is exactly what war is like, Daughter. But do not fear."
She turned her gaze back to him where he was turned around to meet her eyes with his own behind his helm.
"You did very well. All the mustered men from Rochford live because of you. Scarred for certain but not even maimed. You guarded them well and true as a martial lady should. And you fulfilled your duty to the orders given with a stalwart nature even Knights thrice over your age have faltered to uphold. I'm proud of you for your bravery and honor."
I get him trying to give her positive reinforcements and good news to get her mind off of things and he did pick the "protected your people" angle rather than "murder your enemies is good" angle others likely would have used but damn. He is unknowingly compounding on Jewel's growing idea that destroying her enemies to protect her own people is a good thing that she is obligated to do.
Okay, holy cow she definitely did something beyond her direct actions. No levy or footman lost at all given their position is an unheard of accomplishment save for stuff like Alexander the Great's more mythological exploits. She definitely was exuding her magic across all of the soldiery just as she did with the sewing circle, which is likely why her Wyrmfire was so drained at the end of the day.
Getting the idea that if Jewel does ever go full Tyrant Wyrm she'll be well described by this quote:
CS Lewis - God in the Dock said:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
He is unknowingly compounding on Jewel's growing idea that destroying her enemies to protect her own people is a good thing that she is obligated to do.
