GM NOTE: And now, an excerpt from A Dynasty of Frost and Sorrow, featuring current protagonist Alexandra von Hohenzollern.
A Dynasty of Frost and Sorrow - The War of Bitter Ice, Part 2
There was blood and ruin everywhere.
Along the walls and in many of the rooms was much ruined expensive furniture, white goose feathers made slick and flat to the ground from crimson after being torn from cushions and pillows. Suits of ceremonial armor had been knocked to the ground, and in some cases their weapons used both by those trained and untrained with their halberds and blades. Even after the corpses had all been mostly dragged away, there was still so very much to do to clean it all up that would not be done for some time. Which, in truth, was not that surprising when more than half the servants in the palaces had been killed. She paused, for a moment, to examine a fallen maid with a surprised expression gone swollen and bloated as her corpse had begun to rot. Despite the struggling which occupied one hand, she was able to hook one boot around the hilt of the blade driven into the unfortunate woman's belly and kick it up into the air for her to catch with one hand.
That done, she continued forward, dragging her thoroughly bound cargo behind her forward.
Past more wreckage and ruin, past soot and splinter, until sodden burnt carpet transformed into cold cracked ice and frost. Immediately, the cargo yelped and struggled all the more as they touched the solid ice which made up the royal wing of the palace, but she did not relent. Here, the damage was still present, merely transformed due to the changes in material. Here, bullets could literally be seen where they had struck the walls and floors and ceilings, broken metal and stone spheres visible beneath spiderwebbed ice. There were a multitude of gashes and carvings throughout it all as well, where sword and axe and spear had scraped about in the fighting. It also happened to make all the blood spilled all the more noticeable, red splotches and rivers frozen largely in place like some sort of demented art piece.
A single wet cough escaped her, spattering a bit more red into the air.
All four of the Kreml Guard were not able to rise from their bows before she'd kicked the doors of the throne room open and walked through, causing the four Kreml Guard on the other side to jerk in surprise and make their own jerky salutes to her. The two dozen of her Nadzirateli already in the room barely twitched, and a good thing too, their crossbows held at the ready in some hands with blades at the necks of their other captives held with perfect stillness. Said captives were not so still, some of them jumping in their skins, twitching, with a few even trying to turn their heads before their assigned Nadzirateli wrenched their heads back.
"A moment, please!" She said aloud with false pleasantry, as if everyone else in the room wasn't either gagged, missing tongues, or silent by general demeanor. "Some courtly matters to finish first."
Her cargo, the 'honorable' Boyar Fyodor Yakushkin, grunted as his naked body was flung forward along the ice, the rope binding his arms as tight as ever. Ice then crept up and sucked his arms and feet down into the frozen floor as she walked past him and tore the gag out of his mouth. His once well-kept grey beard and long top knot had both become ragged and askew, matted to his own head with sweat and grime and blood. There were a multitude of wounds across his body, barely patched with cloth and glue, but there remained an angry and defiant light in his eyes. There was flab on his body, which flopped as he was thrown to the ground, but it could not disguise the thick slabs of muscle that he also bore. As befitting one of the Boyar, especially one who regularly fought on the front lines of his pulks.
"How dare you, Imperial whore," he snarled, spitting at her feet as Alexandra raised an eyebrow at him before ascending some of the steps and turning about so she could face the throne room more fully. "I am-," he choked slightly as ice formed over his mouth.
"I know who you are, you little shit," she snorted before glancing at the rest of her prisoners.
To her left, forced into kneeling positions by her Nadzirateli, were the six leading members of the damned Prosecutors of Justice. They had no specific uniform, no, that would have been to easy. Instead, they were still dressed in the disguises and outfits that they had been wearing when they'd first kicked off their idiotic little revolution. A Kossar, a Druzhina, a commoner or two, and so on. But it was the one who had been stripped of his Kreml Guard armor that made her the angriest. They'd left him with the black linen underneath the rest of his armor, but even the leather had been taken away to be hopefully ritually cleansed of his treachery and idiocy at some point. Despite their positions, they held their chins high, each of them, regardless of the bruises and cuts on their bodies from where they'd been brought down. Frankly, she was surprised that none of them had yet to try and throw themselves forward into the blades at their necks.
To her right, far less stoic but no less defiant, were the Humble Ones. They, all seven of them, had various looks of amusement on their faces. Two were even smirking, even with their faces half-beaten in. To think that she had told the Tzarina that the Cult of Ranald was something to be dealt with a light touch, that they had other targets and foes to deal with that did not require forcing the matter. Another failing on her part, albeit one with several mitigating factors. As far as they seemed to care, they were victorious, it seemed. A position of thought that she would be correcting soon enough. She could see it in their eyes, in that of both groups. They knew the man, and how could they not? Fyodor Yakushkin had never been the loudest of the critics, no, but he had certainly been one of the wealthiest and most cunning of the Boyar in the opposition to the Romanov regime.
A great ally to both groups.
"You," she declared, hand on her hips, "Are a traitor to the Romanovs. To the Tzarina. Do you protest these charges?" She waved a hand, dismissing the ice silencing him, letting the Boyar inhale a shuddering breath.
"Traitor?! Bah," Fyodor spat again, "I…am a
patriot. For Kislev! The true Kislev! It is the Tzarina who has betrayed
us! Stomping upon our rights, our traditions, our
people! Grasping not simply for our wealth, not just our land, but the very
Gods!"
Alexandra noted the ones amongst both cults present that were nodding ever so subtly, and then coughed slightly into her fist, rolling her eyes at the blood that came out. It silenced the Boyar, temporarily, and all eyes went to her before she reached down to pull the dagger that the man had managed to stab into her side out. Blood did not spurt out of her, it did not even manage to escape her skin, a cooling thin patch of flexible ice forming immediately across the wound. It was similar to searing a wound shut, perhaps, but a method that would surely be just as if not more uncomfortable to anyone not touched by the Widow's Grace. She held the knife up, examining the incredible craftsmanship in the light of the torches, squinting slightly at the dwarf runes on it. A very,
very expensive piece of work then, to have commissioned such a weapon from the dawi.
"You call us tyrants and monsters, and yet," she glanced from the knife to its former owner and growled. "It was
your troops who assaulted the carriage train of Ursus Mattrin, was it not? It was
your agents who slew his bear, was it not? It was
your efforts," she stomped forward at rapid speed, "That have seen his family
dead!?" She screamed the last at his face. "Children!" She howled in the air, and raised her left hand, still coated with the blood of Mattrin Romanov's grandchildren.
The Boyar made to open his mouth before Alexandra shoved his knife back into his gut, cutting through the binding ropes there with ease. An armored knee to the face knocked him onto his back, and then she began to stomp down with her boot. With every impact, she saw the carnage again flash into her mind. The shattered carriages, the screaming horses, the utterly still bodies. Adults, elders, guards, and children both. Tiny little fur coats with bloodied ushanka hats knocked askew by the cannons and guns that had been secretly put into the alleys of the city. Without even the bear to save them, which would have instinctively protected its master had it not been forcibly put to sleep – and only sleep, for to slay such a sacred beast outright was of course impossible.
Or at least it should have been.
"You dare kill a High Priest –
the High Priest of Ursun, and his family, and think to speak of tyranny and justice?!"
She did not stop slamming her Ledstali boot down until she was contacting primarily floor instead of skull and brains. Only then did she look up, eyes blue bonfires of magic that narrowed at the terrified captives before her. The easy, slick smiles were gone. The stately efforts at defiant stoicism had been badly fractured. The Regent did not speak as she turned away and stalked up the large ice steps to the frozen throne, almost throwing herself into it, ending up lounging in it at what could have been considered a jaunty angle. She grabbed a glass bottle next to the throne, tore off the cap, and downed easily half of the kvas within before putting it back down.
The bottle, just as every footstep, as much of the throne, was left bloodied.
"Let's try again," she said calmly, glancing past them out the windows at the many plumes of smoke rising out of the city. "You've all been so silent, so clever, so cocksure in yourselves…and now your great patron and ally is dead," she made a pouting face for a moment before it slid back into contempt. "Very sad. But, of course, that is not all, no," she slid herself about and stood, snapping her fingers. "Because there's someone else, yes?"
From one of the side entrances another dozen Kreml Guard appeared, dragging another group of six with them. All of them had hoods on their heads, hoods that were stripped off the moment they were forced into kneeling positions directly before the throne but facing the rest of the prisoners. As a result, Alexandra got to watch and study the surprise and shock on the faces of both the Prosecutors and Humble Ones, followed almost immediately by further widening eyes and screwed up faces of confusion as they spied the former expressions on the other group. One question answered then, it seemed. Alexandra gave a toothy smile as she rose back off the throne, almost lazily walking down the steps to wrap a hand around the broken jaw of one of the newest prisoners, shaking it slightly as blood dribbled down from his lips.
"I see that some of you recognize Mikhail Svornin!" She said lightly, glancing at the Prosecutors. "Or, as others may know him, Vaja Chzov," she glared at the Humble Ones.
By now, both groups were looking at each other as much as at her. Burgeoning realization was beginning to glimmer in the eyes of the more intelligent Verenans and Ranaldians.
"Also known as the High Prosecutor…hmm? Or so he claimed," Alexandra tittered as if at a party, "Or the perhaps the Crooked One…
or so he claimed," she snarled as she let go of the barely conscious man's head with a rough shake, causing more blood and saliva to drip onto the ground before going to the next prisoner in the line. "Chagin Rebikov or Sorca Bukosky. Mishka Nikodoch or Bela Kudrov. Zoya Tyurin or
Darya Ovinko," she rolled her eyes and stopped, not even bothering finishing the lineup as she turned her glare on the Prosecutors and Humble Ones. "Am I, perhaps,
getting through to you all yet?"
Inhaling deeply and letting out another bloody cough, Alexandra tossed her hair and walked back to the first.
"His
real name, is Douko Tereskovna," she grabbed the man's head and squeezed lightly with both hands. "And his
real devotion is not to Verena, and is not to Ranald, but another," she reached forward and tore his already ragged shirt further to reveal the gnarled yellow fang tattoos just below his pectoral muscles. "The Grasping Claws are not, I am
quite sure at this point, Verenans. Nor Ranaldians."
Ah. And there was the increasing, mounting confusion coupled with dawning horror.
"These,
all of them," she went down the line, "Chagin or Sorca? No, Valantyn Uritsdo. Mishka or Bela? No, Ursola. So on and so forth!" She ended with a violent kick to one of the skaven-lover's heads that sent them sprawling down to the cold floor. "These, you utterly insufferable
idiots," she growled at the Prosecutors and Humble Ones, "And all the rest of the Grasping Claws Cult, belong to the Yellow Fang! Belong to the
skaven!"
Another snap of her fingers and one Prosecutor and one Humble One were hauled forward, eyes bugging out as they tried to struggle before they were placed almost nose to nose with the Yellow Fangs.
"Look at them.
Look at them!," she exhaled a freezing mist from her mouth that made all of the Kislevites present shiver. "You let yourselves be fooled, be tricked, by those who don't give a single
shit about your ideals or beliefs about nobility or justice or commoners, only ruination in the name of their furred masters! Because you
wanted to believe that someone else was going to help you, that your cause really was all that and more to deserve that kind of help!"
She was ready to yell more were it not for being forced to cough up a slight bit more blood, the unexpected red joining the rest of the blood that covered half of Alexandra's face and hands. Sighing, she uselessly wiped at her face and shook her head before gesturing for the Verenan and Ranaldian to be dragged back to their places. By now, the Yellow Fangs were beginning to become more properly cognizant, managing to recover slightly from the intense beatings that had been given to them previously. Not enough to try to escape, not even close, but Alexandra was very discerning at this point when it came to the fine lines of awareness and dissociation in a torture victim's eyes. She remained nearby the Yellow Fangs and their guards, just in case, but still nodded firmly at one of the other Kreml Guard by the main doors, the man immediately rushing away to one of the side entrances. There were less than thirty seconds between that and said side entrance opening again to reveal a trio of straining Kreml Guard hauling an enormous ice block on a sled into the room.
"I can see that all of you look quite confused," Alexandra announced, now including the more aware Yellow Fangs in her words, "Do not worry. I shall educate you," she walked over to the ice block and placed a hand against it while glaring back at the Yellow Fangs. "You did a fine job twisting these bands of idiots," she flapped a hand at the Prosecutors and Humble Ones. "But tell me something. Are you truly loyal to the Horned Rat? Or," she slapped the ice block and dissolved a considerable portion of the front half to reveal a haggard looking woman who nonetheless somehow managed to retain a stark beauty to her. "Someone else?"
Sharp intakes of breath came from each of the Yellow Fangs, some louder than others. The woman in the ice remained bound, heavily, with only her head and upper torso revealed. Everything below the chest was still sunk deep into the ice, with even part of her head and neck still covered in frost. The very fingertips of her right hand were exposed to the open air, but there was nothing visible of the left arm save for a dark shadow in the ice. But despite all of that, and the fact that by all rights anyone else who was not blessed by the Widow's Grace should have been little more than a mostly frozen corpse, the moment her head was exposed the woman began to stir every so slowly with languid blinks. Her eyes were completely black with red sclera, her nose beginning to flare as she found herself awake again.
"Th-the Claw-Mistress?" One of the Yellow Fangs murmured aloud, shocked.
"Is that what you called her? Interesting," Alexandra clucked her tongue as the woman began to struggle harder - harder than a human should have been able to, especially. "I call her a Lahmian vampire."
The vampire, the Yellow Fangs, the Ranaldians, and the Verenans all stiffened up.
"Because that, in fact, is what she is," Alexandra brushed her hand close enough to the abomination's face for her to try and snap out at her hand with suddenly extruded fangs, only to hiss in pain and wince as they bit down on Ledstali.
"You...
release me," the Lahmian hissed, eyes wide and burning with dark power as she glared directly at Alexandra. "Now!"
It was more than just words. Power ballooned forth from the vampire, weakened and imprisoned as she was, carrying with it near irresistible commanding insistence. It clogged the air of the room, striking like a physical yet invisible wave of sound which rippled outwards. Some of the Yellow Fangs made to rise before they were knocked back to their knees, some of the Verenans twitched, and even one of the Kreml Guard made an aborted step forward.
"Hmm...No." Alexandra said as she punched her square in the face, fingertips of Ledstali sharpening into claws that she raked across the vampire's glowing eyes and spilling tainted blood onto the ice. "And also, shut up," she stated before gesturing for more ice to cover the vampire's mouth and eyes. Only then did the Regent glance back at the rest of the assorted cultists.
With steady steps, she walked back over to the Prosecutors and Humble Ones and then with a single sweeping gesture her Nadzirateli began dragging them in unison over to the large thin ice windows that faced the city. As one, despite struggling, both groups of cultists found their heads rather heavily smashed into the ice. Not hard enough to break them, not entirely, but that was just as much on Alexandra personally strengthening the ice that made up the windows as anything else, given the cracks rippling out from various contact points.
"Let us recap, hmm?" Alexandra clapped her hands before folding them behind her back as she walked up to face the city as well. "Because of you, and that Boyar, and the Bohka, you've extinguished more than a fourth of the Romanov dynasty in one go, another branch has declared for the Bohka and abdicated, and the rest are dead, missing, or imprisoned. Because of
your idiocy, you've done so in presumptive service to those dedicated to the Great Horned Rat - to the
skaven. The first, alone, requires your deaths to be as painful as possible. The second, even more so. But even more than that," she gestured, and her Nadzirateli began to grind the cultist's faces into the ice windows harder. "You were fooled...by those who were themselves fooled...
by vampires. The very beings who made up half of what the Nadzirateli were originally built to help combat!"
Another gesture, another cracking of foreheads to ice.
"So I am going to ask you all what I asked you one week ago, back when you first started setting fires...to our city...
in winter!" She shouted the last. How could she not?
It was Kislev. Burning buildings and homes in the depths of winter was an act of profound insanity, or at least it was to most everyone sane.
"You have ensured death, anarchy, and pain, for everyone. The common folk will fight, starve, and die. There are skaven rising in the sewers thanks to the Yellow Fang you've helped. There are mercenary armies that are being commanded by those devoted to vampires, or by vampires outright. Mass confusion, mass death, and all because of your organizations. The Grand Army itself has split into thirds. There are beastmen charging out of Troll Country and rumors of one of their abominable shamans wielding the Widow's Grace!"
Another moment of shocked stillness burst forth amongst the prisoners. They may have been Verenans or Ranaldians, but they were Kislevite too. And all knew of the dread prophecy.
"A woman, or so it is said, but a pollution on the Widow's Grace nonetheless, on the Land, on Kislev! And one we can hardly do anything about at the moment because of all of
you! Before the day is out, I am going to have to go out there," she stabbed a finger at the burning portions of the city, "And I am going to have to grind rioters to dust personally."
Alexandra leaned forward, grasping a shoulder in each hand and whispering with blood-freezing coldness into the ear of one of the Prosecutors.
"Perhaps,
perhaps, I could be convinced to show mercy to them. To some. If you answer my questions more honestly, and more freely, hmm?"
The Prosecutor trembled. Their eyes were bloodshot and wide. But there was also the slightest of nods.
"Good. Now then: where did you ambush the Tzarina, and where is she now?"
Results:
The Plot(s) Revealed! Thanks to the efforts of the Bohka and Pantheonic Traditionalists of Kislev, the Nadzirateli were unable to discover and stop the Lahmian Sisterhood from co-opting both the Verenan and Ranaldian Extremist Cults Cells across Kislev known as the Prosecutors of Justice and the Humble Ones by way of themselves (the vampires) co-opting the Kislevite Yellow Fang Sub-Cult known as the Grasping Claws. With the Tzarina ambushed on the road, the extinction of Ursus Mattrin, the rebellion of Torus Ivan, a massive Warherd with a rumored Ice Magic wielding shaman, and lack of information on the rest of the Romanovs, none of the Romanov Loyalists contest your Regency. Now, the nation has fallen into chaos. The Bohka have declared open rebellion, but there is considerable confusion thanks to the Sisterhood and their agents taking command of pulks, portions of the Grand Army, and mercenaries as well, coupled with the destabilizing efforts of the Prosecutors/Humble Ones/Grasping Claws. Your own efforts have revealed that, rather than having her killed publicly as the Prosecutors and Humble Ones desired, the Yellow Fang intended to deliver the Tzarina to some skaven settlement known as the 'Hellpit'. Whether or not they have succeeded, or the Lahmians intercepted them, you do not know.
And if the Tzarina is not found, either dead or alive, and you cannot find or gain access to a living Romanov, the situation will grow only worse. For now, the Royalists follow you.
For now is not forever. Much remains to be done to maintain your control, for without it Kislev might not survive the year.
At least now you have a clue, and it rests near the central temple in the very middle of Kislev....
Choices (Choose 3):
[X] Order Must Be Restored - By any means necessary, the City must be put to rights. The riots must be crushed, the skaven wiped out from the streets and sewers, all remaining Bohka Loyalists captured for interrogation or dead, and order restored. It must be done.
[X] Further Interrogations - The vampires, enthralled mortals, the remaining Yellow Fangs, the Prosecutors, the Humble Ones, and the Pantheonic Traditionalists must be further interrogated. Every bit of information is key.
[] Attempt To Corral The Grand Army - Many portions of the Grand Army are uncertain of who is in command, who to follow, who to listen to, and so on. If you can, you must try and reach out to them and bring them under your control before they find themselves under the wrong banner.
[] Try To Corral The Mercenaries - You were part of the efforts in purchasing the services of vast numbers of mercenaries across the Old World. This has gone wrong, now, thanks to various factors. The Bohka, Ivan - who has found the absolute worst time to find his balls and spine - the Yellow Fang, and the Vampires. Paymasters and contracts have been mixed and messed about with. You need to bolster your forces with what mercenaries you can convince that you are the rightful holder and commander of to follow you.
[X] Pursue The Trail [MUST BE CHOSEN] - You know what must be done. Either the Tzarina is alive, or she is dead, and you must know which in order to proceed further.
Free Action - The Armors:
[] Send With Heavy Guard - If you die here, you must at least ensure that your perhaps last masterpieces make it to your mother and father. A heavy guard will punch through the chaos of the Oblast, hopefully, and ensure it reaches them in time. You know they are mustering near Salkalten. But they will be slowed by numbers and weight, certainly, which means disaster if they cannot reach the border in time. Yet, just as well, they will be better protected if they
are caught along the way.
[X] Send With Light Guard - Speed is key. If they can escape the ongoing storm, they will. They will be less able to defend themselves than a heavy guard, but if all goes well enough they won't need to fight overmuch either. Your mother and father are mustering near Salkalten, you know that much from your informants, and so the armor must be there in time before the Druchii get there. You'll not die to a rebel's blade wondering if you could have helped your parents survive their own battles, damn it.
