Day I
I
Morning came suddenly and was far from welcome.
General Aedion Teague of the Xellcarrian 14th Lashing Talon was feeling beleaguered, bearing the humiliation of a blindsided attack by a Maytoni raid hours earlier… No, he thought, he hadn’t been blindsided, he had been outwitted, made a fool. The barbs of this proverbial lash were laced in acid, by the fact that he had known the Summiteers to be lethally exceptional, and darkly intelligent. Yet they still managed to pull one over on him, on his thirty-six years of military experience. Chances were those wild raiders probably hadn’t half the military experience he had either.
The general had dark, but alert eyes of a dull yellow brown. Dark, ruddy skin was well looked after, though hard lines defined the cheeks and brow. His eyebrows were whitening, fading from dark brown, and his thin, long nose was emphasised by a small mouth, around which dark white whiskers bristled. His armour was sleek and curved, platinum in colour with pitch-black rings carved, simmering, into the torso section, accented by silver. Over his breast place was a shield, with a burning ring of jet and amber, through which an arrow was placed. From his back rose two large struts, sprouting a magnificent array of griffin feathers, all glowing gold and contrasted with brown bars. By his side was a large, curved blade, sheathed in rich brown leather, numerous rufus and yellow griffin feathers dangling from the pommel of the hilt. His helmet was rounded, with arcs of sculpted feathers jutting across the sides.
He watched, smouldering anger, like the dark simmering rings of the wild cat his tribe revered, as the remnants of the siege equipment was carefully removed from the camp to be added to the pyre. Despite the loss of such major weapons, the general was determined to march on. He had argued against the hefty, awkward, wooden beasts, citing that he could take the Mayne Peninsula far faster, without their weight slowing his army down. His was the 14th Lashing Talon, built for rapidly launching itself at sudden threats. Siege equipment contradicted its purpose and tactics.
At least, he mused with a dark smirk, the only real casualty of the night, seems to have been his pride.
The mood in the command tent was far from sullen, or despondent. Rather it was charged, swollen with anger and resentment, ready to burst.
Good, Aedion initially thought coming in, still in full armour – it was an arduous enough affair putting it all on, he wasn’t prepared to take it all off just for a strategy meeting. It wouldn’t do to have his commanders feeling sorry for themselves. Blood had to be spilled, lives taken, as recompense for the slaying of a celestial being after all.
But, as bitter as the attitudes of his commanders were, compared to the alternative, their roaring and self-aggrandising had manifested itself as infighting. Three warriors, champions of the Xellcarrian people sat around a velvet covered table, bawling at one and other about what should be none next, and whose fault it was that the raid had happened.
Surrounding these squabbling champions of Xellcarr, stood decorative tapestries of the nation’s legends and past victories, hanging from ornamental sculptures of birds of prey, or wild cats standing on their rear paws. Aedion’s own tribe’s banner hung in pride of place, in the centre of the far wall; a simmering ring of jet, glowing subtly in amber, through which an was placed, The Scorched Ring, a tribe almost as old as the founding of Xellcarr, when the tribes of the wild mountainous cats, and those of soaring birds of prey came together.
Champion Cillian Vilar, The Bloodied Talon, of the Tribe of The Blood Eagle was every bit as arrogant as to be expected from the product of natural talent, and the youngest – which didn’t help his personality either – at thirty-six. He had been the first warrior of any significance to respond to the raid and came viciously close to bringing down one of the attackers. This, in his mind meant that his words held the most weight and wisdom in the tent.
The champion wore orange plates with jet stripes over his breastplate, highlighting the golden talon shoulder decorations. His helmet, set prominently on the small table between them, had a pointed face guard to deflect arrows, with a narrow slit for vision. A large golden and bronze talon clutched at the crown, with ruby talons clawing into the edges of the faceplate. From the stem of the talon poured plumes of rigid griffin feathers, bright white and barred with dark grey. On a more human level Cillian had a ruddy face, with vivid green eyes and brown whip-strikes for eyebrows. His nose too, was bent at an angle, with strips of scar tissue covering a wide chin.
Then there was Legion General Bronagh Puga of the Tribe of The Abyssal Mane, a fierce woman with a broad jaw, wide mouth, and a flat nose, who would take over the army should anything happen to Aedion. Of course, her bright oceanic blue eyes, flecked with sun-yellow, betrayed her temperament, and seemed to add too much compassion to her demeanour as far as the ignorant were concerned.
Bronagh’s armour was the same platinum colour, but with the imagery of a shrieking eagle breaking forth from the breastplate, all rendered with gold and onyx. Around the neck was a mantle of black and dark sandy feathers forming a thick mane. Her leg armour was sculpted into upward bundles of feathers, decorated with golden bars. She held, like a staff of office, a short halberd, with a rich brown handle, and watery silver axe-head upon which was the relief of cutting talons, replete with a blood red spear point.
Her argument detailed the ‘failings’ of the ‘regulars’, or the Men-at-Arms, whose current role was to provide security for the camp. She was arrogant to be sure, but it wasn’t wholly unjust. Historically, their region of Xellcarr being closer to sea level than anywhere else in the nation and thus more isolated from the capital had been the last to see the worth of women and accept them as equals. Aedion wasn’t going to hold her to fault for putting her boot down hard, especially when, of all those present, Bronagh had worked to hardest to get to where she was.
General Casey Aiza of the Tribe of The Rending Maw was the primary target of her invective, commander of the Men-at-Arms, and leader of the largest section in Aedion’s army – at least two thirds of the 14th Lashing Talon were Men-at-Arms. On the one hand the alleged fails of his soldiers was a source for indignation, on the other Casey’s ancestral and tribal links to an ancient cult fuelled her ire.
The general was a broad man, built like a fort from decades of service as a regular himself; arms thick enough to resemble catapults, legs built as sturdy as any steel reinforced towers, and chest so broad and thick with muscle it could have been armour unto itself beneath his combat attire. His own armour was layers of thick plates, platinum silver coloured with sculpted patterns of feathers accentuated by ivory white quills and burning browns at the tips of the sculpted barbs. Across his chest plate were decorative rents, shaped to resemble a tear delivered by large claws, tinged with gold along the jagged edges.
His pale skin only accentuated his temper, flaring up in heated shades, his bitterness rooted in having been a life-long soldier never considered for a knighthood. He wasn’t taking Bronagh’s criticisms with any dignity, as he howled back that whilst knights and champions make up the victory parades, it was his Men-at-Arms that filled the nation’s tombs.
As they bickered, Aedion drew his war-axe from its stand, and considered the weighty one-handed slashing weapon. The blade was dark gold in colour, resembling a curved fang, as it moulded back into the hilt, wooden, taken from trees marked and scratched at by slate tigers. For decoration the beige shaft had been scored lengthwise by talons from the same big cat and even soaked in their urine too.
It sat next to his bow rack, a wooden sculpting of rising eagle wings with each exquisite bow set upon the jutting pinons. Between the carved wings in neat rows were arrows. The sight always made the necklace holding his thumb ring around the general’s neck feel like the touch of a ghostly ancestor. Despite having never used the bows in battle for decades, Aedion would never campaign without them.
With a sigh, Aedion walloped the axe into his finely crafted desk, effortlessly spitting the surface with wailing crack. The tent fell into silence, heavy with embarrassment. Aedion set the axe back into its stand and pulled his chair around to the front of the ruin. He planted himself, heavily into it, armour clacking loudly as if trying to compete with the deathly wail of the fine desk.
“You are all screaming like children fighting over a rocking griffin,” he began, speaking in a low voice. “You’re Xellcarrian, you’re better than this.” He made the kind of predatory eye contact seen in a territorial lion, with each of them.
No one spoke, afraid to.
“What happened in the early hours was a failure on my part, and that will be the end of it,” Aedion continued, speaking with a finality as solid as the mountains they all called home.
Of course, Cillian then took the opportunity to then speak. Compelled no doubt by his vanity. “We don’t need the siege equipment anyway, sir, you said as much before the Regents…”
“You may not need the siege weapons,” Casey snapped, thunder crashing from his bare hands slapping into his armoured thighs. “But my soldiers do.” He threw a damning finger into the face of Cillian who remained unfazed. “They won’t throw their lives away needlessly. Our job isn’t to die so you can have more mortar to prop up your legend.” The tone was angry, vicious, but controlled, which showed improvement at least in the situation.
Before Cillian could retort, Aedion cut in. “The loss of the siege weapons is bad, Cillian.” He stared down the young champion, a cutting rebuke in the tone of a disappointed adult. “Every Xellcarrian out there deserves revenge for what this Maytoni filth-prince did, and to exercise their fervour in honour of the Gods. You don’t win battles by simply throwing soldiers at the problem until its gone.”
“How does it affect us, sir?” Bronagh spoke, leaning back, her fingers slipping off the halberd finally. “Besides, the heighted risk to the reg… The Men-at-Arms.”
“You tell me, general,” Aedion returned, crossing his legs.
Of course, Bronagh didn’t hesitate to respond. “Smashing the fort by the Mayne Lighthouse was all we truly needed it for. You were correct when you told the Regents it would only slow us down. We’d have been here days earlier and could have taken the fort before the Maytoni relief force reached it.”
“The Gods love irony don’t they,” Aedion added with a mirthless chuckle.
“Taking the fort is going to cost us at least a day now, and more casualties than is acceptable.”
“I can already feel the Maytoni army groups from the south and north baring down,” Casey added, arms folded with a restless thumb tapped against his armour. “We don’t have the initiative anymore. It’s now a race to smash the fort and take the port city in the south. If we meet a Maytoni army group in between, we risk taking even greater losses. And even if we do defeat them, we won’t have the strength to keep the peninsula.”
“The causeway requires little in the way of defence, we can hold that indefinitely with a few archers and soldiers,” Bronagh continued. “But if we don’t have enough soldiers to occupy the port city, then…” She paused for a moment looking into nothing. “Then we need the lighthouse.”
Aedion raised his brows and leaned forward. “Go on.”
“Worst case scenario, and we can’t take the whole peninsula, well we can make do with this northern region.” Her tone quickened on an undercurrent of excitement and Bronagh straightened on her stool. “The causeway can’t be crossed with troops guarding it, the Maytoni know that, so they’re only a threat to us from the south. And if we have this lighthouse fort, they can’t go around it for the same reasons we can’t: rocky terrain which will break ankles and kill horses, and bogs east of that that can swallow whole armies. That fort, and the closest surrounding terrain, with our strength they’d never break through – I don’t care how good their archers are.” Her eyes brightened even more. “We’d tie up at least two whole army groups, weakening their strength on their northern border with us. Considerably even, when you consider that they can’t possibly move resources from the eastern border with Jermirsha because those grim weirdos would take advantage of the gaps made. And the same goes for the south-western corner with the Mudhonnel bandit clans – or what’s left of them. I’d say on the mainland they can only work with two thirds of their full strength… Sir, I think by trying to annex the whole peninsula, we’re being over ambitious. We don’t need to. All we need is this little slice here.”
There was a petulant huff from Cillian, with a rolling of the eyes to match. “No one came here to half-ass this campaign. We have orders. Orders directly from the Regents.” He turned to Aedion. “Sir, that was the weakest military theory I’ve ever heard. Why would we consider settling for a meek little lighthouse fort when we can take this whole slab away from the Maytoni?”
“And what in the Ever-Present Talon do you know about military theory? I’ve seen your academic record by the way,” Bronagh snapped.
A clank from Aedion thumbing his fist into his armoured thigh halted the threat of another row. The general looked to Cillian again with a deceptively plain stare. “Cillian, you will consider your words with greater discernment when addressing General Puga, or I shall leave you here to watch the causeway. I’ll assume it’s this thick air and being so close to sea level. Is that understood?” The tone was flat, like a firmly paved road.
The champion swallowed, his jaw bulging. As his eyes hardened over with resentment as he nodded and spoke, “Yes, sir.”
“As it stands, we do have orders directly from the Regents. But…” He let the word hang for a sharp half second. “They still expect discernment and initiative from us. What General Puga has given us is a wonderful redundancy. I don’t believe we will need it, however. Remember, our role is to gain leverage, to force Maytoni to hand over their so-called prince, rather than escalate this affair into total war. We’re taking the whole of the peninsula and will have the southern port city under our occupation to the horror of the Maytoni ships ferrying reinforcements from the mainland. For now, we pounce upon their garrison inside this little fort.”
“What about Summiteers?” Casey added, tilting his head, his wide jaw only accentuated in the lights of the braziers.
Aedion felt a sting at the name, a potent reminder of his blunder. “They are a great threat, yes. But there are too few of them at any one time. Maytoni’s notion of a fighting force of their greatest warriors is, when scrutinized, a logical fallacy. By isolating their best into small groups, they are only starving their armies of fighting talent…” He paused, a dismissive ripple running over his worn face. “Though their raid shows the danger we face, we’re too large an army for them pick apart with craven raids. It’s not a feasible long-term solution in the here and now.”
“But that attack wasn’t just a reckless bandit raid; kill what’s in sight, steal anything that shines.” Casey continued. “It was surgical. They knew what needed to be hit. Our casualties were secondary to the raiders, and only because we got in the way.”
“And I had one under my divined weapon,” Cillian couldn’t help but blurt out, looking to his flesh rending bat of abandoned griffin nest wood and obsidian blades, haughtily named Divine Sanction. “Outside of craven strategies, they’re nothing. Without their bows, they are nothing.”
“They are not nothing, Cillian. And you let the Summiteer get away,” Bronagh snapped.
“You can’t fight a coward with honour! Nor can you fight a fleeing adversary,” Cillian hissed.
“Once we begin hitting the fort,” Aedion cut in, tone as sharp as his axe cracking his desk. “Their Summiteers will not have the time to conduct any of their shadowy, underhanded tactics. And that’s how we beat them. We keeping hammering the Maytoni forces. Our numbers afford us a near relentless cascade of attacks.”
There was silence, a calm that came with the acknowledgement and agreement of what’s been said. Quietly, rubbing the stubble under his lean chin, Aedion continued, “General Aiza, get your soldiers, and crossbowers mobilised. I want that fort emptied of all things Maytoni by this time tomorrow. Our faith demands it.”
II
War of the Feathers; a contrived, nonsensical conflict, as Evander was thinking of it, against an ally, against good people.
As a child, growing up in the north-western coastal region of Maytoni, his family had spent holidays within the bordering mountains. There, the land between Maytoni and Xellcarr blurred. The Penrose family would wave to other travels, some Maytoni, others Xelcarrian, and Evander’s childhood was spent playing with Xellcarrian children as much as Maytoni; they would pretend to be the honoured bow-knights on their Godhead griffin steads, and Evander would pretend he was a fabled Summiteer archer – together fighting some imaginary evil.
A war with Xellcarr had been unimaginable. So much so, that no realistic plans for a defence had been available at the outbreak. The source of this invasion had been the so-called prince, Darren Sharrow. For centuries, Maytoni had been cultivating a quasi-civil conflict, in which a number of families, descended from ‘highborns’ who had joined the great Maytoni exodus centuries ago, had been attempting to establish themselves as authorities throughout the now established nation. The reasoning was that the Church and their Pastorals did not have the numbers to reach out to the whole of the country and thus governing families with the same authority as the Church could ensure no one went without.
This was nothing more than veiled elitism. High and mighty, sanctimonious peoples whose ancestors had never been able to meld with the decrees of social equity and equality. The Church was set against it.
Problematically, Darren Sharrow took a perverse pride in his hunting prowess. Game hunting was illegal in Maytoni; however, it was always difficult to prove. The so-called prince had gone griffin hunting in the north-west, above the Mayne Peninsula, right by the slim sea boarder with Xellcarr. The so-called prince claimed he had shot down and an arch-griffin within Maytoni waters. The Xellcarrian fishing ships and river-militias claimed the contrary, that the animal was poached within their waters.
For Xellcarrians griffins were divine, considered aspects of their gods. It was forbidden to hunt them, infringe on their territory, or do any harm to the animals. Some became known as Godheads, recognised by Xellcarrian priests as harnessing a far more profound level the gods’ will and power than other griffins, and paired with the most devout of archers.
Evander admired this. He adored griffins and even envied the Xellcarrian knights with their Godheads. Thus, the word of a Xellcarrian replete with earned honours was greater than that of a self-declared elitist.
The Summiteers wanted to hand the so-called prince over, even though it meant execution. But enough royalists within the upper echelons of Maytoni Command took the side of the prince and demanded the Xellcarrians drop their ‘false accusation’… Or else – as if the situation hadn’t been clutching enough black powder to shatter the whole northern sub-continent of The Sigel.
This volatility then manifested its first spark. A Xellcarrian army group marched across the border, through the causeway into the Mayne Peninsula with the intent to annex the region. The goal it seemed was to hold the land, and the people hostage until Maytoni handed the so-called prince over. Given that Xellcarr was nine tenths’ mountains, such a swift and colossal action shook Maytoni into a sobering reality.
All that was available to respond was a small army group and handful of Summiteers. Whilst Evander was the ranking Summiteer, the official commanding figure was a general and intrenched royalist, of the regular army. The five thousand strong army rushed north to take up a defensive position against the invaders, utilising the Mayne Lighthouse, a fortress of sorts, albeit not by design.
Mayne Lighthouse was almost as old as the Maytoni country. It had been erected as close to the cliff’s edge of the peninsula as possible, not long after the establishment of the nation to help traders and fishers, keeping them from crashing into the sheer cliffs or steering into shallow reefs. Later it became a deterrent for pirates as a monument to Maytoni wrath.
The three-hundred-foot-tall tower was hexagonal in shape and reinforced with steel struts within the interior. At its apex was a crystal chamber, with a flat roof upon which was embossed an image of Wespar – the God of purifying light whose arrows parted the clouds and attracted the sun to come closer to Anordaithe. Held inside the crystal chamber was – allegedly – a white-fire phoenix feather, gifted to the first Holy Presence of Maytoni from their Hasjin neighbours. True or not, the light source seemed to be eternal, having stayed as strong as it was when first installed almost two thousand years ago.
Constantly at attention, fluttering in the breeze, fixed to the flat roof was the Maytoni national flag: a white field upon which was a maroon dragon held a harp. There were many stories about where this imagery came from and what it signified – because no self-respecting Maytoni could fess up and say that no one actually knew what the origins were. For one thing, there were no dragon species to be found in Maytoni. And the harp was not a part of any musical society either.
Moreover, there was no archery imagery. Given Maytoni’s reverence for the bow, with its significance in their creation stories and myths, featuring often within the known stories of their exodus too, this was surprising not just to the people of Maytoni, but their neighbours also.
The closest anyone had come to an answer, was that the dragon was representative of the dragon’s blood which Maytoni archers used to strengthen their arrows. It was in fact the Myatoni who made the discovery that dragon’s blood, when applied to the shaft, bred a fiercer strength into the projectile. This was realised during the early days of their exodus, to give greater might to their often far fewer numbers and increase the likelihood of retrieving functioning arrows.
It was believed that the harp’s significance was derived from the siege of Haworth. The city’s king refused to let the Maytoni travel through his land, planning to enslave the nomadic nation. The then Seer brought his army up to the wall of the city and told the king if he did not let Maytoni through, unmolested, they would walk over ruins and bones. Naturally this was ignored, and the Seer under instruction from the Gods took his bow and loosed a single arrow over the wall. The reverberations from the bow’s string were so powerful they obliterated the whole city – every structure without a single survivor.
It was a grisly tale, one Evander struggled with, as it saw the devastation by decree of his Gods on innocent bystanders alongside the wicked. However, one theory claimed this is where the harp insignia came from, with the bow known thereafter as the Seer’s Harp. Alternatively, others state that the only thing left standing was a harp, within the dust and rubble of the king’s court.
The base structure for the lighthouse was a small pyramid, with turrets at the four corners of the flat top upon which the towering lighthouse ascended. In time more structures were built in front of the lighthouse, for masons and security, and even taverns and campsites for the many pilgrims and historians who flooded the site on a regular basis to visit what is considered one of the first, and oldest of Maytoni structures.
A wall was eventually built around the perimeter of the whole camp. Twenty feet tall and ten feet thick, winding around the site in a horseshoe shape beginning and ended on the cliff’s edge. Three tall gates with reinforced with wooden doors sat in the centre of each section of wall, one in the north wall, one in the east wall, and one in the south wall.
The wall was built by masons, not combat engineers, so it held a smooth, curving elegance and an aesthetic beauty. Flanking each gate, huge sculptures of harps had been worked into the architecture, their bodies and strings emerging from the walls to create a distinctive framework.
Naturally, the greater function of the lighthouse evolved into catching out pirates, who had become vexed by the Maytoni presence in the Poet’s Sea. Not long after the establishment of the country, the prowess of the pirate menace soon evaporated under the blaze of the lighthouse, liberating the Poet’s Sea and its surrounding nations use of it.
Whilst a reduced threat of piracy still persisted into the current era, for pirates to enter the eastern half of the Sea it would guarantee defeat; ships captured or destroyed, and crews hanged. All due to the Mayne Lighthouse.
In the here and now, there were five thousand soldiers packed into the walls, along with the masons and engineers who to their credit chose to stay and help maintain the defences.
III
Sitting in General Dedrick’s quarters, along with the rest of the Summiteers, Staff Sergeant Evander Penrose was doing his best to hold his tongue. Despite resting by a brazier, the few hours of sleep showed in the Summiteer’s craggy faces – though the climb hardly echoed its hardships through their muscles. Evander missed that achiness the morning after. The hard but satisfying feeling of progress.
The modest chamber had been the quarters of the chief lighthouse engineer. It was now devoid of personal effects, taken with her as she had been forced out for the duration of the occupation by the general. There was only a wooden desk, a few empty shelves, and several pleasant landscapes depicting scenes of the Maytoni arid lands to give a bit of diversity to the temperate biome outside. A window overlooked the choppy seas, grey-silver crests rising and plunging against invisible tidal forces and the wind.
The general was sixty, with dark worn skin and thinning silver hair. Nor was he an attractive man. Evander had once seen the most peculiar and tragically ugly fish alive, known as a blobfish. Dedrick’s face resembled the weary, slimy, sad looking slab of organic material. And to make matters more unfortunate for the general, he held the frame and demeanour of bedraggled vulture. Yet despite this he did his best to retain a dignified composure like all senior command figures. He sat behind the wide desk, with many maps of the region and various pigeon-delivered messages unfurled before him – all set about in a tidy organisation.
Thus far, since arriving at the lighthouse, it had been said that General Dedrick had yet to leave the base structure.
“Are you sure?” He growled again, a growl which put a simmer to Evander’s blood.
Fiadh stood before the general, the royalist. “I am. After the camp refocused into a defensive cohesion, the guard was doubled and the first of their advance units were mobilised.”
“Are you’re sure they weren’t getting ready to leave? To march back along the causeway?” Dedrick persisted, as if he might know something the experienced and elite soldier before him might not.
“No.”
“No?” He snapped at the lack of an acknowledgement of his rank. Fiadh looked confused, though it was an act.
“We’re not obliged to show reverence to known royalists, as of the Tefin Oasis Decree,” Evander snapped – more than he’d have liked, but weariness was stoking his temper – casting a dark glare towards the general. “If you wanted your ego stroked, you should have buggered off with the so-called prince and the Outriders.”
“Guileless scum,” Kellen growled from behind Evander. There had been a growing contempt for the Outriders in past few days, at how they took up arms at the so-called prince’s command and followed him without question.
“I’m blessed you even think of me as a general,” Dedrick sneered, leaning across his desk. “Just remember who is in command here. This is my army group; those are my soldiers and this is my fort.” He locked eyes with Evander, who only returned a bored state. “Fiadh, continue, please,” Evander added, under cutting the general who was about to continue speaking.
“Security wasn’t increased in the causeway. Nothing left the camp to go in that direction. The Xellcarrians are not leaving. In fact, they’re getting ready to advance on us,” Fiadh continued matter-of-factly. She was speaking as if standing before a captor, Evander noted, giving nothing away about her temperament that could be used against her.
“Well, so much for taking out their legs from under them, or paws I should say,” Dedrick muttered with tiny laughter. “With the lack of sleep and cold, how can you be sure, really?”
“On her worst day, Fiadh is tenfold greater than your best soldier,” Juliet stated with a firm stare.
“On top of The Bloodied Talon being present, there are three Godheads too, with at least ten thousand knights,” Fiadh continued.
“Godheads? Divine wrath,” Ignatius murmured.
“And some of the sharpest archers on The Sigel,” Kellen added, sounding sombre.
“Big cats with wings, so? My archers will shoot them down with ease. We’ll feast on the succulent meat. Hopefully the winds will blow north so they can smell their so-called gods roasting on spits.”
Evander grunted, blunting his temper. “The soldiery will do no such thing,” his seethed. “If we have to slay a godhead, that’s bad enough. But any griffin that falls into our hands will not be touched.” Dedrick’s pinkish face seemed to swell with shock and fury.
“I have the final say with my soldiers, sergeant,” the general snapped.
“And I have orders from commanders more senior than you to avoid any escalation in conflict. So much as touching one of their beasts will set of a fury to stoke their zealotry further.”
The general was silent for a moment, then continued. “Well, if they’re so important, perhaps the Xellcarrians won’t field them.”
“It’s hardly that simple,” Evander countered. “Griffins are formidable, and these are under the control of mythically talented archers.” Evander rubbed his mouth with a calmy hand, leaning forward on his knees. His gut roiled at the thought of having to engage one of these honoured knights. Killing soldiers and knights was obscene enough, but slaying a Godhead, that was unthinkable, an unforgivable act against the Xellcarrians.
Trying to reestablish his dominance, Dedrick scoffed, “So, all of this means that your foolhardy action failed.” He slapped his desk and sighed with relish; partly due to the fact that a Summiteer failed, and largely because he was hoping for a major battlefield engagement.
“Their siege equipment has been destroyed,” Fiadh jumped in. “Soldiers, in nothing but their under-garments were dumping the remains into a firepit outside the camp – to stop further contamination.”
“So, it’s a battle then,” Dedrick smirked.
“Maybe do a better job hiding that contempt. You don’t want your soldiers to knowing how eager you are for them to die for your ego.” Evander took a deep breath, savouring the brief relief he felt in his chest as he did so.
“The Xellcarrians have smeared our prince, soldier!” Dedrick snapped, throwing a finger at Evander, a finger Evander came close to severing with his teeth. He clenched his jaw instead and retained his unimpressed demeanour.
“Your prince, Dedrick.” Ignatius spat. “And your messy little war. Don’t dare try to throw his self-appointed authority over us.”
“Watch your tone! I’m still a general!”
“Fooled me,” Bunny chuckled, quietly, whilst reclining on a chair to the side.
“We’re soldiers, aren’t we? We’re fighters, and war-makers, and this is what we are for! Why are you so set against avoiding this. Xellcarr has invaded our land, our home. And you’re hoping they’ll just, what? Get bored and leave?” Dedrick looked back to Evander who was getting bored now. He knew going into this morning’s meeting that there would be no talking to the general.
“Don’t dare accuse us of anything, Dedrick,” Evander snarled. A bitter heat rose into his chest, and Evander felt his cheeks bristle with warmth. “Individually, every Summiteer present here has far more experience, than the whole of your army group, than you. It was us who annihilated the Unified Mudhonnel Banditry. It was us who took out the Pirate Guild’s leadership, and it was us who crippled the Rags, you know, the Islander Reclamation and Absolution Group. Remember them? Murdered thirty pilgrims and two pastorals, recently.”
Juliet continued, “We’ve bled and died and killed for Maytoni. And everyone in this room, bar yourself, is willing to do so – if necessary. That’s the key part… If necessary. The Xellcarrians should not be our enemy, we should not be theirs. Your prince ballsed up. And instead of taking responsibility, has plunged Maytoni into an avoidable war.”
“And of course the recent Jermirshia incursion – the raids we conducted to ease their invasion against Hasjin,” Bunny added nonchalantly.
“We have enemies enough in The Sigel alone. We don’t want more,” Evander concluded.
“People need to see that the Church alone is not enough to cover our lands, you utter child. We need a social elite. People like Prince Sharrow! Perhaps if we had that, we wouldn’t have been taken by surprise and be in this situation. When we hammer the Xellcarrians, the people will see it was us, the royalists as you keep saying as if it’s a foul word, who saved them. Whilst you lot sat around crying over of hard it is to kill a sodding Xellcarrian.” Dedrick spoke with a chilling finality, an absolute certainty which gave Evander pause.
“All war is a crime,” a firm voice added, dissipating the tension. Evander’s searing heartache was soothed in an instant.
Entering the room came Pastoral Ebrill Glace. She wore her sun-yellow poncho over a violet tunic, with stoney leather breeches and tough looking leather boots offsetting the noble look of the attire. Amythest embossing decorated her poncho, patterns designed to reflect the natural world, such as leaves, petals, rain, and clouds. Ebrill’s skin shone, making her look far younger than her thirty-five years, with such warmth from her azure eyes that the most wounded would feel safe and comforted. Her rufus red hair was, as always, tied up with a pair of paint brushes.
“We’re permitted to defend ourselves and others, but in the end, taking life is still an unnatural act. It’s important to ensure that it is never done without absolute necessity,” she continued, entering the chambers as if they were her own. Evander rose to give his best friend in the world, a seat.
Watching the general bristle brought a grin to Evander’s face. Every Pastoral carried not just the authority of the Church, but of the Gods in essence, and their words were considered infallible. In theory, Ebrill was the highest authority in the room now… Not that Dedrick would ever yield to anything that contradicted his own elitist ideology of course.
“That, Ms Glace, is exactly what I am planning here,” Dedrick began. “The defence of Maytoni.”
“It’s Pastoral Glace,” she replied curtly. “Sorry I’m late, but there is only one Pastoral present, and five thousand soldiers to minister to.” Since arriving, Ebrill had sequestered the largest of the abandoned taverns to function as a chapel and hospital, holding morning services for anyone who wished to attend, alongside personal ministrations.
Taken aback, the bristling turning to razor cuts, the general continued. “Pastoral Glace, my actions here are to ensure not just the safety of the people on this peninsula, but by extension the whole of Maytoni. First, they take the peninsula, and then it’s the coast. Once they take the coast, it’s the swamplands. Then they have the most fertile and popular regions under their domain, before marching through the arid lands to finish the job. And then where are we? Refugees, what’s left of us.”
“All perfectly avoidable,” Ebrill added quickly in a tight tone. “You may not think much of the clarity of the Pastorals, general, but the Church and the Pastorals have unanimously condemned this war. We see it as unnecessary, and solely the result of unsanctioned actions by unsanctioned persons. Remember that when we’re covered in Xellcarrian, and Maytoni blood and your soldiers are screaming and dying. There are five thousand of them, and one of me. How can I possibly minister to every dying soldier?” Ebrill’s eyes were shimmering, her hands trembling, though she tried to conceal it. Evander reached a hand forward and placed it on her bony shoulder. Her older brother was in the ranks of Dedrick’s army, part of the Sheild Line. “Do you think the Xellcarrians will take the peninsula?” Ebril spoke softly.
“How…” Dedrick began.
“Not you. Evander?” She turned to him, steel in her eyes – weak steel, corroded by the shimmering wateriness of those vivid azure eyes. He couldn’t lie to her, but he wasn’t ready to concede defeat. Evander couldn’t see away to repeal six-to-one odds, but he was still a Summiteer and determined to think of a way.
“Our superiors back at Blair Tower sent word this morning that an army group is being brought in to seal the far end of the causeway, and another army group is coming in from the south by ship. When they arrive, the Xellcarrian forces will be cornered, and trapped. But those army groups can’t be here for at least a week. If the Xellcarrians take this fort and hold the causeway they can hold potentially us at bay until the remainder of their forces are ready and come across the border. At which point we will have to abandon the peninsula to repulse the mass invasion force,” Evander explained.
“Hardly an answer,” Dedrick grunted dismissively. “We’ve the fort, the best archers in the world. Thirty thousand is nothing to my soldiers.”
“The Xellcarrians aren’t using simple front-line soldiers,” Fiadh added. “They’re Men-at-Arms. Professional, career soldiers. I didn’t see any engineers or environs, though.”
“So, it’s not all bad. They’ll have to brute force the fort,” Kellen thought aloud.
“And with only a thin layer of dirt over the rocky ground, they can’t build trench lines to set siege to us, or tunnel underneath,” Juliet mused.
“Well, you all clearly think you’re in charge here,” Dedrick snapped, obviously hoping to rid his quarters of the Summiteers.
“We may as well be,” Evander muttered with a sarcastic look. Bunny nodded towards him in agreement. Of course, Evander knew he was, ostensibly, right. The lowest ranking Summiteer held authority over most senior officers in the regular army and navy. A General was technically out of their reach – but still fair game.
“Then go, I’m dismissing this meeting. Go and formulate a defence plan. We’re holding this fort.”
“And we will, Dedrick, but for Maytoni’s sake, not yours.”
