Auldric Hearthstone was a young man of the Bardic tradition. A storyteller, lyricist and musical performer. He had a love of travel, reading and history. He could juggle and knew a few magic tricks. That was the sum of who he was, a few years ago. Much had changed over those years. He was a different man now.

Auldric found himself in a place that many of his fellow citizens believed was the heart of the world. As a citizen of the great Verant Empire, he was of the mind that there was no better place in all of Gaia to find the fascinating stories of his time than Verant City, the most important artery of that heart. Today it was beating with much jubilant and drunken revelry. A new Emperor crowned only a few days before was the cause of this celebration. After many years of civil war, the Empire was once again at peace.

Auldric stood atop a small wooden box playing the Prince’s Love Song on his lute. The crowd around him was small and mostly women, but they applauded his fine playing skills and even finer silken voice just the same. He would have preferred a much better location, a spot near the Grand Bazaar might have been nice, but Auldric had been a late comer to the city.

He only arrived a few days before the coronation. It was hard to find a good street corner with so many others of the trade around. The other street performers frightened him with their scar-hardened knuckles and thick skin. He found himself in trouble one day when a hurdy-gurdy player with a drawn short sword confronted him. He was not about to be killed over a street corner, so he backed away. Of course, Auldric was no coward, but a sensible man knows how to pick his battles wisely.

In the end, he got a nice little corner just within the inner walls of the capital. It was a part of the city known fondly as the Old Verant Quarter. From the Imperial Palace on the south side to the Temple of the Fire Lord in the north end, this was where the gold flowed freest. The money could be decent if the crowd was right and on this spring day, the weather was pleasant enough. Yet Auldric could not help feeling as if he was missing out somehow on bigger crowds or more gold.

Once again, the coinage was not much to speak of that day. At the end of the song, Auldric held out his hat so the generous ones could throw some coins his way. Three silvers and a handful of coppers was all he had garnered so far. It was already getting on past mid-afternoon. A chilly breeze cut through him like a knife.

Auldric thought about calling it quits for the day. He considered his meager haul. For a couple of silver coins, he could get a small room down by the docks in the Merchant’s Quarter. It would be flea ridden to be sure and he would have to worry about head lice as well, but it would be better than sleeping in a back alley or a vacant building where he would have to sleep with his mace in hand and one eye open.

Now there was also a hand full of coppers, which added up to a few more in silver. With that he could buy a doxie also down by the docks, but then he was afraid of getting lice in an unmentionable area. That happened sometimes when the whores were cheap and Auldric did not feel like having to shave his nether regions again so soon.

Dreaming, he thought that what he really needed were a couple of gold pieces. Then he could stay at a truly nice inn by the Bazaar. Better yet, he could stay at the Opium Den! With five gold coins, he could get a room there, a dark-skinned whore and a nice chunk of raw opium to smoke for the night. Now that would be paradise! He mused.

However, the reality was he only had five or six silvers at best, his musical instruments and a couple of solid weapons among his personal belongings. His backpack did not carry much of value these days beyond animal snares, lock picks and a few books. Just trinkets he had picked up along his journey.

“Thank you,” Auldric muttered to those who paid him for his songs. “Thank you very much my good Ladies and noble Lords!”

He was about to perform another song when he heard a commotion coming towards him. It was a group of three soldiers, still wearing their ring mail armour from the war even though it had been over for months.

Auldric did not have his armour anymore. He had traded it in for gold that he quickly burned through leaving him in his current state of poverty. No doubt they thought it made them look regal and garnered them much in the way of praise. It was not hard to surmise that they had been drinking all afternoon, what with their swagger and raised voices.

“Oi! Hey you there!” One of the uglier ones called out to him. “The one with the lute!”

His fellow officers laughed to each other. The other patrons around them smiled and parted for them as they approached the bard. Their faces were gnarled and misshapen, probably from years of constant abuse in battle and games.

“Who here wants to listen to love songs, eh?” He asked the crowd. A few of the women blushed and covered their faces with fashionable painted fans, but no one else voiced an opinion. People started to walk away.

Great! Auldric thought. They are going to drive away the few patrons I had!

“We just crowned a new Emperor not half a dozen days ago. Sing a soldiers song man! Sing a song of conquest and glory!” The scarred looking one said to him.

“Of course, my friends!” Auldric said with a fake smile for added effect. His curly brown hair bounced in the breeze and his brown eyes twinkled mysteriously. “I know many, my Lords. I was in the war myself, a soldier once like you!”

“Oh, I doubt you were anything like us!” One of the hulking beasts jested to the others. They all hooted in amusement.

Auldric agreed silently. No, maybe not like you, he thought. Nevertheless, I was a soldier once, that much is true!

He remembered the moment that crystallized his opinion of Xander Frey, the man who would become Emperor. Auldric was a wandering vagabond, as his parent had been before him. They were musical instrument makers. He traveled the countryside with them, helping them sell their wares in dozens of towns and villages that scattered the realm. They had a small shop in Palantine that they shared with other family members, Auldric’s aunt and uncle, but they were only there during the winter months where they made some of the instruments. The rest of the year they had a pair of covered wagons that they lived in.

One day two years ago, Auldric and his parents stopped in a small town for a few days. That was when the imperial Red Dragon Army came upon them. The town was a supporter of the rebel forces. The Red Dragon Army made short work of the place. The men were slaughtered, the women raped, their children taken as slaves and the whole town was put to the torch. The entire process took no more than three hours.

Auldric’s parents were killed. However, by the whims of luck and lust, he managed to escape. He had been outside of the town at the time, down by a small creek not far from town. He had met a young maiden the day before. That afternoon he had coaxed her down to the tall grass on the shore. They had spent the afternoon eating lunch, drinking wine and making love on the bank hidden by the reeds. He returned to the town in time to see the aftermath. The soldiers of the infamous Red Dragon Army had already moved on.

Auldric managed to rescue a few musical instruments and a horse before it all burned to cinders, just like his memories and his past. As he watched the wagons burn, he vowed revenge. Whatever it took, he pledged he would do it. Whatever the Gods wanted in exchange for his revenge, he would pay it. He would give into dark forces, if he must, to seek his justice.

He did not have to. As it turned out, all he had to do was join the rebel legions and he would get his fill and much more of blood and retribution.

“Dare I ask what legion you’re from?” Auldric inquired of the soldiers.

“Nineteenth legion! The black eagle!” They shouted as one and laughed.

“Ho! No wonder all the doxies are walking bow legged these days!” Auldric joked. “I hear your appetite for women is only exceeded by your hunger for blood!”

“True enough!” One soldier confirmed.

“Well said,” another replied.

He was making an impression upon them. Nevertheless, the third one was not so impressed. “And what was your legion bard? First minstrels?”

Again, there was a new roar of laughter.

“As a matter of fact, I was sixteenth legion, fifth cohort. I was at the Battle of the Old War Line as fate would have it,” Auldric shot back and it was true. It was all true. He had been in that very battle.

Xander Frey had command of three loyal legions and a strong supply line paid for by the ruling class that had defected to back his cause. He had the sixteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-second legions, fifteen thousand hardened and battle worn soldiers in total. They were a force to be reckoned with.

“Ho, the red fox banner!” a soldier said, adding, “And what was your role in the sixteenth? Did you play the harp and compose a poem?”

More laughter ensued.

Auldric flushed red. He was pissed off. He would have loved to knock this man’s chip off his shoulder, but he was not alone. Auldric would have to take it and keep smiling. They were going to laugh at him anyway, so he might as well just come out with it. “I was a mace man.”

“A mace man?” They chuckled. “Why that’s women’s work, that is! That’s not real fighting!”

Women’s work indeed! That was not how Auldric remembered it! His thoughts turned sour on him. He suddenly found himself thinking about those dark days, not even a year past.

Mace men were the lowest position in the legion, that much was true. Auldric had to supply his own mace and armour; the army did not pay for any of that. He found a recruiter for the sixteenth legion in a town near the Imperial Valley River. Auldric had no military training, so mace man was the entry-level position. He did not qualify for anything else. The mace men ranks were filled with people who had never been to the military academy. It was a position reserved for the low born who volunteered for the legion. Most professional soldiers were plucked from the academy.

Auldric Hearthstone was not his real name either. He had simply made it up when he joined the legion. His real name was Lexor Harper, but Lexor died the day that his parent’s caravan burned, their bloodied bodies tossed casually aside in the mud and ashes. He reinvented himself as Auldric Hearthstone, traveling bard and part-time soldier.

Once he joined the legion, he was lumped in with the rest of the rabble and they made him a mace man. It was not supposed to be a front line position. Instead, the mace men followed behind the pikers and swordsmen as they smashed through the enemy ranks. In theory, the job of the mace men was capture the officers and finish off the wounded and dying lower born soldiers that were left behind as the front ranks advanced. At least that was the theory behind it.

However, in reality the Battle of the Old War Line had been much different from a typical battle. Xander had done something new. A tactic that no one had seen before. He did something that would change how war was fought in the future. Outnumbered two to one he threw caution to the wind and sent the cavalry against the House of Thaine forces front line, catching them completely by surprise and setting the tone for the rest of the battle. It was a rouse to get the enemy to come across the field in pursuit.

Auldric remember that day well. It was damp and overcast though it had not actually rained at all. The noise of the cannons was the most terrifying sound he had ever heard. They roar like thunder from both sides. The pikers had to use their large shields to form a wall to protect them from incoming arrows and musket shots. The entire shield-less forces huddled close behind them for protection. However, nothing stopped five- and eight-pound cannon balls.

Unable to see what was going on, Auldric simply knelt in the mud, mace clutched in his hands, shaking with fear as he was subjected to the screams of the dying. Even five ranks back he saw people ripped apart by the cannons that scattered blood and body parts everywhere. The cavalry charged. The sky above erupted and torrential down pour followed.

Now normally after a Cavalry advance, the pike men would advance next, however Xander Frey, general of the twenty-second legion and future Emperor, had other plans. The mounted cavalry was not very large, as soon as they started to take losses they were ordered to retreat. It all went as Xander had planned it. His enemy pursued seeing an opportunity to take out the whole rebel force.

As they approached Xander’s front line, the pike men peeled off to the sides revealing a bank of cannons that had been hidden for just this moment. However, instead of loading them with cannon balls, they had instead been packed tight with gravel, broken glass and scrap metal. The engineers later referred to it as grapeshot. Before the enemy could even understand what was happening the cannons open fire. Auldric stood by and watched as the flesh was ripped from the bones of hundreds of men over a few heart beats. A second line of cannons, already loaded, fired a few moments later. There was so much blood and carnage that Auldric doubled over and wretched right there where he stood on the battlefield. He was not alone.

The Imperial army’s spirits were suddenly broken as hundreds or even thousands were left dying of the muddy ground. After the initial shock wore off, Xander’s pike men advanced. This was quickly followed by total chaos as the front lines broke down and the two sides mixed in a dangerous dance of blood and death.

Auldric was forced to do a lot more than mere women’s work! Fighting for his life and with no real skills to speak of, he was forced to hold off several enemies in succession over the course of the battle. He had killed his own share that day. He could not think enough to count them all. He was too busy trying to survive. He did not get to do his so-called cleanup work until the bulk of the Thaine forces had been broken and even then, it was several hours after the battle had been under way before he started killing the wounded enemies.

At the end of the battle, when it was all said and done, Auldric sat upon a large rock in the middle of the field that dairy cows once grazed upon. Now it was a banquet for ravens and vultures. He surveyed the thousands of dead that filled the field. The lifeless ones stared up at the sky mutely, the wounded cried out for a healer, their God or even their mothers and fathers if they were young and pitiful enough. The cries of the dying still chilled him to the bone even as he considered them now. He remembered looking down at his hands and his cloak, both covered with blood. His mace had dried bits of flesh and skull encrusted on it.

His left forearm was broken. He was lucky. It was clean break and a healer was able to set it for him. It took over a month to heal and the bone still ached a bit to this day, especially when it was damp out, but he had recovered now.

Auldric played the Legionnaires War Song for the men, but his heart was not in it.

It baffled him that some men could experience what he had and shrug it off as if it was nothing. Auldric had been devastated by the experience, emotionally scarred for life by the inhumanity that he had witnessed. They were deep scars that he was sure would never heal over. Over six months later and he still found himself waking up with nightmares like some child.

By the end of the day, Auldric earned enough coin to get a decent room in the Public Quarter and a bowl of hot stew. It cost him everything he earned, but he did not care. He was disillusioned with his situation. Verant City was the richest place in the whole world, yet he could not even earn a single gold piece!

He knew what it was, it was obvious from the first day, but he would not admit defeat easily. The competition was too great. Bards, minstrels and other performers were on almost every street corner. The coronation had been a grand event, but what was he to do now? He had other skills beyond singing and playing music, but juggling, reading fortune cards and a few magic tricks would not earn him much in the capital.

Verant City had two Wizard Towers, two of them! What good were tricks when the city was filled with real wizards who performed real magic? The only other skill he had was thieving. He had a good set of picks since breaking and entering was his specialty. However, this was Verant City. They send thieves to the coliseum here!

Auldric was no gladiator, so he decided to only spend one more day in the city, and then he would wander out into the metropolitan areas beyond the outer walls. In this city of over a half a million citizens, three quarters of them lived outside the city’s main walls. He could earn money along one of the main roads that headed south. There were more people who traveled those roads anyways. Auldric Hearthstone resolved to do just that.