Year 212. Jore, Capital of Duke Oudet Barat - Khirn

JIRA ne'JIRAL

They were in Jira's personal manse when the horns blasted to announce the nearing of the ride to Lydoros. The sun was cresting over the tops of the city's tallest buildings, radiant and yellow through the thin white clouds of the endless blue sky. Nara-ward leaned over the balcony railing, bright-eyed in wonder, and whistled as the full might of the Belanorian Legions filed into view through the labyrinthian streets. "How many Belanorians came to join the war?" he asked, turning his gaze only momentarily to see his master join him on the balcony.

She adjusted the iron bracer around her right forearm and stood next to him, tightening the straps with a forceful pull. "Four, maybe five hundred thousand? There's more outside the city as well that chose not to impede Jore's capacity more than what the Prime's personal selections already have."

"That's almost mythic," Nara-ward gawked. "I've only heard legends of armies that size from the times of the Golden Lords like Acominatus, Lecapenas. Acominatus' father-in-law, Ooryphas, had an army larger than them, I think! In the millions, it said, full of beasts with seven horns that breathed fire and giants wearing gilded plates with axes made of rubies and diamonds. But that's impossible, right?"

Jira shrugged and gave a last look over her bracer. The equipment bore the stamped serpent sigil of her Duke-given house - the records of it having been built over a lifetime of falsified and legitimate deeds. Would this war be a legitimate deed? A foolish one, to be sure. But would it be legitimate? "I don't know, Nara," she answered at the sound of another horn. Six hours to the ride. "Khirn and Aqela are massive continents. Larger than they have any right or logic to be. It can take months to travel from city to town, a year from city to city, and longer from nation to nation. Jore is lucky to be where it is for the Belanorians to get here as quickly as they did. Or maybe God had something to do with their hasty arrival. Khirn and Aqela are older than they are large, as well."

"What do you mean?" Nara-ward asked, chuckling buffoonishly at the distant sight of the Belanorian High Calvary mounted on their gleaming platinum-armored steeds.

Jira smiled, small and thin, at his innocence. "We're still finding ruins throughout our homes, some of them not belonging to humanity. Do you remember when I told you that the Eighteenth Tahririan Archeological Dig of our year had discovered a vast necropolis in their north? Untouched for years beyond our comprehension and holding the skeletal remains of corpses so outside of humanity that it drove those who initially saw them mad with religious fervor. And that's just in Khirn. Who knows what's in the land of the inhumans?"

Nara-ward turned to Jira. "I remember this. I wanted to ask you something about that. I thought we came here to escape the inhumans by God's will. How could there be inhuman remains here? Were they here first?"

Another shrug. "Who knows? Older-"

"-Than it is large," Nara-ward completed the sentence with an understanding nod. A third blast of the horns sounded, drawing a defeated sigh from the pair. "I think it's past time we get you to the Duke, Lady ne'Jiral. His courier was very insistent this morning, and the Belanorians have sounded their horns thrice now."

"You're beginning to sound like Crius when he's deep in study," Jira grumbled as she ushered the boy away from the balcony. "I think you ought to stop learning your vernaculars from the man."

"You told me to learn as much as I can from all viable sources, Lady ne'Jiral, and assigned some of them yourself!" the young boy squawked, quickstepping down the central stairs of Jira's austere manse - austere by the standards of overall fine design of the city and even in comparison to the Duke's own manor. He stampeded into the woman's first-floor armory just behind the stairs, bounding through the twin halls with a speed akin to a halfling on Sun Dust. He appeared holding the sheathed longsword she had forced herself to become accustomed to using as opposed to the Caldishla's halberds and spears, along with her rondel dagger to be kept on the opposite hip as her primary blade. "Lord Crius is one of the finest minds in Jore, and he has taught me well," Nara-ward finished.

Jira scoffed lightheartedly and took the blades from the blade, strapping them each to her waist. "Just be sure to mind the verbiage depending on who you are talking to, Nara. Some will expect it from you, and others will despise it. Crius has the defense of being of the Church, but you will be alone for some time once your squireship is complete."

"Who would despise it?" Nara-ward inquired as he struggled to keep pace with the woman who silently ordered her few servants to lock up the manse after her departure.

"Many people, to be entirely honest," Jira answered as they stepped out onto the small rolling hill of her manse's grounds. Grass as green as Gnomish forests and Orc'kin elixirs spread in a square acre around her home, with two ten-foot-tall trees standing sentinel at the wooden gate protecting her property. "Has Crius not taught you the art of diplomacy to match?"

"No," Nara-ward answered.

Jira curled her lip in thought. "I should see if Zetus will take you on as a ward for training. It is beyond the time you should have learned its finer workings. I will start, at least, with some apt descriptions. Dekunians are straightforward people for the most part and are big on repayments. Blood debts, in other terms. They might not like your speech, see it as a way to deride them, or keep yourself from paying what they think you owe. Some of their leaders tend to talk like Aslofidorians, but that's only because of how long this war has gone on and how many diplomatic meetings have occurred for half-decades of peace. Belanorians, well, you saw them. Best not to mince words with them, either. Veorisians are described as savage barbarians. I myself call them such things as well in conversation with Zetus, but they are spiritual people who are open to complex conversations, though primarily in their language."

"Why do you call them savage barbarians, then?" Nara-ward asked.

"Traces of Aslofidorian opinion that have carried over into my daily vocabulary, unfortunately," Jira admitted. "They are far from savages but can be savage if you cross them. Probably more than the Dekunians or Belanorians. Does that make sense?"

"I think so?"

"Good," Jira smiled, motioning for her squire to follow as she began down the cobbled path to the wooden gate. She stopped to admire the trees, wondering how free they must have felt to flow in the breeze of the wind. Jealousy for their existence filled her heart before she opened the gate and stepped out into the winding streets of Jore. There was no point in placing a number on how many people filled the city's streets that day, for no number could logically fit. The streets below their feet were nothing more than shuffling boots, ends of gowns, and the momentarily spotted pieces of cobbled stone.

"What about Tahririans?" her squire continued, having to shout above the hum of voices for Jira to hear him.

"Perhaps the most diplomatic and verbose of the five nations in Khirn," she responded, pulling her squire out of the path of a horse tromping through the crowd. "Aslofidor as a whole has a non-combat alliance with them for religious purposes, sharing knowledge and pilgrimage sites. It's how I know about the discovery of their dig."

"Do Tahririans not fight?"

"They have an army to defend their borders, but they are - on average - extreme pacifists, following more peaceful Tahriran-based guidance of God's Codices. They'll defend their home and use trade and diplomatic means to gain territory, but they won't invade. Hell below, they might not defend their home even then. They've historically allowed themselves to lose territory to Veoris and, once, Aslofidor in days past to avoid bloodshed, merely evacuating their people to their tread cities."

The pair turned a corner, regaining a foothold on their path to leave the city and find their way to the Duke's wagon house outside the walls. It would be a long journey. "Tread cities?" the squire asked.

"Leftover arcaeno-technology from the first settlers of Khirn," Jira explained. "Partially subterranean, partially terranean. Carving through the sand with these...shovels on their bows. Roaming on these long wheels that they call treads, for they 'tread the path of the faithful nomad.' I've seen them during a pilgrimage of mine. Wonderful things, though they are quite loud."

"A prophet queen rules Tahrir, right?" The squire asked this after the pair passed a member of one of Jore's incalculable churches standing on a merchant-flooded street corner. From her lips came a litany of prophecies and omens, telling of how the Belanorians would bring peace to the people of Aslofidor and ruin to the whole of Khirn. Her eyes were the color of glass, and her face was sagging off the bone, though her voice should have belonged to a woman no older than her thirties.

"That is correct, Nara," Jira said, momentarily stopping to hoist the boy atop a short dividing wall to remove him from an ever-increasing swarm of people as they entered another street. He balanced himself with careful steps and the practiced dexterity Jira had taught him in their lessons. "By her visions, Tahrir is guided to its future. Hence why they have the largest number of discovered ruins of Old Khirn. Only the Belanorians can match them in the field of lore on Old Khirn, and only the Belanorians can match them in overall dedication to the Codices of God, though their interpretations might be different."

The pair stopped as they reached a choke in the crowd, a line to pass through a checkpoint guarded by Jore's city watch. The dividing wall ended abruptly, and Nara-ward lowered himself to the ground. He stuck close to his master, visibly pondering everything she had told him. She watched with vested interest to see what conclusions he would draw. "So with the Tharirians, I should focus on diplomatic and religious languages for cohesion with our dialogue. And avoid talks of war-"

She held up a finger. "-Not necessarily avoid talks of war. Don't expect them to be willing to join you in a fight, is all. Find ways to work around war."

He nodded. "Okay. With the Belanorians, I can do much of the same but should focus more on the heart of the matter, especially if it involves war."

"Correct."

"Veorisians should not be underestimated and are deeply spiritual, but I should be careful not to imply crossing them lest I draw out their savagery?"

She pouted her lip and shrugged. "Close enough."

"Aslofidorians, well, I can see how they work. Self-interested beyond a doubt." He gave a small chuckle.

Jira reciprocated. "Yes."

The line moved forward only a few feet. "And Dekunians will be dependent on who is sitting in the chair across from me."

"Very much so," Jira agreed, momentarily turning to a brief uproar from a neighboring crowd. The city watch was quick to break up whatever scuffle had nearly erupted, the source of it being a ragged man dressed in fine green traveling garb. He was a particularly massive specimen, larger than any creature Jira had seen in Khirn. She turned back to Nara-ward. "If it's one of the Script families or the Glyph families, you'll have to make do with what you can gather on them by yourself or whatever information gatherers you have at your disposal. They can either work with you or against you depending on how you approach them with your dialects. Now, the Rune family - the Apas - they are...more difficult than the others, to say the least."

"Why's that?" Nara-ward asked, craning his head to see the party of Drayheller through the mass of humanity before him.

"The Runearch, Ezel Apa, is more open to diplomacy than most of her kin. Not only creating a ceasefire between the King and Dekun but also entering a military alliance with her nation and his loyalists. She forged an impossible union and has thus far held it together despite her nation wishing it was not so." Jira shuddered as she recalled the name and face of the Runearch's heir. "Her son, the Runemaster, is a different story. Implacable, blood lustful, sinful. Erik Apa is a devil, and I have had the misfortune of seeing him on the field of battle more times than I care to admit."

"How many times?"

"Once," Jira spat. "And once was I needed to never want to see him again."

Nara-ward was aghast. "But-but you're the greatest knight I've ever seen. How bad could he be?"

"Do you remember the Battle of Bassis? The town that used to border the southeast of Aslofidor and Dekun?"

Nara-ward shook his head.

Jira breathed hard, cursing herself for remembering this day but knowing that Nara-ward needed to understand the dangers of the Runemaster. "He was there. As was I. It was an erosion of morality and sensibility. Every man and woman that fought there that day became little more than a beast, and Erik Apa was the master of us all. He slaughtered hundreds of Aslofidorians like they were cattle and then turned himself on the town. He slaughtered everyone that could not fight back when we were too weak to protect them. I saw him burn families to the bone and kick their skulls like rocks down a river bed."

"God Protect Them," Nara-ward prayed under his breath. "He was not censured for this? Not removed from power?"

"It is not enough that he is the son and heir of Dekun's leader, but no one wanted to admit what happened that day." Jira collected herself as she saw the line moving again and several quick glances coming her way as she recounted her tale. "Everyone forgot, and it led to one of the half-decades of peace. Then the vile obscenities between our nations kept erupting, provoking war once again until the Runearch and the King reached their agreement."

"How dreadful," Nara-ward grimaced.

"Indeed."

"Will the Runemaster be at Lydoros?" Nara-ward's voice had lost all interest in history and vocabulary. He was fully immersed in the horror of what this Erik Apa represented. Jira was terrified for him. Because she knew that the man would be there. And if he were, the chances of whatever practical arrangement could be reached between the King and the Duke would be impossible to attain.

"What was Runemaster actually doing during all of this?" asked Dracraes the Seku, a lizard race from the jungles of Bouranos.

The Bear-Maiden sipped the last of her tea and denied another filling of her cup from Thilas, who sat down next to the other of his kind, Mordo. "He was moving with the alliance towards Lydoros, though his journey was far from boring as one might expect of an army's march."

Year 212. Royal Alliance Caravan - Khirn

RUNEMASTER ERIK APA

The camp made by the joint force of Dekun and King Hippon Aslofidor defied legend. Only an army of Aqela itself could match the sheer might of what the two nations had produced to put down this errant duke who had so brazenly seceded from the crown in his effort to gain power. From Dekun alone came hundreds of thousands of infantrymen, coupled with tens of thousands of archers, tens of thousands of light calvary, thousands of knights and heavy calvary, an untold number of serfs and healers, and vagabond merchants leeching off the army's wandering of the countryside. From the King came a smaller force, though he could not deny that they were almost as impressive. Led personally by Hippon the Ninth, the King had produced an army almost three-fourths the size of Dekun's own. Fires and tents the color of dull rainbows spread as far as he could see without his armor, which was still impressively far. The smells were the worst and best of it. Sizzling bacon, dripping fat, and bubbling stews filled the air like a delicious miasma.

Erik Apa, dressed in fine clothes fit for a traveling huntsman rather than the warrior he preferred to be seen as, wandered the corridors of this camp with curious eyes. He was eager to see how the unholy union of his blessed people with these Aslofidorian dogs would turn out. To his begrudging surprise, there were fewer conflicts between the armies than he would have expected and fewer deaths on either side. Surely not enough to put an end to this farce of an alliance. Even his own attempts in this failed to draw anything but minor uproars quickly put down by his mother's implanted peacekeepers, the only people he could safely say outranked him beside the Runearch.

He found himself bored with time and returning to the comforts of his cohort in the center of the Dekunian's portion of the camp. There, he met his commanders. Goka Tur and Akma Yal, two of the best warriors he had the pleasure of fighting alongside. Of course, there was also Adil Ere, Ulek Aks, Yola Tal, Isme Erd, and Zeyn Gol, each a fine combatant in their own right, though increasingly humorless and stern as the list went on. His joy at seeing them, however, was nearly ruined at the sight of Iren Ney, the worst of his cohort who was only allowed to stay in his position due to his mother being a Scriptlady of Karagog. He swayed with his movements and clung to Goka Tur like dung on a farmer's boot, refusing to vacate the area even when it appeared that the latter was ordering him to. Erik quirked a brow at the sight but dropped the issue when his friends greeted him.

"Tohyi!" Goka Tur and Akma Yal cheered in unison, embracing Erik Apa as a brother.

"Where the hell have you been all day?" Akma Yal asked.

"Scouting the perimeter, checking on the dogs, making sure the peace was maintained," Erik Apa replied.

"Oh, keeping the peace, eh?" Akma Yal laughed. "I bet the peace was well maintained, judging by those bruises on your hand."

Erik Apa looked down at his right fist, finally noting the bruising on his knuckles. His stoicism turned into a short guffaw. "One of the dogs lunged at me. Had to teach him a lesson."

"Well then, you truly deserve this, tohyi," Goka Tur said, his forked beard jingling with assorted bells as he bounced in place out of sheer excitement. Beside him, Iren's hands were behind his back, and his eyes were slightly dilated. Per the Dekunian's Codices of God for war, Goka had painted his face down to his goatee in oranges and yellows and outlined his lips and eyes in black. Erik Apa thought he looked foolish for it, but if it made him fight better than he already did, he could not complain.

"That rihka needed a lesson, as does this one," Iren Ney chortled as Goka Tur gently pulled a sheer-robed woman into view from the gathered throngs of the Runemaster's greatest cohort. Erik's heart had raced at the sight of her out of suspicion and curiosity. She was shorter than most women he had encountered in his life, shapely and buxom, with dark olive skin and blonde hair braided - hanging forward over her left shoulder - and an air of exoticism to her movements that kept him focused on her for the entirety of her entrance. Under her robes were seductive undergarments designed to draw the gaze of even the most celibate of hearts.

"Manna, Maprapeyni," she said in a low whisper that slithered into Erik Apa's ears as deftly as an assassin's dagger. "I hope I am pleasing to your eyes." A Dekunian mistress in Aslofidor, Erik Apa observed. One of the many things the Runearch had banned whenever the Dekunians crossed the border in Aslofidorian territory, along with drink and other intoxicants, copulation, and romantic gatherings.

"Who is this?" he asked, attempting to ascertain the meaning behind the woman's presence.

"Some puho for you, tohyi." Iren stumbled over his words, each attempt at sounding coherent drawing a greater look of ire and concern from Goka Tur, who attempted to usher the man away, only to meet a flailing hand to create distance.

"If my mother hears of this, she will have our heads," Erik Apa said nervously. "She has banned such things."

"Yes, when we march in enemy territory, but are we enemy territory anymore, tohyi?" Goka Tur asked with a quirked brow and a dog's smile.

"There can be no risk of siring children in enemy lands, she said," Erik Apa recounted, pointing at his commanders. He found his gaze locked onto the woman for more than a few moments when he passed by her. "No loss of focus. No granting of advantage to these foreign mongrels. When we march into our enemy's lands, we must operate at our peak efficiency. I would have none of you fail me because your minds are too addled by wine or women. Is that clear?"

Akma nodded, softly urging the woman to step forward. "As far as I can tell, we're in allied territory, so there is no risk of anything."

"Goka's right, tohyi," Iren Ney said, producing a small canteen from behind his back. "No risk, yeah?"

"Iren, I think you should leave," Goka Tur suggested.

"Why? No risk," Iren countered. He took a swig from his canteen, and the stench that came from the liquid told Erik of its contents.

"You're drinking howler, Iren?" Erik Apa asked.

"Technically, patsnin," Iren corrected.

"What is the matter with you?" Erik turned his gaze to Goka Tur. "You knew he was drinking this?"

Goka Tur shrunk under the glare of the Runemaster. "Apologies, tohyi. I tried to stop him, but you know Iren. He-"

Erik Apa made a noise that silenced the entire vicinity. "You're my commander, Goka. You can lead an army in the thousands against these dogs, but you can't stop one boy from addling his brain? You bring a mistress to this camp and let him drink fucking howler?"

"Does my presence offend you, Maprapeyni?" the woman asked, her voice once more slithering into Erik's mind like a dagger.

"No, but the disregard for the laws of their Runearch does," he stated.

Iren groaned and offered the canteen to Akma, who rejected it. "Tohyi, we are in an allied country, like Akma said. The laws do not apply here. Your mother specifically said enemy territory. That rotting king gave us leave to use his land, so Devil Below, I say we use it."

"Not to drink howler, and not to be distracted by mistresses," Erik corrected, marching forward to snatch the canteen out of the young man's hands. Against his shouting protests, Erik Apa dumped the remaining contents onto the ground. "God Above, how badly do you need to cope with your shit placement in the cohort?"

The Runemaster's gaze wandered again to the woman near Akma. Surprise lifted his spirits internally at the smirk inching across her face. Goka's face, meanwhile, scrunched in discomfort at his comrade's dismissal while Akma struggled to refrain from breaking into a burst of gut-wrenching laughter. "Mihka, tohyia. You didn't have to say that," Iren mumbled. "We are just trying to have a good time before the bloodshed."

"And you've had enough," Erik Apa declared. He turned once more to Goka. "Drown him in water until he comes to his senses, and then give him some damned food to work against that monstrosity."

Goka Tur nodded and quickly dragged the protesting Iren away, leaving Erik Apa with Akma Yal and the thinly-robed woman. Around them, the rest of the cohort returned to their business, the hum of their conversations returning to pitch volume and washing away the Runemaster's ire. "Are you okay, tohyi?" Akma Yal asked.

Erik Apa looked at the woman next to Akma. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, and he could see brilliant hazel. "I will be fine, so long as Iren is kept on a short leash," he said to Akma. "Goka should have kept him clean."

"I should have noticed it as well," Akma Yal lamented.

"Iren wasn't clinging to your side like he was Goka's," Erik Apa said sternly, keeping his gaze locked on the woman whose hidden smirk had slowly morphed into something seductive. "If you see him on that drink again, you execute him on the spot. Iren, I mean, not Goka."

Akma Yal's eyes widened. "Tohyi, are you sure that is wise? His mother-"

"Has two other sons who are far more qualified for Iren Ney's position than he is."

"As you say, tohyi." Akma Yal surrendered his potential protests. "Shall I have the mistress taken back to Dekun?"

Erik Apa shamed himself in his heart when he told Akma Yal to have the woman stay, arguing that to have her leave in the dead of night in this foreign land of mongrel savages would put her at an unnecessary risk - a risk he would be sure to punish those who knew of the woman's presence for. With a bow, Akma Yal departed to find Goka Tur and Iren Ney, leaving the woman with Erik Apa, who led her back to his tent.

"My apologies for the risk to your life," he said to the woman as she sat on the edge of his cot. "Had I known you were even nearing the borders of Dekun, I would have sent for you to turn back immediately."

"I would have ignored such an order," the woman said with full volume for the first time since he had met her. Her voice was of Dekun's Ogaar Isles, refined and seaworthy like Glyphmaster Erya Hale of the same land, with a stress on the second last syllable of her words, unlike the mainland's stress on the last syllable. "The chance to meet the Maprapeyni himself was too great to ignore."

"Is that right? I suppose I failed to realize my reputation spread as far as the Ogaar Isles," he said. With a slow formation of the Tuon Rune and a snap of his fingers, the Runemaster lit the candles in the tent to a comfortable brightness.

She returned the grin. "Your reputation spreads all over Khirn, Maprapeyni. Some of it is good, and some of it is not. Your practice of the arcaenic arts is surprisingly not among the most talked about parts of them."

"And which parts were you interested in?" he asked.

"All of it," she answered. No, her voice was something else. Something new. "Would I see the Beast of Dekun? Tiyneka? The one everyone sees. Or would I see the man no one else sees for long? The one simply defending his homeland. Hoping for a bright future where worship of God and practice of arcaeno are one and the same again."

The accent was identifiable, but the stress pattern - the localization of Dekunian heritage - was wrong. It was everything. First, second last, and last. Erik Apa looked at her as her voice clung to his brain like Iren had clung to Goka. He moved throughout the tent as he removed his clothing, from gloves and bracers and boots to his surcoat, leaving only his shirt and trousers as he stood on the furred carpet of his temporary home.

"Did I say something to offend?" she asked.

"No, you did not," he said immediately, lifting the chair near his tent's flaps and setting it down in front of the woman sitting on his bed. He sat down with a huff and leaned forward, intrigued. "Your voice is...unique. That is all."

"How do you mean?" She cocked her head to the side, her braided hair falling off her shoulder and behind her back.

He ignored her question and asked his own. "Have you seen either yet?"

"You have not killed yet," she said bluntly.

"You would not see me kill. Mistresses are not permitted in the camp, God forbid the battlefield."

Her smile after this was enough to melt the permafrost of Belanore's ice caves. "I would see what you had done in your eyes when you returned to me after. I would know if I was looking at the Protector of Dekun or the Killer of Bassis."

His heart went cold at the mention of that town, a gruesome slaughter that he had attempted - in vain - to remove from memory. "Were you so certain I would have you stay with me that long? Undetected?"

"Not undetected, no. But you are Maprapeyni. What is there that you cannot do?"

He snorted. "Defy my mother. And her peacekeepers."

"Temporary things," the woman said. "If I am permitted to speak freely..."

"Speak freely."

The woman nodded in gratitude. "Your mother is in her elder years, Maprapeyni. Soon, she will be forced to retire from the field, and you will take over as her heir. It is time that you start to remember the power you wield, and not just in the field of battle. You were denied a seat during the talks of peace and alliance with King Hippon and his family and now are forced to lead your cohort into war alongside your greatest enemy, Prince Hippon. This should not be."

Erik Apa scoffed and leaned back in his chair. "So what is this, woman? A ploy to gain position and power with the next ruler of Dekun?"

She laughed. It was a genuine laugh. "Not at all. I am a ghatmi. There is no place for position or power for me beyond this."

"Unless I took you as my mehto," he verbally theorized. "Which you very well could be trying to convince me to do."

"If I were, I would be far more open about it."

"Then what is your place in this, woman? Why seek me out? Why tell me these things?"

"Because you are greater than what you are now, Maprapeyni," she answered, her expression suddenly turning serious. "You can be much more than this lapdog for your mother and an alliance you have no use for."

Her voice slithered into his mind like an orchestra's crescendo. A fiend's grin crossed his lips. "You are no mere ghatmi, woman. You speak as an oracle. Or is that how they train you in Ogaar?"

The woman stifled a giggle, and her hazel eyes flashed in the candlelight. "I am learned, is all. Let me stay with you during this war, and you will see that I am right."

"That you are learned?"

"That you are greater than what you are now."