Year 212. Lydoros - Khirn

RUNEMASTER

The storm was loudest in the moments after the politician's demise. Its clouds had finally burst into a downpour of rain that clung to armor and flesh like slime, running down the lengths in glimmering trails. Lightning split in dazzling arcs while thunder boomed in deafening roars. Deafening. Deafening. Runemaster - once more relegated away from the stage, only allowed to be present to avoid issues at camp - growled as his hearing was reduced to a whistling hum that slowly became increasingly muffled in his head. His eyes, momentarily blurred by the bright flashes of light crackling between the weeping clouds even through his helmet's lenses, focused on the twitching vile corpse of the rebel Aslofidorian. Those around it were slowly regaining their ability to move and speak. He wondered what they would say. He wondered what they had said, for he had paid only a modicum of attention to the proceedings, only noting its incredibly short length before the inevitable occurred. Those vestiges of pained life fleeting the corpse was that inevitable occurrence.

"Murder!" he thought he heard someone in the vicinity cry out to the rising choral agreement of others.

"Kill them! Betrayers! Charlatans!" someone else roared. He believed it was the Duke or maybe the Prince.

The Runemaster turned his blurred gaze to the rising crowd of rebels and Belanorians, weapons drawn. He rose in tandem with them, ushering his kin to do the same. They did - their voices a cacophony of rage in his ringing ears. Each one drew their blades, maces, and spears and spun on the benches and landings of the theater floor to adopt defensive positions. Their Aslofidorian allies did so as well, filling the gaps where applicable or rushing to defend their Prince.

"Stop!" Perhaps it was someone on his side or on theirs. He did not know.

In his right hand, he held the Spear of E'grn, whose blade shone in the darkness of that storm like a pointed sun. His left was bare, free to form the Runes to lay waste to these hounds.

"Don't!" another shouted. Runemaster looked left, across the scape from theater seats to stage, and met the eyes of his mother. Her expression was unreadable. Disapproving? Approving? Fearful? Wrathful? He could not tell her feelings or what she wanted him to do. Yet, when he looked back and faced those across the gap of the river, he heard her voice. You are Maprapeyni. What is there that you cannot do?

His fingers curled, bent, and twirled with his wrist to form the Rune of Ghumi. A great geyser of earth erupted from the river and formed a bridge between the theater seats, parts of it entwining within the marble and stone, entrapping the feet of those too close to the edges. All of his kin gasped. In the history of Dekun since the damnation of arcaeno, the Runes and Dekun's affinity with the magics had long been an open secret. Never used overtly in battle unless it was in such a way that no witnesses would be left to tell about it. It was the Code of the Runes. The only way to keep Dekun from being utterly devastated from all sides. Raoka Taia Man.

The Belanorians hissed as the rebels backed away at the unnatural sight. Even those on the King's side fell into a shocked hush at the display of power sparked from just his fingertips. He felt a twinge of pride at the eyes placed upon him.

"Sin!" the Belanorians seethed in unison.

"Devilry!" the rebels screamed out.

"Erik!" he heard his mother shout over the hailstorm of rain, thunder, and choler. He looked only for a moment to see her face illuminated by the electric torrent of the sky. Scowling - no, enraged. "Taye tsom. Tura tsom yan!"

The Runemaster merely nodded to her demands and, with a flourish of his spear, ordered the charge. The ground shook with the footfalls of those willing to follow him despite his disregard for the Roaka Taia Man. He bounded across the stretch of uprooted earth slick with stolen water, roaring with infernal hatred, finally breaking loose the pent-up bloodlust that had been held within him for months. His first kill, accompanied by the battle cries of his people, was a young man dressed in mail and thick fabrics. He let loose a gurgle of surprise when the Spear of E'grn's shining edge was shunted through his mouth and up through his head until it breached the crown of his skull. The Runemaster ripped the weapon free, spinning on his feet with a dexterity that should have been impossible in his armor, carving its tip through the neck of another rebel Aslofidorian who tumbled down the stairs. His kin joined the fray seconds later, the theater exploding into a roar of sound emphasized by the storm whose fervor increased tenfold with each pint of blood that was now spilled on the once immaculate architecture.

A Belanorian came at him, blitzing through the horde with sword and shield faster than any Aslofidorian could. The Runemaster took the attempted strike straight onto his vambrace, grinning beneath his helmet as the blade shattered into a dozen pieces with a glint of blue light from the impact. Quickly, he thrust his spear through the Belanorian's stomach and gripped the haft with both hands, flipping the woman over his head and into a crowd of rebels, knocking them down with the surprise descent. He turned last second to sweep the legs of another foe. Twirling his blade in circular patterns, the Runemaster chortled foul words to the man on his back and sent the spear through his nose. Wrenching it free, he engaged the horde in full. Dozens upon dozens fell to him, just as dozens upon dozens of his kin fell to them. Decapitation, bisection, skewering, and overall butchering were the diplomatic methods of this fated meeting.

Then, just as he seemed to find himself growing bored of the lack of challenge, he found himself facing a woman with long white hair and piercing silver-pink eyes, bloodied to the roots of her armor and skin. Next to her was a boy in his teens, a squire perhaps, equally as bloodied and far more harrowed, listlessly gripping a sword intended for a man twice his size. Wordlessly, he engaged the woman, unleashing a series of jabs and swings aimed at her head and neck. She deflected each one with a frantic speed, voiding those she could not push away. Her own follow-up attacks forced him onto his backfoot, for even with the protection of his armor, the woman's precision was unmatched by those he had faced before. Curiously, her blade did not shatter with the impact against his armor, nor did it seem to dent. He grunted as the usual seconds of an encounter turned into a full minute and then minutes. Back and forth he went across the theater with her, both taking moments in their duel to combat others that came upon them until they were both so coated in viscera that descending the theater steps presented the risk of slipping.

The woman performed an effortless parry of another stab for her face and sent her own into his belly. Only by the protection of his armor's enchantments was this not a killing blow - a fact that grew so hot in his mind so quickly that the man nearly tumbled in surprise. He dropped into a defensive phalanx stance, now breathing heavily for the first time in months. The woman, noting this, finally allowed herself to breathe and began to back away toward her apparent squire.

"Who in God's name are you?" he rumbled as an arrow bounced off his backplate.

"None of your damned business, Runemaster," the woman responded with a voice as spiteful as a serpent's.

A noise burbled from the back of his throat at this disrespect, launching himself at her with a leaping thrust for her chest. Once more, far more panicked, she deflected it only to suffer an immediate series of rage-induced punches and butts of the haft to the face that cracked her skull in several places. She nearly fell down the stairs in a daze, blood pooling between her lips. Only by her squire's dropping of his sword to rush and pull her back up was she spared this fate.

"Stay away from her!" the young boy wailed, picking up the woman's sword and pointing it at the Runemaster.

Lightning flashed behind him and struck the top of several buildings, splintering the stone into jagged shapes. "She is an admirable warrior for a Belanorian," the Runemaster admitted, though the words were foreign to his tongue. "What is her name?"

"Go away!" the young boy demanded, standing up to swing at the Runemaster with all his might. He took the strike to his belly, watching as the blade cracked and broke from the hilt as the glint of blue light shone from the hit. The boy fell onto his rear next to the woman, who stirred with barely retained consciousness.

The Runemaster approached the boy and dropped to a knee. "You are not Aslofidorian, boy. What are you? Tahririan? Violent for one, if so."

The boy shuddered in fear, all avenues of standing up to the Runemaster eradicated in a single attack. "Go away..."

"What is your name, boy?" the Runemaster pressured as the world around them continued to drown in blood.

"Go away!" the young boy screamed, reaching for the distant hilt of the sword he had dropped to save his master. It was the last scream that day he made before the Rune of Mokyupa silenced him.

"Tohyi! We must go!" one of his warriors cried out as the Runemaster rose in dissatisfaction with the encounter. "The Runearch is sounding the retreat to the army!"

"What?" he cried back, turning away from the woman and her squire toward the one who dared voice such words. His eyes beheld Goka Tur, his warpaint ruined, and a quarter of his face opened with a gash from a sword.

"We need to go!" the injured warrior bellowed, pleading for the Runemaster to come with him as the Dekunians and loyalists began to turn and flee.

The Runemaster roared in agony at this development and cast one last look to the Duke of Amphe, a fat man hidden behind a wall of elite guards, unbloodied and undamaged. Fumes of smoke rose in his lungs at the sight before he, at last, rushed to depart.

The bear-maiden sipped her cup of tea - filled by Thilas after she relented to his constant badgering for the past two nights - and sighed as the images of that most terrible day faded from her eyes, only to be replaced by arguably worse ones. "After the failed diplomacy at Lydoros, the war between the three nations escalated into a full-blown affair across the entirety of Aslofidor, Belanore, and Dekun. The Runemaster used the death of Zetus, and the immediate bloodshed between everyone as the perfect reason diplomacy should never have been an option. It was one of the few things that he and the Prince agreed on."

"What happened to the woman and the squire? Jira and Nara-ward, clearly?" Nina Aulffe asked in enraptured worry.

Gíla cleared her throat. "Jira was beside herself with Zetus' death. She attended his funeral, paid stipends of mourning to his surviving family, and purchased all of his books to put into her personal library. The Rune of Mokyupa damaged Nara-ward, but he survived, albeit with all chances of being a knight removed from his future."

"What did the Rune of Mokyupa do?" Pinnacle inquired, motioning an empty bowl to Thilas to be filled with stew.

"Turned him brittle," Gíla answered tactfully, not wishing to have her students - though each of age and more than aware of the horrors of the current world - to know just what had happened to Nara-ward. "Jira was heartbroken for the boy. She allowed him to further his studies in the divine as a result. Allowed him to spend more and more time with Crius, at the church, and the rest. He became quite the prodigy of theology during his time."

"I feel for the boy," Mordo commented. "How did the Runemaster not be censured or exiled or executed for so openly using a vilified power?"

"It was needed," Gíla answered bluntly. "As much as the King and his men hated to admit it, they needed that power, as persuaded by the Raven Queen. The Belanorians proved Dekun's equal on the field. Thus the Dekunians were permitted to use their arcaenic powers when necessary."

"Sounds like the Duke's worries about the Queen were well founded," Alden stated.

"When did the war really start getting bad if such things were allowed?" Thilas asked after.

"About three years after Lydoros," Gíla answered after a long drink of her tea. It was bitter, with only a brief aftertaste of sugar. "Word of the King seeking to send his soldiers across the Field of Vucan - a shortcut to the Duke's southern territories - made its way into Amphe, and the Duke was apoplectic for it. His soldiers had long defended Vucan. The damned place was deemed impassable, and out of nowhere, it was at risk of being traversed by his mortal enemy and placing all of his lands in danger of being flanked. Of course, things could only wish to be so simple."

Year 215. Amphe - Khirn

JIRA ne'JIRAL

The man was not her usual type, being a touch younger than her thirty years and less physically matching for a warrior of her caliber. Still, he was pleasurable company and had proven quite the welcome distraction from the violence in the field, enough so that she regarded him nearly as fondly as one would a widely recognized lover. Not to discount his skilled abilities at information gathering. By his voice, she had learned many important things regarding the King's movements these past three years, and by her subsequent hand, disaster had been avoided. The man - Damas Zacetra - knew his worth in this and was quick to remind her of it - sometimes in jest and sometimes in worry to ensure she recognized his loyalty to the cause of rebellion. Today, it was different.

"I have word from Megoeze," he said when they had finished. She left the bed without a word to start setting the bath, turning the faucets to free the waters of the heated aqueducts running through all various levels of the Amphe. Steam filled the air around the basin as she tossed in various salts and scented oils. Jira heard him move the blanket and sheets from his body to prevent them from sticking to him with humidity - more likely to draw her attention back to him. She kept her gaze from the man.

"Do you wish to hear about Megoeze?" he asked.

"No," she answered bluntly. "I don't."

He made a noise, drawing a quick from the woman who saw him slowly swing his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up in contemplation. "What of Tylissezus? Or Commander Dione?"

"I don't care for either of them," Jira grunted, testing the heat of the water with her hand. It was hot, almost burning her flesh red, and she slowly turned the faucet off when it was half full. She twisted the second for cold water, filling it until it was a warm, comfortable temperature. She lowered himself into the basin and sank into the waters until only her chin up remained above the surface.

Damas sighed and rose from the bed, wrapping a sheet around his waist. His feet patted against the cold stone of her room as he walked to her. "Perhaps Timonax?"

"No, Damas."

"You've heard everything from everyone from me these three years, no exception, and suddenly you want nothing? Are you well, Jira?" He knelt down next to the basin, leaning his arms along its rim and looking at her while she let the bath soothe and wash away the ache of their intimacy.

She looked at him with a sideways glance. "I am...troubled, Damas." Her voice was cold.

"About what?" he asked, adjusting his position to a more comfortable lean.

"Three years, you have given me information that has kept our rebellion alive. For that, I am grateful beyond words," she began to explain, closing her eyes as the calming of the water seeped into her muscles. "But the war has only gotten worse, and we need something that can turn the tide forever in our favor."

"A lot of what I can give is useful in that regard, Jira," he responded. "Timonax leads an assault by the sea to Belanore alongside Glyphlord Yold Kem. Commander Dione was reported to have news on Prince Hippon's current march in the north."

"Yes, much of that is useful; give such information to the Duke's generals. But none of it is groundbreaking," Jira lamented. "None of that can...change the tide, Damas. If you don't have anything of the sort, then I do not wish to hear it. I cannot waste more energy hearing reports of Timonax or Commander Dione."

Damas was silent for a long time, though she could feel his concerned stare bearing down on her. He shifted uncomfortably in his kneeling after the silence ended. "Well, there is one unsubstantiated rumor from a vulture of mine. The village of Gortinda, I hear, has begun soliciting loyalist behavior. Nothing major yet, but...yet."

Jira's eyes shot open. "Gortinda? Are you sure?"

Damas' face spread into a smile, pleased that he had found something worthwhile. "Unsubstantiated, but yes. Do you want me to keep investigating?"

Jira nodded, her face holding back a sudden mask of concern. "Yes. Keep investigating that. Get back to me as soon as you can."

Months passed before Damas reappeared at the gate to her manse, standing between the two trees that had long since turned gnarled and ashen. "I have something, though you're not going to be happy," he said with a bitter tone. Jira noted the sweat and dirt covering his body, along with new scars and bruises. It was as if a wolf had accosted him.

"Tell me," Jira said with a resolute bracing of her heart.

Damas breathed hard and looked away. "Gortinda has turned on the Duke. They're going to allow the King to move through their defenses and into the Field of Vucan. They're going to allow the King's soldiers to flank the Duke's territory."

"God Almighty," Jira hissed, fear of the realization piercing her. "We've held them in the middle this whole time, and if they suddenly get that much of an advantage..."

"We'll have to focus on two ends. Dekun to the north, the King to the south. We'll be fucked."

Jira's lips curled sourly. "The fucking traitors." She paused her rage to laugh, drawing a short chuckle from the man. "The irony of that statement. At least there is some humor in this catastrophe."

"Indeed. But Jira, it gets worse-"

"Save it for the Duke. Come, we need to inform him."

"Are we allowed to just walk to him?" Damas asked, stuttering as Jira pushed past him to enter the crowd-filled street.

She snorted as Damas struggled to keep pace with her, forced to shove his way through the crowds she trotted without hindrance. "I am Jira ne'Jiral, one of his esteemed Argent Knights. If anyone is allowed to 'just walk to him,' I am one of them."

"What of me?" he asked with a small grunt as he eventually matched her pace. "Have you informed the Duke of my-"

"Yes, Damas," she said. "Though I have kept the price for it from conversation." She gave the man a smirk.

He had the grace to return it. "I am thankful for that. I feel that many within your hierarchy would find our arrangement to be unsavory, to say the least."

She nodded, gruffly acknowledging the truth of the matter. Damas, a commoner up-jumped to relevancy, was fairly known by now in the Duke's council though rarely seen. Providing information on par with his Curators without the regulations of such an organization. Some respected him for his loyalty to the Duke and his city. Others despised him for his lowborn status. All eyed Jira with caution for her closeness to the man and that most of the information he gathered was filtered through her. The truth of their relationship coming to light would be a scandal of some degree. A knight as prominent as her lying with a man of distasteful occupation would be quite detrimental to the order of things, especially in the eyes of the Belanorians.

Jira kept the sting of this from her expression as the pair reached the gate of the Duke's manor. Words with the guards were exchanged, and the knight was allowed to enter along with the haggard informant behind her. Through the lobby and up the stairs, down the hall, and into the council room, they walked.

Duke Audax looked up from the myriad of papers his councilors had piled in front of him, his eyes circled black and heavy with bags. The rest in the room, councilors and elite guards, all shot glares and welcomes to Jira and Damas - the latter many now seeing for the first time. Jira felt the immediate sense of judgment and stiffened her back in defense.

"Jira, may I ask why you have barged into my council chambers, and with this...vagrant you call informant?" the Duke asked, his voice laden with exhaustion.

"Duke Audax, my lord, I have critical news of Gortinda and the Field of Vucan," Jira rushed. "Gortinda has turned against us. They are going to let the King's army pass through it and march through the field. We are going to lose the defenses of our flank."

The councilors all murmured at the audaciousness of this claim. Even the elite guards, intended to be stoic and resolute in the face of all threats, exchanged looks with each other. The Duke set down his paper and stared hard at his knight. "How did you come by this information?"

Jira pointed to Damas. "Damas here has been investigating the place for several months now. He has only just returned to me with the news, though the specifics he can give to you now."

Damas nodded as Jira ushered him forward. He bowed in proper greeting. "My lord, the village's magistrate, Atë Orthia, has agreed to several bribes from the King, chief among them a jump in power from magistrate to baroness. She has critical information on how your territories work. Borders, trade routes, the like. If we do not suture this wound now, we will lose - you will lose - this war within the year at best. We must ensure Gortinda remains in your control and the Field of Vucan remains untraversed."

The Duke considered these words for a long while before he spoke again. "I wish to say that you are little more than a charlatan, young man. That you have fooled my best knight into thinking these words of yours are truths rather than falsehoods and tall tales. Yet, each time you have spoken through her, wisdom and foresight have been the result. I am pressured, then, to accept that this discovery of yours might well be true. That Magistrate Orthia has turned against me and Amphe. I am pressured, then, to say that I must send a contingent of my forces to teach her the error of her ways and keep Gortinda and Vucan secure."

"I wish the problems ended there, my lord," Damas continued. "I discovered something most troubling while away on my quest. I found...at a distance...a family of inhumans. Exploring something that further troubled my mind as I had difficulty understanding what I saw."

The room nearly fell into an uproarious riot. "Inhumans on Khirn? In Aslofidor? Impossible!"

"Silence!" the Duke bellowed, quieting the room with but a word. "What did you see, Damas?"

Damas turned to Jira, who gave him a small nod and a smile. "I saw what looked to be...bears...upright on two feet. Giants of muscle and fur. Speaking in languages that hurt my ears to even hear. What's more, as I followed them, I saw them stand before the great mountain range to the west of Gortinda, the only one greater than that which built Amphe."

"The Spine of God," Jira murmured as she immediately began formulating the answer to what these inhumans were. Bears on two feet, speaking in languages that hurt the ear. Drayheller. There was no doubt about this.

"The Spine of God, a pilgrimage site. What of it?" the Duke questioned, irate.

Damas took a nasal breath. "I saw the oldest of them, white-furred with eyes as black as coal, wave his hands and utter some incantation. I saw the Spine of God shimmer before my very eyes and produce a...fortress...gleaming with what could only be - by what I have seen the Dekunians produce in this war - arcaeno."

"God preserve us," Pallos of the councilors whispered.

The Duke rose to his feet in anger. "Are you telling me, boy, that there are inhumans in our land - my land - using the Devil's magic to alter the Spine of God into some base for themselves?"

"Or reveal something already there," Jira offered before her mind could tell her to stop. All eyes fell on her, prompting her to scramble. "I only mean that if what Damas said is true - about the inhumans - then perhaps they know something we don't. Consider...the archaeological digs of Tahrir. I spoke of this once with Nara-ward. They are discovering tombs with skeletons of inhuman nature. Perhaps this is something of the same. Perhaps this"

"She could be right," Otonia of the council said. "We have seen arcaeno do terrible and, admittedly, awe-inspiring things in this war. It was once heavily present in this land of Khirn. This could be a glamoured fortress."

"Would we not have found it before? Bumped into it on the path?" Haidee of the council asked.

Ariston of the council shook her head. "Not exactly. Much of what we know on arcaeno is word of mouth, and written records are, conveniently, all held within the King's territory. As vile as it is, we would benefit from knowing more, as I have long said since the Dekunians started openly using it."

"Your suggestions on the matter are well noted, Ariston," the Duke groused, lowering himself to his seat. "God Almighty. A traitorous magistrate and inhumans wandering around my land using the Devil's magic. What else must I contend with?"

"Many things, my lord, unfortunately," Jira admitted. "But one thing at a time. And I say we must deal with the issue of Gortinda and Vucan first before worrying ourselves with these inhumans."

"Agreed," many in the council voiced.

"No, I will not let these inhumans subvert my land while I am ensuring the survival of my people against a foul King," the Duke asserted. "Damas, you know where they were last seen. You have provided information on an unparalleled scale. I am hereby temporarily conscripting you into my Curators until such time as your skills are no longer needed. You will work alongside Lords Coronos and Polyphetes to keep track of these monsters. Understood?"

Damas stammered, looking between the Duke and Jira in shocked confusion. Jira herself was stunned by the declaration, though had the wherewithal to inform Damas to say nothing but 'yes' with just a look in her eye. "Y-yes, my lord," he said with a bow. "It is my honor to serve, Lord Audax."

The Duke nodded with some returned respect. "Good. Jira, I am commissioning you as co-commander with a guild in my force that has been itching for a special deployment. Officially, they are known as the Blessed Harbingers, but the zealous bastards prefer to call themselves 'The Eye.' Take care with their actual leader, Menoitios, and his second, Alexias. They are students of Crius and find the idea of crusading against the King and his deviant foes to be quite tempting."

"Are you sure it is wise to send such an egregiously violent force to as complex a situation as Gortinda, my lord?" Otonia asked.

The Duke chuckled grimly. "Their reputation precedes them. Once the magistrate learns of their arrival alongside Jira ne'Jiral, she'll think twice about betraying me to the King. Yes, we will send them while Damas and the Curators deal with these inhumans. Now, get to work. We have a war to save."