Chapter 47: Shame and Fame (Shenis)
The well to the north of the battlefield was as remembered by Shenis and Highlight, supplied and working. The small band of doves and stags reached it very easily and only encountered two frightful men of the bruin drinking from the well when the party arrived. The men offered no quarrel and begged for their lives. "Please spare us, we have no fight in us left." Shenis sought to execute them with his own hand as he imagined the face of Conner in place of their own. He wanted still a chance to have his chance at vengeance and release his anger on the people who stole his home, and while in battle he held his bloodlust in check, now in the calm of the skirmish's end, he felt his control slipping.
"Lord Savoy, please, we can interrogate these men about the condition of the remnant at Jule, of the city itself and what kind of battle we can expect." Lord Hartford made his request as he dismounted his steed and sought to bring reason to the focus. Highlight, who normally had more reason and logic to combat the sometimes brash and impetuous impulses of his lord, was also leaning on the execution side as he as well had a rage in his heart for his home. He knew his mother was either dead or still scratching for life in the horrid conditions of the city. Rage grew and was visible in the eyes of both the lord and the knight, but also in the eyes of Somme and Dax, two men who had fought in the streets during the siege and gained their freedom from the oppression that was to come by their own efforts.
"Let me crush their hands!" Dax spoke boldly even though his comments and passionate anger in this moment hurt and saddened Misty.
"Dax, please, these are just men not offering contest." She holds him close and, with her hands, turns his eyes toward hers, hoping that through a shared gaze she will impart calm and quell the fury in his chest. "Please, Dax, don't let hate make you do something you will regret later." The smith still has wild eyes, but after a few moments of staring into the pools of peace that adorn the face of the dancer, his paramour, the one he made a special short-sword for, his appearance softens and his arms droop to a calm state. He hugs her and then walks away with Misty to go rest and also be away from the scene. Thus stopping further chance of agitation in the mind of the smith.
"My lord, if I may." Nial, the old soldier who previously had served the bruin, piped up with Fahn alongside him. "These men are hungry and weak from the march and the events of the day; they sought no vengeance and offered no contest when we set upon them here at the well. A well that is clearly made for travelers seeking refreshment. Please, let us take them as prisoners for now and offer them fair terms for their sins in this war once we reclaim your homeland."
"And what kind of terms do you think would be fair, MAN OF DOL?" Highlight spoke back with an unusual rage and tenor in his voice. All could see that the matter at hand for the people in the party who actually lived and had dwelled in the city was a tough burden to consider. Zlatan signaled to Rio and his boys to position themselves in front of the two surrendered men and tie them up for bondage and imprisonment, so as to move the notion of bondage along rather than letting them sit about with hands unbound, filling rage in the eyes of others. He also wisely had Fluss remove their golden armor to strip them of affiliation with the enemy House and army.
While the argument between Shenis and the people from Jule and the others who sought mercy continued, Rio and his boys completed the task set before them without distraction or struggle from either the two men of Dol, who were petrified and whimpering in fear, or from the others of the party. Both were under thirty years of age and were lean men who clearly only wanted to live, hence why they fled the field at the first chance they got. "Please don't let them kill us," one of the men called in a frightful voice to Rio as he bound their hands after stripping them of the golden armor.
"It isn't my call, but without the garb of the enemy, it might make it more difficult for them to kill you." The men luckily had tunics and pants on beneath the armor; such dress would offer no warmth in the depth of night, but it was enough to soften angers and tensions as all turned their attention back to the two in question and saw no more Bruin markers upon them. Now they were just two men, scared and starving.
"Fine…" Shenis said after a long pause that filled the air. Rio and his sons stood guard over the men just in case any could not silence the rage in their hearts. The Hartford men had not yet formally had introductions with the Savoy retinue, so Rio made sure to keep his guard up, even though these people were allies in arms. "We will keep them as prisoners. You three," the dove said to Rio and his sons, "since you are impartial to these men, please take them into a separate tent and question them for information on the state of Jule and the people within." Rio nodded, and the sons carried the two off to where they would erect their tent for the night. They hoped that further separation would reduce hostilities and other potential flares of emotion upon the prisoners.
Shenis sat down as the prisoners were taken away; he and Highlight both had a lot of unresolved rage in their hearts, a rage that surprised many in the party. Not so much the people from Jule or the youth from Til, but others found it unsettling.
"Its okay, husband." Caylor hugged and kissed her husband's neck. She was feeling better after the sickness that plagued her during combat. Feeling recovered with fresh water in her stomach, she offered consolation to her lover as she could tell his spirit needed caressing and calming that perhaps only a few things, like the soft touch of a woman, can bring to a man. He pats her hands while still looking at the ground as he sits thinking.
The youth from Til quickly gathered wood for campfires and set one up directly in front of Shenis and Caylor and then set up another a bit off for themselves. Their fire was a larger one and meant to service more of the party as they could tell that Zlatan had much to discuss with Shenis, or at least wished to discuss much. Issachar carried Dalton, who was still knocked out from the resetting of his joints and bones, next to the larger fire as the bear then laid down a bit further off for a good sleep after an exhausting day of fighting. Tico found himself chatting with Somme, keeping him company as the archer found himself upset at the obvious state of Misty and Dax's blossoming romance, as if the prior moments finally illuminated the affair to his own eyes. Fahn and Nial joined the larger campfire after preparing food to cook over the fire and setting up a tent for later.
Toyo and Nori stood next to Lord Hartford as he sat opposite the fire to Shenis, who held his wife's hand softly as they sat together with Highlight standing behind them. Zlatan finally had his chance to speak and give proper greeting to Lord Savoy, a man now, no longer the boy he was perceived to be at their last meeting some time back in the halls of Jule when many of the lords, including Chile Bruin, were summoned to discuss concerns over the actions of House Valtrex. Zlatan was amazed at how much the lad had matured into the man before him now. He had the same look, the same flowing hair, and skin that glowed almost in the light, but the zeal of youth and the somewhat foolish notions of grandeur and simplistic views of the world seemed gone from his eyes. He had concerns before him: his friends, his wife, and his people. Shenis was a man. "I am impressed with how you have grown in this war, Lord Savoy." Zlatan spoke with his head slightly bowing to show respect for a man he believed had earned such.
"Please, Zlatan, you may call me, as my company does, by my first name of Shenis; there is no need for formality in the company of those who have bled on the same field."
"But… I fear I have not bled as you have." Zlatan found tears welling in his eyes as he felt the sting of shame from being so long in the calm and quiet of White Falls while other cities had become so much a shadow of their former glory, with food and life becoming a luxury. "I am ashamed, Shenis."
"What for, Zlatan? You have been a fair lord, especially in the years of failing health for your father. I hear nothing but good things of your leadership in the haven of White Falls from all the merchants and traders that have visited us in both my days in Riserstead, as well as ImHolt and Runsa. You have much to be celebrated and commended for in keeping your home so warm for your people and to the world itself during these days of chaos."
"It is for that reason I feel such shame. I sat by and let your home become ruined, burned, and occupied by another house. I never rallied or conscripted the people of my lands to fight for you in your hour of need; I have hidden or been distracted by the beauty of my forests and the embrace of my wife for all the events that have happened until today. I have, in doing so, failed to uphold the accords of the free plains to defend another when his house is sacked unjustly."
Caylor felt the pain in the Lord of White Falls' heart. She wished to comfort him as her heart had grown softer in the recent weeks, though she stayed seated, trusting her noble husband would continue giving sound guidance to the hurt man before him.
"You are here now. And you are offering fair advice, where I am almost lost to my own fury and heartache. You brought people to fight, and it seems these with you are good men of sound mind. I am thankful to have you here with us."
"Can I ever live down this shame for my house though?" He replies with lamentation in his eyes.
"The annals of history, long after we have fallen from this world, will read of House Hartford joining the fray and being a boon to turn the tide of this war further into the favour of those resisting the Bruin." Shenis stands and extends a hand of fellowship over the fire. Zlatan pauses as he notices the shift in posture of the dove. The stag is amazed as he looks up to see the skin of the Savoy lord glowing, not from the light but from virtue and purpose. Zlatan is humbled, but arises nonetheless to embrace the hand offered him by Shenis. The hands clasp together with a smooth sound of fellowship as now, with their shake, the Dove of Savoy and the Stag of Hartford are of sound purpose together in this war, which is far from over in their eyes.
With the tensions dropping, the men of the Hartford party made introductions as able with the Savoy party and vice versa. Food was crackling over the fire, and soon the camp had their bellies satisfied from the pangs of hunger. They even offered food to the prisoners, which they took with zero hesitation and with pure thanksgiving for the mercy shown to them by the captors.
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"I am embarrassed."
"Don't be." The voices speak off a ways from the campfires as the two that have yet to eat sit looking at the sky while the vast heavens above shine for all to see, and yet perhaps only they, in their low spirits that are calmed by the dim glow, are taking notice tonight. Dax sits with his hand wrapped around the hands of Misty, her head leaning into the smith's chest. She is relaxed, and while they have been more public in the recent days of their growing thoughts toward each other, they still preferred their actions to be the normal form of communication between them and not words. She kisses his forearm. He nuzzles her head. In their private language, they have spoken paragraphs in these silent moments of light affection, but those words of comfort and truth are for their hearts only.
Back at the main camp, Dalton awakes from his rough afternoon and notices quickly that his left arm is bandaged up and in a sling to allow him to relax the joints and muscles for a bit of time. He isn't so much in pain but has the lingering tightness and swelling that will, in the near term, limit his motions. Thus, the man who for the majority of his life has lived and fed himself by the sword finds himself unable to ply his trade, at least for the moment. "Good to see you awake, tiny man," Issa speaks with a friendly jest. Fahn hears this and quickly moves over to the side of the hero laid low.
"How do you feel, Sir Dalton?" She checks his bandages for blood; all red shown is dry, which helps her calm down. Dalton pats her head with his good arm and chuckles a bit while he sits up slightly. The laughter makes him hurt, but he isn't too bothered as he knows he will soon be his old self.
"Baby girl, you gotta stop calling me 'sir' or I won't feel as good about it when I try and get you out of the clergy arts and into some good old-fashioned deviance." Fahn went red and then slapped the man hard. Dalton chuckled, as well as Issa, from the confrontation.
Over at the lord's fire, Zlatan and Shenis continued their conversation with more of a focus on the next phase of reclamation of Jule. What was to happen next in their plans to finish the war effort in the central plains, or at least clear out the involvement of the Bruin army? These were the details on the minds of both of these lords. Perhaps the two most powerful in the central plains, as Holt was now a vassal of no power under Savoy, and Cavan currently was in absentia with the eldest heir being the girl Ella Cavan, and Savoy controlled their former lands as of this conversation. House Frit remained the only other notable house not openly involved in the conflict.
"Do we have a way to get them to turn from their prior cowardice to our cause?" Zlatan asks as the topic of Waylon comes to the front of the conversation.
"Perhaps, but he was very frightful of the Bruin army when they first arrived. He made treaties with Conner that resembled the agreements that the Cavan house made before they broke faith and joined under us. However, now things have shifted dramatically."
"Maybe he would join us in this final push to purge these dogs from the Central Plains?"
"He might, but to be fair, I have not quite forgiven him for the time when he shut his gates on my people, people who are still living as refugees in Winter's Edge. I am not so sure if I wish to have him at my side in reclaiming my home."
"Please, Husband, do not hold a grudge. Lord Frit did abandon you, but if it is all how you explain, then while he was a coward, he did so to protect his family and people. Isn't that honorable on its own merit? To choose the option that best protects those under your charge?" Caylor asks of Shenis. She then excuses herself as she goes off to throw up, as the smell of the food left uneaten over the other fire disrupts her stomach. Misty, who is with Dax, takes notice and moves to aid her friend from back home.
"My wife seems to still be ill, but she… makes sense." Shenis pushes his hands into his chin while he ponders what is best to do. The fight ahead is one that will perhaps have better numerical odds than previously, but the battle will be a siege escapade, one that might require extra bodies to circumvent the walls and gates, even with Issachar in their retinue. Shenis did not wish to hold this grudge, but he remembered the faces of the men, women, and children as the gates shut in their faces. He still felt that pain of seeing everything look lost for him and his party. Zlatan could feel this tension and anger in the dove's heart, but still knew that better numbers in a siege were a stronger point of vantage in these rough times.
"Please, Shenis, you have allowed Cavan forgiveness for being passive. How can you not offer the same olive branch to Frit?"
"Cavan had the army at their gates. They had to look the Bruins in their eyes and determine if slaughter was the wise move, and in the end, they still found a way to choose honor and principle over survival. Frit never had the massive army outside their walls threatening them. He never had the immediate fear of his sons being executed by knights of a foreign house. He never had to ration food or carry the sick to unsure lands."
Highlight places his hand on the shoulder of his lord as they both remember the march to Winter's Edge after losing both Jule and then Riserstead. How all seemed lost, and yet, he and the party had to put on a brave face for the children and elderly in their care. It was a hard burden for such a young lord to bear.
"Please, Lord Shenis, if we convince them to join, then the siege becomes a safer affair. No one within a two weeks' march has anything they could spare." Zlatan pleads once more for Shenis to put aside his hurt feelings and the pains of yesterday.
"Zlatan Hartford. I cannot go and seek Waylon Frit for his aid in this battle." Zlatan hangs his head as the words hit. "However, I can and will ask that your party go and offer him a chance to join the right side of history and bring what men he can to attack the East gate of Jule 15 days from today."
"15, Shenis?"
"15. That should give your party plenty of time to go and offer him a chance and then allow you time to move to attack from the South gate. While my party will attack the West gate, the one most damaged by the Bruin siege previously." Zlatan smiled as he now knew he had both a place in the plot to recover the city but also that now the lords of the central plains may perhaps stand together as brothers once again and put off the sins committed against one another. The lord of Hartford told all of his men the plan and how they would depart in the morning for Mitre. Shenis called for Tico and asked him and the Til triad to go and transfer the two prisoners in the morning to Runsa, where they would be put in irons to be servant slaves of the house going forward. Tico nodded in understanding and enjoyed that he was entrusted with this task. Of course, the main reason that Tico was given this task was due to his lack of violent probings in his heart, and the trio also held no stronger malice toward the Bruin than just being enemies in battle. Shenis chose them for these reasons and knew in his heart he needed to have them removed from camp quickly; even though they no longer wore the Bruin insignias, they still, in the mind's eye of the lord, looked like Bruin soldiers ready to rape and pillage his home.
"We will depart also first thing in the morning," Tico said with a quick bow to Shenis. It was about this time that Dalton arose from his seated position and took a walk back toward the battlefield without drawing any attention. The field was only about an hour's walk to the south, and Dalton wished to pay proper respects as his condition earlier robbed him of that chance.
The man, while injured, didn't feel the need to let the others know where he went off to, and he was very accustomed to, while travelling with the group, going about his own business, which usually led him to a warm bed. But this time he had something else in mind as he walked calmly in the moonlight back to the place where corpses and those that prey upon them, animal and human, would rule the night.
After a while longer than perhaps would be expected due to the lack of haste in his pace, the hero had found the field that only hours earlier was dusty and full of warm bodies, but now only scavengers were strewn about looking for easy opportunities to claim or feast. The sounds of jaws gnawing, biting, and breaking flesh, as well as poor hill folks and a few traders who had passed by, began to start taking stock of what lay in the fields. Dalton noticed them on the far edge and then saw all the bodies near him still had their armor and weapons nearby, having not yet been looted.
"Looks like I got here just in time," he says while the rustling of the opportunistic continues during the final steps of his walk. He has a purpose to his path. He is looking for a specific thing or person. "Where are you, Conner?" he calls out in a low voice to not draw attention from the animals, be they true beasts or perhaps Naudiz. The sound doesn't disturb the animals and thus neither does it the men checking the bodies, taking any loot, armor, or weapons available. Normally after a battle, all of this would be done by the winning force, but with Shenis being focused on the health of Caylor and Dalton, and their force being very small overall, the task was left to the wild to dispose of the bodies.
Dalton saunters about looking under the night's sky for any marker to help him know where the fallen general of Dol lay. He then spots the body after a few more steps. The body is larger and of better quality armor than the others around, and thus, once spotted, the corpse is very easy to identify. "There you lay, Conner Bolden." Dalton walks to the body that has not yet been disturbed by those passing about. No doubt he would be picked clean by morning if the men looting the field have the ability to work that fast this evening. But for the moment, his body is still where Dalton left him. The mercenary felt he needed to return and pay the man some kind of respect owed.
"That was a helluva fight. I thought you might actually have me a couple of times there. I guess I just had a bit more blessing from Kaya, or maybe it was just that I was more willing to forfeit certain parts to secure the win over you." He says this looking at his left arm wrapped up good and tight. He knows, thanks to the healing arts of Fahn, that he'll be back to normal in a season, but it doesn't change the fact that the dead man before him almost proved too tough for this soldier of fortune. "Maybe I am nearing the end of my time as a mercenary after all? I mean, they are calling me a hero now. HHHAHAHA." He laughs at the notion. As he laughs, he looks down to the side of Conner. Attached still to his hilt is his sword, still in the sheath. The General never pulled it from his side as the fight never saw him lose his lance. And thus, his sword remained unused in that engagement. Dalton reached for the blade and loosed the belt of the general to remove the sheath from the hilt of the fallen man. The man then backed away from the body of the fallen to examine perhaps the quality of the blade inside. He places the sheath in between his boots to allow him leverage to pull the sword loose without involving or injuring his left arm further, as without being attached, removal of the sword would hurt the arm in the process. He then tugs upward to pull the sword clear of the covering.
"SHHHINNING!" As the sword emerges from the covering, a glisten and glinter of the blade floats in the night air. The small light of the night glitters on the blade, giving it a celestial and almost cosmic glow about it. Dalton quickly understands the quality of the sword. "Silver. A silver sword. Conner certainly had taste in his class of weapon." Most of the weapons around the realm were made of either bronze or iron and thus were softer and had the potential to fail in use. They did the job but offered no extra reward, no extra power to the wielder. Some people of purpose in combat, especially those like Dalton who earned their living by the sword, invested in steel, which was very pricey, but worth it for the extra durability and power it offered a cut. However, in Wiera, shy of specialty blades and the like, among general bladesmiths making non-specific weapons, silver was the top class of metal forged to purpose. The metal had a slight extra weight and thus required more seasoned hands to be able to wield it to purpose, but the power was far superior to that of even steel. Dalton marveled at the sword in his hands as he had only in his life seen a handful of them and usually only in showrooms of smiths or on the hilts of landed gentry with zero ability to wield it.
Dalton, of course, was not like them. He sheathed the weapon and walked back to camp with a wonderful smile on his face.
