Michael

The council hall was in chaos. Michael watched the nobles argue with each other with a distant gaze; they were yelling, ranting, and throwing their family names around. Michael just wanted to share what they knew and talk about what to do but while waiting on Geron, the present men had taken it into their own hands to discuss matters.

"This must be a plot from the beastmen of the east," one lord said and slammed his hand on the table.

"Right, you were hiding that well that you didn't notice that the intruders were human," another retorted with a laugh.

"I say that this was a ploy of the neighboring kingdoms to destabilize us!"

"It must have been demon worshipers!"

"Someone is trying to usurp the county!"

Some of these theories had merit, while others were complete nonsense. Why would anyone attack the castle to usurp the count with such an insufficient force and the count away and able to just come back and retake it? Michael just listened and thought about the absurdity of them squabbling in a situation like this.

Geron finally entered the room, accompanied by Kiran and the nobles surprisingly fell silent in an instant and turned to him to hear what he had to say.

"Milord, I regret to inform, that we haven't been able to locate this servant named Miranda and the captured assassins are not talking even under torture and threats. Most are happy to tell us everything else they can think of but the moment we turn to the attack, or anything related they just go silent and refuse to speak," Geron said with a slightly disturbed expression.

"It must be magic," the lord that had accused the beastmen before exclaimed. The room erupted in chatter again and Geron just stood there with an unsatisfied expression.

Michael took a deep breath and gave Geron a signal, who barked a single word, "Silence!"

"Thank you," Michael said, his voice quiet and void of emotion. "Kiran, what do you say to that theory?"

"I couldn't find any trace of a curse or foreign mana at all," the mage replied. Michael saw multiple nobles roll their eyes or scoff at the mage.

“Of course, the mage won’t tattle on the mages. Mages are the reason we are in this mess in the first place!”

“Stop,” Michael said and rubbed his head. “You seem to not have noticed it yet. The problem was not that there were mages present. The problem was that we had none on our side. We can’t change the fact that there are mages in the world and that some of them will be our enemies so we will have to adapt.” He looked at the assembled faces and saw only confusion and doubt, but no one spoke up. Michael rolled his eyes; these people were so stuck in their ways, and he was completely out of sympathy. That he had to deal with this again at a time when he just wanted to crawl into bed and cry for weeks rubbed him the wrong way, but he was still the acting count right now.

“If there was an earth mage in the guard house then they wouldn’t have been stuck. If there was a water mage in the training yard, then the fire mage wouldn’t have been able to wreak so much havoc. Let’s think bigger, if there were mages in the guard then they might even have noticed the intruders and raised the alarm.”

“Are you suggesting employing mages into our service,” a tall noble asked with disbelief in his voice.

“That is exactly what I am saying,” Michael said, and hectic chatter started in the room. Michael let them talk for a while and watched their reactions. As he had anticipated they were not happy - none of them – but it was good to see who opposed the idea more than others.

“This is bordering heresy, milord. Idas would curse us if we did this, not to think of the reaction of the church,” Lord Uger said but he was much more timid than the last time and sounded more concerned than accusatory. All of them were when they addressed Michael, they were careful with their words and tried to stay comforting. Michael had been very surprised when he noticed the first time that the nobles would behave like this rather than trying to capitalize on his weakened mental state but maybe they weren’t as bad as Michael thought sometimes.

“I am just saying what I think. I might be grasping straws to find a reason for all of this or something we could have done better,” Michael relented, he knew that his father would not agree to employ mages, so this opinion had little merit but to antagonize people. He saw multiple nods and compassion on the faces of the men that were gathered.

“It won’t help anyway right now. We will continue our investigation for now and wait for my father’s return.” Michael grabbed a letter from in front of him and presented it to Geron. “We have already sent a messenger to Emall but send another one with this letter and all information you could gather since then. It’s a good thing to keep my father posted so we won’t have to waste time on briefing him.” Geron gave a small bow and received the letter.

“Now I know you all have different opinions about what this attack could mean and who it came from. We will now gather these opinions and see if we must take action on any of them. We need to send out messengers to request status updates from our borders and larger cities. This might be an outside attack, or an inside uprising and we need to know what it is.”

Michael then began calling on each man one after another and gathered their theories. After that, they discussed possible goals and countermeasures that could be taken to prevent more damage if this threat was actually the real one.

They stayed on that topic for over two hours and in the end, sent out a little army of messengers into the different parts of the counties and also toward Duke Wallsten, after it was decided that it was important for their liege to also have all information.

Michael made his way to his father’s study after the meeting, he wanted to start working through the reports of the attacks be they in writing or oral.

He walked around a corner and saw Sola hurry in his direction. “Michael, I have been looking for you.”

“What is it? Did something happen?” He was instantly tense, but the priestess quickly shook her head. “I just wanted to see how you are doing.”

“If there is nothing more, I will get back to work,” Michael answered, totally ignoring the question.

“Work? You need to recover and rest,” Sola said with a frown and moved in front of him, stopping him from walking away.

“There is too much to do, and I want to keep focused, I can rest once Father is back,” Michael said and moved past her.

“Michael, this is not healthy,” she called after him, but he didn’t stop.

The hours flowed away as he worked through the flow of incoming witness- and interrogation reports. It was an entangled mess of half-truths and speculation with some snippets of truth hidden here and there.

“We caught him following the tip of a farmer, he was hiding in his barn and tried to bribe the man to keep him hidden with spoils taken from the noble quarters,” a town watchmen sergeant reported. “The farmer was smart enough to accept and then call the watchmen, returning the bribe and telling on the intruder.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Good, he is situated with the others,” Michael asked, and the sergeant nodded. The report was over, and a knock sealed the end of the conversation. The man exited and, in his place, Geron entered with a man that Michael didn’t know, the knight and the man both looked grim and tired but everyone Michael had seen in the last hours had the same expression, so he wasn’t too concerned anymore. He could also hear the voices of at least Sola and Kiran outside arguing.

“Is there any news of the interrogation,” Michael said, not wanting to handle whatever the priestess and the mage were fighting about. “I really hope we can get something out of them before the end of the day.”

Geron frowned and said, “It is already dark again, milord, and that for a while already.” He also frowned and turned to the window. The knight was right, the moon was already high and throwing light through the windows. Michael also hadn’t noticed that someone had lit the candles in the room.

How can it be night again, he wondered, I was so engrossed in work that I didn’t notice that the whole day had gone by?

“Well, I guess my hope is unfounded then,” he forced a smile to overshadow the concerned expression of his knight. “And who are you?”

The man fidgeted with his pouch and said with a shaking voice, “I am a messenger from Viscount Telp for Lord Michael Rowan.”

“That was fast,” Michael said surprised, even with a fast horse and rider the journey takes a little under a day one way if the rider doesn’t make any pause.

“I come bearing horrible news, milord,” the man said with a shaking voice and Geron just stared at him with piercing eyes. “There has been an attack on the estate of Viscount Telp.” Michael looked the man in the eyes as the messenger swallowed heavily. “The estate was attacked by augmenters and mages.” Michael subconsciously began shaking his head as the man talked.

“The casualties were high and … the entirety of House Rowan was murdered.” The man took a slight step back as he uttered the last word as if he expected to be hit by divine retribution for saying them out loud.

“This is a joke, right?” Michael said and looked at Geron, he now noticed for the first time the clenched fists of the knight and looked back to the messenger. “This is a joke, right?”

The man tried to formulate words but couldn’t manage and simply shook his head.

“Everyone,” Michael asked with a weirdly emotionless voice.

“I am very sorry, milord,” the man said and fell to his knees, tears running down his face. “We failed your family, and we failed our lord.”

Michael sat there for a moment; his mind was moving as if through honey. He then stood up and walked out of the office.

Outside he found his whole retinue as Geron followed him.

Sola made a step toward him, “Michael.” She wanted to reach for him, but he waved her hand away and simply walked past them.

His face was a mask of indifference as he walked the hallways. Michael heard the others follow him through the castle, but he paid their words no mind.

He couldn’t see anything but the path before him until he finally reached his room. The corpses had been dragged out and the bloody carpet removed. He entered the room and closed the door in the faces of his mentors.

- Two days later in the courtyard -

The mood had been horrible in the past day. No one could have expected that it could have gotten worse after the attack but after the news of the assassination of most of House Rowan reached the castle the impossible was made possible.

Now everyone was gathering in the courtyard to receive Viscount Telp and the remains of House Rowan in uncomfortable silence.

“This is horrible. Who is gonna lead the affairs when the lord is hiding in his room,” a noble that only arrived a few hours earlier mumbled.

He received many disapproving looks for his comment and even some annoyed comments until Baron Uger spoke up. “Lord Michael is handling affairs well enough.”

The first noble – a little timider now - asked, “How that?”

“He gets all reports in writing and then sends out instructions.”

“He hasn’t left his room for two days,” a third man interjected, “Is anyone checking on him at all?”

Lord Uger simply shrugged before he said, “I heard that the servants are leaving his food with Sir Geron or that barbarian he employs, and no one has seen him since the message arrived.”

Michael finally stepped through the large doorway before they could speculate more, and all gazes turned toward him. He looked sick, his skin pale, his eyes deep and surrounded by nearly black eye rings. He hadn’t had a moment of rest for days now and it was showing.

He walked through the crowd his feet barely leaving the ground. If he wasn’t constantly using mana, he would have collapsed already from lack of sleep, but he couldn’t rest. Every time he had tried the last days he was haunted by nightmares of the dead faces of his family.

He didn’t believe the messenger; he didn’t want to believe but today he would find out the truth whatever that might be.

The nobles gave him space and bowed respectfully as the ragged young lord moved through their midst. He could hear quiet conversations between them, but he paid them no mind. There was only the path to the front and the only focus he had was on the gate of the castle.

He came to a halt at the front of the procession with Geron and Eydis flanking him and the rest of his retinue behind him.

His mind was spinning tales of what could have happened that the messenger misunderstood the message he was supposed to give or that he was in on it, trying to sow confusion and paralyze the county. He had been doing this a lot for the past few days, but he never found a sufficiently reasonable explanation to get his mind to rest.

It didn’t take long for the caravan to arrive after Michael had entered the courtyard. His irrational hope to see his father at the head of it on top of his black horse was shattered when he saw a horrible-looking Viscount Telp riding in first. He had a similar exterior as Michael and the truth of the situation began to sink into Michael’s core.

The caravan moved into the courtyard more and more and with every line of horses Michael’s hope sank even further. When a large carriage with multiple coffins entered the yard flanked by three Knights of Rowan who looked like they could barely keep on their horses, he wasn’t able to deny it anymore.

Michael’s eyes met those of the Knight Commander Godfrey Pyke, it was still the same unmoving expression he always had but a deep pain echoed in his eyes. Michael's gaze moved down to the white cloth that was bound around the right elbow of the man where his arm should continue but it was missing.

Lord Telp was off his horse before the caravan had completely arrived and fell to his knees. “I am sorry, milord. I failed your family, I failed my lord, and I failed you.”

Michael was utterly fed up with these words and ignored them. “It is true?”

The broken viscount nodded, and Michael asked with a lump in his throat, “How?”

The noble knew what Michael meant; how could a band of thugs and rogue mages that were beaten back by the weakened defenses of the castle after getting the jump on them defeat and kill one of the strongest knights in the kingdom?

“He was out in the gardens with Lady Rowan,” Lord Telp said his voice shaking with anger, “He didn’t take any bodyguards, who would even dare to go against him. We found him after we repelled the attack. Our theory is that he was surprised and hit by multiple arrows before the fight even began. Weakened by that and trying to protect your mother he was overwhelmed with numbers and magic. We found the corpses of thirteen attackers around him but there must have been many more.”

It was true, an augmenter that wasn’t circulating mana was just a normal person, ambushes were a good way to beat them when you couldn’t head-on.

“And my siblings?” Michael’s voice was steadfast but behind this facade, he was drowning.

“Killed in their sleep.”

Michael nodded slowly his eyes wandering toward the coffins. He wanted to see them, to make sure that this was real but at the same time, he didn’t know if he could take it. The picture of his little brothers - burned into his mind - resurfaced and tormented him.

“Send out a notice to the nobles of Reen and Emall; the count is dead, and we need to choose a new one. Also sent out notice to the rest of the kingdom, to Lord Wallsten, to the capital, and to every friend my family had for the funeral. Bring my family into the chapel for funeral preparation.”

Michael could see Father Albion walk into view - he had accompanied House Rowan to Emall – the priest was giving Michael a weird stare but complied with his orders.

Michael then turned around to return to his room.

“Milord,” Viscount Telp called after him with a pleading voice, but he ignored it.

Geron

Michael closed his door carefully again and Geron took his place in front of it, barring entrance for the rest of the retinue.

“We need to do something; he is completely lethargic. He didn’t even react out there,” Sola said with a hushed voice to the others.

“There is not much we can do but be there for him if he wants us to. I have seen this before and the only one that can get him through this is he himself,” Kiran replied with a somber tone, the mage had never much to do with the House Rowan like the rest of them, but he could understand, and feel the pain of those that he had lived with for the last years.

“I think you are misunderstanding Michael, Sola,” Solon said, “He is not lethargic he is holding it in.”

As if on cue a scream could be heard, and something crashed into the door.

“Another attack,” Sola exclaimed and moved forward but Geron put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not an attack.”

Light began to flicker through the keyhole and at the door's edges. Geron could see the realization dawn on Sola’s face, but he explained nonetheless, “He held it in but at some point, it will break out.”

Another crash was audible as Michael demolished his room in a fit of rage, pain, and desperation.