It was a hard task to accomplish. How would we convince Urs to let his only child, a almost 9-year-old girl accompany us to a castle siege. With a person he disliked. That person being Hern, of course. Who else?
A most difficult problem to solve. And what could the solution be, might you ask? It was simple, actually.
Just lie.
Lie through your teeth. Use every inkling of deception we had and straight-up lie to his face. There was no way in hell he would have allowed us to go. Not a chance. No shot. Nuh-uh.
So I went to Vrintas for help. I'd wanted to speak to the old man anyway. With him not having said a single word to me since we arrived in the capital a couple days ago. I didn't think he was ignoring me on purpose. He probably had his reasons. But it was still odd. When we went to him he acted the same as ever. As if we'd just spoken an hour ago. His demeanour was unchanged. Yet he didn't have a good solution to our problem either. But. He had an idea. We would ask Visla to vouch for us. See, Visla's good nature can be deceptive. Her kind appearance a ruse. That woman was apparently more than fine with lying to her husband. And the fact that we were off to join a medieval siege did not seem to bother her either. The opposite, actually. She told us to have fun.
"You have Hern with you, so you'll be fine." she said. I just hoped her words would turn out to be true. We were still heading out to bloody battle. With a man we'd spoken to like what - thrice?
She simply told Urs we'd be going off to her relatives for a week or so. If Visla actually had relatives in the capital I didn't know. She didn't really talk about the rest of her family, like ever. But Urs didn't seem to question it, so what gives. He was busy anyway. Most of his time so far he'd spent either with the King or at the bedside of his still recovering friend. You know, the one who'd apparently been hurt in an ambush.
I don't know, never met the guy.
But alas. The morning came and just as Hern had promised us, we were sequentially awoken and then guided out of the city. This time we'd left Gipuzk on the other side. A whole different set of gates. A whole different entrance.
As we approached the little camp his men had set up near the city, I couldn't help but feel... astonished. There were about 150 men to accompany us.
Was this supposed to be the whole army?
All of them except for a handful where on foot, wearing their armor only partially. I recognized at least a third of the group as those same silver-plated soldiers who had once paraded in front of our house. Though, this time their equipment was slightly different. They carried spears in addition to their golden longswords. We were lead all the way to Hern's tent, who upon our rival immediately gave the order to pack up and leave. As if we were the actual last two people he was waiting for.
The first half of our 2-day-march was uneventful. And boring. Bloody hell was it boring. Despite the fact that we rode on a cart right next to the man himself, he did not exchange a single word with us. Behind us marched his troops in a double column. The little we had, anyway. Their armor clanked with every step they took. Funnily enough, most of the people in that column further back were just there to carry stuff. They looked more like your average peasants than soldiers to me.
Besides the marching, the silence wasn't just awkward, it was straight-up eerie. I kept sneaking glances at Hern, hoping for some kind of conversation or at least a hint about our supposed strategy, but he just stared straight ahead. It was like he was in his own world.
Rheka seemed completely unfazed as always, swinging her legs off the edge of the cart and humming to herself. Even though we had neither of the other two brats with us, this girl was well able to entertain herself on her own.
The scenery wasn’t much of a distraction either. We passed rolling hills and thick forests with the odd tower-town popping up here and there. Speaking of which, I wonder how Rhodentum was doing. I hadn't really spoken to the King since then. Well. I hadn't spoken to him much yet in general, but I hadn't heard about Rhodentum either. I could only hope that they were going to put at least some of my ideas into place, you know? So I could reap some sort of reward at the end.
Eventually, I decided to break the silence. I wasn't going to sit in this cart for another day, and then some without speaking to anyone. This was its own kind of prison. And it somehow felt worse than actual prison.
"So... why me?" I asked. A lot quieter than I planned to.
Hern didn't even flinch, just sat there in silence. In his squeaky-clean silver plate armor. As if my question had barely registered. Just kept staring straight ahead. That man's expression was as always unreadable.
“I mean.” I continued. “You didn’t exactly give me a lot of info before. Why bring me along? What’s the deal?”
After another minute of silence Hern finally opened his mouth, though he still didn't look at me.
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"I'll be blunt. I have taken an interest in you."
What. Like... sexually?
I tilted my head, trying to read his tone. “Interest in what, exactly?”
He looked up with a slight smirk on his face. The first one I'd ever seen on him. "The dragon, risen from the dead. Here to usher in another age of... prosperity and greatness."
I raised an eyebrow. "What. Like an omen?"
"Perhaps. It's not just myself. The entire court has taken an interest in your affairs. And sooner rather than later, the entire realm will."
Being on everyone's radar had always been in the back of my mind. It was hard to ignore the whispers and stares that followed me around wherever I bloody went. Yet hearing it straight from Hern made it feel more real. Maybe every person in the whole kingdom knowing about me wasn't so great after all.
“Okay, so I'm a big deal. What does that actually mean for me?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of his cryptic messaging.
"The second coming of the Platinum Dragon." Hern said, almost in a mocking tone. "The realm's last conflict is barely twelve years in the past. The one before that barely thirty. Some even say we're in the midst of a civil war right now!" He scoffed. "The common folk yearns for... signs of any sort, for hope. They'll see a guiding light wherever they believe one to be."
I felt like frowning. Trying to piece it all together hurt my little head a tad. “So, people could see me as some kind of savior or something?”
Hern shrugged, a slight metal clank following his movement. "You could turn out to be a symbol of change. Or trouble."
Probably trouble.
My good sir, you have no idea who you're dealing with here. Trouble was practically my second name. But I couldn't say that his word's didn't intrigue me at least a little bit. I could turn into these people's bloody messiah! Perhaps my whole relgion-idea wasn't so far-fetched after all. Although...
"Sounds like a lot of pressure.” I said, glancing at Rheka, who was still swinging her legs without a care in the world. “And a lot of responsibility.”
Hern’s expression softened a little, but he didn't respond with anything after that.
I sighed and leaned against the cart, trying to shake off the weight of his words. The scenery outside was starting to blur together even more. It was clear the journey ahead was going to be as long as it was uneventful. A day would probably feel like a whole week.
Rheka looked over at me, her eyes bright with unsaid excitement. Despite everything, she seemed to be handling this whole situation with more... grace than I was. I couldn’t help but smile at her stubborn optimism. "So, do you even know where we're headed?" I asked.
"Nope, no idea!" She said with a shrug, her grin still in place.
Yeah, thats what I thought. Leave it to Rheka to stay cheerful, even when she’s completely in the dark.
The road ahead was long and certainly uncertain, but with Rheka’s optimism, it felt just a little bit more manageable.
Sigh. I wish I had a book right about now.
***
As the sun dipped below the horizon, we pulled into a flat, open area for the night. Hern’s men wasted no time getting to work. They spread out, setting up tents and organizing the camp with impressive efficiency. The larger tent for Hern was set up first, with a few of his top men busy laying out maps and preparing for the next day's strategy. A strategy about which I was still in the blue, might I add.
Nearby, the soldiers pitched their smaller tents in neat rows, making sure each was securely staked down. The camp followers got the cooking fires going, and the smell of roasting meat and simmering stew quickly filled the air. I wasn't hungry, but it was a nice smell regardless. The camp settled into a routine as the light faded, the soldiers chatting and unwinding around the fires. Rheka and I found our own spot near the cart, our tent already set up by one of Hern’s men.
The night passed without incident. Well. I'd gotten somewhat cold overnight. Though compared to that one time where we froze our asses off in the forest this was nothing.
By the time the first light of dawn began to creep over our heads, everyone was up and moving already. It was crazy to me how efficient these people were. I'd always thought in medieval camps a bunch of unorganized peasants were supposed to do most of the heavy lifting - but no. Hern's partly-plated super-soldiers had practically done everything on their own.
The sounds of the camp waking up mixed with the early morning chill, as people prepared to hit the road again.
The next day, the march continued. Though I'll spare you the boring details as to not have you fall asleep on me. Let's just say that by sunrise the following morning after that, we finally reached our target - Fort Felsvar.
And, well. That castle wasn't quite what I'd expected.
It was a stunning sight - looming ahead on a hill like a glorified, giant stone sentinel. The fort's massive walls stretched way too high into the sky. And it had two bloody layers of them. They were obviously not as high as Gipuzk, or any of the Dracospires, but impressive regardless. Built of rugged, weathered white stone, both walls stood at least 15 meters tall each, though the inner was on a slightly elevated position. Both of them reinforced by thick, circular towers that jutted up even higher. Each tower was topped with crenellations, giving defenders a clear view of anyone approaching and providing them cover to probably shoot arrows or drop all sorts of good stuff from above. As far as I could tell from the numerous, scattered corpses around the wall, some people had already found out just what good stuff they had in stock.
But what really caught my eye was the entrance. Forget about drawbridges, Fort Felsvar had a massive, wooden elevator system. Just like all the damn fortifications in this country. This elevator was housed in a tall, sturdy wooden structure that stood adjacent to a gate. It was a kind of elevatorhouse, a fortress of its own, with reinforced wooden walls and a thatched roof. The elevator itself was a large, platform-like contraption that could be raised or lowered to grant access to the fort.
The elevatorhouse was as fortified as the rest of the fort. Wooden beams and iron fittings reinforced the structure, and it was surrounded by a spiked palisade to probably deter any climbing attempts. When the elevator was raised, it created a solid barrier that was nearly impossible to breach without the proper equipment. When lowered, it probably allowed troops and supplies to move in and out of the fort. And this...
...this was the bitch we had to deal with.