Nestyne’s death, like illness, lingered like a snake in tall grass, waiting for weakness to strike once more with its fateful venom. With our forces damaged and our magical tactician deceased, the Kalipaonin Regiment was like a tattered skiff adrift on stormy swells. Our mages were far too green to rely upon in such a capacity, and poor Carinon had fallen back into her deathly moods, with no sign of recovery. She blamed herself, even though our enemy was not thought to have been capable of such a spell. Quatimonian, for he was logical to a fault, was much more at peace with the matter, reasoning that it was simply fortunate that we lived, and so worked to comfort Carinon. I was still in no position to be casting spells in battle, for my poor attempt at countermagicks had left my left arm paralyzed, as if it were stone. A common result of working magicks upon the earth, I knew it would be several weeks before I could fight once more.
Within several hours of the battle upon the newly-raised mountain, the decision was made for our forces to fall back and regroup with Yularelian’s forces in the West. Carinon, Quatimonian, and myself would have no time to grieve our mentor’s passing. It was a pain that lingered with me for many years, that I lost both of my mentors within months of the other.
I remember Nestyne’s grave clearly, and one can still find it if they climb to the peak of Mount Khalinar to this day. The grove of trees, which run next to a small stream, petrified after his death. All that rests in that secret place for more than a few years at that lonely grave shifts to stone, for the magicks Nestyne had called up were so potent that they linger to this day. In many years the bards will speak this story when they speak of war, of loss, and the price of stories. This brings grief upon me, for I know that Extirpation has already torn so much of Memory from this land. It will be a story of the real man that was, his name will be forgotten, and he will transfigure into folktale. Into a man that never truly existed.
Such is the way of Memory, for it decays. But, not in such a way that many already forget the creation of Mount Khalinar was a recent and lived event. And once I have resolved the matter to which I have been summoned to your village; this too shall become myth, or legend, or perhaps seem so ancient as to have been an impossibility of creation. The petrified grove will not be a monument, or a grave. It will simply be, without word or tale.
Yet, for as long as I shall live and tell this tale, do remember that in the grove of petrified trees next to a small stream, hidden on the back of Mount Khalinar, there is a grave that marks the turning point of the war between the two ancient kingdoms of Moringia and Junumianis. And it is from Nestyne’s stony grave that the Kalipaonin fled westward.
The roadless mountainside, plagued with trees and gravel, did not take kindly to the mortal touch. Travel was slow and hindered by landslides that made safe progress difficult. The Kalipaonin regiment slept but four hours per night, for we knew any Junumianian offensive may prove fatal. It was our only chance.
Despite the Kalipaonin’s survival, morale to fight was low, and lower still was our cohesion. A group of men from Temini cursed magicks, blaming myself, Quatimonian, and others for the death of their comrades and the defeat at Khalinara. Commander Partelin, a brilliant yet brutal man, held no patience for disobedience. Their punishment was a suicide mission, tasked with diverting the pursuing Junumianian forces along the freshly-risen mountainside. If they survived, they would be granted their freedom. In the end, they all chose death at the hands of the Junumianian mages and the necromancer’s fertile brood.
Among us mages Quatimonian immediately took charge, for he was the most dedicated to tactics, and the only among us of sound enough mind and capable enough body (for, as I mentioned, I had injured my leg in the peaks of perpetual winter, forcing myself to walk with a stave). After the change in leadership my assigned task, beside committing to a swift recovery, was to dedicate myself to the study of fire magicks. My only purpose in the regiment, now, was to protect against any assaults by the Junumianian fire mage.
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And so, for many long and dreadful hours, I studied the nature of fire. Silently, I observed candles burn down their wick, watched cook the flesh of butchered livestock, and stared into the sun (for it too is an immense fire of the purest manas). I spoke to Misonos many hours about the nature of the god-fire coursed through his veins and lacquered his voice when he commanded the world to bring itself to the whims of Order. And I thought of the price of stories, how Raluros had saved Ynguinian in the thundered plains all of those moons ago. I pondered the nature of its ability to kill, and its ability to save. Its potencies both to squander, and to nurture, and how from squander can still come birth once more.
And I pondered even more the price of stories. How when Decay had come to the world, the fire of language had waned, and soon the first language was but an imprecise memory held exclusively in the minds of men. How animals had lost their speech, and had forgotten to fear the very thing that had brought them life. Fire has its fingers in our lives, in many subtle ways. And, although fire was not inherent to my magicks, I hastened myself to control it as I had the spell of unnoticing given to me by Kalitian and Knowledge. And while I was no master of fire, as we fled further westward back towards Huroncenth, I knew I would be ready to repel the fire mage who had plagued us for over a year.
Quatimonian’s role, during our retreat, was not of his choice. Commander Partelin, terrified of a repeat of the events of Khalinara, bid that my new superior spend his time constructing countermagicks to a similar spell. So, the Master of Flows began to study more the nature of stone and dirt. And this was, in-part, why the study of fire fell upon myself. If the Junumianian summoner had changed his strategy to such powerful manipulations of the earth, treating it as if it were an ocean, then the only person suited to such preparation was Quatimonian. However, this would prove to be a waste (and Quatimonian and myself discussed at length the uselessness of the order).
Both of us deemed it unlikely the summoner would be able to create a spell of such a magnitude, let alone memorize and cast it, within the coming months, especially if the Kalipaonin was going to alter its eastward path after regrouping. It would require divine intervention, or such a specific knowledge of the potential battlefield that one would have had to have been born in the spot the spell were cast, or a mage to die as a result of the casting. All three, we knew, were very unlikely. And yes, while this was Extirpation’s war, his machinations were far more subtle than that. It is only now, after I drank from the First Yew, that I can fathom the subtlety and barbarity of what was wrought upon this realm, and that of the gods.
Carinon, during this time, was barely lucid. Between the attention of Quatimonian, and that of Misonos, she only had the mind to hold to one singular task: she hastily made golems from bonfire ash and mud of our trampled men. Carinon, refusing speech with any of us, would wake with the rising of the sun, shape the crude men of mud and ash with trembling hands, whisper enchantments into their misshapen forms, and release ten to twenty a day. And this was her entire life. She had to be fed, bathed, and cared for by Misonos and Ynguinian, and when I was not studying the nature of flame, I supervised Carinon to ensure she spoke no words of dire consequence.
It was Carinon’s trauma that drew Partelin’s ire the most, for he was not a perfect or patient man. Each moment that Misonos was not there to render judgment upon the commander’s virtue, he spent inventing his anger. “Useless girl” he would call her. He would ask her why she had not been able to save Nestyne. Berate her for the useless spells. And this only drove Carinon further and further to wallow in that dark place that war had brought upon her.
And then, one day, Quatimonian witnessed Partelin’s rage. Never had I seen Quatimonian so vengeful. He shocked the earth with his very breath, and spoke words so true and honest that I initially mistook them for being spoken in the first language.
“Harm or mistreat Carinon again, and you can forget Junimianis. You will have an actual enemy to worry about.” He said. Partelin left, and the two did not speak for the rest of our campaign. And so Extirpation further divided us, feeding on our disorder and suffering as the realm (much like Carinon) forgot itself, forgot colors, and forgot the price of stories. I wonder how many men forget the price of stories by the time we would march over the Kalinaran mount once more.