The Great Temple of Jipater the Sky Lord was considered one of the great architectural wonders of the Kingdom of Vathary. Its spire, at one hundred and seventy-seven yards tall, dominated the main square of the Vatharian capital of Carstones. Scholars thought the temple to be the tallest building in the world.

Its centerpiece was a statue of the Sky Lord, a statue as tall as a three-story building. It showed the god as an older man with a long wise beard and robust build. The Sky Lord held his mighty spear, pointed at a statue in the back of the sanctuary, a statue of a ten-foot-tall demon, surrounded by its orc and goblin allies.

The temple ceremony of the Holy Day of the Sky Lord’s Plow had been going on for two hours, and was nearing its conclusion. The ceremony marked the beginning of the planting season for the farmers in Vathary, and was considered the third-most important holy event in the Vatharian liturgical calendar.

The High Priest of Jipater looked over the four hundred finely-dressed congregants as he brought his sermon to a close.

“.... and so, people of Vathary, we must pray that these monsters at our borders, monsters who grow bolder every day, can be held back. We pray our just king will not allow them to burn our cities and destroy our crops. I have faith, great faith, that Jipater will help our armies hold back the beasts, and will guide our generals as they defend our people and bring glory to our gods.”

The priest paused and bowed his head to the statue of the Sky Lord, and then turned and bowed to the king.

“And now our great king, will shine a light in this dark time, and lead us in the Prayer of the Rains!”

King Neydon patted Queen Zofia’s leg and rose from his throne overlooking the sanctuary. He walked briskly to the speaker’s balcony, and opened the scroll with the word of the prayer to Jipater. He read to the congregation.

“Our Lord on High,

Holy is your name

Bless us with your rains

Cause them to wash over the land

Command your strong twin sons in their chariot

To pull the sun across your sky

Bringing your light to make our crops grow

Make your followers strong

Grant us wealth and success

And give us new lands to plough for your glory

In your name we pray, Jipater

Our Sky Lord.”

He paused for a full three seconds, and then raised his hands in a gesture of blessing, and called out “Now, my people, depart in peace and we wish you abundance for the season!”

The congregation remained standing until their king returned to his queen and they walked through the door in the back of the sanctuary, into the priests’ administrative rooms.

“Great prayer. You shot it straight through the center, my brother!” said Earl Martain, who had removed his priest's robe and was putting on his fur-lined crimson cloak. “The people will be talking about that for month.”

Earl Martain had been given a position as a priest by King Neydon. This allowed him to use the tithes and offerings from the Sky Lord Temple in Martain's county of Riverford for whatever purposes he, as head priest of the county, considered appropriate. Martain tried to keep the spending in line with the holy purpose for which the offerings had been made, so only used part of it to fund his personal lifestyle, and used a lot of the rest of it for his keep and retainers. Some of it went to roads and keeping up the town and the temple.

But the downside to being a priest meant that Martain occasionally had to do something priestly. As Martain didn't like going back to Riverford if he could avoid it, he usually fulfilled his obligations by helping out in the Great Temple in Carstones during the top-five holy ceremonies. The temple was busier at those times anyway, and Martain got along with the other priests of Jipater, most of whom were from noble families, so it was an arrangement that worked out for everybody.

“Will you come up to the palace with us?” Queen Zofia asked Martain. “The servants are preparing a special Holy Day dinner, and some of my family is coming. I can show you how the goblins have installed running water in the kitchen. And, my sister will be there. ”

“Certainly, Your Highness. It would be an honor,” Martain said as he bowed to his queen.

The guards opened the back door of the temple, and went out onto the street to make sure there were no threats to the royal family. The king, queen, and their earl stepped out of the temple toward their waiting royal carriage.

Counselor Dravon was waiting beside the carriage, papers in his hand.

“Oh gods, Neydy. I don't think I can deal with Dravon today. Two hours of praising the Sky Lord, and now Dravon?” said Queen Zofia quietly to her husband.

“It will be fine. The ride to the palace is only ten minutes, and I'll order him away after that. Besides, I am expecting his update on Bowen and the issue with the monster lands. We need to decide what to do about that count, what's-his-name?”

“Rassler? It was Count Rassler who fled north, I think” answered Martain.

“Yes, that is the guy. We need to decide what to do about him. Even with him absent, I think we are supposed to have a trial or something, and then we take his lands and I can give them to whomever I want.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

This certainly sparked Martain's interest. “Well, I don't mind hearing what Dravon has to say,” said Martain as they walked to the carriage.

Dravon bowed as the three of them approached, and held the door as they climbed into the carriage. He sat down next to Martain as the carriage started moving.

“Wait, stop.” ordered the king to the driver, without much enthusiasm. He'd seen Counselor Kyant running to catch the carriage, and thought it would look bad for the people of the city to see a royal counselor chasing the royal carriage through the streets.

The carriage stopped, and Counselor Kyant climbed aboard as quickly as his aging knees would allow him to. He sat down next to Dravon as the carriage started moving again.

Dravon began his report “It is even worse than I thought, Your Highness. The monster kingdom has come under the influence of an evil cult leader who was expelled from the Dhu'Nemos for her path of destruction. Glasco infiltrated one of their ceremonies where they were about to sacrifice Sir Hargest to demons of Chaos. One of the cultists even tried to get Glasco to participate in the dark ritual. I am afraid that we may not see some of our brave Vatharian men ever again!”

“Wow,” said Martain.

“Glasco came with the ransom, which their chieftain Jend confiscated, without releasing the men. I am sorry I ever suggested we pay the ransom, sire. I had only been thinking of peace between the kingdoms, but it appears that even my modest faith in Jend was misplaced.”

“All the money is gone?” asked Kyant. “And we don't even have the men back?”

“Well, we did manage to free many of the men. As a precaution, I had placed Agent Boal and Agent Eynon and his team in Lagar's Haven, just in case something went wrong with the ransom payment. I had not fully trusted the orc king and his witch queen. It was fortuitous, as when Glasco was stripped of the ransom and witnessed the ceremony preparing to sacrifice Sir Hargest, he was able to escape and alert Boal. Their team then managed to free most of the Vatharian's from their captivity, although we lost a couple of the agents along the way. So, I am happy to report that those brave men did manage to free Sir Bowen, and others. I fear we may never see Sir Hargest again, though.”

“The barbarians!” yelled Queen Zofia. “How dare they sacrifice our men to their evil orc gods!”

“Sire, I should also talk to Sir Bowen, if he is now returned. I can offer you a separate opinion on how things progressed and..” started Counselor Kyant, before Dravon cut him off.

“Oh, but Sir Bowen is still in Keley, recovering from his ordeal. I would suggest, sire, that we give your honorable knight some time before forcing him to go through Kyant's inquisition,” said Dravon.

“It isn't an inquisition! I just want to talk with him so that I can get some insight into...”

“Just let the poor man be, Kyant,” said the king. “I'm sure what Dravon is telling us is accurate, and that Dravon has carried out his interview already with Bowen with the usual thoroughness we expect from our First Counselor. And, after all, if it were not for Dravon's foresight in having the agents ready, we would not now have our loyal Sir Bowen back, and he would be facing the same fate as poor Sir Hargest.”

The carriage was now approaching the palace, and the king was eager to conclude the conversation, lest it intrude upon his dinner time.

He signed and asked Dravon, “So, First Counselor, what action do you propose we take, to deal with Jend and his upstart ‘kingdom’ on our northern border?”

“I am afraid that I must recommend that we invade, Your Highness. Anything less will just prolong the danger, and let the monsters grow in strength.”

“I myself was thinking of that, Dravon. However, I am not sure I am ready to take that step. We can only invade if we are sure we can be successful. I don't want to get too many of my soldiers killed. We also have the threats from Ushos in the south to deal with.”

“Indeed sire. But I have given this some thought, and I can promise you a quick victory. Consider that Vathary has a population of two-and-a-half million people. Pelsa has not even a tenth of that!”

“Yes, but they are monsters! Orcs, dragons, bear-creatures,” said Queen Zofia.

“They are monsters, but we humans are as strong as most of them. We think their population is about one-third goblins, one-third orcs, and one-third everything else. One of our human soldiers can easily take on two goblins, and, if he is well-strained and armored, is also a match for an orc.”

“But they have dragons! Big, man-eating dragons!” said the clearly-worried queen. The king thought it a weakness of women that they were seldom as excited about military action as men.

King Neydon smiled. “At the suggestion of our wise Counselor Dravon, we have been cultivating contacts with dragons on our southern borders, and we believe we have come to an arrangement with two families. For an appropriate number of flocks of sheep, over the next two years, we should be able to count on the support of five adult dragons to support our army.”

“And, of course, with the Magic Institute of Carstones supporting the effort, along with the war wizards already part of the Royal Army, we should have at least double their wizard support,” added Dravon.

Earl Martain furrowed his brow, not convinced by this plan. He glanced at the conselor and asked, “Dravon, how many soldiers will we need? And who will you need to call up for this attack?”.

“Indeed, sir, we will need to call up the entire army. This includes calling on all the knights and counts. That should give us about thirty-five thousand men-at-arms. Pelsa probably has less than forty-thousand males of military age in the entire land, and only a fraction of those will fight. I doubt they will manage to field fifteen thousand against us. Maybe twenty thousand if they go through mass conscription, if they can manage to supply food for that many.”

“Oh, I don't know about this,” said Martain. “I get that we outnumber them, but, still, it seems pretty drastic, over just a couple of soldiers. We can just take Rassler's lands and be done with it. Let him stay there. Not our problem.”

Seeing Martain's hesitation, Neydon also gave a bit of pause. “Are you sure about these numbers, Dravon? They might have more soldiers than your estimate. And people fight hard against invaders.”

“Sire, not only do we outnumber them ten to one, but a lot of their population won’t fight. The elves will flee at the first hint of violence, back to their southern forests. The dwarves likewise have no commitment to that land of their ancient enemies. Humans, like their arch-wizard Cradel will either stay out of the fight, or come over to fight alongside us, as they will benefit from the return of human rule in the north. Even many of the orc tribes once fought against Jend and his tribe.”

“Their women will fight though,” said Kyant. “So more than fifteen thousand soldiers may take the field against us.”

“I doubt it. And anyway, perhaps a few of the troll women might be a force, but any average Vatharian soldier should be able to handle five females of the orcish or goblin races.” said Dravon, shaking his head. “And I would strongly note, sire, that if they do force the women to fight, that is yet more evidence of the barbarity of the monster lands, and thus another reason we need to strike them. We know that females of all species are much more docile and don't tend to aggression.”

Kyant shook his head. “I don't think I agree with you on any of that. I think their women will fight. And, there is another thing..”

“Oh, what is it already, Kyant. Are you just trying to delay things now?”

“No, sire. It is, well, Pelsa doesn't allow slavery, and even abolished serfdom. They even have voting for and elections for many positions, so, we are talking about a free people. Free people fight hard.”

The king was getting angry, as freeing the serfs was a much more dangerous idea than the existence of a monster kingdom across the northern border.

“Are you saying we should free our serfs? You, of all people, wanting us to collapse our economy? Really Kyant? “

“No, sire, of course not. I am not arguing for that, I am just pointing out the monsters may come in number and fight hard,” said Kyant, now in a panic, “We just don't know, so I really must strongly recommend against this. A war would be very costly, in both lives and material. And then we may not win. We simply do not know Pelsa’s capabilities.”

The carriage was now pulling up in front of the main door of the royal palace, and a nice dinner awaited them. King Neydon had the choice of either ending the discussion now, or inviting his two counselors to dinner with them.

“Let's end this discussion now. Vathary is going to war against the ‘kingdom’ that calls itself Pelsa. Total war. Mobilize the army, and put out the call to all the nobles. Kyant, figure out how to pay for it, and then it's back to the army for you. With that, gentlemen, I bid you goodbye.”