>
> There came silence after the rains
>
> (Dum-dum Ba da bum!)
>
> Rocks, floods. Loud ‘n uncouth illicit gains
>
> Darn Bogbeast ruined Tollor’s walls
>
> Afore Oras shone over the white witch’s shawls
>
> (Dum-dum ba da bum!)
>
> For she came down the muddy aisles
>
> Oh, ye sweet old lass of the Isles
>
> -
>
> Crafty Dolf dropped like an oaf
>
> (Dum-dum Ba da bum!)
>
> Blue like he’d swallowed fresh uncut groat
>
> A gallant Crab recalled past’s pains
>
> Looked to bring peace back into the planes
>
> (Dum-dum Ba da bum!)
>
> For she came down the muddy aisles
>
> Oh, ye sweet old lass of the Isles
>
> -
>
> -Lass of the Isles-
>
> Jan-Bert Luffy
>
> Modern very popular and rowdy tavern song (with a famous trumpet opening) in Tollor and most of the Canlita Sea ports. First written and performed by a young teenage Issir bard named Jan-Bert Luffy, or simply JB-Luff. It must be noted here that JB-Luff still has an outstanding bounty in the city of Pascor fifteen years after he first performed the song, to be paid upon the bard’s delivery, or proof of his death. It is the biggest bounty ever posted from the legendary frugal port city.
>
> Circa 195 NC
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Legatus Nonus Sula
The Siege of Tollor
Part II
-Wolffish Isles girl-
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[https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd65ZjhVz-vmF4mTQIh_Z55TwdxYjvEQr9BGifik4WboyYu8Q8KXXdGX0rbPUgxkhfKK_RaSNR0StOS4GT6HdIENVOHGDr3syUwKq0dTKkCW67G7aPXyqXMfTTdPZbhFE7JRhMUx8t97Ftt3iTTPlqizkSrjJ8Dz6Q949Hd5fmMNZ1tgjg4fgKSKNu658/s1207/Tollor,%20Badum,%20Valeria.jpg]
> After a great downpour lasting for days that flooded the city and both camps, the weather cleared on the second week of the first month of Fall 193 NC. Duke Dolf that had asked Baron Hagels to recruit more men in preparation for a last offensive before the winter slept frustrated at the meager numbers his rebuilding city had managed to assemble and woke up with news that a detachment of troops had attacked Captain Carus’ rangers in North Bogbeast Marshes and routed them out of Bogville.
>
> Carus retreated in shock at the numbers assaulting him and Duke Dolf ordered his regulars to stop the advancing through the marshes enemy soldiers. That weakened the force he’d assembled at Tollor, but he was unwilling to relieve the pressure at the center. With the weather clear the Duke of Pascor wanted to knock on Duke Maas’ walls again while the window of opportunity was open.
>
> The two armies met at the edge of the swamp east of Bogville in a brutal engagement that ended in a stalemate but cost Duke Dolf around three hundred casualties in valuable men he simply couldn’t afford to lose. Pascor had been bled dry in the year and some months the conflict known as Maiden’s War had lasted.
>
>
Sula woke up with a splitting headache, his usual solution didn’t fix. Drenched in cold water the Legatus got out of the barrel, dried himself up and wore his uniform and armour. He left a hurting Prefect Dumont at the Legion Headquarters and went to the morning assembly to watch Vellator receive his brutal punishment. With the lashes administered and the bleeding Decanus removed by Dottore Borealis so he could receive treatment, Sula called for a brief meeting, knowing Prefect Boston had work to do on his machines.
So he assumed they weren’t going to use them that day.
Sula blinked and stared at the face of Baron Darvot. The Issir noble looked like he hadn’t slept at all the previous night.
“Bolton help me out here,” he said to his LID officer. “Can they take the walls with eight hundred men?”
“I don’t believe they can with twice that sir,” Bolton replied.
“The Duke wants you to bombard the opening,” the Baron explained a little frustrated. “So they stay back.”
“They sabotaged three out of our four catapults last night,” Sula retorted with a glare at the small-bodied baron. He wasn’t much taller than him, but Sula had way more muscle and weight on his body. “So we have only one. I have men working on repairing them. But the work won’t finish today.”
“We need to hit them today,” the Baron snapped frustrated. “Whilst they have most of their force in the marshes!”
Sula grimaced and stood back on the chair. The meeting had been held in the small LID building next to his headquarters.
“Tell me the plan Baron,” he finally said, thinking on the girl’s words.
“You bombard them to clear the walls with everything you have,” Baron Darvot started. “We bring the marines in to reinforce our regulars and punch them right at the big opening.”
“What big opening? It’s barely two meters, the crack… I can defend there with fifty men against your whole force,” Sula noted. “One catapult can’t cause panic and the bolts are useless against solid stone. Assuming you’ll fire yours at the other tower, then I don’t know. Do we move them all together?”
“How many men did Maas use in the swamps?” Bolton asked from his chair.
“There, an intelligent query,” Sula agreed. “Baron?”
“Over one thousand, probably twice that number,” Darvot replied.
Can Dolf even hold the north flank?
“What’s the garrison of Edgefort numbering?”
“Usually five or six hundred.”
Sula looked at Bolton who was dictating at Sergeant Rob Zerou his aide.
“Edgefort has sent twice that number inside Tollor this past month according to our reports,” Bolton replied.
“We have different numbers mister Bolton!” Darvot protested.
“Badum?” Sula guessed, disregarding the Baron. A petty Baron commanding five hundred soldiers assumes two thousand men is a great number. The Fourth had the size of a small town in comparison at six thousand souls and the 2nd Foot or better yet the Khan had fielded over twenty thousand men routinely.
Bolton nodded. “If the First Foot is guarding the Small Plains, then he may have siphoned into their recruits. He controls Riverdor and could make up the numbers from there, so Lord Anker wouldn’t be too mad, or aware.”
“Unless Lord Anker wants Dolf to stop here,” the LID officer pointed out.
Sula wanted nothing more but an end to this insanity as well.
“Lord Anker is busy,” a frustrated Darvot countered. “This is still an opportunity gentlemen.”
“Baron,” Sula told him patiently. “I understand you want to please Dolf and your wife, but at some point, this could turn against you. Are you sure Tollor has used part of its own force to retake Bogville?”
The Baron nodded. “It’s their hunting grounds. They lose that and the swamp, they have nothing left. We still control Canlita.”
“Badum might repurpose its merchant fleet,” Sula noted. “Riverdor could foot the bill. You don’t have the numbers Baron.”
“I trust the quality of our crews Legatus. They have proven themselves the masters of the Canlita Sea.”
Petty backward nobles with delusions of grandeur, Sula thought angrily. Had Tollor not had its marines trapped in the Fenlands that naval clash might have turned out differently.
“Your crews might perish under the walls before the winter is over,” Sula spat and got up frustrated. “Order Boston to fire at the crack with whatever he has,” he ordered going for the middle ground. “Bolton see to it and notify Prefect Valens to have the Cohorts ready for action.”
“You’ll join us in the assault Legatus?” Baron Darvot asked hopefully. Sula stared at him, fighting the urge to punch him in the face, but decided to crash his hopes instead.
“Negative. I may need my men ready to save yours though Baron.”
----------------------------------------
“We have missives from Crabville,” Bolton informed the Legatus as the latter was about to walk out of the LID building. Sula paused at the door and turned to look at his subordinate.
“My wife?”
“Centurion Luke Whitt.”
Whitt was with the ‘Cultured’, IV Legion’s 3rd Cohort stationed in Crabville.
“Give me the dispatch,” Sula grunted and Sergeant Zerou brought the small decoded scroll. Sula read it quickly and grimaced. “Gatrell wants to come here?”
“I believe Lady Redmond might be the one issuing the order sir,” Bolton replied truthfully.
“Oh, that’s just great,” Sula grumbled before he could control himself. “Of course, I want them near, but not during a siege Bolton. Not in this place.”
“I understand sir,” the Lesia man said. It must be noted here that the man was raised in Kadrek, his father a rich merchant friend of Duke Redmond. “But it’s difficult to argue with Lady Redmond historically.”
“Historically?”
The LID officer smiled. “I was trying to remain candid.”
“I appreciate yer candor, mister Bolton,” Sula grunted. “Anything else?”
“We have twenty cases of dysentery.”
“Half the camp will turn into a hospital soon,” Sula griped and shook his head. “Tell Borealis that I will personally whip him if he doesn’t find a solution for this malarkey.”
“We need to move near clear water sir,” Bolton said. “Or boil thoroughly what we have. Not everyone does it.”
Sula nodded and then turned around to return to his headquarters.
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The Legatus marched across the Castrum’s yard, an eye on the assembling Cohorts under Prefects Jacobred and Valens, the other scanning the perimeter of the walls for any irregularities. He spotted a legionnaire carrying a wooden armchair walking ten meters away from him and stopped to watch where he was going. The soldier walked past the kitchens and the barracks of the First Cohort and turned the corner disappearing from his eyes.
Sula went after him.
He turned the corner, a scowl on his face and saw the legionnaire stop next to the Castrum hospital, but instead of heading there, the man headed to the smaller building next to it. The penitentiary.
“Halt right there!” Sula boomed and the legionnaire jumped almost scared out of his wits. The young man turned around and gawked at the frustrated Legatus marching straight for him. “Name and unit!” Sula barked stopping in from the legionnaire carrying the armchair.
“Norman,” the man said. “3rd Maniple, 2nd Century, Second Cohort sir!”
“That Centurion Glean Lale’s unit?”
“Yes sir!”
“Yer unit is at the parade ground Norman,” Sula snarled through his teeth. “Why are you sneaking around?”
“I’m detailed at the jail sir! As a guard!”
Sula stabbed his boot down. “The jail is over there legionnaire and no one guards it…. What in allgods is that yer carrying?” he snapped irate.
“An armchair sir!”
“I can see… where did you find it?” Sula growled, a couple of medics coming out of the hospital to see what was going on.
“Took it from the train sir!”
“You stole it?” Sula berated him.
“It’s a chair for the penitentiary sir! Carpenters made it!”
What?
Sula stood back alarmed. He glared at a heavy-bosomed nurse giggling, the laughter dying on her lips afore retreating inside the building and then turned his eyes on the sweating legionnaire. “Norman, I’m going to ask this only one time. Now, you reply truthfully to me, you get a good smack on the mouth and run back to your unit. You lie to me and I give yer sorry arse a new skin to wear on yer back and show the ladies in the summer. What do you say lad?”
“Ahm…” Norman stalled unsure on the query.
“Who ordered an armchair made for the Jail?”
Norman blinked as if confused. “She did?”
“Are you asking me son?”
“Miss Leirda wanted a new chair, sir,” Norman replied confidently. Sula breathed in sharply, pressed his mouth tight and then backhanded the legionnaire under the nose with the knuckles, the hard callouses there splitting Norman’s lip down the middle.
----------------------------------------
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Nard was sleeping in the wooden cot, the small room having also a couch and a table in the corner under the small window. His sister was standing there working a dark paste inside an army-issued bronze bowl, another filled with the weird-smelling stuff right next to it.
Sula cleared his throat once to get her attention and she raised her eyes on him. The Legatus stepped aside and a bleeding Norman walked inside dragging the armchair. He placed it in the middle of the room and Sula kicked it towards the young woman.
Leirda stopped it extending a nibble arm, turned it around and sat on it to test whether the furniture was comfortable enough.
For fuck’s sake!
“You are not permitted—” he started, but Leirda raised an arm to stop him. She pushed one of her bowls forward. It slid on the table and stopped near its edge despite having enough momentum to fly overboard.
It was weird.
“Get this to Borealis,” she ordered the rattled legionnaire. “Tell him to administer a spoonful for each case.”
Sula blinked unsure, equal amounts angry and confused.
“What is this crap?” He grunted and blocked Norman from retrieving the bowl with a forearm.
“Medicine,” Leirda replied with a pout as if it should have been obvious. “To stop your men from fouling themselves, Sula.”
“Um,” Sula grumbled taken by surprise. “Who ordered this?”
“It’s a trade,” Leirda replied and stretched on the armchair.
“Are you serious?” Sula snapped. “You’re a prisoner!”
“Do you want your men healed?” Leirda asked annoyingly, then gestured with her eyes for Norman to get the bowl.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Halt right there!” Sula growled at the legionnaire who had moved to obey. “What are you doing?”
“Sula,” Leirda said and got up with a sigh. “It’s medicine. I’ll have more made.”
Sula licked his lips. The encounter wasn’t going as he had envisioned it. He eyed the half-breed unsure and then Norman. The legionnaire was holding his bleeding mouth.
“Anyone dies from this,” he warned her. “I’ll hang you by the neck outside the hospital.”
“If you don’t address it soon,” Leirda countered with a hint of a smile. “Everyone shall die from it. Your wife included.”
Tyeus spear!
----------------------------------------
Sula waited for Norman to get out and then twisted around to face the young woman who had returned to her armchair pleased.
“Are you a seer? Is that it? A healer?”
Leirda rolled her eyes. “Goddess. I’ve told you already.”
“Are all Fish Folk like that?” Sula grunted, who couldn’t remember that she had.
“Look at Nard,” Leirda chuckled and the creepy boy stared at him. Sula turned a bit to keep him in his peripheral vision, as that urchin had the looks of someone who would operate on your kidneys inside a dark alley and then eat them raw. “Does he seem special?”
“You can’t order my soldiers around lass,” Sula warned her, as he couldn’t understand where she was going with this.
“I just asked for a chair Sula. Working on my feet is tiring,” Leirda replied and went to work on her paste again. She poured water from a cup in it, inserted a long finger inside, tasted the mixture and then washed it. The color of her skin changing when water touched it. From dark tan to a pale white.
Sula narrowed his eyes, but her skin became normal again darkening in a moment, as if he had imagined the whole thing. Leirda stopped washing her hands sensing his scrutiny. Used a moist finger to write something on the surface of the table. The sound of long nails scratching the wood sharp and eerie.
Sula saw those long fingers creating an oval-shaped circle again in his mind and then turning once, the top becoming the bottom as the left hand switched places with the right.
“I’m your friend,” Leirda said, her casual tone serious all of a sudden. “I’ve proven that Sula.”
“How?”
Leirda sighed and passed her hand over her writings once, fire leaping out of each letter and burning the surface of the table. It died instantly, but Sula could smell the charred wood and he stepped back, a hand on the pommel of his sword.
The boy had got up from the bed.
Sula unsheathed the sword clenching his jaw. “Stay back,” he warned Nard. “Or I’ll cut you in half.”
“The Legatus won’t harm us Nard,” Leirda assured him. The girl from the Wolffish Isles speaking with confidence and in a mature different voice. Sula had heard the voice before coming out of the mouth of a mad woman. Months back at Maiden’s Wedding.
Motherfucker.
What in allhells is going on here?
“You died in the feast,” Sula rustled measuring the distance between them. The half-breed pointed at the table and Sula glanced that way trying to figure out what she had written on it. At first, he couldn’t make out the calligraphic letters.
Then he could.
‘They shall rule the whites’, Leirda had burned on the surface.
‘The ports of Salt and Ice.’
Fuck.
“I’m your friend,” Leirda repeated. Only she wasn’t Leirda. “Martha wants to see the Scalding Sea. You’ll bring her there eventually. But first, you need to leave Tollor Sula,” I’ve brought her inside the camp gods darnit! “You shall help me and I’ll forever assist you,” the Hag of the Fenlands added.
“Dolf will lose the siege,” Sula croaked wanting to strike at her, but feeling his arms unable to move despite his efforts. Small veins had appeared on his temples, red cracks in the white of his ogling from the effort eyes. “You were wrong witch.”
“Never said he will win,” she replied softly. “I said the siege will end today.”
Sula cracked his mouth open to raise the alarm, but she brought a thin finger before her lips.
“Shush stubborn Lorian,” the Hag demanded. “Listen!”
Sula couldn’t understand what was happening at first, but then the earth shook under his feet, a mighty roar raised like a whole mountain had suddenly come down on them. The sound of rocks tumbling down, stones cracking and people screaming in awe and preternatural horror.
> Prefect Boston, who had found himself without catapults that morning and wanted to get on with rebuilding what was broken, was forced to stop working and oversee instead the sole machine they had available. He was to assist with it Duke Dolf assault the walls.
>
> Despite the general consensus that a single machine couldn’t cause any meaningful damage to the walls, or the defenders who could see it coming, his engineers opened fire. After about ten shots and everyone staring unimpressed at the happenings, a frustrated Prefect turned to Captain Ribar Sequer who was in charge of Parcor’s first attacking group and refused to waste any more time or ammunition on the whole ordeal.
>
> Captain Sequer took offense, but with the second group assaulting the northeastern Tower already he ordered his men forward. Pascor had about five hundred men stationed there and four hundred marines reinforcing them. The defenders that had kept hidden, or simply ran away from the rocks with few casualties, allowed the attackers to approach and then pelted them with arrows, slingshots, rocks and few javelins.
>
> Sequer pressed forward, reached the collapsed part of the wall near the east gates under heavy shelling and charged inside. He got mauled in the kill zone the Tollor defenders had created and lost fifty men in five minutes, a hundred in ten, but fought valiantly, some of the ladders reaching the intact side walls and pushing the defenders aside. For a moment everything was balancing on a knife’s edge and Sequer sensing he was almost there ordered his adjutant to raise the flags for the marines to advance. They had landed that night, effectively abandoning their assault on the Crabs.
>
> The marines marched down the field and towards their colleagues dying at the walls, but just as they reached the base of the soft slope, the weakened from months of shelling, the heavy rainfall and flooding east defensive wall of Tollor came down like a house of cards.
>
> So sudden was the collapse, Captain Sequer was buried under the rumble along with most of his regulars and about a hundred of the marines. Tollor lost the bulk of its forces defending the walls and most of those blocking Captain Sequer from penetrating deeper into the city.
>
> The destruction pulverized in two short minutes or thereabouts more than seven hundred of Pascor’s attackers and around the same number of Tollor’s defenders, half of them civilians.
>
> A shocked Duke Maas who was watching from the rear ordered almost a thousand fresh troops over the smoking ruins, his well-planned trap to crash Duke Dolf’s army going differently than he’d envisioned it. He intended to attack while everyone was numb from the shock and rout Dolf, who had a good portion of his army (basically whatever was left) tied up north near the swamp, out of the Crabs once and for all.
>
> Legatus Sula’s IV Legio waiting for him down the slopes of his ruined city stopped the young Duke dead in his tracks. While debating whether to attempt the assault or wait for further reinforcements, Sula rode on his horse out of the packed lines of the three Cohorts present in the field and waved the truce colors to him.
>
> Maas, being as he was at a disadvantage and beset by grief, the catastrophe crippling his plans and city, jumped at the opportunity and agreed to meet with the Legatus later that afternoon. With the night coming fast the two (three in reality) camps met on neutral ground near Boston’s machines for an honest discourse.
>
> With the sound of despaired engineers and mourning civilians digging corpses out of the rubble and the massive casualties in both warring camps, the mood was grave and the ‘discussion’ deserving a play in itself.
Third Week, the first month of 193
Outskirts of the besieged city of Tollor, the Crabs.
Kingdom of Kaltha,
Early evening.
The light from the many burning torches added to that of the two moons shining on the clear dark sky, the night shockingly peaceful after all that had happened the previous weeks and even that very same morning.
Sula eyed the officials from Tollor, the young Duke Maas Hoff and the Mayor of the city. Their bodyguards spread out, over a thousand soldiers waiting across from the three Cohorts and the smaller but equally well-armed crowd from Pascor. Duke Dolf Van Calcar was there with most of his remaining officers and nobles. Both dukes have brought their own chairs and refreshments, the two entourages waiting for Sula to mediate the meeting.
Prefect Dumont, leg still bandaged and in pain, was sitting next to him with Prefect Valens taking the lead given his education to set out the main topics of the discussion. Two hours later with the sun lost and the darkness falling over the ruined city and lake, Valens was still talking with the two teams.
“Vibius has the right idea,” Dumont jested near his ear, the legionnaire standing guard near them snapping at attention hearing his name. “He mastered the art of sleeping on your feet and appear awake.”
Sula glared at the legionnaire, who had the decency to appear affronted at the Prefect’s words.
“I can’t blame him,” Dumont continued, while Sula grimaced and stared at the solemn faces of those present. Not every face. Nard for example was sound asleep, his back at a wagon’s wheel used as an elevated stand for those wanting a better vantage point, the fact that he was there in the first place infuriating. Sula glanced at the innocent-looking young woman, or whatever the allhells she was, standing next to him and scowled.
Infuriating, but not surprising. Leirda could come and go as she pleased it seemed. Whatever magic she used worked wonders for her. Sula had decided to play along, mostly because the shock of seeing the east walls of the city turning into piles of debris had shaken him. He knew of war and logistics, leading men and winning battles, but the Legatus had no idea about magic, mystics or whatever the allhells the witch called herself.
One thing he knew for sure because she had told him, was that she hated being called a hag.
Sula guessed that in her shoes, he wouldn’t have liked it as well.
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“The matter of Crabville is settled,” Dolf was saying from his seat, placed on two large Catapult ammunition boxes to look down on his opponent. Duke Maas had brought a wooden platform out of the half-collapsed east gates but he was standing on lower ground.
“No it isn’t,” the esteemed Mayor of Tollor, Marnix Phaf argued. A learned man, having studied irrigation and law at the academy in Issir’s Eagle. Dolf, a mostly self-taught man as the Van Calcar had no coin to spare on higher education, would have none of it.
“You are clearly in the wrong Phaf,” he said and Menneken agreed.
“Clear as… this night,” he said after a long pause that kept everyone wondering what he would say.
“The law states that if an agreement is forfeited due to a party’s actions, then the benefits derived from it are null and void. Common law actually, since the days of Reinut.”
The Tollor crowd agreed with his words praising the Mayor for setting the record straight.
“What agreement is that?” Dolf asked pretending he didn’t know what the subject was.
“You agreed to stop hostilities after usurping Crabville and Hoff’s Tower—”
“Dolf’s Tower,” Dolf corrected him with a hiss.
“The name is also forfeited if the agreement is voided.”
“No, it isn’t,” Dolf argued this time.
“You have no ground to stand on Duke Van Calcar,” Phaf countered.
“Actually,” Valens said. “He could argue that since time has passed since the agreement, he gained right on the land.”
“What time?” Phaf protested. “He never stopped campaigning!”
“As little as a month. In agricultural law—” Valens argued, but the Mayor stopped him.
“Lorian Law! We’re Issirs, my lad.”
“Mayor you should use my rank and avoid epithets.”
“It was an endearment.”
“I don’t wish to be endeared by your likes,” Valens snapped.
“Alright,” Sula said loud enough to be heard, putting a stop to that. “Let’s leave Crabville and the Tower. We need to reach a consensus on the freshly disputed territory.”
“It’s not disputed,” Maas grunted. “Freshly or otherwise. You are standing on Hoff land Legatus!”
“I can see the center of the city from where I’m standing,” Dolf taunted.
“You lost the battle Dolf,” Maas warned him.
“Not from where I’m standing,” Dolf argued with a smirk. “I have reinforcements on the way and you have no walls.”
Sula was the one who had reinforcements en route. The Third Cohort was the one unit that would never fight for Dolf nor Gatrell’s Carls of course. Martha loathed Dolf for murdering the Duke of Riverdor.
It wasn’t certain that he had, but Sula had witnessed them cutting down Maas’ father afore his eyes and he couldn’t argue for Dolf with her. Not that Sula wanted to.
“I outnumber your men,” Maas hissed. “All you have is the blasted Lorians holding your cock you murderous scum!”
Dolf got up furious. “You stinking cunts came to my brother’s wedding and tried to kill us all! Fuck you and yer lineage!”
“I’m not talking with murderers,” Maas spat. “Had I not been a Knight I would have cut you down like the rabid dog you are!”
“Halt this nonsense!” Sula barked stepping between the two camps. “We are not here to solve past grievances but to settle the matter of this blasted war! Everyone should take a step back and decide on a painful solution.”
“The border stays at Crabville,” Dolf said.
“Crabville is not yours. You lost the right to it when you attacked Tollor breaking the truce!” Maas blasted him.
“I don’t need the Legion,” Dolf warned him. “I’ll be here next season with a bigger force while keeping the blockade going and you’ll spend the winter boarding the windows and burning furniture if the rest of your city doesn’t crumble into the lake.”
“Next season Dolf,” Maas hissed. “You might find yourself without any allies at all.”
“Crabville shall be the border,” a woman said from the back. Everyone stopped arguing, a couple of the men sheathing daggers and blades they had half gotten out. Then stared about them confused.
“That’s ludicrous,” Mayor Phaf said.
“Who said that?” asked Dolf glaring towards the wagons.
“Both cities shall share the forest, if the forest so wishes,” the voice added.
Sula turned to stare at the half-breed. Witch. The Hag of the Fenlands.
What are you doing? He thought alarmed.
“Is that the Fish cunt?” Dolf grunted squinting his eyes. “Baron get that filth out of here! What is this folly? Why is she even here—?” The Duke of Pascor stopped abruptly, a savage cough ravaging him. He stumbled back, tried to speak again but failed, eyes ogling and face turning a deep blue color. Dolf grumbled backwards onto the chair, the momentum toppling both of them over the large cases.
A loud gasp was heard as the Duke of Pascor crashed behind the square boxes, the chair breaking apart. People rushed to help him and the murmurs returned stronger until Leirda stepped forward and came to stand next to the glowering Legatus.
Sula stared at the stunned men present, trying to think of something to say and wondering if Dolf was dead.
“The Wolffish’s kin lost today,” she continued calmly but in a clear voice while Sula was seething in silence. “Tollor remains in Crabs hands.”
“Who is this woman?” Mayor Phaf asked but Duke Maas stood up and gestured for him to hold his tongue.
“What about Hoff’s Tower milady?” Maas asked looking at her impressed. Sula frowned and turned to look at Leirda. The Legatus, a very difficult to rattle character, all but recoiled from the shock. The plain Fish Folk female had turned from a half-breed into a very tall, cultured Lorian-looking lady wearing light blue robes. She had very long, pure-white hair and the raised hood left her symmetrical -stunningly elegant- face features visible for all present to see.
“Your father wanted more than what he deserved, Knight of the Crabs. He wagered on it,” she told him. “So he’ll lose what was named after him in the trade.”
Maas breathed in sharply, glanced back at the crowds gathered at the edges of the city. The people of Tollor, small tiny figures watching from afar, climbed on the ruins of the city’s walls and then at the worried soldiers standing near his entourage. He grimaced, returned his eyes to the gawking with his mouth open at the tall woman standing next to him Sula and nodded, a bitter expression on his young face.
Sula snapped out of his trance, just as the people of Pascor brought a new chair for a sweaty, ill-looking Dolf. They helped him sit down and he slapped their hands away furious, his bloodshot eyes on the tall witch.
“I’m not my brother,” Dolf hissed, sounding strangled, but full of hatred, “I won’t fear you. You won’t rule over me Hag. I shall burn the Fenlands if I have to!”
Apparently, the Lakelords had figured out who she was instinctively. Then again had she appeared to me in her true form, assuming that this was her, I might have… the Legatus sighed pensively.
Alas, he wouldn’t have known was the long and short of it.
He still wasn’t sure what was going on.
“You can’t burn water fool,” she taunted and raised her arm, fingers pointing at the skies like a sprouting flower slowly opening up. Dolf flinched in panic almost toppling backwards and breaking his new chair or his back this time.
A distant thunder was heard over their heads.
Then another.
A lighting came.
Then another.
The moons ducked under the clouds and just like that the rains returned.
> It is said Dolf Van Calcar broke his right arm during the rowdy negotiations. Some claim he broke it trying to prove a point, whatever that point might have been, while others fueled by rumors, colorful retellings as the meeting’s details remain a badly kept secret, insist he fell from his chair after a sudden bout of cough.
>
> As the famous song the Duke hates hearing goes,
>
> ‘Crafty Dolf dropped like an oaf,
>
> Blue like he’d swallowed fresh uncut groat.’
>
> Pascor agreed to retreat from the walls of Tollor ending the siege. The Duke brought back less than half the men he’d brought with him and this forced Pascor to watch from afar as some very important matters for the realm were settled in the coming years. Perhaps for the better as the strained city needed peace even more than the ravaged Tollor.
>
> Duke Maas Hoff, having secured the minimum gains he could given the circumstances, came out of the war diminished in land but vindicated in the eyes of his compatriots. Maiden’s War didn’t solve the problems, or bridge the rift between the two cities, but it weakened them both to such a degree they stayed away from large-scale conflict between them.
>
> Pascor would benefit from the funds poured into the city from opening up trade with Asturia and for the years it enjoyed a naval dominance inside the Canlita Sea. As with everything, good spells rarely last that long.
>
> Legatus Sula took advantage of the cease in hostilities to depart from the north shores of the huge lake where he had remained for far longer than he had initially intended. Duke Dolf’s ships took over transporting the massive IV Legion across the Canlita Sea for a hefty fee, Sula begrudgingly agreed to pay probably because he wanted to get as far away from his ‘ally’ as he could. It is rumored Duke Redmond footed some of the bill, elated upon the news he had a grandson named after him.
>
> Partially due to bad weather and in order to replenish their water supplies, the large fleet (Pascor had utilized thirty-six or forty-two vessels for the journey depending on the sources) had to stop at the nearest source of pure clean water. The Daughter’s Nectar, the famed springs on the picturesque island of Valeria was an easy choice. It was also highly irregular for a military fleet to moor there, but after negotiations the priestesses agreed to allow the Fleet to port at Valeria’s port and the IV to camp near the same name idyllic village.
>
> While several officers and civilians made the small trip to the nearby fabled Naossis’ Temple of Senses the Legatus, a notably somber and of course happily married officer, opted to remain in the camp, conducted all his meetings with the locals there and only visited the village once with his family. The fleet would depart a week later and arrive in Asturia during the last month of the year.
>
> Famously Nonus Sula, who had stayed in the North and beyond the Canlita Sea more than any other officer in Lucius’ army except for those that had taken over permanent posts in cities, would never return to the lake’s northern shores again. He would though fight in one of the bigger engagements of the campaign across from it. ‘All the glory, all the infamy. Triumph and horror,’ as he supposedly said to the historian of the Fourth, the man from Sovya Isaak Bolton, ‘always lies in wait for me near water.’
>
>
>
> Lord Sirio Veturius
>
> The Fall of Heroes
>
> Chapter XXX
>
> (Legatus Nonus Sula,
>
> -also known as-
>
> Lord of Salt, ‘Solid Nonus’
>
> Lucius’ Southern campaigns, Canlita front
>
> Fifth year
>
> Volume IV
>
> -Cross armistice in Tollor-
>
> Section subtitle
>
> -A hefty sum-
>
> ‘A week in Valeria’, the ‘IV in Asturia’ and ‘a darn unpalatable order’ which is the prelude to the ‘Battle of Islandport’ or ‘Battle of North Flank’ commonly known as ‘Bloody Port’, part of the greater Battle of the Lorian Plains.
>
> Fall of 193 to winter of 194 NC
>
>
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The chapters are re-edited and re-posted regularly at both places