Blood and Scales

Chapter 3 – The Count

Count Antipolis glared at the mountain of paperwork on his desk. The illumination from the nearby hearth tempting him to burn it all. He vaguely remembered when he was a child being very disappointed that most of ruling a county was paperwork, and not leading troops into glorious battle like he’d read in his books.

He leaned back in his chair and groaned. Apparently, it had been too loud, because a soft knock shortly followed. After Antipolis acknowledged him, a thin, bookish man entered the room. Alfonso, his head attendant, wore glasses even though he had perfect vision. When Antipolis had asked him about it, he had said that his face didn’t look right without them.

“Excuse my intrusion, my lord, did you need something?” Alfonso asked, bowing politely.

“Alfonso, why is this pile twice as large as when I started?”

“I’m afraid there have been many more incidents, my lord.” He was referring to the fact that people had been becoming more violent lately. Antipolis sighed.

“Has there really been no progress on healing the blood trees? It’s been over fifty years since we came to Wirmbold.” The blood trees were where all male Vanardis got their food. The orchards around Antipolis had stood for millenia, but for some reason shortly after the “upheaval,” as the locals had called it, the blood trees had started wilting and were now dying. Nothing they had tried could fix them, and everyone was at a loss as to what could be done about it.

“I’m afraid not, my lord. At this point, over half of the orchard has been lost.”

“So much?”

“I’m afraid so, my lord.”

Antipolis was at a loss. Without the blood trees to feed his people, he had resolved to start feeding everyone, not just the women as was tradition, the blood of mortal races. The priests that he had consulted had warned him it was forbidden by the gods, but they couldn’t provide a logical reason as to why.

“Was I wrong to break the taboo, Alfonso?”

“I couldn’t possibly say, my lord. If you hadn’t then a lot of people would have died.”

“Who’s to say how many more will die because of my decision.”

It was then that a frantic, heavy knock came at the door.

“Please excuse me, my lord,” Alfonso said in what to most people would have seemed a normal voice, but the Count knew was violent anger, “I’m afraid I must teach someone some manners.”

“Of course. You are dismissed.”

There was a meaty thwack, after the door closed. Antipolis sighed, and tried to read through a report on the repair of the city’s sewers, and did his best to ignore the sounds of violence outside his door.

The upheaval had barely moved a mote of dust from what it had kept intact. However, at the edges of what had been translocated there was a clean cut, this meant that a lot of the infrastructure that had been designed to leave the city, like the sewers, was no longer leading where it had been designed to. This meant a lot of work for the engineers, and big headaches for the count.

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After realizing he had read the same sentence over at least three times, he put it down on the table, and rubbed his eyes. He was saved from having to try again by another soft knock. Alfonso entered again, dragging a soldier with a bloodied, puffy face behind him by the collar, before throwing the soldier to the ground. The soldier did his best to kneel, though it was clearly causing him pain and rapped his right fist against the left side of his chest.

“Report, soldier.” Alfonso said in an actually neutral voice.

“My lord, we, the soldiers you sent to retrieve your daughter, have failed. All but myself have fallen.”

“What!” Count Antipolis shouted, “How could you have possibly failed? I sent 60 of you against one runaway girl!”

“I’m sorry, my lord, from the moment we entered the swamp to the south, we faced no less than 6 ambushes.” The soldier did his best to keep his voice steady, but Antipolis could hear it wavering.

“Ambushes? From Aelia?”

“No, my lord, mostly from monsters, but a couple of times from the lizard people that live in the swamp.”

“I see.” Antipolis sat down, thinking.

“My lord, I do not think we can allow this to remain unanswered.” Alfonso said matter-of-factly.

“I agree. Soldier, do you know what happened to my daughter?” Antipolis asked.

“I didn’t stick around for too long after everyone fell, I wanted to get as much information for the report, and to hopefully get reinforcements…” the soldier stammered, which annoyed Antipolis.

“Answer the question, soldier. Do you know what happened to my daughter or not?”

“I do, my lord,” the soldier hesitated before continuing, “I ran away after seeing one of them swinging a blade towards her neck. I’m so sorry, my lord. I was too far away to do anything…”

Antipolis sank in his seat. Staring at the fire, all he could think was that his one and only daughter, the only child he had, was dead. He vaguely heard Alfonso shuffle the soldier out of the room, and ordered the soldier whipped and imprisoned for dereliction of duty.

Alfonso closed the door gently, before crossing the room and gently laying a hand on Antipolis’ shoulder.

“My lord, I know what you are feeling, but this is not the time for grief.”

“My daughter…” Antipolis managed to choke out, before being interrupted by Alfonso.

“Yes, and this cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Baron Antony is looking for any sign of weakness. Your court could fall into chaos, unless this is dealt with.”

“Yes,” Antipolis’ grief was replaced with anger, “this could lead to problems. And so, I will deal with it myself.”

“My lord?”

“Mobilize every man, not needed to secure the city, and prepare my horse and armor. I will show those barbarian lizards why I am known as the Count of Bloody Tears. I will exterminate them all, and turn that swamp to dust.”

“Yes, my lord!”

A half hour after the order was given, the armorer knocked and entered carrying his armor. The black enamel seemed to absorb what little light was in the room, while the red accents flickered in the firelight like embers.

After the armorer pulled everything tight, Antipolis drew his longsword testing the sharpness appreciatively.

“Well done, Giuseppe, as always you do fine work.”

“Thank you, my lord. I wish you well in battle.”

“More like slaughter, if I have my way,” he laughed darkly, there was no mirth in it, only violence.

Count Antipolis allowed himself one last tearful glance at the portrait over the hearth, Aelia in her mother’s lap and both being held by himself, before turning to the door cape billowing as he set out to accomplish his bloody task.