10.3

Jewel felt all out of sorts throughout the morning meeting. The generals seemed unconcerned by how their first offering of battle had gone.

There was more discussion from Jaksa the Red this morning than before. It was not yet clear the precise number of Wizards involved in the exchange, apparently?

Jewel had trouble fully focusing on the exact words, it all was just a mumbly mush that seemed a twin to her breakfast porridge.

The counter-workings had been engaged distant enough it obscured precisely what character and methods were in play.

And that was bad?

However, by the sheer power and ability to match the seven arrows of Wizard Fire it had to be at least three wizards comparable to Jaksa or two Weirds with considerable time to prepare.

So that was good?

Another set of strikes was proposed, but Jaksa and Kliatbatrn both argued against it. Without the direct support of Tsulogothulan, further attack and its counter would turn the approach to the fortress and the camp fortifications into an impassable mire for the army.

The damage already done had Kliatbatrn in particular insisting that it had ultimately created a better barrier for assault on their enemy’s fortifications then already were present.

That sounded bad.

Fiebron was saying that given the state of their supply, they were going to have to offer battle at a worse position and hope that baited the enemy out to engage.

That sounded... bad?

With breakfast and the decision of the marching and fielding of the army settled, Jewel withdrew first from the general’s tent and made her way to go wait with the men from Rochford again.

Everything seemed out of sorts.

Nothing was how she had read it would be.

No story, ballad or legend had prepared her for the force that an attack by seven wizards meant.

Nor did it give her any idea how horrifying a defense against that could be!

Thurzó’s men had fortifications and hills and possibly workings had been set in place beforehand to counter sorcery. But if so much ruin was made when that attack was checked and countered?

What would it have done to the peasants, footmen and mere two knights that followed her on the march to battle?

Even if Jewel herself suffered not at all from sorcery as the Countess and the rest of the Sorcerer Lords thought (and Jewel was feeling incredibly doubtful of their assurance), that did not mean she would have anything but herself left amidst torn apart bodies.

And now if she understood the orders that were being explained to Bromthil by Father they were going to march deeper into the valley to line up and offer battle again closer to that terrible power?

With only the promise of their contingent of Wizards for defense? Euewyn with Jewel and the Rochford men this time.

Jewel had long hours to wait as the rest of the forces of Viznove rallied and marched out to the fields to stand and wait to see if they were now close enough that Thurzó would feel secure in ordering his forces to meet them army with army.

“Euewyn... is war always like this? I’ve read histories but they never write of anything like this.”

The Weird of autumn arrived and a sigh of wind moved through the air. Cold seeping into once warm bodies splayed out upon meadows and fields. Trees ripe with summer shedding leaves to brown and red.

Strength sapped from footmen and knights alike in their hundreds and thousands.

The wind in the leaves spoke of a lot and only half of it was in words. The other half in the not quite heard silent whispers that Jewel was slowly learning to understand was the way of sorcery as Wizards did it.

“Really... why would anyone even fight against a Wizard then?!”

There was a pause and then the sound of swords cutting through and down a robe of leaves, mere leaves, less armor than leather. Of the hard sturdy wood of bones and flesh beneath chipping at first and then the axes and the maces beating and breaking.

Branches snapping. Young saplings shredding.

Bark battered and sloughing off.

Of whispers coming too slowly to drive back or sap strength with cold.

Of fire stifled for lack of leaves to make its flame.

Of unending hoards of axe wielding men in armor and flight along the wind to escape when blood spilled from wooden flesh in an icy sleet of half frozen brooks that nonetheless was life blood precious now lost.

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Jewel spent a time thinking about her encounter with the Terror boar and nodded.

She could understand that.

Her situation for all her practice was not all that different then a Wizard in that.

“But that town, it was gone in a moment, all of you struck you... loosed your sorcery like arrows. But yet it was stopped before its mark? Can you do that too? Stop such a strike?”

Another pause then a firm nod and wind and strong autumn storms blew from that hood. Sounds of speed and fire sapped from the air, from the limb of archers, of arrows and their journeys cut short by the blade of the autumn sleet. Of the trees reaching high and burning in their stead.

Of the woods lifting their boughs to shield them.

Jewel shivered, she still did not understand why. Her scales and skin kept trembling since noon yesterday.

She felt heavy and leaden.

Her Wyrmflame seemed nothing but dull embers, sluggish to come to her limbs and coils even enough to hold her off the ground.

“There are going to be other wars for me... I’m going to have to march and fly and there will be wizards there. And armies, and other gryphons.”

Euewyn shook her head, or the space a head would be beneath her hat and the locks of her hair.

Then lifted a sleeve from her robes and placed a hand of pale white birch bark skin upon Jewel’s scales.

The fingers barely flexed to squeeze the wyrm’s shoulder.

There was no warmth in it, just cold wood.

But it made her feel a little lighter.

The wind whispered through the weird. Of the very end of summer yet warm, of single wizards holding back to merely watch the marching of soldiers through forests. Of the incredible and vicious demands made when men and women in finery and armor dared to ask for intervention by the one who would rather stay apart from all but their woods.

The price of a village left empty, its fields abandoned and all its roads and works grown over in eternally orange and gold leafed forest with pale smooth bark.

The price of one in three pigs or goats or wild deer drove into the hungry ever autumn forest.

Animals taken and driven from not just all of Rochford but all of Viznove and Zekhedge and their neighboring lands besides.

The price of a year without spring, summer or winter over a realm.

There was the faintest whisper, the sharp click of wooden branches near bare. The hiss of early snow settling.

Together they barely managed to almost make a word.

It was honestly only discernible for the welling of meaning that also whispered in the wizard’s way of sorcery.

But the word was there.

“kh-osss-t”

Cost.

The price being paid for the service of Euewyn for even a single battle as they had just been in.

Jewel felt her legs going weak and a moment later lost her footing and collapsed.

Much to Smithson’s concern, but she shook her head at his fussing and whispered something she hoped was comforting but did not even recall.

Jewel’s mind was too full.

The thought of what Euewyn Weird of the Autumnal Briarwood of Bothgola considered the right price to charge for a single battle.

A price that no matter how vast the realm was could almost assuredly not be afforded indefinitely.

Jewel shook her head, surely not every single wizard on their side normally took such a ruinous investment for their action. But even if Jaksa’s loyalty came at a tenth the price normally there was no way Viznove could have afforded all of them for even this battle.

Jewel felt her flame beginning to flicker alight again and she pushed herself back to her feet and more.

Settling back to the more comfortable gliding bound over land.

Smithson seemed assured by it and offered her a smile.

Jewel shook herself down again, but it was not the strange spastically felt trembles that had been rippling up and down her coils since yesterday.

Jewel was shaking loose that fear.

How deep did Thurzo’s coffers go?

How far could he have possibly bartered for the allegiance of Wizards given the sheer price demanded by most of them?

What favors left did he or the realm have to promise to keep them here engaged in battle?

How often would any army or war that Jewel was called to be able to afford such ruinous expense?

The price was almost unfathomable.

More than needed to feed the tens of thousands of men in the army surely?

Jewel thought she understood the strategy of the generals now.

And likely what Thurzó thought he would be doing as well.

After all, who would expect that Countess Bathory could afford Seven Wizards!?

When the time to march back out came again, Jewel already could feel a song building in her chest and running through her Wyrmflame.

Euewyn would see that Jewel’s people were safe.

Thurzó was assuredly not going to be able to maintain as large a force of Sorcery as the Countess’ Army.

And even though she was surely going to be called to war again. Most of her opponents would not be able to afford the aid of direct sorcery!

This siege was just especially bad for it required that they humble the coward Thurzó and his fat pockets filled by the High King of the Realm.

But after that it would surely not be so horrible.