Kistalfer to his right, all grayish orange stone, the bones of the earth raised up through magery to form an imposing barrier against men and beasts, the deep blues of the Vatyn behind with her white crested waves made for a suitably somber backdrop for the heavy atmosphere on the parley party.
At no point had Ulric ever thought he'd be negotiating with one of the Lords of the lands in Prespang, especially not after the events of the past month. Certainly, he had never dreamed that he'd trip across a subterfuge at the heart of the conflict between the Empire ruled by the Merchant Lords and the Orlethrem.
"You know, it's no wonder the Beastkin revolted." Ulric commented into the sullen silence that had fallen, "I'll bet nobody ever thought enough of them to give their clan leaders a cursed brooch to keep them in line."
There had always been a bit of an undercurrent of looking down on the Jormun from his experiences of the Prespangers. Nothing overt, they ran shops, they were seen mingling amongst the cities, they traveled freely. Nevertheless, Ulric had gotten the feeling that the shaggy fur, the exotic shapes of ear, and the bestial muzzles and snouts earned them a slight bit of hesitation to be trusted as completely as the Valin in Prespang. It was probably a legacy of the Beastkin tribes not really wholly integrating into the City-States. They kept strong kinship with the clans that called the untamed lands home, at the outer edges of the Gilded Thrones' control.
If he was guessing, and he was, Ulric would have chalked that up to the bias of whatever Eldritch dealing Elf was running this game. The Aes'r had a kind of nonchalantly superior attitude about themselves compared to the shorter-lived peoples. It was hard not to, when you watched them live and die three generations to your one. They had probably instilled those attitudes into their subordinates over the centuries, sort of a racist diffusion. Was racist diffusion a real social thing? Gods, he hoped not, but it might explain some of the stupidity that had gone on around the turn of the second millennium on Old Earth. They'd carried on like savages, mostly with a religious book as a prop to wave around if anybody asked them about it.
"Jormun tribes never accepted Magisters within their leadership. Always they kept their overseers at arm's length, fulfilling the letters of the law. It earned them the contempt of the Baronies, that they should enjoy the riches of the Empire while holding themselves in their conclaves." Miria replied, more thoughtful than he would have taken her for, which was a reminder not to judge a book by its plate armored, giant sword wielding cover.
Huh. That made some sense for the mutual mistrust that he'd observed. One group looked at the other as freeloaders, parasiting off of the efforts of the dedicated. The other group looked at the first as lackeys, subservient and absent integrity. Apparently, the Beastkin had an intuition, or maybe just an independent streak, that kept them from drinking the coolaid. Varrock would have been even more proud of his clan, that they had suffered and struggled was not in vain. They had kept themselves from under the mantle of coercion these long generations, as much as they could against an Empire.
"And I have spent my entire life suppressing and battling the various barbarian clans upon the Outer Reaches. I drove them from their homes. Forced them from their enclaves. Hunted them like animals." The Baron added, his tone holding a note of despair.
It wasn't easy to come face to face with the reality that your entire life was spent in the pursuit of a falsehood. Without true purpose. Wasted.
"What say you now, Baron of Kistalfer, will you continue to shield Prosper, continue to use your city as a shelter for her Magisters and as a finger on the fist that holds Prespang in the grip of the Merchant Lords?" Ulric asked, striking while the iron was hot.
Dark eyes stared into his own and he saw the answer, even before the man took the emblazoned circlet from his brow, into powerful hands, and turned the metal ring into a wad of gold, silver, and mangled platinum runes now clenched in his slightly trembling gauntlets. The tremors of an anger that would burn long, slow, and cold, until those responsible were dead and gone.
"No. Kistalfer is an aegis for Prespang. We are a sword to keep her safe, from enemies without and within. And I have one enemy for whom my axe thirsts, for the foreseeable future. The Siege Breaker will tear down Prosper's walls." Came the ringing declaration of war.
Ulric had to look over at his companion to keep track of that statement.
What the hell? He'd come over here to bully this dude into letting him buy some boats, not kick start a rebellion. The Empire of Prespang really was just a big hoax, an illusion held together by spider webs, indoctrination, and a little well-placed compulsion.
"This is a worthy cause, but my Glade Chief has not come here to convince your persons to finally embrace reason, he has come to bargain for rights to purchase ships." Taipan reminded gently, or as gently as she was inclined to, when dealing with her people's generational enemies, which was to say, abrupt, if not hostile.
With the clouds above, held together by the will of the High Weather Mage from Kistalfer, dissipating now that he'd released them, the Twins golden light was pouring in shafts down onto the lands again. Brilliant pillars of rich sunslight on deep blue water, shining on soft green, blue, and purple grasses of the plains outside the city, and dappling the canopies of the forest yonder made for an appropriate backdrop.
Seabreeze, salt laden, briny, and cool set the grasses and shrubs to whispering in their wavy shuffles, the rippling patterns sealing in Ulric's mind the poignant marvel of the moment. Varda was a land of unexpected wonder, of change and surprise, round every turn of the path. This result was unsurprising for its surprise.
At some point, he'd learn to stop expecting things, Ulric mused.
Objecting through her tone, the titanic Valin escort also took a single stride forward to menace his wife, "Ware your tongue, Blood Thorn!"
Ulric laid a hand on his mate's arm, to restrain her from putting the nocked arrow into the woman's leg. The tip was definitely poisoned, and that would do nothing to aid in his dickering.
"Enough!" Ulric barked, even as the Baron held up a hand to restrain his own second.
"Taipan speaks my mind, if more abruptly than I would have," He spoke aloud, the slight reproof towards his partner implied, as she subsided, letting the tension from her bowstring.
"We came under flag of parley, we received a greeting that demands recompense, and, now, we have granted the Barony abeyance from their ruler's entrapment. My duty is towards my people, and, as much as I am glad to remove a knight from my opponent's board, I have not forgotten the position of my own pieces." Ulric summarized plainly his stance.
"If we are not here enemies then we burn daylight to no cause if we are not moving towards a conclusion." He finished.
"Aye, the juvenile Archmage has a point. There will be ways for yonder Magister to know that their game is up. If end we make of our own role in this fool's theatre, then we needs must come to terms. It is my desire to be raking storms over the Golden Thrones until my tired old bones fall to dust." Spoke the gruff Nephel Mage, surprisingly in agreement with Ulric.
Also surprising that he'd referred to Ulric under the highest rank of magical user in the land. A title Ulric had no conceits to think he could justify. He'd met only a single being that had that kind of mastery of the arcane. Gother Cenur'it was the real deal, a sage of towering potency. Shor Iriel was probably a decade out from gaining the raw strength necessary from her core's might to match her brilliance to make the same claim, as best as he could tell. He wasn't there, not for a long time yet. What he had was a hell of a lot of raw theory from which to draw. In terms of control, finesse, sheer knowledge of what was possible he was probably farther from that pinnacle. Ulric just had a core that was cheating and the knowhow to abuse it.
Still, if he had one of Prespang's movers and shakers on his toes to that degree it wasn't a fulcrum he was going to leave unleveraged. Especially not if one of the results of this unexpected fortuitous meeting was that one of Prosper's own elite wizards was going to use that power to lash them with storms, flog them without mercy for their sins.
After Ulric was done punching him in the mouth, that is, he had no intention of letting the wrinkly old bastard off the hook for slinging lightning toward Taipan.
"It is done then." The Baron decided.
"My men were lost to yet more of the same folly that has gone on too long. The Praetor here was on her way to become one of the favored instruments of the Golden Thrones in their palaces behind the Iron walls. That she chose to commit honorable men to an ignoble end is no less than I have done, as my fathers have done. We are all of us steeped in this treachery, but no more. No enemy of mine is one that leads his kin out from under the shadow of Prosper." Tras Kistalfer decreed, using the tone of a man who decreed things once and forever.
A metal encased hand, larger than his own, was offered by the Lord of the nearby Prespanger City-State.
What else could he do?
Ulric took the offered hand, and the two made a single shake to seal the end of grievances of the past. Hurts not forgotten, but not to be carried forward. It was the duty of a man who would lead his people toward a better future not to wallow in the past, even when that past was loaded with hard feelings. Now he only had need to make certain that the Orlethrem and Freemen under his banner would follow suit.
"Done then." Ulric agreed, "No more does Kistalfer stand enemy in my eyes. We are square between the two of us. There is the little matter of that Magister on your wall though. And I do still have some things to say toward Master Geras, over there." Ulric added, hoping that he wasn't burning a bridge before its paint was done drying.
Miria helmeted herself, and so did the Baron, which Ulric wasn't ashamed to admit made him a touch nervous. But, fortunately, he was soon disabused of any notions of ill intent. For him, anyways.
"I return to my city now, [Lord of the Ancient Glade], to declare to Prosper that her crimes are now known." the Baron said, even as he threw himself up on his glorious feathered mount, "And you may forget about the Magister. He will not survive my complaint towards his Masters' use of slave runes upon my father's line, or upon my Prespang."
Immediately upon delivering that line, the ruler of these lands turned his bird with his knees and goaded it into a fantastically fast sprint back toward the looming walls.
His bodyguard spoke to the rest of the abruptly adjurned party, her clear voice, curt but not rude, "My Lord has matters that demand immediate attention. Forgive his suddenness. We must see to our Kistalfer and her people's needs, but the matters raised here are not forgotten. Return two days hence, and you and your people will be welcomed as honored guests of my Lord."
She easily raised herself into the saddle of her own bird and an abrupt, "Not you, Geras." almost made the elderly man trip from his attempt to stride his own mount.
"You belong now to Lord Ulric of the Ancient Glade. Your retirement, with full honors and pension, has been accepted and will be conferred when you return with your new Lord, two days from now. It has been an honor, High Mage, serving with you. Peace be on you and the Vatyn's winds to your back always."
That had the sound of a fond farewell wrapped in a death sentence. The dichotomy almost made him chuckle.
Geras' narrow lipped expression said he understood exactly the situation and he bowed shallowly, intoning, "Glory to Kistalfer, and prosperity to her people." the final words of a dead man.
A nod of the great helm was her parting word for the old mage and Miria, fist of the Baron, turned to rejoin her liege, who looked like he was going to set a land record of some kind getting back to the city.
Once again dragging himself up to stand tall against his staff, the High Mage of Kistalfer addressed his new liege with as much respect as he had his old.
"I'm old pup, get on with killing me if you're going to, or I'll rob you of the chance while we stand here. I earned it, calling skylances under parley." Grouched the elder mage, clearly unrepentant.
Ulric nodded and made a twirling motion with his hand toward the dusky Amazon at his side, "All yours Lady Taipan."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The disheveled Mage's blue eyes widened in time to catch a straight right cross between them and the geezer flopped to his back in the dirt, knocked cleanly from consciousness by the hearty punch, his staff clattering with metallic ringing as it hit the ground.
"There." Ulric told the plains, satisfied.
He turned to take in his partner, to be sure she was acquitted of her grudge.
"You can still have his life, you know. I would not say against you in this, he did deserve as much." Ulric assured her, once again saying things that would have sounded insane a year ago.
The Iriel'en former Hunter merely shook her growing locks, midnight-tinged blue under the suns, and smiled at her mate.
"As your Shadow, I see uses for a practiced weather mage in your entourage, to join the Treeweaver. This one is known to my people, as are all the high mages Prespang might have had to send against us. He is known to be puissant, though he has never come personally against the Orlethrem, having always been observed on the fringes to the West and North. You will find value in his service, though he nears his end, and knows it." Taipan advised.
Head tilted, he inspected the wheezing greybeard enjoying his temporary time spent wherever dick ass mage's went when they were getting their just desserts. Other than that gnarly smoker's voice, the Mage didn't seem to be in bad shape. Pretty spry, all things considered.
"He doesn't look so bad." Ulric countered, not really arguing, merely prompting his partner to continue to enlighten him.
Taipan crouched over the man she'd punched into darkness, pointing to several liverspots, the first Ulric remembered ever seeing on Varda. She then held up a hand, its thin blue veins readily apparent. None of these were anything particularly unusual to him, plenty of older folks had them. He said as much.
"I am not a medicos for the Otherkin, but I know the signs when age closes in on them, Ulric. This man has burned his life's candle close to the wick, drawing hard upon his energies, fueling his powers with his mortal coil. It wears his remaining strength thin, weakens him beyond his years." the green-eyed woman told him, indicating the sallow skin, the small details that, to an Iriel'en hunter told a tale of rapid decline.
Scratching his beard, Ulric looked again at the ragamuffin that was a heavy hitter round these parts. When he wasn't pulling clouds together by force of will he looked like somebody's grandpa. And like he maybe enjoyed his pipe and snifter a bit too frequently. Other than that though, Ulric took him for any senior citizen in the late eighties. Maybe that was the perspectives of his old life skewing his thoughts again though. You basically accepted that the last third of your life was far inferior to the middle third of adulthood, that was just how it worked on Old Earth. On Varda? Where everyone was a far healthier, Olympian version of their Earthen counterparts? It made sense that a codger showing this kind of age would be considered on their death bed, especially if they were slinging around mana.
"Is he useful?" Ulric asked, getting to the heart of the matter.
Taipan made the hand sign that was ambivalent.
"Perhaps. If you can convince him to employ his gifts at a place and time of your choosing, and if he will not destroy himself by utilizing his core's strength too greatly. In this case, then yes, holding the falconer's glove to release Geras Blackskies will indeed be a boon to your cause." Lilted the Elf, high praise granted begrudgingly to her people's enemy.
Former enemy, Ulric supposed.
Odd world. Odder life. His second go round was proving every bit the adventure that his first had not. For good and ill.
Speaking of ill, Ulric noticed that the pair on the pavilion overlooking the idyllic coastal plains was gone. The Magister and the Archer were both not to be seen.
*Crack*
A report like a distant gunshot rang out across the grassy plains, heard easily over the calls of gulls, wind, waves, and birdsong.
Ulric had not long to wait to discover the origin of that sound. The flag of Prosper, her pinion proclaiming the dominion of the Golden Thrones over Prespang and Kistalfer her vassal state, was lowered. Without delay, a new pennant was raised, the bloody robes of a Magister, split neatly down the middle and crudely tied together now flew atop the tallest spire. Baron Tras Kistalfer's position was thusly made clear for all his city to see and for every ship that passed within sight of the great port.
The somber, dignified man knew how to make an eloquent statement, Ulric had to give him that. In many ways, meeting with the Baron had revealed with incredible poignancy that Ulric, to the surprise of exactly nobody that knew him, himself included, was not really leadership material. He simply had no interest in it. Had not the temperament. It would be like making Galed Uldin ruler of Irielhos. He was a craftsman, a scholar. Ruling people wasn't in his wheelhouse. Taipan could do it, but she likewise had not the desire. They were both of them too motivated by their own preoccupations to give being charge of others their full attention.
Which meant that Ulric was going to have to find some sucker to take charge of these poor idiots following him before he led them to ruin on accident. A good leader knows when to delegate. Right?
"Fucking hell, the wheels came off it today, didn't they?" He asked Taipan reflecting on the events of the past half hour.
"I did not anticipate that you would grab a skylance like an unruly drake, wring its neck and drink its blood before browbeating the Lord of Kistalfer as if he were a youth fresh from his mother's side. My heart was in my throat when you told the Valin Warlord that he had abandoned his duty. These are words that would have the challenge laid between Iriel'en, no matter how justified they were." Taipan said, rising to take her place at his side, her bronze flecked, slightly canted eyes staring at the distant city.
She shuddered slightly, one of the rare shows of nerves that he ever observed from her.
"You would not have killed that man, not on a challenge floor. I have met his like a few times and none of those would I try without the aid of a moonless night and a long sight line." The Iriel'en huntress said without shame.
Ulric wasn't going to disagree with her. The whole time they'd stood before Kistalfer's ruler he'd carried the unease of being next to a tiger on a very thin leash. From afar, with his magical talents and tricks, Ulric wasn't at all convinced he had anything to fear from a warrior such as Tras Kistalfer. Standing right in front of him? He'd paste Ulric, lightning or no. The island of calm he surrounded himself with hid a volcano.
"Yeah, that wasn't something I thought out. Still, it had to be said. If he wasn't so guilty and already suspicious of my claim, he'd have been even harder to convince." Ulric told his partner, trying to wrap his head around the events that had just occurred.
There had been a part of this that had not been news to the powers that be in this land. Many of those holding the reins were greedy fools, ambitious and spoiled by their wealth and power. This Baron was not one of those. He'd held his own counsel, had secreted his fears that not all was right. When Ulric had tripped across the possibility that there was an element of sneaky magical nonsense involved, the long-held reservations came bubbling to the fore. That was probably mostly due to the nature of the compulsion. Tras Kistalfer did not give him the impression of a man that feared much; for him to feel the intrusive dread generated by the collars had to be unnatural. Having direct evidence at the means employed to subvert his will, to lash his mind into subservience was unbearable. It was an assault upon a man who would not accept insult without response.
"Gods, the balls of whoever was running this deception! Prosper's gambit was one hell of a risk. It won them ground, for a long-damned time, but holy hell, can you imagine the response when word gets out that the Baronies have been ruled by men and women wearing a posh slave collar? The Empire's done, it's just a matter of time now." Ulric thought aloud, sharing his conclusions with his more experienced mate.
She looked to him, wearing pride openly on her features, lips turned upwards, ears bobbing excitedly, the picture of an Elf maid thoroughly pleased.
"We have broken their backs, Ulric. We two have driven an arrow deep into the gaps of the Empire's armor, piercing the ties that have bound them together. Revolt will shatter Prosper's hold for a generation, time enough for my Father to recover his strength, time enough for my Lumyt'seit's bold plan to break the mercantile stranglehold on Aesvartheim." Taipan said, wonderingly.
Ulric snapped his fingers and cursed, "Damnation!"
Taipan immediately scanned the surroundings, looking for threats, assessing her reserves of mana to defend them from whatever might come, "From where, Glade Chief!"
Sullenly, Ulric told his mate, "I forgot to get his bird in the deal."
Scowling, Taipan did as her mother's rearing demanded and slugged her partner, hard, knocking him to his seat in the dirt.
"Oof!" He grunted as he landed, before laying back to get the slight spinning of the terrain out of his system.
Still dazed slightly, Ulric looked up at the perfect features of his love, rubbing her fist while glaring down at him, and smiled an apology, and made the Iriel'en hand sign for "Sorry". He'd had that coming, startling her like that.
His Shadow offered him a hand and he accepted her help up. He didn't really need it, he was perfectly fine once his eyes uncrossed, but it was the thought that counted.
"If you are done shaving the years off me with your antics, may we be gone? Two days was the agreed upon meeting," Taipan reminded him, serious in her role as his protector and furtherer of his cause, "And, this next time, we bring your peoples with us into one of the great cities of Prespang."
She cleared the growing bangs from her eyes, it having entered awkward place where it likes to cling before the eyes, distracting, but not so long to easily tie back. The peevish gesture was nerves, his lass was concerned.
"This marks the first time non slave Aes'r born of Orlethrem have done so in no telling how long." The daughter of Bald'rt informed him.
Ah, yeah. That's right, one of the chief 'exports' of Prosper was slaves. Among those, the long lived Aes'r were prized and fetched a pile of coin.
"Will my ducklings make trouble in the city, when they are exposed to the ways of the Otherkin?" He asked his partner, now troubled at the thought of bringing so many former enemies together, no matter how short lived that was to be.
Taipan rejected that instantly, "No, Ulric. Not if you make clear to them that this goes against your desires. They pester and mock, but they are Orlethrem. They know their debt to you and will not undermine your authority in front of the Otherkin of Kistalfer. It is more likely that some pompous city dweller who has never tasted the night sky will offer insult and one of yours will be forced to lay challenge. Or, worse, they will be a cripple and it will be you, their Lord, who will offer the challenge in their stead. Such is your duty to them, as their obedience is their duty to you."
"Fun, fun." Observed Ulric.
He'd bitten off more than he could chew rescuing these damned Elves. When was he going to learn to mind his own business?
"The High Mage finds his consciousness once more. Let us be away, I would have a meal and, perhaps, a celebratory drink. It is a great thing that has been accomplished today, a cup or two of that mead is in order." Taipan suggested, one Ulric was all too happy to follow post haste.
"Urgg…Fucking Brownies, why didn't you just stick me and be done with it?" Moaned the old mage from his place amongst the shin high grass.
"My Glade Chief has use for you yet, Blackskies. You are his now, as your former Lord decreed, unless you wish to try to challenge him for your freedom?" Taipan left the question hanging.
He wished she wouldn't casually put his name in the hat for blood sports like that, but the governments and cultures had their own way of operating on Varda. Many of them revolved around personal strength, perceived authority, and influence. All of these were more valuable than coin. A reputation was a thing crafted over a lifetime. Allowing it to be sullied could mean the end of one's place within society, to become a pariah.
"I gave my lass the choice what to do with you, she decided against watering the roots with you. Now, are you going to lay there all afternoon or are we going to make way back to my camp before the Twins find their rest?" Ulric snarked.
The ragged robed man raised himself with alacrity that belied his Wife's claim to his infirmity, dusting grass off his once fine clothes. He picked his staff up and immediately assumed the slouch against its support.
Ulric didn't know exactly what to think of this man. He'd launched a sneak attack with vicious precision and intent against all custom, fully intent to destroy Ulric and his partner where they'd stood. Since then however, the mage hadn't made so much as a whisper of aggression towards them, not even when Ulric had delivered a fairly harsh diatribe against his presumptive Lord. Brusque, blunt, and with a sailor's tongue, but the aged man hadn't told any lies and had accepted what was likely death at his Lord's will without complaint. An odd mixture of things was High Mage Geras Blackskies.
"As my new pup Lord reckons. Might be a change in the scenery will do my bones good. Asides, what man wouldn't take the chance to breath in the air near Geyrt Iriel?" Geras croaked, winking towards Taipan shamelessly.
His wife groaned, "I should have chosen the knife." but merely turned and advanced back toward their home base, beginning her self-assumed role of scout.
So began the much slower return across the plains and into Kistalfer forest. Ulric and Taipan, being both rather fine specimens, if he was allowed to be so bold, had made the fortyish kilometers in about six hours, including taking time to fight the [Cloud Leopard] and fasten the hundred odd helmets to his totem pole. With the limping, grumbling Mage in tow they did not arrive to the great Greenwall, with a pair of crossed trees larger around than Ulric could grasp hands forming a living gate, until very close to full dark.
"Hot damn, Brodin does quick work!" Ulric exclaimed, looking at the torches that burned at regular points along the top of the great living tree and bramble wall.
They weren't getting into the perimeter of the budding village without going through the gate, not unless they wanted to brave the three or four meters thick mess of nasty looking brambles, likely poisonous ones, because this was Varda, and climb thirty meters to get over the wall. It wouldn't stop a determined attack by an army, but damned if it wouldn't slow them down.
"Oi!" He called, "We've returned! Someone mind getting the gate?"
"Toll's an Aur Squire, double for smelly Valin-ooph!" Came a bullish, if melodic reply from within, cut off by the sound of being slapped on the back of the head.
"A moment, Glade Chief. The mechanism needs the two arms, and I have only the one." Came another less strident Elf voice and, after a few sounds of scuffling later, the gate opened inwards, driven by some system or machinery Ulric couldn't see from outside.
Two male Celestin greeted him, characteristically short and blond haired, a young male with one eye and many scars tracing his features, and also missing a leg below the knee, was rubbing the back of his head. His partner, an older Elf, as he had claimed only had the one arm, the other ending at the elbow. The baton held in his remaining hand had a few strands of blond hair embedded on it.
"My thanks to you both for holding the gates," Ulric offered, by way of apology for the late entry, "I had not expected to find the entire camp walled in by Sunsrest."
"'Twas our pleasure to man the portal, Glade Chief. Welcome you back, your Lady Taipan as well. A few stew pots still have a meal's worth to them, if you wish." Offered the chastised Lowlands Forest Elf, with a few side eyes at his partner's club.
Ulric bit back a chuckle at the goings on of the Aes'r and their tenuous hold to propriety. Most of them had bounced back from almost lethal depression and trauma by embracing absurdity, finding jest and laughter in nearly everything. Sometimes to the exclusion of their own Elvish standards for courtesy, hence the gentle reminders from time to time. Those who had been unable to make that transition had walked off a tall cliff into the Vatyn's embrace. Tragedy and courage, all wrapped together, as was so often the case. On Varda. On any world.
Now ensconced within a walled, and quite formidably fortified area, Ulric found himself relaxing, a tension he hadn't realized was there going out of him. Even the lesser beasts roaming the forest were dangerous, their fangs sharp, their claws grasping. Caution and readiness were the rule and having at least some sort of barrier between his hide and the megafauna was greatly easing. There was good reason every ground-based settlement possessed a wall.
"Blow me down! It's Elves! How in the Seven Hells did you get this many Elves into Prespang! And why'n'the Hells are they all chopped up?!" Exclaimed the lame Mage following him.
Ulric turned and leveled a serious look down on the wrinkled hide of the man, saying without the heat he felt inside, "I freed them from two of Prosper's hidden torture camps, where they were being broken to attempt the creation of the Bane. Where they had succeeded at least thrice, as I was forced to destroy a pair of bane cores before I left that place, and one had been used to attempt to slay Bald’rt, sire of my dearest wife. They follow me, because they had been stolen from their homes, sold as slaves, and mangled at the hands of Valin, and had no place else to go,”
Severe of expression, Geras saw a glimmer of the creature that had stayed his former Oathholder’s hand from violence, in spite of blatant insult.
Ulric turned his attention to the camp again, to bask in the productivity of a few hundred working in earnest together while he made clear his relation to the Aes’r of the camp.
“My choices were few and I gave them the decision to make: to kill them all for mercy’s sake, or, for those who would live, to guide them to safe harbors and see them given a chance to find a life that may hold joy again. They are mine, old man, and I keep them."
Geras knew he had let his tongue find the bottoms of his boots, again, and backtracked.
"No offense meant lad, none. I was surprised is all." The High Mage apologized.
He looked around between campfires noticing the missing limbs, the abundance of crude crutches, the odd number of boots laying around next to shelters.
"Where did you find these foul sites, if you don't mind my asking?" Geras inquired, rough voice smoothing somewhat in the face of the appalling scene that played through his thoughts to have produced so many savaged Aes'r.
Immediately Ulric replied, "Port Edunshire and a nameless place at the edge of the mire about a hundred kilometers away, where the highlands fall."
"Reg's balls! You didn't bring this lot across the Crags, did you? Lad there's good reason we Prespangers like our boats an’ our walls. There's better reason we don't build settlements out there in the first place! How'd you keep the monsters off you?" Geras cried in disbelief.
Ulric pointed toward Taipan, who had gone off to find a stewpot that was still holding riches.
"Mostly her." Was his soft reply.
"My mate is a gifted Hunter and a formidable scout. She took us around most things and slew what we could not go around, most of the time. A few times we did not keep the monsters off us and had to destroy them. There were losses. But any time you doubt the courage of the Aes'r remember that these came across the highlands after an ordeal that would be unimaginable. Prosper has much to answer for, these here high among those things." Ulric recounted briefly.
Drily, he said in that tone that is not quite joking, "These Elves are my people now, because I had not the sense to walk away and ignore their sufferings. So too are those who called themselves your kin, because I gave my word that I would save what of them I could from your own troops. I find myself coming across strays from all corners, these days."
"It appears I have found another one, if a bit long in the tooth." he said, and now he did chuckle.
"Phaw!" Coughed the Nephel Mage, "I've got oil in the lamp yet."
The old man pulled himself from his slouch briefly, leaning hard on his magnificent staff.
"Don't think a few skylances are all I can manage, and I'll not be feeding you any more of those! Besides, you've said you mean to make Prosper pay dear. I find that a notion I can share. My best years are behind me, given to those heart twisting bastards, but they'll find Geras Blackskies at their gates, before the end."
Ulric smiled and slapped the old geezer on the back, almost upsetting him, declaring brightly, "That's the spirit!"