RP Session 3: "The Diemen Gambit"

Landen watched Lancaelad's mighty struggle against the fearsome egg for a moment. "Doubtless you're right - it's why more worldly men than I command our soldiers." He turned to Rhoderick. "We care for pilgrims here, not warfare. I'm certain I couldn't even name any party of sellswords now grouped on our own borders. Many of our visitors hail from Khinasi where the name Ruornil carries more weight. Not to say that travellers don't gossip mind. You and I both know that monastery walls have heard all your secrets days before you stand between them even if the Lady of Mourning dwells there, but the folk who visit us aren't much concerned with private armies."

The Abbot smiled at Pavel. "But I'll pen a message and have it in Braeme before moonrise."

The Abbot wished them farewell with a yawn, as the party of Roesonians closed their brief visit. On the way out Pavel spoke briefly to Sister Niela at the door and the pair vanished down a partially concealed spiral stairway at the rear of the domed transept while the others made their way out. By the time they had mounted and plotted their route the Vosman re-emerged with a vellum bundle sealed with the sigil of the moon beneath one arm.

The gift that Reynir's essence bestowed upon Tovrunn seemed dulled in lands tamed by men, and so the swiftest route to Caerwil would be to follow the highroad south until it branched west to Silvertown and then turn north. The hills along the border there were well fortified and so travellers were almost certainly still riding those roads, if in lesser numbers. The whole journey should see them in Caerwil before nightfall, and in a major Medoerean city that should be no barrier to their business.

There was a sleepiness to Medoere by daylight. The breeze was lazy and the clouds seemed to hang lower in the sky. Birdsong was sporadic and unenthusiastic. The fact that a land's blooded ruler did much to reshape it was a familiar one, but in the upstart theocracy where glorious night shone brightest the contrast to stubborn and dour Roesone felt stark.

It was hard to believe that in all of their living memories (save perhaps outlanders like Tovrunn and Pavel) that this land had been entrenched in bitter conflict and that sheep now grazed on bloody battlefields. When they reached Silvertown to find the village surrounded by ditches full of freshly-sharpened stakes and defended by low earthen bulwarks it served as a stark reminder that the bucolic land might soon be once more plunged into conflict.

Rounding the placid Medoere lakelands and within view of the squat grey silhouette of Dargon Keep on the horizon, they passed by a small mercenary camp with as little fanfare as possible before hastening north the last few leagues to the north-western corner of the realm.

The town of Caerwil hunkered low amongst the rolling brown hills that stretched into northern Diemed, and approached from the south is was backdropped by the dark tangle of the nearby Spiderfell. The town was surrounded by thick limestone walls broken here and there by a blocky watchtower. Like so many Anuirean towns it had an ugly stolidity about it, though the few rooves that peeked above the walls sported colourful tiles in deep blue, faded iris, or chilly teal. The proud dome of the temple of Ruornil, open to embrace the sky at the apex like a blossoming bud, rose unmistakably over the rest. Anuire held a long list of more historic or grand places, but there was an odd comfort about Caerwil even with the sprawling tent town of soldiers around its gates.

Caerwil might one day grow into a city if conflict were to leave it unscarred, sitting as it did upon the gateway to the Southern Marches, but as things stood it was little more than a large town with walls not nearly so formidable that they couldn't be felled by a catapult or two. For all its fight there was no siege in the town, at least so far as Lan could see. And from here the Dieman infantry could swiftly surround the various fastnesses in the rough borderlands. That at least accounted for the mass of warriors in their midnight-blue livery settled around the walls. If the battle came it would be a counter-charge and not a fortress that met it.

Perhaps Abbot Landen had been right that Medoere's best hope lay in
magery and prayer? Bare steel was almost certainly not in their favour.

An unsettling calm drifted through the dusk, and then there it was: Around the edge of the hills they could now see the highroad, and not so far to the east the smoke of a hundred campfires mingled on the horizon and cast a pall over the borderlands beneath. There against the blaze of Avanalae's recumbent glory stood the rippling silhouettes of a city that should not be. A sea of dust-coloured tents laid out in perfect symmetry along the road, the glittering tips of spears aflame in the sunset. Great banners bearing the golden hippogriff of House Diem swayed lazily in the still air - hung as if the elements themselves held their breath.

They were miles distant, and yet the sheer menace of the Dieman army was overbearingly close like the heat on a still summer's day that sent sweat trickling down the back and into the eyes. Like a hungry wolf glimpsed through the trees.