Korentin Black
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Somewhere in Westfall.
The wet crunch as a muddy boot slammed into velvet-clad ribs resounded around the clearing in a way that caused more than one young face to crease in a wince, though there were still an unhealthy proportion of 'you wouldn't dare do that to me smirks and several what have I gotten myself into? grimaces. The petulant and impatient explanation of why 'Father will see you hung for this' is broken off however, and the young man currently operating on the nickname of 'pretty johny' flipped over in the mud to land gasping on his back like a landed fish, only to start to gasp agonisingly as the better part of fourteen or fifteen stone of armoured git plants that same boot firmly in the middle of his chest and presses down whilst glaring in a one-eyed but nonetheless vicious fashion at two dozen or so other similarly well-born youngsters.
"Let me put it to you another way." came a grim, but almost conversational statement from the lean and heavily scarred man who pointedly ignored the way fingers were scrabbling helplessly at his boot, "You are here to try and earn land, not to have it given to you. Your mothers and fathers will be proud of you if you succeed, and lie about how honourably you died if you fail. Your elder siblings will breath big sighs of relief either way."
The scrabbling underfoot took on a new, brief fervour as 'pretty johny' tried to draw the poinard from his belt and, the state of Algundian dentistry being what it is, promptly ceased to be quite so pretty as the other heavy boot slammed into the side of his jaw - none of which seemed to distract the speaker from his explanation of the reality of things to his aghast audience of young popinjays, "Now we are going to war against rebel noblemen - they've got house armsmen, but normally for a full-fledged rebellion like this, they'd hire mercenaries. Only right now all the mercenaries east of Gelderland are already hired. That means you've got time to raise the peasantry as something more effective than the usual sword-fodder levies. Each of you is a trained bowman and you've shown me you at least know which end of the sword, knife or spear goes in the other poor sod."
A vicious grin momentarily split the speakers face and unceremoniously he stepped forwards off the body of soon-to-be johny crookjaw, "But that's just half the battle - you can't hope to impress these folk with your blood unless you're spilling it for them. To them, nobles are vicious, predatory, sadistic and greedy. They've stamped out every bit of pride and independent thought for generations. The average Jaegerwalder nobleman is the kind of man who makes a republic seem like a damn' good idea and you lucky devils have got the job of convincing them that you're worth the land it'll take to bury you."
"But I tell you this... if you succeed, my brave boys and girls, you'll have earned your titles the old-fashioned way. With blood and with honour. When your time comes you'll be able to stand in front of the Goddess with a straight back and say that no matter what else you did in your life, you were once worthy of Algundy when she called. And if there's any better claim a soul can make, I've never bloody heard of it."
Turning slightly, Creed seemed to notice the fallen youth for the first time and his expression turned to one of dark amusement as he nodded towards the slowly breathing body, "Someone pick the boy up and take him to the chirchurgeon - drunken sot should be sober enough to set a bone and like as we'll need even him before we're done."
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1/Jun/2009, 12:59 am
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Korentin Black
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Somewhere on the Jaegerwald-Westfall Border.
Rain sluiced down onto the thick forest cover thirty feet and more overhead, filtering down through the interlocking branches and being channelled in the process into heavier streams, turning from a steady fall into veritable rivers in the sky, until at last they fell on the dark Algundian earth.
Completing the elemental set several low fires spat and smoked fitfully around the uncleared camp in which some twenty or so men went about their chores, and in accordance with the universal laws to which even the gods and elements bow, one of the streams was intermittantly pouring cold water into the gap between the back of Creed's hat and the borrowed cloak he was using to ward off the chill.
Not that he could allow it to interrupt the latest in a long line of meetings - half a dozen would-be revolutionaries, freethinkers and desparate peasants looking for a way to change their fates and the fates of those who look to them. More than a fair sprinkling of bandits too - though there were precious few of those worthy of the name in Jaegewald, with the iron boot of its nobility having crushed out even the gumption to take to the woods with bow in hand out of her population.
"Look, I know you don't like the idea of working with more of the bastards." he muttered with a gesture towards the rest of the camp - wondering not for the first time precisely what Isha was thinking when she stuck him in this position, and grimly certain that somewhere she, the Gray lady and most of the other gods of Old Algundy are laughing behind raised hands, "But the fact is that there have been what, twelve, thirteen peasant rebellions in Jaegerwald? - And every single one of the bloody things ended with a lot of folks swinging from gibbets. You burned a few manor houses, maybe killed a few families - then the rest came down on the rebels with household guards and mercenaries and stamped them flat."
"This time it can be different. But you've got to be clever - there aren't so many mercenaries to hire right now, they're all off working for the Duke and the Rebels - but there are still armsmen in mail coats and good buff leather, and you've got sharp sticks and only a rough idea how to use them. Then even if you bloody win the Archduke can't allow you to stand - you'd threaten his whole setup." - turning, the grizzled one-time Judicial Champion, sometime lawyer, part-time revolutionary and one-time (never again, from his heart to Isha's breath) dragonslayer hacked up a rough cough from acid-burned lungs and spat into the nearest fire without noticably achieving more than the ran already was, then looks back - "So you've got to ask yourself what you can get, haven't you?"
Turning his one remaining eye to meet that of each of the half-dozen unhappy looking men and women before him, Creed waited a little while for them to think it through - then went on, "And the answer is, a lot... The boys and girls I brought with me are younger siblings, the lot of them - they've got no hope of much at home, but they're trained in weapons and tactics. They know that the only way they'll ever have land is to earn it - and by the time they've finished teaching you bastards to fight they'll know that the only way they'll ever keep land is to bloody well deserve it - because they'll know that if they don't do right by you, they'll sprout feathers. And by then, you'll know which of them are worth the feathers in their hats."
"Better yet, the stupid buggers sitting in the manors all over Jaegerwald are rebels - so if you meet him half-way, the Archduke'll supply weapons - every petty tyrant you kill here is one less to join up with the rebel armies." - spreading his hands slightly, and grimacing more from the chilled ache in his joints than any particular thought of the campaign to come - "If you work together, if you are willing to aim for what you can get instead of struggling for what you can't, then your children will have a chance to grow up as free as any man or woman in Algundy. And their children? - Well, only the Gods know that."
A brief, dark grin plays between the straggly red beard that's becoming a singularly depressing fashion statement amongst halfwit rebels up and down the province, "Which brings me neatly to the final point... Most of you know me by reputation, and most of that reputation's rubbish. But one thing's true - I've stood against the Dark whenever I saw it, and it's cost me plenty to do." - almost unthinkily, a hand goes up to scrub lightly around the eyepatch that's the other half of rebel chic this year - "So you listen to me and listen good. The Chaubrette witch - I won't use her name and if you're wise, you won't either - is on the move. A lot of your nobles are touched by her. This isn't a war you can win by dragging children out of their houses and spitting them, or by rape and torture. Every time that happens, we lose someone to the East, and Algundy'll need every one of her children in the days ahead. You're not just fighting for the land of Jaegerwald, you're fighting for her soul - to decide which side she'll stand on when the Lost walk and the Witch raises her armies against us."
Another slow, wretched hacking cough works up through Creeds scarred throat and ends in an arc of sputum launched towards the fire before he looks back at an audience caught between hope and horror, disillusionment and inspiration... "I chose my side a while back. I've shed my blood for Algundy's soil, and I'll raise steel or bronze, tooth and nail against anyone and anything that comes against her. Where you stand - and where you lead your people from here on... well now... that's down to you.
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1/Jun/2009, 1:00 am
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Korentin Black
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Somewhere in Jaegerwald
Some days later, the rain hadn't stopped - but several groups of rebels had come and gone, along with more than a few young nobles and several loads of bows, but the arrival of a new problem saw a tired and more than slightly irritable (as if there's any other kind) Creed talking quietly and urgently to a brown-robed priest while intermittently glancing up at several slightly older-than-average Jaegervalders standing off to one side.
"I know that they're bloody heathens, but they're our bloody heathens. How else are we going to find out which village wisefolk are in league with the Dark and which are just following the old ways - like nine and nine tenths of people in the League up to and including the Archduke and his grace Simon, or don't you think I heard that he was at the ducal Harvest Ball last year?"
It had seemed like a stroke of inspiration to bring a saintly relic along to raise the peasantry when setting out on this little trip - particularly one so tied to the blood and soil of Jaegervald as the one laying a mere few yards away in its hand-carved reliquary. The addition of four stout Templars didn't do any harm either, since they were mostly fighting men who - having been selections of Simon himself - were both as tough as Wisbrooke granite and about as talkative, but the accompanying priest had been nothing but a pain in the buttocks from the first.
Pious enough to be sure, but filled with zeal and inspiration and not half enough familiarity with the way the Real World tends to get in the way of those nice, clean seminary certainties. Still, one more attempt probably couldn't hurt.
"It's simple. Jaegerwald is old fashioned, even by Algundian standards, right? - The priesthood up here's been squatting under noble backsides grateful for what they'll receive for so long that most people have had to do for themselves. That's meant some of the Old Ways, which are distinct and different from the Dark, even the Church recognises that."
"Now there are some up here who'll traffic with the fae - dangerous bloody stuff at the best of times, but there's not a peasant cottage in the Duchy that won't leave out milk from time to time or leave a portion of the hunt in season. If we start tracking that down then we'd better not make any plans for the rest of our lives."
"Then there are those who cleave to the old gods - most of which are pretty harmless, but some are worse than dangerous - a village priest who faithfully offers a little of his own bronze-cut blood to the soil and asks Isha for a good harvest at sowing time is one thing. There's no harm in it and trust me, I've seen enough of the Dark to know - but one who offers anothers blood, or who traffics in control of the Lost or the Corpse-eaters, or who makes curses... We've got to find them, question them and plant them face-down shallow graves, preferably in more than one piece."
"Now we don't have the time to dig through them before the Witch Queen makes her move, so we've got to use the people already in place - most of your village priests and wise folk will know their neighbours, who's to avoid and who's to turn to. Without their trust and assistence, we might win the war for Jaegerwald's land and lose the war for her soul - and I will not let that happen even if it means ending up in one of Simons 'interviews' at the end of this. Are we clear?"
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1/Jun/2009, 1:01 am
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