Chapter 392: ARC 6-Winter War-86-Interlude (Slaid)

Slaid was not having a good day.

It would be better to say the entire month had been terrible. The misfortune he found himself mired in, through no fault of his own, was astonishing. To a degree that would be unbelievable if he weren’t living through the events as they transpired, assuring him it was no nightmare or horror story.

The trail of misfortune didn’t begin with the deaths of nearly two dozen hunters in the city of Quest, though that was the point where things took a turn for the worst. It started with a small house in a cold land where the youngest son born of two servants dreamed of a better life. Everyone around him thought the only way to that life was through the sword but after watching three brothers disappear beyond the looming mountains, he decided to try a different path. He went south to the city of Quest and joined One For All.

For many years, Slaid was just another hunter. He traveled around the kingdom, slaying not-so-fearsome beasts and helping the odd villager. When he had a little more experience under his belt, he took to administrative work, organizing other hunters.

While he was doing that work, he was asked to advise hunters attending Victory’s campaigns. Under the current Duke James, the involvement of outsiders grew more and more. Rather than a few trusted individuals with connections to the north, anyone one with a weapon and a death wish could try their luck.

Forces numbering more than a hundred were being assembled and that many armed individuals caused problems, logistical and social, in far more easy-going places. As one of the few people with knowledge of the fort and its traditions, he had been instrumental to the success of hunters involved in the campaigns. Since the north was filled with plenty of treasures if you were strong enough to bring them back, the number of hunters flocking to Victory grew year by year.

Normally, he enjoyed his job but it had a tendency to drag him into many annoying situations. Though everyone had been dragged into the debacle involving the brewer. The noblewoman and the elf that had come to the halfling’s rescue inflicted a horrific amount of damage on the guilds. The injuries weren’t the worst of it. Hunters faced death every day and still got up in the morning to do it again. The loss of Guildmaster Emeritus was a terrible loss but he was an old man on the verge of retiring his position.

The true damage was to the psyches of the hunters. Harvest was, overall, a peaceful place. Hunters weren’t heroes, willing to give their lives for the weak and innocent. Not for the most part. They were adrenaline seekers. Those who chose to make their living through an exciting, though still fairly routine, job.

People died but if one was diligent and cautious, they could make enough money to retire early with the wealth of a merchant and enough interesting stories to ensure they received free drinks for the rest of their days. That was the dream.

They didn’t join guilds to fight crazy women in the streets and watch their friends be bent and broken by creatures they couldn’t identify, even with the combined records of every guild. The suddenness and brutality of the attack had stunned them. It left them feeling raw.

Slaid knew the men felt vulnerable. Like the knights that had been on one too many campaigns and couldn’t leave their houses without looking at the looming mountains, if they left their houses at all. It only got worse the longer the lord stalled in judging the killers.

Fear made men stupid. A dangerous thing when said men and women were trained with weapons and magic. And, because that wasn’t enough, an enterprising asshole attempted to make the situation worse.

Emberton. The grandnephew of Emeritus who had the typical Harvest attitude of claiming respect due to a more powerful family member simply because they shared blood. A very average man with above average ambitions and a slick tongue.

He was always searching for a platform. The death of the guildmaster was exactly what he needed to get people’s attention and he used it to whip them into a frenzy.

He urged the guilds to take action against the city lord. An impossible ask. To go against the lord was to go against the king. For as little respect they showed the lord, the guilds were under no illusion that they were genuinely independent. They were strong but they couldn’t go against the royal army.

Emberton knew the same, of course. The ridiculous suggestion was just a cover. He knew it would be rejected and the hunters would only grow more frustrated. Then he directed that frustration to a new target, the Hall. They were sheltering the killers and the Hall seemed a more acceptable target than the whole of Harvest.

The smarter members of the guild had been horrified, Slaid included. The idiots thought it was a good idea to challenge Dunwayne. The Harvest Hero might not be the fighter he was in his prime but he was still regarded as the strongest master caster in the kingdom for good reason. Even if a guildmaster or three could stop him, there was an entire school behind him, consisting of several master casters and hundreds of other casters of varying skill.

Slaid had been quick to intervene. Using a few of his connections, he managed to pressure Emberton into joining Victory’s upcoming campaign. Far enough away that his poisonous words could do no harm. He hoped the cold would cool the hothead down. Maybe a small part of him hoped the problem would disappear. It wouldn’t be the first time the snow swallowed a foolish hunter hoping to make a name for himself.

Yet, somehow, the unthinkable happened. Emberton managed to make more of a mess in Victory than he ever could have in Quest. He’d roped them all into a March to the Ancestors.

Slaid had good reason to be astounded by the development. He understood Victory and how they viewed outsiders. Only the powerful weren’t outright ignored and those who proved themselves were accepted, never welcome. There is no way a visitor could stumble across such a specific tradition and anyone who was taught it would know not to use it flippantly.

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For the whole of his seventeen years in Victory, Slaid had witnessed dozens of duels but only one March. It happened when one family suspected their rival’s eldest son of stabbing their heir in the back during a campaign. They demanded justice but had no proof. The suspected heir was also a once in a generation talent his family was loathed to lose. No peace could be found. It could only be settled in blood.

Even for the northerners accustomed to blood and death, whole families slaughtering one another to the last adult was hard. Seeing children with no family behind them consigned to servitude for the rest of their lives to avoid an early grave was especially hard. That’s what a March meant. Everything to the victors. The losers were wiped from history. Not even the wars recorded in ancient history were so brutal.

Without a doubt, Slaid knew Emberton didn’t understand what he was doing when he invoked the ancient tradition. If he understood what was at stake, he wouldn’t have risked it, even if there was no way he could lose.

The best-case scenario would mean he won and the noblewoman’s household was massacred. Depending on the words used, perhaps the whole of the Tome clan. Innocent people who would have no idea why knights in dark blue armor and helms in the guise of beasts were knocking on their doors, daggers in hand. That wasn’t what the guilds stood for. It would be a mark on their collective honor in the eyes of every other power besides the James family and that wasn’t good for business.

The worst-case scenario was that Emberton bit off more than he could chew and lost the March. If such an insane situation came to pass, Victory would not hesitate to march on Quest to collect from any guild whose members had participated. Even if it meant war with the kingdom. Even if it meant they had to kill every living creature in the city. The honorable knights wouldn’t enjoy the job but vows meant more in the north than they did anywhere else. They would see the March upheld, no matter the price.

The worst part of it was that there was a way for large organizations like the guilds, or the knight orders the rule was made for, to exempt themselves from the “everything you are” a fighter in a March wagered. Without that provision, there would be no orders. However, it wasn’t a procedure that could be done through a scribbled note. The representative for the guilds had to speak for them in the Witness Circle. A condition that normally never caused problems as only a native of Victory would be invoking a northern tradition.

When the message reached him, there were two days left of the three-day deadline. He spent most of the day running around, screaming at people who couldn’t understand that a few words spoken by a rogue idiot could doom them all if they didn’t act. He didn’t sleep a wink and the next day was spent on a storm roc’s back, a rare hybrid between a roc and a sky serpent. It was the only creature capable of making such a long journey in one day and it had taken many favors from people more important than him to gain access to it. With good reason. He nearly killed the beast, forcing it to it fly from dawn to deep into the night to make it to Victory in time. And he did make it. It just wasn’t enough.

Some people thought that the Bleak Peaks hosted the souls of fallen knights of Victory. That the howling wind was their war cries in the afterlife, their spirits forever trapped in their memories of battle, unable to pass until the Lords of Winter were put in the ground. A March called on the ancestors to bear witness. Many said the bloodthirsty spirits invited misfortune. It was a deep suspicion which also prompted the residents of the north to be careful when invoking duels of honor. A March drew their attention and their powerful anger destined fighters to a future of bloodshed. Some thought it a blessing, others a curse.

Slaid thought it was ridiculous but he was starting to believe. A curse was the only reason he could think of that fate would work against him upon arriving at Victory. He had to land, as flying over Victory without permission was a good way to get blasted out of the sky. Then, of all the guilds that could have been patrolling the road leading to the gate, he’d run into the Order of the Waking Beast.

His status as a “deserter” of the fort didn’t win him any favors with northerners but his blood was enough to keep most of them civil. The Beasts were the exception. They were always looking for a fight and his desertion was more than good enough of a reason to whip them into a frenzy.

Normally, a few good hits would drive them off but he was too tired to throw a punch and too exhausted to form a spell. After they roughed him up, they dragged him back to their order and left him bleeding on the floor. Still, he struggled not to pass out and managed to get them to bring someone in charge. The higher-ups tended to be a little more sensible. Enough to understand the gravity of his situation.

An older knight with an impressive sneer came and listened to his story. He even went off to inform someone more important. Slaid thought he had finally succeeded. He couldn’t believe his eyes when the same man returned and told the two members watching him, as if a man on the verge of passing out needed watching, to get him some food and water but not to let him leave the room.

He was being detained. Someone knew that he was there to stop a war and they’d had him detained. Which meant it wasn’t just a March. It was a March that involved powerful people. The leaders of Victory. The head of a knight order, maybe. He prayed to the saints it wasn’t a James. If those madmen were involved, there’d be no stopping the bloodshed.

Unable to hold on, he passed out. The next time he woke, the sun was on the horizon, his body hurt, and he had a massive headache. Still, he demanded to be let out. He hoped, if he could plead his case to the duke before the March’s end, he might be able to salvage the situation. The leader of Victory was not unreasonable, no matter how it seemed.

They let him go with no trouble. It was suspicious but he wasn’t the type to turn away a gift. Turned out it was more of a joke. The March was over. Against overwhelming odds, Lourianne Tome had won. That meant that she and her wife were far stronger than the guilds assumed. Come spring, she would be marching on Quest with Victory behind her.

If the previous month had been stressful, the coming ones would be hellish. He would have to run the gauntlet and try to squeeze the locals for information, most important of which being which guilds had participated. Then he would have to tell those guilds that everything they owned would be seized by some of the strongest knights in Harvest.

When they inevitably reacted with anger and disbelief, he would have to impress upon them that if they didn’t react properly, Harvest would be turned on its ass. And then he would have to quietly escape with his family before they either tried to pin their salvation on him or blame him for the growing shitstorm that would undoubtedly sweep them away.

 

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