From the journals of Vladimir Vlanovich:


3 Feb 1258

The tides of war are ever changing. Two weeks ago, a combined force of Nord jarls under King Ragnar wrested Curaw from the Vaegir Kingdom*, only to leave the city with a skeleton garrison while the jarls pillaged the Curaw Delta of its remaining wealth. It sours my spirit to admit, but in the interest of retaking Curaw under the noses of the Nords I left the peasants to their own devices even as I slipped past the Nord war parties.

It was late at night when I arrived back under the walls of Curaw. The Nord garrison of Curaw was, thankfully, still as small as it had been when I departed, and I ordered each of my men to light two torches to give the illusion of numbers. The garrison, probably taken aback by my sudden appearance, surrendered on the spot, on the condition that they be allowed to leave unmolested, keeping their flags and colours. I was only too happy to grant them safe passage, as I had serious doubts about my ability to take the city, despite my astonishingly bloodless victory over the taiga bandits. The look on their faces when dawn broke over my ragtag warband is one I will cherish to the end of my days.

In the dungeons I was able to free a large number of Vaegir troops, most of whom volunteered to join me in gratitude. My own men, however, were distressingly few, and among the paltry handful none of them knew what had happened to my companions. Marnid advised me to let it go, but it is advice I take with a grain of salt, as I overheard him grilling the horse merchant about Borcha.

I was informed that the Nords burned the men that fell in the siege, Nord or Vaegir, in a massive pyre the day after the city fell. It saddens me that my fallen ravens** were not able to be buried in the Vaegir custom, but I took solace in the fact that the Nords gave them proper warriors' rites as they would their own fallen.

I have sent word to King Yaroglek about the capture of Curaw, and requested immediate reinforcements. As a temporary measure I garrisoned the city with twenty-five archers and half again as many newly-levied footmen, and set out with eighty men – about twenty infantry, thirty archers, five cavalry and twenty-five raw recruits.

Now we shall begin the arduous task of retaking our hinterland from the Nords.

* Surviving tracts of the Vladimir journals does not describe the ill-fated defense of Curaw in the winter of 1258 except in passing, but it is vividly dramatised by the poet Nizar in his wildly popular 'Vladimir Romance', as well as by contemporary enginer Artimenner, who covered it with some detail in his 'On the construction and defense of walled fortifications and various engineering principles regarding masonry' (better known to modern readers as 'On Walled Fortifications'). At any rate the facts of the siege are well-known, from the tragic Charge of the Boyars and the last minute arrival of Vladimir's Bloodravens to the berserker endurance of the royal huscarls who eventually wrested the city wall from the Bloodravens. This historian will not burden the reader with them here.

** In his journals Vladimir often referred to his famous marksmen as 'ravens', alluding to the name of the mercenary company he formed and led before being anointed as a boyar by Yaroglek II. Though all his men wore a red raven on their breast Vladimir appears to have reserved this term of endearment exclusively for his archers.


6 Feb 1258

Today I encountered the Swadian Count Despin's war party near Sumbuja. He was ill-prepared, and his militia and footmen wilted under the rain of arrows from my archers, though the mounted men-at-arms punched through my infantry line and slew some five or six archers before they were cut down. He surrendered to me when I shot his horse from under him, but I let him go on account of our friendship. I can only hope he will do the same for me, if the time comes that our positions are reversed.

Count Despin's party was not the first Swadian war party I had encountered, though it is the only one I have decisively defeated recently. Depsite the shattering of their armies a stone's throw from Tilbaut Castle and losing the entire Dhirim Plateau to us the previous year, the Swadians have benefited greatly from the Nord-Vaegir war, allowing Harlaus to recover from his defeat and piggyback on the Nords' massive success. From what I hear, King Yaroglek is eager to pursue a peace, but Harlaus hopes to take advantage of the Vaegir Kingdom's weakness to reverse some of Swadia's losses of the previous year. Or, judging by his inactivity, merely dragging the war out in hopes of a more favourable peace settlement.

Either way, the time will come in the near future when the Kingdom of the Vaegirs is ascendant again, and Harlaus will rue the day he decided to bait the bear.


8 Feb 1258

My faith in King Yaroglek has been deeply shaken. When I arrived in Reyvadin, my heart was initially buoyed to see a vast host girding for war. A different picture quickly emerged when I approached the king in the Great Hall of Reyvadin. Although he commended me on my audacious capture of Curaw, he declined to march on Curaw to free the delta from the Nord infestation. The vast host I had seen camped around Reyvadin was, in fact, marching south for the Nord-held Dhirim Plateau. He claimed to want to strike at the Nords where they were weakest, but I saw a different reason in his eyes.

The king is afraid.

He is not the imposing man I grew up revering. The king has a host equal in size to that of the combined war parties of the Nords, but he is afraid of the Nords. More to the point, he is afraid of another major defeat against the Nords, which he cannot afford. Already a few of the boyars are muttering the name of Valdym the Bastard in the shadows of the Great Hall. The king hears the whispers, and fears that he will lose his kingdom if he leads his army to another major defeat. So he leads his host to easy victories in foreign Dhirim, while the Vaegir heartland is stripped bare by the Nords.

The boyars are no better. Most of the Curaw Delta boyars that survived the Charge of the Boyars are broken men, resigned to reversing their fortunes elsewhere, away from their ancestral fiefs. It disheartens me to find out that my father the Boyar Vlan is among that number, though at least my legitimate half-brother Boyar Kumipa is full of fire as ever. The boyars of the Reyva Plains, on the other hand, secretly rejoice at the downfall of their rivals. Though the war has affected the prosperity of the entire kingdom, the war has left the Reyva hinterland comparatively untorched, and therefore proportionally more influential. They have no problem adventuring in the Dhirim Plateau. The boyars of the Rock* are largely absent.

It is while sounding out the various boyars that I receive the news that Curaw is under siege once more. My half-brother Boyar Kumipa offers to join me in defending Curaw, but I counsel caution. Curaw is lost, and we will do the realm more good as able-bodied field commanders than as prisoners in a dungeon awaiting ransom.

I do not share my concern with even my half-brother, but I fear for the realm.

* Rock of Rivacheg


A/N: Not much to say, all comments appreciated. :]