Halkegenia Online v3.0 – Chapter 5 – Part 1
Kingston on Hull was a city under martial law.
It was no more than a few days since the incident beneath the cliffs, a black powder carrying merchantman blown to pieces by her own cargo, producing a thunderclap so loud that it had shaken the city and left the populace on the verge of panic until sunrise, fearing that they had come under attack. The people had heard about the battle of York months ago, and the stories had only grown with time.
The Faeries were attacking. This had been a feint. Or a failed attempt. It was the beginning of some new strategy. No ship was safe. And the port itself might be destroyed in an instant!
There had been demands to the government of Lord Cromwell, cries from the masses for protection, and calls from the merchants and nobility, whose wealth depended on the port, and which financed the ambitions of the new master of Albion, to guard their interests.
Lord Cromwell and his military advisers had heard the pleas of Kingston, and they had amply obliged. The Dragon Knight Squadrons had been re-positioned, patrols had been re-prioritized and the customs cordon had been extended out over the ocean. Now, all ships approaching the port were to be thoroughly searched before docking. It would not deter the smugglers who knew ways to circumvent the Navy's best efforts, but it would do to keep anymore flying bombs from wreaking havoc.
That had done to satisfy the concerns of the powerful, the Landholders and the Merchants, it did not satisfy the Army whose leaders had decided the measures taken to prevent seditious activity in a vital trading city had been entirely inadequate up to this time. Now that their concerns had been born out, they could attack the matter with some 'real teeth' as it were.
'Really, they're just trying to cover their asses.' Sir Richard Holland thought as he surveyed the streets from high up atop the saddle of his perched fire dragon, the powerful brute of a drake shifting back and forth beneath him but otherwise tolerant enough of his rider.
"Is he any better today than last?" Sitting opposite of Holland and his mount atop his own dragon, Ensign Blair Trayvor called over to him with a look of mild amusement coloring his features.
The two of them had been placed guarding the archway gates that separated the port district from the rest of the city, sitting up on the high stone wall, like a pair of squatting gargoyles. Coupled with their vantage from their saddles, it gave a fair view of the city, and the traffic currently backed up quite a ways. By official order, three of the four gates servicing the port had been closed, leaving only this one open to travel, all comings and goings monitored by the city garrison.
That left the Knights on watch with little to do save remain alert and observant until they were needed.
"I can't really claim to know, one way or the other." Holland patted his dragon's neck with the same firm motion that Blair had shown him. "But we're so retched together I should think I would notice even a slight bettering of his mood."
"Aye, he's got it in his head how you are now, you're going to have to prove him wrong for a while before he'll give you the benefit of the doubt." Blair offered up, scratching his smaller and decidedly more at ease drake along his flank. "You're in luck. Fire Dragons will forgive you if you stick with them. A Wind Dragon won't forget a slight."
Was that so? Holland wondered. "Guess I should be thankful you're an easy going sort," he tried to say in the same soothing tone of voice as Blair, "Huh boy?"
Horus' head swayed from side to side, the dragon giving a small huff.
"I'd say that's a good start." Blair grinned. "Just got to keep'm relaxed, Horus'll know how to handle himself when magic and shot is flying, it's when his rider gets anxious that he doesn't know himself, aye?"
"Aye." Holland answered before turning his attention back to the streets.
"Sure is a lot of people." Blair muttered under his breath. "Never seen so many before."
"You mean Kingston?" If memory served it was just a hair under one hundred thousand souls, all told.
"Aye, I've never spent so much time in a place like this in all my life. My mother raised me in the country, on the Western cliffs."
"Your mother?" Holland asked. "So I suppose your father . . ."
"He passed not long after I was born." Blair said without much emotion, either good or bad, coloring his voice.
"Ah." Holland leaned back in his saddle. "You have my condolences for your loss."
Blair shrugged, a motion that came with the ease and indifference of practice. "I don't need condolences over a man I never knew." Blair stopped, as if he was finished speaking before blowing a breath. "Just know that mum loved him, thought the world of him. It's a shame for her he isn't still around."
It occurred to Holland that he might have made a dreadful mess of things by touching on the subject. Years of being tied to Meinhardt had left him little choice but to dig his way out of such gaffs when they occurred. The best retreat, in his experience was a sharp change of subject.
"I suppose for someone born in the western provinces it would be a bit overwhelming." Holland nodded to the crowds. Beneath them, a merchant had just gotten down from his cart and was presently locking horns with the garrison Lieutenant on watch. It looked to be well in hand, Holland appraised, the usual bickering over the delays and inconvenience, and if not, that would be their signal to step in.
Blair rolled his eyes and gave a sharp laugh. "I'm supposing this is where you start calling me a poor, back woods provincial."
So, not the answer he had been expecting.
"Not at all!" Holland waved his hands quickly. Beneath him, Horus gave another agitated huff and needed to be settled down again before he went on. "I was merely saying that it is a change. And this is nothing to the likes of the Capital."
Londinium was five times the size of Kingston, and when the outlying towns and cities that serviced it were counted up, the region was by far the most populous in all of Albion, nearly a million people all told. He had been speaking only the truth.
"It's easy to forget that not everyone has spent time in the cities."
The fire of Blair's temper sated, for now, the Dragoon settled back in his saddle. "I'm not, you know . . ."
"Hmm?"
"Some backwoods know nothing, I'm not. Mum taught me everything she could, and I learned everything she couldn't by myself." Blair shrugged again. "I've gotten pretty good at it, teaching myself, or finding someone who can teach me."
"Is that how you learned about dragons?" Holland asked, the rather romantic notion of a young lad like Blair learning his trade as a stable hand coming unbidden to mind, perhaps he'd spent too much time reading mother's novels as a boy.
"Aye." Blair nodded. "Something like that."
"Well then, Ensign, I meant no offense, only that you should enjoy the newness and perhaps once our watch has ended we can have a look around before returning to barracks."
Blair perked up visibly at that. Lock down or no, Kingston was a port city, the war and blockades had damped that, but the city was still alive and as such still a place where entertainment and novelties could be found.
"I'll have to grab Meinhardt though, I think he knows the city." Blair scowled. "Of course," Holland confessed, "Asking Meinhardt will probably just end with us spending the night in a brothel."
"Ah . . . No thanks to that . . ." Blair shook his head quickly. "I mean, I don't need to get on any worse with the Lieutenant than I'm going on now."
"Too true Ensign." Speaking of the devil as he should appear on the wall beside them.
"Sir!" Both Knights gave salutes from their saddles.
Lieutenant Sir William Wells waved for them to be at ease. "How goes the watch, Sir Holland, Ensign Blair?"
"No signs of a trouble, Sir." Holland reported.
"Quiet as the grave, Sir." Blair agreed, and thought something of an exaggeration, it was not far from the truth to say that there hadn't been any notable disturbances the whole watch. Holland had heard mention of an incident the day before, a half dozen smugglers rounded up to be dragged off to the garrison HQ, but little else since then.
"Good." Sir Wells nodded. "I'd prefer that it would stay that way, but I'd ask that you keep at highest alert all the same."
"Of course, Sir." Holland frowned. "Sir?" The Lieutenant looked ill at ease, giving them not long to guess before waving them both down from their saddles.
Giving Horus another pat on the neck, Holland unclipped his harness to drop down to the paved roadway that ran along the top of the district wall, Blair following suit a moment later with far more personal grace than Holland had managed in his own dismount.
"Is there a problem," Holland looked every which way for eavesdroppers, "Sir?"
"That depends Ensign." Sir Wells said carefully, only the barest hint of weariness entering his voice. The Squadron Leader had been run ragged these past days in attempting to placate the local land holders who had called on the Dragon Knight's for help in securing their city. "I've just been released from a meeting held with the garrison commander. The flotsam retrieved by the Navy has been examined."
Dragoon and Knight remained silent as Sir Wells rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "One of the Frigate captains performed a sky dive to follow the wreckage down to the sea, else it would have all sunk or been picked to pieces by the Dragon Sharks. The debris showed burns and splintering consistent with a powder explosion. The Brimir's Bounty was blasted apart by her own cargo."
"Aye, begging your pardon, that doesn't sound like any sort of news, Sir." Blair shifted from side to side impatiently.
"No." Sir Wells agreed. "That is exactly what we were expecting. I'd be more suspicious if there was anything but matchsticks left of the ship. While sifting the wreckage, the Navy found a survivor, that is to say, one of the sailors off of their patrol cutters. Two were destroyed in the detonation."
The patrol ships? Holland shared a looked with Blair who looked no more convinced.
"A ship's officer then?" The junior Knight wondered. He'd have to be a mage to survive falling a league and a half into the ocean.
"A commoner airman." Wells corrected. "He may have been stationed on the ship's far side when the blast hit them. It would seem that the keel cap and masts off one of the cutters held together long enough to slow the fall of the forward section. The man still broke half the bones in his body when the wreckage hit the water, and nearly drowned before he was pulled from the sea."
"Sounds like a miracle of the Founder he lived then." Blair whispered softly, crossing himself like a proper member of the faithful.
"If the Founder bothers himself to look out for any of us in these times." The elder Knight said less sincerely and more as a matter of form, but Holland knew better than to question his superior's propriety. "By order of the garrison captain, he was given the greatest care to be kept alive so that he might be questioned."
"Why we were not told of this before now?" Holland wanted to know.
"In hopes that it wouldn't lead to speculation and panic no doubt." Sir Wells supplied as though he didn't believe it himself. "I am not privy to the garrison captain's thoughts. In any case, the airman woke not long ago, if only for a brief time. He was lucid." Sir Wells cast his gaze across the city. "He said that right before his ship went down . . . he saw fireflies racing for the cliffs."
Holland felt his stomach wrench.
"Sir? Fireflies?" Blair looked unmistakably bemused. "There aren't such a thing on the White Cliffs, gets too cold for the wee glow bottoms . . . or . . . oh . . ." He got it now too, expression turning sober.
Blair was quite right, fireflies were a rare sight on the White Isle, occasionally spotted in the forests of Saxe Gotha, and never along the cliffs, but seen from a distance, there was something that they could be mistaken for, Holland knew quite well.
Faeries. And as simple as that, their suspicions were confirmed.
"There's hoping that the man took a touch to the head and is remembering wrong, but our fortunes haven't favored that sort of thinking." The Lieutenant said.
"Sir, this isn't well known yet, is it?" Holland shook his head, of course not. Their Squadron Leader wouldn't be telling them personally if it had been issued as a General Address.
"The garrison won't be informed until the captain has had a chance to brief all of his Lieutenants. I'm merely taking liberties to make sure that my own subordinates know what to expect." Sir Wells gave both dragon riders a hard look. "I trust that you understand that this is confidential until such a time that it is made public."
"Sir!" Both saluted sharply. "As you command, Sir!"
"Good." Sir Wells nodded. "Good. I expect we will be receiving reinforcements from Londinium in the coming days. In the meantime, stay on your guard, both of you. Now, back to your posts."
"Sir!"
Sir Wells had made off quickly, down the line to where the next pair of dragons roosted and the next after that. He mustn't have been exaggerating when he said the information was confidential. So confidential in fact, that Holland wondered if he wanted anything at all to do with it.
Faeries. Holland swallowed. He could hope at least that the airman had been mistaken. Casting his eyes to Blair, all too eagerly mounting his drake, he couldn't help but think that this was an ill omen.
"Aye?" Blair grinned with the mischief of a child. "Eyes on the streets, right? Can't let any of the pointy eared sort slip us by!"
"I don't . . ." No, Holland merely smiled wanly, the boy had an eagerness he'd shared when he'd first joined the training cadres. Blair would learn temperance from his seniors, as Holland and Meinhardt had, well, as Holland had.
Climbing back into the saddle, he counted himself lucky that the rest of their watch went off without incident save for a few times that they had been called to add weight to the instructors of the garrison troops. Holland was no imposing figure himself, and Blair was an even more slightly built young lad, but five tons of fire breathing lizard tended to forgive their frailties.
It had not felt like long at all before Sir Saxton and Sir Whetherby had arrived to relieve them, both Knights giving solemn nods. A brief exchange with Sir Saxton as they passed atop their drakes had confirmed that the rest of the Squadron had also heard the news. Good, at least they wouldn't be caught by surprise, he hoped.
They had known this was a possibility. It was the very possibility for which they had been re-positioned to guard against, in point of fact.
If it had been Faeries, then they must have detonated the ship to cover their flight for the cliffs, maybe they had intended to light the cargo once the ships reached port, but the patrol cutters had spooked them into running. And if they'd escaped sight by anyone else, then surely there couldn't have been more than a handful.
But how many could a handful be, he wondered, recalling her once more, wings racked, chasing him through the skies, and to what purpose had they arrived?
None that could be good, Holland was sure. He was just as sure after walking Horus back to the stable and settling him in for the night, and likewise when he and Blair managed to make it to the inn that had become makeshift living accommodations for half of the Fourth Squadron, shared with travelers and merchants arriving or departing by the ships in the port.
Faeries . . .
Ludicrous it seemed to Holland, but people had an amazing power to remember the smallest details, the smaller the better, like the whirl of her long hair and the glint of her brilliant eyes . . .
Which was perhaps why he found himself being nudged in the shoulder once again by an amused looking Meinhardt. "Thinking of a girl I should hope!" The Dragon Knight asked with a devilishly irksome smirk which slowly widened as Holland's first instinct was to blanch. "Ah, so it was a girl."
"Nothing of the sort!" Holland declared loudly, turning his attention back to his plate, currently half occupied by a roll of bread and an indescribable, brownish, meat . . . something . . . No doubt a fine example of local cuisine . . . No doubt. He poked furiously at his plate in hopes that it would dissuade Meinhardt. Of course, it didn't.
"Nothing to be ashamed of Sir Holland, these things happen as one grows into a man." Meinhardt said jovially as he polished off the last of the brownish, well, Holland supposed that it was gravy, with the remaining half of a roll, leaning back in his chair.
"That is not what I was thinking." Holland said quietly. "Nothing at all like it as a matter of fact. "It's merely the, well, the You, Know, What," emphasizing each word with a rise and fall of his eyebrows, "that the Lieutenant mentioned." certainly no need to raise any alarm by voicing such things out loud.
"Mmph . . . oo-mean da Faeriezz?" Meinhardt looked on as Holland waved his hands and hissed a curse under his breath.
"Shhh!" Holland hissed, casting glanced all around, who knew who might be listening. "Do you want another reprimand?"
Taking time to swallow, the half-Germanian put his elbows on the table. "Relax a little, whether there are or aren't, the people around here have already decided for themselves that the explosion was no accident."
"They have?" Holland was left at a loss. He shook his head, what people speculated was none of his concern, "That hardly makes a difference!"
"Well, you're right about that." Meinhardt agreed, leaning back in his chair as he picked at a tooth. "Command decided we were going to act as if it was them from the start, better safe than sorry I suppose, still, nice to know all of our work isn't going to waste."
"And you think it'll be fine, just like that?" Holland wished he could share in his friend's confidence. "If it is," Holland took a look around the dining hall before leaning in closer so that his voice would be masked by the noise, "Them . . . We'll have a problem on our hands."
That's how it seemed from where he stood, so why didn't Meinhardt see it?
"It is what it is." Meinhardt said, voice and expression hardening as he became all about the business of his craft. "They're dangerous, not invincible. You and I survived them at Newcastle, remember that." By luck more than skill, Holland was quite sure, at least on his own behalf, but Meinhardt had always made his own luck it seemed.
Something else caught his eye, a head moving through the crowded room, searching for an empty seat where none was to be had. Blair stood at the middle of the room, looking very much like a lost child. Thinking hardly at all about it, Holland raised a welcoming hand, reminding Meinhardt to be nice.
"Why Richard!" Meinhardt threw back another laugh as he took up his tankard and drank down the contents by a third. "I've never been anything less than my charming self!"
"Which was exactly the problem." Holland was willing to bet as he turned his attention back to a reproachful Blair.
"Sir Meinhardt." The Dragoon greeted.
"Ensign Trayvor." Meinhardt shot back with a smile.
There was an almost tangible enmity between the two cavalrymen, made all the more ludicrous by the fact that it was utterly one sided. Meinhardt couldn't have been less able to hold a grudge, and the scathing glares seemed to simply bounce off him with about as much effect as a bout of flatulence in a cyclone. This would only anger the young dragoon more as Meinhardt remained willfully oblivious.
"Don't mind him." Holland insisted. "He's made an art out of being insufferable. Besides, you look like you could use a place to sit." Holland pulled out the remaining chair as a peace offering, one that he was thankful to see the slight Dragoon accept with a modicum of dignity, and an absence of violent outburst, laying out his plate of the same indescribable meat basted in gravy.
"So, what's with that look?" Blair asked as he sawed into the tough, rubbery slice of meat.
"Pardon?" Holland asked.
"That look. I'd say you've been sucking on a lemon, been that way since this afternoon. Course, could just be the company . . ."
"No need to be like that my boy." Meinhardt rested his head in his hand. "I'm sure we'll get along swimmingly. And as for Holland, he's been soured by mention of our pointy eared friends."
"Aye?" Blair gave him a look over. "Is that the case? I don't see what's to be worried about. They're nasty a-course but they ran at Newcastle and they ran at York, doesn't sound like unstoppable firstborns to me."
"See!" Meinhardt boasted loudly, loud enough to draw eyes from the nearest table. "Blair here gets it."
Two men cut from the same cloth, Holland pondered, and all the while leaving him to be quite at the disadvantage. It was a wonder that they didn't get along.
"It's unexpected, out of nowhere is all." Holland muttered. "We had the Royalists to rights. The Tyrant King is dead and the last of the Tudor's have fled Albion. And just when we're to have our victory, Faeries appear from nowhere at just such a time and just such a place. How do you not wander what fate we're tempting?"
Meinhardt eased off on his ribbing, swirling the tankard he held in his right hand while tapping out a rhythm on the table with his left as he thought. "Don't see how it changes a thing." The Germanian said. "Rebellion is a messy thing at the best of times, we were lucky to have favor on our side. If you want to say it's fate, then the Faeries are probably our penance for a short and victorious war. Founder knows how things could have gone differently. You should know that better than anyone, Sir Holland,Knight of Adeline."
"Hmm?" Blair stopped his fruitless effort at mastication, putting his cutlery down. "Sounds like there's a story to that if I do say so."
"Only that Holland here," Meinhardt waved vaguely in his direction, "And the rest of his family, happen to have a history as retainers to the Baron of Adeline. I shouldn't need to tell you why they have more reason than most to dislike the Tudors, the living ones anyways."
Holland fixed Meinhardt with an intense frown.
Blair was silent for a moment as this detail sank in. "The Baron of Adeline . . . then . . ."
"Our Fair Lady was Princess Mary Adeline, wife of Prince Lionel of the House of Tudor." Holland confirmed. "Beheaded on order of the Tyrant King for death of the Second Prince." At least, that was how the Tudors had told it. Really, it had been nothing but a beast of a man assuaging his blood lust.
Without remorse, without even trial, the crime had been placed wholly on the shoulders of a quiet, soft spoken woman who had never so much as harmed a hair on a babe's head much less been capable of murdering her own husband. Holland had only known her distantly as a member of the Baron's family, the few times their paths had crossed she had been kind to him. From what little he had gathered, the Princess had loved her husband truly and deeply, and had counted herself blessed to be had by him.
"I heard they executed the Princess' guards before her." Blair said in a hushed, almost conspiratorial voice, a boy who didn't really understand the whole miserable affair. "They were accused of trying to cover her crime."
That had been the reason they'd been put to death, or at least, the reason given, with no more evidence than what had been leveled against their charge.
"Relations of yours?" Blair leaned elbows on the table.
"One of them was my uncle, my mother's brother, the other was a second uncle on my father's side." Holland said. "It would have been the greatest disgrace in our family's history if one iota of it were true."
But it wasn't true, it couldn't be, and even if it was, King James had disgraced himself first by demanding swift judgment and execution. The Baron had still been in the midst of pleading for his daughter's life when he had heard that her head had been hoisted up above the Tower of Londinium.
That had been the final wrong, the breaking point that had opened the floodgates of revolution and changed the Baron of Adeline from one of the King's strongest supporters into one of his greatest enemies. Revenge had taken root and there had been no stopping it.
There had only been one thing for it, to join with the only figure in Albion that had been standing in open rebellion against the King. Lord Cromwell had been outspoken in his regrets for the death of the Prince and Princess, the last voices of reason in a decadent Royal Line which had fallen to cruelty and corruption.
And where the Baron of Adeline went, his retainers had loyally followed.
The Baron had been the first Nobleman of real significance to change his allegiance, but he had not been the last to join Lord Cromwell's cause. Opportunists, true believes, pragmatists, and those who wanted to right their own wrong, all had been welcome. With each Noble and military Officer who had stood in open rebellion and pledged their aid to the cause, another had been convinced to do so in turn.
Carefully arranged alliances and balances of power, rotten from decades of abuse, had finally begun to come apart, first slowly, and then with gathering speed. That had been the real start of the rebellion that had grown into full revolution by the time the leading forces of the Holy Army of the Reconquistadors had reached Londinium, growing in strength with every town and city that traded sides.
Meinhardt had been right, they were lucky that their revolution had garnered support. It had made the hard fought battles in the North no less brutal, but more palatable as the Royalists had swiftly exhausted their remaining manpower and resources while the forces of Lord Cromwell had continued to enjoy considerable reserves.
"That's enough of that then." Holland found himself in a singularly ill mood. "It's a fair better reason to fight than most. Was it not your family that only traded sides when Admiral Blake ordered the Navy to stand down?"
"Only because he did not order the Navy to Lord Cromwell's aid!" Meinhardt declared. "The Tudors were strangling half the southern families in favor of their close allies, a fat lot of good it did them in the end."
"So what you're saying is that you fought to stay out of the poor house." Holland mused. "Said like a true merchant."
"Commoner and noble alike, everyone needs to eat, and everyone has something to trade for their daily bread." Meinhardt pointed out. "I take pride in my merchant's blood."
"Sounds more like mercenary's blood to me." Blair said.
"There's really little difference." Meinhardt agreed. "Proof of what my father always said, that merchants truly are warriors at heart."
"And what about you?" Holland gave Blair a look.
"What about me?"
"A Dragoon from the auxiliaries. That's not where I'd expect to find someone planning to join the Knights. You must have some reason for picking sides in this war."
For Holland it was family honor, for Meinhard it was pragmatism. Apathy could be a cause, but if Blair aimed to earn a living out of this war he'd be better served joining a free company. "Why the Dragon Knights?"
If the question struck some private chord, it did not show as Blair assumed a contemplative pose. "Aye. I have my reasons, and they'd be none of your business. Why I flagge under Lord Cromwell . . . I'd say it's because he must have a point what with the whole country behind him."
There was that, Holland thought, head bobbing up to sweep the dining hall once more. Inside, in the light and warmth, it was hard to think about the prospect of war, but it would come again soon enough.