High in the ice mountains that men called the Wrath of God, an eagle took
flight. He dove from his eyrie, great ivory wings pressed flat to his
body, plunging like a spell towards the valley floor. Mile after mile he
streaked, his numbing speed blurring the lines that separated him from the
snow-veined black rock of the mountains that seemed to rocket upwards past
his shadowy form. Then, at the last possible moment, he unfurled his wings
and leveled his mad descent, skimming low over the raging, foaming waters
of the Dagger. He raced the river among the frozen peaks and past Stargard
of the Magi, the gusts generated by his pounding strokes sweeping the snow
up against the silver clouds and back from his fleeting body. South he
flew, straight over the Diamond Wall cascades, down into the brown
foothills that guarded the range, and out over the Gilded Plains of
Delorien. Miles upon miles, racing the thundering herds of wild stallions,
screeching ominously as he went, finally alighting at Ferns, the capital of
Delorien. There he perched, his white head cocked to one side, appearing
to the superstitious Earthborn to be listening to something. Passing men
made the sign to ward off evil as they spotted him from the muddy lanes
that surrounded the castle. If he noticed the disturbance he was causing,
the great White Eagle did not show it, being just as stoic as the rest of
his kind.
While the eagle perched atop the walls, inside the castle a girl was carrying flasks of wine and hurrying down a corridor. She was young, only nine or so, with long frizzy hair the color of chestnuts tied back from her narrow, elven face. Though dressed in clothes of moderate price, the lank way they hung on her small frame and the drab colors suggested that she was more destitute than she truly was. Her parents, somewhat surprisingly, were the only respectable physicians in Ferns, and so young Hermione ought to have had nicer things. But the Blight had struck the city, changing lives. Like all physicians in Delorien, her parents were bound by law to pay fines to the families of patients that died while under their care. They could, of course, refuse to even treat someone, but the Grangers were oddly compassionate people and hardly ever refused anyone. Thus, when the Blight first appeared within the walls, the Grangers risked their own lives to save their patients, failed almost every time, and paid the fines for failure out of the money they had saved away for Hermione's dowry.
Hermione, eager to help her parents regain their small fortune, had become a servant at the castle. The pay was five sickles a week; it was about all she could expect at her age, and a little more if truth be told. Enough, she hoped, to help buy herbs for her family's depleted stores.
The wine flasks were beginning to feel heavier than they had when she'd gotten them down by the kitchens. She was really too young to be carrying so much, but the wine steward was completely oblivious to this. But it's not so bad, she thought to herself as she began the final climb up the long steps to the great hall. I'll get to see the King, and maybe some of the Sword Princes.
She reached the heavy wooden door, lifted her hand to knock, then blanched. What am I doing? She thought desperately, backing away. Servants don't enter here! I'll always be an uncouth little mud-dweller if I can't even remember—
"You there! Do you bring the king's wine?" a higher servant called to her. She had never seen him before, and was a little afraid.
"Yes, sir," she mumbled, edging away, while the servant peered at her intently.
"Then perhaps," he suggested, lowering his voice and deepening the pitch, "You ought to bring it over here." He had said nothing untoward or amiss, had been perfectly nice, had treated her better than another servant might have... but Hermione felt a hand of ice grip her heart as she looked at him.
"Girl, are you quite well?" he questioned, a slight edge of irritation entering his voice.
"Uh..." Hermione couldn't believe her own behavior. Uh? She was the brightest girl in Ferns, and here she was stammering at and cowering from a perfectly nice—
Apparently, she hadn't just been stammering and cowering. She had also been edging away from him... it was a shame that there were steps behind her.
For one moment she would relive for years in her nightmares, she teetered on the brink of the last step, feeling the world shift and heave around her, feeling her stomach try to crawl up into her throat, seeing the face of the servant, his expression...
...but she did not regain her balance, and began to tumble down the steps. Some instinct had made her curl up in a ball, which helped, though not enough. The castle spun maddeningly around her, the stone steps slammed into her body over and over again, each jolt bringing excruciating pain, until finally, a nasty crack on the back of the head relieved her of her consciousness.
*
At the heart of Ferns lay the only man-made thing in all Delorien to be known as glorious throughout the world: the Lion Court. Great blocks of marble imported from Moria and the desert country of Vannihar were stacked so high to make the great walls that the mind reeled as the eye tried to follow them. Long strips of Starborn-enchanted glass were set vertically at regular intervals along the walls, letting in the fierce sunrays that beamed unbroken across the Gilded Plains which stretched out away from the capital city. The sunlight caught subtle but abundant flecks of gold in the marble, so that when the light entered one window it made the entire Hall glitter and shimmer like the sand of Vannihar.
Great carvings and statues were arranged low along the walls; a mighty stallion from the Plains, a hawk wheeling in the marble, and the forms of every king who had ever reigned in the country (there were only twenty or so, since it was a young place relative to the rest of the world.) But dwarfing all these were the great Lions that guarded the Hall. They were statues, easily twenty feet high, and there were thirty all together. Standing forever in two neat rows at the edges of the narrow hall, the stone beasts had all of their identical, snarling heads angled down and towards the great ebony doors at the southern end of the hall, so that every emissary or foreign lord who entered would have to walk the length of the room with lions staring at him, before he even reached the dais where the Great Lion, the King, would be waiting.
But it was dark in that part of the world, then, since night had come early with the raging thunderclouds from the east and from the west racing towards each other to meet over Delorien. The wind had already picked up, though the two storms were still many miles away, and bits of trees and refuse were being blown up against the many long windows. Hundreds of torches (Adri liked brightness) were flaming all along the walls, turning the windows to mirrors, so that the disturbance caused by the weather could be heard but not seen. The Princes of the Sword, assembled to take council with their king, found this eerie and somewhat disturbing, but Adri, the Lion of Delorien, did not.
The Lion Court, in years passed, had only been used for formal ceremonies, particularly those involving foreign dignitaries Delorien needed to impress. But Adri had an unfortunate love of all things great and fine; unfortunate, because the only truly glorious thing in all of the sprawling country was the Lion Court itself. So it was here, in the formal hall, that he conducted nearly all of his business.
And tonight, the business was war.
While the eagle perched atop the walls, inside the castle a girl was carrying flasks of wine and hurrying down a corridor. She was young, only nine or so, with long frizzy hair the color of chestnuts tied back from her narrow, elven face. Though dressed in clothes of moderate price, the lank way they hung on her small frame and the drab colors suggested that she was more destitute than she truly was. Her parents, somewhat surprisingly, were the only respectable physicians in Ferns, and so young Hermione ought to have had nicer things. But the Blight had struck the city, changing lives. Like all physicians in Delorien, her parents were bound by law to pay fines to the families of patients that died while under their care. They could, of course, refuse to even treat someone, but the Grangers were oddly compassionate people and hardly ever refused anyone. Thus, when the Blight first appeared within the walls, the Grangers risked their own lives to save their patients, failed almost every time, and paid the fines for failure out of the money they had saved away for Hermione's dowry.
Hermione, eager to help her parents regain their small fortune, had become a servant at the castle. The pay was five sickles a week; it was about all she could expect at her age, and a little more if truth be told. Enough, she hoped, to help buy herbs for her family's depleted stores.
The wine flasks were beginning to feel heavier than they had when she'd gotten them down by the kitchens. She was really too young to be carrying so much, but the wine steward was completely oblivious to this. But it's not so bad, she thought to herself as she began the final climb up the long steps to the great hall. I'll get to see the King, and maybe some of the Sword Princes.
She reached the heavy wooden door, lifted her hand to knock, then blanched. What am I doing? She thought desperately, backing away. Servants don't enter here! I'll always be an uncouth little mud-dweller if I can't even remember—
"You there! Do you bring the king's wine?" a higher servant called to her. She had never seen him before, and was a little afraid.
"Yes, sir," she mumbled, edging away, while the servant peered at her intently.
"Then perhaps," he suggested, lowering his voice and deepening the pitch, "You ought to bring it over here." He had said nothing untoward or amiss, had been perfectly nice, had treated her better than another servant might have... but Hermione felt a hand of ice grip her heart as she looked at him.
"Girl, are you quite well?" he questioned, a slight edge of irritation entering his voice.
"Uh..." Hermione couldn't believe her own behavior. Uh? She was the brightest girl in Ferns, and here she was stammering at and cowering from a perfectly nice—
Apparently, she hadn't just been stammering and cowering. She had also been edging away from him... it was a shame that there were steps behind her.
For one moment she would relive for years in her nightmares, she teetered on the brink of the last step, feeling the world shift and heave around her, feeling her stomach try to crawl up into her throat, seeing the face of the servant, his expression...
...but she did not regain her balance, and began to tumble down the steps. Some instinct had made her curl up in a ball, which helped, though not enough. The castle spun maddeningly around her, the stone steps slammed into her body over and over again, each jolt bringing excruciating pain, until finally, a nasty crack on the back of the head relieved her of her consciousness.
*
At the heart of Ferns lay the only man-made thing in all Delorien to be known as glorious throughout the world: the Lion Court. Great blocks of marble imported from Moria and the desert country of Vannihar were stacked so high to make the great walls that the mind reeled as the eye tried to follow them. Long strips of Starborn-enchanted glass were set vertically at regular intervals along the walls, letting in the fierce sunrays that beamed unbroken across the Gilded Plains which stretched out away from the capital city. The sunlight caught subtle but abundant flecks of gold in the marble, so that when the light entered one window it made the entire Hall glitter and shimmer like the sand of Vannihar.
Great carvings and statues were arranged low along the walls; a mighty stallion from the Plains, a hawk wheeling in the marble, and the forms of every king who had ever reigned in the country (there were only twenty or so, since it was a young place relative to the rest of the world.) But dwarfing all these were the great Lions that guarded the Hall. They were statues, easily twenty feet high, and there were thirty all together. Standing forever in two neat rows at the edges of the narrow hall, the stone beasts had all of their identical, snarling heads angled down and towards the great ebony doors at the southern end of the hall, so that every emissary or foreign lord who entered would have to walk the length of the room with lions staring at him, before he even reached the dais where the Great Lion, the King, would be waiting.
But it was dark in that part of the world, then, since night had come early with the raging thunderclouds from the east and from the west racing towards each other to meet over Delorien. The wind had already picked up, though the two storms were still many miles away, and bits of trees and refuse were being blown up against the many long windows. Hundreds of torches (Adri liked brightness) were flaming all along the walls, turning the windows to mirrors, so that the disturbance caused by the weather could be heard but not seen. The Princes of the Sword, assembled to take council with their king, found this eerie and somewhat disturbing, but Adri, the Lion of Delorien, did not.
The Lion Court, in years passed, had only been used for formal ceremonies, particularly those involving foreign dignitaries Delorien needed to impress. But Adri had an unfortunate love of all things great and fine; unfortunate, because the only truly glorious thing in all of the sprawling country was the Lion Court itself. So it was here, in the formal hall, that he conducted nearly all of his business.
And tonight, the business was war.