You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe
That you have something impossible up your sleeve,
The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,
An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,
The will to do whatever must be done:
Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.
Fairy-tale Logic (A.E. Stallings)
TWO DAYS LATER…
A cry ripples through the ranks—ballista—before a great arrow slams through five of his men and pegs them all to a nearby tree. Darius had barely managed to throw himself out of the way. Now he curses his weight. The mud clings to his armor and worms its way through protective leather and padding.
The particles itch, but stopping to scratch at his shirt and pants is the last thing he wishes to do at the moment. His hand is still holding onto his axe as he half-scrambles, half-pulls himself along and into a nearby protective ditch.
The rain is hard and unforgiving, pelting like glass marbles and making everything hard to see. The water tastes like metal and sticks to his tongue and throat. Strangely, everything has a green cast to it. He thinks he is ill, or worse—but there is nothing to do about it.
The breath flies out of his lungs the moment he lands—muck flies in every direction, the small of his back smashes angrily against one of many planks of wood used to keep the floor of the trench stable.
Hands pull him up, and he spits out a clod of dirt that had managed to infiltrate his mouth. He raises a hand in silent thanks and pushes his hair out of his face.
The defenders of justice had entrenched themselves so deeply that nothing short of artillery had been able to make them give an inch. Two days' worth of sieging and skirmishing in the fields outside of the town had done very little to push the Demacians out of their position. It was not until something had exploded in the distance at the fifth hour of the second day—sending up a great orange and black cloud— that the word had then come down from on high. de Montolieu had ordered his Legion to charge.
The General hadn't bothered to say anything else since then—if he had issued orders to the 2nd Legion after the advance, the Black Watch had yet to hear of it. Given no further orders and stuck in the middle of a kill zone, the Black Watch had to make do.
They had been making do for eight hours now and everyone was close to falling over. These trenches they were in had actually been part of the Demacian exterior defense line. For the moment, the Noxians were making use of it. If their circumstances did not improve, it would also become their grave.
"Five gone; how many of us are left?" He asks the nearest man—it is Sowards. He was one of Darius' older conscripts; a fishmonger with a saturnine temper who had incurred a significant amount of debt in a number of animal fighting rings. When given the choice between rotting in a cell and selling himself to the army, he had taken the latter option.
"Averill an' some o' the boys're thataway—" He points behind him with a crooked thumb. "Damed got the rest o'er." He shifts his hand and gestures across Darius' shoulder. The lieutenant forces himself to stand up and, bent slightly so that his head would not be seen over the ditch's walls, counts his men. Twenty-six conscripts, down from fifty-five.
Thunder booms overhead as de Roquefort follows him to the ditch. His captain takes a minute to look at him and the rest of the unlucky men before he speaks.
"Perhaps you should've trained your men to evade a ballista bolt better?" de Roquefort asks him dryly as he sheathes his bloodied saber. He pulls a communication shard out of his jacket pocket and peers at it—the surface is dark and from the way his brow furrows it is silent.
Still nothing from High Command. Darius didn't want to think that they had just left the entire 2nd Legion to die. Instead he curses his captain as he tries to blink through mud and rain. He makes no attempt to reply as he pulls his glove off and uses his clean hand to wipe at his eyes.
There is some noise to his right. Darius peers over the trench wall. A regiment of Demacians are marching towards them, with that damnable ballista behind their ranks. He thinks it is time for him to die, but lightning arcs down and strikes them all, unnaturally flowing in a straight line. The struck Demacians do not scream; they simply fall, smoking and smelling like burning meat. Those that survive freeze and turn tail like hares.
There is a bizarre quality to the air; it is thick and heavy, as if it was made of something else instead of gas. A metallic stench clings to his nose and makes him choke back his own spit.
de Roquefort laughs. Darius wonders if he has gone mad.
"Oh, they have certainly taken their time. Do you smell that?" de Roquefort asks him, having seen the look on his face as he had side-eyed his commander. Darius thinks of the burning men, but his captain looks to have read his mind.
"No, not those." de Roquefort clarifies with a snort. "It's magic," de Roquefort remarks with a ready sneer at Darius' inexperience. "What makes it better is that it's our magic."
"Our magic?" He repeats dumbly, and his captain holds out his glove, lets the green glow overhead highlight the beads of water on black leather. Darius looks up. The storm smashes against his face. He did not know much about magic, but he did know what color the sky should be, and how the clouds should move.
There is a green and eerie glow behind the clouds, and these shift and spin overhead like an angry vortex. He had been wondering, in the back of his simple mind, why the rainwater had tasted queer, why the air seemed to be choking him and why everything looked wan and green. Now he knew.
"Our magic." de Roquefort repeats. He closes his hand into a fist. Teeth bared, the strange green light reflects in his mouth and in his eyes.
A verdant flash illuminates them all for a brief moment before the telltale rolling whump and crack of thunder and lightning descends. Darius could hear the Demacians screaming—ballista—before a loud crack sounds and metal and wooden parts fly over the ditch and pepper them all with shards and splinters.
The acrid, metallic stench penetrates his nostrils again and irritates his eyes. He struggles against the urge to vomit—there was nothing to expel anyway. His last meal had been a full five hours ago.
"It smells like that because of the nexus," de Roquefort informs him candidly. "It is your first, fighting with mages using a nexus, no?"
"If it is our magic, why is it affecting us too? And this storm wasn't discussed in the war council—" Darius manages around his nausea. He tried to remember if he had seen anything on the map table that day that looked like a nexus before he surrendered himself to his ignorance.
"This would not be the first time I have gone to battle without a complete picture. If it is not the Army pulling surprises out of their pockets, then it is the Navy—and those sea rats tend to keep their own counsel." de Roquefort's smile is twisted and sardonic. "It does not matter; this storm is ours. The strikes are not aimed at us, but we are all under this sky. You will build a tolerance too, in time."
He stands up and peers over the ditch's walls. Darius follows suit, and the sight that greets him is a sight he hadn't even allowed himself the hope of imagining—La Forbie is dark in the distance. The Demacians are retreating. A pit in the ground marks where the Demacian ballista used to be. Burning, twisted corpses litter the field.
"We have a valuable minute to breathe while the storm is on us; how many of us remain?" de Roquefort inquires, and Darius wonders if he intends to murder them all if the numbers were too many.
"Twenty-six," He answers hesitantly. "Five were taken by the ballista earlier; the rest are nearby. What do you intend?"
"We have an advantage with the storm and we have our orders. Where's your shard?" His captain asks. Darius reaches about and under his breastplate, feels the magical contraption tangled in leather straps. He pulls it out and stares at the communication shard. It was covered in blood. Not his, surely? He didn't feel hurt anywhere.
The rain washes the red off, and he lifts it so that his captain could see. The man reaches out and taps his against Darius' shard, and a blossom of light emerges from both.
"We are connected," de Roquefort states as he puts his shard away. He pushes himself out of the trench and spits his words over his shoulder. "Gather your men, lieutenant, and follow your orders as they had been given to you. Take the town, or die."
It made no sense at all to throw themselves at the retreating Demacians. It was true that the storm was a weapon, like any other thing, and for this storm to be of use, it had to be accompanied with soldiers—but they had all been wrung dry. No one else had any strength left in them to push forward. If they did throw themselves at La Forbie they would be slaughtering themselves. If they did retreat under the cover of the maelstrom, they would be losing their advantage and perhaps even the war. If they survived all of this, they would be branded as cowards or worse.
It was a difficult decision to make. Darius did not want to be held accountable for the 2nd Legion's failure to punch through La Forbie—but he did not want to die either. He knew it was his duty to fulfill his orders, and that it was not a bad thing to face his death on the field—but he had done all he could here and throwing themselves at the town would amount to nothing but mass suicide. It would accomplish nothing given Noxus' already wavering numbers.
He was no stranger to throwing his men, but he did not want to be thrown in with them. In the precious minutes that followed, he had to think of a way to take the town, and to keep himself alive—with all that had happened in his life, retreating was not an option. It shamed his blood and his education.
The rain pours on. His men come without being called, standing about him in a rough semi-circle and staring at him with anxious and dog-tired faces.
"What do you plan to do, Baton?" Damed asks him. The man walked with a strange gait—swinging his left leg much like his father once did and making Darius wonder if he too wore a wooden limb— and had greying hair that showed brightly against his tanned skin. He also had a large and very grotesque scar on his face that pulled the right side of his face downwards.
Darius had asked him once, before they had been sent to die here, about the origin of the wound. Damed had only given him a twisted-looking grin, mentioning offhandedly that ice hooks were not to be used by children. It only made him curious as to what Damed had done before joining the army.
If they survived this, he'd ask again.
"Give me a moment," Darius rubs at his temples as he sits down in the muck. A few people take the time to vomit; evidently the disconcerting scent and taste of the storm was taking its toll. "In the meantime form a defensive line and try to eat."
"With this awful smell, it's worth a try—but you need to think quick." Damed comments as he leaves. The left side of his face lifts in a smile but the right remains low and stiff. "Before the Demacians take to the trench again."
"Yes, thank you for the reminder, Damed." Darius replies dryly. He would have kept his communication shard and found himself something to eat at this point, but the magical artifact glints and pulsates—a message? Was it General de Montolieu, or did Captain de Roquefort forget something?
"Lieutenant Darius; 3rd Platoon, Black Watch out of the 101st." He answers. His haggard voice betrays his circumstances.
"Lieutenant-Colonel Swain; 3rd Battalion, 1st Standard." The voice that reached him is calm and lacking any real emotion. "Lieutenant, is there some reason why I am speaking with you instead of the Black Watch's captain?"
Darius stiffens for a brief moment. He knew that House name. That was the House that had sponsored his entry to Boram's Point all those years ago. He had thought that House had been dissolved, and their name cast to the wind. What was this man doing, announcing himself in that fashion? "I do not know for certain, sir," He replies hesitantly. "Is Captain de Roquefort's shard unresponsive?"
"One would think that a Noxian deals in absolutes." Swain drawls back. "Have you been able to establish communications with Generals de Montolieu or du Couteau?"
"The Black Watch has not received orders from General de Montolieu in hours, sir. The last I saw or heard of General du Couteau was before the call to charge."
Swain laughs, which strikes Darius as an odd thing to do when faced with silence from High Command. "Then it is as I have thought; the Demacians have thrown a veil."
Darius felt horribly stupid again. "A veil?"
"Anti-magic shell," Swain's voice is not kind. He talks as if he was explaining something that anyone should know, and Darius feels mildly insulted by it. "It would most likely take on the form of an invisible curtain, standing vertically between the forward units and the headquarters battalions—not too thick, but enough to block communications."
"But the storm—" Darius tried to say, but Swain cut him off there and then.
"Is the storm in any danger of ceasing, lieutenant?" The thin insult could be felt across the link. Are you daft? "Nexus magic always drowns out everything else. The veil is for the shards alone."
Darius grits his teeth. He couldn't know everything, but why did everyone have to rub his ignorance in his face? "Have you been able to contact the rest of the Legions, sir, on this side of the veil?"
"With some measure of difficulty," Swain's comment, seemingly trying to draw upon some humor, emerges rather mirthless. "Most of the shards I have tried to communicate with are dark. Only yours and a few others are lit. Now, either most of the officers are dead and their shards had been destroyed as a precaution or their holders have deserted and have destroyed their shards to hide their cowardice. Pitiful, but not unexpected."
Not unexpected. He supposed he was fortunate that twenty-six of his company were still close by. "What do you intend to do, sir?"
"Why," Now some emotion colors Swain's voice, and the confident, predator's purr is painfully familiar to Darius, who had been tortured once before. "We take the town, and then we claim those shore batteries to let the 10th Fleet slip past. Do you have your grid coordinates on-hand, lieutenant?"
Darius stands up for a brief moment to dig the map out of the little satchel he kept on his waist. The laminate resists the rain, but it took a full minute for him to read it in the booming dark.
"Stand by for grid coordinates," He waits for the customary reply—send your traffic— before he reads aloud. "One-One-Five-Eight-One-Three."
It takes some time for Swain to answer, and in the interim the lieutenant wipes the rain away from the surface of the laminated map—an eternal chore.
"The 3rd Battalion is at—standby for grid coordinates—One-One-Three-Eight-One-Nine; which would be north-northwest of your current position." Swain informs him primly. Darius looked at the grid square Swain's coordinates had indicated. The lieutenant-colonel was further up the field of battle, towards the Freljord, and was much closer to the town. There was ample cover in Swain's position to keep him out of sight and out of mind. If the man marched two miles north he could very well take the Demacian's Paixhans guns for Noxus.
"Kindly move your men three miles southwest by south. Standby for coordinates—One-One-One-Eight-Zero-Nine. Collect the rest of the scattered Legion on your way south and position yourself from where the village faces the bend of the Serpentine. Read again."
As the lieutenant-colonel gives him his orders, Darius traces his projected path on the map using a navigational protractor and his index finger. "I read again: three miles southwest by south to One-One-One-Eight-Zero-Nine. I will collect the men, but there is nothing but farmland in the place where we will go," He feels compelled to say. "If you intend to have me assault the town—"
"Do not be foolish—you will obtain nothing from assaulting the town." Swain snaps back. "You will be the feint; your proximity to the road will force them out. If there is one thing that Demacians cannot stand, it is a threat to their supply line. Once you have drawn the main force out of the town, use the trenches to your advantage. Funnel them as you return to your previous position. I will divide my force in two in order to take the artillery installation to the north and to capture the Prince of Demacia."
Darius blinks and stops himself just in time from asking how the man knew the Prince was in the region. He already felt very stupid talking to the lieutenant-colonel. Instead he takes a different tact. "You are certain the Prince would remain in the town? If the Demacians would take the feint, then shouldn't he be with them as they charged me?"
"Without a doubt," Swain says. Darius could feel the smile. "He is the jewel of the court. The Captain-General would not allow him the opportunity to fight."
If he understood the lieutenant-colonel's plan correctly, his force would act as a feint to draw out the Captain-General's forces. He searched his memories and dredged them up with difficulty. Yesterday's estimate for Task Force Shield had been at a hundred thousand men. He hadn't known the Prince was here, but the King was most certainly south, close to the Howling Marsh. If the King was the pampering sort, he would have split his forces to protect his heir apparent.
So, that left roughly fifty-thousand men, and perhaps even the mythical Dauntless Vanguard itself, though Darius knew they were sworn to the King and not the Prince; it would have been a tall number but he had fought the defenders of La Forbie already and he knew they had taken a beating also.
What bit at him was that he didn't know how much of the 2nd Legion was left. If the other companies had taken a whipping also, their added numbers would still be too few to pose as a threat. It disturbed him, how his battlefield awareness of their numbers was not that good. But then again, he was only a lieutenant. He wasn't privy to information that involved the entire 2nd Legion. All he could do was make an educated guess and make do once he had arrived.
There was also the storm to consider. The storm would hide them, would make it difficult for the Demacians to completely gauge their numbers. If the Captain-General were the paranoid sort, perhaps he would fall for the trap but after that—
He would have to peel back, but at the same time he had to keep the Demacian's attention on his meager force. By the time he retreated back here, Swain should have his men nearby to replenish their numbers. It seemed to be too much to ask—to march three miles and back and showing the Demacians their tails all the while. Besides he had very little left in him.
General Marcus du Couteau did not seem like a fool. Perhaps his 5th had not taken too many casualties. If the Dead Dogs were still fighting where they had last left them and if the Captain-General could be taunted and led—
"Sir," Darius ventures uncertainly. "Is it possible during the fighting retreat to lead the Captain-General into the 5th Legion instead of rendezvousing with you at these coordinates?"
"Indeed, you may." Given the man's tone, which was not at all surprised and sounded rather amused and expectant, it was almost as if the lieutenant-colonel had suggested the six mile march only to see if he had the brain to refuse.
Darius didn't like this Swain, but he seemed to know what he was doing. If he survived this, he'd respect the man despite his behavior. "Black Watch will comply," Darius replies grimly. What was left of it anyway.
If what Swain said was true, de Roquefort could have fallen off the grid to desert. In that case, Darius would take every pleasure in severing the man's head himself. He could have also gone back to where General de Montolieu had pitched his tent to ask for orders or reinforcements, but he did not think de Roquefort was that kind of a man.
"Damed," He raises his voice to let it carry over the storm. "Tell the men to form up. Single columns. We'll eat on the move. We're going south."
Across the battlefield, Jarvan IV watched the pockmarked and burnt fields from his window. Warm and dry in a spacious cottage the Valor Knights had appropriated for his use, he felt as if he was being slowly choked to death.
He would have been outside in the trenches with the rest of the men, but his father was too anxious for his welfare, and the Captain-General was too terrified of his liege lord to see the younger Jarvan as being anything else but a child.
It was to be expected. Three years ago, there had been an assassination attempt on the young Prince. His mother the Queen had taken the poisoned bolt instead. Elaine Benoic had been buried and Catherine Spiritmight had been wedded too quickly for the young heir's liking.
Elaine had suckled her child on tales of knights who went a-questin for the Beast Glatisant or rescued damsels in distress. She had filled his head with southern notions of valor and sacrifice, of noblesse oblige and courtly love.
His new mother Catherine told him there were no such things as the Beast Glatisant, and that fairy tales and legends were not the provinces of young kings-to-be. In the wake of the Queen's assassination, he had been raised in an atmosphere of fear and anger that swallowed him up and spat him back out every bit as spiteful, had been given a litany of ancestral anecdotes alongside the Measured Tread— Noxians are never to be trusted, good always wins over evil and Demacia is filled with nothing but good.
Over the years, Jarvan had convinced himself that he was also capable of the righteous hate of his ancestors, and his anger was only intensified by his southern blood.
Despite his name, he looked nothing like his father except in build and height. He took rather strongly after his mother, with startlingly bright blue eyes, handsome dark hair and olive skin. If one asked a particular faction in the Royal Court, Jarvan the younger was very southern. Having milder tempers and lesser affections towards anyone but their own, the northerners did not like their southern cousins— in their eyes, the men were grossly impulsive and keen on fighting, and the women were too headstrong and proud.
Where the ancestral rolling lowlands of Demacia met the sea and the steep peaks of the Great Barrier, southerner blood ran hotter. Whereas Noxus had developed from its infamous mountain and then radiated outwards, Demacia had crept up much like a climbing vine from the arid south towards the fertile north. The south was the birthplace of the most ancient and purest notion of honor, a place where dragons and unicorns still dwelled. It was where House Laurent held their family seat and where dueling to the death was still held as an acceptable solution to problems.
Most of the finest military families hailed from the south, or held some measure of southerner blood in their veins. In times of peace they were constantly but secretly ridiculed for their forwardness and lack of inclination to play the political game, but in times of war they were the first to volunteer and often were the first to die. It was a cruel and human thing.
Like the rest of his mother's kin, the Prince of the Realm preferred that his actions spoke for him. He had been given a classical Lightshield education but he had pushed and shoved through it all like a Benoic: graduating from the Demacian Royal Academy without any special commendations and training alongside the Dauntless Vanguard and the Valor Knights with the ferocity of a caged beast. And he was trapped, albeit in a prison of his father's making… not that he hadn't tried to escape before.
The Captain-General had not been pleased when he had heard Jarvan had escaped to fight with the rest of Task Force Shield—abandoning his special arms and armor in favor of a Kingsman's rudimentary equipment. He had given him the customary lecture—you are a Prince of the Realm and you must stay where you will be safe—but the moment Ivar Purvis had turned his literal back on the sixteen year old was the moment he lost him. Repeatedly.
After fetching the young warrior from the field six times on the first day of the Noxian siege, Purvis had finally given up on trusting him and had placed a guard outside the cottage door. Jarvan had responded by leaping out the window. Because the poor sentry had been stationed outside the room, he hadn't noticed Jarvan's absence until evening meal. Afraid of upsetting the Prince, the sentry had meekly knocked on the door for a good hour, until Purvis had decided to pass by.
When they found that Jarvan had slipped out again, the Captain-General had the sentry flogged. He then called for an operational pause—effectively granting the Noxians a break in the fighting—while he ferreted out the stray prince.
Hoping to avoid another operational pause, today before the dawn had even broken through the clouds Ivar Purvis sent the finest duelist in the entirety of Demacia to babysit the Prince of the Realm. And if that was not enough, he set the Dauntless Vanguard about the cottage like a fence to keep in a prize horse.
Jarvan had put up a fight—throwing the equivalent of a tantrum in front of the Captain-General—but Ivar had taken one look at him and had told him, in very slow tones, that this was 'for your own good'.
Not for the first time that day, Jarvan IV pulls his gaze away from the window and stares at his companion. Tobias Laurent hasn't moved even an inch from where he had assumed his post by the doorway hours earlier. His gloved hand is still on the elegant, silver swept hilt of his rapier and his glaucous eyes, though hooded, are alert and awake.
Wearing the cornflower blue, pale white and pastel yellow cavalier uniform of the Royal Guard with tall black boots and the signature black wide brimmed hat topped with a large white feather, he cut a foppish figure. Jarvan had spent the first hour mocking his attire.
Tobias had simply stared at him, and with the characteristic sneer of House Laurent had said 'Ze designers 'ave poor taste.' It was a flick of the nose towards House Lightshield, and a subtle one at that.
Not only was Tobias scion of a House known for its dueling prowess, he also had old blood in him. The Laurents were older even than the Lightshields or the Benoics, but time and a reckless interest in sword fighting had brought them to heel. Hearsay was that the Laurents had once been in line for the throne, but a Lightshield had bested them at their own game.
"What time is it?" Jarvan asked him softly—he had been throwing that question every hour hoping to find a moment when the man would fall asleep. Tobias hadn't failed to answer yet.
The duelist reaches into his waistcoat and pulls out a golden pocket watch attached to a delicate-looking chain. It takes less than a minute for him to say 'ten to ze fourteenth 'our' in his accented voice and Jarvan turns his head away. It was two in the afternoon—but the sky outside was hardly representative of that.
"Where is the Captain-General?" Jarvan queries. Tobias blinks and gives the slightest shrug of his shoulders.
"It is almost as if I 'ave been outside!" The duelist replies mockingly. "'Ow am I to know where ze Captain-General is?"
"You are part of the Task Force." Jarvan points out. He waves his hand, as if he was bidding a servant to leave. "Go find him. I want to talk to him."
"Why, so you can run away like a little girl?" Tobias sneers at him. Jarvan finds himself frowning at his candor. "Non, I am with ze Royal Guard. Zere iz a great difference between me and ze poor bastard you 'ad Ivar whip."
"Yes, he wasn't a prick." Jarvan mutters under his breath as he cradles his chin in his palm. Tobias' response was to make a disgusted noise in the back of his mouth.
Barely five minutes pass before Jarvan rises from his chair. Tobias shifts his weight onto his other foot so as to better look at him.
"Get out of the room." The Prince of the Realm makes a shooing gesture, one that the duelist takes with relative indifference.
"Is zis your best trick?" Tobias raises one elegant eyebrow at him.
"No, I just need to use the chamber pot." For good measure, he moves to the little pot in the corner and begins to loosen his belt. He didn't really feel like using the facilities, but if it would get the man out of the room for even a while, it was worth a try.
"Zen piss and shut up, morceau de merde." Tobias snaps irritably.
"So you can look at my—"
"Yes," Tobias exaggerates his own speech as he rolls his eyes and makes kissing noises. "Oooh, Prince Jaaaarvan, I love ze sight of your tiny dick."
He would have laughed, but at the moment he was desperate to get out and so the mocking only made his temper flare. "One would think the Laurents to have some measure of character." He tries to snap back.
"What can I say? If you are rude, zen I too are rude. Did my words 'urt your little feelings?" The emphasis on the word 'little' wasn't lost on the young prince and he tightens his belt furiously.
"When Ivar gets here, I'm going to tell him just how insolent you were!" Jarvan exclaims vehemently as he stomps back to his chair.
"Va te faire mettre. Ze Captain-General would not 'ave asked for me if 'e 'ad a problem with me." The duelist flicks his hand dismissively. Ten minutes pass as thunder booms outside the cottage walls. The sound of pouring rain is enough to drown out any soft noise in the room.
"Aren't you afraid? Don't you answer to the Captain-General?" Jarvan broaches. Tobias stares at him with a long-suffering gleam in his eye.
"No, this is a legitimate question." Jarvan hastily adds. Tobias glares at him. A moment passes before the duelist deems his question as worth answering.
"Why should I be afraid? 'e iz not Captain of ze Royal Guard." The Laurent's voice is cautious, almost as if he felt that Jarvan was going to bolt when he finished answering. "I answer to Madame Berault, and she answers only to your father. She said to watch you. So I 'ave been watching you."
"And?"
"Meeeeerde," He drawls. A dimple shows angrily against the right side of the duelist's face. "I am so tired of watching you, and so bored. It is not as if you are a priceless zing to watch over."
"I am a priceless thing," Jarvan leans back in his chair and watches the noble's face tic in annoyance. "But if I did escape, what would you have done?"
"By oath, I am sworn to follow you wherever you may go." Jarvan waits for him to continue, but Tobias does not say anything else.
"Just follow me?" Jarvan stifles a grin.
"Imbécile. Zere is nothing in my oath zat says I am supposed to be your nanny. I am a duelist. I do not guard babies with little dicks like you." The Laurent turns his nose up at him, and taps on the hilt of his sword for good measure.
"So I could just… walk out of this room, without you trying to stab me?" If it had been that easy—
"Oh, I will stab you." Laurent's tone was firm and even a little happy, which mildly disturbed him.
"I'm the Prince of the Realm," Jarvan says slowly, as if the man needed reminding. "You can't stab me."
"You can accidentally fall on my rapier." Tobias quips.
"You're not allowed to stab me." Jarvan points out with an attempt at a smug grin. "You would be committing treason."
Tobias' hand over the hilt of his sword twitched before he responded casually. "Not if you attacked me."
The Heir Apparent of Demacia launches into a full blown laugh—mostly to hide his own nervousness. He had always been treated well, and everyone had always shown him some semblance of respect. Laurent was the first to throw back his bad behavior into his face and he was not sure if the man was serious or not in his threats. "I'm not going to attack you."
"Oh, I know." Tobias' hooded eyes move to meet his, a muted but deadly gleam in his eye. Jarvan meets his gaze for a moment before he shirks away. "But zat is what I will tell zem."
"So you're threatening me now?" There is a trace of hesitation in the Prince's tone—he wasn't sure if Laurent was kidding, not with that look in his eyes.
"Mange de la merde et meurs, pute." Tobias snarls in frustration as he grips at his sword hilt. His hand shakes as he does so, and the blade rattles angrily in its sheathe. "What will it take to shut you up?"
"Well, if you'd just let me go—" Jarvan shrugs his shoulders, as if letting him out of the cottage was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Out of ze question." The Laurent shoots him down without any hesitation, a warning note in his voice.
"Well, you can follow me—" Jarvan tries that tact.
"And lose my 'onor? No, I would certainly stab you first. And I would do zat 'appily." The slow and deathly way the man said it made the Prince think twice before opening his mouth again, so he turns his head and stares at the window again.
"Is there no end to the rain?" He muttered to himself. Outside, a large crow sets foot on a nearby tree, and shakes its feathers over a few soldiers from the Dauntless Vanguard as they walked past the Prince's window.
Miles away the southern edges of the Howling Marsh would have made a beautiful, if eerie, picture. It was a place experiencing the right weather at the right time—which was to say that it was not raining, the sky was not very dark, and parts of the haunted marsh where the dense clouds had broken were even bathed in sunlight. The clouds rumbled and flashed green in the distant north, but there was no trace of magical interference here.
Here the toll of a steel and slugs engagement was more palpable. Blood oozed into murky water, body parts poked up from tepid pools. Flies had begun to gather in great clouds, forcing both sides to call a momentary halt in order to pull fly hoods and sheets onto their horses. They would have fought again, but there was the odor of the marsh to consider.
The cloying smell of decaying matter, already so strong given the magical origins of the quagmire, intensified to a point that the nauseating smell clung to cloth and skin and ensured that whatever meals were taken in the vicinity tasted the same.
Despite King Jarvan's distance from the front, the odor still managed to creep its way to him. He had stopped eating on the evening of the first day, and it was only with Xin Zhao's insistence that he now drank water and ate biscuits soaked in tea. He felt very weak and very tired, even if he had not been fighting himself.
The best way to describe the state of the Demacian army at two in the afternoon is to say that it was wholly wretched—what warmth that fell on the marsh only exacerbated the smell and the humidity of the place guaranteed that no one would emerge smelling like a normal human being.
They were at the southern fringes of the Howling Marsh, a place where the necromantic energies did not run so strongly. Here, the dead remained where they had fallen, but the combined smell of death and decay was enough for one to wish that the departed had risen to eat them instead.
Morale was low despite their circumstances—it had been two days since the meeting with the rest of the generals, and the Task Forces arranged against Boram had held on as best as they could. If the Noxian troops had been in better condition, the Demacians would most certainly have been overrun by noon the day before, but the 1st and the 6th Legions had not been at their best either, and the battlefield had only made their circumstances worse.
At least, the King hoped that such was the case for the Noxians.
It was almost refreshing how their armies had clashed in the civilized way. Boram and King Jarvan had not begun hostilities until it was well past eleven yesterday, and the fighting had stopped by the time the sun had set at nine in the evening. They had been ready to continue fighting again today, but the odor of the marsh and the flies had overwhelmed them all—Noxians and Demacians.
There was also the matter of Boram's decorum. While most of Jarvan's men had been peppered with artillery and projectiles, not a single thing had been thrown in the King's direction. He had been allowed to enter and leave the battlefield unscathed. Perhaps it was because Boram knew his enemy.
King Jarvan was of a more tepid temperament than his son and his seneschal. Breeding true to Lightshield stock with his almond skin, brown hair and hazel eyes, he did not make for a very imposing or fearsome figure—nor did he have any desire to.
He had the height and build of a warrior king, but the elder Jarvan had been born three years before the end of the Fourth Rune War. He had lived most of his days in relative peace, and had only very reluctantly served in the Fifth Rune War—not even as a frontline soldier, but more as a rear commander.
He was most definitely a peacetime king— the sort of man who always knew the best words to use, who saw the good in everybody and tried to do his best by everybody. He did not like to use force in any of its forms, but he was not dumb enough to trust men not to slaughter each other.
Like any ruler worthy of his throne, King Jarvan knew that humans were wolves to their fellows, and that only force could make humans understand that their fellows were not to be eaten. Knowing this fundamental truth of the world did not stop him from trying to be kind, however. He believed that being kind to others would make them kind to others also.
Despite his good nature, however, even King Jarvan could not extend the same courtesy to Boram because the man had his magic, but so far he had not seen the Eternal General on the field—only one of his sons, and unlike Draythe, Keiran had no magic in him at all. It was not hard to miss him—the boy was surrounded by Raedsel at all times.
It was almost funny, how the Elder Darkwill had made himself scarce. It was almost as if he knew King Jarvan would not be on the field either. While the King allowed himself to believe that Boram could be reasoned with after all, Xin Zhao refused to even entertain the prospect.
The bodyguard was currently pacing at the edges of the King's pavilion like he had been chained to the tent pole. Of course, Xin wasn't chained and he hadn't been in irons for years, but old habits die hard. His aging father Jarvan II had freed the man from the Fleshing Arena personally after receiving a tip from the Spymaster in those days. Since then the Ionian had sworn and had shown his fealty to House Lightshield, paying for their kindness with his own blood.
In the fleeting months after King Jarvan II's rescue, Jarvan III had been curious enough to measure the exact dimensions of Xin Zhao's pacing: three feet long and five feet wide. It was not until he had become King that Xin had deigned to tell him that those were the exact dimensions of a Noxian slave cage. Jarvan had tried to treat him better after that, but the man had noticed his coddling and had told him he was here to protect him, not to be sheltered by him.
"You must eat more," The bodyguard chided his liege lord as he offered a platter of fruit. Barely a second passed before a fly set foot on a succulent melon.
"No thank you," King Jarvan murmured politely. Xin Zhao frowned at him and pushed the platter closer.
"I must insist." He pressed. The King shook his head.
"I do not want to have to force feed you," The seneschal says as he flicks the offending fly off the fruit. "You have not been eating well."
The King put his hand on Xin's shoulder and patted affectionately. "I am sure I will eat again soon, just not at the moment. How goes the battle?"
"What battle?" Xin replies around the melon he had put in his mouth, perhaps knowing that Jarvan would never eat it after a fly had deigned to rest on it. He chewed for a moment before he continued. "We have not clashed with the Noxians at all today. The flies and the bog are proving to be greater enemies."
"And there has been no magic at all?" The King leans forward to offer Xin a napkin—the juice had begun to drip from the corners of the seneschal's mouth.
"Not that I am aware of," Xin swallows his melon and pats at his lips with the napkin before he confirms. "No sight of Boram either. It is most assuredly a trap."
"Or the demon found a heart somewhere along the road." The King shrugs. "Whatever the reason, we should be thankful that no one has died thus far today."
"It is a trap." Xin repeats furiously. "And it is a very good one. This creeping malaise cannot possibly be natural."
"Maybe that is the magic," The King offers, though he knew very little about magic. He had not been born with it, and trusted the word of his brother-in-law more than he did the Captain-General's in that regard. "Maybe this whiff is his work."
"That would be very subtle of him." Xin angrily tears apart the grapefruit in his hands. The sound of fruit fibers ripping fills the air between them. The King pretends to ignore the stray juice that splatters against his robes. "I do not think Boram does subtle."
"Neither do I, old friend. I thought he would be bringing the storm here instead of La Forbie— but magic does take on many forms." The King folds his arms across his lap and reclines into his folding chair. He was beginning to feel his age, even if he was only forty-nine.
A light mist of the fruit's juices sprays onto the King's armor again as Xin finishes peeling the grapefruit from the platter and bites into it ferociously.
"Is there still no word from Durand?" The King asks.
King Jarvan liked to think that he was a good king and a forward thinking one. In the time of his father, the famous artificer Michel Durand's work had been considered as strange and unwelcome. Breathing life into inanimate things seemed to be trespassing into the realm of the gods.
When King Jarvan took the throne he gave Durand all that he needed, and now a good portion of Demacia was protected by sentinels who would never tire. It was a pity the man himself had disappeared crossing this same marsh a week ago. His magnum opus, Galio, had vanished with him.
"No word," Xin replies in between swallows.
"He should have accepted my offer to have him escorted. It is a shame," The King says sadly, looking at the distant marsh and wondering if it was worth it to send soldiers in. "I would have liked to have him here. He was the best artificer I had ever seen. Maybe he could have thought of a way to get rid of this smell."
"He is not the only mage alive. Where are our mages, or even that creeping brother-in-law of yours?" Xin grumbles.
"Our mages are occupied enough with preventing the men from vomiting onto their own shoes. Maximilian is at Mogron." The King supplies kindly. "And it would be nice for you not to describe his gait as 'creeping'."
"Conveniently at Mogron." Xin Zhao mutters. The King knew his seneschal never liked the youngest of the Spiritmights. Why, he couldn't possibly fathom. Maximilian was kind, and he was loyal. He also gave very good advice. There was no reason to hate him.
"If dear Max were not at Mogron, Draythe would have a free run of it." The King comments, and Xin Zhao halts in his hateful muttering for a brief moment. "And then we would be boxed in from the south. It would be very unpleasant."
"I would take unpleasantness over politeness." Xin spits out another pit.
The King pats his seneschal again. The man had lived a hard life, his Xin Zhao. "I trust in dear Max," He says very seriously. "I do not think he would lead us astray for even a minute."
"As you say," The seneschal retorts. He finishes his grapefruit in silence, and, once he cleans his mouth and hands, tells the nearby servant to brew a cup of tea for the King.
"I wonder if my son is safe," The King muses out loud. Normally he would keep such personal thoughts to himself, but in the company of his seneschal he felt inclined to share.
"Captain-General Purvis will take care of him," Xin Zhao tells him as he watches the servant prepare the King's tea, face close enough to the manservant's shoulder to make it mildly uncomfortable. "And if not, there is always the Royal Guard."
"It is a very small Guard." The King says with a small voice.
"The Dauntless Vanguard is there also. They would protect the Prince with their lives." The seneschal says in a rough tone that he meant to be soothing. He offers the finished cup of tea to the King.
King Jarvan takes the cup and saucer. He thinks of what his brother-in-law had said before the battle as he looks into the amber water. The day Spiritmight had warned him about had come and gone already; surely whatever doomsday thing Maximilian had thought of was over.
"Yes," He mutters into his tea. "I suppose so."
Author's Note: This is supposed to be much bigger, but because of how the events go, I decided to clip it right here with King Jarvan. This means you'll all be getting the next chapter much earlier.
There's a lot going on in the background for this piece, and a lot of magic talk being thrown around. I felt it was prudent to swap about so that you (the readers) could see the entire battlefield, and to see the differences between the Noxians and Demacians.
I hope you enjoy Swain's long-overdue cameo! He's still a lieutenant-colonel, which means he needs to climb the ranks a bit more.