Oberons Veil
Radiant Bard
The Blight of Mortals
The war, it had ended long ago. Even our forefather's fore fathers hadn't seen it. The battles were things of myth, the Shadow Lords were beyond myths. That is what we thought when I was young, just a little girl in this village not far from the coast but not near anything of importance. The Imperium they called it, this large all powerful state that was headed by the Emperor, our emperor my mother always chided me for not showing the man enough respect. Respect didn't save his life in the Fourth Divine March though, he like most of the other soldiers never returned, my father included.
My brother volunteered for the army the following spring, leaving my mother, grandmother and father along with some of our cousins to tend to the family shop which we lived above. We ran a small but profitable bakery. Fortunately my mother had been the baker while my father the one who procured most of our goods, so when he never returned we still had the baker for our bakery. I took after my father though, entering into the merchant trade and helping to make sure my mother had all the goods for baking while selling the extras to some vendors. It was something I was told I was good at, not sure how I think of that now days though. Memories from another time, a far simpler time and one that was... happy.
It wasn't long into my twenties that Grand-Divine Auresia III called the Fifth March. My brother had risen in the ranks of one of the various Holy Orders at the time and was sent in the first wave. A letter came a year later saying that he was stationed in one of the Divine Realms as Commander of a Castle. My mother was proud of him and frankly I knew that while he was happy there, it meant he was a reservist. My brother never could stay out of trouble though, a couple years later news came to the Imperium that the Divine Realm of Riven had fallen to the Demon Armies and that all soldiers were being pulled to the Grand Range, a line of mountains running from the northern most of the Divine Realms to the southernmost. Riven had been beyond the Grand Range, the last of the Far Realms as they had been known following the Second and Third Marches. It had been the Fourth March when most of those had fallen. With Riven gone the number of Divine Realms had dropped from seventeen to sixteen, a far cry from the thirty three there had been following the Third Divine March. Such grief griped all the Faithful.
My mother and I knew the outcome of our brother's situation. One more member in our family killed by the hands of the Demon Armies, Shadow Legions they were called. I felt lost, I think for a time we all did. Auresia died the following year, the new Emperor was assassinated and the Imperium seemed to be on the verge of a civil war. The first in its history. Sure enough when the Emperor's cousin ascended to the throne, a challenger rose. Lines were draw, armies gathered and then nothing. It was the silence before the storm, nobles, patricians, clergymen, and anyone that could seemed to be abandoning the cities in a hurry knowing that should they remain it would likely they would perish in a siege. The battles never came though, the Emperor died in his sleep due to a disease. After that I decided to no longer be on the sidelines as a merchant, I enlisted in the military academy selling everything I had to get in. Father had taught me to use a sword and shield, while mother and brother had taught me to use a bow. Those skills I had maintained through the years and honed in on during the lead up to the possible civil war.
Several years later and with several ranks on my shoulders I entered full service in the Imperial Legions. For a time it was just bandit hunting and killing, securing our highways and such. Then news reached our little corner of hell that the Grand-Divine Galina VI had called the Sixth Divine March. Our Emperor being faithful to the Faith joined and brought to bear the might of the Imperium. Truly for only the third time in its history the Imperium was pulling out all the stops, and had somehow convinced ally and enemy alike to do the same. Two years of preparation went into the March, thousands of ships, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, equipment and animals sailed across the Great Ocean. Months on the high seas saw some ships lost to storms, others were flat out lost in fog. When we all arrived at the shores of Elium it truly blew the air out of my lungs. I was speechless at the sight of the Grand Citadel of Kyne's Shield. It was the largest military installation on this side of the Grand Range. Riven's citadel had been larger, the thought something larger than this monstrosity had fallen chilled me to the bone.
Another few months were spent preparing the forces to divide up into our three groups to march in separate directions and prepare a pronged attack to recapture Riven's old citadel. It was our goal, our mandate. I wondered if my brother, my father had similar thoughts when they first laid eyes upon Kyne's Shield. I was sent in the task force that was dispatched from the Citadel to the Marshal State of Pavona, the southernmost of the Divine Realms. I like many others was scared, eager and naive as to what would come. We knew only of the tales we had been told as children for what the Demons looked like. Some imagined they'd look like men but corrupted by dark magics, others like feral beasts twisted by dark energies, I personally wasn't sure and didn't want to make up my mind as to what they would be like lest I be caught completely off guard. I commanded a cohort by this point, having obtained the rank of Centurion. Commanding the third cohort of the eighth imperial legion was an honor in my mind, Legate Alphonse Trantio was a good man and an able commander. He had been in the Fourth and Fifth Marches in other officer level positions, being one of the few to actually survive and come back to the Imperium rather than being impressed into the service of one of the Divine Realms. He had taken me under his wing when I entered the Academy saying he had known my father and commanded my brother, he had seen both their deaths which honestly gave me closure. I needed that, I needed to know that they had died fighting and not cowering in some corner.
We arrived in Pavona and received word that the other two Armies were beginning their pronged assaults. We honestly had the longest march out of the three and would arrive well behind the other two. The idea was that those two would engage the enemies and hopefully defeat them, we would be clean up and security at that point allowing for the other two to rest while we provided fresh eyes and arms to the defense. In the event of the worst case scenario and the First and Second Armies were defeated we would act as the shield to cover the retreat upon our arrival. Intelligence had suggested that we would face minimal resistance along our route and that Riven Citadel was not currently occupied but rather vacant. Intelligence, they didn't deserve such a title. Unless you see it with your own eyes, never believe the intelligence. We did in fact arrive a week and a half behind the others. We found them dead, not a soul survived. The Citadel had been occupied and the scouts had been corrupted, their memories wiped. It had been an elaborate trap set by the Shadow Lord Phyrion. Rather than engage our foes in an honorable battle, Legate Trantio had us withdrawal to the Divine Realm of Caspia where their ruler, the Grand-Marshal Rhengar was informed of the situation. I don't think I've ever seen an Alf turn so many hues and shades of red before, even his ears changed like his face did. That was the end of it. The Sixth had been a complete failure, a single large battle that had cost the lives of nearly a million men and women, the Emperor many of his military leaders, several foreign Kings and Queens and many of their military figures. A total catastrophe, and yet that word didn't seem to fit quite right as though it was still not describing just how bad it was.
Forces were aligned upon the defenses of the Grand Range in preparation for a counter-attack by the Shadow Lord Phyrion and his Shadow Legions. It never came. When the time came and my tour was over, I decided to remain in the southern Marshal Realm of Pavona. I offered my services to Grand-Marshal Owin Ostbrannen. He accepted me and promoted me to the rank of Senior Centurion in command of several of his border castles. It's been twenty years and here I am. Sitting on Grand-Marshal Ostbrannen's throne now, the man died several years ago and his immediate successor was assassinated by agents of Phyrion. I was the senior most member of the Governance Council by that point and the only real candidate. The vote was merely for show as the other Governors of Pavona agreed that I was the only candidate. Somehow this feels hollow, empty as though time stopped for me upon arriving on this continent. I'm sure mother passed some time ago, perhaps even some of the others. Something inside me says they all died when I left, though for mother I'm sure she did. Her only family leaving like the others had, she probably thought I was dead, just as I think she is now. Strange how the will of the Gods works like this.
We have been in the interwar period for some time now. Pavona hasn't had skirmishes in nearly two years. Some believe that Phyrion has counted his losses and more or less accepted that the lands east of the Grand Range are no longer his and are solidly under Divine Faithful control. Optimists believe that, naive people believe that, children do and even soldiers. I don't though, a Shadow Lord is eternal like the gods, Phyrion is biding his time like any good commander. He's letting us get complacent, comfortable in the knowledge that we are secure and that it's finally over. The war will come, some thing I might be too harsh for making my men and even my women stay ready at all times. Those people will die first. Here I sit, on the throne of Ostbrannen, before him it was Resoria, and before her it was Luivano and so on. I Alessia Riencourt will not falter, I will not waiver and I will never surrender and inch to the darkness. From my cold dead hands Phyrion will need to pry my sword for we of the Divine Legions are all that stand between the Shadow Court and the Lands of the East. Here we stand on the edge of the abyss.
Last edited by a moderator:
