Prologue: Transgression

***

Rain tumbled across the wrecked terrain, drenching the shredded encampments and burgeoning forest.  Rain covered the bodies of the dead, washing the blood into the ground, making tiny pools of eyes and throats.  Red-stained rivers ran from gaping, angry wounds.

So many dead.  The humbled army lay in the deepening mud—bodies pierced and cut and crushed—spirits having long since departed to answer to God for their sins.  Its few survivors fled both the rain and the unstoppable, inhuman, unholy warriors it heralded.  Churning the mud in their desperate flight, many soldiers drowned in it, trampled and crushed by their brethren.  Muskets and pikes and sabers laid strewn and forgotten like cut hay.

As a weak dawn struggled to end this terrible night, one survivor wept.  The Bracks of this land would call him boduus—raven—an unclean eater of the dead.  In every war, the dark birds were the only true victors, for when all was over, they alone owned the battlefield.  In his homeland of Ehre, he was known as a Raven—a paladin, Champion of God—black shrouded, the epitome of Medianist chivalry.

Wrapping his ermine-lined cloak tighter around him, he shuddered as the water-soaked garment chilled his skin.  The ravens would feast well today.

How could such a thing happen?  His eyes drifted down from the restless clouds to the new forest spreading out before him, and he stared at the sight with horrified awe.  Where yesterday no trees grew, now saplings reached above the heads of men.  How could the young witch have manifested such magic?  How could she have summoned the storm—raised the wood—and invoked the wrath of the damned Fée?  How was it that she alone destroyed his fine army?

Why was it that she chose to spare him once again?  How could a Devil-condemned witch know mercy?

Slowly his face fell into his hands, and his tears were lost in the rain.  His army—fine, proud, and foot-strong—lay scattered throughout those young trees.  At the center, he knew, laid the ruined fortress of the victors.  Come sun height, the witch and her followers would celebrate over the bodies of the fallen.

A dying man moaned nearby, pawing weakly at the trembling shafts erupting from his flesh.  Already, green leaves sprouted from the arrows’ wood—another new tree, its branches reaching for the falling rain and the Fire Hell’s first morning rays.  The Raven knelt, removing the silver raven’s head clasp from his throat, and spread his blood and rain stained cloak across the body.  As the soldier’s breath slowed, the Raven performed the final ablutions over the body before closing the dying man’s eyes for the last time.  He left the cloak over the corpse, disgusted now with what it was and what it represented, choosing instead to allow the rain to soak him through.  He had no more use for it.

With a last glance back towards the forest—towards his beloved mistress, his Hells-damned nemesis, his blessed savior—he turned away and followed the remnants of his command.

***

“At least the rain keeps the flies away,” Partinial observed as he leaned out the tavern’s window and sniffed suspiciously at the Ceilbyrig air.  Looking back at his morose companion, his eyes shone with good humor.  “Don’t take these events with such a heavy heart, brother!” he laughed and squeezed his friend’s shoulders affectionately.

But Guiromélans was inconsolable.  Glaring out at the sticky spring drizzle falling from the sky, he gritted his teeth and wished the younger Raven would just go away.  How could his comrade understand his confusion?  His shame?  Staring into his half-sampled mug, he suddenly and impulsively threw its contents out the window and into the muddy street, narrowly missing a cursing Brackish merchant.

Partinial laughed as his eyes closely followed the lledrwr’s retreat.  Laughing or not, the young knight was always looking for a fight.  He was like a drawn Raven’s blade:  bright, sharp, and very, very dangerous.  “Forgoing the temptations of one minor sin won’t bring you any closer to salvation,” he observed, “but I suppose it’s a good start.”  He shook his head as he retook his seat, “Though it’s nearly as great a sin to waste such good courmi.”

Guiromélans closed his eyes.  His ship for home could not arrive soon enough.  All this wretched Ceilbyrig could provide is thick courmi, watered uinom, and other foul Brackish fare.  Oh, to breathe the clean air of Ehre once again.  To see the golden fields of Orqueneles, and hear the laughter of its women.  Perhaps, it would help him forget the laughter of one other woman…

“And what other sins must I abandon, kind brother,” he moaned, “before I can be saved?  What sins have I committed to deserve such torment?  What sins have I committed that the punishment must be meted out upon my own innocent men?”

Partinial clucked in surprise and leveled a stern finger at his friend.  “I can only go by your word as to the events of that night.  It is a shame I missed the conflict that stills brings you such shame—”

“My shame began long before the siege of that dunum…”

Partinial waved the unwelcome interruption away.  “Perhaps the Ravens of my company would have helped sway the outcome, perhaps not, but you must realize, brother Guiromélans, that what occurred was merely a defeat and nothing more.  Do not take it to mean that God is displeased with you.  You shouldn’t be surprised that misfortune befalls noble men.  Fate and fortune, both good and ill, are sown by the whimsy of God.  You lost, Guiromélans.  You lost a battle, nothing more.”

Surprised, Guiromélans looked at his young friend, and his eyes narrowed.  “Of my legion, more than 900 men were left on the field…  Not to mention all the Bracks who died.  Equipment.  Supplies.  Money.  Everything was lost.”

Partinial shook his head as he examined the remains of his drink, swirling the muddy courmi around in his mug.  “And surely, the Bracks would wish to thank you for that!” he chuckled.  “All that good EroBernac cannon and rifle in the hands of unwashed barbarians.  Wasted!  But don’t you worry about that!  They’ll turn it on each other soon enough, and before a single Medianist soul feels its burn, it’ll all rot and rust in those godless lands.”  He sighed, muttering into his mug as he finished his drink, “Campaigning in the Bracklands is always bad for the hardware.  God has seen to that.”

“Yes,” Guiromélans nodded bitterly.  “Wasted.”  He leaned closer, staring hard at the other Raven.  “Listen to me, Partinial.  I’ve lived my life by the laws of God and the dictates of chivalry.  I have practiced the Certu and modeled my actions after the Dulia and Latria.  I’ve striven to lead a proud, honorable life, to leave the mark of the Median upon the world with my passing…”

Partinial nodded, stabbing a finger at him and slamming his empty mug against their table.  “Noble endeavors, all of them!  It is no wonder you at last became a Raven.  You should be proud—”

Guiromélans winced.  “No!  No, you don’t understand!  Everything I’ve done in my life has lead me, directed me to the day I became a Raven—”

“And not so long ago!” Partinial chirped.

“Yes,” Guiromélans agreed impatiently, irritated at the interruption, “I have worn the silver bird at my throat for less than a year—you have been a Raven longer than I—but—”

“Only by a few years!” Partinial happily admitted, “I earned the rank through the blood of my superiors and well-occasioned duels.  I earned the rank through the butchery of the right men at just the right times.  But you!  You, on the other hand, had proven far too valuable to Duke Beaudous to promote!  For you to become Raven, it meant Beaudous had to surrender his prized vassal over to the Dux Bellôrum!  Victory after victory were yours until there were no more honors to laud upon you except for that of our little silver bird!  And you are a Marshal of the Ravens!  Such an unprecedented rank for one so new to our order is indicative of your skill, value, and achievements.”

“It is not the same,” Guiromélans protested.

“It is!”

“You don’t understand!”

“You and I,” Partinial urged earnestly, “are physicians to our ailing Medianist lands!  I merely lance the boils, stabbing deeply into sickened flesh and draining the poisons.  But you!  You, my brother, heal the whole body!  You heal the soul!  We are the same, but you are much greater!”

Guiromélans shook his head.  “You just don’t see!  Everything I’ve done in my life has lead me, directed me to the day I became a Raven.  Everything I’ve done as a Raven—everything I’ve done in the name of God and Primate Klemm and Superbus Tyrannus Valven—has brought me to—this—point.”  He rapped the table with his finger for emphasis.  “This failure.  This defeat.  What I have seen, what I have done… what I have experienced these past days at that dunum, these past weeks in Ymyl Gwland, these past years in Ehre, they have stripped me of my pride and honor.  Is this the fate of a Raven?  Are these the consequences of a pious life?  What lessons am I to learn from what happened in that wasteland?  What is the condition of my soul?  When it comes time for my judgment, I would like to look God in the eyes.”  He waved a hand at the window and the rain beyond, “It has still not yet stopped raining.  I fear… I fear I am cursed never to see the sun again, brother.”

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Partinial assured, his hand squeezing Guiromélans’s comfortingly.  “The scales will even.  There is no saint without his feast day, no fallen lord without his fast.  You’ve been tested by the storm.  Your troops were maimed—that witch and her followers have won for now—but rest assured that when it’s over, it will be the Just that carries the day.  You are Guiromélans of the Iron Fist, Vavasour of Ehre, Raven of the Seven Kingdoms, and paladin of God.  Scourge of the Ehrech alfs.  Slayer of demons.  Brack tamer.  Bane to witches and conjurers.  You will see.  God will smile upon the righteous.”

Guiromélans rocked back in his seat and stared blankly at the ceiling.  God smiled upon the righteous?  God smiled upon the righteous.  He shook his head.  When the fair enchantress swept the field with her power, when the rains came and the forest and its alfs erupted from the ground, when his men died and fled, whom was God smiling upon then?  Was it the witch or the Raven?

His stomach clenched in a cold, hopeless fist.

***

The darkened bistro was a dank sanctuary where faces and pasts were easily forgotten or overlooked.  How many like these has Guiromélans visited these past months?  How many has he visited since he fled his beloved Orqueneles, when news of his failure finally caught up with him?  When proof of his failure was shown to all within the hallowed glory of Peiné Païen?  When his theft was discovered?  His callused hands ran across his face before he buried it in them, alternating between fits of drunken moans and sobs of sorrow.  However many, it seemed, he hasn’t visited enough.  The fires of shame still burned brightly, no matter how much drink he used to extinguish them.

Outside, a harsh Low Summer storm moaned through the tight, muddy streets, lashing out at þiuda and ritter alike.  The heavy bistro shuddered beneath the thunder, and its coarse occupants murmured quietly with each gust and crash.  Every time the door opened, rain and wind followed the struggling pedestrians into its shelter.  Cursing in their thick Low Muttese, patrons shrugged their shoulders against the unwelcome invasion and protected their drinks until the door closed again.

A young boy, perhaps of Dedication age, worked his way cautiously through the drinkers.  Guiromélans watched him remotely, casually wondering what kind of dark trade he was plying with these rough customers.

Suddenly, the bar’s andbahts shoved Guiromélans roughly as he slammed a freshened stein on his table.  “Ü-Vhat ist this?” he sneered in broken EroBernac.  “Ü-Þu weeping like a little barn?  Weis serve only männer here!”

Guiromélans only smiled at the bartender and pretended not to understand the insult. “Yes,” he said, “Yes, you are correct, of course.”

The bartender’s EroBernac might have been poor, but Guiromélans’s Low Muttese was even worse.  The andbahts has been itching to pick a fight with the Raven all night—there was something about Guiromélans’s cosmopolitan attire and Ehrech accent that seemed to anger the big Mut—and it seemed Guiromélans finally looked drunk enough for him to risk it.

As the Mut’s eyes narrowed angrily, Guiromélans’s hands gratefully embraced the new mug of weißbier.  Just as he prepared to raise it to his lips, the andbahts’s beefy hand slammed down over the top.  Guiromélans stared morosely at the heavy appendage, the beer’s precious, sweet head oozing up between the stained fingers.

Several of the bartender’s friends were slowly rising from their seats.

The Raven smiled down at the hand and the mug.  This might be just the thing he needed to clear his head.

The andbahts leaned down to glare at Guiromélans.  “Né!  Ü-Þu are afháimeis?  Ü-Far from home, jái?  This bier ist extra.  10 marks.  Þu pay izwar marks, fremder, und þu leave.  Afleiþan!  Now!”

Guiromélans nodded slowly as he surveyed the bar around him.  The andbahts probably outweighed him by nearly 5 stone.  Another five Muttese stood ready to beat and rob him, while the rest of the bar appeared merely interested in watching it happen.

The young boy—Guiromélans couldn’t tell if he was Muttese or not, though his hair was braided like a Brack’s—has retreated to the door and watched him with frightened interest.

Guiromélans sighed.  The timing was opportune.  This wretched fishing village has lost its appeal on him—as has its weißbier—and it seems he has lost his appeal on it as well.  It was about time he moved on.  In all likelihood, Partinial would be arriving here soon, and it would be a good idea if he were long gone before then.  Opening his long jacket, he reached in to retrieve his money.

Suddenly, the bartender swallowed and paled, and his friends quickly found new distractions elsewhere.  Even in the bistro’s dim light, Guiromélans’s silver Raven’s brooch shone brightly.  The grips of his saber and pistol were worn with frequent and familiar use.  Slowly, the andbahts removed his hand from Guiromélans’s drink and stepped away.

“Afléts!” the frightened bartender gasped.  “Many pardons, ritter!  Ik meant né offense.”

Drunken as they were, Guiromélans’s steely eyes bored into the andbahts’s.  “Tell me something, frijónds,” he asked, “Are you a pious Medianist?”  Slowly, he rose, forcing the larger Mut to take a step back, and took an experimental smell of the air.  “I never can tell with these Muttese backwaters.  You look of Hente blood.  Is there any trace of Thunderer heresy within you?”

The bartender’s eyes widened with sudden understanding.  “Né, né, honorable Raven!” he stammered, quickly making the sign of the Median before him.  “Ik am good Medianist!  Ik love God!  Praise Hoël!  Praise Guiot!”

“Hmmn…  I wonder.”

“Ist true!  Ist true!”

Guiromélans studied the sweaty face of the nervous Mut.  Pulling a silver artifact from his cloak, the Raven glanced at it briefly before returning it to his pocket.  Did the andbahts tell the truth?  Guiromélans smiled.  Of course he did.  Only a fool would lie to a Raven.  He produced a silver groschen from his purse and held it up for the man to see.  “20 marks.  For your beer, for your troubles, jái?”

The relieved Mut exhaled explosively and bowed deeply as he gratefully received the coin.  “Awiliudón, Raven!  Þu are wise!  Þu are just!  Hail Valven!  God bless þu, ritter.”

Guiromélans’s smile froze and then faded.  “God bless?  Perhaps,” he muttered.  Slowly, he reached down and took up his new stein.  Blowing off its crushed head, he saluted the andbahts grimly before taking a deep drink.  “Prost.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy slip out of the bar.

***

Muttese history has been turbulent and combative, and scars of countless battles marred the countryside.  It was an especially dangerous place, as compared to peaceful Ehre.  Even this small village has been touched by the violence of the Endless Wars.  Its buildings were simple, undecorated, and relatively new.  Structures were built quickly to replace the ones destroyed before.  Structures were built with the expectation that they would soon be toppled again.  Despite the darkness and rain, Guiromélans could see the stains of soot and ash upon some walls.  This small village, like so much of the Duchy, has been put to the torch as recently as a couple years ago, perhaps sooner.

Before too long, some upstart baron or count would come rampaging through here again, intent on pursuing his goal of the Duchy’s throne—perhaps even the seat of the Superbus Tyrannus itself—but more likely, he would merely meet an ignominious death.  This village would have to make the choice to follow him or resist, knowing that the right decision might only delay the razing by a couple months.

Guiromélans shouldered through the rain, making his way down towards the docks.  The mud sucking at his boots was slimy and smelled of fish, and he was reminded all too vividly of other rains and other mud.  He gritted his teeth and sighed.  Oh, how he hated these provincial pits of fish guts and booze.  He was more at home in the field on campaign or, perversely, within the courts of royalty.  He found comfort only in the embrace of the enemy or the arms of some sweet-smelling sellâria.

Sellâria…

He shook his head violently to drive away the unwanted, unbidden memories.

Maybe one of the fiskskips could take him further down the coast.  Better yet, perhaps a jaght or steamer has arrived during the day?  Such vessels might afford him some modicum of comfort.

As he slid down the narrow street, drunk as he was, he was still acutely aware of the company he’s attracted.  Two men sat in the shadows outside the bistro, their bodies heavy with muscle and weapons; now they kept pace with him, doing their best to remain quiet and unseen.  The boy from the bar was out there too, following him at a distance, peering at him from around corners and out of alleyways.  They’re probably working together.  Guiromélans wondered when they’d make their move.  He wondered what exactly they’re after.  Money?  Murder?  Infamy?  Disappointed by his encounter with the bartender, he almost looked forward to finding out.

He stopped abruptly when the docks came into view.  Among the villager’s stinking fiskskips, a new ship lay beached on the narrow belt of sand.  Its long, slender lines looked fast and predatory.  The Raven hesitated as his drunken mind struggled to digest what he saw.  The ship’s masts flew the flags of no nation or master.  A privateer?  Pirates?  If so, its crew must have been desperate to risk landing here.  The Muttese were not known for their hospitality towards strangers, especially outlaws.

He scanned the storm-blackened horizon.  Although the conditions at sea must be far worse than they were ashore, the crew still appeared to be in a hurry to return to them.  Even at this late hour, in this weather, repairs were quickly being performed across the ship.  Broad of chest and bundled in heavy cucullus against the weather, sailors scurried across its decks and along its sides.  Its two masts looked sloop-rigged for speed, but its rigging hung in snapped and tangled confusion.  Scraps of sail still rattled in the wind, and black smoke streamed from a damaged exhaust funnel.

Guiromélans considered this and wondered about those two men following him.  Could they be connected?  It was likely.

“Fráuja?”  Without warning, the boy materialized in front of him.  “Þu fragiban… er… alms, fráuja?”

The boy crouched in the mud at Guiromélans’s feet, braced against the howling wind and stinging rain.  One hand tugged lightly at his trouser leg, the other extended hopefully.  Now closer, Guiromélans could better see the boy’s rain-moistened face.  He was a handsome child, perhaps of Palpi or EroBernac stock, but his eyes were tired and old.  Guiromélans shook his head at the boy’s broken Palpi-accented Low Muttese.  “I speak Palpi, child,” he answered kindly.

He smiled again at the boy’s look of surprise.  How could a stranger have guessed his homeland, eh?

“What kind of sire would let his son out in a night such as this?” he asked, letting a 20 mark silver piece fall from his hand.  “Visiting bistros?  Where is your father, boy?”

Catching the coin in midair, the child leered up at Guiromélans, the look in his eyes suddenly very calculating.  “Me father?” he hissed with a burr as thick as any Brack’s.  “Me ater comes soon enough, yäh?”  With only the slightest glance past Guiromélans’s shoulder, he scampered away.

Without hesitating, Guiromélans turned and drew his cavalry saber, his drunkenness making his movements clumsy and premature.  His draw cut was early, missing his target by a wide margin, but it succeeded in surprising the two Bracks approaching from behind.  The nearer of the two dropped the sap he had held ready.

Now face-to-face, the two sides regarded each other briefly.  The two Bracks were large and stocky, the countless braids in their hair and beards hanging miserably in the rain.  Upon their foreheads and backs of their hands, they bore the tattoos of Suptra the Traveling Goddess and Her son, Aelle.  They’re sailors, though by the number of rings in their ears, they hadn’t yet traveled through the Fists of Gock.

Guiromélans glanced at the ship under repair on the beach and then back at the two Brackish sailors.  He smiled sadly.  “A press-gang?” he sighed.  “This is a Gock-damned press-gang?”

The closest Brack screwed up his face with embarrassment and anger.  “Yäh, boduus, but na longer, uh?  All yä had tä do was stay turned and take a nice nap.  But nage, yä has tä act all smart-like and make trouble.”  He shook his head at his fallen sap.  “Now we’re goin’ tä have tä hurt yä, uh?”

The two sailors drew their enormous spatha broadswords and stepped forward, separating slightly to give Guiromélans two targets to worry about.  Without preamble, the closest, largest of the two leaped at him, twirling his heavy blade with frightening speed.  Not daring to meet such a heavy attack directly, Guiromélans sidestepped and parried, sending the sailor sprawling past him into the mud.  Turning immediately to meet the next Brack, he saw him only gesture before something unseen struck him in the face, throwing him hard onto his back.

Guiromélans didn’t pause to get his bearings.  Even before his head has cleared, he instinctively rolled aside, narrowly avoiding the blade of a descending spatha.  As he rose, he cut backwards and smiled with satisfaction as his blade bit into muscle and bone.  The larger Brack howled in agony as he fell backwards.  Before he has even hit the ground, Guiromélans wheeled his saber around and thrust it down through his breastbone.

Standing, he calmly placed his boot on the Brack’s throat and jerked his sword from the body.  Blood pumped up from the wound, soaking already sodden clothes.  Watered by the rain, it quickly mixed into the mud.

Carefully flicking the thick mud from his ruined clothes, Guiromélans turned and glared at the second Brack.  Not quite as rash as his partner, the sailor stood ready, making low, rhythmic cutting motions with his sword.  He didn’t look frightened, but he didn’t have that cocky expression any longer either.

Guiromélans slipped forward and attempted to thrust past the Brack’s defenses.  The sailor parried easily and gestured again.  Another fist, invisible yet still very solid, sent Guiromélans staggering backwards again.  He heard the gristle of his nose crack and grind, and his teeth rattled in his mouth.  Blood began to flow from both.

Even as he dabbed at his abused face, realization dawned, followed quickly by anger.  A witch.  A WITCH!  The Brack was a filthy, Gock-damned sorcerer!  What kind of cruel jokester was God to send up yet another witch to face him, so soon after his last defeat?  As he nursed his abused jaw, his vision reddened and rage darkened his heart.

With the nature of his enemy revealed, he could see the tiny ticks and gestures that betrayed his summoning.  He could smell the magic oozing from the Brack, as if it was garlic embrekton.  His Raven’s instincts kicking-in, Guiromélans leaped to his feet with a roar of fury and charged.

The Brackish stone-summoner gestured again, but Guiromélans was ready for it this time.  He ducked left, letting the spell discharge uselessly above him, and stabbed with his saber.  The tip of his blade snaked around the spatha and buried itself into the man’s forearm.  The sailor gasped and jerked away, and Guiromélans closed immediately, plowing bodily into the smaller man.

The two foes tumbled to the ground together, Guiromélans rose sitting astride the Brack and rolling him onto his stomach.  The desperate sorcerer summoned repeatedly, but Guiromélans endured the blows and burns as he steadily pressed the Brack’s face deeper and deeper into the mud.  “Die, Hells-spawn,” he hissed into the rain.  “I send your soul into Gock’s embrace.”

Bubbles rose up from the thick ooze.  The stone-summoner’s struggling slowed and eventually stopped.

Gasping with effort, Guiromélans drew his knife and slit the dead Brack’s garments down the back.  Spreading open the clothes, he stared down at the bared body.  He found what he was looking for on the Brack’s side, just above his hip, encircled by the tattoos of the dead man’s clan and gods.  Slipping the tip of his knife into the skin, he got to the work of cutting into muscle.

***

Minutes later, Guiromélans held under the rain a tiny, blackened pea—what, to untrained eyes would appear to be a pebble of charcoal or piece of burnt flesh—but Guiromélans knew what it was.  He understood the dangers it posed.  He understood the threat to God it represented.

Why would God lead him to such an opponent now?  Was God mocking him as He did in the Bracklands?  Guiromélans’s fist clenched around the tiny, black stone.  No.  Perhaps not.  Could this be an opportunity to redeem himself?

Realization dawned.  Perhaps his punishment was at last over?  Perhaps the time of his penance has begun?

Guiromélans kissed the bloody fist gripping the witch’s stone and made the sign of the Median.  He understood.  He will honor God.  He will praise His name and follow the Word of the Prophets.  He will face evil in all its forms and defeat it.  Heretics, witches, demons, Fée, all will fall by his sword.

As a Raven within the safety of the Seven Kingdoms, he proved a miserable failure.  Such was not his calling.  Saint or fallen lord, he shall serve God.

Guiromélans looked down at the beached privateer and the sailors struggling to make repairs in the storm-swept surf.

No.  He was meant to take the battle to other lands.