Chapter 7
1832
Piitros didn’t tell anyone, but he was secretly relieved when the Magyar Lords left, taking with them a portion of the Venedan-Sarmatian army to train up the newly-freed serfs on the Magyar lands and organize the knights into fighting alongside them for the assault on Rizan. If anyone had asked, he would have told them that it was because the Lords had agreed to take part of the army with them, and the army could enforce the emancipation of the serfs if the Lords decided to renege.
In reality, it was because the Marches were the closest part of Veneda to Finland, a byproduct of a mad dash across Sarmatia from the Magyar lands in Finland by a large section of the middling social ranks looking for either- the accounts were conflicted here- personal power or glory for their kin and patron state.
The already-established Venedan nobility seemed to have suspected both, and the Magyar Lords had never really been trusted not to be on Finland’s side. Piitros had suspicions that his presence might have given the Lords good reason to decide to prove the stereotype for their own advantage. As it was, the fact that the Lords had come to Desnopolis to negotiate rather than decide to stand on their own against the army meant that Piitros didn’t have to get anywhere near Finland, which was a relief.
It had been almost three years since Stephen Bethildrsson had come to the refugee camp. That was plenty of time for the formerly-lost Governor of Vinland to report to his Princess.
His aunt clearly didn’t want to acknowledge his existence; and Piitros refused to antagonize her by going near Finland with an army.
So while the Magyar Lords raised their levies and the army trained up the volunteers and their combined forces began their campaign against Severa and Gwen rode out with part of the rest of the army to check on Mazzera and the army’s now very long border with Lithuania, Piitros got to know Governor Drujavan. He found the new Governor to be very well-suited to his job.
He also found out that Matiyos Megryvykasy Drujavan was a long-time spymaster.
The way he got this information was the Governor inviting him to dinner, during which he casually dropped: “So the Hekassir refugees in Menesca are harboring a grudge and the community leaders have tentatively opened communications with the local Lietuvanai resistance group.”
“But we haven’t moved into Lithuania yet,” Piitros said after a moment.
“Did you really think that we have not had our own resistance groups and underground rebellions?” Matiyos asked archly. “The Sarmatians only gave us an opening to come- somewhat- out of the shadows.”
“I suspect,” Piitros told him, acting on a hunch. “That you know a lot about what is still in the shadows.”
Matiyos smiled broadly and waved his personal secretary, François Njallson, forward. François handed Piitros a stack of papers.
He spent a good fifteen minutes reading through them as they ate in silence.
“This is… something,” Piitros told the Governor.
“Thorough?” Matiyos asked. “Dastardly? I like ‘cunningly subversive’, that’s how your cousin described it.”
Piitros allowed himself to be resignedly bitter for a moment after he’d processed his surprise. The middle of conquered Veneda, in the capital of a minor state, in the company of a half-Drujavanai noble; and he was still being beaten by the Princess of the Vikings.
“How do you know Naomi?”
“Only my mother was French,” François spoke up. “My father was from Ibernís.”
“Do the members of Mac an Tòisich go everywhere?” he asked, remembering the Alban Viking who’d served as his cousin’s bodyguard and traveling companion when she’d passed through Finland during his younger years. Filip, he was pretty sure the man’s name had been.
“Not everywhere, Duke Piitros,” François demurred. “We of the clan have our duty first to the King of the Vikings, then to our ally-clans, and then to the good authorities of other states.”
“So do you send your intelligence reports to Queen Eydís or Governor Drujavan first?”
Matiyos held his hands up in a gesture of calming.
“Queen Eydís does not need to know what we do here,” he said. “And François knows better than to bother her with such trivial matters.”
Piitros snorted.
“So why are the Hekassir refugees holding a grudge?”
“They’re used to a rather different standard of living than Veneda provides,” Matiyos told him. “The Duke of Lithuania differs in his colleagues only in his ruthlessness. He has to, to keep his position as the most powerful of the Venedan nobles. But now he is threatened to the east by us and the army, and to the west by the pretender to the throne. And inside his borders, in his capital, there now exists a group of foreigners who have a love of strong kings and no love of the serfdom system. These foreigners want the technology they had lived with all their lives- but the Venedan nobles know very well what a slippery slope technology makes. As soon as you bring in some, even on just a scale large enough for a city district community, you must have the infrastructure to support it- and with that infrastructure comes the ability to access more information.”
“And with information comes power,” François said.
That much, Piitros knew from his days doing administration in Raajokin.
“And none of the nobles but especially the Duke of Lithuania can tolerate anyone else getting more power than they already have,” Matiyos concluded. “So, I ask you: what do you want to do with the agents I already have working with the resistance?”
“Give me some time to think about it,” Piitros said.
-
Gwen returned from Mazzera and the Lithuanian border just in time for the fall of Rizan, and visibly pregnant.
“A girl,” she told Piitros firmly. “I’m certain of it.”
Now that the Magyar Lords had tipped their hand to the rest of the world by taking Rizan and Severa, it was time to prove their position by moving west to neighboring Radmikia and participating in the flanking maneuver with the rest of the Venedan-Sarmatian army, approaching from the east.
Piitros gave his answer to Matiyos right before he left.
“Your agents Qadir and Kita undercover as Italian merchants- how secure are they in their position?” he asked the Governor.
“How do you mean?”
“We have our own, actual merchant connections,” Piitros told him. He’d been talking to Rober; and through Rober his parents and the rest of the extended Draka merchant family/clan/consortium. “The Drakas of Hekassir. If the Hekassir community sends an envoy asking for a caravan to bring, say, Hekassir goods that can’t be otherwise had in Veneda, and to get information about what friends and family of those in Menesca are still alive, then the Draka caravans have a good reason to go to Lithuania. And in something that big, it would be easy enough to smuggle some things- weapons, computers, communications systems- though we’d need to smuggle the technicians, too, somehow, and the supplies to set up the infrastructure for it-”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Matiyos told him. “The Hekassir are only upset that the Duke won’t let them have their technology legally. There are plenty of border-runners in the Baltic Sea who are more than happy to bring them what they want without declaring their cargoes or docking at a designated port.”
“Don’t the Vikings and the police-guards of Estia and Livia-”
“Most of them are Vikings,” François put in. “And Estia and Livia doesn’t care what goes into Veneda, so long as no one is stealing from ships bound for their ports. No one likes the Venedans.”
“Okay,” Piitros said. “Then Draka smuggles in weapons and technology- if you have Agents Qadir and Kita make a fuss about getting the chance to buy things from the caravan, then that’s adequate cover for passing information and perhaps a few- eh, small, deadly surprises? Whatever they can find.”
“It seems sound,” Matiyos said. “Go on.”
“Agent Bét Yokhanan is posing as a townswoman from Prussia, right?”
“Correct.”
“Do you have any free townspeople who could be induced into helping us?”
Matiyos pursed his lips and François started ruffling through the files in the office, eventually pulling some to give to his employer. Matiyos brushed his hand over them to read the raised dot-letters.
“Not many,” he said. “And none of them are well-organized. Most of them hotheads. Some social reformers, some revolutionaries. The Hekassir refugees may have encouraged some of them with their politics. One of them, Benjamin Ulrich, is an old contact from the school my father had to send me to so that I could learn to read. I haven’t heard from him since I became Governor. I suspect that the Duke is keeping mail or correspondence or business from crossing his eastern border.”
“If you can write orders to him to goad the Hekassir into encouraging the townspeople more, and Agent Bét Yokhanan for her to keep the townspeople encouraged and spread some of the same ideas from the other end, I can give them to our Draka contact to pass on when the caravan comes.”
“You’re quite a useful man, Duke Piitros,” Governor Matiyos told him. “Did you have any ideas for Agent Ranta?”
“I’m actually not really sure what he does,” Piitros admitted. “The reports you’ve given me weren’t very specific.”
“Well,” Matiyos said, with a smile that clearly stated he was happy to keep his secrets. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”
-
When Urusha fell, in the autumn, Piitros called a council of the Vanspagii, representatives of the freed Venedan tribes, and the Magyar Lords to stall for time. He put them to arguing about the rough plan of government he’d drafted during the siege to stall for time over the winter. Governor Drujavan’s spy network hadn’t finished stirring up the population of Menesca enough yet for the army to attack from an advantageous position, politically.
He got regular updates, though, mostly in short notes in François’ hand summarizing what reports the Sarmatian runners now stationed on the southern border of Lithuania managed to bring. One of them, sent near the end of the year, was a neat little piece of diplomacy- a pleasant surprise for the thoughtfulness of one of the army’s most useful allies on one hand; and a statement of power about his resources and expertise on the other.
Elektra and Feliskya arrived in Venice and gathered some funds there, as we discussed earlier, it said. I asked them to take a detour on your behalf on their way to Jerusalem and Alexandria. They’ll be spending some months in Byzantium, at least long enough for a season at court and the social rounds. I will soon be receiving reports about what exactly Nordmann Ásbjarn is getting up to.
-
1833
By mid-spring, Menesca was full of unrest and ready for the application of some pressure.
The Magyar Lords’ forces, with a large compliment of the army’s new mounted infantry forces and some of the Sarmatians, plowed through the long northeastern arm of Lithuania on their way to the capital. The bulk of the army and the rest of the Sarmatians waited while the Duke panicked and sent the army to confront the Magyar Lords to march out of their camps over the Duchy’s eastern border, coming up behind the army to crush it between the two forces. They coordinated their movements with the small portion of the infantry that had been sent to compliment the part of the army that had been left behind in Galinda and Sudova- this group went over Lithuanian’s western border and made threatening movements, taking over three of the border counties.
The Duke spread himself too thin trying to reinforce his surrounded army in the north and provide for his vassal nobles’ protection in the west. His army was broken by the combined forces of an experienced cavalry, trained infantry, and mutant-inclusive tactics; and a fast sweep to the captured counties by some of the victors to reinforce the infantry decimated the forces there too. The Duke’s troops fled back to Menesca.
The army descended in a tightening semi-circle covering the east, north, and west retreats from the capital. The only place for anyone who didn’t surrender to flee was south, towards Sarmatia.
By the time they were in sight of the city and were entrenching- lightly, they would only make real siege lines if the plan went horribly wrong- Gwen was heavily pregnant and Piitros was trying to come up with a way to ask her not to participate in the fighting.
He hadn’t come up with a way that he thought would work before it was time for him to sneak into the city.
Just like in Daniapolis, he and Eithan were to go in ahead of the army and break the city open. Unlike Daniapolis, the mercenaries who had assisted them the last time were unavailable to help. The army had grown too much, and they were needed in their command posts. Piitros had no official rank or position; and Eithan took his only orders from Piitros or Gwen.
They were, once they got over the walls, to rendezvous with the Lietuvanai resistance and Governor Drujavan’s spies to tell them to move; then assist the resistance in opening the city in whatever way was deemed necessary.
-
In hindsight, getting over the wall ended up being considerably easier than the rest of the Menesca affair. The city, Piitros discovered, was seething.
“This is what you call ‘tentatively on edge’?” Piitros demanded, staring at two of Matiyos’ agents.
Taneli Ranta just stared at him passively, but Tendaji Qadir raised an eyebrow. “Nobody is killing anyone in the streets?”
Yiskah, leaning against one of the darker corners of the room, snorted. “As of yet, in any case. Mostly, I’ve been calming people instead of inciting them, but there have been a few close calls.”
The words had barely left Yiskah’s mouth when a skinny boy burst into the room.
“Lady Jonesy,” he gasped, breathless, “We have a situation.”
Yiskah shifted away from the wall, her eyes sharpening. “What is the problem, Ramus?” she asked, her words slurring strangely. It took Piitros a moment to realize that the “slur” was, in fact, a dialectic shift.
Ramus’s fingers twitched. “Guardsman Number Two killed one of the singers on Theatre Row. The whole city’s exploded.”
“Go.”
Ramus was out the door before Yiskah had even finished the command. Piitros stiffened, suddenly recognizing the background humming noise as the growing sound of an angry mob.
A big angry mob.
Eithan bolted out the door, followed swiftly by Taneli and Tendaji. Piitros moved towards the door, only to be stopped when Yiskah grabbed his wrist.
“What?”
“Don’t die,” Yiskah Bét Yokhanan snapped. “Your warrior queen will rip the world apart.”
Piitros blinked. “Ah. Alright?”
Yiskah smiled, and vanished.
From the moment Piitros drew his sword until he got to the Duke’s (rather ostentatious) mansion, his entire thought process narrowed to a point – kill enemy, protect ally.
The inside of his mouth tasted coppery, and his vision was beginning to blur from one too many blows to the head, when Piitros ran into Rasim.
Who was quite obviously leading the fight without Maraaja or Gwen.
“Where is Gwen?” Piitros demanded, pausing to scan the streets. Absently, he stabbed at a Guardsman who got too close.
Rasim threw him a wild look. “She’s not with you?”
Piitros took a breath to employ some well-chosen Sarmatian oaths. If he said anything invoking a Finnish god right now, with his luck, it would come true.
“The Vanspag!” someone shouted. Piitros whirled, and a shock of blonde hair beneath a metal helm caught his eye –
– just in time to see Gwen run the Duke through with two of her favorite swords.
Piitros stared. “Are you holding an infant?!”
-
“There is nothing alright with this!” Piitros roared. “NOTHING!”
“She was born in battle!” Gwen snapped. “It’s a good omen!”
“You could have both been killed!” Piitros shouted, ignoring the growing knot of terror burning in his chest. “How could you?”
“I couldn’t just stay out of battle –”
“That you could very well have done! If –”
“You’re scaring the mercenaries.”
Piitros and Gwen whirled around, hands hovering over weapons.
“What?” they chorused, glaring.
Eithan stared at them, a faint smile on his lips.
“You’re scaring. The mercenaries. We kind-of need them, you know.”
Piitros stared, and Gwen mumbled something uncomplimentary about cowards. Eithan shrugged.
“Whatever. Gwen, he isn’t saying don’t fight while pregnant, he’s saying don’t fight while in labor. Is that really worth a fight?” Snatching the new infant from Gwen, Eithan left.
Gwen huffed. “Men. Why can’t you just draw your swords, like normal people. Talking.” She shook her head. “Fine. But I draw the line at three children, then, if I have to be so careful.”
Piitros just hugged her, the knot of terror finally beginning to dissipate.
-
Lithuania was a big prize to digest- it was the largest of the Venedan states, easily as big as all of the Magyar Lords’ holdings combined, probably even a little bigger.
Menesca had fallen fast, but the army had reversed its usual tactics and gone for the capital before taking the rest of the country because of Governor Drujavan’s spies and sabotage efforts. So now the job was to capture everything else.
No one was really expecting it to be hard- the Lietuvanai were enthusiastic about rising up, and the townspeople throughout the Duchy were more influenced by outsiders due to Lithuania’s size and primacy compared to the other states. When foreigners came to Veneda, they came to Lithuania. Now that the capital was taken and the Duke dead, they could do the easy parts.
It was just going to take a while. It was time spent with the Magyar Lords and High Command planning out the rest of the war- from Lithuania they would split, unevenly- the larger portion would go through Galinda and Sudovia to sweep the length of Prussia and take the costal capital of Ostburg, the biggest port in Veneda, to permanently secure their supply line from Hekassir and cut off the rest of the country. The smaller portion would cross the Lithuania-Zelonia border and Zelonia’s capital, Narath. Between Narath and Ostburg lay Kvaen, the capital of Scalovia. They could take it in the flanking maneuver they’d perfected over the course of the war. Then, from Kvaen and Narath it was north and joining the army again to take Dvagborg in Zegalia- which would give them a straight shot down the Dvagur River into Corona, the last unconquered portion of Veneda, and the capital Dvaghavn at the mouth of the river where it emptied into the Baltic Sea.
It was a good plan.
The plan was so good, in fact, that Piitros couldn’t give any justification for why he could possibly be needed in Veneda when he would be so much more useful to send north.
North; out of Veneda, to the Duchy of Estia and Livia. North; out of Veneda, to Tribe Ruirig.
North to the lands and people he’d inherited from his uncle.
Piitros cursed his competency.
-
1834
To Gwen, a letter, from Piitros.
There has been some argument over whether or not I am the Vanspag of Ruirig. The current standing Vanspag of Ruirig is Tuula Vanspag Ruirig, and I have officially said that, while I will continue to represent the Ruirig to the outside world, Tuula is welcome to be Vanspag. Mostly, I have reassured them that their cities and towns can remain as they are, and that all relations with Finland are to remain as they are.
We are now organizing for trade of iron and pottery, and possibly a small trade in peat. So far, the representative of Livia keeps trying to convince us to buy coal instead of peat. I have repeatedly reminded him that we have plenty of coal, and that we are not using the peat for fuel, but to no avail.
Do you think that a trade in coal would be worthwhile? It would allow us to avoid wasting energy in the mines.
In other news, the Great War is, as we were told, over. There is apparently a person called “The Iron Warrior” flying around the Mediterranean in a suit of armor, attacking any remaining holdouts of HYDRA.
The representative of Estia keeps starting arguments with Tuula, so I may remain here for quite some time.
-
To my Piitrik, this letter from Gweniig. And also Eithan.
Trade in coal is a good idea, so that nobody has to work in coal mines. How is the coal mined in Estia and Livia?
I am sending your words to Maraaja.
Gweniig and Eithan.
-
To Gwen, a letter, from Piitros.
The coal is mined mechanically, which prevents the need for actual people to go into the mines. The negotiations drag on, but Tuula is not pleased with the idea of a unified Sarmatian state, so it is slow going.
This will mean very little to you, but word has come from Mississippi that Loki is dead, and that Sikkin walks the Earth in mourning.
How is Narath?
-
To my Piitrik, this letter from Gweniig. And also Eithan.
Narath is a city-place and my swords are too clean. The weather is terrible, and Maraaja is in Ostburg where there is blood flowing good. There are a lot of clouds and no snow, just rain. The mud is awful, and I am awful, and you are not here.
Miiria is very strong and holds her hands very tight with the knives I give to her. The knives are not sharp, like you said when Benham has knives. Even though I want my daughter to grow strong. I am hoping that Benham is being strong with you even though there is no fighting.
I am sending the lazy not-warriors refugees to the Garisamadaag with the other refugee camp by the train where they are not in the way of the fighting.
Come back or I will fight with Meliisa all day and teach Miiria how to fight without you.
Gweniig and Eithan.
-
To Gwen, a letter, from Piitros.
I have been sending couriers with these letters – you can simply send one back the same way. There really is no need to terrorize a poor merchant like that. What did you do, grab the nearest traveler heading towards Estia and threaten him? The man thought I was going to kill him!
In other news, Benham has done what no amount of diplomacy could do. Tuula Vanspag Ruirig has three children, and they have attached themselves to our retinue (and Benham) with loud war-cries and declarations of loyalty.
You will be pleased to know that Benham can now strike a target nineteen times out of twenty, with his child-sized bow. His knife-throwing is still abominable, although I believe that some of that may be due to sheer distraction.
I wish you were here.
-
To my Piitrik, this letter from Gweniig. And also Eithan.
About the letter – yes.
I am pleased with Benham’s progress. The rain is still making the ground terrible, and some of the priestesses are saying things like “witch-weather.” I don’t know if they are planning or if they are suspicious.
Is there snow in Estia and Livia? I have sent on your tales of the Iron Warrior and Loki to Maraaja, and she says that everyone always says Iron but it’s not true, and condolences on the not-dead god-who-is-not-a-god. She also says that the stories are all true, so your sources are telling the truth.
If that is so, then after this war is over, I shall take you to find your Sikkin-goddess.
Come back or I think it might rain forever.
- And Eithan.
-
The trip back to Sarmatia from Estia and Livia went quite differently from the trip in- they were provided passage on a ship, with a captain used to smuggling things into Veneda, and sailed down the coast. They had been warned to expect some sort of aggressive naval activity, since the war had been stirring everyone up, but they encountered no one- not even when they sailed openly past Dvaghavn, with its depressingly good fortifications.
The answer to this strangely peaceful trip came when it was time to weigh anchor in Ostburg- the city had been taken. The fleets were no longer under the control of the local nobility, seeing as they were quite obviously dead, and hanging from the display that had been put up at the mouth of the harbor.
Piitros was met by a runner when the ship came in, and escorted to the castle, where Maraaja was waiting, and taken rather deep inside to a cramped stone room.
“You thought this was what?” he asked, staring at the row of objects the army had found in their looting.
“Some form of gun, I think.” Maraaja was standing very still, her eyes dark with thoughts that Piitros did not want to know. “It is too large for a person to hold, though.”
Swiping his hands through copious cobwebs and mountains of dust, Piitros stepped closer to the strange object. Set on two wheels, it had an oblong shape like a tube, but it was closed at the larger end, with only a tiny hole.
The entire thing was black, but clearly made from metal. Piitros dragged a finger along the inside of the tube, and sniffed the gritty black grime that came away on his finger.
- Which meant…
An image from an old text floated to the front of Piitros’ memory.
“It’s a cannon,” Piitros breathed, possibilities gleaming in his mind’s eye. “Maraaja, how many of these are there?”
Maraaja shrugged. “About fourteen.”
“See how many of them work,” Piitros said breathlessly. “This could end our siege problems.”
They had cannons!
-
1835-1836
Maraaja and the army left Ostburg four days before Piitros did, carting the six working cannons with them as they headed east.
The following four days were some of the most irritating days that Piitros had ever experienced. He spent the entire time going over the newly printed maps of the “State of Sarmatia,” (maps which wouldn’t even be accurate until they finally took Kvaen, Dvagborg, and Dvaghavn) and educating himself on their newly acquired naval capabilities.
“So…what you’re saying is that we can take the coast of Scalovia without having to worry about Kvaen?”
The newly appointed head of the Prussian fleet threw him a pained grimace. “How is it, Lord Piitros, that you are Finnish and know nothing about naval strategy?”
Piitros winced. “Up until recently, my only experiences with bodies of water had been the ferry between one side of Finland and the other. My focus in study was science, not war.”
The Naval Captain mumbled something unintelligible from under his moustache, and waved his hand at the large, map-covered table that dominated the room. “But this is not so hard? Can you not see? Coastal towns and cities are particularly vulnerable, excepting the case of Dvaghavn, of course.”
Piitros squinted at the map. The block of wood that symbolized Dvaghavn was painted blue, instead of the green that was the color for both Ostburg and Memelburg. “Why not Dvaghavn? I saw the fortifications as we sailed past, but…”
The Captain mumbled something else behind his moustache. “Dvaghavn was established by pirates, so they were acutely aware of the sea. They built the city defensible from the sea approach.”
“Ah.”
“So we shall attack the coastal areas, specifically Memelburg? It is approved?”
Piitros stared at the map. “Did you air these ideas with Maraaja?”
The Captain shifted uneasily. “I…did mention them. She called me a ‘good boy,’ and patted my head.” Piitros could practically hear the discomfort that Maraaja had a tendency to induce.
“Right.” If Maraaja approved, that meant that it probably wouldn’t get too many people killed, and while Piitros wasn’t learned in the affairs of naval warfare, the strategy looked sound. “It’s approved, then.”
Piitros was just beginning to look for a way out of the conversation when Ramus Tiirsa burst into the room, red light shimmering around his fingertips.
“Ramus?” The young man, who was sometimes known as ‘Gambit’ for his role in the fall of Menesca, had followed Yiskah, Taneli, and Tendaji as they guarded Piitros into and out of Estia and Livia. He had proven to be in possession of one of the most complicated and convoluted minds that Piitros had ever met.
“The Priestess sent a message, the walls of Kvaen are about to fall!”
Piitros wondered, even as he dashed out of the castle and onto the back of Reino, if Ramus’ entire life revolved around delivering important pieces of information and stealing other people’s valuables.
-
Piitros arrived at chaos – the walls of Kvaen were not simply broken, they were demolished. Apparently, the cannons had worked, quite well. The problem lay, not inside the city, but outside.
The fighting had spilled from the city streets to the terrible terrain which surrounded Kvaen, and the near-constant rain of the past few months had flooded the rivers Neeriis and Memel – the fields surrounding Kvaen were muddy swamps, and most of the Sarmatians and mercenaries had been forced to leave their horses in nearby Neeriisburg. As clouds gathered overhead, it grew increasingly difficult to differentiate friend from foe – if it wasn’t for the strange powers that Piitros was still learning to handle. Apparently, a friend-recognition-program was now constantly running in the back of his mind.
Ducking, (and nearly falling on his back in the mud) Piitros suddenly caught sight of something that they had not, up until this point, faced.
A sorcerer.
Stabbing a knight in the gut on his way back to his feet, Piitros began to shout. “Maraaja! Maraaja! I NEED MARAAJA!”
Suddenly, the sky caught fire. Red-gold-white flames ate at the clouds, flickering like the worst sort of nightmare.
The field was suddenly bright, much as if the flames had, in fact, eaten the clouds.
Later, Piitros would find out that Janaag had used her rather strange array of magical and mutant abilities to join the mutant powers of Jendiik, Rohit Desai, and Ramus. Later, he would learn that Jendiik had left the joining as soon as the skies were lit ablaze, and that the young priest had begun to heat the ground – slowly, so that the fighters might gain their footing. Later, he would hear that, after Ramus and Rohit had passed out, Janaag had called all of the horses from Neeriisburg.
At that moment, all that Piitros noticed was that Maraaja had found the sorcerer, and was rather desperately holding him off while guarding Gwen’s back.
All rational thought fled. Even as the fire in the sky faded, and the ground grew steadier beneath his feet, all that Piitros could see as he cut through the throngs of Kvaen loyalists were the struggling figures of Gwen and Maraaja –
A sound from behind him startled some part of his focus, but not enough to do more than trigger that part of himself that seemed to be teeming with strange and new abilities –
He leapt –
Tagspapiig snorted at him, tossing her head, while Benhaag snickered from beneath him –
He had lost one of his swords, but that didn’t matter, because all good Sarmatians kept spares with their horses –
The sorcerer was so busy trading magical blows with Maraaja that he never even noticed as Piitros rode up behind him and removed his head.
It was, after all, one of the most expedient ways to deal with magic-users.
Gwen, whirling, leapt onto Tagspapiig’s back, and grabbed one of her spare swords – it seemed that one of her old ones was lost to the battle. “Piitrik!”
It was impractical, it was ridiculous, it was like something out of a ballad –
But still.
In between decapitating knights and delivering terrible blunt-force-trauma, Gwen leaned across Tagspapiig’s back and kissed Piitros.
“You’re back!” she crowed, pleasure written across her face. There was a good possibility that the redness of her teeth was entirely due to blood, and not shuriig, at this moment. At the very least, she had enough blood smeared across her face to replace the face-paint favored by courtly ladies.
“Yes!” Piitros replied, even as the final clatters of battle faded into the moans and screams of the injured. Lowering his volume, Piitros smiled across the body-strewn battlefield at his lover. “Yes, I am.”
-
The ride from Kvaen to Dvagborg was…lazy. The army moved ahead, settling in for the long siege that threatened at the capital of Zegalia, but Gwen and Piitros lagged behind with the supply chain.
Normally, they wouldn’t waste a moment, but their previous sieges had taught Piitros an important lesson:
Gwen did not sit still very well. Forced sedentary living, even temporary sedentary living, often turned Gwen into an angry warrior, and the only person who dared face angry-warrior-Gwen was Meliisa Vainkag Tagimasiigsaila.
So, with a predicted siege ahead, Piitros contrived to keep Gwen on the road for as long as was conceivably possible.
It worked for almost a month – but there was only so long that it could take to reach Dvagborg from Kvaen, and such leisure simply couldn’t last.
Piitros’ life went from bad to worse just as the siege camps at Dvagborg drew within sight.
“You! You! This siege had best not last very long, Piitros!”
Piitros stiffened. It was rare that Gwen called him Piitros, and not the nickname that she had coined years ago. “What did I do?”
Gwen bared her newly dyed teeth at him. “You got me pregnant again! I swear, the first thing I’m asking Maraaja for when this child is born is an amulet! What if I don’t get to fight? How could you?”
Normally, this was a cause for celebration – as it was, Piitros felt as burst of joy in his chest. The problem lay in Gwen’s perspective of the situation. She had promised not to fight if she was in labor, and Dvagborg promised to be a long and tedious siege.
Piitros realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that this siege was going to be the worst one in Sarmatian history.
-
Sitting in the branches of a small tree, keen eyes spied their prey. Patience…patience…
“HA!”
Dirt flew as Eithan landed on his back, hard. Eyes twinkling, he smiled up at his tiny assailant. “Am I captured, oh warrior?”
Benham nodded, his reddish-blonde hair flying in his face. “I captured you!” he declared. “You’re dead, Winter Soldier!”
“Oh, I am, am I?” Eithan shifted, and surged to his feet, swinging Benham high into the air. “I think I’m pretty alive, what do you think?”
Benham pouted for a moment, and then beamed. “Can we go see Mađva and Isii?”
Eithan frowned. “Your Mađva and Isii are very busy, little warrior. How about we go visit your friends with the Ruirig camp?”
Benham wriggled out of Eithan’s arms. “I don’t want to,” he said, scowling. “They’re boring and can’t fight right. I’m going to see the priestesses. Maraaja always has time for me.”
Sprinting away, all thoughts of Eithan and the Ruirig children (who had grown up in a town,) left Benham’s mind. Ducking around a group of horses, and under a group of arguing mercenaries (they talked very strangely, all funny sounds without words,) Benham nearly landed on his face when he finally found the priestesses (and priests).
“Benham!” Maraaja appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed him, hugging him. “Where is Eithan Militatalviin?”
Benham pouted. “He wanted me to go play with the city-kids. They’re boring. Also, he said that Mađva and Isii are busy, but I think that they’re just playing, because they did that a lot and then Mađva got skinny again and then Miiria came, and now Mađva is getting big again so they’re playing to make another baby like Miiria and babies are boring and I have nothing to do.”
Maraaja kissed him on the forehead. “I promise you, your Mađva and Isii are not playing, they are talking a lot to some very boring people so that people will stop getting sleepy all the time.”
Benham frowned, wrinkling his nose. “You mean like how Thayen and Jyeleny and Kati got really sleepy and Jyeleny got so sleepy that Oitosyrig took her to live with Agin?”
Maraaja nodded solemnly.
“But why can’t you fix everything, like you always do?” Benham asked, still frowning.
Maraaja shook her head. “I can make things go boom, and I can appeal to the gods, but this is not a thing that needs a boom or the gods. It’s just normal people-things, Benham, so normal people have to fix it.”
“But,” Benham shook his head. “But, Mađva and Isii aren’t normal people!”
Maraaja opened her mouth, and shut it. “You’re right, little warrior. Your Mađva and Isii are much, much, much more important than normal things. But they aren’t priestesses, Benham, and I meant that priestesses can’t fix –”
“Natarajakibéti!”
Benham frowned, trying to make sense of the liquid sounds – why couldn’t people just speak Sarmatian, like normal people?
Maraaja set Benham down on the ground. “What?”
Another stream of liquid sounds spilled from the newcomer’s lips, and each sound made Maraaja look angrier. Finally, she held up a hand.
“Jendiik!”
Jendiik, one of the priests that was also a warrior, did the same appearing thing that Maraaja did a lot. “What is –”
“I need you to watch Benham,” Maraaja ordered the younger man. “There’s a situation with the Vanspag.”
Jendiik nodded, and Maraaja was just – gone.
Benham scowled. “What’s wrong? Why can’t people talk normal?”
Jendiik sighed. “It’s languages, Benham. What –” He paused. “How long have you been able to do that?”
Benham blinked, distracted. “What?”
Jendiik touched one of his fingers to the tip of Benham’s nose, and a little spark jumped between the space. “That.”
Benham felt his chin wobble. “I don’t know. Is it bad?”
Jendiik shook his head. “Of course not! Look!” Flicking a hand, Jendiik created a small horse made out of fire, and stood very still as the flaming creature pranced around his hand for a moment. “You just have a talent.”
Benham stared at the tiny fiery horse. “So… everything’s going to be alright?”
Jendiik looked conflicted for a moment, and then a shimmer of something silver flickered across his eyes. “Yes,” said a voice that was not Jendiik with Jendiik’s mouth. “It will be alright.”
-
1837
“There must be something that we can do!”
“The illness is simply ordinary siege-sickness,” Maraaja sighed. “What has Damaris said about this?”
Piitros glared across the table at her. “She’s sick, too.”
Maraaja flinched. “And Dvagborg?”
“Nothing,” Rasim grunted, slamming his head on the table. “Any and all rebels have either escaped, or been executed by the city guard. We sent Kati in the other day, and all of our agents are gone. They’re either executed, fled, or dead of disease. We’re not the only ones hit by siege-sickness.”
“What I would give for a touch-healer,” Piitros breathed, sinking into his chair in defeat. “This can’t go on too much longer. I’ve ordered the navy to harass Dvaghavn so that the northern support from upriver stops, but there is little more that they can do, with Dvaghavn so defensible.”
Maraaja scowled. “Touch-healing is one of the rarest forms of gods-gift. I believe that there is one in Alexandria, and three in all of Finland! We’d be better off trying to storm Dvagborg!”
Before anyone could answer, Kati slipped through one of the walls, her face twisted with fear. “Sergeant, Priestess, Lord Pirkkje, Rober just fell from one of the spy posts. One of the priestesses says that he probably has three days, since he hid the sickness until he fell.” Her face twitching, she stammered. “Ah – my best wishes to the Vanspag, Lord Pirkkje.”
Before anyone could respond, Kati slipped back out the way that she had entered – through the wall. Rasim swore.
“Rober is one of my best,” he growled. “I –”
Maraaja jolted to her feet, her eyes silvery and glazed. “Hold!”
Rasim and Piitros turned to stare at her. “What?” Piitros demanded. Gwen was pregnant, dying of siege-sickness, and Maraaja could do nothing. What was she shouting about now?
“Maraaja, someone told Jendiik that Rober fell ill WE HAVE A PROBLEM!”
Maraaja sagged, gasping for breath. “That was…that was Ashaa…I think… our problem with Dvagborg…is about to be over…”
Dashing out of the makeshift council room, Piitros ran through a terrified-looking Kati, and came to an abrupt stop at the top of the hill overlooking Dvagborg.
Standing a few feet into the river, Jendiik was flanked by two priestesses, only noticeable by the fact that he was a young blond man between two women with vibrant red hair.
The air beat, much like it might directly before lightning tore through space –
The river had an odd sheen, Piitros noted, and then –
The river exploded in flames, reaching for the sky like an eerie mockery of a forest bared of leaves. The air screamed with the presence of so much heat, and the heavily packed snow on either side of the river and all around Dvagborg melted in an instant –
Nearby trees exploded, the closest siege towers (thankfully vacant) vaporized, and –
There was simply no way to see Dvagborg from within the firestorm, which screamed towards the sky –
Amidst it all, Jendiik and the two priestesses remained untouched, even as they were wreathed and caressed by the towering flames.
Maraaja screamed something unintelligible behind him, but Piitros didn’t care. All he could see was the terrible mass of fire that had swallowed a city and was unaffected by snow and river –
The water was oddly still, but that didn’t matter in that moment, as the fire tore itself to ever-greater heights, for a moment –
It looked like some awful bird, a bird so large that it could swallow all of Zegalia in two bites –
And then –
It was gone.
Then, only then could Piitros hear the roar of the river, fed by the melted snow and ice, blackened with ash, and held in place by a steadily-paling Maraaja, whose arms were bleeding freely as she invoked her gods-given powers.
“CONTROL THE PHOENIX!” Maraaja cried, her voice strangely overrun by what sounded like a chorus. “JANAAG AND ASHAA, CONTROL THE PHOENIX!”
Piitros couldn’t see what she seemed so worried about – aside from the water, of course, but Janaag and Ashaa weren’t there, were they?
The water coalesced into a single, incredible, river, and poured down the path from Dvagborg to Dvaghavn.
Maraaja collapsed, and for a moment, Piitros thought that it was over.
The scream of a bird of prey, too loud to be real and too close for comfort, ripped the silent air apart. Feet above where Jediik lay, unconscious, in the river, Janaag and Ashaa floated in the air, shining with a terrible golden light that was –
– shaped like a Phoenix –
– which whirled, and slammed into their siege camps, exploding in a storm of golden mist.
Like Jendiik, Janaag and Ashaa fell into the river, unconscious.
-
Piitros wasn’t sure how long he stared at the black hole that had once been Dvagborg. There were no bodies. There were no buildings. There was no stone.
The entire place had become an oblong black splotch in the fields and forests of Zegalia. Melted smooth, and burned black, it was like something out of a terrible tale of a war of gods.
He only moved when Gwen grabbed his arm, and dragged him away.
“G-Gwen!” he gasped. “What?”
Gwen nodded towards the now-empty area that had been made into a makeshift hospital for those ill with siege-sickness. There were only three bedrolls.
“The Phoenix,” Gwen rasped, still sounding a bit dehydrated. “I’m not sure we’ll ever know what it was that Janaag and Ashaa did, but it cured us. Every one of us who was still alive.”
Piitros shivered. “That’s…”
“Terrifying,” Gwen finished. She glared when Piitros gaped. “What? I’m not stupid, that type of power is beyond anything that a sword or arrow can fight. I think that they were possessed by Api the Warrior.”
Piitros swallowed hard. A goddess, walking their battlefields? Finnish skepticism aside, that kind of power was not something he wanted to face.
-
It seemed prudent, in the face of what had happened to Dvagborg, to go back and make an offering. Piitros had been thinking about it, and the Sarmatians could say what they liked primeval divine forces of the universe- he knew what ‘the Phoenix’ had been.
Was it not massively powerful?
Did it not come in the form of a gigantic bird?
Had it not healed their army in the same breath that it smote their enemies?
The Sarmatians’ Phoenix was nothing less than Frija, mother of Loki, in the form in which she had laid the Sun-Moon Egg and created the world that her grandchildren protected. Loki was dead and Sikkin walked the earth- why wouldn’t Frija be here as well, watching over her daughter-by-marriage and her family and people here?
No one tried to stop him on his way to what had formerly been Dvagborg, even though the Sarmatians had been muttering about it all day and staunchly refusing to go anywhere near the site.
Evidently, if he wanted to get himself killed by tempting spirits, their thoughts went, he was completely allowed to do so.
What was a little embarrassing was that everyone in the army who wasn’t Sarmatian had had about the same idea.
The Venedans thought the Phoenix had been the most destructive of the forms of their goddess Gabija, who was, after all, primarily worshiped through and symbolized by fire. They had lit a bonfire to her and were throwing offerings into it, some people singing the history-legends of the clans.
He passed a few Greeks having an argument about which of their gods this could have been an intervention from- Zeus, for the form; Ares, because this was a war; Apollo, because of the healing; Hephaestus, because of the fire- and edged around some Hekassir and a few others honoring Thor. Piitros resisted the urge to do something rude. Thor was many things, almost all of them undesirable; but this was not Finland and if they wanted to openly glorify Thor they were allowed to.
He reminded himself that Thor was, after all, another child of Frija- even if he was the completely worthless one and how dare they give him honor while Loki was dead- and continued to look for an appropriate place for the rituals.
He’d just about found a good place when he came upon Damaris and her Christians. Rasim and Surayya were nearby, enough for some form of solidarity but not so close as to be with them.
“It was the hand of the Lord,” Damaris informed him, very seriously. “An angel was sent down from on high to perform a miracle the likes of which has not been seen since the flight from Egypt, and so tonight we give praise and thanks.”
“I didn’t know you had bird spirits,” Piitros told her.
“Angels are not bird spirits,” she said. “They are messengers and tools of God, and the seraphim come in fire with their six wings.”
Piitros was pretty certain he had only seen two wings, but that was between Damaris and her god; not him and Frija.
The religious observances continued well into the night and morning, long enough so that they actually put off leaving for Dvaghavn until the day after, which meant that, a few days later-
“PIITROS!”
Halfway onto Reino’s back, Piitros reversed momentum and sprinted in the direction of Gwen’s voice. They were about to reach Dvaghavn, what could possibly be so urgent –
Gwen smacked him with a glare of death, clutching her stomach. “You bastard! I am going to make you regret –”
Gwen was in labor.
Which meant –
Which meant –
“Oh, no,” Piitros breathed. “You – but that means –”
Gwen spat something particularly vile in Finnish – that, in hindsight, Piitros had probably taught her. “You’re going to lead the attack on Dvaghavn! Oh, Piitros, I am so, so angry at you!”
Like magic, (Piitros was beginning to suspect that it was magic) Maraaja appeared. Her wrists were still an angry red from her most recent call on the Sarmatian gods, but she otherwise was none the worse for wear. “Gwen!”
As soon as Piitros was sure that Maraaja had Gwen under control, (as much as that was possible) he fled.
He had a city to conquer.
-
His anxiety turned out to be completely unfounded, in the end, and he wasn’t certain if he liked that development or not.
When they finally got into sight of the city, they realized they’d all missed something very important.
They’d all been so focused on the appearance of the Phoenix that they’d forgotten that the fire had been put out by a massive wave of water from the river, headed downstream.
Dvaghavn was downstream from Dvagborg, and it showed. The fortifications the city had been so proud of were gone, completely destroyed, leaving rubble and ruins in its wake. The city was still mostly underwater, though it was slowly draining, and the population of the city that hadn’t drowned was by and large sitting on their roofs, weeping and bewailing their divinely-ordained misfortune.
Piitros spent a good two minutes just staring at the city, and then another eight laughing about it. All this effort, just for the last capital to fall to a natural disaster!
Once he’d gotten himself together he organized the priestesses and mutants to drain the city the rest of the way, and get everyone to come down to help clean up. There probably wouldn’t be any loot here.
They did find some things worth taking, in the bottom floor of the castle- things had gotten banged up and some of the textiles ruined, by the water, but things could be broken down to their component parts- and also some trouble.
Well, not too much trouble. The people Piitros had brought with him were as spoiling for a fight as the rest of the army- not terribly much, but they had been keyed-up to get bloody, so short work was made of the garrison, and they took the next two floors with few injuries on their part.
In the last room of the castle, right below the tower roof, Piitros looked down at Justus Maximus ‘Veneda, the one who’d started this whole damn mess in the first place, and said:
“Leave him for Gwen.”