3430 of the Fifth Age
Mordurel, Easterland Region
Silverhall Castle
Aldrich Silverstag
“Thank you my lord,” he said as he unfolded the parchment Master of Spies Jermayne Jagon gave him.
“Your grace,” Lord Jagon replied.
Aldrich noted the seal of house Godsgrace. Here’s for hoping they’re not resisting that I’m revoke their countship over Vorostmark, he thought. When he read the message he could relax. Count Godsgrace accepted his decision but he claimed that he was a mistake. When he folded the parchment and handed it back to Lord Jermayne he made a note to talk to sweet Raenys about it. Rohanna Godsgrace was her friend and lady-in-waiting and if she wanted to marry off her friend to keep her from suffering with her house since it was her decision originally. He’d been away hunting and the chancellor had been doing something else in Culhaven if he remembered correctly.
“Lord Jermayne, the chancellor spoke of leaving ahead, so did he?”
“He did your majesty. With his knights, household guards, servants and all,” Jermayne confirmed, with a slightly sleazy smile. He pushed the brown mop covering his view from his eyes and Aldrich saw the hint of grief.
“Lord Jermayne. I am sorry about your mother. You let me know if you need to return to Barrowland and I shall find a temporary replacement.”
Jermayne gave a thin smile.
“Thank you. I am fine. I worry more about my lord father.” He paused as he and Aldrich mounted their respective colts. “She was a good stabilizing influence in our lands, always helping father govern and brought Barrowmen and Southlander nobles together. I suppose it was for the best though. She has been…” he caught his mistake. “…she had been, sick for a long time. No more pain now.”
“She is with the patron gods in the Heavenly City,” the young king said with empathy in his voice. “Like they do my late royal aunt.” Unfortunately his uncle the late consort of aunt Jhaenera had not passed to the Heavenly City. To his and his sweet Raenys’s disappointment.
He had told her, “Off course the court is moving back to Whitewall Hall. The realm is run from the capital and as a queen you know that. You can return to Silverhall whenever you want later. Sweet dove, it’s only ten kilometers between here and Culhaven. It’s not like we’re going to Reikland.”
Speak of the Daemora, he heard the small roar of one of those two damn dragons bonded to her. The little roar had caused a moment of horror for some of nobles that was the closest. That was only a small part of the court and their servants. Many had already left Silverhall in the two previous days. Raenys had not be happy that the court was moved that, well, more akin to the fact that she had to follow it back to Whitewall Hall in Culhaven. It made his heart ache that he could not seem to get anything right with her since his return home.
He caught sight of the dragon in question. The offending fire-serpent sat on top of Raenys’s carriage and had roared at a noble she thought got too close to Raenys. It was the exotic beauty from Kyrosh with the name he could not pronounce. Raenys was in the midst of telling the drake to stop roaring. To tell the truth he had no idea if it was Icefyre or Moonfyre and which one flew about over their heads. The one atop the carriage had dominant raven black scales with steaks of crystal blue and the one flying low above had the same dominant raven black scales with streaks of crimson. Raenys stepped into the carriage, baby princess Alys in her arms, with her sister Alyssana and a handful of her friends, Lady Rohanna Godsgrace and Lady Dawana Oakenshield was those he could name. He wondered if his sweet was still upset as the carriage began to move along with dozens of household guards on horseback and six kingsguards. The other five would ride with Aldrich. His friend Velanwë rode beside him. The large precession began to move forth.
Aldrich heard muttering from one of his kingsguards, “Gorgeous beasts. Terrifying and dangerous beyond belief, but gorgeous.” He recognized the man’s frame and his voice even with the flat visor of the rounded helm as Sir Tiber. Through marriages the late Lady Jagon had been his elder sister. He wondered if he should offer him time to return to grief over her loss.
“Aye,” his fellow kingsguard, Sir Willis Blackmont, seemed to agree with some caution. “Till they mature and reach their full sized. Attempting to control dragons has always been folly. Just look at the old dragonlord kings a millennia ago.”
Then he heard the coughing of Sir Randyll Appermont.
“You really should get that cough looked at,” Sir Eddyre Tinian said and offered him a sip from his wineskin. The old knight declined with a gesture with his gauntlet covered right hand.
Aldrich looked to the carriage and pondered that he of recent upset Raenys far too often. First his decision to hunt and now this. It seemed he couldn’t do anything right these days, not with her anyway. Maybe that hunt had been a mistake. Could that be why she was upset now? Whilst he pondered the matter in his head his squire engaged with the elf Velanwë in a casual conversation about religion. He heard Velanwë mention the Amora who according to myths had created all of Enderal and the young squire, only twelve, responded with that his lord father always said that the realm’s patron gods created the world. That was indeed what the texts said, at least the newer ones. His lord father had made him study both the newer and older scriptures and while he hated it at the time it had made him realize that only the newer version contained the creation myth. The centuries older version had lengthy sections about the Amora but apparently the archdeacon and his predecessor had had a problem with that.
One of the men that rode around Aldrich was the Reachmen noble Sir Yndric Cargweyn, better known as Yndric of Ironholm. The robust man was a veteran knight and Aldrich considered him for the Kingsguard. With a horn of ale in hand and japed and laughed with the men around him and on a courser close by rode his cupbearer. Yndric was of a minor chapter of his house and had been lord of castle Ironholm in the Reach for many years. He had recently abdicated the title as lord of Ironholm to his son. Aldrich may soon have need of a new Kingsguard.
The drake that had rested atop Raenys’s carriage took off into the sky to join the other. He shook his head. If those eggs hadn’t been a gift from the king of the Ice Islands to the northeast he would not have allowed her to raise them. If they had not been a gift of peace from the dragon king when they signed a treaty he could have refused them and would have knowingly broken Raenys’s heart. The dragon pups hatched so quickly that he had no time to listen to Chancellor Greenflood’s advise to slay the beasts in their eggs. They were quick to bond to Raenys and if he had taken the pups and slain them for the dangerous beasts they were it would have ruined his relationship with her forever. By some luck the she-drakes appeared tamed, or at least they listened to Raenys.
“There is a matter I would discuss with you, your grace,” Lord Jermayne Jagon said. “Whispers came to my attention that the noble and mighty Templars have restricted their actions in Felwood.”
Aldrich frowned at that information.
“How great?”
“Greatly, it seems. They are restricting operations to around their castles in the region. Less resources and men will be sent there to focus their forces on defending the passages through the East Edge Mountains I expect, or hope.”
“Their forces in Felwood is defending the southern borders of Nülinholm and that southern borders of Barrowland’s holdings south along the Summer River coast. We discussed this not four months ago. Me and their grandmaster.” It irritated him to see their agreement broken.
“With respect to the order, you can’t expect too much with a woman playing the part of grandmaster. Women aren’t suited for these kinds of leadership roles. Young woman like her, I can only imagine how she got herself elected as pretty as she is.” Aldrich gave him a look and the young lord close to his thirties added, “There is no way the young pretty grandmaster is a virgin is all I’m saying Your Majesty.”
Aldrich wasn’t sure he could disagree with that. Logically wouldn’t it be the best way for a woman to become grandmaster in that absurd electoral system the order had. A strange tradition he was surprised worked for as long as it had.
“I want you to send a raven to Silverblood when we are in Culhaven. I will have the grandmaster explain her actions.”
“In person?”
“It is not yet necessary I think. A raven will suffice.”
Aldrich took to listening to the bard that rode with Raenys’ carriage and semi-sang a poem. The elf-woman had a beautiful voice and he saw how Velanwë listened to her with a warm smile.
“The mountains crumbled, the trees shook, the deepest valleys echoed with the roar of the fiery-beast. For he was ‘the Mountain that walks’, armies shattered at the thundering of his roar and the echoing of his steps and the storms created by his wings. All but one elven prince, a brave boy of the ancient realm of Ithílpelennor. With a shield of iron and a spear-point of the purest gleamglass he threw himself against the beast. Climbing the dragon’s scales he came to stand on his back and the dragon’s maws sought to swallow him whole. The dragon slashed and iron cracked and blood splattered but with a final dying breath the elven prince thrusted his spear deep into his foe’s eye and so both lay dead. For all times since for the slaying of the fire-drake he was to be remembered.”
“I’ve heard it a hundred times no doubt, but I’ve never spent much thought on it.” He wondered how much of it was based on truth.
“Indeed Your Grace,” said his master of spies. “A tale as old as the ages.”
Aldrich looked to Velanwë.
“My friend, what is the origins of the tale, do you know of it?”
The copper skinned elf nodded elegantly.
“I do your majesty.” He shifted his panther to ride closer to Aldrich and Jagon. ““Like most tales of epic battle and heroic deeds of elves and dwarfs it is a tale from the First Age. I am not sure but I believe the dwarfs use that name as well, though I very much doubt the orcs in Nûlbarâkz do. Naemodras was the son of Nimenë ‘the Fool of Iron’ and king of Ithílpelennor.”
Lord Jagon sighed, “Forgive me but I don’t hold an interest in mythology of your kin.”
“It is not mythology my lord. It is history to my people and to the dwarfs and even the Aethereals. Many orcs recognize it,” Velanwë corrected politely. “It came to be that Prince Naemodras stood to fight the largest Elder Dragon to ever live; remembered as ‘the Mountain that walks’. The largest dragon of all time, far too large to fly it is said.”
Lord Jagon shook his head hopelessly.
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