Aourel Hathwaye stood staring out at the no longer empty expanse before the fortress. Camps had formed; earthworks revitalized; pillars of smoke rose, painting the sky a stormy black. They were the reason she’d been so rudely pulled from her melancholy in Bardic College, where she had founded the scope and cemented the finer mechanics of bardic magic. She had tamed the branch of magic from chaotic energy to refined elegance. She had painted masterpieces that filled the Patrician’s office, noble homes, shaped sculptures that stood as monuments to Evari greatness, and stood as the right hand of her brother in the defense of the south.
Yet lately she had felt empty. She glanced out the other side of her tower towards home, where distant bursts of colors flashed over the grand arena, and wondered if her cousin had managed to follow through with his machinations for once in his life.
There came a great knock, which, while it made the door shudder, she knew was soft for her brother. “You may enter.”
Roe stepped in as the only man, discounting the filthy Marok that pursued their submission, to stand taller than her. He was a whole head above her, a head with hair like spun gold that seemed to radiate captured sunlight, eyes like the blue of woad and the wrath of the charging Norish berserker. Around his brow was a circlet of silver laurel leaves with bronze lilies entwined around the band; the ends of the crown rose into bronze hands, bound by ribbons in worship. He entered headfirst, his body covered in heavy Lamellar armor, the bronze enameled in bleached white, bright yellows, reds, and silver, with the shoulders left plain bronze. The pommel of his sacred sword, the Herald of the True Born, rested in his palm; the long blade of some grey material rose up onto his shoulder, the divine weapon of the Champion of Mealis, goddess of Purity and Mother of Humanity.
“Welcome, sweetest sister.” He scooped her up in one arm, pressing her against his side. “How were your travels?”
“Rushed. I was not prepared for the Marok to rally their levies so early in the year. They’ll risk their harvest by spending so much manpower.
He placed her down after pecking her forehead. “Indeed. There is definitely something wrong over there. Have you prepared any countermeasures?”
“I painted the valley.” She glanced at the canvas where she had recreated the valley before her. “I should be able to inconvenience them.”
“Oh yes, only inconvenience, I’m sure.”
“Shush, you. Though I believe I heard a certain horse goddess earlier.”
“She delivered me news and forewarnings. Roe has managed to become the champion of the Arena and is now a hero of her radiant divinity Mealis.”
“I thought that was your job.”
“I am her mortal champion; heroes are agents of her authority. I am her mortal-bound authority. She also wanted me to know Mire is meddling, though they’ve obfuscated where and what.”
“So, Elliot chases your shadows even now.”
Roe raised his hand to stop her. “Be kind. He is getting better. To pursue self-improvement should not be scorned.”
“I know. I suppose I’ve just lost faith in him.”
“Put your faith in her brilliant divinity. Mealis shall never let you down, dear sister.”
The thunder of a horn warned of enemy forces advancing on the fortress. “I will provide arcane support here.”
“I will manage the walls.” He whistled and called. “Setanta!” Roe’s great war hound, as big as a brown bear, trotted in on his massive paws. “Protect.” He motioned to Aourel and pecked her on the brow before moving towards the battlements.
She watched the ranks of Wrightmark; they were like her people, but a strange white handprint was burned somewhere into their skin. They were the vassals of the Marok. Slaves. Chattle warriors fight and die in the place of giants. The hordes were cut down by slingstone and arrow before they got halfway down the valley path. They sent smaller groups, probing attacks with shields to waste their ammo reserves
There came Wrightmark in gleaming bronze armor, with large shields that moved in layers, war wagons pushed forward, archers shooting out through wooden arrow loops, picking off the rare defender with lucky shots. Marok, each at least ten feet tall, began to wade forward in long strides. Their bodies were patched with bronze plates and wooden shields. The archers and slingers focused on the giants as the phalanx arrived at the wall and started throwing bottles of liquid fire to clear the battlements above. As the men retreated from the walls, more Marok and Wrightmark flooded into the valley. Aourel painted ankle deep divots to trip up enemies in their tight formations.
There were several more horns, and Aourel painted stones on the steep cliffs that sided the valley, sending them rolling down to break the Wrightmark lines, and then they appeared Marok warriors clad in grey, great wooden shields, and swords of mythic iron, once only gifted by the Gods, since weapons were merely stone. The ironclad Marok followed their men, being among the biggest Marok there, and when they reached the chaotic battlements, they managed to pull themselves over the wall. They knocked men off to their deaths and slew them with the care of ants. The Legion started to waver when Roe charged the breaching Marok and fended off blows, killing one, two, and three before he was driven back as more scaled the walls, with Wrightmark being lifted to the wall.
Aourel saw foemen pushing towards the gate to let in the tide of invaders, and she panicked. She took up the sky blue, fed in her magic, terror, and bled everything about her into the paint until there was nothing but the canvas. The canvas was everything. She couldn’t turn away because she wasn’t real. The brush slashed paint across one side of the flanking mountain tops, shearing a third off by erasing several feet of material. There was a thunderous cacophony as thousands of tons of stone came down, burying the pass and the hordes that filled the valley. The Brush felt as if the canvas was pulling, dragging; suddenly she was she again, and she felt her finger start to dip into the canvas as the Drain tried to take its cost. She snapped her awareness back and threw the canvas away. Collapsing, her eyes flickered as the Drain gnawed upon her consciousness. Darkness descended as several Wrightmark men kicked in her door, and the great cu Setanta leaped to shred.
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