Unshod hooves splashed in murky, shallow water as Revek ne'Hulik, Jaesyn ne'Parajos, and their escorts crossed Taggan Stream, a vassal stream of the holy River Rann. Ordovin legend said that the Rann was formed when the Horned Lord slew the dragon Rannokl; the river was the beast's heartsblood as he lay dying up in the Mournskull Mountains. The stream was joined by rivers formed by the tears of the Lady of the Water and Wind, and became the mighty River Rann, holiest of rivers and the lifeblood of the Dominion. It allowed Ordovin to traverse the Hyryyn with ease and made the Vale verdant and lush, providing massive pastureland for massive herds of horse, cattle, and sheep. Goats were raised in the upper passes; pigs were not raised, but hunted as pests in the scrubwoods of the foothills.

Jaesyn had suggested such a hunt as a distraction, and many of his retainers had agreed. He'd been surprised when his friend had adamantly refused. "The sooner we get this done with and get back to Damarskan, the better," he replied with startling brusqueness, spurring his mount across the river. Jaesyn sighed, looking down. This was by no means the Rann; the Taggan was a broad but shallow, slow-moving stream, choked with reeds, rotten logs, and sandbars. A boat-captain's nightmare of a river, it was abandoned this morning save for the mounted party and a few lonely coracles, fishing for eels and river crab. The peasants watched the group with mixed interested and suspicioun. Even with the Dominion flags flying overhead, they could easily be some ghekhav's raiding party, or striking out against a neighbor with ambition or vengeance in mind, and they wouldn't paddle back to shore until the horsemen were well past.

The Marshall stared at his reflection in the water. Jaesyn was a plain man, swarthy-skinned and weather-worn, with short dark brown hair and almond-shaped brown eyes. He'd born in the southern marches and had joined Urrag's army as a scout when the Vydari had invaded, rising to command his own corps of recon equites. While the Grand Marshall retreated, Jaesyn's unit had raided the Vydari's own scouts and outriders, sometimes clashing with goblin warriors astride monstrous rats, spiders, and wolves. He'd earned a scar across his left jawbone -- which he'd grown a scruffy beard to partially cover -- a sack of gold, a small estate on the coast, and the command of four hundred cavalrymen. This year, he'd fought a battle against a traitorous clan-leader on this very river, about twelve miles upstream, and earned himself a recently vacated seat on the council. Six months later, and he was desperately glad to be back in the saddle.

"Ruling is dreadfully boring," Jaesyn proclaimed to his guards and friends. He and Revek had both brought twenty sworn swords from their personal retinues, and a dozen "courtiers" and perhaps thirty servants and slaves accompanying them as well. Ordovin courtiers weren't really nobles. They were officers in the army or the sons and daughters of ghekhavs, princes, captains, and masters, and all of them had grown up with Jaesyn and Revek or attached themselves as retainers or supporters to their families. Jaesyn was aware that the merchant prince to his immediate north had an eye on him for a politicaly arranged marriage alliance, but the Marshall enjoyed the single life. When not at Council sessions or hunting rebels, monsters, and boars, Jaesyn and Revek could usually be found at pleasure barge or one of the hidden smoking dens on the border. There were illicit rumors about their habits in the bedroom, but no evidence whatsoever of anything "untoward."

There were nods from the courtiers, a few of the nobles' children even looking sympathetic, but the guards more or less ignored their liege. All were mounted and heavily armed, but their weapons weren't really at the ready. Bows were unstrung and slung across their backs with their hide-covered shields, axes strapped to their saddles, and brightly-colored pennons flapped from the ends of their lances. Their shields displayed the arms of Hulik and Parajol; a green serpent on light blue and a red scythe on gold, respectively. The Grand Marshall had gifted the party with new equipment, so each guard wore a brand new hauberk of heavy leather with iron scales, an iron helm with a bright red crest, and iron greaves on their legs. He had wanted to display the wealth and power of the Dominion over its disparate eastern neighbors.

They crossed the Taggan's ford and emerged dripping with water and muddy reeds on the eastern bank, the shaggy horses shaking themselves off and flicking their tails in mild irritation. A guardsman took a handful of mud to the face and coughed and spluttered as his fellows laughed around him. Jaesyn shook his head, muttering "Keep your helmet on next time, you fool." He didn't have to worry about flying mud, as he rode at the head of the party, whereas all the guards were tightly packed together. About ten miles down the road -- which was really more of an earth track with the occasional stone mile marker -- they decided to make camp. It was an orderly, well-defended affair which Jaesyn oversaw. While they were still in the heart of the Dominion, he didn't want to take any chances.

Jaesyn ducked in to Revek's tent, a gaudy affair of layered blue silk and green canvas, with a silver-crowned tent pole in the center. Furs covered the ground and the leather and wood camping chairs, and weapon rack in the corner contained Revek's armor and weapons. He owned a set of silvered steel ringmail over blackened leathers, a suit worth more than its weight in gold in this part of the world, a steel straight-blade, an iron-headed mace, and an elegant recurve longbow decorated with silver and ivory. Jaesyn wore a long hauberk of iron mail himself, looted off some Vydari corpse and patched over with bronze plates and leather. Tucked under his arm was an orante bronze helm with an Ordovin rune on the nasal bar and a spray of red and yellow feathers on the crest, and a basket-hilted scimitar swung heavy at his belt. He sat down heavily across from Revek, who lounged casually behind his camping table. Revek's personal slave, a hulking, scarred deaf-mute from the slums of Damarskan, poured pomegranate mead in to a pair of gilded goblets set with garnets.

Revek leaned back, drinking deeply and staring at Jaesyn over the rim of his cup. He set down the half-empty vessel and beckoned for the slave -- who they both called Lump -- to top it off. "So, what do you think?" he asked to break the silence. His voice was light, carefree, but there was a hard edge to it. Jaesyn shrugged and sipped sparingly. It was not his drink of choice, too sweet and syrupy with a tart aftertaste, but he drank to be polite. "I don't know. We already trade with the Geirlish, as you already pointed out, and the Starigmen control a good third of the gold industry in the Vale. The Russkl have refused trade at this point, and have already been arming themselves. There's reports of unaligned clansmen marching in to Russk, and a Russkl ghekhav was seen in Lord Taelyc's court." Revek shrugged, pulling a bowl of grapes and goat cheese over.

"It won't come to war, though. And if it does--" Revek spat out a grape seed. "I doubt the realms will unite against us. If they'd planned on it, they would have done so already. Geir will meekly dip its banner when we march on their heartlands, the Starigmen will hole up in their mountains, and the Russkl can't stand against us. They may be able to rally upwards of ten thouand men, but I doubt all the ghekhav will show up to fight us if we march in force." Jaesyn nodded; he knew all this to be true, but he didn't like it. Ordovin shouldn't be fighting Ordovin. He spread a chunk of cheese on a slice of soft black bread, saying "True, but don't count Taelyc out. Our scouts claim that a dozen ghekhav have sworn their swords to him, and the nearby mountain clans could make his army forty thousand strong--" "Which is still a tenth the size of the Dominion Legion," Revek cut in. He drained his second cup. "Taelyc isn't a fool. He'll see reason."

Jaesyn stared across the table at his friend. "Didn't you hear Kas and Andros?" The night after the council session, Kas had left the city with his retainers, riding north for his homelands. He'd sworn to rally the clans behind him and lay waste to the false Gevor's lands, slaughtering his people or dragging the cowards who surrendered back to the capital in chains. In particular, he wanted to burn Taelyc at the stake in the square outside the House of Lords, a "testament to the fate of traitors." Andros was still in the capital, but he'd summoned his norrakoch and they gathered even now on the northwestern shore; Andros was a bardzr'ghekhav and a Marshall, and could assemble near fifteen thousand men if he wished, more if all his ghekhav answered the call. He couldn't march until the Tia'Gevor and the Grand Marshall consented to it, but he could certainly call his troops to "protect his lands" if he so wished.

"Even if Taelyc and the eastern realms see reason, our own fellow councillors will not," Jaesyn went on, his voice weary. "There will be another vote in a week. Our representatives will vote in our favor while we're gone, but without us, the Tia'Gevor won't have the strength of will to resist Urrag's wishes, and war WILL follow. Once we crush the eastern realms and turn Taelyc's domain in to a smouldering ruin, do you think the other clans will be quick to join us? What of the southern city-states, or the coastal holds, or the lake kingdoms?" Jaesyn finally finished his own cup, glanced over to Lump, and then back to Revek. "We need to get rid of Urrag and the rest of the hardliners that back him." Revek hushed Jaesyn with a sweep of his hand, looking anxious. "Silence yourself!" he hissed. "If we're caught in such treason, our own guards will drag us back to the Grand Marshall, in chains." Jaesyn shrugged again, though he was much more worried than he showed.

"Martiros will back us, and I think Malek will too. If Urrag, Kas, and Andros can be taken out of the picture, the rest will follow us." Revek still looked worried, but now he looked thoughtful as well. "Yes, but these are the three most powerful men in the Dominion that you speak of. And Urrag and the Tausar are as thick as thieves." Jaesyn nodded, but now his eyes gleamed as he leaned forward, voice a whisper. "Yes, but what if we had the Tia'Gevor behind us? If we could make him more than a symbol, a puppet in the hands of the Grand Marshall and the church? If we have him on our side, this isn't really treason, now is it?" Revek considered the notion, his face pained. "I'll think on it, Jaesyn," he said, finally. "For now, we must try peace. We must! If we can forestall an invasion of our Ordovin borthers and sisters, we can eventually add their territories to the Dominion without bloodshed."

Revek waved a hand, halting any further conversation and dismissing Jaesyn from the tent. Jaesyn watched him for several long moments before he shrugged. "Thanks for the drink," he muttered, draining the rest of the cup and dropping it back on the table with a clatter. He left he tent without another word. [i]There's always bloodshed, my friend,[/i] Jaesyn thought as he wearily made his way over to his own tent, much smaller and humbler than Revek's. The only thing that distinguished it from the others was the household guard that stood outside it, leaning on his spear. He straightened up and lifted his shield as his liege approached; Jaesyn clapped him on the arm before sliding into tent. Wriggling out of his armor and unbuckling his sword, Jaesyn rolled on to his back and put his hands under his head, staring up at the canvas ceiling.

His friend couldn't understand. Revek had been born in to a prince's family and his elder brother had married a ghekhav's daughter. Both the ghekhav and the elder brother had died in the Vydari invasion, and when Revek's father had died, Revek found himself a rich and powerful noble with little to no ambition or direction. Urrag had placed him on the council to have another empty voice, but Revek was appalled by the dictator's actions. If not for his money and skill with words, the Grand Marshall would have arranged an "accident" for the young Marshall in no time at all. Revek was reasonably well-trained at arms and had been educated in tactics, but had a better head for trade than war and had never drawn his sword in anger or seen real bloodshed.

[i]He will soon enough,[/i] were Jaesyn's last thoughts as he drifted off in to uneasy sleep.