A LETTER TO MARKUS SARKOZIC

[Ramon 3965]

A LETTER TO
MARKUS SARKOZIC

IUDICIUM ACCEDIT

 

Issued by the

GRAND COVENANT

On this 21th day of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1963
 

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Lord Markus, 

 

I trust this letter finds you well amidst turbulent times. 

 

While our people have fought no small amount of battles across the Heartlands, it is with sincerity that I convey my wish on behalf of the Grand Covenant that our fight is settled, and that the Adrian Diaspora find sanctuary anew in lands abroad, free from the scars of war. In that vein, you are surely aware that some small vestige of your former oathmen have sealed themselves within the city of Winburgh while the forces of the Grand Covenant secured the surrounding environs, and now seek to do battle once more. 

 

It is noted that these oathmen style themselves after the Burgundy Legion of Veletz, and we have yet to observe any colours of Adria among their number. It is therefore that the Grand Covenant posits that the Adrian Diaspora hold no agency nor responsibility for this apparent breach of the Winburgh Proclamation. While we must now see to the task of executing these Legionnaires who have dishonoured our peace, we duly compel you and your people to remain well estranged from this affair. In doing so, we guarantee forthright that the terms of the Winburgh Proclamation shall remain intact. 

 

We trust that wisdom shall guide you.

 

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His Royal Majesty, JOHN ALEXANDER, by the Grace of GOD, King of Aaun, Prince of Alstion, Duke of Vienne, the Lowlands, Balemena and Corazon, Count of Whitespire, Enswerp and Florentine, Baron of Blanchet, Protector of the Realm

[excited 10833]

Addressed to the King John, provided that it was delivered to an aviary and made it to him. Due to social station, it might reach one of his aids instead, but an attempt was made.

 

My name is Alexander Montalt. I am a member of the Burgundy Host led by my brother Sir Radmir Montalt, the Grand Marshal. We seized control of the city as a consequence of the Duke of Adria's choice to hand our destiny to the Coalition and not suffer through the slog of war in our city streets. While the Duke of Adria is commendable seeking to save more lives, I am unwilling to bend the knee to a King who consorts with a Lich, and if not for anything but honor's sake I shall fight with my brother bitterly until the city is nothing but rubble. I will not lie and say I mourn the last King who was slain in a pitched coup de t'at in his throne room, but I will say it is regrettable that so many people have died over a mummer's farce.

 

Honor has moved me here. I shall not move an inch until this city has collapsed into nothing but rubble. Until our point has been made that Sir Gaspard left us years ago now. That all our allies have abandoned us. The Celia'norians have joined Hanseti-Ruska out of fear for their national interests and a desire for self-preservation. The Adrians have left for Numendil to live in a refugee camp. The Orcs have decided that the battles here in the Midlands are not relevant to them, and I cannot blame them for they have bled enough on our account. The Stassionites who killed your King now run amok elsewhere, and former Veletzian vassals have gone off to form a new home elsewhere.

 

Then there are the Burgundies. Myself and my brother. Our closest allies and confidants. For the King of Hanseti-Ruska to make dealings with a Lich is most suspicious indeed, and we would sooner see our lands presided over by the Church than any servant of Iblees. If that means that we must stand in this empty hall devoid of even furniture and barricade it against the incalculable hordes of the human piastdoms, then we shall do so proudly and suffer not a single tear, and that is what brings me to you.

 

We are prepared to lay down our lives and burn our buildings. We are prepared to fight for a hundred years. My children shall kill their children, and their children shall kill mine. We shall slaughter their cows, we shall put explosives in their mercantile carts, and we will not stop until all servants of the Lich have been routed from the Midlands entirely, and until a Midlander Prophet of the Church rises to protect us. The conniving North Man seeks only to disrupt the Midlands and make a mockery of our hallowed traditions, and our venerable customs - the King of Hanseti readily throws his soldier's lives away to prove a point, that as a people we are not unified. He flaunts the control he exercises over the Church. You must ask yourself if we will be the last ones to be crucified because it is only a matter of time before he comes for your flock next.

 

Breakwater is broken. Veletz is dissolved. What they come for now is the shell of a city filled with a few hundred men. And we shall fight gladly and martyr ourselves if necessary. Our children shall kill their children afterward, so that is where I issue you this humble request: act with honor, no matter the exercise, and guide those of us who remain if we the Burgundies fail in our endeavor to save the Midlands from the Spawn of Iblees.

 

Signed,

 

Alexander Montalt

 

 

 

[monkeypoacher 6993]

TO THE ALSTION PRETENDER,

KING OF AAUN (HUMILIATED BY ADRIA),

DUKE OF VIENNE (CONQUERED BY ADRIA),

COUNT OF WHITESPIRE (RAIDED WITH IMPUNITY BY ADRIANS),

ET CETERA, ET CETERA, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RABBLE OF ORENIAN RUMP STATES:

Heed that we, the Adrian people, know the true purpose of your overtures, and know your true nature. You are a lamprey, fetid spawn of the lowest brackish pond, whose sucking mouthparts cling with vain hope and desperate ardor to the Hanseatic ox. Your substance is Canonist blood. Your edicts have no power, and your pathetic gyrations do not warrant the notice of my proud nephew. I treat with you now:

 

Heed that our people have not seen the passage of one generation since your Court plotted to murder my brother, the Duke's father, and install a Montelliano traitor in violation of our laws and traditions. In defense of this pathetic and fruitless plot, your armies arrived in our city and were slaughtered. Your armies fought us on the fields outside Minitz, and were slaughtered. Your armies fought to defend the walls of their forlorn, rat-infested capital, and there, too, they were slaughtered.

Be it that the turning of fortune's wheel sees you in Whitespire and us in a camp - if your last hope is to beg us for aid, your days will not be long. This rebellion may fail, but so will you. Your fickle, grasping assortment of self-styled knights and minor lordlings will desert you. Your covenanters will turn against you in jealous anger to seize the barren crofts and despoiled villages of the Midlands for themselves. And you, worm, will return to where you belong.

 

If you would like to avert this fate, you have one course of action. Cede the lands to the west and north of Whitespire and accept our claim as the House of Sarkozic to the Kingdom of Oren. We will treat you as vassals more kindly than your predecessors treated us, and you will be at liberty to rule your irrelevant state as you see fit. Pay us homage, and we will forgive the many crimes you have committed against our people.

 

Until then, writhe.

Pavel Sarkozic