indiana105

Ivan VIII rolled up his sleeve.

He rolled it back down in shame . . .

EDYKT VA ERRE JOV

EDICT OF CLEANSING

KRUSAE ZWY KONGZEM

Issued by the

CROWN

On this 7th day of Msitza ag Dargund of 524 E.S.

VA BIRODEO HERZENAV AG ELDERVIK,

THE KRAWNLUND IS THE JEWEL OF JEWELS, THE GREATEST AND MOST HONOURED SOIL IN ALL THE DUAL-KINGDOM. All the peoples of Aevos know the name Valdev, home to the mighty Edlervik and seat to the Kings of Crows. But when the Haenseman walks the streets of his capital, what does he see? Accursed foreigners bearing horns and cloven hooves, their forked tongues tasting Carrion Black whilst profaning the name of Holy Godan and His Exalted. He sees degenerate men named Lord who work not for the people, but for greed and their own sinful desires. And beyond the walls dwell men born of flesh who taint themselves with metal and magicks; They who exhume the bones of the dead to be their servants, and poison his waters and fields with toxins and miasma.

The Haeseni shall endure this rot no longer. The Duma has spoken, and so it shall be made truth. These forces of evil have brought ruin to the streltzy, they have deceived my late father and murdered my venerable mother. Let us excise this cancer from the Krawnlund by the point of the sword and the flame of the pyre.

As Koeng of Hanseti and Ruska, I decree:

I. That the severed head of the Lord of Godunov, a known fiend who conspired with Demonspawn and other nefarious forces remain spiked at the gates of the Royal Duma in perpetuity. 

II. That the Barony of Verskaya and all associated titles be stripped from the line of Anatoliy, and transferred into the care of his sister, Lady Galina of Godunov, upon her payment of the monetary debts accrued over her brother’s rule.

i. The line of Anatoliy may bear the name Godunov only if they swear themselves to the new Baroness. Those who do not do so in the span of three years from this day shall be formally disowned.

III. That the machine clergy of Waltonburg be expelled from the lands of Hanseti-Ruska, in accordance with the will of the Royal Duma.

i. The foundry in Waltonburg shall be destroyed within the Saint’s Week.

ii. The bones of the dead shall be returned to Valdev proper for re-internment.

iii. Any resistance shall be met with the full might of the Dual-Kingdom.  

IV. That the so-called “Accursed Children” be exterminated within the lands of the Dual-Kingdom.

GODANI JEST WIELKI,

HIS ROYAL MAJESTY, Ivan VIII, by the Grace of Godan, King of Hanseti and Ruska, Grand Hetman of the Army, Hochmeister of the Order of the Crow, Prince of Bihar, Dules, Lahy, Muldav, Slesvik, Solvesborg, and Ulgaard, Duke of Carnatia, and Vanaheim, Margrave of Korstadt, Rothswald, and Vasiland, Count of Alban, Alimar, Baranya, Graiswald, Karikhov, Karovia, Kaunas, Kavat, Kovachgrad, Markev, Nenzing, Siegrad, Torun, Toruv, Valdev, and Werdenburg, Viscount of Varna, Baron of Astfield, Buck, Esenstadt, Kraken’s Watch, Kralta, Krepost, Lorentz, and Rytsburg, Lord of the Westfolk, Protector and Lord of the Highlanders, etcetera.

HER ROYAL MAJESTY, Nataliya of Ghaestenwald, Queen-Consort of Hanseti and Ruska, Grand Hetman of the Army, Hochmeister of the Order of the Crow, Princess-Consort of Bihar, Dules, Lahy, Muldav, Solvesborg, Slesvik and Ulgaard, Duchess-Consort of Carnatia and Vanaheim, Margravine-Consort of Korstadt, Rothswald, and Vasiland, Countess-Consort of Alban, Alimar, Baranya, Graiswald, Karikhov, Karovia, Kaunas, Kavat, Kovachgrad, Kvasz, Markev, Nenzing, Torun, Toruv, Valdev, and Werdenburg, Viscountess-Consort of Varna, Baroness-Consort of Esenstadt, Kraken’s Watch, Kralta, Krepost, Lorentz, Rytsburg, and Astfield, Lady of the Westfolk, Protector and Lady of the Highlanders, etcetera.

VE KORINATSK I KAROS

THE CORONATION OF 524 E.S.

KRUSAE ZWY KONGZEM

Issued by the

CROWN 

On the 7th day of Tov ag Yermey of 523 E.S 

VA BIRODEO HERZENAV AG ELDERVIK,

NOBLES AND COMMON FOLK ALIKE CELEBRATE THE ASCENSION OF THE TWIN CROWS. The realm rejoices and thus over a span of two months we shall celebrate across the nation for our new King and Queen. In accordance with historic precedence the coronation shall begin at Royal Duma Hall, proceeding then to the Everardian Basilica, and concluding in the Prikaz. The King and Queen shall sit rightfully upon their throne to address their populace as crowned Monarchs of Hanseti-Ruska, and receive homage from their peers and subjects. 

All citizens of the Kingdom and her allies are invited to join in the most jubilant coronation of His Royal Majesty, King Ivan VIII, and his consort, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Nataliya of Ghastenwald which shall commence on the 10th day of Vyzmey ag Hyff in the year 524 E.S.

LONG MAY THEY REIGN

I. OATH AND ROYAL PROCLAMATION 

The ceremony shall begin in the Duma hall, wherein the Lord Speaker shall begin the proceedings with an opening address. An oath from the King shall follow, along with the piercing of the nipple and investiture of the Royal Duma.

II. BAPTISM AND ANOINTMENT

The ceremonial process will move to the Everardian Basilica, where Liturgy and Mass held by His Holiness, Caius I shall begin. Their Majesties shall be baptized under the watchful eye of GOD, followed by the nobility and attendees. 

III. CORONATION

The Royal Regalia will be presented, followed by the crowning of their Majesties.

IV. ENTHRONEMENT AND NOBLE HOMAGE

All those gathered shall follow the lead of their Majesties as they return to the Prikaz where the King and Queen shall take place upon their thrones. The petitioners of the Kingdom will be allowed to pay homage within the throne room, the Marian oath recited by the peerage to their new Sovereign. 

To the Kingdom of Haense and its peers;

His Grace, Garen Baruch, Duke of Valwyck and his noble pedigree

His Grace, Viktor var Ruthern, Duke of Vidaus and his noble pedigree

The Most Honourable, Henrik-Otto Ludovar, Margrave of Kvasz and his noble pedigree 

The Right Honourable, Mikhail Colborn, Count of Malkovya and his noble pedigree

The Honourable, Ofeliya Weiss, Viscountess of Novkursain and her noble pedigree

The Honourable, Henrik Amador, Viscount of Zvezlund and his noble pedigree

Her Ladyship, Irena Kortrevich, Baroness of Koravia and her noble pedigree

Her Lordship, Rosalind Valkonen, Baroness of Svargrad and his noble pedigree 

His Lordship, Fyodor Kovachev, Baron of Kovgrad and his noble pedigree

To the allies of the Kingdom of Haense and their peers;

His Holiness, Caius I, High Pontiff of the Church of the Canon

Her Royal Majesty, Sybille I, Queen of Balian and his royal pedigree

Her Royal Majesty, Catherine I, Queen of Petra and her royal pedigree

His Royal Majesty, John I, King of Aaun and his royal pedigree

His Grandness, Grelu Irgard, Grand King of Urguan and his royal pedigree

His Royal Majesty, Illthrak Ibarellan, Prince of Celia’nor and his royal pedigree

Her Royal Highness, Idril Sylvaeri, High Princess of Amathine

His Royal Highness, Alfred I, Prince of Sutica and his royal pedigree

His Royal Highness, Leon I, Prince of Minitz and his royal pedigree

Her Highness, Ramona I, Princess of Hyspia

GODANI JEST WIELKI,

HIS ROYAL MAJESTY, Ivan VIII, by the Grace of Godan, King of Hanseti and Ruska, Grand Hetman of the Army, Hochmeister of the Order of the Crow, Prince of Bihar, Dules, Lahy, Muldav, Slesvik, Solvesborg, and Ulgaard, Duke of Carnatia, and Vanaheim, Margrave of Korstadt, Rothswald, and Vasiland, Count of Alban, Alimar, Baranya, Graiswald, Karikhov, Karovia, Kaunas, Kavat, Kovachgrad, Markev, Nenzing, Siegrad, Torun, Toruv, Valdev, and Werdenburg, Viscount of Varna, Baron of Astfield, Buck, Esenstadt, Kraken’s Watch, Kralta, Krepost, Lorentz, and Rytsburg, Lord of the Westfolk, Protector and Lord of the Highlanders, etcetera.

HER ROYAL MAJESTY, Nataliya of Ghaestenwald, Queen-Consort of Hanseti and Ruska, Princess-Consort of Bihar, Dules, Lahy, Muldav, Solvesborg, Slesvik and Ulgaard, Duchess-Consort of Carnatia and Vanaheim, Margravine-Consort of Korstadt, Rothswald, and Vasiland, Countess-Consort of Alban, Alimar, Baranya, Graiswald, Karikhov, Karovia, Kaunas, Kavat, Kovachgrad, Kvasz, Markev, Nenzing, Torun, Toruv, Valdev, and Werdenburg, Viscountess-Consort of Varna, Baroness-Consort of Esenstadt, Kraken’s Watch, Kralta, Krepost, Lorentz, Rytsburg, and Astfield, Lady of the Westfolk, etcetera.

WESTMARK TO WHITESPIRE

THE BASTARD PRINCE

“A warrior will sooner die than live a life of shame.”

WESTMARK, 508 E.S.

THE BATTLE WAS LOST. Banners of gold and black lay crushed beneath a mess of horse and man. They had outnumbered the enemy by ten thousand, but each man fielded by the Lodenlanders sat atop a warhorse. The foot of Haeseni, Heartlander and Dwarf could do little but charge in vain. They had been routed, pushed back into the forest. Men sunk into thick mud, screaming out before being silenced by roving bands of burgundian knights. Ivan pressed himself against the trunk of a great pine. He watched in silence as the men he’d led into the forests were peppered with arrows. Any lucky enough to survive the volley were lanced in the open field as they fled the wood. 

A thud sounded behind the prince. Another, at his side. Arrows had begun to whistle through the brush, burying their barbed heads deep into bark. They had spotted him, surely. The pounding of hooves drew closer. Ivan gripped the shaft of his pike so tightly it felt near to snap. “DIE, HAENSER DOG!”

He pushed himself from the tree, and drove the steel head of his pike into the underbelly of the charging Veletzman’s destrier. It squelched as it slid through hide and flesh, sinking deep into the innards of the reeling beast. With a final whine it crashed into the sodden forest floor where it lay atop its rider, heaving and kicking. The prince’s relief was short-lived. Four men followed the horseman, clad in shining armour and burgundy tabards drenched in the blood of his countrymen. Ivan drew the sabre from his belt and parried the first blow that came down toward his helmeted head. Another strike caught him in the breastplate. The next in the visor. That proud blackened steel which covered his body found itself dented, crushed and otherwise mangled by the savagery of the Midlanders. This day was theirs. There had never been a defeat so grand, so total. As the men continued to rain down blow after blow, Ivan’s vision began to blur. The taste of copper coated his mouth, and its scent filled his nostrils. And then there was nothing.

THE WILDS, 508 E.S.

The foreign accents of the Aaunish cut through the moans of the wounded. An aged Heartlander with cropped grey whiskers and a spotted head loomed over Ivan as he lay on a cot. Perhaps not the prettiest sight, but it was better than the void. Through a flap of cloth Ivan could see only thickets of trees, sheltering the maimed and broken who shared not the luxury of a tent. Just beyond the brush lay a rolling field of golden wheat. The war had not ruined these lands. Not yet. 

Flashes of the battle caught at the back of his mind. Ivan had watched his father fall in some mad charge, Ser Garen and the Patriarch enraged, taking up the flank. “What of my father? My wife?” There came only a grunt in answer, and a vial of milky tincture put an end to his worries.

Cold, wrinkled hands shook the prince from his sleep. “My Lord! You must awake, there is word from the Whitespire!” Ivan brought up his head, for it was all he might manage. The wound still ached, sapping at what little vigour remained to him. What few hours he lay awake were feverish agony, interrupted by the changing of his soiled bandages and cleansing through boiled wine. 

“Speak the news, then..” he muttered through clenched teeth. 

The apothecary cleared his throat, and spat a vile glob onto the packed earth after much effort. “Ah, yes. It is from your . . . Golden Cylinder? No, that’s not it. The Aulic Council!” 

With a quick flick of a knife the wax seal of the council parted from parchment, and the missive was unfurled. It was a demand that he remain in the Aaunland. The prince was childless, and Robert incapable. The succession must be protected. Ivan was in no state to disobey, yet still he raged. “I can niet stay here. I must ride! The Veletzmen march on Balian!” His venerable attendant only chuckled. Fattened gut teetered as he crept ponderously about the cluttered tent, reach for another of his accursed sleeping tonics. 

“Nonsense. Young Lord, you serve your people best here. What is a kingdom without its crown?” The old dolt was right, there was no other; Ivan knew this, yet still he longed for the sore of a saddle beneath him. A lance and banner in his hands. More than all he longed for the Motherland, and Her people. His wife, his kin. “Cease your stirring, prince of Haense. You’ll break my stitches.” Gnarled fingers brought a cloudy glass to Ivan’s lips try as he might, the heir was too numbed now to resist. The sweet taste of poppy’s milk numbed the mouth, and the mind. Then once more, a cloying blackness drew him back into restful oblivion.

AAUNIC CROWNLANDS, 509-510 E.S.

The bustle of an unfamiliar camp had awoken him early again. The blighted Aaunish horns had sounded all through the night, warning of wolves and raiders on the road. Now come dawn, it was the hammering of iron to anvil. The prince pressed a hand flat to his bedside, and faltered again as he made to stand; the lesion on his leg had swelled again, a putrid mass of raw and rotted flesh. This was not to be his fate, the Grand Prince of Kusoraev would not be confined to some ignoble end here. Nor would he live some pitiful existence as a malformed cripple, incapable of standing without the aid of some tiresome greybeard. Ivan grit his teeth and wrenched himself from the bed, a spasm of pain sent searing up his right side. He managed barely to grasp a hold of the canvas flap and tear it away. It was a grim sunrise, grey and gloomy and the rain fell hard against his face. Then something buckled, and he was falling and there were shouts around him. Then the mud, and the dark came up to greet him.

She glanced downwards briefly, and reached for the potion rack. “Gone, my Lord. Camp fever.” The prince made to raise a hand, but she did not cease, and then he was swallowing. 

White and red swelled overhead. They kept him addled, he knew. But, had not yet proved brave enough to act against his will; the will of a king. What a king he would make, crippled, beaten and the last of his line. She ought have come to him by now, might the oracle have offered up some falsehood? Then, pain again - and the prince’s courage had deserted him. With a grimace, he pressed a palm to his brow. His head was spinning, and the world around it.

Pale faces over Ivan blurred and twisted, blurring the fevered visions of his mind. He was flying then, and now aground, now drowning. Then he was alone against the shore, where the crashing waves carried only the cries of the mournful. “Lost? Nie . . It cannot be.” His mother’s cold visage was swollen, bloated where she lay upon the sands aside his father. “Ivo. .” He sputtered, but his man offered no reply; crabs nipped at his navel where the spear point had opened him. Nataliya, not her. He could hear her voice still on the wind, but could find only bones. It was lost, he knew. Naught remained to him but misery and blissful sleep, and so he slept. All the agony seemed not to matter now.

And so they had come. He was alone when he woke, save for the bodies at his flank. They had come in number, he knew, to put an end to it. Pale sunlight seeped inside the tent as the armed men threw it open under the cover of daybreak. A grey tower, on black. Renatian men. His father had welcomed House Tiber not so long ago, but war made a mess of men’s fealties. Ivan eyed his sabre wearily. Its point was driven into the dirt, just beyond the reach of his failing grasp. There was no use. “Cut my throat and be done with it.” They only regarded him oddly. The air had grown thick with dread, each man exchanging wary glances. 

Then, from between them stepped a woman in stark white, parting the knights alike a swan on the water. She took a knee at his bedside, and pressed a soft hand flat against his arm. “I am Cecily of Beaufort. You knew my father, I think.” She wore a sweet, chilling smile. “We come not as foes, Serene Highness.”

Ivan had known her father indeed. A true knight of the Aaunish and leal advisor to the boy-king Edmund. He had been a close friend to his own father, taking up residence in their halls whilst the Whitespire fell to madness. “Vy’re Ser Gawyn’s, then?” He affirmed with a short nod.

 “Yes, my prince. My father took a liking to you crows . . . It would be grim of me to leave one here, rotting in the mud as you are.” A strange thing this was. Hers was a line of tyrant’s blood, of conquerors and warmongers of centuries past. He needed only to meet her gaze to know this. That same dull grey had watched his broken forefathers kneel, yet in this moment he found in them an inkling of comfort. “I might charter a carriage for you. There are finer apothecaries in the capital, Highness.” Anything was better than another week festering in this tent, and so Ivan motioned weakly. “Then I shall. These men are yours, the Veletzmen and their Uruks have grown bold as of late.” Her fingers slid from their place on his shoulder. “Goodbye, prince of Haense. Until we next meet.” Her lips tugged into something of a grin, and she slipped through the canvas into the dawn. 

WHITESPIRE, 511 E.S.

“Fetch me a horse, Aaunishman. See it to the gates.” Ivan commanded the squire. The boy obliged with a bow, and scurried off down the spiral steps. The prince was slow to follow. There was a part of him that longed to stay, despite it all. He could not face Nataliya. He had dishonoured himself. He had dishonoured her, but his first duty was to the realm. The prince left one fleeting glance at the Whitespire and its raging flame. Then, with a slow exhale climbed atop the black mare that the squire had brought and spurred her onwards.

EULER’S STEPPE, 514 E.S.

“Ivan? Vyr Highness?” The Lord var Ruthern laid a swift kick into the side of Ivan’s harness. He lay among a pile of motionless Veletzmen, or Adrians as they now called themselves. “Have vy some deathwish, Prinzen? We lost vy in the trees.” 

He dismissed the Duke with a languid wave, tasting iron on his tongue. “Stay vyr tongue, Herzen. Come, help me up.” Their steel gauntlets clattered as they met, and the aged Duke wrenched him from the mud. “Dobry. Now go, Lord. I tire of vyr wailing.” He left his dented helm atop the mud, sable hair matted in stale blood. He took up his shattered lance and began the slow march back towards the forward camp. 

The victorious Haeseni gathered loudly about their fires, and hulking kegs of Carrion. The prince was in no mood to partake. He had no appetite for Carrion, nor for their gaudy celebrations. His wife stood among them, clad in bloodied plate with a bottle in her hand. He could spy her searching for him in the crowd but Ivan could not bring himself to see her. He was to find no honourable end among the dwarven cavaliers, despite his best effort. Godan would not grant it. Ivan flung open the canvas to his war tent and sent a lobstered gauntlet crashing against the heavy table. There was a gasp, and he spun on his heel. The Lady Cecily of Beaufort regarded him in trepidation, for at her side cowered a boy no more than three, grey of eye and black of hair.