https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1AjHTCSxic
The thunder of hooves echoed across the vast steppe, the snow fell lightly and the clouds trailed on lethargically. The banners of various houses wave as the gate of the sietch creaks open. Blue jewels, flayed men, silver blades, brown boars, yellow crescents all flapped in the wind, above each towered a freshly sewn banner, one of a crowned crow and black mace.
The company met with crowds of peoples, strelts and cossacks, sellswords and knights, lords and burghers, in a clash for the meager space. The doors propped open and the city was alight with laughter and song. The snowy air was cracked by the piercing bell, hung atop the church of Bogdansk.
The ringing of the gilded bell settled the masses, the attendees taking their seats inside the church and the rest piling for a view on the cold steps. A preacher adorned in dark robes, with but a gilded cross hanging upon his stature, raises his hands in praise and in fury, throwing forth passionate speech unto the crowd.
“People of Krajia. People of the steppe, of the whole North, of all the Raev and its allies. It is written in the Scrolls of Auspice that the faithful would be subject to seven years of darkness, seven years of suffering. We’ve suffered ten of those sufferings. It has been over one hundred years since the Franciscan Massacre, it has been over seventy years since the last Crow sat atop his sovereign throne. We’ve suffered long enough, forced as slaves to lick the heel of the heartland. To scatter at the beating of the harsh sun, to cower in the face of the black dragon, and to kneel in the daunting wingspan of the sparrow. We are grouped with degenerates, with halfbreeds and foreigners. This time is no longer. Alike it is told in Auspice, we shall redeem ourselves. It is nigh time for the people of the Raev, for the descendents of Karol the Crow, to bear arms once more. It is nigh time for the peoples of fallen Ruska, of the old folk, to crown themselves kings once more. We shall crown ourselves not as bastards. Not as the offspring of the Siegradan melting pot or the Brelusian whorehouses. We are the sons of the Crow. We are those who once bore the burden of Man, who threw off oppressors and felled great empires. We are those who shall rightfully bear the Boyar’s Cap, the Boyar’s Burden. This task does not fall to the Barbanovic pretenders nor the Sarkozic exiles. It falls to those who have kept to the Tenets of Siegmund, to the descendants of the bogs in Flotsam and the alleys of Kralta. To the sweeping fields of Ruska and the towering Krelmstad.”
The crowd erupts into a roar. Hats fill the air, swords held high above heads. The preacher of gilded cross places his hand up.
The preacher lifts with delicate hands a gilded circlet, emblazoned with crows and dragons, with the wars of the past and the scriptures of the future. He holds it for all to see, it is bare and carries no beautification. The center of the crown, a blank space as if for a jewel to be placed. He places the burden upon the head of a knelt man, who is adorned in lamellar, chain, and furs.
“Son of my brother. Son of the son of Ivan, who is son of Yakov the Accursed. Son of the raev, son of the Crow. Rise, rise and bear the burden that before you has been beared by many others. By all those with the Crow’s blood, by Siegmund and his descendants, by the warrior king Heinrik, by the Mikael the Lost, by Tuvya father of Aleks. Bear with it, the fruits of Siegmund’s visions, of God’s prophetic message. Rise, now, Sveneld I, son of Vsevolod. King of the Kingdom of Ruska, Duke of Dieveych, Count of Godansk, Count of Bilah, of Flotsam, Baron of Dibley and Prince of the Raev. Rightful King of Haense and of Alras. Slayer of Dragons and Gilded Crows alike, Rightful Descendent to the House Carrion, Patriarch of the Karovic Line and all its offspring; whether they be of the bastard’s seed or an exile’s wife.”
The preacher presses a solidified eye, guarded in glass and hardened by years, into the crown’s hole. “The Eye of Siegmund.” The King rises and all erupt into tumult, many scream and cheer for a new age. Others flee from the cathedral, their hearts blazoned with jealousy, with hatred and fear, with lost thoughts and old fears.