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THE PRICE OF HONOUR Igor Sventitski “The populations of dying empires are passive because they are lotus eaters. There is a narcotic-like reverie among those barreling towards oblivion. They retreat into the [degenerate], the tawdry and the inane, retreats that are momentarily pleasurable but ensure self-destruction.” — Hedges Prologue Pavel was a boy when the Brothers’ War kicked up in all of its ferocity. Pending the death of his lordly father, the Baron of Cherskavy, he had found himself a member of the reconstituted Royal Army of Oren. He still remembered the day that he enlisted in the army, a proud young boy puffing out his chest. “Yam will serve,” he told the Royal Officer, Darius of Vienne. With all the other Revolutionaries, he remembered the battlecry released from his own parched lips upon the capture of the Emperor and the succeeding Battle of Providence there afterwards. “Ruskija!” The youth boomed, proud of his heritage as his heart beat like a drum, the fury of war loosed in him like a tide of malignance. “Ruskija! Oren!” Him and Andrezj, his young cousin-of-sorts, sallied to the banner of the Mardon Watch and put an end to the Empire once and for all, mirroring the actions of their patrilineal ancestor Sir Arpad the Dancing Bear centuries earlier. The nationalistic fervor was so persistent that the young man had found himself on the other end of one aging gentleman — Floryan Carrion — and released a bolt into the man’s cranium, thusly ending his life at the climax of the battle in Aster Hall. “I will die with you my liege,” the man had cried, his life fading from hazy, glassy eyes. Pavel Barrow was legitimized for his bravery. Now the Squire Pavel Ivanovich — no longer a Barrow — was mentored by Sir Gustaf of Acre. Together, the two had many adventures, journeys into Hanseti-Ruska accompanied by the horrific blood rain, along with forays into the woods to train together in preparation for when Pavel would be knighted. It would seem that King Frederick would not be the only one enacting penance for his own actions during the Brothers' War, however. In much the same fashion, Pavel undertook a spiritual journey across the land, discovering that knighthood held little appeal to him. And so the two men Gustaf and Pavel parted ways, only to find themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield years later. Another throne room, brother against brother, cousin against cousin. Pavel could see his distant relatives, the van Aerts who claimed descent from Corsair Prince Martius Vilacz on the other side and felt more alone than he had ever been in his life. Captain Pavel’s Last Stand, by Angelo Marco Derfey, a famed painter The Battle of Vienne Ape Titan Captain Pavel steadied his horse, drawing out his large mace and steadying the charger by its reins firmly. The Price of Honour. To fight against all odds to preserve those that you care about. The mutant’s curled fist grew thick with a scale-like chitin, metallic and grinning coldly in the dim light as it was held aloft, the horse rearing back as the Ivanovich prepared to descend upon the Acrean Host which consisted of levymen, farmers and pikemen from Acre, Haense, and beyond. Only Andrevich, Ivanovich and Iomharach sallied for the King. The rest? Nowhere to be found. No, I am not a Knight. I am descended from Knights. I am descended from Kings. The bastard of a bastard, of another man’s bastard. I am The Wall; the last defense of the noblemen in Oren against an ignoble cause. And so his charger ushered in the battle, as he rode towards Sir Gustaf, the Champion of the Ivory Alps. A warrior of renown, yet in his mind a knight of dubious conduct. What good is knighthood without a Crown to serve? No, I would sooner die than surrender this ornate chair and the Novellen King. Hadrian van Aert, the Champion of Blackvale, intercepted him and the battle grew fraught in the tight building, people streaming outside of the wide, ornate gates that had been opened by a Balianite traitor mere minutes earlier, granting access of the palace to the enemies of Oren itself. Despite claiming descent from some of the most vicious murderers in Imperial History, Pavel bore no such prowess. His loyalty was a curse. He was not the warrior his father was, nor was he the Dancing Bear of fable, the greatest enforcer of Emperor Aurelius who could kill throes of enemies within minutes. Simply, he was Pavel, the half-elf urchin, a failed knight-to-be, some well-intentioned and kind lout far from home, fighting a battle that dwarfed himself in comparison. A battle he was wholly unprepared to fight. Pavel reared his horse as his brothers died around him, vastly outnumbered as an ancient Teuton adage rang in his ears amidst the clamor of war: Always outnumbered, never outdone. Though he wounded a few men charging around wildly on his horse, he was now seemingly the last of the Orenians and at the head of a fallen force. The last man in the throne room, the last man who seemed to be fighting, and as vicious as he tried to resist his former brothers-in-arms, he was laid low by the indescribable powers that be. He was knocked from his horse from the powerful blow of Hadrian’s cavalry assault pike and landed on the ground. Without mercy, the warrior slammed a freshly drawn sword deeply into Pavel’s body, rending his flesh and running him through. The Red Rain. He thought to himself. Why am I here? Is there truly a God? Yet he did not cry or scream, he found himself numb. He swung his metallic fist wildly, before he did wildly spasm, going still as his body was bleeding with its guts scrambled. His horse screeched and wailed, sauntering off into a steady gallop, as now the former protege of Sir Gustaf was once again abandoned for the umpteenth time in his life. Gilded armor parted in shattered abscess, crimson stains abundant running rivulets of blood, he lay in a pile of corpses as the world itself seemed to celebrate the demise of those few brave soldiers who dwelt within the castle and shouldered the burden of their honoured King until the last. And then he was plucked from this untimely doom by a figure bearing the regalia of House Ivanovich, a brown-haired youth bearing the icy eyes of Ivan the Outlaw, and carried away covered in potatoes atop the back of a wheelbarrow. Do they know of the countryside? Injured, on the cusp of death and holding on by a mere thread, Pavel the Skinless mused to himself before his consciousness faded away, claimed by the oblivion of the dangerous, soft soliloquy reticent to his thoughts.
