The scents of smoke and searing meat wafted up from the scullery as Lord Moss made his way into the feast hall. The mornings early light had barely breached the hills and the serving staff were already busy with the days preparation, gathering fresh linen, sweeping the halls and turning the castle to a bee hive of activity, a daily ritual that had taken place within it's walls every day that he could remember.
He'd been born within these walls, more years ago than he could care to remember. Learned to read in the study, martial skills in the courtyard and hunting in the broad hills and fields that surrounded it. It was within these walls that the succession war to put the rightful heir on the thrown had been planned. Behind him over the hearth still stood the banner he and his compatriots had marched under not so many years ago, at the head of a war host five thousand strong to put the child king Hershen upon the Crimson Throne.
Those were better days. The land may have been torn by civil war, but it was war of a more pleasant kind, fought on open fields with polished armours and dye soaked heraldry, not amongst muddy hovels and burning fields, trying desperately to buy time for subjects and civilians to flee. Time was that the Heartlands were a safer place, standing armies held banditry and barbarians at bay, treaties with the neighboring kingdoms ensured trade and prosperity. But the great war changed that. Still weak from the succession war the standing forces of kingdom had been less than half of what they currently were and in disarray, allowing the savage chaos of the Keenites to the west to rip and tear at the borders and the nomadic tribes under Matt the bloody-handed to gain a foothold on the boarder.
Seating himself at one of the heads of the great table Moss looked over the maps and ledgers arrayed in front of him, scrawled notes of troop movements, supply stockpiles and regimental numbers. Bolstered by fresh recruits and the Paparan Mercenaries from the southern coast the armies of the realm had returned to a number almost as strong as they once were. The barbarian advance had been slowed, if not halted entirely and a recent invasion of auxiliary forces from the brotherhood of Southern Knights to the east had been turned back with hardly any casualties to the defending garrison.
The times and war had changed much. Of the barons who had lead the succession war only he and Sushi of the east still lived, the arms and amours of the others standing silently in their ceremonial positions around the great hall, perched under their draping heraldry.
Sudden shouts from the courtyard stole Moss from his revery causing him to pull himself up from his seat with an aged and weary grunt, shuffling over to the slitted windows in his heavy winter furs. Beneath him a mud covered courser shied and whinnied away from the stable keepers, flanks heaving from exhaustion and streaming with the vibrant red of spilt blood. Cries for help and extra arms echoed through the morning air as they sought to cut the rider from his saddle straps and help him to the ground.
As Moss made his way down to the courtyard he passed by the alcove that would one day hold his own arms. Perhaps, he felt, not so long from now.
Banned
