Chương 347: 7.3

Jewel was disappointed to find out that while the twin cities of Bledaten and Pyrenean had some absolutely gloriously maintained Thermae of Old Cantor this would not be the pattern for the majority of her journey south through the Dacian vault. However while she could not bathe in hot water regularly the Duna was never far from their path. At least as the Wyrm flies. And like the Vah, the Duna was an exhilarating rush to swim through.

Sadly as she had to detour off their chosen route and fly incredibly low at great speed to reach the river Jewel could not indulge more than a shallow dip into the river each morning. But it made for a pleasant ritual. A consistency to help contrast the strangeness of the weather. For, even as they were growing ever closer to winter, Jewel felt the air dry with the miles south and when not staying mostly the same coolness actually get warmer!

Every day they marched towards the central pillar of Dacia, Jewel thought she could almost feel the depths of air between the heavens thickening above them despite remaining grounded. Five days into their journey she was certain that the mornings were definitely warmer then when they started despite it being well into Swine Turn! It irritated Jewel more than causing any harm, far more frustrating was sourcing water.

The local villagers stared at Jewel's party (beyond just at her) when they asked about the providence of the wells and seemed insulted that they did not drink until after a local man or beast had tasted them. Those looks were replaced with baffled amazement when the Viznove natives began taking up water for hours to make sure that their waterskins were filled before settling in for the night. As if they had never seen a traveling party securing safe water for a journey!

Did the people in Magarska simply drink from whatever springs they found along the way?! Jewel paid closer attention to the small city of merchants, peddlers, entertainers and herders that had taken to following in her entourage's wake after the first village had been utterly befuddled by their sensible water keeping. And had to conclude that astoundingly the foreigners did seem to carry a distressingly small portion of water supply.

The sheer numbers of them might have explained it, since they were starting to resemble an actual army, or at least the village of camp followers trailed behind one. Some of them had even started pushing to travel through the night so they could arrive ahead of Jewel's encampments in the villages! That was another way their travels south had also gone contrary to common sense. The weather staying warm enough to travel was at least theoretically planned for if disquieting.

But the manner in which Jewel's party had accumulated a veritable city worth of mercantile peddlers, entertainers, cooks, even herds of animals and wagons full of grain! The High King had promised hospitality to Jewel for her entire journey through Magarska and apparently that had meant that her every want was backed by his treasury! Food followed her caravan in such supply that every arrival since they crossed the Duma into Pyrenean had created a spontaneous fair!

Villages and hamlets even in the vicinity of her encampment were being flooded with provisions! Bakeries were built in the afternoon before she arrived so they could cook prodigious amounts of bread in time for her evening and morning meals! Jewel, Muriel and Dariusz had planned for the need to live off what they could carry and purchase resupply in the larger cities mentioned in their itinerary. But with the glut of hospitality even on the road and in hamlets normally too small to support their numbers?

Her kitchenmaster had emptied their wagons of everything even slightly perishable. Every night and morning they practically feasted on freshly slaughtered meat, soft bread and strange foreign fruits! Jewel's favorite was the gránátalma. A strange red thing with pithy flesh, yet full of wonderful sweetly tart and watery seeds which burst and crunched on the teeth! Gem unfortunately could not stomach more than a few of them but she was sorely tempted to over indulge despite the tremorous warnings from her belly!

And of course despite the scale of her own encampment and guest courtiers such an abundance was not held solely to Jewel's entourage, the credit and bond of High King Murad was trusted well in his lands. So what was not eaten by herself and her party became celebratory feasts for the peasants and other travelers surrounding her! Every night and morning!

There was so much fresh produce and slaughtered animals hardly even any of Dariusz' travel stew was eaten except when Jewel finally requested to have some made up purely out of preference! If she was not confident that her meals had little-to-nothing to do with the production of her eggs Jewel would have feared she would leave Magarska with a larger clutch then she arrived in it! So it was not out of the ordinary ten days into their journey for the night to still be boisterous and loud in the distance.

But tonight there was something wrong. Just as Jewel was settling in her tent around the trio of eggs with Gem and Paul, full of another truly decadent meal and even a spot of dancing with the locals (no one but her had the energy to dance very long after a day's march) the distant voices suddenly turned sharp with fear. That sharpness grew and turned to screams. Then there were just as abrupt silences. And then a sound that had Jewel up and on her feet so quickly Paul was thrown into the cushions.

"Huah?! Jewel?! What is it?" It was like a scream, but not one that had anything to do with pain. It pierced the air and yet somehow left it lessened for its passing. It was made by a voice that Jewel had never heard before, but with a character that she knew and remembered only as a whisper of near silent desperation or a calm and flat monotone. But this was not such a soft voice used so gently. Nor was it so weakened and starving. Even as it hungered.

Jewel was already sliding out of her tent and her voice rose in a roar that drowned out and smothered those piercing hungry cries." To arms! All men to arms! We are ambushed! The Dead attack the living!" Her command carried to all her camp." Men and women of Viznove! To arms and with me!" She could hear Muriel cursing and already struggling into her armor, she heard the sparse number of men who had the first shift rushing to her voice. Others stumble from their tents, slowed by beer, sweet wines and full bellies.

Not even fifty of her footmen were ready as the sound of dying screams grew. But Muriel was out of her tent, Smithson was there although only in his lighter leathers instead of even the usual plate. The buckles were not even properly secured yet. They at least had swords ready with steel bared. Jewel considered her people, her soldiers, then shuddered at the thought of what even a starving one of the blood drinkers would do to them. She mastered herself.

The most powerful and surest defense against the things rending through the commoners in the night were Jewel and-" Erhard! To me!" The Court Wizard arrived in a flash of sparks and the sound of heavy steel on steel. So assembled and assembling Jewel swept the faces of those present. Adelyne, still in her sleep wear was present amongst them even though Jewel could not recall how she had come to be there. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience."

The people of Magarska have opened their homes and their stores to us, fed and sheltered us, now they are being slaughtered!" Jewel looked to her Captain. Voice sharp and curt, she could hear the sound of bodies splitting under blows. Rising howls of more than one hungry voice." Muriel, Paul and Smithson stay together, secure the camp. Then offer aid as possible under your judgement." They moved to rally, Muriel bellowing to draw the still rousing footmen and knights to her.

Jewel began walking quickly towards the screams, Erhard following at her side. Good. She lowered her voice to not carry as to all in the camp as they moved towards the screams, stately at first, but wings already priming to launch herself into the air. Step growing faster the more she heard about what was happening in the dark beyond.

"Erhard? Can your entourage survive contact with multiple of Count Tepes' blood drinkers?" The wizard did not hesitate. Words flat and eagerness shining in his fiery gaze.

"Even without the protection of Asherah, my Triumphant Armour Halberdier can match the trained elite of Vladimir Tepes when working three to one in their favor with assured victory." Protections of Asherah? No! Jewel had no time to question obscure sorcery and miracles, people were dying! As they moved the sound of metal boots in synchronicity came up all around them in the dark.

The shining metal and the black and yellow cloth of the Realm's colors surrounding Jewel and the Wizard even at a pace that would be a run for normal men. To the Triumphants? It was a light bounding walk. Not a word between them that Jewel could hear to coordinate, just the even breathing of the men in their armor. But the sorcery almost hummed with eagerness to move the metal they wore, and there was a new item clipped onto each of their weapon's hafts. An emblem almost like a trident.

But with three hooped tines at its base and four wider spaced ones at its end. Miracles cut deep into the attachments. That must have been the protections that Erhard mentioned. Jewel would be interrogating the wizard on why she was not told of such things, but later. Erhard's voice was even as he continued.

"Against what sounds like low ranked deserters or feral peasants given the blessing? With the sanctified Tree of Asherah upon their weapons? We will likely only suffer the loss of one of my armour if they are caught fighting alone against four or more." Jewel considered what she was hearing. The number of distinct voices she heard howling their all consuming hunger into the night. The cadence of wet, meaty bursts of violence and then the sucking voids between.

There were dozens of the things at least, perhaps more in the dark beyond or at the edges of the encampments. Murdering with impunity mercenary and peasant alike. She gave her order." Soldiers of Cantor Reborn, Armoured by Erhard! Spread out and sweep to the perimeter of the camps in tens! Keep sight of one another and slay these monsters!" Erhard added a whisper which carried among the men. Sounding from the metal."

The countess does not know all of the workings at your disposal, hold close enough formation to aid your fellows on your flanks without losing contact with their opposite." Jewel did not fault him for the correction to her command. A good ruler knew to trust their captains in war. And this was as far as she was concerned a war. Against Wallachia or some other power they had unintentionally released Jewel did not care!

The men around her gave a murmur of assent, too quiet for any mortal ear to catch, echoing around her in every helm. Whispers that carried from the steel of one helm to another as if they spoke directly into each other's ears. And then with a quiet command from what she presumed were the captains of the group all two hundred of the jogging yet eerily quiet metal plated soldiers split apart into packs.

Not rigid formations but loose hunting things, limbering and shifting their halberds into the ready, the 'Tree of Asherah' emblems turned outward ahead of them. And then for the first time since Jewel had first witnessed them the suits began to properly show their paces! If there was not the screams of the dying to drive her onward Jewel would have stumbled to a stop at the shock of it! They leapt ahead of her at a speed only exceeded by a gryphon in flight!

Their boots cleared the height of the tents in their paths with great leaping bounds. Jewel was soon left entirely alone in the dark and it had been a matter of blinks! Erhard was still there beside her, moving with the slight hiss of metal as his clothing slid over his skin. The 'leather' apron grinding and swaying with the weight of the solid iron it was made of.

Jewel could hear the whisper of his sorcery rising, filling the air, reaching out to connect him to each of the two hundred men fanning out ahead of them. Jewel made her decision.

"Erhard, do what you think is best to ensure victory in this battle. I am flying to engage." There was a nod and then the man stopped dead, his limbs locking into place in a squat, the soil of the field they had encamped in billowing around his feet as he settled to a stop like a tumbling anvil. His rigid posture even rattled as he slid to a stop.

Then Jewel was launching into the night and far over and past him, wings pumped full of her fire, body surging so thickly with it she was almost rising into the air on wyrmflame alone! The wind howled with the wake of her wings, some of the tents thrown from their fixtures and the blankets and other matters of encamped life scattered. Erhard was solidly still amidst the fury of her passing. Jewel turned her attention forward, she had delayed far too long, she had clearly heard dozens of lives end while she rallied.

Quite possibly more lost in the chaos of the others. But ahead of her the sounds were changing, the horrible squelches of torn bodies replaced by screaming rage from unliving throats. Shrieking gasps of a lust for blood and life denied and frustrated. Then the sudden flashes in the distance of bodies bursting into flames. Some lighting the metal figures interposing themselves between the hungry things and cowering survivors. Lives saved by Erhard's troops.

Searing white flares leaping from the darkness of the camp below Jewel and sailing upward into the night sky and the ever watching stars. What would she have to pay to gain some of those Halberdiers of her own? A matter for another night! Jewel tilted in the air and began her dive towards the dark fields where she could hear more hungry, starving breaths. Into the thick of the slaughter that Erhard's entourage had not yet reached. Where there were no living bodies to worry about.

Wyrmdoom building in her throat and mouth. Even only lit by scattered fires and the light of the heavens Jewel could see the bodies. Drained husks left torn apart and scattered. A whole village worth of destroyed lives. Hundreds must have died already. And amongst them, turning up as one to catch her with eyes like bottomless pits and teeth bared in snarls there they were. Near naked bodies of hungry corpses, no armor, no weapons, nothing but blood flushed skin and crimson hair.

Jewel dove, sweeping close to the ground. White flame arcing and crackling between her teeth. She had sent aid for the troubles, and when she returned to the realm she promised she was going to march to the capital and scream at Mathias in person for his part in this calamity. Jewel thought she had understood what they had unleashed. The news from Magarska about the war that had been enacted against all foreign powers in Wallachia had said a great many terrible things.

Some of it she was assured were the empty complaints of an enemy defeated. Jewel should have known better. But she wanted to believe that Count Tepes' vows to defend his homeland and people would gentle the horrible hunger and keep his soul just. She wanted to believe that Magarska was merely casting him as a monster. Just as she had been. She thought she had sent proper aid and recompense for her and the Realm's part in empowering the man that had become the blood drenched corpse count of Wallachia.

She had been wrong. Until this night Jewel had not seen the true horror of what Vladimir Tepes had unleashed using the weapon he'd been given. These were not the few supremely gifted warriors they had expected he would make from choice champions to join him in the power he'd gained. These were not even the soldiers bound by duty and commanded on the battlefield as word had eventually reached them in the Realm! This was a teeming hoard unleashed on peasants and merchants, outside of any declaration of war!

He must have enacted the ritual upon levies! On so many that it had to have emptied an entire town, maybe even a city in Wallachia to raise so many as hungering dead! She could hear so much more than she saw teeming in the darkness beyond the camps. The sheer draining emptiness in the night could mean nothing else. Jewel swept low and at speed as she unleashed her wroth upon the encampment that just hours ago had been full of the merriment of a festival! Annihilating the horrors before her eyes.

Silencing the sucking wounds in the world. But not all the things below her simply stood and let their flesh vanish into ash. Some leapt away out of her path. And from the darkness around her even more of the dead bounded into the air to meet her.