Arms-Commander

…All was well in Westwind in the days that followed the fall of Cyador, for though the winters were long and chill, Tower Black was warm and well provisioned, and the goods and plunder gained from the defeat of the Lornian forces fed the angels for a time, but only for a time.

Yet all was not well beyond the Westhorns, for to the east the Prefect of Gallos had sickened, and treachery infected his land. His youngest son removed his brothers and made himself ruler in all but name. Fearing the example of Westwind, the treacherous son first drove out all those from Analeria who believed that women and men should share equally in duties and rights, scourging them, and slaying any man who respected his consort. He declared that none could travel the Westhorns nor trade with the angels. Then he raised a mighty host to bring against the angels of Westwind. For he believed that, with the departure of Nylan, no mages of power remained upon the Roof of the World, and warriors though the remaining angels might be, they could not withstand the horde of armsmen that he led westward toward the heights of Westwind itself.

Yet Ryba marshaled all the angels, including those who had fled Gallos, upon a hill in the middle of a valley before a Gallosian force so numerous that they were locusts upon the land, ready to swarm over the small host of the angels and devour them. When they rode up that slope to smite and destroy the angels, Ryba signaled the sun, and the mountains trembled, and shuddered, and shuddered yet again, until half of a great mountain split away from its firmament and buried all but a few score of that horde, leaving no sign that any so engulfed in that wave of rock and soil had ever existed. And all Gallos mourned, and the darkness of grief hung heavy over the land, with orphans and widows weeping streams into the streets of towns and hamlets. And the Lord Prefect took to his deathbed.

Yet in the north, in the depths of Suthya, remained those who saw the calamities that befell Gallos as an opportunity for their own gain, and they spread coins across the troubled land of Lornth, suggesting to each lord who received such largesse that he, and he alone, should become the Overlord of all Lornth, because it was not fitting for Lornth to be ruled by a widow whose lord had failed to subdue the angels of Westwind.

As in all matters where knowledge is lacking, those in Suthya did not comprehend the depth and breadth of their folly, for Ryba dispatched Saryn of the black blades and her host to bolster the regency of Lornth. Yet when the lords of Lornth first beheld Saryn, they perceived but a woman of stature smaller than themselves, seeing even less than the fresh-faced undercaptain she resembled in form. And they gathered together, and said, “We will make an end of her and of the regency.” While they spoke thusly to each other, each in his heart desired to make an end of all those who would contest his claim to the lordship of the land, and each armed more and more of his retainers, thinking that he, and he alone, would triumph by the might of blades and bows. And some among them even enlisted the aid of their ancient foes to the west, enticing them with the honey of plunder and golds.

In the growing darkness that surrounded Saryn, as she crossed the contending holdings of Lornth, she yearned but to staunch the flow of blood and the jealous strife that plagued so many of those who held lands…yet until she raised her dark blades and the forces behind them, none save the regent widow would listen to reason, only to the lure of golds and power. And so it was in the end, that their greed and their blindness turned them against the widow regent, who but wanted to save and heal the land….

Book of Ayrlyn, Section I [Restricted Text]