Heir of Iron

"You jest with me," Bart said, Rashid shook his head.

"Buck teeth, huge nose. Hair like a rat's nest. Blotchy skin too. She was a tiny little gremlin of a girl, too willful, argued with the Learned One, and anyone else who got in her way. Our first meeting as children, she made fun of me for my belly." he said, slapping the now thick, barrel-like mound of muscle that lay beneath his armor — Bart's shoulders slumped with true sympathy, touching his own bear-like midsection.

"I know the feeling." the big knight-brother murmured, Rashid nodded.

"Yet, the Learned One knew. We fought for it, I shouted at her; I — this knock-kneed, doughy warrior trainee still wet behind the ears shouted at one of the Divine Triune, raised my hands and voice. Can you believe it?" Rashid laughed at the end, and Bart could only shake his head, eyes cast down as the man continued.

"I fought her for years, coming of age Naima and I were worst enemies, at one another's throats, constantly out-doing each other for the Learned One's attention... I found her ravishing," he said, pausing as Bart seemed confused. "The Learned One, I mean. I was completely enthralled with her."

Bart found himself caught out, staring open-mouthed and red to the ears, Rashid's gaze was knowing, and a bit smug. "Is... isn't she a gigantic serpent?" he asked, and Rashid laughed, reaching into his electric blue sash, producing a tome of his own, inlaid with gold and horn. Deftly the big man turned it in his hands — Bart was always stunned by how fluidly the massive southerner moved, down to the smallest motions, it made him feel clumsy and oafish.

"She is a being of spun gold and ivory, love and knowledge... I knew her touch, her presence. I wanted so dearly to be hers and only hers." he said and turned the book to Bart's eyes; the page was not unlike his own, an illumination on one page, text on the other — text he could not read, written in the native tongue of the Al-Rezan people, but the image...

She was wound in a perfect helix around a spear of glittering gold. Her body was rendered in such minute details that individual scales and scutes glimmered with silver and gold gilt. Her form was a geometric perfection as best as the artist could muster, a perfect serpentine body, rising along a crest of feathers that framed her face — all three of them. Her neck split into a trio of wise, angular skulls, and they were still those of a serpent, but it carried with it... more, an impossible beauty, a blistering intellect — it was like Sikha in the same way a candleflame is like the sun. Even rendered to standards of mere human hands it carried with it the saidsame human quality of expression that drew at the mind, that told you quietly in the depths of your heart 'Be not afraid, I bring glad tidings'. She was crested by six wings of increasing size and complexity, her tail tipped by a fan of gilt feathers, and above her heads, each rode a crown of glimmering radiance that limned her whole form like crackling lightning. Even looking upon it without understanding the words, he felt the grace that it represented. It touched his heart.

"She haunted my dreams, the touch of her scales like finest silk for I'd felt them, the whisper of her voice in my ears for I had heard it. I would lie awake, my body's base urges coloring her stare with lust and her touches with solicitous intent," he said, shame briefly showing on his face... Bart looked away.

"Do you... have those thoughts yet still?"

"Every time I think of her," Rashid admitted, Bart's eyes going wide. He turned and looked at the man, who was gazing down at the illumination with open, unabashed desire. Then he took a breath and looked back at Naima.

"No, I did not settle. I did not consider duty. The Learned One knew my heart better than I did. Love I carry for her yes, a yearning borne out of desire... yet, desire is not one-sided. It can be for many things, many people — you decide who you give it to. Naima and I fought like rats and snakes, but as we did we shared things. Doubts, hopes, fears, hurts. She put me back together a hundred times before I knew I loved her more than anything." he said, closing the tome, placing it back into his sash, near his heart.

"The years passed, and the desire for the Learned One burned no less hot — but it gained a twinned flame in my heart, Naima, my beloved and I grew into ourselves. My body changed, my heart with it — so did she." He lifted his hand, scars and callouses showing bright and clear in the sun. "In the end, we grew together like trees planted side by side. Wound so close we didn't so much fall into love, as realize it had been there all along. I apologized to the Learned One on our wedding day, confessed my feelings and desires for her."

"What did she say to such a thing?" Bart breathed, his heart hammering in his chest at the fearful possibilities.

"She knew. Of course she did, she knew my heart better than I, did I not say as much?" He said, smiling softly, eyes turning towards the horizon, hand over his heart. "She said she felt my desire as well — a surprise for sure you can imagine." he said, a faint chuckle escaping him; "Yet her duty meant she knew I had another who needed me more. She told me that she loved my heart so that it would kill her to take it from another, I remember her words precisely," he said, taking a breath. Closing his eyes.

"I saw your heart as a child and knew that in you — I could find a consort and companion. Yearning is not something I am free of, my dear friend. We all on this earth yearn for the touch of another in the dark places of the night. I knew you would provide that to someone... and I knew it could not be I, not as you were meant to be." he said, his voice feeling stilted a moment as he recited a cadence not his own, words not his own. He was silent for a long moment, Bart also looked down at his saddle-bow, heart troubled.

"She told me she loved me and was proud of me. I never once regretted my choice. Naima is the most perfect woman I could ever have imagined, and the Learned One knew, the gift of Sight is hers and hers alone... and she knew." he said, and then furrowed his brow.

"What is it?" Bart asked, reading the man's normal stony visage as easily as their own texts, the burly man stroked his beard.

"She told me something else that day. That Naima and I's love would shepherd one heart to another, one day, a heart she held dearer than all, one long lonesome and longing — and for that, she would give anything," he said, stroking his beard again and looking at Bart, a quiet expression of contemplation on his face.

"I am sure her meaning will be clear, one day soon," he said, smiling at the knight-brother, folding his hands on his reins and slowly dropping back towards the wagon. Bart watched him go in silence, the big man's horse pulling up near the wagon, where the burly warrior reached up to Naima, taking her hand in his with a smile that he saw only rarely, so full of life and love it transformed the stony warrior's entire being. Naima blushed like a schoolgirl as Rashid pressed her palm to his lips. Bart looked away, feeling oddly voyeuristic.

"A heart to another, eh?" he asked the air, looking down at the book. Then at his hands, a fit gave them a tremor that threatened to drag him from the saddle. He screwed his eyes closed, clenching his trembling fingers as he focused on the words of The Lady.

Thy art beloved as thou art — thy art mine, and I art thine

He breathed in sharply, and with an effort of will... the trembling slowed and then after a long minute of focus, it abated entirely. Falling slack, he felt his body sag beneath its own weight, exhausted from the episode. He touched the tome again and closed his eyes.

"Thank you." whether those words were for Rashid... or a higher power, even Bart did not know.

~ ~ ~

The day's travel was not without note, as they pushed past the surrounding farmlands of Lachheim into the Free Territories or 'Middlelands' of the Heartlands, the scars of an older world became apparent. The Verdant Crusades were named because of the touch of the Holy Beasts, where they walked — life flourished. They say flowers bloomed beneath the Lady's hooves, and wherever the Great Beast of Might walked, the embers of his passing fertilized the soil blighted by the Empty Queen's draining influence, and the Learned One's wings spread clean air free of the choking miasma of war. They had trod this path he and his friends now walked, the First Paladin at their side.

As they crested a hill, around their modest caravan rose massive, jagged monoliths of stone, bedrock, and ancient slab — bones of the earth, ripped up and torn asunder in the great clash of the queen's forces in Northsea. Bart couldn't imagine the forces at play, the raw power of Creation being fought with on both sides, the energies that tore up the bones of the earth to cast into the teeth of enemies too great and terrible to fall any other way. Far into the distance, the jagged landmarks traveled, like a field of discarded swords, fallen talons, and spurned teeth — sharp-edged and raw still, ancient rock not meant to see the light of the sun, and yet — it had been reclaimed. The growth had been rampant in the wake of the holy march, the spires dotted with a carpet of life, grassy knolls rolling up their sides. Well-healed scars, still bright with the wound but on the mend.

"I ne'er seen nothin' like this," Lidia said, eyes wide as they passed beneath one. Bart looked back at her from his horse, feeling strong that day again and pressing his luck on a ride. She looked back. "Dad and I ne'er came this far northwest. We cut wood tae the eastward reaches," she said, turning her gaze back to the far distance. Bart's eyes went with her.

"Neither have I. It's amazing... do you know the tales?" he asked, and she shook her head. Bart smiled and reigned back, joining her and Naima near the wagon; "Well, it starts with the Queen's Forces pushing far into Northsea, before the Kingdoms had united, before some of them existed. Divided, they'd fallen one by one..." he began, and the story carried forward. The Black March was well-known history for military types like himself: the Queen's conquest of Northsea was a field of great study both martial and academic, piecing together her campaign north of the bay was the life's work of many a scholar.

He told them of her breakthrough at Mistport, eyes turning back to see looming in the clear distance beyond, the Ossuary of Man standing up, proceeding past sight into the clouds. The structure's massive profile perfectly situated over the burning Lachheim, the columns of smoke framing it like smoldering sconces. He spoke of The Black March; how her armies fanned out across the continent like locusts, pushing and occupying key points, erecting terrible altars to her bathed in blood and bone, how they herded the populace like cattle, using them as fodder for dark rituals to bring forth more and more of their forces. Her continued march north was harried at every step by the forces of Men, scattered and disorganized they could only fight delaying actions as the Queen's forces advanced, and as they advanced — they brought their world with them.

"So... that's what they're doin' in Lachheim, in th' underground?" Lidia asked as Bart stopped to take a breath, closing his eyes as he fought down another minor fit of tremors.

"I don't know, I know what the history books told me. It's a good assumption, it's probably why it was so dark, even with a blazing lantern. They say the Empty Queen's lands are outside of time, outside of the natural order. Light touches nothing wholly in her domain, you can see the shadow of the Balelands even from the sea if you are daring enough to sail the Sea of Glass." he said, taking a drink from his waterskin, then shrugging; "Or so I read."

"This all 'appened only Two-hunnerd years ago?" She asked, and he shook his head.

"The Crusades date back two hundred years, and lasted a hundred recorded years of battle — and even as late as the last few decades, we still fight incursions on the southern fronts... but that's just how we, outside of them reckon time. They say where the Empty Queen walks, nothing dies and nothing grows. Time flows... wrong. She is too... heavy, for the world and it weighs down even the passage of the days." he said, shaking his head; "It's all very much beyond me."

"She is a creature of stagnation, and in her presence and the presence of her greatest powers, even time withers and fails to carry on." Naima said, eyes on the road still, though she turned them to Bart to raise an eyebrow, he blinked and she smiled; "You are doing well, please continue." she said, and Bart caught Rashid's grin as he completed a circuit of the caravan, mouthing 'Alchemists' at Bart as he passed.

"Well, carrying on. The Crusades were a century of recorded fighting, but those emerging from the battlefields recorded far, far longer. Cities were built, destroyed, and rebuilt in what seemed like days to those beyond but were years to those within. Fortifications laid in what seemed like a blink of an eye gone just as fast. A century of fighting yes, but they fought in time frozen like a winter pond. It became a numbers game, none who fell within her grasp could truly die... but they could not stand and fight either." Bart explained, Lidia rapt with attention. It seemed the cutpurse loved a good story.

"So when did the Holy Beasts come? Haven't they always been here?" Lidia asked and this time, Naima took the question.

"Yes and No, they existed as part of the world as mere spirits before. Ideals. Gigas as the Might of Muscle and Bone, Manasa as the curiosity of life, and The Lady as the ember of fecundity and fertility in all places and things."

"Gigas? Manasa?" Bart asked, raising an eyebrow and Naima smiled.

"The other Beasts, Gigas the Beast of Might, and Manasa the Learned One." she said archly, seemingly enjoying teaching him as he taught her; "They have proper names, though... only your Order knows The Lady's name, she is very reclusive." Bart nodded gravely, turning the new information over in his mind;

"Indeed... it's a grave dishonor to speak her name to one who hasn't heard it from her lips among my fellows. I have never heard it, and I won't until she greets me at the Grove."

"Quite," Naima said, looking over at Lidia. "We do not use the Learned One's name too casually out of respect, but Gigas — that one does not care." Lidia raised her eyebrow.

"Kind o' an arsehole, is he?" she challenged, and Naima laughed.

"Oh, quite if the Learned One's tales are accurate. He is concerned only with his duty, and he is designed as a rival to Man's ambition, the raw, focused animal cunning of the natural world. He hates the Empty Queen, and has never once in all his time stopped fighting her — even now if you head to the southernmost front, you will find his Hecatomb of Stone — a veritable city of fortresses, each one built ahead of the other as he and his Marked Men gain and lose ground in eternal conflict with the Queen's fell monsters." she explained, Bart nodding and Lidia's eyes going wide.

"That's... fookin' exceptional tae hear it like that," Lidia said, clearly amazed.

"If the stories are true, The Marked Men take advantage of the Queen crushing and breaking apart the passage of days to build great bulwarks — and also become functionally immortal. They cannot leave her influence, each of them more metal and stitches than man now. When they grow too damaged to put themselves back together in her baleful immortality, they journey north to die peacefully, with honor." she said, touching her heart. "It's one of my caste's duties as Alchemists, we minister and embalm the Marked Men when they return to us to die." Lidia visibly shuddered at that.

"That's... hideous, but... inspirin'"

"Reality is often that way," Naima said blithely. "As I was saying, they have only been here, in the world of mortals since the crusades some centuries past," she said and Bart took up the tale with a cough.

"Yes, the Queen's forces ran roughshod over the disconnected and scattered armies of Man. There were holdouts, but it became a waiting game as they pushed the armies further and further back, all the way to the lands of the Sidhe." Lidia's eyes flared at that, and she looked down.

"Ah know this part o' the tale. Sidhe are jealous, they don't like outsiders. They halted the Queen's forces, cut 'em to bloody ribbons an' made examples o' anything tae touch their territory." she said, and Bart tilted his head, reigning his horse closer as he continued.

"Yes. The Sidhe Courts routed the Queen's monsters, their own powers rivaling hers — but they bore no desire for conquest, and merely held their bastions and waited. In the end, the Queen's armies pressed the last forces of men to the Sidhelands of the North, the Erlking's holdings. He wanted no part of their war, and any who crossed the line, Man or Monster was ridden down like animals. It was there the First Paladin fought a losing battle, a veteran of the very first breakthrough, and was the last man standing as they forced him, wounded and dying to flee. He knelt there waiting to die in the Erlking's wood, and he prayed to God to save not him, but his people and his men." he said, Lidia's eyes sparkling.

"An' this is where the Lady comes in?" she said, the woman practically a little girl again as Bart told the story, he smiled.

"So they say, this part is muddy. She appeared to him out of the prayers and made an accord with the Erlking for his fealty, and brought the First Paladin back from the brink of death out of pure love for Man. He was the first to wield the Ember of Creation as fire and flame against the dark. He journeyed there, praying as he and the Lady retook ground, driving back the darkness. Each of his prayers summoned down yet another Holy Beast — who claimed for themselves a territory and a purpose, and marched at his side in the first Verdant Crusade." Bart finished, coughing a little and drinking long from his skin, he grunted in minor pain — a fit overtaking him, causing him to double over in the saddle, Lidia looked on with concern before the big man waved her off — breathing raggedly as he fought back the pain and shaking. Her eyes worried, Naima picked up the thread:

"The Learned One appealed to the Sidhe of Seelie much as the Lady had those of Unseelie, and as such claimed Al-Reza as her own. Gigas claimed nothing and no one, and demanded the First Paladin to prove himself in the only way he respected: battle."

Lidia grinned a little; "He fought the Beast then?" she prompted, and Naima nodded.

"Fought — and won, it was a battle they fought for seven days and seven nights, but in the end after they had rent the earth and sky itself with their contest, the First Paladin laid Gigas low, and bid he yield. In history, no other man has ever done so — but many have tried."

"What 'appens to the losers?" Lidia asked.

"Where do you think the Marked Men come from? To lose to him is to undertake the same Oath of Iron he gave the First Paladin, to serve forever as the teeth, claws, and blade of God. You would be surprised how many still attempt it, to win would be to be a living war god — but to lose is to be among the most titanic of warriors still. It has great appeal to some." Naima concluded with a little click of her tongue,

"Aye, crazed people," Lidia said with a little shiver.

"Duty... is often its own reward." Bart rasped, having fought back the episode, face drawn and haggard but he managed a tired smile, the two women returned it — though Lidia's was more thoughtful than it had been before.

A shadow passed over each of them as they marched beneath one of the great spires that scarred the land, above them a herd of wild goats chewed their grassy meals, watching the caravan pass by beneath the overgrown earthen spear. The companions fell into a personable silence as the sun stretched long over the arching, rolling peaks and valleys of the war-torn land — now green, vibrant and so full of life.