Sederan Tales

After the attack on Bertram, both prisoners had their arms tied down to some rings bolted to the floor. They were left enough slack to stand and eat, but not any more. The pairs that went to check in on them turned into trios, and they were treated with much more caution. This didn’t stop Bertram from bringing them provisions again that evening and the next morning.

By mid-afternoon the next day, Djinly decided another round of questioning was in order. She was accompanied by Bertram and Alenard, and hoped that Bertram’s presence wouldn’t incite the rage it had before in the Ardellian officer. Still, nobody knew more about Ardellian prisoners than Ardellian traitors.

They entered the house, walked down the hallway, and stopped at the door. Djinly briefly made eye contact with both Bertram and Niklos, then unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The officer’s eyes showed considerable restraint, although the rage was still visible beneath them. He stood poised, as if he expected to be attacked. The other soldier looked afraid yet again and had backed up against the wall.

Djinly and Alenard entered and leaned back against the wall. Bertram shut the door behind them. At once, the officer dashed at them. The piece of the floorboard that his constraining ring was bolted to flew forward. He had obviously spent the last day methodically breaking this portion of the floor off. The piece of board hit Alenard in the side of the head and he went down.

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“So you’re saying you don’t actually know what your group stands for,” Bertram said.

“No,” Alenard replied, “I’m just saying we’re not happy with the current state of things and we want to see some change.”

The two were seated around a derelict table in Djinly’s house. Niklos and Caelum quietly observed from across the room, mostly because they were still looking for some answers too. The arrival of the prisoners served to ease the tensions between Bertram and the others, but he immediately introduced some new tension by asking tricky questions about the resistance.

“Not being happy with things is not a cause,” Bertram said.

“But asking endless questions apparently is,” Alenard retorted.

“What’s going on?” Djinly asked, walking into the room.

“What does your group stand for?” Bertram asked as Alenard sighed.

“Well, we want to see the Ardellian occupation end,” she said. “And we’d like to see Sedera stand as its own nation again.”

“And do you have a plan for that?”

“That’s not for discussion,” Djinly said sharply. She walked and sat down in an old rickety chair in the corner of the room.

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Niklos explained to Bertram how he had come to join the Sederan resistance and find Caelum. For being such a life-altering event, he used few words to describe it. Bertram still had questions about the resistance and its goals, but he was more curious to see what would become of the two prisoners.

Now, Bertram was sitting on a table, holding a cloth to the wound on his arm. Niklos had gone to join Djinly for the initial questioning of the soldiers, and Lenus had left to go back to the house for something, leaving Bertram and Caelum in awkward silence, as Bertram wanted to avoid another line of questioning like he’d gotten from Lenus earlier.

Bertram heard some muted voices through the wall, occasionally accented with one of the soldiers yelling something. Try as he might, he couldn’t make out the words that were being exchanged.

Lenus walked through the door holding a small leather pouch with a cap over a small opening.

“This is for you,” she said, handing the pouch to Bertram.

“Is this some sort of healing elixir?” he asked.

“Close,” Lenus said. “It’s red wine.”

“That’ll do,” Bertram said, opening and taking a swig of the wine.

Lenus laughed quietly. “It’ll dull the pain,” she said. “It’s the best I could do.”

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Bertram awoke to the sound of knocking on his cabin’s door. He had slept through the sunrise—something he never did. Days of long training followed by late nights of waiting for Djinly had finally taken their toll, however, despite his early night in.

He shuffled to the door, still a bit groggy, and opened it to see Lenus holding a small burlap sack. Her red hair was a bit tousled due to sleep and days on the road, but she had made some effort to tame it into a loose ponytail. She was wearing the same grey tunic she had worn the day before, and Bertram could see the faint outline of light armor underneath it. She also had both of her daggers strapped to her belt. Her appearance was an odd mixture of utility and class, which Bertram admired.

“Good morning,” Bertram said, smiling and leaning against the door frame.

“Djinly got caught up in some documents, but she wanted me to bring you this,” Lenus said, offering the burlap sack to him. “It’s breakfast.”

“Thanks,” Bertram said, taking the sack from her and peering inside. In it were some bread and cheese, and a flask of water.

“Djinly will probably be a little while, but she’ll be down here,” Lenus said, arms folded in front of her.

“Well, will you join me for breakfast?” Bertram asked.

Lenus opened her mouth and looked down at the ground. She took in a breath as if to speak, but didn’t. Bertram’s warm gaze turned to one of concern. Lenus looked back up at him.

“I’m sorry,” Lenus said, “I just…”

“What is it?” Bertram asked.

“Were you one of the ones who attacked Amalia?” Lenus asked.

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The next few days were a jumble of training, questions, and history lessons with varying degrees of tension. Bertram quickly discovered how much pent-up anger Alenard had toward the Ardellian military and worked his best to diffuse it when he could. Granted, most of his anger was well-deserved; but it was not as focused or well-directed as Bertram felt it should have been.

At this moment, Alenard was sitting down at a quiet table in the Prince’s Gamble tavern, having a drink at Bertram’s request. He found that their most civil conversations took place over large tankards of ale. He was also exhausted after a long day of hard training. Though Alenard was nowhere near Bertram’s level of skill, he certainly matched him in endurance.

“So there’s really no defined moral code in Sederan religion?” Bertram asked.

Alenard laughed. “No, that’s not it—there are eight.”

“And you’re just free to choose whichever one you want?”

“Well, that depends on who you ask,” Alenard asking, setting his tankard down on the bar. “The goal is to be a strong soul. Strong souls get reused. Idle souls move onto Hell, a place of nothingness. But some people feel that their god’s ideology is inherently stronger than others. You can guess where that line of thought leads.”

“And you just sit down and talk about this?” Bertram said, taking a long swig of his ale.

Alenard shook his head. “No,” he said. “We fight about it all the time. Sometimes there are schisms, sometimes rebellions. But we always come back to the fact that all eight gods make us stronger as a nation and a culture. Even a Lyrenite has to admit that society is better for its Malechites.”

Bertram shook his head. “That’s far more progressive than I was taught,” he said. “The Ardellian people could all benefit from a few drinks with some Sederans.”

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“It’ll take about five days to reach Crater Lake,” Alenard said, pointing west at a crossroads in a densely wooded area where his group was stopped. “The trees will thin out once you get out of the these woods and there will be more towns.”

“And what’s your plan?” asked Katelain.

“We’ll reconnect with Djinly and fill her in on everything that’s happened,” Alenard responded.

“You’re sure you don’t need me here?” Petra asked.

Bertram shook his head. “We should be fine. Any questions I can’t answer can wait until you get back,” he said.

“Thank you,” Katelain said. She then turned to Petra. “And thank you, for coming with me.”

“I’ve been wanting to learn more about Sederan magic anyway, and I hear Crater Lake is the best place to do that,” he responded.

“We’ll meet up at the Prince’s Gamble in two weeks,” Alenard said.

“Alright,” Katelain said. “I’ll have Rex with me when I come back. See you in two weeks.”

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Katelain awoke to some minor commotion next to her. The sun had just risen, but Petra and Bertram were already up. Each had picked over the clothes from the attackers the night before and found something to wear over their distinctive Ardellian military outfits. They had also found a stream and filled a pot with water.

“Well,” Alenard said, “we’re all still alive. That’s step one toward a good partnership!”

“Petra, I have to know,” Katelain said, still slightly groggy. “Why do Ardellians hate Sederans so?”

Petra sighed. He did not turn to face her.

“Good morning, Katelain,” Bertram said patronizingly.

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The pair of former lieutenants stayed well outside of town until long after dark, their men gone ahead of them to deliver the bad news and gather up a few days’ worth of provisions. The hours were mostly silent as the weight of their decisions began to sink in. Two entire lives’ worth of aspirations, gone in a day.

After the moon had risen, they decided it would be safe to go and wait for their support—probably the last support they would see for some time. As they neared town, Bertram’s curiosity compelled him to speak.

“So what now?” Bertram asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Petra responded. “Lay low for a few days, maybe find a small town to start over.”

Bertram nodded silently. He hated not knowing where he was heading. He turned over various scenarios in his mind. He had always been a soldier, save for the time he was training to be one. He had no other trade. He was at a loss as all of the scenarios he constructed in his head ended badly.

Bertram sighed heavily and slumped his shoulders. “But what will we do?” he asked.

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“Alright, men, this is no picnic, but we’ve done this before,” Bertram’s commanding voice sounded amongst the small group of men. There were, counting Petra and Bertram, three vormunds and five elites—a small fraction of their squads, but more than enough to take out a group of neutralized mages.

The vormunds had a proud and stately demeanor. To be most effective, Accians had to be sure of themselves. Justice did not second-guess itself. Soldiers selected for the program were selected on this criteria above all others.

The elites were just as confident, but had a look of excitement about them that stood in stark contrast to the vormunds. Though they were selected for their fighting skills, each viewed combat as a challenge, and each loved the challenge. Fighting was not a game to them—it was much more serious—but it was clearly sport.

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Most armies in the world were ragtag groups of makeshift soldiers, forced away from farming or trades to pick up sword or spear for their king. In short, while there were many soldiers, there were few warriors.

In the Ardellian army, this was not the case. In the Ardellian Empire, fighting was an art and a science. The best philosophers thought about war. The best inventors made weapons of war. The best artists were blacksmiths. And the best athletes were the most respected, for they were Ardellian soldiers.

Ardellian soldiers were not simple men. All were educated, and intelligence was highly valued. There were the men with baser pleasures, but the best soldiers were men of a higher caliber, and being a great soldier was one of the highest aspirations for most Ardellians.

So great was the Ardellian might that most armies knew from the start that they could not stand up to them. Many of the Ardellian Empire’s conquests were peaceful surrenders. The wars that did break out were often incredibly brutal—so much so that many Ardellian soldiers came to see war as inherently brutal.

The war with Sedera was brutal, but such brutality led to a quick surrender after only a few years of fighting. The brutality did not end as abruptly. Ardellian soldiers seemed to bear a special grudge against Sederans, and this was no secret to either side. The reasons for this, however, remained a mystery to Sedera.

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