THE CALLING
The young woman who could not have seen much more than twenty summers cowered shivering in the makeshift shelter. The soaked wood refused stubbornly to produce a flame, which communicated more than the mere idea of warmth. Even the dense canopy of the ancient Shadowcrest Tree could not entirely hold back the floods which poured down from the overcast skies since last day’s noon.
She felt cold.
The light undergarment worn by Cormyr’s Lanciers under their heavy armor was as dripping wet as everything else around and about her. She had slung her arms around her shins, her chin resting on her knees. She glanced sideways at the boy who lay sleeping next to the fire, rolled up in her cloak, where least rain filtered through the thick foliate above. His skin tone already looked much healthier and his breathing came even and strong again. He had spent most of the time sleeping since they had sought shelter here, on yesterday’s afternoon.
She had had no strength left to carry him any further. And where to anyway? There was nothing but forest around them. Dense forest, light forest, swamp forest... and beyond the forest: veld. There the storm would propel the rain over the open unprotected plains. It seemed as if the immortals themselves expressed their resentment in the form of tears. Another vain attempt to incite the fire to share a brighter, warmer flame – then she resumed her position with the back to the majestic old tree.
Her thoughts drifted back to the realms of Ravasaadi and Cormyr.
The small and benignant shire appeared like a distant dream. Embedded between the unscalable mountain range known as the Storm Heights to the north and west and the kingdom of King Azoun V of Cormyr to the south and east. The thought of Ravasaadi warmed her heart. The thought of being part of it, of belonging to it filled her with pride. It was not the supercilious, arrogantly displayed kind of pride that comes with the belief that possessions or ancestry could somehow wear off like a birthright, adding to the value of the chance heir. It was rather the soul’s foothold and gratitude of being rooted in this wonderful and peaceful part of Toril, of belonging to it, and to be allowed to know it and to be able to remember it now.
Ever since Yenamros Ravasaadi had been given these realms by the then ruling King of Cormyr nine generations ago in return for his merits in Cormyr’s Legions it had been governed by his descendants. And while the name of the former knight might still hold a meaning for some scholars and historians in Cormyr, the idyllic shire which sprang into existence with the knight is not of much concern to any but those living within its boundaries. Most of the far and inbetween travellers passing through it do not even become aware of treading on formally independant grounds. They are met by no sentinaries, fortifications or any other signs to draw their attention to that fact. All following Rulers of Cormyr including the current King, Azoun V, respected the endowment dating back so far. The eternal snow of the Storm Heights protected the shire from all other. Far off any meaningful trading routes, being politically and economically insignificant, Ravasaadi still holds relevance for not few bards and artists. Tarsis had once overheard a lute player telling a fellow musician:
“If what you seek is to create a piece to thaw the heart of the beloved one, or to paint the eyes of the audience with a rainbow, go to Ravasaadi. Liira herself favours this place, bestowing those she meets there with inspiration.”
Tarsis was second and last born to Count Ravasaadi, after her first born elder brother. Her mother had deceased with giving birth to her. Sheltered in the fatherly shire she grew up to be a comely young woman, inheriting her mothers distinct sense of justice which she stood up for with an equally distinct spiritedness. Her resemblance to her mother and her father’s affection for his only daughter made it easy for her to get things her way and thus she spent a great part of her youth in Arabel like many other noble’s offspring to receive education at the temples, as well as in general arts and in the art of war. While she was not inapt at handling the blade it was more due to her awake intellect, personality and noble stock that she was called to join the prestigious ranks of the ‘Lanciers of Light’ one day. Those lances that form the renown cavalry of Cormyr’s royal legions. It was also in Arabel that she came into contact with the teachings of Tyr. By the time she joined the Lanciers a profound friendship bonded her to Jasiah, the old Acolyte in Tyr’s Halls, who had grown into something like a spiritual advisor to her restless mind over countless hours spent talking and promenading through the temple gardens.
The following last weeks that had led to her being here now had been like a thunderstorm of events. Although the memories were fresh and overwhelming she found it difficult to allocate the recent happenings as being real and part of her life.
Notice of the northern barbarian tribes reached Cormyr.That they had raided several settlements near the border and that King Azoun V would delegate a part of his forces to aid the local militia. Like many other recruits Tarsis was seized by a febril zest for action, a handsel of heroic deeds under the flag of justice in the battle against the evil and the mean. The experienced troups and veterans besmiled the reckless youth who had never seen battle but with wooden swords and blunt lances. The higher ranks fuelled the overwound athmosphere with tales of glory that promised a departure into a better world. Chin raised and clad in the gleaming plates of the Lanciers of Light they headed out north, sitting aloof the steeds, spearheading the soldiers on foot. The sun reflected off polished metal, their long lances radiant in their unsoiled chasteness.
Far out in the north they met with the enemy. A vibrant mass of about five thousand heads was facing Cormyr’s well ordered legions. Three hundred lances, four hundred bows, four hundred pikes and eight hundred swords, as well as a bit more than another four thousand local militiamen who had been hurriedly knocked together stood under the flag of Cormyr in tactically thoroughly premeditated disciplined formation, structured by colorful banners. From what was facing them only the equestrians stood out by their height. The rest was an indistinguishable amorphous entanglement of wooden and metal weapons and shields of all devisable colors and shapes. All at once the ground started shaking. The entire horizon was rapidly moving at them and the air was filled with the savage blend of many thousand battlecries. The sky darkened with missiles. Tarsis raised her shield. Cormyr’s pikes advanced protected by the shields of the swords, closely followed by the local militia, divided into three squads. The lances remained rooted for now. After the first clash two parts would orbit the left flank while the third part would advance on the enemy bows and rear. Tarsis believed to feel the impact of the clash as the two sides met in the middle of the open field. The wave of savages seemed to flow over the front ranks of Cormyrians without losing momentum, drowning the foremost front who on their part sent figures flying impaled on long pikes only to be drowned by the follow-ups into a chaos of steel, crushing shields, broken bones and severed limbs.
She roweled her horse when their horn sounded.
She had trained this situation often enough to remain steady in her saddle as her lance went through the ribcage of a northlander, unhindered by his improvised leather armor. But she had not been prepared for the sickening soft feeling of flesh and splintering bones which was conferred over the metal tip and the wooden shaft of her lance to her hands, torso and from there on into the center of her being. And she had not been prepared for the eyes of the northlander, which locked onto hers during these last moments of his life, and which seemed to look right into her soul. These moments did cost her the chance to change grip on her lance to try and hold onto it while passing and thus hold on to it for another use. All she could do was to rid herself of it, barely in time to avoid falling off her steed as the steel tip bit into the soil behind the enemy warrior, spiking him to the spot.
What followed had been unreal in its intensity. Incessant cries of man and animal alike surging against her pitched senses which absorbed everything with painfully detailed attention in the attempt to keep her alive in this inferno of unleashed hatred and desperation. Dark blood tainted her blade and stained her armor. Individual scenes of widened eyes, of crippling blows, and of death, burned into her memories like gruesome tattooes. Painful bulges and dents in her armor pressed against her muscles and flesh with every move where the strong plates had protected the fragile hospitant from otherwise disastrous blows.
More than half of the local militia and nearly a quarter of the Cormyrian legions did not live to see the end of the battle towards the end of the day. Another quarter of their ranks was too wounded to move onwards. But the barbarians had been beaten.
What was left of Cormyr’s battle power progressed further north at dawn, droving the scattered remains of northlanders ahead of them. The border fortifications had to be reestablished, the local forces restored. The Cormyrian troups secured the area immediately beyond the border, to allow the weakened militia to recover and to reorganize themselves. Only far and inbetween did the scouts and foot soldiers meet with sporadic resistance. The lanciers stayed mostly in the main encampment awaiting further developments.
On the fifth day of the second ride of Eleasis, the day when Selûne is hiding her face from the mortals, the Commander of the legions called to attack Irk-hai. It was the closest larger settlement of northlanders. Repeatedly had attacks been launched from there, and smaller units of northlanders appeared to use it as a refugium after selective hit-and-run attacks on Cormyrian patrols. Tarsis was dispatched to partake in the mock attack from the west, to recede quickly and then support the main force which would attack from the south. When she approaches the village finally after the feint it is all over already. Thick black smoke hovers over the entire settlement. All huts and tents are ablaze. The earthen pathes are littered with blood and dead northlanders, some warriors among them, but mostly women, old people, children, cattle. Only few of the pale hands clutch weapons. Some still protectively hold on to only recently born wraps of blankets and furs - which now need no shelter anymore. Most of the wounds are in the back and backheads of the villagers. The dark fumes of the smouldering fires cast a merciful grey blanket over the dismal picture presented and add to the surreal feel of the situation.
She heard a gurgling sound. A boy, not older than eight summers stirred in the dust at the feet of her steed, attempting to draw air through blood in his lungs. He was lying on his side, suspended from fully rolling over by two arrows sticking out of his right torax. Pink flesh showed on his dehiscing back, opened by a passing sword on horseback. Dismounting to kneel by the moribund child, she tries to put together the open flesh. Looking up and around, to her fellows in arms, she is met by expressionless eyes – like the eyes of the dead. All but young Willem’s. But Willem too averted his eyes after a moment of shared misery. She could almost hear something snap inside her, threatening to break her. She begged Tyr for forgiveness, and beseeched him to undo the wrong, to turn his gaze her way and take notice of this wrong.
And the wounds close under her hands. The blood ceases to flow. The painful groping for air turns into a faint but even breathing. Silence surrounds the pair. None of the bystanders speaks nor interferes as Tarsis peels herself out of her plates, lays down her sword and hands the reigns of her horse over to one of the lanciers. She was no healer, no priest and none of those looking on comprehended what had just occured – Tarsis herself least of all.
She only knew she had to get away from this place. So she hoisted the boy up in her arms, turned her back on the eternally defiled soil of this village and went north, away from the wrongs and irreversible misdeeds of this unholy war. To her the once shining Lances of the Light would be forever desecrated with the blood of those they had been forged to protect.
After she had taken the first steps away from the settlement the rain set in. As if to wash the earth clean of this disgrace, the overcast skies darkened further and the day was cast in twilight. Over the next hours the rain developed into a heavy deluge. The cloudy watergates opened afar and the land was flooded with purifying water for the following three days.