The Levee Breaks

[Glenn]

A drop.

A trickle.

A slow stream.

Myrken Wood endured; occasionally, it even thrived. Here, it had managed just that due to the hardship of others, due to strife elsewhere. It was a rare luxury for the oft-maligned province. For years now, a hiemal conflict had been contested just past its eastern border. A grand siege with no succor to be found. Desperate sorties against a foreboding power. A countryside drained. Its people cowed.

Meanwhile, Myrken made the best of the situation. It accepted those with talent into menial positions with its government, those with funds into its merchant class. Supplies were sold to both side, some overtly, far, far more in secret. The benefit of two, three good harvests went so very far.

Under Thessilian pressure, Derry waned even as Myrken waxed for the first time in many a year.

Wrexham, its capital, besieged. The resistance within its walls led by none other than the Princess of Trae Kelsa itself, the rarest of symbols for people to rally behind.

Against such odds, against hunger and pestilence, and with one's back against mountains, not walls, not even so potent a symbol could stand forever.

While the real truth of the matter would be slow to make itself clear, the signs of some drastic change were immediate within Myrken Wood.

Now on the verge of the season's first real winter storm, the steady stream of refugees became a flood. It was too late in the season. The northern Gilroy Pass in the Sikasoon Mountains had experienced such storms already, had become impassable. Those who, in fear or desperation, attempted to flee through found their way to an icy grave.

The southern pass, near the town of Fitchton to the southeast of Myrkentown, found itself suddenly overrun by the crushing mass of refugees. In normal times, the pass would not be impassable in winter. Now, though, the sheer outpouring of people would make passage more strained and difficult by far.

The Thessilanians claimed to be not without mercy. Their dread channelers opened an instant path to Myrken for those who wished to escape. It took a certain amount of desperation to trust the magic of your enemies, magic that had been used against you for so long. The path was clear and clean, however, taking families as a whole over the mountains to the rebuilt Priory of Snowstill, where a temporary camp was quickly set up.

And so the influx occurred, refugees with livelihoods shattered, with mouths to feed, with stories to tell.

[channe]

On a nearby hilltop, watching the refugees wind their way from the Pass to Snowstill --

-- three men on horses. The outriders: nondescript men in black. The center, however, in black, silver and gold touched at his throat and his shoulders, his breastplate emblazoned with the insignia of Trae Kelsa, his mouth a-twist with anger --

"Sir, we should go," said one outrider, his horse pawing at the new-fallen snow. "If the Princess --"

But Constantine Kostroma, of the King's Own, erstwhile resident of Kelsaen House and, until now, quiet watchman -- narrows his eyes as the stragglers come around the white, snowy way downt he mountain. Grits his teeth. And then, finally -- "Lieutenant," he says, quietly. "These are the wages of treachery, of war. Lives shattered." He expels a breath. "These people. They are why we give up everything -- all we are, all we have. Burel Tassnehof could have turned around. Repented. Any minute before this one. But this -- this is true treachery. To turn against my lord Chedwry? Sin over sin over sin."

He then wheels the horse around. "We'll leave him here for now. Let him enjoy his taste of Derry red and his new winter palace. Let him think that Trae Kelsa doesn't have the balls -- until the spring, when we'll force-feed him so much Thesil blood he'll die choking on it. God save the King."

And then all three ride down the hill, back towards town.