Private Tales The Reward of Loyalty

[Kristen Pirian]

CORTOSI BORDER
WAR CAMP AT FORT ETRICH​

The Lord Banick had a devil's luck. For Garron had not himself planned to have impeccable timing, yet it fell into his lap anyway. Fortune, it would seem, eloped often with the wicked.

* * * * *​

Kristen Pirian went about the camp with a demeanor of despond. At best she would be merely steady, neither finding cause for good cheer nor exuding the warm friendliness that was in all other times her wont. She withdrew even from her squad, treating with Lieutenant Reeve and Arn and Rhory and Felix only when she had to, which truly wasn't much, given her ad hoc attachment to their small unit.

She was, as Vel Anir's war with Cortos drew closer to the ready, dealing with no insignificant personal loss.

Often, Kristen would merely walk about the camp. Walk with no true aim in mind, but only in the vain hope that the constant motion of her legs, the soreness and fatigue built up in them, might be the thing to distract her—if but for a fleeting time—from her sorrow.

It was during one of these walks that she turned the corner of a tent, one of the many tents of the war camp, and chanced upon Lord Garron Banick himself. She had seen him at Fort Etrich prior, before her meeting with Alistair Krixus, but it had been only a glimpse, and this from afar. Now, she could've reached out and touched his shoulder.

Garron had his back to her. He was speaking to a small group of young and sturdily-built Guardsmen.

"...to think about your future, gentlemen. You may seek your opportunity in the Guard, as many do. Or you may consider my offer. That choice is all yours."

One of the Guardsmen looked past Garron and at Kristen. Garron, seeing the young man's gaze gone astray, half-turned and saw her there and smiled and said to the group of Guardsmen. "That will be all."

The Guardsmen all went off, each going their own way, joining in with this flow of foot soldiers or that throughout the camp. And though Garron and Kristen were certainly not alone, Kristen, looking right into the eyes of the man who had caused her and House Pirian so much pain, felt very much isolated.

Because she was.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Lord Banick."

"Well," Garron said warmly, "if it isn't the Lady of Vel Numera. Congratulations on your ascension."

"Excuse me. I must be going," said Kristen, and she made to step around Garron and hurriedly walk away.

She only took one step.

"Haven't you wondered?"

And froze. She did not look at him, and he did not look at her. They talked in a sideways manner to each other now.

"Wondered what."

He didn't answer. Merely smiled.

Kristen looked to him now, and she was not pleased.

"Fancy a drink?"

"No."

"My dear Lady." And now Garron slowly turned his head and cast his gaze upon her. "It would do you some good. To talk."

They looked at each other for a long moment; in Kristen's eyes there was nothing but severity and dubious rebuke; and in Garron's eyes a surface warmth, but underneath the baleful glimmer of well-concealed malice.

Garron slowly nodded his head off to the side, indicating a tent somewhere near into which they could go.

"It would do you some good," he said again. Coaxing with a voice made of silver and poison.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

She could have simply left. She could have walked away, for Garron had no authority over her, and, powerful noble figure of Vel Anir though he be, he surely was only allowed at Fort Etrich at the Guard's pleasure. The Republic had upended the old dynamic of power, and Garron surely lacked the teeth his influence may once have held as threat. What was there even to talk about? They had not even properly met, or truly shared words, before this chance moment. And she knew well that Garron, perhaps more than any other Banick, hated House Pirian, for she had heard it from his own cousin, Walter Banick.

But she did go.

And this would prove in time to be quite the fateful decision.

* * * * *​

Two Banick-sworn men stood outside the tent that was Garron's object. They pushed open the flap for him and Kristen, and when they entered, the Banick-sworn men stood before the tent's entrance and guarded it. This was what privacy could be afforded in the bustling war camp.

"Forgive the sparse accommodations," said Garron, lighting a lamp on a small table adjacent to the tent's center pole. "Though, I assume you have gotten used to such by now. And not even from the austere necessary of this particular military camp, hmm?"

"I have seen splendor and I have seen poverty," Kristen said levelly. It would be an effort, she knew already, to keep her tone so.

"Of course, of course. The Darling Daughter, jewel of House Pirian, taking it upon herself to do her part for the greater good of Vel Anir, enrolling into the Academy and dutifully answering the call for war, doing her country and people proud." Garron bristled excitedly. "Ohhhhh, doesn't that just roll off the tongue beautifully? A play ought be written about you."

He produced from nearby a bottle of wine, two wooden cups, and set them on the table. He poured wine into both of the cups, and he took one for himself and reached out his arm in offer to Kristen with the other.

"I shall pass on the wine."

Garron shook the offered cup slightly, as if by doing so it would be made more tantalizing. "No? Aren't you parched...doing whatever it is that soldiers of your rank do about a busy, busy camp?"

Kristen frowned. "I am not so fond of spirits."

Garron quickly drank his cup. Then set both down on the table. "See? It's not poisoned, if that's what you were suspecting. And I hope it wasn't. Kress, what a tawdry way for the Darling Daughter to go. Poison. Where would be the spectacle in that? One poisons vermin, my dear Lady—so a fitting death for an inconvenient and bothersome lowborn, but for a noble?" Garron waved his hand dismissively of the idea.

"I have yet to see how this talk is to be doing me any good."

"Can't we have a civil chat? Let me congratulate you again on your Ladyship, truly, it is deserved. It's quite the breadbasket of Aniria that you've now under your sway."

"It is my charge, and my responsibility." Kristen furrowed her brow. "And I will hear no talk of my people as 'vermin'."

"Very well, very well. I did say a 'civil' chat, didn't I?" Garron poured some more wine into his cup. "And speaking of responsibilities, as Lord of House Banick, I suppose I am in need of an heir. You wouldn't happen to be available, would you?"

Kristen's bottom lip curled in disgust, and she planted her hands on her hips and looked off to the side, shaking her head at the sheer, repulsive audacity of the question.

Garron shrugged as he held up his cup. "Oh. Just thought I'd ask. You didn't seem to be doing anything at the moment with that womb of yours. A toast, then, to fertility."

And he drank heartily of more wine.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Is this your design? To make uncouth propositions of me? You would do better to drink yourself into a stupor and toss yourself from a cliff, believing you could fly, for sooner would you actually take flight than for I to accept any offer of yours."

Garron's lips puckered in a silent "Oooo" as though he had been stabbed, and he said, "My Lady, what happened to civility?"

"I am afraid this is the utmost politeness I can spare for one such as you."

"In any case, do keep my offer in mind." He smirked. "Especially if I do surprise you with flight." He pressed on, before Kristen could respond, and he asked in abrupt fashion, "What fortunate timing for a proper war, hm? Certainly in your case. Tell me: are you excited?"

"Why concern yourself with my fortunes? It is known, Lord Banick, that our houses have endured a longstanding feud, simmering for generations, and that it is perhaps the foremost of any such enmity among the Great Houses. Is it not unseemly to you, as the very Head of House for the name of Banick, to entertain a Pirian?" Indeed, Kristen knew well that Garron's uncouth proposition had been put forth merely as a means to upset her, and that Garron likely found the idea as disgusting as she herself.

"Come now. Isn't it a brave new era for Vel Anir? Hm? The dawn of the Republic, which you Pirians hold so dear? Why, hadn't Theodore entertained you at Ostia Anir? I do clearly remember myself and all my kinsmen, at Theodore's beckoning, offering gratitude to you and Lord Krixus for your service."

"You are not Theodore," Kristen said, low and sharp.

"I distinctly remember you saying that it was your hope for our Houses to 'come together in goodwill and solidarity.' Lady Kristen, is it now I, Garron Banick, who esteems your own hope more than you do?"

"Had a better man succeeded Theodore, that hope of mine might have sooner been realized."

"The better man was chosen on the battlefield—as I'm sure you've heard."

Kristen remained silent, glared at him only, but took note of Garron's words there. Was he being careful in their selection, or did even his vast knowledge have its limits, its blindspots, and he still knew nothing of Kristen's presence at the Battle of the Banicks?

And then Garron said abruptly, "Has Neil told you?"

Kristen's heart froze.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Speak not my father's name," Kristen came to say, slowly and with menace, after the shock abated.

"And why not? We served together in the Guard, after all."

Kristen's whole countenance took on a suspicious slant.

"Perhaps I've given you a wrongful impression, asking the question the way I did. Oh, my apologies." He smiled, and Kristen knew that there was no contrition in him, and that he had meant to ask the question precisely the way he had—to shock and unbalance her further. "He probably didn't tell you. It's not as though either of us had a big war to fight, like you have now. We were merely doing our year. Good Anirians, the two of us."

Kristen offered no barbed retort, but instead came straight to it, "And what is your purpose in telling me this? So you happened to meet my father while both of you served. What of it?"

Garron spread his hands. "The divide between our Houses isn't so wide. But of course it's there, yes, but not as yawning as you suggest. Don't give up on your hope so soon, Lady Kristen! It's been there even before Ostia Anir."

Kristen did not look very convinced.

But Garron paid no heed to her dubious visage. He paced about the table as he talked, saying, "Regardless, Neil and I had the chance to get to know one another back then. We talked—you don't have to take my word on this, Lady Kristen, if it troubles you. You can ask Neil yourself, and he'll tell you. But talk we did, and he told me about his beliefs, his ideals, his vision of Vel Anir and what he could do for it. So..." he came to a stop then in front of the table and before Kristen now, "...I was merely wondering if the apple has fallen far from the tree or not. How like your father are you, Kristen Lucretia Pirian? How do you hold your country? What are your beliefs, your ideals, your vision?"

"This is why you invited me here?"

"We've never spoken, you and I. And as I said: haven't you wondered what I, now the Head of House Banick, believe? You have that hope of yours, and I am currently the man on the other side of it. You made great headway with Walter and Theodore, did you not? Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, we're likely not to leave this tent with any true cordial understanding between us, not yet. But there is no harvest if there is no sowing, hmm?"

Kristen studied him carefully. Still she felt her apprehension, and much of it came from not knowing what Garron's true aim was here, for surely it had nothing to do with her hope to heal the divide between Pirian and Banick.

And now he took another step and they stood before one another face-to-face and Garron looked up to her, and he said, "Let us merely share our beliefs. We can have an understanding, even if it doesn't blossom into cordiality yet. Share with me yours, and I will share with you mine."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen didn't trust him.

If she had been studying him carefully a moment before, now she was scrutinizing him, searching his countenance for anything and everything that might be the clue to unravel and lay bare his true motives. But this she knew to be a fruitless endeavor. Garron was a fox, a sly creature, and worse, one that had gotten to his seasoned age; he would not let slip anything he did not mean to.

Yet, as it had been with Edric in the jail, so now the same sort of impulse arose in Kristen again. She wanted to distance herself as much as possible from Garron. Where in the jail it meant ensuring her presentation was pristine, here with Garron the way to distance herself from him would be through her belief. She could lay what she thought down onto the proverbial table, assert herself with the strength of her devotion, and prove, no doubt, that she was anything but kin to Garron in the contents of her heart.

And so she began:

"I believe Vel Anir is the pinnacle of human achievement upon Arethil. For millennia have we stood in defiance of the many terrors of the world, we, humanity, who lack all the natural gifts inherent among other races, save only our tenacity and our spirit. And yes, while other predominately human nations do prosper—Elbion and Alliria to name two—I believe that our greatness, our Anirian greatness, eclipses theirs.

"It is not wrong to fight for the preservation of one's people, and this is what Anirians do best. War is the means by which a nation defends itself or asserts its just cause, and we who are Anirian ever strive to perfect the means of it. We must. For while it is only right to hope for peace, it is folly to depend on it. This is the world all who are mortal have inherited. And so it is the sword only which is the guarantor of the better things in life—Aniria understands this more readily than any other country. And of all these things, I am proud.

"But we are not without our woes. Vel Anir and its people have suffered, and we have suffered for a long time. I have seen it in the eyes of my fellow Initiates when I attended the Academy. The old ways, in both the Academy and outside it, were horrid, unspeakably so. We allowed ourselves to fall into the throes of corruption, and we lost our way. Evil took firm root in men's hearts.

"Yet hope prevailed. Though the day was dark, it was through the intervention of Talus and Zana Morid, and of many other brave Anirians, that the Revolution delivered us from our sinking plight. It is the sign of a healthy body if it is able to expunge sickness. And so we have. Our course has been corrected. The sun sets for men like you, Garron, but for those of sound heart, the new dawn has come.

"And now I come to it in full: I love my homeland, and I love my people. I love my family, and I love my House. I love my friends, and I love those whom I have the honor to stand and fight beside. I wish only to see them all prosper. Onto me has fallen the duty incumbent upon all Anirians who are possessed of magic, and now, here in this effort against Cortos, have I been properly called to it. So I shall. I shall do my duty as an Anirian, for indeed there is no better time, as I bathe in the light of that dawn which has come."

She ended, though she could have expounded far more on the topic. Relentless was her gaze upon Garron, all but daring him to challenge her. What could he say? He was a man who indulged in all his worst impulses, and denied himself no vice which he craved. Though he was a sly and smart man, his folly surely lay in the fact that he had no sure grounding, no true spirit of living.

But Garron at last came to smile.

"Your duty?" he said. "My Lady Kristen, the only reason you are even here...is because of me."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen blinked, shook her head first in bafflement, then in flat objection. "I do not answer to you, Lord Banick. I am here at the command of—"

"Major Charles Huntington." And Garron drank in the shock on Kristen's face. "You reported to him in Vel Anir, did you not? Or maybe the name of Sergeant Barker, who delivered your orders to you in Vel Numera, might convince you? I could name more, but frankly, I don't think there is a need. Your face is stunning to behold in this moment."

"...These men...?"

"What? Are in league with me? Is that the frightful thought running through your pretty little head, Kristen? I'll leave you to wonder if any one of them is or is not. Because you see, they don't have to be—not necessarily. One merely needs to know how to set things in motion. How to play the game, Kristen."

And now Kristen, pallid and reeling as she was from shock, nevertheless summoned defiance and said, "Your tongue is a cesspit of lies."

"Really? You yourself have not had any doubts as to why you're even here? It hasn't clawed at you? Gnawed at you? An unremarkable Fourth Level Dreadlord, with substandard training, sitting in the Reserves, and this is the person specially called at so late an hour in these preparations for war to join in the effort? But you know your role is superfluous. You know that the Army has more than enough fodder, at least for this first wave. Ohhh, my dearest Lady Kristen, I need you to know just how painful it was to get this done! I had to do so...much...convincing!" Garron tilted his head back and laughed and ran a hand through his silver and brown hair. "Your duty. Kress, if only you knew how truly unneeded you are here. You believe so naively in your 'country'...but your country doesn't at all believe in you. And even if you had been called without my intervention, it still wouldn't. Because you aren't what you think you are. You think yourself loved. But Vel Anir sees you as only one thing..."

Kristen's brow, her jaw, quivered with horror and anger.

Garron's eyes like blades pierced through her gaze, and his smile suggested that he gorged on the storm of emotion which beset and tormented her. And then he said it:

"...Disposable."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

That summoned defiance, that anger, even that horror—this mostly at the depths of Garron's depravity—formed a steely outer shell, ostensibly a worthy defense against Garron's spiteful words.

Yet unbidden came the chilling words, spoken by Edric in the jail, whose true weight she did not then, and even still now, fully know:

"But you?" He scoffed. "You don't even know what the fuck you're actually fighting to become."

And so for what steel Kristen had mustered on the outside, inside her resolve was becoming ever more brittle.

"You would have me believe you've painted the whole world black, merely to have me despair at the darkness. What manner of beast are you?"

Garron mockingly pressed a hand to his chest, as though wounded by her response. "Such coarse language, calling me a beast. I thought we were having a 'civil' chat?"

"Damn your notion of civility," said Kristen, heated enough in the moment to actually use coarse language, as was very much against her character.

"Ask me."

Kristen pinched her eyes shut. With colossal restraint she came to say, "Ask you...what?"

"Ask me why I have done this."

Her eyes slowly opened and she glared at him. "Merely say what you intend to say."

"Very well. Rob me of the chance to hear you ask. Oh, how I am injured!" Garron flashed a grin at his own theatrics, and then he said, "Regardless. It's quite simple, really. I brought you to war so you could die. I brought you to war so that you could prove yourself an utter embarrassment to House Pirian, and even to the country you love so much."

"Yet you have told me your design."

"But that's the fun part! That's! The fun! Part!" Garron thrust his arms out to his sides in a lavish display of power and grandeur. "What are you going to do, Kristen? Hm? Are you going to disobey your orders? Your lawful orders? KRESS! Please do! Now that would be a delightful spectacle, seeing you torn apart by the very Republic you love so dearly! And so, likely, you resign yourself to what you are bidden to do, and you go to this war. Now, Lady Kristen, this is when the paranoia sets in. Every situation you encounter, every enemy soldier, every so-called "ally" even, those very men and women ostensibly fighting at your side, you just won't know if I am standing behind them, if I have convinced or coerced or cajoled them into working my wishes and sealing your doom."

Kristen's porcelain hand curled into a fist, and yet for all the arcane, unnatural strength inherent in that artificial limb, she could here do nothing with it.

Garron, as if preternaturally sensing this, said with a low and quiet triumph, his gaze unbroken from hers, "I told you because you are helpless."

Edric