The House I was born into was about to become second only to the Royal House. We were already a highly ranked House, but my younger siblings and I were determined to push that even higher. As the oldest unattached daughter of House Irilan, I knew that my loutish older brothers would try to foist me off on someone like that dung heap they’d picked to be my elder sister’s husband, whom I despised.
I truly wanted to stab that man for disrespecting my sister so. He spoke to her as if she were a prize cow or broodmare, right to her face. I know she knew how I felt about that mouth breather because I begged her more than once to let me trip or push him off a parapet. Rather than resign myself to that, my grandfather-my father’s father, and I hatched a plan to free all of us younger children, and I was the middle of nine. If we girls were to be caged, at least we would have the power to choose which cage when the time came.
Among the Cymry, our House rankings were determined by how well each member of the House performed during the annual trials – our national yearly tournament. I started training diligently with my older sister when I was five. I think she suspected what my grandfather and I were about, or perhaps he told her. When I entered the trials for the first time, at the age of eight, I placed in the top five in my age group. My brother, Lefi, was only a little more than a year behind me, but my older sister and I started training him and my next sister, Arwydd. My sister Arwydd was about a year behind Lefi. Gwern was two years younger than Arwydd. Myfanwy was the youngest, having just passed her second winter.”
Emlyn stops for a moment and sips her whiskey before going on, “I worked my tail off and stayed in the top five of my age group, every year. When I was thirteen, considered a semi-adult among the Cymry, with my mother and grandfather’s blessing, I took service as a paladin of Rigan. This was before the Gods went mad. To shut many of the louts like my own older brothers or Briallen’s betrothed out of contention as a potential husband, I had to gain status outside my House, and becoming a paladin was one of the simpler and faster ways to do it. With my skill in combat and under the tutelage of my grandfather, it didn’t take me long, even as young as I was, to start to rise through the ranks.
When the King issued a call to replace some retiring officers, my grandfather had me attend the conclave and encouraged me to put myself forward as a candidate. Many scoffed, many doubted, and I had to endure more comments than I can count about being a girl and being so young. Still, when I won both individual combat and melee, over and over, even against larger and older opponents, many began to grow quiet and thoughtful. I was one of the few to ever come through a conclave undefeated, so I became Geward Marchog. Equivalent to your Lieutenant General, I think.
When one of the Awsts, the generals, fell in battle, I was promoted to Fourth Awst – the lowest ranking general because my record was impressive, but then I’d learned my craft at the knee of one of the greatest Cymry generals ever to live, my grandfather. My record of wins was too impressive for anyone to argue against without looking like a jealous prat. Even though there was some grumbling from some of the older men, they couldn’t say too much since none of them could match my record.
Among the Cymry, Awsts – generals, are ranked and, like everything else, it’s competitive. Once you are an Awst, you’re allowed to challenge the Awst above you for that position. That challenge involves winning in personal combat against them as well as a melee. As soon as I’d consolidated my command and structured my troops to my liking, I challenged the Third Awst and took his spot, much to his surprise and dismay. That’s when he started with the constant challenges. I think he was hoping to catch me having an off day.”
“Did he?” Benger asks.
Emlyn shakes her head, “No, he did not. I also ensured that my wins were clear-cut in both individual combat and the melee, so that we never had to go to the King to get him to break the tie. I knew our King was concerned about my House becoming too powerful, and I wasn’t about to let him veto my advancement. It was just another thing where being as good as the men wasn’t good enough; I had to be better, so I made sure that I was.”
Stopping for another sip of whiskey, Emlyn leans into Atres for comfort before continuing, “I now had more troops, more responsibility, and more work to do, but I did it. Once I had consolidated my new command, I challenged the Second Awst and won again. When I won Second Awst and had held it for some time, the King ordered that my tattoo be expanded to reflect the status I had gained both as a paladin and as an Awst. Mind you, I was holding Second Awst and pursuing First Awst while rebuffing constant challenges from the Third and Fourth Awsts.
It reached a point where my troops would make fun of the Third and Fourth Awst’s troops for losing so many of their challenges. I ended up having to reprimand, if rather gently, a few of my troops for making fun of the Third and Fourth Awsts themselves to their faces for losing so often. At that point, the Third and Fourth Awsts had turned themselves into laughing stocks by challenging and losing so many times that I didn’t have that much sympathy. Neither did anyone else.
The First Awst was much older and ready to retire, so we cut a deal. I wouldn’t challenge him, and he would name me as his replacement the following year. That would have allowed Bedo to retire with his full pension. In exchange, Bedo also tutored me in any areas my grandfather might have overlooked, allowing me to take over for him quietly. In two more years, I’d have challenged the King’s Commander General and beaten Elgan so that I could take his place. Bedo didn’t like Elgan much and wanted to see him taken down a few pegs, and if that was done by someone so young and female, in the bargain, so much the better. I’d already beaten both of Elgan’s sons in the annual trials, so I felt confident that I could beat him, too. I had plans in place to take him in the melee as well. This is when everything fell completely and utterly apart. My life, my plans, my entire world, all shattered.
The Gods’ War came to our pantheon, and Tanis and Elphame attacked Rigan. Once he recovered, or so we thought, Rigan started sending us out to cleanse “pockets of evil”. At first, we went willingly because we trusted too much. We believed his lies and the lies the priests fed us. They told us that we hunted the mortal devotees of the gods who were still involved in the Great Conflict and sought to prolong that war. Gods help us, we believed every word of it, so we went out and we hunted them down.”
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Atres feels Emlyn shiver and whispers, “Easy, lass. You’re doing fine, and it’s in the past.”
Emlyn nods and takes another small sip, “We thought we were defending our people. It was, after all, what we had always been, the defenders of our people. Before all this, the paladins of Rigan were respected by everyone, even by the neighboring kingdoms. We would take the field, and even our enemies would salute us. We went from that to becoming the very evil we were supposed to fight against – the same thing we were sworn to defend our people from. What I have learned since then is that what he had us doing was killing every mage, every bard, and anyone else with a shred of magic so that he could consume their gift. Bards, among the Cymry, are sacred since they are the keepers of our lore and law. By ancient law and even older custom, none are allowed to impede them or harm them in any way, and he had us killing them. Unknowingly, but still…
Our harvest god turned dark, then, and even changed our colors. Gone was the harvest gold of ripe wheat. Everything was black, and he even made us paint our armor black. At first, we assumed he was mourning since so many gods from many pantheons had died. Our people who used to welcome us, buy our drinks at the taverns, even invite us into their homes, suddenly began to shun us. We’d ride into a town, and people would run inside to hide and make warding signs as we passed by. They started calling us Rigan’s Crows. It was hurtful to us, but it also sparked our curiosity, so we began investigating.
When we found out what our god had been using us for, we were horrified. We were paladins and clerics, and he’d used us as assassins and thugs. The whole world turned upside down for me then. Nothing was as it should have been. We were drowning in a sea of wrongness. I do not have the words to tell you how awful it is when your god becomes utterly odious to you, when everything you have sworn to uphold has become a horror.
That’s also when the arguments all started. That wrongness alone was enough to turn many of us into death-seekers. Suicide was forbidden, but there are ways around that prohibition, especially for those who go into combat. By rights, we should have left them unburied, but we knew their distress because we felt it. Since we knew, we felt pity for them, so we buried them. May they have found peace far from Rigan. The rest of us began to question his orders, and this led to numerous arguments among us. It quickly developed into three basic factions. One side felt that Rigan, as a god, surely knew what he was doing and thought that we should obey without question. They called themselves The Obedient or The Faithful. The other side felt that his priests needed to acknowledge his madness publicly and try to remedy it. They wanted to force a schism in the temple and ended up labeled as the Schismatics. Initially, my side was the third side, which had friends and even family on the other two sides. The Neutral ones kept trying to broker an agreement between the two.
“I thought I recognized the insignia on that plate I saw you wearing,” Benger nods, “That was Rigan’s, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Emlyn nods, “from the earliest days when things were still good. That was my armor as Second Awst.” Emlyn pauses and sips her whiskey, “I have an admission to make. The name that I use, Nia ferch Hayden ap Rhys, was one of the earliest casualties of that war and one of the leaders of The Schismatics. Nia, my first playmate, my sister in all but blood, died in my arms after being promised safe conduct under a parley truce I – I had brokered to try to get the two sides to reach an agreement. I was furious with The Faithful. I swore an oath of vengeance. By our ancient custom, I painted the stripes on my face, so that all who saw me would know I was seeking blood price and that any action I took to get it would not be subject to the King’s justice. I took my brother, Lefi, and my sister, Arwydd, and we began to hunt them. Lefi and Arwydd herded them for me, and I captured them, one by one.
Slowly, I wrung the whole plot out of them. They meant to kill every one of the Schismatics. I called the Neutral, the Faithful, and the Schismatics to a parley with my brother and sister watching at a safe distance, in case things went badly. I forced the ones I had captured to admit their plot in front of all three groups, and then I forced the Faithful to dispense justice amongst their own or face my wrath. By our ancient law, the penalty for breaking a parley truce is death. Since they had all sworn oaths to allow for safe passage, they were all oath-breakers as well. Among the Cymry, oath-breakers are left in a field to rot, unburied, so that they become lost, wandering spirits. My only mercy was allowing them to be taken to their homes for burial. When that was done, I washed the stripes from my face, ripped off my badge of neutrality, and joined the Schismatics, taking my sister’s place, continuing the work she’d died for. That was when the war among the paladins of Rigan began in earnest. If it was death they wanted, I was determined to serve it up to them until they choked on it.”
“Easy, lass,” Atres sighs, hearing the anger and the determination edging her voice, “It’s all done and dusted now.”
Heaving a huge sigh, Emlyn relents, “It’s hard because in telling it, I relive it all a bit. I don’t mean to be so angry, still.” “Oh, lass.” Atres chuckles, “You can be as angry as you like as long as you’re not angry with me.” Emlyn flashes him a small, wan smile, before taking another sip of whisky and continuing,” So many fell, then, and so quickly that it didn’t take Rigan long to notice that we were rapidly thinning our ranks. He called us all together and railed at us, chastising us. For a moment, he seemed like his old self. He punished all of us, and it was…generous, which is perhaps the worst part of it. Any of us who participated in the civil war had Kinslayer appended to our names. It was to be our penance to carry it as a constant reminder.
While he was busy ranting at us, he finally said something useful to us, to all of us who no longer wanted to serve him. He said the words that would set a few of us free. He said, “You are my paladins. Mine! To do with as I please. You will not be free of my service until you walk The Soul’s Path and face the Great Judge.” We went to one of the few priests we still trusted, and he confirmed that this might be possible for those still living, so we set out to find a mage with sufficient power and knowledge to help us. Most were already dead, but there were a few still in hiding. We could find none of any great power. What we found, in the end, was a powerful necromancer who didn’t want to face Lugh any more than he wanted to face Rigan. He was well aware of what Rigan had been doing, so he was willing to help us, despite there not being much trust between paladins and necromancers. In the end, only six of us were willing to take his bargain. The others agreed that if we were successful, they’d attempt it. I think that they just couldn’t bring themselves to trust a necromancer who wouldn’t accompany us. We would have to find our own way home. At least, we hoped we could find our way home, or at the very least, somewhere beyond Rigan’s reach.
The necromancer prepared us as best he could to face the Soul’s Path. He schooled us on the proper answers to give the guardians so that they would let us pass, as well as what to expect in terms of dangers we might face. I didn’t relish walking the Soul’s Path and standing before Lugh, but I didn’t relish tucking my tail between my legs and cowering before a lunatic of a God either. I took the choice that seemed to be far more reasonable at the time, if that tells you anything about how desperate we were to be free of Rigan.
I still ended up burying two of my childhood friends on that path. The necromancer worked his foul spell, and when the smoke finally cleared, we were on the Soul’s Path. Midir was always the boldest of us, the first to leap into anything, and he was first that time, too. He marched straight up to the first Guardian and demanded that it let us pass. It turned to him, and demanded to know if he had ever stolen anything. Neit stepped up then and told it that we weren’t dead and so couldn’t be judged yet. The Guardian turned to Neit and demanded to know what the living were doing on the Soul’s Path. I stepped in to see if we could negotiate our way past it. I explained Rigan’s edict and why we were there. The Guardian just leaned against his spear for a long time. I almost thought he’d gone to sleep when he finally seemed to come to some decision. Looking down at us, he told us that he’d let us pass his gate, but that we must not tell the other Guardians that he had let us pass or that we were not dead. He also advised us not to linger, since the living do not belong in a place for the dead.
Would you tell them everything? Let me know in the comments.