Dementlieu - The Musarde River - Ameranthe

[Arawn]

Word filters back to the capital, brought by runners and breathless peasants whose clothes are still streaked with soot and blood: battle has been joined on the River Musarde; the Falkovnians are harrying the villages that feed the mighty fortress of Ameranthe. The Maitriser's forces buy time for his people to fall back into the great keep; the supply lines to the capital city are holding, but pinched by the countless incursions of the Kingfuhrer's raiders. A decisive battle has not yet been fought, but to many of the soldiers who pass the watch-words and worries from lips to ear, it is only a matter of time.

[DM Indolence]

The occupying garrison at the ancient Ameranthe, headed by Captain Felix Charbonnier of the Gendarmerie Nationale, has loomed in the past years as a reminder of the western houses' victory over the East. Tonight, though, it serves the role of courier, bringing ill tidings. Word reaches the capital that Charbonnier's patrols happened upon a grizzly sight near the eastern banks of the Musarde, across the border shared with Falkovnia. Nineteen men and women have been impaled upon eight foot stakes. They're varied in appearance, blond, brown and auburn, some with olive skin and others might be pale, if not for the tan to their skin telling the tale of months or years of toil under the sun. Rail thin, with bones apparent beneath tightly drawn skin that's scarred and bruised, the mistreatment they suffered in life under the Falkovnian yoke is abundantly clear. The garrison reports that only one was alive when they were found, a young woman who, despite the grievous wounds inflicted by the stake, was able to offer her name before passing into the next life. 'Emée of Edrigan', taken from the village during the Falkovnian Lightning Invasion of 770 when she was but a girl. The others rename unnamed, and now share unmarked graves in the rich alluvial soil of the East. Adding to the grotesque scene's oddity were the clothes worn by the condemned; twelve dressed all in black, and seven all in blood-stained white.

[DM Indolence]

"MURDER!"

Word travels quickly to the local garrison at Ameranthe, to Chateaufaux, and then to all corners of Dementlieu. Josephine Chantreaux's weapon caches, meant to forfend another Dementlieuvian Annexation, dot the eastern countryside. These modest and numerous armories of muskets, shot, and powder are left to the retinues of the regional gentry to guard, and it's at one of these caches, freshly raided, that the Baron de Granthe, Sieur Gaspard Sallembier, is discovered with four of his retinue dead. The noble Baron has been struck from his horse, his spine severed from some terrible blow. With him is an unidentified man in an ill-fitting suit, shot between the eyes in testament to the aging Baron's famous marksmanship.

The alarm is sounded by none other than the Baron's seven year old grandson, Renard Sallembier the Second, who was sent sprinting from the Baron's side when he discovered the raiders red-handed. Young Renard, only seven, can scarce recount his frantic flight through the fields and woods near his family estate, and what description he gives of the attack is scattered. That, or the Gendarmerie Nationale is playing their cards close to the vest.

Rumor flies that black-armored soldiers have descended upon the east, or that some Ouvrier toughs have attempted to seize the armory in furtherance of rebellion. The coming days show little sign of either. One thing, however, is clear. The Baron and his grandson's timely intervention prevented most of the cache's seizure; when all is counted a majority of the muskets are gone, but none of the terrifying quantity of gunpowder nor shot. The Baron's name is whispered in mournful reverence throughout the parlors and clubs of the nobility, and many a toast is raised to the family words: "Knowledge, Eloquence, and Piety."

[DM Indolence]

Though forced to kneel before the Council more than three years ago, the doings of the so-called Maitriser, the Duc d'Ameranthe Marius de Mortigny are still noted among his former comrades in the east. Of late, without fanfare, it is noted that he's joined in his house-arrest by a feminine figure who is never far from his side. With kind words and ready prayers to the Sainted Mother of Tears, she bolsters the beleaguered spirits of the people of that impregnable fortress. True to their word, the Council of Brilliance have returned Agnès de Mortigny to her proper place after her long imprisonment in Pierre du Morte.