Drumbeats announce the return march of the men and women the Expédition aux Champs Silencieux back to the borders of the Serene Republique. Their numbers are much reduced, the bold laughter and boasts that were their escort into the shade of the forest as absent as the limbs missing from the worst of the casualties. Most of the noble retinues and Gendarmes return to whence they came; Chateaufaux, Cheateaunoir, and a half-hundred settlements, chateaus, and manor houses great and small. The Condottieri raised by Borca likewise disperse, their antiquated armor and weapons making them appear to the common Dementlieuse like some story-book anachronisms marching into the fog of another era.
Many, however, are called back to the City of Lights, headed by Capitaine de Courcillon to lay down the banners of their foes at the feet of the Council of Brilliance and their noble Borcan allies.
The forest they leave behind is wounded. Cannon fire and the worst excesses of the Arcane Sciences applied to the pursuit of warfare have shattered trees and incinerated leaves. The woodland creatures caught between the opposing forces lie as carrion upon the forest floor, at least those which were not incinerated where they huddled. The people of Champs Silencieux fare only a little better. For many, the mercenaries that lived among them were husbands and sons, and with most of the free companies wiped from the Core there are open wounds where families were ripped apart. Other settlements were easy pickings for the predations of cruel raiders, their homes left a smoldering ruin for no reason save malice and greed. There is a glimmer of hope, however, for winter is drawing to its close and promises a gentler spring. Some dare hope the ash of today will be fertile ground tomorrow. The gentry of Richemulot have already set to surveying the newly liberated land, with plans of their own.
A few companies linger yet, those reformed after fleeing the field or those seemingly canny enough to not flock to the banner of the now-dead Valentin Voiculet and his Bitter Flames. With the Twisted Castle as much a broken corpse as Voiculet himself, questions linger who will remain to stave off the return of bandits and their ilk.
For the moment, however, work begins at a breakneck pace to carve a proper road through the forest, linking the newly revitalized fields of Borca all the way to the Serene Republique’s capital. Those merchants and investors who pushed the deal stand to make a sizable fortune.
Across the Musarde, Vlad Drakov is said to brood upon his throne, his generals awaiting an order that does not come - not this day, at least. By the arrival of the next harvest, Falkovnia will face the upstart Borcans and perhaps even the Richemuloise as competition in feeding the Core. Several harvests hence, the Land of the Hawk will find its hungry talons dulled as its hegemony over the hungry souls of the Four Towers crumbles.
In Richemulot, graves are dug and the dead are buried. Mordent yet slumbers. The Dementlieuse lick their wounds and keep a ready eye across the water. In Borca, men are poisoned in silence for the right to count the mountains of silver to come.
The Four Towers stand.
