RP:The Only Law

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc

Summary: Lionel must see the ruins of Síocháin with his own eyes to accept the fate of his friends. Queen Hildegarde vows this story will end with the deaths of Lithrydel's enemies.

Ruins of Síocháin

He rode through the night, disbelieving what the townsfolk had said. He rode through the fields, unable to accept it until he saw it with his own eyes. He rode, when people shouted up from behind him as Frostmaw’s gates closed that it wasn’t safe, that it might be a trap, that it could be precisely what his enemies anticipated. He rode, on horseback not wyvern, for he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing it from above. He rode through the mountain pass, and into the tundra and past the old ruins which had served so well as compass in all his rides before. A pit in his stomach reminded him that he’d had too few of those rides; that he’d spent too little time with his Catalian dwarven advisors, who he’d too frequently feigned agitation toward. Tratt, bearded and aging and wise; Delenn, wiser still and almost motherly; Sheridan, brave and stalwart; Ivanova, maybe all the braver. Lionel didn’t want to believe it, he couldn’t accept it, he ignored the shouts and ran through the night until first light beamed in on distant deep blue sky. It was such a slight bit of light, but it was enough to show him the truth. At the center of the icy forest on which Síocháin had been built, a massive circle of dirt replaced the trees, a dirt that seemed almost toxic; nothing would ever grow here again, he was sure. Smoldering ruins lie ahead, watchtowers collapsed inward and sizzling wreckage in-between. The stout stone keep, Síocháin, was down to its foundation and crushed like it were hit by some impossible boot. The corpses of Lionel’s retainers, and his guardsmen and all the rest of them -- and an ample number of enemy orcs and trolls, too -- lined the perimeter and could be found beneath the wood and tumble. It was exactly as they’d described, those teary-eyed traders who’d spread the tale. Kahran had struck, and Lionel’s home was no more. Homes are a simple thing, in theory; they can be rebuilt, or never built to begin with. But to do this to his friends? That’s another story entirely. It’s enough to cause him to scream, so he screams, and it’s a primal, guttural scream the likes of which Lionel has not screamed in memory. Dawn is in full bloom now, the ruins easily spotted as the sun rolls over to reveal the tragedy, and Lionel is slashing with his blade, Hellfire, into the corpse of an orc such that it’s nigh-unrecognizable. He is showing no signs of slowing down.

Hildegarde had heard of the attack, long after it had finished. Her men were just unable to do anything about it, it happened in such a blur; everything had went down and finished before the warriors of Frostmaw could do anything. Hildegarde didn’t even visit the stone keep, she had scurried off to her war room in order to examine the defences of Frostmaw and examine the next steps on what to do, where to go, where to strike. But those answers didn’t come easily. They likely wouldn’t come easily, not until she had spoken to Lionel himself and discovered the next step of action. Once word reached her of her Steward riding through the town at speed, Hildegarde followed but at a slower pace. No need to race after him and try to chase him down or be there by his side as he encounters what awaits him. Indeed, by the time Hildegarde has arrived the corpse of that orc is no longer recognisable and it is practically mush. Lionel doesn’t appear to be slowing down either. What should she do? Console him? Words don’t mean much at this time. The Silver neared the mushy corpse and the swinging sorrowful Steward, watching him for a few moments longer before deciding to intervene. “Lionel,” she said softly, hoping it might be enough but knowing full well it won’t be. No one snaps out of a rage with just a soft word. “Lionel,” she repeats, this time with a flash of light and the ‘twang’ of metal on metal. She had moved her halberd, Stormbringer, to intercept Hellfire and cease his attack upon the corpse. “You must stop.”

Something familiar strikes chord with Lionel as Stormbringer strikes Hellfire. His muscles tense in preparation for a battle his heart tells him is not coming. He studies Hildegarde’s halberd, then turns and studies Hildegarde herself. His eyes are wide with shock, and what might have been tears has caked to his cheek and jaw. His hair’s a dirty blond mess. His black silk shirt is ripped at the edges. Slowly, he lowers his sword and then lets go with his left hand to let it collapse upon the ugly, bloody dirt. Rather than speak, he sobs once, then clenches his teeth so hard a crunch is heard in the eerie stillness of the site. “It was them,” he exhales a few words. “It was them, you know.” No formalities today, it seems, not while his eyes still reflect such shock. “Slaughtered that battalion, struck Frostmaw after that, probably had a hand in the saurians and insectoids and Larket and…” Lionel kneels abruptly, lifting a piece of charred wood from the ground and then rising. For the life of him, he couldn’t say why he’d thought to grab it, but shock has an odd set of rules to it. “...and they’re why I came back in the first place. For fear that they’d return, and…” He stammers. It’s too many words, too soon, too bloody soon. “They die, or we die. It’s the only law there ever was.”

Hildegarde’s muscles had tensed just as Lionel’s had done, preparing for a fight that may or may not come. This was the way of Frostmaw: they fought out of joy, they fought out of heartbreak, every day and every moment was a fight in some manner. When Lionel dropped Hellfire, so too did she drop Stormbringer: allowing the two weapons to cross upon the ground like a great ‘X marks the spot’. Rather than try to stop him or demand any explanation from him, Hildegarde lapsed into her characteristic silence and allowed his words to flow; the tears to flow should more of them come too. “Then they’ll die,” she told him finally, not questioning why he lifted the charred wood but reaching out to brush her fingertips against it. “They will die and we will honour those we have lost,” she told him gently. “We will protect what we have and we will End them,” she promised him. From her body language, the knight is open to embracing the shaken hero but she’ll wait for him to seek the comfort. No use in trying to force comfort on someone who isn’t ready for it just yet.

Lionel isn’t ready for it yet. He stares into the distant treeline while he listens to Hildegarde’s vow. A tiny part of him is latching on to those trees as much as the Queen’s words, because the trees are proof that the destruction of Síocháin only stretches so far. It stretches enough to kill two dozen people, which is a brutal price by any accord. But it hasn’t taken Lithrydel, it hasn’t taken Frostmaw, it hasn’t even taken this whole forest -- not yet. “Back then,” he starts, and then he shakes his head but goes on. His voice is steel. “They almost did this everywhere the eye could see.” His right hand shakes as he stretches it across the ruins for emphasis. “And I tell myself, ‘but we wouldn’t let them,’ because it serves as a reminder that when this land works as one anything can happen. But if it were so simple as all that, then Kahran wouldn’t have taken credit for the fall of Catal, and I wouldn’t have cause to believe him.” Whatever strength Lionel had projected in his voice before, it has cracked. “I won’t let Lithrydel burn, too. I will -never- let her burn.” The hurt in his countenance could stem from the fact that here they stand, in the midst of someplace he couldn’t prevent from burning, just days after thousands burned in Cenril. But there’s a resolve swelling up in his eyes nevertheless, the sort that warriors who have seen burning will find when they vow to put an end to it. It’s a sort of thing Hildegarde herself might well know for good and true. “We -will- kill them.” And then, quite suddenly, Lionel is in Hildegarde’s embrace, shaken but strong with noble vengeance and a drive to protect.

Hildegarde hadn’t seen the fall of Catal, she was fortunate enough that no city in this realm had fallen. It had come close, but she had always known victory in the end. Victory through defeat, victory all the way through, victory in every sense of the word; she knew it. The trauma that Lionel knows, it’s not something Hildegarde can quite comprehend, at least not entirely. She knows it to a degree, but not the whole truth of it or the whole pain of it. “We will not let the realm burn,” she tells him, eye briefly casting around the broken stone keep and the bodies that lay there as further proof of Kahran’s powerful yet cruel intent. “We will not let the realm fall,” she promises him, knowing she had promised him this before. Before she can even say any more, any encouraging words or anything like that she has Lionel in her embrace and finds her arms around him. “We will kill them,” she echoes, “We will kill them all and they shall regret their deeds. We will kill them,” and hope the realm does not bleed too much for it.