Baron Ferrante Kaltessiera sat on a throne of bald cypress, behind his enormous Kalt-Sideros wood table. Opulent and luxurious and, that winter, far too valuable to remain there. It was a rare tree, extracted mainly from the Dead Fumaroles, the kind that nobles of great houses in the kingdom would pay fortunes to own and display as a show of power.
Ferrante ran his hand along the piece of furniture. The black-purplish wood possessed a natural oil that rendered it nearly immune to time. It was so dense that, if thrown into a river, it would sink rather than float. That also meant the piece was stupidly heavy for its size. And it was a vast table, which would have been difficult to move even if made of any other wood, but being Kalt-Sideros, it was the equivalent of carrying ten such tables at once. Ferrante laughed, remembering the herculean ordeal of bringing it to his office in the fortress.
"It would have been more practical to plant the tree here in your office and wait a hundred years for it to grow to the size of a table." The baron smiled at the corner of his mouth, recalling the remark that Baronildo, his master carpenter, had let slip while cursing and helping drag the piece of furniture to the fortress that day. So long ago that the date was lost in his memories, but a good joke, delivered at the right moment, outlasts time.
Still stroking the surface, he recited the phrase softly again, almost in a whisper, smiling at it and remembering when he had first arrived in that territory, when the city was nothing but a miserable wooden fortress on the frontier, inside a wretched swamp.
And now it was less wretched. It was still a quagmire, of course, but the fortress was no longer made of mold-smelling wood riddled with termites. And the village of five hundred had become a city of four thousand, a stronghold he was proud to have watched grow and prosper by his own hands.
Even at the end of the world, he was using as furniture in his own fortress something so rare and noble that it would make great lords of the capitals hang their heads in shame. That brought him satisfaction. It was the symbol he had needed at that time. That he could tame this region, do what the starched men of the plains could not, and raise his own great house to show those bastards how it was done.
And now he would have to sell it to one of those nobles. With that he would pay off a year's debts and buy provisions, stepping back to zero. And at the moment, zero was a dream, because he was in the red. He would settle accounts with the cursed merchant guild, his creditors, and have food to get through that winter. Now he found himself selling the table that held dear memories of Vinceline, carved into the wood by his own fist and her hands. But what about next winter? Would he sell the bed where he and his wife slept? Would he sell the furniture from his heir's room up in the capital? Or perhaps he should sell Aethel's toys, now that he did not even know whether the boy would recover enough to play with them, or whether he would be an invalid forever.
He flung a cup against the wall in anger, clenching his teeth with the staggering force of a four-circle knight, full and stable for many years. The ornate stone chalice shattered on impact, leaving a visible notch in the sturdy wall of the room, one among several identical ones in that exact spot.
And then the weeping reached his ears.
He leaned back in his chair, breathing deeply and closing his eyes. He listened, for the thousandth time that cursed week, to his beautiful wife, a fierce one-circle knight, born of those same lands to the west of the kingdom, a land of hard and unyielding people, who now wandered the corridors of the fortress like a pale apparition, lamenting in sobs over things that were inevitable, things that had already come to pass.
Ferrante had grown somewhat accustomed to it. He simply waited, eyes closed, for the weeping to drift to another part of the fortress, where his mother-in-law would certainly serve as the vessel for her daughter's grievances, which left him very grateful to the old woman who so often tried his patience with her sharp and biting tongue. He only opened his eyes again when the sobs had faded into the distance.
Tunk, tunk, tunk.
The knock at the door stirred Ferrante. He was calmer now. In fact, he may even have dozed off, though he was not entirely sure. Looking more carefully at the shadows cast through the wide-open shutters behind him into the study, roughly half an hour must have passed.
He passed his hand slowly along his jaw, composing himself and straightening in his chair until he sat completely upright.
"Come in!" he said, already knowing who was on the other side.
And, just as he had thought, Dânio, his captain of the guard, entered the room. The man was older than him by some five years but looked fifteen more. With a face marked by battles and grey hair, he still maintained an imposing and fit physique. Dânio was the second strongest knight in the barony, behind only Ferrante himself, and wore with pride the symbol of three circles on his military mail armor, bearing the insignia and colors of the house. The captain brought his closed fist to his chest in a formal salute and then placed both hands behind his back, his right fist gripping his left wrist.
"Milord, the merchants from Navicresta have arrived. They went directly to the trade guild building..." The captain would have continued, but, looking at his lord seated before the imposing table, he could not complete the sentence coherently, which Ferrante immediately noticed.
"And what you mean is that I have to get this old backside out of the chair, because they have come for my table. More precisely... this table."
"Something to that effect, Milord. They were saying they were in a hurry and were already causing trouble with some of the locals, so I thought it best to warn you right away. They said they want to leave tomorrow and are already unloading the grain into the granaries, but asked for things to move quickly, if possible."
Ferrante let out a short laugh of self-deprecation.
"They asked 'if possible'? Or was that part your own doing, you old wretch?" the lord asked, pushing his chair back and standing up, taking one last look at the table before him.
"My own doing, Milord," Dânio replied without changing his expression, though his mustache twitched nervously for a brief instant.
"I thought as much. Your social tact had more use twenty years ago with the women of the military camps than it does here with me, old man. Living in a swamp may be rusting your skills, 'Silver Tongue.'"
Ferrante made for the door. Dânio stepped aside, making way and following close behind, a meter back, his right hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
"I must insist that the nickname 'Silver Tongue' was for another reason entirely, Milord." The captain gave an involuntary tug at his mustache, the muscles of his face contracting.
"Is that so? Should I remind you that the first time we heard it was from the men at the Vandermuro gatehouse? But if you insist on that version of the story... it is understandable. You were lonely and in need."
Ferrante left the narrower corridors and descended a spiral staircase on the side of the fortress, which led down to the lower floor.
"No, sir, your memory fails you. It was the wife of the Vandermuro fortress captain who spread it around."
They reached the foot of the staircase and passed two servants in the main hall going about the daily cleaning, sweeping out the dust, most likely dried mud carried in by the wind, through the heavy Kalt-Sideros doors that sealed the front of the fortress.
"That must be why we ended up in this end of the world. If it were not for the Silver Tongue, we would be in the east of the kingdom, raising little cows and drinking fresh milk straight from the udder every day."
And although the tone was sarcastic, Ferrante's words grew progressively more irritated.
"Thank you for reminding me that I could be buying a beautiful table right now, instead of selling mine," the lord finished, passing two guards in armor similar to Dânio's, who kept watch at the fortress doors. Both brought their fists to their chests as the pair went by.
"Unrelated, Milord. The fact that we are here was entirely your own doing, and I know you have no regrets," replied Dânio, as they descended outside the fortress's inner palisade. The structure was protected by sturdy wooden stakes, driven deep into the ground and jutting upward and outward, defending the highest point of the hill on which the fortress had been built. They passed two more guards, as well-equipped as those at the main door, diligently keeping watch at the palisade gate.
Ferrante grew briefly thoughtful. He had no regrets indeed. Regret had not even crossed his mind. He would do everything that had brought him here the same way, every time. He only wished he had buried her in a more dignified place, and that he was not selling the furniture from his own home to survive the winter.
The lord and the captain of the guard walked alone along the main road, which ran in a straight line from the inner palisade gate to the outer gates of the city wall. They stopped, however, before reaching them, at one of the only buildings in Pantanoburg made entirely of stone. The building had an elevated base that isolated it from street level where, now, with the constant if light autumn rains, the stones mixed into the earth to reinforce the path made little difference against the quagmire.
People greeted the lord with respect as they passed, and no one dared put themselves in his way. In large part, this was because Lord Ferrante and his captain were practically untouchable there, even to the mercenaries who came to the city to hunt beasts in the virgin lands. And even these, by this time of year, had already left Pantanoburg behind, before the snow and the weather made the precarious road that crossed the swamp and the hills to the southeast completely impassable.
At the door of the stone building, which had the trade guild symbol painted on its façade in charcoal, stood a group of men Ferrante had never seen before. The mail garments, the swords at their waists, and the Navicresta house symbol embroidered on their chests identified them as the guards of that family's caravan. They nodded to the lord, making room. They did not bother with formal bows, but showed no disrespect either.
From among those soldiers, in the doorway, a lean figure with a sharp nose suddenly appeared. The brown hair was pulled back neatly, held in place with an excess of grease that left it shinier than natural under the sun. Upon noticing Lord Ferrante approaching alongside the captain, the man broke off his conversation with the person beside him, a short, pot-bellied gentleman with a sword hanging at his waist and noble attire bearing the Navicresta insignia. Rather than continuing the exchange, he smiled from ear to ear and gave a bow appropriate for a meeting with a nobleman.
"Milord Ferrante, join us!" The merchant gestured toward the Navicresta nobleman, who merely nodded, acknowledging Ferrante's presence. The newcomer's gaze, however, quickly settled on the three circles on Dânio's clothing and the four circles marked on Ferrante's chest.
"Dismissed, the lot of you! Go and help with the cargo!" The pot-bellied nobleman made an irritated gesture with his hands, sending the Navicresta knights there to work. He had noticed that, while none of them had openly disrespected the local lord, they were carrying themselves with rather too much hauteur for the setting. He could not blame them. Pantanoburg was the end of the world, and the Navicresta family was a middling house of the kingdom, with larger and better-situated lands. In truth, the place looked like a decaying village. However, it was a decaying village with two master knights capable of cutting them down like butter without anyone knowing until the next season, and he did not like the idea of his own head parting from his body.
"Mister Vagner, and..." Ferrante walked toward the two men, greeting the merchant first, whom he already knew.
"Lord Gunter Von Navicresta. A pleasure to meet you, Milord Ferrante," the pot-bellied nobleman stepped forward, introducing himself unprompted as he extended his hand.
"Welcome to Pantanoburg. I did not expect the Navicresta house to send someone of its own blood to fetch furniture from a swamp," replied Ferrante, still somewhat sour from the sale.
"Well, it is not just any furniture..." Vagner cut into the exchange with a laugh, trying to ease the tension, also because, as the broker of the purchase, he was making a river of money from it. Fortunately, he noticed that Gunter did not seem bothered by Ferrante's tone.
"In truth, we do not often send caravans so far out. I thought it would be a good opportunity for the young idiots of the house to experience a little of the wider world and toughen up," said Gunter, gesturing toward the guards who were now, with ill grace, helping to unload the grain into the guild's granary.
Ferrante studied the young knights. Among the ten, only two appeared not to have awakened their first circle, and all of them were somewhere between twenty and thirty years old. The condescension was now explained.
They were young nobles, though not of the main Navicresta lineage. Gunter himself, Ferrante noticed, wore with pride a circle of magic on his chest, though the embroidery was somewhat hidden behind a fold of fat.
"I understand. It is always good for the young to have that kind of experience. Pantanoburg, among many things, is an excellent hunting ground. You are welcome to try your luck in the lands beyond the frontier, if you wish," replied Ferrante, gesturing toward the west, beyond the forest past the Kaltflut.
"Unfortunately, although I would rather enjoy having one or two of them eaten in the mountains, if we do not leave today, I fear Milord Ferrante would be obliged to put up with us for the entire winter." Gunter held out his palm, looking at the clouds that were once again closing over the city. A tiny snowflake melted immediately on the nobleman's skin.
"Which reminds me, gentlemen... the guild still has a stock of magic cores from mountain beasts that went unsold. I imagine that may be of interest to the Navicresta family." Vagner seized the moment to cut into the conversation. He pulled a small red sphere from his pocket. Gunter, being a first-circle mage, immediately recognized the subtle mana emanating from the core.
"Well... I imagine it would not hurt to take a few cores home," Gunter mused, appraising the sphere. He sent a thread of mana toward the stone, confirming it was the real thing.
"And at a discount, Milord Gunter. Your caravan is the last to leave Pantanoburg, and come spring the mercenaries and hunters will arrive again to replenish my stock. Consider it a token of goodwill for the fin... the business we are conducting here. And I also hope I may accompany the caravan as far as the port of Ankervat." Vagner finished the sentence and noticed Ferrante's brow furrow slightly as "fine business" nearly slipped out of his mouth. He swallowed the expression in time and made a mental note never to use that kind of phrase again when the subject was the lord's table.
Ferrante looked Vagner up and down upon hearing that the merchant would be going to Ankervat that winter and would not be staying at the guild. After all, Vagner was the guild's representative in Pantanoburg, and Ferrante had invested a great deal in the past to ensure that the regional headquarters was established there and not in the other baronies around it. Besides Vagner, the guild had only three other employees, all locals, to keep the operation running.
"Well, then we have a deal. But we leave today," said Gunter, taking the red sphere from Vagner's hand with more agility than his build suggested.
"Which brings me to ask, where is the table? I would like to get it into the transport." Gunter pointed to a cart larger than all the others, with eight wheels, built for heavy loads. It would be pulled by two enormous horses, which at that moment were not hitched but tied to the coachman's post. Some farmers and Pantanoburg residents passed by curiously, staring at the animals' size. They were quickly shooed away by a Navicresta guard whenever they came too close.
Vagner glanced at Lord Ferrante and spoke first, seeing his expression close off.
"Well... we had a problem getting the table out of the fortress. As you may know, it is extremely heavy. But, seeing that Lord Gunter is a mage, perhaps he can help with that," Vagner replied, choosing his words with care.
The problem Vagner was referring to was simple and humiliating. The table had been placed in the fortress while it was still under construction, and there was no window or door large enough for it to pass through. This meant breaking the window and part of the wall of Lord Ferrante's study on the second floor, and then removing the table from there. Under normal circumstances, the piece should already have been in the guild's warehouse, awaiting the caravan. But Ferrante had waited until the last moment, because he did not want to break the wall of his study. And Vagner knew it. Until a few weeks ago, the baron had still harbored some hope of not having to sell it at all.
Gunter listened and nodded. He could cast a basic sustaining spell on the table. It would not be enough to make it truly light, but it would help the men lower it onto the cart. And if they used the awakened knights for the brute force, it should be enough.
"Well, then we should start as soon as possible. I will have the cart positioned directly below the study, on the outside, if that is feasible," said Gunter, looking directly at Ferrante.
Ferrante nodded curtly.
"The study is directly above the fortress courtyard. You can leave your cart below and lower the table on ropes, straight down onto it," confirmed Ferrante, reluctantly.
"Excellent. I believe we all want this finished as soon as possible. We would not want to disturb the lady of the house with that kind of noise too late, especially since..." Vagner cut himself off mid-sentence, having nearly mentioned that young Master Aethel needed his rest.
"Especially since Lord Ferrante certainly has many things to attend to, with winter coming and all," Vagner corrected himself in time, tacking on something neutral to save the sentence.
Shortly after, the men began giving the necessary orders to remove the table. The two enormous draft horses were hitched to the great cart, which made its way up the road that Lord Ferrante and the captain had just come down. Despite the weight, the animals trotted without difficulty through the streets of Pantanoburg, crossing the terrain even as the ground yielded slightly under their hooves. They hauled the load with an ease that would have made some men struggle simply to pass on foot. As they climbed, the ground grew firmer. The fortress, with its inner palisade and stone keep, sat on one of the few elevated areas in the vicinity, a small ancient hill, while the city had grown in the lowlands around it.
Gunter brought along some of the young men who had recently awakened, all between twenty and thirty. Besides them, four more first-circle knights of house Kaltessiera joined the effort on Ferrante's orders, which surprised Gunter somewhat. He wondered how the baron managed to keep so many awakened knights under his command.
The mage observed Lord Ferrante. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest in a powerful posture that made his imposing physique plain. Gunter had a vague idea of who Ferrante was. He knew the lord was a Falcadinian by birth, from the southwest of the kingdom, which made his stature, which he estimated at just under two meters, considerably taller than the average of his own people, and far superior to that of the Wurzelfingite people who inhabited the barony's region.
In truth, the information Gunter had received before the journey was incomplete or out of date. He had been told that Lord Ferrante was a four-circle knight, stable, having held that position for many years with no signs of advancing to the culminating circle. But when he had sent a thread of mana earlier, during the handshake, Gunter had felt beyond any doubt that old Ferrante had already reached the culminating stage. And, while it was unlikely he would break the barrier to the fifth circle, he was still, without question, one of the strongest knights in the kingdom.
Before long, more men of house Kaltessiera appeared carrying thick iron chains, wrapped in braided rush so that the friction of the metal would not damage the valuable piece. On the second floor of the fortress, the wall of the lord's study finally gave way. The stone fell into the outer courtyard under everyone's eyes. Where the wall had been, two men with sledgehammers appeared, sweating profusely. They looked down curiously at the knights and at the lord himself, seizing the chance to peer, for one last instant, into the baron's study, a place they had never imagined they would see, let alone be ordered to demolish.
The knights quickly drove them back and began passing the chains around the table. While the stones were tossed aside to make room for the cart waiting directly below, Gunter intoned a magical chant from where he stood. He enchanted the piece for a few moments, making it somewhat lighter, or, to put it more precisely, sustaining part of its weight with magic, allowing the table to be lowered with far greater control onto the cart.
From above in the study, ten men held the table by the chains. Below, ten more, divided into two columns of five, one on the right side of the cart and one on the left, did the same. They hauled carefully while two men, already on the cart, prepared waterproofed wool blankets and packed the table with care, protecting the piece from the bad weather of the road ahead.
Vagner, standing between the two noblemen and watching the merchandise finally delivered and the deal drawing to its close, wrung his hands in anticipation. He was satisfied. Lord Ferrante needed money and grain. The Navicresta wanted an imposing table worthy of a count's ambitions. And he, Vagner, had been the man who turned those two desires into reality. He would receive a good percentage for it.
But then a sudden voice rang out across the outer courtyard.
"Father! Please, use my jewels and gifts! Please, do not sell the table that you and mother carved together!"
The beautiful, slightly breaking feminine voice cut clean through the noise of the knights' grunts as they prepared to lower the table with final, careful precision.
Two seconds of silence followed. The Kaltessiera knights already knew whose voice it was and held the chains steady. But the young men of house Navicresta made the mistake of turning their heads, casting an almost involuntary sidelong glance toward where that voice was coming from.
And from that, the chaos began.
She was a young woman, probably between twenty and twenty-five, strikingly beautiful. Her hair was of a very pale gold, a midpoint between gold and white, the same color as her eyebrows and long lashes. Slender and well-formed, she was speaking to Ferrante with indignation, and the fury, rather than diminishing her, somehow only made her more endearing.
Behind her, two women wearing the same armor as the Kaltessiera knights came running a moment later. Upon realizing they had arrived too late to stop the lady from making a scene, their expressions shifted immediately. They knew the lord would be furious.
And then, at the end of those two seconds, one of the Navicresta knights holding the chain on the right-hand column, the last in the row, lost his focus. He had all his weight thrown back, his feet planted in the ground, and when he turned his head to look at the young woman, he did not reposition his foot as he should have. He stepped onto a strip of waterlogged earth where the light rain and the first crystals of ice had already begun to form a treacherous layer. He slipped suddenly, losing all support.
The man fell like a bowling ball into a row of pins.
His body, still gripping the chain that served as counterweight, was flung forward, legs outstretched. He struck the shins of the knight ahead of him full on. That man fell onto the next, and he onto the one after. In moments, three of the five men had lost their line of force. The chain, now held by only two, slipped from one man's hands with a crack and, in the motion, whipped violently across the other's face, drawing a sharp grunt.
Without the counterweight on that side, the table suddenly pulled those holding it from the second floor. The ten men above were yanked forward with a lurch. The piece of furniture, which had already been nearly resting against the cart while two workers adjusted the blankets, fell the last few centimeters under its full weight.
It was only a few centimeters. It was enough.
One of the men on the cart was flung backward and struck the wall with force. The cart groaned. The wheels gave way. The crack of splitting wood startled the two enormous horses, which whinnied in panic and bolted forward.
Gunter nearly got run over. He leapt to the side on instinct and barely avoided being crushed. Even so, the side of the cart struck his right leg squarely and brought him to the ground in agony, with the dry crack of a bone breaking.
The horses tried to return the way they had come, bolting back toward the palisade. This second lurch caused the men on the second floor, near the edge of the now-broken wall of the lord's study, to receive a sudden pull. Some let go of the chains. Two of them, already too close to the edge, lost their footing and were thrown outward, plummeting from the second floor to strike the ground of the outer courtyard five meters below.
The cart, dragged by the horses with part of the rear wheels broken, was carried on for a few more meters. The table was half being dragged through the mud, half being carried by the cart, caught between the momentum of the load and the resistance of the few men who still clenched their fists around the chains.
But before the horses could reach the palisade gate, the side of the cart struck one of the timber logs. At the same instant, one of the ends of a loose chain snagged there, locking the cart and preventing the animals from going further. The two horses reared at the impact, whinnying in panic, their front hooves in the air, then fell back, unable to understand why the load would not move.
In the courtyard, some still held loose chains, others were dazed, others injured.
And the silence that settled was worse than the noise.