Prologue: Exodus (Part 6)

Mid-Autumn
Year One (counting from the Exodus)
Mirynium


The river Ardran was an artery. It supplied the trade that nourished Mirynium and allowed it to grow. It provided the food for the city in the fish that many ate. As the cradle of the Erennin nation, that had grown up here, where Mirynium now stood, on its banks, it had a special place in every Erennin’s heart.

The river Ardran was a walk through time. A casual stroller along its banks might occasionally pick up an arrowhead of bone of a design that none had used for over two thousand years. Or it might turn up, sometime or other, the footprints of creatures large and terrible, leaving the discoverer to wonder at the size of the beast whose one foot was already as huge as a man.

The river Ardran was a road. For the countless vessels that passed up and down it in any given day, it was a mode of transport. For the traveller going south, the river provided a convenient compass. And for the assembled multitude before Mirynium, it provided an escape route, the glimmering ribbon of water appearing to them like a shining road to the south and freedom from the onslaught of the Ismaransi.

The intervening months had vindicated Jodias’ suspicion that the barbarians would return; raids increased and many thousands more were killed. The Ismaransi did not come in strength anymore, but the number of their raiders seemed to amount to several hundreds of thousands, at least, spread across the countryside. The people had streamed towards Mirynium in their carts and wagons and on foot, driving their flocks and herds before them, driven by a fear that had once been great but now was merely another part of life. And with them marched their menfolk, some armoured veterans from the Fields temporarily dismissed back home to help with the harvest, some young men with barely any hair on their chins still holding spears and swords like the weapons would burn their hands. They came, and by midautumn all the harvests had been completed and the food brought to the capital. There had been three years of surplus before this, thankfully, and the recent harvest was also far above normal, despite the ravages of barbarian violence.

Now they stood, a little over five hundred thousand Erennin, the sum of the nation, dwindled by more than half since the onset of the war. They were organised into ten clans, each led by a chief. In a long line less than two hundred paces wide the clans lined up one behind the other, hugging the river bank closely. Along their landward edge, the remaining still-considerable phalanx strength of the army marched in neat line formation, ready at any moment to turn outwards to face any threat. At the front and back of the entire procession the Erennin horsemen swarmed, enclosing the commonfolk of the Erennin nation in a rectangle of armoured safety. In the Ardran a flotilla of boats guarded the refugees from attack from the other side of the river, each boat filled with archers well-trained and equipped with an almost unending supply of poisoned shafts. The poison was running low, but for all it was worth, every soldier carried poisoned weapons against possible attacks as the slowmoving column made its way south.
It was mid-morning when the gates of the already long-emptied city opened. From Mirynium’s southern gate, for the last time, Jodias rode out at the head of the Royal Guard with Talamioros. The column was already formed up with the sole exception of the centre of the phalanx, which, as was customary, belonged to the Royal Guard. They now filed into place with the practice of many years of constant drill. Jodias rode to the head of the column. The autumn wind was beginning to take on the chill of the oncoming winter. There was fear in every heart—an uncertain future made them shiver more than the wind itself.

The people had been told what would happen on this fateful day. Now they silently walked forward as Jodias raised his spear and pointed into the south. Slowly the column seemed to glide down the river, a ponderous entity, a black rectangle making its way along the river Ardran. As they began their journey without an end in sight, a song of mourning and revenge arose from the crowd, almost spontaneously begun. It was a familiar song; a familiar tune with well-known lyrics. It was the song sung by Queen Lydira as her husband was stabbed to death by treacherous Ariantynian assassins, two hundred years in the past. It had a ring of truth about it now, as the procession left for good their ancestral homeland.



My heart is full sore as my love dies in my arms
I can do nothing but stand and watch
My love is gone from me!
No lightning could strike more painfully
This death
This death I refuse to accept
Revenge will be mine upon those who did this
I will watch
I will wait
But to the ends of the earth I will never forgive
I will never forget
Under the blades fallen, the love of my life!
He will live on in my memory forever.
I will be revenged!