The Ghost's Crusade

XV: Tiernan

The rain showed no signs of lessening, but Tiernan was long fed up with staying at the inn early that morning and left for the barracks to check up on his men before the innkeeper roused himself and realized that he was sitting with an unlit match on his harkbus.

Surprisingly Haromir wasn't there to harass him when he arrived, though the minute he found Morray he learned that the regiment had been given the orders to move out and relocate to the city of Sonnes, which sat a comfortable day and a half away from both Baedorn and Wessinberg within the borders of the nation of Morvayne. The Ovan's plan to have the neighboring city-state's troops give him a hand with the corpses in his streets had come to fruition, and the only thing keeping the full-scale invasion of the city at bay was the fact that the roads were barely passable and the sky was wracked with lightning that was likely to ground itself on the flagpoles of unsuspecting standard-bearers as they paraded into the city and seized it from right beneath the fool's nose.

The Cardinal's orders were not to get involved in the politics of either Baedorn or Wessinberg. The church had intervened a few decades ago in the war between Eireness and Wardenfell when a majority of Wardenfell's nobility had converted to the faith, but by putting their weight behind the petty nobility of Tiernan's homeland any chance they had of establishing a concrete presence beyond the country's borders had been all but eliminated. No doubt the Inquisitor General had already left for Morvayne, not willing to watch his idiotic brother hand his childhood home over to their lifelong enemies. Either that, or he had renounced his title and was on his way to the keep to beat some sense into the fat man.

Tiernan really had little interest in what would become of Baedorn. Aside from the madman Basilides leaving his failures lying about there was nothing of real import to the mismanaged half-abandoned city-state. The petty feud between it and Wessinberg amounted to children pitching rocks at each other over a fence. It really was the laughing stock of most of the mid-Oribian region, and the only reason the two cities were still independent of the larger nation to their west was that the Dukes there had long amused themselves by watching them bicker. Conquering them wasn't worth the resources it would cost or the loss of all the laughable stories they told about it around the dinner table.

He forwarded his report about Basilides to the Inquisitor General with the morning messenger after having debated with himself whether or not to include mention of Akkali's magic. In the end he left it out, knowing that eventually the report would make it back to the Inquisitorial archives in Harenholl and place unwanted attention on her. She was the type of person who dealt with unwanted attention by killing the source of it and he didn't want the deaths of any of his brethren at her hands on his conscience. If she became a danger to anyone not actively trying to collect the ridiculously absurd bounty on her head, he decided that he would deal with the woman himself. After spending a few days in her company he had a good enough read on her abilities and tactics to make a better run at it than anyone else, at any rate. He held no illusions that he had seen everything she was capable of, however, and did not doubt the fact that he would likely loose his life quickly if he couldn't somehow catch her by surprise should things come down to a fight.

After making sure his men were properly supplied and ready to depart as soon as the rain ceased as well as informing his Lieutenant of what was in his report to the General, he removed himself to the mess hall for a hot meal and a stint by the roaring fire to thaw out his stiff and battered limbs. While he hadn't broken anything, getting hit by falling rocks did leave a few lasting impressions. Everything between his knees and neck had become a patchwork of purple and yellow bruises and he was finding it remarkably difficult to draw a bowstring at the moment given how battered his back was. The fire had made it easier to stretch his muscles and try to alleviate the pain, but he knew he would be feeling the hurt for days, if not weeks. By the time he returned to his cell his shoulders were stiff once again.