An Angel Called Eternity

Faetales and Forgotten Stories - The Oak Has Fallen: The Black Sapling

Blacktree Hall, Western Owkrestos, Klironomea.

The Seventh Day of the Sixth Moon, 868 AD.

Well, to say the performance of his son had been lacklustre so far was more than an exaggeration.

Yes, Aertax hated to admit it, but he could not deny it any longer; his son was a fool. His head was full of arrogance and the stories of legends long laid to rest, of men who had probably never existed and if they had existed were certainly nowhere near as wonderful as the stories told.

His son was an arrogant, blithe, useless fool.

Of course he wouldn't go so far as to say the boy didn't have some talents; he was an excellent swordsman and jouster, but that was about it. Aerna was sorely lacking when one considered that he was supposed to be the heir to the great and grim Lord Aertax Blackoak of Blacktree Hall. Not a hedge-knight. Not a chivalric champion. An heir and ruler.

His son was not a suitable heir.

There was nothing Aertax could do to change that, however. The best years of his life were long behind him, his hair was beginning to grey, and he'd never been interested in remarrying after his lady wife had died after giving him a son and a daughter. He simply had no other options for an heir, so Aerna would have to do. With any luck the boy would make something of himself soon, would have his mettle tested and come out of the other side stronger and less headstrong for it.

It would need to come soon as well, for Aertax wasn't getting any younger. Just as worryingly, Tyros was a man who might have had another two decades left at the very best. Another five to ten years was much more likely. When Tyros eventually kicked the bucket there would be a crisis of leadership within the Blackoak family as the various cadet branches of their house looked to Aertax's seat of power with hungry eyes. It was a recipe for the complete collapse of their dynasty, unless he could do something about it soon.

Yes, there were many issues facing the lord of Blacktree Hall, and he was growing increasingly aware that he was running out of time to work through them before his son took the lordship and had a chance to fuck everything up in the unsubtle and unskilled ways of many such young lordlings who felt they knew better by virtue of their last name having some level of noble attachment.

Fortunately, he felt he had a plan.

See, he needed something to rally his kin under a common banner again, as he had with Lord Greymist's Rebellion all those decades ago. He needed another quick, successful campaign, so that the people of his house would once again remember the fact that they all bore the same last name, and they all owed their fealty to Blacktree Hall. He needed to make sure that there were no attempts at any sort of foolish uprising to increase the freedoms of the cadet branches or, Angels forbid, have the cadets establish themselves as equals to the heads of the family. There was no room for such foolishness in a modern feudal state. They had to be united and to all know their place. What better way to bring them all together than by pulling them into a war? It would certainly beat yet another hunt, that was for sure.

"Steward. Attend me."

The Steward all but hunched into the room, bowing low as he walked. The man was a sycophant and a lickspittle, but Aertax had to begrudgingly admit that he had an excellent memory and mind for numbers. Those were both good qualities for a steward to possess, so as long as the man knew to stay loyal and do his job properly then Aertax would put up with the endless bowing and scraping from the man, no matter how annoying it was.

"Your Lordship?"

"My family still has a feasible and acceptable claim on the lands of house Downpour, do we not?"