Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

War in the Chamber

Hawk-nosed and dark eyed in the way of the plains people of the Aramas, Chove Linak grimaced as he settled his robes around him against the chill that permeated the vast circular space that was the Chamber of Lords.  Several liveried men, wearing the crimson of the Chamber's own army of servants independent from those that served the remainder of Caer Aslan and the palace, worked hard to breath a number of braziers scattered through the chamber to life. 

Despite their efforts, it would be some time before they were hot enough to drive back the cold soaked deep into the heavy stone walls.  Time Linak didn't want to waste waiting.  If he played things right, he might sway the Chamber into charging Jerald Ironstorm with reckless aggression and put pressure on the outlander to quit the Star, leaving it open for the taking by any bold enough to do so.

Glancing to either side reconfirmed Linak's supporters had joined him, Golm on the left and Dexar on the right.  Together they had nearly unseated Jerald a mere handful of days ago, when they spearheaded a refusal to the young king's request for support against Hernak.  And, thanks to a terse note written on slip of cloth from one of his spies, he was getting an opportunity to strike even harder at Jerald's tenuous hold on the throne.

Linak's face abruptly tightened when he noted how empty the seats rising from the polished marble floor still were, despite the messengers he had sent to all the great Houses with representatives in the city.  With this pitiful handful, he wouldn't get far in his efforts to dethrone the Kevan warmonger holding the Star in a mail-fisted grip.

Made to house every one of the Lords of the Land, though they numbered in the hundreds, the Chamber of Lords was indeed empty with only a pair of dozens sparsely scattered throughout the tiered benches.  It was an impressive place, a perfect circle raised from the second highest point on Caer Aslan on a foundation of rough granite carried all the way from quarries in the Giant's Teeth.  A full four lengths in diameter and six tall, the Chamber's Cadremoor builders called her the Vesha Stohr, the Great Hall.

Here the Lords of the Land, on broad tiers an arm length tall and an arm span deep, sat upon great curving benches two arm spans long apiece and half an arm length deep, deeply padded and covered in velvet of the darkest purple.  Sat and deliberated the future of Talemon, often spending long turns in debate or discussion by either the light of torches on the walls or, in the daytime, by the tall, narrow windows that reached from the top tier to the gently domed ceiling two lengths up, enough to let Ri'im's warm light spill in and illuminate every hand span of the great space.

The tiers were only broken by the tall, double doors of the entrance, which faced due north, polished bronze that caught every nuance of the light when closed, as they were while the Chamber was in seat.  It also marked the beginning of the semi-circular space that was the floor of the room, where lords could speak from a raised dais to propose motions before the Chamber, its boundaries the first row of benches on the floor itself, where the most powerful of the lords sat.  Despite his yearnings, Linak and his two colleagues were two full tiers above the floor, a fact that grated on him every time he made note of it.

Hard-sheathed as they were, the sharp sounds of riding boots on the polished marble of the hallway beyond the portals was enough to tear Linak's attention away from the first row of benches and to the door.  His eyes fell upon the open portals just in time to see one of the lords powerful enough to warrant a place on that first row, step through and pause to survey the nearly empty room.

A look here and there, then the lord was throwing back his rain-darkened hood and Linak named the familiar features, with their shock of dark hair, hard gaze and chiseled lines.  It was Lord Cadmon of Tal Fendus, perhaps one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.  Holding enough land to name him 'grand duke', if he was in Galental, or 'hill lord', if Mamran, he was a force in the Chamber few could deny.  And a vocal opponent of Ironstorm rule in Talemon, barely held from joining the rebellion himself by a deep belief in the rule of law, and the knowledge that the Westmarch only hurt Talemon, which he loved dearly.