Damon Greyhart

Frostwind, the capital city of Farrenhelm

PRINCE AGNER COUGHED irritably into his hand, the smoke from the Thane Greyheart's pipe sticking to his throat and burning his nose. He scrunched his face, and looked to the direction of the earthy stench, and the red bearded man that billowed it like a thick, hairy chimney.

"Damon, must you smoke in here? The smell bothers me, and it lingers." He looked to one of the guardsmen standing along the wall, and pointed to him. "You, go open a damn window."

The guard nodded, and opened a window halfway up the wall. A chilly night breeze blew in, and snow fell upon the windowsill.

At the table, the red haired thane smoked again on his pipe. He threw his head back and laughed, and blew a big plume of dark smoke from his pursed lips, albeit this time, not in the direction of the prince. "Apologies, my Prince, it's only that in times such as these," he gestured around the table of men with his pipe, "these meetings, the tobacco clears my mind."

The man to his left scoffed sat up in his chair, a scowl settling his face. "As if you're mind needs any more clearing." He laced his words with sarcasm and gave a wave of his hand.

Damon squinted hard at him, grinding his teeth and chewing on his pipe. "I'll clear your mouth of your teeth, Cedric, you stiff-"

"Damon!" Barked the Prince, stopping his insult short. "You and Cedric can trade insults after this meeting...as of now, Nolan and myself need your full, undivided attention." He gestured to the icy man sitting opposite of him down the long table. He looked disinterested, as if the petty squabble was not worthy of his attention.

The Prince resumed. "We don't call Meetings of the Twelve often, and when we do, I prefer my twelve to behave."

Damon took a small rag from his pocket, dingy white and dotted with burn marks, and stuck it in the lit tobacco, suffocating the flames. "A shame. I had enough in my pipe to last me a good many minutes longer." He hung his pipe around his neck and stuffed the rag back in his pocket. "But as my prince commands, so shall I obey."

Agner nodded. "Thank you Damon. Now that we've had a chance to catch up on old matters, I'd have us turn our attention to more present issues. I will waste none of your time with pleasantries. Valdor has raised the blue flag."

"A blue flag?" Asked Thane Jaylem Mayfield. He was the youngest of the twelve, and certainly the prettiest, even more so than Thane Greer. His voice was like honey, and it still carried the youth of a boy in the midst of becoming a man. It was suiting he commanded the Snout, the smallest region of Farrenhelm. The northern kingdom was known to resemble the shape of a lions head, ironic as it was that the lions of Jorden bordered them to the south. The Snout was to the far northwest, and bore him only seven hundred men to command, but those men did have respect for the Mayfield boy.

Thane Yorek Keiser guffawed. "Those dumb bastards, do they not know Joras Freemane is dead? I doubt the next king will survive his fanatical wish to save elven lives." He concluded his rant and rested his forearm on the big oak table. He was a lion of a man, long blonde hair and a fierce beard to match.

"Do not speak ill of the dead," Prince Agner chastised.

"Do we plan to declare war on Valdor, my prince?" Asked Thane Alda Greer, sitting down the table. She was the only one of the twelve thanes to call herself a woman, and a fierce woman at that. The shieldmaiden, they called her, thick and strong as the rest of them, though not as ugly. She was even almost as pretty as Thane Mayfield. She commanded the Spines, the northernmost region to the east of Farrenhelm, long ridges of earth that protruded from the rest of the continent.

Prince Agner shook his head. "They will come to their senses. They are home to many scholars, someone within their walls must have some sense. And if it comes to it, we'll knock some sense into them."

Thane Perrin Uthor pounded the table and laughed. "Well said my Prince! My men and all of the valley are prepared to march on their marble walls, and destroy those filthy sand lovers!"

Prince Agner smiled, and nodded. "Very good, Perrin, very good."

Thane Keiser nodded along. "Mine as well, my Prince. My men are armed, and fierce. The coasts make the hardest of the Northmen! Braving the icy waters of the Frozen Sea hardens the softest of hearts!"

Damon agreed with his sentiment, and nodded. "That they do, Keiser, that they do." Damon commanded the Woodlands, but he was born to the coasts, and felt there was still some salt left in his veins. "The Woodlands are ready, your grace, ready for whatever order you command."

Nolan shook his head at their zealous and sat up in his chair. "And what happens when your fur clad warriors march into the deserts, and the Master of Beasts sics his leatherbacks on you? Or the heat sucks the life out of you? Or you find your throat slit by a Valdorian assassin in the midst of your sleep? None of you have seen a war in your short lifetimes, yet you speak of it as your favorite past time."

The room grew quiet, though Damon's silent fury could be felt. He did not take kindly to condescension, or humiliation for that matter. He found it ignorant of others to assume anything of him, especially someone as arrogant as the the Lord of Silver.

Damon reeled in his temper with a deep breath, and stared into Nolan's black eyes. "General Whitelocke, you underestimate me and my men...we are warriors of strength twofold! What my men endure in their training would make even Jorik Freemane himself shiver!"

Nolan stared off into the distance, calculating his thoughts. "Training is not war, Damon. You're foolish to think so."

Damon scoffed, and leant forward. "They say if you really want to judge a warrior, do so not by his men, but by his sons..." He need not say anymore. Everyone at the table knew Nolan's only exposed nerve was Seigfried, his son, the encapsulation of everything Nolan hated in a person. A man of proclivities and luxury, of wine and music, of whores and gold. A sloth of a man, ruled by his temptations. Last Nolan heard of his son, he was expelled from the Order, his tale of surviving the harrowing journey to the oceanic castle a simple story crafted of cowardice and lies. Nolan, with cold precision and decisive will, severed the last tie to his son in retort: gold.

Nolan stared him down, the air of the room tense, and hard to breathe. "It's odd you bring up sons, Damon, considering yours are dead...just as you will be should you bring up Seigfried again."

Damon stood from the table, his chair flying back against the wall, his chest puffed and his nostrils flared. "Say that once more! Speak of my sons once more, General Whitlocke, and by the Gods, I will unleash a fury on you this world has never seen!" His sons, his two young boys, blue of skin, eyes frosted shut, buried beneath mounds of snow, lost in the woods, murdered by a blizzard. They haunted him. They would've been the best warriors this world would've come to know, had the Gods not taken them from him so soon.

Nolan waved him off with his hand. "Sit down, Damon."

Damon's gritted his teeth and curled his fists. He wanted nothing more than to crush his eyes within his skull.

"Damon..." started Prince Agner, "sit down."

Damon didn't care for Nolan, but did absolutely for his Prince. "Yes, your grace." He sat, though he did so with contempt, and tears behind his eyes. He would not shed them here. He would later, alone, as he did every night he spent his sons untouched rooms.

Nolan looked through him, then among all the other present thanes. "What I said to Damon goes to all of you. Farrenhelm has not seen a war of such magnitude in decades, since all of you were boys, playing in your homes. If we are to win, you must rid yourselves of this grandeur you have towards war. War is ugly, not glorious. To truly defeat something, you must understand what it is. Otherwise you'll find yourself within its claws."

"And how do we go about winning this war, General Whitelocke?" Asked Thane Keiser.

"Through faith, Thane Keiser."

Thane Keiser raised his eyebrows, in a quizzical manner. "Faith in the Gods?"

Nolan shook his head. "I keep no faith in the Gods. They've long abandoned us to our own fate. No, we win through the faith of others."

Thane Cedric cleared his throat. "You mean among our men? Faith in our warriors and our steel?"

Nolan half smiled, and shook his head. "We win through destroying our enemies faith."

"How so?" Asked Thane Cedric.

Nolan leant back on his chair, the gears in his mind spinning about. "When a man's faith is shaken, he doesn't curse the Gods and turn his back on them, and live a life of anger or madness, he looks for any little thing that might reaffirm his faith, any little thing at all, something that tells him he was right to believe in the first place. In his cause, the words of his king, whatever calls to him.

"And when he thinks he's found it, whatever that little thing is or may be...we crush it. We destroy it before him. And when his faith is shattered, he will not weep, he will not fight, he will not do anything, for faith is why man lives, why he fights. And if he has no faith, he has no will. And with no will, the man is nothing more than a mindless beast."

He paused and drummed his fingers on the table, staring into nothing. "And we slaughter mindless beasts, do we not?"