The late spring rains fell upon Jewel and her party as they made their way through the north east pastures of Viznove.
Kliatbatrn, Demesne of her father’s long time ally and brother in arms. Master of Viznove’s horse and cavalry. Guardian of the largest of the headwaters of the Vah and from it the backbone of Viznove’s trade by water.
As they wound left and right along the muddy road Jewel considered the rain obscured silhouette of the city.
She couldn't help but compare it to both Kaeketeh and the capital of the realm.
And on both counts the city fortress was lacking.
It was not as strong a defensible position as Kaeketeh’s three islands.
What old cantor foundations it possessed were strictly inferior to her family home or the temple circle of the Nerthus temple.
The city of Kliatbatrn was not even particularly positioned well for a city. Put far north of the natural trade routes. But Jewel knew her studies. The demesne and family name of her most loyal vassal after her father spoke to why a city would exist so far out of the way.
It spoke to why the open grazing of pastures that fed Viznove’s cavalry was sparsely inhabited.
Despite all the subordinate knights that owed fealty to the ruler of this place.
Jewel knew.
She had been walking past the scars that even to this day were avoided so vehemently the road wound and bent up and over hills instead of taking more natural routes.
The places where the old cantor markers had been raised.
She had read the words placed upon them. Dug into ancient stones. Each in its own center of desolation. The smallest of these scabbed over wounds of sorcery legible to her wyrmish eyes at their perimeters despite the rain.
Centuries old and yet kept clearly engraved in stone by a working that sank deep into the rock itself and rooted down far below the earth.
“This is not a place of honor.”
“The water of this land is accursed.”
“Dig no wells here.”
“Take no rest.”
“Eat no fruit.”
“Flee this place.”
Each stood in an empty expanse where no tree would grow more than a foot high. Where withered and twisted shrubs and choking grass and vines all turned inwards towards the central pillars.
They came in different sizes.
The largest three touched the River Vah’s shore and were so wide that she could only just barely spot the markers at their centers.
Many more were far smaller.
But the road skirted around every single one no matter the inconvenience.
Sturdy fences of stone or heavily thorned shrubs were set around the borders of most.
Contributing an even greater forbiddance to the snarling twisting pattern of the vegetation within.
She could see the same pattern scattered to the limits of clarity under the downpour.
Like a pox on the land.
Jewel wondered if she could fix it. She could barely taste whatever working was in play on the twisted circles. It simply felt natural to her.
As if all was as it should be.
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Despite that, the voids they had passed on their road north were twisted and obviously wrong to the eye; there was hardly even a hint of contortion to the world to Jewel’s senses. The working was not even as apparent as that in the Cantor wrought stones.
A subtle shift she could almost miss.
But still they obviously were full of terrible wrongness even without the warning stones.
All around the city of Kliatbatrn in the expanses of open grass the spiraling snarls of contorted plants intermeshed with rotting corpses and bones of those animals which dared the danger of berries or water found within.
Each tangled void, marked with a pillar of stone at its center, corpses and bones and the same old words.
Jewel had read the histories, she knew of the old cantor wars enacted here.
Each of these places once had names.
Villages and hamlets and farm houses were buried here.
People had lived in each of these whorls.
But now all were the same.
Now they were only known as the cursed wells.
Maybe if she dug down?
The thought drew her to stare and consider each of the twisted expanses they passed.
But Jewel could not delay for digging into dirt and ancient curses. Her tour was already going to consume the majority of a year if everything went as planned.
But maybe later?
The ancient horrors that had driven the people to seek safe waters in the foothills of the middle mountains of the Ridgetails and founded Kliatbatrn itself would have to wait.
From what she was told the people here mostly were fine in spite of these marks of sorcery.
The pastures and fields they herded upon were more extensive than anywhere else in Viznove.
Land kept clear but for the tight whorls of the curse wells made for good grazing.
Small herdsteads favored over the normal scattering of villages made for many wandering herds. Seasonal dwellings and rest spots favored over hamlets. All turning around and returning every year to the bastion of safe water found in Kliatbatrn with its deep cisterns at the foot of the mountains.
Jewel marched with her entourage in silence. The eeriness of the twisted vegetation brings a somber silence in the heavy rain. Words stolen by the curses that pockmarked the open grassland around them.
Truly it was one thing to read of the cost of the old cantor battles and quite another to see it with her own eyes for two days of marching in the rain.
It brought Jewel to dwell on the few marks of sorcery she had seen left from her own battle.
Would the field she had warred with Thurzó of Arva linger for centuries longer?
Its scars of sorcery digging and warping the landscape for generations to come?
Would she find herself needing to place markers just as the Ancient Cantor Generals had?
The grim silence remained.
Broken only by the sound of pattering rain on Jewel’s wings and the sodden fields and road.
The mud sliding between her toes and fingers, slapping up the legs of the horses.
The mist shrouded city drawing slowly closer as they plodded past the last of the whorls of vegetation and bones that twined around the curse spirals and their stone markers.
Finally clear of their obstruction the road straightened out considerably.
A clear shot across the fallow fields to the gates of Kliatbatrn City.
The sprawl of what looked like a dozen villages and other houses huddled right up to the old cantor walls.
The gate held no guard and passing beneath its overhang was a welcome relief.
The city was huddled away from the cold of spring rains. Not even beggars risked the weather and what travelers there were spared Jewel only a brief glance before the downpour drove them to shelter.
Jewel felt like Kliatbatrn was being smothered under the wet of the rain and heady mist.
Gem was certainly not enjoying it even snuggled up close under both her own rain cloak and Smithson’s
A glance at Muriel showed Jewel enough to know her captain’s age was not agreeing with her.
It was a welcome site to finally clear the next winding corner up into the elevated city where she could see the limp banner of the Rochford House standing forlornly beside that of Kliatbatrn.
She knew her entire party could not hurry fast enough to get out of the rain.
Within the entry hall of the fortress, wide with the familiar Cantor size that she had come to recognize from Fort Rochford, her husband Paul was waiting for her.
It was not precisely uncouth to send her husband as harbinger. If it was not within the borders of her own county Jewel might have avoided it.
But she found he usually did an excellent job of preparing the way.
However the Count Consort had a grim look on his face now.
As the rest of her party shed their rain cloaks and met with the necessary staff to see to accommodations and a proper welcoming feast Jewel lowered her face down to meet her husband and confidant’s eyes.
“Paul, what has happened?”
He took a breath to steady himself and then spoke with a soft tone only Jewel would normally hear.
“Lord General Marcis?aw of Kliatbatrn is dying.”
