Part One
Semblance of a Bloodied Sun
Duchy of Cesturo, Cadora, Empire of Volscina
August 18th, 1537
Lines of ink filed into place as the tip of a quill crossed a page, letters mustering into orderly ranks upon a parchment drill ground. Words marshaled into formation under the guidance of a deft hand, slowly composing the kind of crude poetry that delivers its message like blunt force trauma.
Ferrante set down his pen, beaming with self-admiration as he held his latest piece of writing up to the firelight. The literary arts had never come naturally to him, but he felt he had certain cultural obligations as a knight. A man of his station should not just be literate and learned, but contribute to the advancement of Volscine art in some way or another. He set the piece of paper down with a sigh and pushed his written musings to one side, distractedly watching the embers from his fire mingle with the emerging stars. They shone over a land marred by decades of devastation and internecine conflict, yet he found himself no less entranced by nature’s simple beauty. Perhaps it was that, in a life as touched by war as his own, one learned to appreciate mundanity itself. That, or he’d just picked up amateur philosophy as a coping mechanism. He chuckled at the thought.
“What are you laughing about now, sir?” queried his squire, glancing up from the piece of Ferrante’s armor he had been polishing.
Ferrante met his bemused look with a smile. “Pay me no heed Sandro. I’m just an old dog barking at nothing.”
Shaking his head in mock dismay, Sandro returned his focus to the vambrace in his hands. He handled the armor with a diligence born of reverence, embracing the monotonous task of keeping Ferrante’s armor free of rust with surprising enthusiasm. Alessandro Vasari was a young, dark-haired man barely out of his teens. He had lost his family and their farm to a supply raid near the tail end of the war, a senseless act of violence that had both embittered him and led to his first meeting with Ferrante. He had immediately become enamored in the concept of chivalry and knighthood, and had eventually convinced the knight to take him up as his squire. It was not a role that came easy to him, but after almost a year of traveling together he was starting to become rather accustomed to it.
“Say, Sandro, have I ever told you the tale of how I became a wandering knight?” asked Ferrante, staring out across the long-abandoned battlefield at the edge of which they had encamped.
“No, sir.” Sandro responded, “I only recall you telling me you served under the banner of Dagomar.”
Ferrante nodded slowly, closing his eyes as the recollections flooded his mind.
“Indeed. For over a decade I was a knight of Dagomarca, serving in the cavalry of the King-Elector himself. I was by his side when he was torn from his horse during the Battle of Alcogna, and I remained there until sickness took him two weeks later. Let me tell you of that, his final hour, for that is also the hour of my ascension.”
He paused, looking up to the sky as he took a sip from his canteen.
“It was an evening much like this, in a place much the same. Embers drifted through the air, sparks alighting to the dimming heavens like the burning inverse of rain. I watched them fade away into the sunset as a starry haze, each mote of flame a lost soul vanishing under a bloodstained horizon. The firelight sent its warm reflections dancing across polished plates of discarded armor, gently illuminating the edge of the battlefield as it burned away the coming night. I stood outside my lord’s tent as his time slowly ran out, knowing I could do nothing but watch as the sun dipped below the gentle hills of Alcogna. Eventide arrived alongside the dusk of his life, exquisite and ephemeral, bringing forth the day’s repose.”