Chapter 1982: Rapid Expansion - Part 6
Then what of Ernest, that city with so much history? To Oliver, that was even easier, for he could feel it in the place, see it in the graves, and in the empty suits of armour. The dead, and all the centuries that had existed before their current time, they were held in Ernest like a bank. The meaning that had rung strongly in their time, as loudly as the bells that rang above Claudia’s churches. The sufferings that they had endured, the victories that they had won, and the defeats that they had barely survived. Ernest was all those things.
Ernest was a library of humanity, it was thousands and thousands of lives, and hundreds of great men, all of them searching in Ernest for what it meant to be a Stormfronter. Corrupt men they might have been, in the way that all men were corrupt. Men that had made poor decisions, and men who had, at the same time, shone with that blinding white light that accompanies all heroes.
When he drew away from it, and he held it like that in his heart, Ernest was a great burning bonfire, as bright as the sun. It was that which helped to cast away the looming foggy darkness of an uncertain future.
There were men like Greeves, lurking in the shadows, casting a gloomy tinge on it all. Inflicting suffering, and taking advantage of those that dared to show the slightest bit of weakness. It was a battleground as much as a city. Peace, and a certain degree of wisdom at times might have rained there, but it was the individual battles that gave rise to those tall dancing flames.
And in times of war – that was when the heat of the fire of Ernest was truly shown. When those Blackwells, and those old men of House Black did summon their banners. When they departed, amidst crowds of gathered townspeople, looking upon those solemn-faced men, and they gave them the full loudness of their cheers, encouraging them towards victory. Then, Ernest was not a city of people. It was an entity, with personality of its own, firmly dyed the colours of House Black that saw it ruled.
When they returned with their armours bloodied, and their men wounded but mighty – the townspeople again cheered, even louder than before. And the taverns opened their doors to all that might fit in, and the beer flowed well enough that rivers of it could have run down the street. The celebration of those victories, and then the same toasts in defeat, given with sombre hearts. Every brick of the city remembered it. There was so much wisdom, if one paused to listen. To lose Ernest would be to lose a piece of Stormfront’s memory. They would all be weaker for it.
The monsters that gathered in those Black Mountains, and tormented the nearby villages. They gave the poetic image to the hardness of living, in those small places like Solgrim, without proper soldiery to defend themselves. As if it were not difficult enough to simply make a decent enough living that they might survive the winter, they had Pandora’s spawn, and the eternal threat of the Yarmdon to contend with.
To live like mountain goats, barely clinging to the side of a cliff, in a constant and commendable suffering. There one found even more strongly a flavour that was Stormfront in nature. They found a beating heart of the country. The willingness to endure to such a degree, without descending – for the most part – in a countrywide debauchery. To be influenced enough by the well-spoken noble aim of honour, even if the nobles themselves had forgotten. To rely on the spirit of community not simply because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the only option, if they were to endure the harshness of their circumstance.
A single village – whether it be Solgrim or otherwise – would be a loss to the Stormfront. For a single one of them to disappear, they would find themselves lesser for it. Those peasants, quietly in their endurance, already in the civil war had made themselves properly known. They had raised up their spears and fought for their say in Ernest’s future.
Hardly, it did seem, that Oliver Patrick had a part in it. The solemness of his thinking lately, as he wrinkled his brow, and tried to organise all that had happened almost seemed wasted. For indeed, he had his own wants that would rise up from time to time. But there were too the wants of the people, pushing at him. There were the wants of the Stormfront itself.
It was those wants that had seen Oliver Patrick absentmindedly put a crown upon his head, as if it was the most natural thing to do. An act that the Oliver Patrick of recent weeks had struggled to understand upon reflection, he wondered what it was in his fingers that had set them towards such a cause.
Stood there then, with that certain sensation in his heart, and the distant eyes of another creature, he had no trouble understanding. At least, not to the point where he could feel the emotion of doubt. Still his mind could not put it into words, but his heart stirred with purpose. He didn’t understand it, but at the very least, he knew his role, and he found himself content with it. The Stormfront itself had pushed him to put a crown upon his head – so he would play that role for it. Not truly as a King, for he had no tools to understand truly what kingship meant. But as a servant for that country that he did so admire, as a servant to that landscape of overwhelming beauty that he wished to yield none of to no one. He could well be a servant to that, and to the memory of the First King that could put it into place.
It was to ghosts, and the Stormfront itself that Oliver dipped his head towards. To fight in service of Queen Asabel was a thing he sorely missed. He found he enjoyed the role of service, and the purpose that it brought. But for her memory, he could serve the highest ideal. He could fight in service to the country itself. To die for it – there was bliss in that. To do all that he could to bring the impossible into fruition. To engage in a siege that was not only for destruction, but for capture. To lay his hands on the High King overwhelmingly enough that he could take him prisoner, and not simply take his life during the chaos of battle. For the likes of the Stormfront, he could smile with purpose and declare that he would endeavour to do just that – with the fullest strength of his being.