“Tell me, Rhydian, what are we going to do about this?” Braydon had called for a meeting of anybody with brains or authority in his castle. The news of the Grand Duke’s death had reached Cliforge yesterday.  “For now it will likely not affect us. Whilst the Grand Duke is dead, it will take the lords of Shuluk a few …

Grand Duke Shuluk had been having a very bad time. Since the war, his nobles had been clamouring for him to abdicate in favour of his son, a child of six years. He could manage that but they also wished for him to go into a self imposed exile. His failure to achieve anything against Fiveria, a severely weakened kingdom, …

Whilst the King had made sure that nobody in his sphere of influence was a spy, his sphere of influence was small. Not everybody in the capital was loyal to the royal house of Fiver, the founding dynasty of Fiveria. That the new viscount had sent a messenger to the king had not gone unnoticed amongst the factional nobility. It …

Aled had been listless for a few days. He had received news that the daughter of Marquess Burgess had run away from her marriage. This had caused his golden blond hair to start greying at the temples, even in his early thirties. The Kingdom he had inherited from his father was strong, but incredibly divided. The King was a figurehead …

Braydon was once again sat at his desk. He found that he spent too much time here for his liking. There was nothing but Colin’s reports on the progress of the roads piling in the corner of the room and a map of Fiveria on the wall. There was nominally a bookcase but books were expensive and he wasn’t much …

For training Braydon usually wore a full gambeson armour, he’d need the padding if he were fighting Rhydian.  Rhydian had forbade him from using plate armour in training. Something about him taking the full brunt of the attacks he received, instead of the armour negating it. While Braydon knew that was what plate armour was meant to do, he did …

Braydon wished he had brought a horse. Nela, also, wished she had brought a horse. They were happy that they had achieved what they had set out to achieve. In fact they had gained even more than they would have hoped, their prospector was also a blacksmith. The problem was that he had hit it off with Gerald as drinking …

Having spent quite some time in the villages in Kirton, it was late afternoon by the time they arrived in Wathamalin. The first thing they needed was to secure a place to stay for the night. It would not be good to be on the streets at night in any town. Braydon was not about to start taking chances when …

Now that the most imminent challenges had passed, Braydon needed to refill his garrison. He had a year’s worth of cash on hand and could find ways to earn it back later. But he could no longer put off having no men under his command. It would be one thing to have no offensive capability, plenty of nobles were in …

“Even though he is pleasant to talk to, it feels like you are talking to a block of wood after a while.” Braydon and Nela were conversing as they were taking a carriage back from Baron Monrow’s estate. Having gone in the hopes of securing a deal for the wheat supply they had, they had expected the man to drive …