Chương 343: 6.i

To my beloved daughter, Sarolt, By the mercy of the Most High, may this letter reach you with breath still in your lungs and no shadow at your door. You must flee. At once. Make for Orad. Take what you can carry, and trust no road that runs too quiet. If news has not yet found you, then let this serve: the war fares ill, disastrously ill! Wallachia stands not as a wounded province, but as a mouth yawning wide, hungry and unnatural! Count Tepes, that unrepentant butcher and exile, has given himself to darkness.

I speak not in metaphor nor soldier's rumor, he marches with horrors. What rides beside him are not men, though they wear the shape of men. Our blades find their flesh, yet it is we who fall in droves. Ten of ours to bring down one of theirs and even then, not always. They do not tire. Worse: they thrive in battle. Each moment they remain unbroken, they grow stronger. I have watched them with my own eyes.

I have seen young men scream as they are torn apart, and others flee with their hearts still beating yet their minds already lost. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The line is breaking, Sarolt. We, your father and his brother-captains, we are pretending to hold. The High King's legions arrived too late and too few. Wallachia will not be contained. Even were this Tepes to command only these few hundred fiends, he would still match our thousands.

But he commands more than just monsters, the people shelter him and bolster their numbers as traitors, out of fear or some darker allegiance. And when he takes the field… even the bravest among us find prayers caught in their throats. I write this with a calm hand and send it by swiftest messenger gryff, yet my heart is torn. My oath to the heavens binds me to Magarska, and I cannot abandon my post. But you must survive, Sarolt. You must endure. I have seen what they do to the families of the officers. Go.

Do not look back. Orad still stands behind its walls, for now. Find sanctuary there. Your father will hold as long as breath remains in him. This is not farewell from a coward. It is the plea of a soldier loyal to kin and kingdom. Go. Live. Remember. For your loving father, - A Letter from Captain Emin Karaoglu to Sarolt Karaoglu.