Chương 369: 9.1

Jewel looked upon the walls of Terminapolis. Weathered Old Cantor construction, patched and topped by newer stone blocks to keep the edifice even. Rising easily thirty feet high on the southern bank of the river. A single span of surviving old Cantor wrought stone bridging ahead of her in a solid arch, all one piece of white stone. Wide enough for two wagons and now cleared almost entirely.

Magarskan soldiers stood in a rank at either side of the bridge clear to the city gate, heraldry and armor in white and red with shining hints of green. Swords at their belts, banners held in every tenth man's hand in the colors of their Kingdom and then in alternating colors that Jewel could just recognize as being the heraldry of the twelve Principalities under the High King.

Jewel strode at the head of her entourage, first as the esteemed lady, countess and representative of her realm but also as the greatest force in martial might in her party. At her left was Erhard on foot, on her right Paul on their best rested charger. Then the ranks of the wizard's Halberdiers followed to either flank. Moving in lockstep synchronicity. The Black and yellow of the realm's colors and the all encompassing carapace shining like gigantic wasps.

After was the rest of Jewel's own foot and direct entourage, the wagon carrying her gift for the High King, and then her guests from the families of Viznove and the greater Realm. The black and yellow waved alongside Viznove's black and crimson in the cool wind of what should have been the start of winter! But the dacian vault had continued to be unseasonably warm! Where was the snow? The biting rain? It had its rain but what storms came were nothing compared to what Viznove would expect for this time of year!

It was a heat and dryness suitable for Debt's season! Not three days past Autumn! Even before she had crossed halfway over the bridge Jewel could feel the touch of old miracles in the stone. Not just the more familiar cantor working of sorcery, but the direct intervention of a god's attention. The undercurrent of its presence was sparse, quiet, eroded and softened in the oldest stones. All but absent from the newly carved ones.

Beyond her wyrmish sense of divine intervention though Jewel's other senses filled with the encroaching presence of the city. It was mostly hidden from sight now, but their approach down the hills north of Terminapolis had shown it to be every much as expansive a mass of buildings as Burning Depths Ford. Just where Light's End and the Cantor Reborn Capital layered their structures one over another Terminapolis spread itself widely. From the height the greatest definition of the city was the joining of two rivers.

The Tonsus that they now crossed feeding south where it joined with the Evros' flow from the west. But after those defining banks Terminopolis' most distinguishing feature were foundations of old Cantor walls, nested one sweeping loop within another. Even where the city had made an attempt to overgrown such great works they did so with rising swells of buildings anchored in the solid stone.

And within the last two perimeters of those ancient walls was the palace grounds of the High King of Magarska, a full quarter of the city taken up by the greater fortress' grounds of the outer section. Open plazas of sand with men training in bouts even now in what should have been winter. Soldiers in such numbers Jewel could recognize the formations even from the distance of the foothills! And in the very center most squares of old Cantor walls rose the heights of the palace itself.

A structure which held almost no signs of Old Cantor workings by her judgement, and all the more impressive for it! For without the sorcery of the old empire Magarska's Capital Palace was like a gleaming Jewel of black and white marble, a match for High King Mathias' own. Four towers rising so high that she could still see their spires even as they approached the open gates of the city! And now the sound of a teeming crowd became clearer, the familiar cheering of a festival made in welcome.

As with every other major city of Magarska since Bledaten and Pyrenean the populace turned out for a chance to celebrate! Half of Jewel's merchant tagalongs had once again made a rush ahead of her march, priming the way with riches, or just trying to secure some peddler's greedy enterprise. She even spotted and smelled a few of them among the crowd as they entered.

Music from strange instruments announced her entrance to the gate with a fanfare of foreign tones and a cheer was offered up from the colorful variety that had grown with every city further south Jewel had reached. Men and women in a rainbow of skin tones and features. Dog faced, scale skinned, deep browns, palest whites, reds, blues and greens. Feathers and wildly varied hairs and clothing moved among those crowds in a dizzying array. This novel's true home is a different platform.

Support the author by finding it there. Figures that were almost waifish in their short stature, others towering chest and shoulders over their fellows. She'd not even imagined to actually witness the tusked men spoken of by Pythra of Veracules. But here they were, in the Dacian Vault, just neighboring her own home, instead of distant and storied Sindhu! She kept herself proper, strode through the streets of Magarskan's capital.

Listening to stones stir and whisper to her in a sleepy kind of surprise of her presence. But Gem peered from her place on the treasure wagon close behind, gawking with all the wonder that her larger self could not afford to show. Marveling at the strangeness of her home's ancestral enemy. As she had realized was common in Magarska Gryphons of all kinds, shapes and sizes were present everywhere in the capital.

Not even being kept solely in the hands of the soldiers and lords, but amidst what seemed to be the commoners of the city itself! Not great and noble steeds like her father and brother rode of course, but smaller things. The size of cats or hounds. Some even barely larger than messenger doves and often fitted with panniers to serve much the same function! In the air she saw their many sized forms moving across the sky on what were most certainly numerous tasks.

Magarska's mastery of beasts in war was the tale of many records from the last war, but to see them used beyond it still amazed Jewel. Even more so for their coordination! Moving in flocks and great sweeping chevrons with the Dacian winds overhead. And onward she marched. Down the major thoroughfare to the palace quarter. Into the heart of Terminapolis.

The buildings of course had that distinct Magarskan character, with the many watch towers for what she had learned were the lesser gryphon aeries (and Light's End had converted into light houses). Narrow spires that for all their height still fell short of the ever dominating white and black pillars of the Palace itself.

When they passed the second swelling rise of a former Cantor wall the character of the buildings changed, gone were the more cramped and tightly packed buildings full of windows and stinking of men and women in close quarters. The air was already clearing and the buildings now mingled with open plazas and squares. The merchant stalls became prominent, even more of the familiar peddlers she had seen rushing ahead of them in the morning were present. Selling wares and haggling shamelessly with the crowd.

The finery of the crowd improved, the cloth growing more billowing. Colors more vibrant and varied from what Jewel suspected were the local Magarskan dyes. Then after weaving along a third and properly maintained wall they made a turn into another gate. As Gem she could look back to the trail of her entourage and see that here the mercantile followers finished dispersing. Shed like a traveler's cloak as they entered a more refined portion of the city.

The height of the general structures rose, the structures becoming paler while the spires of the gryphon aeries became sparser. The crowd was sparser, but those within it were even finer dressed then before. Shining metal inlays and intricate weaves now dominated. Merchants still offered wares but their entreaties were softer, the discourse more refined and quieter. The smell of distant spices, perfumes and extravagant scents (including the hated pungency of saffron) began to fill the air.

And then after moving along another and more solidly fortified wall, which sang all the louder of the touch of ancient divinity, They passed into the gate of the palace complex itself. The crowds of commoners were gone. Soldiers at attention replacing them. Ranked by height and kind. Dog-faced packs standing at attention intermingled with otherwise normal soldiers, a dozen of the tusked men to a side further behind, towering over their fellows, eyes even with Jewel's own gaze.

Cavalry mounted on strangely small horses, slight things that seemed hardly more than deer, and over twenty Gryphon Riders! And then there were the hundreds of strange 'war gryphon' handlers with their beasts standing primly at attention, plumage shining and sleek. All of them dressed in the colors of Magarska with chain and sparse plate. Hanging loosely upon them. All together there were at least a thousand men and a matching number of beasts to each side.

Flanking her approach to the last gate of Terminapolis, and the vast central complex and dome of the Palace proper and its grounds. Where her banner stood to the right of the gate, matching that of Magarska. The sound of revelry now fading behind them. It was all of it, the entire city like a layered defense, more like Kaeketeh than Burning Depths Ford. A city of walls encircling one another instead of a row of islands staggering in defense. A fortress of a city.

And filled with thousands of soldiers of all kinds, ready to leap into service. Proper footmen numerous enough to be levies in any other army! Jewel did not let her unease show. She was here in the heart of her homeland's ancestral enemy. To broker a lasting peace. She had arrived in Magarska's capital.