Chương 397: 11.6

Evren soared through the air of his home vault, eyes keen for any movement in the air along the border. Murad and his heaven chained princes had stopped trying to send the crawling lines of marching armies early into the summer heat. Even when he could not personally strip them from the world with his erasing wind or a word of sorcerous command upon the sky and its wrath they would have been suffering terrible losses. He wondered if his former handlers regretted having him train so many dragon hunters now.

Did they even realize what he learned from always playing the lumbering beast under Károly Wyrmbane's instruction? He suspected very few did, even discounting most were now dead. No matter how vast, how powerful, how overwhelming in power, the great beasts of the world were slow, lumbering, their very size is a ponderous weight which narrowed their options.

Even Evren with his wind and the ability to call on the world itself to act on his behalf was bound by his size and body, even with his wind filling him with lightness he could not change his direction too swiftly once he'd committed to it. And the armies of Murad were beasts far larger than Evren. Threading loops of men marching on a thousand legs, with bellies made of hundreds of wagons, teeth and claws in thousands and thousands of swords, spears, arrows and the beaks and talons of wargryffs.

Vast monsters crawling over the land, devouring entire villages in their hunger. Terrible monsters which could crush even Evren, drown him in gryffs and bring him down with clouds of arrows. But they were not invulnerable, even beyond the insatiable hunger of the armies they also had eyes and hearts and other sensitive parts just waiting for the right strikes to blind or slay them entirely. Disperse them like smoke.

Generals, Commanders and all the other officers, all carefully laid out in the very books Evren had been given to read by the awful High King himself. Each tender spot was a delicate enough weakness that they didn't even require the full might of a Wyrm to pierce them. Not even a full wizard." You didn't have to stay, Your parents didn't have to stay, none of you owe this land anything more. The Vanaand was forced onto you. Why didn't you tell them to leave with me for their safety shepherd wyrm?

After everything I've done to protect them! After the wound I took for them from the Shining Doom!" Fizzbunches had not been pleased with his or his family's decision." If Murad came upon the vanaand without me to protect it, what would he do to the people in the hills? In the cities? Not just the snub faced men and women but what will he do to the Gutti of the Vanaand? Of Kars? What would he do to those that celebrated me as their prince?"

He'd silently snarled and hissed when Evren's mother and father had refused to leave for Ghergeintat. The cat shaped wizard had given an ultimatum." If the armies of Murad out maneuver you and your band of slinking hill fighters, I will do what I promised, Shepherd of the Vanaand. Your family will be safe, but I will not expose myself again if the countess takes to the field against you Evren."

His family would leave if it came to that but Evren couldn't leave, and if he was staying to protect their home his family refused to go either. Not even Hazim had agreed to flee with Fizzbunches. The steward sent by the former 'regent' to keep his family had knelt and swore loyalty to him immediately! Dorka was scared but fierce as she sometimes could be, his eldest brother determined and hard his father's eyes wary but ready.

His family had lived in these hills for generations weathering the efforts of the lords of the Vanaand in hard times before. They would not leave unless absolutely necessary. Evren had asked Fizzbunches then the question that had shocked the silenced cat to gaping.

"Do I have enough real power to command Kars and its soldiers?" So much had changed with that one question. Apparently he had the real power while also lacking itt. Many of the nobles and their officers had tried to turn against him. But the rank and file soldiers and far more importantly the people of Kars who had lived for years under the Regent's lies now made into truth? Who had heard every good thing from the palace of Kars was Evren's doing? And every theft and coin took to be the act of his Regent?

They had been ready to rise up even with word of Murad's declaration of war against him. For some even because of it! The fighting had been brief and vicious in the city as soldiers turned on officers and nobles. If only all of them had chosen to fight for him, but the leashes of the heavens were on far too many necks in Kars. It made his wind bite his ribs, even if he was the one holding the leash, it had to be corrected.

That was his second proper act as Prince of the Vanaand, He'd walked through the city, bereft of all the rattling metal and etched fur. All the burdens of 'finery'. He'd moved like a shepherd gryff instead of the over-stiff idol his keepers made him be, halfway through the city his 'loyalist' soldiers had hurried to try and erect themselves as the familiar walls against the people like usual. But now Evren had commanded they cease to divide the city from him.

With the voice he'd been taught and ordered to use by his 'teachers' he directed them to follow him instead of blocking the way of the people of the city. He let all the people of Kars approach, to even touch him if they dared. He was not in danger from them. No one in that crowd had a spear strong enough to pierce his scales.

And then after walking the city, gathering up every soldier and guard that had joined 'his' side in the square before the keep he'd done the only thing he could for so many slaves trapped by words and stars." I am Evren, I am who you call the Wolf Prince of the Vanaand.

The High King Murad is a fiend, a murderer with his own child's blood on his hands twice over now, and he and his slaves, prince and soldier alike are now coming for both you and me, just because you welcomed me as your prince, and just because I dared to defy his lies and betrayal." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. He had spoken to Kars not in the court's tongue, not in the language that only the soldiers and some of the richer citizens would understand.

But in the words of the commoners, of every citizen of Kars, of the lands of the vanaand. He had learned to look for it, feel for it, he could tell that the vows of Magarska's army held like talons in the flesh of its soldiers, every one of them here in Kars was bound. Even without the words in the officer's and general's handbooks he had read Evren would know when a man was bound by the heavens to obey."

I will fight for my home against Murad and his slaves, but I will not use the sorcery of such a fiend, I will protect you as well as I can, as I would my own flock, for I am Evren and I am a Shepherd." He'd spoken with his wind, with the thing that had been buried and choked in lies and falsehoods for half his life. Now finally free!" But I will have no man bound to my service with the leashes of the High King or the heavens." The words had echoed in the world, carried by his wind.

He felt them drag on his own strength when he spoke them." So as my last command as the princeps of the Vanaand I hereby command, no soldier's vow shall hold further, I release you from the chains of the heavens, may no man stand with me against Murad that does not do so with the true loyalty of his heart." And that had broken the vows to the stars and freed the soldiers of Kars from their bondage to Magarska and Evren, he'd expected most of them to leave without the army's leash.

Instead the soldiers had almost to a last man knelt and swore to defend the Vanaand with him. Not only the soldiers and guards that had felt the touch of the gods on their necks but the many men from among the city folk! It had spread like a fire on dry straw from there. Lords, soldiers, officers, the slaves of Magarska bound by words to the heavens had flocked to Evren to be released from their bondage. Not even all of them had been from the vanaand!

Before the armies from the capital closed off passage into the hills and fields of 'his' principality. He swept his gaze one last time over the passes which would allow a proper march east towards Kars and his family's hills. The volunteers who moved along the ground and in the foothills on the peaks had stopped reporting attempts to scout other roads for Murad's armies. No more signs of scouting Gryff flights. No more attempts to overwhelm him in the air ahead of the armies with sheer numbers.

No more did the armies of Murad try to draw him into ambushes in the air where sheer numbers might overwhelm him and drag him down to be skewed by wyrm hunting spears. But likewise no further could the people of the vanaand push back the armies. Beyond the shelter of their hills the sheer vastness of the armies would surround and destroy them. So was the Vanaand held. It had lasted all summer so far, and if they could last into the winter it would force most of the army home or risk starvation.

But still he heard from the many scouts and messenger gryffs sent to Kars of the bands and families how heavy the toll already was. Thousands upon thousands of tragedies and mourning mothers, wives, brothers, sisters. Purposeless death all because the bloody countess Jewel of Viznove demanded that the people pay in blood for a senseless war! Because she had denied him his curse upon Murad and his princes. She haden't even asked him what he had planned! She'd simply denied the justice they were due!

She'd acted like he had not planned all night or listened to the pain an ill placed word had caused Havel! He'd chosen his words carefully! Murad and his princes alone would have been made to feel justice! To suffer the pain and hunger of all that they and their vassals commanded be done to the people of Magarska. To know the sting of every mother's cheek who was struck by their soldiers, to want with the hunger of every belly left empty by their greed! But the countess had denied that!

He'd thought she saw a mistake, had realized that it would not be enough justice for the true crimes that only she as one who dealt directly with Murad deserved! That he had somehow failed— that there was only death deserving for the High King of Magarska! But then she had denied him that too! Berated him for something she herself knew not, like a child she'd understood and predicted! She had given the monster one chance after another to save his own skin! Had not even asked Evren to explain his curse!

But no, like a reflection of Murad, the Countess wanted to see the world bleed. Evren hoped she was getting her fill of blood from the villages and cities of northern Magarska. Murad the monster and the Shining Doom deserved one another with their filthy greed. Why wouldn't she want bloodshed? After all, she had unleashed the Vampires on the world! Fizzbunches had confirmed the king's accusation of her own involvement.

He'd finally revealed it to Evren, silently explaining the horror he had witnessed unleashed by the Shining Doom of Viznove. Proper!? Noble?! He came in for a landing in the nearest of the encampments of those that had chosen to stand with him to protect the vanaand. The one who had once been named Wolf Prince dipped his head to the leader of the band and spoke softly, casually in the tongue of the people around him and not the stilted words of the Noble's Magarskan.

"The closest army of Murad the kinslayer remain still on their side of the pass, captain. Is there anything more you need to know? Messages ferried to any others in the effort?" The Gutti man had black fur with white speckles, not the tan of his family's hills, wearing light leathers and little armor, for it was not their way to fight the beast of Magarska's army to stand in open fields and wait for them to try and pierce you.

The vanaand fought like wyrmslayers, striking swiftly, bleeding the ponderous beasts, cutting at their weaknesses. Then melting away into the hills. The man's ears were held high and alert but his eyes had mostly lost the fear or awe that the first volunteers in the effort had once held for Evren. His tail even gave a few nervous wags as he smiled softly.

"A village southwest of here lacks a messenger gryff eyrie, some of the men worry for their families, if you could set their hearts at ease with news their loved ones still fare well, that would be a boon to my men." Evren nodded, as he'd seen the people working the fields and tending their flocks in his flight.

"Gladly, the harvests are coming in well and if my count is right from yesterday's flight there are easily a dozen new lambs in the flock this morning. All is well by my sight." The Gutti Captain, who Evren had yet to learn the name of, nodded and his smile widened, eyes sparkling, the honest joy in his tail growing more relaxed and sweeping wider.

"Excellent news, and our thanks to you, War Shepherd." Evren nodded hard then prepared to take flight, there were other encampments he had to update on what he could see. He took off, not as a commander, a lord or even a prince. He'd refused every title that the people of the Vanaand had tried to give him. He'd not use the sorcery of the enemy, whether they were the binding chains of heavenly vows or the titles of lords and princes. Evren was none of those things. He was a Shepherd. And he would rule no one.