In my first winter as a Vlandian vassal, Sargot fell to the Battanians. Preoccupied with the first Sturgian war, the cowardly savages bided their time and took the city while our armies were far away, fighting a different enemy deep in frozen North. There was nothing we could do.
Sargot resisted. In the dead of night, a Vlandian blacksmith named Erdurand armed a small militia of farmers and tradesmen and instigated a bloody rebellion. Only a week after the savages had breached the city walls, they were scurrying back over them like rats; fleeing Sargot and retreating back into the mountains.
Erdurand became something of a Vlandian folk hero after that. Derthert had granted him lordship. He found a wife and started a family. After I befriended him, I became so fond of him that I was compelled to take him under my wing. I bolstered his army with elite soldiers from my garrisons and I used my influence in the kingdom to validate his own. I fought beside him in countless battles against the enemies of Vlandia, and in a poetic twist of fate, every square foot of land that had ever lay in the shadow of the Battanian banner, had become Erdurand's.
It is the early winter, 1099. It has been 13 years since the Sargot rebellion. We are at war with the Khuzaits and their horse archers are the most ferocious enemy that we have ever faced in battle. The kingdoms of Sturgia and Battania are fading memories of the past. Years have gone by with not a single fief to split between them. The remainig lords and their men have been reduced to wandering war parties, seemingly hell bent on raiding Vlandian villages and disrupting my caravans. I admit that I have grown to hate them with a burning conviction. It is a great pleasure of mine to hunt them down and collect their heads.
There are no words for the sickness I felt when I first heard the news. A passing Empire caravan had said that the kingdom of Battaina had risen from the ashes. They said that my most trusted friend, Erdurand, was a traitor to Vlandia and had turned all his fiefs over to Battanian rule. Impossible, I thought. Vicious rumors and lies. Then I heard it again from a Vlandian caravan. Then I heard it again.
With the Kings blessing, this will be my last night in Tyal fighting the Khuzaits. At first light, I will march my men across Calradia in a campaign to retake every city and castle captured by Battanian insurgents, and I will bring justice to Erdurand, the traitor of Vlandia. Our supplies are packed and our horses are saddled. Tonight, we will rest.
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