The woman came to Gingloa at the head of an army, riding atop a gergedat under the banner of House Agares. Though the majority of the army remained outside the city to set up camp, the message was clear: whatever the woman was here for, they would be wise not to deny her. As she rode down the central street accompanied by a retinue of mounted soldiers, the people stopped to watch her pass. Whoever she was, she was very wealthy. She wore a hauberk of steel maille over a knee-length crimson aketon, and over that her armor was thick scales of gilt steel worked in the shape of feathers. Pinned to her shoulders was a cloak of crimson silk. Her pointed helm with its long nasal guard was steel, and at its peak were fastened three red feathers of command. A fringe of steel scales hung from her helm to cover her face and neck, but as she looked across the upturned faces of the townsfolk they could see she had the olive skin and dusky eyes of the Garanic tribes of the central Markheb. Her mount was similarly attired; the Zuniceratops was caparisoned in red silk, with its horns and snout sheathed in steel and its rounded frill draped in scales of bronze. Behind her rode her standard bearer, and from his ornate staff hung a crimson gonfalon with a man riding a crocodile with a bird of prey perched upon his fist.
Continue reading “[Fiction] The Messenger”
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