Tag: Draconian Crusade
YANORA: Nevertheless, we must have your forces at home, else there may be no home to go to.
GUDIK: God, I’ll lose as many just trying to withdraw as taking the whole kingdom. There’s already two Draconian armies on the way to raise this siege. They’ll never let me just walk away ...
IPOLA: They actually may want to join you.
GUDIK: Fat chance of that!
IPOLA: Yet, they may. Because you know something that the Draconian Church would very much like to know, and that may make all the difference in the world to them.
GUDIK: Oh, Really,
IPOLA: Something that fulfills their own prophecies.
GUDIK: And what is that?
IPOLA: Shuach has awakened the Dragons.
GUDIK: (pause) Pull the other one!
GUDIK: … No. I can’t. It’s impossible at this point.
TETHIK: You must!
GUDIK: Tethik, I make a lot of allowances for you, but don’t you dare ever tell me what the king “must” do.
TETHIK: Then don’t listen to me. Listen to your own common sense. I know it’s in there, buried somewhere under your thick-headed arrogance.
TETHIK: If you don’t leave off this folly now, Kivalia and Erogenia may very well fall to the Urtts. A thousand years of history, all we’ve built will be razed by the enemy to make their own hellscape in Shuach’s image. Then what a nice little petty kingdom you will have here in Greymouth to defend against our enemy that’s stronger than ever!
GUDIK: How am I supposed to do it!? You understand I’ve spent the better part of a year making dead corpses and live enemies of these people. You think they’ll let me just walk away?
Shall we just say, “Oh, sorry - this is Greymouth? We thought it was Greenmouth! Our mistake. Have to pop off now. You don’t mind tidying up for us, do you? There’s a good chap!”
YANORA: Really, dear, it’s not the time to try to be witty.
GUDIK: Mother -
YANORA: And fail.
GUDIK: You see? This is why I’d rather be at war than at home.
A LITTLE BIT LATER …
CU on GUDIK, his brows knitting.
GUDIK: So … the Urtts.
TETHIK: Yes.
GUDIK: Maldik.
YANORA: Yes.
GUDIK: Bloody Deeps … I mean I knew he was an ass, but this is an absolute masterpiece of idiocy.
TETHIK: To say the very least.
IPOLA: Will you leave this war now, and come home, my lord?
YANORA: Proceed, darling. I’m going to sit and have a drink, if no one minds.
THERIK: Your Majesty - I must protest! This … this illusion may be some Draconian trick.
GUDIK: Therik.
THERIK: The Church does not approve of this magick, I am sure. Some power may be trying to deceive you ...
GUDIK: Therik.
THERIK: My lord, I must -
GUDIK: And you just did. Well done. Now kindly shut up.
GUDIK: Believe me, no one can counterfeit my mother, not like this. This is her, in all her insufferable glory.
YANORA: Oh, I love you too, sweet boy.
GUDIK: (pours a wine for himself.) All right, Tethik. Let us hear it. And for your sake this had better be absolutely everything you say it is.
YANORA: You would already know that if you’d taken the ring I offered you when you left, darling.
GUDIK: I travelled two thousand miles to get away from you, Mother. I wasn’t about to take a trinket along with me that lets you nag me from Normos, criticizing every bloody little mistake I make, driving me insane ...
YANORA: And would it be “nagging” to point out that that was, itself, a mistake that could bring down the whole kingdom?
GUDIK: Oh Thrasu’s arsehole, Mother!
THERIK: Your Majesty!
GUDIK: I’ll confess later.
YANORA: As if anything makes a dent in your brain, anyway. You’re solid as a rock, completely direct and literal. Anything bothers you, you just chop it out of your way.
GUDIK: I suppose you’d have me weave webs and deceits like you, then? If I have an enemy I deal with them in the open!
YANORA: Yes, just like your father. And you have all his other faults, as well.
GUDIK: Oh, so now we’re cataloging faults, are we? Shall we open the Tome-sized book of your faults and start reciting, Mother?
YANORA: I’m sure it would be amusing, but we haven’t the time.
GUDIK: It would take an age to get through, wouldn’t it?
TETHIK: Gudik, your Majesties! If I may, perhaps I could answer Gudik’s quite reasonable question and explain the reason for all this time, effort and use of magick.
IPOLA: Of us all I think you can probably explain it best, my friend.
YANORA: Ipola? What is it?
IPOLA: Tethik’s finally got there, Yanora.
YANORA: I see. Best finish dressing, then. Don’t want to scandalize the children.
Ah, Gudik, my little cherub.
GUDIK: Mother.
YANORA: My how sour you look, sweeting. What, siege engines not up to snuff? I do wish you’d listened to Mummy about that.
YANORA: (Sees Thann) Oh, and just *look* who’s here. So this is the one they chose to murder Gudik?
IPOLA: Indeed, I wonder whose idea it was?
YANORA: How very ironic.
THANN: What does that mean? How do you know who I am?
YANORA: (dismissively) The same way I know a great many things, lamb. But never mind.
GUDIK: Will someone tell me what this whole shit show is about? What’s so important that all three of you have to come here, interrupt my perfectly enjoyable little war -
THERIK: “Holy crusade,” your Majesty …
GUDIK: Damn right! It’s a goddamn holy war with the blessing of the goddamn church! And I need to be getting on with it, so what is this magickal hernia for?
THANN: What are you on about, my lord? Why don’t you leave this kid alone?
TETHIK: I am just curious about this whole Holy War, and whether in its prosecution it’s as pointless an exercise in cruelty as all the other wars of men.
THANN: Of course it is. So they don’t rape the women, or at least they get punished when they’re caught. Great. They still do plenty of other atrocities. We all saw the bloody trail the army left behind itself. But they’re doing it for God, so it’s all well and good. “Cho-joranni! Hail The Spirit Kings and destroy Their enemies!”
BARANIR: It would be well if you would refrain from blasphemy, Erogenian.
THANN: In my case, it’s only partially blasphemous, kid. I’m half Kivalian.
BARANIR: (warningly) Even so -
GUDIK (Outside): Agh! This was not a good day!
THERIK(Outside): Not to worry, Majesty! You have God on your side.
GUDIK: Well, tell God to send me better siege engines, then! Those trebuchets aren’t powerful enough to breach the curtain wall! They barely even get the stones over it.
GUDIK, king of Kivalia, enters. Not in a good mood.
With him is BISHOP THERIK, an unctious intellectually-challenged churchman.
Gudik sees Tethik:
GUDIK: Tethik?
TETHIK: Cousin.
GUDIK: What the Deeps are you doing here?!
TETHIK: It’s good to see you, too, your Majesty.
GUDIK: I left you in Normos to keep Maldik out of trouble! Why aren’t you still there?
TETHIK: I -
GUDIK: Wait - it’s not Mother, is it? Is she dead or something?
TETHIK: She was well when last I saw her, Gudik.
GUDIK: Ah. Well, we can’t have everything.
TETHIK: Indeed.
