The Fall of Fyorlund by Roger Taylor

Author:Roger Taylor [Taylor, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Fantasy, epic fantasy, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 1843192748
Google: ijgJOc6b5NcC
Amazon: B005JPST22
Publisher: Mushroom eBooks
Published: 2002-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

The death of Etron and the subsequent death of his killer was like the start of a fever in the City. The mutual disdain with which the High Guards and the Mathidrin had treated one another slipped easily into almost open warfare.

The more decorative and ornamental Guards were easy prey for the Mathidrin. Outraged by the abuse and scorn levelled at them loudly and publicly, they would eventually respond with some form of ineffectual violence and finish up being soundly trounced for their pains. Beatings and woundings grew daily.

The older Guards, and those whose Lords kept to the old traditions, were, in general, less abused and more able to handle such abuse as did come their way. However, they took the hurts deeply, and slowly and inexorably the Mathidrin found their swaggering domination of the City being resisted by a quiet and grim opposition. The more experienced Guards might be difficult to provoke into street brawling, but they began to ensure that no insult to their own went unanswered.

Apart from the avenging of Etron’s death, their reprisals were almost good-humoured, and offending Mathidrin were found wandering in conspicuously public places bound and trouserless, or covered in paint or horse manure, or otherwise bizarrely decorated.

This interlude, however, passed all too quickly, and soon there accumulated a bloody, if covert, record of wounding for wounding and, eventually, killing for killing. The Mathidrin soon found how to provoke the High Guards into open and public combat. They turned their attentions increasingly to the citizens of Vakloss. Anyone who failed to step aside quickly enough, or who did not have a sufficiently respectful look on their face, or who happened to be conveniently available, was liable to be roughly handled, and anyone who offered any protest or resistance would be severely beaten.

Shopkeepers and stallholders had their goods ‘commandeered’ and could look to have more taken, or their premises wrecked if they demurred. Fear began to spread through the streets of the City and the roads of the countryside like a fen mist – dank and evil-smelling.

Many of the Lords, frustrated by their own impotence, acquiesced in the silent vendettas being pursued by their Guards, but it took no great military experience to smell an organized ambush in the new tactics adopted by the Mathidrin.

‘Chew on your sword hilt.’ The order went out from Lord right down to cadet in troop after troop. The hope being that no response would cause the Mathidrin to abandon this strategy. All knew that it was only a faint hope and soon a certain fatalism began to possess the Lords as, rather than ceasing their actions, the Mathidrin increased them.

The Lords appealed to Dan-Tor and again he faced them individually and plied them with inconsistencies. ‘I’ll look into what you’ve reported, but there’s so much conflicting evidence. The Mathidrin have hard and unpleasant tasks to perform at times, rooting out disaffection and even treachery. They suffer a great deal of abuse and provocation from the people and they may well make mistakes from time to time, but .

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