It was a grim year and a good year, depending upon where you found me.
The cycle of the seasons turned, and the wolf grew increasingly cruel as his stranglehold tightened on the court. I realized, once Uncle had packed up and retreated to the countryside, that he may have, in fact, saved my life. He had put me forward as someone who could serve under any master, and serve I did.
River had advised that I claim little martial talent, and offer my services up as an agricultural official. It worked, and though I saw many of Dreadwolf’s cruelties to the court firsthand, I was saved from carrying any of them out with my own hand.
Lu Bu, the Demon, became his favored instrument of death, and the Demon gloried in the blood he spilled.
One warlord rose up and before anyone else could do more than declare their intentions, the Demon put down the uprising more swiftly than anyone thought possible. Further rebellion shriveled up and those who had exposed themselves were tortured and killed.
It was said that the Demon rode a flaming horse that ate human flesh, but I knew the truth of it, for I saw the Demon ride in and out of court every day. It was scaled like a dragon, monstrous despite being vaguely the shape of a horse, or perhaps a very large dog, and before long, it was famous for its perpetually flaming mane.
RED HARE (Huo Dou Mount)
COLOR / MARKINGS: Black Scales / Mane of Fire
STRENGTH RANK: 1st | SPEED RANK: 12th | DISPOSITION RANK: 1st
RIDER / TRAINER: The Demon of the Gray Wolf Clan / Dreamcatcher of the Dragon Wilds
FOWLING: Blackspar’s Folly, Dragon Wilds, 3rd Year of the Dark Interregnum
For his betrayal of his first liege, Snow Fox, the Demon had earned the mount known as Red Hare. For his slaughter of the Gray Moon-Moth clan, he had already earned another more powerful weapon.
BLADE OF THE FOURTH PERIL: THE INDOMITABLE MONSTER, QIONGQI
TYPE: Pointed Halberd
WEAPON RANK: 1st
LORE: Forged by the Living Blade Mandate of the Vicesmith in the time of the Dark Interregnum, it is said that the Blade of the Fourth Peril represents wrath, and it consumes the souls of those it slays. Their spirits never find peace.
LAST KNOWN OWNER: The Demon
In addition to his sword and his steed, the Demon had built up quite the arsenal as he climbed the ranks. Combining the most feared weapon in the Land Under Heaven with one of the most powerful Mandates known to man, prodigious martial talent, and a complete lack of moral scruples in how he used them all, the Demon quickly came to be regarded as one of the most deadly men in the Land Under Heaven.
One minister thought to recreate Snow Fox’s chastisement and beat the Wolf with a tablet, but if the event left the other ministers with any lasting impression, it was the memory of the top half of the minister dragging his entrails across the throne room floor, having been cut cleanly in two by that halberd. I couldn’t speak as to whether or not the unfortunate minster’s soul was consumed, too, by the weapon.
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The Ox Empress at least had enough dignity to speak up when the Wolf strode into the throne room and forced her son from the throne. For her temerity, Dreadwolf had her stripped naked before the court, claiming that the robes of an empress no longer belonged to her. Suddenly the word “dignity” was very far from anyone’s mind.
Emperor Shining Light – former Emperor Shining Light, now – said nothing as he was stripped of station and sent to an estate far to the north. Oh, not entirely stripped of station – I believe they made him a Commander of something or another – but he was, for all intents and purposes, pinned by the claws of the wolf.
His mother and handmaiden, once sufficiently broken, were allowed to go with him into exile, and it was perhaps their continued survival that ensured his silence. Though a song did rise up from the children as the carriage carrying the deposed leader left the capital. And Dreadwolf did not like it one bit. It was perhaps this song that ensured the eventual death of the former Emperor, along with his entire retinue.
Earth thrust atop heaven, Sun and moon cast down.
Once I had a kingdom, Now a border town.
Robbed of life by lords, Sworn to serve till death.
All is lost in swords, and rivers of tears ahead.
The heir was crowned as his half-brother had been, before a legion of grim-faced, frightened lords, and he was named as his half-brother had been, as well, by an “uncle” who would hold all the real power. In the first year of the first month of the reign of Dignified Calm, only half a year after his father had died and his half-brother had taken the throne, Prince Xie became Emperor Spotted Deer.
Dreadwolf, while cunning, was not a creative man, and his knowledge seemed limited to wild creatures of the hunt, but it was not lost on the court that the Emperor was now a prey animal and his uncle a predator.
The villain’s control of the court was far more complete than the Marshal’s had ever been, or could have ever hoped to be, and, as a sign of this, Dreadwolf resurrected a long-abolished title for himself, granting himself the position of Prime Minister, essentially one of the Three Excellencies, invented to place himself somewhere between Rank 109: Excellency of Works and Rank 114: Imperial Regent.
He no longer had to remove his sword in the Emperor’s presence, nor walk swiftly, nor bow, nor even acknowledge the boy in any way other than to give him orders. The wolf didn’t even bother hiding his atrocities from the boy, as the eunuchs had done before with his predecessors. There was nothing the boy-Emperor could do to stop the man known as Dreadwolf.
Yet, though I served a tyrant in court and could not look away from the grim state of the palace, in the confines of the manor that River had purchased, I was happy, because I returned home every day to a woman that I had fallen in love with.
Officially, the former concubine was nothing to me, rankless, non-existent, until I came home one day in a fit of madness and asked her to marry me.
“Oh?” she replied as cooly as ever, filling a cup of tea before me. “And what would I get in return?”
I was dumbfounded. I floundered for a moment while I thought of an answer.
“A life together,” I said after some stammering.
“We already have that.”
“Well… what about children?”
“What about them?”
“Don’t you want a family?”
“What makes you think I don’t have one already?”
I hadn’t expected this either, and clearly my face showed it.
“I was an Emperor’s concubine, after all. It was my job to make him sons.”
“Do you? Er, did you?”
She gave a small laugh, crossed the room to put her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. She lingered for just a moment more before pulling away, “You didn’t think to ask me that before asking me to marry you?” Another peck and she was gone.
“Wait, you didn’t give me an answer! To anything!” I shouted to the other room, crestfallen and confused.
There was no response. I sighed and rubbed at my face, before turning to the tea to bolster myself after a hard day and an even more confusing start to my evening.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, sort of as narration, or the voice of the people commenting on events.
Romance. Up to the reader to decide if this is just the writers of these cards being superstitious and trying to make sense of the crazy stuff some people can do with Mandates, or if these are the actual creatures from mythology!
