King of Swords 10-166

by Abbadon
Chapter:

“Once, Lord Intra came to the Vale of Stalks. It was a broad land with a hardy and beautiful people that wove stems of grass into elaborate mats. There were frequent harvest songs and offerings to the God of Pigs.

Unfortunately, at the time, the people were starving. The land was ruled by Yem Yeddo and his family, who had sucked the life out of it for some time. That was the way of things in those days. Though the soil was quite fertile, Yem Yeddo had surrounded himself with thickset and well-fed men, who lacked in brains but made up for it in muscle and the same kind of canniness found in very smart dogs. These men he used as tax collectors, and he drained the land of every third, fourth, and fifth bale of crop, and sold it for crude coin, feeding the scraps to his thugs.

Lord Intra arrived at the local way house and was served black bread, as was the custom, but skesh was strangely absent, and the bread was thin and mealy. When Intra asked why, he quickly learned of the lands’ plight.

“What of the peregrine lords that tend this place?” He asked.

“They were killed by thirty men, and hung from a tree for seven days,” said the inn proprietor, with a look like a beaten animal.

Intra could not abide this. He called out to Yem Yeddo in the spare and decaying market square, who brought his thirty men.

“Preem Yeddo,” bellowed Intra, “You are a cruel and petty man. How can you scour this land so and not feel for the people that call it their abode?”

Yem Yeddo laughed. “Let them eat the stones, for all I care,” said he.

Intra, who was not one to balk at such matters, picked up a particularly large rock and said, “So it shall be. I shall feed the people with this stone.”

– The Song of Maybe