Von Richthofen Family/Markus/Markus HM/Field
Shenanigans of the Dark Fox of Caligus
Message sent to all nobles in the region Ar Mosul
Riding on his armored charger, Morgenstern, Markus moves about the encampments of the Caligan troops with ease. At each gathering of men, he stops to tell them to come to the central command tent a few hours before sunrise. After making the rounds to his Marshals and the other notable Nobles and Royals that had shown up for the destruction of Ar Mosul, he goes back to his tent for a few minutes to breathe before facing the large crowd of victorious warriors. Dismounting and tying the large striped beast up to a nearby hitching point he grabs his saddle bags and enters his tent.
Going straight to his trunk, he removes a beer and uses his combat dagger to pop the cork out.Taking several un-healthy swigs, he checks himself in the polished tin mirror he had brought with him. Since getting elected High Marshal of Caligus, he was expected to be the ultimate in precision and propriety. Black hair back behind his ears, grey eyes sparkling with murderous intent, two blades obviously visible, and with his trademark white with red trim cloak on, Markus brings the bottle with him outside and up onto a short stack of crates so he can overlook the gathering of men moving up the aisles of the camps. He motions with the bottle for everyone to get in close and to sit. When all the troops had gathered, and certainly some spies for the enemy, Markus began his speech under the glare of wicked moon.
"Brothers and Sisters in Arms! Caligans! Perdanese! Congratulations to you all! We have proven that Ibladesh is not all powerful or guarded by any gods! Look at what a pitiful attempt Ibladesh gave as defense for their lead rally point?! With our two realms working together, the religious zealotry and unfair persecutions of the South shall be either limited or all together destroyed! Our children will not have to fear that their religion is chosen for them upon birth! True freedom is at the end of this war my comrades, such a golden age as has never been seen on the Eastern Continent!!! We shall bring this age into being!! As long as we stand firm, we shall never fall!!!" waving his bottle around the whole time and splashing those nearest him with foam for 'emphasis', the rather inebriated High Marshal overbalances, and falls off the crates just after finishing his hopefully rousing speech. Somehow, no more beer spills out of the bottle on the way to the ground, and Markus just lays his head back against one of the crates and takes another long swig. A content smile passes his face and he falls asleep bottle in hand.
His newest captain, a young Cavalryman named Meinhart of not unpromising abilities, then proceeds to yell at the crowd to disperse, and motions for two more of the Stürmreiter men over to help attend to their Lord. Being extremely careful not to upset the beer in Markus' hand, they somehow manage to get him into his tent and onto his cot.
Message sent to all nobles in the region Leibo
Several hours before sunrise, Markus can be seen riding through the Caligan encampment in Leibo, watching the units that are looting leave and coming back with their spoils of war. Surrounded by his elite guard, and curiously enough marked by no banners, the troop of Cavaliers moves undeterred wherever they wish. The Caligan troops looked tired of travel, and ready for a proper battle. Earlier in the day, a handful of peasants dared rise against the Caligan legions... Most of the soldiers of Caligus that were in Leibo couldn't even reach the skirmish before it was ended by the professional soldiers of the Crown.
During the course of his ride through camp, several couriers approach the unit, deliver their messages and swiftly blend back into the shadows. Each man in the fifty strong unit knows to just pass the message towards their Captain who passes it on to Markus. Every one of the letters that arrives, after leaving it's encasing, dissolves into a powder quickly in the cool breeze that stirs across the land. Several unflattering words escape from the High Marshal's lips as he peruses each one of these reports. After the third of these messages arrives, Markus loudly shouts, paying no mind to who might be in earshot:
"By Charon's bloody paddle!! Will it never cease?! Orders are orders, and they are specific for a reason! First we had to deal...."not even noticing the shocked looks he's getting from his men, Markus naturally returns to his preferred state of communication: Grumbling incoherently. With a distracted hand, he maneuvers a bottle of ale out of his saddlebags and manages to use some handy invention he had bought in Domus to remove the topper. Four healthy swigs later, the eldest von Richthofen uses his legs to make his horse turn around the way they came and head back to his tent. The captain of the Stürmreiter, Meinhart, motions silently for the unit to follow suit.
Upon reaching his own personal encampment, which had grown considerably with what Markus insisted on calling 'Campaign Trophies', the unit splits up into their normal groups and begin settling in for a few hours of sleep. Ibladeshian scrap armour, broken weapons, and a few items that were bagged up and as such, unknowable, littered the area like flotsam on a beach after a storm. The men were quite alright with it, knowing their Lord's penchant for strangeness, and several men used some of the bags as headrests for when they slept. Not a single man went to bed before properly tethering and stripping down his horse, patting it dry, ensuring food and water was in easy reach of the beasts, and then helping each other remove the heavy armour from their bodies for rest. No games were played this night or jokes told among the men, for their Lord had been in a fell mood of late and none of them wished to test his ire.
Without waiting to watch the usual evening antics of his men, Markus dismounts with barely a whisper of sound, grabs his saddlebag and motions for Meinhart to take care of his horse, Morgenstern. Ducking inside his spacious, yet still cluttered, tent, he moves to his bed and without removing his boots, falls face first into a steady and rather drunken sleep.
When his duties of tending Morgenstern and his own horse are finished, Meinhart checks on his Lord and notes his boots being on. Instead of doing what most Captains would do for their Lord in such a position, Meinhart grabs the quill and ink on the desk, rolls Markus over and proceeds to darken the areas around his Lord's eyes. It was painstakingly slow work, and Meinhart had to be careful not to disturb Markus, but after twenty minutes the Captain stood back and examined his masterpiece. Not wishing to be caught in the tent without leave, and surely not after his vandalism tonight, Meinhart places the ink and quill back on the desk and leaves just as silently as any of Markus' associates knows to do.
