The Aerie · 4 dimmings
Halvane Brecc
A commander of the Aerie's war-birds. He was young in the Seventh Dimming. His face is his ledger.
I · The Aerie Militarum
The Cliff-Hangers
Rung
The Flanks
40 to 50 km up
People
300,000
The Aerie live inside the only weather in the world. They dig the richest ore, cut the only timber and burn the only charcoal, and sell all three to the people above them. And they sell themselves: an Aerie escort is a toll with wings.
- Where
- Brutalist fortresses carved into the storm-wrapped cliffs of the ranges.
- Body
- Storm-hardened, built between the Zenith and the Flotilla.
- Rule
- The Oathmaster, who sells contracts and seals them with one thin red line drawn across a rider's eyes. A rider's face is his ledger, and a wiped line is desertion.
- Make
- Ore, storm-wood and charcoal, bloomery iron, birds, and violence.
- Lack
- Steel (they dig the ore and burn the charcoal, but cannot melt it), oil and cloth.
- Want
- Land. The storm belt is shifting and the cliffs are growing unlivable.
- Believe
- The storm is the world's real weather, and everything above it is soft.
II · Their place
Where they live
III · How they dress
Dress
Cavalry kit for riding through storm: a down-quilted jack under a leather-and-iron cuirass, pauldrons and vambraces, everything strapped tight so nothing flaps. A sword across the back, a knife at the belt, goggles at the throat. No colour, no tokens, no feathers: only the red line.
"Ask an Aerie," say the Flotilla, of anything they will never feel themselves.
IV · The only cavalry
War-birds
Massive, armoured, storm-capable birds, faster than a hundred miles an hour over a short range. They are the only armed thing that crosses the storm belt, and the only thing in the world that can reach a falling god in mid-air.
V · Of this nation
Their people
The Aerie · 8 dimmings
The Oathmaster
Sells the Aerie's contracts, and draws the red line across a rider's eyes with his own thumb.