Siege of Frightened Fire
At the splitting of the Floods of Cyrriane, during the Lost Emperor Uprising, shortly after a lost, bastard heir of the Eighth Emperor Roland Voloken was stumbled upon by a holy warrior and plunged the Salvae Empire, and the sitting Emperor, Igus Talan V's right in the line of succession, into utter chaos as more evidence slowly came to light proving the bastard's lineage beyond even a shadow of a doubt.
Houses and Families, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, and friends and allies alike, were forced to choose sides between this new, alleged heir and the current successor's lineage. These conflictions would lead to many battles across the Empire's lands in Kalbela and many a fallen house and the extinction of many bloodlines of nobility followed before, during, and after the uprising.
Perhaps none more so then what happened at the Siege of Frightened Fire at Miserth Castle to the newly titled Viscount, Eugene Van Roden by Lady Galiene Lanne, the Phoenix of Torm.
Once the Baroness-Regent of Miserth Castle until her nephew, her elder brother's son, came of age, the young Lady Lanne was forced out of her ancestral house by royal decree when she declared for Roland Voloken's new found bastard-heir over the reigning Voloken, marital bloodline, as many historians made note, she'd done so before news had even left Arine; her advisors and medicine men had made recorded mention that she had been struggling with sleep and having dreams many weeks prior to the bastard's resurfacing, the premonitions clearly prompting her premature declaration that rocked many of the Salvan nobility.
Always the pious and law-abiding woman, she left her home with little fight, but the old goat of House Van Roden would overplay his hand when he would desecrate the castle's shrine to Torm, demand she break her vows of celibacy, and overstep her nephew in succession by marrying his son shortly after her departure, when her family, bannermen, and citizenry still lay out in their ramshackle camps outside the Heartlands as they had for weeks during the winter months of 623 ATS.
She graciously accepted the proposal asking only that every pigeon in the castle and from the town be presented to her as a wedding gift. Von Roden honored the request and four score of crates filled with pigeons were delivered to her bannermen and that was when the Lady Lanne laid a soldier-less siege to the city.
Her bannermen wait outside the castle walls, after she had entered the city, and two of her retainers sneaking into the castle the night prior, her bannermen released the birds with a burning bit of leather tied to the leg, panicked were the simple-minded creatures, fleeing back to their roosts amongst the castle and surrounding hamlets, setting everything alight.
All while the Lady Lanne slipped away in the chaos and her retainers barred the castle's exits from the outside. Von Roden, his family, and his most loyal bannermen were lost in the blaze; marking one of the largest losses of nobility in the Empire during the uprising.
After her work was complete, and the new Emperor, the Twenty-First, Lazarus Volker, had been seated on the throne, she would again surrender her lands and titles to her nephew and wholly devout herself to Torm once again. Her nephew, Dustin Lanne the Second, took charge of his familial lands at the age of twelve, taking a new sigil for the House Lanne: a white gauntlet with a sleeping grey pigeon roosted in hand with a burning string in beak threaded through the gauntlet's fingers on a yellow field; to forever honor his aunt's great victory on behalf of Torm.
The Conflict
Aftermath
The original wooden fort that was Miserth Castle was destroyed in the blaze and House Van Roden and he and all of his heirs and family were destroyed in the process, along with several of his bannermen and their families as well.
Historical Significance
Legacy
The Starfire Blades, Phoenix Fire and Flare, were given to House Lanne from an unknown benefactor a few years post-conflict. The Lannes have had these sister-blades for nearly four centuries now.
In Literature
The history of the Siege of Frightened Fire is discussed in The Great Sieges of the Empire and in House Lanne's historical familial archives.
Included under Conflict
Conflict Type
Siege
Battlefield Type
Land
Start Date
27th Day of Deep Winter, 623 ATS
Ending Date
28th Day of Deep Winter, 623 ATS
Conflict Result
House Lanne Emerged Victorious
Location
