- PreambleIt is only with the Prince's passing that I dare record these words onto parchment. While Vlad's terror cannot be expressed through mere language, this work will be my feeble attempt to do so. Custom wills me to list my name on these pages, but I mustn't, for fear of the results: Vlad will not die with simple exhaustion of mortality, and in each shrill wind his foreboding spirit looms heavily over me. He may be dead, but his demonic spirit is eternal. Vlad Dracul will not die; nonetheless, these pages will bury him.
Every civilisation seeks its own unique purpose. The Turks view themselves as the predominant Islamic empire, spreading the bloodied wings of the Mohammedan eagle from furthest Arabia to the hillsides of Europe. The blood that slips mockingly from its wings form a parchment of her conquests, whilst its fiery eyes focus on Christendom's twin glories of Constantinople and Rome - one having already fallen. The Serbs, defeated though they may be by the Turkic hordes, believe their nation made the ultimate sacrifice for her Christian brothers: beaten and flayed incalculable times by the Muslim, they sought only invaluable time for the Christian nations of Europe to prepare for the Turkic onslaught rather than their own survival.
The Wallachians, however, are a curious lot. It is 1469, two years since Vlad was overthrown by the Mavrocordats. The last decade has seen Wallachia rise as a Balkan empire only to fall at the Sultan's hand, reduced now to the city of Tirgoviste. The Turks are ever-present, whether through siege or through fear: the Oastea seized the postwar opportunity for a virulent revolution in the Wallachian city-state, and never again will it commit itself to the unreadiness that let the Turk tear through the lands it supposedly protected. With the Oaesta riddled by divisions and plots, bankrupt Wallachia waits for the inevitable klaxon of Islam to bring down its walls.
Contents
Vlad Dracula: 1456-1467
Teodosiu Mavrocordat: 1467-?
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