Nearly three months had passed since the explosion that had thrown a continent into chaos. Three months of bloodshed, ripping apart the continent and empire of Waldenburg, drawing the powers of Tyrrhenia into conflict around it, like a black hole, leaving nothing around it unaffected. Not even the Allamunnic States, long a diplomatic backwater in the region, had escaped its effects entirely. The Haldstadts, a branch of Allamunnic nobility, had watched their kin across the sea take the opportunity to free themselves of Waldenburger influence and drawn independent elements in the states into the war. In the meantime, the diplomatic and intelligence services found themselves having to devote greater scrutiny to the nation's neighbors, and the overall turmoil in the region had seen the public grow uneasy.
Stalhamark was a state that had been heavily-industrialized. Thomasburg, the largest city in the Allamunnic States, produced more steel in a year than some entire countries did in ten. Dunnmaar was a hub of manufacturing and transportation, and the foundaries of Daalfuurge armed the Federal Army. In a state full of factories, foundaries, mines and their ilk, Rone was an anomaly. It was a city that had only a perfunctory industrial presence, and what was there was concentrated mostly in the transportation of goods assembled elsewhere. As a result, it had never aquired the haze that some of the other cities, especially Thomasburg, had in the past century.
Situated on the river that gave the city its name, Rone was pristine and beautiful in a way that only a handful of other cities in the Allamunnic States were, and the Filie family estate three miles from the city even more so. And situated as it was on lines of transport, granting ease of access to visitors, it had been an ideal place, removed from the machinery of government in Faedrulhulm and the bureaucracy-laden downtowns of Inneville and Filia and the familial politics of Koenigshalloe, to host a meeting of the leaders of Tyrrhenia, where they might resolve their differences and, with any luck, bring an end to the bloodshed in Waldenburg.
Which was how, on a typically frozen Stalhamarkian early-January morning, the President of the Allamunnic States found himself pulling his coat around him tighter, bracing against the cold, powdery wind. The Rone Central Rail Station was a fully modern, and moreover beautiful facility, its style clearly of the sort common in the Allamunnic States in the late 19th-century; Rone Central had been constructed in 1878, before the Allamunnic States was even a country, and the family of Andrew Filie, it's current President, had ruled Stalhamark as their own domain. However, despite the station's warmer interior, Filie was, much to those standing with him's annoyance, opting to remain on the platform waiting for the other leaders to arrive; the train chartered to carry them from the airport twelve miles away was due to be arriving within the next fifteen minutes, and Filie was a Stalhmarker; the mountain cold bothered him only a little. Moreover, as young as he was (he'd only be turning 37 in the spring), the cares of six years of leading the nation were already apparent in the lines forming prematurely on his face, and the flecks of grey beginning to work their way into his light brown hair. However, the icy-blue eyes that were so often noted were as lively as ever. Despite his reserved demeanor, it was apparent to anyone that knew him from more than a few meetings that he was a relatively optimistic and cheerful man when not presenting the public face of the President.
The woman standing next to him, bundled in her own coat, felt differently about the cold. The Allamunnic States' Chancellor was also attending. Serving as a sort of vice-president and prime minister simultaneously, Amanda Haldstadt was a member of the nation's most powerful noble line, and a formidible politician in her own right. She was also from the warmer plains of Ostlund, and did not like the cold one bit. She was a woman of average height, moderate build, and the same brown hair and brown eyes that were so common throughout the Allamunnic genepool. However, her skill as an administrator was far from common. And she was shivering.
On either side of them were two members of the Cataphracts, the elite shocktroops of the Allamunnic military. They towered over their charges, each of them around six feet and four inches in height and with plenty of muscle on their bones, they certainly cut imposing figures. They didn't wear dress-uniforms, as one might have expected, instead wearing the grey-and-brown urban-camoflauge field uniforms the Cataphracts favored, along with the assault-shotguns they preferred in the urban fighting they had had their most recent experience in.
Another gust of wind rewarded their patience, as they continued to watch for the train. Unknown minutes passed, and a faint horn could be heard. Another minute, and it grew louder, although through the wind, it was still muffled. However, the rumbling of an incoming train was impossible to hide for long, even by harsh weather. The red-and-silver lead engine darted past, braking as it went, with three cars followed it, in a similar red-and-silver decorating scheme that might have been at home on a train car fifty-years previous in some other countries, all metallic paneling and smooth lines. As it halted at the platform, doors opened on the cars, and ushers stepped forward to escort the train's passengers into the station.
When the leaders arrived, they would be escorted into the station and to the doors outside where a motorcade awaited to take them to the estate, where the conference would be held properly, away from prying ears. And, being as it had been a royal residence prior to 1884, there were certainly the necessary facilities for a meeting of leaders, although where once it would have been the kings of Stalhamark, Skraelingia, Piekslund, Ostrea, Kohlenburg and Tyrrslund assembling, now it was a veritable cast of leaders from throughout the region, accustomed to doing such business.
Filie nearly smiled; the wait was at an end. But that thought was tempered by another. A reminder coursing through his mind, telling him that there was much work to be done.
