Death's Chosen (First Cohort Book 3)

by M. R. Anthony

  DEATH’S CHOSEN

  FIRST COHORT BOOK 3

  M. R. ANTHONY

  © 2017 M. R. Anthony

  All rights reserved

  The right of M. R. Anthony to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Cover typography by Shayne Rutherford

  http://www.wickedgoodbookcovers.com/

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  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  1

  We’d been in Blades for over a month, all three-hundred and twelve of us from the First Cohort who remained. Our headlong flight from the north had brought us to Warmont’s capital city quicker than a cavalry unit could have managed it. After all, we hardly needed to rest and we were not slowed by a requirement to eke out supplies from the villages we passed. The cold had pursued us, grasping at our skin and driving itself deep into our bones. We didn’t care – the Northmen would need to throw more than that at us to slow us down. Eventually we had left the worst of the chill behind. By the time we were five days south of Gold the air temperature had returned to normal, giving me a sense of relief that the whole of the land hadn’t yet been blighted by frost.

  For much of the journey I had been worried. Everything I’d seen told me that the Northmen were likely to be as dangerous as anything the Emperor could field. I’d already learned that Malleus was occupied by them elsewhere in his lands. Usually he crushed dissent quickly and without effort, but I’d picked up hints and clues that this time his opponents weren’t going to be so easily dismissed.

  In addition to my concerns about the Northmen, I had been thinking about the Saviour, who had gone on before us. We’d hoped that she could take the now-dead Duke Warmont’s capital city of Blades, so that she could establish a permanent base – a foothold – in these lands. When we’d parted ways, there had still been many doubts – the Pyromancer was unaccounted for and there were also the remnants of the Duke’s armies, perhaps scattered or perhaps gathering under the banner of one of the Emperor’s men.

  In the end, my worries about this, at least, proved to be unnecessary. The Saviour had swept into Blades without bloodshed and established herself in Warmont’s old keep. All with a scant few thousand men to her name. When I’d spoken to her about it, I came to realise that Blades had seen more than enough slaughter. The Saviour promised life and hope, in stark contrast to the constant death that had gone before.

  The First Cohort was not hated in Blades in the way that we were in many other parts of Warmont’s lands. For a long time, the citizens of the place had done well under the Duke’s rule, until he’d started his depravities. A lot of the people were loyal to him and his forces, or at least there were those who didn’t outright despise him. The First Cohort had fought for Warmont for so long that most of the people in Blades still viewed us favourably, while those who didn’t had little choice but to tolerate us. Whatever the thoughts of the people, the Saviour decided they were to be left alone for the moment. They’d suffered enough. If she found any indication of plotting or dissent, then would be the time for action. So, we left the people to their daily lives.

  We billeted in the keep. There was plenty of room for soldiers and we kept our lady under close watch at all times. As far as we knew, there was no immediate threat to her life but we’d been fooled once and weren’t going to take chances again. It was comfortable there, yet we didn’t lower our guard for a moment. We knew the Emperor well. The status quo would not last for long – it was just a matter of time until something happened that would see blood spilled once again.

  On the plus side, we found the Duke’s treasury. Although the lands themselves were poor, it appeared as though the Duke was not. He possessed a sizeable hoard of coins – enough to pay for the upkeep of his armies with plenty to spare. I’d spoken to the Saviour about this – his wealth seemed at odds with the poverty of his people. The only thing we could conclude was that the southern cities of Spite and Ranks had kept ploughing their tax monies into the Duke’s coffers in order to prop up his rule. In my head, a little voice kept whispering that perhaps the Emperor himself sent money this way. That would be just like Malleus – he could give them impression that he was in control, when in fact he was working behind the scenes to ensure his air of invincibility remained intact. The Emperor was a master tactician on more than just the field of battle.

  There was more good news, though it came as a trickle at first. With details of the Duke’s death reaching out beyond his city as quickly as a bird could fly, the shattered and split remnants of his armies returned. They weren’t looking for death, rather they hoped for employment. A man who has been a soldier for all of his adult life knows nothing other. He can be trained to become something different, but many become so set on the path of warfare that they refuse to turn their hand to something else, even when it is offered to them on a plate. The reasons for this are many – some have past lives they’d rather forget, or wives and children they no longer wish to see. For most it’s because they fear. They are scared of the unknown. The army gives a man a place – something to fight for and comrades to lift him when his own strength has failed.

  In dribs and drabs, they came. Men who had served the Duke in the past and who wanted to serve a new master. They turned up at the keep and requested to speak with whoever it was that dealt with recruitment. As the most senior man serving the Saviour, the task fell to me. I spoke to our lady and explained to her that if she was to heal the lands, she needed these men on her side. She was already convinced. It wasn’t as though there were vast untapped wells from which she could draw loyal soldiers. The population of Warmont’s lands had been in decline for decades as a result of the constant turmoil that the Duke seemed to thrive on. If I’d been forced to guess, I would have said that the women outnumbered the men by almost two to one. While a single man can sire many children by many different women, even a childless old soldier like me knew that children need a strong father to be present in their lives and to help with their upbringing.

  After four weeks, word had evidently reached wider afield that the Saviour wasn’t looking for revenge and that she was recruiting as many as she could find. The four or five men who applied each day increased to fifteen or twenty. Soon, we had days where there were close to a hundred men queuing up at the gates of the kee
p each morning, practically begging to join the Saviour’s new army. I made sure I checked over their lines every morning as they filed in – many looked beaten and hungry. Others looked lean and ready for action. I lacked the time to deal with them personally, so I did what any other captain would have done in my situation: I set Lieutenant Sinnar on to them.

  The best news of all concerned the justiciars. Like the snivelling cowards they were, they’d gone to ground as soon as the Saviour took Blades. If they’d been true men, they’d have fought or they’d have stood up for their actions. They did neither of these things and we were tasked with rooting them out. It turned out that they were as stupid as they were cowardly – rather than trying to escape the city, they relied on the goodwill of friends and family to keep them safe. Unfortunately for them, such was the hatred that people felt towards them, that they couldn’t remain hidden for long. We pulled them from cellars and from lofts. Many had already tried to start new lives in shops or in industry. When we found them, we butchered them without remorse and without trial. I didn’t care if they thought it unfair – our actions were popular with the citizens and there was many a cheering crowd whose catcalls and jeers were the last sounds heard by these hated members of the Duke’s police.

  With the majority of the justiciars in Blades dead and with Sinnar unleashed upon the Saviour’s growing army, I was able to spread my time more freely. I found myself in de facto command of all her troops, so much of my day was spent on the training ground or in my office, dealing with day-to-day matters. However, I was also able to spend a few brief moments with our lady, to ensure that she was coping with the situation she’d found herself in. Only a few months ago she had been a young lady in a village without a name. Now she was the ruler of Blades and the partially-acknowledged leader of all of Warmont’s people. I say partially acknowledged, since she’d not yet managed to negotiate with the southern cities, nor had she heard from the cities to the north-east, those being Church, Fallow, Sinew and Flense. These last four were many weeks travel to reach and return. We had no idea beyond guesswork whether or not the Northmen had destroyed them. To the north-west, Gold and Septic had fallen – word had come to us from the refugees who’d fled to the south. Bunsen and Demox on the coast had not yet been attacked – at least that’s what we were told.

  While there was a lot for the Saviour to consider, I was pleased to find that she took many of the decisions herself. I acted as her adviser in many things, but when it came down to it, almost everything I said was from the perspective of a military man. She either needed a greater variety of opinions or to rely on her own intuition more than she did. She was taking steps and that pleased me.

  One evening, I was sitting with Jon Ploster, talking in the way we had always used to. I’d been busy and he’d made himself scarce in the meantime, to allow me to concentrate on my duties. He’d procured a bottle of wine from somewhere, which he told me was a good vintage. I knew it would taste of little and I was right.

  “I hope you didn’t spend much on this,” I told him with a smile.

  “The wine merchant was desperate to sell.” Ploster took a drink and swilled it around in his mouth. He closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re losing your imagination, Tyrus. You need to tell your mouth that it’s the finest vintage it has ever tasted. That way your brain will feel happy.”

  I gave it a go but it was no use. It wasn’t that I was cynical – perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood for drink.

  “It has been too quiet,” he said at last. We rarely talked for long about inconsequential things such as wine.

  “I know, Jon. Every day that passes increases the chance that we’ll hear bad news. I only wish I knew which direction that bad news might come from, so I could better prepare for it.”

  “Caught between the Emperor and the Northmen,” he agreed.

  “Not only that, but we have Baron Vaks to the south and Duchess Callian to the east. Who is to say that they won’t try a sortie into our domain to capture a few easy targets? We are not under the Emperor’s protection in the way that Warmont was. It wouldn’t take much for either Vaks or Callian to push a few days into our lands and before we knew it, we could have lost three important cities. Our lady needs them all.”

  “I would far rather deal with those than the Northmen, I think,” said Ploster. “I prefer an enemy whose motives I can guess at. These Northmen are something new – I have never come across their like before. I cannot fathom what they hope to achieve.”

  “War comes about because someone wants something they don’t have,” I told him. “Even if we don’t understand the Northmen, we can safely assume that they have come for something – lands, food or slaves, perhaps. If we could find out, then we will be better prepared for them. I would dearly like to know across how much of the Emperor’s lands they have spread. Has Cranmar Sunderer faced them? How does he fare?”

  “The Gloom Bringer told us that the Emperor has been occupied elsewhere and we’ve assumed that the Northmen have been the problem. The Sunderer’s northern border is much longer than ours. It would be difficult to prevent an invasion along the entirety of its length – even with the whole of the Emperor’s legions brought to bear.”

  “And we have seen how easily these Northmen can destroy their foes. The cold they bring could nullify even the largest of the armies of men.”

  “If they were unprepared,” said Ploster with a smile.

  “You’ve felt the cold, Jon. The men of these lands are not used to fighting in such conditions. They lack the knowledge and the equipment.”

  “Then they will have to learn,” he said.

  I nodded at his words, painfully aware that we had been doing little that would prepare us to face the Northmen if they came further south. “I’ll speak to Chartus,” I said. “He seems to have the city’s finances under tight control. I’ll let him know that we need furs, wool and leather. We’ll need men and women who know how to work them into coats, hats and gloves, suitable to cover a man wearing armour. If we must face the Northmen again, it will not be without protection from their cold.”

  “We’ll need more than just coats, Tyrus,” he said.

  “I know, Jon. One step at a time. We don’t know anything about their magic, or how they control the air. I will speak to the Saviour. She has tried to venture beyond the mountains to the north and was rebuffed. She is stronger now – perhaps it is time for her to extend herself and see if she can break through to what is out there.”

  The next day I spent the early hours on the training ground. The air was cold, though not unusually so. Lieutenant Sinnar was already there, bellowing at a few hundred men in full armour. I tapped him on the shoulder and he greeted me with a salute.

  “Good morning, Captain,” he said. “Come to see how the new lads are getting on?”

  “I don’t have any doubts that they’re coming along very well,” I replied, knowing that Sinnar’s punishments could be harsh on those he thought were slacking.

  “That they are,” he replied. “We’ll make an army of them yet.”

  “How’s their loyalty?” I whispered. I already had my own thoughts on the matter, but it made sense to search out other opinions.

  “I think they can be trusted, Captain,” he said, narrowing his eyes at a man who had fallen out of step. He shouted at the man, who quickly caught up with his fellows.

  “Will they fight? When things get tough?”

  “They’ll fight. There’s many a man amongst them who has served for five or more years. The only thing they lacked was morale.”

  “And a cause,” I added.

  “Aye, Captain. They definitely lacked a cause.”

  “Good work, Lieutenant. Keep on at them – I want them able to march for a month and fight at the end of it.”

  I left him to it and went to find the Saviour. I think that, if left to her own devices, she would have been more a solitary person than an outgoing one. She preferred time to reflect, rather than acting on
the spur of the moment. We do not always get to choose who we are and she had little choice but to become someone that she wasn’t. When I found her, she was in animated conversation with several of the city’s officials, whilst a messenger patiently awaited her attention. Corporal Heavy and her eleven bodyguards stood respectfully nearby. They made no efforts to look menacing, yet the message of their presence was crystal clear to anyone who thought to threaten their charge. The Saviour saw me and her face brightened at once. She waved the officials away, took the letter from the messenger and dismissed him. Then, she bade me to follow her to her room. We left her bodyguards outside and entered her chamber on the second floor.

  “This looks more comfortable every time I visit,” I commented, looking at the plush furnishings scattered about the room.

  “Do you disapprove?” she asked. There was no challenge in the question.

  “Quite the opposite,” I laughed. “A comfortable soldier does not like to fight, but a comfortable leader is better placed to think on her options without the distractions of a hard, cold seat or a lumpy bed.”

  She laughed in return, raising her head slightly as she did and revealing the complex pattern of scars at her neck. She had others – worse - on her back from where Leerfar had once killed her. I knew they’d never go away and I knew that the Saviour wore them as proof of her willingness to fight and die for the people who followed her. We sat. She chose a padded leather chair next to a low table and I pulled over a hard wooden one. I wasn’t a glutton for punishment, but there was something locked deep in my mind that warned me against enjoying comfort – as if it would somehow make me slower or less willing to do what had to be done. We’re stupid sometimes, even when it comes to how we treat ourselves – there was no way I’d ever let things pass me by. It wasn’t in my nature.