Still, the situation wasn’t all bad. This Izarian girl—Scout Sabine, if he recalled correctly—was a surprisingly good shot and an even better scout. If not for her irritating timidity, he probably wouldn’t have even cared that she was a foreigner or a conscript.
“So, where did you find the coward?” Fuhr asked into the silence. “An old hag’s cellar? One of the grain silos?”
“No, sir,” Sabine said. “The old vintner north of the village was sheltering the priest in his cellar.
Fuhr snorted. “Hiding behind an old man…I suppose we shouldn’t expect anything less from a feckless Solarian wretch.”
He shook his head and slammed his empty bottle down upon the table. His unit had claimed this pitiful village three days ago, but it had taken them far longer than he’d expected to track down the Solarian soldiers who had survived the initial skirmish in the hills. Not that Fuhr particularly cared about the rank-and-file infantry, of course. His mission in this province was to hunt down any and all Bound servants of the new Solarian queen…and then break them.
Early on, just after the army had crushed the Alliance forces at Brackengarde, Fuhr had anticipated a quick and easy resolution to the war. High Sovereign Ishthare had warned them that Queen Tharule was powerful—she was an Unbound, after all—and that the young woman wouldn’t yield her country without a fight. But Fuhr didn’t understand how the Solarian Legion could possibly survive a concerted attack from dozens of Breakers and thousands of troops pouring in across the border.
Three months later, he had his answer. Queen Tharule was indeed a formidable foe. She had been creating new Bound servants at a remarkable pace, and she had supplemented her forces with Unbound. All in all, the Solarians had ceded very little territory over the winter months, though now that the worst of the frost had cleared Fuhr expected that Supreme Commander Tenel would ramp up the offensive. Soon enough, Celenest would be theirs.
But first, Fuhr had yet another Bound to break.
“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled. “Follow.”
Fuhr strode through the tavern door and trudged through the muck outside. The weather had been especially bleak this last week. It had been raining almost constantly, and he was thankful for the early sunset. The village square looked like an enormous shit-stain in the daylight.
The other scouts were waiting near the well, and they’d forced the Solarian priest to wait on his knees in the mud. They hadn’t bothered to strip off his leather armor or tabard.
“We weren’t sure if you wanted to summon the villagers again or not, sir,” Scout Sabine said. “With the rain and the darkness, I’m not certain how many of them would come…”
“They will come because I command it,” Fuhr said matter-of-factly. He glanced around the nearby streets, and he counted about a dozen faces watching the proceedings from behind their windows. “But I believe we already have their attention. Now, what’s your name, priest?”
The man glared back but remained silent. He was on the younger side of middle-aged, though his grime-covered face made him look even older. He’d obviously healed whatever wounds he’d suffered in the hill skirmish, and judging from the lack of bruises he must not have put up much of a fight at the vintner’s house.
“You can either tell me what I want to know, or I can rip it out of your mind,” Fuhr said. “It’s your choice.”
The priest coughed and spit into the mud. “You’ll do that anyway.”
“True,” Fuhr conceded with a shrug. “We might as well skip straight to the fun.”
Taking in a deep breath, Fuhr reached into the Aether and channeled its power through his body. He could feel the ebb and flow of its currents surrounding him, and he could see the etheric tendrils of an Ascendant bond fluttering off behind the priest. Smiling, Fuhr reached out with his mind and snipped the connection…and the priest screeched in agony and collapsed face-first into the muck.
“There are some among our ranks who don’t believe we should bother breaking you,” Fuhr said calmly as he watched the severed tendrils vanish back into the Aetheric currents from whence they’d come. “They believe we should simply plunge a dagger into your gullet and toss you into the ditch with the rest of your fallen. But they don’t understand.”
Fuhr leaned down and grabbed onto the priest’s hair, then jerked his head back up so quickly he nearly snapped the other man’s neck. “This isn’t about killing priests; it’s about sending a message to your people and to your queen. She can create an entire army of supplicants to throw against us—she can restore as many of her broken minions as she likes. It doesn’t matter. The era of the false Ascendants and their parasitic servants is over.” Fuhr smiled and kicked the priest over onto his back. “The era of Unbound freedom has begun.”
During his pathetic spree of wheezes and coughs, the priest actually managed a stiff chuckle. “I’ve seen Crell freedom,” he muttered. “Your people live in terror of their rulers.”
“And yours don’t? With the rumors surrounding your queen’s rise to power, I’m surprised anyone willingly follows her at all. Even the Knights of the Last Dawn have finally turned against you.” Fuhr grunted in contempt. “Before I release you into the wild, let’s see if you know anything worthwhile…”
Fuhr stabbed into the other man’s mind. He encountered virtually no resistance; without the Aether, the priest was defenseless. All told, it took only a few minutes for the Breaker to find what he was looking for.
“Your name is Hayden Gammel, formerly a servant of King Areekan,” Fuhr said. “Before a few months ago, you’d never set foot on a battlefield in your life. That explains why you’re such a coward. I’m sure you’re thrilled that your new queen sent you out to…” He frowned as a new series of images popped into his head. “Wait, what happened to the vintner?”
“We…” Scout Sabine murmured next to him. “We handed him over to Imperator Velassa, sir.”
“What? Why didn’t you execute him?”
Sabine swallowed heavily. “His family was right there, sir. Protocol dictates that we are not to—”
“I don’t care about protocol, you Izarian wretch,” Fuhr growled. “These people tried to hide something from us. This village is now a part of the Imperium, and they must learn that the High Sovereign will not tolerate dissent or disobedience.” He hissed between his teeth and shook his head. “Frankly, you should have killed his wife, too. I’ve no doubt she knew precisely what was going on in her cellar.”
“Another fine example of Crell freedom,” Gammel coughed.
Fuhr turned and kicked the priest hard in the mouth. The man flopped back over to the ground, and he whimpered in pain as he clutched at his jaw.
“The self-righteous gall of Solarians never ceases to amaze me,” Fuhr spat. “You’re always willing to pass judgment upon others even while your own people wallow in chaos and misery beneath the heel of corrupt nobles.”
The light of a glow-stone approached from the east, and Fuhr turned as one of the messengers dashed over through the muck. “Captain!” he breathed. “We have a problem, sir.”
“What now?”
“Sir, another of our patrols has failed to check in. They’re nearly an hour overdue.”
Fuhr ground his teeth together. They had only been in this village for a few days, and three of his scout patrols had already gone missing. At this rate, his entire unit would be gone by the end of the week…
“Did your men find any signs of battle like before?” he asked.
“I didn’t send out another squad this time, sir,” the soldier replied anxiously. “I wanted to check with you first. Since it’s already after dark I wasn’t sure you’d…”
“You weren’t sure I would what? Order you to do your jobs? You are soldiers of the Crell Imperium—you should be begging me to send you out there to search for and avenge your comrades!”
The soldier lowered his eyes, and Fuhr swore under his breath. As if having to rely on conscripts wasn’t bad enough
, the Supreme Commander had apparently assigned him a host of War College rejects.
Fuhr sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. The real problem, sadly, was that the High Sovereign had slowly but surely been phasing out her Imperators from the front lines. Only two had been assigned to his entire unit. They were loyal Crell citizens and soldiers, but they were also Bound—and that meant they were parasites. Every Imperator empowered by the High Sovereign siphoned away her own personal might, and ideally once this war was over the Imperium would have no more use for Imperators or Bound of any kind.
But the war wasn’t over just yet, and right now having to rely on normal soldiers without telepathic communication was becoming a serious burden…
“Problems keeping track of your men, Captain?” Gammel taunted. He’d apparently sloshed around in the muck and recovered one of his lost teeth. “I guess your conscripts aren’t enjoying the benefits of Crell freedom, either.”
Fuhr wanted to kill him. He almost did, in fact—a spark of Aetheric flame flashed in his palm, and he could have easily roasted the smile off the other man’s face. But the High Sovereign’s orders were quite clear: broken priests were to be released and sent back to Celenest whenever possible. The more of the queen’s champions that returned in disgrace, the quicker despair would spread through the Solarian ranks.
“You have your own units out patrolling the hills, don’t you?” Fuhr asked, stepping forward and holding the flames closer to the priest’s skin. “Some of your soldiers must have survived and hid in the wilds, and now they’re trying to pick us off one squad at a time.” He stopped as another thought belatedly hit him. “That, or perhaps you summoned support from Fort Amberwood while you were pissing your trousers in the vintner’s basement.”
Gammel’s soft chuckle became a full-blown laugh, and he rolled over onto his back. “You’ve already been inside my head, Crell. You know I’m not hiding anything.”
“I could always take another look,” Fuhr said. “And by the time I’m done, you won’t even be able to feed yourself without choking on your own drool.”
Gammel continued his maniacal giggling, and Fuhr turned back to his soldiers. “Cancel all scouting patrols immediately, and pull every man in the hills back inside the village. Come morning, I’ll lead a squad into the wilds myself. We’ll track down whatever Alliance dogs are hiding in the forest and—”
Fuhr cut himself off when a telepathic tremor rippled through the Aether. One of the two Imperators in his squad had just attempted to send a message through their link to the High Sovereign…and had abruptly been silenced. Fuhr closed his eyes and tried to reach her, but there was no response.
“Was Imperator Velassa with your men on the village outskirts?” he asked.
“Um,” the messenger murmured, clearly surprised by the abruptness of the question. “No, sir. I believe she was on the western side of the village coordinating the construction of the new palisade.”
Fuhr bit down on his lip and reached out to his other Imperator, Kunze. Velassa has disappeared.
Yes, the man confirmed. Even his mental voice sounded strained. I heard sounds of battle near the new palisade. My men and I are moving in to investigate.
Be cautious—the Solarians must have dispatched a guerrilla squad to harass us. Do not pursue them outside the village.
Understood, sir. We’ll try to—
A second tremor shuddered through the Aether, this one stronger than the first. And in the distance, Fuhr heard the unmistakable clamor of combat echoing through the darkness. “Impossible...” he breathed.
The soldiers behind him stirred. “Is something wrong, sir?”
Fuhr grimaced and glanced back to Sabine. “I want you and the other scouts up on the rooftops, and I want every glow-stone we have arrayed out here in the village square. We need to—”
A choked-off yelp echoed off the house to his left, and Fuhr whipped his head around just in time to see one of his soldiers crumple into the mud. Behind him stood a shrouded black figure holding a slender, blood-soaked blade.
Fuhr didn’t hesitate. His instincts took over, and he hurled a ball of Aetheric flame down the street. For the span of a single, frantic heartbeat, he thought he’d caught their mysterious assailant flat-footed….but then the long, moon-borne shadows came to life and swallowed the figure whole. Fuhr’s fireball roasted the fallen soldier’s corpse and hurled sizzling debris in all directions. The dark figure, however, was gone.
“Sovereigns save us!” one of the scouts gasped. “What in the void was that?”
Fuhr narrowed his eyes and scanned the nearby area. He could see small ripples in the Aether where the figure had moved, and he followed them like tracks in the mud across the village…
“Order your soldiers to leave the village,” a strangely-accented female voice called out. “I promise they will be spared.”
Fuhr’s weapon whipped back around in the opposite direction. The dark figure had reappeared on one of the wider rooftops. Her outstretched sword glimmered with pale white light, and the Aether swirled around her like a second cloak. Inside the shadows of her hood, Fuhr could make out a pair of faintly-glowing blue eyes—eyes that did not belong to a human.
And suddenly he understood.
“I almost thought you were a myth,” Fuhr replied, turning and unsheathing his own blade. “A dark elf paladin…it seems like a contradiction in terms. And Unbound?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe the Last Dawn didn’t turn against you sooner.”
The vaeyn pulled back her hood and revealed a long, silvery-white ponytail. She shifted her eyes upon the other soldiers. “Drop your weapons and leave the village,” she ordered. “Retreat to Brackengarde peacefully, and I will leave you alone. I am not here for any of you.”
“You don’t really expect that to work, I hope,” Fuhr muttered. He trusted his men to hold their ground. The conscripts were a different matter, of course, but hopefully fear would keep them in line. If anyone in High Command found out that they’d deserted, their families and friends back in Izaria would be immediately put to the sword.
“If they value their lives, they’ll listen to me,” the paladin said. “If not, they will die here with you.”
Fuhr snorted. He took a step forward and sheathed himself a protective mantle of Aetheric energy. “Many of the officers suspected you fell at Garos, but once I learned that two of my brothers had been killed in the south, I knew you were still around somewhere. You’re the only one in this entire wretched nation that has ever defeated a Breaker, and you’ve felled three of us.”
“Four soon enough. Now please: order your men to walk away. They don’t need to die here with you.”
Fuhr smiled. “There’s a bounty on your little gray head, you know. And not just from the Last Dawn—countless organizations from here to Calhara would pay a sovereign’s ransom to get their hands on you. I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that you decided to throw yourself upon my sword.” He shrugged. “Not that I intend to use it.”
With an abrupt flick of his wrist, Fuhr hurled another fireball at her position. But this time the vaeyn didn’t teleport away; instead she crouched down and conjured a glimmering, translucent shield onto her arm. The flames splattered harmlessly across the barrier, and the other soldiers backpedaled away in shock and fear.
Fuhr grimaced in annoyance. The Knights of the Last Dawn were mythic figures in Torsia, and tales of their near-invulnerability had evidently seeped into the minds of his own men. Worse, these fools had likely also heard the legends about demon-empowered dark elf assassins striking from the shadows. This vaeyn woman might not have looked particularly impressive to Fuhr, but in many ways she was the living embodiment of his soldiers’ worst fears.
“I’ll give you all one last chance,” she said, rising up from behind her shield. “Cast down your weapons, and you will not be harmed.”
“Any man who drops his weapon shall die on the tip of mine,” Fuhr hissed, drawing his sword. �
��You all know better than to trust an accursed vaeyn.”
“You have my word as a Knight of the Last Dawn. Surrender, and you will live.”
Fuhr scoffed. “The word of a paladin who flits through the shadows and refuses to fight. Perhaps what you need is some motivation….”
Lifting his free hand, Fuhr gestured at one of the nearby homes and summoned another sphere of flame into his open palm. The family cowering inside screamed and dove away from the window, and he made a show of rearing backwards before unleashing the fiery sphere of death. He fully expected the paladin to teleport in front of the blast, at which point his men could charge and engage her directly…and to his grim delight, she didn’t disappoint. The shadows in front of the building stirred, and the fireball detonated the instant it struck her shield. Grinning, Fuhr pointed with his sword as a thick cloud of smoke and ash billowed around her slender figure.
“Charge!”
His men didn’t hesitate. The two soldiers rushed forward instantly, and three of the conscripts followed right behind them. The fourth appeared to have vanished somewhere, but Fuhr wasn’t worried about it. He conjured yet another ball of flame into his palm and waited patiently for his opportunity to strike.
But it never came. The clearing became a blur of steel, sparks, and magic as the vaeyn whirled between his men. Fuhr had never seen anyone move so fluidly; her footwork was more like a dance than a fencing technique. One by one she struck his soldiers down, her shimmering shield casting a pale glow across their black armor even as they crumpled into the muck. The conscripts fared slightly better—she effortlessly battered aside their weapons, then bashed them insensate with her shield.
“You elf bitch!” Fuhr hissed, hurling the fireball despite the proximity of his own men. She barely even flinched; her shield tilted towards him for a fraction of a second, and the flames broke across the disc like a river splitting before a mountain.
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 93
