“Really? What was he like?”
After releasing a deep sigh, Calitta said, “A dashing hero he was, and from the way he moved and fought, a very skilled warrior! He literally saved my life from kidnappers who were holding me for ransom in your city of Pavelus when I was sixteen, believe it or not.”
“Really?”
Calitta answered with a distant look in her eyes, “Yes, but other than telling me his name and that he had come to rescue me, this Humonus spoke nothing about himself, even though I asked him many-many questions. He always grumbled something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry about me, Princess…who I am is not important…’
“A month later, the second he had dropped me off back here at the city gates of Politesse, he departed back into the night, and I’ve never seen him since!”
“Really,” Chelsea responded with a bit of awe, “in many ways, this man does sound like my husband.”
“Yeah, but there must be dozens of men out there in the world who bear that name of Humonus,” Calitta countered. “Perhaps hundreds?”
“Perhaps…”
A few moments later, a distant memory popped up in Calitta’s mind, so she asked, “Does your husband, by chance, have a thin scar that runs up and down on the left side of his cheek?”
“Yes, he does!”
“Whoa,” Calitta said as goose bumps surged up and down on her arms, “this is the same man.”
“Even though my husband never mentioned your name before to me, he did mention once that he had rescued a princess, Queen Calitta,” Chelsea said with a bit of awe at the coincidence. “I did not know that that princess was you!”
With a smile, Calitta said, “You are by far a lucky woman, Ambassador Chelsea! He’s a hunk.”
Returning that smile, Chelsea answered, “Thank you… Actually, if you can’t tell, I’m pregnant with his child!”
“Wow… I did notice. Congratulations!”
“Thank you so much again, your Majesty.”
Calitta got down to business, and so she cleared her throat a couple of times before asking, “So, what can the Kingdom of Thorium do for the Sharia Empire, especially for the fact that we have been trade partners and friends for quite some time…and now we are next-door neighbors?”
No longer smiling, Chelsea answered, “The Sultaness has personally asked me to come here so that we can discuss and draw up the new borders between our two nations. After all, she and her husband, Sultan Baltor Elysian, wish to maintain the trade, the peace, and the friendships between our two nations.”
“Sounds great,” Calitta sang.
As another important question popped in her mind, only a moment later, she asked with curious tones, “I must ask—what happened to Sultan Brishavus Helenus?”
Sounding indifferent, Calitta answered, “He died several months ago, and his daughter Brishava and her husband Baltor have inherited the Sharia Empire.”
“I see,” Calitta said. “Well, the Sharia Empire has always been generous to us, especially as of late, so we can definitely negotiate everything.”
Chelsea said with happiness, “Excellent!”
Calitta’s right eyebrow rose slightly as she asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, where is the new Sultan? Sultan Baltor Elysian.”
“He, just like my husband, is fighting against a dark and evil army that is spreading out across the world like a plague; in fact, this army may be knocking upon your own doorsteps, soon enough. This was yet another important reason for me coming here, so that I can forewarn you about this looming threat, so that you can have your forces ready to defend your nation!”
With concern now etched into her eyes, Calitta asked, “What warnings do you have about this army?”
After taking a deep breath through just her nose, Chelsea answered, “I know that it will be hard for you to digest what I’m about to say, but you must trust me as I am quite serious. For one, this army knows and uses magic, including their magical weapons. For two, this army consists of gnomes with black skin and white hair. And for three, this army is being led by a giant black dragon!”
Calitta couldn’t help but laugh upon hearing all of this preposterous news. After all, not one report about any such mythical creatures existing was ever reported to her before … gnomes or dragons.
While Calitta laughed, Chelsea added with pleading tones, “Queen Calitta, you may not believe me now and think I’m crazy, but all I’m telling you now is the truth, just like everything else I’ve said since we first met—I swear! Sultan Baltor’s best friend, King Cheo’s Nation of Chao-chu-sha-maen was obliterated by these gnomes, with him being the sole survivor.”
Calitta, who had stopped laughing due to the desperate tones in Chelsea’s voice, replied, “I see. Well, I’m going to try and take your warnings seriously. I will have my guard posts triple their normal numbers.”
“Hopefully that will be enough, your Highness, but like I said before, this gnome army was able to destroy my Sultan’s friend’s kingdom in one single night,” Chelsea informed.
After taking another deep breath, she suggested, “You may need a lot more than just adding the triple amount of guards to your posts.”
Calitta replied, “Well, I definitely want to hear more specifics about this army, but I’d like to have Superior-General Lennick here listening as well, so that he can devise a strategic plan of defense. He is much better in handling our national defenses than I am…
“However, he won’t be available until this afternoon, which is when I’d like you to tell him everything you know about this army, okay?”
Chelsea answered with a bow, “Well, I’ve pretty much told you everything I do know—but, as you wish, your Highness.”
Perhaps five seconds later, Calitta said with a chipper voice, “Great—in the meantime, shall we get to work with our new national borders using all of our maps?”
With a bow and a smile, Chelsea answered, “Yes, we shall.”
For the rest of the morning, both girls brooded very hard over the map, while discussing all the options the whole time.
By lunchtime, there obviously was still a whole lot more work to do, so they moseyed over to the royal dining hall to eat a nice, healthy lunch of smoked chicken kabobs laid out on a bed of rice with a side of corn and a fresh garden salad.
As soon as the two were in the process of finishing eating their last few bites of this most-delicious food, perhaps twenty minutes later, the two guards stationed outside the room opened his respective door.
A moment later, Chelsea peripherally observed a man enter the room—he was dressed in all black attire and looked to be in his early fifty’s, due to the all the wrinkles etched onto his face and his thin silvery hair.
Once the man had entered, the exterior guards closed the doors behind them—there were no interior guards, which meant there were only three occupants in the room.
Upon closer inspection, Chelsea observed that this man donned a black cape that draped over a set of black plate-mail armor. Painted onto the chest plate was the emblem of a brown, white and gold double-headed lion. She simultaneously observed that there was no evidence of rank insignias on this man anywhere, but he was holding his purple-plumed black helmet-with-visor in the nook of his right elbow.
A few seconds later, after having finished studying the man, Chelsea then glanced back over at Calitta, and noticed that the queen was looking at the empty plate before her, seemingly lost in thought.
After a bow, the man greeted with a deep tone of voice, “Your Highness, as soon as I received word that you needed to speak to me, even though I was in the process of inspecting your troops, I left General Artlett to finish. So, what can I do for your Majesty?”
Calitta introduced, “Superior-General Lennick, this is Ambassador Chelsea from the Sharia Empire…and she brings some important news that you need to hear right away.”
Simultaneously, Chelsea and Lennick greeted each other with smiles upon their faces, “Nice to meet you.” T
he only difference between their sentences were the titles they used at the end—however, neither person laughed, nor even looked amused, at the simultaneousness because of the seriousness of the moment.
Taking her cue, Chelsea relayed all the information she knew, which only took less than two minutes to explain. All the while, Lennick listened attentively to everything she had to say.
Thirty seconds after she had concluded, Lennick finally sighed aloud, “I see… So what you’re basically telling me is that there is an army of millions of evil gnomes who use magic and magical weapons, have a dragon as their leader, and may be on our doorsteps any day now. Yet you have not one shred of proof about anything, whatsoever…nor have we heard so much as a peep of any of what you’ve said. Nothing personal, ambassador, but it all sounds to me like a grand fairy tale!”
“I can assure you, general, that this is no fairy tale,” Chelsea countered.
Still with that look of disbelief, Lennick glanced over at Calitta and asked, “My Queen—what do you believe and suggest?”
Calitta shrugged her shoulders, just before she answered, “I don’t know—I suggested to the Ambassador that we triple the guards at all of our outposts, but she said that it probably wouldn’t be enough.”
Lennick replied, “Well, here’s my suggestion, my Queen. I say that we deploy and disperse ten thousand of our soldiers to patrol our northern and eastern borders, just in case the ambassador’s information is indeed correct, and should we need more, we’ll deploy the rest. As you know, my Queen, it will take our forces a day to prepare and a week to get to the borders.”
As soon as Lennick had finished speaking, Calitta looked over at Chelsea questioningly.
A few moments later, Chelsea replied, “My only hope is that ten thousand will be enough.”
Calitta looked back over at Lennick, and then replied, “Make it twenty thousand.”
After delivering a bow, Lennick said, “As you wish, your majesty.” He then left the room to execute his orders.
Three days later, the girls were still brooding hard over the map in the lounge room. That evening just before dinner, however, they finally reached a deal they were both happy with, which entailed that two-thirds of the stolen lands be returned to Thorium.
Strangely enough, it was just as Calitta and Chelsea were about to exit the lounge room and head for the dining hall that they ran across a soldier bearing the rank of lieutenant on his sleeve.
After a low bow, that guard reported, “My Queen… You may not believe what I’m to tell you, but I swear on my honor that it’s true! I’m the only survivor of Outpost Three—all my comrades are dead…
“The army that attacked us consisted of strange looking humans—they had black skin, white hair, and very pointy ears and teeth, had magical weapons, and somehow managed to surround the ground with black clouds, even though we had posted lit torches everywhere!
“I only survived the onslaught because I was in the outhouse and watched the massacre from inside…thankfully they never searched the outhouse before they left, or I would be dead”
Chelsea, who was sitting next to Calitta in the lounge room, gave a knowing look, yet said nothing.
Calitta replied, “Thank you for your report, Lieutenant.”
She looked at a messenger standing nearby, and added, “Bring me Superior-General Lennick. I shall inform him that the Thoriumites are going to ally with the Sharia Empire, and we will help to decimate this gnome army…”
CHAPTER XVI
Approximately ten miles northwest of the city of Scarthan—3 days later…
On this particular day, Baltor’s army had set up camp an hour before sunrise—thankfully nothing notable happened all day long.
That is, until late in the afternoon, a female officer entered the command tent, observed that Thorn was the only one in here, stopped in front of the man, snapped a sharp salute, and said, “Major-General Thorn.”
Thorn, who was currently sitting in a chair next to a table that contained about a dozen maps, looked up. As he recognized this particular soldier, he smiled as he returned the salute and asked, “Yes, Lieutenant Macao?”
Macao continued to look straight ahead into the air as she crisply reported, “General, there is a rider who just arrived from Pavelus, sir. When I approached the man and his unusual form of transportation, I asked him his business. He told me that he has a message for Sultan Baltor Elysian, sir!”
Because he knew his Sultan was still sleeping in one of the random bunk wagons, Thorn took matters into his own hands. He asked with a humming tone of voice, “Unusual form of transportation—what do you mean?”
Shaking her head slightly, Macao replied, “Seeing it is believing it, sir…that’s all I’m going to say!”
“Interesting,” Thorn said, just before he rose to his feet. “Lead the way, lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir!”
Macao led the way outside of the command tent, and then toward the southern borders of the encampment, which took of walking about ten minutes time.
Once there, Thorn’s feet stopped in is tracks at the same time his mouth dropped open in shock, upon seeing a giant hawk perched on the ground, about eighty feet to the south of the last row of tents. He also saw that the rider was currently strapping a cap over the hawk’s head and eyes, which Thorn knew as a hawk-trainer himself that this measure prevented the hawk from flying away.
Now standing to his right side, he heard Macao say, “Well, sir, I would love to stay, but I’ve got quite a few more important tasks that still need to get accomplished with my platoon, so I will you see you later?”
Thorn looked over, nodded his head, and said, “No problem, lieutenant.”
After throwing a sharp salute, Macao said, “See you later, sir!”
Thorn returned the salute, just before he recommenced to walk toward the rider and the hawk, all the while with his mesmerized and enamored eyes staring at this “truly magnificent beast”—he wanted one.
Fifteen feet away, he stopped in his tracks, before greeting, “Greetings, good sir…my name is Major-General Thorn. May I perchance help you with something?”
The rider looked over, cast a real friendly smile, and answered, “No, thank you General…I bear a written message strictly for Sultan Baltor Elysian’s eyes alone, written by his wife, Sultaness Brishava.”
After casting his gaze over to the rider for the very first time, Thorn answered, “The Sultan is currently sleeping and won’t be up until sunset. I am the one in charge during the daylight hours.”
Traes said with a nonchalant wave of his hand, “Not a problem, general…we can wait. After all, I still need to feed Praetor—a boy hawk. Not only does he take his sweet time when it comes to hunting and eating dinner, yet he really, really loves it when I give him a good grooming right after he eats, which is an hour’s work for me! Makes him very happy…doesn’t it boy?”
He immediately began to pet the hawk’s flank lovingly—in response, the hawk delivered a short piercing scream into the air!
Traes chuckled for a few moments, before saying, “That’s right…you are such a very good boy!”
While his left eyebrow rose on his face, Thorn asked, “By the way, where’d you ever get a magnificent hawk that size? How old is he? Does he have a name?”
After taking a deep breath, Traes stopped petting the hawk and answered, “The Sultaness named him Praetor, though for most of his life he went by the name of Olifax. Praetor is two years old, and he is a gift from the king and queen of Rolinsa…”
After a short pause, Thorn finally exhaled with amazement, “Wow—he’s a beauty! I have four hawks myself, but I have never seen a hawk with such beautiful feathers before!”
“Thanks,” Traes responded, while unlatching a metallic cage with tiny holes from behind the hawk’s saddle, obviously built to house an animal the size of a pig.
He next set that cage onto the ground, before asking, “General, would you like to watch Praetor feed? I
can assure you that it’s an absolutely amazing sight to see!”
“Sure,” Thorn answered enthusiastically.
Traes smiled, and then he asked, “After I’ve launched the bird, please don’t move until I tell you that it’s okay to move, okay? We don’t want to distract Praetor from his prey.”
“No problem…but what about the soldiers in the camp?”
“Oh, they’re no problem. I’m going to send this pig running the opposite direction.”
“Okay.”
After undoing the straps holding the cap on the hawk’s head, and taking off the cap, Traes clapped his hands three times with quick succession. With an incredible speed, the hawk leapt into the air—within seconds, he was already hundreds of feet up!
Once the hawk had ascended to about six hundred feet up in the air, which made him look like a tiny speck in the sky, he then began to circle around slowly in large circles.
Traes slipped open a sliding door located in front of the metallic cage—and out ran a fifty-pound pink pig, squealing all the way! Quickly, that pig took off into the open field.
About eight-or-so minutes later, Praetor’s hawkish eyes finally spotted the pig running between two patches of bushes—instantly he collapsed his wings, diving straight down toward the pig on the ground!
Meanwhile, Traes, Thorn, and a good majority of the other soldiers, continued to watch with amazement as the hawk’s powerful claws clutched themselves around the pig, which was about two hundred feet away from their position.
“Whoa…” Thorn said.
With a cock of his head, Traes asked, “Ready to follow me, general?”
Thorn nodded his head.
With Traes in the lead, he jogged over to the hawk’s current location.
By the time that these two men had neared the hawk, they both observed that Praetor was already hacking away into the pig’s flesh with his very sharp beak.
As soon as Praetor had finished eating, about ten minutes later, Traes put back on the cap. He next cleaned the hawk’s beak with a large cloth he had just pulled out of his pocket, which took another ten minutes. Once done with that, he pulled a large feather comb out of the saddlebag, and began to groom the feathers.
BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan Page 25
