by Robert Brady
How tempting it would be to create a giant Volkhydran army to the West, have this group see it and then run into the east, where the rougher terrain would favor the Angadorians who were already there.
How stupid that would be – because the first thing they’d do is cut down Eric and his warriors.
“Chessa,” I said, “look closely at those warriors on their horses. I need an illusion of a couple dozen of them, running as fast as they can from the West, toward these warriors, but far enough away so that they won’t meet them right away.”
My daughter nodded. She took a moment to study the warriors, then she held up her staff and the green gem pulsed.
Eric was backing his horse up. If they were going to attack him, they’d do it now.
A shout rose up among the foreign troops, and heads turned toward Chessa’s illusion. Eric gave the order for his small command to break away toward Radmon Rukh’s warriors.
I gave the order for my own vanguard to start moving forward. I could see the warrior in the red cloak’s head whip back and forth as he tried to decide what to do. That told me a lot right there.
First, this wasn’t the only group like this here. Otherwise he’d have know what he was seeing was an illusion.
Second, he believed that we were the vanguard of a larger force. He was weighing a retreat versus fighting us, now that he saw warriors in retreat from somewhere else.
Unfortunately, when he figured out that illusion, he was likely to be smart enough to reason that we wouldn’t waste our time with it, if we could just overrun him with superior numbers. A mounted force charging down a hill into their force, encumbered with wagons, wouldn’t have a hard time with his warriors, scattered over a daheer.
“Lee,” I said, “didn’t you tell me that you softened the dirt under your enemies to slow them down?”
“Yes, father,” she informed me.
“Do it now,” I said. “Make as much of the soil under their feet a muddy mess as you can.”
She nodded. I gave the order to the vanguard to break East and meet up with Eric and Radmon Rukh.
“Shela?” I asked, as we trotted off of the road, “do you sense another spell caster?”
She shook her head. “No one of note,” she informed me. “Perhaps the barely gifted.”
Better and better.
Off of the road, the terrain was rocky and unstable. We had to pick our way down while the other force tried to collect itself.
It wasn’t ten minutes before Chesswaya’s illusion fell apart. By that time half of their wagons were mired and their horses were in mud up to their fetlocks. We were maybe halfway to meeting Eric and his troops – they were moving more quickly on the flat bottom of the valley than we were, trying to descend.
A horse bearing an armored man can’t afford to fall – it would be a miracle if either survived, and if the falling animal was behind others, it could be a real disaster.
“Tell Eric to start up the far hill,” I told Shela. She opened her mouth to argue with me but I just shook my head. “They’re going to stand there waiting for us, Shela. We’re giving them one target and plenty of time to decide to come after us.”
She frowned and nodded. I saw her concentrate, then turned my attention back to the army we were trying to step around.
By now they knew we weren’t the vanguard, we were the whole army. They had to have realized that we were going to the strongest force we could find – they probably didn’t know that the force was mustering in the south of Andoron.
If they came after our main force, Eric was gone and they’d never catch him. If they went after Eric, we had the same opportunity.
If they came after both, I could break up my forces pretty easily. If he was smart, he was going to see that and get his troops the hell out of Dodge before I came back here with better numbers.
His warriors started to gather around him. Eric was already starting up the far hill.
A squad of twenty riders turned their horses and started toward the far hill. By then, the road was so muddy that we were out-pacing them on their way to the hill, and once they started to climb, they found the road giving away under their horses’ hooves. That was going to present a real problem for their wagons.
We started up the far hill and actually increased our speed. I was waiting for their spell casters to rear their ugly heads, and it simply wasn’t happening.
I watched Eric’s troops make it up to the top of the hill. I then saw the other troops give up trying to get up the road, and try to pick their way up the hill instead.
“Father,” Lee said. I heard the fatigue in her voice.
“Take a rest, my daughter,” I said to her. I heard her sigh. I didn’t know if Chesswaya could take up where she left off – I was pretty sure that Shela could, if those troops wanted the hill badly enough.
Before I could say anything, a rockslide started from the top of the hill where the foreign warriors were climbing. They turned their horses around and barely beat the small avalanche to the valley floor.
Shela looked sideways at me and smiled.
“I don’t suppose that we could give them a rainstorm, to keep them where they are for a while?” I asked Chesswaya.
“My power doesn’t work that way,” she informed me. “A storm is actually a complicated thing, Yonega Waya. I can’t just make the clouds appear.”
I nodded. It was a stab in the dark.
As we pushed to the top of the rise, Shela commented to me, “Either they have no magic, or they’re cowards.”
I nodded.
I didn’t think they were cowards.
***
The whole group of us made the climb to the top of the hill, then pressed back to the road. The earth was hard and covered in loose rock and dead brush, meaning that once again we had to pick our way across. Eric sent a pair of Knights to the edge of the hill to keep an eye on the army we’d bypassed.
We collected on the road and sent for those Knights. I ordered the rest to dismount and to inspect their horses, and clean their hooves. I wasn’t going to turn this victory into a loss with a lame horse from a pebble.
Eric approached me, Nina sitting behind him and Lupennen next to him. The three of us dismounted together and checked our horses.
Blizzard, in fact, did have a good-sized stone in his hoof. I worked it out with a hoof knife that I kept in my saddle bag.
“Lupennen,” I said to my second-oldest son, “are any or the horses in need of help?”
He straightened and regarded me – clearly surprised that I would ask him. He looked around himself and then past those horses closest to him to the others, those cat-curious eyes leaping from horse to horse.
“I think not, father,” he said. “They’re all cold and they don’t like it here. They know we’re going back south where it’s warmer, and that’s what they want.”
I nodded. “You and Eric did an excellent job,” I told him, knowing that Eric, on the other side of his horse from me, would hear.
“The commander with the red cloak is called ‘Vinkler,’” Eric said, without coming to the same side of his horse where I was. I think that he, like me, was working a hoof. “He knew right away that we weren’t Volkhydrans, and he wanted to know what we were doing this far north.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
Eric stood and looked at me across his saddle. “I was going to tell him it was none of his business,” he said, “but Lupennen said that the Emperor claimed all of this land, and was cleaning out resistance.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. That was a risky lie.
“He’s part of an invasion force from the North,” Lupennen said. “They have enough material to start a fort, and then they’ll send for reinforcements to man it. They’ll pull back a good 50 daheeri if they think there’s resistance here, rather than chance meeting an army that will just destroy them.”
I nodded. Very good advice, and not what I expected from one so young. Either his mother ha
d really drilled tactics into him growing up, or he was just naturally gifted.
Something told me it was neither.
Radmon Rukh approached and informed me that the horses and the Knights were all ready to move, and we remounted. Where I could just jump back onto Blizzard, and my sons and daughters could do the same, the Knights used a lever to lift themselves up onto their mounts. We set that up and then Eric and Vulpe packed it up on a cart that they used for the bulk of their supplies and spare equipment. When we stopped tonight, I planned to see if they were able to put points on their lances like these warriors we’d encountered. Just because we’d left these behind us, didn’t mean we wouldn’t find more ahead.
This trip had borne a fruit I wasn’t counting on, and it wasn’t all that sweet.
***
In another week we crossed the road that led to Vol, a week from Medya, as expected. We saw no one on the roads, and we avoided Raven’s ‘town with no name.’ One warm night didn’t justify the diversion.
Most of our effort was in keeping the horses well. The temperature sank and the local forage was horrible, so we reduced our march to as little as six hours/ day. I ended up ranging out with Lupennen to seek places to graze, and had real trouble finding decent spots.
If I’d have brought a larger command, I think I would have lost a good share of my horse. As it was, we had to camp at the cross-roads and seek out a farm where we could buy hay. There we spent two days just letting the horses rest until we could feed them back up.
On the 8th day of Desire, we returned to Medya, eight weeks almost to the day from when I’d arrived here. The wind blew cold across the port town from Tren Bay’s frosty waves. Ice coated what passed for a wharf where we’d unloaded our horse two months ago.
Dellick Jarves greeted us with a small, mounted retinue at the edge of the city. They saluted and I saluted back, and he led us to a new, enclosed corral they’d managed to build, large enough for one hundred horses and with a ten-foot break-wind wall on its south and east side.
An army of porters appeared to take our horses and to guide our Knights to warm barracks. Faces looked slack and worn – this hadn’t been a good mission for them, and what they needed now was rest and to recoup their strength.
I saw about ten who actually took care of their horses before themselves, Radmon Rukh among them. Had he not been, I’d have pointed them out to him, but I knew I didn’t need to. These were real knights – the ones who valued their horses’ lives over their own.
Tartan had done a good job with these troops.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Dellick addressed me, as I dismounted. I saw to one side there were some separate stalls. Having been a Court Barron, this Earl knew that you couldn’t just put Blizzard with the herd, “news from Wisex, come two mornings ago.”
His eyes scanned the new faces of my children. “It’s OK,” I informed him. “These are my children.”
“I was unaware you were gone so long,” he joked, but a dead stare from Shela put him back on point. Eric actually drew up next to me, Lupennen behind him.
“You have 50,000 in Andoron,” he informed me. “With a compliment of 20 Sea Wolves – all that can be safely assigned to the Black Lake. The Forest of Shela is still two years from culling – Duke Arath is taking wood from the Confluni forest and making barges.”
“The Confluni will think you’re going to invade them from the south,” Lupennen informed me.
I turned to him. “We are,” I said.
He frowned and shook his head. “Conflu has spies among your warriors,” he informed me, matter-of-factly. “If they didn’t, the Bounty Hunters’ Guild has many in your house and in the houses of your Dukes and important Earls. You can’t take them by surprise that way.”
That was too much knowledge for him to have, even if he did grow up in Conflu.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
All of the kids and Shela were looking at him. He just shrugged and said, “Sometimes, I just know what to say. It started when I received this dagger. It’s as if… the dagger has been there, and it makes a memory, and then that becomes my memory.”
“Does your ability to speak to animals – “Shela began, but Lupennen cut him off.
“No,” he said. “I’ve always had that.”
“My staff is no different,” Chesswaya said. “It shows me things I could not know, and relives memories I’ve never had.”
“My Lord,” Dellick said, looking uncomfortable. He didn’t want to have knowledge that I didn’t want him to have. People died for that here.
“Dismissed, good Earl,” I informed him. “Rest and entertainment for the Imperial family – see to it.”
“Immediately,” he said, then bowed, turned on his heel and beat a hasty retreat.
“I ran the only Bounty Hunter in Galnesh Eldador out the last time I was there,” Lee informed us, once Dellick was gone. “But she could have been replaced. Tartan Stowe was actually working with her.”
“The Stowes always had a good relationship with the Guild,” Shela said.
“The Mordeturs, not as much,” Dagi added. My head turned to my most vocal child.
“No,” I agreed, “not as much.”
I turned to Shela, “We need to get to Hydrus,” I said. Hydrus had a working conduit with Central Communications. We could speak to Wisex and Arath directly.
“I agree,” she said. “No need to bring the Angadorians, though.”
I nodded. The family horses were in better shape than the Angadorians’. My family either travelled lighter or, in my case, on a horse more suited for it.
“Feed your horses up,” I informed them. “Day after tomorrow, we’re for the East.”
Chapter Eleven
A Royal Family
I left Radmon Rukh in charge of his troops and tasked my Sea Wolves with the job of getting them back to Galnesh Eldador, under the command of Commodore Jaspar, Captain of The Bitch of Eldador. It would take him weeks to port them back to Uman City and return here.
Three ships skirting the Silent Isle in the winter, especially on the Confluni side where the Trenboni Tech Ships were much more aggressive, would normally be a risk. The Bitch was armed with Eldadorian Fire, however, and in the winter oared galleys simply couldn’t keep pace with my square-rigged warships, patterned after the American cutter.
My Imperial family left for Hydrus on our horses. If the trip to Uman City was dangerous, the trip to my newly-conquered city could be considered suicidal, were we to go unattended, and Dellick Jarves wasn’t having it. He sent us with a mounted escort of another fifty warriors, all Eldadorian regulars who’d served with us for years. We were slowly integrating Volkhydrans into our ranks, however entering the enemy’s army had always been a good way for conquered troops to stage a revolt, and I wasn’t going to set myself up for it.
As we rode, I could tell that Eric really didn’t like the whole idea of a conquered Volkhydro. His mother had raised him under the god Law, and she’d always been a nationalist as well. Both sides of his upbringing put us at odds.
Here the road was well-worn and we really only came close to a conflict once. When I’d heard that Lee had died in Galnesh Eldador, I’d gone out and found Count Tezzen’s Myr warriors. The man who’d helped to train me in swordplay brought nearly one thousand warriors with him – I’d passed through them with twice their number in Theran Lancers. I hadn’t actually killed the Count, but I’d seen him die.
What few remained of his troops, rather than joining with the Volkhydran King whom they felt had left them out to dry, had become bandits preying on my supply lines with varying success.
Twenty of them appeared on either side of a gully that the road to Hydrus passed through. Their breath hung frosty on the morning air, their clothes were rough and their beards were tipped with ice. Most of them bore weapons from Andoron and Eldador rather than Volkhydro – those heavy broadswords that the natives loved here simply didn’t fare as well long-term as did the s
cimitar or the shorter Eldadorian blade.
I could see the sunken, angry eyes – made desperate with cold and hunger. I don’t know if any of them recognized Eric – what they likely saw was two members of the Free Legion and an escort of healthy, mounted warriors and decided to take their chances elsewhere. For whatever reason, they withdrew without a word to or from us.
We were a week on the road before we saw the high walls and spires of Hydrus, otherwise known as Outpost II when the Cheyak had built it over 1,000 years ago. We’d come here six months ago and taken the city without much of a fight. Rather than hiding behind his walls, Duke Dragor Volkha had marched out and tried to meet us. I didn’t know if it was a surprise or just a matter of getting the battle over quickly, but we creamed his Volkhydrans and then pushed his personal guard back into the city, then to the palace before he surrendered with less than a dozen survivors.
He lived in the palace dungeon now, as far as I knew. I offered him his city back if he pledged fealty to me and he refused. If my local Duke wasn’t doing a good enough job, he was going to get that offer again.
It turned out that I needn’t have worried. I could have left one of my specialized dogs here and if could have done no wrong as a Duke. Half of the trade that came from Volkhydro, and two-thirds that went into it, came through here. People may or may not feel conquered, but they were going to feel hungry regardless, so they were going to buy food. They were going to want goods, they were going to want to trade – they could sit on what they had or they could come here and get what they wanted.
When your King is holed up in someone else’s city with his unpaid army, refusing to engage an invader, that decision became pretty easy to make.
“Your – your – your Imperial, your Imperial, your Majesty!” the new Duke, Evleck Rhor, greeted me, standing in the arch of his main gates with a personal guard of twenty Regulars behind him. I saw the lieutenant in command roll his eyes behind the flustered noble. Evleck Rhor had been a court baron, and his father before him, and really hadn’t prepared for anything else in life.
