by Robert Brady
“All of the kids, Shela,” I said. “Not just the new ones. I asked about them, and he said their lives were forfeit.”
“Oh, White Wolf,” Shela said, a tear running down her cheek.
“We’re going to have to take some risks,” I told her, “and we’re going to have to make full use of the resources we have. I suspected this but War confirmed it for me: the prophecy is about the kids, all of them, and they are the only thing that War might fear.”
In any feudal system, kids were an expendable asset. In this one it was no different. Still, that isn’t how I ever wanted to think of them, whether I thought I had three or seven. Like any father, I wanted to give them whatever I thought they were going to need to live happy lives.
Now I was fighting to give them any life at all. I had to admit it – it sucked.
***
Lee and Lupennen left the next day for Teher, 300 Wolf Soldiers with them. They left on horseback in the bitter cold of a worsening Volkhydran winter. We sent them with 25 extra horses.
Shela stopped sleeping well that night. I’d hear her at night scrying, find her in the morning with tears in her eyes. It was hard on Lee, however Lee had been through what she thought was worse in the summer in Conflu. Lupennen had been born to this sort of life and it simply didn’t bother him.
But Shela had believed she’d lost her daughter once, and now lived in fear of doing so again. She didn’t want to sap her daughter’s strength with constant communication and, after a week, I had to prevent her from sapping her own strength by monitoring her almost non-stop.
We were going to need the most feared sorceress in Fovea, and we were going to need her fit.
Raven, Jack and Vedeen kept pretty much to themselves, and that was disturbing. Jack did practically nothing but mumble to himself and spout gibberish. Once in a while he rode Little Storm, but they didn’t go anywhere and, if you didn’t keep an eye on him, he’d end up on the road, in the middle of a field, or worse.
We used Central Communications often – the Empire was chugging along. Tartan Stowe had initiated a plan were the state could subsidize rebuilding farms with loans guaranteed by the Empire. That had paid off handsomely both in rebuilt farms and revenues that we desperately needed, as well as a tax on nobles hoarding war resources, like horses.
We still had starving peasants, and this was the time of year when it was the hardest for them. Normally when that happened there was a surge in applications to the Regulars, where at the very least someone would feed you. This time we were at war, and that tended to temper the decision. If we were under attack I think the ranks would swell – as the aggressor, not so much.
I was slowly bleeding off troops from the southern command about to go into Conflu, and porting them to Medya and Lupha. Arath had our troops training in the cold on the Andurin peninsula in case we needed an early push into Volkhydro. In the cold, everything happened more slowly.
On the 1st of Eveave, I sat Dragor down and had a frank discussion with him on what was coming.
“Your son is the King of Volkhydro now?” Dragor asked me. We sat alone in his War Room. I wanted him to feel free to speak his mind – I couldn’t take a surprise later.
“Eric is, yes,” I said.
“Your son,” Dragor repeated. His eyes were sharp under thick, dark eyebrows. His beard was still long but better managed now, his hair braided past his shoulders. He’d gained back a lot of the weight he’d lost in prison, however he was still not that meaty, and he had a gauntness in his face.
I sighed. “You know as well as anyone that he was raised a Volkhydran, by a Volkhydran, and he actually stood against me in Andoron.”
“Until you made him a member of your Free Legion,” Dragor pressed me.
You simply couldn’t explain to anyone how someone ‘joined’ the Free Legion. It was pointless, anyway. No one wasn’t going to believe that his joining was a coincidence.
“So you can’t follow him,” I said.
“I thought I was an Eldadorian now?” he countered.
“Well, here is the thing,” I said. “He wants this city back, and I’m going to give it to him.”
Dragor leaned back on his stool. “Ah,” he said.
“I’d like to see you keep your job,” I said.
“You would?”
I nodded. “I think you would be very valuable to Eric. He’s already rallying the Volkhydran cities to his banner, to meet the Great North. Nantar is helping him.”
Dragor smiled to himself. “I imagine that’s going quite well.”
I didn’t know how well it was going, but I’d had the same worries.
“The army is supporting him,” I said.
“Is he paying and feeding them?”
I nodded. He’d taken a big deduction from the treasury at Outpost X. This was one of the first years that the Sentalan store houses were at their most bare, with the added needs of both Eldador and Volkhydro.
“That’s why,” Dragor said.
I sighed again. “So, no, you can’t support him,” I said.
Welcome to your last day on Earth, Dragor.
Dragor looked away from me, and looked back. “I can answer honestly?” I said.
“That’s why we’re alone.”
He nodded. Very well,” he said.
“Yes, I can support him,” he said. “We’re going to war with the Great North, whether we want to or not. We can only have one King, and Bendenson probably wouldn’t have fought.”
“Bendenson wanted to give them three Volkhydran cities, including Myr, instead.”
Dragor frowned. “He would have let them be conquered without defending them, you mean,” he said. “The Volkhydrans won’t leave their cities – especially not in the north, where they barely consider themselves part of the Kingdom.”
“OK,” I said.
“So if Eric killed him, and now he’s paying the troops, and he’s going to fight, we need him,” Dragor said.
I nodded.
He looked away from me, collected his thoughts, looked back.
“He’s barely more than a child,” he said, “and his wife is Aschire. No one wants a half breed dynasty, one that, if he’s successful, will last a long time.”
That hadn’t even occurred to me.
“If he takes back this city, then people can believe that he’s not your puppet, and they’ll support him, but that wife – no. It won’t be me, but I can’t imagine that Henekh Dragorson is going to embrace Eric Aileenson.”
I was wondering where that last name came from.
“I sent Lee and Lupennen to talk to him, with 300 Wolf Soldiers,” I said.
Dragor actually laughed. I frowned, but he held up a hand.
“No, no your Imperial Majesty,” he said, “I appreciate your idea. I wouldn’t have thought of it. Yes, sending Lee – that was a good idea.”
“Really?”
Dragor nodded. “Lee killed a LOT of Confluni. There are claims that she shamed the Confluni princess you were supposed to marry.
“Henekh hates the Confluni,” Dragor continued. “You remember how much he paid your Free Legion, just to hunt and kill them. Lee is a hero to Henekh Dragorson. He might be so awed with her, that he will forget that he should be the next king.”
“Henekh was next in line?” I asked.
Dragor nodded. “Gharf had no children,” he said. “Some say because he was too fat. He had seven wives, and none of them quickened. Henekh was counting the days until you took the coast. He believed that he would either be an Eldadorian Duke, or that you’d kill him for his son opposing you. You sent your eldest daughter to him to assuage him – he’s going to like that.”
Another thing that never occurred to me.
“Eric will be here next month,” I said. “I’ll surrender the city, recognize him as a King, and move to Medya.”
Dragor nodded. “He should have to go to the Fovean High Council,” he said, “but I hardly see the point.”
May
be if he wants to be taken captive by the Uman-Chi, I thought.
Dragor got to keep his life. That, I think, was pretty big for him.
***
On the 12th of Eveave’s month we received a visitor. Dragor had no court going on that day so we met him in the throne room as an emissary, rather than an old friend.
The Green One dressed in his usual brown over cloak and white robes underneath. His curly green hair was down to his shoulders and he had beard stubble, which I’d never seen on him before. He entered the throne room through the regular, brass-bound wooden doors and looked around curiously – probably like me noting how it was like all of the other throne rooms inspired by the Cheyak.
He walked right up to the Circle of Judgment, tapped his staffed and nodded to me. “Black Lupus,” he said.
“Green One,” I returned. He liked it better than ‘Green Dilvesh.’
He smiled. “You’ve found my long-lost countrywoman,” he said, indicating Vedeen, sitting with Raven and Jack in the gallery with Vulpe, Shela, Dagi and Chesswaya. Dragor was there as well with his newly appointed, not-yet-confirmed military commander. The Eldadorian Regulars and the Wolf Soldiers were leaving with me.
“And my own,” I said.
“I see,” he said. He squinted his brown eyes toward me. “Why so formal?”
I shrugged. I was in my usual white homespun shirt, leather pants and boots. “We rarely get to do this,” I said.
He straightened, wrinkled his brow, took on a more formal air. “As well you must know, the results of our negotiating a surrender as a diversion to attack Andoron was devastating both to our reputation and to the Fovean High Council,” he said.
I nodded. It was actually supposed to be. I wanted the idea out that the Council was ineffective and that, if you weren’t talking to Eldador directly, you weren’t talking to Eldador.
“Dorkan has withdrawn completely, as has Andoron,” he said. “The latter – well, when you control Chatoos, you pretty much are Andoron.”
I controlled Chatoos…
“The Uman-Chi wanted to get together with the Confluni and attack Eldador with another army,” Dilvesh told me. “The last attack, however, was a disaster, and the Confluni Emperor was somewhat disappointed to realize that the entire Uman-Chi commitment was six spell casters.”
“The entire move was a feint,” I said. “Angron Aurelias was after my daughter.”
“And he would have had her, or killed her, were it not for Vedeen,” Dilvesh told me.
I looked into the gallery. Vedeen was her usual, pissed-off self. Stripping someone down, tying them naked to a poll in front of other people and then trying to kill them left a lasting impression.
“How?” I began.
Vedeen stood. “When the King opened the vortex, I was aware of it,” she said. “As were most Druids. Curious, I investigated, and found your daughter at its edges, already lost.”
“Navigating the aether is no small feat,” Dilvesh said. “Your daughter was a child.”
“I directed her to the nearest, safest place – by the time I could do that, my choices were Conflu and the Great North.”
“You chose correctly,” Shela said, without standing. We’d had this conversation, but I understood it better now.
“I hope we’ve ended any discussion of retaliating against Vedeen,” Dilvesh said.
Vedeen snorted. “Too late for that, Green One,” she said. “Though not dead, I am bereft of all that matters.” She rubbed the underside of her baby bump. “Even the father of my child is not untouched by him.”
“His father is the dust,” Jack muttered, looking off to the side. He crossed his big arms over his belly. “His mother is the air, the sea, and mud.”
Dilvesh actually seemed to ponder that.
“So now you seek my council,” Dilvesh said, still regarding Jack.
“Your help,” I said. “Possibly before the War months, the Great North will attack Volkhydro. We’ve already rejected its emissary –“
“You will not defeat the Great North as you have the Confluni,” Dilvesh told me, interrupting me in uncharacteristic fashion.
“You know them?” I asked
“Of old, from legend, and from the books you’ve unearthed from the raids you’ve made and the land you’ve taken.
“Actually,” he added, “the ones from here. I was in Wisex when Arath found me – I had been for months.”
“No one knew,” I said.
“No one needed to know,” he said. “My studies were in-depth and I brooked no interruption.”
A little forceful for the ever-calm Druid.
“On Fovea, the Great North fought the Cheyak to a stand-still,” he continued. “For all of their magic, for all of their resources, they could not tame the people of the north, and instead they destroyed all means by which they could come here.”
“In over 1,100 years, that can change,” I said.
He nodded. “I feared this when we drove out the trolls,” he said. “The trolls, it seems, are the men of the north, corrupted by the Cheyak, enhanced in their anger, their strength and their hunger.”
“Beat an enemy with itself,” Shela said. I’d never heard that expression before.
“And so,” Dilvesh said. “It seems that the trolls grew weaker over time. I cannot guarantee that of the Men of the Great North. A blade grows dull if never sharpened before combat, but there in the Great North, they are content to fight themselves.”
This reminded me a lot of the Vikings in the Dark Ages. They had horrible land, limited resources, and an inhospitable climate. They fought each other and grew strong, and then hit the north of Europe and found a relatively weak, relatively soft people ripe for their plunder, which lasted for 400 years.
Now we were facing the same, however we weren’t so soft, and we hadn’t just suffered through what Europe had at the time.
“We need to consult again with the rest of the Free Legion,” I said, after a few moments’ consideration. “Unfortunately, we’re all pretty scattered.”
“Were you and I to go to Outpost X,” Dilvesh said, “I think we could attract enough attention to bring the rest in.”
Eric would be here pretty soon – a couple of weeks at the most. In fact, it would be better to sit him down before then, and say some things that he wouldn’t believe if they just came from me.
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Can you open a conduit to there from Medya?”
“Why not here?” Dilvesh asked.
“My son has declared himself the King of Volkhydro,” I said. “My son, Eric,” I added, looking at Vulpe. He frowned.
“To legitimize himself –“ I continued.
“He needs a military victory,” Dilvesh said, grinning, “against the Conqueror, his father, and here, returning this city to his own people.”
I nodded.
“Shela and I can go to Medya,” he said. “D’gattis controls the conduits to Outpost X, however that is not to say we are incapable of creating one.”
“A better one,” Shela added, grinning. It had been the three of them together who built Central Communications, although as far as I knew Shela had fixed it when Angron Aurelias broke it.
This was getting things moving in the right direction. I ended court, leaving everyone with a lot to think about.
Especially me, considering how much of what Dilvesh had just said was bullshit.
Chapter Seventeen
What Happened to the Free Legion
Moving Shela, Dilvesh and I to Medya by horseback would have taken a week one way, and we didn’t have it.
Using Shela’s magic was practically instantaneous, which is what we needed, but not without risks. She hadn’t been there in a while and she hadn’t spent a lot of time there. Mis-remember something and your group ends up inside of a boulder or as part of a wall – maybe even at the high court in Conflu. That’s why we didn’t like to roll these dice if we didn’t have to.
Using a ‘focus’ m
ade it easier. D’gattis would draw some intricate design, memorize it, and then he would return to that. If no one erased it, then he could return almost flawlessly.
There was a focus in Outpost X, in the throne room, and Shela and Dilvesh both knew it. Moving to Medya, they could establish a permanent portal there.
Watching them do it together, I thought about how this sort of thing could be turned against us. The members of the Free Legion were held together by a Fire Bond – we simply couldn’t betray each other, without there being really severe, magical and religious consequences. Even that hadn’t gone without consequences – Dilvesh was included in the bond after we left Outpost X – we had no idea why. When Drek had died, Karel of Stone had shown up with the Question Mark Turned Upside-down to replace him. When I’d crossed swords with Eric, his white question mark showed up as the opposite of my black one
All of this bound us to the gold in Outpost X, and to its secret existence. In that, we trusted each other. It hadn’t stopped D’gattis from letting one of my advisors nearly betray me, or from Ancenon pursuing his own agenda to create a new Uman-Chi nation.
It hadn’t stopped my son or I from becoming Kings.
“We’re ready,” Shela told me. There was a drawing of a portal on a wall in one of the reclaimed rooms in Medya. This place had originally been established before the Fovean High Council to mediate conflicts between other nations. There were lots of big rooms, stadiums, meeting places, and homes for troops. We were converting it to a real city, but that was slow in the winter.
Dilvesh simply stepped up to what looked like a drawing of an arch on a stone wall, and passed through it. I followed and so did Shela after me.
Much to the surprise of about 100 Confluni warriors who were investigating our throne room, and piling gold from our treasury into it.
“Oh, crap,” I said, I think in English.
“What – what – what?” Shela stammered.
“Clearly we’ve been undone somehow,” Dilvesh said.
As more attention was drawn to these new people in the throne room, people who were clearly not Confluni, I said, “Ya think?” and leapt back through the portal.
