Semper Indomitus: Book Five of the Fovean Chronicles

by Robert Brady

  “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

  I looked her in the eyes.

  “Shela said you went berserk,” she said.

  My eyebrows rose.

  “I do that,” she said. “Once, when some boys wanted to pull off my dress, it happened. They all bear the scars.”

  I smiled. “They deserved it,” I said.

  She shook her head. “You tell yourself that, but you still have the guilt.”

  Yes, I thought. You really, really do.

  “I’m going to forgive myself for those boys,” she told me. “I want you to forgive yourself for what happened with you.”

  I looked in her eyes. In a very un-Dagi-like way, she stepped up and she took me in her arms. She held me, like a daughter can, sharing her emotional energy, making my heart open back up.

  “Blizzard is safe,” she told me. “That horse died, and your warriors died, and theirs did, too. That is just the way of things, father. That is how the gods would have it.”

  “Oh, my daughter,” I said. “If only you knew how true that was.”

  ***

  On the second day of Chaos, we marched to the north along the one road to Senta. The Volkhydrans had the van. I marched with my Wolf Soldiers, not wanting to ride another horse then. We came across the bodies of the Men of the North who didn’t make the trip. We probably had them down around 3,000 warriors.

  The toll in life for this war was frightening.

  Nantar and Thorn marched next to me. “Where do they go, if we do it again?” Thorn asked me.

  I didn’t know. Lee, Dagi, Chesswaya and Shela travelled to one side of us in a supply cart pulled by two aurochs. In the back of that. Maree and Vinkler were bound, chained, and gagged, dressed in their under clothes and not even a sharp stick within reach of them.

  Vinkler was a mass of bandages. Maree would moan and hold her head from time-to-time, if she was untied. Getting creamed with a helmet on the head of a guy with a 150 lb weight advantage was going to hurt anyone.

  If they were smart, they were questioning what it was they were trying to do here.

  “I think they spread out to the east,” Nantar said, “and cause trouble until more of them show up.”

  “Which shouldn’t be too long,” Karel added. As usual, he’d shown up when he wanted to. “I sent the Dwarves to the north under guard to monitor their progress and see if they can slow it, but really I don’t see how.”

  “Any sign of your Scitai brethren?” I asked him.

  Karel shrugged. “We’re pretty good at disappearing when we want to,” he said. “I have to assume they’re in Conflu – they were very excited about Lee’s story.”

  “They’re a pretty long way from where Lee saw the other Scitai,” I said.

  “And there’s no guarantee that they’ll be welcome,” Karel added. “But they have to know.”

  I looked back behind me to where Vulpe and Lupennen were riding side-by-side, at the head of the Regulars. We’d lost an entire Millennia and then some. I’d had to combine the First and Second Wolf Soldier Millennia to have a full 1,000 warriors between them, and then promote a bunch of warriors on the fly because so many officers had died.

  Alongside the Regulars were Raven, Jack and Vedeen in another cart, with Raven’s mobile chem lab. Raven was rather unfortunately eager to hit our enemies with mustard gas. I hated to think how that was going to weigh on her if she actually had to do it.

  That night we made camp. The sky was clear and the air felt warm on my face. To the south we could see camp fires, both our own, those of the enemy warriors and of the Volkhydrans who either fled or chased them. Volkhydro might be bland and cold in the winter, but in the summer it was full of life and beautiful.

  I went with Shela and Karel of Stone to the cage where we kept Maree and Vinkler. They watched us approach, their eyes nearly glowing in the dark. Shela used her magic to slip their gags.

  I regarded them silently for a while. Neither said anything.

  “What do you want?” I asked finally.

  Maree looked at the side of Vinkler’s face. He looked at me.

  “Is it so bad where you live?” I asked. “Do you have nothing – not even the skills to-“

  “You have no idea what the Great North holds,” he told me.

  “And we won’t discuss it with you,” Maree added.

  “It must be pretty awful,” I said, “if you’re this bent on coming here.”

  “Here,” Vinkler said, “all is green. It is fat, it is soft – it is easy plunder for us.”

  “Why would we not take it?” Maree asked. “Were we soft and weak, wouldn’t your armies find us?”

  Under War? I thought. Damn right I would.

  But I didn’t follow War anymore.

  Or, did I? Really – these were War’s chosen. I was in their way. Where was War with the pain? Where was War in my head, telling me to get out of His way? Were it not for me, personally, and the resources I’d collected, the Great North would have made it to Tren Bay by now.

  I’ve said it before, and I thought it again. Whenever I thought I was being clever, I was stupid. Whenever I thought I was ten steps ahead, I was one behind and losing ground.

  I knew that the answer wasn’t to fight these people. I knew this was what War wanted – a battle, a lot of battles, the troubadours working into the night to sing of the great deeds, the broken wills, the shattered widows – these were hymns to War.

  War wasn’t bothering me, because I had been His tool for so long I couldn’t help but do His will.

  Raven was about to step in and replace me if I failed, too. No one was getting it, because we were all doing what we were supposed to, and I led the way.

  I had Shela replace their gags, which could be hard to do. Feeding them actually involved standing over their cage and pouring down broth for them to catch in their mouths, because they could turn any utensil into a weapon.

  That night I slept in the command pavilion with Shela in my arms, and most of my kids within arm’s reach, and most of my allies around me.

  In another armed camp, in another foreign land, in another battle, in service to the god War. Fighting Him by doing exactly what He wanted, and wondering what my alternatives were.

  On my Earth, in my history, Moses won a war without a fight by invoking the ten plagues of Egypt on Pharaoh. Later, I’d learned how a volcano had erupted on the island of Thera and wiped out what was likely the Minoan civilization, and at the same time might have caused those plagues.

  A volcano spreads ash and a parasite that creates the red-tide phenomenon in the Nile, which travels backwards through Egypt into the Mediterranean. Frogs are driven out of the waterways by the blooms and infest the cities. Bringing with them the lice that would later infest the people. The wild animals, unable to drink the water, follow. The lice infect both the livestock and the people, which is why there’s a delay after the invasion of the wild animals.

  As the volcano actually begins to erupt, the rain of thunderstorms and fire are the effect of lava bombs and the atmosphere’s reaction to the accompanying drop in planetary temperature. As locusts are driven out by the wake of the spewing ash, there is a mighty eruption which spreads enough ash to darken the skies for three days.

  Plagues from the lice start killing children who are most susceptible to it, and one of those is the child of Pharaoh. His economy stressed, his food resources depleted and his people demoralized, he releases his slaves and plans to run them down in the fields outside of Egypt, knowing that a military victory of any kind will lift the morale of his people.

  He couldn’t know that a tidal wave which can actually be traced back to that time is about to strike the northern shores of the Med. The tidal wave dumps the water out of the Red Sea, the Israelites cross it, and the water returns to wipe out the Egyptian charioteers.

  You call it science, good-luck and timing if you have no faith. If you do, you ask, “Who do you think made the volcano erupt?”
r />   When you have proof, like I do, you know.

  Months ago, my daughter created a volcano, and this was the worst winter any of us remembered. Now the summer is more mild as the cooling effects of the ash retreat. The rain in Conflu was probably, inexplicably bad this year, which would be why they had to decide where to send their troops so carefully.

  The story really isn’t about the plagues, or Pharaoh, or the Egyptians, or even the volcano – although, without it, the Minoans would have likely conquered the whole area and then no one would have ever heard the rest of the story, because the Israelites would have been slaughtered by the Egyptians before they themselves were overrun by the Minoans.

  The story is about Moses, who stood up and, with faith, defied Pharaoh and his armies. No matter how you read it, he didn’t know about the volcano, and he couldn’t know the will of God.

  Faith, in and of itself, is more powerful than proof. Moses didn’t know there was no way for him to win, and so he started down a path that I would have called, ‘Doomed.’ I looked at the place where I was now, and could see victory, and didn’t that make me more the fool?

  In that moment, in the night, with Shela in my arms, I knew what I had to do, and I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. For all of my proof, I had faith.

  I knew what I was here to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Power of One

  The next morning we rose, packed up and began the march to Senta again. We arrived there on the fifth of Chaos’ month, a light rain making the road muddy and coating our troops up to the shins and our horses to their underbellies.

  Nantar, Karel and Eric stood next to me at the side of Vinkler and Maree’s cage. The trip hadn’t been good for them. I had to think I’d done permanent skull damage to Maree, and Vinkler’s bones hadn’t set well in the cramped confines of the cage. Their fighting days were over – I didn’t know where that left them among their people.

  I raised the Sword of Dawn and struck the ropes that bound their cage shut. The feel wasn’t that different from the Sword of War, now that I was used to it.

  The two Northerners pushed themselves out of the cage and dropped to the ground behind the wagon that carried them. Neither fell, but anyone could see the pain that they had to overcome, just to stand on their own.

  “Go,” I told them.

  Vinkler wouldn’t look at me. Maree eyed me up and down and snorted.

  “Go where?” she demanded.

  I indicated Senta’s gates with my chin. “Go there,” I said. “Tell your people that they’re Volkhydrans now, and Eric is their King. Support Volkhydro and pay your taxes, live your lives if you can.”

  This time it was Vinkler who snorted. “Your confidence –“ he began.

  “My word,” I said, cutting him off, “is that you’re beaten. You lose – I win, that’s the end of it.

  “You think you’ve seen the best of my weapons?” I pressed him. Finally, he looked me in the eye. “I can create an invisible gas that will drown you in your own bodies, and there is nothing that can save you, once you’ve breathed it. I can create it all day, anywhere I want, and use it on you, and you can’t fight it.

  “That failing,” I continued, “I have spell casters who can create volcanoes that will destroy the Great Northern Mountain Range, that can turn 1,000 of you from flesh to flame in less than a second, that can rip the gates from your cities and let my armies pour in.

  “You saw what a few of our tiny archers can do? I have thousands, and the ones who left at Vellock will find thousands more. I can create arrows by the millions and spears by the tens of thousands – I can strip our forests down to twigs if I have to, ravage the Earth and score the lands you take, as you saw in Vellock.”

  I took Vinkler by the shoulders and held his face up to mine, where he could feel my breath on his face, and his on mine.

  “Do you want that?” I demanded of him. “To die horribly, your sons and brothers with you, where the most you can hope for is a ravaged land?”

  Vinkler and I looked into each others’ eyes for almost a minute, and I released him.

  “Go,” I said. “Be a Volkhydran. Pay your taxes – live your life.

  “Render unto Eric what it Eric’s, and keep for yourself your dignity, your history and what is yours.”

  I turned my back on him. I could see Eric, Nantar and Karel exchanging glances if I wanted to, or Maree and Vinkler trying to decide what had just happened, but there was no time for it.

  I had things to do.

  ***

  I met my children and my generals in my pavilion, with Shela, who’d watched what I’d just done and said nothing.

  “Go home,” I told them all.

  The silence was deafening.

  “The Eldadorian Regulars,” I said, to Vulpe, “should have adequate forage for the trip to Medya. Leave a garrisons there and in Lupha, but I want our cities back in Eldador and along the coast to be fortified, release enough warriors back to the general population to ensure that we have farmers for the harvest.”

  I turned to Lee. “Help him,” I said. “I’m declaring your husband the Heir. He has a head for this sort of thing.”

  Lee opened her mouth and I turned to Lupennen, “You’re the new Duke of Angador,” I informed him. “We’re going to have encroachments from Toor with this many troops gone. Get us out of a war with them if you can. There’s an Oligarch – Datreve – there, who’ll help you.”

  I turned to Chesswaya. “You’re going to Lupen,” I said. “Find peace between the tribes and the people. Bring Nantar’s daughters with you. Shela will give you a writ to show to the Duke there, to let him know that you’re there on my orders.”

  I found J’her standing behind me with his mouth open. “Go back to Galnesh Eldador,” I said, “and defend the Heir and the city.”

  He shut his mouth and made a fist over his heart.

  I turned to the members of the Free Legion who’d come.

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “I don’t that I was ever really a member, but now I’m officially not.”

  “That symbol on your chest says otherwise,” Karel pointed out.

  I looked down at it, placed my hand on it, and mumbled, “In nomine Patris, et Fili, et Spiritu Sancti.”

  The symbol faded to grey, but didn’t quite disappear.

  “It will fade,” I said. I actually hadn’t known if that would work – I guess I just had faith.

  Shela took my by the shoulders and turned me to face her. Her brown eyes searched mine.

  “White Wolf,” she said, concern all over her beautiful face, “what are you doing?”

  I smiled. I could tell her, but as much as I had been War’s instrument, we both knew she was Power’s. As aware of faith as I was now, I couldn’t challenge hers.

  “What has to be done, my Empress,” I told her. “Go back to Galnesh Eldador – you’ve a daughter who misses you. She deserves her mother.”

  “And her father,” Shela argued, “and I – a husband.”

  I nodded. “But if you don’t go,” I said, “you will both have neither.”

  They all wanted to argue, but again, I didn’t have time for it. I just shook my head and turned my back on them, and then ordered my Wolf Soldier guard not to let them follow me. Those loyal men and women obeyed me with tears in their eyes.

  Well… I hadn’t promised them easy service.

  ***

  I started walking northeast. I knew where I had to go, and what I had to do when I got there, and that I had to do it alone.

  Dagi didn’t know that, which was why she was suddenly walking beside me, once I was a daheer from the encampment.

  “You didn’t give me anything to do,” she said after she’d walked silently next to me for a while.

  “No one tells you what to do,” I answered her.

  She cinched up the steel shield on her back. “You have that right,” she told me.

  As we kept walking, we didn’t say much more.


  It took us two weeks to walk to the passage in the Great Northern Mountain Range where we’d blocked the pass to the Great North. I’d brought provisions for two – so had Dagi – so we didn’t want for food. We skirted a lot of travelers along the way, most of them Volkhydran war parties looking for North Men, but a few of them the Northerners themselves, usually groups no bigger than five. Dagi wanted to fight them, however I informed her that, if we left a trail of corpses, it would be pretty easy for our many enemies here to find us.

  Despite the actions of the summer, a lot of Volkhydrans didn’t think that much of the Emperor of Eldador or his family.

  Then again, I wasn’t much like the Emperor anymore. The Sword, the horse, the mark – all were gone now. I’d reverted to a dusty traveler with his daughter, both armed against the world.

  “We should have brought Lee,” Dagi told me.

  “Not Chessa?” I asked.

  Dagi shook her head. We were at the base of a new trail that had been well-worn, but was now sprouting weeds that hadn’t been tramped down. The camp that had been here was overrun. Volkhydrans under Eric were fighting more like Wolf Soldiers now, and they were winning battles against the North Men.

  Eric was going to be a good king, with Nina to guide him.

  “Chessa’s powers wouldn’t tell us what’s going on in those mountains,” Dagi said. “Lee would know in a second.”

  “There are others,” I said. “Just wait.”

  We sat down, and we waited. The sun moved slowly across the sky as we chatted.

  Dagi’s head jerked up suddenly. She looked to the west and said, “Riders coming in.”

  I followed her eye set to where she saw two riders on loping horses, one much larger than the other. I felt a grin cross my face.

  Not whom I’d expected, but good enough.

  ***

  Vedeen and Jack reined in about 10 feet from us. Little Storm pawed the earth, wanting to run more. Jack patted his neck.

  He still had that wild-eyed look to him. Unfortunately, I understood exactly where that was coming from now.

  “From the dust you come,” Jack informed me. “You’re covered in it now. That’s right.”