“I’d have to assume that you want me to go out, kill the killers, get into Glennen’s good favor and be his Heir,” I informed him.
Did I sense a kind of satisfaction? I really seemed that way, which was comforting, because that meant he wasn’t going to turn the pain on me, and disturbing because it meant that I was starting to think like War.
Your rise to power has been satisfactory, I was informed, but insufficient to my needs. The change coming over the backwater nation of Eldador could not have been anticipated by any of the other gods, and this leaves them with no time to counter.
“So if I’m running it,” I said, fleshing out the idea, “then it’s not just the Free Legion stirring up the other Fovean nations, it’s another nation which obviously is immune from the Free Legion, being able to expand and grow while they’re all killing each other.”
Again, the satisfaction. I understood this – this had been instrumental to the growth of the United States after the revolution from England. While any of those nations, or all of them combined, could have quashed the upcoming democracy, they were all so involved with getting over on each other that the US had plenty of time to grow.
That hadn’t exactly been a smooth road.
“Can I ask you something,” I asked him, trying to sound meek in my mind, “without – you know – you torturing me or something?”
I was afraid that even that could bring on the pain, and I waited the few seconds like they were hours, bracing myself for the thing I feared the most, before He responded.
I will allow this, he informed me.
With the relief came a new fear – what if this pissed him off anyway? What if I just couldn’t tell if I was going too far? War was a god – he could change the rules any time he wanted to.
Suddenly I was back to faith – did I believe that if he said he wouldn’t crush me, then he wouldn’t? I’d abandoned faith – I’d come to rely on proof. I did things in a certain way and he didn’t hook me up to whatever it was that made me feel like I was being turned inside-out.
Maybe I should just ask, “Am I being a good boy?” and keep my questions to myself?
Ask, he commanded me.
I smelled the fresh air that wasn’t, felt the cool breeze that wasn’t, looked out to the horizon that existed only in my mind and asked him, “How far am I supposed to go with all of this?”
There was a moment of silence, and once again I felt myself (that wasn’t) shaking in anticipation of being tortured again.
You want to know if I expect you to tear the world apart? he asked me. Do I want the Fovean lands to run bloody, until the last two soldiers end each other on a field of battle?
“Yeah,” I informed him, losing myself in my relief. “Because, you know, I think that could work against you in the long run.”
Did I actually sense him chuckle at that? He didn’t crush me, I had that going for me.
The purpose of the Instrument is not to destroy all things, he informed me, no more than the design of War is never-ending conflict.
“So all of this is for some sort of ‘better tomorrow’ purpose, then,” I asked him.
As much as you could understand it, yes.
That was actually a real relief to me. I’d caused a lot of people to die. I’d done it out of fear for my own safety. It made me feel kind of, you know, not so fresh?
Once you have secured the position of Heir to Eldador, you will not find it difficult to dispose of the current king and then to replace him.
And there was that feeling, right back again.
“Kill Glennen?”
I would consider it the best way, he informed me. A king can maintain in disgrace or embarrassment, so to redefine him would be just a waste of time.
I did not want to kill Glennen. Glennen was probably as close to a friend as I had here, after Shela and my horse. I liked Glennen better than I liked most of the Free Legion.
War must have sensed that.
You would do well not to defy me, he informed me. I have not the patience to wait for that one’s natural end, while you grow older and less useful to me at the same time.
I clamped down on any feeling about that. That road lead to nowhere good.
You will insert yourself as Heir, you will win the loyalty of the Eldadorian people, and you will destroy the King, War informed me. This is My will, and then all that matters to you.
Think, doofus, think, I told myself.
“If I do it too soon, are we agreed that I run the risk of being deposed myself, and less useful to you? I mean – how common is it for someone to be named to some new position and then go kill the boss to double-down?
I think War actually had to chew on that for a bit. I’d gotten nervous and loaded down with slang again – I really needed to work on that.
I needed to not be tortured, and I needed to not be called ‘Usurper’ and kick off a revolution by taking out Glennen a week after becoming his Heir, either.
I can agree that, should you move too soon, then other Eldadorian nobles might call you ‘Opportunist’ or worse, War conceded to me.
Spend time garnering their love. When you have it, ensure that Glennen dies.
Phew! “As you wish, my Lord,” I informed him. That bought me time. A lot of things could happen.
Encourage the growth of the Free Legion, and expand the power of Eldador until then, He informed me. You will have need of these.
“I will, my Lord,” I promised. I wanted to do that, anyway.
Remember this, as well, Instrument, He said, and it was as if I felt him draw near. The sky darkened, the wind stopped. The plains around me grew unrealistically large, or I shrank.
Almost feeling His breath on me, I heard in my mind, While you have finally realized that you have enemies, and you have begun to see where those enemies are, understand that you have more of them than you could know, who would wish more ill upon you than you could imagine.
Well, wasn’t that a surprise? Who the hell else was coming after me?
Continue to pray to me, as it suits me. He informed me, and then he was gone.
I awoke in my bed with Shela. The baby was in her bassinet on her side of the bed. The Sword of War hung over the bed, glowing like a night-light. I guess it sensed what had just been happening.
It was a long time before I could go back to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Bull’s Horns
“There is a saying where I come from,” I said, sitting in my War room, in the Casa de Mordetur, with Shela and the rest of the Free Legion. “’If you mess with the bull, you get the horns.’”
I’d built my War Room with chalkboard walls, a long table, chairs and no windows. The walls behind the chalkboards were lined with cork to prevent anyone from listening in on us.
“These are very strange people who birthed you, Lupus,” D’gattis said.
“Don’t I know it?”
A week had passed since the attack on Drekk and the Eldadorian queen, the first of the cold month of Power. Glennen had returned safe to his palace. Wolf Soldiers, Free Legion Soldiers and Sarandi had marshaled. The word had gone out and 1,000 loyal Aschire had already begun the march from their woods. They would be here in a few days.
Drekk had run a network of spies in every nation, dipping into our gold to pay them. These men and women were from our own troops, returned to their homelands and established as guards, journeymen, craftsmen and hand servants. Drekk had seen to it that, at different times, their pay came either from Outpost X, myself, Ancenon, D’gattis, Arath or Dilvesh. Thorn or Nantar had trained or recruited them, or I had. Drekk had spies who watched the spies, and had documented it all in a series of encrypted, leather bound journals entrusted to his unofficial second in command.
That second stood before us now, the journals on the table. Even I couldn’t read them.
“So you are Karel of Stone,” I said to him.
I had heard of him in Outpost IX, and from time to time in for
eign courts. Where Drekk had been a mystery, a shadow in the shadows, keeping his appearance and his reputation quiet, Karel made of himself an extravagant, actually infamous thief who like Drekk claimed to be able to take anything from anyone and not be caught. A Scitai, the Uman-Chi maintained an alarmingly large bounty on his head, as the man who had robbed the Trenboni royal treasury not once but twice.
“If not then my mother has some explaining to do,” he answered me. Like me, he had blue eyes and was tall for his people, a remarkable three feet and one inch in height. He had brown hair and wore armor made of bearskins, turned inside out. He wore a rapier over his shoulder much as I wore the Sword of War.
I already didn’t like him.
“I can vouchsafe Karel of Stone,” D’gattis told me. “I have known him for many years.”
“A friendship whose logic eludes me,” Ancenon commented. He wore no politic smile now – Ancenon wanted to arrest Karel on site and D’gattis had actually stood against him to prevent it. In this I tended to agree. We needed Drekk’s second to run things, at least until a replacement for Drekk could be found.
“Oh, I have friends that I can’t be seen with in public,” Nantar said, wearing his usual smile. “One of them used to be Thorn here.”
Thorn glanced sideways at him. He had taken the news of Drekk’s death personally and seemed more sour than usual. Probably why Nantar kept at him like that.
“You are able to read those journals,” Dilvesh said. Dilvesh had been the first to come when he heard of the attack. He had reaffirmed everything that Shela had told us, not that he needed to.
“I helped Drekk work out the encryption,” the little thief said.
“And the spy network?” Arath asked.
“In place,” Karel said. “They will need to be paid as usual or they will dissolve, I’m sure. Like cats, keep feeding them and they will keep coming around.”
“Cats aren’t notoriously loyal,” Ancenon remarked.
“Don’t underestimate cats,” Karel said. “They don’t wag their tails like dogs but they know what to do to get their dish refilled.”
I had to smile at that. Personally I hated the little fuzz balls but I could see the truth in what Karel said.
“And what do we know from this expensive network of Drekk’s?” Ancenon asked. Ancenon didn’t strike me as real happy right now. I doubt that he liked what he was about to find out any more than he liked the one who told him.
“Drekk’s and my contacts in Outpost IX are extensive,” Karel said. “Nowhere else is there such a preponderance of unneeded servants, so it is very easy to sneak more in to watch things.”
Arath barked a laugh. Shela smiled as well. She had been busy replacing the house staff and cleaning the manor herself during the process, including cooking our meals and feeding her horses. It made for a mountain of work for a new mother, but I knew she loved it. Nothing seemed as clean to Shela as when she did the work herself.
“There is no doubt but that Angron himself knew of the attacks and actually cooperated,” Karel continued, condemning the King of Trenbon.
“Lies!” Ancenon shouted, slamming the long table with his fist.
“That information does support what we know already,” Nantar said. He and I had discussed how Ancenon would react to the news of his King’s involvement. Neither of us had guessed that he would embrace the idea.
“The bounty hunter also confirmed that Uman-Chi had been involved,” Shela said softly.
“Why?” D’gattis said. “Shela, Karel, all of you, I know my people. Do not think we don’t know how the world sees us. We are a people motivated first by our own self-interests. How would those interests be served by eliminating the Free Legion?”
“D’gattis, do you know what your Free Legion stands for to a nation like Trenbon?” Karel asked.
“Of course he does,” Ancenon snarled. He still stood, glowering at Karel from across the table. “Our shipping brings more wealth to the market place in Outpost IX – “
“And our armies offer more threat to that market place, Ancenon,” Arath said.
“No one would dare attack Outpost IX,” Ancenon said. “Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone knows a lot of things,” Thorn said. “I don’t think the Uman-Chi spent centuries talking about ‘invincible Outpost IX because they wanted to prove it.”
“Better to use their power to prevent any other nation from growing strong enough to try,” Dilvesh said softly.
“Which is what provoked this action against us,” said Nantar.
Everyone nodded.
Ancenon and D’gattis were visibly mortified. If their own nation wanted to eradicate the Free Legion, that meant them as well. Life takes on a different tone when your own people want to kill you. I had learned that in a jail cell.
The Prince sat back down.
“Eldador poses an even worse threat than the Free Legion,” Karel continued. “Every court in the land is under siege as word spreads of peasants paying less than one silver in five to their liege lords. No one understands this uck-nomuks that Lupus invented. Volkhydrans especially are convinced that this is a new way to wage war.”
“What?” I said. I sat stunned.
“That makes sense,” Dilvesh said.
I looked at him.
“War is fought by one nation to eliminate another,” Dilvesh said. “What better way to defeat your enemy than to impoverish his nation by denying them their just gold. One could fight a bloodless war more effectively with gold than with soldiers.”
“But cutting taxes increases gold revenues,” I argued.
“Tell that to the Volkhydrans,” Karel said. “Personally, I don’t believe it, either. Families are trying to emigrate to Eldador from all over Fovea. Even Dwarves are coming here. Tell a baron that he is going to have fewer peasants, and that the ones who stay want to pay less than half their tithe, and you have some very unhappy and vocal barons.”
I looked at Shela, she looked at me.
This whole thing was my fault. I had thought that I lived in a void. I wanted my changes to affect every nation on Fovea and never thought twice what the Fovean nations would think of that.
“World shaking changes shake the world,” I said, more to myself than to the rest of them.
“What?” Karel’s blue eyes peered into mine.
“Nothing.”
“The question that remains is what to do about this?” Arath said.
“Before we answer that, we must first know who is involved,” Dilvesh warned.
“I think we know that already,” said Thorn.
“Do we?” asked Dilvesh, looking at Karel.
Karel went to the chalkboard and, with a piece of chalk, sketched a rough drawing of the Fovean region. I had been to every part that he had sketched except for Toor, and still I had a hard time imagining it the way he drew it.
“The Free Legion’s enemies are the ones most directly affected by its success,” Karel said. “Dorkan, who has lost sea power because of the intervention at Katarran. Sental, whose farmers are coming to Eldador in droves. Volkhydro, who feels threatened by the expansion of Free Legion power in what they consider to be an Uman nation, and Trenbon, who is most directly threatened by a wealthy neighbor to the south, where you seem to like to spend your gold.
“Even now, Eldador could afford to put enough ships on Tren Bay to neutralize every Tech Ship that Trenbon has. Trenbon believes that you are to blame for this.”
“Then perhaps it is time for this experiment with mercenaries to end,” Ancenon said, looking the rest of us in our faces.
I hadn’t even considered that idea and felt glad to see that no one else had, either. Even Karel of Stone looked skeptical. D’gattis seemed pensive, arguing the idea in his head perhaps. Thorn was more emphatic.
“I will be damned before I let some greedy Trenboni tell me how to live my life,” he said.
“I don’t see any other alternative,” Ancenon said.
; “I do,” Arath said. He stood, Thorn and Nantar with him.
“We have armies, we have warriors, we have lancers and squads and Wolf Soldiers and Sarandi, Ancenon,” he said, looking right into the Prince’s silver-on-silver eyes.
“None of which will stand against Trenbon’s might,” D’gattis said.
“I am not so sure of that,” Dilvesh said.
“I am,” I said softly.
They all looked at me. I had made it clear that there would be retaliation, whether they joined me or not. They likely didn’t expect that I would come in on this side.
I looked up from where I sat. “If we have spies, then they do,” I said. “If we know something, then they will know it soon. I don’t expect the Uman-Chi, the best Wizards on the planet, to just sit there and let us come to their island with superior forces and superior tactics.”
“They would call the High Council to defend them,” Ancenon agreed with me.
“We can’t defeat the united Fovean armies,” D’gattis said. “Even with Eldador standing with us, we would not prevail.”
“So your bull and you horns are nothing?” Arath asked me. I had stolen his thunder and he didn’t like it.
But his plan wouldn’t work. Go right for Trenbon and we would fail. I knew it.
“Do you know how to eat a bull?” I asked him in return.
“With a fork and knife?” he said.
“You cut its throat and bleed it,” said Thorn.
“Spit it,” said Karel.
I shook my head. Shela laughed, sitting next to me.
At the end of the day, Shela was at least as smart as I was. In fact, I tended to see her as smarter. Certainly not very much got past her.
“One bite at a time,” she said.
I stood with D’gattis, Arath and Ancenon on my marshalling field, which had once been the coliseum of Thera. It was too small now for the Theatre au Thera but it made a good place to speak to my Wolf Soldiers all at the same time.
Two Spears did that now. He excelled at these rallying speeches. He could make men so eager to fight and die that you had to worry about them killing each other right there in their anger.
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 50
