by Robert Brady
Of course, that was me, and I really didn’t feel much like The Conqueror, more like the guy who took a cheap shot at the Trenboni and got away with it. We told our own stories and we heard theirs, about the coming shortages of food from Sental, the worry that maybe this would all backfire, and of course the love for the Heir Apparent, which also happened to be me.
I’d been brought here from Earth by a god named War, as his instrument. I’d been told to lead a successful life. Some might think that rising from common peasant to Duke and generally the most feared military man alive right now would qualify, but War didn’t feel that way. He wanted more.
He’d informed me recently that he wanted me to take over the monarchy of Eldador, and to do that meant to get Glennen out of the way. The problem was that I really liked Glennen. Glennen had shown faith in me when I had just been a mercenary with this idea of an army like the French Foreign Legion. Glennen had been a friend to me just because he liked my character, and I kind of didn’t want to assassinate him.
War had this bad habit of torturing me when I didn’t do things his way, and I really didn’t want to go through that again. If I had to go through that or kill Glennen, then I’d kill Glennen.
If I had to go through that or kill me, well – there ya go.
So now I had to do this balancing act that involved pleasing a god that could torture me, a King that could ruin me and a whole lot of people who now really, really wanted to kill me, and who’d probably like to do that in the messiest way possible.
So when common farmers came up to me with this look of worship in their eyes and said things to me like, “Oh, wow, you’re The Conqueror!” and “We love you, Duke Rancor the Just,” it made me feel like a real scumbag sometimes.
Because I was on my way to be named the Heir and then put the process for Glennen to be something other than my King in motion, this made for one of those times.
When you get right down to it – I’m really not that nice of a guy.
Chapter Two
The Sled Dogs
I sat with Glennen and his kids in Eldador the Port, in the royal palace. I told them all of the attack on Outpost IX, the sack of the invincible city, the warning. He felt satisfied with what I had done. That’s a good thing because I don’t know what more I could do.
The kids all cried, even his oldest son, Tartan, almost a man. I could see that the boy hated showing his weakness but I couldn’t blame him myself. They had all loved Alekanna. They all knew what had happened. They’d been told what had been done to avenge her, and they knew that, unless we had to defend against some retaliation, than there would be no more. They understood that they should be keeping their guards up for a while.
“She still isn’t here,” Glennen said to me once the kids filed out. He had been drinking. He had always drunk, but in the days that I had been here he hadn’t stopped once.
“The kids saw that more clearly than the rest of us,” he drawled. “They are the ones who have to get over this.”
“Don’t underestimate your own need,” I said. “You’re drinking a lot.”
He shook his head. “N’more than usual,” he said. “You don’t know me like you think you do.”
“I guess not,” I said. No point in arguing with him.
“Yer goin’ back to Thera?”
I nodded. “The Free Legion is meeting there,” I said.
“Betch’er Uman-Chi are kinda upset, what with you blowing gates off their city like that,” he chuckled, more to himself than me.
Then he looked me in the face. “Wuzzit with you and gates, anyway? You know how expensive those things are?”
Yep, he was drunk all right.
Glennen called court and named me Heir to the Throne of Eldador later that day. His Oligarchs nodded sagely and the royal court as well. They’d had to deal with him more than I had. One of the Oligarchs informed me that he felt especially loyal to me now.
We both gave Glennen a year before he drank so heavily that I had to step in and run the whole shooting match.
From there I returned to Thera. On Blizzard’s back I did it in four days – the Wolf Soldier Lieutenant whose command they were had a fit but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it – they made it to the city three days after I did. The cold weather made the road hard and encouraged Blizzard to his greatest efforts. He had gotten his belly wet on the ship and the run did him good. At some points I could barely contain him. I arrived at the Casa de Mordetur to find the rest of the Free Legion already there.
We met in my War Room on All Gods’ Day. We planned to celebrate in the city afterwards. Ancenon and D’gattis were livid, Karel of Stone amused. Dilvesh and Nantar and Thorn were ready to write the whole thing off and Arath had already been in contact with the Toorians to negotiate shipping their summer wheat and natural fruits and vegetables in preparation for the Sentalan shortages predicted next years. I had already decided to invest heavily in Toorian futures and had quietly bought into a shipyard in Andurin, where I could start building ships to move south.
It surprised me how much I missed Drekk. His quiet contempt for everything material, so unusual in a thief, had been a stabilizing factor. I still anticipated his next raw comment. Funny that I should miss the Uman who barely spoke to me, except to tell me that I’d done something wrong. It is strange how you can come to count on that sort of thing.
Perhaps it really is your critics that make you.
Karel of Stone could replace him in his own way. He reported from the same network. He told us that there were thoughts of retaliation, but that they were few and not serious. If we could sack Outpost IX and walk away from it, then we could go anywhere.
I don’t know what had inspired the thief to help me. He knew I didn’t like him.
“The damage will take years to repair, if it can ever be repaired,” D’gattis told me directly. “Some of what is lost is Cheyak architecture which can never be replaced. The rest is extremely expensive –“
“No,” Arath said. He was emphatic, half-standing. “Not a chance.”
“Of what?” D’gattis answered him. His ambiguous eyes flashed angrily.
“Of using gold from Outpost X to rebuild Outpost IX,” Thorn said.
“I don’t believe a vote has been called,” Ancenon interjected.
“I would vote, `No`,” Nantar said, flatly.
“As would I,” Karel said.
“And I,” Dilvesh joined them.
D’gattis regarded me with even more hatred. I just shrugged. This wasn’t my doing.
“I’m told that Trenbon just made a great deal of wealth on some sold property,” I said off-handedly.
Ancenon slammed his fist down on the table, fuming. Karel of Stone laughed outright.
“Do you know how many were made to suffer in this raid of yours, Lupus?” D’gattis demanded.
I nodded. “Four children, a husband,” I said. “A woman whose last moments of life were humiliation and pain.”
“The children and wives of two thousand Trenboni Royal Guard,” Ancenon added. “Merchants and tradesmen facing the rest of the winter with nothing.”
“This might be said of the Sentalans, and of the Volkhydrans, as well, Ancenon,” Nantar said, softly. “And yet, you don’t seem to want to spend gold to help them.”
D’gattis sniffed. “We cannot be held accountable for the people of every nation in the world, Nantar,” he informed us.
Thorn stuck his nose in the air and did his best to imitate him. “Neither,” he said, “can we.”
It ended that simply. If the Uman-Chi called for a vote to rebuild Outpost IX, then it would go against them. The Fire-Bond prevented them from taking the gold to do it themselves. I firmly believed that they only wanted the credit and the glory of donating to the rebuild, without having to actually extend themselves.
None of the Free Legion stayed for the All God’s Day celebration in Thera, which marked the end of the old year and the start of the new. Shela
and I ended up staying in and having the house musicians play for us. She’d been trying to teach Lee to smile and I lay back in the luxury of a break from wondering who would be the next person trying to kill me, or who I would need to kill.
It wouldn’t last.
I awoke in the morning with my wife in my arms, my daughter already up and watching us from her bassinette, the sun shining through an open window and a message delivered to me from a liveried Uman.
The new staff still needed to learn the rules like, “If it is one of those very rare times when I decided to sleep in, let me.”
“Shall I return after you dress, your Grace?” he asked me.
I nodded. This was one of those mornings when I could have really used a cup of coffee.
He excused himself, the head butler, an older Uman, closing the doors to the bedroom behind him.
“The whole staff needs work,” Shela said, stretching.
“How did our beloved daughter let you sleep in late?” I asked her.
“She didn’t you oaf of a man,” she said. “You slept through three feedings and three changings as well. Your ability to tune out the sounds you don’t want to hear is making you a poor father.”
“But a better husband,” I added. She didn’t get it.
I pulled on my leather pants, a loose fitting shirt and house slippers. Some nobles would have added robes and ascots and all sorts of other things, but I didn’t go in for that.
Some of the same nobles would have met a messenger like this in the throne room or someplace similar, but that also wasn’t in me.
I left the bedroom with Shela unbuttoning her blouse for another feeding; I passed the head butler and biffed him on the back of the head.
“Send someone into the bedroom when I am asleep again, and you will be cleaning stalls in the stable,” I told him.
He nodded.
That was me.
I found the Uman in the big circular anteroom just inside of the main door. The room had been tiled in black and white like a checkerboard and a wooden stair with a bronze frame descended counter-clockwise along the wall from a second floor landing. The landing opened up to a roof garden that Shela loved, and could be lined with archers if we were defending the house from attack.
That was me, too.
“Your Grace,” the Uman greeted me.
I nodded.
“The Heir is summoned back to Eldador, the City,” he said, “by order of your liege lord, the King, Glennen Stowe.”
How could I be so not surprised?
“How soon does he want me?” I asked.
“I am to escort you on horseback,” he said. “So as soon as you may.”
I shook my head. “Is there trouble, or don’t you know?” I asked.
“I would be a poor source of information to you,” he said, spreading his hands, palms up. “However, I can tell you that it is the royal Oligarchs who summon you in the King’s name.”
Crap.
“Rest after your journey,” I told him. The head butler appeared from behind me. “Afeer, here, will provide for you. If you would like to sleep, we will provide for you.”
“Thank you, your Grace,” he said.
“It will take me a day to get my affairs in order. Afeer will assign 500 Wolf Soldiers to escort you back to Eldador the Port.”
“You, then, decline the invitation, your Grace?” he asked me. You could read the worry on his face.
I shook my head. “I will leave tomorrow and catch up with you the next day,” I told him. “We will arrive in Eldador together.”
He nodded. I turned. Normally, I would have talked to him more, but you don’t do that when you’re a Duke and the Heir. Kind of a pain in my ass, but there you go.
Back in our room, Shela sat in her rocker, our daughter to her breast. Shela practically glowed. For just a moment, I wondered if I could get out of going to Eldador.
No way. I stood and watched her, my shoulder on the doorjamb. She sat and let me, waiting for me to speak.
“The Oligarchs are summoning me to Eldador.”
She looked up. “That didn’t take long.”
“I would be more surprised if they didn’t call, I think.”
“So would I,” she agreed, then looked back down at Lee’s face.
“So you want me to stay here when you go?” she added.
“Am I that predictable?”
She smiled. “You are so predictable, I can use you to tell what time of day it is.”
“Can not.”
She kept smiling, then after a moment said, “You would have said, ‘us’ if you wanted me to go with you.”
I hadn’t even recognized that.
“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. Depends on the situation.”
“How many Wolf Soldiers are you taking?”
“Five hundred.”
She nodded.
“You know I want to go,” she said.
“I know. If it’s more than a week, I will send for you.”
“Thank you.”
I bathed, dressed, and assembled my own Oligarchs. I gave them the information they needed to run the place. Who could do what, what they shouldn’t decide on, and some more instruction on the security of Thera.
“I am not declaring martial law,” I said, “but if you think that a ship pulling into port is suspicious, or if you see a band of more than three men come in, or if small bands keep coming in, use the Wolf Soldiers to arrest them or, if they resist, kill them.”
That made all three frown. “We have a tourism trade…” Thebinaar began.
“We won’t if we’re overrun,” Ann told him.
“Who would try to sack Thera?” Def snorted.
“Who would try to sack Outpost IX?” I asked him.
“Still,” Ann continued, as if none of us had spoken, “three is too low. If someone is trying to sneak in an invasion force, they need no less than 10,000. That means you have to move in groups of twenty or more, or your outlying army will be detected before you have in half your numbers.
I shook my head, thinking of how few men had supposedly been inside the Trojan horse. “Just a few men inside to start killing guards, then your army strikes before you know you’re unprepared.”
“But that argues to increase our outlying patrols,” Def said. “More of them searching deeper. More thorough.”
“Are we trusting other Eldadorian cities?” Ann asked me.
I thought about that. I’m the Heir, I knew that Rennin approved of my appointment, but I also knew that Groff of Andurin didn’t share his opinion. He didn’t want it; he just didn’t want me to have it.
“I am going to say that any party of armed troops has to say why they’re here,” I said, finally. “Eldadorian cities have sacked each other before. And increase the patrols. That’s a good idea.”
“How many troops are we keeping here?” Thebinaar asked.
“I am only taking 500 as a personal guard.”
“Horse?” Ann asked.
“Mounted infantry. I need to move fast,” I said.
She nodded. “Then we have seven hundred heavy horse in the city, and another five hundred in training,” she said. “Two thousand, three hundred Wolf Soldiers in the city, and another thousand in training.”
“A thousand?” I asked. We had never had a thousand in training.
“Sack the un-sackable city and you would be surprised how many want to cast their lot in with you,” Def said. “I turned away two thousand more, and put them on the trail to Angador.”
I smirked to myself. “That should come as a nice surprise to Arath,” I said.
“We will be back up to pre-invasion strength before the War months,” Thebinaar said. “Depending on our losses in the summer campaigns, we could be twice this size next year.”
“Until then, we are vulnerable,” Ann said.
“Well, not vulnerable, so much as affected,” Def said. “There isn’t anyone who is going to
come here to this city with 10,000 troops. Even the Trenboni can’t muster so many to that end. And until they do, we won’t lose the city.”
“Which means we will continue to grow,” Thebinaar said.
If it could only be that simple. In my own mind, I knew exactly what I would do now to draw us out and weaken us. I could only hope that my enemies weren’t thinking of it.
There were plenty of those now.
I marched through the gates of Eldador the Port at the head of 500 Wolf Soldiers, Blizzard in his full barding raising and lowering his head as Eldadorians and tourists stood aside for us. The wolf’s head banner snapped under the flag of Eldador on my lance and on my standard bearer’s pole.
I arrived on the 21st day of the month of Adriam, in the eighty-second year of the reign of the Fovean High Council. The wind blew cold, the horses loving it. At a time when most market places had shut down, the one in Eldador thrived.
I’d been told that the one in Outpost IX had yet to be rebuilt.
We marched to the palace gates, near the center of the city. The streets bustled with people in their furs or heavy cloth overcoats. Some stopped to look at us, some didn’t care.
We weren’t in the city twenty minutes before a rider met us from the palace.
“Your Grace, Mordetur of Thera?” he asked.
“And you are?” I responded.
“The squire of the Oligarchs, your Grace,” he said. “I am here to ask you to proceed to the palace with haste.”
“We are going there right now,” I told him.
“With greater haste,” he said. I’d seen that look in the Navy. Something very bad had happened.
I kicked Blizzard into a canter, the Wolf Soldiers behind me doing the same. One blew a single note on a bugle to clear the crowd, which came as a real surprise to me because I didn’t know I had buglers.
We got some good speed down the main way. The thunder of two thousand hooves gives you plenty of warning to get out of the way, especially on cobblestones. We were at the palace in less than half an hour.
