“Your Majesty, please, we need an answer.”
Helfrick looked up to see Otho, the chief engineer out of Crane Valley, standing at his seat and looking to him. All of the others had their eyes on him as well. The normally vocal assembly was silent and waiting. Helfrick could not even remember what they were discussing.
Helfria, his eldest daughter and diplomat in training, bent down and whispered into his ear. “Father, the construction of siege weapons… they need your approval. We’ve been talking about this on and off for weeks, remember?”
“Has his Majesty been listening at all to this discussion?” Ubrith, the Ambassador from Leafblade asked. “This is the most important discussion of the entire generation, as far as my kin and I are concerned and you are daydreaming!”
“The Witzer cannon, correct?” Helfrick said, snapping out of his worries over his son. If he did not get back on track with the meeting, there would be more questions on what he was so preoccupied with and he would have to lie even more to his assembly. “From what Chief Otho tells me, and from the numerous letters I have received from the Council, this weapon could revolutionize our defense against the Greimere. But your concern is…”
“We do not need them, your Majesty!” Ubrith answered. “The Witzer Cannon is unnatural, it is completely unsuited to our style of warfare and, though I feel I shouldn’t have to point this out, it can only be used by the Faeir! I have petitions from all five major clans and even signatures from prominent Saban families voicing their opposition to the manufacturing of this weapon. The money could be better spent elsewhere.”
“On more Twileen hunters, I suppose?” Councilor Herod spoke up.
“The ones we have are sufficient,” Daelith, the Hunter Commander from Cedarfall said. “Most of my hunters have been reassigned to the 6th Regiment or town militias. We train men from maturity onward to be combatants, forsaking any other trade skills, and now they receive a fraction of normal soldier wages.”
“The Commander is simply frustrated that his men are obsolete and of no use to a technologically advanced military such as the one provided by a coalition of Faeir and Saban, my lord.” Councilor Herod did not even glance at the Twileen Hunter. “Besides, with less coin in their purses, maybe the Twileen youths will be less able to indulge in their debaucheries.”
“Debauchery is a strange insult to fling about from a people who still practice slavery!” Ubrith retorted.
“Settle down, all of you,” Helfrick said. “I’ll not have this gathering devolve into a maelstrom of racial slurs and vitriol.”
“My lord, if I may?” Helfria asked, stepping forward. Helfrick looked at her oddly, but nodded his head. She continued, addressing the assembly. “Gentlemen, I am not a general or a strategist; my concerns are not military ones. What concerns me are the engineers and mages displaced by the decision not to commence manufacturing of the Witzer Cannon and the hunters and soldiers who might have benefitted from the funds freed up by that decision.”
“Lady Helfria, you have studied at the Amethyst College to the East, yes?” Councilor Herod asked. “It was our honor to host you there and I remember hearing about you from Professor Pericles, who was pleased with your diligence.”
“Councilor, everyone, including our Twileen guests is aware of my studies at the College.”
“Of course, but I would draw your attention back to the teachings of Professor Pericles. His highest economical teachings are of our free market. In his class, you would certainly have learned these teachings, just as I did when I attended his lectures.” Herod took on a more scholarly tone, indicating to those familiar with him that he was about to say something greatly offensive to several of the other guests. “Lady Helfria, if you studied under Pericles, then you realize that the Twileens have brought every ounce of suffering upon themselves.”
The Twileen Guests began to groan and complain, but Herod continued, raising his voice above the protests. “They refuse to advance their technology and they worship neither the Fates nor the Elements! If they were worthy, they would not need your charity to keep them afloat. They would still be Wildlings scrounging out insignificant lives in the dirt and trees if not for Saban generosity.”
“The Faeir would not survive a single skirmish with the Greimere if not for the Saban soldiers, wielding Twileen steel!” Daelith exclaimed. “I would match my hunters against the best Faeir Mages in the forests and I would put Twileen craftsmanship to test against any flimsy Faeir technology.”
“Enough!” Helfrick roared. “Helfria is not done yet.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Helfria said, keeping up the formalities expected of her even with her own father. She turned to Councilor Herod. “Councilor, I do not appreciate your attempts to use my time at the Faeir College as leverage for your agenda. Yes, I studied under Professor Pericles and I consider him a great influence. Pericles states that only those capable of advancing or enriching a society are worthy of residing in that society, but it is not my interpretation of his teachings that he was specifying Twileens so much as any person, no matter their heritage, who refuses to contribute meaningfully.”
Before anything else could be said, Tiberius entered the meeting and went directly to the king. After whispering to him, the color drained from Helfrick’s face and the rest of the guests silenced and turned their attention to him. Helfrick turned to Tiberius and asked if the information he was given was correct. When the general nodded, the king looked as if his very soul were draining out of his quickly deflating body.
“Father? Fates, what is happening to you?” Helfria asked, ignoring protocol. She looked up at Tiberius. “What did you tell him? What is happening?”
Tiberius shook his head. Then the king gathered himself, putting on a face for the group as he stood. Everyone stood with him.
“The town of Ganston is in ashes,” Helfrick said. “The Summer Guard has picked up the trail of a sizeable force moving west across the Wilderness. They are calling for reinforcements.”
“Your Majesty, I can have an entire battalion of Hunters moving to join the 9th in less than a week!” Daelith exclaimed.
“Send them to the forge, then!” Herod said. “We need steel more than we need scouts. Your Majesty, authorize the Witzer Cannon! We can have an operational prototype ready to send south in two months if you requisition enough Twileen artisans to the job site at Crane Valley.”
“Helfria, see this meeting to an end, please. I must meet with my generals right away.” Helfrick motioned Tiberius to lead the way out of the conference room.
“Fath… your Majesty, I cannot do this,” Helfria replied. “I’m still in training. I don’t know all of the protocals and I don’t even begin testing until next year…”
Helfrick turned and took his daughter by the shoulders. She was frightened more by the desperation in his eyes than the duty he was unloading on her. “Helfria, you are a Caelum and Caelum blood burns brightest when tested. We are not always completely prepared for that test when it appears; sometimes we are thrust into it way too early. I’m making you a Diplomat right now, with enough authority to oversee trivial proceedings such as these. I know you’ll pass the test.”
Then Helfrick was out of the room and marching down the hall with Tiberius, leaving his daughter staring after him. He was slightly worried with the amount of pressure he put on his eldest daughter. She was very smart and mature, more so than any of his children, including Raegith, but she was still only fifteen years old. His comparison of her to Raegith twisted his stomach and when they were far enough away from the meeting, he pulled Tiberius aside.
“Tiberius, this invasion… it’s been a year since Raegith would have reached the Greimere,” Helfrick whispered. “Yet there has been no word from the group we sent. Nothing!”
“The timing is too close for coincidence, sir,” Tiberius said. “We need to convene with the others immediately.”
Before the hour was out, Helfrick was in a small room high in the castle, wit
h a handful of men, all of whom knew about the treaty and Raegith’s group. Helfrick was grief-stricken and barely spoke, but the others were not holding back.
“I should think this pretty evident to all of us here,” Eramus said. “The Greimere Emperor has slain the boy, along with all of his companions. He is insulting us in the only manner available to him because he is a coward who cannot confront us with actual might.”
“There is no way the Emperor, or anyone else could have known who the boy was,” Tiberius said. “If that was the case, which it looks as if it is, then to the Emperor Raegith was merely another messenger. There is no way he could have been trying to insult us with the death of a few soldiers.”
“Then they’re testing their limits.” Ubrith said. He was the only Twileen in attendance and was the one who assigned Ebriz, his clansman, to the mission.
Ubrith was past middle age for his kind and the grey in his sideburns belied the youthfulness of his Twileen face. He was from the Storm Line, the row of towns along the western coast and had risen to Warden of the Ports, overseeing all sea trade. Ebriz was selected by Ubrith and was one of his friends. The taciturn Twileen man was noticeably upset by the development.
“I agree with the Twileen,” Eramus said, drawing looks from Tiberius and Ubrith. “The Greimere are not powerful enough to legitimately bring war to us and the Emperor knows this. They are trying to see how far they can push the treaty… how far they can push us.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Helfrick said, wiping his face. “Of course they are pushing the bounds of the treaty. How long did we actually think this would continue before the barbarians beneath us finally got tired? How long did we think it would take for those ungrateful devils to want more than what we give them?”
“Sir, if we act quickly enough, we could prevent them from taking the last few reward settlements. Sending them home with less loot will send a powerful message…” General Mortimer, Helfrick’s chief strategist said.
“They killed my son!” Helfrick growled. “I don’t want to send them a message. Nearly seven hundred years and we have never lost a group of emissaries, not an entire group and not to the Greimere Emperor. I bet that miserable cur watched my boy die. I bet they all got a big thrill from being able to put one of mine under their boot!”
“Sir, what are your orders?” Tiberius asked.
“We Sabans used to be farmers, Tiberius,” Helfrick said, staring past the men to the south wall. “Before we were soldiers and before we were rulers, we only lived for the harvest and the migration of game. That life is still in our blood, hidden under the iron, but now we are farmers of war. We sow our war in the dirt of the Greimere and when it rises up, we cut it off at the stalk and then harvest the high morale and peace that comes after. But when your crop comes up rotten, you don’t try to excise the bad from the good and salvage what you can. No, you burn the whole fucking thing down to the roots and you start over.”
“We will bring you this fire, my lord,” Eramus replied. He then turned to look down at Ubrith. “Nothing could unite us stronger than this cause. I would put aside any prejudices against your kind and burn scores in the name of the fallen Ebriz.”
Ubrith nodded. “Aye, we are united. Pyrrhus and the Stone Seer also died beside the young prince and I would silence ten of those demons for each. Our people can never know the fate of these brave souls, but we can etch their vengeance into the heart of the Greimere.”
“I want the entire army assembled,” Helfrick ordered. “Pull in the mages and the hunters; put a shield and a spear in the hands of every soldier and paladin. Send a whole battalion of support units. We will bring the full force of our hammer down onto this raid and then we will feast in victory right there on the battlefield!”
Helfrick was practically screaming at this point, his fury venting out through his commands and fueled by the eagerness of his officers.
“When that is done, we will send our message to the Emperor. We will carve a path through his infested lands, blow down his walls and put him under our boot. There, squealing for his miserable life like the coward that he is, we will learn of what happened to my son. Then we will recreate that experience with his miserable corpse and he should hope, gentlemen, that Raegith was given a swift and painless death.”
“You intend to march on the Greimere? To lay waste to their capitol?” Mortimer asked.
“Yes. I go now to do what I should never have hesitated doing,” Helfrick said, turning toward the door. “By the time we have defeated the raid, the Witzer Cannon will be completed and on its way… right up the Greimere’s ass!”
Chapter 23
Raegith found himself in the same carriage as before, with the same hour-long ride. He knew it would be coming soon and was not surprised when the guards came and took him from his cell, tossing Fenra and one of her Urufen friends out into the hall completely naked. Raegith had taken a liking to Fenra after her first night pleasing him and he had taken her often since then, openly encouraging her to bring others to him. He was insatiable ever since carving a name for himself in the Pit. Many nights he would take two or three women to his bed; his sexual stamina nearly boundless. On the morning that the guards came to take him to the palace, he had actually fallen asleep, which made him especially irritable.
Once again he was brought to the royal bath and scrubbed down by Beretta. Once again he was teased by her warm skin and pliant fingers. He was not garbed in fancy robes this time, but in soft leathers; they were clothes like that of the denizens of Greimere. Then he was taken up into the Spire of the palace, stopping short of the Empress’s room and instead entered a small room with a table and walls lined with books and paintings. It reminded him a bit of the library in Forster’s Keep. Several emberstones lined the walls and glowed like dull flames. The spines of many of the books were scrawled with symbols that Raegith naturally recognized as the Rathgar language. His strange skill, bequeathed by the Dragon Queen Silthaheedra, even branched over to written words.
The door opened as he was inspecting a book titled The Far Tunnels and Empress Kalystra of Black Talon entered. Surprisingly, she was dressed in more conservative clothing than the last two times he had seen her, though her bodice and open-front skirt still bore a gratuitous display of her slate-hued skin. She wore make-up on her face and her hair was pulled up in wicked tendrils that resembled scorpion tails. She looked at him and smiled, closing the door behind her and crossed the room to stand behind a chair opposite the table of him.
“Since my last attempt to seduce you failed, Raegith of the North, I have decided to appeal to a different side of you,” she said. “This is my personal library; the only one like it in the Greimere.”
“You have more books than I would have guessed,” Raegith said, then changed his tone when he noticed the sour look on her face. “That is, before I learned more of this place and its people. It does not really surprise me that you would have such a room.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Would you care to sit with me for a while, Raegith? I promise to have you back to the Pit afterwards… or should we call it the Harem, at this point?” Kalystra asked, motioning to the chair across from her.
“It gets boring when I’m not fighting someone every time I cross the yard,” Raegith said, taking a seat.
“Yes, all of the men have been sent to your homeland, to raid and kill and pillage your people. You can understand I could not send you as well.”
“I would probably kill more than your generals, Empress,” Raegith said. “I am not Raegith of Rellizbix anymore. You’ve done your work on me perfectly. This place will always be my home; these people are my people.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Raegith,” the Empress said. “You have followers here; females that want you and men who idolize your skill and fearlessness. You could find that anywhere. You have family and friends in your home…”
“Empress, please, you don’t know enough about me for this conversation.” Raegith did not
anger. In fact, he was amused by her. She could not even sense her own success in turning him. “I’ve a mother, who by now is probably slain, just as I was supposed to be. My father, the culprit, had me caged in a small keep before any real friends could be made. The closest I have had were killed either by the men of Rellizbix directly or indirectly by my father’s hand. Tell me, Empress, what sentiment should I have for my old home?”
“But you hold me responsible for some of that death as well, do you not?” Kalystra asked.
“I hold you responsible for the deaths of my comrades from the Pit,” Raegith replied.
“You mean the war?” Kalystra looked astonished. “Careful, Raegith; you tread close to offending me.”
“You should be offended. You send scores of your people off to death, keeping only what you need to protect yourself from the vengeful wrath of the widows and orphans left behind.”
“I do what I have to!” Kalystra shouted. “This is your fault, northerner! This is the fault of your people because you cannot leave us alone! You cannot stand not to be the heroes in your own lands for a single moment, so you set us against you, but hobble us first.”
“Then stop being hobbled. Break the treaty and gather your troops. Tell them all the truth, every bit of it. Tell them that they have always fought a doomed war, but now they fight a real one. Take a real fight to Rellizbix…”
“You are naïve to think such a thing is possible!” Kalystra yelled, scowling. “Leading a gang of prisoners from inside a pit is nothing compared to leading an entire nation. As the last of the line of Black Talon, I have spent my entire life studying the histories and strategies of my people, to take my father’s place. Believe me, Raegith, it is not a simple or easy thing for me to govern an empire that has little use for women off of their backs!”
Beyond the Hell Cliffs Page 26
