by David Wind
Roth, concentrating on the big man, nodded once.
Taking a deep breath, Nahtan raised his arms and charged Roth.
Roth took a half side-step, bent as Nahtan tried to catch him, and after striking the man’s chest with a powerful forearm stroke, did a forward roll and gained his feet.
Nahtan staggered slightly at the blow. He stopped his forward movement and turned to face Roth. “Sneaky little man,” he said and charged again.
Roth braced himself for the attack, and when the warrior reached him, he let the big man wrap his arms around him and, as the man squeezed, Roth let himself go dead. The unexpected move caught the bigger man off guard. He half stumbled as Roth hung limply. Reacting the instant it happened, Roth slammed his forehead into the man’s nose, resulting in Nahtan’s reflexive release of his arms. Roth hit the ground, rolled to his side and scissored his legs between Nahtan’s, tripping the man and sending him crashing to the ground. The sound of the big man’s body was that of a felled tree.
Before the sound of body meeting earth faded, Roth was on the man’s back, his left arm under Nahtan’s neck, his hand locked firmly into the crook of his right arm. He applied just enough pressure to immobilize the larger man. In the moment before Nahtan would lose consciousness, Roth lowered his head to the man’s ear. “Yield?”
“Yield,” Nahtan croaked.
Roth released him. When they stood facing each other, Nahtan smiled and stuck out his right arm. “I am your man.”
Roth grasped his forearm in the traditional shake. “Welcome to our company, Nahtan. Tell any of your companions, they are welcome as well. Then,” he added with a smile, “I need you ready for the next combat.”
<><><>
An hour later, Roth stood in the center of the training grounds, his men behind him, their ranks swollen with the addition of thirty-three Free-Blades from two other companies: the nine Free-Blades who originally followed Nahtan; the rest came from the company they defeated in the second battle.
Ecorah stood before the two surviving Free-Blade companies. He motioned Roth and the other leader forward. When they reached the king, and bowed their heads formally, Ecorah said, “You have proven yourselves today. You will hold yourselves to Brumwall’s standards and laws. These men will show you to your quarters. Rest today, tomorrow you train with Brumwall’s companies.”
Roth raised his arm and, with his forefinger extended, rolled his wrist in a circle. Thirty seconds later his men stood in rank and the Brumwall officer started them forward. After reaching the barrack, where the officer showed his men their space, the officer turned to Roth. “I am Semaj, Second Captain. My Lord, Ecorah bids you to join him for the evening meal.”
“Thank you, Semaj, I will be there after I see my men settled.”
When the captain left, Roth returned to his men, and gathered them around him, the new Free-Blades standing at the outer fringe of the company. “You men,” Roth called, sweeping his arm toward the newcomers. “Move in with the others. You are now a part of us. Introduce yourselves to each other. Become part of Roth’s Free-Blades, but understand, this company works as one. We share everything equally. No man gets more or less than another, no matter what job you take on.”
“Even you?” asked one of the newcomers, a smirk on his face.
“I take the same as my men. We are all equal. I will not join you for this evening’s meal. The king requested my presence.” He paused then looked at Navi. “Make certain everyone is settled. Help our new Blades become familiar with our ways.”
“As you ask, my Captain.”
<><><>
The evening meal was long over, but not the conversation between Roth, King Ecorah and the royal family.
The king wanted to know more about Roth’s past, and Roth, knowing both the dangers and the importance, spoke guardedly. He gave just enough information for them to understand the basics of how the Circle of Afzal had destroyed the world of his time.
“It seems both a fascinating and terrible time. So much bad spawned upon the innocent, yet we survive.”
“As has the Dark Circle,” Roth reminded the King. “And they still seek to subjugate anyone not under their control. Nothing has changed, even though their powers have grown out of proportion.”
The Queen shook her head. “You are wrong, Solomon Roth. Many things have…transformed, but one thing remains stable, they have not conquered Nevaeh. We…” Enna hesitated and quickly glanced at her daughter before saying, “The women of Nevaeh have long been the barrier preventing the dark powers their victory. Yet, lately, they have grown stronger and have taken control of three kings in spite of the abilities of the queens of these domains. Three dominions of the ten now follow the Afzaleem sorceresses, one of whom is the strongest sorceress to ever hold the dark powers.”
“Which is the reason for Brumwall’s need of the Free-Blade companies. We face a growing challenge from Morvene and Llawnroc. Their kings gave themselves to this sorceress. And, Morvene’s queen, Anra, joined with her as well,” Ecorah declared.
Roth looked from Ecorah to Darb, and then at the women. When he faced Ecorah again, he asked, “Powerful or just large?”
“Is there a difference?” Prince Darb asked. “A large ill-trained army can still overrun a smaller well trained one.”
“In our history—not the history of Nevaeh, but of all history before the…darkness, there are many instances of smaller forces defeating larger ones. It is a matter of will and tactics. I can tell you of many of these battles, and of one in particular, but you will likely think it another work of fantasy.”
Ecorah let out a loud guffawing laugh that echoed throughout the great room. The others at the table grinned as well. “After hearing of your past, could anything be more incredible?”
Roth allowed himself a grin. “As you say, My Lord. This story, known as the Battle of Thermopylae, survived in my world for over two thousand years before my own birth, and five thousand years before the present time. In ancient times, the largest army in the world invaded a small country called Greece. Greece, similar to Nevaeh, was made of small city-states—dominions if you will. One of these, Sparta, was a city/state of warriors whose sole purpose for every man, woman and child, was to be a warrior.”
Roth paused to work out the simplest presentation of the story, without delving into the divisive politics of ancient Greece. He picked up his wine and took a sip and, setting it down, said, “This army came from a country called Persia. The king of Persia wanted to conquer Greece and took his army of a million warriors to do so. Leonidas, the warrior king of Sparta, learning of this, brought a small army of three hundred warriors to defend Greece from the Persian army while they warned the rest of Greece to prepare for war. Another seven hundred Greeks joined Leonidas.”
He stopped at the disbelief flashing across their faces. He locked eyes with Ecorah. “Yes, I know how it sounds, a thousand against a million.” Roth smiled. “The Spartans picked a place known as Thermopylae to defend their entire country against this vast army. It was a narrow pass in the mountains, through which the Persian army had to travel to reach the mainland, a strategically perfect area and the only possible way for the army to reach the rest of the country.”
“With confidence in their numbers, the Persians charged the Greek warriors who defended the mouth of the pass. For two days, the Persians did their best to destroy the small force and win through to the other side. Tragically, the Persian’s learned of a mountain trail unknown to the Spartans. Part of the Persian army, using this trail, came down and attacked the Spartans from the rear. Nonetheless, in the few days they battled, twenty-thousand Persians died before they could overrun the last of the Greeks. However, the will and fighting ability of the Spartans, held the Persians long enough for the Greek armies to prepare and defeat the Persians.”
When Roth paused, Ecorah said, “So these…Spartans and Greeks helped win the war?”
“They did,” Roth said, not seeing any need to add mor
e factually true details, while hoping the fiction he’d woven through the brief tale was the right amount to make the story believable and accepted.
“And you say there are other times this happened.”
“Yes, My Lord, but how many times and when matters not. What we need acknowledge is how a small army can stop and even defeat a larger one, if they are well trained, determined, and every detail is planned properly.”
“Your ability to fight without weapons—you can train our people?” Darb asked.
“I can.”
“Good. You will start tomorrow with two companies of my best warriors.”
“It shall be done.”
With a nod to Roth and a quick sideway glance at his wife, Ecorah rose. “I have reports to look over before I retire. I bid all a pleasant evening.” Ecorah strode out and after a meaningful look at Darb, the queen followed her husband. A few seconds later, Darb followed his father.
“Were they too obvious?” Enaid asked.
Roth laughed. “Of course not,” he lied, but his mind was still on Ecorah’s last words.
Enaid cocked her head to one side. “You are ah…gracious.”
“No, I’m selfish. I have been hoping for this since I entered this room.”
He tensed when Enaid’s smile froze. Then, very slowly, she nodded. “Walk with me in the gardens.”
Roth went around the table to where Enaid stood. When he reached her, she took his hand in hers. As if a hot brand clasped about his skin, the heat so intense it startled him, yet he neither flinched nor showed any effect. When Enaid’s eyes widened at their touch, he knew it affected her the same.
“Come, Solomon,” she whispered, and drew him out of the large room and through the passageway to the central gardens, which at this hour was deserted. The moment they stepped outside, a gray and white Gorlon puppy raced to the princess and jumped.
Enaid released Roth’s hand and barely caught the puppy before it landed in her arms. “Easy,” she cooed as the puppy wagged its entire body. Carefully, she put the gorlon down and knelt beside it. She stroked its head for a moment. “Solomon, this is Regit. My aoutem. He is six months old. We bonded shortly after his birth.”
She took the aoutem’s head between her hands and stared into its eyes. A moment later, the gorlon turned to Roth and sniffed his leg.
Roth knelt and placed his hand on the puppy’s head. The gorlon pressed against his hand and then, without warning, jumped up to lick Roth’s face.
Roth caught him and stood. “He accepts you,” Enaid declared.
Roth smiled and handed the aoutem to Enaid. “A good thing.” He looked at the gorlon’s paws, which were almost three times the size of the puppy’s legs. “He is already large for six months. Fully grown, he will be a giant.”
“He will. His mother was my first aoutem. She…she died just after he was born. She…”
Something in her voice tweaked Roth’s heart. He reached out and drew her into his arms. In his short time on Nevaeh, he learned how tightly bonded women of power became with their aoutems. The death of an aoutem was hard on the woman, but even harder on the aoutem if the woman died while it lived.
The heat that burned his hand only moments before was now searing his entire body as Enaid pressed against him. He held her for several seconds before he could take no more, and pushed her an inch from him. “I—”
“Hush,” she whispered and placed a single finger across his lips. “I feel it too.”
“What can we do?”
Enaid smiled, hesitantly. “For a woman of power, this is how our emotions show. She took a deep and shuttering breath. “Solomon, this will continue until we…” Pausing, she stared at him for a long moment. “What know you of our customs for marriage?”
Roth took a deep breath. Not a full day passed since he’d set eyes upon her, and although he’d somehow known the moment he saw her, that she was the one, he was having trouble understanding how this could happen so quickly and to both of them.
He shook his head slowly. “Enaid, I know how I feel, but how can you be sure? You know me not.”
Enaid laughed. “I know you well, Solomon Roth. Think you it was your handsome face, your great height and powerful muscles…or your glib tongue that won my heart so easily?”
Roth stared at her. They were exactly the same height. “Obviously, my great height.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I have dreamed of you for a long time, I knew we would meet, and when we did…” She sighed. Her eyes flickered across his face. “Think you this was the first time I saw you, the first time I knew you for who you are? I am a woman of power, Solomon: I am not a ‘seer’, but visions are a part of my life just as you have been for this past year.”
Pausing, she drew in a deep breath. “Do you doubt my feelings?”
Roth shook his head.
“Do you doubt your feelings?”
He shook his head once more.
“Again I ask, what know you of our marital customs?”
Roth shook his head. “Little.”
“Tomorrow, you must ask Darb to stand for you with my father. He will take your side in asking the king for my hand, if such is your desire.” The words faded at the end, but her gaze did not falter as her eyes tracked across his face.
“Such is my desire. Even if you had not spoken of it, I would have told you it has been so since I first saw you. But we move too fast, do we not?”
A gentle smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You know much, Solomon Roth, but so little.”
“I learn every day,” he began as a memory rose. “Today, when you touched my temples, you had a vision, did you not?
“I did,” she whispered. “One day, I will tell you of it, but not this day.”
He smiled but said nothing; instead, he leaned forward and, without touching her, slowly and carefully moved his mouth to hers. His gallant restraint lasted ten seconds before their arms slipped around each other and the gentle kiss became much more.
Chapter 5
Three weeks after the day Roth called his ‘day of miracles’, the day he met Enaid and he and his Free-Blades became part of Brumwall’s forces, found him in a council meeting with all the officers of Brumwall’s army and the two Free-Blade captains. Neither the officers or anyone else in Brumwall knew that Roth, with Darb as intermediary, asked the king for his daughter’s hand two weeks before.
Ecorah had agreed, but put one condition on his agreement: no one could know until he decided the proper time to announce the betrothal. Roth understood what the king left unsaid. Roth was a stranger, unknown to the people of Brumwall. They would need time, even if he and Enaid did not.
Roth shook away his thoughts as King Ecorah finished telling those gathered, that for the past month, roaming Free-Blades had been attacking the outlying villages of Brumwall, destroying the homes and farms and either killing or chasing the citizens away. Roth, looking at the maps Ecorah and his officers had put on the table, he saw a pattern they did not—a systematic clearing of a specific area. He interrupted the talking to explain what he believed.
“You seem certain,” Ecorah said when Roth finished.
“I am. Look at the pattern. They attacked four villages, each within a fifty-mile radius of the border. The villages are now deserted, and fifty miles of Brumwall’s border is without protection. “This is the first move of an invasion, covered by what you are supposed to believe to be Free-Blade attacks.”
Ecorah ended the counsel, saying he would think on Roth’s words. Three days later, a messenger arrived with news of yet another Free-Blade attack. “They come deeper into Brumwall,” he told Roth at the next hurriedly called council. “And there is more. Enna.” He turned to the queen.
The Queen stood, and Roth saw the deeply etched concern on her face accompanied by dark circles beneath her eyes. “These Free-Blades are doing more than just chasing our people back. They are killing any women of power they find. Exterminating them.”
Rot
h knew what they should do, but wondered if Ecorah would accept his advice. “My Lord, we need to learn more. We need someone in their camp, if only for a day.”
The Queen shook her head. “A woman of power would be sensed.”
“A Free-Blade seeking employment would not be out of place,” Roth suggested.
“You have one in mind?”
Roth shook his head. “My men are good, but to do this right it must be someone trained in military strategy. Perhaps one of Brumwall’s officers.”
“Why?” Namor questioned.
Roth turned to the man, and found Ecorah’s chief military advisor pinning him with a hard narrow-eyed stare.
Roth met the man’s eyes openly, ignoring this blatant animosity. “Not to simply report back, but to judge those he speaks with. To assess what he sees in their camp.”
Namor leaned forward, fisted knuckles planted atop the table. “And what of you? You seem trained well enough in strategy.”
Roth met his challenge openly. “Will you trust me?”
Namor’s eyes narrowed. “You sit here now, why would I not?”
“The way your eyes always follow me in the training grounds; the way you stare at me now with such distrust.”
“You sense well,” Namor responded.
The officer’s honesty caught Roth off guard. He stared at Namor for several minutes, the tension in the room turned thick. Then Roth laughed. “I like you, Namor,” he said when he caught his breath. “I like your honesty. What do you distrust?”
“Most Free-Blades, by their very nature, are untrustworthy.”
Roth did something then, which surprised everyone in the room. He walked to where Namor stood, drew his long sword, knelt and offered it the man. “If you trust me not, if you believe I mean harm to you or anyone in Brumwall, do what you know to be necessary. Use my sword.”
Silence followed Roth’s words. Roth waited five seconds before he again extended the sword to the officer, while everyone in the room stared at the two.
Namor took the sword, hefted it, and turned to Ecorah. “My Lord?”
