Duke Kiril swallowed. “What about your son, Your Highness?”
Sergei smirked sadly. “The prince-heir was taken hostage. He is a soldier of the realm, and he knows his duty, like you all should. This war is not about raping and stealing pennies from Athesian peasants. It is not about drowning infidels in faith and avenging old grudges. This war is about the glory of our nation. No one is above the nation.”
The implied threat registered with his nobles. They understood. If any one of them balked at his plans, they would die, plain and simple. Their birth and titles and wealth and even old favors no longer protected them. With Vlad the Younger in his enemies’ hands, the king no longer cared about honor and courtesy.
“We should start killing Athesian hostages,” Duke Yuri spoke unwisely, bringing attention to himself.
Again, the king smirked. It was with contempt this time. The idea was carnal and pleasing, but futile. The thousands of enemy soldiers, almost all worthless common men in any other situation, were laboring day and night building permanent siege camps around Roalas. The Parusite army could not survive the winter in cloth tents. They needed wooden barracks and fires to ward off the freezing cold that would soon envelop them.
The land around Roalas was coming to life again, with dozens of new villages and smaller camps springing to life. The vast army of followers had long abandoned the cruel comfort of noise, danger, mud, and stench of the front lines and settled on the deserted Athesian farms and fields. Soldiers, too, were growing unhappy with their lodging and were building makeshift houses from the Inferno’s rubble, where they stored their weapons and gear and horses. The siege lines were becoming a siege city. It was inevitable.
Athesians were coming back, encouraged by rumors of a benevolent invader king who spared their lives in return for fealty and faith. Praising his name and praying to the gods was a small price to pay to go back to your home. Roalas was becoming an isolated blister of defiance.
Ships were ferrying grain from Sigurd to make sure the army would be well supplied in the winter. The Caytoreans no longer traded this far west, but the Eracians still rubbed their palms with fat profit now that no one else contested their convoys. Travelers, refugees, and soldiers of fortune were flocking to Athesia. They all wanted to parley with the Parusite king or serve under him. Amalia’s rule was becoming irrelevant.
Eighteen years was hardly enough time to establish a national identity. He heard that the former Eracian and Caytorean nationalists were slowly remembering their ancient feuds. In the north, past the Red Cap lines, the Athesian countryside burned with banditry. Driscoll’s and Edgar’s men were sowing terror in their own realm, undoing two decades of Adam’s rule.
It all made sense. It was all a logical conclusion to the sad illusion called Athesia. So why am I not winning this war, Sergei thought, ignoring Yuri for the moment. The pirates were still causing trouble. The High Council was going to declare war soon. He had to admit his mistake and resolve this problem once and for all.
“Kiril, you will take your men and ride east. I want you to come back when the last of the Oth Danesh have been killed, or don’t come back at all. Or, if you prefer, you can be the first men to storm the curtain walls of that cursed city.”
“Your Highness,” the duke whispered, stunned.
“Yuri, I hear your men are working in the fields.” Some of the soldiers had put down their weapons and picked up scythes. They tried to bring in what little crop was still left in the rain-battered soil. “If they’re so eager to play in muck, they can work on clearing the Inferno. Starting tomorrow, they will carve a path wide enough for four olifaunts to ride abreast, all the way to the city gates. I don’t care about the casualties. I want that rats’ nest cleared.”
“It shall be done, Your Highness,” Yuri said. There was nothing else he could do.
“I expect you all to volunteer to some rather brave and dangerous missions. Take the rest of this day to think how you can redeem yourself. Dismissed.”
Silently, they filed away. No one spoke, not even after they had left the dark tent.
“Bring in my sister,” Sergei barked as he put the sword on the table. Giorgi nodded and exited.
Blessedly, Sasha came alone, without that wretched priestess who followed her everywhere. She was dressed in combat gear.
“Brother,” she said with soft, unexpected sympathy as she entered.
Sergei watched her without speaking for a while. “Will they kill Vlad?” he asked simply. Sasha was a woman, just like Amalia. Only she could really understand the other woman’s psyche. A man’s reasoning would not do here.
Sasha was never gentle, and he appreciated her honesty. “Most likely,” she said. She was not going to spare him the pain. Right now, he needed every bit of truth she could give him. “If that woman realizes her war is lost, she will murder him.”
Sergei went back to the small table and picked up the letter. Vasiliy had promised to send a fresh rider every day with news of the boy’s health. He was also sending two wagons full of birds, so they could try sending messages by wing. In bad weather, the chances of birds making it back to the capital were not high, but they would make the trip much faster than horsemen. Sergei was going to do the same; he had instructed Giorgi to find all local birdsmen and hire them.
“If my son dies, I must ask you to marry and have a son of your own. You shall name him Vlad.”
Sasha looked angry. “We talked about this before, Brother. I will not marry. Ever.”
Sergei blinked as if slapped. “Why do you shame me so?”
The Red Caps commander snorted. “It is you who shames yourself.”
“Will you not grant me that one wish?”
“You speak as if the whole world is ending. Your son is a hostage. There are several hundred other hostages in that city, in case you forgot. Do you think Monarch Leopold and the High Council are lamenting their possible deaths? Do you think it has in any way dissuaded them from doing what they must for the sake of their realms? Accept your son’s loss, and hope for the best.”
“He is your nephew, Sasha,” Sergei reminded her.
“So are Boris, Gerassim, and Gosha.”
Sergei sat down, feeling defeated. “I have decided not to parley with Amalia.”
Sasha nodded meaningfully. “Good. That’s the first sensible thing you’ve done in a long while.” And then, she left.
Next, Sergei invited Captain Speinbate. Since the festival, the mercenary lord had kept quiet. He had smartly ordered his men to lower their profile and abstain from going into the Parusite camp.
The gold-toothed Borei glimpsed the big black sword and swallowed uneasily. “Your Highness.”
Sergei sat very still, breathing quietly. “Tell me one thing,” he whispered. “Did you sell my son to the enemy?”
Captain Speinbate paled. “No, on my honor.”
“You were orgying when he was taken, were you not?”
“The Balance is a happy event, Your Highness,” the man said almost piously.
“I have hired you to take those walls down, and yet there they stand. In Mardoan, they speak of you as the greatest evil to walk the earth, but other than eating a lot of hay, your big gray animals are not doing much.”
“The roads are blocked,” Captain Speinbate argued.
“Indeed they are. And they shall soon be unblocked. When that happens, the plan my son, Master Koldan, and your man Geert put in place will have to be ready. I expect your olifaunts to be ready, too.”
Speinbate nodded. “We have the harnesses forged. We train daily. But the work in the camp is taking time. We must ferry timber from three leagues away.”
Sergei stood and lifted the sword again. “You will succeed, or you will die.”
The usual manipulative look the mercenary wore was gone. He scowled, dead serious. It took every ounce of discipline not to stare at the blade, but he managed somehow. “Roalas will be yours. The Borei have never failed to take a city, not once.”<
br />
Sergei did not bother to listen. He waved the man out.
Last, he summoned Count Bartholomew. The man entered bearing a bright aura of confidence that wasn’t there the last time he had seen him. Despite his shaggy, wild appearance, there was something noble about the Eracian. Perhaps it was his calm demeanor, perhaps the frighteningly indifferent way he looked at the king. But one thing was clear. He was no longer going to be cowed.
“You will get your wish,” Sergei announced.
Bart inclined his head slightly. “Which one is that, Your Highness?”
“You wanted to go into the city. I’m going to let you do that.”
“On what terms?” the count asked, unsurprised.
“You will meet with Empress Amalia and inform her that I will be storming the city’s walls as soon as my siege equipment is ready. She’d best surrender by then, and I will spare her life and that of every soldier under her command. Otherwise, I’ll crush her.”
The Eracian count nodded, thinking. “I will not be used, Your Highness.”
The king frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I will not be accompanied by your soldiers disguised as servants. I will not be used for assassinations or an attempt to free your son from the city. I will deliver your message, but I will also do what I was sent here for: to negotiate the release of the Eracian dignitaries, under suitable terms.”
Sergei wondered where the man had gotten his fresh share of impudence. But it made no matter. Sergei needed him. He had always needed him. He had just been too damn proud to realize that. Worse yet, the count knew that now. He probably had known it for quite some time.
Accept your son’s loss, and hope for the best. The future of Parus dictated many things. It did not promise its king joy or happiness. He was the servant of his nation. He had to improve his ties with Eracia. He also had to make sure there was no war with the High Council of Trade. And there were several hundred people in Amalia’s hands whose lives now depended on his actions. When this war ended, the other two realms would hold him responsible for their fate.
Athesia would cease to exist. But the land would become the newest duchy in his kingdom. He would make the Athesian people his people. They would need to learn to love the gods and goddesses again, but they would come to terms with their new rule in time. When the war ended, trade caravans would need to start rumbling west and east and south. He realized what he had to do, the truth he had avoided for so long.
He had to become Adam the Godless.
He had always feared the Athesian emperor was his nightmarish twin, but now he knew.
“You will not be a pawn in any dishonorable plot, I promise you,” Sergei swore. “When this war ends, there will be many things that will require resolving. I hope Eracia will desire to be a part of that resolution.”
Bart seemed oddly satisfied. “Your Highness,” he said simply and left, without waiting to be dismissed.
Sergei did nothing. He just sat, thinking.
CHAPTER 43
Ewan stared at the city before him. The feeling in his gut was similar to what he had experienced when first glimpsing Eybalen, a sprawling mass of color and noise, terrifying and overwhelming.
Roalas was a distant lump farther ahead, hidden by a sheet of midday mist. This was the siege camp of the invading army. Supply convoys rolled by endlessly, snake after snake of creaking wheels and bulging tarps, weaving into the cauldron of steel and leather and so many men. Their small group stood at the side of a brown, rutted road, waiting for the picket guards to clear them.
Doris was huddling in her saddle, nervously biting her lip. Constance looked confused yet somewhat eager. He just felt cold dread engulf him. The nagging urgency in his blood was growing by the hour.
There was nothing to do but wait. Thousands of people awaited admission past the sharpened stake perimeter and into the Parusite camp. Most looked like merchants with something useful to sell for wartime prices. But there were others too, beggars and refugees, women and children with nothing but rags on their skinny frames, men with scars and tattoos and weapons hailing from distant lands, come to pay homage to looting and killing.
Ewan stood in the mud, his worn, soaked-through boots squelching as he rocked lightly, anxious to get under way. Were he not worried about the fate of the world, he might actually be enjoying the display of cultural diversity around him.
Earlier, outside the camp, half hidden by the crest of a stunted hill, he had glimpsed a large work site where hundreds of men labored with axes, pruning branches off large beech logs. Others were busy erecting huge, tall triangular frames. They seemed to be building some kind of machinery, but he was not quite sure what the end product was going to be. A war thing, for sure.
Then, he had seen the monsters.
A sense of panic gripped him when he saw the huge beasts lumbering about, but he noticed no one seemed concerned. They looked like nothing else he had ever seen. Men rode them like horses, but they were much taller and fatter, with big, treelike legs. They had wings above their stout necks, but didn’t seem capable of flight. Their mouths grew curved, jagged fangs, and vivid snakelike protrusions hanged from the center of their heads.
“What are those?” he asked, fascinated. He remembered reading books of legends and myths, and they spoke of dragons, but except for the wings, these things didn’t fit those descriptions.
“Olifaunts,” Artem, one of the soldiers escorting them, told him. “The Borei breed them for war.”
As they waited, he got his first chance to meet the mercenary people. They prowled the long queues, dressed in wild fashion, adorned in trinkets and battle trophies, homing in on women and offering money for their services. They steered clear of anyone in a Parusite uniform, though.
Captain Nikita, the head of their escort, returned soon thereafter, waving some kind of document in his hands. “Councillor Doris, you may proceed. You, too.” He pointed at Constance and Ewan. “Sorry for the delay. You can grab some food at the stall over there.” He pointed toward a rugged table where a pair of Parusite cooks were doling out bowls of something hot and gritty.
“We part ways here,” Vanya told him, shaking hands. “I guess you can use that blade now.”
Ewan shrugged. He was not in the mood to talk. But he did notice the small look of admiration in the soldier’s eyes. When he had proved resilient to their training methods, they quickly learned to love the tough young lad he supposedly was.
“I hope there will be peace between our countries,” Vanya added as Ewan rode on.
This time, their escorts were local troops, who weaved a convoluted path through the camp. From far away, it looked like chaos. Up close, it was even worse. But the confusion soon cleared, giving way to more orderly rows of low, long houses made of fresh timber. The outer camp seemed to house mostly noncombat troops and followers, Ewan noted. The inner parts were reserved for soldiers. Discipline was more evident here. There were no stray dogs and prostitutes, no Borei soliciting children, no heaps of dung and discarded rubbish. Whipping posts erected at the end of every house block told him the Parusite officers did not take lightly to insubordination.
Huge pens covered with canvas sheltered horses. Lances and spears were kept in stacks so large, they almost looked like winter firewood. A thousand hammers rang on anvils, with brawny men bending metal and fixing dented armor at every corner. Few soldiers moved about. It almost looked serene.
Soon, they entered another part of the camp, and it was all tents here once again, drab and colorless, caked in wet leaves, grass, and mud. Ewan had no idea how the Parusites divided their troops, but the tent city was busier, livelier. Almost every tent had a knot of soldiers seated on empty crates in the front, sharpening swords and polishing mail plates. There was no gambling, though.
Ewan lost direction of where they were heading. The sky was a silver overcast that hid any trace of the sun.
“Are you scared?” he asked Doris.
“No,” she lie
d gracefully.
“Dismount,” one of their escorts told them gruffly. Ahead of them was a barricade, manned by soldiers armed with crossbows. When Ewan, Doris, and Constance approached, several men lifted the section of the barrier and moved it aside. They walked past the bristling wooden hedgehogs, over a plank that spanned a ditch studded with more spikes, and over a defensive mound that hid the view of what lay beyond from anyone approaching.
Encircled by multiple rings of trenches and stakes was a cluster of tents and a single wooden house, also freshly built. The tents looked more colorful here, made of more expensive materials, hide, fur, and maybe sailcloth. Amidst a knot of soldiers, a man waited for them.
“Your Highness,” Doris said in the manner of greeting.
A ripple of laughter exploded through the ranks of guards surrounding the man. “Your Highness!” someone shouted, guffawing. “That ain’t our king, lady. That’s Count Bartholomew.”
“Councillor,” the count said, bowing in respect.
Ewan watched the man carefully. He was dressed the part, but he did not look the part. His skin was chafed from wind and rain, and he sported an unruly beard more befitting some wild raider. Ewan did not have that much familiarity with nobility and rich people, but even in stories, they had always looked immaculate.
“You do not look like a count,” Ewan blurted.
Bart frowned, looking at Ewan. “And you do not like a Caytorean noble, either. So I guess we’re even. What brings you here?”
“I want to see the king,” Doris demanded.
Bart frowned again. “I believe this is not possible. Please, follow me.” They entered the wooden house. It was simply furnished, but it was warm, and it kept the weather at bay. “My new home, I hope you find it suitable.” They sat down behind a large desk crammed with documents and maps. Bart offered them some cheap soldier’s wine.
Constance did her best to remain unnoticed, but she kept throwing furtive glances under the brow at their host.
Doris looked plain angry. “You are not a Parusite lord,” she stated simply.
The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) Page 49
