His campaign was crumbling.
Yuri’s men had cleared a thick wedge toward the city’s gates. The frozen ground was littered with corpses of brave men who had toiled under the hail of arrows and stones. Still, slowly, persistently, day and night, in ankle-deep mud and knife-sharp rains and treacherous black ice and the deep snow, they had hauled charred timber and crumbled rock away, opening a corridor for the upcoming attack.
One of his nobles had somewhat redeemed himself from his failure during the Autumn Festival.
Now, the filthy ground was swarming with olifaunts, moving to tear the gates down. Behind them, almost twenty thousand more Borei and Parusites waited for their chance to storm into Roalas.
The huge animals were armored in thick plate, and they seemed almost impervious to the flight of arrows from the city walls. But they didn’t like fire, and they shied away from the burning balls of pitch that landed in the snow around them.
The defenders had much better range with their catapults, so Sergei had kept his own artillery away. But now, he was moving it forward by two hundred paces. The Athesians would have to choose between firing at his own siege engines or engaging the olifaunts, much closer.
Men were cursing and pushing, and whips cracked as teamsters urged their oxen forward, pulling the giant, frozen arms of trebuchets and mangonels into firing positions. Soon, they came under fire, and curses turned into screams.
Sharing the platform with the king were Genrik and Under-Patriarch Evgeny. The chronicler was there to scribe history as it happened, and knowing him, Sergei expected a brutal, objective account. The priest wanted to witness the destruction of an ungodly enemy.
“Magnificent sight,” the fat man remarked.
Sergei didn’t find anything magnificent in carnage. There was only raw necessity. Easy victory? There were no easy victories.
And his war wasn’t just about numbers and storming walls. It wasn’t even about national pride and his family honor. It was about making it more than a duty for those who bled for him. If his men could not believe in his cause, then he was just a sad tyrant.
Despite the mind-numbing cold and blocked roads, some of his nobles were grumbling and threatening to leave for home. Luckily, they were still bound by oath before their one year ran out, but the fact they dared voice their grievances aloud meant Sergei’s grip on their hearts was slipping. They no longer believed in this war. He had to win them back. He had to reignite the love and loyalty that had led them here.
The one-year grace did not extend to common workers and camp followers, many of whom had long forgotten what misfortune had dragged them away from Parus. Instead, they had found new life settling in abandoned villages, ignoring the war altogether. Another blow. Sergei wasn’t sure what he found more disheartening, being disobeyed or being ignored.
He had to instill faith in his camp. He had to make a difference.
Shattering the crust of iced lethargy that covered his siege lines, he had ordered this attack and watched it take place, a steaming, rolling mass of flesh and fickle chance.
Looking around, Sergei could no longer recognize the land he had come to conquer. It wasn’t just snow covering the fields and blunting the shape of things underneath. It wasn’t the smoke that made things hazy. Matching Roalas in size was a whole new city growing around it, houses, inns, barracks, small shops, and markets. The tents were long gone, and so was the order and color that had defined the unity and purpose of the Parusite people. And with so many refugees coming back to bend knee to their new king, he was now ruling over a mongrel race of lost, bewildered, frightened people.
In less than one year, the arrow-shaped purpose that had driven him had become a ladle of gruel, and in it, floating, all bits and pieces, his fate, his fear.
He should count himself lucky, Sergei thought as he watched sappers slither into the uncleared rubble on the west side of the city’s curtain walls, toward the river; their goal was to try to bring the masonry down while the olifaunts charged the gates and kept everyone busy.
The future duchy of Athesia was already his in many ways, in spirit and character. The godless ways of Adam and his daughter had been replaced with faith, and the people didn’t seem to mind at all. It was as if they had awoken from a restless slumber and just went on with their former lives.
He had reports from Bassac and Keron. The occasional skirmishes with the defenders had almost vanished. Amalia’s dispersed legions still roamed the countryside, but they had disappeared as an integral force that opposed his rule. Once Roalas fell, the conquest of Athesia would be over. He would then mop up the last stubborn pockets of resistance and turn his eyes west and east. With a knife of Parusite power cutting deep between Eracia and Caytor, the two nations would be forced to sit down and meekly negotiate their future. He would then take care of Amalia’s half brother. And he would finish the pirates.
It all sounded promising, so true he could taste it. But for the thousandth time, he asked himself, why wasn’t he winning this war yet.
Why were his troops dying from disease and frostbite? Why were there so many desertions? How come Amalia still survived?
Why?
Sergei knew he must never let his doubt show. No one but his sister knew about his fear that none of what he’d planned was turning out as he’d hoped. The pirates still fought and resisted, fleeing deeper into Caytor, forcing him to commit more of his troops in a hunt after them, taking his incursions that much closer to an open war with the other realm. And there was nothing that prevented the Eracians from sweeping into the lightly held northern Athesia and claiming their own foothold in this war. If rumors were true, Emperor-Pretender James was massing armies of his own, poised to strike. But at whom? And where? Would he hunt his half sister’s troops, making sure they never bothered him? Would he try to take all of Caytor, now that he virtually ruled much of its north? Would he unite with Amalia and attack the Parusites?
And then, there was the matter of his son.
Would his son be alive when he conquered the city?
He refocused on the death and destruction unfolding before his eyes. The Borei had almost reached the narrow clearing before the gates. The wedge cut into the Inferno was the narrowest there, and the beasts could wriggle through only in single file. The defenders were firing all they had, fire, boiling oil, stones, crossbow bolts, spit and curses, anything they could throw down on the attackers. The shrieks of panicked olifaunts was unbearable.
His artillery was firing into the city, rocks crashing into towers and rooftops. Everywhere, soldiers of the realm, Red Caps, mercenaries were clawing their way toward the curtain walls. The Athesians were focused on repelling the gate attack; they paid the milling infantry less attention. Which was good. It gave his engineers more time to clear yet more rubble, establish defensive posts in the still-cluttered parts of the Inferno, claim the walls, and start sapping them. Even so, death and fire rained among them, and men fell and died, becoming black-and-red stains on the white snow.
Frontal assaults against impregnated cities and keeps were hugely costly, he knew. But there was just no other way now.
“You are a brave man, Your Highness,” Evgeny said.
Sergei put his looking glass down. “I’m here, safe from danger.”
The patriarch smiled. “But your son is in Roalas.”
The king brushed a line of snow from the tower platform railing. “He’s a soldier of the realm, like the rest of us.”
Genrik wanted to write something down, but Sergei waved at him. This wasn’t meant for the books.
“Tell me, Your Holiness, who do you think should rule this new duchy? To whom should I entrust these lands?” Our campaign will be a swift and glorious one now, won’t it?
Evgeny wagged his thick fingers. “You could bestow these lands to the faith. People of this region suffered from heresy for many years. They will benefit from the protection and guidance of religion.”
“I will need all your support once t
his war is over,” the king said. “There is going to be political turmoil. Our neighbors will not like the fact there’s a Parusite foothold this far north. And they will not trust us. They think we are too strict, too old-fashioned.”
The under-patriarch realized the conversation was not going in the direction he had expected. “We serve the gods. We only wish to make humanity better.” When you had no strategy, litany was just as good.
Sergei rubbed his chin. “The Caytoreans remember too vividly the terror of the Feoran scourge. They were grateful a godless man like Adam had come and destroyed the Movement. And when the Territories burned, my father was the only ruler in the realms to come forward to the defense of faith. And he was utterly defeated. Now, nineteen years have gone by”—Yes, another year had passed. Nineteen years ago, in the snowy fields around Roalas, his father had found his demise—“and the Safe Territories are just a shadow of what they stood for. Our men are laboring to restore the holy cities and temples, but anything we do is met with distrust. The Eracians fear we want to cross their southern border. The Caytoreans would rather see some bastard son of Adam the Godless crowned as the emperor of this mockery of an empire than talk to me. They stall. They waver. They do not trust us.”
The priest seemed confused. “I lost you there, Your Highness.”
Sergei turned to face the fat man, the carnage forgotten for a moment. “I intend to make Parus as rich and prosperous and safe as it’s ever been. I intend to make a lasting peace with our neighbors. We must become involved in the intricacies of modern politics of our neighbors. We can no longer stand aside and watch passively as they steer the future of the realms. And we sure cannot be perceived as dangerous fanatics anymore. Religion must change.”
Evgeny swallowed. “Your mother and your sister, gods bless their souls, have already made huge, radical changes in the fabric of our society. We have female soldiers now, which was unheard of. Our troops indulge in pleasures and sin that must not be. This situa—”
Sergei raised a hand. “When a man realizes that the thing he holds most precious, most valuable in his life may just vanish unexpectedly, he asks himself what he may have done for the gods to punish him so. But then, he realizes that every mother weeping the death of her starved child couldn’t care any less what the gods want. Fathers keep silent, but their hearts are broken, too.
“I have marched to this war to fight godless people, and yet, all I feel is sorrow and resentment. There’s no joy in this war. Even revenge feels dull and unimportant now. My father did the same thing, and he paid with his life. Now, my own son may die. That’s not godly justice. That’s just malice.”
“Your Highness, I do not understand.”
Sergei cupped some old snow, let it melt in his palm. “This road of godly wars is leading nowhere. We must adapt. We must change. I intend to rebuild the Safe Territories, as a tribute to our gods. It will be done. But this new duchy”—he waved toward Roalas—“it will not be like home. It will not be like Dusaban or Sigurd.”
Evgeny was red in his face, from anger or perhaps the cold, it was hard to tell. “Your Highness, you must strengthen the faith!”
The king nodded. “This is exactly what I plan to do. And the answer lies elsewhere. Not here. I will strengthen the faith, I promise that. But I will also make sure our sons do not die in vain. Once our troops settle at the borders of Eracia and Caytor, I intend to prove to them that our realm is benevolent and tolerant, and that the future stability and prosperity lies in our presence between them. Just like Adam did.”
“You cannot follow the steps of that godless man!”
Sergei wiped his palms on his trousers. “You were right, Your Holiness. Don’t deny it. I clearly remember our conversation after that surprise attack. You were absolutely right. The gods may have loved Adam. He was defending the faith, in his own cruel way. And I intend to do the same. We will make the Safe Territories as prosperous as they ever were. And we will offer peace to our neighbors. Do not mistake my good intentions for weakness. The High Council of Trade and Monarch Leopold will still have to figure out an honorable way to free their hostages. They will have to negotiate very favorable trade agreements. They will find me as strict and just as Emperor Adam was.”
The priest was silent. Genrik stood, poised to write.
“I will make sure that faith is not handed the short end of the stick in this bargain. Your role in making sure the nation is pleased and satisfied with our terms will be crucial. Together, we will make sure the new ruler to hold this scrap of land does not vanish after two decades. Have you noticed? The Feorans tried to change things and failed. Adam tried to change things, and now his daughter is fighting a war for survival. I will not make the same mistakes. The realms need balance. I will get rid of the Oth Danesh and repay the council for all the damages. I will make sure that pretender James becomes irrelevant and vanishes from the political map. And all this, thanks to you, Your Holiness. Your little riddle about whom the gods favored solved it for me.”
Sergei resumed watching the fighting. He knew his son could be dead by now. But if he allowed his thoughts to linger on that possibility, he would be lost. Letters from back home had slowed down due to the weather, but everyone was fine, even the little baby. His family prospered, except Vlad. There was evil in this war. Maybe it was his need for revenge. Maybe it was the bitter, tragic necessity of a military conquest. He wasn’t sure. The only way he could endure this was to let hope become his focus, a hope that his sons and grandsons would never have to lead their nation to war.
It was a fickle thought for a man watching his best troops die at the footsteps of a meaningless city weeks of ride from their homes. He may not have realized that when he’d set out on this journey, but he understood everything now.
Amalia did not belong here. The realms had always been divided between Parus, Eracia, and Caytor, the three great nations. He would restore life to what it should be. Only this time, he would offer a warm, welcoming hand to his neighbors. Too long had Parus wallowed in its own self-righteousness and isolation. His mother had nourished the first buds of the revolution.
And now, it was his turn.
It was all clear to him now. Reading the history on Pyotr the Conqueror, one would think the man lived to drink the blood of his enemies. But what he did was fight for peace. He made his brutal sacrifices so that Parusite children would have bread for dinner and women would never fear invaders on horseback riding into their villages. He had led his armies with the knowledge that his hardship would earn a better life for his people.
Sergei did not want to admit it, but he knew Vlad was his own sacrifice. It was a terrible truth to swallow.
The battle went on. The day slipped toward dusk. The gates still stood closed. Burning corpses of olifaunts littered the ground. Around them, hundreds of human bodies lay half covered in slush, committed to obscurity. Almost like pebbles tossed against a rocky shore, soldiers were launching fresh assaults against Roalas. The curtain walls were scarred with rock hits and smears of oil, but they held for now.
The evening settled in, and the attack still continued. A fresh wave of troops was coming in. His siege engines were singing their deaths without pausing, hurling large, flaming bales and big rocks into the city. The Inferno had changed. There were new lanes carved into it, allowing his forces to press on with their attack. The Red Caps had also joined the battle now, diluting the defense even further. But going against city walls in the freezing cold was a deadly task.
Reports streamed in on an hourly basis, telling him of gains and losses. Some troops had managed to clamber onto the battlements, but they had been easily overpowered. His sappers had partially collapsed a section of the west wall, but they had been reduced to a third of their strength. The Borei seemed to have suffered most, but true to his promises and to gold, Captain Speinbate was doing what he knew best.
He could no longer see, only hear, the destruction. He ate his dinner standing, freezing, imagining what
was happening. And then, almost at midnight, the attackers sounded a retreat. The mercenaries had managed to dislodge one of the gates by throwing large grapnel-like hooks and then having the olifaunts pull on the chains. But when he was left with just a handful of his precious animals, Speinbate retreated. And with him, the wave of human attackers curled back, chased by cheers from the victorious defenders.
Archduke Bogomir slowly half climbed, half tottered to the top of the tower, looking exhausted. “The attack has failed,” he told the king, almost stupidly. His face was flushed, covered in soot and blood. The man had been busy leading, and redeeming himself in his king’s eyes.
No, it has not, Sergei wanted to say, but he did not trust the man anymore. He had hoped for a victory today, but he had never really expected the attack to succeed, not so easily. He just could not bring his power to bear in this manner. But he had learned about the city defenses and seen what Commander Gerald would do. And he had bought himself precious time until he could try something else.
Just weeks ago, this kind of failure would have made him fret sleeplessly. But his doubts were gone now.
He slept soundly that night, oblivious to the screams and whimpers of the wounded.
CHAPTER 54
Gerald walked into Amalia’s office, tired to the death. The empress and her mother were there, waiting.
“Commander,” Lady Lisa said.
“Your Highness, my lady,” Gerald rasped. His throat was raw from shouting.
Amalia stood and approached Gerald. She wanted to hug him, but stopped herself. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he groaned, plopping unceremoniously into a chair. He left crumbs of muddy snow on the carpet behind him. “The attack is now over. The Parusites have been defeated.” For now.
Forgetting herself, Amalia poured wine into a cup and handed it to him.
“No, I can’t drink that. I need something hot and sweet.”
Agatha, an often invisible background to the imperial setting, rushed to prepare nourishment for the commander. Jerrica was there, too, but her need to defend the empress against Parusite invaders was not going to be put to test today, it seemed.
The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) Page 60
