by Guy Antibes
Pol laid the rune book on the table. Malden would be duplicating the Emperor’s signature. All eyes were on the glowing dots, and then Hazett’s signature appeared. The Shinkyans gave a collective sigh as Val leaned over and duplicated Hazett’s signature.
“There,” Jukori said, leaning back in his chair. “The agreement is in place, and we are all committed.”
Val wanted stricter enforcement provisions, but Jukori explained that when Shinkyans agreed in writing with each other, it amounted to a sacred bond. That was what strengthened the Bureaucracy in all the centuries of their existence.
Pol did not have any proof to the contrary, recalling that all the treachery had been by word of mouth on his first trip. A larger room held a buffet, and all who had witnessed the signing of the revolutionary agreement participated. He looked for those having second thoughts but did not see any.
Did he have second thoughts? No, Pol didn’t. The Scorpions nearly had him convinced that he really was the Great Ancestor. He wondered about the source of his unease, but looked into his own pattern and realized that he harbored a fear of failure.
Pol normally did not worry about failure, since his first thoughts were always about how to solve any problem. He had to admit he was anxious as he fought the alien essence, especially on the Ancestor home world. He would have to set his fears aside and take each day as it came. The Scorpions estimated that Pol would fight five or six matches on the way to Tishiko. Pol knew he would have to fight more than that, but he would take more matches in stride.
He fought for Shinkya and for the Empire. Hazett had little time to lose. Malden estimated that the Winnower army was about ready to march on the Empire. Pol could not afford to dawdle his way through Shinkya.
~~~
Chapter Nineteen
~
T he united Shinkyan army marched to the North where two large factions, including Horani’s Lake faction, currently camped. Pol traveled on the same roads that had brought Paki and Fadden to a Shinkyan port and on to Deftnis.
He wished his two friends were with him now. He included Darrol and Kell in that wish. Pol had Val, Shira, and Ako at his side, and that would have to do. They reached the first army, one of three Blue armies sprinkled throughout Shinkya.
A Shinkyan army consisted of a force of four hundred or more. Pol realized that the Shinkyans must have thousands under arms. The Blue faction sent out a large squad.
The order of the clash closely matched what he had observed on the road to Shinkya. Pol changed his face to the Demron shape and put on his pointed hat.
“I fight on behalf of the Great Ancestor,” Pol said.
Jukori had come up with the proper phrasing. The crowds would be calling him the Great Ancestor soon enough. Pol pulled out his Demron sword and his Demron long knife.
The Blue faction split apart as a very tall woman, dressed as an officer, walked languidly towards them. Pol could see the disguise on her face. She had achieved at least the rank of Grand Master. This wouldn’t be a simple show of Pol’s physical prowess, but the Shinkyans didn’t have proper pattern-masters. Pol wondered what kind of surprises he would see in his first match.
He looked across at the woman. He had all shields active. He drew his Demron sword and heard a few gasps and murmurs. He waved it around in one of his Kirian warm-up forms and assumed a Kirian ready position.
“I give you the opportunity to withdraw,” Pol said.
The woman sneered. “A man besting a woman magician?”
“I am a magician, as well,” Pol said.
He raised his hand and tweaked a blast of wind focused on the woman’s midsection, doubling her up and pushing her back two paces. The sneer disappeared.
“What are the rules?” Pol asked. “The first with two touches?”
“Is that what Imperials do?”
“In a friendly fight, it’s what Shinkyans do, as well,” Pol said. “I am here to challenge you, not the other way around. You decide.”
“First blood.”
She ran at Pol, who used a sip of magic to slip to the side. She overran him on the cobbled road.
“What?” she said. “How did you do that?”
“I am what the Imperials call a pattern-master. I can use magic when I fight.”
She stared at him and raised her hand. “Like this?”
A sheet of flame bathed Pol. The woman stopped the attack to show Pol standing with his fists on his hips, and his sword sheathed. He tweaked the woman up six feet and let her drop to the ground. For a moment, Pol saw her face through her disguise.
Pol put out his hand to help her up and said, “Really?”
She refused his assistance and lashed out with a wind of her own. Pol’s shields repelled the wind.
“Hand-to-hand without magic?” she said.
“First blood, still?”
She nodded.
Pol let her get up. She approached in a stance to wrestle, but Pol thought to put an end to the match and used a sip of magic to punch her in the nose. It exploded in a spray of blood,
She staggered back, blood pouring through her fingers and down her arm.
“Do you accept my victory?”
The woman nodded as tears filled her eyes from the pain.
“Then let me help you,” Pol said. He removed her hands and stopped her bleeding with tweaks, repairing the severely broken nose that he had noticed underneath her disguise. “There. That should be better than before.”
He stepped away and let more Blues help the woman wipe away the blood. She put her hand to her nose and gently felt it. “You fixed it.”
Pol smiled. “I said I’d help you.”
She knelt in front of him, still holding a bloody rag. “I yield to the Great Ancestor,” she said.
“I’m not the Great Ancestor,” Pol said. “I fight for him.”
“No man has defeated me, ever. I yield to the Great Ancestor.”
Pol helped the woman up. “Help us defend Shinkya and make it better,” he said quietly in her ear.
She nodded and said breathlessly, overcome with emotion. “I will.”
Pol gave her a small bow and joined Val, Shira, and Ako. “The Blues should be ours. My opponent is with us.”
“She is the army’s leader,” Ako said. “Her name is Fanira. If she follows, you are correct in thinking this army of the Blues will follow.”
After the Blues had conferred in the middle of the road, a male officer approached them. He looked at the troops surrounding them. “We are with you. Our General would like you to join her for the midday meal to discuss terms.”
Pol wondered what the terms would be, but he nodded. “We would be honored,” Pol said.
Val slapped Pol on the shoulder as the officer returned to the Blue force, and they left Pol and his army standing in the middle of the road. “There is an advantage to behaving noble, rather than just being one. I would have run her through, but you even surprised me with a blow to the face.”
“She will thank me for that,” Pol said.
“Did you fix it?” Ako said. “I’ve seen her without a disguise, and I’ve never seen a broken nose like hers.”
“The Great Ancestor is good and powerful,” Pol said, laughing. He was the only one.
~
Pol looked across the campfire at Fanira. Her face, heavily bruised, bore the brightest of smiles. “We have conditions to join your army,” she said.
Pol looked for someone to speak, but it looked like everything was up to him. “So we understand.”
“We will fight for you, but we will maintain our chain of command. Although we may be expelled from the Blues faction, we will fight as Blues.”
“That is acceptable if you will follow the chain of command above you. Enemies are gathering their forces in North Salvan and Tarida, and they will conquer Yastan and then turn south. Their leaders will not care about Shinkyan traditions. We do not require you to submit to the Emperor’s leadership, but as allies, we expect the
Blues to fight at our sides.”
“As long as you lead us, we are content.”
“Good. We will accept you. Ako has something to show you.”
Ako introduced the rune book concept to Fanira. “We will give you three books to use as you will. The command rune book will have a page linked to Pol’s. These wrist bands are linked to the pages, so you will know if a page has been activated.”
The General took the books. “I would join you just for the chance to use these in the field. What do we do next?”
“Nothing but train, I am touring Shinkya, and when the time comes, we will converge on Tishiko and march into the city as combined armed forces. We do not intend to invade the city. If the Queen chooses not to approve our efforts, we will ignore her.”
“You don’t intend an assassination?”
Pol shook his head. “The people of Shinkya will decide their future, not me. My purpose is to save Shinkya from its enemies and save the Empire from the same. The Empire is not now, nor has it been, an enemy of Shinkya for many years. That doesn’t change.”
“What if you fail?” the General said.
“I won’t fail. You can see that.”
An arrow buzzed in the air and struck Pol’s shield. He stood up with a splinter in his hand. Drawing a sword in the midst of the Blues would not be prudent.
The Blues brought a struggling soldier and threw her down on the ground before someone froze her. The General ripped the soldier’s helmet off. “She is not a Blue.”
“Miroki. She’s a Lake,” one of the soldiers said.
“We visit them next.” Pol looked up from the frozen soldier. “How many soldiers does the Lake Faction have near here?”
“We were getting ready to fight them. No more than we do,” the General said.
“Come with us, and let’s see how they react. I don’t expect every faction to join our cause.”
The Blues bound the attacker before unfreezing her. Pol applied a truth spell.
“You attempted to kill me?” Pol said.
The woman’s eyes grew round with fear. “My officers told us you are an imposter and an abomination.”
“Do you know Horani, the Ambassador’s wife?”
“You injured her. She is your mortal enemy.”
Val was about to speak, but Pol put his hand on his arm.
“She doesn’t have to be. Do you want to gaze into the Great Ancestor’s face?”
The woman said nothing, but she gasped as Pol assumed the features of a Demron. “Do you see a disguise?”
“I am not powerful enough.” If the soldier was afraid before, she now looked terrified.
The Blue soldiers knelt in Pol’s presence. “You do more than represent the Great Ancestor,” the General said. “Forgive us for bargaining with you. You wear no disguise.”
Pol put up his hand. He changed back into his normal features. “Is this a disguise?”
“It…” the General looked up at Pol. “I can’t detect one.”
“I have powers most magicians don’t,” Pol said. “We made a bargain, and I hope to strike a similar one with every army we encounter, but I don’t think it will be the Lakes.”
The combined armies marched on the Lake camp on the other side of the nearest town. The Lake soldier, Miroki, rode bound, with her belly on a saddle, and put to sleep.
Pol led the army, riding with Fanira, Ako, Val, and Shira.
What can you do with Shinkyan horses? Pol said to Demeron.
As I said before, I can work with the unbound ones. Will that be enough?
Pol said, I want to minimize the bloodshed, but I don’t think we can avoid a battle, not with Horani fomenting the leaders of her faction.
I will unsettle the foe. Demeron said.
“At my command,” Pol said verbally.
“Did you say something, My Lord?” Fanira said.
“My horse can induce others to act in our advantage. I leave such things to his discretion. Don’t be surprised if the Lake faction’s horses act strangely.”
“We will split into three columns, a column of the Bureaucracy troops on the left, a column of Fearless troops on the right, and a Blue column in the middle,” Pol said after recalling the terrain from a meeting the night before. “I never like being outflanked. We will send out scouts with rune books, now.”
Disorder overcame the three armies for a few minutes as the columns sorted themselves out. Each army matched the size of the single Lake army, so they were led to believe. In a few hundred yards, the columns spread out, with each army two to three hundred paces apart.
In a few minutes, Pol’s wristband lit up. “We have a message.” He opened his rulebook and read the scout’s report. The Lake faction army doubled in size as the Eagle faction joined them during the day.
Pol sought out the pattern and thought of a battle order that would work without calling in the flanking armies.
“We will form a fifteen-horse-wide front with the Blues, General. We will take the brunt of any charge, but then our flanking armies will converge with lines three deep to wrap around the rear of the enemy column.”
“But that will leave us exposed,” one of the officers said.
“You aren’t exposed if I am in front with Demeron. Notify your armies of the changes,” Pol said to the officers present around him. He could not do anything more to elaborate before they would be in sight of the Lake soldiers. “Have them look outside their lines for any flanking units. If they appear, your soldiers can engage at their pleasure.”
“Where did you read about that strategy?” Val said.
“The Solysians won one of their few battles with Baccusol doing something similar with larger armies. It can work here, but every battle is uncertain, and units fight differently. With untested units and not wanting to spill excessive Shinkyan blood, a conventional battle with two opposing lines is out of the question,” Pol said. “According to Shira, the Shinkyans have never had much creativity in their battle formations.”
“You are right, Great Ancestor,” Fanira said. “We stand eye-to-eye and fight until the other retreats. Faction fights are always conducted that way, and those who retreat first are the losers.”
Pol thought of the Zasosian nomads. Their battles ended when one side raised their hands in surrender.
“I am not a member of a faction, so we will fight differently,” Pol said. If they had to fight many of these battles, the troops would be well-trained when he turned them towards the Empire. “You can talk to the troops that returned from Redearth, my duchy in South Salvan. Shira often employed them in different formations.” He turned to Shira. “Right, Princess?”
She looked at Pol out of the corner of her eye. “The Princess did as the Great Ancestor said.”
Fanira twisted her lips into a smile while she rubbed her hands. “We will learn much on our tour of Shinkya.”
Lake troops appeared, walking over a rise in the road.
“Let them come to us,” Pol said. Demeron, will the horse carrying the sleeping assassin go to the other side if you ask nicely?
It will. I always ask nicely. Demeron raised up his snout and whinnied.
Pol patted the attacker’s horse on its flank. The horse began to walk towards the enemy. Pol hated thinking of them as an enemy, but the arrow was no call to honor.
Halfway down the rise, the Lakes stopped and let the horse reach them.
“Would you have killed the archer?” Pol asked.
“Most certainly. The Lakes are now scratching their heads, wondering why the woman still lives,” the General said.
Pol toughened up his shields and extended them to Demeron, “I’ll see if they will parley.”
Val folded his arms. “You’ll only get more arrows shot at you.”
“If I thrust both fists out, you can take that as a signal to attack.” Pol demonstrated.
“Or if you fall off your horse,” the General said.
Pol refused to think about that. He put on hi
s conical hat and warded coat as he approached the officers, who were looking on, now that the archer had been moved from the front. Three of them wore black and white armor and the others white and blue. It did not take a Great Ancestor to tell who the Eagles were.
Pol tried to eliminate any emotion from his voice. “You dishonor me. However, I am not vindictive. I don’t seek Shinkyan bloodshed. My goal is just the opposite, yet you sneak into the Blue faction camp and try to kill me.”
“That didn’t work,” said an officer with a helmet that looked more like a bird perched on her head. She raised her hand, and a flight of arrows tore into Pol and Demeron’s shields. They littered the ground around him.
“Do you all want to die?” Pol said. “That isn’t my intention, but I can arrange it. Even with the Eagle faction’s force, we outnumber you, and we have other surprises, should you join us in battle. I’d rather you join us in peace.”
“My Elders call for your death.”
“Does that include Horani, the ambassador’s wife?” Pol said.
“It is at her insistence.”
Pol sighed, “I gave her a warning. A stern warning.”
“Tricks. Imperial tricks.” The officer raised her hand again, and another flight of arrows bounced against Pol’s shields.
“Aren’t you a magician?” Pol said.
“I am,” the officer said.
“Do you take responsibility for the arrows that surround me?”
She lifted her chin. “I do.”
Pol held up a splinter. The officer was probably too far away to see it, Pol thought. If the Lakes thought Pol had tricked Horani, they would see the extent of his trick.
“Last chance. Lay down your arms, or you, Lake Officer, will pay.”
She laughed but held up a shield.
“Shields do not stop the vengeance of the Great Ancestor,” Pol said just before he placed the splinter in the woman’s heart.
The officer fell off her horse, struggled for a moment on the ground, and went still.
“Do you all take responsibility for these arrows?” Pol said, tweaking the sound of his voice. “I didn’t want to kill her,” Pol said, “but actions have consequences.”
