The Crown of the Usurper (The Crown of the Blood)

by Gav Thorpe

  Ullsaard's words brought to mind how a tree was felled, with his talk of wedges and leverage, but Gelthius wasn't quite sure how they applied in the current situation. Determined to finish his story and get back to the others, he pressed on with his explanation.

  "The Twenty-first answers to Asuhas, of course, so when we was discovered, it was them that came looking for us as well as the Blackcrests. Faasil and Gebriun was getting supplies but Gebriun was caught."

  "Unfortunate for Gebriun," said Ullsaard.

  "Right enough, King, right enough. It was hard to leave knowing that them bastards have got him, but we had to do our duty first."

  "Commendable," said Ullsaard. "I knew I had picked the right man, and that you had picked the right men, as soon as I had spoken to you. I like you, Gelthius; loyal, dependable, sharp enough in a tight spot. The men like you too."

  Gelthius bobbed his head in thanks and chose to say nothing. Ullsaard stared at him, in the way a man stares at a whore or a meal, trying to decide if he finds what he sees appealing. Realising that king was thinking, the captain kept his tongue and endured Ullsaard's scrutiny by studiously looking at the line of a shelf just past the king's shoulder.

  "I know that at the moment my favour isn't what it ought to be, but I'm going to make you a second captain. Also, I think it fair reward for your actions in the last few days. Also, pass the word to Muuril. I'll make him third captain."

  Gelthius was not so sure about promoting Muuril, and his expression must have betrayed that fact to the king.

  "No? Don't you want to be a second captain, Gelthius?"

  "It's not, that. No, King, I'm very thankful for that, right enough. No, it was Sergeant Muuril I was thinking about."

  "Doesn't he deserve some recognition? It was his idea, you said, to break into the governor's quarters."

  "Oh, it was his idea, for sure, and he should get credit, just like Faasil and Loordin for doing their part too. It's just that I don't think Muuril would want to be a captain. I mean, he'd say yes and all, cause he wouldn't want to let you down, but in his heart he likes being a rankman, and sergeant suits him better than being an officer. The men wouldn't follow him the same if he wasn't one of them."

  "I see." Ullsaard dragged his fingers back and forth across his bearded cheek, eyes straying to look out of the window. "I think you are right, captain. I remember when I moved from sergeant to third captain; that was when I knew I wanted to become first captain. You start to look up at the other officers, not across to your men."

  "Not me, King," said Gelthius, wanting to quickly quash any hint that he would put his promotion before anything else. Ullsaard looked at him with a doubtful expression.

  "I just made you second captain, and you tell me you wouldn't want to be first captain?"

  "No, with all respect, King. Seems like a lot of work, and I ain't the brightest. I thank you for the credit you've given me and the favour you've shown me, but I wouldn't want a legion. I mean, in my experience, it's them sort of thoughts that starts getting you into trouble, isn't it?" Ullsaard's eyebrows raised a fraction further and Gelthius realised what he had said. "Begging your pardon, but I meant that some folks are suited to being on top and some aren't, and I'm one of them what isn't. Suited to being on top, I mean. And those that ain't suited but try to get to the top anyway are setting themselves up for the biggest fall. If I fall, I'd rather it weren't from such a height, if it's all the same."

  For all the time he had spent in close proximity with the king, he still felt horribly intimidated by the man every time he was near him. Ullsaard had a feral power that overawed lesser men, and Gelthius thought of himself as a man who was easily impressed. His life had not prepared him for conversation with governors and generals and kings.

  "Well, second captain, you've not even got a third of a company here, so your dreams of conquering the empire will rest for the moment," said the king. Ullsaard seemed to catch up with what he had said and his good humour disappeared. "Isn't that just what I'm trying to do? Take on my son and Greater Askhor with fifty men? I must be mad."

  Sometimes Gelthius wasn't sure if the King was talking to him or to himself, and at that moment, Ullsaard's attention definitely seemed to be focussed elsewhere. The Blood had given Ullsaard great strength, charisma and resolution, but in Gelthius' view it had brought some less desirable traits with it. He wondered if a susceptibility to madness was one of them.

  "Do you have any orders, King?" asked Gelthius.

  "Yes, I do," replied Ullsaard. The king nodded, seeming to agree with himself. He pulled a chalk-covered slate from under some parchments on the table and held it out to Gelthius. "I need forage parties to go out and get supplies from Menesun and Genladen; everything's on this list."

  Gelthius took the list and gave it a quick look: wagons and abada, rope, firewood, dried food, water butts, timber, shovels. The list filled the whole slate in the king's small script, and on the other side too Gelthius discovered when he turned it over. He had seen lists like this before.

  "Are we leaving, King?" Gelthius glanced out of the window. "And just as we were settling into the place?"

  "Two days, captain," Ullsaard said briskly, standing up. "I want to speak to each of the men that went to Marradan with you. Send Muuril in first, and tell Loordin and Faasil not to get themselves lost or put on guard duty."

  "Right enough, King," said Gelthius, relieved to see Ullsaard back to snapping off orders, full of confidence. The captain lifted a fist to his chest and turned towards the door. He took a step and then turned back. Ullsaard was already walking towards his shelves. "Excuse me, King, but you hadn't settled on what to do with Muuril."

  "It'll wait, captain," said Ullsaard. "I'll tell him myself."

  "Right enough," said Gelthius. He walked to the door as quickly as would be polite and breathed a huge sigh of relief as he stepped out onto the landing.

  He caught a glimpse of Muuril on the floor below, ducking back behind a corner. A moment later, the sergeant stepped out onto the lower landing, a nonchalant expression plastered across his face.

  "Oh, all right there, captain?" said the sergeant, affecting surprise at their encounter.

  "Enough shitting about, sergeant, I know you've been waiting for me," said Gelthius as he trotted down the stairs. "Find Loordin and Faasil, the king will want to speak to all of you, so be ready for when he sends word."

  "Yes, captain," said Muuril, his smile fading. There was shouting down below, on the ground floor. Both men turned as someone came up the stairs, taking them three at a time. His face was drenched with sweat, his tunic also soaked with perspiration. Gelthius' stomach tightened as he recognised Caaspir, the runner he had left in Thedraan.

  "Where's the king?" the legionnaire demanded, his voice a hoarse rasp. He was as red as a Mekhani, his chest heaved in and out and his arms and legs were trembling like a newborn goat.

  "Whoa there," said Muuril, putting a hand on the man's chest to stop him going past. "Take a moment before you see the king. Get freshened up and catch your breath. Show some fucking respect, you look like you've run all the way from Thedraan."

  "I fucking have," snarled Caaspir, knocking aside the sergeant's arm.

  "The blackcrests?" said Gelthius, meeting Muuril's concerned look with one of his own.

  "I fucking wish," said Caaspir. "It's the Twenty-first."

  "How many?" said Gelthius, his heart pumping harder, sending a flush of heat through him. His stomach did another turn. "Where?"

  "Coming here. The whole fucking legion!"

  III

  "What a fucking shambles," said Ullsaard. His words were pitched just loud enough to be heard by the men in the house behind him and the courtyard below; and the comment would be quickly passed to those by the shoreline and keeping watch down the road.

  "Very slovenly," replied Muuril, the newly-named King's Companion. It was a title that had not been used since the chieftains had been turned into governors, but bestowing it u
pon Muuril had had the desired effect; the rangy man's chest was puffed out with pride and his breastplate was shining with more polish than ever before. It was the name that had been given to Askhos' original bodyguard, who had been the chieftain Ansarril. The Book of Askhos claimed Ansarril had personally killed forty men in one battle and saved the First King's life seven times during the conquest of Askhor. It was a rank without command, and Muuril was clearly loving the prestige of being the king's chosen man.

  The two of them looked out across the fields at the lines of legionnaires marching from dawnwards, dividing into three lines. One column headed across the road leading up to Menesun, another to occupy the crest of a hill overlooking the villa from coldwards and the last was setting up a defensive line between the buildings of two farms about a mile apart from each other. What should have been a straightforward manoeuvre had been turned into a joke by the simple fact that two of the companies trying to head coldwards had been placed too far down the line of the march and had run into a company that was digging in next to the road.

  "I reckon we shouldn't have too much trouble kicking in these bastard's cunts," said the Companion. "Hardly a veteran among them."

  "You don't have to lift my spirits, Muuril," said Ullsaard, dropping his voice. "Save that for the men. We're heavily outnumbered and unless you think you can knock up a ship or boats for fifty men in the next two hours, we've got no line of retreat."

  "I know it's not really for me to ask, but why did we stick around? We've had two days, we could have been sixty miles away and more. This lot would never find a small band of men over rough country."

  "I'm the king, I have to make a stand," said Ullsaard, repeating the exact words that had started his speech to the company the night before, when he had announced that they would be defending the villa rather than leaving. Most of the men had known about the coming of the Twenty-first before the king, and it had quickly become common consensus that Ullsaard wouldn't let them stay to get butchered. When the first day had past, the king had heard some rumblings and, independently of each other, both Muuril and Gelthius had reported that the legionnaires were getting anxious. Ullsaard had filled them with the beer and food meant for the march to Apili and fired up their courage with a short but stirring speech.

  "I thought we was saving the bullshit for the men," Muuril replied. Ullsaard smiled at the sergeant's attitude; there would be captains, never mind kings, who would have taken such words as insubordination. Ullsaard had never been that type of officer, and as long as there was respect for him and his position, he had never punished bad language or plain speaking. Oddly, he had noticed that often it was men who had been promoted from the ranks who came down hardest on that sort of thing, as if they were trying to balance out some deficit in their authority.

  "If it wasn't the Twenty-first here, it'd be the Seventeenth at Apili," Ullsaard told his Companion. As he thought about the situation, the king's mood became fiercer and he gritted his teeth. "I'm not going to be chased all over my fucking empire. And I will not be bullied by a fucking governor."

  Ullsaard noticed Muuril nod approvingly out of the corner of his eye, but his bodyguard said nothing for a few moments.

  "Wish we had the rest of the Thirteenth with me, all the same," added Ullsaard, calming down.

  "Too fucking right, for sure. We'd have given these bastards a good kicking at Marradan and you'd be in Asuhas' palace having choice words with the slippery little snake."

  "The slippery snake comes to us, luckily," said Ullsaard. He pointed down the road, towards a line of five ornate wagons, each pulled by a team of four abada. Each wagon was the size of a small house, trundling along on five axles. There was a small contingent of kolubrid riders to either side, bearing pennants of grey and green; the golden icon of the legion was mounted on the side of the wagon at the front of the group.

  "I don't understand why Captain Lutaan would march against you," Muuril said. "Donar and him have been loyal to you almost from the start of everything. And you've been good to him, approving him as first captain."

  "Donar was loyal to Askhos before he joined me, and so was his nephew," said Ullsaard. "A lot of people were. Maybe Asuhas convinced Lutaan that when everything's finished, he'll be on the right side of this dispute if he stays with the governor."

  "We're all loyal to Askhos," said Muuril, trying to hide his surprise, but doing a poor job of it. "You mean loyal to Lutaar."

  Ullsaard recalled what he said and suppressed a grimace. He hadn't been contacted by the dead king since Gelthius had returned from Marradan. In a way Ullsaard was grateful to be free of the distraction, but he was also curious to know what Askhos would have made of his current predicament. Despite the ancient ruler's absence, he was still preying on Ullsaard's mind.

  "Loyal to Lutaar, yes," Ullsaard said. He quickly saw an opportunity to change the topic of conversation. "I need you to bring the abada into the villa courtyard. Have them stabled by the hotwards wall. If we have to retreat back to the house, I want them roused up and running through the enemy."

  "As you say," Muuril said with a salute.

  When his Companion had left, Ullsaard continued to scrutinise the manoeuvres of the Twenty-first. He already knew from the information gleaned by Gelthius' mission that the legion was barely above half-strength: three thousand men at most. Weighed against this was the fact that he only had fifty, so mattered not whether it was three thousand, five thousand or fifty thousand. The enemy definitely had the advantage of numbers.

  The Twenty-first were also, as Muuril had so eloquently pointed out, a bunch of inexperienced youths for the most part. With the exception of Captain Gelthius, every man inside the compound had been in the legions for at least five years, most of them seven or more; and even in his short time Gelthius had seen nearly a dozen battles, three of them big ones. Ullsaard had said as much to the legionnaires. "If there was a group of men who are going to hold their nerve, trust in their king and go down fighting, it's the battle-hardened bastards of the Thirteenth." Sentiments that would soon be tested to the limit, but Ullsaard really had no fear on that account.

  He tried hard to concentrate on other advantages to his credit, rather dwell on the number of men ranged against his tiny force. He could hear the distant noise of the approaching army; the jingling of armour and tramping of feet was unmistakeable, even though it was barely audible yet. It was a noise that brought back so many memories; thirty years of fighting, in the ranks and as a commander.

  The king remembered something Muuril had said to him after the men had been dismissed to their duties in the morning: "They'll fight for you, and they'll die for you. You've never been beaten, and they ain't ready to start losing now."

  It was true that Ullsaard had succeeded time and again, when defeat had seemed likely, if not outright certain. Gelthius had said something similar when the king had been sneaking back into Greater Askhor, avoiding the army of Anglhan. Whatever happened, history would not forget King Ullsaard, he was sure of that; the man who had defied a king and conquered the most powerful empire in the world. What was fifty men against three thousand compared with that?

  You did not achieve that greatness by blind faith in yourself.

  "I wondered if you would show up," said Ullsaard. "You show your usually perfect timing."

  In moments of heightened emotion, your thoughts are stronger and I can latch on to them, like a rope thrown to a drowning man. Askhos seemed less bombastic, and when he spoke of drowning men Ullsaard had a flash of recollection; of that endless gulf of stars and dust that swallowed everything. Yes, my disassociation from the Crown is beginning to wear on my good nature and optimistic outlook. If you die, I shall be set adrift in the abyss, until madness consumes me and eventually my will to live can last no more and my essence evaporates into the void. It has been many years – longer than the two hundred and twelve since I founded this empire – since I feared death. Now oblivion seems certain, and I find that I do not wish to accept
it meekly.

  "There is nothing certain about death today," growled Ullsaard. "I'm not finished yet."

  I did not say today would see our deaths, but it will come one day.

  "You've picked a bad time to rediscover your mortality, you old bastard. If you haven't got anything useful to add, keep quiet. I'm thinking."

  What is your enemy's axis of weakness?

  "I see none," said Ullsaard. The axis of weakness was a concept passed down by the Book of Askhos; the flaw in the enemy's organisation or deployment that had to be exploited for victory. "If we leave the sanctuary of the compound, we will be surrounded and annihilated. Even though they perform their manoeuvres like Mekhani, I cannot seize upon their inexperience."

  You are missing my point. How can you forget so many hard-learnt lessons when you really need them? The axis of weakness here will not be military, it has to be personal. What are the weaknesses of the men you face?