by Eric Ugland
“Valamir?” I asked.
“I would not put it past the slimy sack of shit,” Wian said.
“It could be all three of the current contenders,” Nikolai said. “Or others who have yet put their intentions forth.”
“Léon has a growing list of those who are talking about it,” Nathalie said.
“How many spies does your brother have?” I asked.
“Not nearly enough.”
“Regardless,” Nikolai said, “the point of this plan, the one the Emperor and I worked on, was to remove the interference of the other nobles. Enable us to focus on the Empire’s way forward from a safe place. Hence a valley with no entrances and no exits. Easily defensible even if we had no army.”
“But we do have an army,” I said.
“We have a part of an army,” Wian corrected. “Some elite troops and some retired farts.”
“Those retired farts can still hold a shield wall,” Nathalie said.
Nikolai sat behind his desk, and held his hand up.
“The ‘army’, my lord duke, is one of our discussion topics for this evening. Or, it would have been. However—”
“You’re worried about the woman in purple and the dude with the hammer on his chest,” I said.
Nikolai’s eyebrows raised just enough for me to tell he was impressed.
“They present a problem, yes.”
“Who’s the girl?” I asked. “It was one of the multitude of questions Hetsesta didn’t answer, but it seemed like the one she was most hesitant to even say a word about.”
Nathalie scoffed. “The girl, he says.”
I looked over to Lee. He just shrugged. Clearly it was something natives knew about.
“She is perhaps the most famous woman in the entirety of the Empire,” Nathalie said, incredulous. “And you ask about her as if she is a common trollop.”
“Okay,” I said, “well, obviously I’m not super up-to-date on the famous ladies of the Empire. I must have misplaced my Us magazine somewhere.”
Lee got a look on his face, and I knew he’d figured it out before I had.
“That’s the princess,” Lee said. “Has to be.”
Nathalie nodded at Lee, then gave me a look like I was a daft prick.
“What?” I asked. “Why is she here?”
“Because if she was elsewhere,” Nikolai said, “she would be minutes away from death. She is the rightful heir to the throne, as outlined in the Emperor’s will. Which means if she shows up at the Senate—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “She said she doesn’t want to be the Empress. Or Emperor. Whatever.”
“That is not a formal abdication. Until the crown is actually offered to you, you cannot abdicate. Thus, as I was trying to say, if she shows up at the Senate, she will have 200 votes for the crown. And since you, if not other nobles, would clearly vote for her, she would become Empress. That is why Valamir wishes her dead. As do all the others aiming for the crown. Perhaps the entire country of Mahrduhm.”
“Definitely Mahrduhm,” Wian said. “Their dark queen has issued a death prize for the girl already. Since they declared war on us, in fact.”
“Regardless, she is here because this is the only place her father and I believed she would be safe,” Nikolai said. “There is the matter of the timeline we had estimated, however, because the Thingmen and their escort were not meant to be here until the Spring at the earliest.”
“What went wrong?” I asked.
“That is a very good question,” Nikolai said, glaring at Wian.
Wian shook his head. “It is not my fault. Someone in our group has betrayed us, and we were discovered in all of the safe estates we had arranged. Time after time, we barely escaped, and even then it was largely due to rearguard actions. I lost half my company keeping ahead of our pursuers. They will be at your gate in two days. Maybe three if they pause outside the tunnel.”
“Can we kill them all?” I asked.
A bewildered smile spread across his face, and he looked over at Nikolai. “Is he serious?” Wian asked.
“Unfortunately,” Nikolai replied, “probably.”
“Look,” I said, “we just get a bunch of nice round logs, and we roll them down the tunnel. Or some boulders.”
“Barrels of pitch,” Lee offered.
I snapped and pointed to Lee. “Excellent idea.”
“While the thought of killing them all is quite entrancing, that would mean open conflict with Valamir and all his supporters. And I fear we would not last the winter in such an event. We must be self-sufficient before we can truly stand against Valamir.”
“Or Eutharic,” Wian said. “Eutharic scares me nearly as much as, or maybe more than Valamir.”
“He has to find the way here,” Nikolai said.
“I know he knows where the princess is,” Wian said.
“You want to share that with the rest of us?” I asked.
Wian shook his head, and sighed. “The princess is the princess, and some of her,” Wian searched for the right word, “ her retinue are not what I would think of as loyal. Or even working in her best interests. They are sycophants, both of them, each pulling at her and promising paradise through different pathways. Neither one of which is true.”
“They’re pretending to be clerics, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And the one who’s actually a priestess of Nergle is the one who you suspect works with Eutharic?”
His eyes narrowed, and he nodded, slowly.
“So the hammer man is with Valamir?” I asked.
“That is my current theory, yes. But how did you know—”
“Just a guess from what you’ve told me about Eutharic and Valamir. And what the Imperial Historian let on.”
“Ah yes, that one,” Wian said. “She is an impossibility. I cannot fathom her loyalties—”
“She is loyal to the Empire,” Nikolai said. “But no one individual within it.”
“She’s an odd duck,” I said.
Both Nikolai and Wian nodded.
“Okay, so, army. You want to figure out how to merge the Legion folk and the Thingmen, as well as the dwarves. Is that the issue?”
“That is an absurd oversimplification of what we are attempting to solve,” Nikolai replied with a sigh. “And if you wish to interject yourself into the process, I would always welcome your input, my duke.”
“Uh, yeah, no. I hear what it is you’re saying. But I am leaving tomorrow morning, so—”
“Leaving?” Wian asked.
“We need to explore the valley. So I’m going out with a ranger who needs to level up and, if Nikolai hasn’t asked you, do you have a ranger among your group?”
“We have some, yes,” Wian replied, then looked over at Nikolai. “You need someone?”
“Someone steady,” Nikolai replied. “And trustworthy. Someone who can keep this lunk alive—”
“Hey!” I said.
“— Or more likely keep him out of trouble so we do not awaken embroiled in a new war we cannot win.”
“I’m not going to get us into a war. Hell, I’ve yet to do that. You got me into a war, Nikolai.”
“Let us refrain from calling it a war yet,” Nikolai said.
“Sure. But regardless, let’s get the focus back on me and my needs—”
“We really need Ragnar here to poke a hole in his ego,” Lee said.
“I wish I could take those two with me,” I said. “They are in my hirð after all.”
“And he has a hirð,” Wian said. “Of course he does.”
“And they’re otters,” I said.
“Lutra, please,” Lee interjected.
“Right, my bad,” I said. “But rangers.”
Wian nodded, and looked around at nothing for a moment before nodding his head. “I have some thoughts,” he said.
“Leaving tomorrow morning, though,” I replied. “So, might want to think fast before they’re too wasted tonight.”
&nb
sp; “That should not be a problem. I will have the ranger meet you by the northern gates tomorrow morning.”
“Or in the cantina.”
Wian nodded.
“In that case,” I said, “I leave you to building our military industrial complex.”
I got some weird looks, but no one stopped me from leaving.
Chapter Forty-Three
I slept under the stars, enjoying the feeling of security for a night. For the first time, I thought about getting a bed of sorts. I missed having a soft place to lay down, or really just a place to call my own. Maybe when I returned from the walkabout, I’d make it a priority. I was a duke — I could pull a few strings, get myself a little pad somewhere. Maybe attached to the hall. Or even built inside the mountain, just with some windows. And a balcony. A little three-room apartment. Or, you know, something with indoor plumbing. I was not a huge fan of life with latrines, but there weren’t exactly overwhelming options in the world of Vuldranni. At least that I had found.
Sleep came quickly, almost as soon as my head hit the rolled-up cloak I was using as I pillow, I was out.
And just as soon, I realized I was somewhere else. Hanging in the air, blackness all around. And yet I could see myself. And I could feel the air around me.
In front of me, a large eye opened. Yellow with a vertical slit. It was huge — at least a hundred feet tall. If I moved my head, the eye moved as well, so I was never able to take my eyes off the big eye. It was disconcerting to say the least.
There was something else there in the darkness, just beyond the edge of my ability to see. I could feel it.
Trying to speak elicited nothing. I could move my head from side to side, but that was it. No other part of my body would respond to my commands.
“Power,” a voice said. It was deep and potent and unnervingly inhuman. Echoes of the voice seemed to swirl around me. And a faint sense of something chewing, but far off.
A map spread out before me, or a very good model. Given that it was a dream of sorts, it could very well have been the real Vuldranni. I don’t really know. I do know that I was looking down on the Empire of Glaton. I could see the cities, the mountains, and if I squinted, the vague network of roads that cut through farmlands and forests. The massive swath of trees was the Emerald Sea, and there was a nearly perfect circle cut out of the mountains just to the north east of Osterstadt. I figured it was my valley. It had to be. It was the only valley-looking place near the spot where Osterstadt cut through the mountains, and tracing the river back, it made sense. The perfect circle-ness didn’t make sense, but it had to be the valley. I couldn’t make out too many details, but it did look like there were massive amber plains to the north before turning into a dark, swamp-looking place. And there were some cities to the north east, which I assume had to be Mahrduhm.
Just as I was committing it all to memory and really trying to understand the geography of the region, a red splotch appeared in my valley, and it spread over the whole of the map. Every inch was covered in red.
“Consume,” the voice said.
The map blinked out, and the eye replaced it.
“Power,” the voice said one more time.
I was very confused. And I would have told the stupid eye that, but I wasn’t able to talk at the moment. I had the feeling the eye-thing wanted to say more, but I had the distinct feeling it ran out of power, itself. The whole disconcerting scene hung there for a moment, then it seemed to wobble. Reality itself, wobbling. More than anything else, that was most upsetting. One last wobble, and it all vanished.
I woke up thrashing my limbs about, looking everywhere to figure out where I was. It took me a hot minute before I accepted I was back home. But just as I was putting everything back into my head as merely a stupid dream, I caught sight of an afterimage of the giant yellow eye, hanging above me in the sky. It lingered there just long enough for me to know I’d seen it before winking out, and the night sky filled with too many stars back as it had always been.
“Sometimes I hate this stupid world,” I said to no one in particular.
Chapter Forty-Four
I made it to the cantina before anyone was even in the kitchen, which was saying something. The dwarven bakers tended to get there somewhere in the neighborhood of three or four in the morning. I made myself a pot of tea on the glowing coals, and then sat down and ate a loaf of day-old bread. Which was significantly tastier than it sounds. I was really starting to get used to having fresh bread on the daily, and have it make almost no effect on my waistline. At least insofar as I could tell. Frankly, with the sheer amount of muscle mass I had, I probably should’ve been eating far more calories than I was, but my diet was pretty vast.
I sat there at one of the many tables, drinking my tea, wishing I had some Faygo Root Beer. Well, that I had more of it. It wasn’t like I drank that much soda back on Earth, but it was something that had always been close to home for me. No matter where I was, if I could have some Faygo Root Beer, I could close my eyes, and for a few minutes be back in those few moments of joy I had as a kid, sitting in front of the TV watching a movie I wasn’t supposed to late on a Saturday night. Now I had to make deals with the gods just to have a little pop. But then again, I was almost a god in my own right, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. I missed movies too. And popcorn. I had thought about trying to introduce new foods to Vuldranni. Well, foods that were new to them. It could, conceivably, give us an economic advantage over the rest of the Empire. Sure there were plenty of dishes native to Glaton that I’d tried, and most of them were excellent.
But, given that it had been a bizarre night, when the first baker arrived and asked if there was anything I needed or wanted in particular, I couldn’t help but expound on the glory that is the beignet.
Which is why I was pretty well covered in powdered sugar and smelling strongly of oil when a really grim-looking man walked up to me.
“My lord,” he said, “I am Alexios, and I have been ordered to report to you for duty.”
He stood at attention in front of me, apparently not at all intrigued by the plate of fried sugary goodness in front of me. I pushed the plate his way, and I saw him look down at it and frown.
“Are you the ranger?” I asked.
“I am a ranger, my lord. I do not know I am the ranger.”
“You’re the one who’s coming with me to explore the valley.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well, then take a seat and have a beignet.”
“I would rather not, my lord.”
“Are you gluten-free or something?”
“I apologize, my lord. I have not heard of this ‘gluten.’”
“You really don’t need to say my lord every time you talk to me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
I plucked another bit of dough from the pile, and took a big bite. I felt the powdered sugar coat my beard like snow, and also the ranger derision over my having a beard. He was clean shaven. Like virtually all Thingmen. And heavily muscled.
“Want to sit?” I asked.
“My lord, I am not worthy to—”
“Nonsense. Sit. Eat. I’m guessing we won’t have hot food for while.”
He thought it through for a moment, and then sat down. Carefully, he picked up a beignet, and then took a timid bite. He couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face, but he did tamper it down almost as quickly as it happened.
“There’s more coming,” I said, “so eat up.”
Try as I might to lure the man into conversation, Alexios would not engage. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the difference in our ranks, or if he just wasn’t a talker, or something else entirely. He did, however enjoy the fried dough, devouring almost as much of it as I did.
Amber maybe have had the desire to be a ranger, but she did not have the alarm clock to be a ranger. She came running into the cantina after the main breakfast, when Alexios had stretched out along the bench and was taking a nap.
“I overslept,”
she said.
I stretched as I got to my feet, and a slight groan escaped my lips.
“It’s fine,” I said. “This is Alexios, and he’s a ranger with the Thingmen. He is coming with us.”
Amber looked him over, and while she struggled to maintain a polite look, there was a hint of fear on her face as well. She did not like Alexios. So, you know, I had that going for me.
I woke Alexios and sent him into the kitchen to get whatever food he wanted us to have on the trip, and then we’d take off. I waited for Alexios to get inside the kitchen before I turned to Amber.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Who is he?”
“I told you, the ranger.”
“And he comes with us?”
“Yeah. He’ll be training you. I’m there to make sure we all get home okay and hopefully get some quest XP.”
She nodded.
“Is he a good man?” she finally asked.
I blinked a few times, trying to find an answer to give to a question like that. Was he a good man? I had no idea. It’s not like I knew the guy in the slightest. He’d been fine in the time we’d spent together — you know, breaking some bread — but other than that I had nothing.
“I believe he is a man of honor,” I said. “And he is one of my sworn followers, so if there is a problem, he answers to me.”
She swallowed hard, then finally nodded. “I am ready to go when you are.”
“Lovely,” I said, hopping to my feet and leaving the cantina.
Chapter Forty-Five
Before we left the walls, we formed a party. Alexios suggested we not go north right away. That instead, we should inspect the area around the settlement to see what we might find in the immediate area.
That meant a trek along the cleared area around the settlement, and immediately, I knew Alexios was much more at home in the wilds than he was even in the mild civilization contained within the walls of Coggeshall. It also made me realize that the village/city/whathaveyou needed a name to differentiate it from the holding.
