The First Compact: The Karus Saga (The Karus Saga: Book Book 3)

by Marc Alan Edelheit

  “I can’t tell the general that,” Talvan said, with a nervous look thrown to his uncle. He seemed scandalized by the very idea of doing so. “It would insult him to his core … a human demanding that he comes? That’s unheard of!”

  “You can and will,” Dennig said, chuckling, then looked to Karus, mirth dancing in his eyes. “I enjoy your humor, my friend. With any luck, Torga will too. It will be either that, or he will want blood. When he gets to Carthum, I think it will be interesting to find out.”

  “Are you certain, sir?” Talvan asked. “I am to tell the general that?”

  “Today has seen a lot of firsts.” Dennig turned to Talvan. “Consider it an order from me. Deliver the message I gave you and Karus’s too. Insist upon personally seeing Torga. Do not give it to any of his subordinates first. I want politics kept to a minimum. Deliver the message only to the general. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Talvan said. “It shall be as you command.”

  “Bannus,” Karus said, switching to Latin. “This is Talvan. He does not speak Latin. You will see him to his people. Once you do, return to us. Understand?”

  “I do, sir,” Bannus said.

  “If he doesn’t make it, and their people do not march to our aid, the legion will be crushed by our enemy. Got me on this? Whatever you do and at all costs … you must get him to his people.”

  “I will see him there safely,” Bannus said. “I won’t let you or the legion down, sir.”

  “Good. I knew I could count on you,” Karus said and turned back to Talvan. “You do know the way, right?”

  “More or less,” Talvan said.

  “That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, son,” Karus said.

  “When we marched for Carthum some weeks ago, Torga’s army was on the move,” Dennig explained. “Have no fear. If the general is marching to Carthum, Talvan will find the general sooner than if he has to go looking for him. And if he’s not headed for Carthum, we know where Torga’s army was headed before you met him, which should make locating him easier.”

  Karus gave a nod of understanding.

  “Talvan is a trained pioneer,” Dennig continued. “He is what you would call a scout. Either way, he will find Torga and bring him to Carthum.”

  “And if Torga is too far away to come in time to save us?” Martuke asked. “Have you considered that?”

  “Then we will find ourselves in a tight spot.” Dennig glanced to Karus. “But … we won’t be alone.”

  “No, you won’t,” Karus affirmed and then looked over at the optio, switching to Latin. “Bannus … Talvan knows the way and he’s good to go. Time to get moving.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bannus said, saluted, and then beckoned to the dwarf. “Come this way, friend. I have a mount waiting, a nice, calm mare. I think you will like her.”

  Karus watched them move down the line of horses toward where Bannus’s troop was located and a spare horse waited at the end of the column.

  “Will you march with me for a bit, my friend?” Dennig asked, eyeing the road ahead and the wagons, which continued to roll and creak by.

  Karus glanced over at his horse, eager to return to the city.

  “You want to get back?” Dennig asked. “Don’t you?”

  “I do,” Karus said. “There is much to be done before the enemy gets here. That said, I will spare you a half hour. Despite the heat, I believe it will be good to stretch my legs and get some marching in.”

  “Good,” Dennig said enthusiastically. “We need to discuss how to keep our two peoples from killing one another once we get to the city. I would rather see our aggression directed toward the enemy and not inward.”

  Kol’Cara shot Karus a knowing look as Dennig started walking. There was a told you so in his gaze.

  “I believe that might be worth discussing,” Karus said and followed after his friend. “Let’s talk about that.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “They put on an impressive show,” Dennig said to Karus, without looking over. The Horde had arrived and the enemy’s army, on the east road, stretched out into the distance before them. “Do they not?”

  Resting his hands upon the stone of the city wall as he stared out at the enemy army, Karus could not help but agree. The stone had been warmed by the first of the two morning suns, which had risen a little over an hour before. In his face, the sun half blinded him. The city behind him on the other side of the wall was still steeped heavily in shadows. In another half hour that would change as the first sun climbed higher in the sky.

  Promising yet another day of brutal heat, the air was already warm and humid. In his armor, Karus was sweating, hot, and uncomfortable. He was tired of the heat and more than ready for a cooling down.

  Both he and Dennig were standing upon the east wall, a few yards from the gatehouse. Kol’Cara was a few feet away, also gazing out at the enemy. Since they had arrived, the elf had fallen into a sullen, almost troubled silence. Karus’s legionary escort waited back by the gatehouse, where he had left them.

  A commotion to his left drew his attention toward the gatehouse. The sentries were being changed out, with their replacement formed up in a line. Dwarves manned this portion of the wall. What looked like an officer was addressing them, clearly giving the replacements their orders.

  Both he and Dennig had thought it a good idea to give the dwarves a part of the city to defend. Dennig had specifically requested the honor of holding the section of wall around the east gate. The dwarf had explained he wanted the enemy, when they arrived, to see his warriors manning the city’s battlements, along with the warband’s standards. Those had been mounted along the wall. The fabric of the nearest standards fluttered and flapped whenever the wind gusted. It was a show of defiance, one of which Karus approved.

  By entrusting the defense of a critical portion of the wall to the dwarves, Karus was showing his faith in his new allies. At least, he hoped so. There was no telling just how the dwarves would take it. They were an alien race and he could not assume their thought process would align with his.

  Already, there had been several disagreements and misunderstandings. Mostly, these had been caused by the inability to communicate effectively, other than through hand gestures.

  One such instance involved the movement of dwarven wounded to the palace. It had almost come to blows. Swords had even been drawn before officers on both sides had taken control. Karus keenly recognized the sooner his people learned the common tongue, the better.

  When he failed to answer, Denning looked over. The dwarf’s expression was expectant. He pointed out toward the enemy. “You don’t think them impressive?”

  “It’s not that.” Karus refocused his thoughts on the present. “I just wish they had not gone to the trouble of putting on such a show for our mutual benefit.”

  Dennig gave a good-natured chuckle that trailed off as they both went back to silently studying the enemy. The might and raw power put on full display by the Horde was indeed impressive.

  In all his years, Karus had not seen the like. He could easily understand why the enemy were slowly overrunning this world. The Horde was highly organized, disciplined, and clearly had vast reserves of … manpower? Or was it orcpower? Or both? For some humans willingly served alongside the enemy and worshipped their dark gods.

  Back in Britannia, rarely had more than two legions worked together at any one time. And when they had marched as a combined army, he had thought that a terribly impressive thing to see.

  Both legions, along with their auxiliary cohorts and local allies, had numbered a little over thirty-five thousand fighting men. The Horde army before him, Karus conceded, was altogether different, grander.

  The first of the enemy’s formations had begun arriving shortly before dawn. These had moved to a position a little over two thousand yards from the city and were now actively engaged in building an encampment centered around a small treeless hill. Fenced in, with high stone walls, the area looked to have once bee
n a field for grazing animals.

  At least seven to eight thousand orcs had been set to digging a trench and building a turf wall, while several hundred more pitched tents. As Karus studied the enemy, he even spotted what he thought were teams of engineers, marking out sections of the encampment yet to be developed. These were planting small white marker flags in the ground.

  It was all very professional and organized. Karus found it eerily similar to how the legion went about setting up a fortified camp. Of course, there were differences, but the professional soldier in him was deeply impressed all the same.

  Within mere hours, probably before the onset of dusk, the fortified encampment would be complete. From the scale of what they were working on, the camp itself would be huge.

  Beyond the enemy’s budding encampment, the nearest farms were either in flames or smoking, smoldering ruins, dozens of them. Karus had ordered Valens to burn any structure within ten miles of the city. The evidence of that effort were not only the fires, but the thick columns of smoke dotting the horizon. Karus had wanted to leave nothing for the enemy to use, especially if it could assist them with their assault on the city walls.

  From personal experience, he well knew buildings could easily be taken apart to fashion battering rams and scaling ladders. Hence one of the reasons the farms had to go. He wished there had been time to do more, leave less for the enemy. But wishes were often like dreams, carrying little substance.

  “Excuse me, sir.” A legionary had come up and was standing to attention. Bathed by the rising sunlight, the messenger’s armor glinted, especially the helmet. The man was sweating, and his cheeks flushed. He had likely jogged from the palace district. He offered Karus a crisp salute and then held out a sealed dispatch.

  Karus took the dispatch, opened it, and quickly scanned the contents. It was a report from headquarters, which really was not a surprise. He recognized the neat scrawl. Delvaris had penned it himself, which meant the clerks were incredibly busy. Tucking the dispatch behind his armor, Karus looked up at the legionary.

  “Thank you. I will not have a reply. Report back to headquarters. You are dismissed.”

  The legionary saluted again. With that, he turned on his heal and left. Karus watched him go before moving back to the wall to continue studying the enemy.

  “Anything interesting?” Dennig asked, glancing over.

  “Enemy scouts have been reported surveying the west and north sides of the city wall. Nothing yet from the south side.”

  “They’re dragging ass,” Dennig said. “I would have had warriors on each side of the city by now.”

  “Give them time. It’s a big city.” Karus paused to suck in a breath. “The wagons also seem to have gotten away and are now seven miles to the west. There is no sign the enemy intends to pursue them. The cavalry has reformed and, as ordered, is providing a screen. Once the wagons are twenty miles out and safe, the cavalry will turn back to harry the enemy … any way they can. It does not seem as if the enemy are at all interested in chasing down the wagons.”

  “It is possible,” Dennig said, “since they set out at night, the enemy simply does not yet know that the wagons continued on westward. Then again, there is not much worth chasing, seeing as how we unloaded them first. I’m betting it’s the latter.”

  “That would be nice,” Karus said. “We need something to go our way.”

  “I must admit, I am still somewhat troubled by sending the wagons onward,” Dennig said. “We’re going to need them if we survive this. There’s a lot to haul away. That’s one of the reasons the Thane sent me to Carthum, to salvage what I could. It would be a shame if one of the enemy’s wyrms destroyed all of the transport.”

  “It is a risk, for sure,” Karus said. “But, with what I have planned, they can’t be kept in the city. You know that. Besides, Kordem is flying cover over the wagons.”

  Dennig ran a hand through his tightly braided beard and let out a long breath. “You’re right. They had to go. There was nothing else we could do.”

  “If this works out and Torga relieves us,” Karus said, “we will have some breathing room and the wagons can return.”

  “True. That also would be nice. And it may keep the Thane’s wrath at bay.”

  Karus turned his gaze skyward. Only a handful of white, puffy clouds scudded lazily across an almost brilliant blue sky. From the top of the wall, he figured he could see perhaps twenty to thirty miles, maybe more.

  The enemy’s line of march was organized into block-like formations of several hundred each. It stretched out for as far as the eye could see to the east. The army had kicked up a large cloud of dust from the road, which the wind was carrying to the north. Any time an army moved, especially in dry weather, there was always the choking, ever-present dust.

  Six of the enemy’s wyrms flew off in the distance, far enough away that they appeared like a flock of birds … yet the massive creatures were still near enough that they could easily protect the soldiers on the ground. At least that was what Kordem had told him before he’d left to watch over the wagons.

  Scanning the sky, Karus spotted Cyln’Phax and one of her children circling incredibly high over the city. The fact that they were there providing cover was a great comfort to Karus.

  The two sets of dragons were cautiously watching one another. They were playing a deadly game. When one side made a move, the other side would undoubtedly strike. Karus did not know how such a confrontation would go … or who would come out on top.

  There was one thing he did understand all too well. If his dragons lost, the legion was most likely done. The wyrms would burn the city and his boys along with it. Then the orcs would come in to finish off anyone who survived the conflagration. That thought alone frightened Karus, for he had no control of anything when it came to the dragons.

  The only solution they had managed to come up with in short order, for a semblance of protection, were legionary bolt throwers, a handful of which had been mounted on the walls and throughout the city. These had been modified to shoot skyward. Privately, Karus had little faith that they would make a difference. He had, after all, seen the raw power dragons were capable of unleashing. Not much could withstand such an onslaught.

  The dwarves had brought two larger bolt throwers with them. They called these “dragon killers.” Both machines had been disassembled and moved to the palace district. In the hours ahead, they would be put back together and mounted on the walls by the palace.

  “You were right,” Dennig said.

  “About what?” Karus asked.

  The dwarf pointed toward a formation of several hundred orcs. They were being guided off the road and into the enemy’s encampment. He had a feeling he knew where Dennig was headed. Behind the formation followed ten heavily loaded teska.

  “Had we continued on westward, that teska train tells me the enemy’s main body had sufficient food stores with them to run us down,” Dennig said. “I’ve been watching and each new formation that comes up seems to have a similar train.”

  “I do not enjoy being right.” That the enemy had some transport left meant after they finished constructing their encampment, they could send the teska back to retrieve food from the main supply train Valens had crippled. Karus found that thought downright depressing.

  “Martuke won’t enjoy you being right, either.” Dennig gave a harsh laugh and then patted the stone battlement. The stone was old, ancient even, and had been smoothed by years of exposure to the weather. “I, however, am grateful for the protection of these walls. They are solid and tall. The enemy has their work cut out for them.”

  Karus scratched an itch upon his cheek. He was starting to sweat buckets. The heat of the day had increased. The second sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. He found the heat was making him thirsty. He took his canteen from his harness and unstopped it before holding it out to Dennig. The dwarf took a generous swig.

  “Thank you.” Dennig wiped his lips with the back of his arm, before h
anding the canteen back.

  Karus tipped the canteen and drank several swallows of warm water before returning it to his harness.

  They both became silent for a time, each lost to his own thoughts. The full magnitude of the Horde’s army, so close, was disturbing. Karus had his plans for defense of the city, and until he’d joined Dennig on the wall, he had felt quite good about them. Now … not so much.

  Before any action, he had always suffered from doubt. A good leader questioned himself relentlessly, especially when it came to the planning of a fight. In combat, nothing ever went exactly to plan. Something always tended to go wrong. It was why the legion promoted men who could, under incredible stress, assess a problem, think of a solution, and then react accordingly. That took years of experience, hard service, and training to develop. It could not happen overnight and was another reason why Roman legions were second to none.

  Still, the better you planned, the more prepared you were going into a fight, the greater the chance a commander had for the desired outcome to be achieved. Yet no matter how much you prepared, that did not always guarantee success or that things would swing your way. As the saying went, the enemy always got a vote … perhaps even the last word, which was never desirable.

  After seeing the enemy up close, Karus was no longer so certain he had made the right decision by holing up in Carthum. In fact, he was becoming concerned he had made the wrong decision. But now, the time for second-guessing was over. He was committed to a defense of the city.

  Once the enemy got organized, Karus was not at all sure he would be able to hold out long enough for Torga to reach them. Worse, he had no idea how long it would take for the dwarven general to bring his army to Carthum. That was, if he came at all. Karus found it a slim comfort that Dennig was convinced Torga would bring his army.

  Still, even without the prospect of Torga’s army and knowing what he knew now, Karus suspected he might have elected to remain in the city anyway. There were serious advantages to the defensive nature of the walls and stockpiles of food they had accumulated. Making your enemy struggle to simply get at you was a serious positive in Karus’s book. And struggle they would.