And what did he know of the army? The rumblings of those cannons attacking Elisa’s home was the closest he’d ever been to a war.
Elisa knew not to go near the city. She didn’t need a drunk farmer to tell her the Kurakin would be looking for her.
The barn door was open and Elisa slipped inside. All she wanted was some quiet to clean the stag in peace. She found more company in the barn instead.
“Elisa, welcome back.”
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
Elisa had found three of the farmhands stacking bales of hay on the far end of the barn. These three would be even more talkative than Mon.
“That’s a big one today,” Artur said.
“Ah, the usual silent treatment,” Louis said.
Elisa dropped the stag onto the cleaning table and set to work. The farmhands stopped their work and walked over to join her. They knew better than to ask if Elisa needed help.
“Did you go south to get him?” Gabriel said. He was the closest of the boys to her own age, but still a few years older than her. “See any of the Horde?”
Louis and Artur ran with their own thoughts without giving Elisa a chance to answer.
“This’ll be a good dinner, eh?”
“She probably went north, no use risking running into a Kurakin Scythe.”
“I heard their wolverines like younger girls.” Louis showed off his gap-toothed smile.
“I’ve heard all the southern animals, soldiers included, like younger girls.”
Elisa blocked them out and continued with her work. She sliced at the stag’s stomach skin and peeled back the fur. She opened the kill and pulled the innards out, letting the smell fill the barn.
“I heard when they took Beauhar, they lined the women up and took them off for the soldiers to rape.”
“Easy, Artur, not in front of virgin ears.” Gabriel shot the other farmhand a glare.
“She’s old enough.”
“How old are you, Elisa, twelve?”
Elisa looked up from her work to scowl at Louis and his stupid grin.
“She’s fourteen,” Gabriel said. He gave a quick smile in Elisa’s direction. “I heard Mon say it once.”
“Old enough, see?” Artur shrugged.
“I heard they burned the Citadel of Mere to the ground just for fun.” Louis sucked in a breath through the opening in the front of his teeth.
“They like fire, both in war and out.”
“Their capital burns.” Gabriel folded his arms across his chest. Elisa noticed the sweat glistening on the muscles of his forearms. “Half the city’s been on fire for years and their kind just keep on living.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true, I heard a merchant say it in Plancenoit.”
“Flames probably keep them warm that far south.” Artur shrugged again.
“See? It makes sense.”
“And I thought it was their beards that kept them warm.”
“It’s called fur, actually.”
The three men had a chuckle at this last comment. Elisa disposed of the stag’s innards and was working on the cuts of meat. She’d become very adept at ignoring the boys and their rambling.
A whistle sounded from outside the barn and saved her from having to block out more of their conversation.
“Off to work then,” Gabriel said. “Thanks for shooting us some dinner, Elisa.”
“So long,” Artur said.
“Don’t wander off and get captured today,” Louis said.
The three men went out the front door of the barn and left her alone. Mon never made her work the fields, thankfully. The farmhands never questioned it and fully believed Elisa was the farmer’s granddaughter. Elisa could’ve sat around and relaxed and enjoyed the indoors of the farmhouse and no one would’ve complained. Instead, she spent most of her time out hunting and exploring the forests north of the capital and tried to get her pent-up energy out.
Elisa needed to move. Working the fields could’ve helped, but she knew she could never stand spending all day with the farmhands. Gabriel was nice to her most of the time, but the other two enjoyed the sound of their own voices too much and didn’t have a good thought between them. Their banter, combined with Mon taking pull after pull of his bottle from atop a till, would be too much.
As this war became worse and worse for Erlon, Elisa found a restlessness growing inside of her. It was like her gut was screaming for her to run out into the woods and never return.
When she was younger, her father had been off on campaign in the east often enough, but she’d never had this feeling before. This was different. Her father wasn’t coming back this time.
Her father was in exile. Her mother had abandoned them both. Her country now collapsed around her and a barbarian army knocked on her city’s gates.
Elisa set her knife down on the table. The stag was fully gutted. She drew out another blade and sliced around some strips of fat and cut out the tenderloin on the first side.
The first rumbles of cannons came in the distance. That would be the start to the day’s bombardment at Plancenoit.
Elisa couldn’t tell if it was Plancenoit or some other battle, but it didn’t matter. She set the hunk of venison on an adjacent table and sighed. The exhaustion from the morning hunt and hauling the kill back to the farm from the south fully hit her. The rumbles of the artillery grew louder. She blocked out the sounds of her country dying and cut back into the stag.
Blood ran from the beast and pooled on the table. It dribbled off and slowly mixed with the dirt and the weeds at her feet.
Lauriston
The group of horses galloped around the corner and cut up the road between the houses. The marshal led them and willed his horse to churn up the dirt faster towards their destination as the world devolved into chaos around them.
A cannonball crashed through the house on their right. Lauriston turned in time to see another bouncing down the street. The horse behind him took the ball in the side of the neck. Blood and flecks of flesh flew through the air as the unfortunate rider tumbled forward.
“Keep moving!” Marshal Lauriston yelled to the others. The fallen aide, if he was still alive, would have to get to cover himself. The others couldn’t stop to help him.
The group galloped on through the town of Notain with explosions all around them. Lauriston kept his eyes forward.
He pulled hard on the reins and turned down a side street. The column compressed and slowed behind him in the narrow pathway. More cannonballs screamed overhead. The rumble of artillery roared continuously to their south.
South. Lauriston was slowly catching up to the situation. How was the enemy on the southern flank of the town?
No time for answers yet, there was only the sound of the cannon fire and the galloping horse underneath him. He’d have answers soon enough. He just had to get to the headquarters.
The column turned around another house. To their right, houses burned and cannon craters lined the streets. Erlonian soldiers stumbled about or hid behind cover. There was no organization, no way to fight back.
Marshal Lauriston needed to regain order.
They reached the house and Lauriston jumped off his horse. The men behind him did the same and the officers ducked inside the headquarters.
“We’ve got to move, sir,” someone said.
“We’re still in range of their cannons,” another voice said.
More men began talking over each other. The noise became louder than even the cannon barrage outside. Lauriston couldn’t think clearly.
“Enough.” His voice was low, but it had the desired effect. His men knew when to listen to him.
Lauriston looked at the men. There wasn’t fear in anyone’s eyes. They’d all seen too many battles to feel true fear. But there was confusion. Lauriston knew it was showing on his own face as well.
“How are they attacking from the south?” He did his best to keep his voice calm and controlled.
The men talked all at once again and Lauriston held up a hand to silence them.
“Lodi.” He pointed to the Lakmian officer with the long hair at the front of the group.
“They must have gotten through a hole in the lines,” Lodi said.
“You think Desaix would’ve missed artillery moving by his scouts?”
“No,” Lodi said. “But how else?”
“I don’t know.”
The door crashed open and three more men crowded in with the others.
“Sir, the eastern flank needs reinforcing. They have too many cannons,” one of the new arrivals said.
“Everywhere needs reinforcements, Murat,” Lauriston said.
Murat removed his hat. “Their infantry is pressing in through the forest near Lanzere. They’re wearing all black.”
“Are you sure?” Lauriston said.
The room grew quiet. Realization swept across the faces of officers and staff all at once. Lauriston wiped his hand across his face and let out a breath.
Black could only mean one thing.
“The Horde?” he heard someone say from the back of the room.
“I saw them myself, sir. It’s the Horde,” Murat said.
Lauriston looked at Lodi. The Lakmian only raised his eyebrows in reply.
That explained how a force this big could suddenly appear on their rear. It wasn’t the Brunians; it was the Kurakin Horde. The other marshals must’ve been overrun in the south.
Beauhar and Mere would’ve fallen. And now the Horde was farther north than seemed possible. North of the Broadwater. North of Plancenoit.
The rest of the men had the same thought process as Lauriston.
“Plancenoit?” someone said. Murmurs went through the men.
A cannon ball exploded into a house very close to them and the entire room ducked.
Lauriston had to block out all the questions. He had to push the concerns for the capital back until later. The focus had to be this battle in this town.
“Enough,” Lauriston said to quiet the group of officers again. “Murat, are the bridges of Lanzere still up?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
Lauriston wiped a hand across his face again and pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned and looked at Lodi. The Lakmian was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, as if bored in a pub.
“How about in the west?” Lauriston said.
“We’re still good there. And there’s a ford if we need it,” Lodi said. He kept his relaxed position, but Lauriston knew him well enough to hear the stress in his voice.
Lauriston looked over the rest of the room and nodded. He had to give the men confidence. “We’re strong here in the center. We’ll just have to retreat under cannon fire and hope the bridges hold.”
“Retreat, sir?” A general who’d remained quiet until now stepped forward. He stood with a straight back, his normally pristine uniform jacket torn on one side during the flight through the town.
“Yes, Quatre,” Lauriston said. “We can’t match those cannons on the high ground. There’s no way to hold this position. Our lines are facing the wrong way.”
“We can push against them. Then head south to Plancenoit.” Quatre had his fists clenched at his sides.
Lauriston felt the same anger and frustration. He knew the entire room would feel the same way.
But acting on it would be rash. Lauriston would throw the army into a hopeless situation, even more hopeless than their current predicament.
“No. Plancenoit is over twenty miles away. Even if we could turn this battle, that’s too far. For all we know, the city is already fallen.” Lauriston made sure to meet the eyes of everyone in the room. “We must fall back here, get the men to safety. Then we figure out how to fight the rest of this war.”
Marshal Lauriston saw Quatre’s fists unclench slightly. The tension of the room didn’t disappear, but it lessened enough to be noticed. Quatre’s mouth opened but only hung there silent. The general understood, even if he wanted to argue against retreat. There was no time for discussion.
Lauriston continued with his orders for the whole group. “Men, return to your positions and begin withdrawing. I want order. We have houses for cover from the cannons. Two small bridges here in the center. Quatre, put the First and Third on them. No mistakes.”
Quatre gave a nod.
“Murat.” Lauriston looked to the next general. “You’re in danger of getting cut off in Lanzere, you must pull back towards the center, hold that infantry push off as long as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lauriston hoped Murat would have enough time to pull back, otherwise they’d lose a fourth of the army trapped up against the river.
“Lodi, fall back across your bridge in the same manner. Spike the cannons if you have to. The same goes to everyone else as well. The priority is getting the men to safety.”
Lauriston looked around the room. He needed to hold the men together.
“Onward, Erlon.” He tried to put force and confidence behind the words. “Onward, Emperor.”
“Onward,” the officers responded in unison. They nodded and turned to leave.
When the door of the headquarters opened, the sound of the Kurakin barrage filled the room fully once again. The generals filed out and left Lauriston alone with only the din of the battle for company.
What would the emperor do in this situation? How would Lannes pull Erlon to victory? Lauriston had seen too many battlefield miracles to doubt that his friend would find a way.
But Lannes wasn’t here. He was trapped on an island far away. Exiled. Lost forever.
There was only the last Marshal of Erlon left and the bare bones of an army to defend his old empire. And this battle was already lost.
“Shit,” Lauriston said to the empty room. He turned and began gathering his things to join in the retreat.
Elisa
Elisa woke early the next morning, just as the colors of the sun were spreading from behind the horizon in the east. She gathered her things—her two pistols, a coat for the morning chill, and the hunting musket from downstairs—and headed out the door.
With the buck from yesterday, they wouldn’t need more venison for at least a few days, but Elisa felt like killing something.
Hunting was not very befitting for a princess, Elisa knew. Neither were her britches with tears and mud caked on. A princess wouldn’t have tangled and knotted hair. But Elisa was no longer royalty.
That part of herself was lost long before she was taken from the city and brought to this farm. She’d stopped being a princess when her mother disappeared. When the Horde defeated the Erlonian army in the south. And when her father was exiled to the far corner of the world by her nation’s enemies.
Elisa had been allowed to stay in Plancenoit for a short while, in her dresses and palace gardens and high four-poster beds with plush sheets from Calvaria. But that had changed when the war started going poorly. When the Horde landed at Beauhar, she’d been whisked away without anyone asking what she wanted in all this, how she wanted to be protected, or if she even needed protection at all.
They’d taken her to this farm, not very far from the capital, and set a drunk in charge of watching her while the guard went off to fight a hopeless war. The farmer Montholon took care of her, Elisa thought to herself as she marched through the forest south of the farm, but if it came to protecting her, she doubted the drunk could rise to the occasion.
None of this mattered, though. The enemy Coalition would find her no matter what. There was only the waiting left.
Elisa realized she’d been walking heavily and fast through the forest for quite a while. Any deer in the woods would’ve spooked away by now. Elisa slowed and tried to focus on the trees instead of the problems swirling around her. The morning sun was fully above the mountains now and Elisa saw landmarks in the woods that told her she was a few miles south of the farmstead.
An idea came to Elisa and she ignored the vario
us trails of her desired game on the forest floor and moved deeper into the woods. The ground rose here and she followed a slope up to a ridgeline she was familiar with. She rounded a corner and came to the top of the ridge.
The trees fell away from the top of the hill and a gap in the forest revealed the land sweeping away to the south. It was a straight-shot view of the capital of the Erlonian Empire, Plancenoit.
The city was white, the walls of the defenses and the houses beyond rising like pieces of chalk stuck in the dirt. The center was dominated by the mound that had led her Erlonian ancestors to settle here, a hill of rock that now served as the foundation for the palace of Erlon, her former home.
It was beautiful from this distance. The light coming in from Elisa’s right shone golden on the buildings and the spires of the palace and the Temple of the Ascended One.
But the scene was shattered by the war that was forever breaking Elisa’s life in two. Plumes of smoke rose from the walls. Units of enemies moved over the hills to the west of the city. They looked like ants from this distance.
The artillery was still waking up, but Elisa heard the rumbles of the first barrages for the day starting up. She saw parts of the walls taking the brunt of the attacks and too few defenders scrambling about the battlements.
“It’ll fall soon.”
Elisa spun and drew both her pistols and pointed them at the source of the voice. The click of both flintlock hammers greeted the intruder.
“Woah now,” the man said.
Not a man, Elisa realized. A Lakmian. She could see his furry tail hanging between his legs.
The man had long hair, blond and well kept. His face was soft, like all of the Lakmian race, and held no hostility. He was smiling at Elisa.
“There’s that Erlonian fire I’ve heard so much about,” the intruder said after a beat of silence. Now that she looked closer, his features were slightly darker than most Lakmians Elisa had seen. The differences were subtle, but they were there.
“What do you want?” Elisa said. Her mind couldn’t make sense of why a Lakmian would be this far south. “Are you with the army?”
That would be the only explanation, but there shouldn’t be any Erlonian troops anywhere near here except within the now besieged city.
The Fall of Erlon (The Falling Empires Saga Book 1) Page 2
