Elisa stepped slowly at first and put one foot after the other. She brought her sword around on a steady arc.
The next pass she sped up. She tried to control her breathing. It grew more difficult and she stumbled on the third pass. She righted herself and started again. The fourth time was better.
“If I tried that, I’d get dizzy.”
Elisa winced and turned towards the voice with a reddening face. She assumed one of the soldiers had approached and seen her practicing.
But then she felt the cool breeze along the back of her neck.
Her Lakmian guide had returned.
“I’d almost forgotten about you,” Elisa said. She sheathed her sword.
“You haven’t needed me in a while.” The vision waved a hand back towards the group of soldiers through the trees. “You’re in good company.”
“Aren’t you worried they’ll see you?”
The guide looked back towards the men as if contemplating the thought. “No,” he said with a shrug.
Elisa smiled at how nonchalant the vision was. She was glad he appeared. He would be something else to take her mind off the questions and fears overtaking her mind.
“I’ve taken your advice, I guess,” Elisa said. “Flee north. Have we gone far enough?”
“Taking my advice is always a good idea.” The guide smiled. “But no, you haven’t gone far enough. As long as those Scythes still give chase, you’re still in danger.”
“So are you here to tell me to keep going?”
“Yes.” The vision leaned a shoulder against a tree and crossed one foot over the other. “But I also want to give you a little bit of a warning.”
A warning?
That didn’t sound good. Elisa fingered the silver seal on her pistol as the guide talked.
“Things are about to change. They’re about to pick up pace. I want you to stay focused and vigilant.”
“What do you mean? How will things change?” Elisa didn’t have the slightest idea what the guide meant by any of this.
“You’ll see.”
Elisa didn’t consider this a very good warning. She opened her mouth to tell the vision this but saw he was already fading away. He wasn’t giving her any time to ask another question.
“Thanks, I guess,” she said instead of voicing her complaint.
“You’re welcome. Stay alert, Princess. You must survive this coming war.” The guide faded away and left Elisa standing alone in the circle of trees with more questions than answers.
“This coming war?” Elisa said to the empty air. “What in the Ascended does that mean?”
No answer came back to her. There was only the still air of the forest and a bird chirping happily in a tree above her. Elisa stood still in thought, but nothing made sense about what the guide had said.
Maybe this was why her mother always said not to trust visions.
“Practicing more, I see.” Lodi’s voice cut through Elisa’s thoughts. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing alone staring at the tree the guide had been leaning against.
“Everything okay?” Lodi said when he reached Elisa and saw the confused look on her face.
“Yes.” Elisa shook herself back out of her thoughts and nodded to Lodi. “Everything’s fine.”
“We probably shouldn’t let you wander this far into the woods alone, you know. The Scythes are out there hunting you still.” Lodi smiled as he said the words.
“I’m sorry,” Elisa said.
“Don’t be.” Lodi pulled his spear from behind his back. “Lauriston wants to get back on the trail. But we have a second to spar if you want to practice.”
Elisa’s mind was still half on what the guide had said.
Things are about to change.
You must survive the coming war.
There it was again, a mention of a future war when this war in Erlon was already almost finished. What was Elisa supposed to make of that?
She had to shake her head again to keep her thoughts from dwelling on the ominous words.
She looked at Lodi. The Lakmian was already in his fighting stance with his spear out in front of him. The guide’s words flashed once more across her mind.
But the thoughts disappeared quickly and she drew her sword with a smile.
“Yeah, we’ve got time for a few rounds,” she said.
Elisa attacked and Lodi parried and their sparring session began.
Rapp
A social hour was scheduled following the day’s discussions and all the summit members converged on the dining hall in the evening and found a buffet of fine foods from across the Continent and drinks of every kind. Rapp was beginning to realize that diplomats drank even more than soldiers on leave.
The prince moved around the buffet table filled with various small bites and found a spot in the corner where he could observe Ambassador Trier. He kept his focus on the traitor but took in the rest of the room in his periphery.
Thirona’s tall form with her typical bright dress stood surrounded by other delegation members. Rapp’s mother the queen was in an opposite corner, talking to the ambassador from Laine and a few smaller Moradan representatives.
Leberecht and Mikhail weren’t in the room yet, but Rapp expected to see them walk through the door soon. When the last summit meeting of the day had adjourned, Leberecht had stood and shaken hands with those around them. He’d winked at Rapp across the table and given a secretive glance towards Trier.
Rapp’s job tonight was to track the man. Leberecht and Mikhail had both shared Rapp’s joy after he’d told them of what Trier had done in the market. They’d talked for hours that night and planned how to make a move and catch Trier in the act, so as to be able to have him arrested.
Leberecht had told Rapp to shadow Trier even tighter now. The second they saw Trier passing more information, they would move to arrest him.
Rapp refused a glass of wine offered by a waiter. His eyes fell back to Trier across the room. The ambassador shifted in his stance and nodded quickly to the group he was talking to.
Trier turned towards the door and Rapp’s breath caught. The ambassador was leaving far too early, far earlier than normal for his drinking habits.
The prince stepped out of his corner and followed across the room. Trier ducked around two ambassadors from the Southern Confederacy on his way out the door.
The queen glared at Rapp as he made his own exit. She would assume he was leaving early to go catch up on military reports or visit the temple. Rapp didn’t care if she was angry or not. That wasn’t important.
All that mattered was the back of Trier’s head and for Rapp to find out where he was going and who he was going to talk to and catch him before he could pass on any more information to enemies.
This was it. This was the climax of Rapp’s task for the Ascended One.
Rapp expected the ambassador to make for the main entrance and meet another informant. Instead, Trier turned out a side door used by the servants. Rapp had to stop and think where the door led, as it wasn’t a route he usually took within the palace.
He looked out the window next to the door and out into the courtyard beyond. It was a small brick patio with a few shrubs along the far wall. A break in the brick formed an opening to allow various supplies to be wheeled in for the kitchen.
Ambassador Trier stood alone in the center of this servants’ courtyard. He wrung his hands together in a nervous gesture and watched the opening opposite him.
What was he doing? Waiting on a meeting to pass along the latest news from the summit?
Back inside, Rapp ignored the guards and servants passing him in the hallway. He kept his eyes on the traitor below him.
Trier turned towards something out of sight from Rapp’s window and smiled widely. It was the same smile Rapp had seen down in the market. The same servant woman appeared and ran into Trier’s arms.
The low light of the evening made it hard to see her, but Rapp saw the truth of what was happening immedia
tely. She had a full bosom and a bright smile and her hands immediately latched tightly around the ambassador’s neck above her. They hadn’t done this in the market; this action was reserved for private quarters.
Ambassador Trier was supposedly happily married to a distant relative of the royal family.
It was an affair.
Rapp ran through everything he’d seen Trier do. All the strange behaviors. The passed note in the market. The early exits from other meetings and social gatherings. His distracted demeanor.
It wasn’t a grand scheme to undermine the Coalition.
It was only lust for a serving girl. A simple serving girl.
The pair released each other at last and Trier pulled the girl towards the gap in the wall. She followed willingly and Rapp lost sight of them. The back of the serving smock tied tight around the girl’s waist was the last thing Rapp saw.
The prince tore his eyes away from the now empty courtyard and the world spun around him. He would’ve spat on the ground in disgust if he hadn’t been in an ornate hallway with a lush carpet at his feet.
Instead, he held his rage inside but felt himself strain at keeping it under control. He’d wasted his time following that stupid ambassador. He’d wasted his time with the pointless summit. And he’d failed the Ascended One.
The prince looked back towards the sound of the drunken social gathering down the hall. His mother would be in there, happily entertaining the foreign guests, oblivious to the fact of a traitor in her midst.
Rapp was no closer to finding the man or woman the voice of the god had warned about.
He turned down the opposite direction and started walking. There wasn’t a destination in his mind. He just needed to walk and burn off some of the steam rising up inside of him.
He charged through the hallway and ignored the smiles and bows from the servants and guards and others he passed. He moved out into the great entrance hall and out the front entrance into the beginnings of the night and the first stars poking out above him.
He wished he knew where Leberecht was. He wanted to yell at the man for allowing him to waste time following Trier.
Rapp turned right off the palace entrance stairs and moved down the street between the diplomatic housing. He kept his eyes away from Leberecht’s house as he passed. The temple to the Ascended One rose in front of him from down the street.
The entire walk was filled with confusing thoughts. Rapp played back his observations of Trier over the last few weeks with disgust. He threw the memories away and tried to forget them.
He thought on the other summit members he should’ve payed closer attention to. Thirona and the Brunians. The Southern Confederacy. Even Leberecht and the Kurakin Mikhail.
Maybe he should’ve started with Mikhail. Could the Coalition really trust the Kurakin Horde? Mikhail certainly behaved in a civilized manner, but he was still a barbarian from the south.
The Kurakin culture was different. Their goals for the Continent would be different.
Rapp shook his head as he approached the temple steps. Mikhail didn’t seem like the type for betrayal. He’d been genuine in all Rapp’s interactions with him.
Besides, the Kurakin were the main reason behind the Erlonian Emperor’s fall in the first place.
He picked up his pace and climbed the temple’s steps two at a time and pushed through the doorway.
The worship chamber was silent and still and dark. The god of the Continent rose above Rapp and blocked his view of the altar behind. Rapp walked forward and met the eyes of the god.
The prince needed help. He pleaded for guidance from the stone visage of the warrior god, but nothing came. The temple remained silent.
Rapp wanted to throw something up at the stone face. He should’ve left the plateau and headed to the war front long ago. He should’ve left his mother to fend for herself at the peace gathering.
The prince reached the statue’s base and took a last look up at the god’s eyes before stepping around it towards the Tribune’s dais. He would pray and ask for guidance one more time. But if nothing came, he was leaving.
Rapp froze when he saw the dais.
Everything was in place and still except for one thing.
The sword of the Ascended One was gone from the wall.
Rapp spun and looked around the cavernous temple. He was alone. There was no thief running out any of the doors. The sword was probably taken earlier in the evening. Or had it been gone even longer and no one had noticed?
Rapp didn’t know what to do. His legs moved on their own accord and he ran from the temple. He threw open the doors and started hollering into the night. He ran back down the street, the worries of the summit and the war all but gone from his mind for the moment.
The god’s sword had been taken. Wahring’s most sacred possession was gone.
Rapp yelled and yelled and saw the flicker of torches from the night guard twinkling up ahead as they ran from their posts. Two guards stood at the end of the street.
“The sword! The sword is stolen!”
Neither guard moved. Their expressions were only shadows in the torchlight.
“Someone’s stolen the sword!” The prince pointed back at the temple behind him. This finally got a reaction.
The guards’ eyes went wide and one turned and ran for the palace.
Rapp made to follow, but something behind the remaining guard stopped him in his tracks. A black mound lay in the shadows by the plateau gate.
Rapp knew what it was even before he even approached it. It still took him a few seconds to comprehend it, but it could only be one thing.
He grabbed the torch from the guard and walked slowly towards the mound. The flames close to his face blacked out the view as he approached, but eventually the light fell on the dead bodies.
Two guards on either side of the lift lay dead. The left was on his stomach with blood pooled underneath. The right was on his back, staring up at the stars with eyes wide open.
Rapp raised the torch and saw the plateau lift was gone. Rapp now knew the sword was off the plateau. The men who’d taken it had killed these guards as well and fled down.
And Rapp knew who had done it.
He took a step closer as he heard more guards rush out of the palace behind him. The crowd moved towards him as he knelt and reached out and touched the dagger protruding from the dead man’s chest.
Rapp recognized the dagger. He’d seen it numerous times over the past weeks. It’d hung on the belt of a man he thought was an ally but always should’ve suspected capable of a betrayal such as this.
The crowd of guards came up behind him as others ran towards the temple. They would want direction from him, but Rapp’s mind was shattered by fear and disbelief.
He removed his hand from the black hilt of the Kurakin’s dagger and tried to understand the full scope of this betrayal, but nothing would work. Leberecht and Mikhail’s absence together now spoke volumes. They’d been plotting against Rapp this whole time.
It didn’t seem possible.
The prince fell to one knee and hung his head in shock as the chaos continued to grow in the darkness of the plateau behind him.
Chapter 15
Lannes believed in aggression. He believed in taking the initiative. There was a reason his first military maxim was ‘On the battlefield, favor goes to the general who strikes first.’
Tome of the Emperor
Nelson Wellesley
Pitt
Pitt rode south along the Broadwater with a small group staff from King Charles’s retinue and the king himself. They trotted at a leisurely pace.
“It will be a grand strategy summit. The great leaders of the defeat of Erlon in one room, planning the end of the empire.” Charles led the group on a white horse. The mount pranced about, holding its head above everyone else in a much similar manner to its royal rider. The horse was too pretty by half to be leading an army.
The meeting location was an inn on the Broadwater, north of th
e crossing near the town of Ligny. Surprisingly, they arrived early despite the king’s slow pace.
They entered the building and Charles ordered his staff to start preparing food. He’d chosen to bring along his cooks instead of the Royal Guard.
“A summit calls for a feast,” he kept saying as he walked around the main room. “I want this to be the best meal Duroc has ever tasted.”
The Wahrian aides pulled many of the tables together in the center of the open dining area and unfolded the campaign map. Charles oversaw them scrambling around the table, placing the wooden troop markers on known locations of enemies and allies.
“It’s great to be on the winning side, eh, Pitt?” Charles slapped a hand against Pitt’s back and drank from his freshly poured cup of morning wine.
“Certainly, sir.” Pitt waved the Wahrian aide with the wine jug away from him and looked over the large map.
“What glory, to lead from the front of a victorious campaign.” The king belched and reached to pick up one of the blue Erlonian markers from the map. He turned it over in his hands and then placed it back on the map in an incorrect position.
Pitt resisted the urge to correct the piece and looked over the rest of the map instead. He saw the clump of Wahrian and Brunian markers south of the Branch. They were spread along the Broadwater running down the middle of Erlon, with a small Brunian marker holding the town of Neuse back in the east.
The Moradan and Brunian navies sat off the western coast and another joint Brunian and Wahrian army marched south along the western edge of the empire. It was a couple divisions’ worth of men and they had just crossed the Broadwater in the north where it curved west towards its meeting with the sea.
The last markers to be placed on the campaign map were the Kurakin. A black flag was dropped on Plancenoit and every other major Erlonian city and port in the south. Over half the country was covered in the markers of the black Horde.
The Fall of Erlon Page 17
