The Heir of Ænæria

by Thom L Matthews

Thatch snarled and flicked his wrist. “Gah, I suppose not. The mead better be just as good as me remember.” He turned around to face his men and the anchored ships. With his fingers between his mouth, the legate gave a loud whistle and signaled the Rhion in the water. “Come, lads! We feast afore we go to battle!”

  As soon as the first ray of sunlight touched the water, the legate blared a horn and barked orders at his crew to ready themselves. In just over an hour, the Rhion of Neptuan boarded their ships and sailed for the island of Yalliknok—the final stronghold of resistance left in Bacchuso. Thatch may have been a drunken sleaze, but at least he was punctual.

  Longinus and her crew flew the airship over the Neptuan fleet, heading south for the island in the middle of the channel. The island teemed with dark pines reaching high, threatening to swat the airship from the sky if it dared come closer. Mist crawled over the rocky beach carrying the fresh earthy aroma of the woody isle. Foamy tides crashed back and forth against the shore and Thatch’s armada. His ships formed a blockade on Yalliknok’s southern edge to prevent the rebels from escaping through Xander’s Bay. All other directions would lead straight into Ænæria and their inevitable capture.

  Longinus ordered the airship to descend just enough for her to exit from a rope ladder, so she could discuss the battle plans with her fellow legate. Her feet met the ground at the fringe of the beach and forest. Thatch and his army marched forward to meet her.

  “They have a small village surrounding a castle at the island’s center,” she explained, having surveyed the island from above. “They’re bound to have heard of us coming in the airship. They’ll be ready for a fight, though I doubt they’ll be prepared to face our combined forces. I’ll give the orders to have the airship take down the castle’s fortifications while your Rhion subdue the village. Once that’s all done, you and I march in and find their leader. How’s that sound?”

  Thatch’s gray eye flashed. “Perhaps ye not be so green after all, boy. Me only suggestion is ye don’t ask me opinion next time. Ye province, ye battle. Ye can have the glory if we win, the shame if we don’t. Let’s get going!” The legate drew his sung, a weapon with a short barrel and flared muzzle, and charged into the forest with his men at his back.

  Longinus returned to the airship and ordered her men to fly for the center. Moss-covered pillars loomed over the forest’s canopies where sentries were stationed, watching for the imminent threat. The pillars were made of cobblestone and mortar, joined to one another by a massive wall surrounding the castle. The castle itself had three towers, each topped with faded green spires. The center tower bore a flag with the Bacchusan insignia of a chalice with grapevines on a violet field. Soon it would be soot on a field of ash.

  A cannon fired from the nearest wall. Longinus watched as the smoking ball of iron soared just past her face and launched the start of a bloody assault.

  “Sir, what are your orders?” a voice behind Longinus asked. It was the Rhion from yesterday—Nico, the ship’s captain. He was a man in his mid-twenties with a square clean-shaven jaw, dark hair, and bright blue eyes.

  “Rain hell,” she responded. The airship hovered above the castle’s walls and released the trinitrotoluene bombs. Longinus fired her sung at the payload, testing the modified weapon for the first time. The results were exquisite. The explosives ignited immediately and detonated, one after the other. The wall crumbled like parchment in a fire. It was beautiful madness.

  Thatch’s forces rushed through the breach, having already made short work of any resistance in the surrounding village. The rebels were blinded by the drifting debris of the fallen wall and mist of their comrades’ blood. Another cannon launched at the raiding Rhion, scattering bodies at the front line. Thatch and a handful of his squadron made it through unscathed. He rushed forward with his weapon raised high and hollered for the rest of his crew to do the same.

  Longinus scanned the walls for the cannons. She pressed her eye against the sung’s scope, aiming at the nearest gunner. With a deep inhale, Longinus held her breath and let the sights rest at the weapon’s base. She pulled the trigger and held it, allowing the energy to charge. A ball of swarming orange and yellow light expanded at the sung’s barrel and shook the weapon in Longinus’s hand and hooks. She released.

  The ball of energy shot across the sky, descending upon the cannon. The light exploded the instant it met its mark.

  “That’s one down,” Longinus said to the captain. “Fly us to the other side so I can take out the next one. Continue to lay down cover fire for Thatch’s men.”

  “As you say, sir. Make for starboard!”

  The airship maneuvered its course, heading for the far end of the fortress. The second cannon was already aimed at the airship. The cannonball headed straight toward Longinus, ready to decapitate her. She didn’t step away. Instead, she lifted her weapon and followed the sphere’s trajectory. She pulled the trigger and watched the metal ball melt and splatter across the ship’s deck. She shifted her focus to the artilleryman.

  He was dead before he could load the next attack.

  The final cannons were dispatched in much the same manner, and the airship suffered few blows, though one cannonball pierced the ship’s aft. Nothing a few repairs wouldn’t solve, but Longinus would prefer not to have the ship take any more damage.

  “Captain, have the ship brought out to the channel. Make sure the navy is containing any escapees.”

  “Are you sure, sir?” Nico asked.

  Longinus spun on her heels to face the captain. “I wouldn’t have said it had I not been sure. I don’t want our only airship sustaining irreparable damage. Head for the channel.” She glanced over the ship’s railing at the nearest pillar and watched as Thatch and his crew overpowered the castle’s towers. Only the tallest tower, the one with the Bacchusan flag, was still contested. I suppose I could help speed things up. “I’ll see you after the battle. Keep my ship safe!”

  Longinus slung her weapon around her shoulder and vaulted over the airship’s port side. She heard the captain gasp as she fell through the air, though it was a wasted breath. With her right arm extended, her hooked claws caught onto the nearest stone pillar and scraped against it as she made her slow descent, sliding down the fortress’s breached wall.

  Mud splashed against her boots as she landed onto the battlefield. Rhion and rebels were locked in battle ahead of her. Longinus watched as they ran out of ammunition and resorted to fighting with their blades and fists. A part of her told her to intervene, to help her comrades. The nearest group was clearly being overpowered. She could save them. But what was the point if another squad would come in and do it for her? Her place was within the castle, taking out the final tower and finding the rebel’s leader. Doing otherwise would make her seem soft and weak. No, these men were at war. They knew what they were fighting for. It wasn’t her job to worry about everyone on the battlefield now that she was no longer a prefect.

  The final tower was heavily guarded by a force of at least twenty foot-soldiers. There were about a dozen arrow slits behind which any number of archers could be taking aim at Longinus and her allies. Thatch was holding off a group of the rebels to the left but was slowing down. His sung must’ve run out of energy and either Thatch didn’t have time to replace the power cell, or he had already used it. Cognizant of her own weapon’s energy, Longinus launched a few crossbow bolts at her nearest enemies before firing another sung blast and catching up to Thatch.

  “Bout time you showed up, boy,” the legate growled. “What do you say we make this quick and hurry on in that tower?”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do?” Longinus grunted after dodging the swing of a sword and shooting her assailant.

  “You be wasting time is what you’re doing. You got an extra power cell?”

  “I do, but it’s mine. I’ll need it before the battle’s over.”

  “Nonsense,” Thatch reasoned. “Just throw it at the entrance and give it a little pinch with one of your bo
lts.”

  Longinus snorted. She knew what Thatch was implying and liked the idea. He didn’t say it plainly as to avoid giving away his plan to the enemy. To them, it would just seem as though Longinus were discarding an empty power cell—if they even knew what it was. But it would be far from empty.

  “Cover me,” she told Thatch. She retrieved the hard fuel canister within which the power cell remained cool and protected from harm. Protected from doing exactly what she was about to do with it. Longinus took pride in her aim, but her ability to throw with her left hand was never something she had mastered. Rather than landing by the tower door, it wound up about ten feet to the left, away from most of the rebels. She cursed under her breath and then parried an attack with the prosthetic hand which had given her the trouble in the first place. She punched the attacker in the gut and followed with a crossbow bolt.

  “Ye missed a bit there, boy,” Thatch commented. “You planning on fixing that?”

  Longinus gritted her teeth. She had an idea. Without loading another crossbow bolt, Longinus aimed at the power cell and pulled the trigger to release a sung blast. A damaged power cell typically generated an explosion radius of about six feet that destroyed everything in its wake. To prevent such a catastrophe from occurring they were stored within firm and temperature resistant canisters. Most sungs were incapable of rapid-fire to avoid overheating, and only legates were allowed to modify the weapons to remove that safety feature—they were the only ones considered worthy of wielding the energy of the holy weapons in its purest form. Longinus figured she could exploit both weaknesses of the power cells simultaneously by shooting it with a sung blast—and it worked out better than she could have expected. A massive ball of fire like the Sun itself erupted from the power cell, blowing a hole into the tower and engulfing every rebel soldier within fifty feet in flame and ash.

  Longinus waited for the fire to die down before stepping over the smoldering corpses and entering the tower. Within it, she climbed the spiral staircase and took out whichever rebels survived the blast from inside. Thatch and the Rhion were at her heels, and they didn’t dare take a step past her. At the top of the stairs was a set of double doors, barricaded by nailed planks, and blocked by various sets of furniture.

  “Clear it,” Longinus ordered, speaking to no one in particular. A set of Rhion lifted the furniture out of the way while another came forward with battleaxes. They chopped the double doors into a pile of splinters. Longinus crossed over the wooden shards and entered the room. Half a dozen rebels were targeting her with their various weapons, all ready to shoot, stab, or otherwise maim her. Before they could do so, Thatch’s squadron of Rhion entered behind her. She saw them begin to lower their weapons, but before Longinus could even suggest arresting them, the Rhion opened fire on everyone in the room.

  “Stop it! We need their leader alive!” She was sickened by their ruthlessness. She understood the necessity of killing her enemies, but it was dishonorable to execute them without a chance of surrender.

  Thatch coughed behind her, though it sounded more like a twisted cackle. “Sorry, me boy. King’s orders were to leave none alive.” He approached a desk on the other side of the room. Sitting atop it was a small motion block connected by various cords and wires to a tall rectangular box and what appeared to be a power cell. Thatch took the butt-end of his sung and smashed it against the glass screen of the motion block and let it topple to the floor. “These blasphemers have been using our own holy weapons to supply their traitorous deeds. Using it to power their communication devices and spread our secrets.” He spat on the broken motion block.

  “I don’t understand,” Longinus said, looking away from the legate and the freshly bleeding bodies on the floor.

  “This be a Miners Guild fortress, boy.”

  “What are you talking about? These were Bacchusan rebels!”

  “They be the same thing. How do ye think the Bacchusans gave us so much trouble all these years? Aye, they got lots of land and sea, but that don’t give ‘em numbers nor cause. No, they be working with the Miners Guild since its inception, and today we’ve finally defeated the southerners’ strongest ally. The war be over before it can truly begin.”

  Longinus scoffed. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about all this?”

  “Because I wanted to make sure you could handle a mission of such gravity,” said a voice she knew all too well from beyond the shattered double doors. His boots echoed as he approached the room at a slow and steady pace. “Now that I know that you can, I can send you on a very important mission. How’s that sound, oh nephew of mine?”

  Mud, soot, and blood stained his overcoat and wide-brimmed black hat. Thatch and the Rhion all dropped to their knees and bowed their heads to her uncle, the King of Ænæria.

  5

  Rose

  Freztad, Penteric Alliance

  The warm light of the late morning sun seeped through the gaps of the thick cotton curtains. It should have been enough to wake her, but the night of restless sleep finally found reprieve in the early hours of the morning, before the first crow of the village roosters. Instead, Rose was finally awoken by the gentle shaking of her shoulder. Her eyes seemed to beg for more time to sleep as she struggled to open and look at the person who had disturbed her from her first bout of dreamless sleep in moons.

  It was Trinity, Ben’s friend with the thick black hair and a large tattoo of an eye on her forehead. Rose had been fond of Trinity ever since she repaired the ghastly injury that cost Ben his eye. Had it not been for her skill with scalpel and suture, Ben’s injury would have probably been much worse—even with his powers. Rose was no expert like Trinity, but she couldn’t see how even Ben could recover from so much damage. After they had all escaped from the Ænærians and Rose had been healed in the Vault, the first thing she did was thank Trinity for taking such good care of her cousin. They’d been friends ever since.

  Rose never had many close friends, aside from Ben and Rakshi—due to the plague that had killed all of the other children her own age. While Ben tended to mope around about being lonely and different, Rose never had much time to think about it. She spent most of her time occupied with matters concerning the village. When she hadn’t been tending to Freztad, Rose was off traveling to the other settlements. Even before becoming chief, Rose made it her business to know everyone in Freztad—not only their names, but their professions, interests, and concerns. She had done the same when she traveled to each of the other settlements. The other leaders thought it was a rather inefficient use of her time, but Rose didn’t care.

  She hadn’t been feeling so outgoing lately. And Trinity probably noticed.

  “It’s nearly noon, you know,” she said, sitting at the edge of the bed.

  Rose sat up and yawned. “Doesn’t feel like I slept that much.”

  “It was the nightmares again, wasn’t it?” Trinity didn’t speak softly or try to add comfort to her words. She spoke plainly, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. It was rather refreshing to Rose. She was used to Ben making things complicated by overanalyzing things, always trying to look for meaning or solutions when all Rose needed was someone to listen. Then there was her mother, who would talk about anything other than herself but was too fragile to listen to Rose’s concerns. Trinity was much more transparent.

  “Yes. They’re getting better though. It’s not every night now. More like every two or three.”

  “And the content?”

  “Pretty much the same. The setting and the actions sometimes change, but he’s always there.”

  “Tell me about last night’s.”

  “I was on an island of sand in the middle of the ocean. Nothing around me but waves and blue sea for miles. There were no trees or animals on the island—only coarse sand digging into my bare feet. There was nothing to protect me from the sun, and it burned me until my flesh began to melt and drip off my body. I wanted to run into the ocean, thinking the water would make everything better. But around my a
nkles were thick metal shackles chained to a stake buried deep into the ground. I couldn’t move. He finally appeared when all my skin finally melted away. He was standing on the water. Laughing. He walked toward me and stared at the piles of melted flesh covered in sand. He smacked me and told me it wasn’t enough. He told me I needed to stand there longer until I was nothing but bones if need be. He told me I could handle it, though. He wouldn’t accept failure from his daughter.”

  Rose’s eyes welled. She sniffled and wiped the tears across her arm. It’s over now, she told herself. He’s gone. Julius is dead. He can’t hurt me again. It had become a near-daily ritual, something she told herself whenever she had these dreams. Even though she knew Julius was dead, she couldn’t help feeling powerless. She was supposed to claim her ‘birthright’ as the true heir of Ænæria. That would have made her the most powerful person in the known world. The thought of naming herself a queen was nauseating. It meant she would have to accept Julius as her father instead of forgetting everything that had happened to her and going back to what now seemed like a simple life. She didn’t even want to rule Ænæria. They weren’t her people, and she couldn’t get to know them the way she had known her own people. The members of the Penteric Alliance knew she was a descendant of the great Mathias and daughter of Lydia, who had formed the Alliance in the first place. Those were legacies she could be proud of. She felt no honor in her father’s legacy.

  Even less than her desire to become queen were her feelings toward the war. In her short time in Ænæria, Rose had seen how well organized and powerful the Ænærian Army was. It was foolish to think the Penteric Alliance had the numbers to defeat them. Talamdor and Sydgilbyn would be proud to defend themselves and die in glorious battle. The other settlements would be more concerned with maintaining their livelihoods. That could only happen if Ænæria were kept at bay. It seemed the only way to achieve that goal was to win this war—and that could only be achieved through cunning. She would have to rely on the Miners Guild’s spies and hope the idea of dethroning Randolph could spread to enough of the god-fearing smallfolk of Ænæria who would rather see the blood of the Chosen wearing the crown than a low-ranked legate.