Honor's Price

by Sever Bronny

  Augum swallowed, unsure how to reply.

  “Or how about the fact that warlocks require training to use Dreadnought equipment, hmm? You think it’s easy to just step into a piece of ancient Dreadnought armor and start casting spells as if nothing has changed? There’s a lot to account for, such as peripheral vision loss, precision of casting and reflex adjustments, and countless subtleties that can make the difference between life and death for the wearer—not to mention learning how to effectively use the Elemental Armor spell amplification in the first place. And let’s say our army was up to scratch. Let’s say it was properly trained and well fed and we somehow had enough warlocks to fill the suits. What then? Are you going to take on an army ten times its size? Are you going to—” He wiggled his fingers flippantly. “—even the odds somehow? Play hero? Try to live up to those fawning songs about you?”

  Augum had had enough. “Yes—!” he blurted. “I mean, yes, sir, I would even the odds.”

  “You daft, young, brazen fool. That head of yours is getting mighty large. It’s a miracle you could fit it through the doorframe.”

  Augum stood his ground. “Sir, the girls and I were called a hundred things worse than ‘brazen fools’ for daring to think we could take on the Lord of the Legion.”

  The Lord High Commander made a bearish snort as he leaned back in his rickety chair, which threatened to break under the man’s hefty weight. He folded his arms across his huge chest and studied Augum, fingers tapping at his elbows in thought.

  Augum pressed his advantage. “Sir, you’re the only arcanist who believes in me—”

  “Whatever gave you that idiotic idea, Stone?”

  Augum hesitated, only to see a twinkle in the man’s eye, and realized he was being facetious. “Sir … at least tell me something’s being done. Something. Anything.”

  “What’s being done is that oaf of a king of ours has finally decided to listen to the council and play at diplomacy in an attempt to strengthen our disastrously weak position, that’s what’s being done. It’s a damn shame a certain somebody didn’t take the throne when they had the chance.”

  Augum, flushing from shame, did not take the bait. “No … military options, sir?”

  The Grizzly once more snorted. “You sure you’re not drunk? Have you not been paying any attention? They raided my military office. They took boxes of scrolls. They know our strategies, they know—” But he stopped himself.

  “So they’re going to just … bleed us dry? Is that right, sir? And then what?”

  The Grizzly took a deep breath and shuffled parchments around on his undersized desk. “That’s where it gets complicated. We think the Canterrans need the money for a project, then they’ll leave us be.”

  “A project, sir?”

  “Yes. Seems they’re working on something that requires a huge amount of money. Unfortunately, they caught all our spies not long before the bloodless invasion, so we know squat about it. For the first time in my life, Stone, I’m in the dark here.”

  A scroll rolled off the desk and fell to the floor. Augum pointed at it and floated it back to the desk. The Grizzly gave an almost imperceptible nod of thanks before continuing. “Look, we play along, let them bleed us a bit in compensation for the Legion War, let them play out their historical vengeance fantasies for the rest of those cursed grievances, and they’ll tire of us and move on.” He didn’t look Augum in the eye as he said this, however.

  Augum gaped. “Are you serious, sir?” The Lord High Commander of the Solian army just suggested an occupying force would get bored and move on. Was he stark raving mad?

  “Canterra is a massive kingdom with ten—now maybe twenty times the population of our little kingdom. No thanks to your father, mind you.”

  “Former father, sir.”

  The Grizzly flapped a hand dismissively. “In any case, we’d be like a fly attacking an elephant. Their warlocks are superior to ours. Those hundred warlocks you saw on stage are supposedly all 15th degree or higher. Do you know how many registered Solian warlocks we have in all of Solia above the 15th degree?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest, sir.” He’d never considered the matter.

  “Twenty-eight. Twenty. Eight. In total. Over the 15th degree. Let that sink in a moment.”

  Augum felt the fight weasel out of him and die in a dark, moldy corner. That’s why there hadn’t been any warlocks at the heads of Solian army columns—they were in desperately short supply!

  “And to put that in perspective for you, Stone, we have just shy of a thousand warlocks in the entire kingdom, spread across all degrees. And those numbers are bottom heavy, with the majority residing in the first five degrees. There are an estimated two hundred at the 1st degree alone. And since we’re not barbaric and don’t forcefully conscript people into the army, only a fraction have entered military service.”

  “Sir … I had no idea …”

  “Because you haven’t been paying attention, too busy playing teenager and gallivanting about with that fickle young woman instead of acting like a serious soldier.” The Grizzly let that spear dangle in Augum’s chest before continuing in a softer tone. “Whether you like it or not, this kingdom looks up to you. Your decisions matter. What you do … matters. But that goes for all of it.”

  Augum swayed in place. He felt like he had disappointed a great man, a man who considered Augum’s failure to take the throne or wisely choose a ruling family a serious dereliction of duty.

  Still, the beginnings of a plan germinated. A bold plan that would require deeper thought and planning. He placed it on a simmer at the back of his mind, hoping it would come to a full boil in good time. Then he squared his jaw, for if there was one thing he would not abide by it was anyone slagging his relationship.

  “I’m not just a soldier, sir. I’m an Arcaner. And Arcaner chivalry is there to defend love, not ignore it.”

  “You’re an Arcaner squire, Stone. A hapless pup playing with fancies he doesn’t understand.” The Grizzly took a deep breath and closed his eyes, muttering, “Unnameables help us, women will be the death of us all.”

  “Sir … were you not married once?” Augum asked delicately.

  “Once, yes, when I was young and foolish and easily distracted.”

  Augum wanted to say something about how Jez seemed to care for the man, but couldn’t find a way to maneuver it into the conversation without bungling it. Nor was he entirely comfortable with the idea of the two of them together.

  “Do yourself a favor and ignore the women in your life.” The Grizzly snorted. “Besides, Arcaners lead a violent existence. Women only tend to … complicate things. Focus on your craft, on becoming a superb Arcaner. We’d all be the better for it.”

  “With all due respect, sir, ignoring women is exactly what led me to make a disastrous decision in the first place.” Had he only listened to Bridget, maybe none of this would have happened … “And the woman I love is an Arcaner as well. We know what we signed up for.” And so did his sister-in-war.

  “Fair enough, Stone. Fair enough. You teenagers think yourselves invincible, but you must play out your youth. So be it. And to your credit, you would never have dared to take on the Lord of the Legion were you not so brazen in the first place.” The Grizzly picked at a fingernail. “The glorious heyday of Solia, the days of your ancestor, Atrius Arinthian, are long over. We were once a mighty kingdom to be feared and respected, with a ratio of one warlock for every hundred Ordinaries. That number, after the last war, is now closer to one in five hundred. As for leadership, your great-grandmother was the last great warlock to champion the kingdom’s interests.”

  “A great woman, sir.” Arguably the greatest warlock to have ever lived.

  “Yes, yes.” Yet The Grizzly’s usually gruff and booming voice softened. “You are the last of a great bloodline that has sacrificed everything for this land, for its people, even though those very people have not always treated you fairly.” He surrendered the slightest shrug. “Though I su
ppose your former father took as much as your whole bloodline gave, if you think about it. It just goes to show that malevolence can wipe away a swath of good deeds in an instant.” He absently traced a thick finger along the edge of a scroll. “Still, I am sorry you have to witness the graceless fall of a kingdom you bled and sacrificed for.”

  Augum plopped down into a seat without invitation, absorbing everything The Grizzly had said. After a deep silence, he blurted, “So it was all bluster before. The show of force at the border. The brave talk in the heralds. The schemes. The puffing of our chests.”

  “We should have won an award for our theatrics. We made ourselves look as big as we could. Heck, that whole fishing expedition for scions kept them at bay for a time, but it really was inevitable. Sure, we could have summoned the vassals to the border to prolong things a little bit longer, but that might have only led to a bloodbath.”

  “When did you know?”

  The Grizzly once more idly shuffled his parchments, avoiding Augum’s eye.

  “Sir, when did you know they’d invade?”

  The shuffling stopped. “In truth? Since the day you vanquished your father.”

  Augum felt as if a childhood bully had taken whatever remained of his fiery courage and ground it out under his boot. He recalled the beatings he had endured as a kid and felt them anew on behalf of his wretched kingdom. His back scars tingled.

  “And we tried everything,” The Lord High Commander went on. “Bribery. Army training. Trade with other kingdoms. Pacts. No one wants to help us because we are the idiots on the hill. We were the ones converting people into undead, ready to annihilate all of Sithesia. We let a necromancer be our sovereign. And we swallowed his manure like fish chomping on a hook.”

  Augum gaped at him.

  “What did you expect, a bouquet of roses? A card of thanks? Riches?” The Grizzly waved him off. “You had your parades, and sure, there were tokens of thanks—you were made prince and princesses for a time—but all in all, other kingdoms looked at us and said, ‘Sanity has finally returned. They did their jobs in quelling their own madman.’ ”

  The Grizzly stared off at nothing. “I know what you’re thinking, Stone, but adult solutions can be rather disappointing. You’re a man of age now, which means you can see just how fallible we are. We men are. How prone to failure, weakness, and greed we are. As the Lord High Commander, I have glimpsed the hearts of men who are supposed to be infallible and perfect.” He shook his head. “Kids playing at being adults. And now we have apprentices playing at being true warlocks. In the olden days we would never, under any circumstances, give up the academy to a foreign power. We’d flip an arcane switch and turn the place into a fortress.”

  Augum sat mute as The Grizzly railed on.

  “But they swore they would not loot the place. Old Byron made Darby take a sacred vow before allowing them entry, not that he had much choice. The Canterrans would have hung his family at the gates.” The Grizzly flicked a hand at all the loose parchment on his desk in distaste. “Diplomacy, restitution, occupation. Sometimes these things are inevitable. Losing is a part of life, Stone. It happens. All you can do is … ride it out and hope for the best.”

  Augum noted the Lord High Commander still wouldn’t look him in the eye. This 18th degree beast of a man was broken, a shadow of the colossus Augum always thought him to be.

  The Grizzly focused his gaze on the small painting of the dandelion. “I’m an old soldier. A soldier who has failed at his primary duty—keeping the kingdom safe.”

  “Is it true?” Augum countered. “What that scoundrel freak Darby said about what our forefathers did to them? Is any of it true?”

  “I taught you better than to debase your enemies like that, Stone. Debasement leads to underestimation and—”

  “—miscalculation. You’re right, sir, and I’m sorry, but is any of it true?”

  “I studied the same history books as you. Took the same classes. I’m a soldier not a historian. At least, I was a soldier.”

  “Sir?”

  He finally looked Augum in the eye. “I resigned my post, Stone. I resigned command of the Solian army.”

  “No, sir, you can’t—”

  “And my seat at the council as well. It is done.” Then he growled something under his breath.

  “Sorry, sir?”

  “I said—” The Grizzly pressed his lips together and angrily jerked his head as if he knew he shouldn’t voice what was on his mind. Augum waited patiently, sensing the man did not need prompting. “That damn fool hasn’t listened to a thing I’ve proposed since he took the throne.”

  “King Rupert, sir?”

  “No, the bloody fart fairy. Of course King Rupert. Bah!” He swatted as if one of those faeries were attacking him and turned away in his rickety chair. “You’ll have to forgive this retired soldier, Stone. It’s a dark day seeing your enemies mosey into your kingdom as if they own the place. It’s a dark day when you’re proven right at the expense of every soul you’ve ever cared about. We have capitulated not with swords in our fists, but on our knees, whimpering like fools.”

  Augum wrung his hands in his lap. “Sir, are you … are you still going to teach?”

  The Grizzly looked beyond Augum for so long Augum glanced over his shoulder, only to find nothing of interest there. “I was thinking I might return home to Northspear. Take up castellanship of my castle again. Maybe they’ll do me a favor and hang me instead. We shall see. We shall see …”

  Augum had a thousand questions he wanted to ask, but couldn’t remember a single one through the shock of what he had heard, through the numbness that had seeped into his bones. He stood from his chair and drifted to the old oak door.

  “Squire Stone. Are you still set on becoming a full-fledged Arcaner?”

  The title took Augum by surprise. No one had referred to him by the proper Arcaner appellation before. “Absolutely, sir. But the nobility destroyed the course material.”

  The Grizzly brought his hands together in his lap, tapping his thumbs, a mysterious look on his face.

  A thrill ran up Augum’s spine. “It hasn’t been destroyed, has it, sir?”

  The Grizzly said nothing, only watched him with that same mysterious look.

  Augum paced back and forth like Bridget would, muttering to himself. “Of course. The nobility wanted the course destroyed to prevent more Arcaners from being trained. Except—and perhaps it was the headmaster of the day—the course material was hidden …” Augum stopped pacing to look at The Grizzly. “… for a future generation to find.”

  “You understand I cannot confirm one way or another,” The Grizzly murmured. “But I have my suspicions.”

  “I understand, sir.” The old soldier was too entrenched to make enemies of the nobles. He had a large family and a castle to worry about, and now that he had resigned his post, he’d need to be wary.

  Augum resumed pacing. “Assuming the headmaster or headmistress of the day did save the course material, where would they have hidden it?”

  The Grizzly sat in silence for a moment. “I heard the headmaster of the day had a fondness for Archives.”

  “Archives. Right …” Augum drifted back to the door, mind whirring.

  There was the sound of a desk drawer opening. “Stone.”

  “Sir?”

  The Grizzly withdrew a rather large and crude iron key. “Honestly, I do not know if there’s anything to find, but you might as well give it a go.” He telekinetically floated it over to Augum.

  Augum studied the heavy key in his hands. The bow was fashioned with the academy crest. “Is this what I think it is, sir?”

  “If you think it’s a master key to the catacombs, then yes. Won’t open the newer locks, but it will work on all the ancient ones. I acquired it mere hours ago, at some risk.”

  “You got this just for us?” Then The Grizzly really did believe in what the trio were doing—at least the Arcaner part.

  The Grizzly ignored his questi
on. “Don’t get caught with that, and return it to me as soon as you’re done with it. And I mean that. You’ll have to mind old Mildred, she’s a bit grouchy.”

  “Right. Thank you, sir.” Augum readied to leave, wondering who Mildred was.

  “Stone.”

  Augum turned to see the man staring at the dandelion again. “Sir?”

  “My house motto. Do you know it?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “Ascendi, eo stroma.”

  “Rise up, ever strong.”

  “Do you see my failure?”

  “Sir, I don’t think you’ve fail—”

  The Grizzly raised his hand. “And what’s yours again?”

  “Adversi alua probata.”

  “Against all odds. Fitting.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m glad not everyone’s given up hope, Stone.”

  “Sir.” Augum opened the door, but before stepping through, said, “One last question, sir.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Is it possible to train a 1st degree warlock to use Dreadnought armor?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Theoretically, sir.”

  “Theoretically? I suppose so, but it’d be difficult.”

  “Right. And sir … thank you for the key.”

  The Grizzly did not respond, merely continued gazing at the painting of the dandelion.

  Decisions, Decisions

  “We’re skipping Arithmetic,” Leera declared when Augum told her what had transpired in The Grizzly’s office. “No point anyway, is there? What’s complex division going to do for us now?”

  “And do what?” Augum murmured, drifting through the castle-like halls of the labyrinthine Student Wing in a daze. On the one hand he was excited that the Arcaner course material still existed, but on the other hand he was profoundly depressed that The Grizzly had resigned his post on the high council as Lord High Commander. Not to mention what he had said about how weak their kingdom really was, how few high-degree warlocks they had. It was much worse than Augum had suspected.