Two men he didn’t know waited inside the room. One of them had been sitting on the bench, but at their entrance, rose to his feet with the aid of a cane. From the way he stood, he clearly needed it. His right leg didn’t quite work properly, but he obviously didn’t mind it as the smile on his face didn’t falter. He did not have the dark skin of his people, which suggested he spent most of his time indoors, and his black hair did not fit the short style that seemed to be in fashion, but instead had been grown out and tied off to rest over one shoulder. The formal green coat and white pants spoke of wealth and power—this man, whoever he might be, had a high rank in court. He radiated the calm intelligence of a scholar, not a fighter.
The other man was the exact opposite. He was big and burly, with very dark skin and hair nearly shaven, it was so short. The short sleeves of his shirt revealed muscled arms that had crisscrossing scars here and there. His shirt and pants had the same rough wear to them that most of the soldiers in Niotan did, but Darius had this idea that he’d seen this man before. Not in the army here, but it had been in a battle situation…all at once it hit him and his eyes flew wide in recognition. Yes, of course. The Quetel’s bodyguard, the only one that had stayed with the family to protect them.
“General,” Tresea had the smile of a cat that had just finished off a dish of cream, “allow me to introduce you to your new advisor and your bodyguard. This is Sego of Aramesh.” Sego bowed at the introduction, without a hint of reluctance or mockery in the gesture. “His family has been serving Niotan for generations, as administrators in one form or another. His integrity is without question. With this man at your side, no one will doubt the orders you give. As a plus,” she gave a satisfied smile, “his Arapesh and Brindise is impeccable. I have noticed that you are sometimes at a loss with my language?”
So she’d caught that…. Darius rubbed at the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. “I’ve never been formally taught, My Queen, just picked up words and phrases where I could. Your language is very similar to my homeland’s, which makes it easier, but I am not a scholarly man.”
Her eyebrows rose in true surprise. “For someone who’s just picked it up along the way, you’re doing quite well. Regardless, Sego can help you.”
He truly hoped so. If the man had been compelled into this position, he might not be as helpful as Darius needed him to be. But he should worry about that later. Darius turned to him and gave a respectful bow, mentally praying to Shaa for any aid she could grant. “Your aid is a blessing to me, Sego of Aramesh.”
Sego didn’t respond to this, simply smiled and returned the bow.
“And I believe you have met Bohme of Quetel before?” Tresea continued with a wave of the hand to the burly man.
“We have met,” Darius agreed with a shorter bow to the man. “But I must admit, I am confused at your presence here, Bohme. Aren’t you Raja Tailli’s personal guard?”
“I wash,” he admitted with a voice deep enough to shake a few mountain ranges. “But Raja shaid ‘Protect him!’, sho here I am.”
Darius had to swallow a smile. That sounded like something she would do, despite being recounted in Bohme’s thick northern accent. But never would he have imagined that keeping those four prisoner over two years ago would bring him good fortune now. The gods truly did have a strange sense of humor.
“I thank her and you, Bohme. In truth, I did not think I could sleep tonight without some sort of guard.” He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. “There are many unhappy people in this place.”
“Unhappy is an understatement, General,” Sego remarked calmly. His voice was a smooth tenor, almost musical in a way. Darius hoped the man never tried to read him a report—he’d fall asleep in minutes with a voice like that in his ear. “Forgive the impudence, but I feel that I must ask…might we have the full story of the events a year ago?”
Darius hesitated, profoundly uncomfortable with the question. Did he really want to tell the full story?
“I am satisfied,” Tresea informed Sego with a quelling tone. “You do not need to ask this.”
Sego promptly bowed to her. “Forgive me.”
Darius extended a hand in a stopping manner. “No, My Queen. If these men are to trust me, if I am to trust them, then we must be able to speak frankly to each other. My survival, and the survival of this country, depends upon this.”
Her lips parted in surprise as she stared at him. “You would not tell me when your life and freedom was on the line and now you speak of it?!”
“You were my enemy then,” he pointed out dryly. “You are not now. Apologies, Sego. In truth, that night pains me in many ways. I do not like to speak of it and re-open old wounds.”
Sego watched him carefully, brows needled a little as if in intense concentration. “In that case, allow me to ask just one question. You said that he broke the oath. Do you hold him responsible, then, for the fall of the capital?”
Ahh. Darius thought he saw the true purpose of this question. Was Sego afraid that if the capital fell, he would hold Tresea directly responsible and kill her at that point? “No, Sego, I do not hold him responsible. He was responsible. It was not one oath that he broke, but two.”
“Two?” Tresea demanded in astonishment.
“He sent me on a mission because of blind ambition, even though I told him I would fail,” he explained simply. “He put his desires over his people. That was the first oath he broke. But he swore to me that he had sent for reinforcements for the capital defenses, and he had not. That was the second oath he broke.”
“Is that when the capital was overrun by the Roran barbarians?” Sego asked this cautiously, a weather eye on the queen in case she took disfavor with his probing.
“It was.”
Tresea covered her eyes with one hand. “Great sands, no wonder you killed him! I would have too!”
Darius addressed Sego’s concerns directly. “If ever Niotan is conquered, I will not blame her because I know that she will have done everything in her power to prevent it. You do not need to fear for her, Sego. At least, not from me.”
For the first time, Sego truly smiled. “Thank you for easing my worries, General.”
Tresea nodded in satisfaction. “I will leave you gentlemen to your work. Sego knows where to go for everything. Draft help as you need it. In three days, I want a meeting with you.” She paused at the door and looked back at him. “Be prepared to tell me your strategy.”
Darius rubbed his chin as the door closed behind her. His strategy, eh?
“Do you have a strategy, General?” Sego inquired dryly, apparently able to read the expression on Darius’s face easily.
“It’s a mite rough,” he answered with a wry shrug of the shoulders. “It needs refining. But to do that, I need information.” He turned to face his new aide squarely. “Sego, I need to know what food supplies we have, a full inventory of the equipment and what shape it’s in, as well as the number and status of the troops.”
“Most of this information is reported daily to the queen,” Sego responded calmly. “It will not take me long to lay hands on it. You need this tonight?”
“I’d best review it before that meeting. Also, go and speak with the three commanders. Kaveh, Navid and Ramin are the ones I requested.”
“You requeshted, shir?” Bohme repeated in surprise.
He gave a nod to his hulking bodyguard and a wolfish smile teased at one side of his mouth. “I kept track of what commanders were in what area. It made it easier on me to know what I was facing. I quickly learned that if any of those three were my opponents, I would be in for a long battle. They’re not as seasoned as some of the others, but their raw potential is amazing. I’ve never seen commanders that can learn so quickly from their mistakes. With the proper mentor over them, they will become forces of nature, as deadly as a sand storm.”
“So you want them,” Sego surmised. “Hmmm. I had heard from the queen that three men were to be assigned to you as your staff, but she did
not mention to me that you had picked them. I don’t think she mentioned it to them, either.”
Here was the first test. “Do you know these men well enough to gauge their reactions? Do you think it would be wise to tell them that I chose them?” Darius held his breath and watched Sego carefully for any signs of deception.
Sego looked at the floor for a long moment, both hands clutching the round haft of his cane. “I am not sure. Kaveh I know well—we were neighbors as children—and I believe that he will take it as a compliment that you want him. But Navid is a man that has risen through the ranks under his own power—he has no political connections. I do not know him well.”
Darius released the breath he held. If Sego had given him an airy assurance, then he would know that he couldn’t trust the man. But he clearly considered everything on an individual basis. Very good. “And Ramin?”
“From what I’ve seen of him, he’s brash. He’s just as likely to respond instinctively to something than to stop and think before speaking. I have no idea if he’ll look favorably upon you or not.”
“Hmmm.” Darius looked up at the ceiling for a long moment to think. “Talk to them. See how they feel about their appointment. If you think they will be unreasonable, send them to me. I do not blame them for having hard feelings against me—we were enemies for a long time, after all—but if they cannot set those feelings aside and heed me, I have no use for them.”
“But you don’t think you’ll have trouble from them,” Bohme said.
Men who couldn’t set their feelings aside didn’t adapt on a battlefield. These men had proven they were very flexible. So no, Darius didn’t really expect much trouble. But he did want to know what they would say to Sego, when he wasn’t around to overhear them.
“Do that now,” he ordered Sego. “Bohme, we’re going shopping. I need a few things.”
Sego looked a little panicked at this. “Wait, sir, if you’re going shopping, the queen has left specific orders with me that you are to use one of the royal tailors—”
“Clothes?” Darius interrupted with a dismissive snort. “Those can wait. I need a sword, long dagger, a map of this country large enough to plan maneuvers on, and a great deal of paper and ink.”
Sego blinked at him for a long moment, apparently not expecting this list, but then he shook his head in resignation. “Of course. What was I thinking?”
Very good question. Clothes? Who cared about that? Darius waved a hand in dismissal at him. “Go. Meet back at my study. Do you know where that is?”
Sego quirked an eyebrow at him in a sardonic manner. “Everyone does.”
That was…less than comforting. “Bohme, after we’re done shopping, take a nap. I get the feeling you’re going to be busy tonight.”
~~~
Darius stayed up late that night. How late, even he didn’t know. The crea birds had stopped singing, so past midnight, that was all he knew. Before he’d even returned to this room, he’d sent a palace runner to the generals and formally asked for information. To his complete lack of surprise, not one came to speak with him. Despite what Queen Tresea had said, they had no intentions of cooperating with a former enemy. At best, they’d sent reports and information to him so that he could find his own answers. At worst, they’d ignored his request completely.
But he took what they’d condescended to give him and retreated to his new desk, sorting them out into a rough sort of timeline. Getting comfortable in the low-backed chair, he picked up the first report and dove in.
There were ten generals on the war council—well, eleven including him. Only four of the ten had made any effort to help him out and one of them was still on the front lines. So roughly half refused to cooperate. Actually, two had responded with scathing letters informing him that he would never have their cooperation. He made careful note of them: Feroze and Angra. But to make matters worse, this country had a habit of rotating their generals so that a different one took charge of the front lines every three months. So the information he’d received was hodge-podge, leaving gaps for him to guess about. One of the generals that had sent information had actually last served a year and a half ago, when Darius had faced him, which didn’t help at all.
He read through all reports and scrolls anyway, struggling at moments because of the atrocious handwriting in some of them. Alright, so his language skills could be partially to blame too. But mostly the impossible handwriting.
As he read, he started to piece together the situation. When he’d left Niotan’s warfront, they’d had roughly eight thousand troops. The next report he had was dated four months later, and Niotan had the same amount of troops. This made sense—Darius had been called for without any warning and abruptly yanked away. His predecessor hadn’t yet been chosen or dispatched, so he’d ordered the men to retreat to the mountains and wait in the relative coolness and shade until a new commander came. But Brindisi politics being as they were, it had taken a good two months for another commander to be chosen and then another two weeks or so for supplies to be organized and sent out. Plus the time for them to travel all the way to Niotan…yes, alright, that had actually worked out to be an almost five month delay.
Darius shook his head at this point in exasperation. It would have actually been faster to just leave him where he was and let him win over Niotan and then dispatch someone to clean everything up, than to yank him from the front lines. Not that he regretted that now, considering how things had panned out.
Another gap appeared in the timeline, this one three months long, but Darius knew more or less what must have happened. This would have been the time that he’d killed King Farhan and word would have spread like wildfire after that night, eventually filtering its way down to Niotan. When that happened, Brindisi had a firm policy of holding off on engaging any and all enemies until a new king was coronated and had a chance to issue orders. In the past, whole conquests had been cancelled, commanders replaced, or treaties re-negotiated with a new king in power.
Whoever had replaced him didn’t have a chance to fight much before Farhan had died, and then they ordered a retreat back to the foot of the mountains, biding their time for new orders to be issued. Altogether, that meant that Niotan had a reprieve for almost, what, eight months straight? No wonder they’d had time to train more men and gather up more supplies. Brindisi had given them a very lengthy reprieve to do so.
He sat that report aside and picked up the next, working through several more before coming to the latest one. Someone had included a current status report—for which Darius thanked Shaa profusely—that gave him a good picture of things as they stood now. Six thousand Niotanese troops were at the front lines under the command of General Mihr. Darius had crossed paths with him briefly at the very beginning of the campaign. Mihr had a steady hand with tactics and governing men that would wear down an enemy. Darius couldn’t have chosen a better general to be on the front lines at this moment. But he had also been out there for almost three months, and was soon to rotate out and return home. When that happened, the next General in cue would be… Darius flipped through several sheets until he found the list he wanted. That would be, oh ye gods no! Piruz? The man who couldn’t even tie his own sandals correctly? The man thought all tactics boiled down to “Charge!” He’d decimate what little troops Niotan had left.
He’d hoped to give himself at least two months to get the lay of the land and make some improvements in the soldiers’ training before taking the front lines, but he didn’t dare let Piruz be in command. Niotan would fall in weeks.
Swearing to himself darkly, he went back to the report and scanned it for any other useful information. Supplies were alright, especially considering how few troops there were, they were getting a little low on shields and body armor though… Hmm? Someone had thoughtfully scribbled at the bottom who the current Brindisi general was.
For the first time since he’d come here, Darius broke out into a smile. “Jahangir’s commander? Oh blessed days.” He’d met the man on s
everal occasions and (for his sins) had served with him once. Jahangir could be charitably described as Brindisi’s idiot general, just as Piruz was Niotan’s. Ohhh…so that’s why Niotan had been holding out as well as they had. Jahangir couldn’t lead horses to water without getting confused in the process. In that case…hmmm.
Darius leaned back in his chair, putting the report down. He juggled logistics, troops, supplies, and personalities in his head, coming up with a rough battle plan. Yes, he might be able to quickly win the first conflict after all. It would just take a bit of planning.
Satisfied, he left his study and headed straight for his bedroom.
He collapsed in the bed with the fervent hope that Bohme stopped every assassin that night, wriggled into a more comfortable position, and slept like the dead.
At dawn’s first light, he woke up, and re-dressed in yesterday’s clothes. Sego might have a point about clothes shopping after all. A young palace runner delivered a very elaborate breakfast tray. Darius took it outside and coaxed a few of the birds hanging around the balcony to try a few crumbs. None of them died, much to his surprise. No one had managed to bribe the kitchen staff yet? Odd. That would have been the first thing he would have tried.
Assured it was safe to eat, he split the meal with Bohme, which turned out to be a bad idea. The man could eat anyone out of house and home. Of course, being that big, it probably did take a lot to feed him. Darius blessed the heavens that he didn’t actually have to pay for the bodyguard’s food expenses.
“So how many assassination attempts last night?” he asked Bohme casually as he popped a piece of bread in his mouth.
A secretive smile played around Bohme’s mouth. “None.”
Darius froze, hand half to his mouth, and stared at the man incredulously. He didn’t look like he was teasing…. “Not one? Not even someone watching my rooms?”
“Oh, they watshed,” Bohme assured him, eyes twinkling now. “And lishtened hard. But no one tried to enter.”
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