by Guy Antibes
“Take the swords. They are like your own. One of the men is knocked out. We’ll want to interrogate. I’ve got to get back.”
Shiro stood, getting his breath at the edge of the conflict. The Dakkoran contingent had suffered massive losses and soldiers began throwing down their weapons since they had nowhere to run. Shiro wouldn’t kill men who had surrendered. He began to order his men to disarm the enemy and take them to the edge of the remaining battle.
He found the Teryon captain. Both were bathed in blood at that point.
“Take a few hundred of your men out to manage the captives and lead the rest of your men back to the plain to support the main group,” Shiro said.
He walked through the battlefield and found his Red Rose officer and told him the same. The force that split off of Antzen’s main body disengaged and Shiro led them forward. He looked back. The Teryons had suffered losses, but they didn’t compare to the Dakkorans. He wished the loss ratio would have been better, but he estimated that he led at least two thousand men back out into the field.
The army had driven the enemy back, but then the ground shook and fissures no wider than a foot began to slow Antzen’s advance. Shiro threw a fireball as far back into the ranks as possible. His Red Rose followed suit.
The pace was relentless once the fissures had been negotiated. Anchor appeared at his side with a Red Rose.
“I can’t stay all the way to the back any longer. I couldn’t see how the battle went, so here I am. What is the situation?”
“The enemy’s battle mages tore up the earth to slow our advance and we countered with…”
“Fire balls. As soon as I saw those, I released all of the Ropponi into the field except a few to guard the prisoner and his dead friend. We need to get behind them. Pull troops to the side and lets get a few thousand men behind the fighting.”
Shiro didn’t object to Anchor’s excellent idea and spread the word. He only teleported himself and Anchor after a good portion of Antzen’s forces made it ahead of them.
Anchor looked around. “Find me officers.” He waded into battle.
Shiro couldn’t detect any other Dakkoran swords as he followed Anchor into the melee.
They ducked and slashed and parried and thrust into soldier after soldier as they made their way through the battle. Shiro found fancy uniforms and called to Anchor. “To your left, twenty or thirty paces.”
Anchor continued to fight, but nodded his head. Shiro looked behind him and the Red Rose had formed up behind them.
“Lead on, Anchor. The Band of the Red Rose fight behind you.”
“Good,” he said as he plunged back into battle. Suddenly he held two swords in his hands as his sword whirled a pathway of death and injury through the Histron troops.
Shiro felt like the sun had parted from clouds in the sky as they confronted an entire unit of officers in spotless uniforms that had been pushed their way by the teleported Antzen troops.
Anchor stopped and in the midst of the fighting called out an officer. “Bastian! Stop your men. I don’t want to kill an old friend.”
A highly decorated officer squinted at Anchor. “I don’t know you. Defend yourself!” The man threw himself at Anchor, who quickly disarmed his opponent and whispered in his ear. Shiro saw the man’s eyes bulge as he took another look at Anchor. He stood up.
“We surrender! We surrender!” He pulled out a large white handkerchief and began waving it in the air.
Gradually the fighting began to slow and stop. More of the enemy began to wave white cloths in the air denoting surrender. It took some time, but other than a few pockets of desperate men, the fighting stopped.
Histron’s army had fought well, but had taken a beating. Shiro didn’t think that even a quarter of Histron’s army would have survived the battle if Histron’s officer hadn’t surrendered.
“What did you tell him?”
Anchor laughed. “My name and something that only I knew about an old friend. Histron’s general had been killed and Bastian was second in command. We even had overrun their reserve force. A total victory, enhanced by the surrender. We saved thousands of lives today.”
Antzen found Anchor and Bastian found a number of his officers.
“We now have to cull out those who are truly Histron’s soldiers. You have the option of fighting with us, or sitting out the war and facing imprisonment for fighting for Histron.”
Shiro knew that Anchor didn’t think that Sallia would resort to that. She wanted to heal her country and would go quite far to do it.
The officers spent the remainder of the day ordering the troops. The rankers who wouldn’t support Sallia were grouped with the remaining Dakkorans and herded into a valley with steep walls. It would be their prison until the war ended. Antzen assigned five hundred of his men to watch over nearly two thousand troops. Bastian led them to their supply cache and Anchor detailed sufficient supplies to keep the prisoners fed for a month.
The sun was about to set and pyres had been built to burn the dead. The three massive piles of wood and dead bodies were categorized by country. The Dakkoran’s had taken the worst of it. The Red Kingdom had lost over a thousand men and Teryon, a bit less than that. A small pyre had already been lit for the twenty-eight dead Ropponi, one-tenth of the remaining Red Roses.
Shiro’s men and women surrounded their smaller pyre and sang Ropponi dirges to help their fallen brothers and sisters find a proper way back to a new life. Shiro never put much stock in religion and just hoped if they came back, they would do so on Besseth. Ropponi would have been a worse place for them than Besseth.
~
Anchor now sported a scar on his face, a split cheek from a spear. He sat in a tent with a view of the pyres. He would stay on the battlefield overnight and have Shiro take him to Sally’s Corners after breakfast. He had taken off most of his shredded clothes and let two healers work on his body.
Shiro kept teasing him on his wounds, but he’d order Shiro to strip next. Not all of the blood on the Ropponi’s clothes was that of the enemy, either.
Bastian walked up to Anchor with five of his officers. They saluted Anchor. A show of respect was always a good sign. Anchor could barely keep his eyes open. Magical healing always seemed to affect him this way.
“Unca.”
“Not here, Bastian. All know me as Anchor.”
‘Anchor, then. We’ve counted heads and can add another nine thousand men to yours.”
That would give the alliance and army of nearly twenty-five thousand men attacking him from the south. Histron will gag when he finds out. Now, how to use these forces?
“What lies between us and Foxhome?”
“Histron has a habit of moving his armies around, but I would say perhaps two armies of less than five thousand each. He went ahead with trying to stop you on this plain, even after knowing about Jawell’s defection,” Bastian said.
Anchor would push around any smaller army. “What kind of forces does he have in Highfield?”
“Perhaps another five thousand man force, maybe split into three or four regiments. I don’t know for sure. General Masters would know, but…” Bastian shrugged. “Even your Ropponi can’t teleport where he is now.”
Anchor smiled. Five thousand split into smaller groups? Prince Peeron couldn’t mess up with such superior numbers.
“So the big battle is to be fought at Foxhome. Histron’s forces probably surround Foxhome and make it look like the city is under siege.”
“Indeed they do. The duke is afraid the alliance will converge on him,” Bastian said.
Anchor stood after the healers withdrew. He buttoned up a bloody shirt and pulled up just-as-bloody pants. He would tell Sallia of his real identity tomorrow, even if he had to interfere with her morning preparations, whatever they might be.
“He is right to be afraid. That’s exactly what we are going to do. What chance do you have of turning more troops?”
Bastian’s teeth sparkled as the day ended. “You can
count on two-thirds or more coming over to the alliance. Just tell me that Princess Sallia still possesses the Bloodstone.”
Anchor smiled. The information was music to his ears. “She does. King Billeas put it in my hand with the order to save his daughter. I held it for some time and sent it to her just after I joined Gensler’s army. She’s had it ever since, I used it to change myself.” Anchor waved his hand in front of him. “I lost my magic and can’t return to my former form without another using the Bloodstone. Youth was its unique power over the other Warstones.”
“They’re not a myth?”
“Shiro, show Bastian the Sunstone. Bastian, don’t touch it.”
Shiro pulled out his sword. “It is the yellow jewel. A number of people can attest that the stone is genuine.”
“I can,” General Antzen said as he joined them. “Whoever holds the stone can join minds with anyone else who touches it. Shiro said that the ancient rulers of Roppon used it until they became too corrupt to have anyone know what dastardly secrets the emperors held in their minds. He used it on me.”
“He passed, barely,” Shiro said.
“I did too,” Anchor said. “Has Histron spoken of my role in the usurpation?”
“You had a role?”
“I’ll tell you and these men. I don’t want it to be a secret anymore. You remember my gullibility?”
Bastian nodded, smiling.
“Histron told me that he wanted to sneak in a birthday feast for the king and asked me if I knew of a secret entrance to the palace. He’d clean out the passage and surprise the king.”
Bastian’s smile faded. “You let him in.”
“I did and the guilt has ridden heavily on my back ever since. Shiro knows and until now, no others, except Histron and anyone he’s told.”
Bastian shook his head. “It’s certainly not common knowledge.”
“I’d like to keep it that way for now. However tomorrow I’ll tell Princess Sallia of my true identity.” Anchor took a deep breath. He had just confessed to a capital crime and it felt like a release. He wasn’t yet up to telling her about his role in the usurpation, but Anchor didn’t want it to be a secret any more.
“I can see you doing such a thing then, but you’ve changed, haven’t you? I don’t see the old Unca running rings around my army. How did you know about the Dakkorans? I hated them helping us, by the way. I’m not blameless myself.”
“Perhaps it’s a younger brain. Maybe losing my magic and having to truly become a soldier made my outlook more serious. I don’t feel as carefree as I did before, but I retained a great deal of experience as a counselor to the king and, in a way, King Billeas became a counselor to me. As I thought of strategies, I’d sometimes wonder what he would do. It helped me and I helped kill him.”
“You didn’t quite take an active part. I’m not quite sure if feckless behavior is a hanging offense.”
“It should be,” Anchor said. “But at the right time, I will place my future in Sally’s hands.”
“It’s Sallia.”
“I actually called her Sally while we fled to the north.”
Bastian put a hand on Anchor’s shoulder. “You did an admirable job with that. Her disappearance gave Histron fits for months and months. It still does, especially after today. Learsea just about ruined him, you know.”
Anchor smiled. “I ran King Willom’s army as his Marshal.”
“And we never knew who this mysterious Anchor was. My, my. I can imagine you running the entire alliance forces.”
Shiro laughed. “He does. The man can’t keep his mind out of other people’s matters.”
“That’s you!” Anchor said. “Shiro was brought to Besseth to fight for Duke Happly, except the Duke abhorred using Ropponi fighters. His loss was our gain.”
Bastian nodded. “We all were told that no one could stand up against Lord Daryaku’s sorcerers.”
“There can’t be many left now,” Anchor said. “We killed them all today. The northern camp of Dakkorans was too cold for the sorcerers, so they wintered in ships anchored just off Histo’s coast. They all drowned,” Shiro said. “And there were others.”
Bastian’s eyes bulged. “I can’t believe this.
“Believe it,” General Antzen said. “Anchor is a Bessethian treasure as is Shiro here, as long as we can keep him and a few others. I am proud to fight with them.”
“As am I, now,” Bastian said.
Anchor had had enough of this and turned their discussions to battle order as they would split their forces mirroring what Lotto and Lessa were currently doing, moving south. Food was brought as they continued to talk. Bastian yawned and all the others began doing the same.
“It’s time to pay homage to the dead and get the wounded secured in a compound in the valley,” Anchor said. “It would be better to separate the Red Kingdom forces from the Teryon army. Antzen, you can move the injured back into the Five Duchies and then continue north to join us at your discretion. Shiro, have Tishiaki supervise building some hardened earth walls around the prisoners, and then you are done for the day. Same with you Bastian. I’m for bed. It will be a very traumatic morning.”
~
Shiro teleported to Tassleton to retrieve clean clothes for them both. Then he moved them to Sally’s Corners. They appeared in the rain just in front of The Traveler’s Rest, surprising a rider who nearly ran them down. Anchor brushed off as much of the rain as he could and poked his head in the empty meeting room.
He stopped a serving girl carrying platters of breakfast and asked her if she knew where Princess Sallia was.
“I believe she ain’t come down yet.”
Anchor considered knocking on doors when he spied the inn’s proprietress, Regetta.
“Regetta, could you call Princess Sallia down? I’d like to talk to her.”
She squinted and then looked at him closely again. “Unca. After all this time, I never noticed. What have you done to yourself?”
“Unca?” Sallia said from the top of the stairs. “Regetta, did you say Unca?”
The innkeeper colored a bit. “I said Anchor. It might have come out a bit funny. Lord Anchor, here, is looking for you.”
Sallia rushed down the stairs. “We got the news yesterday afternoon. You defeated Histron’s southern army. How many casualties?”
“Too many, like any battle, Princess. But we were able to add quite a few of our enemy to your cause, once I assured them that you possessed the Bloodstone. Shiro brought you a gift.”
Shiro held out a newly-cleaned Dakkoran sword.
“You want me to fight?” Sallia said. Her reply came out a bit indignantly. Anchor noticed an echo of the woman’s former self.
“Let’s move into the meeting room,” Anchor looked around at the patrons all staring in their direction.
Sallia noticed the eyes as well. “Yes, let’s.”
The three of them stood in the empty meeting room. Sunlight broke through the clouds shot through the windows on the east side of the building, filtered through the still-bare branches on the trees.
“This is an enchanted sword, like the one I used against the sorcerers who tried to take away the Bloodstone. It’s your only defense if Daryaku makes another direct attempt on the stones. I’d like you to keep it close—either on you or on a bodyguard. Shiro has one for himself and Lotto. Restella gets a sword if we can find the one that went into the alliance armory.”
Sallia calmed down. “You do this for my safety?”
“Of course. Your safety is all that I have sought in this,” Anchor said.
“I’m going to have some of that breakfast,” Shiro said, bowing to them both and leaving Anchor alone with Sallia once he closed the door.
Anchor felt more nervous than he did at the beginning of the previous day, facing Sallia by himself. “I have a confession to make.”
“Me, first,” Sallia said.
Anchor furrowed his brow. What did Sallia have to apologize for?
“I did
n’t mean what I said the night you saved me at Beckondale. I want you to forgive me for my attitude and lack of thanks. At one time in my life, I would not have soiled myself to talk to commoners or any man that sought my favor. I had sought anger as my sword.” She looked at the Dakkoran blade. “I never did figure out what I was angry about, but it made me into someone I’ve tried hard not to be since the night my parents died. I’m sorry.”
Fear gripped Anchor so hard that he nearly ran out of the room. He took a deep breath and took Sallia’s hand. She didn’t even try to pull it away. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, but those words were for another time, if ever.
“I’m not what I seem.” He paused to clear his throat. Why was this so hard? “I once held the Bloodstone in my hands. People were after me and nearly had me cornered in Happly, of all places. I was collecting information that I hoped would help you.”
“But you didn’t even know me. How did you have the Bloodstone?”
“Because…”
“You met Unca there? Is that it?”
Anchor felt his eyes water. His head began to swim. He thought he might pass out or break down in sobs. All of the armies on Besseth didn’t generate so much fear as he felt at that moment. “Because I took the Bloodstone from your father’s hand, the night Histron killed him. I went to your bedroom and found the secret passage in the wall. We walked for an eternity beneath Foxhome castle and exited in the dark, and then we fled to my house not far from here.”
There he had said it. He saw confusion on Sallia’s face as she withdrew her hand. He made no attempt to retrieve it.
“Unca,” her voice nearly a whisper. “I’ve never told anyone the details of our escape. Not even Willow. She recognized you some time ago, didn’t she?”
Anchor nodded. “Regetta did just now. I’ve been coming to Sally’s Corners for decades, before I became an old man. The Bloodstone can make a man young. I invoked an ancient spell to save myself from Happly’s soldiers. I lost all of my power and lost a lot of my age.”
Sallia took a few steps backward and bumped into a chair. She fell into it and put her hand to her forehead. “You’ve kept this from me all of this time?”