Indomitus Sum (The Fovean Chronicles Book 4)

by Robert Brady

  “My pardon,” the sergeant said. “You there, cut free her bonds. My lady, I beg of you—”

  She waved it off. After what she’d suffered, he been almost kind to her. “You’re the fifth out of Vrek?”

  “The eighth,” he corrected her. “Under Major Gevenal, we’ve taken the city—”

  No time for it. “Did the druid Dilvesh come with you?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Aye—said he had someone to meet—”

  She nodded. “That someone is me,” she said. “Take me to him. I have to speak with Lupus before he mobilizes his armies.”

  As the ropes fell away she was on her feet, her slender fingers in the collar of the Wolf Soldier’s leather cuirass and her grey eyes inches from his.

  She hadn’t missed what the other Wolf Soldier had nearly called her—the nick-name she hated most of all, used only by Wolf Soldiers and, oddly, the Emperor’s direst enemies, referring to her.

  The Emperor’s Watch-Bitch, Mistress of Pain.

  She flipped her purple hair. Her heightened Aschire senses let her actually smell the fear flowing off of him. Nina of the Aschire had made an oath on her life to guard the children born of Rancor and Shela Mordetur; an oath she took seriously.

  “The victory you think you’ve had,” she informed him, “means nothing if I don’t speak to the Emperor.”

  * * *

  Karl rode an Eldadorian mare, feisty like all Eldadorian steeds. Even if they weren’t from Lupus’ Blizzard, it seemed they all wanted to be like him.

  This one must be coming into heat, having what Karl’s father would have called a ‘mare moment,’ balking at every move he made, every sound she heard, and every smell in the air.

  Some people liked a testy mount, but not Karl. He liked people and animals both to do their jobs with as little fuss and difficulty as possible.

  That would have served them well in the defense of Kor; but the Emperor’s warriors had planned too well. Perhaps the infamous Duke Ceberro himself had come to take the last free city, the pirate capitol of the Forgotten Sea. It had been a miracle Karl had gotten his friends out alive.

  Supposedly the troubadours were calling it The Battle of Heroes. Karl hadn’t stuck around to hear the songs; he’d been too busy fighting for his life, a sword in his hand, his Volkhydran comrades beside him. Not just the crew of the ill-fated Sprite, but the Volkhydran visitors to the port, the buccaneers and pirates and heartless merchants who frequented a place like this—they’d heard the Hero of Tamara was standing in defense of the city, and they’d joined in to brag later that they’d fought beside him.

  His friend Jahunga had done no worse. Toorians frequented the last free city, where they could sell not only their own wares but those they came across on the Forgotten Sea. They’d flocked to Jahunga, the unbeaten warrior. The dark-skinned Toorians in their traditional white robes, the Volkhydrans in their furs and shaggy hair; when the Wolf Soldiers swarmed the gates, the Koran Guard, a mish-mass of every race and people, had pretended to fall before them and the others had swarmed in from behind.

  Wolf Soldiers battled from their orderly squads, forming a defensive circle, their pikes bristling, their huge shields an impenetrable wall which could part on an order and meet flesh with Eldadorian steel. The Toorians and the Volkhydrans had driven them back out of the city, but hadn’t been able to slaughter them.

  And once past the cover provided by the archers in the retreating Koran Guard, they’d met the lances of one thousand armored Angadorian Knights.

  Duke Tartan Stowe, the son of the former King, Glennen, had swept in and slashed the defenders with their lances, killing dozens and driving the rest back into the shattered city gates.

  From there it had been attrition, nothing more. The Wolf Soldiers swarmed, the arrows fell. They advanced and fought Koran Guardsman in patchwork armor, wild-eyed Volkhydrans and cunning Toorians. If they pushed deep enough into the city, the horse engaged and slaughtered. If they withdrew, the same.

  After a week, the exhausted defenders buckled before the veteran Wolf Soldier army. People from the city either threw down their weapons or scattered, fighting from alley to home through the city or scrambling over the city walls into the relative freedom of the Salt Wood. Karl and Jahunga knew then that they could do no more. They abandoned the city behind the advancing army with their friends.

  From there it had been another week in the Salt Wood, hiding from patrols, avoiding refugees. Karl had thought to hide among them but the Scitai ambassador who’d brought them here countermanded him.

  Why, Xinto had asked, would refugees have horses, armor, gold? They didn’t look like refugees, and they didn’t act like refugees. Therefore, they wouldn’t blend in with the refugees, they would be a beacon, very easy to find.

  Karl admitted after the fact Xinto had made the right decision. His yakking countrymen would have found it impossible not to get drunk and spill their tale at the first opportunity. Instead they hid, moved slowly, and crawled out of the Salt Wood under the cover of darkness.

  * * *

  Glynn Escaroth guided her small party back in the direction of Kor, across the wide expanse of the Eldadorian plains southeast from the Lone Wood. She and the Man, Jack, rode their prospective horses. The Swamp Devil Zarshar, the Black Adept ran between them, and the dog which they’d adopted ran either before or behind.

  The Druid woman, Vedeen, road a large roan stallion behind them, her blonde hair flying out behind her, her white robe and brown overcloak billowing around her. Her blue eyes sparkled, taking in everything they passed, lighting on a flower here, a cloud up in the sky, or perhaps nothing, just reflecting a thought in her head.

  The Druids were strange, but the idea they’d been included in the prophetic song she’d sung, the message from the goddess Eveave that guided them, filled the Uman-Chi’s heart with hope.

  The Druids were ancient and powerful. One of them was an ally to the Emperor, the One whom they fought, whose coming threatened the land of Fovea. Vedeen might neutralize them, might even turn them to Glynn’s side.

  She’d crossed the Eldadorian plains, thinking these thoughts, when the dog, running before them, dropped into a crouch. She was an ugly beast, this dog. Jack called her a mastiff—she was wrinkled from her nose to her tail, bearing a wicked underbite and slavering jaws, green eyes that knew neither sympathy nor fear, her fur brindled almost blue, making her invisible at night.

  She raised her hand and the other two stopped. Jack dismounted and raised a hand to her, to help her to dismount from her side-saddle.

  The Swamp Devil, ebon-skinned and heavily muscled with red teeth and eyes and a black mane that touched the ground behind him, dropped to its belly and crept the distance between them and the dog, drawing up beside it.

  An army, thousands of mounted and armored warriors, between us and the Salt Wood, Glynn heard in her mind. The Devil used his magic in order to speak to her in quiet over the half daheer between them.

  She knew these troops—Angadorian Knights. The sub-nation of Angador resided to the south of Eldador, a part of the Empire ruled by the Duke Tartan Stowe. The horses they rode were a breed unique to that region, their training mirrored Andaran, Wolf Soldier and Theran influence.

  And Tartan Stowe had trained under the Emperor himself since his father, the former King Glennen Stowe, had died. They’d fought together when the Empire had conquered the southwest of Andoran and taken what was now called ‘Wisex’ and ‘The Black Lake,’ at the joining of the Safe and Mid Rivers.

  We do not want to provoke those troops, Sirrah, she warned Zarshar. Please return with the dog.

  Glynn turned to the Druid and Jack. “We’ve encountered thousands of Angadorian Knights between us and the Salt Wood,” she informed them. “We must needs either circle ‘round them, or wait their passing.”

  Jack looked to the East. “They’ll have scouts,” he said. “We should stand pat—um, we should wait here and watch them.”

  “I agr
ee,” Vedeen said in her ethereal voice. “With my feet upon the Earth, I’ll know if any come near, and we can avoid them.”

  Zarshar and the dog approached from the east. The latter trotted over to Jack and rubbed her side against his.

  Glynn weighed her options.

  Chapter Two

  A Near Meeting

  Xareff, a Man who once called himself ‘The Duke of Thieves,’ stood in what used to be his throne room, in a port that used to be called ‘Kor,’ in front of what was once his throne, made of stone, on a cracked dais of thirteen steps, where a Druid named Dilvesh sat now.

  They’d let him keep his pants on—that was more than he usually did. Strip a man down naked in front of others and he was more vulnerable and more easily intimidated. He’d had two Toorian bodyguards, but they were just bodies now, laying to his left in bloody puddles against what used to be his rough, wooden gallery.

  An Uman named Narem stood next to him, bleeding from gashes in his arms, chest and face. His brown eyes were fixed on the dais’ bottom step, blood was matted in his short, white hair, his lips were fixed in a thin, pink line. Narem had been the captain of the Koran Guard which had protected the city, but there wasn’t much of that left now.

  Dilvesh didn’t say anything; he just…looked at them. He sat in white robes with a green hook symbol under a dot on the front of them, a brown over cloak open, framing him. He looked regal somehow—more regal than the former Duke of Thieves, anyway.

  Xareff knew of Dilvesh—everyone did. A member of the Daff Kanaar and an ally of the Eldadorian Emperor, he’d come here with 2,000 Wolf Soldiers and another thousand Angadorian Knights, and he hadn’t just sacked port Kor, he’d conquered it. His troops held the whole city. Those who hadn’t bent a knee to the Druid in the Emperor’s name were dead.

  That made for a lot of dead. Kor had been a pirate haven and the last free city in Fovea. People didn’t give that up easily, no matter what squalor they lived in.

  To Xareff’s right he recognized Duke Tartan Stowe of Angador and his Duchess, the Lady Yeral. The former dressed out in Eldadorian field plate—a plain, steel breastplate, sleeves and greaves, a full helmet clipped to his hip and a long sword over his shoulder. The latter dressed as if for court in a full green gown with a voluminous skirt—Xareff had a hard time imagining she’d seen combat, but then, why was she here?

  No one spoke—it was nerve-wracking.

  Xareff heard a commotion behind him. He turned reflexively—you didn’t make it as far as he had in life without your reflexes responding on their own. Marching in through the shattered double-doors behind him he recognized Nina of the Aschire, her purple hair streaming out behind her, her black leather pants and vest smudged with white dust, her face with black soot.

  Roughly two weeks ago it had been she standing before Xareff, pleading her case. Now she marched past him, two Wolf Soldiers stopping at the throne room entrance, as if he weren’t there.

  The Druid smiled wide. His brown eyes followed her under green eyebrows and curly, green hair. Supposedly Dilvesh was the only hybrid of Men and Uman, but that never rang true to Xareff.

  “Green One,” she addressed him.

  “Nina,” Dilvesh said, inclining his head.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, her back to Xareff now, so he couldn’t see her expression. “But I didn’t mean for you to sack the whole city.”

  Dilvesh shrugged. “The city was going to be taken eventually,” he said. “If our enemies were planning to use it, then it made sense to do that now.”

  Nina’s shoulders relaxed. “Not like you had something better to do?” she said.

  Dilvesh chuckled. “That’s what he would say, yes,” he said.

  Xareff could guess who he was. It was a strange expression.

  Nina turned. “And these?” she asked, turning. Her grey eyes travelled up and down the former Duke of Thieves. “I have to be honest,” she added, “he was decent to me. He could have hurt me and he didn’t.”

  “That’s good to know,” Dilvesh said. “I was going to hang him—maybe not now.”

  Nina’s eyes travelled to the other, the Uman, Narem. “Who’s this one?”

  “I’m the captain of the Koran Guard,” Narem almost spat at her, looking up from the bottom of the dais.

  “That’s a hard thing to be,” Dilvesh said, “seeing as there isn’t a Kor any more, much less a Koran Guard.”

  Narem looked him in the eyes. “You slaughtered them all?”

  Dilvesh shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t recall them calling for quarter.”

  “About one hundred did,” Tartan Stowe piped up. All eyes turned to him. “I’m holding them outside the city. They’ve asked for this one—they claim the Guard serves the city, not the leader, and if we run things now—”

  “If you think you run things now,” Narem interrupted, “then we’ll serve you like we served him.”

  The throne room went quiet. Glances flew between Narem and Dilvesh.

  “We don’t need ‘em,” Tartan Stowe said, finally.

  “I tend to agree,” Dilvesh said.

  “I don’t,” Nina inserted.

  Dilvesh regarded her. She half-turned so she could face the group of them.

  “His troops know the city,” she said, “and it will take us a long time to do that. They can fight, they’re peace keepers, we’re warriors—they know how to do things we don’t, like hunt down criminals and contact important people left in the city.”

  “Not many of those,” Tartan said, a smirk on his face.

  “But some,” Dilvesh countered. “You don’t know this Uman, Nina. How can you speak to his loyalty?”

  Nina turned her face to his. “Are the Wolf Soldiers any different, before they take their vows?”

  Dilvesh sighed, closed his eyes and opened them.

  Nina turned to Narem. “Your solemn vow?” she asked him.

  Narem met her eyes. “Given to the city,” he said. “The Koran Guard—”

  “There is no more Kor,” Dilvesh interrupted him. “This is the port city of Lupor, of the Eldadorian Empire. Where is your loyalty now?”

  Narem looked sideways at Xareff, then back at the Druid.

  “On my life, on my honor,” he said, “to the Port City of Lupor, of the Eldadorian Empire, ‘till the gods take me.”

  Nina smiled. Her eyes shifted between Narem, Xareff and Dilvesh.

  The Druid nodded.

  “And now, the other one,” Tartan Stowe said.

  * * *

  Shela Mordetur lay bound with her hands behind her over the back of her gelding—the same one she’d ridden off of the plains with her husband, then her master, when she’d met her Yonega Waya more than a decade ago.

  They’d been travelling south slowly. By her best estimates they were at the edges of Thera’s provinces now. The Bounty Hunters who’d captured her, her daughters and prince Hectaro, son of the Duke of Galnesh Eldador were complaining there were Eldadorian patrols everywhere, and debating whether they were looking for this group or not.

  She knew better. Her husband was in the process of collecting his forces in Uman City for the War months. Roads from Andurin and Metz, from Galnesh Eldador and the wealthy port cities came through here.

  Any of them would have someone who’d recognize the Empress of Eldador, and the Bounty Hunters knew it. They were keeping their heads down, as her husband would say.

  Her husband, the Emperor. She’d betrayed him. She’d known better, she’d known better than to leave on her own with her children to track him down on his way to Uman City and inform him she’d ordered the Druid in Vrek to march on Kor. It was a relatively unimportant adjustment to their plans which could be handled with a message, but she wanted to be with her man, and any excuse seemed reasonable.

  Now she’d turned herself and those children over to his enemies—and not just any, but Clear Genna, the woman they’d left for dead in Conflu more than a decade before, the one w
ho’d loved him before he’d come to Andoran and they’d met.

  They hadn’t known Genna was a Bounty Hunter, but it made sense now. Her resourcefulness, her effectiveness as a guide—they should have suspected this of her all along.

  Now she had these hostages, and she’d use them to force her husband to surrender to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild or, worse, to her. She and her children were likely as good as dead anyway—she’d tried to kill them all and failed before they’d subdued her. She’d do it again now if she could.

  She couldn’t—she had to speak the words to use her magic to kill her children, and they’d gagged her. Now she pretended to be asleep, unconscious from the poison they put into her blood stream when they’d ambushed her and killed her guards. They’d reapplied it to her lips but she’d neutralized it—changed it to salt water. She acted like an unconscious woman, she’d even soiled herself and left herself for her older daughter to clean as best she could, and she waited.

  They’d make a mistake, and she’d act. Oh, how she’d act. They’d know the full fury of an Andaran Sorceress, the most feared on Fovea, when she got her chance.

  A thousand years from now, people would shudder at the fate of Clear Genna of the Daff Kanaar.

  * * *

  Jahunga had insisted he and his seven remaining Toorians scout ahead of their wandering band from Kor. The Salt Wood wasn’t the same as their native jungle, but tracking and scouting didn’t change anywhere.

  It had been the right decision. Defassi, his good friend, knelt down in the dry brush next to him and surveyed the Eldadorian plain beside him.

  They’d left one thousand Angadorian Knights behind them at Kor. They hadn’t expected to find another 3,500 here between them and the Lone Wood.

  “That is more than we can sneak past,” Defassi informed him, as if he needed to. “Especially with this lot.”

  Jahunga nodded. They were in the camps the Eldadorian soldiers made. The trash around them, the cess pits and the refuse from their fires, told him they’d been here in this same place for more than a week. They didn’t look like they were packing up now—they were running drills and they were practicing charging and their turns—this group was going to remain right here for a while.