Indomitus Sum (The Fovean Chronicles Book 4)

by Robert Brady

  “Don’t you tell me—” Shela warned him, urging her gelding forward. She’d come within striking distance—deceptively far for her height.

  “I said no,” Vulpe told her, with the same command she’d heard in her father’s voice. For one dazzling instant, she saw him as a miniature version of Lupus the Conqueror, without the blond hair, without the scar, without the eyes bluer than the sky, but that same set to his eyebrows, that same defiant nose, that same line to his jaw that said, “You are about to push me too far.”

  Even her mother reacted to it.

  “M’lady, if I may intervene,” Hectaro said, urging his mount up beside her.

  What a disappointment he had been. Humbled, humiliated, licking their captors’feet like some dog—no more fantasies of conquering the world beside Hectaro! Now even the sound of him galled her.

  “You may not,” Shela informed him. She was recollecting herself. Shela stood down Wolf Soldiers—only father really controlled her. Lee anticipated seeing Vulpe’s little, red behind over a saddle and her mother with a switch in her hand, before long.

  They were in the camp Vulpe had made to trap the Bounty Hunters and kill them. They’d gotten all of them but one, and only lost two Wolf Soldiers doing it. Vulpe, following his mother, had collected their one squad and added to it almost three more of Theran Lancers, whom he’d called from Thera on his own, to rescue them.

  Lee had to admit that was a lot more than she’d expected to see from her brother, but then, he’d apparently had some help.

  Grandfather was there. Grandfather, thinner now, and a little grayer, sitting Little Storm with new confidence, like any Andaran would. He had a falchion over his shoulder in a broad leather sheath, but he hadn’t pulled it. No, grandfather wasn’t a swordsman because grandfather didn’t need to be. Grandfather was wise.

  Hectaro simpered and lowered his head to mother. No big surprise there. Grandfather, on the other hand, sat right next to Vulpe, looking mother right in the eye, and unafraid.

  He’d seen her and his face had lit up. He’d said, “Hello, little girl,” and it had taken all of her will power not to leap off of Singer and run to his stirrup. Mother had other ideas what to do with him.

  Shela glared at Vulpe. Even a month ago, he’d have already been screaming with his pants around his ankles and his mother holding a bloody switch. Now everything seemed different, and Lee was trying to figure out why.

  “He kidnapped your sister,” Shela informed him. “Do you have no loyalty, son? Do you not see he’s manipulated you with this trick, not to save you but to capture us for himself?”

  “Glynn Escaroth hid Chawny,” Vulpe corrected her. “And took Raven with her. He went after her, and he just worked with me, to save you, mother.

  “I’ve guaranteed his safety. He is with me. That means he is with you.”

  Lee couldn’t argue with that. That was Andaran code as well as Eldadorian policy. The frustration sat clear on mother’s face. She wouldn’t betray her code, but she wanted grandfather to pay for what had happened to Chawny.

  “Riders coming in,” an Uman Wolf Soldier she recognized as Grelt announced, pointing to the north. All heads turned to see the dust over the ridge, a wide swath arcing back in the sky.

  Men in formation, on horseback. Not single file, like Andarans, trying to disguise their numbers. Theran Lancers, announcing their presence in their own land.

  When they topped the ridge, she recognized Tali Digatishi immediately, his mustachios flowing, the look of the unconquerable Andaran in his eyes and the set of a face dominated by his hawk nose.

  Uncle Two Spears—mother turned back to her son with a triumphant look on her face.

  * * *

  Vulpe watched ten squads of Theran Lancers trot down the northern ridge toward them. He saw his mother’s smirk and Hectaro’s obviously worried expression. Hectar, Hectaro’s father, had always had a calming influence on his own father. When the Emperor wanted to charge in, he always had J’her at his side, Rennin always wanted to follow behind him, Ceberro always wanted to lead the attack. Groff always thought it was a bad idea and Hectar always counseled patience. Of all of them, Hectar always had father’s ear.

  Hectaro was trying to do that now—trying to be the calm voice, just as Vulpe was trying to be his own father.

  “Sit beside me, Hectaro,” Vulpe ordered the older boy. Hectaro looked once at the side of mother’s face, and then urged his mount forward and turned it, sitting opposite grandfather. Vulpe caught the look of disgust on Lee’s face.

  She used to like him. Well, things change.

  Mother’s smile brightened when she saw uncle Tali. She loved her brother. Vulpe had to assume that came in time, because unless he’d just found another rodent in his bed, Vulpe didn’t get many smiles from Lee.

  “Tali!” she greeted the Duke of Thera. The men who escorted them parted to let the two embrace, still on horseback, like Andarans.

  “Shela—you’re skin and bone!” Two Spears chided her, as he always did. “The mother of three should be fat!”

  “I am the mother of millions,” Shela said, meaning the Empire. “I have no time for eating. But I may have to make time to school this one.”

  She regarded Vulpe. He immediately felt like a deer staring down the shaft of an arrow, but he refused to do the usual head-down tactic that would have gotten him only a minor beating.

  “A few men call you by your first name, and you think you can disrespect your mother, my sister?” he thundered. Tali Digatishi commanded men in two nations—he could just look at a person and make them want to cry. Vulpe felt that now.

  No, he told himself. Grandfather was here; he had men now. Wolf Soldiers,and yes—they did call him by his first name.

  Just like his father.

  He straightened. “Duke Two Spears,” he said, and inclined his head. “We welcome you. Your warriors helped me to save my mother, and I am in your debt.”

  “Ho, ho!” Two Spear’s eyes widened, then he threw back his head. This was also Tali Digatishi—the fast living son of the Andoran Plains. Quick to fight and quick to laugh.

  “Who is this one, who tries to be his father?” Two Spears continued. Vulpe saw the eyes of the warriors around him brighten, wanting to laugh at him.

  Before he realized it, his hand fell on his sword’s pommel.

  Before he could stop it, every man and woman who’d fought with him did the same, Wolf Soldier and Theran Lancer alike. He’d grown up with that sound, the metallic clank of swords thumping scabbards. Say the word, he knew, and it became a blood bath. His eleven-year-old heart swelled. As he’d imagined it in the mirror a thousand times—the son of Lupus the Conqueror.

  Two Spears’ eyes widened, as did his mother’s. His mother’s face took on the indignation he’d seen her use with disobedient servants and defiant children. His uncle, however, wasn’t looking at the warriors, or even at Vulpe himself, really.

  His eyes were fixed on Vulpe’s hip. “Prince Vulpe,” he said, “I want to see your sword.”

  No! that was going too far. Even if they took his command, Vulpe’s sword was a gift from the Dwarves. He’d named it ‘Fury,’ he slept with it under his mattress, and he’d cared for the blade every day of his life that he could remember. He took it everywhere.

  For Fury, he’d fight. Even his own uncle.

  Two Spears must have seen the defiance in him. “Vulpe,” he said, more softly, as he would to a shy horse, “I don’t want you to give me your sword,please—just draw it.”

  Vulpe couldn’t see anything wrong with that. He pulled the bloodstained blade.

  Every warrior behind him did the same. The Therans clamored for their own weapons. Two Spears raised one hand, shouting, “Hold—hold your weapons. On your lives, no one draws.”

  He turned to his sister. “You see that?” he asked her.

  Her brown eyes turned round as saucers. Vulpe didn’t understand. She’d wanted to thrash him just a moment before, now s
he looked like she would take him in her arms and weep for him.

  “He hasn’t seen his twelfth summer,” she demanded.

  Two Spears shook his head. He pulled his own Andaran scimitar and he threw it point-first into the earth before Marauder’s feet. The stallion stamped and bobbed his head.

  “He’s blooded, Shela,” he told her. “He’s commanded men; he’s fought with his own weapon. You know the words the same as any other.”

  “He’s a boy!”

  He cuffed her. No one struck Shela Mordetur, Empress of Eldador, except for one man, and he wasn’t here. Vulpe opened his mouth to save his uncle’s life, knowing he would be too late.

  But Shela just wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, looked sadly into her brother’s eyes, and then into his own. He didn’t see the love of the mother who’d raised him right then. He didn’t see the soft, loving woman who held him to her breast the first time he’d been thrown, the first time he’d been beaten learning to fight with this sword, the first time he’d cried in fear at a lightning storm.

  He saw a more worn woman, who’d just put down a burden.

  “He’s a man,” Two Spears informed her. “And I swore fealty to his father, my blood brother, and you’ll respect him and regard him as you would any other man.”

  He turned to Vulpe, inclined his head, and said, “Your Highness, the Theran Lancers are yours to command.”

  Chapter Eight

  Fate

  Glynn sang:

  “For Fovea, Fovea, then must they live and die.

  Fight the battle from within

  With a champion from outside.

  You shall be the weapons

  The tools of men and gods

  Who come too late for victory

  And win despite these odds.”

  Vedeen nodded, smiling that passive smile she seemed to always have on her lips.

  Raven wanted to smack that smile off sometimes, and this was one of them.

  “Heard that,” she said. “Been all over it. The Emperor conquers Fovea, we fight him. We lose, but we win, too.”

  “And doesn’t that seem strange to you?” Vedeen asked. “That you should lose, but in losing, you should win?”

  “No,” Raven said. “I’ve read a thousand books like that. The hero dies and everyone realizes what he was fighting

  for—”

  “Wait,” Karl held his hand up, riding next to them. They’d ridden west of Metz and were turning north for Tonkin. From there, they planned to hire a ship for Outpost IX.

  They’d left the Eldadorians they’d killed in shallow graves on the plains, including the hostage. He hadn’t known enough to justify keeping him alive, although the thought of Karl putting him down made Raven have to force herself to look at him.

  “You’ve read a thousand books?” he pressed her.

  Glynn smiled her deprecating little smile. Even Xinto raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t think there are thousands of books,” he said, pulling his lumpy cloak around him. It seemed like rain and the temperature had dropped suddenly.

  “Well, there are certainly books by the thousands,” Glynn said, “however no one other than a high Duke or a King has access to them.”

  “The Emperor has a fondness for books,” Vedeen said. “However, even he doesn’t have thousands.”

  “Cast a truth saying, and see if I’m wrong,” Raven argued. If one thing bugged her, it was to be called a liar.

  Of course, these people didn’t have a printing press and were a thousand years from one, she reasoned, so every book they’d ever seen had been hand-written. Probably no one here had read a thousand books.

  Okay, maybe she hadn’t—either. She did the math. If she’d been reading for twenty years, then fifty books a year, or a little less than one per week…

  But then, school, kids’ books—yea, could be a thousand.

  “I would prefer not to drain all of my energy entirely,” Glynn said. “Perhaps the good Druid might suffice—”

  “I cast truth sayings on her all the time,” Zarshar said. “For what she comes up with, I couldn’t help myself. Go ahead, girl—how many books have you read?”

  “I just did the math,” Raven said, “and I could have easily read a thousand.”

  “No lie,” Zarshar said.

  “Unless you’re lying,” Karl added.

  Zarshar bared his red teeth. Glynn help up her hand. “He is not,” she said.

  “You disbelieve me?” he growled.

  “Well, you do lie,” Xinto said. “In fact, you usually do it to hurt other people as much as you can.”

  Zarshar narrowed his eyes.

  “You do,” Xinto pressed him.

  “Well,” Zarshar said, finally, “you know I’m not now. She’s read a thousand books. Maybe she’s a princess or some high duchess in her own land.”

  “No,” Raven said. “Where I’m from, we have a lot of books. I love to read.”

  “Waste of time,” Karl grumbled. “Dusty tomes that smell funny. You want to read something, read the entrails of the next man you kill. That can tell you your future, you know.”

  “Yuck,” Raven shuddered.

  “I would not have thought you learned,” Glynn admitted. “In fact, I am surprised you’re even literate.”

  “Well, not in any language you know,” Raven admitted. “That one I came here speaking, that Angron speaks.”

  “King Angron Aurelias,” Glynn said, “and regardless, I must expand your teachings now to include the written word. If you are capable of it in any language, surely you are capable of it in the languages of Men and Uman.”

  “And, of course, the most gifted poets are Scitai,” Xinto said, “so you’ll have to learn Scitai.”

  “Sirrah,” Glynn admonished Xinto, “I have no fear of a truth saying with you, and the most gifted poets are clearly Uman-Chi.”

  Karl snorted.

  Glynn raised an eyebrow in challenge.

  “We were discussing the passage,” Vedeen reminded them gently. She sat straight in her saddle, her huge roan moving easily with the other horses, although a hand taller than any of them. She rode like a man, not sidesaddle like Raven and Glynn. Much as it would chafe the insides of her thighs at first, Raven wished she could do the same.

  “Okay,” she said, “We know I’m the champion from outside.”

  “And how do you know this,” Vedeen pressed her.

  “Well,” Raven said, “for one thing, I am from outside of Fovea. My lands aren’t even in this reality.”

  “And yet, I spoke with your ‘Jack,’ and he used words more ancient than the Cheyak.”

  Vedeen and Zarshar had both informed her of this. Jack had spoken what she recognized as the Lord’s Prayer, in Latin, and it had all but made Zarshar’s head explode, while impressing the heck out of the Druids, who had been mouthing the words for thousands of years without even knowing what they meant.”

  In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, Raven thought. How many times, as Melissa, had she crossed herself and said those same words.

  That they should be so powerful here…

  “Can I try something?” she asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Glynn immediately chimed in, straightening. Glynn was convinced that Raven’s powers were a ticking bomb, and she always fought against the fuse.

  “What do you want to try, dear?” Vedeen asked her.

  “I want to say something more in that language,” she said, “but I don’t want to hurt Zarshar.”

  Zarshar perked up. To their north, Jahunga ran with their Toorians as their outrider guard, even without horses. To the left and right, mounted Volkhydrans on stolen Eldadorian horses road scout, while behind them their walking Volkhydrans formed the rear guard.

  They’d become their own little army, Raven thought.

  “You care so much that you hurt me, eh?” Zarshar rumbled.

  There was a time to be leather thonged Raven, sword on h
er hip, dagger in her boot, throwing fireballs, and a time to be Melissa, all soft and gooey, and if Raven was learning anything, it was that.

  She kicked her mount to pick its pace up and pulled up alongside Zarshar. While the others watched, she laid her hand alongside the giant, evil face, and looked into the devilish red eyes, almost at a level with her own, even mounted.

  “Of course I do,” she said, letting her eyes get all watery. “You’re my friend, and I love you, big guy.”

  “War’s whiskers,” Karl swore.

  Raven couldn’t read the great, red eyes. Whether he would see this as an opportunity to exploit her, or an affront, was anyone’s guess, but he loped along for several hundred yards, looking back at her, before he looked away.

  “Speak your words,” he said finally. “No slip of a girl can harm the Black Adept.”

  “Are you ready Vedeen?” Raven asked.

  Vedeen nodded. The rest watched. Zarshar kept loping along.

  She tried to remember some Latin words.

  “E pluribus Unum,” she said.

  Vedeen shrugged. Nothing.

  “Cogito, ergo sum,” she said. I think, therefore I am. She’d taken a course in Cartesian philosophy.

  Nothing.

  “Nulla avaritia sine poena est,” she said. There is no greed without punishment, from Seneca, a Roman from the time of Caesar.

  Nothing.

  Wait, she thought. Perhaps Monty Python had the answer.

  “Pie Jesu Domine,” she intoned, like the monks from the movie, “dona eis requiem.”

  Oh, sweet Jesus, grant them rest.

  Zarshar roared in pain, falling to his knees. All of the horses started bucking in fear. Vedeen’s mount reared, pawing at the sky, while Vedeen herself shrieked, standing up in the stirrups, her fists at her temples.

  To her credit, Glynn kept her saddle. Karl was thrown, she and Xinto right after. They’d taught her to keep her heels down when in the saddle, which had made her calves ache until she got used to it—now she was glad. Her feet slipped from the stirrups, even as she pushed the reins away from her in mid flight, her ass flying higher than her head as she flew over the mare’s mane. The bucking horse took off with the others, the Volkhydran riders taking off after them.