by Robert Brady
Angron Aurelias’ plan had been to get the Emperor to focus on Uman City while they took his jewel, Thera. If they were looking down the throats of a fleet of Sea Wolves now, then the odds were that, once again, the King had been outmaneuvered by the Man with only a fraction of his years.
Uman-Chi Tech Ships had commanded Tren Bay for centuries, and Geledar Taboorin had commanded Tech Ships. Now in fewer years than it took to train a good ensign, he wanted to run in terror from one of the race of Men!
“Any sign of that Confluni fleet?” Geledar demanded. The Confluni had dispatched a vast army to the shores of Eldador, and then departed for Outpost IX for refit and replenishment. Then they’d promised to help with the escort.
“None,” the Captain said. “They may not have had time to overtake us, though. Confluni are poor sailors.”
Admiral Taboorin nodded—no surprises there. The deck beneath him swayed as their ship turned hard aport. The Tech Ships would break away from the Volkhydrans and give their charges a better chance to see shoreline.
Pointless—the Sea Wolves would run them down. Volkhydrans are brave, but bravery does precious little in the face of lightening and Eldadorian Fire.
“All ships to port,” the Admiral ordered.
“To port?” the Captain challenged him. Already an Uman sailor relayed the order to the rest of the fleet, colored flags flying up a line behind the jib. Some of his captains had been in his service for thirty decades. They knew their Admiral; he’d gotten them out of scrapes before.
“I’m sick of running from the damned Emperor,” Geledar Taboorin informed him. “He’s of the race of Men, not gods. Stick him with a sword and he’ll die like any other.”
“Two hundred,” the crow’s watch reported. “Two hundred masts counted.”
“My Lord, two hundred masts,” the Captain said. “Certainly, we have no chance—”
Geledar Taboorin put his hand on the Captain’s shoulder. “We had no chance the moment they spotted us,” he said. “We had no chance the moment Angron Aurelias went back on his word with this bastard. By Water’s soggy tits, Captain, an Uman-Chi has no chance when he’s got sea water fifty feet over his head, and a sinking ship below him, and right now it seems to me that I can see the sun.”
“Aye, aye, my Lord,” the Captain said. “If nothing else, then we’ll give them a fight for the histories.”
“Or we’ll make history,” the Admiral said, then turned to his men and roared, “Who here wants to be with me to hand these Eldadorian bastards their first naval defeat?”
The Uman crew shook their fists and roared.
It was a start.
* * *
Raven seethed in anger on the battlefield, from within what used to be the safety of the Confluni army.
On every side, the Daff Kanaar pressed their troops. She’d never seen people die like this, not this close, not this bloody. She didn’t realize all of the pain involved, all of the stink, the screaming and the loss of control.
She saw herself as having a job to do; she tried to focus on that. She wanted to put herself in the path of the enemy’s spell casters, to trick them into attacking her, to drain them of their power.
When she could arrange that, the power flowed through her now, fulfilled her like a lover. The power sent her blood coursing like strong whiskey, running through her veins.
She’d been dumped by Bill, left to fend for herself. He’d sworn to her that he’d protect her here, be Galahad. He’d lied.
Every man who’d ever gotten past her guard had lied.
“Back,” Karl shouted to the Confluni troops. They’d learned who he was somehow, they all listened to him now. Their leaders were mostly dead anyway—they needed someone to take charge.
“Fall back! Reinforce that line!” he shouted. “Pikemen to the front. Shields!”
Dumped. That friggin’ muther. Who did he think he was?
“Hold the line! Hold the line!”
Daff Kanaar pressed them, shields and pikes, tearing up their lines, keeping them from forming an effective defense.
“Oh, stop it!” she howled, and felt her power swell.
Right then, one of the foreign wizards struck her, and amplified what she was already feeling.
Where she would have called the fire and cast it into the mass of Daff Kanaar, now she found a terrible focus with this swelling of energy. Now she remembered, of all things, those chemistry classes that she’d loved so much in college.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the air around her, actually saw it, oxygen atoms, O-16, protons, neutrons and electrons forming molecules.
She saw the little bundles of balls, surrounded by electron dashes, speeding around like little solar systems.
Where they were random, she lined them up in a gigantic cube, encapsulating the people trapped within them.
Where electrons spun at one speed, she made them spin faster.
Faster.
Faster than sound. Faster than light. Faster than anything in nature could go.
Before her eyes, a cube of air four hundred feet across, four hundred feet deep and ten feet high converted itself from matter to energy, burning hotter than the sun.
The beings caught within didn’t even have time to scream before the searing heat vaporized them. Stunned by what she’d done, she released the spell, the super-heated air rocketing upward, blasting a hole in the clouds above them.
The resulting sonic boom rocked them all, throwing her from her feet into the air. She instinctively built a cocoon of oxygen around her, a gelatinous bubble to protect her as she bounced through their army.
Behind her, to their east, a hill exploded, turning from a solid just to dust. Their commanders were screaming to the men—she couldn’t hear what through the commotion and her own spell.
She bounced several times and came to rest on her back. Terrified Confluni warriors were charging to the west.
“Wasn’t that a cute trick?”
“What?” she demanded.
There was Zarshar before her, stepping out of a dust storm with an Uman-Chi over his shoulder; male, one of Glynn’s friends.
“I was waiting for you to do that,” Zarshar informed her.
He had blood all over him. He’d reveled in this. The violence, the killing—this was like Christmas to Zarshar.
“You need to come with me,” he informed her.
“But, the army, the, I mean—Karl,” she stammered.
The Devil shook his head. Over his shoulder, the Uman-Chi hung limp in his white robes. He couldn’t be dead, she thought, or Zarshar would have just left him.
“We’re getting out of here,” he informed her. “And you need to come with me.”
She felt claws at her waist. She turned to see Slurn lifting her to her feet. As much as she could tell, he’d seemed concerned to her.
“Okay,” she said, finally. If it got these two cooperating, the least she could do was come along.
* * *
It wasn’t the shame-faced little boy who’d been caught playing with his sword again, who faced his father on the field outside of Thera, returning with a conquering army of Theran Lancers.
Nina of the Aschire sat proudly behind the many-times blooded Prince Vulpe Mordetur, who’d rescued his mother from Bounty Hunters, who’d outmaneuvered the Confluni and the Uman-Chi and who, outnumbered, remained victorious, much like his father.
Blizzard pawed the ground, his steel shoes striking sparks on the cobbled road outside of Thera’s outer markers. The Emperor himself had come to greet his son, his wife and his Blood Brother.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Duke Two Spears nodded, from his own horse, then saluted, his fist over his heart.
Shela looked away nervously—she’d have a different discussion with the Emperor this night. She’d been told to remain in the capitol, much as she’d likely saved them all by disobeying.
This wasn’t about that.
“Duke Two Spears,” Lupus nodded. His eye
s remained focused on his eleven-year-old son. Vulpe held his head high, his hand on his blooded sword.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Vulpe said, his young voice oddly commanding in its own way. Vulpe had represented his family well three days before when, on the field, he’d led charge after charge against the Confluni, then driven them into a trap set by the Emperor with the Daff Kanaar. It had taken all of them to convince young Vulpe that his father wanted him here, in Thera, not back on the plains, where battle still raged between the holdouts of a once-vast army and the most feared veterans on Fovea.
In the end, the old Man, whom Vulpe called ‘grandfather,’ informed him, “Son, you’ll want to be a general one day. You’ll want to replace your father. If you mean to do that, then you’d best learn how to take orders, or he’ll never trust you to give them.”
That had stopped Vulpe in his tracks. Shela had actually laid her hand on the old Man’s forearm afterward, in clear gratitude for his wisdom. Nina had already planned his death up to that moment. Those few words had saved his life.
“Your Highness,” Lupus said to his son. “I’m told I’m well-represented this past week.”
“I did my best, father,” Vulpe responded. She’d schooled him in this. Be humble. Lupus always credited those around him for his successes, do the same. He likes that.
“I had a lot of good advice,” he added.
Nina felt the burning mass behind her eyes as she fought back tears of pride for this boy. She couldn’t have loved him more if he were her own.
“The enemy?” Lupus asked.
“Twenty-five, maybe thirty thousand when we quit the field,” Vulpe said. Two Spears had opened his mouth to answer and closed it, grinning, a sideways glance at the Prince. Vulpe ranked him; it was his position to speak to the Emperor.
“No more than Arath can handle,” Lupus said, and directed his gaze to those around Vulpe.
Mounted on Little Storm, old Jack sat quiet, waiting, between Shela and her son. On his other side, a Wolf Soldier who’d served right next to Vulpe since he’d rescued his mother, a heavily tattooed Uman named Grelt, grinned in unashamed pride.
“Grelt,” Lupus nodded to the Wolf Soldier. “I’m told there’s a new commander for the Pack?”
The other Wolf Soldier who’d been with them, Drun, a Dorkan, slammed a meaty hand on Vulpe’s shoulder, his forearm nearly knocking Nina from the back of his saddle.
“Aye,” he growled for his fellow. “Vulpe fights like a lion. Those Confluni were pissing their pants and calling for their mamas when he rode up.”
“He did well,” Grelt said, more serious, looking in Lupus’ eye.
“I’d fight by him again,” he said. “I’d kill any as wouldn’t.”
“I as well,” Drun chimed in. “Be proud if you’d assign me to Vulpe’s Millennium.”
Theran Lancers chimed in. To his credit, Vulpe stayed quiet.
Lupus nodded. “Your Grace, your dagger, if you don’t mind?”
Vulpe straightened. Nina felt the tears on her cheeks. She’d known this was coming. If the boy would be his father, then the boy would be like his father.
Blood ran from the corner of Shela’s mouth, she was biting her lip so hard. Nina doubted she was aware of it. Her hand on his side, Nina detected the slightest tremble in Vulpe’s small body.
Two Spears handed over the blade, a plain Andaran dagger. “For unmatched bravery, unquestioning loyalty, and service that does credit to Eldador, your Leader, and to the Pack, you are awarded our highest honor,” Lupus said, raising the blade on high.
The sun glistened on the knife’s edge. The weapon fell for the young face.
Vulpe met it on the keen edge of his own blade, Fury. To his credit, the draw was so fast that none of them could have stopped him. He even caught his own father by surprise.
The gasp from the Lancers behind them and the Wolf Soldiers next to him was almost an explosion. The father and son remained for a pregnant moment, sword to dagger and their horses side by side.
“No, father,” he said.
“What?” a storm brewed behind the Emperor’s eyes. “This is our highest honor—”
“I know,” Vulpe said. He pulled his sword, and sheathed it, sitting straight in the saddle.
“I know it is, father,” he said, as the Emperor’s arm slowly lowered. “It’s the highest honor a Wolf Soldier can receive.
“I haven’t earned it,” he said, and looked around him, mostly into old Jack’s face. The man’s smile bristled his beard as he nodded.
“I’m not a Wolf Soldier.”
* * *
When Glynn had first sensed the presence of her Uman-Chi brethren in the Confluni camp, she’d been ecstatic. This spoke to her on every level—their companionship, their acceptance of her song, the King’s participation in their mission.
When she’d noted that one of their number was Avek Noir, she’d been surprised. If anyone would be difficult to turn from the Emperor, it would be Noir. He’d been a Wolf Soldier, then come back with some manufactured fortune to rescue Outpost IX. No one failed to see the Emperor, then a Duke, had used Noir to his own ends, to buy himself the heir to the Trenboni throne.
No Uman-Chi should have been so shortsighted, yet here he stood with the rest of them.
She’d also been delighted to see handsome Aniquen Demoran among them. Aniquen’s clever magic would be crucial in any battle.
Then she’d heard the plan, the trap within the trap.
“My Lords, prithee, you must speak in jest,” she’d said, in the dim light of the Ymir’s pavilion, a gaudy hovel for a slothful, obese woman. She pressed her knees together and laid her forearms wrists-up in the position of the open-minded supplicant.
“We most certainly do not,” Haldan Evoprosee had informed her. Although Avek Noir ranked them all, he was oddly quiet and deferential to the Duke, an accomplished Caster over one hundred years his senior. “His Majesty believes the Emperor’s own arrogance will lead him into the jaws of our deception.”
“Your Grace, this army has not dug in,” Glynn informed them. She’d spoken with Karl Henekhson. “It stands open on the plain between two armies, both mounted, and not even a fence of spikes between them.”
“We are between them,” Lelden Faire had informed her, his nose in the air. This had been the entire, productive portion of the conversation. They’d gone to great pains to assure her she’d done exactly as the King had expected, and proved his wisdom.
She’d tried to support these older Uman-Chi. She’d tried to defend the Confluni archers from a sweeping charge of Theran Lancers, and found her magic circumvented by the Empress. Admittedly, she’d never been in such a battle before, and she’d panicked and she’d acted too soon. She’d broken the Confluni’s arching arrows into thousands upon thousands of dart-like missiles, and seen them burned away in their flight by a spell she recognized as Hell’s Fire. She’d peppered her enemy in ash as the tiny missiles burned to nothing.
She’d been pummeled personally with balled lightening and fire while her archers defended themselves. That hadn’t gone well.
The defense against the Daff Kanaari had gone far worse. This Eldadorian Prince may have outmaneuvered them; however his tactics showed his formal training. Nothing too creative, nothing too unique, sane waves of Lancers slashing at their lines from the safety of horseback and, with solid magical cover, he’d whittled them down.
To their East, the Angadorians with no magic had outfoxed Avek Noir and engaged a thin line of defenders in a much more bold and creative method, plunging deep into their ranks.
When they escaped south to a natural bowl, the Daff Kanaari had caught them and out-fought them with superior generals and better-trained warriors. With the aid of only marginal magical support, the Daff Kanaar had reduced them to a scant ten thousand.
Now they fought a running battle on the Eldadorian plains, trying to get to the Forgotten Sea where they could possibly negotiate or fight for ships to carry th
em out of Eldador.
Lelden Faire had been destroyed by their own magic. Avek Noir had descended into a useless funk, and Haldan Evoprosee had deserted them.
“Ymir Effecate Hagadashi,” Aniquen said, “our magic is more than adequate to the task; however we cannot do all of the work for you. Your warriors must fight.”
The woman snorted as one of her young boys fed her from a plate of fruit. More than once they’d walked in on her molesting them. Much as the race of Men could be vile, this woman seemed to revel in her perversion.
They’d have faired better with Xinto in his capacity as ambassador for them, however that no longer proved possible.
“It’s a trail of our blood, not yours, that they follow us in,” she told them. “We counted on your support and sent fifty thousand. You send four.”
“Five, your Grace,” Aniquen corrected her.
“One I found myself,” she said, and opened her disgusting maw for another grape. The boy fed her without expression.
“As be it,” Aniquen said, taking the seated posture of the discourser, not the arguer, not that the woman would recognize it. “We are represented, and it was we who won your freedom from the Prince, then again from the Daff Kanaar.”
When they couldn’t defeat the Daff Kanaar soldiers and all seemed lost, Aniquen had cast a spell that forced the water from the hills to the southeast. They’d exploded in dust, choking friend and foe alike and giving the Confluni the cover to retreat.
Aniquen had swooned and Zarshar had carried him, limp as a newborn, as they retreated. They’d left their severely wounded behind, Xinto of the Woods among them.
Xinto had been a calming voice of reason, proven by experience. Jack had proven more wily and insightful. It must have taken more than she could imagine to turn him.
“You must contact your King and demand more troops and more wizards,” the Ymir informed them, juice from the grape trickling down her chin.
“The agreement—” Aniquen began, but she waved him off.
“You’ve committed yourselves as we have,” she informed him. “Lupus the Conqueror swore to drive to our capitol if we ever struck at him again. Your king has broken a treaty with him. Who in either of our nations will be left standing, if he survives?”