Indomitus Sum (The Fovean Chronicles Book 4)

by Robert Brady

  “It was my—” the Man began, but Zarshar shook his head.

  “Jahunga was doing what any warrior does, and took a warrior’s chances, doing it,” Zarshar said.

  “The girl has barely dabbled in her magix—no one would try half of what she’s done before they’d trained for years. This one has toyed with her power for less than five moons.”

  “In truth,” Vedeen said, “there was no containing her, and be it known that we tried. This was like to happen; it is just her bad luck it went so far and so badly.”

  Karl held her head between his calloused hands and shook his own. It was the nature of Men to grieve the fallen, Slurn knew. Karl, he believed, couldn’t reconcile whether it was that time.

  “When,” he asked, then choked and swallowed. “When will you know—?”

  Vedeen smiled her toothy smile and said, “Let the girl rest a few days. She’s shown remarkable resilience up to now. Let us see if she rebounds from this effort.”

  Karl nodded.

  “And before you go below decks and whimper,” Zarshar added, his black tongue running over his red teeth, “keep in mind that we saw a whole Eldadorian fleet through that hole she opened up in the Bay. If they come after us, then you’re going to wish you had her power to protect you.”

  * * *

  Duchess Yeral Stowe sat in her personal chambers while an Uman servant girl brushed her hair and another did her toes. Light poured in through the open bay windows and puddled on the thick pile carpets at her feet. She liked the smell of fresh cut flowers and they surrounded her here.

  Another Uman, a young man in her husband’s livery, entered her room with a scroll in his hand. He knelt before her at her feet and held it up to her. She took the scroll without speaking to him.

  Many noble women, especially in Eldador, had Uman lovers. There could be no issue from the coupling, although the parts all worked the same. She’d considered taking this one—he seemed devoted to her, or least devoted enough. Where her husband did perfectly fine by her when he showed interest, sometimes a woman likes to receive the services a lover will provide, and a husband might be shy of.

  The Uman left. She popped the seal on the scroll, recognizing the mark of Duke Ceberro. She pulled the scroll open and read it, written in the Language of Men, which she’d made sure her personal servants had no command of. The scroll read:

  Destruction 10, 95th year of the Fovean High Council

  Duchess Stowe,

  I contact you in regard to our latest conversation, which I found both enlightening and encouraging. In that vein, I have learned that the Emperor has embarked on an invasion of the Volkhydran nation with his wife and son, and left the Empire in the hands of his daughter, Lee Mordetur.

  I am gravely concerned that she is inadequate to this task and, where we might normally rely on the good influences of Duke Hectar Gelgelden, in fact Lee has forced his son, Hectaro, to enlist in the Wolf Soldier guard and come at odds with Hectar.

  I can think of no better time for your husband to fulfill his obligation to this empire and to travel north, to Galnesh Eldador, there to assist and to mediate for this embattled Princess.

  Your friend always,

  Ceberro of Vrek

  A week to arrive here, Yeral noted as she rolled the scroll up and laid it in her lap, allowing the smile to cross her lips. She’d known her alliance with Ceberro would bear fruit; he had the connections in the palace at Galnesh Eldador her father had enjoyed, and her husband would never have.

  She’d never imagined they would bear so well so quickly, but then it was said the sun never sets twice on the same Eldador.

  “Girl,” she said to the Uman brushing her hair. “Send a message to the Duke my husband, and inform him we need to meet, and soon.”

  The Uman girl nodded and left quietly. Yeral inhaled deeply of the fresh flowers.

  One day, she thought idly, she’d have to learn that girl’s name.

  * * *

  Genedare, an Uman servant to the House of Stowe, didn’t quite walk and didn’t quite run through the halls of the palace of Angador, the city.

  She’d been here for more than a year, serving first in the kitchens, then moving on to the regular house staff when she managed to assassinate three of those, and then into the Duchess’ personal retinue after six poisonings of the Uman serving there.

  Such is the life of a Bounty Hunter.

  Serving the Duchess hadn’t provided much by the way of intelligence, however it had certainly been a boon for the mortuary. That is, until lately, when the Duchess began contracting with Duke Ceberro.

  She found one of the Duke’s footmen, an Uman like herself, and conveyed to him that the Duchess sought dinner with her husband this night, and the footman promised to convey this to the cook and to arrange dinner in the formal hall. The Duke had planned to eat there anyway, so if they’d done nothing, then the meeting would have occurred of its own.

  The footman took the time to try to arrange a tryst with her, but Genedare resisted him. She had no problem with the occasional coupling which occurred among the house staff; however she simply lacked the time and didn’t find herself attracted to the footman.

  She moved past him and she found her way to the stables. She had to move quickly now—the Duchess was unreasonably demanding of her time and she didn’t want to have to go on a killing spree to get her job back.

  It spoke volumes that the Stowes never even noticed the killing she’d done already—they simply complained of the expense of training and rearranging the staff.

  In the stables, Genedare found the stablemaster. He’d come here with the Stowes from Galnesh Eldador, He’d been a Bounty Hunter for more than a decade.

  She walked up to him, a Man with long grey hair and a broken nose, his skin wrinkled with age, and he took her in his arms. They kissed passionately and he ran his fingers through her long, black hair.

  He removed the message she’d placed there. She ran her hand into his pants and stroked him, removing a message he had for her.

  They kissed again and parted. This had been going on for months. The whole palace spoke of what the Man must be able to do to attract so young and beautiful a girl.

  When she was certain she was alone, she read the note, an acknowledgement that her last missive had been received.

  No other instructions. At her level of service, she didn’t receive updates, just instructions.

  She sighed. That could change soon, she knew.

  * * *

  Vulpe sat his horse, Marauder, next to grandfather’s Little Storm and Karel of Stone’s pinto pony, on a hilltop to the east of Volkha, the capitol of the Volkhydran nation. Behind them the Eldadorian fleet dropped twenty-five thousand Eldadorian Regulars on the shore.

  “We’ve been detected?” Vulpe asked them.

  Karel of Stone snorted. He hadn’t come with the fleet, yet he’d arrived here before them. He was wearing his usual smile on his face, as if he found the rest of them funny.

  “Unless they’re blind,” he said. “I have no idea what they think they’re doing, though. According to your father, the survivors of their invasion of Eldador are in Hydro. They should be battening down and dropping the bars on their doors.”

  Vulpe watched the Volkhydrans moving in and out through the city’s open gates. He’d expected bells ringing, warriors assembling, perhaps some sort of retaliatory strike, but nothing.

  It was kind of a disappointment.

  Nina loped up from the assembling troops to where they waited. Vulpe braced himself for what he knew she was about to do, as she’d done to his father a dozen times.

  Sure enough, she sprang up onto Marauder’s butt and wrapped her arms around his midriff. The surprised stallion snorted and sidestepped, bobbing its head in surprise. Blizzard, he knew, usually reared and tried to bite her.

  He felt her cheek on the back of his head. “Your troops will be deployed in less than two hours,” she said. “Your commanders await your orders.
”

  Vulpe instinctively looked to his grandfather. The older man kept his focus on the city.

  “Send an envoy,” he said finally. “That’s what I’d do. Give them your terms to surrender the city.”

  “And have them lock it up tight as a drum?” Karel challenged him. “If they’re willing to let us just walk in there, then I say, ‘Just walk in.’ We can give our terms in person.”

  That sounded like a much better idea to Vulpe. He wanted to take the city with a battle, but if the Volkhydrans were going to make it this easy, then why endanger his warriors?

  Grandfather shook his head. “We have a saying where I’m from, ‘If something looks too good to be true, then it probably is.’ Something’s going on that we’re not seeing.”

  Karel sighed, Vulpe nodded. “Send in a thousand,” he said. “Karel, will you lead them? Deliver our terms, and don’t leave the city. Stay by the gate and—”

  Karel nodded. “Fine, fine, lad,” he said. He shot a dark look at grandfather. “I’m going to have a good laugh at your expense when I come back.”

  “See that you do,” grandfather told him, without looking at him. “Try and bring the warriors back with you.”

  Karel shook his head and kicked his pony into a trot, turning him back toward the gathering army where he would pick his warriors. Vulpe sat quietly with Nina and grandfather for a while, watching the city, trying to see what the older man was seeing.

  Nina kept holding him. It reminded him a lot of his growing up, how she’d always been there for him, looking out for him. He could barely remember a time in his life when he couldn’t look around and see her somewhere near him, watching out for danger.

  A man now, he almost wanted to shrug her off, however he’d seen her do the same thing with his father when she’d gone with him to battle, while he remained with his mother to witness the things he’d need to see if he ever intended to rule some day.

  Now he’d been sent off with Karel, grandfather, Nina and his Eldadorian advisors and sub officers to take a city. Even when he rode Marauder with an undersized lance into the Confluni horde in the Battle of the Vice, he hadn’t felt his eleven summers so acutely. Then he’d just been part of a thundering mass raining havoc on screaming foot soldiers under his uncle’s direction. He’d actually felt his Andaran blood surge at the wanton violence of it.

  Now he was sitting back, calculating, giving orders that would affect the lives of others. Now he knew decisions made wrong here would cost his warriors their lives.

  Father had grilled him and grandfather and their colonels under him on what he wanted, what he expected and what they needed to do, and he’d been emphatic on one point:

  “No matter how much you strategize,” he’d said, “and no matter how thoroughly you think it through, when the battle starts, plan for it not to go as you expected. A real leader isn’t someone who makes a plan and executes it flawlessly. A real leader is someone who picks up the pieces when it all goes to hell, and wins the day anyway.”

  Those words played over and over in Vulpe’s head. Sitting silent next to grandfather, watching Karel peel off a Millennium from his troops, the Fifth under a warrior named Gartheld Daggonin, he had to wonder how the pieces would fall apart, how he’d pick them up, and what he’d look like to the Fovean world if and when he failed.

  * * *

  Karel of Stone rode his pony, Trickery, ahead of ten columns of Eldadorian regulars, marching one hundred deep toward the gates of Volkha. They’d left their support more than five daheeri to their east, not that it mattered. These Volkhydrans were on about their everyday lives as if nothing in the world were wrong. He actually toyed with the idea of taking the city himself.

  There’d been some changes made to the Eldadorian Regulars—something so secret that, outside of the Daff Kanaar, Lupus’ family and those who were actually a part of it, it wasn’t even known.

  Karel would have called that a secret impossible to keep, however he ran their intelligence across Fovea, and no one spoke of Eldadorian Regulars, only Wolf Soldiers—the most feared warriors on the planet.

  Lupus had spoken to him at length about ‘counter intelligence,’ seeding misinformation with information; giving little crumbs of truth to the enemy, and wrapping them in lies, so no one knew what to believe. With that, talk of Eldadorian Regulars performing close order drills and working with dogs was mixed with the idea that they would be disbanded entirely, or brought into the Wolf Soldier fold, or a million other things, likely and unlikely. When the topic of Eldadorian Regulars arose, there came so much else to distract from them that discussing them was pointless.

  These musings were interrupted when the city gates loomed up before him, and the city guard stepped up with shields and pikes.

  No matter how ambivalent the Volkhydrans might seem to be, the city guard still had to challenge such a large force marching up to their gates. Karel called a halt in order to let a wagon pulled by oxen, and a troop of hooded peasants with bundles on their backs, trudge into the city, their heads down as if they didn’t even want to risk looking at these invaders.

  The city guard marched twenty strong from the gate to the common market before it to confront them. Behind them, another wagon, this one drawn by a huge, furry draft horse, trundled out, circled by more peasants with more bundles, their heads also down.

  Karel straightened on his pony, making sure they could see the silver mark of the Daff Kanaar on his breast. Even the bravest gate guard wouldn’t outright shoot someone with that mark.

  “Your business here?” the sergeant inquired of them, as he might any other traveler to the city.

  Karel raised an eyebrow. Major Daggonin, standing next to him, grunted but just kept looking forward.

  “Do you mean these thousand, or the other twenty-four Millennia that have landed on your shores?” Karel asked him.

  The guard looked him in the eye, revealing no humor at the sarcasm, and said nothing. Karel sighed and adjusted in the saddle.

  Behind the city guard, another wagon, pulled by oxen, and another troop of peasants with their heads down exited the city unquestioned. Karel looked to see what was in the wagon, however it was covered.

  As the last one had been, as he recalled.

  The sky was a bright blue—barely a cloud in it. Why bother covering their wares, then?

  For that matter, what wares would farmers be carting from a port city like Volkha.

  Karel turned his head and saw the wagon trail breaking off to the west. To the west lay Conflu. Absolutely no Volkhydran traffic moved by land to Conflu, Karel knew. No one farmed that land—the CNG saw to that.

  Karel looked to the east where another wagon, covered, pulled by oxen and surrounded by hooded peasants baring burdens, approached from the road leading north to the rest of Volkhydro.

  Exactly what one would expect—caravans from Ulef and Hydro approaching the port.

  But then, why not enter through the northern gates?

  “Well?” the sergeant demanded. The Man’s irritation was plain. Behind him, the other guards traded glances and gripped their weapons more tightly, studiously avoiding looking at the caravans running in and out of the city.

  “By Water’s wet ass,” Karel swore, ripping the collapsible bow from his thigh. The bow immediately unfolded and tightened on its string as Karel pulled an arrow from the quiver hanging from his saddle horn.

  The sergeant’s eyes widened in surprise as he ripped out his own sword. Behind him his city watch raised up their shields and lowered their pikes against a charge. Without being told, Major Daggonin called, “To arms!” as the Eldadorian Regulars pulled their own swords and created a shield wall around themselves.

  To every side, the peasants and the carts all stopped, looking on, hesitating.

  Peasants, Karel knew, didn’t hesitate when armored warriors pulled swords. Peasants ran away before they got caught in the middle of it.

  “Got yourself a plan, then, shorty?” the sergean
t sneered at him. “Because I think your thousand just put a foot in it.”

  Karel knew he and his pony were going to be the first casualties in this conflict if he didn’t get himself out of it one way or another. The old gaffer had been right after all—this had looked too good to be true, and it was.

  If he stood his ground, they’d likely attack him. If they retreated then it was definite—they had no reason to let this thousand go be a part of a stronger force when they could trim it off now. If he waited, then nothing good would happen.

  “To the gate!” Karel bellowed, and launched two arrows into the sergeant of the guard. Daggonin immediately called for the charge, the Eldadorian Regulars moving forward with the telltale stomp of troops trained by Rancor Mordetur. Karel wheeled Trickery to his left and kicked him into motion down the ranks of the Eldadorians, arrows striking the ground around him. He turned in the saddle and launched retaliatory fire at what archers he could find. Covers flew from wagons and peasants threw off cloaks and bundles as the city’s daily traffic revealed itself as a mass of Volkhydran warriors, waiting to converge on an overconfident advancing army.

  Karel’s sharp Scitai hearing picked up the drums and battle horns of Eldador—Vulpe had seen what had happened and was already coming to the rescue. It would take more than an hour for them to cover six daheeri, heavily armored as they were.

  Karel shook his head. It would be a miracle if there were anything but bodies to recover here by then.

  * * *

  Jack watched the situation at the gates of Volkha explode, and the single Millennium take up a battle formation.

  “War’s Whiskers!” Vulpe swore. He’d likely picked the curse up from his warriors. “You were right, grandfather!”

  “Wish I hadn’t been,” he said. “You better get your army moving if you don’t want to lose that Millennium and see them close the gate on you.”

  Vulpe sent the order to his colonels, who relayed it to their majors. Faster than Jack could have thought possible, the army lurched forward, their war horns blowing and their feet stomping in unison.