Indomitus Sum (The Fovean Chronicles Book 4)

by Robert Brady

  “You should be able to bring merchants and peasant workers in before month’s end,” Kvitch added. “We’ll leave then. Your walls will be strong enough for a good fight, and your streets will be smooth and straight. I advise you to let people build their homes and businesses as they would.”

  One of the Dorkan wizards raised a hand, white with power.

  Nantar didn’t react—D’gattis, however, on the wall behind him, did. Lightening descended from a clear blue sky and struck down both Dorkan Wizards.

  The Dorkan infantry scattered. Nantar ran them down.

  ‘Third time that has happened—you’d think they’d learn?’ Arath pondered.

  “Probably a good idea,” Arath agreed, turning from the tower’s open window.

  * * *

  Before the advent of the Fovean High Council, most of the fighting going on along Tren Bay had occurred in or because of Volkhydro, and so it made sense for the place where peace might be parleyed for to be built there, as well.

  That city had become the unwalled ruin called ‘Medya.’ It had been constructed more for meeting than for living, with wide barracks and a coliseum, staging areas and low-slung establishments that could be renovated quickly for visiting dignitaries.

  Vacant for almost one hundred years, it now housed rats and peasants and a few herd of cattle. Believing the government no longer had an interest in it, regular Volkhydrans, especially those who didn’t want to live in the shrinking cities and wandering tribes to the north, had relocated to this place under their own autonomy.

  “I didn’t even know this place still existed,” Karl admitted, still on the back of this Eldadorian warhorse. Around him clustered the Santalan, Andaran, Dorkan and Confluni leaders, as well as Glynn, Zarshar and Raven.

  “How can simple peasants manage themselves without nobles?” Glynn insisted. Raven shot her a look but said nothing. “They should be at each other’s throats.”

  “They’ve been fighting someone,” old Ulminar from Sental pointed out, a stick-finger with a long nail pointing to the northern edge of an outlying mansion. “See where someone tried to break in through there and was turned?”

  Karl saw the scarred walls and nodded. Low-grade magic and the footprints of soldiers wearing cleats told him everything he needed to know.

  The Uman-Chi already had Sentalans building them a palisade. Angron didn’t need to be told what would soon happen here.

  As the sun beat down on them in the middle of the month of Chaos, Karl squinted north toward the hills. He couldn’t see them, but he had no doubt someone would be watching him from there.

  Somewhere to the north, Vulpe Mordetur or troops sent by him would be waiting to meet them, not in the city but on the plains, in a one-to-one fight they believed they could win easily.

  “Geeguh,” Karl said, without looking to find him, “send ten squads of warriors into the city to see what the locals can tell us. Krendell, pick one of your junior Dorkan wizards to go with them—I need someone who can talk to them and report back to us right away.”

  Krendell sat a destrier of his own, a big, shaggy beast more like a draft horse than a charger. His purple robe draped across his giant paunch, hanging from his forearms with dagged sleeves. Sweat dotted his shaven head—his earrings and gold chains glinted in the bright sun.

  “Why not send in one of your own Volkhydrans?” he demanded. “Surely you’ve an Earl or something—”

  “They’d as like attack another Volkhydran,” old Ulminar pointed out. “This city isn’t supposed to be here. They’re more afraid of their kinsmen than they are of you, especially if they’ve been attacked already.”

  Krendell nodded. He put a finger to his temple and made an expression of some great effort—more likely for effect than any pain it caused him—and quickly stopped and informed them, “It is done.”

  Karl nodded. He looked to the north. He would have liked a smoke trail, a dust cloud, perhaps to see a scout on top of a hill, but he had no such luck. Whoever watched him, if any did, they were good at it.

  Karl wasn’t sure what he would do if his enemy had bypassed Medya and were on their way to Hydro. They could have passed south of the advancing Eldadorians, and then he might lose two cities, both vital ports, rather than one.

  That would not sit well with his people, his allies or the Fovean High Council.

  * * *

  Vulpe watched the Andarans enter the city of Medya from the relative safety of a cluster of hills to that city’s north, mounted on Marauder.

  Seated behind him, Nina observed, “You were right—they’re scouting the city before they come too close.”

  Grandfather nodded from Little Storm. “Karl’s no fool,” he said. “I don’t know who’s running their army, but Karl wouldn’t let them just march into the city. This is his nation—they’re listening to him now.”

  “More than listening to him,” Karel of Stone pointed out. He sat his pony with his wrists across the saddle horn. “Look at that formation—he hasn’t just got them working together, he’s got them in squads, and those Andarans have lances.”

  “The Emperor warned as much,” Nina commented. Her voice was strained. She was making them appear to be an outcrop of trees on the top of a hill, or something like it.

  Vulpe’s army included four colonels—two of them were here. As well, Drun the Wolf Soldier, who’d been with him since he’d come to man, stood as he ever did at his side. He didn’t go one hundred feet that Drun didn’t find him.

  Vulpe nodded. He’d questioned why they’d come here with no cavalry to face some of the toughest warriors in the world; especially considering they knew Uman-Chi were involved, and that meant every nation on Fovea was involved.

  Now he knew better. According to his spies this army included over 50,000, with Andarans and Uman-Chi support.

  He had twenty thousand Eldadorian Regulars. He’d left a little less than five to hold the city. At odds like this, no one would expect Wolf Soldiers to prevail—not against similarly trained warriors.

  He’d been reinforced by ship two nights before. He’d expected warriors—he didn’t receive them. He’d expected horse—he didn’t get that either. Crates and crates of spears, and his father’s special forces, never tested in battle. An experiment no one believed in, Vulpe included.

  He’d expected the Emperor and hadn’t seen him, either. His father had told him what he wanted, he expected his son to do it.

  Vulpe smiled. Well—that was the point, now, wasn’t it?

  * * *

  North of Vulpe, a Volkhhydran farmer and his children, three strong boys, tilled their field. They grew corn—this was good soil for it. His father’s father had started a farm here, and his father had grown it.

  They’d seen a lot of things change in Volkhydro. There’s come the peace, before which his grandfather had sold his goods to the armies that were always marching out to fight someone else’s battles. They’d seen the coming of the new wars, when they did the same thing again. They’d seen the Empire grow and so many Volkhydrans leave here for promises of a new nation, but the farmer hadn’t joined them.

  He had a good life here. Strong sons and brothers, beautiful sisters and a wife who loved him. In this part of Volkhydro there weren’t a lot of people who called themselves ‘nobles,’ so it was rare anyone ever came by to collect taxes.

  So it was a real shock for him and his children to see a cloud of dust rise up from the hills to their northeast, then to hear the clatter of hooves carried on the wind. It wasn’t long before they saw the forerunners of an army coming their way.

  He sighed. The horses always came first, then the marching warriors. They’d heard from a passing merchant there were armies moving to their south. The farmer didn’t care much about that—so long as the fighting stayed there, and it like would. Warriors fought for cities, not farms.

  “Tell your mother,” the farmer said to his youngest boy. “That troops ‘r comin’. Get the dogs inside so as they don’
t bark at the horses.”

  He turned to the other boy. “Harvest what’s near ready,” he said. He knew a hungry army would raid him—he might as well get what he could. He himself would go move the aurochs to a gulley he knew of.

  He sighed. He’d been through this before, he would again. Moments after his son ran in the house, his two sisters ran out in the direction of their nearest neighbor.

  Word would pass—people would batten down. When it passed they’d get on with their lives.

  These things happened.

  * * *

  Tartan Stowe entered the gates of Galnesh Eldador with one thousand knights, not to any cheering crowd as might the Emperor, but to dozens of confused looks and a few guards sprinting off in the direction of the palace.

  He didn’t do anything to stop them. He’d sent heralds a day before. He wanted the Princess to know he had come.

  None of his knights spoke as he trotted down the main way. His eyes scanned the crowd for the Wolf Soldier escort he knew would soon surround him. J’her had been responsible for the security of Galnesh Eldador for over a decade, and he hadn’t kept that post by letting armies wander the streets of the capitol.

  He’d traveled barely more than a daheer when he saw the Supreme Commander of the Wolf Soldier pack, seated on a gelding in the center of the main way, no less than fifty squads marshaled behind him.

  “Your Grace,” he said, as Tartan approached him, making a fist over his heart.

  “Your Excellence, Supreme Commander,” Tartan responded, and returned his salute.

  “You are welcome here,” J’her informed him. Tartan had a hard time believing it with so many elite troops arrayed in front of him. “Shall I escort you personally to the Princess, and offer your tired warriors the comfort of the barracks?”

  Separating him from his warriors, and putting them outside of the palace gates, with him inside, Tartan thought to himself. He’d seen the Emperor do the same thing, but only with the warriors of those whom he didn’t fully trust.

  These were not good times.

  “I am honored,” he said.

  “My warriors will escort yours,” J’her said. “Of course, the Princess craves your wisdom as soon as she can receive it.”

  “I will help her in whatever way I can,” Tartan promised. “I must also see his Grace, Duke Hectar. I would not presume to enter his city and not acknowledge him.”

  J’her nodded. “As soon as is expedient,” he promised.

  “Immediately, I think,” Tartan said.

  Tartan knew J’her—one of Lupus’ most trusted Wolf Soldiers. When Lee had been a suckling infant, J’her had been one of those who stormed Outpost IX on the idea that they meant to capture Lupus’ family. Now J’her could be relied upon to protect Lee from any threat, real or perceived. Coming here with his warriors, Tartan must have struck him as such a threat.

  But J’her knew Lupus’ business better than most Wolf Soldiers, as well, and a part of that had to be that Lupus the Conqueror needed the support of his Dukes right now, to keep the homeland safe while he expanded. A warrior would want to keep important men apart, to keep them from plotting or planning outside of the Emperor’s designs.

  A politician would realize the Dukes would do it anyway, and it was better to be in on those plans than the reason for them.

  J’her nodded again, his Uman features set in the stern look of a soldier. “Of course, your Grace,” he said. “I am at your service.”

  Tartan nodded to his lead knight, Lieutenant Radmon Rukh. “Go with them,” he said. “Care for the horses and the men.”

  The knight nodded. All but 100 of the Wolf Soldiers peeled off smartly from the main, marching through the street with the Angadorian Knights behind them.

  “His Grace, Hectar, is in his personal residence, just outside the palace gates, if you will accompany me,” J’her informed him, lowering his head and sweeping his hand before him from his saddle. He straightened his back with a grin.

  Tartan grinned back and shook his head, reining his horse in beside J’her’s. “When your herald arrived, we were all surprised,” J’her informed him. “You aren’t supposed to be here, you know.”

  Tartan nodded. “I’d heard rumors of strange things in the capitol,” he said. “Hectar and Lee were at each others’ throats, then court barons had spread out into the earldoms as advisors.”

  Tartan grinned a wide grin. “A plan concocted by the Princess and Hectaro, Hectar’s son,” he said. “I didn’t approve of it at first. Earls were petitioning for the right to raise levies, and seeking gold from the empire to finance them.”

  Tartan felt his forehead furrow. “They usually only want to raise levies when they plan to pillage each other,” he said. That rarely happened under Lupus’ rein. Under his own father, Tartan knew it to be more common.

  “The Battle of the Vice and the invasion leading up to it was an expensive win for the farmers whose land it was fought on, and whose farms the enemy was chased through,” J’her said. “The Emperor called that part of Fovea the ‘bread basket’ of Eldador.”

  Tartan shook his head. “Sounds like something he’d say.”

  J’her shrugged. “Court barons in the earldoms have the earls wondering if perhaps Lee is thinking of renaming some titles,” J’her said. “She keeps them worrying about other things rather than coming begging for money.”

  Tartan smiled as they rounded a corner tower in the palace’s outer wall and found themselves at the walled villa where House Gelgelden resided.

  Where the walls in Galnesh Eldador were close-cut gray stone, the outer walls of the Gelgelden villa were sandstone, ochre in color. Where most walls had towers, the villa relied on platforms set behind the walls. Where almost any wall had gates, the villa sported an arch with a portcullis, no more.

  Wolf Soldiers guarded the entrance. Tartan would have expected Eldadorian Regulars; however they might all be otherwise involved.

  Both the Duke and the Supreme Commander dismounted, handing their reins to waiting Wolf Soldiers. J’her nodded to the gate guards and passed through without question. Their escort waited outside of the gate. Just within the portcullis lay a circular garden with a fountain at its center. The ground had been paved in brickwork rather than cobblestones, and white marble benches sat back among the plants that bloomed red and blue and violet around them.

  Hectar Gelgelden sat on one of these benches, watching the humming birds that congregated around his blooms.

  “Your Grace,” Hectar said, without standing or even diverting his attention. “Your Excellence, Supreme Commander.”

  Tartan nodded and crossed the garden to the bench where Hectar sat. The older Man wore a green, crushed velvet doublet and hose, a rapier at his hip, and short riding boots. His long hair hung gray around his shoulders.

  Hectar didn’t acknowledge him, even then. J’her hung back as protocol demanded. Tartan ignored the Supreme Commander and focused on his brother Duke.

  He sat, and waited for a few moments for Hectar to make his move. When that didn’t happen, he cleared his throat and asked, “Is your son well?”

  Hectaro snorted and smiled a bitter smile. “He serves among the Wolf Soldiers,” he said. “I’m told it improves his fortunes.”

  Tartan frowned. “The Wolf Soldiers are the most respected—” he began.

  Hectar turned and slammed his hand down on his thigh. “Name me a Duke, an Earl, even a Baron who served among them,” he demanded.

  Tartan straightened. “Me,” he said, simply.

  Hectar looked him in the eye. “You never wore the tabard, slept among them, stood a watch,” he said.

  Tartan frowned. He said. “I marched among them, held a sword with them, trained with them and stood their watches. I’d have worn the tabard and been proud.”

  Hectar looked away and was quiet for a long moment.

  “In fact,” J’her said, grinning, “you stood more than one watch on the plains of Andoron.”

&nb
sp; Both Dukes grinned to themselves, for different reasons.

  “When your father ruled,” he said finally, quietly, “I all but ran his kingdom. I never aspired to the role of Heir, but always assumed it would be yours or mine.

  “When Lupus rode in on his white charger,” he continued, “with a way to make money from less, and a way to win battles with few, your father named him, and I was glad, because I saw a Man who controlled himself well, and who brought more power to Eldador.”

  “Father always loved you,” Tartan informed him, “but he saw himself in Rancor Mordetur, and Lupus’ victories as his own.”

  “Which I accepted,” Hectar said, “until it became clear Lupus meant to run his own empire, his own way, and we who had served so long, and so well, were relegated to the role of vassals.”

  “Such as with your son,” Tartan pressed him.

  Hectar looked away.

  “You’ve set your aspirations for your son,” Tartan said, “and made no secret of it. The Princess adores him; he might then be marked as—”

  “Vulpe commands the Eldadorian Regulars,” Hectar interrupted him, and stood, walking to the fountain. Tartan followed him.

  “He has the capitol of Volkhydro to his name,” Hectar said, without turning. Tartan realized he was talking to J’her now. “He’s pressing east, and will take Medya next, and then Hydro.

  “Three cities before he’s thirteen years of age—who do you think Lupus the Conqueror is grooming as his Heir?”

  J’her’s eyes shifted between Tartan’s and Hectar’s, before he responded.

  “Your Grace,” he said, “if you want my honest opinion?”

  “Always.”

  He looked down, and sighed, and looked back up.

  “I’ve seen Lupus the Conqueror wade into a Confluni army at the Battle of Tamaran Glen, and stand alone with nothing but his horse and his sword at the Second Invasion of Thera. I’ve seen him risk all when another man would have considered himself lucky to flee, and emerge stronger.

  “Frankly, your Graces,” he said, “I expect he’ll outlive us all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two