Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Brady, Robert

  In Andoran, I found horsemen outcast from their tribes and starving. Two Spears had these men developing into a cavalry in no time. In Conflu (from the decks of the Free Legion’s merchant fleet) I found disgraced dockworkers looking for a fresh start. I never left Volkhydro with less than fifty people.

  And all of this time, I skimmed the cream of the crop for my Wolf Soldiers. I wanted more desperate men than Ancenon would have settled for, intelligent and ruthless. More importantly, I wanted people who firmly believed that they had been wronged in some way. I forced myself to wait and grow slowly.

  We had established what we were calling, ‘The road to home,’ a direct path from Thera to the Plains of Angador. I just didn’t have the time to escort all of the men personally and, if they deserted on the trip, then we didn’t want them. I used my influence as an Earl to contract with the hostels and a few of the small villages between Thera and our growing base on the plains, whereby these men could show up with a script from me, and be bedded and fed for a night. By my estimates we lost ten percent of our recruits one way or another on the trip, but the rest really wanted to be there.

  While I recruited our growing army worked for Sental to pay back the Dorkans for the shellacking they had been handed on the plains of Dorkan, and then for the Dorkans to pay the Sentalans back for paying them back. In both campaigns, we raided villages and burned farms – nothing too drastic and certainly nothing to distinguish us. People in high places were still talking about the Sack of Katarran, which the Dorkans didn’t seem to want to rebuild. Eldadorian shipping flourished, which kept Glennen happy.

  Not so, the Fovean High Council. Someone wanted them to set higher standards against mercenaries, and we had to speak in our defense. My attendance had become mandatory after my involvement at Katarran. Because it would be a cold day in Hell before anyone else spoke for the Free Legion, Ancenon and D’gattis came as well.

  They arrived with a personal guard of forty of our Free Legion soldiers, the outlines of questions marks turned upside down on their shoulders. These were troops under Genna and, of course, Genna came to lead them.

  We met outside of the coliseum where the Fovean High Council met. The same greasy Uman attended us. Our forty assembled in two columns, one on either side of the entrance, both as a traditional honor guard and as a reminder that we weren’t here to be arrested.

  “Our gelding,” Genna greeted me. As usual, I dressed in my armor. Blizzard had remained in Thera so I walked the distance to the coliseum. Shela had come with me, of course, and clung to my armored bicep.

  “You tread a fine line, Genna,” Shela warned her.

  “I walk where I please,” said Genna, obviously looking for a confrontation and, as usual, not caring who heard it.

  “A show of unity now is extremely important,” Ancenon warned us. “If you have some issue with Lupus, then I recommend you contain it.”

  “Oh, the white horse and I get along just fine,” Genna assured him. “Little enough I can do to remind him.”

  “Shall it be Lupus who speaks for us?” D’gattis asked, placing a shoulder between Genna and myself. I never felt more grateful for his doubting my abilities.

  “That is the request of the High Council,” Ancenon said. “Not that we cannot also speak in turn, merely that he must do so.”

  D’gattis nodded, Shela leaned against me, making a show of kissing my ear.

  “Cancel your plans for the afternoon and evening,” she whispered. I bit my lip to keep from grinning.

  “I just can’t see enough of that,” Genna commented happily.

  The greasy Uman major domo appeared in a breeze of rotting teeth. “You are called,” he announced, as solemnly as he could.

  In we went, as I had before, in front of Volkhydrans, Sentalans, Toorians, Confluni, Trenboni, Andarans and Eldadorians. This time there were three Dwarves, none of whom I recognized. I stepped up to the podium as I had before, not alone but with Ancenon beside me. D’gattis, with Genna and Shela on either side of him, sat in the viewing bleachers.

  Had I expected banter before the attack, I would have been disappointed. A Dorkan Wizard stood immediately, his head shaved, his white robes open to a generous belly. His seemed almost satanic with drooping moustaches.

  He asked me, “Earl of Thera, did you not stand right where you stand now, less than a year ago, and accuse the Dorkan nation of an attack on the Great Dwarven Nation.”

  “Sir,” I said, having been informed by Ancenon how to properly address the Council, “I did so.”

  “And Earl of Thera, was there not an attack on my Dorkan nation by the combined Fovean nation, in retribution?”

  “And for their actions against the royal houses of Trenbon, Sir, yes there were.”

  “Please just answer the questions put to you, Earl of Thera. Were you present at the Siege of Katarran?”

  “Sir, I was.”

  “In what capacity?”

  Ancenon stepped up to speak for me. No one wondered where this would end up. I didn’t like it, although I had anticipated it.

  “As a member of the Free Legion, Lupus, not then Earl of Thera, fought as a mercenary at Katarran.”

  The royal presence of Prince Ancenon didn’t faze the Dorkan. “If he has lost his capacity for speech, perhaps we need continue at a later date?” he asked.

  Chagrined but bound by the rules of the High Council, Ancenon stepped back. He could advise me, but I had been called and, at this stage of the questioning, I had to speak.

  “Sir, I did fight in that battle,” I said.

  “For pay?” he asked me.

  “Sir, I most certainly did.”

  “And was the city sacked?” he asked me.

  “Sir, it was.”

  “And did you participate in the sack?”

  “The Free Legion did, and I was a party to it.”

  “And what was done with the booty from that sack?”

  I had been waiting for this question. There had to be a truth seer out there somewhere. If I lied they had me. But I could tell as much truth as I wanted to, and I could ask questions.

  “Sir, do you refer to the Free Legion returning a portion of the Katarran treasury to the Dorkan commander Harem?”

  The Dorkan blinked.

  “Your question again, Earl of Thera?” he asked.

  I didn’t smile, I didn’t frown, but I exercised my right and repeated my question, referring to an incident that had legitimately happened.

  “Sir, please clarify, do you refer to the Free Legion returning a portion of Katarran’s treasury to the city watch commander Harem?”

  Now a Volkhydran stood. “Point of order! Earl of Thera, is it your testimony that you sacked Thera and then gave your plunder back?”

  “The plunder belonged to the Dorkan people,” I said. “We made this point to Harem of Katarran. We were not hired to sack Katarran.”

  A Trenboni Councilman stood and announced, almost gleefully, “Confirmed.”

  There was nothing wrong with having a Prince in the Free Legion.

  Another Dorkan also stood, and grudgingly gave his confirmation of my not lying.

  I didn’t smile, and I didn’t frown. Behind me Ancenon stood with his ambiguous eyes. Drekk has saved us on a whim so long as they didn’t smell a rat and dig deeper.

  Doing that would be a risk for the Dorkans. They didn’t want to drive the point that these so-called mercenaries didn’t sack the city and actually gave the treasury back any deeper. They were here to prove we were a menace, most likely also to demand retribution, which would be damn hard to do if they had already gotten it.

  They asked of our future plans. We answered that we knew nothing definite. They asked about whether we killed for money. I exercised my right to question and asked if the esteemed Councilman knew what a mercenary did.

  Having stepped in the bear trap once left him timid to go for it again. We had expected strong attacks from the Volkhydrans, however Ancenon would demand his right to
cross-question and, if we had sacked Katarran and returned the plunder, then the Volkhydrans didn’t want that same question asked of them.

  At the end of the meeting, after a series of dazzlingly boring speeches for and against mercenary armies by Ancenon, D’gattis and several Councilmen, the Council decided that no law prevented hiring mercenaries and any such law would be unenforceable. Mercenaries, by their nature, were not of any nation, and then no one nation could be accountable for their actions.

  The Fovean Council’s critical weakness: it could act against nations, but not individuals.

  We left together. My feet hurt and my sweat soaked the padding for my armor. Shela showered me in kisses as soon as we cleared the coliseum.

  “Well done, White Wolf,” she said.

  “I must say, I am not as disappointed as I thought I would be,” D’gattis said.

  “Oh, cousin,” Ancenon said, as we walked back to the Trenboni palace. “The Man had instructions and he followed them just as we told him to. Can you at least acknowledge that he did it well?”

  “I don’t know which of you is worse,” I said.

  “I like to think of them both as worse in their own way,” Shela said, grinning as she clung to my upper arm.

  “Well, I for one thought that you did a blue ribbon job,” Genna said, her smile painted on. “Top stud, Lupus.”

  That bugged me a lot, probably because she meant it to. What I deserved for a kind moment, I suppose.

  And not a mistake I would let happen again.

  “You will be recruiting in Trenbon, Earl Mordetur?” Ancenon asked me, changing the subject.

  I shook my head. “No, your Highness,” I said, seeing as he insisted on calling me Earl. “Your subjects are too happy to be successful here. I am thinking I will go back to Thera.”

  “More building?” D’gattis asked me.

  “I had hoped to entertain on the first of Chaos, if you would be kind enough to attend?” I said.

  The two Uman-Chi looked at each other, then at me. Ancenon pushed out his lower lip. “I can see nothing stopping me. The entire Free Legion, then?”

  “Please,” I said. “And as many of the Eldadorian peers as I can gather. I am a newly-appointed Earl, and it is a good opportunity to demonstrate the Free Legion’s might.”

  “All tails braided for parade, then?” Genna asked. “Look our best for show?”

  Shela put her fingers lightly on Genna’s forearm. “You will be attending, I hope,” she said.

  Genna smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it,” she said.

  Shela nodded. “I will make sure there are clean sheets on all of the cots in the barracks, then,” she said.

  Ouch. Ancenon actually stumbled. D’gattis seemed interested in some passing insect, biting his lower lip as he looked away.

  We left Trenbon soon after.

  By the first day of Chaos, and my one-year anniversary here, I had fifteen hundred Wolf Soldiers, and the Free Legion army had swelled to more than five thousand.

  As promised, on the same day, the Free Legion came north to a celebration of my Earldom and of the announcement of Shela’s pregnancy. She was due sometime in the month of Power. We’d known in Trenbon but waited for now to announce it formally. I invited every member of the Eldadorian nobility and some actually announced their intention to attend. On the same day any Theran who came to the manor would receive free bread and wine. No one had ever done that before – I myself sort of remembered reading about it in a book. Supposedly my “subjects” called me Rancor the Just anyway, but why not cultivate that image? If they liked it here, they might not cheat on their taxes.

  My ballroom had been floored in red-veined marble, imported from Volkhydro. Pillars carved to resemble rearing horses, to honor my future family’s Andoran heritage, supported the white arched ceiling. The Dwarves had carved them by hand for me at my request. It cost a lot but they meant a lot to Shela, and she had named them all. The Dwarves had stayed to oversee some of the other construction and to share some of their knowledge with the Eldadorian masons, who were glad of it. When they left, I had a home that stayed cool in the summer and warm in the winter – don’t ask me how they pulled it off because I only live there.

  I had commissioned Uman artists to paint murals on the walls, and Confluni tapestries to hang as drapes at the real glass windows. Clear glass seemed extravagant but I could afford it and I wanted it. Most places had no windows or shuttered them, but I liked to see the sun.

  Another introduction of mine to the culture was the skylight. I’d placed a huge one in the ballroom that let the sun or the moon in. The Dwarves had marveled at the idea and adopted it for me, creating a beautiful portal to the sky. As a night affair, the moon added nicely to the normal lighting.

  Glennen saw the place and accused me on the spot of not paying my full tithe for Thera. I laughed and handed him my books, and offered to send for a Wizard to cast a truth saying. Rennin saw me upon entering the estate and stopped dead in his tracks, his woman staring with wide eyes at the ballroom. He chuckled finally and extended his paw of a hand, walking across the ballroom and swearing at me. I took his wrist in my hand and he vowed that, if it cost him more than three months’ profit from Steel City to have to remodel his home like mine, then our cities would be at war. Glennen of course commented that the sack would likely pay for itself, and another noble, a Baron from Elephos, warned that he had better be quick, because after this display every noble on Fovea would be on his way to sack Thera.

  I had plans to dissuade that.

  The Free Legion arrived a day early to pre-inspect the place. Thorn immediately picked the estate apart and D’gattis called it gaudy. Ancenon assured me that I fit right in with other Men, which I took merely as a veiled insult, and Nantar introduced me to his wife as “the member who you can come visit any time you want.” Drekk immediately wanted to redesign the security for the building and I let him – and learned a lot from him in the process. There were wards for windows that were simple to maintain and yet hard to bypass. I moved the wealth I kept here from a central room to several concealed places throughout the house and he showed me where I had been robbed at least once already. He left me astounded and grateful.

  Genna made no comments at all, and seemed to be avoiding me. I think that Ancenon or D’gattis had finally spoken seriously to her. I felt good about that - at the first horse-comment, Shela had planned to have one Wolf Soldier report to her “for duty” every fifteen minutes of her stay here, day and night, until she left.

  Then came the inspection of my Wolf Soldiers. I had paid good gold to hire Volkhydran and Confluni drill instructors, and Two Spears trained the light horse, of which I had two hundred. Two Spears had become my blood brother (which is a very serious commitment for his people) and I had shared with him the secret of lancers. When they were competent, half of my light horse would be retrained as heavy horse, with barding and lances.

  The Wolf Soldiers bore the Wolf’s Head insignia that Shela had created to mark my House, a black outline of a wolf’s head, looking dead on, with red eyes and two fangs. My warriors, men and women, wore this on their shields and their breasts. Each also wore a question mark, in black, turned upside down, on their right shoulder. I could almost hear Ancenon’s blood run cold when he saw them.

  “You recruited your own men?” Arath asked, incredulous.

  “Yep,” I said. “I used my own money to do it, from my gambling interests, taken from raids, and the profit from Thera. I train them, and I maintain them.”

  “Why?” Nantar asked. His wife, Thorn’s and mine were off in the garden Shela maintained by herself. I think she thought it made her nobler somehow – and she swore that horse manure, not cow manure, made her vegetables sweeter. Choke down a tomato during that argument, if you can!

  “To have them,” I said, “and because I have a different perspective than Ancenon on how we should be recruiting.”

  “The Katarran argument,” Ancenon said.
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br />   “Exactly,” I agreed.

  Ancenon smiled, his ambiguous eyes twinkling. “Then these are those whom I said would never be a part of the Free Legion army?”

  “Again,” I said, “exactly.”

  “Then you have cost us nothing, in fact,” D’gattis concluded.

  “Less than nothing,” I said. “I saved you any chance of appearing elitist by rejecting good men. The ones not fit for the Free Legion are happy with me, and I am happy to have them.”

  That should about pay him back for insulting my tastes, I thought.

  All nodded. “I don’t suppose you would be interested in some mock warfare, then?” Arath ventured. He had taken over as the ultimate general of our troops. In fact, he did have a military mind, and had been reading a great deal of respected literature on the subject.

  “How many soldiers did you bring?” I asked.

  “Four thousand foot,” Thorn said, grinning to himself. “We have a contract to end Confluni raids in Volkhydro.”

  “That should be fair – I have a staging ready for you to the south.”

  “You are taking us all on,” Nantar said.

  I shrugged. “Good practice for both.”

  The idea of being sacked after the nobles left really didn’t worry me. They’d been invited to the display tomorrow. After that, I thought we’d be pretty safe.

  The Uman musicians had been recommended for their talent and played light and airy music. Several couples danced, more similar to modern Earth dancing than the ancient styles I’d expected. I pressed flesh with Eldadorian peers from all of the major and minor cities. Shela stood radiant in a white gown that accentuated her swelling stomach. I’d forbidden her to drink during the pregnancy, which she thought ridiculous, but she obeyed me. I didn’t drink either, to make life easier for her.