Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Robert Brady

  “Two of what they call ‘Millennia,’ meaning fifty score each,” Xareff informed him.

  The scrawny ‘Duke’ fidgeted on his throne, looking to the two Toorian pirates who stood one to each side of his throne. Both were Xareff’s trusted advisors—more trusted than the Koran Guard and Narem, anyway.

  “Why so many, do you think?” he asked.

  Narem shrugged. “They’ve not come to raid us,” he surmised. “We’ve not done anything to the Emperor except to report on his nanny, and I think he’d hardly raid us for that.”

  Xareff shook his head and looked away. “You don’t know that,” he said. “It’s impossible to know the Emperor’s mind. He’s crazy, he’s just grasping and crazy.”

  Narem couldn’t argue that he didn’t know the Emperor’s mind, however he’d seen crazy men before and they didn’t tend to have empires.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” he commented to the Duke. “I’ve got five hundred men and women—you’ve got another three. I’ll need them to hold the city.”

  “Hold the city?” Xareff exclaimed, standing. “Hold the city? Against that? Against one hundred score Wolf Soldiers? Are you crazy?”

  Xareff thought a lot of people were crazy, Narem noted. What that usually meant was pretty clear.

  “The Koran Guard will defend the city,” Narem informed him. “If you don’t want to stand with us, then you can step down. Others before you have tried. I can tell you the people who live here won’t take it well.”

  Xareff looked to his two Toorians, heavily muscled males with blousy, cloth pants colored purple and bare chests. They both gave the Duke a sideways glance but said nothing. When Narem had been a captain in the Guard, Kraig the Beast had gotten Trenboni attention by slaughtering an Uman-Chi family on their yacht off of the coast of Dorkan, and when they’d come looking for him he’d tried to quit the city. The populace had caught him and presented his body to the invaders as a collection of parts in a wheelbarrow. That had satisfied the Uman-Chi and they’d left.

  There was no way to know if that would work with the Emperor.

  Xareff turned to one of the Toorians. “Are we still following that group with the Hero of Tamara in it?” he asked.

  “We are,” the man said in a deep baritone.

  “Find them,” he said. He turned to Narem, smiling.

  “We’ll see their appetite for a knife in the Emperor’s nanny,” he said.

  * * *

  People were scrambling, collecting what they could, making barricades in front of some buildings and collecting in alleyways and other places that seemed easy or at least easier to defend.

  Jahunga led their mixed band through the streets of Kor to the stables where their horses were kept. From there they’d find a low-point in the broken down walls and leave while the Eldadorians and the Koran pirates fought for the gates.

  “How much time do you think we have?” one of his warriors asked him.

  Jahunga shrugged. One of the Volkhydran sailors chimed in, “The Koran Guard isn’t more ‘n a few hunnert. If there comes two thousand Wolf Soldiers, then they won’t last long.”

  “A warrior behind a wall, even a bad one, can hold off more than his own number of invaders,” Jerod—Karl—said. All of them were looking to him now that they knew who he was. Jahunga had wondered why the Volkhydran insisted he was the hero, fate foretold, but now he understood.

  A hero made by the one they were opposing. Fate may be foretold, but only the worst fate.

  “If they don’t just run,” one of the Toorians, a warrior named Mfassa who’d been Jahunga’s friend for years, said.

  One of the Volkhydrans shook his head. “The Koran Guard’ll fight,” he said. “Some of the pirates, too. More, if the Emp’ror brought a few ships. I know as I’d ruther take my chances on the ground with Wolf Soldiers than at sea with Sea Wolves.”

  Jahunga nodded. He had to agree. Sea Wolves ruled the ocean and everyone feared them.

  “Funny you should mention that,” an Uman voice said from behind them.

  They all turned to see a troop of warriors in various kinds of armor, watching them. They approached from behind as the group moved down a city street, now they were fanned out, thirty of them, most with clubs or rusty swords.

  Jerod stepped out in front of the group, Jahunga stood up next to him, Xinto right behind. Raven kept back among the warriors and Slurn was nowhere to be seen.

  “Doesn’t seem funny to me,” he said.

  The leader of this new group, an Uman in a leather cuirass and mismatched steel greaves, with a sword at his hip and long, white hair, regarded them with flat, brown eyes. “I’m Narem of Kor,” he said. “I’m Commander of the Koran Guard.”

  Jerod nodded. “Not easy to get that job,” he said. “Guess you don’t want me to waste your time any more than you want to waste mine.”

  “No,” the Uman said, smiling. “That would be inconvenient.”

  “We know about the Wolf Soldiers,” Jahunga said. “We did not bring them.”

  “Didn’t say you did,” Narem informed them.

  His warriors had their weapons out. They were Men, Uman, a couple Toorians that Jahunga noticed. All had long, unkempt hair and any of them could use a shave and a bath.

  Jerod sighed. “You want to settle this, you and I, save your warriors to fight the Emperor?”

  “I don’t want to fight you at all,” Narem said. “But Xareff believes the Aschire bitch with you will keep the Emperor from invading us, and if that’s true I mean to have her.”

  Jerod nodded. “Would likely work,” he said. “We left her outside of a building with a green door, in an alley back—”

  Narem barked a laugh. “That’s a Bounty Hunter’s Guild lair,” he said.

  “We know it,” Xinto said.

  “So you know they’ll quit the city, and take her with them,” Narem said. His men were exchanging glances, working up their courage in case they were going to charge.

  “That’s what we plan to do, without the girl,” Jerod said.

  Narem shrugged. “Even if I were going to allow that,” he said, “I think those Wolf Soldiers aren’t going to.”

  “We’re not worried about them,” Jahunga said.

  “Not too awfully worried about you, either,” Jerod added.

  * * *

  Singer pounded out the miles, Lee on her back, her mother and a squad of Wolf Soldiers before her, her brother beside her and Hectaro and another squad of Wolf Soldiers to her rear.

  She loved to ride, loved to feel the mare’s power beneath her. Singer flowed like a river over the well-worn road between Galnesh Eldador and Thera. As her body moved with her mount, her mind sprung free to explore a world so new and fresh to a child.

  Now and again she would look over her shoulder and smile at the handsome Hectaro. She’d imagined him a million times over as her husband, her protector, her hero with a bloody sword, as her father had been for her mother. She’d been raised on stories like the Battle of Tamaran Glen, where Lupus the Conqueror had charged ten thousand Confluni with his horse and his sword, and destroyed them all, to be at his wife’s side.

  Her mother had told her she was a daughter of heroes, of divine instruments, of legends. In her mind, Hectaro’s victories rivaled her fathers as he cast down Swamp Devils and slew dragons while she supported him with her magic.

  Now her mother had what she thought of as the ‘Andaran Look,’ that angry focus her people seemed to have. Like uncle Tali Digatishi when he fought, or her mother when she’d caught Bounty Hunters in the royal palace. When mother wore the Andaran Look, Lee knew that the best thing to do was to keep her whiny brother quiet and be what they considered a ‘good girl.’

  So now as her eyes drifted over the seascape, her mind creating great Sea Wolves packed with sailors, the decks slick with blood and her Hectaro battling a Confluni fleet with a sword in his hand, she had to give a start when one of those ships of Conflu actually sprang out of her fantas
y and into her reality.

  For a moment she wondered if she’d accidentally created a glamour. She’d done it before, when her father had told her of the ‘unicorn,’ a horse with a horn in the middle of its head, which protected virgin girls in their chastity. For a week she’d sworn one was following her around the palace, flowers in its mane, smiling at her, until her mother had reprimanded her for using her magic to such silly ends.

  But no, she couldn’t dispel the image and, in fact, the ship was there, and another on the edge of the horizon behind it.

  “Mother,” she spoke into Shela’s mind, expending her power. Communicating this way when they rode was easier than shouting.

  “Don’t just use your power to be chatty,” Shela admonished her immediately. As soon as she’d learned to do this, she’d haunted Shela’s thoughts at night with idle conversation.

  “Mother, to your right, a Confluni Ship of War.”

  Shela turned to her right and then immediately halted, the rest behind her. Bastard, Hectaro’s mount, stomped and snorted and had to be reined in. Like his sire, he wanted to run, and didn’t want to stop until he was too tired to go on.

  “Hectaro, what is that?” Shela demanded.

  Lee thought that a silly question, as she’d already said what it was.

  “Hush, child,” she heard in her mind.

  Hectaro squinted and put a hand over his eyes to shield them. Lee watched every move. Vulpe immediately imitated him.

  “Confluni Ship of War,” he verified. “Older one, bigger, pre-Empire, I think. Someone important on that. The one behind is newer, small and fast, to get out of the way of our Eldadorian Fire.”

  Shela nodded. She waved her hand before her, and the sky shimmered below the clouds.

  The mirror image was dotted with Confluni ships. Dozens of them, followed by dozens more, all going east.

  “Invasion force?” Hectaro asked her.

  Shela shook her head. “Could be fifty ships, no more than one hundred to a ship—Conflu wouldn’t invade with five thousand. Not after what we’ve done to them with thirty and sixty. They’re going to Galnesh Eldador, but they’re making a point, not invading.”

  “Shame no one’s there,” Hectaro said. “Although we could beat them—”

  Shela shook her head. “Your father is more than able to handle either the defense of the city, or representing it to some Confluni rabble. If not, I can be back in an instant with the Emperor if I have to. There are still three thousand Wolf Soldiers in Galnesh Eldador. Even if they show up with one hundred thousand, the city would hold out for months.”

  “Will you at least warn him, your Imperial Majesty?” Hectaro pressed her. Lee knew he was angling to return home.

  “I already have,” she said. “While wasting time explaining to you. Hectar will put a few dozen Sea Wolves in their way and see what they do about it, and when we camp I’ll find out what happened.”

  Hectaro nodded. Lee saw the disappointment on his face.

  He hadn’t learned to love her yet. He hadn’t realized whom he was for. Nina had told her once that a woman waits for the right man, not because she isn’t sure of herself, but because, like a good horse, a good man is slow to break.

  She smiled to herself as, in her mind, Hectaro stood against the whole fleet of Confluni on the wharves of Galnesh Eldador, the bay around him red with the blood of the fallen, her magic destroying the missiles that the enemies shot at him.

  Slow to break, she thought. Not impossible.

  Chapter Thirty-One:

  Reinventing Yourself

  Dilvesh of the Daff Kanaar, whom Foveans called ‘The Green One’ for the green hook symbol on his breast and his being a Druid, sat a roan stallion from within the assembled squads of Wolf Soldiers he’d brought from Vrek to here.

  He’d done so because Black Lupus’ nanny, Nina, had informed him she’d be here, and that a group of Lupus’ enemies were going to use this place to start plotting against him. Dilvesh had communicated with Shela in the capitol through a magic conduit they called ‘Central Communications,’ and then lead these troops here.

  They’d always planned to take this city—it was a part of their long term plans. If it had become a liability, then there was no reason not to take it now.

  Duke Tartan Stowe sat his own gelding next to him, of his new Angadorian breed. The youngish man, the eldest son of the old King, Glennen, had made a huge success of his duchy and supplied the empire with some of the best horses known on Fovea.

  He supported Dilvesh with a thousand of his Angadorian Knights here, and another 3,500 on the Eldadorian plains.

  Their instructions weren’t just to sack the city; they were to crush it and everyone in it. An important move had begun in Eldador and the lives of a few dissidents didn’t merit jeopardizing it.

  “We could probably drive right in through the gates,” Tartan informed him. “There defenses are nothing. They probably have magic but if we drive in fast enough you’ll have them before they’re fully engaged.”

  Dilvesh nodded. “I agree,” he said, “but I think we’ll go slow.”

  Tartan sighed.

  He was impetuous, this young man. He chaffed under the Emperor’s guidance. Lupus had over-indulged him after his father’s death, spent too much time with him then and not enough later. Tartan now wanted everything as fast as he could get it, and his successes fueled future failures.

  “The Koran Guard defends this city,” Dilvesh informed him patiently. “They’ve done nothing else for hundreds of years. They’ll know nuances to that defense we could never guess at. Xareff, the Duke of Thieves, could afford to shore up these defenses if he wanted to, and hasn’t. I think that makes this very obvious weakness a trap instead.”

  Tartan nodded. The young man wasn’t a total loss, he was simply a challenge. Black Lupus had been right to send him to guide this one.

  “I’ll direct the attack,” Dilvesh said. “Wolf Soldiers will take the gate and the plaza beyond, then reassess. You’re correct in that I can handle what magic they might have.”

  Tartan nodded again. “And I’ll handle the exodus that’s sure to follow the invasion?”

  Dilvesh smiled. “You’ll make sure this exodus isn’t an attack in disguise. It would be very clever of the Koran Guard to put a token resistance here, then hide among the refugees who’ll quit the city, circle back and flank us,” he said.

  Tartan’s eyebrows rose. His mount pawed the ground beneath him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be clever?”

  Dilvesh reined the horse away from the Duke, toward his major. Some Aschire or even Eldadorian Regular bowmen would have been a nice addition to this invasion, but there hadn’t been time to bring any. They were going to face losses in the initial attack on the city.

  But losses are a part of war.

  * * *

  Nina awoke upright, her head lolling, her neck stiff, her jaw already swelling from where that black-haired bitch had struck her.

  It hadn’t taken much effort to contact the garrison at Vrek. She knew who was waiting there, and he was always listening. She’d told him of her dilemma, and who was holding her.

  He’d told her to cooperate. Apparently, she’d done too much.

  Being a nanny had made her soft.

  “She’s awake,” some male said, a Volkhydran by the accent.

  “Good,” another voice, a woman. She knew that voice from somewhere, that jumbled accent. It had been a long time, the memory at the edge of her mind.

  She raised her head, and looked directly into the symbol of the Daff Kanaar, its outline plastered across a red-haired woman’s breast.

  For a moment, she thought she had been rescued. Many of the Daff Kanaar had their personal troops wear their personal mark, in order to delineate them and express their personal power.

  But none of them just wore the outline. Someone had done this to mock them.

  “Someone’s going to rip that right off of you,”
she told the red-haired woman.

  The woman smiled. “I only wish they had,” she said. “It would have made my life a lot easier.”

  Nina looked into this woman’s green eyes. The room around them was dark, dust motes danced in the sunlight peeping in through cracks in the shuttered windows. She saw couches, and Men and Uman on them, and a couple of skinny girls, moving in between.

  They weren’t acting like people in a city, about to be overrun.

  “You don’t remember me, do you, Nina?” the woman asked.

  She did. Now that she mentioned it, Nina remembered those eyes, that hair, this woman in black leather, a warrior of some kind, someone who had come through the Aschire.

  It was all too long ago, too fuzzy. She shook her head. This was too much to wake up into.

  “I was there when a witch and an assassin decided your fate,” she said. “Your father declared that you would have both worlds.”

  She leaned in closer. Now Nina saw the scars at her hairline, on her shoulder and her breast, barely treated but easily recognizable as the work of the Slee. Slurn had attacked her, but not finished the job.

  But now Nina knew who held her. She recognized this dangerous woman, believed dead.

  “Clear Genna,” she said, looking into haunted green eyes.

  “We’re leaving here,” Genna informed her. “The city will fall to the Wolf Soldiers. Already the city’s ‘Koran Guard’ mans the walls, the Duke of Thieves’ warriors are closing the gates, as if that can hold off thousands of the Emperor’s elite troops.

  “But I have a message for you, for him,” she said, and leaned in so close, that Nina could smell her breath. “You tend his children, you have his ear. When you see him, you tell him this right in front of his bitch.”

  “I—I can’t,” Nina stammered.

  “You will,” Genna demanded. She took a hand full of Nina’s purple hair, brought Nina’s lips to hers, kissed her full on the mouth. Nina sputtered, never having been treated like this, never having known a male’s kiss, much less a woman’s.