Wrath of the Greimere

by Case C. Capehart

  Raegith shook his head, but did not argue with the Naga. “There are still aspects that need worked out, but I expect to have you leaving Talongrad within a week. Now get back to the celebration. I have a lot more work to do before my night ends.”

  …

  “The World’s Edge?” Nero asked, abandoning the grape en route to his mouth in order to clarify the High Paladin’s instruction. “That’s no longer our territory on either side of the Pisces.”

  “And you have proven yourself skilled at operating behind enemy lines.” Andronicus busied himself cleaning up the food from lunch as he talked. “Hermesium is an extremely precious mineral, Nero. Do you know why?”

  “It makes Twileen steel.” Nero learned this information from one of the scouts in the 8th. The scout noticed the way Nero stared at the brilliant blade of his hunting knife while in the field and told him about the fantastic steel and what made the minute turquoise and indigo crosshatching when the metal caught the sunlight. It looked like something transcending this world. He claimed it had been in his family for more than 300 years.

  “Exactly. The most elegant, resilient metal in all the land is an alloy that can be mixed and formed by only seven living Master Artisans.” Andronicus held up the knife he had used for the bread and looked at Nero. “This bread knife, which was used by the Caelum family, is made of silver and cost more to make than all of your armor. And just like this ludicrously fine cutlery, the Twileen steel available to us is wasted on the wrong people because the only Citizens who can afford it will never see a battlefield in their lifetime.”

  “I don’t understand how this ties to the World’s Edge Mountains.” Nero felt embarrassed that he could not mentally keep up with the High Paladin.

  “Forgive me, I’m getting ahead of myself and into specifics that are beyond a Light Hand.” Andronicus placed the knife on the table and sat down across from him, interlocking his fingers before him. “I’ll keep this simple, because I know you don’t need the full story to follow orders. The Faeir have been mining Hermesium in a secret mine just below the Pisces River. They likely intended only to control the market, but now that they’ve broken with Rellizbix and are no longer bound by the Artisan Decrees, they will no doubt try to emulate Twileen steel.”

  Andronicus stared directly at Nero, making his pulse quicken. “I want that mine, Nero.”

  “I lead a squad, High Paladin...” Nero began.

  Andronicus held up his hand, silencing the young Paladin. “First, stop selling yourself short. You can do anything with the power of the Fates. Second, you are merely the advance force. I need you to disrupt operations within the mine and establish a forward observation base in preparation for the larger occupation force.”

  “I think I understand,” Nero replied with a nod.

  “This isn’t your full briefing, of course, so don’t panic about the lack of information. Judge Leyhea will be spearheading this operation. However…” Andronicus walked to a side table and picked up a package wrapped in canvas with a golden tie. “You will be leading a larger contingent than just your squad.”

  Pulling the tie, the High Paladin pulled free a Paladin’s hammer much like Nero’s but with a buffed steel medallion stamped into the head in place of the copper symbol of the Light Hand. “For this operation, you will need to be more than a Light Hand, Nero.”

  Nero turned and dropped to a knee without hesitation. With his head bowed and both hands lifted, just as he had done for his first hammer, Nero accepted the new weapon and symbol of his order.

  “You came to us a broken thing; a soldier ravaged by guilt and regret. Your faith had weakened and along with it, your soul. ‘They celebrate me for my failure and I cannot live with it,’ you confessed to me, and I bid you to serve.” Andronicus placed the hammer in his outstretched hands. “You have entered the gauntlet and emerged clean on the other side; no longer broken, but now a mighty force of the Fates. Instead of withering away, you bring justice to the land. Never forget why you sought the Fates and what has become of you after.

  “Arise, Arbiter Octavius Nero.”

  Nero rose with reddened eyes and stood at attention before the High Paladin, the Arbiter’s Hammer held firmly in his right hand.

  Andronicus gripped him by the shoulders and nodded. “Go now. Judge Leyhea waits for you outside. You depart as soon as you are able. Unless you feel you need more time...”

  “I am ready now, High Paladin.” The words came out in a croak, but Nero did not care. The memories of his dead comrades danced through his mind, the wound fresh and seeping, as the High Paladin bestowed the promotion on him. Once that memory had caused him despair, but now he felt solidly on the path to redemption. The path would end with him standing tall before his brothers from Delta Company.”

  Chapter 41

  “Are you insane, Chev’El? You haven’t told him yet?” Ariadne shut the door of her clinic and turned to where the Twileen girl sat with her tunic pulled up to her breast. Her stomach, once flat and toned, now had a slight, convex roundness to it and her barely raised breasts began to bulge. “You cannot hide this for much longer.”

  “I know that,” the Twileen hissed, scowling at her. “It’s not so easy, you know. I’m… scared.”

  Ariadne crossed her arms and looked to the side with a sigh. “Scared of whom? Grass-Hair? He might be excited about this, you know. There isn’t anyone among his ranks who could even bare his children.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Chev’El replied. “It’s not Grass-Hair I’m worried about; it’s Helkree. She’ll think I’ve done this to rise above her somehow. And Fenra? She’s likely to tear me to shreds with her teeth when she finds out I’m about to give him something she never could.”

  “You are Greimere, Chev’El, just as I am. You made that clear years ago.”

  “You know that’s not completely true, though.” Chev’El leaned forward on the table. “You and I have never shed Rellizbix blood for the Greimere. We still get looks of distrust when we’re out on our own among the people. Fenra and Helkree waited on a mountain top for five years without ever giving up on Grass-Hair’s return. You and I got spared out of luck and then converted. We’re not the same.”

  “What do you want me to tell you, Chev’El?” Ariadne peaked out the exam room door, double-checking for any patients she may have forgotten. “Did I see myself ending up like this when I joined the army? Of course not. Do I feel at home here like I would high in the mountains of my homeland? No. But I am Greimere and even if I were given the opportunity to go home, how could I? Back home, I am nothing special; one healer among thousands. Here I am irreplaceable. I save lives and bring babies into a world of safety and freedom their parents never knew until they fought for it.

  “Knowing what I know now…” Ariadne paused and took a deep breath, thinking about the idea of returning to Rellizbix. “…I can’t go back to a people who enslave members of our own race and participate in the exploitation of an entire country. I would face execution here before returning to that.”

  “Execution?” Chev’El glanced down at her belly.

  Ariadne flushed and she jolted forward to take the poor girl’s hand. “Elements, that was a poor choice of words. Please, Chev’El, don’t mind me. I’m certain everything will be fine and your concerns about Helkree and Fenra are in vain. You need to tell him though before he finds out on his own.”

  …

  Raegith sat the table in his war room looking over the map and thinking about how vulnerable it made him feel. Most of his soldiers who weren’t pregnant or nursing were spread out over his territory governing the assortment of groups he had conquered and brought into his empire. They would stay there until his disciples were finished training and the townships had demonstrated their loyalty well enough to be trusted with relative autonomy.

  Until then, Talongrad felt unguarded. With the scare patrols in the North, any manner of assault force could be gathering along the Pisces. As uneasy as the idea made
him, he eventually conceded to Izanami’s idea to begin corrupting the creatures and flora along the river, making the Wilderness appear more foreboding and dangerous than it was. Violating nature in this way angered the Twileen tribes greatly. Raegith put limitations on Izanami and her Witches. Izanami raged against the limitations and threatened the Twileens. Now the Twileens refused to work alongside the Witches.

  Raegith glanced at the cup of wine near his right hand. He wanted nothing more than to just get drunk and let his ambassadors smother him in their tits. He tried that once; the problems did not resolve themselves and were in fact worse the next morning.

  Raegith shoved his face into his hands and sighed. They are going to sneak right up your ass, while you’re up here fussing, and slaughter everyone… again.

  A knock at the door drew his attention. Chev’El entered the war room and the guard nodded before closing the door behind her.

  “What time is it?” he asked, looking out the window in to blackness.

  “Nearing midnight. The perimeter is fine; I just needed to speak with you a moment.” Chev’El approached him and pulled out the chair next to him.

  “I know it doesn’t look like I’m doing much of anything right now, but I’m not ready for any kind of distraction.” Raegith held up his hand for her to stop. “Please, if the perimeter is fine, I need this to wait until morning.”

  Chev’El paused and Raegith worried that she might begin to cry. “I’ve already gathered my courage. I’m afraid I might lose it in my sleep.”

  Raegith leaned back in this chair and motioned for her to sit. He had never seen Chev’El like this and he felt nervous adrenaline spiking within his chest. “What is it? Did something happen?”

  “Do you remember the night we returned from the river, after taking the Denizens prisoner? You came to me asking about the Kyudoka training but then you started talking about Helfrick and your childhood and you were weeping?” Chev’El swallowed hard and avoided his eye contact. “I reached for you, to comfort you…”

  She stopped and Raegith gripped his chin as he looked at her. The Twileen appeared to be a mess of emotions. “It’s not what I came there for, Chev’El, but when you pulled me close… If it’s not what you wanted, you could have told me. I’ve always made that clear to any woman I’m with.”

  “I have your child in me,” she blurted, meeting his gaze.

  Without warning, she stood and pulled her shirt up to her breasts, displaying her stomach and the slight bump.

  Raegith stared with wide eyes. He looked up at her and then down at her belly. “What?”

  “Please don’t ask me if I’m certain.” Her voice sounded shaky and Raegith noticed her knees trembling. “I’ve been with a man only twice and the first time was years ago, at the start of the invasion.”

  Raegith sat back in his chair, stunned. He could not stop staring at the roundness of the girl’s stomach.

  “If it’s what you want, I can find a man from the Oaksplinter Tribe that will-“ Chev’El began.

  “I am not my father!” Raegith jumped from the table as if a snake had bitten him and backed away from the table.

  The sudden movement startled Chev’El and she cowered, both hands protectively over her stomach. Raegith paced the floor on the other side of the table like a caged animal.

  He stopped and extended his hand toward her as if trying to physically halt her. “My son will not grow up with a fantasy in place of a father. How could you even think I would do something like that?”

  “I don’t know what to think right now,” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Grass-Hair; you have to tell me. What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know; I have to think.” Raegith resumed his pacing. “We can’t get married. The Rathgar, Lokai and Urufen are already insisting I take a bride. They think my pick will legitimize their race as the new dominant race, no matter what I say about it. The Gimlets want a union between Beretta and I, even though she would literally burn my cock off.”

  “Well, that’s an easy problem to solve, because I’m not fucking proposing to you.” Chev’El stepped forward, slowly returning to the wily sniper he recognized.

  “What are we trying to decide, then?” Raegith suddenly felt very dumb and helpless.

  Chev’El approached him and took his hand. “We’re trying to decide how to raise the first-born son, or daughter, of the Warlord of Greimere. This is the same question Helfrick faced all those years ago. His answer became the difference between raising the leader of Rellizbix and creating the instrument of its destruction.

  “What is your answer going to be, Grass-Hair?”

  Chapter 42

  Nero and the platoon of Paladins under his command stood in the morning shadow of a giant green spruce staring at the head on the ground.

  They had travelled along the river once they passed into Gaia. They wore basic travelling clothes carrying their armor and weapons hidden within a cart. From a distance they would have looked like roving merchants until one got close enough to recognize their stout figures and soldier-like gaits. Nero prayed to avoid any engagement with Gaia forces. They may be traitors to Rellizbix, but the men of the 5th Regiment were still Saban soldiers.

  He never expected how depressingly well his prayers would work. Entire settlements along the river rested on the banks, devoid of life save the scavenging critters that scurried at their approach. The invasion and subsequent break between Rellizbix and the newly formed Gaia had decimated the riverside development. Homes, shops and docks seemed like fresh carcasses with no river folk dwelling within. Everyone had packed up and fled north, sometimes leaving everything but the essentials. None wanted to be that close to Greimere territory.

  On the far side of the river, Nero kept an eye out for the giant wolf creatures, but they saw only jester wolves and the occasional lynx. Even after taking advantage of an abandoned-but-operational barge to cross the slowing, autumn current, the world in that part felt new and untouched.

  Now a member of Nero’s platoon was dead, silently disappearing in the still of the night and his body could not be found.

  They were merely two days inside the Wilderness without ever having seen a trace of any enemy. The trip behind enemy lines had turned out to be so easy that his men began making light of it just the day before.

  “These mountains are nothing like the ones from my home in the north.” Light Hand Vandenberg was a huge Saban Juggernaut and a veteran of the 5th Regiment. He had grown up in the Saban settlements deep in the rockier mountains of the Northeast. “The peaks of King’s Crown rise so high that the snow never melts and nothing green will grow. These hills are babies in comparison.”

  “There is nothing but goats and falcons to avoid in those mountains,” Scout Tulan replied in a whisper. Tulan’s parents had converted to worshipping the Fates before he was born so his acceptance into the Paladins had been easier than his other Twileen brethren. His skill with a bow and nose for pathfinding had not suffered with the lack of Nature worship. “These mountains have a thousand different ways to kill you. They’re also rich with ore. Thank the Fates one of our Master Artisans has come into the light.”

  “Keep your focus, men. The longer it takes for us to find this mine, the longer the Greimere have to pick up our scent.” Nero felt odd commanding the men in the platoon, many of whom had more experience in war than he. None of them made a deal of it; their faith in the Fates and the High Paladin’s wisdom were strong. Their unit cohesion and duty to a higher power had given him comfort and eased his anxiety.

  Now the pressure he felt threatened to overwhelm him. “Who… what did this?”

  “If we knew that, we’d be one step closer to avenging Paladin Halverd,” Vandenberg replied.

  “No, I mean, what instrument caused this?” Nero took a deep breath and stepped forward, looking around for any signs of the assailant.

  He picked up Halverd’s head and examined the severed neck, but he didn’t know
what to look for. Scout Tulan joined him, gulping down his revulsion.

  “So… from what I can tell, it’s a very clean cut.” The Twileen Paladin kept a tenuous grip on his composure as he analyzed one of his brothers as if the Paladin was a felled dear and they tracked the predator. “This wasn’t an axe or anything like that; it was a precision weapon.”

  “A sword?” Nero asked.

  “No… well, maybe.” Tulan squirmed in his armor, but he kept at it. “It wouldn’t be like one of ours, though. A thin, sharp blade… this was done in one strike. By the look of his face, I don’t think he saw it coming.”

  “But it was a man, right? Or woman?” Nero clenched his jaw and stood, casting about for signs of footprints or passing. “I mean, it wasn’t a beast, correct?”

  Tulan looked at Nero and shook his head. He replaced the timidity in his face with a grim determination. “Someone is stalking us.”

  …

  The Paladins pressed on. They had to. Tulan scouted ahead, but at a shorter distance from the group. All the Paladins remained on edge throughout the day. They rested infrequently and when they did, Nero rotated men in and out of observation duty.

  Vandenberg itched for a fight. His anxious, bearded face scanned the woods. They kept eyes on the canopy of the tall evergreens and on the pine-covered soil below them. They found only birds and critters and heard only the sounds of the forest.

  As the skies darkened, Nero sought out shelter among the rocky formations growing more prominent the closer they drew to the mountains. They could have gone further, made more ground, but Nero would not take chances. They had not caught any sign of their stalker all day, but something told Nero he would find them this evening. Someone with the skill to ambush Halverd, cut off his head in one stroke and steal away into the darkness with his armored body would certainly keep at them. After three years of war with this new Greimere, Rellizbix still knew very little about their capabilities. Even the Paladin’s successful raid of Fort Augustus did not shine any light on their mysteries. Nero witnessed a cloaked figure appear out of thin air and whisk the teal-haired warrior away during that battle. Countless witnesses from previous engagements insist that the warlord can summon blue flames into his bare hands without getting burned. Other rumors spoke of the fur-collared people transforming into the monstrous wolves the Darklings rode into battle.