by Garon Whited
The rebels or insurgents or whatever they are have almost a quarter of the city under their control. They don’t seem to be too interested in taking the mountain, itself, though. They’re just taking over the city, street by street.
“How?”
Wagons with shields on them, I think? They keep blocking streets off and spreading out, demanding the allegiance of everyone they encounter. They either impress them into service, send them on their way, or kill them on the spot, depending on the whim of the individual commander, apparently.
“SELDAR!”
The echoes rang down corridors for miles.
“Firebrand,” I said, more quietly, “why didn’t anybody wake me?”
They tried! You woke up a little, said something about turning off the water after brushing, and went back to sleep. You were well and truly out, Boss.
That brought me up short.
“They did?”
They did. I knew you were still in there, but when I tried to talk to you…
“Yes?”
Um. You’re not going to like this.
“I’m not liking this already! What’s one more thing not to like?”
Yeah, well… I tried talking to you and your other self told me you were too tired.
“Wait, what? You mean the Demon King spoke to you through my mind?”
No. It was the Other Guy. The—what did you call it? —the fake deity-thing.
“Oh.” I had to pause a moment and consider that. Then I realized I didn’t really have anything to consider. “What did it say?”
He said you were too tired to do anything and we should let you sleep. I decided to utilize my vast storehouse of draconic wisdom and acknowledged what He said was a very good idea.
“You have vast storehouses of draconic wisdom?”
Shut up, Boss.
“Did it—he—say anything else?”
Nope. He just seemed to be… you know. Helpful. Like having some trained selmok in your lair to keep an eye on your hoard while you sleep.
“I’m not sure what disturbs me more.”
Between what and what?
“That I have a quasi-deific copy of my personality keeping an eye on me, or that you just compared it to the draconic equivalent of a guard dog.”
If it’s any consolation, Boss, He’s probably not all that good a copy.
“Which, somehow, is not as comforting as you make it out to be.”
The door ground open, pushed by a regular-sized guy in black armor, grey sash-with-shield. Another one stood outside. Two more carried in a pile of gear. Most of it was a suit of black, super-polymer-whatever-it-is armor.
“Seldar said you would demand it,” one of them told me. They bowed and stepped back. I toed the pile, and thought about it. He was right. Again. This time, oddly enough, I didn’t mind a bit. Maybe it only annoys me that he’s right when it proves to me I’m wrong. It’s better to be upset about being wrong than about a friend being right, right?
They helped me into my armor. I shrugged and bent and twisted a bit, making sure it was all settled. Unsurprisingly, it still fit. I don’t seem to change too much with the passage of time. Physically, I mean.
“Where’s Seldar?”
“In the room of vision, Your Majesty.”
“You four, come with me.”
“Those are our orders, Your Majesty.”
“Figures.”
We hurried through the corridors and I realized my stomach was grumbling. Now was not the time for lunch, or dinner, or whatever time it was. Daytime, that was all I knew for certain.
It’s a little after their lunchtime, Boss. The rebellion-thingy started a little after dawn. The news of it got up to the palace only after some citizen—she was a semi-pro wizard with a specialty in scrying magic—got on her mirror and called a bunch of people on our side before someone on their side noticed what she was doing and stopped her. By the time it filtered through the chain of command, you were chanting at arrowheads.
Got it, I replied. We obviously need better internal communications. Thanks.
One of us has to stay awake for the important bits, Boss.
Remember how I said you’re not as funny as you think you are?
Where do you think I get it from, Boss?
Vast stores of draconic wisdom?
You made my point, Boss.
Shut up.
Seldar was in the scrying room, manipulating mirrors and talking quickly. He didn’t greet me, which told me he was extremely busy. Judging by his conversation and the snappish, do-it-now tone, he didn’t need to be disturbed. I let him do his work and looked at the sand table.
The sand table displayed a replica of the city. Darker sands formed the areas occupied or controlled by the… rebels? Terrorists? Insurgents? I’m going with insurgents. The rest of the city was made up of lighter shades. From the looks of it, their current technique was to advance and take a new intersection, establish a temporary fortification in the street—semi-mobile walls mounted on wagons—and process the new addition to their territory.
So, I said to Firebrand, do they drag people out of their homes and shops with the command to convert or die?
I dunno, Boss. I haven’t been involved with it, just listening to rumors.
Fair point.
I waited, listening to Seldar coordinate forces. Earlier, while we were busy with preparations for an attack from the outside, the Church of Light used that activity to mask their own concentration of forces. They had coherent units, heavy equipment, and, obviously, a plan.
Did they coordinate this with Thomen so the attack on Mochara would be a distraction? Or did they see it coming and decide it was an opportunity? Thomen might have thought he could take Mochara with his new spell—the brain-stunning thing. Had the army made it there to support the naval assault, I’m medium-sure it would have worked. They actually stood a chance of pulling it off even without the army, a fact I wouldn’t have believed.
But the Church of Light… taking Karvalen, out here in the middle of nowhere? How did this serve their purpose?
Back up. First of all, what was their purpose? As a religious organization, they promote the worship of their deity. As far as Lotar is concerned, any increase in the power of the Church is an increase in his personal power. How does taking a city accomplish either of those goals? Well, in a city where their worship is forbidden, it opens the place up for… is it evangelizing? Missionaries? Conversion, maybe.
This direct, military intervention, though—it seemed out of character. Theocracies aren’t unknown in this world, but they generally don’t last too long. All the other churches get feisty when one of them starts grabbing temporal power. It’s not about freedom. I think it’s mostly they’re touchy about someone legislating their religion away. The energy-beings don’t like it when you try to hog all the worship—which is to say, all the food. Add to that the Glowsticks tend to think of other religions as heathen superstitions—despite some rather heavy evidence—and this move was asking for a major reprisal from… well, everybody.
Unless they could take and fortify Karvalen, at least. If they could take the city and hold it, maybe they could get away with it. It wasn’t near anything important, held no strategic value, and didn’t have anything anyone really wanted—no gold mines, no strategic importance, nothing. At least, nothing anyone knew about.
It did possess some hefty advantages, though. It had “iron mines,” obviously. The surrounding land produced massive amounts of food—between ranching and farming, Karvalen could feed Rethven if it decided to buckle down and work at it. Food, along with steel, was a major export. And, to do the exporting, the canal system not only let Karvalen trade easily with the seaport of Mochara, but with the city-states on the eastern side of the Sea of Grass. There were also whole races of monsters under the Eastrange who—slowly—were starting to understand the idea of trading, rather than pillaging and looting.
And, of course, my favorite export: Education
. People came from all over Rethven to enroll in school. I found out later about some students from even farther away—from the city-states on the western shore, beyond Rethven. There were always some plainsmen, even a few viksagi, some wizards from a place called Kolob, and someone all the way from somewhere called Trader’s Bay, in Telasco, wherever those might be.
They studied wizardry, mostly, but first they learned to read.
Back to my point. For the Church of Light to take Karvalen, all they had to do was take it from the people who had it. Or, rather, get rid of the people who objected to their rule, consolidate their hold, and then come after me. Or they might take the place, lock me in, and ignore me until I was good and ready to come out. I doubted it—they’re religious fanatics, after all—but Lotar might do it that way. If he set up shop in the Baron’s palace, he could, symbolically, move right into ruling the place. Then the city could be a magnet for the faithful followers of the Lord of Light, the capitol of a new nation—a theocratic nation, ruled by their god and his power-hungry minions. Or maybe just ruled by the power-hungry minions.
Politics and religion. My two least-favorite topics. Maybe I can find a world where I can teach night school classes in physics and computer science. I’d settle for teaching high school science. Summer school, maybe, to avoid the perils of sunrise and sunset.
I shifted my attention to Seldar and his planning. He organized forces and prepared for an assault on the insurgents’ territory. From the sound of it, the basic idea was a wall of blades—ha! —sweeping down the streets to crush any resistance.
“Seldar. Get them grouped for orders,” I told him. “We need to talk about your plan.”
“Sire, if you will allow me, I do not feel we have time to waste on discussion.”
“Okay. We won’t discuss. Stop what you’re doing and pay attention to orders. Right now.”
Seldar told the mirrors to wait, flipped them over, and turned to me.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. I ignored his use of the formal title.
“Your plan is to roll through the city streets, killing anyone who resists?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I’m told a lot of those people are only there because someone held sharp things in their faces and told them to pick up that weapon and come along.”
“Perhaps, Your Majesty, but they are now rebels, whatever their reasons.”
“I thought you were a priest of justice?”
“And death is the proper punishment for treason.”
“That’s justice?” I asked, surprised.
“It is.”
“I may have a word with the god of justice,” I remarked. “However, we are not going to mete out cold justice today.”
“Will we ignore this spreading threat?”
“No. We are going to temper justice with mercy.”
Seldar snorted contemptuously.
“The traitors and rebels within the area deserve no mercy,” he stated, flatly. “I do not recommend involving the Lady of Mercy in this.”
“I agree. But the poor jerk who is walking forward with a spear because the guy behind him will kill him if he doesn’t? It’s a crime for a knight to lack bravery; they are held to a higher standard. It’s a standard every citizen should aspire to, but we can’t hold them to it.”
“Why not?”
“Because they aren’t worthy of it. If they were, they would be knights.”
Seldar looked startled and paused to process that one. While he thought about it, I continued.
“Look, part of the duties of a knight is to defend the weak, help the helpless, that sort of thing. We want the citizens to look up to them and to aspire to be them. We never want knights to be a mystical, magical thing only the select few might achieve. We want them to be the possibility, the hope of the kingdom. Every cook and cobbler should look at them and think, ‘I may never be a knight, but if I raise my son properly, maybe he can achieve that exalted position.’ Not ‘I hate those pompous, better-than-you jerks.’
“In like fashion, knights should encourage and protect average citizens, not view them as sheep to be sheared or cattle to be slaughtered when the need arises. Their job is to protect the citizens—all the citizens.”
“I am not certain I understand, Sire.”
“You don’t have to,” I replied, coldly. Then, more gently, “I’m sorry you don’t understand it. I didn’t have as long as I hoped, back when, to explain it adequately. Just bear in mind a kingdom is defined by its citizens. Without them, there is no kingdom. Land supports the people. The military defends the people. The nobles rule the people, organize and instruct the people. Knights come from the people. Food, materials, goods, services—everything, always, comes from and goes back to the people. If you don’t have people, you have wilderness.”
Seldar looked troubled. This was obviously an alien way of thinking, and I sympathized with him. It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea people are the important things. It goes against centuries of believing the nobility and lands are the important things and people are… well… peasants.
“Think about it,” I advised. “Meanwhile, talk to me. How many men do we have and what are they? Knights, soldiers, guardsmen, militia—all that.”
Seldar touched the sand table and manipulated the spell, altering the view of the city to bring different sections into view as the spoke. Our forces were several thousand infantry. While we had a few hundred cavalry, cavalry aren’t too useful in urban fighting. For the most part, cavalry could function only as a reaction force, using their speed to respond to threats. Archers were also of limited utility in the shorter line-of-sight of city streets. They could take to rooftops and upper floors to reinforce fixed positions, but were otherwise mostly targets.
“This is a war of foot soldiers,” Seldar finished. “I intend to send them in, find Lotar and any other commanders, and cut the head off this serpent in our midst.”
“I like the way you think,” I told him, considering the map. “At least, as far as a military viewpoint goes. I think your plan will work. Moreover, I’m not sure there’s a better way for an army to squash this insurrection.”
“Then I may continue with my work, Sire?”
“No.”
“No?” he asked, surprised. “May I inquire about your reason, Sire?”
“It’s an appropriate military response. It isn’t the way we should do it.”
“I am afraid I fail to understand.”
“There are civilians in the captured area,” I pointed out. “What we’re going to do is exactly what the Church of Light is doing, only better. We’re going to surround the place, block it off, seal it up. We will then push inward, street by street, building by building, house by house. We’ll capture anyone who surrenders—or even anyone who runs toward us with empty hands. We’ll take everyone to a holding area where I’ll look them over after dark. Anyone who willingly takes up arms for the Church of Light will be detained; the rest will be released.”
“Your Majesty, that will take far longer than our planned assault.”
“Yes, it will. It will be harder. It will take longer. It will require more effort and resources and be a general pain in the ass. But it’s closer to the right thing to do.”
“Closer?”
“In a situation like this, I’m not sure there is a right thing,” I admitted, sighing. “All I know for sure is every angry, frustrated part of me wants to beat the Church of Light into small, glowing fragments and burn the fragments. That simple desire tells me I shouldn’t.”
“Again, Sire, I do not understand.”
“It means I’m trying to be a better person—not a smarter, more ruthless one, but a better one. More honorable, if you like, in the sense of a person who acts with honor, rather than in the sense of receiving honors. I’m shooting for meritorious conduct, rather than accolades.”
Seldar opened his mouth to say something and stopped. He closed his mouth, looked thoughtful, str
oked his jaw. He paced around the table, looked at it, looked at me, looked off into the air.
“You once said,” he started, “that you wished to be the worst of all the knights. Of all the knights, you hoped, by your actions, to be regarded as the least honorable, least kind, least merciful of all, thus encouraging all of us to be better men than you. You wanted us to do, and to be, better.”
“That’s right.”
“May I say you seem strangely…” he groped for a word.
“Angry?”
“No.”
“Temperamental?”
“No.”
“Reactionary?”
“If you would give me a moment to think, I would tell you.”
“Okay.” I shut up and waited while he thought.
“You are usually more direct,” he said, at last. “You charge in like thunder and strike like the lightning. When the smoke clears, that which needed to be was slain. Yet, this time, you seem oddly self-possessed and self-controlled.”
“I’ve been working on my tendency to overreact,” I told him. I didn’t add the part about feeling deep urges to overreact even by my standards. Johann is still not dead and I need him to be.
“And a direct strike into the heart of the enemy territory is an overreaction?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I hope so. I do know killing everyone we roll over in the street isn’t the way to go about this. If they try to kill us, we kill them back. But if we can free the people who don’t want to be fighting at all, we should do so.”
“I understand your wishes, Sire. I am not certain it can be done.”
I moved up to him and looked him in the eye. As I spoke, I moved my face closer to his until our noses touched.
“There are families in that area of the city,” I said, softly. “Children are in there. We are going to squeeze the place like a sponge until it weeps people, not go in and kill everything. As long as we can contain this and extract people without needless bloodshed, we will. Have I been unclear on this in any way?”
“No, Sire.”
“Make it happen, Seldar.” I took a deep breath and said something I hate saying. “Your King commands it.”