Schism of Blood and Stone (The Starfield Theory Book 1)

by Brian Frederico

  Damien leaned back in the chair and rubbed his forehead. “I don't have to. Salena wouldn't dare attack me on the border. The longer we sit there, the more the Conclave houses will demand she act. They coddle that child general Magnus; he is no threat to us, but his marriage to Kendra Mason is. If Houses Mason and Teton-Sten, merge we will have a fight on our hands. They will make a move in desperation and all we need to do is keep Kristoffer safe until we can march on Magdeborg.”

  “But why throw our forces against the Dominion at Goteborg? Let Salena's troops deal with them,” Conrad offered leaning forward, his hands on knees taking on what Damien identified as a grandfatherly stance. “It would force her to spread her defenses and waste troops against the predations of Pershing. It would give us time to gather our forces and strike when we are more powerful!” Conrad punctuated his statement by slapping his hand into an open palm.

  Damien shook his head. “We need the support of House Evers, even if we lose Goteborg.”

  “If we lose Goteborg, Evers will have few other holdings. What use can they be?”

  Damien held up his index finger indicating his point. “Ah, but House Evers has powerful allies. They are a duchy capital remember, which means they hold a lot of sway amongst the border houses. By showing our support for them, we gain their allegiance. If they see Salena as abandoning them to the Dominion, they will be looking for leadership.”

  “And the heirs? What of them?”

  “I believe I can answer your questions, Lord Conrad,” Dietrich Sørensen said entering the small room.

  Conrad stood up and bowed to the even more ancient Sørensen leader. “Lord Dietrich, I am glad to see you well.”

  Damien stood, but offered no words. Dietrich had been wheeled onto the ship on a gurney. He was badly dehydrated, starving and cast in the pallor of death. Damien doubted he would survive the journey. Yet, here he was, tired, shaken and clearly ill, but fighting. He had to give the old man some respect.

  “Well? Pah!” Dietrich spat. “Salena showed me no comfort, deprived me of my own walking stick, even. Now, please, sit down. Enough pleasantries. I'm in no mood.”

  Damien obediently resumed his seat, the sudden movement causing the flame to leap and smoke. He glanced at it, watchful for any signs of revelation.

  “If I understand correctly Kristoffer is safely on Goteborg under the watchful of Damien's protege by now. He will need to be moved away from Lord Morlan's advances as soon as possible.”

  “You were right then, Damien. I was wise to trust you,” Conrad said with noticeable relief.

  Damien nodded. “I would not lead you astray, uncle. There are few wise men left I'm afraid.”

  Dietrich hobbled to the couch and sat heavily, his frail body seemed almost lost in the fabric. Damien ignored a concerned look from Conrad.

  “The more pressing concern is maintaining enough of an armed force that can win on Magdeborg when we are ready. Even with the House Guard and what few of my knights you managed to take with you, we will be outnumbered. We must take steps increase our power,” Dietrich said.

  “Which means, what, my lord?” Conrad asked.

  “Knights errant,” Dietrich answered simply for him.

  Conrad blanched, actually showing physical disgust as his upper lip curled in a sneer. “Mercenaries! We cannot. They are soldiers for hire and untrustworthy. They completely betray our beliefs as noble warriors.”

  “My Lord Sørensen is correct, Lord Colonel. We will collect some knights errant from the houses who have lost their territory. Furthermore, there are a number of mercenaries we can contract from Dashamar. I have already taken the liberty of contacting them and I expect to hear some requests for proposals soon,” Damien said, referring to the bloody, ruined world near the Azuren homeworlds. It was full of tiny fiefs, destroyed empires, and brutal, lifelong warriors. “Wars are fantastic opportunities for those looking for money. And we have two.”

  Conrad frowned. “I'm not sure if I feel comfortable with that. How do we pay these people?”

  “The border houses,” Dietrich said tapping his cane against the floor. “If they recognize Damien as their liege they will be required by law to provide military forces and money. They will not want to send their own house troops with the Dominion threatening their territory so they will contribute mercenaries or the money to pay for them.”

  Damien nodded. “That is precisely the plan.”

  “And if they refuse?” Conrad asked.

  Damien flicked his gaze to Dietrich, but the elder Sørensen seemed unwilling to answer. “Then they will face the Dominion alone. The houses will need to weigh the collective good against their own survival. If they join us, they will receive the full benefit of the entire movement and if they don't – well, let Salena worry about them.”

  “Enough Sørensen warriors were liberated from the prison that we can field some additional sections if we can locate the material,” Dietrich added. “But we will need to stop the Dominion cold on Goteborg if we have any hope of opposing Salena. Aaron must hold the line and bloody Pershing's nose before we arrive. He must do nothing rash.”

  Damien flicked his gaze to the elder warrior. “Aaron will not fail.”

  Aaron is young, but competent. He's a good fighter and solid tactician. All he has to do is hold Pershing. He doesn't even have to defeat him.

  “Then what? After Goteborg, I mean,” Conrad said, resting his elbow on the armrest and holding his chin in his open palm.

  “We will need a base of operations. Somewhere we can take stock of our existing force and expand,” Damien said, placing his hands on the table. “Hidelborg will be safe enough for us.”

  “I should point out, we still have the real coronation to attend to,” Dietrich said. “Crowning Kristoffer as Archduke must be public and spread wide and far. It is shameful, but we must use him and his image to rally others to his cause. I don't know his personality well enough to know if this will come naturally to him or if he will need guidance.”

  “He will adapt. Stens are remarkably flexible,” Damien said.

  “I hope you're right, Damien. If not, we have wasted this effort,” Dietrich murmured. “Pray to Amrah that they are indeed safe and capable.” Dietrich stood, using his cane heavily. “Now if you will excuse me. I must rest.” Dietrich slowly limped to the door, his cane whacking against the floor with authority.

  Conrad nodded and went to follow Dietrich. As he walked by Damien's chair, Damien grabbed hold of his elbow. At Conrad's confused glance, Damien held up his hand, asking him to wait. Once the door closed behind the sage Sørensen, Damien stared into the fire and spoke. “What of Anna, Conrad?”

  Conrad pursed his lips. “My troopers got to the address, but the apartment had been ransacked. There was evidence of a struggle, some blood. Anna was not there. We didn't get to her in time. I'm sorry, Damien.”

  Silently, Conrad walked briskly out of the room, leaving Damien to stare into the flame. No words could form in Damien's mind. He saw only the smiling faces of his lover and the daughter he never knew dancing in the flames. Then like a half remembered dream they slowly faded away.

  Claire

  15 March, 23,423

  The Barn, Goteborg, Magdeborg Commonwealth

  ______________

  Claire sighed wearily as the last of the casualties was finally taken back to the surgeon's table. Running triage in a destrier hangar, commonly referred to as “the barn,” had finally begun to take its toll. She was tired, partially from the work involved, but also emotionally drained. Too often she and the others here had been required to mark a young man or woman as beyond help and usher them to a corner of the hangar for morphine and a quiet place to die.

  I'm surprised I made it this far. After seeing the first few come in, torn up, broken, I didn't think I could handle it. We processed dozens, hundreds of soldiers today. Am I numb to it now? She thought, then cringed. I don't want to be numb to human suffering. It's so cold.

  She
glanced over to the entrance of the barn where the dead had been arranged. Many of them still had only a blanket to cover them; the staff here had run out of body bags. Every few minutes a truck would come to collect the dead and take them away to a morgue. Claire wondered if there would be time to bury them all. From what she heard from the incoming soldiers, the battle was not faring well. The Dominion forces still had the numerical and tactical edge on the defenders. House Evers was fighting bravely, but losing. She could see it in the eyes of the survivors. Defeat was coming. And it'd only been the first day.

  She stood up from her chair and walked into the hallway, just to get away from the blood and death that hung in the air. She could remember something similar on the MacCleod, but this was on an entirely different scale. She'd dissected plenty of creatures during her studies and patched up the injured Theorists on their excavations. Each of them had its unique smell, its own set of guts. But this was very different. These were not lab rats, they were living human beings being cut up and broken on the battlefields of a giant's war.

  Most of them were not career soldiers, just militia. They were just young men and women summoned from home to fight, relying on some long forgotten military training they might have had years ago. The houses tended to avoid large standing armies because they were a liability to the state and extremely expensive. Instead, most required some form of military training for civilians in case they were needed in times of crisis. Most of these kids seemed to have been pulled out of their jobs and classes just a few weeks ago, given some refresher training and tossed back into the meat grinder. She, Chris and Nick had avoided the training when they were younger since there was no eminent threat to Goteborg and because they were at Goteborg University, at least that's what the Goteborg authorities had told them in a letter. They were lucky. Others were being pulled out of school.

  Claire sighed again, but didn't notice the man who came to stand next to her until he spoke.

  “I hope we're done for the day,” he said quietly.

  Claire wasn't sure if he was talking to himself or to her, but decided on trying to be friendly. The words of a stranger who wasn't hanging on to his guts and screaming would be comforting. She knew no one else here.

  “I know,” she said, brushing her blond hair out of her face. It was a stupid thing to say, but her mind couldn't think of anything else.

  The man closed his eyes. “I've seen enough for a life time I think. I'm a scientist. I have a doctorate, but these people think I'm some sort of medical doctor.”

  “You're not?”

  “No,” he said, half laughing. “I wouldn't have the stomach for that. I like seeing how things work, you know, what makes things tick, but I'm an astrophysicist. I want to know what makes the universe tick.” He paused. “Sorry, I'm sure that sounded dumb.”

  “It's not. I'm just the opposite I think. I had some medical training, but I'm a micro-biologist and chemist.”

  “You're with the Evers then?” The man asked.

  “No. I'm, uh, Claire. I lived in Mannerborg, down the road a few hours drive from here.”

  “Alexander Corwin,” the man said, extending a hand. He stood about Claire's height, with sandy brown hair and a tight face, like plastic wrapped over bone. He was slender, tired-looking, but clearly intelligent.

  Claire shook it, ignoring the blood stains – hers were no cleaner – and noting the strong calluses. He certainly did live a life of manual labor for an astrophysicist.

  “You have a last name. You're not from here then?”

  “Oh no,” Alexander said, waving his hand. “I'm from Strathclyde, in the Treth Federation. I work for the Harding Corporation now, locating and designing suitable locations for mineral extraction. The Evers people probably got my name off a ship manifest and tracked me down,” Alexander explained. “I was here meeting a client and some House Evers people came looking for me. Apparently they believed I would be happy to help them fend off the Dominion.”

  “I guess you weren't,” Claire said.

  “No. I don't suspect you are either. You and I are different, you see. We're scientists, intellectuals. We belong in the universities, not the militias. I don't think either of us had much of a choice,” Alexander said with a hint of wistfulness.

  You have no idea, Claire thought. That Sir Aaron dragged us down here and put us in danger for nothing.

  “I'm not even a Commonwealth citizen – or peasant as they seem to like to call us here.”

  “Can they impress you into service like that? Legally I mean?”

  “I doubt it. But what is Strathclyde going to do about it? The nobles control everything around here,” Alexander laughed. It seemed funny to laugh when covered in blood and gore and men dying on the other side of the door, but Claire offered a smile regardless.

  “How did you come to be here?” Alexander asked her.

  Claire shrugged. “It happened pretty quickly,” she said.

  “Lots of things do.”

  “Well, I was on a star ship, the MacCleod, with my brother. I was their medical officer. Something happened to the last one so I volunteered to replace him. We were stopped on a cargo run and then brought here.”

  “Your brother was taken, too? Is he here?”

  “My brother is a jerk,” she said flatly. “He's let power go to his head. The kinds of people he associates with...”

  “He likes money then? I know Greed is one of Amrah's sins, but it seems to be the most common, and most forgivable.”

  “No. He wants to feel important. He's not. He's a nobody like me and you. He's easy to manipulate so he ends up with these dangerous, twisted people doing terrible things so he thinks he might have some sort of influence, some sort of power. I guess it's Greed, but not for wealth,” Claire admitted with a pang of regret. She felt bad speaking so of her twin to a stranger, but she had no one else to talk to.

  But why protect him? Chris took a war criminal back to his army and now they were here, killing and butchering the people of this world. She ached to tell Alexander, ached to tell Sir Aaron, or even that woman who seemed to pull his strings. She needed to tell someone that she was against it, hated Pershing and her brother for what he did. She needed to do it to absolve herself. She needed to wash the blood off her hands.

  “I'm sorry,” Alexander said.

  “So why are you still here? Why didn't you just get out before the Dominion attacked? There were still civilian ships leaving Garda station right up until the Dominion shut it down,” Claire asked abruptly.

  Alexander shrugged. “I suppose I could have gotten off if I really wanted to.

  “So why are you still here I mean? I don't think they're actually guarding the barn. It wouldn't be hard to slip out. Maybe bribe the truck drivers?”

  Alexander glanced over at the trucks, their crews were still loading bodies into the back. He watched them for a few moments as if considering Claire's suggestion.

  “Maybe it's stupid, I don't know. I thought I might be able to help some of the people here. You know, make less work for those guys loading bodies. I've seen enough death before I came here, believe me. It bothers me,” Alexander nearly whispered.

  Claire looked down at Alexander. Tears had begun to roll down his face, causing the dirt and blood to run.

  “I'm sorry,” Claire said. “I didn't mean-”

  “It's fine. It's just all caught up to me now. I'm so busy working in there that it doesn't hit me until after. The adrenaline kicks in. You don't realize you were up to your elbows up someone's bloody wound trying to clamp an artery until hours later. Now I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman acting like a fool.”

  Claire slid down the wall to sit next to him. She wasn't quite sure how to comfort him or if she should even bother. This was not a situation with which she was entirely familiar. There were other men in her life who seemed simpler, Chris, even Nick. There was something else about this Alexander, more complicated. He wasn't just a businessman, not even only a scientist. Wh
y in Amrah's name he ever really wanted to stay here was anyone's guess. Maybe he was simply stuck like she was.

  A helicopter buzzed overhead then landed on the tarmac outside.

  Carefully, she put her arm around his shoulder and waited quietly for Alexander to compose himself.

  “It's not a weakness to care about other human beings,” she said.

  There was a bustle of activity and frantic shouting. A man in a bloody uniform stepped into the hall. “You two! Get in here!”

  Claire got to her feet and Alexander dashed in front into the barn. A stretcher was being rushed to one of the operating tables. Claire pushed clean gloves onto her hands and hurried to the table just as the soldiers were transferring the wounded man. He was in bad shape. His torso was partially ripped open and there was a gaping wound in his leg. Part of his right arm was missing. He was unconscious and bleeding. His damaged chest still heaved and breathed raggedly. Other soldiers around the barn started to gather and murmured to themselves.

  “We need to stop the bleeding, now!” Claire shouted.

  A hand grabbed her elbow. The bloodied man glared into her eyes. “Do you know who this is?”

  “I don't care who he is. Now leave me alone!”

  Claire ripped her arm free and ordered instructions to the other medical personnel. Blood vessels were tied off, a cap was places on the missing right forearm. Immediately, they began to work on stabilizing the gaping chest wound. Alexander was knuckle deep in the wound, working desperately to stop the bleeding. Field medics had been able to do some work, but it wasn't enough.

  Sweat poured from her brow and she wiped it away quickly.

  Come on, please. Not another one.

  Then he flat lined.

  Claire stopped. Alexander looked up then shook his head.

  “He's gone,” he said quietly.

  The barn fell silent except for the whine of the cardiac monitor. One of the soldiers removed his cap. Claire dropped the instruments and tossed her gloves on the body. She sighed deeply and shut off the machine.