Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  This time it was Petras’ turn to show surprise. “Thank you, but I’m surprised. We didn’t get along, you know?”

  “Hmmm, me neither. Carry on Colonel Petras.”

  “Yes, Sir!” Petras said and saluted.

  He acknowledged the salute with one of his own and turned to finish up. Cragson was arguing furiously with Master Belok about something, and Meran was bristling with outrage. His men had the look in their eyes that said violence was not far off. Navarien quickly intervened before more blood was shed.

  “What’s going on here?” he called pushing his way through.

  Belok had some of his crew at the top of the ramp preventing Cragson and Turner’s men from going aboard. As he reached the confrontation, he saw Turner sneak out of the hold and draw his sword. Navarien nodded and Turner poked Belok in the back with the blade. The shocked look on Belok’s face confirmed Navarien’s thought that Turner had been forgotten in the hold.

  “You understand now I trust?” he said to the ship’s master.

  Belok licked his suddenly dry lips and nodded jerkily. “I understand.”

  “Good! But just in case you change your mind on the way, I’ve decided to send Turner and his entire maniple with Cragson to make sure.” He tilted his head and regarded Belok for a moment. “You don’t mind do you?”

  Belok shook his head… no he didn’t mind at all.

  “Excellent!” Navarien dismissed Belok from his mind. “Cragson, see it done as we discussed.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Come along sergeant,” he said to Meran, and descended the ramp.

  Meran caught up with him a few hundred yards down the quay and unconsciously matched his general’s steps. His men marched a few yards behind. Navarien absently wondered if Turner’s maniple would be enough to keep Belok and his crew honest. He snorted, they were only sailors!

  “I hope the fuss will be worth it.”

  “It will be, Sir,” Meran said enthusiastically. “No more towers for us, just a nice stroll through the gates.”

  “Humph! We will see.”

  These new ways of doing things sounded good, but the loss of one of his towers to fire had soured him on invention.

  * * *

  Interlude III

  Methrym groaned. He raised a shaking hand and rubbed blurry eyes. It had been close, too close for comfort—not that being poisoned was ever comfortable. Barthan had been suspicious when he arrived with one of Soren’s bottles of wine in hand, but he had relaxed after watching him drink a large glass. The first cramp hit him as Barthan drank, but he was able to hold in the cry he wanted to voice. After that, things became hazy and disjointed.

  He remembered screaming in agony as if someone had set his stomach on fire. Barthan was screaming as well, but that was small comfort. He vomited explosively and lost control of his bowels, just as the guards rushed in to kill the enemy assassin they thought must surely have slipped by them. Little did they know that the assassin they sought was right in front of them screaming his throat raw.

  Methrym shook off the memory and tried to sit up, but he was so weak. It took him three tries before he succeeded.

  “Guard!” he croaked, his voice almost a whisper. He tried again, “Guard!” It was no better. He staggered erect, and his head swam as another cramp hit. His eyes bugged and sweat burst all over him leaving him gasping. Sweat was pouring off him as if he had a fever, but his teeth were chattering with cold.

  How long had it been?

  Another cramp hit, but this one was mild compared with the first. It couldn’t have been long if he was still having cramps. He was bare to the waist and didn’t recognise the trousers he was wearing. They were hanging on his hips as if he’d lost weight. He staggered outside and found they were still encamped on the border.

  “Methrym, you’re back!” Lorenz cried in delight.

  “Nearly,” he croaked.

  “Here, let me help you back inside.”

  Lorenz helped him back into the tent and sat him down in a chair. Methrym panted and shivered while the sweat poured off him.

  “How long was I ill?”

  “You weren’t ill. The bastards poisoned you and Barthan with the wine. How they managed it no one knows.”

  “How is he?” He didn’t have to fake the concern in his voice. If he’d gone through this for nothing…

  “I’m sorry. Barthan died that same night. You’ve been unconscious for eight days. We feared you would follow him to the God…” Lorenz said sombrely, but then he brightened. “But here you are!”

  “Barthan was a good warrior,” he said, and a shit War Leader, he added silently.

  “He was,” Lorenz agreed sadly.

  Lorenz should really swap places with Soren now, Methrym mused, but that was impossible. Lorenz was the more insightful of the two, but where Soren was of House Malai, as he was, Lorenz was from House Calida—a minor noble house. It was foolishness, but you had to live in the real world, and politics played an important role in Tanjung.

  “Where are my guards, and what has been happening while I’ve been ill?”

  Lorenz looked uneasy. “Now don’t get worked up, but Soren has taken charge of the army in your stead. He sent two thousand men across the border to raid.”

  “He’s done what!”

  “Calm down! You’ll have a relapse,” Lorenz said pushing him into the chair again.

  “For the love of the God Lorenz, let me up will you! I have to see Soren!”

  “He has everything under control! Someone had to take command, we thought you would never wake. Soren was in a rage. You should have seen him! I’ve never seen someone that angry. He said he would make the Japurans pay for what they did to you!”

  Methrym hissed and pounded the arm of his chair in frustration. He should have thought about how Soren would react.

  “Where is he now?” He asked trying to be calm. Various disasters played themselves out in his mind. Two thousand men ambushed and killed was the most prominent one.

  “He claimed Barthan’s tent for his own… I know, I know, but it made sense at the time. It’s the biggest and Soren needed the space for the maps.”

  “Take me to him right now—now!”

  “All right, but you’re not well. Let me at least dress you.”

  He allowed Lorenz to pull a silk shirt over his head and put his boots on. “My trousers keep falling down,” he said petulantly.

  “They’re Soren’s.”

  Methrym blinked in surprise. Soren was much smaller than he. He had lost as much as a quarter of his body weight, he realised. In just eight days! The thought brought home to him again how close he had come to death. Still, the risk had been worth it to remove Barthan. If Soren hadn’t lost those two thousand men, his plan would still work.

  Lorenz walked him to the entrance of Barthan’s tent, but Methrym shrugged him off and entered on his own. Lorenz waited a little before entering after him. He ignored the shocked stares of his squad leaders and kept focused on Soren. By will alone he managed to smile.

  “Cousin!” Soren gasped in delight. “Thank the God you’re all right. I feared for you. This calls for a celebration!”

  Soren was truly glad to see him. Methrym felt guilty to have doubted him. “Thank you for the thought, Soren, but I want to make those Japuran bastards pay for Barthan first.”

  The squad leaders growled assent and Soren beamed. “I’ve made a start on that, cousin. I have two thousand of my… your men over the border as we speak. You should see the loot they’re sending back!”

  “I’d love to, but I want you to recall them right away. I have plans for them. I’ll tell you now my goal is not to raid Japura.” He look around at his men. God how he wanted to lie down, but he had to show he was capable of command. The men were confused and mumbling questions to each other and him. He gave them their answer. “Talayan,” he said simply.

  Talayan the Invincible, Talayan the jewel in Talitha’s crown. The silence was absolu
te. Methrym saw shock on every face. They knew he was talking war and not raiding, but that wasn’t the reason for their shock, he was sure. No, their problem was that Talayan was a city, a very big city in fact and he had no mages to blast the gates.

  “This is how we are going to take Talayan—” he said and gave his long thought out orders.

  The shock gave way to smiles of anticipation on most faces. Some had speculation on theirs—perhaps wondering how such a plan could pop into his head fully formed. It hadn’t of course. He had been planning this ever since reading Bothmar’s addition to Vexin’s orders, and now was the time.

  “I’ll recall my… your men at once, cousin!” Soren said.

  “Yes, do so now would you? Then come back and we can discuss the details. The rest of you have your orders, carry them out to the letter and we shall send the wealth of Talayan to Vexin.”

  The men nodded and left talking excitedly. Soren left to write the message and send it with a courier to his raiders.

  “Lorenz, stay by me a moment,” Methrym said wearily leaning against the map table.

  “You need rest,” Lorenz said with concern.

  “What I need is food and fresh clean water. I don’t want the others to know how bad I am. Will you keep my secret?”

  “Of course I’ll help. The others would understand, but I’ll keep the secret if that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” Methrym said staggering to a chair and collapsing into it. “It is.”

  Over the next days, Methrym’s health slowly improved. The fever broke, and his voice came back as strong as ever. The cramps diminished until finally quitting a tenday after he had first awoken. He looked gaunt in his shaving mirror, and his lack of stamina was a concern. He needed to be strong if his plan was to succeed, but he felt tired all the time. He ate heartily and hoped to see an improvement. It was all he could do. Preparations for the attack progressed satisfactorily until he awoke one morning to silence. He had become so used to the constant babble of voices and the continual hammering that its lack woke him. Another tenday had fled while his squad leaders carried out their tasks. Some were over the border stealing what he needed for the plan; others had their men racing across Tanjung procuring the needed wagons and clothing.

  He dressed and buckled his armour hastily. With sword in hand, he left the tent to find the camp all quiet. Nothing stirred. “Where is everybody, Hardyn?” he asked one of his guards.

  “Asleep mostly. Some are down by the river taking a dip”

  “Is all done then?”

  “I don’t know about all, but Lorenz walked by a while back beaming brighter than the sun!”

  “Ah good!” he said as he sheathed his blade. This was the day then.

  Methrym found Lorenz inspecting the wagons. They were large and four wheeled with a canvas covering to keep the rain off the merchandise. Before they reached the walls of Invincible Talayan, he would order the covers stowed. The guards on the gates wouldn’t bother with a thorough inspection. After all, what is not hidden cannot be of importance—can it?

  “How goes it, Lorenz?” he asked, trying to see what had captured the man’s attention.

  “You should be in bed!”

  “Don’t start mother!”

  Lorenz’s lips twitched. He pulled on each of the chains checking for movement in the staples. Methrym watched closely but everything looked fine to him.

  “Done! That was the last one. We’re ready. Have you decided who will be in these?”

  “Me,” Methrym said waiting for the explosion, but Lorenz nodded unsurprised. “I’ll be taking Soren with me and two hundred of our best in the wagons. I want you to lead the rest into position and wait.”

  “Me! The others will howl over that—they won’t obey me,” Lorenz said worriedly.

  “They had better! If they don’t, they’ll have Vexin and Malai to deal with,” he said with some heat.

  Lorenz was of House Calida, which was a minor house and unable to force obedience. Politics could still screw him and his plan. If he could only make the men forget old rivalries for long enough, they would be successful.

  Later that day, Methrym was sitting in a jouncing wagon thinking dark thoughts about Vexin’s roads. They would be crossing the border any time now. He had ordered his men to wear the coffles from the outset to accustom them to the weight. His coffle felt like a millstone around his neck. No matter how he shifted it, he couldn’t get comfortable. The indignity of slavery was brought home to him with such force, he could hardly think of anything else but the weight around his neck.

  One difficulty he hadn’t foreseen was finding drivers and guards for the slave caravan. His plan had called for some borderers to act the role of slavers, but he hadn’t realised just how hard Talitha’s raids had hit the region. Borderers were a hardy people. They weren’t truly Tanjuner or Japuran, but were instead a mix of the two—the product of centuries of raiding along the border. They were nominally loyal to Tanjung, not out of patriotism, but out of a personal loyalty to Vexin. Vexin was a shrewd man. He had seen the benefit of having people living on the border loyal to him, so he had cultivated their trust with special taxing and other incentives. That policy had caused some problems in Tanjung, but he felt the benefits far outweighed them. He was, after all, harvesting the benefits with his slavers right now.

  There were twenty wagons in the caravan, each carrying ten of Methrym’s men coffled neck to neck. That was two hundred men. He had a hundred and twenty borderers—twenty driving the wagons—and the others armed to the teeth and mounted. With luck, they wouldn’t be needed, but it was comforting nonetheless. Borderers were unlike any other peasant he could name, they had to be. Living on the border was risky to say the least, and unlike other peasants, they knew how to fight with sword and dagger, and were good with both. They were even more deadly now that he had supplied them with new armour and some of his precious steel swords. The borderers were worth their weight in gold to him. They could literally prove to be all that stood between him and the auction block in Talayan.

  The wagons continued through the morning and into the afternoon. Methrym ordered they not stop for longer than a quarter candlemark until a day out from Talayan. As night approached, his slavers stopped to make camp and roughly shoved the slaves out of the wagons.

  The slaves yelled abuse and glared, but the borderers just laughed enjoying themselves immensely. It was all to the good. If they acted too friendly the plan would be screwed and him along with it. The slaves relieved themselves while still chained, and then the slavers shoved them toward the fires. Methrym glared at the slop he was given to eat. This was going too far! He glanced at Soren who was eating his mutton with relish.

  Soren noticed and shrugged. “I’ve always like it.”

  Methrym glared at his plate, and then began to eat stolidly. He needed the energy. Mutton was exclusively… he glanced at Soren again, almost exclusively, a peasant’s food. He was used to eating good beef or fowl, not this. As he ate, he watched his slavers setting guards around the perimeter. They had used only half their numbers, and he approved. Terriss, the leader of the borderers, was pointing out the best places from which to watch both inward and outward, and his men obeyed without fuss.

  Terriss wandered over and crouched down to talk quietly. “All is going well yes?”

  Methrym nodded. “So far yes. When we get there, leave the covers down so the guards can see your merchandise.”

  “I know the plan, but I have one change to make.”

  Methrym ground his teeth. If his coffle hadn’t been real, he would have thrown it off and shown this man what changing his plan would cost.

  “What change?”

  Terriss looked around at his men, before turning back with a look that worried Methrym. The borderer had a glint in his eyes that he didn’t like the look of at all.

  “Do you know why we came with you?” Terriss said.

  “Because you hate the Japurans?”

  �
�That’s part of it,” Terriss agreed. “We’re here because we’re the last. You understand?”

  “Not really.”

  “We are all that’s left of twelve villages. You understand what I’m saying? Every village along the border—we’re the last still free. All children be gone. All women be gone, just us left. My wife, my daughter, my whole life is in Talayan. They’re some bastard’s whores!”

  “So you want revenge. I can understand that,” he said in relief.

  “I want more, much more than revenge on raiders. I want my life back! I want all my men’s lives back! You will help me do it.”

  The look on Terriss’ face worried him. The last time he’d seen something like it, he’d been trying to kill the heir to Elvissa. Donalt’s men had literally thrown themselves onto his men’s swords in order to bind them and gain time to pull the boy to safety. That kind of desperation and fanaticism could lend great strength to a man, but it certainly didn’t lend good judgement. Methrym studied the other slavers. How had he missed the signs? Were the signs even to be seen? He licked suddenly dry lips and pulled at the coffle. Terriss grinned and he tugged harder. There was no way he was going to break the locks that Lorenz had affixed to it.

  “What are you planning?”

  Terriss grinned and told him. At the end Methrym was tugging on the coffle for all he was worth. His men heard the commotion and when they realised what had caused it, they howled and tried to do the same. It was no use.

  Terriss walked away howling with laughter.

  “I’ll kill you for this!” he howled after the borderer. “Terriss!” he screamed, “TERRISS!”

  The next day dawned overcast and raining. The covers were left down as Methrym had planned, and he sat in soaking misery with his men glaring daggers at him. He was truly a slave now, and so were they. By the looks they gave him, he knew he wouldn’t live long to bemoan his fate. Terriss’ plan couldn’t possibly work. They had planned to capture the gate towers and open the gates for Lorenz, but Terriss had other priorities. He had tried to reason with the man, and when that didn’t work he tried threats, but Terriss wouldn’t be turned from his suicidal course.