Victus ordered a separate service to be held for Ryon Ludlow, of whom he had grown very fond. The Captain, Bayloff, Arden, and fair skinned Andres, along with some of Ryon’s closest men, held the service by themselves. It was only two hours after dawn; Ryon Ludlow’s body lay in cloth on the ground beside a hole that would be his final resting place. The shroud covered his legs up to his stomach. The soldier was in his armor and had his arms crossed over his chest with his sword underneath. Victus considered having his body sent back to his family in Rogsnelk, but decided he should be buried in the same place as his soldiers who died with him in battle. Although not a very religious man, Ryon was a follower of Unoct, god of stone and land. Since no priests of Unoct were present, a cleric of Tuemis presided over the service. Most priests were at least somewhat knowledgeable of the ways of other religious orders. He would do his best to carry out the burial rituals of Unoct.
The priest slowly poured finely ground dirt over Ryon’s body and then into his mouth, which was then pushed closed. He concluded his prayers, “And into the ground his body shall go, back to the dirt and stone from which all things have come. All things return to the dirt and this soldier is no different. The gods shall guide his spirit and when he has spent enough time removed from the corporeal world, his flesh shall be one with dirt sand and stone, and his spirit at ease. May his soul dwell happily in the next life. May he find peace.”
“May he find peace,” said all the men present. After a customary three minutes of silence, the men lowered his body into his grave and they each participated in filling the hole with dirt. After another few moments the men walked away one by one. Victus was the last to stay. He crouched to the ground and put his hand in the dirt.
“May you find peace, my friend.” he whispered. “Unto our honor.” He stayed beside the grave for a moment and thought of Ryon’s wife, who he had recently gotten to know. He wished he could make himself forget that she was pregnant, but he could not. Ryon’s child would have to grown up without a father because of the war.
When he had arrived back into the city, men were up and about. The Captain walked among them and they welcomed him with smiles and hope. He thanked them and praised them. He spent time mourning with those who may have lost loved ones or that would never walk again. After almost two hours of being with his troops Victus returned to his tent, which was set up towards the middle of the city. He thought of the way his men had looked at him earlier in the day. He saw pain and sorrow in so many eyes. He also knew that it was he who had to give them direction. With direction and leadership comes hope. His men needed hope; his men needed him and he needed strength and composure.
Two battles, two victories, but he had lost over a thousand men. Men with families. They were fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. What did they die for? Faletonia still existed. Their mission was not accomplished. They had set out to destroy the threat posed by Faletonia and the threat remained. Faletonia remained. He looked at his sword and cape, which lay on a nearby trunk. How much more is there to Faletonia?” He thought. He had defeated them twice, but both times he had help. What would the losses looked like without the Song of Calaris providing divine inspiration to his men? Would there be any victory at all without the dwarves? He knew the answer to the latter question and it bothered him. It made him feel vulnerable.
His mind continued to wander. His body ached. Soon he and the cities would face the debts they owed the Crimson Fox. The guild’s mages proved very valuable. It still shocked him that he allowed himself to deal with the group…but there were giants, and he needed the mages. He had to honor his commitments to them. Keeping his word was important to him…and not doing so with the Crimson Fox would be dangerous. Their reach was long and their network deep. If he was to return home victorious, not having been killed by an orc’s spear or a giant’s club, then it would be all the more tragic were he to be assassinated by a Crimson Fox dagger within the streets of his own city. The Captain let out a sigh.
His thoughts switched to his wife and son, Eugello. He thought he heard his son’s chuckle and could smell his wife’s hair. A brief reverie of walking in his small garden amongst his lemon trees while holding Eugello in his arms made him smile. He missed being home. He was weary of death and war. How many more men had to die? The thought troubled him.
Victus ran his hands through his long hair, which felt dirty and oily, and then put his head into his hands and sat for a minute. The Captain had set out on a mission and the mission wasn’t yet complete. It was easy to now become complacent; to bend the knee to weariness and fear. Then he frantically looked around the room and looked back to his sword. Suddenly being alone in his tent felt like he was doing something wrong. Why was he not back with his men…leading them?
Then, as if a sharp dagger had poked through the bottom of his seat, The Captain jumped to his feet. He put on his cape and hastily strapped on his sheath then rushed out of the door. Within minutes he found Bayloff.
“Bayloff!”
“My lord?” Bayloff replied, concerned with his leader’s fretful tone.
The Captain paused as he was not used to being called “my lord” by anyone, nonetheless his friend, but he had not time to dwell on that so he continued, “Rally the men in the city center. Keep men at watch on the walls, but assemble the rest.”
“Is everything ok, should they be prepared to march?”
Victus had begun to walk away and turned back to his highest-ranking officer. “All is fine, and no…they do not need to be ready to march…at least not now.”
Bayloff rushed off at once. Within minutes shouts could be heard going up in the streets as Bayloff carried out his orders. Victus stood with his hand on his hips and looked up to the sky. It was a beautiful day and thin clouds moved quickly through the heavens. After a few minutes went by he began to walk towards the large space in the center of the city thinking of how he would address his men. As he turned through the streets he was stricken still by an unexpected sound that filled the air.
It was a sound similar to one he had heard just a day before, a sound that changed the fate of the last battle. A horn blasted through the air from one end of the city. Victus’s head snapped around quickly toward the sound as he recognized it as a horn blown by his men at watch on the wall. The Captain immediately ran towards the area on the rampart from which the horn blew. As he arrived a man on the wall yelled down to him.
“My lord! Riders approach...Orcs! And they carry a Faletonian standard!”
***
Lunemire’s governing body was assembled within the building known as the House of the Fathers. A few riders that were sent with Mikael Witten returned with news of the plight of Victus Antonel and his army and the council was gravely concerned. In addition, Mikael and nearly forty of Lunemire’s top soldiers had stayed for what sounded like almost certain death. Faletonia was real. Faletonia was a force to be recognized.
Nine men and one woman were in the room, which was the entire council. Lunemire had not sent its army, or any fraction of it, to fight with Victus. Perhaps if they did, the captain from Rogsnelk would have already been victorious. But more likely it was a good move because their army remained in the city, prepared to defend and, more importantly, it remained whole.
“How are things going with our defensive preparations?” Bernot Oxbane, chairman of the council, asked and looked towards a member of the council who was assigned with the task.
“All the defenses have been successfully bolstered. The walls have been fortified and the towers expanded. Catapults have been created,” said the man.
“Ok, great. It would take an army far larger than anything Faletonia could muster to disrupt us behind our walls. What about food, what supply do we have?” A question directed to another member of the council.
“Five months supply,” replied another councilman. “It pains me to bring up such a morbid topic, but if Rogsnelk and Abellard have lost thousands of men, then perhaps they will sell us some of their
supply as well?”
“Merchants have been sent to the cities to negotiate, although I’m not sure they will be received favorably. The other councils may very well look scornfully at us for not sending troops,” said Bernot. “But this is not our concern now. Our army is the focus. We need our men to be disciplined and skilled. We also need them to be well armed. Alexander, I trust steel production has increased?”
“Yes, we have doubled production at our mines but, as you know, our resources are limited. My men work in fear; again I must request further protection. Let’s put some of our army to service by protecting my mines.”
“You would just as quickly put the soldiers to work too,” said another council member. The jab was said because Alexander Farsic was head of a powerful family that ran the largest steel production enterprise in the three cities. He, like many of the councilmen of each city, was very wealthy and stood to get wealthier by an effort to create arms.
“We will give you twenty more soldiers at the mines, does this work for all?” Bernot asked.
“Yes,” was the response from most.
“To the next matter. Wood. Our supplies run low. Lirrowick forest is far. If we try and make a bulk purchase from those damn elves, we could easily be attacked on the way there or robbed on the way back. We’d have to send half the army to protect our merchants, and I’m not even sure that would be enough.” Bernot frowned in frustration.
“Enough wood or soldiers?” One member asked derisively.
Bernot shot him an angry glance, “Both. We know little of what Faletonia is capable of doing. Still, I think some trips to the forest make sense. We will bring back what we can. The need for wood is unmistakable. How can we do this?”
“I have riders who will go,” said Tenezza Almore, the only woman on the council. Her long blonde hair was in a ponytail. “The risk will require a reasonable fee, as the likelihood that they perish is quite high.”
“How many wagons and trips?” Asked Bernot.
“Five wagons and two trips…and the elves will require a handsome sum as well, including goods since the skinny pricks value gold very little,” she replied nastily.
“Fine, we will discuss your payment later and the goods for the elves as well,” Bernot continued. “Do we all agree?”
“Yes,” was the majority response.
“Scouts will be returning soon to confirm the outcome of the battle to the north. In the meantime, get our men together. Every man that is capable of fighting. Put swords in their hands and armor on their back. Teach them formations and tactics and repeat defensive exercises.”
“Every man?” Tenezza asked in a voice that implied that Bernot should think about what he said.
The chairman of the council looked to Tenezza and the rest of the council. He tapped his fingers softly on the table. “Well I suppose that the men who work our businesses may have reason to not be interrupted form their work.” A smirk crossed his face and Tenezza raised her wine glass towards him and smiled back. “The rest will prepare to defend this city. Lunemire will not fall. Whatever the fate of Victus Antonel and his army is, Lunemire has further established itself as the greatest city in the region.”
Each council member raised their glasses of wine as if Bernot’s comment was a toast and then they drank.
Chapter 26
Just a day earlier, Victus and some of his men met with several dwarven commanders in the very same room he sat in now. This day there were no longer dwarves present, but instead orcs. Victus’s men had searched each of the three orcs for weapons and then allowed them in the building. They had come alone, bearing the standard of their nation: The black scorpion over the red background. Bayloff and Orvious accompanied The Captain. Several heavily armed human soldiers were in the room as well, ready to slay the orcs if things got out of line. The humans were at one small rectangular table and the Faletonians at another three feet away.
“I am Victus Antonel, captain of the army of the city Rogsnelk, commander of this force. Within this army are soldiers from Abellard, sister city to Rogsnelk. This is Bayloff Mihines of Rogsnelk and Orvious Stunbar of Abellard, also commanders of the army.”
Two orcs kept their gaze on the humans and one turned his head to the orc seated in the center of the three, who then spoke in the common tongue with a strong accent. “I am Neemno, one of the leaders on the Council of Leaders of Faletonia. This is my first commander Bazik,” he looked to the orc to his right, “and this is Yushish.” He looked to the other to his left.
A silence hung in the room like pestilence.
The orc continued with a surprisingly good grasp of the language. “Many Faletonians have perished within the last ten day.” He was tall but seemed thin beneath his light plate armor.
“And many humans.” Interrupted Victus, his blue eyes piercing the orc’s.
“Yes. It was not our intention that either would be so. We came to your cities in peace and hoped to keep the peace.”
“Did you not intend for the dwarves to die either when you attacked their mines and occupied them?” Asked The Captain aggressively.
“We promised no peace with the dwarves unless they provided us with a small part of their mountain. A part that they left hardly worked, while we needed it badly. Why should resources go unused? Why must whole mountain range be the possession of the dwarves? You probably do not even know, but orcs once roamed the tunnels within and below the Argudlutch.” Neemno realized that he had just used the orcish word for the mountain range. He did not know how the mountain range was called in the common tongue.
“We call them the Singrin Peaks,” Victus said, realizing what had just happened. “How long would it be until you demanded something from our cities, bringing war if we do not respond in the manner that you’d like? Perhaps you fancy the grain from our fields, or access to the sea?”
“It would not happen.” Neemno said calmly. “You have nothing that we need. Faletonia has little use for the sea, and our cities are surrounded by land. Land that we cultivate, as you seen outside this city. We also trade with the elves, who do not shun what we have created.”
Victus had not given any thought to the relations between the elves and Faletonia. At first the fact that the elves of Lirrowick forest would deal with young nation surprised Victus, but considering how peculiar and unpredictable the pointed eared folks were, it shouldn’t have. He had never met an elf, but had heard stories of them and indirectly dealt with them in his limited time on the council. Without wood from their vast forest, it would be difficult to expand even the smallest of cities. This went for Faletonia or any of the three cities by the South Sea alike.
“And what is it that you have created Neemno of Faletonia?” Asked Victus with a gruff tone, his sharp facial features looking more rigid than normal.
“Is it so hard for you to see Victus? We have brought our kind together, along with those who are not orcs that also grew tired of an unstable life. A life of war and starvation, with no place that is called home. Our gates were and are opened to those who understand what we want. Those who would not comply with our beliefs were immediately dealt with. That remains our way.” He spoke slow as if to think of each word and it’s meaning. Victus couldn’t help but be impressed with the orc. “You see, it happened so quickly and with great success. Is it wrong to want to pursue whatever is most likely to allow us to prosper? Orcs and goblins alike took to the dream of having a settled life. Giants and Ogres enjoy having a roof over their heads. A roof to return to, day after day. Thousands of Faletonians still desire this back in our other cities. All work together to the same goal. Our hopes are not very different than those of your people, are they Victus? All this is only accomplished if there is peace.
Silence fell over the room again for a few seconds, but not as heavy as the first time. Victus kept a stern expression even though the mention of thousands of Faletonians worried him. “How many thousands?” The Captain thought to himself.
“So what is it you s
eek here?” Asked Victus as he crossed his arms over his chest and eyed the orcs skeptically.
“We seek what we wanted the whole time, before you attacked our city and killed our citizens.”
Victus leaned forward slowly, as if about to release from a coiled position, ready to strike. “We have a few thousand men remaining and more on the way. How can we trust Faletonia? Why would we not finish what we started?” One of the orcs beside Neemno perked up, as the conversation seemed to be taking a turn for the worst.
Neemno’s calm response eased his colleague’s tension for the moment. “Because you don’t want war for your people. We will not attack you again…and if you attack us, you must know that our soldiers are dug in for defense. We don’t want any more human deaths. We don’t want more Faletonian deaths. We don’t want more sorrow. We would prefer relations that benefited one another, like trade. But if this can not be now, than what we desire is simply peace.”
Another silence, this one shattered quickly by the orcish commander’s raised voice, “End the war, Victus Antonel. Accept our peace. Let your men go home to their lives. Let our troops return to their families. End this war and return peace to this land! The decision is yours, your kin seem to follow you…so lead them. Lead them to peace, not war.”
The Captain fixed his gaze on Neemno. The orc’s eyes were jaundice and a strange green color that seemed unnatural for orcs. Tusks adorned his mouth. Victus rose to his feet and the guards in the room shifted as if to prepare for combat. “I called these men to arms to defeat Faletonia.” He glanced down to Bayloff who kept his eyes locked on the orcs. “But this war stops now.” Orvious turned a glance up to Victus; he couldn’t hide the shock from his bearded face. “If there is to be peace, then we must come to agreement on some things to make it happen.”
“What will bring peace?” Asked Neemno.
Kingdom Come (Price of Power Book 1) Page 34