It was a believable claim to many and not really an unexpected move.
The Archduke of Boeruine had, after all, declared that Prince Michael was dead.
When Michael had returned, Arwyn really had only two choices-back down from his claim to regency, swear fealty to Michael, and hope the new emperor would not hold a grudge, or else declare him an imposter foisted off upon the people by Lord Tieran, aided by the elven magic of Prince Fhileraene.
Aedan was not at all surprised when Arwyn chose the latter option.
Since then, it had been one campaign after another, and not always against the forces of Boeruine, which had become considerable. Lord Arwyn had recruited mercenaries and bandits from the Five Peaks region to join his army and he had even gone so far as to openly ally himself with the goblins of Thurazor. His rationale for doing so was astonishingly bold. Lord Tieran, he claimed, had betrayed the empire by allying himself with the elves. And rather than face the possibility of their old enemies overcoming them with the aid of the Anuirean troops, the goblins had decided to throw in their lot with the forces of Boeruine, the rightful regent, in exchange for Arwyn’s support against the elves. What was more, in his dispatches from Seaharrow to the other provinces of the empire, Arwyn had actually bragged of this alliance, invoking the memory of Mount Deismaar and comparing himself to Haelyn, who had made an alliance with the elves against the dark forces of Azrai for the common good. And incredibly, there were many who took him at his word.
As soon as it became evident that Arwyn would not recognize the emperor, insisting he was an imposter, and would not give up his claim to regency, a number of other provinces also rebelled. At first, it was not open rebellion; they simply failed to respond to Michael’s call to arms. Coeranys sent no reply to Lord Tieran’s dispatches. Suiriene, far to the east on the shores of the Sea of the Golden Sun, likewise failed to respond, as did the province of Alamie in the Heartlands. The Baron of Ghieste, whose walled city was located in the Heartlands to the north of Anuire, sent regrets and claimed that all his troops were needed at home to secure his borders against gnoll raiders from the Spiderfell.
The implications of this were all too clear. A good number of the late emperor’s vassals were sitting on the fence, unwilling to declare for Michael and against Boeruine because they were afraid to choose the losing side. Arwyn’s strength and prowess as a warlord were well known throughout the empire, while Michael was just a boy and had yet to prove himself. The Viscount of Osoerde had even gone so far as to demand proof that Michael was not the pretender Arwyn claimed he was.
And despite Michael’s coronation in the capital, the empire was plunged into an interregnum. Thus Michael had been forced to begin his reign by fighting for what was rightfully his. And unless he moved decisively, the empire was in danger of disintegrating.
Aedan’s father and Lord Korven had concurred that given their present strength-or rather, lack of it-they could not hope to successfully mount a campaign against Lord Arwyn, who’d had a year of preparation to solidify his position. Consequently, they had been forced to mount campaigns against those provinces that had not responded to the call to arms. They had marched on Ghieste first, since it was the closest capital, with its borders adjacent to Avanil.
Lord Korven led his troops on a forced march to Ghieste, with Michael riding at his side and Aedan bearing the Roele standard of a red dragon rampant on a field of white. Lord Richard, Baron of Ghieste, was taken completely unawares. He awoke one morning to find the Royal House Guard and the Army of Anuire, augmented with the troops of Avanil, encamped before his castle, prepared to conduct a siege. It was the last thing he expected. Nor was he given time to think. No sooner had he realized that there was an army camped just beyond his walls than an envoy was dispatched to him with an imperial summons to come out and meet with the emperor in his tent. A refusal would have been tantamount to open rebellion, and he could not have withstood a siege.
Lord Richard had no choice but to comply.
He had ridden from his castle to Michael’s tent with only a token escort, and it was at that meeting that Michael began to prove himself worthy of his birthright. Lord Tieran had advised him beforehand, but Michael had conducted the meeting all by himself, which had taken Lord Richard by surprise. He had expected to deal with the high chamberlain, but instead found himself facing a very self-assured boy of thirteen, who comported himself with a confidence well beyond his years.
He had greeted Lord Richard warmly and expressed sympathy for his problems with the raiders.
He had assured him of his support, promising that the next time there was a raid upon his city, he would send a force on a punitive expedition against the gnolls to show them that the emperor would not countenance incursions into his lands. He further
reassured him that he would not dream of leaving the Barony of Ghieste unprotected by taking all its troops away on a campaign, so he would only take a third of them. And to demonstrate the high esteem in which he held Lord Richard, he would grant his eldest son the singular honor of a knighthood, so that he could lead Ghieste’s troops in the campaign under Lord Richard’s standard.
Lord Richard knew he had been adroitly outmaneuvered. He was in no position to refuse, with Lord Korven and his troops on the scene, and once they had departed, he could not once more become recalcitrant, because the emperor would have his eldest son with him as a hostage.
By knighting young Viscount Ghieste, Michael would also be able to keep the viscount with him at court, which would please young Ghieste, for life at the Anuirean court was much more stimulating and vastly preferable to an unattached young man than the quiet, rural life in an outlying province. At the same time, it would ensure Baron Ghieste’s loyalty, and by having a third of Ghieste’s troops with him, even if it wasn’t a significant addition to his forces, their marching with the emperor under Ghieste’s standard amounted to a formal recognition of Michael’s birthright. And so the city had been “retaken” without a single blow being struck. It had been a masterful piece of armed diplomacy for which Lord Tieran was responsible, but Michael had done his part and handled himself flawlessly, leaving Lord Richard very much impressed.
Unfortunately, things had not gone quite so easily with some of the other provinces. Coeranys was over three hundred miles from Anuire, and there was no way of surprising the Duchess Sariele with a forced march across the Heartlands. Eugenie Sariele had ruled the province since her husband had become crippled by disease, and for years, she had done so more or less independently of Anuire. The lands of Coeranys, out in the Eastern Marches, were sparsely populated, and their inhabitants subsisted primarily on guild trading and raising livestock. The landrunners, nomadic herdsmen of Coeranys, were fiercely independent, ranging far and wide across the grassy plains, and many of them had gone tribal, setting up their own nomadic governments without feeling the need to answer to the duchess, who left them pretty much alone.
Much of the terrain was swampy, particularly the southern region of the province, where waters from the gulf made considerable inroads through the bayous, streams, and marshes of the lowlands. The storms that swept down regularly from the rocky highlands of Baruk-Azhik kept the land inundated with almost constant rain and much of the central lowlands of the province were peat bogs that were not easily traversed by an armed force. Unless one really knew the territory, it was easy to get lost in the swamps or stumble into a soft, deep bog and get sucked down.
The capital of Coeranys was the city of Ruorvan, built upon the banks of the River Saemil, which flowed into the swampy marshes from the foothills of the Sielwode. To the south and east and west of the city, the land was all bogs and bayous, which rendered it practically unapproachable from those directions. The only reasonable overland approach to Ruorvan was from the north, through the province of Elinie, across a narrow band of high ground
running through the marshlands into the open plains to the north of the city. There was, consequently, no way that an army
could approach the capital of Coeranys by stealth-unless it came through the world between the worlds.
Lord Korven had tried twice to lead his force into Coeranys to bring the Duchess Sariele to heel. Both times, he had failed. Aedan and Michael had been with him each time, and both expeditions had proved disastrous.
The first one had floundered in the marshes to the northwest of Ruorvan as they tried to cross the River Saemil. Heavy rains had raised the floodwaters and reduced the roads to a sea of mud in which horses sank almost to their withers and foot soldiers bogged down to their knees.
After weeks of battling such impossible conditions, the army had been forced to turn back.
The second expedition fared no better. While the weather had not been nearly so severe, by the time the second campaign had been mounted, the duchess had been warned by the failure of the first one and had mustered not only her troops, but the nomadic landrunners as well to repel the emperor’s forces.
The narrow strip of high ground between the swamps and marshes on the eastern borders of Elinie, the only practicable overland route into Coeranys across the River Saemil, was only about twenty miles wide, and much of that territory was taken up by soft and grassy peat bogs across which an army could not march. There were only a few miles of passable ground, and this narrow strip could be easily defended by a much smaller force against a larger one, especially when the defenders were intimately familiar with the terrain. Faced not only with the knights and men-at-arms of the Duchess Sariele, but with the fierce and savage landrunners as well, the emperor’s forces found themselves fighting for every inch of ground as they attempted their approach.
Lord Korven’s fighting tactics had been seriously hampered by the fact that he was not only forced to wage conventional warfare against the troops of Coeranys, but also fight constant defensive actions against the landrunners, who pursued hit-and-run guerilla warfare against the advancing army. They would strike at night or during a heavy rainstorm, inflict heavy casualties with their powerful longbows, then retreat into the swamps, where every effort to pursue them had only resulted in the loss of more men. And once again, the emperor’s army had been forced to turn back in defeat.
Meanwhile, Lord Arwyn had not remained idle.
With his army considerably strengthened by troops from Taeghas, Talinie, and Brosengae, he had attacked Avanil. He had waited until his spies informed him that the Army of Anuire was marching on Coeranys and after calculating how long it would take the emperor and Lord Korven to reach the River Saemil, he launched a devastating two-pronged attack on Avanil. He had split his army, sending part of his forces through the forest east from Seaharrow and across the border into western Alamie, then south to Avanil, while the rest of his troops marched east from Brosengae, crossed the border into Avanil, and attacked the capital city of Dalton, where Lord Kier of Avan had his stronghold.
With a good part of his forces on the march with PO]
the Army of Anuire, Lord Kier was left with only half his normal complement of troops. He had anticipated the possibility of an attack from across the border of Brosengae and had concentrated most of his defensive garrisons along the twenty-mile stretch of open plain between the southern tip of the Seamist Mountains and the coast. What he had not expected was an attack through western Alamie, which was not only a lengthy route, but also entailed marching an army around the outer borders of the territory claimed by Rhuobhe Manslayer.
The temptation for the Manslayer to conduct hitand-run tactics against the rear guard of an army marching around his territory would have been irresistible, or at least so Lord Kier had thought. Besides, an army on the march from Seaharrow through western Alamie would have had to cover some four hundred miles to reach Dalton, with at least one hundred and fifty of those miles through thick, oldgrowth forest that would leave them likewise vulnerable to guerilla tactics. What the Duke of Avanil failed to take into account was the possibility that Rhuobhe Manslayer might be perfectly content to let such an army pass around the borders of his territory unmolested, if he knew they were enroute to attack other human forces. If such an advancing army was defeated and found itself forced to retreat, he could then attack it on its return march, when the troops were weakened. On the other hand, if they were successful, he could wait until they had departed and attack the losers.
And that was precisely what he had done, though there had been no way for Arwyn to know that for sure in advance. As Aedan’s father had told him so many times before, considering the possibilities was everything in life. Arwyn had simply assessed the possibilities and gambled on the odds. Successfully, as it turned out. While half of Arwyn’s army moved against the garrisons protecting the border between Brosengae and Avanil, the other half had marched through the forests of Boeruine, around the northern tip of the Seamist Mountain range and Rhuobhe’s territory, then crossed the border into western Alamie to slash and burn their way south toward Da ton. It was his way of making Duke Flaertes pay the price for sitting on the fence and failing to declare for him.
Michael’s third expedition against Coeranys was delayed by the necessity of having to conduct forced marches all the way across the Heartlands to come to Lord Kier’s rescue. En route, they passed through the Duchy of Alamie, marching through the capital of Lofton in a show of force to induce LorD Deklan Alam, Duke of Alamie, to declare himself for the emperor. Naturally, with an army marching through his capital, Lord Deklan had hastened to reaffirm his loyalty to the empire, whereupon Michael resorted to the same ploy he had used with the Baron of Ghieste.
He had ceremoniously knighted Lord Alam’s eldest son and appointed him to command a portion of Alamie’s troops on the campaign to western Alamie, thereby making certain Lord Alam would not experience a change of heart once the army had departed. In western Alamie, they found only the devastation left behind by Arwyn’s army as they had marched south on Avanil. Farms and villages were burned, livestock slaughtered, fields of crops razed
and trampled to the ground. Western Alamie would not soon forget Lord Arwyn, and when the Army of Anuire reached the capital of Haes, Duke Flaertes did not need any prodding to declare in favor of the emperor.
The Army of Boeruine had not paused in their march to lay siege to Haes, but they had laid waste to every town and village in their path, and the capital was jammed with refugees and wounded who had lost their homes and come to their lord to seek refuge and redress. What Lord Tieran had not been able to accomplish by diplomacy, the Archduke of Boeruine had accomplished with the sword. Duke Flaertes acknowledged Michael as the rightful ruler and gave him half his troops.
They had then made haste from Haes toward Dalton, and when they crossed the border into Avanil, they found even more destruction. Scouts had been sent on ahead and they returned to report that the two halves of Arwyn’s army had reunited and had laid siege to Avanhold, Lord Kier’s castle. When Arwyn learned that the emperor’s army was on the march to Dalton, he had given up the siege and crossed the border into Brosengae.
He had declined to offer combat to the emperor, but his purpose had been accomplished. He had punished Flaertes for failing to take his side against “The Pretender,” as he referred to Michael, and though he had been forced to give up his siege of Avanhold, he had destroyed much of the city and had decimated Lord Kier’s inferior forces.
Michael had chafed to pursue him into Brosengae, but Lord Korven had convinced him that it would be unwise. Their troops were tired from slogging through the marshes on the failed campaign in Coeranys and the long forced marches across the Heartlands. Moreover, Arwyn had torched the fields and killed all the livestock at the crofts around Dalton, much of which was still in flames, thereby rendering the emperor unable to reprovision his forces.
And to make matters still worse, the Manslayer had waited until the Army of Anuire had crossed the border into Avanil and then launched a series of savage raids against the beleaguered Duchy of western Alamie.
Michael had to send out parties of
rangers to scour the countryside for available provisions, then turn back to give aid to Duke Flaertes in his attempts to stop the Manslayer’s depredations.
When the army finally returned to Anuire after the long and disastrous campaign, the troops were utterly worn out. Many had fallen in combat with Rhuobhe’s elves, while others had succumbed to sheer exhaustion, hunger, and disease. It was then that Michael had vowed he would never again fail to come to the aid of loyal vassals because his troops could not arrive in time. And remembering their journey from Tuarhievel to Anuire, he had struck upon the idea of marching through the Shadow World.
Ever since, the Army of Anuire had fought almost continuously as Arwyn’s forces struck out across the Heartlands and sporadic rebellions broke out throughout the empire. No sooner would the emperor’s army have to respond to one of Arwyn’s forays than another outbreak of warfare would erupt elsewhere in the empire. The goblins of Markazor launched an assault on the human holdings in that embattled province.
Osoerde was attacked by sea raiders from Ghamoura. The gnolls of Chimaeron,
Bos
emboldened by the internecine conflict in the empire, launched repeated raids against Coeranys, causing the recalcitrant Duchess Eugenie to appeal to the emperor for help in repelling the invaders.
“Let her stew in her own juices,” Lord Korven had responded when the dispatch rider from Coeranys arrived in Anuire, bearing the call for aid. “We lost a lot of good men in those miserable swamps and now she wants our help? The gnolls may gnaw on her bones for all I care!”
“No, Lord Korven,” Michael had replied. “I understand how you must feel, and I must confess that under other circumstances, I would share your views. However, I must think first of the empire, and if we could not bring the Duchess Eugenie back into the fold by marching against her, we shall do so by marching to her aid. Recriminations will not serve our purposes, however justified we feel they may be.
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