The Empress and her men mulled over those words quietly, but only for a moment before the General's son arose from his chair, saying,
'We cannot inform the rest of the War Council about this, nor the Emperor. It is still just hogwash.'
'Then what shall we do with him?' was the Empress' response. K'rar was again smiling to himself, but once he caught Samolla's gaze, she frowned at him to stop, lest he annoy his new friends.
'We keep him here. If he is telling the truth, everyone wins. If he means what he says about helping us,' said the lieutenant.
'I did mean it.'
'The thing is,' the General was still not on K'rar's side even though he concurred with his son, 'why did you immediately take our side?'
K'rar knew the answer to this, but it is not what he then said to the General,
'Well, let's just say, I'm a bird that just broke out of my shell. This empire was the first thing I saw.'
'That's a silly reason.'
'You want me to say silver and gold? Well obviously my armies will not wage war for you for free.'
K'rar's real reason was not something he wanted to say to the party. The Kaffrarian Knights were battle-ready, no doubt, but they had never waged war at all against armed opposition. This was the opportune time for this. But from this conversation the Herphemian armies seemed to be much closer to San Vilgraek than the Kaffrarian Knights were.
'You said the War Council,' K'rar said, 'does this mean the war is not just a rumor anymore?'
'It is not,' the young lieutenant said, 'and that's about the main reason you have not been executed. Because if you do have armies, we would like you on our side.'
'They're marching swiftly past the Dragon's Pass as we speak, with 100,000 men. That's exactly double of our men. How many men have you got?'
'36,000.' He was tempted to say that they could take on 100,000 head-on all by themselves, but decided against it.
Tahpenes now stood up to give a final verdict.
'I will keep you here, under close watch. If your men don't arrive in two weeks' time, you said, I will slit your throat myself for defiling my daughter.'
'I didn't…' Samolla once more shot him a curt look.
'Lock him up in the old temple grounds. I want him guarded at all times. My husband must not see him or hear any wind about what happened last night. Understood?'
'Certainly, Your Imperial Majesty,' said the lieutenant, who moved to take K'rar by the arm. But K'rar said,
'I have one request.'
The Empress swirled around and snapped,
'You are still not entitled to make demands. Your imaginary army on metal ships is not here yet.'
'Not a demand, Empress. Your son sent assassins to my lodging, and took a sword that belongs to me. I need it back.'
The Empress was angry, perhaps at many more things than this whole affair, but she nodded to one of the men to grant this wish.
They frisked him away, Samolla with them, and as they did so, he asked them how far away from San Vilgraek the Dragon's Pass was. Samolla answered this,
'Three days. They will be at our walls in three days.'
K'rar cast a glance over at the lieutenant. He said,
'You never introduced yourself, Lieutenant, nor your father.'
The lieutenant returned the glance, and said softly,
'It's General Verdan.'
'Well, General, I think I will be of greater help to you on your walls than in a temple. What do you say?'
His father stopped, put a large palm across K'rar's chest to impede him,
'You stay in your lane, outlander. I suggest you cause no further trouble, lest we inform the Emperor, who is not so magnanimous.'
K'rar's new prison was a domed isolated structure at the south end of the perimeter, built completely out of stone. A Hassendrale break room was adjacent to it, so K'rar would be kept under watch by more than a couple of guards. As soon as he was thrown inside and his new friends departed, the Hassendrale immediately called at the door. They were not making a courtesy visit. K'rar was still scanning the old, but beautiful, walls of the temple before retiring to the room that would have been the office, but was now the cage where he would spend his hours.
Three of them stationed themselves outside the temple entrance, while three of their companions walked into the cavernous holy ground in which K'rar was standing, viewing the incredible art on the dome. One of those inside had with him K'rar's sheathed frosteel weapon. Before K'rar could remark something about it, that one spoke, while K'rar still stood near the opposite end of the large space.
'So, you're the snow faced intruder,' said he.
'Hmm,' K'rar pulled his lips, walking now toward him to retrieve his sword, 'I've been called worse.'
'No doubt,' came the reply. The man held up K'rar's sword, turned it over and again, and unsheathed it, 'what's this made of? Doesn't look like iron to me.'
'Steel. Frosteel. Iron and carbon and obidium.' Obidium was a resource the Nephilim told him was found deep in the Mount Skarla. K'rar let the man examine the weapon, sheathe it, and then throw it on the ground at K'rar's feet rather than give it to him. He didn't mind, so he went down on one knee to pick it up. The Hassendrale guard then lifted his foot to strike him. K'rar saw it, but too late. The boot caught him on his left forearm and sent him flailing back, falling on his back. His sword remained on the ground in front of him.
'You think we were just going to come in here and politely hand it over?' the guard furiously hissed as K'rar picked himself up from the ground, 'after what you did, making us look bad?'
'That was not my intention,' K'rar defended, calmly, 'and for what it's worth, I don't see how I made you look bad. You could not have expected it.'
'And yet it's our jobs on the line when it becomes known to His Imperial Majesty, isn't it? And that's if he is very generous.'
'You ought to be gutted bow to stern,' said a second man.
'Look, I do not want any trouble.'
'Don't want any trouble? Really? You don't want any trouble?' the first guard forcefully said. K'rar was returning toward his sword to pick it up. The guard stamped on it and kicked it with his heel toward his companion, who did pick it, 'well we ain't leaving here until there is some retribution.'
K'rar almost rolled his eyes,
'Fine, you can have your retribution, but at least let me have my sword back.'
'Huh,' laughed the guard, 'have you been listening? What I'm trying to say here, boy, is that this sword no longer belongs to you.'
'That's contrary to the Empress' command. So much for not getting your jobs in trouble, don't you think?'
'So, you'll go and report to her? Go ahead.'
'I won't report to her, no,' said K'rar, 'but I will not let you walk out here with my sword. This is your last warning.'
'Oh,' did you hear that boys? He wants a fight!'
The blokes cackled like witches. One of those standing in the entrance said,
'Well give him what his heart desires!'
'Oh, I will!'
The three of them inside ganged up on him, launching a coordinated attack. They left the frosteel behind them on the ground, yelling to K'rar to go get it. However, they respected themselves enough to attack unarmed, keeping their swords in their sheaths. The men were much better than the common soldiers K'rar had dropped in the west, as well as the young rookies he had faced in the klodiat, which would now be clamoring for him. The Hassendrale were picked out from the best, retrained into the most feared unit in San Vilgraek, worthy of the Imperial Majesties. They landed some blows on K'rar, but only for the first minute in which he studied their movements, learning they were following a playbook. They made sure to always have two men on his flanks, while all three of them concentrated their attack on K'rar's upper body. But K'rar quickly noticed they neglected to use their legs almost completely, focusing on trying to arrest K'rar so that one of them could beat him black and blue. K'rar parried and retreated and parried and retreated, tactically heading to the nearest wall to prevent having one of them behind him. He could not launch a counterattack without being harmed. As soon as he was on the wall, all were smiling, having cornered him, or so they thought. K'rar took the arm of the one in the center while it moved in for a hit, simultaneously taking out the guy on his left by the knee. He had then a tiny window to fight only two of them. First he turned the first man's arm around his body, drove him face first into the wall, just as his companion picked himself up having buckled. K'rar hit him in the same sinew and returned him to the dust. The third man had caught up, but was momentarily alone. Bad news for him. He was taken out with a jumping round kick straight in his face and ruled out of the fight for some time. The other two had recovered, but were the ones wall side of K'rar now. With the same technique against the leader, K'rar took his arm by dodging an attack, exposing the man's backside. K'rar swept him off his feet while he expected an attack on the back, and while he stamped hard with his copper-heeled boots in his ear, K'rar landed a right-footed kick into the belly of the last man, but it only sent him a few feet back without harming him, as he was armored. So K'rar moved in to finish him by launching himself against the man to tackle him like a wrestler. The guard landed pretty badly onto his back, knocking his head squarely onto the hard concrete.
K'rar got up, straightened his clothing, and heaved a sigh. The guards were not going to get up any time now. But there were three others in the entrance who had just watched him put down their colleagues. K'rar was staring straight at them, with a face asking them to come for their share if they so wished. They were not thinking about that. K'rar caught one of them looking at his sword on the ground.
'Don't you dare,' he warned.
'Go get the others,' said the same one, while he himself made a move for the sword. He would get to it first, but having sent away his friends, he was alone. K'rar gave chase to him immediately. He was armored, hence slower than K'rar, though without the armor K'rar would have still caught him up. As he did so, the man realized he wouldn't be able to get away. He stopped to face K'rar, but this time, he drew his weapon.
'Bad choice,' K'rar hissed, still advancing at full pelt. This one was timid, K'rar noticed. He was not equipped to offer up a resistance against him. As K'rar closed the distance between them, the guard readied himself to swing his sword from the side. K'rar went down on his feet, sliding three feet, and before the man realized he was finished, he was already on the ground, groaning, and K'rar had his sword in his hand.
But he wasn't done yet. The other guards were now returning from the break room just a few meters away, along with nine of their companions. Shit. K'rar could handle them, armed, but foresaw that he would have to escalate the situation by critically injuring some of them, even killing them. This, he did not want. But the alternative, to flee, would also escalate the situation in that the whole of the Hassendrale would eventually get involved. K'rar chose the latter, wagering he was able to outrun them. In the inside of his shirt, K'rar had the palace's layout. No one in the whole palace had wondered how he had been able to walk around and find Princess Samolla's room, so no one had checked him for anything. K'rar knew the area in which he was now though, as it was close to his infiltration point. There was no escaping over the wall this time since his equipment had been seized the night before, so he made a beeline for the kitchens, situated along the wall nearest to them, the south wall. He heard the voice of the guard who had started all this. He had recovered.
'Don't you let him get away! Even if you have to kill him, understand? And toll the bell!'
The bell, one of three in the palace, was tolled from the top of the break room just as K'rar stormed into the kitchen, looking this way and that and pulling out his map. There were a couple of women there whom he startled, and a palace eunuch. They stood in the way of one of the numerous entrances and exits in the very large kitchen grounds. K'rar ran toward them while studying the map, just as the Hassendrale behind him also stormed the kitchen. One of them yelled to the eunuch, who was trained in combat, to stop K'rar, so K'rar moved onto the eunuch first by drawing his weapon and brandishing it at the eunuch, who heeded the warning. K'rar kept following the rectangular kitchen, frightening several maids as he stormed through. According to the layout, there was a storage room somewhere along the linear structure of the kitchen. It was easy to spot this one. K'rar knew that it would have ample ventilation, such as a window through which he could jump and return to the open grounds, which he knew would be teeming with approaching Hassendrale—there were 120 of them stationed at the palace, not including the ones following the majesties—who he knew would have blocked off the other exit to the kitchens as well. He climbed up the steps in the blink of an eye, encountered a maid again along the way, causing her to drop the goods she was carrying in her hand. There was another eunuch, the keeper of the storage room keys, also coming down the same steps. K'rar saw the keys dangling in his hands, so he yelled,
'Hand over the keys or I slit your throat!' the eunuch, like his colleague, was not about to face an armed intruder, so he handed over the keys, but as soon as the Hassendrale joined him moments later, he then joined them in the chase. By the time they got into the storage room, K'rar had found the window, and was now scuttling across the third courtyard. He was also carrying bread in his hands, and munching on it.
'Son of a bitch!' the lead guard huffed, looking down from the window. Neither he nor his men would jump that height, 'come on, get out! What are you standing there for! He's headed for the harem!'
The harem was among the buildings in the main compound, which K'rar had been in the night before. K'rar knew there would be a small concentration of Hassendrale in these grounds, but large nonetheless. The entrance K'rar took was actually the exit to the harem. His motive was to use this one to get to a roof top from inside, in which case he would be very difficult to catch. He would even have an opportunity to hide. Through the long corridor he went, unhindered and alone, until he came to the concubines' chambers. The harem was a sacred place of sorts. The only men inside would be eunuchs along with the imperial concubines, until the Emperor visited them. The guards were not to enter this place at all lest they sinned against their master, but the ongoing situation was obviously an exception. Still, K'rar had plenty of time before anyone came into the harem. The mass of the Hassendrale that would have heeded the bell were those assigned to ground work, and would have had to scramble themselves from the Imperial Gate west of here, where they were stationed in the armory, far from the main grounds.
K'rar navigated the hallways and the doors to the concubines' rooms, found them all locked, and returned to the main corridor, when the Hassendrale, now numbering to the thirties, were also just approaching. K'rar raced into the corridor, which then turned right, where a single door faced him at the end, as well as a couple of eunuchs. Armed eunuchs. They immediately drew. K'rar engaged them like a raging bull, and by the time he was finished, one of them was out, and the other nursing a terrible wound on his arm. K'rar had also taken a key to the room. It was the harem itself. The eunuchs had locked it up in response to the bells tolling. K'rar now opened it, with the Hassendrale hot on his heels, and then slammed it closed again, locking it from inside. K'rar heard the men holler at themselves in anger, and one of them bang the door to try and force it. He smiled at himself, and turned around to be greeted by a staggering sight. All nine imperial concubines were assembled there, in and around the large bath full of warm water, stark naked. K'rar only had a moment to gaze even though the Hassendrale were not about to open the harem door. He raced past the frightened women, but before he cleared the ground, someone yelled his name, and K'rar halted. It was Kinjale, the Chwezi woman he had met on the trek to San Vilgraek. She was only one of two Shemian concubines there. K'rar was not surprised that she had risen through the ranks extremely quickly, being very pretty. Still, he was not going to speak to her about this, so he said,
'How do I get to the roof?'
No one stammered anything. K'rar lunged toward them menacingly, staring down the closest one,
'How do I get to the roof, woman!?'
The concubine was fretting like a cornered rat when she pointed to the only other exit, and added,
'There's no way to the roof. That leads to the entrance.'
'There's a chute that used to be a chimney,' said one of the older women who was less frightened than the others. K'rar vanished from them as soon as he got that response, and just as the harem door was beginning to surrender to the barrage it was receiving from the outside.
K'rar expertly scaled the chute, and was at the top of the harem before any guards saw a thing. But they would know that he was up, if not from the concubines, from their colleagues who would be at the opposite exit. K'rar was standing on top of another dome now, having scaled its pillars from underneath where the chute culminated. But the ground was now full of Hassendrale, though they had not yet figured where he was. He had time to study his map again, just as the Captain of the Hassendrale bellowed to his subordinates on the ground concerning the same reason: how the intruder was managing to give them the slip on their own patch. Then they saw him.
'There! On the dome!' they all assembled in a spot where all could see him. K'rar returned the gaze down at them. He scanned the area to locate his next route as seen from the map, which did not require him to return to the ground. Once he had mapped it out in his mind, he once more looked down at the very angry men on the ground, especially the captain.
'You're mine now, pale fella,' taunted the captain, 'you're surrounded.'
K'rar smiled at him, knowing this would enrage the big guy,
'But I'm up here, and you're down there,' he said. The men had no bows or arrows, so K'rar could taunt with impunity.
'I'll slit your throat myself!'
'And yet if I escape from here, your queen will have your head. She gave your men a direct command not to antagonize me, but they tried to kill me.'
'Why don't you come down from there and go tell her?'
The Hassendrale were now joined by more bodies who were not guards, including almost all the imperial princes and princesses. Samolla was one of them.
'What is the meaning of this?!' she bellowed. She was flanked by her sisters, Toniele and Miako, and their female attendants.
'An intruder, Your Imperial Highness,'
'I know who he is! Why are you chasing him around? You were supposed to watch him!'
'He attacked my men, ma'am.'
'Is that so? Or did your men attack him?' she spat back, 'stand down now, Captain.'
'No need for that, Princess,' K'rar said, 'like I said before, there are more people inside this place who want me dead than in the city. I'm leaving.'
'And just how will you do that?'
'Come on, Princess. You know by now that no number of these amateurs can prevent me from leaving here this morning.' And he sat on the dome facing north. He slid down the dome, stopped on an eave, buckled his knees and launched himself over the space between the harem dome and the top of a wall. He landed on his feet, while the guards on the ground watched helplessly. From there he remained on the top of the walls, scaling the whole ground until he came to the northern wall, where he jumped up against a fir, one of many in the grounds, and carried himself to the top, over the wall and out into the trees, facing the lake and harbor.
'Like I said, my lady, he attacked my men,' Captain Ryoko of the Hassendrale was struggling to explain to the Empress, and the Emperor. He was arraigned before them along with his deputy, and the men whom K'rar had engaged first. Young General Verdan, his father and the rest of the ten-man war council were also present, and so was Samolla and three imperial concubines including Kinjale and the one who had directed K'rar to the chute in the harem. They were inside the war room on the flat top of the main palace. The war room was another domed structure that sat on the tail end of the flat roof, the rest of which made up the Emperor's favorite retreat. The Emperor, when he was not dealing with a large number of his officials at once, performed most of his duties from this roof. It was self-contained with everything he needed, which were all stuffed in the war room if it rained because apart from the war room, the roof was open. It faced north in the harbor. The insane statues of the first Imperial couple were visible from here, as well as the rest of the lake inside the north walls.
The Emperor, when K'rar was jumping up into the fir directly neighboring this roof, had seen him and been shocked, hence the summoning of all the parties involved. He had said nothing yet since they showed up, and all the tough questions were being asked by his wife. The Emperor was just rubbing the waves on his forehead with his left index, restraining himself from exploding. He had now just been told everything that he had been insulated from hitherto.
'That is after you attacked him,' Samolla was still defending him, 'if he had wanted he would have escaped last night. I'm the one who convinced him to stay, because he wanted to help my father ultimately anyway.'
'To help me?' this was new to the Emperor's ears, 'the intruder wanted to help me? How?'
General Verdan would answer this query,
'My lord, the intruder is the leader of 36,000 mercenaries, whom he believes are on their way here across the Barren Sea from the western colonies,' he said. The Emperor knew everything else that had been verified, including K'rar's adventure in Tshekaland and his eventual capture by Tango raiders. Verdan went on, 'to rescue him. Whereas he was an intruder, he did offer his forces to help us with our current problem provided they find him unharmed.'
'You believe him,' General Aurien, his father.
'Matter of fact, I do, father. Considering all the factors, I see no reason for him to be lying. He is definitely not from this continent, certainly not from the west where he was found, and it is not impossible that there exist other realms other than the Zenj. His clothing, his sword, his style of combat and many other factors point to only one conclusion. He is who he says he is.'
The Emperor's face was contorted as he digested this information.
'Why am I being appraised of all this now?'
'Because, my lord,' the Empress replied, 'he did invade Samolla's private chambers, and his offer was made to her, inadvertently. We did not want to tell you until it was confirmed. Until his army actually materialized, if it exists.'
'So you're telling me there was someone in this palace who could be helpful to the empire, to us all, and he was being chased across the compound by your men, Captain?'
'A thousand apologies, Imperial Majesty, I did not know any of this. I would have never allowed my men to attack him had I known.'
'You will go into the city and find him. I must see him here before the end of the day, or you will be dismissed.'
'Is he to come as an imperial guest, my lord?' asked the Empress.
'If he is indeed leader of an army, he is more than that. Bring him here by formal invitation.'
'Father, he is a foreigner. Even with a written invitation I do not think he will accept if it is delivered by the Hassendrale. Let me go with them. He will accept it from me.'
'Absolutely not. You still have not explained to me why you were with him in your private chambers, in the dark.'
'I am afraid Her Imperial Highness is correct, sire,' General Verdan opined, 'if it pleases you, I will go with her and the captain to look for him. He knows I am not hostile to him.'
After two moments of mulling this over, the Emperor gave his assent,
'Go. Go now.'
'Captain,' the Empress said, 'your men, the ones who disobeyed my orders. I want them in the dungeons until this whole business is brought to a finish. I will not have this kind of behavior among men who are sworn to my service.'
The dungeons were not the same prisons such as the one K'rar had been thrown in. These were horrible, subterranean jails along the sewers, a nightmarish prison. Thus when the men were taken away from the war room they were begging for mercy, having to be dragged there.
K'rar saw the party sent out to find him first. He had known they would come looking for him, and had already vacated his lodging by taking all that he needed therein. He was dressed in a hood watching them go through the expected movements. First they visited his lodging, then went after Amren, then to the Desert Scorpion training facility. K'rar also figured, early, that he wasn't being hunted as a fugitive. This would have involved the brown-shirts, Enforcement, and at the very least, not the Princess Samolla. So K'rar tailed them when they visited his the Desert Scorpion, and stationed himself outside the gate of the facility. When they came out, they had their backs turned from him. He was less than 10 feet from them, but none of them turned their backs until they came to a cobbled road along one of the many waterways, where General Verdan stopped, and remarked,
'He is a very skilled climber. He would never be on the ground knowing we would hunt him,' he was scanning the rooftops now, 'keep your eyes up. He may have already seen us.' It was he who finally saw him, right behind them, and sneered, 'or right behind us.'
'Hello, General Verdan. Did you miss me?'
The General approached him. He was always oozing with confidence. He walked with a certain swagger, like a man who knew what he was doing.
'How long have you been tailing us?'
'The whole time, General. And I figure you aren't looking to arrest me. You are a reasonable man, and the Princess doesn't seem like someone who would be sent out on a hunt.'
Pointing, Verdan said,
'You're right, I am a reasonable man. I believe you are who you say you are, and I take your word that you are willing to help the Empire,' he now changed his tone to a severe one, 'but once I sense anything that might indicate that my convictions are misplaced, that your mercenaries are reaching out for more than that, you and I will have a big problem. Do you understand?'
'Absolutely, General. I expect nothing less.'
Verdan looked back at the princess, who now came forward and said,
'My father now knows about you. He wants you to return to the palace, as an imperial guest.'
'What an improvement. But General, the question remains if your current armies can keep the Herphemians at bay until the Kaffrarian Knights arrive. That's in at least a week.'
'The Princess' assessment was incorrect this morning, and we are not fighting only the Herphemians. We can handle them if they are alone. But they are in league with the Takaheans and a band of desert rustlers on 20,000 horses. As for keeping them at bay, no one has managed to take San Vilgraek from the empire since it was built. We can handle them, but we have also never faced upwards of 100,000 men, nor a protracted siege.'
'So your knights have to be more than regular men, as you have touted them,' Samolla remarked.
'How far out are they?'
'The new projections indicate that they could be here before dawn tomorrow.'
'Whoa, that's very close. The people don't seem to know a thing.'
'They don't need to know. They only need to know that the Scovian Army will defend them,' said Verdan, 'there's no need for them to panic, yet.'
It was not long before K'rar was standing before his reverence the Emperor of the Scovian Empire, his wife, and his war council. Apart from the Empress and General Verdan, no one was happy about the fact that the Kaffrarian Knights were still way out west, and that their estimated time of arrival was pure conjecture. They had just concluded all the preliminary talk concerning his identity, his motives for offering his services and all the small talk they could gather. K'rar only had to say he wanted a payment, as the whole party seemed to have convinced themselves that he was a mercenary. Besides, K'rar wouldn't pass up the chance to make away with three million worth of kori in gold and silver. He had not yet told them he did not want the payment in coinage, though, lest they follow this up with other questions were was not willing to answer.
Now he was standing over the map of the empire that was painted on the ground in the war room, with focus on the eastern plate. San Vilgraek shared it with four neighbors, including the kingdoms of Takahe, the warring kingdom of Herphem, the merchant city-state of Maia Naja, and the kingdom of Ezion Vilgraek. Scovian territory extended about 200 kilometers south on land, but the Emperor had recalled all his men from their defensive fortified territories in that area once the numerous Takaheans found cause to side with King Gamaliel of Herphem against San Vilgraek. Takahe occupied the area closest to the city to the southeast which didn't already belong to the empire, and even possessed a 48-ship fleet. Whereas they couldn't hope to invade San Vilgraek's lake with their warships, they could, and would, land their land armies on the beaches of the Sea of Mascalla, which is separated from Lake Vilgraek by just 13 miles of land. San Vilgraek's northern and eastern walls, as such were almost completely immune from attack. Ezion Vilgraek and the Maian merchants had until recently pledged to support the empire, but had ignored the Emperor's call, being themselves threatened by the ever-improving Herphemian armies. Besides that, Herphem had reached an agreement with the Nassau Mara nomads to disrupt Maian trade on the route that crossed their territory, a move that as bound to force the greedy merchants to capitulate. As for Ezion Vilgraek, they had decided that they could not trust the empire to come to their aid should they plunge into a conflict with an enemy, and thus they could not commit their men to do the same. These events had galvanized Takahe and Herphem, and for the third time in twenty years, Herphem was on its way to San Vilgraek, on which they had what the Scovians called an illegitimate claim. Gamaliel's father, Gamaliel the Elder, had tried and failed the first two times, and now his son, the Younger, had ascended the throne and increased his armies to make another attempt. Within that time, only one other group had attempted to crack San Vilgraek's walls; a coalition of mid-eastern tribes and kingdoms. At that time, all the westerners had thrown out their own wrangles to fight together.
But those were distant days, long faded out of the memory of those now preparing to defend and those marching toward them to attack. K'rar von Caspar, a new factor in the matter, was still scratching his chin at the map he was standing on and studying. He had been this way for several minutes now, but his new companions had enough time to wait for his input to factor it into their own defensive plan. At long last, he made a move, toward a spot on the map about 20 miles northwest of the Dragon's Pass.
'What's this over here, the Goitan Rift?'
'Yes, why?' Verdan said.
'The coalition are approaching along this route, so they'll use this rift, no?'
'Yes, the surrounding area is wetland and marsh. They have to use the valley…oh, I see the sense in that. You want us to attack them there?'
'That's right. We launch the first attack, with the element of surprise. We'll disorient them good. Let them know we're not spring chickens.'
'Spring chickens?' General Bommel was confused. They all were.
'Yeah. It's a figure of speech…spring chicken, as in weak. Never mind. What I'm saying is, they'll never expect it. It will stall them alright.'
'There's more than 100,000 of them, outlander.'
'The strategy is sound,' Verdan said. He was quicker than his colleagues in picking up what K'rar was putting down, 'very sound actually. Why did anyone not employ it in the past?'
'Committing our forces outside the wall is a dangerous move,' the Emperor cut in, 'if they wipe us out, the wall defense will be severely depleted. What am I missing here, Verdan?'
'This does not require more than a couple hundred men,' K'rar said, 'we use the valley against them. Your men never have to engage them actually. At high ground, all that's needed are archers, some large rocks to roll into the valley. Anything to annoy them.'
'Frustrating the opponent,' Verdan said, 'well our scouts said they were last seen crossing this region. So if we're going to do this we need to go down there now.'
It was now up to the rest of the war council to approve of this strategy.
'Get it done,' said the Emperor, 'I don't think there are any objections?' he scanned the faces of the other members. They had no objections.
'I'm coming with,' General Aurien said, already walking out of the room.
Vizier Emi Volland's horse had stopped on the side of the road to wait for those of the rest of the leaders of the coalition forces including Supreme Lord Gamaliel II, king of the Southern Pridelands, and three others. The king rode inside his horse-drawn cart with the Grand Vizier Aitor Kvist, while General Gavril, supreme commander of the Infantry, rode outside of it with the Marquis of Nassau Mara, leader of the Mara rustlers. The latter looked out of place, as he was the only one among the leaders apart from the rest of his rustlers on the march who was not donned in respectable clothing. The raiders wore heavy bearskins and dirty brown pants only, and apart from many other strings and ornaments, nothing else. Once the party had caught up, the vizier said to Gavril,
'The vanguard is closing in on the rift, General. Once we're through, it's a straight line to the walls of San Vilgraek. Should I have them camp just on the other side?'
'Of course,' it was the marquis who replied, 'we need the men to be fresh as vegetables when the northerners see them approaching their walls.' He was munching on a large branch of brown leaves like a ruminant animal. Like Volland, the General did not like the man, but everyone knew it was no time to express hard feelings. General Gavril said to the vizier,
'You heard the man. We'll camp on the other end of the valley. Have the vanguard get…'
The man was interrupted by someone yelling, "It's an ambush!" up ahead. There might have been no need for that announcement, as the whole camp eventually went wild with activity. The Grand Vizier and Lord Gamaliel jumped out of the carriage to have a look. From way back, nothing they could see resembled any ambush.
'Where?' is what General Gavril was demanding.
'In the valley, sir! The vanguard will be wiped out! We need you there now!'
Both the General and the marquis urged their horses and skirted the flank. The Grand Vizier, already in his armor, also took the nearest horse and mounted it to follow them, relaying to the men he passed by the commands that the General had already given them and was still giving to form their battle lines and handle their spears and shields.
'No one move out of line or I will have your balls!' he was yelling, 'get in your companies now!' he then hissed under his breath, 'the fuck is the meaning of this?'
He would soon learn the answer when he joined the other two men at the mouth of the deep valley canyon in which the vanguard was now receiving a heavy mauling from the two ridges above them. The entire length of the ridges was manned by Scovian archers, shooting at the tail end of the vanguard first, and throwing large, burning anti-climbing rolls of stone, the same ones used to defend the walls against climbers. The rear of the vanguard was effectively cut off, both by the stones and a concentration of arrows slaughtering foot soldiers there. The three leaders watched in shock at the hullaballoo, not having the faintest idea how to proceed. The Scovian defenders were organized. They were striking the exact areas of the formations that were most vulnerable, disappearing and reappearing on the edges of the rift.
'They're slaughtering them!' the Grand Vizier was stating the obvious, 'shields, soldiers! Use your damn shields!'
'Too late. This is already developed into a stampede,' General Gavril was almost resigned.
'But where is their commander? Can't he organize them?'
'He was probably taken out first,' came the reply, 'we need men up on those ridges. There's only about two companies of Scovians.' He was turning his horse, 'Grand Vizier, I'll take a team up on the ridges, you and the marquis save what you can.'
'No, I'm coming with you,' said the marquis, 'you need my men to scale the ridges, and they can stay on their horses while they do so.'
'Alright, tag along.'
They left the Grand Vizier, who was himself a General, yelling at the next line of men to form two parallel cordons and cover the thousand men in the line of fire by flanking them. The rustlers were easier to scramble together since they employed no particular methods of operation. Being very good fighters, the Nassau Mara did not march with the cannon fodder in the vanguard. With a reasonable number of them, their marquis and the General led them tracking back, to find an area where they could then scale the precarious ridges and launch a counteroffensive.
But by the time they came close, the Scovians had concluded their mission, and the last ones of their number were already retreating.
'Go after them! Don't let them get back to the wall!' Gavril was incandescent, 'over there, that narrow strip.' It was a teeny tiny access between two jagged outcrops. The general had seen the tail of a black horse retreating through just before it came within sight. The chasing pack numbered up to a hundred men or so. The rustlers were in the lead, being excellent horsemen. Their primary weapons were large battle axes, while very few wielded bows and arrows. They accessed the open ground across which the Scovians were galloping, and saw the horde of 200 riders shooting across the land.
'They're giving chase!' General Verdan yelled to K'rar, on the black horse next to him.
'Let them. They can't catch up, and if they do, we've got the numbers.'
'Oh, you bet they can catch up! Those ones in skins, they're the rustlers I told you about! Best horsemen in all this land. Which means overall, there's more than we estimated!'
'Well now we know!' K'rar looked back at the chasing pack. There was still clear space between them, but every time he looked, they were closing in. The wall was still a long way off, even as long as half a day's ride. K'rar looked back again after clearing two miles, and the horsemen were not relenting.
'I need a bow!' he said, 'give me a bow!'
'A bow, for what!?' Verdan was handing it over already as he asked, but he needed no answer. The outlander suddenly halted his horse. He was going back.
'What is he doing?!' General Aurien and some other riders who cared to look back were flabbergasted.
'I don't know but I'm going with him,' Verdan shouted back, causing his father to swear at the wind and also turn his horse around. Eventually, three became five, then ten, then thirty horses. K'rar scanned the long cordon of horses opposite him, and chose a target. He wore his pouch of arrows on his back, and placed the bow in front of him.
'What are they doing?' Aitor asked the same question that had already been asked more than a few times by members of his pack. He, too, got his answer quickly, when he saw the rider in the lead of the Scovians do something inexplicable. K'rar released the reins of his horse, and then shifted himself to sit on the back of the racing horse on one knee. His entire chasing pack was watching this wide-eyed, until they saw him preparing his bow. Before they knew it, two horsemen had been struck down in the space of just moments, and K'rar was readying another round.
'Shit!' the marquis yelled, 'we have to go back, we have to go back! Back!'
'What? He's the only one doing whatever the hell that is!'
Two more men fell by his side even as he spoke.
'By the time we catch up that one rider will have killed off half of our men!' he then yelled to his own men in their native dialect to halt and turn back, and when they did so, K'rar also ceased his actions and sat back properly on his horse. He stopped it, but on the other side, General Aitor was not retreating. He was trying to make out if he knew who K'rar was, squinting into the distance. K'rar chuckled at this, and decided to give the General what he wanted, just as the rest of his own party caught him up. General Aurien and his son were staring at each other in amazement at what they had just witnessed.
'What the hell was that?' another rider wanted to know. But K'rar said,
'That's one of their army leaders.'
'It appears to be Aitor,' said Aurien, 'we fought together many years ago, before his whole nation was brainwashed, including him.'
'Well he wants to see me. I'll give him the honors.' He urged his horse to get closer,
'Now what?' Aurien said under his breath, and his son said,
'Same effect as our little raid. Old Aitor will see a strange face, and will have to assume we've got more of his kind inside the walls.' He also urged his horse to ride along, and so did his father, but not before ordering the other riders to head back to San Vilgraek.
Aitor had also meanwhile got a three man entourage including the marquis, so they all got an opportunity to see the strange face of the man responsible, by all means, for the entire transaction including the raid in the canyon. A very pale face, a wad of hair growing down from the top of his head, being blown by the wind.
'Who the hell is he?' the marquis wanted to know.
'Hell if I know, Marquis,' came the General's response, 'but whoever he is, we have not seen the last of him.'
'If there's more like him…'
They took one last look, and turned and left.
Gamaliel was less incredulous than flustered about what he was hearing. He paced this way and that in his tent, with his war leaders standing near the entrance of his tent, watching him with sad faces. They were now camped just ahead of the canyon they did not want to remember, as per the original plan, only just healing from the loss of 103 men even before reaching the walls of the city. Everyone was finished complaining about how the ambush was never supposed to happen, that it should have been spotted by scouts, blah, blah, blah. Now, the morale of their armies was the more pressing issue. And not only because of the ambush, but also because they all had heard of the pale-faced new soldier at San Vilgraek. No, not one soldier, but many. But Grand Vizier Aitor Kvist had seen just a single soldier, and was struggling to reassure his master because of it.
'I have a strong mind it is just one man, not many, my liege. If they wanted to show off a whole army of mercenaries they would have sent down more than him.'
'I know that, Grand Vizier, I can see that. But the men cannot. If they wanted to sow seeds of doubt, they have done just that,' he was still pacing about, moving his hands this way and that too, 'Grand Vizier, doubtful men cannot breach the walls of San Vilgraek.'
'We only lost 100 men. That's a small number…'
'Small number, you say? Small number! Grand Vizier if you have no solutions to this matter, leave my tent now. All of you, out! I want to be alone.'
The men scuttled out of the tent, just as Gamaliel struck something with his foot and upset it. But then they had him shout out,
'Back! Get back here!'
They exchanged bewildered faces, and returned to the tent.
'We march on the city now,' declared the king.
Once more the men exchanged bewildered looks. The king stomped toward them,
'Did you not hear me? I want all the men marching again, now!'
'But my lord, we just set up camp. The men…'
'They wanted to surprise us, show us a secret weapon that they may not even have. So we respond in kind. Their motive was to stall us, was it not?'
'Yes it was, my lord,' replied Gavril, 'but…'
'If we stall, we play into their hands. And the other motive was to show off their one mercenary and sow doubt, wasn't it?' when they nodded he said, 'yet we are not even sure of it. What we're sure of though, is our own secret weapon. And we're going to unleash it against them. Before they expect us at all. Now, go out, tell the men to break camp. I want the devices in the vanguard. We will launch them as soon as they're in range.'
'That is a good countermeasure, my lord, but what the General is trying to say, is what you have already said. The men are disoriented after this attack.'
'Then I will galvanize them,' said Gamaliel, 'bring me my armor.'
He marched out, had his armies stand up and assemble, before delivering a hearty speech about their brotherhood and the savagery of the infidels within the walls, and how their gods had abandoned them to Gamaliel. By the time he was finished, the entire 120,000-strong army was bellowing a battle cry, so Gamaliel could now confidently ask of them, at the top of his voice,
'We march on San Vilgraek now!'
K'rar was with Samolla on the top of the same roof, the Emperor's favorite spot. They were alone, looking out into the harbor, orange with the light of dusk. K'rar held a glass in his hand, a glass of wine she had brought him from below. He hated their wine, thus had not taken even a sip, under the pretense of being despondent that his knights were yet to arrive, the full strength of them, in the harbor. But he was not pretending. Samolla sensed this in his glassy brown eyes. She drew closer to him, standing by his left shoulder.
'Is it only your army that is coming through those gates, K'rar von Caspar?'
'Why?' K'rar asked, casting a brief glance over at her.
'Well, I don't know the first thing about the army, but the way you're looking into the harbor, tells me it is not just the army that is coming.'
'Oh, it is an army alright,' said K'rar, 'just not your regular army.'
'That you've already pointed out. Come on K'rar, why don't you tell me? Besides, you were yet to tell me a lot more before my mother found us.'
'You say that as if we were doing something.'
'We were talking.'
'Uh-huh. Look, princess. You're right. It's not a mercenary army, like everyone else here believes. But I'll let you find out by yourself. So let's do this: have some people you trust head out along your northern coast, westward, as far out as they can. As soon as they see the fleet, have them send a carrier pigeon back to you. Then you go out yourself, and once you catch sight of the fleet, you wave white and green flags. White and green, remember that. The knights will then pick you up, and you can ride on a Stinger back here with them. You'll have plenty of time to know why it's not just an army.'
'I'm definitely coming along,' Toniele and Miako suddenly appeared from the steps leading up to the roof, startling Samolla, but not K'rar.
'Oh my God Samolla, you didn't think to tell us all this?'
'Why are you sneaking up on me?'
'Oh, they didn't sneak. Been there for some time.'
'You saw us, eh?' Miako said, 'now did you say there's a fleet coming to San Vilgraek?'
'You can take them along,' K'rar said, 'you will all love a ride on one of my ships. It's the only one you'll probably get. Of course, this is all based on the premise that you will be allowed to leave in the first place.'
'Life in the harbor hardly changes. The southerners can't attack there. Besides, there is nothing along the northern coastline as going west,' Samolla said. This surprised K'rar greatly, that the entire coastline was barren all the way to San Vilgraek from Tshekaland.
'Very well, then. If they do stop for you, ask to see the Brigadiers. Then you might just learn everything else you want to learn. Now, I'm going to bed. A good, comfortable bed, at long last.'
But he would not go to bed even a little bit, at least not at that time.
The war bells all over the city had begun to toll. The coalition army were now within sight of the walls. It was time for war.