Tate sat on the edge of his bed as he listened to rain pound on his closed window. The clouds had rolled in as the afternoon had waned, and as dusk fell. He had nothing to look at and the elegant room, but he was lost in old memories. The brief and awkward exchange he had with Lou and Bezhar had suddenly reminded him of a conversation he had once with Aliya.
Aliya had been fourteen years old and they had just finished a sparring session. He could clearly see her now, just as clearly as he had seen her then, he had been sitting down and taking a drink of water. He remembered Kilnik had been perched on the one tower that Nourii Castle had looking down on them as they had practiced.
Aliya had come up next to him, and as was her fashion, she sat next to him and waited for him to pass his canteen to her. Once he drank his fill he gave her the nearly half-full vessel to drink from. After she had taken a long swig, she wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and looked around them.
She hadn't looked at him at all as she had asked in a hesitant tone, "Tate. I've always wondered about this, but I've never asked, but I can't hold back my curiosity any longer the servants have been talking lately, and I just can't keep it in."
"What are you referring to? Are the servants just gossiping about me?" He meant it a little playfully but she had flinched when he asked the question. He wasn't ignorant that his relationship with those who serve Nourii Castle was very different from the one Aliya had with the same people. After all, he could not change the fact that he was Tate Delmont, that he was who he was he was the hero of the Empire of Lya. Aliya was special, yes but at the end of the day she was just a girl who had come from nowhere and just happened to hatch a dragon. The servants took to her like ducks to water, but with Tate there was always separation and there always would be whether it was something that he would wish or not.
He guessed from her subtle reaction that he probably was often a subject of true gossip amongst those in the servant's quarters. He could admit his own fault if there was fault to be had in his lack of closeness with the servants. He's been raised an aristocrat, he was lord Tate. He didn't know how to or where to begin with making friends with those who were below his station in society. He did not think any less of them. He esteemed their profession. In fact, he knew that many great houses and many functions of the empire would be totally lost and would fall to pieces if such people were not willing to offer up their hands and hearts to jobs of service.
Continuing she said, "I wanted to know about the war. I feel like I just keep hearing rumors and things that contradict each other. I wanted to ask you directly since you were actually there."
Feeling a bit nervous at this line of questioning he asked. "What did you want to know?" He promised himself that he would not shut her down unless it was something that he truly couldn't talk about or if it was something that he just didn't feel he could share with her. She may be fourteen but in his eyes, she was still just a little girl, and he had no desire to impart to her the many horrors, which he had witnessed and endured when he was a soldier on the front lines.
"Why did we go to war? I feel like I've heard many different answers, and I just don't understand which is the truth."
"What have you heard?"
"I've heard that the southern countries were plotting an uprising, I've heard that the southern countries were invading our lower sectors, and I've also heard that the Emperor had been plotting to expand the empire for a long time."
He chuckled, but the sound was void of all humor. "Well, I suppose there's a bit of truth, and all of that when it comes down to it. However, just as much of that is complete and utter nonsense."
After he didn't, she prompted him with a drawn-out "Wellllll.....?"
"The most basic truth is that the king of Veneswa Should just have left well enough alone. Veneswa was already a sizable little kingdom, although nothing compared to our Empire. It was at that time, the largest independent state left in the realm. The king got greedy, he wanted to form his own little empire. I do believe that in the very back of his mind, he had plans to create an uprising at some point in the future once he had conquered his southern neighbors, and increased his foothold in that region. At the end of the day, the truth is that the Emperor does not like to be taken lightly. When the southern conflict started to affect our trade routes through that region the emperor sent out a notice that the King of Veneswa was to clear the routes. The problem arose when the king not only ignored the Emperor's command, but he also sent back a letter that not many people knew about."
"What did the letter say? "She leaning forward teaming with curiosity now.
"It said that Veneswa did not recognize the Emperor of Lya as its ruler and that they felt no need to comply with the Emperor's demands. The Emperor had no say over them. One thing I know about my godfather is that you do not tell him what he can control and what he cannot control. By sending that letter, they sealed their fate. Dragon riders of the south were no match for our forces, and even though it took longer than anticipated, our victory was assured from the moment we took flight."
"Why did it take so long? I would have thought it would be quick because as you just said since our dragons were superior and our dragon riders were superior we also just had more than the few that they had. Why did it take so long to subdue the South?"
Tate thought about how to answer this for a moment. "It is never as straightforward as someone thinks it will be. Yes, we had superior numbers of dragon riders and superior training in that respect but our infantry and regular military have been historically neglected. Just because we have a lot of dragons to throw at an enemy does not mean that we can just wipe them out in one go."
"Why not? If you have the fire why not just blast everyone and move on?"
He gave her a sideways look. "What about the civilians?"
That brought her up short, and he knew that she'd not considered this aspect before.
"That is the obstacle in a war of using dragons. How would it look for an emperor to conquer a nation but in the process, there's no one left in that nation to rule? Yes, a dragon could easily go in and wipe out an entire population of a country and that's not an entire battalion like we had that's one single dragon. myself and Aquana well, I don't know if I should be telling you this…"
"What is it?"
He cleared his throat, regretting leading the conversation here by accident, but he decided to be honest with her. "Aquana and I have a record…" She just kept staring at him intently. He forced himself to go on. "We hold the record for murdering the most people in one second."
The way he phrased it brought her up short. She sat up and even leaned back from him for a moment. She blinked once, twice, three times as if she didn't know what else to do.
She cleared her throat a few times before finally saying, "What do you mean by that?" Each word was annunciated slowly and cautiously.
"Do you remember what I told you was Aquas's ability?"
She nodded still leaning away. "Yes, she could create boiling vapor, right?"
"Yes, once when we entered an enemy camp we were ordered to wipe out the entire camp. We did so and in one second five thousand lives were lost. It was a great victory, but it came at a great cost that neither I nor Aquana knew at that moment. What we didn't know at the time was that one thousand of that number were innocent women and children who were just traveling with the military. I've never found out, if that was information that was known to my superiors, or if it was an oversight in our intelligence. Regardless, what I'm trying to say is that it is ill-advised in war to create too much of a negative impact on the number of civilians in that country. You even have to be strategic about what fields you burn and how much farmland you char, yes you want to put pressure on your enemy, you want to cripple them and create dissatisfaction and unrest from within while you are slashing away without however, you can't go too far or there will be nothing left to come back from. I am also not saying that there aren't places that do war in such a manner of brutality and butchery where such things are celebrated and disregarded. This is one great thing I can say about the Empire, the Emperor wants to rule he wants to rule living breathing people not corpses scattered across the field."