Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (23 page)

    
The sun told me that I had about three hours until dusk.  I inhaled, exhaled slowly, and broke the seal on the leather tube.  A squire or some sort of person, an Uman or an Uman-Chi by the green hair, took the tube and passed it down to a group of Men in white robes, who bent over it.  I assumed that they were studying its authenticity.

    
I don’t like public speaking.  Basically, I held the parchment up in front of my face with both hands and read the following, as loudly and as clearly as I could:

From: Hvarl, Dwarven King, Great Dwarven Nation

To: All Delegates of the Fovean High Council

It is hereby reported, via Our delegate, that on the seventh day of Chaos, year eighty of the Founding of the Council, that the Dwarven nation was unlawfully and illegally Invaded by two thousand Dorkan warriors.  That event was in an effort by Dorkan to annex and to control Our Dwarven mines.  The Great Dwarven Nation demands Reparations mandated by
this Council for Loss of Dwarven Life and the immediate and extensive Punishment of the Dorkan nation.

Presented this day, by Our hand,

Hvarl, Dwarven King

    
I lowered my hands, and looked out over the eighty assembled diplomats.

    
There were ten Men with long, dark ponytails, seated directly in front of me, wearing huge smiles on their faces.  Several had fu-Manchu-style goatees.

    
Behind these were more Men, grimmer faced, with short-cropped hair or bald.  Most wore earrings and other jewelry.  I knew their ilk – they were Dorkan Wizards.

    
To my left sat thin Uman, plain-looking men and women.  To my right, more Uman, varying hairstyles and just male.  Behind them, more Men, dark hair, tan skin, kind of Asian looking, all clean-shaven.  Behind the other group of Uman, on the left, a very rough crowd of men, obviously out of place in their robes, looked at me unhappily.  I knew from having lived among them that these were Volkhydrans.

    
In the back sat the Trenboni delegation, their white robes somehow whiter than the rest.  Something about them seemed
wrong
, but I hadn’t gotten close enough to one to pick out what.  They seemed nonplussed by the whole thing, and I noticed there were eleven of them.

    
One of the Dorkans cleared his throat.  He stood, squared his shoulders, and addressed me.

    
“Why would you bring these lies from the Dwarven nation?”

    
I felt myself bristling.  “It is no lie,” I said, trying to keep myself in check.  “I was there, fighting on the side of the Dwarves.”

    
I noticed a little commotion to my left and right, between both sets of Uman.  The rougher-looking Men, the Volkhydrans, stopped looking unhappy and unanimously switched to pissed-off.

    
“Men fighting for Dwarves?” the Dorkan asked, with a sideways look towards the Volkhydrans.

    
Someone whispered, “
bounty hunter,”
and I saw some nodding.  I just stared at him.  I didn’t think that he wanted to hear my answer, regardless of what it might be.

    
Another diplomat stood from among the plain-looking Uman, whom I assumed were Sentalan.  “There is evidence from the Sentalan nation to prove that a large force from Dorkan passed through the Dead Oak Forest and along the south of the Great Northern Mountain Range,” he said.

    
They sat; the Dorkans buzzed amongst themselves like bees.  The Sentalan sat as a Volkhydran stood.  “Volkhydran nation, move to adjourn.”

    
“Trenboni say nay,” an Uman-Chi said, in a dull tone of voice.

    
“Don’t let that throw you,” Xinto whispered, standing next to me.  “Point of Parliamentary Procedure – the Volkhydrans support the Dorkans – “

    
“Andaran delegates would like to know,” a man from the front said, standing, “what the results of the invasion were.”

    
“Annihilation,” I said, looking at the Dorkan delegates, meeting as many eyes as I could.  “All two thousand Dorkan soldiers, as well as thirty Wizards, were killed in the mountains within the Dwarven Nation.”

    
“Ha,” barked a Volkhydran.  The Dorkans weren’t laughing.

    
“Dwarven losses must have been heavy, then?” the Andaran pressed. 

    
“Why?” I asked, my eyes involuntarily narrowing.

    
He sighed.  “You seek reparations for loss of life.  We need to know how many lives were lost.”

    
I nodded.  I was tempted to lie – but Xinto had warned me, and I couldn’t think up a good one.  In this case, I figured that the truth could be no worse.

    
“Seven, I believe,” I said.

    
“Seven?” he asked.

    
“Maybe nine,” I conceded.

    
The delegates chattered among themselves.  Then all eyes turned back to the Uman-Chi.

    
The same one as before said, in the same voice, “He speaks the truth.”

    
“Confirmed,” a Dorkan said, grudgingly.

    
The debate continued past dark.  The questions remained the same in various forms.  It was mind numbing; my back and feet ached by the time they finished with me.

    
The common theme: why were you there, what did you see, how can you be sure you saw an invasion?

I travel, a large force of armed Men, what else would they be doing there?

     They agreed to debate further.  They thanked me for my services and dismissed me.

    
“Always better to show up late,” Xinto said as we limped away.  My bones ached, I felt so exhausted.  I must have lost three pounds of sweat into the padding for my armor.

    
“Why?” I asked, irritably.

    
Xinto laughed.  “Because they are tired and you spend less time in debate,” he said.  “The night is still young, Mordetur.  I thought that I might even let you buy me a drink.”

    
I chuckled.  “If it is with a meal, then I will oblige you. It is the least I can do.  I’m glad that that chapter in my life is over.”

    
Xinto laughed.  “Never call any chapter in your life over.”

Chapter Eleven

The Forces that Guide Us

    
The city of Outpost IX represented the focal point of culture on Fovea.  I believed that, if War had a purpose for me, then I would find it here.

    
War had been oddly quiet in that regard, and in every other regard for that matter.  Other than the occasional ill feeling and warning, my patron deity hadn’t bothered to do more than dump me in a foreign land and to leave me to my own devices.

    
That made no sense.  War had major plans for me.  It made sense that I would be under His thumb almost constantly, being told what to do, when and how.

    
Unless my presence here made this “thing” happen or, perhaps worse for me, I had already done what He brought me here to do.  Maybe I had touched off a war between the Dorkans and the Dwarves that he needed, or I had killed someone or caused someone
not
to be killed.  In that case, I remained on my own and He was done with me.

    
That made no sense either.  Someone local could do that.  If He wanted me for something, then I represented something that He couldn’t get on this world.  I had no idea what that could be.

    
So I rented a room and spent some of my hard-earned gold to get some more training from an Uman-Chi swordsman named Saa Saraan.  Even for an Uman-Chi he was considered old, and claimed that his father had actually walked the Tren Valley.  His hair fell like gray flax down past his thin shanks, and he moved like a dancer when he fought.

    
He made me look like a kid with a stick when we practiced.  He clucked his tongue and criticized me repeatedly.  I moved too slow, acted too head strong, and had been born too simple-minded to be anything more than a grunt swordsman.  His great-granddaughter had forgotten more than I could ever hope to learn.

    
In fact he wouldn’t be wasting his time on me at all if Xinto hadn’t intervened, as he assured me twenty times a day.  Xinto worked as some sort of international agent much like Kvitch, except that Xinto sold his services to other nations for a price.  An ambassador for hire, held in high regard among the Uman-Chi and other races.

    
“So what is your attraction to me,” I asked him when, after three days, he still met me for breakfast and dinner.

    
“Pity case, nothing more,” he assured me, ordering a drink on my tab.  I had spent my gold at an alarming rate.  Outpost IX wasn’t a cheap place to live.

    
“I don’t see you as being very much the pitying kind,” I said.  I didn’t know very much about Xinto, so I couldn’t be sure if he was some agent of War or of some other god who opposed War.  I could be sleeping with the enemy and never know it.

    
Intrigue within intrigue?  It hurt my head.

    
“You make me curious,” Xinto said.  He scratched his beard, as he did when he waxed thoughtful.  “You work for Dwarves, and Dwarves don’t like Men.  You speak like an educated man and live like a common.  That sword of yours marks you but you aren’t a good swordsman, Mordetur.  In fact, I don’t see
what
you are good at.”

    
“Paying your bar tab,” I said, smiling to myself. 

    
He ignored the barb.  “I have time to spend here in Outpost IX, so I chose to spend it with you.  If that bothers you, I can find others.”

    
I shook my head.  “No,” I told him, “if you’re willing to be around then I am willing to learn from you.  We Men, who have to rely on only the thinnest air to feed our brains, need to gather as much wisdom as we can from you wise Scitai.”

    
Xinto nodded and took a drink from his beer.  “Just so, then.”

     Xinto’s days were spent in some pursuit that he didn’t like to discuss.  He haunted the libraries of wealthy Uman-Chi.  Mine were spent in training with Saa Saraan.  Xinto met with me in the morning and in the evening and talked about this thing or that, regarding people and Fovea, trying to get me to tell him where I came from. 

    
This went on for a month before I realized that my gold would run out faster than my knowledge could increase.

    
Xinto had told me a great deal about the pantheon of gods on Fovea.  First had come Adriam, the All-Father.  Then Eveave, the Taker and the Giver.  All other gods were descended from these two, and they wrangled constantly.

    
I couldn’t ask him directly why War would bring me here.  I couldn’t trust him enough, neither did I want to face War’s wrath if that was not His will.

    
“What do people do for a living around here, then?” I asked Xinto.

    
“They work,” he told me.  “You should try it some time.”

    
I raised my eyebrows at him.  “I work.”

    
He smirked and took a bite from the meal I had paid for, some spicy meat like mutton.  When you ate out on Fovea, you ate what they prepared for you, you didn’t get to order.  They didn’t provide a “menu” per se, you asked for the cheap, the good and the expensive meal and you ate accordingly.

    
Xinto always ordered the expensive meal.

    
“You call hanging out at a gym all day working?” he asked me.

    
“Ok,” I said, seeing where he was going with this, “how do people earn money?”

    
“By a trade,” he told me.  “What did you do before you came to Outpost IX, then, to afford your fancy armor and your shiny sword?”

    
“They were gifts,” I told him.  “Before I came here, I worked as a guard for a Volkhydran exporter.  I don’t imagine that there is much of that around here.”

    
“Guard work?” Xinto asked me.  “Someone always needs to hire a sword.  That won’t maintain you in your lifestyle, though.”

    
“I can live a lesser lifestyle, if you can start feeding yourself,” I said. “I’m trying to learn more about Fovea and the gods and the world around me, though, and it would be nice if I could make a living doing that.”

    
Xinto shook his head.  “I don’t see how.  You could call yourself a scholar but you are in the wrong place to be one.  Uman-Chi don’t respect anyone else’s knowledge – and you wouldn’t either if you were a few centuries older than they were.  Maybe you could get a job
with
a scholar, but they don’t lead a particularly dangerous life.

    
“Maybe you are in the wrong place to earn your keep, Mordetur.  Have you considered that?”

    
In fact, that made a lot of sense.

    Saa Saraan took one of the last gold coins I had and informed me that he didn’t want to train me anymore.

    
“Don’t think you have learned all you can learn,” he told me.  “But you have learned all that you can from
me
.  You should try your luck in Andoran or Eldador if you want to test your mettle as a warrior.”

    
“I was going to ask you about that,” I said.  “I thought you might know someone who needs a sword?”

    
He regarded me with silver-on-silver eyes.  “There are no Men in the Trenboni home guard,” he said.  “There are mercenaries who hire – you could try your luck with them.”

    
“Whom do these mercenaries fight for?” I asked.

    
Saa Saraan shrugged.  “Whoever would hire them.  The Fovean High Council has no law regarding mercenaries, so it isn’t uncommon for one nation to hire a few hundred warriors to go raid another.  It is frowned on and it can make you look bad at the High Council, but it is done.”

    
I had told him about Jerarl’s band of Uman.  They didn’t seem to be the type of person whom I wanted to become.

    
“I think that it’s time I left Outpost IX, then,” I told him.  “Maybe Andoran would be a good place to try my fortune.”

     “You are a man for hire, sirrah?” someone asked me.

    
I was on my way to my nightly meeting with Xinto, to tell him good-bye.  I had been wrong about Outpost IX being the next step in finding War’s purpose for me.

    
I turned to see an Uman-Chi flanked by seven Uman guards.  He stood about a foot shorter than me, perhaps seventy pounds lighter, wearing tight-fitting armor comprised of thin steel plates linked with light chain mail.  Although his men wore the Trenboni royal tabard – an eagle with a lightning bolt in its claws - this Uman-Chi wore only a silver circlet on his head to show his station. 

    
I wore my armor.  I put my hand on my sword and the guards reacted in kind.

    
“I see that you are
willing
to fight, in any regard,” he said. 

    
I inclined my head.  I knew that you were supposed to bow to the Uman-Chi nobility but I didn’t want to.  He had come to me, after all.

    
“I believe I know you,” I said.

    
“I would expect that you do,” he agreed.

    
“You were at the Council,” I said, remembering him from the Uman-Chi delegation.  “You heard me speak for the Dwarves.”

    
He nodded.  “Quite perceptive.”

    
“I said everything that I had to say in there.”

    
“You are a man for hire?” he repeated. 

    
“And you are a…” I said.

    
He smiled and extended his hand.  I took his wrist in mine, feeling the steel rod he kept there.  “I am Ancenon Aurelias, adopted son of King Angron Aurelias, Prince of the Realm,” he announced.  I could have said that he told me, but he did more than that.  I should have been able to hear trumpets blowing a fanfare.

    
“I see you have made a new friend, Mordetur,” Xinto said.  He had apparently found me when I hadn’t shown up to feed him.

    
“Xinto, of the Woods,” Ancenon said.  “A Scitai delegate and a friend of a Karel of Stone’s.”

    
Xinto smirked.  “Not necessarily a friend,” he said.  “And not necessarily a delegate.”

    
“So you say,” Ancenon countered.  “Can the Trenboni nation buy a meal for you gentlemen?  We have… business.”

    
I looked at the Scitai, and he looked up at me and shrugged.

    
“He is who he says he is,” Xinto said.  “I doubt he will leave you alone until he speaks his peace, anyway.”

     Dinner was served at a huge ballroom-style restaurant.  The floor had been laid in veined marble, the walls gilded; huge, thick pillars supported a vaulted ceiling.  We were first escorted to a separate dressing room where we were each provided with proper eating attire and could put up our arms and armor.  This made me mildly uncomfortable, but Xinto assured me of the security.