Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (72 page)

    
“I am,” I said softly.

    
They all looked at me.  I had made it clear that there would be retaliation, whether they joined me or not.  They likely didn’t expect that I would come in on this side.

    
I looked up from where I sat.  “If we have spies, then they do,” I said.  “If we know something, then they will know it soon.  I don’t expect the Uman-Chi, the best Wizards on the planet, to just sit there and let us come to their island with superior forces and superior tactics.”

    
“They would call the High Council to defend them,” Ancenon agreed with me.

    
“We can’t defeat the united Fovean armies,” D’gattis said.  “Even with Eldador standing with us, we would not prevail.”

    
“So your bull and you horns are nothing?” Arath asked me.  I had stolen his thunder and he didn’t like it.

    
But his plan wouldn’t work.  Go right for Trenbon and we would fail.  I knew it.

    
“Do you know how to eat a bull?” I asked him in return.

    
“With a fork and knife?” he said.

    
“You cut its throat and bleed it,” said Thorn.

    
“Spit it,” said Karel.

    
I shook my head.  Shela laughed, sitting next to me.

    
At the end of the day, Shela was at least as smart as I was.  In fact, I tended to see her as smarter.  Certainly not very much got past her.

    
“One bite at a time,” she said.

     I stood with D’gattis, Arath and Ancenon on my marshalling field, which had once been the coliseum of Thera.  It was too small now for the Theatre au Thera but it made a good place to speak to my Wolf Soldiers all at the same time.

    
Two Spears did that now.  He excelled at these rallying speeches.  He could make men so eager to fight and die that you had to worry about them killing each other right there in their anger.

    
“You are committed to this scheme,” Ancenon asked me.

    
“I am,” I said.

    
Nantar’s Sarandi were marching to Andurin as we spoke, Thorn and Nantar riding to meet them.  Dilvesh had commissioned a ship to sail for Eldador the Port.  Karel had set himself up a base here, in the War Room. We’d need him, at least for a while.

    
Two Spears told the Wolf Soldiers that, if the enemy had their way, Lee would be raised as a whore in the streets of Outpost IX.  In a few moments his sister would walk out into the marshalling ground to stand next to him.  Those men loved that little girl, their little Princess, in the odd way that fighting men have of forming an emotional bond with the families that ruled them.  Like the Kennedy’s and their Camelot and little JFK Jr., saluting his father’s funeral procession. 

    
You might love your nation but you fight and die for your family.

    
“If you take the Free Legion against Outpost IX, then you will not prevail,” Ancenon warned me.

    
“I have no plans for the Free Legion to attack Outpost IX,” I said.

    
Ancenon lead the Free Legion, not me.  He must be pretty nervous to be having this conversation with me.

    
“But your Wolf Soldiers are not of the Free Legion,” D’gattis said.

    
“No, I wouldn’t imagine that they are.”

    
They stood quiet.  Shela walked out to stand next to her brother.  An angry roar rose from my Wolf Soldiers, almost palpable hatred for those who would
dare
to threaten Lee, their collective child.  Lee screamed in shock and surprise, and they roared louder.

    
If they noticed Ancenon and D’gattis standing up here, there would likely be a riot.  Hate made as powerful a tool as love.  Certainly you could get people to kill for either reason if you motivated them properly.

    
“I would have to stand against you, if you marched on Outpost IX,” Ancenon said.

    
“As would I,” said D’gattis.

    
“That might not sit well with Adriam,” I said.

    
They didn’t respond.  Two Spears asked who here would lay down their life for Lee.

    
Every sword left its scabbard.

    
“Why would we sit with Adriam?” D’gattis asked.

    
“Well, I think we all do, eventually,” Ancenon said.

    
Slang, slang.  It always betrayed me.

    
“I think that he means that Adriam won’t allow it,” Arath said.  Finally someone understood me.

    
“The fire bond,” D’gattis said.

    
“Move against Trenbon and you betray it,” Ancenon said.

    
“I think not,” I said, smiling slightly because I couldn’t help it. 

    
“Are you willing to risk that?” D’gattis asked me.

    
I thought of Alekki, who bounced my baby in her arms and smiled at my wife, her friend, and never treated anyone other than decently.

    
Would I risk the wrath of a god to avenge the death of my queen, if I admitted that I had one?  Would I burn in a fire for my king, who had made me a noble from a common not just from needing me but also in his respect for me?

    
“If you betray me to your people,” I said to them, “then it is you who risk the fire.

“Keep that in mind when you wonder if you owe more loyalty to your god and to the ones who got you in and out of Outpost X alive, than you do to the king who ordered your assassination.”

     I turned and looked him in the eyes; saw those dim cornea that no one practically ever sees in their silver-on-silver visage.

     “And
both of you think long and hard on what it means to come after me,” I informed them.

    
Below us, Shela held Lee up, screaming in fear and anger as the Wolf Soldiers bellowed out their rage and swore to give their lives to protect her.

    
Arath looked at the two Uman-Chi, as they stood dumbfounded, watching my men swear to kill their kind.

    
“Irritating, isn’t it?” he asked them.

     That night Karel of Stone burst into the anteroom to my bedchambers and demanded to see Shela and I.

    
“Demanded?” Shela asked my Wolf Soldier guard.

    
“Yes, my Lady,” the guard said.  He stood at stiff attention.  On this world, sometimes they
did
kill the messenger.

    
She looked at me and held her hand up.  I shook my head.  There were things we could do to Karel of Stone if we had to that were less permanent than killing him.  Being killed is hard to learn from.

    
I sat on the edge of my bed, Shela in her rocker, Lee in her bassinet.  I wore my house clothes, the leather pants that I had grown to love and a white blouse.  Most nobles wore slippers but most nobles weren’t affected with a memory of Fred McMurray.

    
Karel entered in boots, his bearskins and a silver question mark, turned upside down, on his breast.

    
“You remove that now, Karel,” I said, standing.  That was going too far.

    
“I would if I could,” he told me.  “I thought you or Ancenon had-“

    
“Shela,” I said, interrupting him.

    
She closed her eyes, then opened them and shook her head.  “Your Free Legion members have an aura about you that is this fire bond,” she said.  “He has the same aura.”

    
“Well, that is kind of convenient,” I said.

    
An hour later Ancenon, D’gattis and Arath were in my chambers with the Free Legion’s newest member and my immediately family and I got my answer.

    
“Not really,” Ancenon told me.

    
“How so?” asked Arath.

    
Ancenon stood and paced for a moment, framing the answer to the question in his mind.

    
“I believe that it was no accident that we found Outpost X where others failed,” he said finally.  He looked at each of us with his silver-on-silver eyes.  “I believe that we are moving toward something, and that Outpost X provided nothing more than an excuse to bring us all together.”

    
“It is the nature of prophecy that a moment should bring together a band to fulfill a purpose,” said D’gattis.

    
“And that these things should appear as happenstance to the participants,” said Ancenon.  “Such is what it appears to be now.”

    
“So why add Karel, then?”  I asked.  “Or Dilvesh, for that matter.  Why force them into the fire bond, especially Karel who is with us already.”

    
“Dilvesh brings into the group the Natural Trinity,” Ancenon said.  “With Drekk came Eveave, the Taker and the Giver.  When he left us, Eveave was not represented and became jealous, and so another of her ilk, a similar man as well, replaced him.”

    
“I do worship Eveave,” Karel conceded.

    
“And so do about a million other people,” I said.

    
“But none of them so much like our Drekk,” said Ancenon.

    
“But Karel is nothing like Drekk,” I said.

    
“Thank you,” Karel said, dryly.  “Not to disrespect the dead, but the man was a stone.”

    
“And you are
of
Stone,” D’gattis pointed out.  “I think that to the Taker and the Giver, you and he might be indistinguishable.”

    
“Drekk
could
take anything he wanted from anyone who had it,” Arath admitted.

    
Karel sighed.  “He was quite talented that way,” he said. “Although I usually managed to do it more and to keep more of it.”

    
“A fit replacement for Drekk,” Ancenon said.

    
“And if I don’t find the replacement to be a good fit?” Karel asked.

    
“I think there is a slight chance you might,” Arath said, a smile on his lips.

    
“And you can always take it up with Adriam.”

     We brought Karel through a portal at the estate to the tower at Chatoos.  From there we were transported once again to Outpost X.

    
The place never changed.  Maybe there were more or fewer rats.  Maybe we had a few less bars of gold.  In the beginning we had all withdrawn heavily from here.  Even Dilvesh had relented and taken several bars to further some pursuit of the Druids’.  Now the footprints through the throne room were blown over with dust.  I came here when I wanted to be alone, not to withdraw wealth.