Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles) (13 page)

    
I got that hug from Nantar, a bone-crusher to be sure, and gripped the wrists of everyone but the Uman-Chi.  They showed some hesitancy around the Oligarchs at first, but it didn’t take long for them to open up.

    
“I was never fooled by the Theran militia, of course,” D’gattis bragged.  “Much less your impersonator.”

    
“Those
were
my lancers,” I said.

    
“Well, the lancers,” D’gattis said, with a flick of his hand.  “No match for ours, of course.”

    
Arath just grinned to himself. 

    
“And our Sarandi are no different from your Wolf Soldiers,” Nantar commented.

    
“Except, as well, better trained,” D’gattis added.

    
“And what are your plans for them?” I asked.

    
They looked to Ancenon, who looked at them, and then at me.

    
“You are certain of these advisors to the King?” he asked.

    
The first Oligarch said, “You might remember, your Highness, that we were the ones who first recruited you.”

    
“They have my complete confidence,” I said.

    
Ancenon nodded.  “We are for Sental, to invade into Volkhydro.”

    
“We nearly were for Volkhydro,” Arath said.  “They offered more money, but we would have had to pay to billet our men.”

    
“So we are doing better this way,” Thorn said.  “And no one ever starved in Sental.”

    
Shela chuckled.  I didn’t get the joke.

    
“We wanted to make you aware as well,” Ancenon said, “that we were invited to Andurin, and to Vrek.  Groff of Andurin is clearly wondering if he can break off the Andurin peninsula from your nation.  Ceberro of Vrek wanted us to invade Kor on his behalf, but he wanted us to conquer it for him.”

    
“I think he is going to do that anyway,” Arath said.

    
“Kor isn’t actually an Eldadorian city,” I said.  “Although I may someday change that.  I am worried about Groff of Andurin, though.”

    
“You should be,” D’gattis said, delighting in my difficulty.  “Andurin has 15,000 foot soldiers and could levy the coastal towns for 15,000 more if he had to.”

    
“Not that they could stand against Wolf Soldiers,” Nantar said.  “He wanted us specifically to meet your troops with ours.”

    
I frowned.  I thought Groff, if not a supporter, didn’t want the job of Heir for himself.  His loyalty fell to Glennen, not to Eldador.

    
“I have a lot of contacts in that part of the world,” Karel said.

    
I looked him in his blue eyes.  “Aren’t you going to Sental?” I asked him.

    
“I can’t see why,” Karel said.  “There isn’t anything for me to tell them that they don’t already know.  If something comes up, I could take a short boat trip there.  Andurin is a port, after all.”

    
“I agree,” Arath said.  “I don’t think it does us any good for Andurin to become an independent nation.”

    
“I would think otherwise,” D’gattis said.  “It would create a new nation to make war for, and against.”

    
“I wouldn’t allow it,” I said, looking D’gattis in the eyes.  “And I wouldn’t have a lot of tolerance for anyone who helped them.”

    
“And I don’t see what you could do about it,” D’gattis said, leaning back in his chair.  “If it were me, and I were to –“

    
His chair exploded underneath him, and he crashed in a cloud of splinters to the ground. The look of rage that crossed his face changed to surprise as he tried to stand and flew like a doll against the wall.

    
“This is intolerable,” Ancenon said, standing and throwing back his robes.

    
“I wouldn’t do it if I were you,” Dilvesh said, quietly. 

    
Ancenon looked at him, his brows down in a scowl.

    
“I was even getting sick of listening to D’gattis bait him,” Thorn said.

    
D’gattis stood slowly, expecting to be put back down.  He faced off across the table, directly at Shela.

    
“I am a member of the Free Legion and a Trenboni – “

    
He flew back against the wall again.  I saw Shela fuming.  She took her position as my woman seriously in any regard, and far more seriously when she thought anything threatened me.

    
This time Ancenon stepped in to protect D’gattis, raising his hand in a white blaze of power.  Shela raised hers up to meet his, and both surged with energy.

    
“Enough,” I said.

    
Ancenon didn’t back down, so Shela couldn’t.  D’gattis stood, and I didn’t doubt that D’gattis would gang up on Shela if he thought he had a chance to put her down.

     Then Dilvesh rose, and all he did was put his thumbs and index fingers on the
table in front of him.  He turned his head to his left and to his right, not really looking at anyone.

    
Ancenon’s hand suddenly became visible through his spell.  The blaze of white dwindled back to nothing, and he sat back down, exhausted.

    
He turned his head first to Dilvesh, and then to me.

    
“You helped to create the Free Legion, will you now tear it apart?” he asked me.

    
“Are you sure you’re asking that of the right person?” I said, and looked at D’gattis.

    
“If you think that my rise to power in Eldador is a threat to you,” I said, “then you are entitled to your opinion.  If you think you can act against me within the Fire Bond, you do so at the peril of your god.

    
“But act directly against me and my interests in Eldador – try to get the Eldadorian Dukes to split off from me - and I will forget this Fire Bond and consider you my enemy.  You Uman-Chi have seen before what happens to those who oppose me.”

    
D’gattis straightened, then turned and left the room.  At the door, he looked over at Ancenon, probably to see if they were leaving together, and then stormed out without him.

    
“That didn’t go well,” Nantar said.

    
Shela just sighed next to me.

    
“His family and mine have lost much favor for our association with you,” Ancenon said.  “When we wouldn’t stand against you in your invasion of Outpost IX, we were forced to explain the Fire Bond to Angron, and then could not explain the reason why we had stepped into it with lesser – “

    
He caught himself before he said, “Races,” but you would have to know nothing about the Uman-Chi not to know that they felt that way.

    
“Meanwhile the Hunters have made me almost a favorite son,” Thorn said.

    
“My people tell a story where it was me who invaded in your armor,” Nantar said, grinning through his beard.

    
“I wonder where they got that idea?” Karel said to him.

    
“Who knows how these things spread?” Nantar said, grinning wider.

    
“Among the Druids, we see the balance that our Lupus brings,” Dilvesh, said.  “Some power some day would oppose Trenbon’s supremacy on Tren Bay.  Be glad that it was not the Confluni.”

    
“We would have ripped the Confluni apart,” Ancenon said, a smile on his face.

    
“And their answer would have been to throw more bodies at you,” Dilvesh said, then looked at me.  “How many did you kill in Thera?”

    
Why lie?  “Almost 29,000.”

    
“And the bodies?” he asked.

    
“Feeding fish in the bay,” Shela said.  “Maybe 500 were buried.  We sent one of their commanders’ bodies back to Conflu.”

    
“Multiply that by a thousand,” Dilvesh said.  “That is how many you would send to Water in your battle with them.  Believe me when I tell you that you cannot know how you would change Fovea and the disaster it would be.”

    
“The Fovean High Council would not allow it,” Ancenon said, indignantly.

    
“We’ve all seen how effective they are,” Thorn said.  “Are the Dorkans even sending emissaries anymore?”

    
Ancenon fell quiet.  I hadn’t known that Dorkan had pulled out from the High Council, but it didn’t surprise me, either.

    
“So I’m going to Andurin?” Karel said, probably hoping to save the conversation.

    
“I would like that if you can spare him,” I said.

    
“He is right in that there would be little for him to do,” Ancenon said.  “His people won’t fight for us as they will for you.”

    
I smiled about that.  I don’t think I would make him love me more by telling him whose gold now rebuilt the damage I did.

    
The meal broke up after that.  Ancenon had to find D’gattis.  Thorn actually wanted to speak with Shela about some Andaran something.  I ended up going out to the stables with Nantar, Arath and Dilvesh.  Karel went somewhere on his own, but he didn’t say where.

    
“I heard about the battle for Thera,” Nantar said to me.  “Arath, of course, speaks of nothing else.”

    
“Even with all of us in Conflu, they were not so easily bested,” the woodsman said.

    
“How long do you think it will be before they adopt Wolf Soldier training?” I asked them, seriously.

    
“Years,” Dilvesh said.  “Maybe never.  You’ve beaten them twice.  The Andarans have defeated them more than that and they don’t ride horses.”

    
“Horses aren’t suited to their Andaran border,” I said. 

    
“Your method isn’t suited to their idea that we are all inferior to them,” Arath said.

    
“That isn’t just the Uman-Chi, then?” I asked

    
The others laughed.  “I think you will find that every race on Fovea is convinced they hold that position,” Dilvesh said.

    
“When in fact it is clearly the Volkhydrans who are superior,” Nantar added.

    
Arath shoved him, widening his grin.

    
I felt the smile come off of my lips.  “I think I might be in too deep with this whole issue,” I said.

    
“This business of you being the Heir to Eldador?” Nantar asked.

    
I nodded.

    
“Well, I know I wouldn’t want it,” Arath said.  “Better a general than a King.  The nations line up to kill a general one at a time.”

    
Nantar barked a laugh.  Dilvesh took my shoulder.  “I don’t think that anyone who ever stood at the threshold of where you are ever thought any differently.  It is a daunting thing, to be responsible for so many lives.”

    
“I know,” I said.  “The Wolf Soldiers want what I do.  The Eldadorians just want to be alive tomorrow.  I don’t know if I can bring them that.”

    
“Not the way you live,” Nantar agreed.  Arath nudged him again.

    
They had clearly spent the last year together, getting to know each other, supporting each other.  I seemed an outsider now. 

    
“I didn’t want to discuss this with D’gattis in the room,” I said, finally.

    
“The Trenboni are trying to kill you?” Arath said.

    
“And the Confluni are working with them?” Nantar added.

    
“And the Bounty Hunter’s guild?” said Dilvesh.

    
“Well, yeah.”

    
“He knows,” Arath said.

    
“He probably likes the idea now,” Nantar said.

    
“Well, he won’t stop it, anyway,” Arath said.

    
“D’gattis is a loyal Uman-Chi,” Dilvesh said.  “He wants what is best for his nation, and he sees his future there.  Ancenon is more of a pragmatist.  He has a belief that there will be a new Uman-Chi nation called Angador, and that he will father it.”

    
“He might change his mind about that, when I tell him something I learned lately,” I said.

    
They waited.  I chewed it over in my mind.  I needed something to bring them back in the fold, and to get them to think I had some more to offer to the group.

    
“Let’s get everyone back together again,” I said, finally.  “No Oligarchs, no titles, just Free Legion.”