Banner Lord Page 12

  Jarak bowed his head, then looked up, “Thank you,” he said softly. He paused a moment, then spoke, strength and determination in his voice, “I have a plan to take Cythera back but it will be long and dangerous, wrought with peril along every turn. We have some very difficult decisions to make and we must make them tonight.”

  “You mean how we are to defeat the army heading our way?” Lord Rathiam asked.

  Jarak shook his head. “No.”

  The Chamberlain looked confused. Sempis too looked puzzled and leaned forward in his chair, resting his large forearms on the table. “What do you have in mind?”

  Jarak, with Kivalla and Rath’s help, had recently come up with another part of their overall plan. They had a framework already devised, but the bricks to support it had not yet been laid. Tonight they would have to lay those bricks, no matter how difficult the work would be. He had been mulling over every little piece of their predicament during the long ride to Tanwen. He knew he wanted to take their Kul-brite stores and travel to Elwyn to purchase mercenaries, and then use that army to take Cythera back, but there was the immediate problem of what to do with Tanwen and Kreb. They could stay and fight, but the result would likely be the death of more Legionnaires and the Saricons taking the cities. They could evacuate the cities and save many lives, leaving Tanwen and Kreb to the Saricons. But there was a third possible plan, and despite the difficulty they would have in seeing it through, it seemed to be the best option. There were simply no decisions to be made that would guarantee success.

  King Jarak looked at the two men, his expression stony. “I want to burn the cities to the ground.”

  “What!?” Lord Rathiam exclaimed incredulously, then remembering he was speaking to the king he quickly adopted a more respectful tone. “Why would you want to do such a thing?”

  “We are greatly outnumbered by the approaching army, and more are sure to arrive as reinforcements. And they have devastating weapons, exploding projectiles capable of taking down walls and breaking through gates. My companions saw the brutal destruction they caused at Cythera. The cities will fall and thousands will die. If we evacuate without a fight then we leave them with the city. They will be strong, fortified, and well supplied.”

  “But if we destroy the cities,” Sempis added, “they will have no shelter and no supplies.”

  “That is correct. We are at war,” Jarak said. “Nothing we do will be easy. They are foreigners bent on destroying our society. But they cannot survive here during the winter without shelter and supplies for their army. Without these things they will have to either march back to Cythera, or suffer starvation and death.”

  “But what will happen to our people? Where will they go?” Lord Rathiam asked.

  “Many will have to fend for themselves and find shelter elsewhere. Our people know these lands and many, despite the hardship, will survive. The Legion as well as many laborers and artisans will travel with us to Kreb after we have destroyed Tanwen. There we will do the same, and burn the city to the ground.”

  Lord Rathiam sat back in his chair clearly shocked at what he was hearing. “My King, there has to be another way. How will our people survive?”

  “There is no other way,” Jarak said. “I cannot protect all of my people. It is impossible. If we are to win this war…if we are to maintain our way of life, we must make some difficult decisions. Every path we take will be slick with blood, but I believe, as do my advisers, that this path is the only one that will end in our victory. This is the best plan we have, the only one that gives us a chance to drive the invaders from our northern lands.”

  “What of Kulvar Rand and the Dygon Guard?” Commander Sempis asked, having come to terms with the desperate plan.

  “By all accounts he did not survive the attack, although we don’t know that for sure,” Jarak answered. “Our captive told us that thirty Dygon Guard were killed near the gate. He said the Dygon Guard killed over four hundred Saricon warriors. We can only assume that Kulvar Rand was among them.”

  “Master Rand told me that the other twenty Dygon Guards were in Kreb transferring Kul-brite to a secure location,” Brant interjected.

  “How do you know this? It’s Brant, right?” Lord Rathiam asked.

  “It is. I lived with him for over a year and traveled with him frequently.”

  “I see,” the Chamberlain said sadly. “He was a great man.”

  Brant said nothing, afraid his voice would break as his emotions wrestled with his resolve.

  “Once Tanwen and Kreb are destroyed, where will we go?” Commander Sempis asked, voicing everyone’s question.

  “We will head to the Devlin Pass. The Legion will winter at the Ruins of Tyvis.” Tyvis was an ancient king of Dy’ain who had built the fortifications protecting the Devlin Pass to protect it from the marauding tribes of Rygar who had constantly attacked the mountain garrison. But the lands of Rygar were eventually subdued after the ruler of Ol'myr conquered them, reducing the tribes' numbers, and establishing a kingdom of his own. Since then, the Ol'myr dynasty has been ruling the lands of Rygar and purchasing much of Dy’ain’s Kul-brite, becoming a strong ally to Dy’ain in the process. A strong fortified garrison there was no longer needed.

  “Those ruins are over eight cyns old. There is no way they are habitable,” Commander Sempis said skeptically.

  “They are,” Kivalla corrected. “I travelled there when I was in school. It will require a lot of work, but you can survive there with proper supplies.”

  “You said you. Does that mean you will not be staying with us?” Lord Rathiam asked.

  King Jarak shook his head. “No, we will not. My companions and I will be traveling through the pass to Elwyn.”

  “Elwyn?” Lord Rathian asked. “That is so far away. Why would you go there?”

  “I will use our Kul-brite steel to purchase a mercenary army. Once we procure that army, we will send scouts to locate you. You will then meet us in Dy’ain with the remaining Legion. From there we will march east and take Cythera back and drive the Saricon pigs back to Belorth.”

  King Jarak sat tall on his horse gazing down at the burning city below. Lord Rathiam, now wearing full armor, sat astride his horse on Jarak's right while Commander Sempis sat on a milky white mare on his left. Behind them were nearly fifteen hundred Legionnaires, marching in line towards Kreb, with nearly five hundred servants and retainers following. A train of a hundred carts and wagons laden with supplies drawn by oxen stretched behind them.

  It had taken them a full day to gather what supplies they could, packing them with haste, as did the local inhabitants, preparing their belongings with stunned expressions, overwhelmed with the thought of leaving their homes for the unknown wilds. But King Jarak was right. An enemy was coming that was bent upon the complete subjugation of the populace. They would rather face the unknowns before them than face a known enemy bent upon their destruction.

  Hundreds of families left the second day and hundreds more the third. They had prepared numerous fires throughout the city that third morning, with piles of dry wood drenched in oil to get them burning as quickly as possible, just as the first winter snow began to fall. They were filled with ominous feelings, sitting high on their horses as they watched their people flee the city, great flames and billows of smoke rising into the cool winter air as their city became a pyre. By the time they left at mid-day, several inches of snow had already covered the ground.

  “I hope you are right, my King,” Lord Rathiam whispered, his expression crestfallen.

  Jarak stared at the burning city, he green eyes intense, his gaze capable of cutting through steel. He was angry about so many things, filled with fury at the murder of his parents, poisoned by his own uncle, angry that foreign invaders had taken his home. But right now he was most enraged by the fact that these marauders were forcing him to destroy his own cities, to make refugees of his own people. He would pay them back, or die trying. “A city can be rebuilt. Let us focus on the plan,” he replied,
his eyes still burning with focused fury.

  Commander Sempis nodded. “I am eager to drench my blade in Saricon blood.”

  Jarak looked at the stout warrior. “I swear on my family name that you shall have that chance. Now, let us ride to Kreb. We still have much to do.” Jarak turned his horse away from the flaming city and rode towards the long column of fighters and refugees. The two lords, after glancing once more at their smoking city, turned their steeds around, their hooves kicking up dirt and snow as they followed their new king.

  Chapter 4

  Angel was not her real name. It had been so long since anyone had called her by her real name that when she thought of it, it sounded strange. Ayla, she whispered to herself, the name sounding foreign, as if it were from a mythical story in a far off land. She often grew nostalgic when she was alone in her office, despite the fact that those hours were filled with perusing payment ledgers as well as shipping manifests. You see, in addition to owning several brothels, she ran a successful import export business. This made her, despite her lack of royal blood, one of the wealthiest people in Cythera. She seldom thought about her past, but there were occasional moments, when she tired of the countless hours spent tallying numbers, that she allowed her mind to drift to her early days, before she became who she was today.

  Her early life held too many memories she would gladly forget, but they sometimes found a way to climb over the wall she had built over the years. She herself was the daughter of a prostitute, cast aside and raised in an orphanage. Most of those years were a blur to her, and she remembered only fragments of that part of her life, brief images that fluttered through her mind. There were parts of her past, however, that had been forever etched into her memory, no matter how hard she tried to forget. When she was but nine years old she caught the unwanted attention of a particularly cruel and sadistic boy, the son of one of the women who ran the orphanage. He was young himself, barely seventeen, and when his mother was gone, or wasn’t watching, he took pleasure in bullying and abusing the children under their care. It wasn’t long before the situation got more serious. One day while she was folding laundry, Golan, for that was his name, decided it was time to take things further. Sneaking up behind her he wrapped his strong arms around her chest, pinning her arms to her side, whispering hurtful words into her ear. How do you like being the daughter of a whore? That makes you a whore too. You need to earn your keep here, whore. She could still hear his words and smell his stale breath. She tried to fight him off, which just made him angrier. He raped her that day, and his verbal and physical abuses continued. Finally, after several years of constant abuse, she decided that the dangers of the outside world could be no worse than what she was suffering at the orphanage, and one morning, just before dawn, she slipped quietly out of the gate and ran away, leaving Gilia and making her way north to Heyrith in Kael. She was now twelve and she soon found that things weren't much better outside the orphanage. She was forced to spend her nights sleeping in dark alleys, and her days begging for scraps, all the while trying to avoid the dangers of the streets, where there were plenty of scoundrels ready to take advantage of a young defenseless girl. For the most part she managed to avoid much of the violence. She became adept at blending into her surroundings, and not drawing attention to herself. But she was not always so lucky. She had come to the conclusion that there were only two paths open to her. Give up, roll over and die, or learn to survive…learn to be tough. She chose the latter. But one horrible night her resolve had been tested. She was surrounded by a local group of ruffians, and despite the fact that she had broken one boy’s nose and clawed a few others, she had been brutally beaten and raped by the group’s leader. She was so beaten that the best she could do was crawl her broken and bruised body to the entry of a door to take cover from the rain under the awning. She thought she was going to die, and she nearly did, until a young prelate found her lying by the door, barely conscious. The Church had an orphanage of its own and she was then taken under their custody. Those were the best years that she could remember. She was clothed, educated, well fed, and treated with respect. When she was eighteen years old she left to find her own way.

  Eventually she made her way to Fara. It was here where things got bad again. The constant fighting against the Saricons created in influx of refugees and there were more bodies than jobs. She could not find work and soon found herself starving, dirty, and begging for food yet again. But she was smarter now, still determined, and it wasn’t anything she hadn’t already experienced. She eventually, finding no other options, found herself working at one of the more exclusive brothels, having been discovered by the establishment’s owner who frequented the poor part of town, always looking for new talent. The Madame was able to see the beauty that lay beneath her gaunt face, smudged with dirt and crowned with a rat's nest of knotted tangled hair.

  Despite her present condition, she had several things going for her. Though constant hunger had left her thin and gaunt, her body showed a propensity for curves, with full breasts and wide hips. The Madame took her in, fed her and scrubbed her clean, revealing a stunning young woman, with smooth, vibrantly golden skin, and glossy hair, black as night that fell in loose curls to the middle of her back. She was shown the life she could live as a courtesan for the wealthy and was given a choice to stay or leave. She chose to stay, and was given the name Angel, for that's how she appeared to the Madame. She ended up working at the brothel for fifteen years, learning the business from the courtesan's side, then, as time progressed and she showed an aptitude for it, the management side as well. The Madame grew to respect and trust her abilities, gradually giving her more responsibility until finally, when she died, Angel was given ownership of the brothel. She was eventually able to purchase and build other brothels, making them profitable, then selling them for a profit. She became rich, mingling with the wealthy, until she had enough money to buy several ships of her own. She brought her business north opening up several brothels in Cythera and expanding her trading business.

  It was in Cythera where she was found by the Turari Order. They were looking for someone in her position; someone who had eyes everywhere, who knew the pulse of the city. Being the Madame and owner of several brothels gave her a unique ability to acquire all kinds of information, to hear the rumors and secrets whispered by the rich and powerful into the ears of her courtesans. She was glad to join the Order. The Church represented the few good memories she had of her early life, and besides, the Order became an extension of her power. It was another means by which to become even more powerful and influential than she already was. She was not a knight of course, as they required much more extensive training. But her administrative skills allowed her to work her way up to the position of a Turari Magistrate. Each major city had one, and she was Cythera’s representative, the leader of the Order in Dy’ain. And now, twenty years later, at the age of fifty three, she was the wealthiest person in Cythera or Fara outside the royal families, and a leader of a secretive order that most thought had dried up and blown away in the wind.

  She sighed as she reminisced, then slammed the ledger shut, brushing her dark hair, now streaked with gray, from her eyes, just as she heard a knock at her door. It was late, but she was expecting it. Besides, there were only a few people who would be allowed past the guards to her private chambers of the Black Cat, her most profitable brothel in Cythera. “Come in.”

  The door opened and a tall stunning woman entered. It was Tanya, as expected. Her cascading red hair fluttered behind her as she walked gracefully over to Angel’s desk. She wore a red silk gown, fitted to reveal her curves, with a V necked bodice that plunged nearly to her naval, exposing her milky white skin and the fullness of her breasts. Draped around her slender neck was a sparkling diamond necklace accompanied by a beautiful set of matching earrings. Her ruby red lips were painted perfectly to match the red of her gown, both of which accentuated the red tints of her hair. Her appearance was exotic for these parts, and her exceptional bod
y, unique red hair, and glowing white skin allowed Angel to charge exorbitant fees for her time. “Good evening, Madame, I hope I have not disturbed you.”

  Angel smiled and pushed the ledger aside. “Please, my dear; you are doing me a favor. I could use a respite from the drudgery of tallying numbers. Have a seat. What do you have to report?”

  Tanya was a Turari spy, recruited when she had come to work for Angel seven years ago. She was the daughter of a minor lord who would hear nothing of her wishes and dreams of becoming a painter. He stifled her talents and assaulted her with verbal abuses that eventually became intolerable. She hated her father and resented her mother for not standing up for her. He wanted to control every part of her life, and none of what he wished coincided with her desires. He wanted to marry her off to a higher ranked lord thus establishing for himself more power. Caring nothing for her artistic talent, he pushed her towards this goal since she was twelve years old. She ran away when she was seventeen and was found by Angel, recruited to be a courtesan for only the wealthiest of Angel's patrons. Although her bloodline was that of a lesser house, she was a Sapper with minor Aurit abilities, allowing her to take in small amounts of energy cast by an Aura Mage and dissipate it harmlessly. She had never been to war, nor had she been given any opportunity to use her innate abilities, and for this she was thankful. Nonetheless, her skills would be available if needed and she had proved her worth to Angel many times over through her dedication, hard work, and trustworthiness.

  Tanya sat down at a leather chair facing Angel’s desk, crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “We still have no news on Banrigar’s location.”

  Angel sighed in frustration. Banrigar was one of her most dedicated and trustworthy knights and he had disappeared the night the Saricons attacked and had yet to be heard from. Thankfully, as far as she knew, his body had not been found.