A Warrior's Legacy (12 page)

“Make it special for her.” I finished softly
for him following his gaze.

“Yes!” Gavin affirmed softly.

An idea came to mind. “Gavin when is the
earliest time that you began to remember things as a child?”

Gavin looked back around at me puzzled,
“Probably two or three why?”

“Think back over all the years that you’ve
been around mother and father. If two people were ever more in to
each other passionately I don’t know who they are Gavin. I think if
you employ the loving, respectful, and even playful ways you’ve
seen our parents treat each other for years you won’t go wrong in
your own experiences with your woman. You may not know all the
other stuff, but if you approach your time together confidently and
you take your time you’ll probably discover all the rest for
yourselves in time. There’s no rush to be perfect Gavin! You have
the rest of your life to discover what the Creator has gifted you
both with.”

Gavin looked toward Zalisha again and then
back at me, “Thank you Zevin! You’ve helped me out a lot! I know
this was awkward for you.”

My gaze drifted down to the table, “Awkward
would have been the time when we were hiding in the grape arbor as
kids and mother and father started making out about eight feet away
from us!”

Gavin gave a snort of laughter, “I had
forgotten about that. I snapped a stick accidentally and they found
us and we were sent to our rooms the rest of the day!”

Gavin moved off towards the head table
patting me on the shoulder heavily as he went by.

“Gavin!”

He looked around, “What?”

“Remember how strong and hulking big you are
in comparison to her so be careful when you are with her to be
gentle!”

He nodded his face reddening a little at my
words and then he was gone.

I glanced around to see if anybody had
heard. Talin sat several seats farther down from me. He was
studiously picking out bones from the fried chicken in front of
him. Too studiously.

“You heard all that didn’t you?”

Talin looked up with laughter in his eyes,
“I thought it was pretty good advice actually.” He said
chuckling.

I ignored him. I saw Holon further down the
table picking at his food. “What’s the matter with him?”

Talin looked up again, “He’s moping about
that girl, with the broken leg. He doesn’t know where they’ve taken
her.”

I nodded.

Where was Lohan? He was standing at
attention twenty feet behind me ready to be of service. I motioned
to him and he quickly came forward. I explained the situation and
he smiled and nodded.

He left me and went down to Holon and told
him something. Holon looked up at me gratefully and got up. Talin
said something and Holon turned back to the table and grabbed a big
plate of food off of it and took a flower from a table display that
Talin handed to him. Holon left following after Lohan.

I leaned towards Talin, “What did you tell
him?”

Talin leaned back in his chair and said, “I
mentioned that it’s likely they’ve only fed the girl a little bit
of broth and that she might like some real food if given the
opportunity. Flowers never seem to go unrewarded by the fair side
of humanity either.”

Laughing I sat back, “You better watch out
Talin you’ll be labeled as a matchmaker.”

“If you can double as a marriage counselor
than I should be allowed to double as something else as well,
something preferably to do with women.”

Late the next morning I stood staring down
at the map table that delineated my brother’s new kingdom or at
least what should have been his kingdom anyway. There wasn’t much
left to it. Just the city and the small peninsula below it and a
few small islands. The rest had been destroyed.

Zalisha had the map pointer and was ready to
point out the characteristics and places of Assoria.

I looked up at her, “Just what did happen in
Assoria a hundred years ago.”

She gazed back at me sadly, “A tragedy
began. It all started with one man’s lust for power.”

“The sorcerer?”

“Yes.”

“Did I understand correctly that he is not
of your people?”

“No he is like your people are, but he did
not come from your lands.”

“Where did he come from then?”

“He said he was sent from the world’s beyond
the sun to show us perfect judgment and leadership. His judgment
and his absolute leadership of our people into one nation.”

“And your people didn’t go along with that
idea I’m guessing.”

“No they did not and neither did the
Northern Kingdom. We already had a working system in play. The
central city of Unasa in the mountains was a city that all three
kingdoms built with each of us occupying a third of it. Our
dignitary emissaries were all represented there and had equal voice
in matters that affected any two or all three of the kingdoms. We
had a representative form for settling disagreements. Since its
inception we had not had a serious war in over three hundred years.
The sorcerer changed all that. He said things could be better if we
got rid of our differences and accepted an absolute leader instead
of our different kingdoms. We tried to get rid of him seeing him as
a threat to the peaceful continuance of the kingdoms. The
guardian’s did not care for him either and they helped us. He was
powerful, but together we thought we had destroyed him, but he
survived. We did not know it, but he had been in conference with
the Western Kingdom, who were supportive of his plan. They were the
weakest of the kingdoms and they were spiteful to both the North
and the East. Long before the sorcerer came to our shores the West
was guilty of a treacherous act that almost got them wiped out by
the Northern Kingdom. They blamed the North for their lack of
development and picked on us because we were supportive of the
North’s action against them. They betrayed us to the sorcerer. A
scheduled conference of the kingdoms was convened at Unasa. There
was no word heard from them and we sent runners to see why. The
city had been destroyed and the West and North dignitaries were
utterly slaughtered as were all the inhabitants of the city except
for our people. We could not find them or explain what happened to
them. The West claimed to have eyewitnesses to attest to the fact
that we had done this atrocious act. The North acted impetuously
and sent almost their entire army down through the mountains to
attack us in retribution for our perceived actions. They never made
it to us. They were ambushed by the entire Western Army that the
sorcerer had arranged in a clever trap in the mountains. It was a
massacre that took three days to complete. The pride of the
Northern army lay dead to a man over 100,000 of them, while the
Western Kingdom hardly sustained any losses at all. We learned of
it too late to rush to the aid of the North. The guardians tried to
intercede on behalf of the North on the second day, but the
sorcerer destroyed them all in a way we do not know of. We mustered
an army to attack Westerners, but the sorcerer had already gained
control of the Blue Castle and he unleashed its powers against us.
Our land was plunged into darkness and rain and the seas raged
against us. Our crops were destroyed, while in the rest of Assoria
everything was normal. The Western Kingdom took Sartorga and burnt
that great city of the North to the ground with all inhabitants.
The Northern Kingdom begged for a truce with the Western Kingdom
desperate to avoid being wiped out by them. The sorcerer made them
a deal and they agreed to betray us as the Western Kingdom already
had.”

“What was the deal?”

“The sorcerer asked for the daughter of the
Northern Kingdom’s king for his own use and the use of their
military that remained to aid the Western Kingdom in their fight
against us.”

“And they agreed to that!”

“Yes, they were desperate. The darkness and
storms affecting our lands ceased only for us to find out that two
kingdoms were now at war with us. Then the disaster happened. Our
city of Lancosa was emptied of life overnight. A large part of our
army had been encamped there to repel the Western Kingdom. Whatever
the sorcerer unleashed upon Lancosa killed most of the people
instantly and the rest it turned into the soulless brutes that you
encountered in the forest. Weakened by the loss of that city and
the part of our army that had been stationed there we had no choice
but to fight a defensive action. One by one our cities and towns
fell under the combined pressure of the two kingdoms. Our cities
were not designed for defense and as a last-ditch effort our people
built the great wall that protects the remainder of our lands,
while we used our other cities on the plain to slow down the
enemy’s advance. Many of our people were taken captive or killed in
the defense of those cities and towns to buy us the time we needed
to build the wall to protect this last city. Our wall had just been
finished, when the enemy forces came against it. We were just
barely able to hold out against their assault, but the wall held.
Since then the wall and the will of our people to survive have been
all that we have had to sustain us against our enemies.”

I gazed at the map pondering on how little a
thing it took sometimes to upset the entire applecart. I looked at
the northern area of the map and asked, “Why are all the Northern
cities shown destroyed?”

“After it became clear that we possessed no
significant threat backed into the sea as we were the Western
Kingdom again turned on the Northern Kingdom. They dug a channel to
the sea and redirected the Yasana River into it diverging it from
its natural course through the northern lands. Without the reliable
water source of the Yasana River the northern lands dried up. In
their weakened state the Northern Kingdom was unable to gain
control of the river back from the Western Kingdom. In the years
that followed most of the Northern Kingdom’s people died from
either famine or from raids from the Western Kingdom. The remnants
of their people that persist are hard and bitter. They are filled
with hatred for the people of the West and the sorcerer. They
thirst for a chance at revenge against them both. We’ve tried to
give them what food that we can, but it is difficult.”

Again silence reigned supreme in the room.
It was hard to imagine how these people could still have a heart to
care for their northern neighbors at all. It spoke well of them as
a people that after all they had come through that they were still
trying to help.

“What became of the princess?”

“It is said that she betrayed the sorcerer
somehow and that he cut out her heart and sent it to her father.
Her father killed himself that same day.”

I gazed at the map. There wasn’t much to
work with to achieve victory out of the ashes of two once powerful
kingdoms now reduced to fragments of their former glory.

“Why doesn’t the sorcerer just wipe you out?
Surely he has the power to do so?”

“This is something I have wondered also. For
the last eighty or so years the sorcerer has acted like his powers
are in short supply and has limited the use of them and instead has
used a small army of assassins to do his bidding. Perhaps it is
true that the princess damaged the powerful technologies at his
control in some way. In any case we do not know for sure why he has
left us to a gradual downfall instead of just simply eliminating
the threat of us and the Northern Kingdom all in one fell
swoop.”

I nodded my head as my eyes drifted over the
map before me. I looked up knowing what they expected of me, but
not sure that I could deliver on it. Captain Sargas, Gavin, General
Lasho, Holon, Lohan, Talin, and Zalisha were all gathered around
the table waiting to hear what I would say.

“The illness that affects your people they
can’t go on much longer under the burden of it can they?”

“No the plants we need are growing scarcer
every year and you yourself saw how dangerous it is to gather the
few plants that remain. In another fifty years time my people will
all be dead except for those who turn into mindless brutes like
those of the Dark Forest.”

I nodded meeting her gaze squarely, “The
plan I have in mind could possibly shorten your people’s existence
to just a few months instead of years, but it might give your
people the one chance they have at achieving victory and ultimately
their freedom from the sorcerer’s grip. I want to emphasize though
that my plan could cause you to lose everything very quickly.”

General Lasho spoke up for the first time,
“We have already lost almost everything and we will lose the rest
if this war is not won. Better to die with honor while fighting the
enemy than to wait and let death find us in our beds or worse than
even that to live on as crazed brutes feeding on one another.”

Enough said I thought.

“General how many troops do we have?”

“We can muster seventy thousand but that’s
everyone including the older men and capably trained women. We have
twelve thousand heavy cavalry, another eight thousand light
cavalry, thirty thousand foot soldiers, fifteen thousand female
archers, and five thousand militia.”

“How many troops can the Northern Kingdom
muster?” I asked.

“Perhaps twenty thousand at best. All of
them cavalry, a mixture of heavy cavalry and lighter archer
cavalry.”

“How many can the Western Kingdom field?” I
asked.

“Leaving their cities properly guarded
probably around one hundred and sixty thousand.” General Lasho said
finishing in a depressed tone.

It was tall odds against us, even if I got
the Northern Kingdom to throw in with us, but I had been raised as
a boy in conflict with worse odds than that. It could be done, my
father had proven it, but was I up to my father’s level?

The answer was no, but I hoped the Creator
would make me so anyway. “Alright this is what we will do. Your
strategy of defense at all costs may have saved you temporarily,
but it is destroying you in the long term, while you’re enemies sit
back and watch. We need to get them riled up and make them come
after us in force and the best way I know of to do that is to burn
one of their cities to the ground. Trust me I’ve done it before and
it works.”