Empire of Bones (18 page)

“We’ll need more than a few hundred. Harnin has thousands,” Orlek replied, knowing just how grave the situation really was. Very few Men, especially married ones, were willing to abandon their lives in deep winter in order to risk getting killed for no reason. Until a few weeks ago Orlek had been one of them.

“Which brings me to my second point. We are sorely outnumbered. The hundreds of volunteers we have willing to join in with us are peasants. Farmers mostly. They’re untrained, ill-disciplined, and likely to kill their friends rather than the enemy. Harnin’s soldiers are battle tested. They may be reserves, but they are Wolfsreik reserves. The best the rebellion had died during the plague or the great purges. We don’t stand a chance with what remains.”

Orlek ran a hand through his thinning hair. He didn’t have the answers anyone sought. “There’s always hope,” he said defiantly. The words sounded empty even to his ears.

“Orlek, you should consider taking her and leaving to the south,” Harlan advised. “Matters here will continue to devolve until the Delranan we knew is dead. Cut your losses and run while you still can.”

The mercenary looked down on Ingrid, who’d fallen asleep. “She believes in us. What choice does that leave me?”

Ruins

The combination of smoke and burnt flesh choked the air. A dark, miasmic cloud hung low over the city, reminding the combined army of a large death shroud. Trees stabbed up, void of all life. Their blackened trunks added death for miles. What forces Badron retained not only burned the city but the surrounding countryside. All water sources were poisoned, mostly with corpses. Supply warehouses were looted and burned to the ground. Any citizens still living, of which there were very few, dug deep underground to hide, silently praying they’d go unnoticed by the rampaging Goblins.

King Aurec insisted on being the first to ride into Rogscroft proper. He brushed off the cries and pleas from his top commanders. One monarch had already fallen. The fragile alliance couldn’t bear to go through another. General Rolnir insisted a guard of five hundred if Aurec was to continue with his foolishness. Begrudgingly, he accepted. Banners and pennants waved in the dying breeze, the colors of two kingdoms as well as the shadow kingdom of the Pell Darga, whose swarthy warriors skimmed the shadows well ahead of the rest of the army. They had one purpose: kill any enemy left behind.

The last stretch of the road seemed to go on forever. Aurec was impatient to return to the castle. To right the wrongs committed by Badron and his army of defilers. His sword was already in his hand, even while knowing the enemy was long gone. Whatever he hoped to find buried in the rubble of the heart of his kingdom wasn’t comparable to what awaited them.

Aurec reined in his horse and struggled not to vomit. Mounds of bodies lay piled along both sides of the road. Their grotesque angles, haunted faces, and putrid odors permeated the very ground. Hacked-off limbs and heads filled in the gaps. Badron, more likely Grugnak, ordered all of the dead in Rogscroft to be left on the main avenues of approach as a welcoming home present for the fledgling king. Crows and vultures flocked by the hundreds to feast. Several soldiers in the guard turned their heads to empty their stomachs.

“How?” was all Aurec managed to say.

Venten, ever at his side, struggled to control his emotions. Many of the faces were of people he’d known over the course of his long life. Friends. Attendants. Shopkeepers and merchants. The soul of Rogscroft lay butchered like sheep. “Badron is an evil Man.”

“Do you think…do you think my…father is in there?” Aurec stammered.

“Not even Badron would allow his favored enemy such a fate,” Venten added. “King Stelskor will be in the castle.”

“But all these people. What did they do to deserve such?” Aurec asked. His youth and lack of experience burdened him greatly. He needed to lash out. To retaliate, but against who? Without a target his aggression was pointless.

“We are at war. Armies of Goblins rampage across our lands. There will be more scenes like this from here to the Murdes Mountains. You must steel yourself against the atrocity. It is bound to worsen before the end.”

Aurec squared off on his trusted advisor. “Your words are cold, callous, old friend. Did you counsel my father like this?”

“When he needed it,” Venten replied solemnly. The pain of loss was still too much to bear. He viewed Stelskor’s death as personal failure. “What are your orders?”

Aurec reluctantly set aside his personal issues to become king again. All of his rage boiled down to impotence. He had no enemy to fight. No city to return to like the rescuing hero they deserved. His gaze lifted beyond the heaps of bodies to his beloved city. Once grand buildings of stone and wood were little better than rubble. Rogscroft was thoroughly destroyed. Not even the dead lived there any longer.

Untold desecrations filled the palace. Murals painted in human blood covered walls, arching up to the high ceilings. Bones, gnawed upon, lay scattered down the long halls. There was a terrible odor that no amount of cleaning would easily get rid of. Waste and offal from things Aurec wasn’t willing to guess filled the shadowed corners. Lost was all the splendor Stelskor had tried to create. A gift to his people so that they might find strength when weakness threatened to subsume their will. Aurec stood in the middle of the throne room and struggled not to weep.

“Sire, patrols have finished sweeping the city. The enemy is gone.”

Using his sleeve to wipe the tears filling his eyes, Aurec turned. “Thank you, Mahn. Were there any casualties?”

“Balko’s horse tripped in the rubble and broke a leg. We had to put it down and he twisted his wrist pretty well,” the old scout reported. “He’ll be fine but can’t use his sword until the wrist heals.”

Better than any dead or wounded. Well, I’ve reclaimed my kingdom. Now what do I do? By all rights I shouldn’t even be here. My father was the true monarch. I’m just a boy playing at being a man. This war has changed us all and I’m not sure for the better. Is it all a joke? Am I merely a pawn, a joke in some theological circle I’m not meant to understand? I wish you were here, Father. I need your wisdom. I’m not the Man I should be. The longer this war lasts the more I can’t help but think it was all my fault. I never should have gone to Delranan to take Maleela. Our love is the great curse between our kingdoms.

“Send the word to the main body. I want the Wolfsreik occupying the city by nightfall. Detail work crews to put the fires out, look for survivors, and begin constructing enough shelters for the civilians to get out of the cold.” He paused. “Our city may be in ruin but we have an obligation to look beyond ourselves for the good of all. Make it happen, Mahn.”

“Yes sire,” the scout replied and headed off on his task. He knew Rolnir hadn’t left anything to chance and most of the Wolfsreik was already moving into position around the disaster of Rogscroft. Battle-hardened soldiers from all three armies saw it as their duty to restore order and faith to those few survivors still trapped in the city. Many of Aurec’s forces were from the city proper and took it as personal insult. Those were the ones who worked the hardest. Mahn let Aurec alone for a while. The young king certainly had more to process than a mere scout. Even if that scout was nominated to the king’s council.

A host of others passed him as he was leaving, bringing any personal moments for the king to an abrupt end. He grinned ruefully, suddenly grateful for being just a scout. Trading the freedom of the open road for the confinement of a throne wasn’t wise. Mahn was made to roam the unexplored parts of the world, not wither away inside while life rode past.

“Mahn didn’t feel like sitting through another meeting?” Vajna asked lightheartedly.

Aurec smiled, despite the solemnity of his surroundings. “He has a purpose to be about. Besides, he’s earned the right to do what he does. How many others have put themselves on the line like that?”

Vajna could name plenty off the top of his head. The entire army had risked everything to meet with the Wolfsreik, Pell Darga, and attempt to reclaim a kingdom against hordes of Goblins soldiers. Boiling those actions down to a single Man, regardless of who it was, diminished their deeds. Vajna believed that every soldier in the combined army deserved praise for his actions. He couldn’t figure out how to tell that to his youthful king and still maintain his position.

“What’s our next move?” Venten asked. He was eager to begin the cleansing process, to honor the late king.

Aurec sighed, still unsure which direction he wanted to move. Badron was loose somewhere in the kingdom, along with an unknown number of Goblins and Men. There was no telling what damage they were capable of. “Badron has to be our first concern. As long as he remains at large he poses a threat to the stability of Rogscroft. We need to have units scouring the countryside for him. I would very much like to put Badron’s head on the same pike he used on my father.”

“He’s fleeing back to Delranan in all likelihood,” the elder Man said. “There’s no place for him to hide here. Every man, woman, and child will be looking for him.”

“Badron’s experienced enough not to move without knowing he could succeed. There must be some factor we’re missing. I need Rolnir here,” Aurec said.

“He’s en route,” Vajna replied. “Piper Joach is seeing to the disposition of the army but it’s a mess. Every major industry and public work has been demolished. It will take weeks just to rebuild enough to keep the snow off our heads. Badron did a very thorough job in ruining the kingdom before he fled.”

“If he fled at all,” Aurec countered. “We must assume he is trying to get back to Delranan, as Venten suggested, but why? Reports are Harnin One Eye has claimed the throne for himself and turned the kingdom into a shallow effigy of what it once was. So what does he hope to accomplish by going home?”

“I don’t see the point in worrying about that. Once he’s gone, good riddance. Rogscroft is ours again and we have the solemn duty to rebuild it.” Vajna, of them all, seemed tired of the war. He wanted to hang up his sword belt and retire already.

“Badron is my priority! He will pay for what he’s done to our people, my family, and this kingdom!” Aurec shouted. The words echoed throughout the empty throne room.

Even Venten took a step back. No one had ever heard Aurec’s rage before and the strength of conviction in his words shook their faith in what was morally right. The war changed many things. They were all vastly different from that first moment the Wolfsreik began the long march east. Death and suffering, once reduced to war gaming, were now so prevalent they had grown calloused to the sights of battle. Aurec was stronger, tougher, and meaner than a Man his age should be. All thanks to Badron. Venten frowned, knowing there was only one inevitable conclusion to this sad state of affairs. One of them needed to die.

“Sire, General Rolnir is here,” an aide announced from the entrance to the throne room.

Aurec waved him in, the angry scowl gradually fading as his mind calmed. He watched the Wolfsreik’s commanding officer enter with the loping gait he now associated with the wolf soldiers. The fur cloak hugging him reminded Aurec of a wild animal, a barely restrained beast in search of fresh victims. The young king envied the general though he’d never admit it. War came easy to one like Rolnir. Not so for Aurec. He wanted to be hard. To be the warrior king so many legends revolved around. Only he didn’t have it in him. He was forced to rely on Men like Rolnir and Vajna in order to execute his will on his enemies.

“The city is a disgrace,” Rolnir said after stopping. He folded his arms across his wide chest and planted his feet shoulder width apart. The stance of a true warrior. “Badron and Grugnak have done everything they can to bog us down with recovery operations. It will be months, perhaps years before Rogscroft returns to any semblance of a habitable place.”

“Time we can’t afford to waste if we’re to bring this war to a close,” Aurec replied.

Rolnir’s light red eyebrow rose sharply. “Is that your true intent?”

“Among other things.”

Venten shifted his gaze from the king to the general. He’d been in the royal courts a long time and had seen many scenarios most people simply wouldn’t believe, but this was beyond any of his reckoning. Aurec was determined to pursue this struggle to the ends of his people. The former general-turned advisor wanted nothing more than to retire to a secluded part of the world and be forgotten by history. He feared he wouldn’t live to see the end of this war. So many friends had fallen over the course of the winter. Every time he turned around another empty chair sat at the table. Madness consumed those still living. Madness threatened to drag Aurec down and reduce him to his basest form. Venten needed to find a way to reverse the change, for the good of the king and his kingdom.

“Badron still has a card to play,” he spoke up.

Aurec extended his hands. “What card? He’s abandoned the city he once craved above all else. His army has sided with us and what remains of the Goblins are fleeing with him. Tell me, Venten, what card does he have left?”

“Maleela.”

The singular answer made Aurec’s heart skip. So focused on the prosecution of the war as he’d been he had all but forgotten her. No, not forgotten. Merely set aside in order to win. Any thoughts of her weakened his resolved. Left him hollow. With her by his side he felt like he could do no wrong. Perhaps if she remained with him he’d be able to find a clear path through this mess.

“You don’t know for certain,” was all he managed to say.

“No, but the possibility certainly exists. You must prepare yourself for every eventuality, Aurec. His hatred for her is well documented. What’s to stop him from using her to get you to lay down your sword and surrender all we’ve won?” Venten pressed. He needed the boy to think clearly with his mind rather than with his sword.

Rolnir coughed gently, drawing all attention. “While I have no confirmed reports, rumor has it the princess escaped with her uncle and a small band of others, more than likely the same ones that rescued her in the first place, and headed south. This information is unsupported and months old already. I haven’t had much fresh information since snows closed the mountain passes.”

“It’s a risk we can’t afford to take,” Aurec said slowly.

Venten disagreed. “It’s a risk that doesn’t matter. We didn’t seek out this war, but it came to our doorstep regardless. We struggled through many hardships to reach this point and you would abandon it all for the sake of one? Think with your mind, not your heart.”