The Falling Empires Saga (The Complete Series, Books 1-4), page 71
The sorceress appeared beside Elisa all at once. Her sudden presence out of the night was more sudden than the guide appearing.
“Apologies if I startled you, Princess,” Thirona said.
Elisa didn’t respond. She only went back to staring at the fires in the distance and allowed Thirona to step up next to her. The sorceress appeared unhurt despite Chaos's attack.
“I heard one of your soldiers died in the fighting. I’m sorry for your loss,” Thirona continued after Elisa’s silence.
“Thank you.” That was all Elisa could say in reply.
Thirona shifted in her stance. Her shoulders sat almost at the top of Elisa’s head, her voice coming from high above the princess. She seemed to weigh Elisa’s silence for a moment and then launched into talking once again.
“I wanted to ask you about your mother,” Thirona said. Elisa felt her spine stiffen. “She is planning something, she has gone somewhere. I now believe she must be seeking a way to fight the evil we met on the battlefield at Lake Ohain.”
“I always just thought she’d abandoned us,” Elisa said. Her words were soft on the night air but the bite was clear.
Thirona nodded. “That’s what I assumed too. Your mother left her position in Wahring long ago to marry your father. I assumed this disappearance was the same.”
Elisa had to clench her teeth against an outburst in reply to Thirona’s words. She’d had similar thoughts surrounding her mother before, but never spoken them out loud.
Thirona continued. “But what we saw from the enemy by the lake showed me something different is occurring. There is a larger game at play.” The sorceress turned and looked down at Elisa. “Do you know anything about your mother’s whereabouts?”
Elisa shook her head.
Everyone had more questions than answers for her. They expected her to provide them with information that no one had.
Elisa didn’t know where her mother had gone or why she had abandoned her family and country. She didn’t know anything. She was just a teenage girl who happened to have the title of princess and tried to fight for what was right.
She often failed.
“I don’t know anything,” Elisa said, her voice still soft.
Thirona turned back to face the glowing fires in the south. She nodded once.
The sorceress turned away from the southern view and stepped towards the stairs off the barricade. “I’ve been called back east by my king. I will tell him of what evil marches with the Kurakin through your country and I’ll work to find a way to stop it. My request of you, Elisa, is to tell us if you hear from your mother. Tell us anything new you find out or if another old god appears to you.”
Elisa turned and nodded to her aunt. She highly doubted her mother would ever return to Erlon or that Thirona could make a difference.
“Thank you, Thirona,” she said. She decided to keep her secret about her guide’s frequent visits to herself.
The Brunian sorceress stepped off the barricade and disappeared into the night. Elisa turned back and watched the fires to the south for a short while longer before retiring to be alone in her tent. Sleep found her quickly, the exhaustion of the retreat finally catching up to her.
Elisa had a lot to think on for the rest of this war. But for now, she rested her head back on her pillow and found a long and dreamless sleep.
Nelson
The news of the great defeat at Lake Ohain reached the king as they prepared to leave. He’d been expecting it, there was a growing tightness in his chest from worry. The letter handed to him by an aide only confirmed what that worry already knew to be true.
The western campaign of this sprawling war was failing. Marshal Lauriston couldn’t stem the tide of the Kurakin. Duroc had defeated the marshal twice now, and Erlon had given up too much ground.
King Nelson stepped out of the royal quarters of the town and walked towards his carriage. Lannes stood waiting with a grim look on his face.
Does the emperor already know the news? Has he somehow guessed?
The answers didn’t matter. Nelson relayed the news and apologized for lacking specific information on the emperor’s daughter or any of his friends and generals. Lannes waved away the apology, his grim expression remaining.
The pair of leaders stepped into their carriage and left the city to move south down the Brunian coast. They talked about the next steps in the western campaign. Nelson barely spoke, it was mainly Lannes talking through his thoughts. The king was more than happy to let the emperor ramble. The man had a brilliant military mind, maybe he would come up with a solution to their vast problems.
By contrast, Nelson’s own mind wandered and worried. This latest news from the west, coupled with the collapse of the Wahrian army in the east, had dire consequences for his island nation. His navy still controlled the seas; the Kurakin had no hope of defeating them on the open ocean. But they were fast becoming too strong to deal with on land.
Unless…
Nelson had put orders in motion to prepare things in the event that the war deteriorated too far. The time for drastic steps was here. The king needed to make a move to save the Continent. If that move made some of his allies angry? So be it.
Emperor Lannes’s face showed no surprise when he stepped out of the carriage behind Nelson and took in the night lights of Kempt on the southwestern coast of Brun. The city was sleepy and dark but the port was lit with a circle of fires. Numerous naval transports docked in the port and the waters beyond.
The Brunian reserve army was mobilizing. Nelson would finally act.
“We sail for Wahring then?” Lannes said.
Nelson knew Lannes already knew the answer. “You will serve as an advisor for us. You and I will sail tomorrow. We must relieve Wahring of the Kurakin invasion if we have a hope to win this war.”
Lannes smiled the biggest smile Nelson had seen from him. His eyes sparkled brightly and Nelson had to smile too. The expression felt good on his face after a day of scowling from worried thoughts.
It would be good to take action, it would be good to march to war. A Brunian king hadn’t led a force in the field in hundreds of years. But Brun was in need of dire action, and Nelson had the answer standing next to him.
The king would unleash Lannes, the greatest Continental general since the Ascended One, back onto the battlefield once again.
Lauriston
In the week since the battle at Lake Ohain, Lauriston felt like he aged a full year. He didn’t sleep. He rode from outpost to outpost and along the long columns of his men as they fled north. He oversaw skirmishes with the Kurakin vanguard behind them and tried to make sense of all the reports coming in on the movement from the enemy.
At the end of the week, when his army was safely accounted for and established behind the defenses on the road north, Lauriston’s eyes burned and his head continuously pounded.
The marshal dismounted his horse and walked into the hut that sat behind the trenches on the ridgetop just south of Vendome. This was one of the last barricaded areas along the road. It was a final defense to stymie the Kurakin offensive before they reached the walls of Vendome.
Lauriston sat down on a rickety chair in the corner and closed his eyes for what felt like the first time since before the Ohain battle. He thought back on past campaigns. He’d been in worse situations. He’d been more tired, felt more hopeless.
The cold march from Vith had been more dangerous. The march from the Southern Campaigns after the defeat at Ice Fields had been more stressful and dire. The Moradan guerrillas had given nothing but death. Here, in the present, they had the road defenses of Vendome, that famous “gateway to the north,” to protect their retreat.
That relieved some of the stress, but not all.
Lodi and Quatre filed into the hut after Lauriston and took seats around the room. The room wasn’t set up for an officer’s headquarters, but it would do for now. Desaix came in next and was followed by two aides carrying a desk. The cavalryman directed the desk to the middle of the room and thanked the aides and sent them back out the door.
Lauriston leaned forward and rubbed his eyes to will them to stay awake. He looked at his three other generals and saw them in similar states of fatigue.
“I think it’s finally time for a rest,” Lauriston said. His voice was hoarse and broken.
Lodi smiled. “That would be nice.”
Quatre nodded in agreement.
“You should sleep, Lar.” Desaix slid down to the floor and leaned against the wall by the door.
Lauriston knew his cavalry general was correct. He served no purpose to the army if his head wasn’t clear. Maybe they were finally in a position where he could rest, if only for a few hours.
A figure stepped into the doorway and brought Lauriston out of his dreams of sleep. Thirona stood silhouetted against the night outside.
The marshal turned his head slightly towards her. He’d known this was coming, he knew exactly what the sorceress was here to say.
Lauriston was surprised she hadn’t left the army sooner. It’d been her pleas that Lauriston had ignored when he marched his army into a fight they couldn’t win at Ohain. Thirona had been right, but she hadn’t said a word about it to the marshal since the battle.
Lauriston was very thankful for that.
“Sorceress,” he said as Thirona stepped fully into the room.
“Marshal. Generals,” Thirona said with a quick nod to the others before facing Lauriston. “It is time I left.”
Lauriston nodded. “I thought you might say that. The men will miss you, especially our remaining Brunians.”
Lauriston’s mind flashed back to the battle. He saw General Pitt’s Brunians fighting on the doomed flank on the banks of the lake. Pitt and most of those regiments were still unaccounted for. Lauriston could only hope the general was captured and not dead.
“Where will you go?” Lodi asked Thirona from his chair.
“I’m needed back east,” the sorceress said.
Lauriston straightened his back slightly and looked up at the sorceress. “What news do you have from Wahring?” He desperately wanted to know more about the rest of the war.
“The same information as you,” Thirona said with a shrug. “The Wahrian king is dead, his army is shattered and the Kurakin march towards Citiva.”
Lauriston hung his head. He was hoping for something new. Something more.
“But my king is going to change that.” Thirona’s words had a smile behind them. Lauriston lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at the sorceress.
“Lannes is with King Nelson.” Quatre sat up straighter, his words almost a whisper.
Thirona nodded. The tips of her mouth twitched upward in a grin in response to Lauriston’s shock and excitement.
“They invade?” Lauriston said, barely able to believe the thought.
“Yes. They invade to save Wahring from collapsing.” Thirona nodded and turned back towards the door. “I must return and help them. I’ve done all I can do here.”
She stepped to the doorway and was going to leave but Lauriston wanted one more word with the Brunian sorceress.
“Thank you, Thirona,” he said. Lauriston’s words were sincere. “I should’ve listened to you, we shouldn’t have fought at Ohain.”
Thirona turned in the doorway. She looked at Lauriston for a second and then nodded, accepting his apology. “What’s done is done, we must continue fighting now. It is like you Erlonians say, onward.”
Lauriston smiled. Thirona had the right idea.
“Thank you, again,” Lauriston said. “Ascension guide you on your journey east.”
Thirona nodded one more time and then was gone. Lauriston leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
There were too many thoughts, but they all fell limp in his mind. He was too tired. He needed sleep.
Thirona was gone. Duroc still chased the Erlonian army. Lauriston was confident he could find a way to hold off the Kurakin, but what were they supposed to do about the evil god Lodi had called Chaos?
That was an issue Lauriston would have to figure out. For now, the last marshal of Erlon was exhausted. His army was safe behind strong defenses and had some time before the next battles with Duroc and the Kurakin. He could afford to sleep now, he needed to rejuvenate his mind.
Then he would start planning the next phase of the campaign. He would work with Quatre and Lodi and Desaix and Elisa and make a plan to somehow win this war.
He took solace in the fact that Lannes was finally free. Lauriston’s old friend would find a way to win in the east. If Lauriston could hold out or gain some ground here in the west, things would turn around quickly for this war.
The marshal smiled to himself as he let his mind drift off to sleep later that night. He hoped to dream of Lannes’s return and the two friends reuniting and expelling the Kurakin Horde from Erlon for good.
Chapter 32
The Franz Dynasty of Wahring ended as it began, through betrayal and war. There were decades of prosperity and power and growth, but the end was always going to be the same.
Birth of the Republic
George Bentink
Andrei
Orders came in from General Duroc for Andrei’s portion of the army to push north. There were many defensible positions between their current position and the next Erlonian city, but the Kurakin had never let an entrenched enemy stop them before. Whatever barricades the Erlonians had, the Kurakin would overrun them.
Andrei’s only worries were the slowly warming days.
The Kurakin thrived in the cold; they’d been happy at camp during the winter and in the early parts of the campaign season. But the farther they march north, the hotter each midday was.
Many soldiers were shedding their mammoth-skin coats and now marched in only their lighter undershirts. Andrei would have to keep an eye on his wolverines; they weren’t able to shed their fur like their riders.
The mammoths too would become slower and would tire quicker. All these logistical issues cropped up in Andrei’s mind as he rode a horse through his warriors and the army readied a camp location along the road heading west.
Duroc would have to worry about keeping the army in top shape. That was the job of the general of the Kurakin. Andrei’s job was just to follow orders. He questioned the merit of pushing this far north so quickly. Duroc had always been aggressive, but what was the goal of taking the north? Why did Duroc want to reach the coast so badly?
Asking questions wasn’t Andrei’s job. He was to follow orders, nothing more. That he would do. The end of the war may be soon. With the news of Wahring’s impending fall in the east, Andrei could hold for a quick end. And he would then be able to go home to the family he still struggled to visualize in his mind.
The army had become his temporary family. He’d been away too long. His hawk was like a brother, almost as much a part of him as anything else. His Scythe mount, despite the time away during Andrei’s winter captivity, was like a close cousin.
The soldiers were relatives too. The Kurakin marched further on their path to victory, and each man defended the other to the last. It made for a formidable army, as the soldiers of Kura had demonstrated to the hapless Erlonians during the last two battles.
Andrei smiled as he approached the location of the prisoners taken in the last battle. If the army was his family, that would make Duroc his father.
That was very true. Duroc had trained the Scythes from the beginning, overseeing their drills and teachings in the cold tundra south of Kura. Once Andrei had been sent off as a boy to the military training grounds he’d seen more of Duroc than his own father.
The general was the patriarch to all of the Kurakin. He led them to victory, riding atop his massive horse. He was always strong, always ready for a fight, and always able to find victory no matter where they marched or which foe they faced.
He was the leader that would conquer the world for Kura. He and the god Chaos would lead the Kurakin to great heights. They would complete their great schemes and find victory. And then Andrei could finally march back home to his family.
Andrei ducked into the disheveled hut that stood at the entrance of the prisoner pen. Most of the prisoners were Brunians, taken from the right flank of the enemy after Andrei’s attack smashed into them.
The Brunian regiments had fought well and held strong lines at Ohain, even against overwhelming odds. Andrei had found a new level of respect for these enemies.
He’d also been pleasantly surprised to find the same Brunian general Andrei remembered from his own captivity amongst the captured after the battle.
The Kurakin army was on the move. That made it harder for Andrei to find comfortable quarters even for himself. But this Brunian had treated Andrei well when their roles were reversed over the winter. Andrei wanted to return that in kind, though this hut was the best he could do for the Brunian general at the moment.
Andrei found the man sitting on his cot and leaning against the hut’s back wall. The red of the Brunian’s uniform was ripped and dirty. His left arm was in a sling and his face was bruised and swollen.
But the general would make a full recovery. None of his injuries were life-threatening. The man made to stand as Andrei entered, but the Scythe held up a hand for him to stay put.
The Brunians were all about their manners. Andrei remembered learning that during his training. Duroc had insisted that all Kurakin soldiers know everything about their potential enemies north of Kura on the main Continent, even years before there were plans for an invasion.
“Are you recovering well?” Andrei asked.
“Well enough.” The general leaned back into his reclined position. He winced slightly at the end of the movement.
Andrei nodded. He wanted to make sure the man was taken care of. To the northern factions, the Kurakin had a reputation of being barbaric, especially to prisoners. Some of that reputation was merited, but not all. Andrei strove to alter some of those misconceptions around his people.
