Legon Ascension (5 page)

“Is this how everyone feels in the Empire?” Josher asked a little hoarsely.

Barnin answered, just loud enough to be heard, “No, most feel content. This is just a welcome for those crossing the border. When we get farther in it will get better, but it will always be like this when you cross the line. This is why you guard your mind. They want you to be afraid and turn around or make a mistake.”

Josher shook his head and looked forward, creasing his eyes brows in concentration. Under normal circumstances Barnin would have laughed, if it wasn’t for his first memory of crossing this exact line. The men stayed silent as they moved deeper into the Cona lands. Only the rhythmic thumping of Poisson and the other horses’ hooves could be heard. The horses seemed to know when they crossed the line as well; they too tensed and seemed to make less sound.
 

Up ahead was one of the dense islands of trees that dotted these plains.
This is as good as any spot to rest for the night
, Barnin thought. It would be light in a few hours and that would make things more difficult. Not that dragons and Iumenta didn’t have phenomenal night vision—no, they were in trouble if they met one of those patrols night or day—but it was the human patrols that were most likely to find them.
 

Barnin’s unit entered the grove of trees and was getting ready to dismount when he smelled it. Barnin turned to the one magic user in his group, whose name was Heath. Heath wasn’t a powerful Venefica, only a class one, but he was useful in battle. He could usually keep enemy Venefica off them long enough to do whatever it was they needed to, but he wasn’t a medic, and he wasn’t a swordsmen.

Heath lowered the hood of his brown robe, revealing shaggy red hair and way too many freckles. He looked around and sniffed.
 

“Heath, do you smell that?” Barnin asked, watching Heath’s nose crinkle with the scent of dowsed campfires.

Heath answered, “Yes sir, I do. I will check the area.”

Heath’s eyes went out of focus for only a moment then they snapped wide. “There are people here hiding, no Venefica, maybe thirty.”

That there weren’t any magic users was a good thing. Even if this was an ambush of some sort, if Barnin and his unit played their cards right they could walk away without any casualties. Heath’s face scrunched a bit and Barnin knew he was getting ready to use magic. With a breath, even a class one like Heath could take out dozens of people. Barnin gestured, giving a command to his men.

There was the immediate sound of swords being drawn and horses darting in all directions. For all the motion of it, there was surprisingly little sound. Barnin lurched forward with Heath at his side. Heath spoke a few words in the Elves’ tongue and little dots of yellow light appeared around them in the trees. Each dot was someone not of their group. The dots began to move now, obviously aware that they’d been discovered, but it was too late. These groves were small, and by the time whoever this was figured out they’d been had and started to move, Barnin’s men had the grove surrounded.
 

“You’re surrounded and you can’t hide, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. Now come out!” Barnin ordered.

There wasn’t any movement for a few moments and then, slowly, tattered-looking people started to make their way out of the brambles and brush, some climbing down from trees. It was an assortment of men, women and children, all dirty and frail.
 

Barnin huffed. This was why they didn’t attack first. “Stand down, they’re only refugees,” he ordered.

The refugees were gathered in the middle of the grove, all huddled together in fear. Mothers clasped their children while husbands tried vainly to shield their entire families with their bedraggled bodies. Barnin felt his throat tighten, as it always did when they found these types.
 

Barnin waited. He knew when all the refugees were all gathered together because Heath released the magic and the yellow dots vanished from over the people, who still looked terrified. How was he supposed to introduce himself? Normally, he was under human command, but now they were under Elves.
 

Barnin did his best and tried to come off the way an Elvin emissary should. “My name is Barnin and I represent the Great Elvin House Paldin. You have nothing to fear from us.”

A thin, dirty man in the front stepped forward, his clothes oversized, showing that he hadn’t eaten much for the last few weeks or maybe even months. He looked a little suspicious. “You’re an Elf?” he asked.

“No, my unit is currently under Elvin command. Normally we are under the command of House Posein, a human house…” Barnin trailed off, realizing that these people probably had no clue what House Paldin or Posein were and they most likely were hungry and didn’t care.
 

“So you’re not going to arrest us?” the man asked.

He looked happier now and the other refugees were relaxing a bit too. Barnin spoke. “No, we’re not here for you. We are here to let Hoelaria know how much the Elves and humans care about her,” he smiled at the end and there was a chuckle from his men.

The man who was talking to them was now openly smiling. “Well please give her our compliments too.”

“We will, but that being said you’ll need to get a move on as soon as the sun sets tomorrow. There don’t appear to be any patrols or anything of that nature in this area now, but there will be soon.”

The tension was back in the group now as they nodded their heads. “Should we leave now?” the man asked.

Barnin responded quickly, not wanting the people to start moving. “No, it will be light soon. There was a battle not too long ago just southwest of here, so there’s a lot of military in the area and dragons. If you wait until we tell you to go, most of your enemies will be trying to kill us and shouldn’t notice you. That being said, get to the Cornis mountains as fast as you can. Once there you‘re safe.”

There wasn’t much talking the rest of the night and throughout the next day. Barnin wished he could escort the refuges back to the Precipice where they could get food and medical attention, but orders were orders. He tried to sleep during the day; it was surprisingly easy to do by this point. When Barnin first signed on he never slept in the day but now he could sleep anytime. Experience taught his body to take rest when it could get it.
 

He woke as the last of the sun’s rays were fading behind the mountains. Most of the rest of his men were getting up too, Heath among them.
 

“How are you doing? You look a little tense,” Barnin asked Heath.

Heath looked down. It was in these moments that he realized just how young the kid was.
 

Heath’s voice was etched with concern and resolution. “I don’t know sir. I know we’re going in deep this time and I don’t like that much. You know I’m not good at concealment, I’m just a class one.”

Barnin needed to keep Heath from doubting himself. He needed Heath on top of his game. “You don’t need to be good at hiding us, we’re too big. We would have to rely on our own abilities anyway. Besides, you’re good to have around in a fight, or even like last night. Being able to see where the enemy is hiding is useful. I haven’t always had someone there to show me where to swing, plus, even if it’s just refugees, they could still attack us if they don’t know we’re friendly.”

“I know what you’re saying sir, and I’m not trying to sound whiny or anything, it’s just that if we’re going in deep and ruffling feathers then that might mean we encounter Iumenta. If that happens, I won’t be able to keep them off us long enough to get out.”

This was not a point lost to Barnin. They were going to cause problems. He thought back to Legon’s story about his encounter with the Iumenta, and his friend’s death. There was a time in Barnin’s life when he would have said “That won’t happen to me,” but that time was long gone. Kovos was a better swordsman than him any day of the week, and even with two Venefica, they still had to run without his body. Barnin put the thoughts out of his mind. He would cross that bridge when and if they came to it.

Barnin could tell Heath had more to say. “What’s on your mind? Spit it out.”

“Have you talked to the refugees, sir?” Heath asked.

“A little, but not much, why?”

“They said something is going on sir. Things have gotten well, odd. This lot is all the way from Impoto Province, a northern village.”
 

Barnin’s ears perked up. The Impoto Province was the northernmost Province in the Cona Empire, bordering with the Impa Empire. It was also the Province that Bailaya was in. “Are you sure? People up there never venture this far down. The Iumenta have it too tied up. Everyone up their thinks Hoelaria is the greatest thing in history.”

Heath waved over the man Barnin spoke with the night before. “Tell him what you told me.”

The man nodded. “Well, we had to leave. It just wasn’t safe up there anymore. I mean, it’s always been tense with more and more Iumenta-only cities starting up in Impoto. It just wasn’t safe anymore, too much stuff going on.”

Barnin gestured for the man to continue.

“Troop movements up there, which aren’t much, they have always been Iumenta. But we were seeing human troops. Plus, people started to up and vanish. There was a census done last winter and then come spring young girls started to disappear. There were young men vanishing too, but mostly it was the girls.”

Barnin interrupted. “What did the census have to do with it?”

“Well they were all the same type of people that went missing. That’s when we connected the disappearances to the census. I know that sounds odd, but they all were the same age, and some in the same trades. In short, it was all things the census asked that scared the daylight out of the rest of us. Then we started noticing Iumenta troops just standing looking at the village at night. Not all the time see, just part of it. Well, we heard a few rumors about things like this happening to other villages close to the border that up and vanished themselves. So this lot you see here, well, we went to the woods nearby just trying to get a breather from town, ya know. Things were so tense there. Here’s the thing, when we came back later that week it was empty.”

“Empty?” Barnin asked.

“Yeah, everyone was gone, some signs of a struggle. Anyway, we knew it was the Iumenta. They never liked having us that close to them. So we figured we would tell our regent, and he told us we had made it up.”

“And that was it?” Barnin asked.

“Yes, we knew that if the regent didn’t care it was sanctioned by the queen. Nothing happens up there without her go ahead. So we left. What else could we do? On our way we saw plenty of reasons to hate the Empire, I might add.”

Barnin thanked the man and sent him on his way. “Well, that’s some story, isn’t it?” Heath asked.

“I don’t know. Iumenta hate crimes aren’t new, but it seems extreme, it’s one thing to harass a few people, but another to wipe out a village. I don’t see Hoelaria going for it. We’ll tell the Elves just to be on the safe side,” Barnin said.

As Barnin mounted, his men followed suit, knowing the drill, and the refugees caught on quickly. Barnin gave them a few instructions of how to get to safety, and they were on their way. He could see the boy Josher watching the people go, and he was glad to see the conflict on the boy’s face. That was good. You needed to keep your mind on what you were fighting for in this job.

They made their way farther north. Most small supply trains met at depots or cross roads and then turned into larger, better-guarded trains the closer they got to the border. Usually raiding parties didn’t go too far into the Empire. It just wasn’t safe or smart, but that’s what they were doing now. It was a two week assignment, and Barnin suspected that other units were doing the same. These first few nights would be easy. They were past the main patrols and wouldn’t be bothered by anyone. Plus the supply trains wouldn’t have much in the way of protection this deep in. Their orders were clear: hit the train, kill the soldiers and burn whatever wasn’t needed to refit their unit. Sounded simple, right? And it would be until the Empire figured out what was going on.

Chapter Three

Class

“One oftentimes must wonder where the will to learn comes from, and what power, if any, that will has on the rest of life.”

-Conversations in the Garden

Blue sky and cotton clouds made themselves visible as the craggy Cornis peaks gave way to the fjord that Manton lay in. Sara felt herself automatically lean back in Ghost’s saddle as they began the slight descent into Manton.
 

Before her was a city made from the cold gray stone of the Cornis Mountains. The buildings stood out with their whitewashed facades, a far different look from her last home of Salez. For one, it wasn’t as large and there was no real city wall to speak of. Manton sat nestled at the base of a long fjord, whose water was Turquoise in the center. As the water got closer to the walls of the fjord it turned dark. Sara knew the little white dots circling the water in the distance were seagulls, a name that had never made sense to her. After all, she saw them in Salmont, which was nowhere near the sea. She refocused on the city. The architecture was beautiful, Iselin had called it gothic. Buildings stood out with decoration. Every building had gargoyles carved with extraordinary detail on the roofs. Colored fabric hung from buttresses and balconies, giving what would have been an otherwise intimidating city a warm, home-like feel. The breeze carried with it the smell of salt, giving the air a sharp but not unpleasant taste. Entering the city, Sara realized just how close together the buildings were, which was also different from Salez, with its endless plains to fill.
 

Sara was happy Ghost was content following the horse in front of her, as she was not paying any attention. Instead, she was looking at all of the ships in the fjord, which made for a perfect harbor.
 

Ok Sara, enough. You have stuff to do. You can sightsee later.
She did have stuff to do. Legon and House Evindass were providing her and Keither with an apartment here in Manton, while Sara went to school to be a healer and Keither began his training. Keither would be arriving in about two days, and she wanted to have a place by then. If she waited for Keither to help then they would still be looking a year from now.