The Path Of Destiny (22 page)

POWER

T
here seemed to be a
pre-celebration of victory already among the men in the Gildanian camp. Darius
could smell the wine mixing with the roasting of meat over their open fires.
They looked to be planning on going north out of Denir in the morning and
meeting Darius’s main army before they entered the city.

“We must act tonight,” said Darius to his small group, as he
laid out the plans for them to follow. They sat a few small hills away from the
Gildanian army. He was full of confidence and smiled as he ordered his men in
their respective roles. One part of the plan he kept to himself. He had to work
his magic covertly for the time being. He was beginning to realize now it was
part of him, but not a part he wished to expose too much too soon.

That evening, as dark settled like a heavy blanket over
Denir, twenty-six men dug ditches to the west of the Gildanians’ camp. The air
was cool, but the previous storm had gone north of Denir, leaving the ground
wet, but not muddy. A small grassy knoll separated them from the camp. Their
sentries stood on the north and east side, not expecting trouble behind their
backs.

Darius experimented with his power by reaching out with his
mind towards the edge of the enemy camp. He pulled some of the water out of the
ground in the form of a light mist. His men would think it was natural. He was
excited with what he could do and looked forward to seeing the look on the
Gildanian commanders’ faces. The mist helped to hide their activities. They
spent the next few hours digging multiple ditches with tools and shovels they
had borrowed from the city. As each ditch was finished, the men headed off
towards their next assignment.

Darius sat crouched behind a tent at the corner of the enemy
camp. The Gildanians had stayed up late, drinking and talking, but now with a
minimal amount of guards they slept with overconfidence. Darius still couldn’t
figure out why the small battalion had come across the border in the first
place. It seemed like a trap, but he couldn’t figure out what it would be a
trap for. He would send a few of his men south in the morning to make sure
another larger army wasn’t coming from Gildan.

The others should be in place by now. It was time to see if
his plan would work. Rather than outright killing, his plan required stealth.
He didn’t have the stomach to kill unnecessarily.

Even though the evening was cool, his head beaded with sweat
and his arms ached from the digging. He wiped the sweat off with the dirty arm
of his long wool shirt, leaving streaks of mud across his face. He let the
night settle around him and he closed his eyes. Without any hesitation, he
brought the power up inside himself. He wrapped himself in a cloak of silence
and crept into the camp. The power receded a few times but he brought it back
up. His control was still very new.

He held his sword tight in his right hand. It glowed
faintly. He began cutting the strings that held the tents to the ground. He
also entered as many tents as he could and took their bows and swords. This he
did in silence, wrapped in his power. Once his hold on the magic slipped and he
made a noise. A bleary-eyed soldier stood up, but Darius knocked him on the
head with his sword and the man fell back to slumber. When he gathered as many
weapons as he could carry he headed back outside of the camp.

Two more times he crept in using his power to silence all
his sounds. He stumbled once in exhaustion, but caught himself without making
much noise.

One by one, each of his men untied the ropes holding the
Gildanian horses. At dawn they gathered together again and took the weapons
that Darius had taken. The men were smart enough to not question his
accomplishment. Darius smiled at how easy this was turning out to be.

Time for phase two of his plan. Half of the men went around
to the north of the camp, into the outskirts of the city, and half of them to
the south of the camp. At the appropriate time, the men up north made enough
noise to begin waking the Gildanian soldiers from their drunken sleep.

Darius put on a stolen uniform that he had taken during the
night over his own clothes. The Gildanian army was much better dressed than his
group was. He would have to talk to the King about that.

In the early morning hours, just before the sky would
lighten with the early dawn, Darius snuck into camp and, with the stolen
uniform on, lifted his sword high in the air and yelled.

“Ambush! We are being attacked!” Darius hoped he remembered
his Gildanian language well enough. He had studied languages in school at the
academy. Gildanian was not a lot different from the language of the Realm or
the Kingdom of Arc, more like a different dialect.

Men stood, bewildered, rubbing sleep from their eyes,
tripping over one another, and trying to get out of their tents. With the
strings cut, they weren’t as taut, and they collapsed inward, making it
difficult to find the door. They held their aching heads, trying to regain
consciousness after the late night drinking.

“It's a trap,” Darius continued telling the enemy soldiers.
“They are on the south side of the camp.” At that time of the morning, the men
didn't think to question who was calling the orders. All they saw was a man in
uniform with a bright sword held above his head. They had no reason to
question.

The Gildanians scrambled for their swords and bows, not
finding their weapons where they remembered placing them before going to sleep.
Darius and his men had let those camped on the edge of the camp keep their
swords, so as not to arouse total suspicion. Confusion and mud filled the air.
Men began running south out of the camp into the misting winter morning,
unwittingly relaying Darius’s false orders to each other. Some of Darius’s men
let themselves be seen through the thin fog. This spurred the men on with
hollering and yelling.

As the enemy soldiers left the confines of their camp, those
in the back began seeing the men in front of them fall and disappear. The dark
ground over the small rise seemed to swallow them up and they were gone. As men
neared where others in front of them fell, they too tumbled into the ditches
the elite army had dug during the night. No matter which way they went they
tripped and fell into freshly dug ditches, only to find themselves looking up
into the eyes of one of the elite soldiers and his sword.

During the chaos, Darius continued shouting commands as he
searched for whoever was in charge. He threw the flaps of each tent back,
ripping them with his sword until he found the right tent. He was certain it
belonged to the Gildanian commander. A colorful flag hung from the point of the
tent. Darius hid outside of it until someone came crashing out.

“What’s going on?” the man began to yell in Gildanian, only
to be shoved back inside the tent by Darius.

“Who are you?” the captured commander asked in astonishment.
“You are not one of my men.”

“That’s right. But you are one of mine now. My prisoner,
that is.” He turned the man around and poked his golden sword into the back of
the commander, pushing against the skin enough to hurt but not enough to draw
blood. “I want you to get out there and tell your men to surrender.”

“Surrender? To whom? Where did you come from?” The young
commander voiced his concerns.

“That doesn't matter right now,” Darius informed the
commander. “Call your men down or we will kill them all, starting with you.”
Darius pushed the sword harder, feeling the skin break as the commander
stiffened. Darius’s head rushed with the excitement of battle. He stared at the
back of his prisoner. A simple gold band held black hair back from his
brown-skinned face.

“But we saw your army on the road. You don't have enough . .
.” The Gildanian commander switched to the language of the Realm.

“Don't always believe what you see, Commander. Remember
there is a sword in your back. A few minutes ago you did not think that was
possible, did you?”

“You can’t threaten me . . .”

Darius spun the man around, so hard he almost tripped. The
man’s dark, tilted brown eyes widened, but to his credit, he held steady and
seemed to show more anger than fear. He stood eye to eye with Darius, though
obviously a few years older. Darius gripped the sword with two hands and let
the power flow into the ancient weapon. The glow started at his hands and moved
to the tip, engulfing the entire sword. “I am a peaceful man, Gildanian, but have
been accused of losing my temper recently. I have no desire to kill anyone and
would like to settle things peacefully.”

The commander stared at the sword, his eyes going wide once
more. The captured leader didn’t have a choice. He walked out and did as he was
told. He ordered his astonished men to surrender.

Those who didn't already have their swords and bows taken
away put them down on the ground. A few tried to fight back, but with
additional words from their commander, they fully surrendered. When the
commander found out there were only twenty-five other men in Darius’s group he
was furious and embarrassed.

“The older men thought not to listen to me last night. They
stayed up too late drinking to victory before we even fought.” The young
Gildanian seemed to be trying to justify his loss. “Many thought I was too
young to be in command.”

Darius just grunted. He understood what the Gildanian
commander meant. He still struggled with some of his older soldiers taking him
seriously.

“This should have never happened,” the Gildanian commander
yelled to his guards and soldiers.

“You will be my prisoner until we meet King Edward Montere,
King of the Realm, in Anikari. We will see what he has to say about this
incursion,” said Darius

“You deceived me, threatened me, and used the power of a
wizard in front of me. Who are you?” The young commander said in low, whispered
Gildanian, obviously noticing that Darius understood his language.

Darius ignored the man’s remark, although he saw questioning
looks on his men’s faces. Some of them understood Gildanian and overheard the
comments. He spoke to the captured army. “You deceived yourself with all of
your celebrating and drinking last night. You should never celebrate victory
before the battle. I am sure your generals would be disappointed in you.”

The young Gildanian showed some sense of embarrassment at
that last statement, but composed himself. “Where is the rest of your army? We
had reports of you coming down the main road.”

“They will be here in short order to make sure your army is
held prisoner until we sort this out. By the way, Commander, what is your
name?”

“Mezar. Commander of the Gildanian twenty-first battalion.”
This he spoke in the tongue of the Realm.

“Just Mezar? No other titles?”

“Commander Mezar will do for now,” the man noted in
defiance, not willing to give any more information. He looked around at his
men, silencing them with his look.

“Well, Commander Mezar, now you are prisoner of Darius,
first commander of the King’s Elite Army.”

The rest of the solders began to be herded into organized
areas to await the remainder of the army. Darius watched his prisoner and
studied him for a moment, still wondering about the purpose of this incursion.
He found himself alone with the young man and tied his hands behind him.

In a perfect Realm accent he asked Darius, “Where have you
been hiding? We hadn’t heard the Realm had a wizard again.”

The question surprised Darius and he looked around
nervously. “Will you stop referring to me as a wizard?”

“Ahh. I understand.” Mezar looked around with a tiny smile
on his thin face. “Your men do not know, do they?”

“I am not a wizard. And no, they don’t.” Darius was getting
confused by this enemy commander.

“Well which is it, Commander Darius? Do they not know you
are a wizard or are you not one?” Mezar smiled, bright teeth in contrast to his
dark brown skin.

Darius pushed Mezar to one of his soldiers to watch, and
headed off through town. He was not in the mood to spar with his Gildanian
counterpart. He didn’t yet know what he was and was uncomfortable with that
line of questioning. But he did know he had just won his first battle, without
the loss of one life on either side. He felt great!

After removing the Gildanian uniform Darius jumped on one of
the Gildanian’s horses and rode through Denir, yelling victory and waking up
everyone in the early dawn hours. They jumped out of their homes thinking
another fight was upon them to find Darius, a lone man galloping up and down
the street with his golden sword raised high. He seemed to fly above his horse
with the overpowering sensation of power that came with victory.

The next morning the rest of Darius’s army arrived to find,
surprisingly, the battle already ended. Many of the men were disappointed, some
because they couldn’t fight, others because Darius’s plan had indeed worked.
Darius met with Denirian leaders to receive praises and banquets in his honor.
He had captured, with only a small group of men, an entire battalion of the
famous Gildanian army. He gloried in the praise. His plan had worked.

Stories began to spread of what had happened that morning,
growing more spectacular with every telling. Riders rode from town to town with
rumors of the man with the glowing sword. The commander of the King’s Elite
Army.

Darius sat at an evening banquet held in his honor. He had
finally accomplished something in life. Something on his own. He had won his
first battle as a leader in the army. He had secured peace for the Realm. The
townspeople were invited to pay tribute to the army that saved them. Music was
playing and many were dancing. He sat at the head table and looked out over his
men, enjoying the evening because of him. Darius relished the power and the
glory.