The Tomb of the Dark Paladin (41 page)

Back home in the Sargan Duchy, the traditional homeland of his empire and the seat of the Steel Empire that once spanned the north a thousand years before, the Sargannish prized their military. Men who served were honored and the officer ranks were treated like nobles. Men who acquitted themselves with valor in the military were held in high esteem in Sargannish society.

Yerkses had always been a soldier and he always led from the front, even in battle. He was practical, rarely given to opulence or lust or greed. His men had stripped the throne room bare of all the Arnathian decor and added thrones for the Emperor and each of his five earls. Yerkses' throne was simple, made of cherry wood with inscriptions of rank and little else. Each of his earls, except the Red Earl who was on Bonniber Isle to the east, had a throne that reflected the uniqueness of each one's earldom back in Sargan proper.

He let out a sigh of contentment. His campaign in the Broken Islands to the south had gone incredibly well. That northernmost province of the Arnathian Empire had been a thorn in his side his entire life. With Arnathia on the verge of collapse, there were no reinforcements to help the beleaguered Legionnaires. Indeed, his ground forces stormed the islands and sacked the towns with abandon while his fleet had accepted the surrender of every ship they encountered without a fight. For such a bloodless victory to occur, it could only mean that the dissolution of the Arnathian Empire had begun.

Yerkses had spread his holdings far to the south into Arnathia and east into the Cklathlands. He had grown his coffers with gold and gems and tripled the number of ships in his fleet. His army grew with men pressed into service from the subjugated holdings and he felt invincible. 

Yerkses stood and walked away from the throne, and the groveling fools at his feet, to peer out the large window of the throne room into the courtyard below. A gallows had been erected, five men stood with nooses about their necks, awaiting their doom. They were the nobles and leaders of the imperial government of the Broken Islands and they had been sentenced to die. Yerkses was generally not given to wanton violence; he dealt death only when he felt it was practical and would contribute to his overall goals. In this case, he decided it was a statement to the peoples of the Broken Islands who had been under Arnathian rule for nearly ten centuries.

The governor was a fop, and he stood on the platform foppishly awaiting his death. Yerkses smirked, the world would be better off with fewer of his kind about. An Imperial Army general, an inspector of the Arnathian Constabulary, and three lord-mayors. He stood at the window watching them, intrigued to see the general and inspector seemed to meet his gaze, awaiting their deaths with honor. He considered letting those two live. Perhaps they would prove useful on his staff.

He raised his hand to his head and nodded to the burly man whose duty it was to pull the lever that would cause the floor to drop from beneath the feet of the damned. With a sudden motion, the burly man threw the lever. All five men dropped below the great platform, nothing but their quivering heads and the shaking rope was visible in the hole where there feet were seconds before. He nodded in satisfaction turning from the window.

Let them have their honorable deaths.

Just then the main door to the throne room flew open. A hooded man in black robes glided in, arms folded in front of him, his feet never touching the floor. A pair of guards shouted and charged the robed figure. They were immediately rendered unconscious, and the emperor never saw a flicker of movement from the man's hands. The earls seemed ready to defend their liege, but wisely they waited for word from the emperor. The stranger stopped short of Emperor Yerkses who was formidable in his armor and stern in demeanor. A glance through the now broken door showed that the guards outside the throne room were lying about the floor, perhaps dead. The scent of clover and death drifted through the air to assault the emperor's nose. Yerkses wrinkled his nose in disgust, he detested magic-wielders and everything that came with them; this one apparently came with death.

"What do you want?" he sneered. He knew that this had to be a formidable wizard and thought it best to speak before striking. Guards that had been stationed within the throne room were poised, ready to charge the interloper with a nod from their liege.

"Surrender the island," drifted the sibilant voice simply.

"What do you mean?" demanded the emperor. "Who are you?"

"I am the emissary of the Eternal One, the True God of Llars. By the treaty between my master and yours, Q'raz, you are commanded to relinquish control of Osprey Island to me."

"I've received no such commands," replied the scar-faced emperor. "What do you want with my island?" he demanded.

"It is not your concern. You must abandon this island now."

"Not likely," growled Yerkses. There had to be something of incredible value on this island for Umber's henchmen to make such a demand, he was not about it to simply give it up.

"If you plan to fight you should know that my master's army is massing on the north shore of the island. You know the power that we wield. You cannot win."

"You are in violation of the treaty!" he shouted. "Your master will not be pleased!"

"My master ordered this mission."

Yerkses was taken aback by that news. Had the treaty between Umber and Q'raz been terminated? Instinctively Yerkses glanced out the window and saw dark clouds roiling in the sky to the north. He turned back to the mysterious emissary before him, eyes narrowed.

"Begone!" he shouted angrily, spittle flying from his lips. "There will be no surrender!"

The figure said nothing. He simply shifted into a cloud of black smoke and disappeared into the cracks of the floor beneath his feet.

Yerkses whirled about and faced his earls and generals, his veins tingling with blood rage. It felt good. It felt like imminent battle and Yerkses loved to fight. "Assemble your armies! We go to war!"

The armies of the Steel Empire were encamped outside the capital city of the Broken Islands. A few small detachments of soldiers remained behind on the conquered islands to the north of Osprey Island to hold the empire's new lands. Umber's dark army had chosen an interesting place to make an assault. The enemy could have taken advantage of Yerkses' error in assuming there would be no further resistance, and chosen to assault the smaller and less defended islands to the north. Such an assault would have cut off his supply line and created a problem for him. Instead, they chose a full frontal assault on the most heavily fortified location in the islands.

Yerkses knew that was significant. The enemy would have to be completely inept or extraordinarily powerful and therefore capable of crushing his army completely. That meant that the brilliant tactician needed a brilliant plan to compensate for his enemy's superiority. The beginnings of a plan began to form in his head as he and his generals poured over a terrain map of the Broken Islands that the Arnathians had so kindly created. Initial reporting told him that the enemy had appeared quite suddenly on the northern shore. There were no ships in sight, meaning their sudden arrival had been conducted by supernatural means. He grimaced at the implications, Umber's forces were rumored to be commanded by members of the Black Sigil.

Yerkses had four armies and a navy under his control, each commanded by one of his earls. His fleet was impressive and it was capable of seafaring battle against even the power of the Arnathian warships. He had cannons constructed from a stolen design that the Nashian Navy employed with great effect. His cavalry regiments were now on Falcon Island, a half-day's journey by ship to the north, where there was superior pasture land and a plethora of wild horses with which to grow his cavalry. Now, however, he had very few horses from which to fight.

"Your Excellency," offered the Blue Earl. "Perhaps a truce with Arnathia would be in order? Our avenue of escape to the north is hindered, but to the south the way into the Arnathian Empire is clear."

"I'm not fond of the idea of breaking our supply lines so completely by giving up Osprey Island," he said grimly. "Have the scouts returned?"

"Only just, Your Excellency," put in the Black Earl. "I have the dispatches here."

"Read them."

The Black Earl did as he was bade and opened the sealed case. It was the practice of the emperor to have enemy intelligence matters reported directly to him and not filtered through his subordinates.

"Sire, it says the enemy host numbers..." his voice trailed off a moment as he read. Then he looked up and continued. "The enemy host numbers one thousand foot..."

Yerkses was no fool. "One thousand foot of what?" he demanded. The Black Earl read further, becoming visibly paler than he already was.

"One thousand corpses." The room was quiet. "Sire, I apologize. I will have the scout who sent this nonsense flogged--" Yerkses held up his hand.

"What of the Nashians?" he demanded. "What does it say of hurkin?"

"None reported, not even their ships." That was significant.

Yerkses stalked to the window in the perimeter battlement to watch over the main gate to the capital city. He surveyed the flat terrain that comprised the northern half of the otherwise mountainous island and abstractly considered tactics. Somewhere deep inside the recesses of his mind a voice quietly warned him of the folly of engaging Umber's forces. The dark clouds had spread from the northern shore and now lingered over the capital city itself, making it feel like evening was not far off although it was nearly high noon. "What does that devil want?" He wondered if any of the junior Arnathian officers whom he had spared could provide some hint of what lay hidden on this island. He turned to the Black Earl, his favorite and most trusted of advisors.

"Sire, I have news from the priest," interrupted a messenger hesitantly. "Q'raz is angered by this break in the treaty and it is no longer in effect. We are free to attack when and where we choose and take whatever spoils we wish."

"But what does the serpent want?" he demanded. 

"Even the mighty Golden Dragon does not know the plans of that Wicked One, Sire."

Yerkses bit back a snarl.

"We have catalogued everything in the vaults? Is there nothing that would hint to Umber's motivation?"

"Sire, I assure you we have found nothing. I have my best men double checking the inventories, but I do not believe the answer to this riddle will present itself to us before we fight."

"Surely there are more than just one thousand foot...things. What else does the dispatch say?"

"It says there are wizards wearing the garb of the Order of the Black Sigil."

That unnerved the Steel Emperor a bit. The new and secretive order of wizards devoted to the pursuit of magic that flowed from the Shadowtides had gained a reputation. None wished to face their dark and terrible magic.

"What of our own magic-wielders?"

"We have five on hand, Sire."

"Five," he repeated softly. "And what of our advisor, and of the priests of Q'raz?"

"One remains Sire. The royal advisor is gone."

"Fine, I want an enveloping maneuver. Black, your army has the honor of leading the charge. Red, are your men in place?"

"Yes, Sire. They are concealed in the hollows awaiting the order to strike the enemy's flank."

If this battle had been about numbers, he would have overwhelmed his enemy ten to one. But numbers would not decide this battle. He felt very strongly that there was something that the intelligence reports had failed to find. He shrugged off his foreboding, it mattered little in the bigger picture. He was the leader of a new empire, one that was built on the backs of a powerful army. One that had designs on the Arnathian mainland. Surrendering the city to these usurpers would make him seem craven and inept, and that would inspire greater resistance in future endeavors. It could also inspire rebellion in his own ranks.

Historians would study the outcome of this battle for decades to come, and they would likely decide the case of its worth based on things like whether the Steel Emperor had erred in sending the majority of his cavalry to another island where they could not be used.

For good or ill, Yerkses must face this threat.