Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) Page 28

  Adrian’s mouth tightened at the name. “And what does he have to report?”

  “He has been running the southeastern operations during the reinforcement.” The aide overlooked Adrian’s terse voice. “During his investigations, he has uncovered a startling number of rumors concerning the forest across the mountain range further to the east. Most of these come, by and large, from merchants with business across the borders, but they all are similar. Matching them up with bits of local history regarding past attempts to expand the border, we have confirmed at least a portion of the tales.”

  “What tales?” Adrian was forced to ask when the man paused again, waiting for only the gods knew what.

  “They vary. The running component in each is that anyone who enters the forest tends to come to a bad end. Enough accounts have been found in the historical records kept in this city to verify that the forest warrants closer attention. I’m sure we would have discovered this long ago if we weren’t forced to rely on the locals to translate their records for us.”

  “With all the might of our army at work, this is what we have to show for months of effort?” Adrian’s mood degraded rather than lifted at the news. “Rumors and wives tales,” he barked. “That is all we, the best our Arronath can offer, have been able to discover!”

  “Colonel Harbon has a footnote to his report,” the aide added in an effort to counter the general’s mood.

  “Does he? And what might the colonel wish to add?”

  “Well…he suggests that any force we send into the forest must proceed with caution,” the aide added limply.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “He also requests he be assigned to the taking of this forest. He states that as he has gathered the most intelligence regarding it, he would be the best choice.”

  Adrian raised his brow. “The colonel has taken a particular interest in this worrisome forest. Now why might that be?” The last had been said as a private musing, but the aides struggled for an answer. Before they could stray from the issues, Adrian ordered them to continue.

  With no other news at hand regarding the investigations, the updates on the army followed.

  “All of the Taur provisions are in place, as are the units. Holding forces in each town have the citizens under control. Our supply lines are moving stores to the predetermined supply zones.”

  The next aide took over. “Wyverfly units are still patrolling but the lack of caves is beginning to take its toll. The wyverflies we attempted to house in large buildings have begun to die. With the units stationed within the caves we have found, we don’t have enough to both adequately cover the ground forces and scout ahead at the same time. With the majority still stationed at the Citadel, we can’t take full advantage of the aerial elements until it is moved closer to the front lines.

  “Reports from the wyverflies able to scout still support the previous assessments. Most nearby towns lie abandoned and the only serious resistance we should meet will be around the cities of Jabberzian, Huundok and Ael.”

  Adrian studied the newest maps handed to him with marks representing his forces covering it. He demanded, “Why aren’t the Thirty-Fourth and Thirty-Seventh Regiments in place? They should have been on station days ago!”

  “A problem with the soldiers,” another aide responded. “During the march, they drank from a town well which turned out to contain tainted water. Almost all the men are down with the flux.”

  “Find the mage who was assigned to them. Send a reliable mage to replace him, then order him to report to Kallied and answer questions about his negligence of duties. What’s this?” Adrian pointed to a red number covering a town southeast of Kallied. “Why has the Twenty-Third Regiment split off from its posted station?”

  “Colonel Mendell ordered them too, sir.”

  “Explain!”

  “Apparently a white-robe was killed there. Her body was found with her throat slashed.”

  The general grimaced. “Hardly surprising. That sort of petty resistance must be expected. Round up the locals and question them to find out who is dissatisfied enough to challenge our authority.”

  Given the hesitant expression crossing the aide’s face, Adrian knew the situation must be complicated. “Sir, the colonel has already moved a regiment to question the residents.” He gestured at the map.

  “So I see, and the colonel overstepped his authority in doing so.”

  “After questioning them personally, he uncovered a conspiracy running through the entire town to sabotage our supply lines once the frontline has advanced. They attacked him once they realized the truth was known, and he responded in kind.”

  “He what?” Adrian’s voice dropped to a lower octave than normal. “By what authority?”

  “He was defending his men against the local militants,” the aide explained. Judging from his tone, he saw nothing at all wrong with this.

  “How many of the townsfolk are still alive?”

  “Well, none sir, I believe.” He consulted his sheet. “The fighting spread until everyone was caught up in it.”

  Silence loomed for a long moment before Adrian continued. “What else?”

  They spent a further candlemark reviewing the forces he commanded in King Lambert Soieel’s name. When they covered all that needed to be dealt with, he sent them away after receiving a stack of dispatches addressed directly to him, bypassing the aides and analysts. Most dealt with minor matters until he found one with a red wax seal.

  Breaking the seal, he read the note with little interest. A standard paragraph dealing with a trivial matter. The real message lay in the envelope and its seal. Jide was letting him know he had returned.

  Excellent timing, as always. Over his professional career, General Adrian had made only two close friends. The second had been his king, a friendship that had developed over many years of service to the eleven-point crown. Now his son Lambert sat upon his throne.

  The friendship with the old king had been well known. His friendship with the less reputable Jide was one they had both taken great care to keep secret. As far as anyone knew, Jide was only one more man serving under Adrian’s command.

  Going to the door, Adrian pointed at the first man he saw. “Find Jide. I need to loosen up. Tell him to meet me in the sally.” He rolled his shoulders to make the point.

  The aide rose from the desk and left his work behind. Adrian followed him to the outer office before turning in a different direction.

  Adrian felt like a man chasing his own shadow. Nothing added up. In his campaigns against the Herrigorn kingdoms or the wild Taur tribes, he had never been given such vague objectives.

  He passed an elaborate door guarded by no less than six heavily armed soldiers. Behind that door could be found Markis-gune’s bedroom, currently reoccupied by the one-time owner of this semi-palace. The high-lord had proven to be a fountain of political knowledge regarding Tullainia. As such, Adrian had decided the best course in regards to him would be to treat him with respect.

  The general could hear talking from within, meaning the high-lord must be answering fresh questions from his investigators. Though a prisoner, Markis-gune’s bearing was still stiff with pride and self-confidence. If the Tullainian king proved to be too troublesome, Adrian thought Markis-gune might be a good candidate to replace him once King Lambert decided to return these lands to local rulership.

  If he decides to, you mean. Adrian forced the thought from his mind with a ruthless shove. His friend Lutehor would never have occupied a foreign kingdom for longer than absolutely necessary. Impossible that the son he had raised would do otherwise. Arronath was already as large as it needed to be. The duties stemming from its founding and its current problems were more than enough to engage any leader without adding to them. But then, Lutehor never would have ordered you to conquer the Merinor kingdoms like this either.

  This time Adrian stopped to grit his teeth and firmly force away the disloyal thought. His life had been devoted to serving his ki
ng. In the twilight years of it, he could afford no room for doubts. He was devoted, body and soul, to his king and kingdom. Others, though…

  He reached the sally, surprised to find Jide already waiting. “I had a feeling you’d want a good workout as soon as you could,” the rugged veteran growled in greeting. Jide had also requisitioned two large soldiers to act as guards for their privacy.

  Adrian addressed them personally. “See to it no one interrupts us for any reason. The building can burn down for all of me.” The soldiers nodded and took positions to the door’s either side.

  They entered the indoor sparring room. Except for the mats piled in one corner the large room was empty. Two men could easily practice their fighting skills without restriction.

  The moment the door shut, Adrian asked his friend, “You discovered the truth?”

  “As much of it as I could,” replied Jide, adjusting the patch covering his left eye socket. He had worn it so long it seemed a part of his tough-as-leather features. The rough stubble shadowing his face looked as though he had not shaven in days. Adrian could never imagine him without it. Jide apparently gave no thought to his appearance…except the stubble had been there since the day Adrian met him. Never once had it been either longer or shorter than a few fingernails width.

  The two sat on the mat pile and withdrew their swords. They knocked the blades together every few moments to give the guards outside noise to listen to.

  “First off, I think you were right about those two,” Jide whispered in a low, dog-like growl. “As far as I’ve been able to tell, Mendell and Harbon are exactly the type we’ve always said should never be left in command of a potato farm.”

  “What can I work with?”

  “Nothing solid. Those rumors what drifted up to you seem to be true. Several outlying Taur patrols on the fringe have been feeding Tullainians to the beasts. Making an example to the rest of the village. You know the writ.”

  Fist clenched, Adrian spat. “Then I’ll have them hung for war crimes! Such…vileness goes against every code of Taur conduct under military law!”

  “It won’t be so easy, Adrian. I tried to trace the orders back, but they were all smoke. Everyone knows it was an order from up on high, except no one can say who issued it.”

  “Those two! Ever since I had to take them into my ranks, I’ve felt their rotting cores.”

  “And they’re good at hanging a shield over their asses. If you start an official investigation on them, you won’t find a damned thing. Straight to the point, I think you might regret doing so in the end.”

  Adrian shifted. “This is my army, Jide. I’ve rebuilt it over thirty years, strengthening the points grown rusty from complacency since the founding. You and I have both redesigned the force structures down to the very unit. I will not allow anyone within to run amok, satisfying their lust for power through the system that I built. Especially those two!”

  Jide glanced over with his one eye. “Be careful, Adrian. You don’t want to attract attention from the wrong places!”

  “Xenos, you mean.” Adrian sighed. “He is my king’s trusted councilor. I have no right to gainsay him.”

  That hardly satisfied Jide. He pressed. “Mendell and Harbon are evil. I don’t doubt it, not after slinking around in their shadows for the last month. Isn’t that enough to judge Xenos by, knowing they owe their positions in our army to him?”

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Adrian countered, if uncertainly.

  “Including Lambert. I know you don’t want to hear it,” the leathery man persisted at Adrian’s sidelong glare, “but you know that’s the truth. Has it occurred to you that all these dark visions of the seers we’re supposed to be investigating only started after Xenos arrived at the court?”

  As tempting as it was to believe Xenos might be behind all their troubles, a lifetime of unwavering support for his liege refused to allow such a supposition. Doubts would crack the foundation of his beliefs, negating everything he had ever held of value. Instead, he said, “They arrived after many things happened. Hoping to nail it down to a single event is pointless.”

  Jide knew Adrian better than anyone else. He gave up. For now. “Whatever the truth is, Mendell and Harbon are dangerous. You can’t prove they gave those orders, and you can’t kick them out for no reason without stomping on the wrong toes. Any investigations will turn back on you. They’re like set traps, waiting for your dumb, clumsy foot to step in them.” After a moment, he added, “Our best bet might be to make sure evidence for their crimes is found.”

  Adrian refused that vehemently, as Jide had known he would. “Manufacturing evidence is exactly the type of activity we have worked so hard to stamp out of the army, Jide!”

  “Every situation has its extremes. We put a stop to it, or tried to, because every mother-loving son-of-a-bitch with so much as a thread of insignia on his chest was scheming like the hells to get his superior officer’s job.”

  “I have no desire to fight corruption with corruption.”

  “Is it? We aren’t slinking around to further our positions in the ranks. We’re cleaning them out! I think that’s a completely different matter, especially since those two have already started abusing their power. How far will they go? Do you think they’re satisfied with what they’ve attained? You and I both know the answer to that question, when garbage like them are part of the equation.”

  Scowling, Adrian countered, “It may not come to that. Have you heard about Durrac?”

  “A rumor or two.”

  “Mendell says he found a conspiracy.”

  “My ass. Mendell wanted to teach the other towns under his jurisdiction what happens when they get cute with him.”

  “I’m certain, but I need you to find me proof.”

  This time Jide scowled. “How? All the citizens are dead, and I can’t speak Traders anyway. It’ll still be at least a month or two before I can at my current rate, which is to say, slow.”

  “No one is perfect. The proof exists. I need you to find it.”

  Jide sighed. “This will push back my language studies further.” But he did not disagree.

  For the next half-hour, Jide managed to get Adrian talking about alternative methods for dealing with the two rotten apples in their barrel. Adrian was only barely persuaded to refrain from jerking the two colonels straight into a holding cell. In the end, they both re-sheathed their blades and left the sally.

  They paused while Jide made a show of complimenting the general on how well he kept his fighting skills in trim. When the battle veteran strode away, Adrian heard one guard whispering to the other.

  “Look at them! Over a half-hour of fighting and they aren’t even breathing hard!”

  A grunt followed, elicited by the second guard’s elbow being thrown into the first man’s ribs. Adrian glanced over to see them hastily straighten to attention. The first guard gazed at him with a mixture of awe and pride in his superior.

  New stories to add to my reputation, Adrian thought, then walked away, his mind running in circles.

  * * * * *

  Marik was glad that he was, essentially, an outsider. Not being a Thoenar citizen, he could remain apart from the tense undercurrents running through the population. The longer he mingled among the tournament crowds the clearer those currents became to him.

  Repeatedly it reminded him of a boiling stew over a camp fire. Unstirred, it bubbled, the liquid expanding until it overflowed into the flames. In this case, one of the spoons stirring the kettle, keeping the contents from raging beyond control, was the tournament.

  He knew full well that the arrival of the largest tournament held in centuries during an uneasy time was hardly coincidental. Galemar had been at peace so long it barely remembered the last major upset in inter-kingdom relationships. People were nervous, others were concerned; only the practical sharpened their blades while looking over their shoulders. Marik could perceive the unseen currents, as well as their causes.

  The Nolier war had e
nded in a stalemate with no clear victor. Blue-uniformed soldiers had been chased back across the Hollister Bridge but they still sat on their side, glaring across while Galemar returned the favor. Thousands of men had lost their lives on both sides. Just as many had returned to their homes bearing fewer limbs than they had departed with. Maimed soldiers were forced to find other work suited to their lessened capabilities. Most were bitter and spent days beside common room hearths with tankards or pain-killing opium, endlessly retelling their horrible stories.

  Everyone in Galemar had been touched by the aftermath, and the knowledge that the Noliers were not fully vanquished, that they might return at a whim, gnawed at their minds. We might have to go through that all over, was the common, unspoken thought. The first round had exacted a heavy price, the soldiers with amputated limbs in front of their eyes every day keeping warfare’s reality fresh in their memories.

  And if that were not bad enough, refugees by the thousands streamed across the Tullainian border, testifying that life could rapidly become far worse. Their stories were terrifying. They pleaded for humanity and aid, but their presence created a whole new slew of problems for Galemar’s citizens. While rich in fertile soil, the previous war had taken many fieldworkers away for an entire growing season. A substantial portion of the harvests had been directly routed to the warfront, meaning the winter stores, thinner than customary, could barely support their own population. Finding food and clothing enough for so many meant the Galemarans would watch their own families go hungry.

  Isolated in Kingshome, Marik had escaped the worst Galemaran winter in over a hundred years. The band had taken so many losses that even their own reduced food supplies were not a substantial problem. Outside, desperate refugees starved to death on the roads. Families with malnutrition sores watched each other waste away while the children’s tears fell and their wraithlike bodies consumed their own flesh.