Theodosius Valkorion's Arc

Chapter 11 of 22

The first reports came in before the ink on the map was dry. Two provinces without lords. Granaries broken open. A tax collector hanged from a bridge. Theodosius read the dispatches at the war table while Heinrich stood across from him in his white officer's coat, hands behind his back. The traitor lords were dead. Their spears had not marched. The line to the pass had a new hole in it, and this one bled. "How many spears were promised from those two?" Theodosius asked. "A thousand from each," Heinrich said. "None on the road." "Days?" "Eight, before the columns hit Thraxes." Theodosius set the reports down. Killing the traitors had cleaned his court and poisoned their provinces. Peasants who had watched their lord dragged to the block would not shoulder a spear for the man who did the dragging. Not without a hand on their throat. "Send the Clandestine Guard ahead," he said. "Every village square. I want the forged orders read out. The intercepted letters. The half-seal. Let them hear why the lords died before we arrive." "Words won't put spears in the muster fields." "No. I will." He rode within the hour. Not with a legion. He could not spare one. He took the Royal Adamantine Guard, three hundred strong, white enamel plate polished to a mirror, red and blue tabards, the new banner at the front. White lotus on a pale blue star. He wore his silver armor and the visored helm. The star on the visor caught every torch in every courtyard he entered. At the first province seat he did not sit in the dead lord's hall. He stood in the market with the Stormblade drawn, lightning crawling the length of the silver, and read the names of the men the lord had planned to sell. He named the pass. He named the foreign columns. He said any man who brought a spear to the muster within four days would eat from the king's stores through winter. Any man who did not would answer to the guard behind him. The guard did not move. They did not need to. By dusk the muster field held four hundred. By the next dusk, nine hundred. He rode to the second province and did it again. The Clandestine Guard had done its work ahead of him. The crowd already knew the names on the burned letter. On the fifth day he turned the column east toward the pass. Behind him marched seventeen hundred spears. Less than the two thousand the traitors had owed. Enough to close the gap. Heinrich rode up beside him as the road bent toward the mountains. "They came," he said. "They came afraid." "Fear moves feet." "Fear does not hold a wall." Theodosius watched the peaks rise ahead. Thraxes was three days out. The foreign columns, four. "We will see what holds when the cannon speaks."