Day 385, 4:30 AM

“Well, it's one for the money two for the show

Three to get ready now go, cat, go.”

— Elvis Presley

Manny jumps to her feet in the middle of the night and runs to the bathroom.

“You all right?” I slur, and she starts retching. The scene is eerily familiar, and my sleepy mind takes a moment to connect the dots as I light the lamp.

No. That’s impossible. We started having sex last week, and I’ve been careful, just in case, despite recalling that lactating women can’t get pregnant. Then I remember how she sent me off on my campaign with Vatten and shake my head again.

No way. That was two weeks after she gave birth to Victory.

For a moment, I’m terrified. Manny being pregnant again throws a wrench in all our plans. Vatten can still wait in front of Karengord, both sides happy to see the other wasting time and supplies, until he receives the crown prince’s signet ring, along with the man’s hand. That should be proof enough of the royals’ defeat and the defenders should fall to internal battles if there are true royal supporters, or better yet, they open the gate and surrender without fighting, so that we can incorporate them into our army.

The original plan was for Manny and me to lead an army and besiege Garagord, with Vatten joining us with additional troops. But can I take a pregnant woman in addition to a suckling baby with me on a campaign? Victory was enough for me to doubt the decision, but if Manny’s pregnant that just complicates things, but I can’t leave them behind at fate’s whims. Who knows who else would try to strike them while my back is turned.

My head is spinning, and I lay back into the bed.

“I think I might be pregnant.” Manny washes her face and mouth before returning to bed.

“That’s wonderful news.”

“You are a horrible liar.”

“I love you more than the world itself.”

“But at least you have a smooth tongue. Lord of Light, I just pushed one out of me not two months ago, and you got me pregnant again.”

Blunt’s about to say it took the two of us to make her pregnant, but I clench my teeth and keep my mouth shut.

“What did your curse want to say?” She’s either got uncanny senses or she just knows me damn well.

“We should go for twins this time,” I lie, and she starts bashing my head with her pillow.

“Hey, mind the empty eye socket!”

“Sorry.” She jumps back aghast, and I tackle and kiss her.

“We’ll get through this. I will be king, you will be queen, and together we will win at life.”

***

I cover my still-bandaged head with a half-mask of lacquered black wood and leave the bedroom first. The six soldiers stationed in front of Victory’s nursery salute as I pass them and enter the refurbished room in which I ate while Manny was in labor.

Four more soldiers salute, two by the door, two by the window. The wet nurse, however, shudders, her gaze searching the safety of the wooden floor tiles the moment she glances at the black, eyeless mask obscuring the maimed half of my face.

“Thank you for your service,” I say to the woman and walk towards the crib as she mumbles and fidgets.

Victory is sprawled on her back, both arms above her head, as if she were celebrating. My little angel is smiling in her sleep, and I can’t help but mirror her expression.

“We’re going on a road trip soon,” I croon. “We have a kingdom to conquer.”

Victory is nonplussed and keeps smiling with her eyes closed. I burn with the urge to pinch her chubby cheek, but that would wake her. Instead, I turn around and leave. I’m about to close the door, when I look at the woman and the soldiers.

“Keep up the good work.”

She nods, and they salute, brimming with pride as I shut the door.

“You too.” I nod to the men guarding the door, and they respond with overly eager salutes. In less than a year, I have become a god of war to these people. In less than a year, I have lost an eye and crippled an arm.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

If this keeps up, there won’t be anything left of Aang’s body by the time it turns twenty-five. That thought raises another question. How old am I? Forty? Nineteen? One? A billion years?

They all make sense, and I could argue all those numbers, yet the one that makes the most sense to me is nineteen. Even when I was thirty-nine I don’t think I was over fifteen as far as my maturity went.

“Sir!”

“Noble Sir!”

“General!”

Soldiers, servants, and officials greet or salute me as I pass, scurrying out of my way. I walk out into the training yard, where over a thousand men salute in perfect sync.

In one corner Bastian Hassel trains with his two hundred soldiers. They stop and greet me with a salute, and I salute back. The young man has left a good impression. He’s meticulous, hard-working, and ambitious. I like him. Manny doesn’t.

She held a private audience for him the day after the battle, and during the victory feast, she gave him a seat of honor, to my right. However, a thread of ice creeps into her eyes whenever she sees him.

Still, I consider him amusing. Every time I see him, I can’t help but recall his flabbergasted expression when he saw me sitting in the consort’s seat, to Manny’s left.

“General Blackstaff!” He trots towards me, his soldiers continuing their drill without error.

“Lord Bastian.” I nod and look towards the table set for five in the shadowed corner of the yard. “Who are today’s winners?”

I don’t recognize any of the four men who were lucky enough to win the lottery and share breakfast with me.

“All four are mercenaries this time, General.”

The four of them are beaming either with happiness or absolute smugness, like them attending the breakfast was their achievement and not dumb luck.

Then again, they could have bought the privilege from the fortunate winners.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” I grace them a half-smile, since nobody can see the full one. “You know the drill. An hour of training, and if you give it your all, we break bread together. If you plan to slack off, you can leave now.”

“No, Sir!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it!”

“Never!”

They shout, and I can’t help but think what kind of genius my wife is to come up with this ritual. Not only am I experiencing a variety of different attacks at different skill levels, I’m also building a bond with the troops not completely under our control.

I smile, and the training begins. For me, one on four is just a warmup before Phil starts molesting me, for the four of them, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. They fight their idol, gaining invaluable experience, and a story they will tell their friends and descendants for years to come. They sparred with the Griffonrider.

“You’re good,” I say to the short, black-haired man in his thirties stabbing at my back with a wooden shortsword. I twist out of the dulled blade’s path and flash him a smile. It’s only been fifteen minutes, and yet he nearly stabbed me five or six times.

“Noble Sir is too generous with his praise,” the black-haired merc mumbles through gasps, wiping his wet brow, and lunging at me again.

He is, at the very least, determined to have breakfast with me.

Forty-five more minutes go by in a flash. The mercs gave it their best, I can bet their underpants are wet, assuming they are wearing any. My breath, on the other hand, is relaxed, no different than it was when I walked into the yard.

“Good work,” I flash them a half-grin. “Let’s eat.”

I start wolfing down food, to help the men relax. There’s little room for shyness when they see their host devouring breads and cured meats without mercy.

“So, you want to enter our household?” I point at the overzealous man, who stood out among the fortunates sparring with me these past few days.

He starts choking, his eyes bulging.

“Slap his back,” I tell another merc. “I’d do it, but I’d smack his lungs right out of him.”

A few moments and some coughing later, the wet-eyed merc is still staring at me.

“Chew before you swallow, swallow before you speak. Now, you wish to join my retinue, but you don’t want to start out as a grunt. And I agree, you are much too competent to slowly rise through the ranks. Am I correct?”

The merc clenches his fists, barely stopping himself from squirming under my one-eyed gaze.

“Yes, Sir. I am a professional soldier, started when I was fourteen, and I’ve been carrying a sword ever since. I’ve been going from battlefield to battlefield when there were wars to fight, and I’ve been bandit hunting or protecting merchants during these peaceful times.”

“You don’t belong to any of the mercenary companies we are currently employing, do you?”

“No, I am not. A lone man can find honest work more easily than a group, and becoming a bandit to feed less competent mouths is distasteful.”

I give the man another look. He has a fine leather jerking, patched at the center of the abdomen and below the ribs, with a high-quality mail armor beneath. Double mesh.

“You are from a noble family.” It’s not a question. His armor is too expensive, but focused on survival rather than appearing fancy. The faded scar on his chin is wide, and a testament to dodging a lethal blow. His eyes are sharp, but there’s not a hint of surprise in them.

His origin is obvious, if you know how to look for the signs.

“I am.” He nods. “Fifth son, impossible to inherit, so my father equipped me the best he could and told me to seek my fortune. I was kind of lucky, I guess. The king beheaded my father ten years ago for supporting Lord Eagleeye; I was escorting a caravan through Dolacia at the time, and by the time I got the news, the rebellion was crushed and my family was dead.”

“And you’re looking for revenge?”

“No. I have lived on the edge for nearly two decades. The strong will take even what the weak don’t have to give. Me getting angry at the king because of my late father’s failed gamble is completely pointless.”

The man pauses, and glances at the other mercs, but his story doesn’t interest them much. They are listening, but most of their attention is reserved for bacon and smoked ham.

“That said, there is good, paid work here, and I am not complaining if it gives me a chance to fight against the man who destroyed my family. Father may have kicked me out, but I understood why he did it, and I don’t resent him. That’s just the way it is.”

I nod, instantly liking the man. He has the self-driven, self-dependant mentality, which I love, and which seemed to have died out on Earth before I reincarnated.

“What’s your name?” I smile, thinking of several trial tasks for him, just in case he was a spy or an assassin.