I panted while they opened the gates and I quickly sprinted through the palace and into the War Room. Twenty very important-looking people were standing around a table with a huge 3d map.

“My lords, I apologize for the delay.” I gasped with my hands on my knees.

“Ah, Lord Varus finally deciding to grace us with your presence I see.” said one with a nasal accent. I looked over at him, green eyes, overweight, large nose, quite fashionable, however, “You must be High Lord Tourel.”

He looked at me disdainfully, “I see you still remember me.”

“What? I’ve never met you before.”

“Kaedin we do not have time for your silly games.”

“Kaedin? I’m his nephew, Ryze. My uncle is still in Forrest Deep.”

“Apparently not,” interjected a new voice, “it seems that Lord Varus has decided to march south to the Ruby Ridge Mountains with thirty thousand men.”

“He’s sent the Steel Legion?” I asked in surprise.

“It would appear so,” the king said, “and without sending word back to the crown.”

“It is disconcerting that the Fief of Varus can move that many men so quickly. One must wonder what else the Red Dragon is hiding from us.” another man said. The rest of the men muttered in agreement. I looked around the group and realized that they were all high-born members of each fief.

I looked at the map in the middle, it showed the rectangular shape of the Empire with borders drawn for each fief. Miniatures were placed to represent different armies and structures. At the Varus northern border sat a dozen pieces in the green of Tourel.

“Why are there so many Tourel soldiers at my border?” I asked.

“As we do not know what your Uncle’s intentions are, we have decided to play it safe and place units along the border.”

“Yes, and we would very much like to know those intentions as well,” Tourel added.

“Excuse me,” I said and walked out of the room. I pulled my Pad out and sent a message.

“Kaedin, they know you’re moving units to the south and they want to know why, what do I say?” almost immediately a response came.

“Tell them that they are on a training mission, anything that gets them off our scent. We cannot let hundreds of thousands of soldiers flood into our lands.”

“But, what if they attack?” I asked with concern, “there are thousands of men stationed at our border already.”

“Let me guess, the northern border with the Tourel Fief and the eastern border with Brutus.”

“Yes.”

“They won’t attack, House Tourel has always been all bark and no bite.”

“Very well,” I said and walked back in.

“Well?” asked another noble. I looked at him, I faintly remembered meeting the man at a festival several years ago. He was the brother of High Lord Brutus

“Lord Brutus if I remember correctly?” I asked, he nodded.

“The Steel Legion is on a training exercise in the south, there is nothing to worry about,” I said with as much sincerity as I could manage. They didn’t look convinced at all.

“I highly doubt that Kaedin would send the entire Legion on a training exercise.” the king said.

“I don’t know what to say, that is what my uncle told me.”

“If necessary, House Tourel will gladly send troops to ask him in person.” Lord Tourel said sinisterly. I thought back to my old history lesson. One of the first major campaigns of the Wars was between my uncle and the late Lord Tourel. That had culminated in the Battle of the Red Cliffs which ended in a complete route for Tourel forces and the Lord himself had fallen.

“House Brutus will also send men if needed,” he said, I was starting to get the feeling that they just wanted the land that they had lost during the Wars back.

“You must be insane if you think that occupying our lands will solve anything.” I said hotly, “Plus even with your combined manpower, you wouldn’t stand a chance against Varus.”

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“I will not have a child like you slander the name of House Tourel.” he snapped and started to pull a sword out of its sheath. I grinned at him and reached for my sword, then I realized that it was still in my room and panicked slightly. Then I remembered I had something else, I pulled the pistol out of its holster and pointed it at him.

“Upupupup, I wouldn’t.”

“Listen to the kid Gideon.” another man said lazily, “it’s not like he’s wrong.” I looked at the man, tall, dark skin, bald, and incredibly well-muscled. That was High Lord Occam himself. Tourel sputtered flabbergasted and the king spoke up, “Put the firearm down Varus, Tourel quit making a fool of yourself.”

I holstered the pistol and crossed my arms, “There is not much more I can tell you, my lords, I didn’t even know that the Legions were on the move before tonight. If you want any information then you will need to ask my Uncle directly.”

“That’s the problem young Varus, your uncle refuses to respond to our messages,” said High Lord Arcturus in his clear northern accent. He was the tallest man in the room with white skin, lilac eyes, and even whiter hair.

“Look, my uncle is marching south, be it for a training mission or some other goal. Why does that matter?” I asked, “Like there is nothing to the south of Varus other than the Wastelands and the Endless Sea.”

“It matters because he never told us beforehand.” the king said irritated, “It is polite and tradition to at least send word to the crown before making any major movement.”

“It is also a sign of trust in the crown,” added Arcturus. The rest of the lords nodded, “and since Varus has always seen itself as better than the rest, who knows when they might declare independence and succeed from the Empire entirely.”

“That is stupid.” I spat, “House Varus has never shied away from duty since the creation of the empire. That can not be said for the rest of the Fiefs.” I said and glared at Brutus and Tourel. The entire room erupted into argument as different Lords called each other out.

“Enough!” the king snapped and immediately the room went silent. “Unless we find proof to the contrary, I am willing to trust Kaedin Varus’ word that those men are in the south for training. There is to be no further discussion on this topic as we must move on.”

The Lords quieted down and he continued, “there is disconcerting news from both the north and the east.” I had heard about this and apparently so had the others as they murmured, “It seems that the Elves have ended their isolationism and are reclaiming their lost strongholds in the east. The last time that has happened was during the times of the Sun King and we all know what happened afterward. Also in the north, sightings of huge Krieg Warbands are becoming more frequent by the day.”

“Krieg?” I asked with confusion, the other southern lords were just as lost as I was, “Are they some sort of Orc or goblin?”

Arcturus let out a hoarse bark of laughter, “if only, the Krieg are a race of large, intelligent, insect-like beings. They’re shaped similar to dwarves but are covered in a thick exoskeleton that is harder than iron. Oh, they also have wings and can float in the wind.”

“Why have we only just heard about them?” asked a concerned Lord Occam, I nodded in agreement.

“Because they almost never leave the Snowpeaks and because they cannot live in places without year-round snow.”

“Wait, when you say intelligent, do you mean like human and dwarf level intelligent?” I asked.

“Yes, they have a complex social and political structure as far as we have observed. As well as several massive cities in the peaks”

“Now that, that is out of the way.” the king said with subtle passive aggression in his voice. “We must work on a solution to these problems, first the more direct one. To combat the larger raiding parties of Krieg we will need to send support to the north.”

They all looked at me, I shook my head, “The Legions don’t do well in the cold and many of the men have never even seen snow, let alone heard about Krieg, and conscripts with pikes would fare even worse against a flying enemy.”

“As much as I hate it, I agree with Varus,” said Tourel, and Brutus seconded him. The other southern lords also refused to send aid. Almost an hour later we hashed out a plan, the northern lords were to give out incentives for men to volunteer in the army and the southern Fiefs were going to pay for those incentives. The middle fiefs would each send five thousand men each to the north to patrol the border and help garrison the cities. In return, the northern fiefs would pay the men's wages for the duration of their stay.

“Now onto the elf problem. As we all know, the elves are few in numbers but each is incredibly long-living and has access to magic. We also know from the archives that sending men to fight them in The Forest is suicide and trying to take their strongholds is incredibly costly.”

“Where are you going with this My Lord?” asked Arcturus with a yawn, seeing him yawn made me do the same which started a chain reaction.

“As much as I hate to admit it, I do not know what we should do about them. We can not beat them with a preemptive strike, we know that if we do nothing they will attack at some point, and we know that they are not interested in negotiations.”

“It appears all we can do is prepare,” Occam said while staring at his nails. “It seems that we will need to fortify the eastern border if we and our descendants are to stand a chance.”

Again a plan was hashed out, each fief would send men every six months to work on building defenses in the east and everything would be paid for by the royal treasury. I yawned again and looked over to the clock, it was close to midnight and I still had to get up at six to catch the ship.

“With that gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned, please have an excellent evening and a safe trip home.” the king finished and the group dispersed, “Varus stay with me a minute.”

I stopped and walked over to him, “My lord?”

“I take it you have met my daughter?”

“Yes my lord,” I said and tensed up, I didn’t like where this was going. I knew that if I was to pursue Cassie further I was going to need his blessing but you know, I still needed to get her first.

“Watch out for her at battleschool will you?” he asked, “I know she is a capable young woman but I would feel safer if I knew there was someone watching out for her.”

“Of course My Lord,” I said and bowed.

“Good luck with Initiations this year, I heard that Burnie’s cooked up something new this year.”

“Any hints?”

“Now where would the fun in that be?” he said, “anyways you should catch up on your sleep.”

“Yes my Lord," I said and walked out.