Behind Vyra, a signal flare shot into the sky. The rescue team had safely recovered the prince, so the attackers were to make a retreat. The enchanting slaughter was over too soon…
Well, it wouldn’t be good for Vyra if her allies were weakened more than this, so that was for the best.
Remarkably, despite their king’s prowess, Claymore lost a lot of men to this attack. Their overall numbers weren’t even yet, but Andorin had closed the gap somewhat and recovered their prince. It was a sweeping victory for them.
Though they did have to leave the crates of food behind: the retreating soldiers didn’t have enough leeway to destroy them while escaping. Even if they contained less food than their volume could hold—to make room for less digestible deliveries—it was still enough to last Claymore a while.
Vyra didn’t stay to watch the aftermath. She returned to her camp to plot out a new course for this war, given recent revelations. King Claymore was a foe worthy of her full effort… almost. He still had some aspects where he was at too severe a disadvantage to put up an enjoyable fight.
The Harpy Queen was similarly limited. Luckily, it seemed like both problems could easily fix each other.
Two interesting opponents, each just a bit too weak and a bit too hesitant to fight me. But if I stoke the fires a little…
It was finally time.
Vyra clenched her fists and felt her lips curling uncontrollably. She excitedly called her mother and the other leaders among her people to her dome.
“We’re advancing our plan to the next stage,” she declared. “Momma, you’ll inform the harpies about what we’ve been working on.”
Oolga smiled brightly. “Have all the eggs finally been gathered?”
“Who cares?” The Orc Lord shrugged. “Brother is working on it. We’ve at least got most of them, but play it up as much as you’d like.” She turned her head toward the shadowy curved roof. “Inari.”
The spy’s voice came from nowhere. “Yes, my lord?”
“I need a way to motivate Claymore just as much. If either of those two charge at me alone, they’ll just die.”
“I anticipated that, my lord, so I didn’t do anything to cover up the death of the old man who was attending the second prince.”
Vyra raised a brow. “Who was he?”
“A father to the king in all but blood.”
She covered her mouth with a hand and laughed at the absurd good fortune. “Then he must be thirsting after my guts now. Excellent… The rest of you, pass word along that we can start using lethal force against the rabble.”
Vyra had saved Prince Verde from captivity, so her role as Andorin’s ally in this war was essentially fulfilled. As long as Inari spread the rumors around in the right circles, she would have the platform she needed to negotiate with their king.
Which meant from here on, this war wasn’t needed as a political tool anymore: it could finally become her playground.
***
When Claudius Claymore saw the enemy’s signal flare, he didn’t linger to cut down the fleeing troops. He returned to his tent as quickly as possible. The two guards standing outside reported no abnormalities, but that just didn’t make sense.
The king paused, a foul feeling settling into his chest. “Why do I smell blood?”
The guards shared looks and meekly gestured at his leather armor, practically drenched in the stuff. “Isn’t that just you, your majesty?”
Hoping he was wrong, Claudius shrugged past them and brushed aside the cloth door. His tent was empty except for a body on the floor, the sight of which made his knees buckle and his vision darken. The king’s sight returned to him when the blood again managed to climb to his head. His sword was discarded to the side, and he was numbly perched on his hands and knees. He never felt the impact of falling.
Reaching out with a shaking hand, Claudius felt for any breath coming from Mercator’s shattered throat and jaw, felt that his cheek was cold, and gently shut the old man’s eyes.
Digging his gloved fingers into the packed earth, he called out in a gravelly, beastial roar. “Guards!”
The two guards hurried inside the tent with spears ready, and stared in shock at the state of the room. Not only was their prisoner escaped, but the old man was…
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Claymore glared up at them both with tears in his bloodshot eyes. His voice was eerily quiet now. “You call this ‘no abnormalities’?”
The guards immediately bowed and begged their apologies. To their credit, they were nearly as distraught as their king was. There were few people in camp who lacked a positive impression of their king’s attendant.
Claudius reached for his sword and borrowed its help to stand up. His legs felt like they’d been poured full of lead. He trudged toward the two guards and clasped a heavy hand on one of their shoulders, squeezing so tightly the joint strained.
“This is the kind of failure that begets execution, boys. But I am damn merciful. So get the hell out of my sight and send anyone else to replace you.”
Both men made themselves scarce immediately, and the king took a shaky breath, wet trails spilling down his cheeks. He glanced at Mercator’s body and winced. “Dammit, old man. What kind of wound is that?”
It looked like he’d been throttled by a hand much larger than a human’s. The only kind of monster in the vicinity that could make a mark like that was an orc. A particularly large orc, and one stealthy enough to cause this much disturbance without alerting anyone. There were no signs of struggle on the old man, though from the state of the stake and ropes that had bound the prince, his extrication hadn’t been entirely smooth.
Whatever happened to that kid hardly mattered. Whether his men decided to send a monster rescuer or whether he had simply become someone else’s prisoner instead, Claudius didn’t care. He simply knelt down again beside the old man and held the cold hand of his last remaining family.
Grief compounded upon grief, and images of past loss flitted behind the king’s eyes. His mother, who died of illness in his youth; his father whose greatest kindness was dying miserably in a landslide in his teens; his wife who died in childbirth along with their firstborn son; and now, the only person who had been by his side throughout all of that. The once warm hand upon his shoulder was now cold and clenched between his palms.
Claudius Claymore sobbed like a little boy, and he didn’t care a lick if that wasn’t what a king should do. The whole world knew he didn’t know how to be a king anyway. All he had ever tried to be was himself, a human, and if he was eccentric for that so be it.
None of the soldiers disturbed him. When they heard what had happened… The joy over their successful defense was replaced by a murky gloom.
They got to work, though.
Since they had grain now, the soldiers worked together to prepare meals for everybody. After leaving their king to mourn until evening, they dragged him out of his tent for a meal too, and they showed him… the place they had prepared for the old man’s funeral.
The king was calmer after having something to eat, but his tear-streaked face was still twisted by anguish and loneliness. A soldier tentatively asked his attention while others respectfully lowered Mercator’s body into its grave.
“Your majesty, would you like to say a few words?”
Claudius glanced at the soldier. He looked at the pit in the earth gradually refilling with dirt, and the makeshift tombstone the men had prepared by binding together swords made of magic metals that they weren’t trained to use. Some of the creases carved into his face softened just slightly.
He sighed. “Today, we were forced to say goodbye to a good man. He lived a long life and he spent much of it loyally by my side. Each of us has lost people near and dear to us, and many of those losses have been recent. But for soldiering on all this time, you have my respect.”
“This is a war we’re fighting for our future: to secure the means to survive the coming winter. If we lose, countless people back home will die.”
Claudius tipped his head back and stared up at a cloudy sky. “I’m no longer qualified to call myself your king. I’m no longer a man equipped to put the needs of the country and its people first. In the coming days, I will finish my duties and end this war, but after that, I intend to abandon my position in pursuit of vengeance. If any of you still want to join me, you may, but you won’t be punished for returning home.”
Claudius picked up a shovel of his own then and helped to fill in the old man’s grave.
The next day, he arrived at the Andorin army camp with a small retinue of loyal men and received an audience with Prince Verde. The prince showed a knowing look, and though he seemed to be in a better state than King Claymore, with his dark, sleepless eyes, his spirits were obviously low.
Verde offered Claymore a seat and they positioned themselves at opposite ends of a long table. He showed the enemy king a document that had been drafted up the previous night.
“I’m not my father,” Verde stated, “and I don’t have his authority on the matter, but circumstance changes everything. To suppress the rumor that I owe my life to a monster, father should be willing to claim we instead reached a peaceful agreement on our own. Peace with our neighbor and peace with our church is far preferable to war with both.”
Claudius picked up the document and scanned it. It offered no concrete numbers, but claimed that Andorin would provide Claymore with sufficient supplies to endure this winter, free of charge, in exchange for an immediate end to the hostilities.
“And you’ll see it through?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
Verde nodded solemnly.
“Good enough for me.” King Claymore nodded tiredly and sighed the document, then an identical copy, and offered one back to the prince. “Will you be retreating immediately?”
“My family is worried sick about me, so I have to go back and show them my face,” Verde smiled faintly. “How about you?”
“Half are retreating. The rest have volunteered to stay with me.” A grim smile stretched the king’s lips. “We’re planning on hunting some orcs before we go. The pig-looking ones, do they taste like pork, you think?”
Verde shivered, “Don’t ask me.” He looked side to side, up and down, and then leaned forward, speaking in a hushed tone. “Their Queen, her name is Vyra. You can’t miss her: three eyes, bright red hair, wearing a crown on her head and by far the biggest around.”
There was no need to ask why the prince was bringing up the orc’s queen. Claudius nodded gratefully and took his leave, ignoring the glares of various Andorin soldiers as he and his men passed freely out of the camp. They got on a boat and began sailing back across the swamp—not to their own camp, but to visit the harpies.