Celsus Cornu scratched a proximity ward on the dirty stone wall before he walked into the room he'd taken for himself. A squat, black iron stove radiated heat in the corner, which rendered the filthy hovel warm, if nothing else. It was bad enough that he was out here, weeks past the border, among the stinking horse-barbarians that inhabited the hinterlands, but to be dispatched to Isa Bergaz, of all places! What had once been an impressive fortification was now a drafty corpse, crumbling back into the mountain as its ancient enchantments failed, and water began to creep into gaps in the stone, expanding cracks as it cycled between liquid and ice. Cornu admired what the place had once been, and the nation that had built it, but they were dead and gone, and he had no desire to linger amongst their tombs.
He reached for his pocket watch without thinking and hissed in pain as he moved his injured arm. He glared at the bandage wrapped around it, then shuddered at the memory of the shadowy rider and the howling demon he'd ridden. A grey brigadier! The best intelligence they'd been able to obtain said that the last of them had gone into exile with The Warlock Prince.
He'd been too young to be deployed during the war, not that he had finished training at that point. It had eaten him up inside, at the time. With the benefit of the intervening years, he had to admit to admit that he would have been more a danger to himself than the barbarians. He wouldn't admit that to anyone else, of course. Admitting weakness was the same as admitting defeat for a member of one of the great houses.
The grey brigadier had lived up to his kind's fearsome, if dishonorable, reputation. Ambushing them in the dark, shooting them in the back, then fading into the shadows until he could get behind them again. It was effective, though cowardly.
With his uninjured arm, he fished the watch from his pocket and checked it. It was time.
He set a shallow bronze lamp engraved with runes on the pile of stone blocks that he had assembled to serve as a table, then selected a bottle of oil from a leatherbound chest containing five identical bottles, differing only in label. He cut a length of wick, dipped it in the oil, fixed it in place, then whispered the incantation as he held the burning match against it.
A warm yellow light bloomed on the lamp, though it flickered strangely, the flame leaning in a direction Cornu knew to be southeast.
"Compulsor," he said.
"Report, Draconarius." The voice emerged slightly distorted from the flame, but still easily understandable.
Celsus took a deep breath. "We failed to capture them, Compulsor. Seven of our personnel were killed in the attempt, most were barbarians, though I lost my valet as well."
The room was silent for a moment. "We have more effective means of killing barbarians than hiring them to fight their fellows. Explain yourself, how was an Imperial pyromancer bested by a few shabby mercenaries?"
"We were mislead about the nature of our opposition, domine. One of them is a grey brigadier."
"WHAT?! Gods help me, Celsus, if you're lying..."
"It is no lie, Compulsor! I fought it myself, and was wounded in the process. The arrow was fletched with black feathers on a black woooden shaft, and the barbed head had to be cut from my flesh." His superior paused before answering.
"The hussars also employ such arrows for nighttime attacks. You wouldn't be the first to be wounded in an ambush and mistake his attacker for a demon-rider; our minds can play tricks on us when we're wounded and combat is raging around us in the dark."
"It is no mistake, domine. The shrieks of the beast were nearly worse than the arrows, my wound will heal, but the sound of that creature hunting us will be with me until my dying day."
"Damnation. This is a complication we didn't need. Were you able to distinguish any other military personnel?"
"One of them is probably a veteran, but that can be said of almost any of these barbarians over a certain age. Our scouts said he looked more like a cutthroat than a soldier, which is consistent with the information we were given. The other two are common thugs, they have some basic competency with a weapon, but they're nothing special."
"So the only surprise was the demon-rider. This isn't good news, it could mean that Bardulf has managed to duplicate his brother's methods, or that Adalfarus isn't as uninvolved in the kingdom as we'd believed. The best case scenario is that it's just a simple turncoat, but the barbarian king is dangerous enough without getting his hands on his brother's toys."
"Should I withdraw, Compulsor?"
"No! This is a rare opportunity, that specimen could be the key to developing a form of combat pyromancy without the danger of fools' char, or the elixir's side effects. Spend what you have to, replace your losses, hire more mercenaries, but find that damned gnome and bring him to us!"
"It shall be done, domine." Cornu bowed his head, despite the fact that his commander was half a continent away and unable to see the gesture. His father had drilled it into him from an early age; neglecting to show proper respect when alone led to carelessness, and there was no place for carelessness in the great houses. If the barbarians didn't kill you, your juniors would.
The lamp's flame stopped flickering and pointed straight up again, the connection was broken. Celsus waved a tattooed hand, and the flame extinguished itself. He carefully poured the leftover oil back into its bottle; it couldn't be replaced out here, so he couldn't afford to waste any.
He sat down on a rough-hewn wooden stool next to the stove, took a hand-rolled cigarette from a case in his robe, and inserted it into a cigarette holder. As he smoked, he gazed at the sigils and runes that crossed his palm, covered the back of his hand, then wound around his forearm all the way up to his elbow. He rubbed the tips of the fingers on his opposite hand together, glaring at the dark scarring at the fingertips. It was cruel to call it "fools' char", the only pyromancers without a trace of it hadn't ever fought a real military campaign. Anybody who'd had to replace a depleted wick in combat had at least a touch of it. The distinctive burns had only earned that name because of the addicts, the ones who couldn't leave the elixir alone. The slums were full of them, those whose blood wasn't strong enough to withstand the temptation, military washouts and civilians who'd gotten a taste of it during the mandated testing and couldn't let it go. Some of them wouldn't quit using until they didn't even have arms anymore, forcing them to get by on begging, or the generosity of some temple, or to just starve to death in an alley somewhere.
A future without the elixir...
All the otherwise decent sorcerers who'd been ruined by the thirst for it, and the thousands of them that that would be in generations to come...
And to be immune to the char?
His head reeled to consider the implications. This barbaric kingdom would be swept aside, unable to stand before the renewed might of Agathocles and its armies. The Ostrogothi people, those who survived, would be enslaved or driven into the sea. Even the ogres in the north would be brought to heel, leaving the continent of Dahjirlund united under one flag for the first time since the fall of Stygia. Gods, there would be nothing to stop them from embarking on missions of conquest overseas! He smirked at the irony of Stygia itself, what remained of it at least, being conquered by an empire begun as one of its own colonies. What would her ancient ghosts think, when the fleet sailed past their drowned capital to conquer their descendants? Would the sailors hear them wail in despair?
Celsus tightened his hand into a fist, squeezing until the knuckles turned white. Whoever this gnome was, wherever he was, he would be found, and anyone who stood in the way would perish knowing that they were fools, and their efforts futile. He was a man of duty, and his was clear: deliver Dellromoz Kablizzawhack to Agathocles.
"Alright, you spooky bastard, either you talk or I walk!" Anselmo glared at Grimsby with his arms crossed in front of him. He generally preferred to threaten people with bodily injury when he was this irate, but he wasn't delusional enough to think he could threaten someone who'd fought a pyromancer and lived. Well, maybe he could make the threat, but then Grimsby would snap his fingers, his malevolent demon-horse would kick Anselmo's head clean off his shoulders, and Anselmo would be remembered after his death as a cautionary tale about mouthing off to people who commanded evil spirits. Everyone had to die at some point, but he was trying to avoid looking like a fool when it happened.
Stolen story; please report.
"Where would you like me to start?" Grimsby asked, sipping a steaming cup of tea. He'd turned back a party of pursuers the previous night, but there hadn't been anything that day, so they'd chanced a small fire to cook dinner and warm themselves.
"How did you end up a...," Anselmo gestured vaguely at the man sipping tea next to the fire with his wooden legs sitting next to him, "whatever you are?"
"Well," Grimsby began, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, "my father ran a stable and traded horses, and I grew up riding them. By the time I'd come of age, I was an excellent horseman, and took work as a messenger. I got to travel more than most, but otherwise I had an unremarkable life. Then relations with Agathocles declined, and I was conscripted into the His Majesty's service.
"Since I was already good with a horse, they decided to make a cavalryman out of me, and I was shipped off to the Royal College of War at Drumlummon. They taught me archery, the sword, mounted combat, tactics and strategy; the whole junior officer package. Generally, they reserve officer training for folk with noble blood, but Prince-Marshal Adalfarus had apparently concluded that the corps of commissioned officers would take heavy losses, and prepared contingencies to maintain a functional chain of command. The nobility fought him on it, of course, so all of us 'low-born officers' ended up in the 4th Army, with the auxiliaries, instead of the more prestigious regulars in the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd.
"Apparently, the political infighting got ugly, and Adalfarus ended up at the war college to oversee training of the troops he'd insisted on, though I heard rumors later that he'd gotten himself sent out there on purpose to avoid all the enemies he had in the force that marched for the border. Anyway, everybody knows how they got wiped out by Imperator Lucerian's legions, I don't need to go over that again.
"Well, the prince was spending all his time at the college, on the campus of the university, and he got to rubbing elbows with tacticians and engineers, as well as historians and wizards. The dispatches from the front weren't looking good, and all the traditionalists were off getting themselves killed, so the Prince-Marshal gathered a few experts into a group that came to be called the Armament Council, and started working on ways to counter Lucerian's advantages in numbers, and especially his pyromancers. We started training for night raids, sabotage, hit and run tactics. They invented new machines, Drumlummon is where they first mounted a ballista on a carriage. Lastly, they began working on new applications of magic." Grimsby paused to take a sip of his tea and scratch Porkchop behind the ears.
"So that's where you came in," Rado said. He looked a bit ragged, with his usually-shiny black feathers scorched and burnt patches on his clothes. Grimsby nodded.
"Training someone to cast magic effectively in combat takes years, even if you skip the theoretical foundations, which would be so dangerous it's probably not worth it. Even with a decade to prepare, they'd stand no chance against a real Agathocletian military pyromancer, there's a thousand years of training, tradition, and selective breeding behind the Five Houses of Agathocles.
"The question was how to adapt the troops we had to defeat what they had. Putting hussars on something more formidable than an ordinary horse was just a logical place to start. They tried a few different things; I remember aurochs, some sort of undead bone-construct, and even a giant. None of them were practical replacements for horses. Finally, some necromancer suggested we stick with the horse form, just improved. He taught the first of us to summon and bind a nightmare.
"The nightmares were a huge success. We already knew how to ride, shoot, and fight from horseback, but bound to a nightmare we were faster, we could see in the dark, and slip in and out the material world through shadows and fog. On top of that, well, you've met Cruelty. They're all like that, we wouldn't even need to bother with riders if they weren't necessary to bind the nightmare into a form that could exist here for extended periods of time. They're not physical creatures like you and I, they're a spirit that feeds on the fear of beings in the material world."
Anselmo's eyes widened. "Is that why I had that terrible dream about the war?! It was that damn horse?!"
"Sorry about that," Grimsby told him, looking apologetic, "he can't usually get in your head when I have him summoned, unless you're paying a lot of attention to him. There shouldn't be any lasting effects."
Anselmo's face twisted into a snarl. "I've been in enough bloody, dangerous situations in my own life to make my quota of awful dreams, I damned well don't need any help from your asshole horse!" He turned toward where Cruelty was tied up to a tree. "I know there's bigger and meaner things than you skulking around in the darkness beyond the world, and I hope one of them runs you down and eats you, you damned vicious beast!" He spat, then stomped off into the dark to smoke.
Grimsby sighed and poked at the fire with a stick.
"Don' worry overmuch about him," Tavin said, "he's still young enough ta be hotblooded at times. If nothin' else, the lad cares about stayin' alive, an' he's not fool enough ta think we'd have survived that pyromancer without your help."
"That's true enough, but given who's after us, it's a poor time for infighting." Grimsby finished his tea as Tavin nodded. Porkchop stood up and trotted after Anselmo.
Smoke billowed out the side of his mouth as Anselmo puffed furiously on his pipe. Over the years he'd heard and spoken his share of lies, been cheated and cheated others in turn, but tampering with a person's dreams was different. There was a sense of violation. A person ought to have sanctuary in their own head! He kicked a pinecone, watched it hurtle off into the night, then sat down on a fallen log, tapping his foot in agitation.
The dog walked up next to him and sat down with a groan. Anselmo ignored her; she was Grimsby's dog, and he'd had more than enough of Grimsby for a while. After a moment, she groaned again and leaned against his leg. She was too heavy for him to keep tapping his foot, and his temper flared for an instant as his lip curled. He drew back his hand to cuff her, but the memory of her growling and snapping at those bastards trying to attack them at the top of the pass flashed across his mind. That would be a poor way to repay someone who'd fought by his side, even if she was a dog.
He sighed and patted Porkchop on the head. Her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth and she panted as he scratched behind her ears and down her side. She wagged her tail and looked up at him, and he grinned slightly around his pipestem.
"Ahh, you're alright," he said. "I guess Rado and Tavin are decent as well, but don't tell 'em I said that."
They sat there for a few minutes as he finished smoking his pipe, then went back to join the others.
"What do these Aggie bastards want from us, anyway?" he asked as he rejoined the others around the fire. "They can't think they'll be able to walk into the Count's manor and turn in the Popinjay for the reward. Trevallion's a prick, but the power he has is as an agent of His Majesty. He doesn't have any interest in associating or collaborating with the Agathocletians."
"They're not after the Popinjay, and neither are we." Grimsby said. "We're looking for that gnome he's traveling with."
"The gnome?! What for?"
"The Armament Council was made up of people loyal to Adalfarus. When the war ended and our nations were negotiating the terms of the peace, Agathocles wanted the program scrapped, and Bardulf and his allies among the nobility were happy to oblige. When King Waldahar died a few months later and Prince Bardulf made his move, Adalfarus took most the council with him into exile. Maybe he thought he'd restart the program, or maybe he was just trying to save their lives, I don't know, but it left Bardulf without the expertise to replicate what his brother had done. They've been trying to replace what they lost with other experts, trying different things based on the specialists they have."
"So the gnome is some sort of magical researcher?" Rado asked.
"No, we think he's an escaped test subject, or they want him as a test subject," Grimsby informed them, "at least that's what Harald and I think. If they catch him, he's probably going to cut up into pieces and studied. If the Agathocletians have taken an interest in him, then I'd guess they think there's something useful they could learn from him as well."
Anselmo frowned.
"It's not that I'm not sympathetic," he said, "but why should we risk our four lives to save his one? Especially when he's already taken up with the Popinjay, who seems to be plenty capable of outmaneuvering people who'd like to put him in a cage?"
"Rearmament will eventually lead to a resumption of hostilities," said Grimsby, "Bardulf is more ambitious than his father was, and he has the Scaeptrian church whispering in his ear. He's as likely to attack Agathocles as they are to attack us, and there's enough people angry about the last war that he wouldn't have to worry about civil unrest if he did."
"There's more people ready ta try an' shed blood than there are that did any bleedin' the last time around. They don' know what they'd be getting us in ta," Tavin said. "An' it'd be worse than last time if we invaded. Agathocles can field more legions in their own lands than they could keep supplied in ours. After they got done butcherin' Bardulf's army of fools, they'd march back o'er the mountains an' finish what they started last time, an' without Adalfarus around ta stop 'em."
"Dawnbreaker's mercy," Anselmo breathed.
"About tha only kind we'd find," Tavin agreed.
"With that in mind, we probably ought to get some sleep," Grimsby suggested. "We have plenty of ground to cover tomorrow. Rado, why don't you take first watch?" The corvidian nodded, checked the blade on his hip, then went to find a decent observation point.
The rest of them laid down and tried to get some rest, though Anselmo slept fitfully. When Rado woke him for his watch, he knew that the soldiers and battlefields in his dreams that night were a product of his own unease, and not something Cruelty had done to him.