Romulus
As soon as Nero left, Romulus set up checkpoints around the country. No matter where the People’s Lord went, they would need to use the roads to transport weapons, food, and material; if they found another way to transport it, that method would certainly be slower than the roads.
Though as August became September, there was nothing. Any suspicious carriages, after some investigation, were all serving out crown contracts in delivering material and weapons, and the wages of the extra upkeep were bleeding the treasury. A checkpoint would contain around twenty-five soldiers as it would be between any town above 5,000 people, which meant there were hundreds of checkpoints around the country looking for any sign of the People’s Lord. As time dragged on, Romulus started to doubt the size of the organization. How could such a radical organization attract so many people yet remain so discreet until they wanted to appear?
As the checkpoints bled the treasury, Romulus was on the brink of sweating his own blood as he followed the only lead he had. The greenwood poison was sourced from the Expert’s Commonwealth, but there was no sign of any stolen material from any of the mills they had. The spies sent letter after letter describing the gargantuan operations south of Writer’s End, with thousands of workers collecting greenwood extract and chopping down the trees that no longer produced a sufficient amount. There were farms where botanists selectively bred greenwood trees to produce the most amount of extract, and it seemed like nature had become a machine. Everything was accounted for, everything ran on time, and nothing was missing.
Romulus thought that someone was infiltrating the farms at first and collecting extract from trees far away from any of the others, but there was nothing. All trees were monitored at all times and extracted closely enough that outside interference would be impossible to miss.
Not knowing how to continue, Romulus decided to think outside the box. The extract could have been legitimate, but if they could track down a buyer capable of smuggling greenwood extract to a nearby location and modifying it into greenwood poison before the extract became too old, they could find out how the People’s Lord got a hold of it. That’s the thing with greenwood extract. It doesn’t last very long on its own and is absorbent to many materials. If one left it on wood, then the wood would rot; if they left it on any type of metal, then the metal would cease to exist. The only material that could store unmodified greenwood extract was glass. That was partly the reason why there were so many workers and documents related to greenwood extract. No one wanted to lose money on transportation. If there was one thing that Romulus could credit the Expert’s Commonwealth in doing well, it would be efficiency.
After he sent instructions to obtain copies of sell sheets to his spies, a general he had never seen before walked into the small camp that Romulus was staying at outside of Gatherstorm.
Romulus stood up, and they both saluted each other. The general was short yet muscular and to Romulus, seemed like more of a general compared to his superiors. The general handed him a letter and told him that he would be sent to the Black and Gold Mountains to hunt for a specific man. “We believe he knows who the People’s Lord is,” the general said. “Locals in Gatherstorm, Staff Harbor, and Wailing Wind have all identified a Dymish man with a scar on his jawline. Though no Borzors have been willing to help.”
“General, you want me to go to the mountains because the Borzors, who have a history of hostility toward the crown, are not talking to the crown?”
“You have been promised a promotion to general if you find the man.”
“From whom?” Romulus asked.
“The king,” the general responded.
Romulus lightly scoffed. “Did he provide a reason why he thinks the man is in the mountains?”
“No, but I would suppose it is because of their history of using tunnels. The Black and Gold Mountains are the best place for that along with a population more willing to revolt against the crown.”
“How many men do I bring with me?” Romulus asked.
“As many as you see fit.” The general said before he saluted and left.
#
Romulus reached the small town of Honobor on September 10th with 100 men. Most were infantry and supply men, but ten were cavalry units that mostly served as a scouting force to ensure that there were no ambushes ahead. There were no stone or brick roads for the entire route passed Birdmouth, and Romulus wasn’t surprised when that continued into the town itself.
Honobor only contained around 400 people, all of which were Borzors. The people watched as the town’s population increased by twenty-five percent before their eyes. The main road—if one could call it a road—ran north to south with the tavern and the city jail across from each other. It was cloudy and gray with rain occurring the night before. No one said a word as Romulus and a couple of sergeants walked into the jail and spoke to the Dymish man sleeping at the desk. He was a young man and seemed to be less than a year removed from the academy, which meant that this was probably the first time in a long time he wasn’t under constant supervision. His hair was black, skinny-build, and looked like the type to shiver at night from fear first and the cold second. Romulus saw no one in the cells nor any sign they had been used in a long time.
“Sir!” Romulus called out. The man at the desk shook as he looked up at Romulus. “Who are you?”
The man tried to speak, but his throat clogged up, and nearly choked on air. “Head garrison soldier,” The man finally said.
“Where’s your armor?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I will get on that immediately,” he said as he stood up and tried to walk toward the back of the jail.
“I didn’t dismiss you soldier, get back here,” Romulus said, annoyed.
“Of course, sir,” he said as he walked back up to Romulus and saluted.
“Captain,” Romulus corrected. “What is your rank?”
“Head garrison soldier,” he said.
“No, my God, your rank,” Romulus wondered how incompetent this man was.
“Sergeant.”
“A sergeant sleeping?” Romulus inquired. “How peaceful of a town this must be if the head garrison soldier is sleeping on duty. Where are the others?”
The sergeant didn’t answer, but after Romulus demanded that he respond to a superior officer, he told him they were at the bar. Romulus sighed. “Also, are there any other Dymish people in the town, and do the Borzors speak Dymish here?”
“No and no,” the sergeant answered.
Romulus turned toward one of his men and appointed him the new head garrison soldier. He turned toward the old one and told him to get his gear and meet them in the bar, but before he asked his name. “Florian Kosta,” he answered.
Romulus entered the tavern and discovered only a few tables with fewer men occupying the chairs. The bartender and a couple of other Borzor men were talking at the tavern while the two soldiers sat in their armor, and passed out at a corner table. Romulus walked up and picked up the mugs that sat in front of them and placed them on a nearby table before walking up behind one of the men and pulling the chair out from under him. “Ow!” the man called out.
“God, get up,” Romulus told the two soldiers. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you.” The men tried to stand up and salute, but Romulus told them to sit back down before they insulted the country with their half-assed salute. As the soldiers tried to collect themselves, Romulus went on with his line of questioning. “Have you seen a man with a scar across his jawline?”
“No,” the man who had the chair pulled out from under him answered, sounding drunk.
Kosta walked in and stood next to Romulus and tried to apologize for the men’s behavior, but Romulus ignored it, gave Kosta a list of names, and pointed to two names. “Find these men and bring them here.”
“Right away, captain,” Kosta said as he took off.
“God,” Romulus continued. “Have any Dymish men or large groups of Borzor people passed through the area recently?”
“Tolman,” The same man said.
Romulus sighed and wondered what this man was talking about. “Tolman? Where?”
“From the north,” he said.
Before Romulus could explain that there are no Tolmans from the north, and they come from the other three countries on the continent, the other man, who sounded much less drunk, joined in. “A Tolman man came from the north and went south from here. He had some armor on… I think. It was late at night, and I was buzzed, going on to drunk.”
“There are no roads that go south,” Romulus said. “Are you sure he was Tolman?”
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“Nope, but that is what I saw.”
“Was he with someone else?”
“Maybe.”
Romulus gave out a heavy sigh. These men weren't going to be any help, even if they identified a Tolman. Romulus thought they could be mistaking a Dymish man for a Tolman, but Romulus doubted it as Tolmans were much less tan. They were almost as white as the feathers on a griffin’s back. “How about—” Romulus tried to say, but before he could finish his sentence a loud ruckus occurred outside.
Romulus turned around and saw a lot more men than there were before. He told the soldiers to stay put, and he walked outside with his sergeants. He swung open the tavern doors and found fifty Borzor men storming his convoy with one Dymish man standing in a huddle. Romulus's heart froze, but his brain moved faster than words could explain. He hastily ordered his sergeants to go around him and to go behind the Dymish man. He intended to sneak up behind him, but before he could process what was happening, all the sergeants around him were either wounded or dead.
Romulus’s mind immediately went to the chain of command. All the sergeants except Kosta and one other were next to him, and if all of them died, then the confusion would most likely kill them all. Romulus faced the Borzors who fought the sergeants and tried to fight them off as he backed up toward the convoy.
He swayed, slashed, and dodged as much as he could, but couldn’t get a single hit on any of the men. The situation became worse as two men became three, then four. Romulus looked behind him for a second—against one of the most basic rules of sword fighting—and saw that another Borzor was already sprinting toward him. He ducked under the Borzor’s swing and sidestepped out.
It was then, as Romulus scanned his surroundings to identify as many people as possible who were trying to murder him, that he saw the scarred man. He wished he could do something about dealing with him, but there were too many men who were too organized. Romulus swallowed his pride and ran to the eastern part of the town.
Many men chased after him as he sprinted through the small alleyways between the buildings. The Borzors pursuing him were slowed down by the unfortunate bystanders who got in the way. Romulus finally found a ladder that went up to the roof of a building and ascended. The Borzors attempted to follow, but Romulus reached the top and prevented them from following him to the rooftop. He swung at them as arrows flew by, barely missing him. Romulus had no words to describe his actions, they were closer to an animal fighting for its life against what would usually be prey.
Romulus lay on the roof, and after a couple of minutes of forcing the Borzors to stop climbing the ladder, he pulled the ladder up to the roof and waited. The sound of fighting continued as Romulus wanted to help, but he couldn’t. There was no strategy he could implement, no time to prepare, and no time to coordinate his forces. This was a battle of physical might and weaponry, and unfortunately for Romulus, he had little compared to the People’s Lord.
Time wore on and the sounds of the battle depleted. Romulus tried to calm down his breathing, but it was no use. His heartbeat was as fast as a man could swing his swords or move from side to side. He grabbed- the ladder from the side of the building and pulled it up next to him. Romulus crawled over to the other side of the roof and watched as nearly all his troops lay on the ground, dead.
The sky became darker as Romulus—unsuccessfully—tried to come up with an escape plan. The scarred man walked over when the fighting was finished and tried to talk Romulus down. “I am requesting that you come down Romulus. We are not going to kill you, and besides, we need someone to send a message to the king.” Romulus thought his proper-sounding voice was an insult to the foul words coming from his mouth.
Romulus continued to think of an escape plan. He spotted a couple of horses by the bar, but he was on the other side of the town. He considered going south toward Dicon, which would no doubt be a surprise to the men, but that was for good reason. He didn’t know the terrain south, and if Dicon soldiers found him, then it would become a diplomatic incident, which Romulus nor Maximus needed at the moment.
It became dark as Romulus became surprised that the People’s Lord soldiers didn’t attempt to force him off the roof or ascend the building. By the bar, Romulus watched as the scarred man stood by the entrance. It seemed as if he was waiting for someone. The scarred man threw some chewing tobacco into his mouth leaned up against a post and gazed up at the stars. Romulus peeked up to see if there was something, and to his amazement there was. It wasn’t much of a difference, but there were more stars than usual. He rarely looked up back home, but when he did he always took account of the stars. The heavenly lights gazed upon Riverward and the Kingdom of Qar. Recently, experts were in a debate about whether those were lights from heaven or far-off suns emitting their light. Romulus scoffed at the notion, of course. It, of course, came from the Expert’s Commonwealth, and Romulus was suspicious about the motives of the theory, but as time passed on Romulus started to contemplate the idea. After all, wasn’t heaven brighter? Wouldn’t Mydrazan want to illuminate heaven, so it was just out of reach for humanity? Just out of reach but within desire?
Romulus dropped the subject and looked back down toward the scarred man. He made his way into the tavern and took a seat near the back. Romulus was only able to see because a window’s line of sight barely caught the edge of the scarred man’s face.
About ten minutes later, a carriage pulled up. Romulus looked as a man in a ceremonial military uniform stepped out. The carriage was of nothing to note and had come from the north, but the man was anything but. He was a Tolman, tall, broad, and by what Romulus could tell in the dark a captain of the Dicon military. The captain’s uniform was tightly fitted with a couple of medals pinned to the right chest. Romulus remembered that the uniform was supposed to be a dark green and his eyes dilated as he tried to identify the color. It seemed to be green, but that could only be his brain wanting it to be true. He watched as a couple of Borzor men greeted him and led him inside the bar. The scarred man got up and gave a polite salute by facing his hand on his forehead with an open palm facing outward. This convinced Romulus that it was a Tolman from Dicon. If it wasn’t, what would explain the Dicon salute?
The two shook hands after that and sat down. Their body language was relaxed yet upright. The captain grabbed many documents from his breast pocket and placed them on the table. The scarred man glanced at them and put them back on the table.
Romulus had enough of this. If there was an opportunity to escape, it would be now. Especially with the risk of dealing with a Dicon captain. What was a Dicon captain doing here anyway? The theory of foreign interference with their mom’s kidnapping and the death of Titus came roaring back.
Romulus crawled to the far side of the roof and looked at the soldiers. He could count around ten posted around the roof. More were scattered around the town, but Romulus looked for any gaps in the line. The road north was secure. There was a mountain to the west which meant that was a no-go. Besides, he was on the eastern side of town, so crossing the town would be a death wish.
No, the only way out of Honobor alive would be through the east. It was still mountainous, but Romulus could fit between gaps in the rock and—hopefully—get out that way. It wasn’t much of a strategy, but it was one at least.
Now came the hard part that had stumped him for hours at this point. He ran through many unsuccessful escape plans, but along with the pressure of being trapped and the terrible weather, he couldn’t even form words in his head.
What he did know, however, was that he needed a diversion. He needed to make it seem he was going one way rather than the other. After some more crawling he decided that making them think that he was going for the horses would be his best course of action.
He didn’t have many resources at hand, and actually going towards the horses to lead them away from the east would defeat the whole purpose of creating a diversion, so he had to get creative. He checked all over his body and made a checklist of what he had. Armor, sword, belt, pants, shirt, underwear, shoes, socks, a couple of gold coins, etc. They were all clothes except for the sword and armor.
The best he could come up with was to take off his armor, sword, and belt and fling them across the roof so that the guards would run over thinking that it was Romulus while he slipped out into the mountains. It wasn’t up to par with his other plans during war games or disputes with the generals, but he didn’t have time to prepare.
He slowly untied his armor from his clothing before typing the individual pieces back to each other so he could fling it over in one throw. He took off his belt and sword and also tied them to the armor. It was a sad sacrifice as this was the sword that lasted him the longest. All the others were either bad quality for him or used in swordfights. Romulus took a deep breath and continued, he didn’t want to get rid of it, but a sword bouncing on his belt or in his arm would slow him down too much.
Everything was ready to go, and Romulus contemplated going through with it, but as he looked off into the distance to the north, he knew that he had no choice. I am the heir to the throne, for god’s sake, he thought. I will not allow myself to be held hostage to Borzors and entitled Dymish. And just like that, he ascended to a crouched position and threw his gear over the roof.
It was much louder than Romulus expected as it seemed it bounced off the edge of the building as it fell, but he didn’t see it. He was already on the move to the eastern edge of the building and watched the men run over to the noise. Just like he predicted, they were unorganized and had no order. For about ten seconds, as he waited for them to move far enough away, one of them told what looked like a younger soldier to stay put.
It was a complication, but it had to do. Romulus picked up the ladder that sat on the roof and lined it up against the wall. He descended as quietly as he could, but with the speed he was going, the ladder was too loud. The soldier who was left behind snapped his head toward Romulus and stared as he only climbed halfway down the ladder before jumping down and rolling forward.
Romulus didn’t even take the time to collect himself before running into the darkness. He could only see the vague outlines of the mountains as he slipped in between two of them. He looked behind him and saw the soldier, finally chasing after him.
He continued, and it became wider. The simple gap became a canyon as Romulus tried to find a way to continue, but he couldn’t see any way to get out of the canyon or a way to climb out.
He could hear the soldier continue to get nearer, so Romulus found a large rock to hide behind. There were many of them in the canyon, and Romulus chose one near the front. He couldn’t tell how big the canyon was or in which direction it went it passed twenty or so meters. The soldier came to the canyon and stood in his tracks. Romulus’s breathing stopped. The pressure of being surrounded was gone. He was one on one.
The soldier continued to walk into the canyon. With his sword drawn and stepping each step like it was his last. It seemed his breathing was audible for kilometers, and they bounced off the walls of the canyon.
Romulus slowly went around the rock and approached from behind him. It was a shame that he would have to kill this rookie, but it was necessary. He didn’t have his sword, so the only option was to sneak up behind him and hit him in the head with a large rock. He tried to reach for one but only found small ones. He figured that they could serve as a distraction as he looked for a bigger rock. He threw the palm-sized rock over the rookie’s head, and just as planned. The man was startled and turned his body to where the rock landed.
Romulus found a rock that needed both hands to carry right afterward, and once he was in a straight line the rookie, charged him while taking the fewest steps. The rookie barely moved his head as it was too late. Romulus swung his body into the swing and hit the poor soldier straight in the forehead.
A piece of his brain and skull flew backward. He landed on a medium-sized rock that caused more of the skull to break free. Romulus dropped his rock on the rookie’s head to make sure the job was done. He took a deep breath, looted the rookie’s valuables and sword, and continued his escape.