Doe opened the set of double doors with a calm poise which poorly reflected her inner turmoil. The commandeered town hall was an old, rickety wooden building that was closer to a cabin than the command post it had become.
She wasn’t happy to be this close to the war-zone, but she’d been given orders — with no uncertain terms — that she was required to be here. Why? She did not know.
Ever since the team under her management went missing, she’d been stuck in a limbo of paperwork and concern. Most of her time was spent trying to clean up the mess Remus and his new adoptee caused in Joiak. The Kingdom had pulled all funding from the Mercenary Order. Of course, the Order wasn’t about to take that — regardless of whether the problem was made by one of their own or not — and pulled out the mercenaries in the nation.
Only a few bottom rung Saille teams had been left to satisfy the terms of the pact signed by each nation.
It was an open secret that a nation only got as much defence as it paid. Originally, the Order had begun as a shared army between the nations of the pact. It would protect the borders of each country as if they were all one collective, and each nation would invest in the cause.
That model had barely lasted a generation. Nations that didn’t have contested borders started pulling back on their funding. Disputes between two nations of the pact also couldn’t take advantage of their shared army, which led to many relying on their own militaries again.
After many failed reworks of the treaty, the current system of hired military had formed. The birth of a horrid cesspool of corruption and bribery. Its flaws — major as they were — still better than the alternatives.
Doe had to wonder how Joiak was handling the sudden invasion. Not well, she predicted.
These new creatures appeared from nowhere and within a couple of weeks had already taken South Boreen and cut the Joiak Kingdom off from the rest of the pact.
Doe took some sadistic delight in that. They’d been giving her so much grief recently considering negotiations with them had been dropped on her shoulders. The Order wanted her to fix the mistakes of the team she was supposed to control, despite knowing just how fickle mercenaries could be.
Joiak had wanted the head of the girl Remus brought back, but there were two problems with that. First, she was Remus choice for replacement. The old dohrni had become incredibly picky with who he allowed on the team. She’d been trying for months to find a mage he would accept before he found her.
The second problem, well, she’d disappeared along with her team. They could hardly have the head of someone who they couldn’t find.
“Commander Darton is expecting me. Where can I find him?” Doe asked one of the two dohrni scratching away in their log-books at the front desk. Dozens of team managers like herself rush in and out of the surrounding rooms.
“Doe Maral, I presume?” She said, not looking up from her notes. “He’s waiting. Furthest room up the stairs.”
Doe gave a nod and said her gratitude, hiding the annoyance at the lack of respect shown. She stepped toward the set of stairs at the back of the foyer. She needed to remain civil and not let other’s rude, dismissive attitudes impede her work.
She didn’t know why she’d been called here. Without her team to direct any orders toward, she could only think of a couple reasons they might ask for her. The knowledge from her talks with Joiak, or her team had come back.
The former was far more likely. Any team missing in action for more than a month — particularly once they’d passed the crevasse to the Lower Elevation — was as good as dead.
It was unfortunate, as it meant she would likely be stuck with a Fearn team for a while before she could find herself in charge of another Luis. Direct management for a Beith seemed impossible now, especially with over half the Beith roster having up and disappeared.
Only a few weeks before the invasion from the west, by a race apparently never seen before, there had been word spreading that the Beiths were gone. Most had considered this blatant misinformation, with the Henosis Empire as the most likely instigator.
A meeting with her superiors had revealed the truth. Most of the strongest defenders of the Order had up and fancied off to some new land, whisked away by the thought of growth.
The top brass had fired the Beith’s managers for failing to control them, but Doe knew that was just them trying to pass the blame and save their own asses.
This was a failure of the system.
For so long, they’d bridled their strongest mercenaries with the temptation of supporting their growth. It was not easy for someone to become as strong as the Beiths, so they usually gave those that found success plenty of support, regardless of their personalities. As long as they had no ties outside the pact nations, the only thing that mattered was the strength they could return to the organisation.
Enabling those with dubious loyalty was an obvious mistake in hindsight, but controlling those whose sole desire was strength was simple when you held the only path for them. It was impossible to predict they would abandon their role without the knowledge that there was another path.
At least it made sense why they wanted Doe’s team to investigate. Remus was both experienced and trustworthy. They hadn’t sent him and his team up the Alps and out of their depth for a simple punishment. They’d sent them there because they’d lost trust in the Beiths.
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Well, the brass could have sent their hounds — the Order’s loyal inner circle that have been given more opportunities for growth than any Beith — but like any nation’s elite, they would remain hidden until no other option remained.
Doe arrived before the large wooden door that lead to the commander’s office. The second floor was near empty, unlike below. Only one of her khirig kin worked away at a desk beside the door, ignoring her as she stepped forward.
Doe made sure her antlers were as clean and sleek as ever and pat down her robe-suit before she rapped her thin bone digits on the wood. The door opened and she was led in before she registered who answered the door.
Remus gave her that idiotic eye grin of his as she stared.
“You’re not dead,” she stated after collecting herself. This was good. She wouldn’t have to worry about a demotion if he was still around.
“How kind of you to notice.” His mouthless grin only seemed to widen. “It’s good to see you, too.”
“Where’s the rest of your team?” Doe asked as he led her to the desk of the commander she was here to meet. She quickly gave a bow to her superior. Low enough to show respect, but not so low that she might come across as lower in standing. While he was technically higher rank than her, she had greater bureaucratic power. “I am here as ordered, sir. I assume Remus is the reason I’m here?”
“Hmm, yes. We’ll catch you up with that in a moment,” Commander Darton said from his place behind the large desk.
“I sent Jav back to his family. Despite his wishes, I believed he needed some time to recover.”
Sending his partner home at the beginning of a war? Doe worried that the old man might not be taking this seriously, but she also wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about the state of the war, so she held her tongue.
“We met Princess Imiha while we were gone. Her and Bunny have gone to convince their homes to take this threat as seriously as possible.”
The former Princess of Meja was one of the Beiths that had abandoned the pact nations? That was not something Doe had expected.
“While that sounds great,” Darton said. “We shouldn’t expect any help from the Vanguard. I received word yesterday that the Theocracy has launched their own war.”
“That isn’t good. We’ll need everything to fight off the mermineae invasion. They aren’t something we can ignore,” Remus said.
Doe couldn’t argue there. These mermineae had wiped South Boreen off the map within a week of their first appearance.
Darton nodded, as if he’d heard this before. “We won’t, but this is still not the worst possible circumstance. We’ve been concerned about the Empire to the east. They’ve been poking at our defences for a good month now. If they were to attack, and if these mermineae continue their relentlessness, then I’m afraid there might be nothing we can do.”
“Regardless of the action Henosis takes, we cannot hold anything back. That is our only chance,” Remus emphasised for the second time. Doe could tell when someone was trying to convince her of something, she just didn’t know what these two wanted from her yet.
“What happened to the rest of your team? The portian? The áed?”
Doe hadn’t known the kid was an áed when she’d met her. She didn’t even know what an áed was at the time. She’d thought the kid was an insane albanic, or at least the child of an insane albanic that forced fire markings on her.
Fire mages had the unfortunate caricature of being completely masochistic or mad. That was the only explanation one could have for setting their own body on fire for the sake of using the element.
When she’d seen the literal fire in the young girl’s eyes, Doe could admit to being unnerved. From what little she knew about mage markings, they only went skin deep. To burn one’s own eyes and not flinch seemed impossible.
But it turned out her assumptions had been wrong. She was an áed; a race adjacent to the áinfean. In a way, it was like a bucket of cold water over her initial fright.
“Grímr and Solvei are still on the other side of the Alps. There were some circumstances. They’re staying over there for the time being.”
She’d heard it before, but it still mystified Doe that these invaders came from beyond those titanic mountains. She’d grown up with nothing but fairy-tales about what was beyond, but nobody was supposed to have found a way through. Now? An entire alien army had come. It seemed unreal.
“Come here. Let’s not waste what time we have,” the khirig commander grunts. “This is the land they have taken so far. They cut us off from Joiak, so we have no intelligence in that regard, but we expect them to hold out for a few weeks at the very least. They may lack the Order’s support, but they are wealthy enough to have their own elites tucked away, I’m sure.”
Doe took the invitation and glanced over the map. As she’d expected, the entirety of South Boreen had been taken, from the Alps all the way to the Vanguard’s border. What did surprise her, though, was the line drawn up along the Alps. It rose as far north as Meja.
“Why haven’t we stopped them along the Alps?” she wondered aloud.
“Have you forgotten your history lessons?” Darton asked. “Setting up defensive positions along the Alps would be asking for a massacre. The mermineae only seem capable of this due to their race’s natural camouflaging and familiarity with such danger.” He looked to Remus for confirmation.
“What’s even more concerning, is that each of them is naturally as strong as the average Fearn, with plenty far greater. The only thing we really have in our favour is the lack of variation in the way they fight. Once you’ve fought one of their Forvaal, you’ve fought them all. While I’d like that to sound reassuring, the average Forvaal is about as strong as I am, and there are likely thousands.”
“Are there any stronger than the Forvaal?” The commander asks, sounding suspiciously rehearsed.
“I never met one, but what are the odds that there aren’t? I’d bet on there being plenty at least equivalent to the Order’s inner circle,” Remus said, looking directly at Doe, despite the question coming from Darton.
Ah. She knew what they wanted from her now.
“So, Doe. Are you willing to do this tiny little thing for us?” Remus pleaded.
“Tiny? I’ll be demoted for even bringing it up!”
“But if we fight this war how it would normally play out, everyone will be dead by the time we bring them into play.” The commander slammed the flat edge of his arm’s antlers on the desk, sending the map and a stack of papers to the floor. It wasn’t particularly intimidating considering Doe had spent most of her career surrounded by powerful mercenaries.
Remus motioned at Darton to calm down and stepped before Doe. “With all the Beith’s managers already demoted, you are one of the highest ranked in the Order that has direct communication with the top brass. If you don’t convince them, you won’t have a career anymore. The Mercenary Order will be done.”
Doe ran her digits along her antler cage, creating an irritating scratching noise. It was an old stress habit she’d thought she’d moved on from.
She didn’t want to even consider the idea of approaching her superiors about this. Demotion wasn’t even the most concerning risk she’d take on. She could be labelled a traitor. Put to death. What if they listened to her and the hounds died? They would lay the blame entirely on her.
“I’ll have to think about this,” she said and made her way out of the office without waiting for dismissal.
How would she even approach that meeting? She’d have to soften them up first. Maybe she’d take them out to a nice restaurant before having them choke on their food as she made her proposal. At least then she wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout; they’d be dead.
Was she really going to go through with this? Could she convince them to unleash the inner circle?