“Admiral Sorensson reports that all ships along the coasts have been dealt with.”
“All bridges except the one here have been demolished.”
“General Merethe has completed her withdrawal and has begun reinforcing the defenses to the southeast.”
King Artemesias listened to the reports coming in from across Selkarc, eyes locked on the map on the table in front of him. He wondered if it might have been possible to hold onto the lands north of the Stryk River if he’d only managed to persevere through the first few months of this crisis.
All his life Artemesias had been a deeply faithful man and learning that the entire pantheon which governed over Ennos had abandoned the planet shook him deeply. With disaster after disaster unfolding across Selkarc in the aftermath of that news, Artemesias’s mental health had quickly collapsed until even his own daughter lost confidence in his ability to lead.
His failures had only compounded from there, of course. He didn’t fault Cinna for her lack of administrative ability even if he’d initially been furious upon leaning of her neglect. The fact of the matter was that he’d failed to properly teach her how to handle such duties. He’d never considered that Dalton might…
“Is everything alright?” asked Tryggve. He couldn’t fault his friend for worrying over him all things considered, but ever since his return Tryggve had hovered over him like a mother hen.
“This setback may have been anticipated, but we can ill afford it at this time. I worry that losing so much territory so soon after my return will embolden Korhonen and his ilk. Selkarc has not suffered a loss so great in generations,” Artemisias confided too softly for the others in the room to hear over the officer currently giving her a report on Selkarc’s food reserves.
King Artemisias looked away from his brother-in-law at the sound of a knock on the door. He motioned for silence before answering.
“Enter.”
The door opened and a young man entered, closing the door behind him. Lars Gunnarsen, from what the king recalled. He’d been assigned to Saltrvatrmarr Fortress by Tryggve prior to Artemisias’s own convalescence. More recently Gunnarsen had been relieved by Cinna, who’d assumed command of the critical fortification when the decision had been made to entrust all three major locations to one of the nation’s generals.
“Reporting as ordered, your majesty,” Gunnarsen said. He bowed but did not kneel; doing so would have placed him below the height of the table, making him difficult for Artemisias to see. “What is your command?”
“Leave us,” Artemisias ordered the others in the room. He waited until only he, Tryggve, and Gunnarsen remained. “I have no command for you. What I wish is to know why it is that I am speaking to you and not my daughter,” Artemisias growled.
“That…I’m afraid I do not possess the answers you speak, my liege,” Gunnarsen replied politely, if nervously.
“How, pray tell, does one manage to misplace the crown princess and not know how it happened!?” Artemisias demanded. Tryggve cleared his throat and stepped closer, placing a hand on Artemisias’s shoulder.
“Let’s have the lad share the entire story first,” he advised. Artemisias nodded begrudgingly. Since Gunnarsen was still bowing he didn’t see the gesture, so Tryggve urged him to speak. “Start at the beginning. How did you get separated from Cinna?”
“General Selkarc was engaged in combat when the order to retreat arrived. I delivered the news personally. She ordered me to organize the retreat and planned to act as rearguard,” Gunnarsen said without raising his head. “I urged her to let me take that role—”
“Unimportant,” Artemisias interrupted. “Cinna should have known that her loss would be more than the country could afford right now. Why was she so determined to stay behind?”
“The general believed a necromancer was personally commanding the attacking undead and had devised a plan to draw it out. Just before High General Selkarc’s orders arrived the undead launched a surprise attack through the fortress’s harbor and the general was convinced it had to be a decapitation strike by the necromancer. She wished to eliminated before retreating and determined that only her guard could accomplish that objective,” Gunnarsen explained.
“Either she guessed wrong or she succeeded,” Tryggve concluded, stroking his beard. “She’s still alive after all.”
“Thank the—” Gunnarsen cut himself off, swallowing his words. “No. We only have the general’s own skill to thank, now.”
“You did not think to wait for her?” Atermesis questioned through narrowed eyes.
“We…did not have the option. We were harried by undead the entire way. I left enough horses hitched along the road for her entire guard, but…the general never caught up with us. I feared the worst,” Gunnarsen admitted.
“If the undead were attacking his garrison as they retreated they likely got to the horses before Cinna could as well,” Tryggve muttered. “She must have waited too long to retreat.”
“High General, allow me to lead a rescue attempt!”
“No.” Artemisias had a bitter taste in his mouth as he spoke that single word. “I’ve already given the order to demolish the bridge. Even if you were to leave now you would have no way back across.”
“There’s still time to rescind the order. I’m certain I can hold the bridge long enough for Gunnarsen to return,” Tryggve argued.
“I will not sacrifice my kingdom for a single life.”
“She’s your daughter!”
“How many of my subjects would you have me trade for her?” Artemisias asked Tryggve, delivering a piercing look right into the man’s eyes. “A hundred? A thousand? The entire population of this county?”
“Cinna is beloved by the soldiery, Art. You know damn well no one will fault you for mounting a rescue!” Tryggve forcefully spun Artemisias around to face him and gripped him by the shoulders.
“Remember where we are,” Artemisias whispered. He watched patiently as his brother-in-law glanced at the young captain still bowing down across the table then slowly dropped his hands to his side.
“How many of our recruits heard her speak when they completed their training? How many veterans held the line with her at Kint? Gods, Art, she’s the only reason we didn’t lose the entire Wyrmtail island chain to the Carissite navy,” Tryggve insisted. “You can’t just leave her out to dry like this.”
“Tryggve, I respect your counsel greatly, but have you spent even a moment considering how you would do this?” Artemisias asked as he collapsed into a nearby chair. “It’s a suicide mission to be charitable. Practically speaking it’s simply a death sentence. It doesn’t matter how many we send; they’ll be cut off behind enemy lines against an enemy that has no number, searching the entire countryside for one woman.”
“I know Cinna better than anyone. She’ll head to the crossing past the mouth of the Stryk first in the hopes of getting there before we scuttle the bridge, then follow the Stryk upriver to here. We don’t need to search half of Selkarc, we just need to meet her halfway and escort her home.”
Giving credit where it was due, Tryggve did seem to have planned this out. Artemisias wanted more than anything to give the man permission to deploy a rescue team. However…
“You’ll only draw the undead right to her,” Artemisias pointed out. “We can assume most if not all of her guard has been wiped out already. More undead arrive by the day; the territory we’ve abandoned must be swarming with them. A small group can slip through, but an army?”
“Then we send a small group. A single squad of our best,” Tryggve pressed.
Artemisias laughed.
“Our best? What other words would you use to describe the knights she brought with her?” Tryggve looked momentarily lost for words so Artemisias continued on. “And then what? Even with the bridge intact they would have to fight through an entire army of draugr in both directions. You know as well as I do that we can’t afford to send enough mages afield to allow a crossing further out; we’ve already lost too many. And sending a ship would take far too long.”
Tryggve turned away and took several long steps to the nearby window. He stood there silently for several seconds before speaking again. “So, what then? We let her die? Your daughter? My niece? How do you think it will affect morale when our troops see the crown princess shambling towards them from across the river?”
“You said you know Cinna better than anyone. Take that thought further. What will she do when she realizes the bridges are gone?” Artemisias asked. He knew the answer already.
“She’ll…turn back. She knows the boats will have been scuttled or commandeered, so…” Tryggve trailed off and returned to the table, gazing down at the map of Selkarc spread across it. He tapped a spot downriver from their current location with one finger, then traced a path across the countryside. “First she’ll go to Storrhamarr; it’s the closest location with a map that would include entrances to the Warm Roads. Then she’ll make her way to the closest entrance near Roland’s Redoubt and proceed south underground.”
“Have we received any word from Count Keller?”
“None. Gunnarsen, you passed by Storrhamarr on the way here, didn’t you?” Suddenly finding himself included in the conversation again, Gunnarsen took a moment to reply to the High General’s question.
“Ah…yes, sir. The city was sealed tight. I attempted to make contact when I realized it was still occupied but my attempts were ignored. We couldn’t afford to stay and continue trying, so I made the decision to abandon the city and continue to here,” the captain replied nervously.
“It’s possible an undead outbreak took the city from within before they could evacuate, but…correct me if I’m wrong, Tryggve, but was Keller not an ally of Duke Korhonen?” Considering how close Storrhamarr lay to the Stryk River its evacuation would normally have been among the first completed, but the entire process had been rushed from the start. There simply hadn’t been time to follow up and ensure everyone obeyed the order. By the time anyone realized no one had heard from Storrhamarr the undead had reached the Stryk River already.
“Under the surface, yes. He wasn’t one of Korhonen’s open backers, but we turned up evidence linking them around the time you went into recovery,” Tryggve recounted.
“I suspect he may have ignored the order due to a lack of faith in my leadership,” Artemisias admitted with a sigh. That may not have been something he should have said in front of an officer like Gunnarsen, but it was the truth. “But it works in our favor. That also means he’s more likely to have ignored protocol and retained his maps, and he may still be holding out.”
“I’d dismissed Storhammar as a lost cause, but…I’ll attempt to make contact with any loyalists remaining in the city. Maybe I can find someone to help Cinna enter the city,” Tryggve proposed.
“Do that. And ensure we have someone waiting at the southern entrance to the Warm Roads with horses for when Cinna arrives. We may not be able to send anyone to assist her directly, but we can still do everything possible to speed her along.”
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heh, the Lilia/Cinna chapters are our favorites of course, but these ones are important too. couple notes (hope they're helpful):
He didn’t fault Cinna for her lack of administrative ability even if he’d initially been furious upon leaning of her neglect.
presumably, that's "learning"?
King Artemesias
King Artemisias
the second spelling appears to be used more.