The First Snow of the Northern Empire
The First Snow of the Northern Empire
Valder's faction was the only power in the region to hold a proper stronghold.
A fortress originally placed under the command of a Northern Empire general.
It was a site that had once served as the empire's ancient front line, functioning as both harbor and defensive bastion.
An iron fortress bristling with cannons and war engines of every description.
That stronghold was Belus Nelesa.
By any normal measure, the fortress was unassailable—yet it was now occupied by a swarm of deserters.
Capturing an iron fort that any army would struggle to reduce was Valder's blessing.
At least, that was how Eric told it.
According to him, Valder had struck on a moonless night, slipping through the dark and bounding over the walls like a stag.
Leaping from battlement to battlement, he had reached the highest spire and torn apart the corrupt sergeant who commanded Belus Nelesa with his teeth.
When the sergeant's subordinates arrived on the scene, they could make out only two things.
The sergeant's body, ripped and scattered across the stone.
And a warrior standing over the carnage, axe in hand.
The deserters looked upon him and yielded. Belus Nelesa had been Valder's ever since.
As far as Aslan could tell, the rumors were likely true.
The defensive capabilities of Belus Nelesa were such that it could not have fallen to anything short of that kind of otherworldly prowess.
Which was precisely why Aslan was now leading his party straight toward its main gate.
Of course, his group possessed no shortage of such otherworldly abilities.
Take Fay alone. Her speed had reached the realm of a demigod; she could kill every soldier inside—and Valder himself—before any of them registered their own deaths.
There were other approaches, too. A little cleverness could produce any number of workable stratagems.
But Aslan chose differently.
He could have taken the fortress if he'd wanted to. Instead, he elected to walk up to its front door.
He was willing to fight if circumstances demanded it, but from the outset, his mind was not on battle.
So he led part of the party toward Belus Nelesa.
The closer they drew, the more the stronghold's sheer scale impressed itself upon them.
Towering walls.
Black battlements that shed the chill seeping into the air and the salt of the sea without a speck of rust.
Row upon row of cannons, repeating ballistae, and arcane war engines arrayed atop the parapets.
A fortress that would not easily crumble even before a host of thousands—a declaration in stone.
The legacy of the ancient empire endures.
Unsurprisingly, Tiyamal, who trailed behind him, betrayed a quiet unease.
"Is this really the right move?"
A question without context. When Aslan shifted his gaze, Tiyamal glanced at him and spoke again.
"Wouldn't a preemptive strike make more sense? If this old man looses a shaft, I'd say I could knock out those cannons up there without much trouble."
"Aslan, I think the same. This fortress is on a completely different level from Kardi."
It was Richard who backed Tiyamal's words.
His usual optimism had dimmed; arms crossed, he stared up at Belus Nelesa with open discomfort.
The reaction was one Aslan could understand.
The fortress in its full martial majesty looked capable of erasing a party of four without leaving a trace.
"It's Belus. Can't be helped."
Aslan, however, showed little sign of alarm.
At that unhurried composure, Tiyamal's fingers crept along his bowstave.
"We're walking straight up to a Belus fortress, and you're sure this is right?"
He didn't stumble over the words, but everything in his stance said he was ready to draw and loose at a moment's notice.
Tracking those clear marks of unease, Aslan gave a single nod.
Tiyamal let out a low, pained sound and let his shoulders drop. Aslan returned his gaze to the fortress, thinking.
He was not approaching in order to break it from within, either.
Belus Nelesa's defenses were formidable inside and out.
Multiple concentric inner walls meant that even if you began your assault from the deepest chamber, you would only isolate yourself; even if you tore through the intermediate walls, the garrison could sustain an endless defensive battle.
A direct assault on Belus Nelesa was therefore a poor idea.
The correct approach was a moonless-night ambush, as Valder had done, or a stealth infiltration by someone with Fay's combination of concealment and speed.
"We're not here to fight."
Fortunately, Aslan had no intention of fighting.
When he glanced sidelong at Rumel, her expression taut, she met his eyes with a swirl of emotions in her hazel gaze.
Their eyes locked. Her lips parted slightly, then she forced a smile.
A bitter, fading smile. Given that Aslan had reason to trust her, the uncertainty on her face was startling.
Still, her doubt did nothing to slow the arrival of the moment.
"Halt!"
A shout from above. The voice was followed by twin beams of flash magic.
A blaze of light.
The glare was as harsh as a modern searchlight. Beneath the beams of Geladrion's magic-driven illuminators, Aslan heard the repeating ballistae rotate toward his party.
Bathed in that light, the other three each acted as their instincts dictated.
Tiyamal closed his eyes and laid a hand on his bowstave. Richard set himself in a tense stance.
As mana tattoos flared crimson across his skin, Richard exhaled slowly, fixing the sound of the ballistae in his ears—ready to deflect the instant they fired.
Rumel was different.
Quietly erasing the tension from her face, she shut her eyes and reached for her waist.
As her hand moved with slow deliberation, a voice rang out from beyond the searchlights.
"Drop your weapons! Don't move!"
The words were clear. But she did not obey—she closed her fingers around the hilt of the sword at her hip.
Because Aslan stood before her.
Gri-rik.
While Rumel drew the sword, Aslan slipped a hand beneath his cloak and produced two feather daggers.
Then he closed his eyes and relied on nothing but luck and instinct to track the sound of crossbows taking aim.
Twang!
A volley of bolts. Not ballistae—ordinary crossbows. Aslan fixed his attention on the sounds.
The hiss of shafts slicing through the air. A sharp, whining flight.
He felt the trajectories as continuous lines drawn across the darkness behind his eyelids, and then he whipped the daggers out like lightning.
A hard clang, a sharp crack.
A severed bolt skittered across the ground; another bolt-head met a feather blade and crumpled away.
In that interval, Rumel raised the sword high.
The soldiers' crossbows tilted to track her—and then they hesitated.
The blade was unmistakably unique.
A one-handed sword fitted with a pronounced parrying hook and a crossguard broad enough to serve as a shield.
Classic ancient imperial craftsmanship. The Sword God's form bore ornate reliefs of War and Knowledge, the empire's twin patrons.
It was a weapon that seized the eye unbidden.
And a strange sense of familiarity that clung to the steel seemed to deepen the effect.
Rather than loose another volley, the soldiers found themselves staring at the blade—until someone in the ranks finally shouted.
"The Emperor's Sword...!"
That caught even Aslan off guard.
He had assumed it was merely a fine blade once borne by a Northern Empire general. He had not expected it to be the Emperor's Sword.
Fortunately, it seemed he was not the only one taken by surprise; a stir of murmuring ran along the battlements.
"I heard it's a sword the Emperor bestows in person when he appoints a general...."
So that's what it was—a sword the Emperor bestows in person when appointing a general.
Aslan filed the thought away while maintaining his quiet vigilance. He could feel the unease and confusion radiating from the soldiers as they peered down at Rumel.
If she had spoken, they might have known how to respond—but she simply stood firm in silence, and that left them at a loss.
The paralysis and bewilderment spread quickly, until at last someone stepped forward atop the wall.
The figure was a warrior.
A man with a trimmed beard and dark brown hair tied back.
His age was hard to place—somewhere between youth and middle years—and he wore full armor.
The moment Aslan saw him, he knew. This was Valder.
And the face was familiar, in a way that nagged at him. Aslan was still turning over that familiarity when the searchlights abruptly cut out.
Valder let out a brief, bitten-off noise and shut his mouth.
He had started to speak, then thought better of it and simply looked down at Aslan's party.
A man holding two daggers, with two broken crossbow bolts at his feet—ample proof of real skill.
And the composition. Two men, a dragon-kin, and one woman.
Something in that peculiarity, and the glimpse of martial prowess, made Valder speak at once.
"State your identities and your purpose. What business have you at Belus Nelesa?"
The shout carried a certain rough courtesy.
Likely because of the expert who could cut crossbow bolts from the air, the unusual party, and the presence of the Emperor's Sword all at once.
Aslan opened his eyes, reversed the daggers, and gave Rumel a small nod.
She returned the nod—a silent granting of permission—and Aslan stepped forward.
"The lady before you is General Rumel, who has taken up the Emperor's Sword and risen in righteous cause! She comes with the backing of the lords and people settled along the coast, searching for a candidate fit to be Emperor!"
This kind of performance was familiar to him; Aslan spoke without hesitation.
"To that end, we have come to meet Duke Valder, who holds the mightiest fortress on this shore! If you yourself are worthy of the throne, surely you will not bar the gates out of fear of four travelers!"
His words mixed purpose with provocation. Valder scowled.
He glanced sidelong at the soldiers around him, then met Aslan's eyes.
Deep black pupils. A flicker of puzzlement crossed Valder's gaze at the contact. Then he turned his head slightly to look at Rumel.
"Open the gate!"
He gave the order after only a brief look at her, and before long the massive black doors swung open.
The party passed through them at once.
*
By evening, the chill cast by the Veil of Compassion had seeped into the fortress. The party was escorted to a great hall where cold and darkness pooled in the corners.
The hearths had only just been lit, and the air was still a swirl of warmth and cold. Cooks roused abruptly from sleep hurried to and fro, setting out food in haste.
It was in that hall—where welcome and chill both had their place—that the party and Valder faced one another.
Plates clattered down onto the table, laden mostly with hot stew and cuts of meat. Not a vegetable to be seen.
By Northern Empire standards, where a proper welcome always included greens, it was a meager reception.
The party ate without hesitation.
None of them were inclined to fret over the cold etiquette of the Northern Empire.
If anything, Tiyamal emptied his bowl of stew with gusto, as if eager to drive out the chill.
Once the hall had warmed and the plates were nearing empty, Valder spoke first.
"What did you really come for?"
His tone had shifted; the guarded courtesy from outside the gate was gone. Aslan took it in stride.
"As we said, we seek a worthy candidate for Emperor."
Valder's response was cold.
"You'd best drop the lie. If there is no Emperor, how can a general appear? She would merely be a woman calling herself a general."
The blunt dismissal—and the sharpness of the analysis—caught Aslan off guard.
For two reasons.
The first was that there truly was no general. The second was that Valder had seen through it all and still let them inside.
What he said next was even more disconcerting.
"You've probably heard the rumors about me as well. You know the men in this fortress aren't truly my soldiers, so you threw out talk of generals and such. If I refused, you'd use that as a lever to undermine me. Am I wrong?"
He had pierced straight to the heart of Aslan's thinking.
Aslan managed to suppress his disquiet and offered a bland smile.
Valder was sharper than he had expected—far sharper.
That, presumably, was how he had taken Belus Nelesa in the first place.
Which led Aslan to another thought.
He hoped, genuinely, that Valder was not a priest.
It would be a waste for someone this intelligent to end up as one.
Keeping the performance going, Aslan sent a glance toward Rumel. She nodded, and he spoke again.
The gesture, meant to suggest a clear chain of command, made Valder's eyebrow twitch.
"It is not so different from what I said before. General Rumel truly wishes to become a general. And she understands perfectly well that to make a general, one must have an Emperor. Thus, we seek the candidate best suited to the throne."
Valder watched him and let out a scornful laugh—tinged with pessimism.
"And by what means do you intend to create an Emperor? With as many lords as the Northern Empire has...."
"That is a secret."
Aslan cut him off before the cynicism could fully form. Valder's expression soured; he propped his chin on his hand.
"Because anyone who is not with us would have to die the moment they learned it. It is a rather precious secret, you see."
Valder seemed more nettled by the words that followed than by the mention of a secret.
"...Hah. Do you think you four can kill me?"
Another sneer, layered over a hard confidence in his own power.
Considering the monstrous transformation that had won him Belus Nelesa, the confidence was understandable.
"Even if you did, do you imagine you'd walk out unscathed? From Belus Nelesa?"
Even without that power, the fortress's defenses were undeniable.
Enough that even if Aslan's party killed Valder, escaping whole would be a near-impossible task.
"With only four...."
"Who can say?"
Aslan leaned forward, away from his chair's backrest, and folded his hands on the table.
"Perhaps there is a host waiting outside even now, ready to strike from within and without at the same moment."
"And how am I supposed to believe—"
Valder's reaction to the threat was entirely reasonable.
Rumble...!
But Aslan could make it look as though a host truly was encamped beyond the walls.
Trees toppled without apparent cause, crashing into one another in a chain of echoing collapses that shook the air and drew the eye.
The sight of timber going down beyond the windows—and the campfires that bloomed in perfect, damning synchrony—made Valder's mouth open and shut again.
"The general gave orders: if she does not return by tomorrow, they are to construct siege engines and attack."
Of course, no such host existed.
It was merely Angie's superhuman physical strength combined with Ereta's command over flame.
But what the eyes saw left little room for disbelief.
The purpose of all this theater was simple.
To uncover the source of Valder's confidence.
Priest or not.
That was the only distinction that mattered.
Aslan kept his intent concealed and met Valder's gaze. The man's face twisted with irritation.
"...Wait."
A single word, muttered.
Scenes were turning over in his mind.
The image of Aslan outside the gate, swatting crossbow bolts from the air.
Valder fixed the memory in his head and looked up again, eyes locking onto Aslan's.
In an instant, his gaze flooded with suspicion.
"Teal eyes."
The suspicion curdled, hardening into hatred.
"Black hair."
A chair scraped back as Valder rose.
Aslan watched, unmoving, while Valder glared down at him.
"A warrior who wields even a dagger with force enough to rival a master-smith's greatsword—a fighter skilled enough to knock crossbow bolts out of the air."
As he spoke, Valder reached above the great hall's fireplace and took down the two-handed axe hanging there.
Hefting the heavy weapon, he bared his teeth.
"What's going on?"
"I have no idea...!"
Tiyamal fumbled for his bowstave as he rose; Aslan's own voice came out startled.
The whole party shoved back from the table and drew their weapons. Valder snarled.
"Aslan. The general-slayer, Aslan."
The name hung in the air. Aslan flinched, and in that teal gaze a spark of understanding kindled.
Seeing it, Valder bellowed.
"It was you!"
A face he had seen before. A nagging sense of familiarity.
Watching Valder's reaction, Aslan finally placed it.
Years ago, during a raid—he had killed a general who had been about to murder a child who had taken up a weapon to protect its mother.
He remembered the face that so closely mirrored this one.
"Damn."
The curse slipped out. As it did, Valder's body began to warp.
His legs elongated into something like a stag's. His skull shifted, taking on the shape of a deer with a wolf's jaws.
Antlers twisted outward in grotesque, jagged curves, and Valder snorted a gout of hot breath.
"At last, the chance to avenge my father."
Aslan understood. The cost of what he had done had come due.