A Death Grip Way Too Strong for a Mere Barbarian Pirate!
"Hm, well, since we've come all this way, no helping it. Then I have a message for you."
Volgar plucked a cylindrical leather pouch from his belt, drew out a parchment scroll, unfurled it, and began to read in a voice that boomed across the square.
"Hear me. The great Unifier of Sergen, Kurgan, speaks to Eisenmark."
"I, scion of ice and fire, descendant of the thunder, Unifier of Sergen, Kurgan, have now united all the tribes as one.
From the land of glaciers to the sea of mists, every tribe has gathered beneath my banner. Now our eyes turn south."
A low murmur rippled through the crowd gathered in the square. The news that every tribe of Sergen had been united carried a grave weight. The clans had always been divided, their inability to stand together their great weakness — and now that weakness was gone.
Volgar pressed on, shouting.
"I and Sergen wish to show mercy to Eisenmark. But mercy has its price, and that price is a token of loyalty to the Unifier."
His voice swelled until the buildings ringing the square seemed to throw the sound back at us. Watching our reactions all the while, he unrolled the scroll a little further, unhurried.
"Eisenmark shall pay Sergen a fitting tribute each year. The tribute list is as follows: one hundred sturdy bulls, two hundred horses, five hundred swine, one thousand sheep. Grain enough to fill twenty-five Sergen trade ships to the brim. Iron enough to fill one Sergen trade ship to the brim."
My mind raced. I couldn't recall the exact figures at the moment, but weighed against the whole grand duchy's output... it wasn't an impossible demand. If we squeezed the entire territory dry, we could probably scrape it together.
But if we did...
If resources on that scale drained away every single year, the grand duchy would grow weaker and weaker, and Sergen would grow stronger by exactly that much.
And the economic loss wasn't even the real problem. This was a naked diplomatic humiliation. Eisenmark, which had never once bowed its head to anyone, was now being asked to kneel before a barbarian warlord.
"There is more. Eisenmark shall regard the enemies of the Unifier as its own enemies, and whenever the Unifier and Sergen call upon it, it shall provide one man of fighting age out of every three."
"Ugh...!"
That last demand went beyond tribute. It was a demand for outright subjugation.
The young men of the grand duchy, fighting and dying for Sergen?!
Volgar lowered the scroll and fixed me with a defiant stare.
"Such are the words of the Unifier Kurgan. What is your answer?"
Heavy silence settled over the square. Every eye was on me.
Historical precedents from Earth flickered rapidly through my mind.
Throughout human history, standing against conquerors had often ended in annihilation. Alexander the Third, Julius Gaius Caesar, Mehmed the Second. Countless nations that resisted men like those were wiped clean off the map.
Maybe now... maybe what I need to do is buy time?
Paying the tribute wouldn't bring the grand duchy crashing down tomorrow. And in the meantime, we could prepare.
We could fortify the northern border, seek an alliance with some other power that had its own reasons to check Sergen, hunt for cracks among the Sergen tribes and drive wedges between them. And if even that proved impossible, there was always the oldest strategy of all — waiting for the conqueror to die and his strength to fracture.
No, wait. Hold on. Am I even allowed to decide something this momentous on my own? In the end I'm just the acting administrator of the direct domain.
My thoughts tangled themselves into knots. The wisest course, by any sober reckoning, was to withhold an answer, buy time until Father returned, and negotiate then. That was the correct judgment. It was.
Ask the Sergen delegation to wait for the Grand Duke's return. A diplomatic decision this weighty is far beyond my authority anyway.
But regardless of what reason calculated, something inside me had begun to writhe with savage intensity. It felt as though my blood were catching fire in my veins — a hot, ferocious instinct.
No, no, no. If I act here, it becomes my responsibility.
But Katerina's instinct overwhelmed me. As a daughter who carried the blood of the Grand Dukes of Eisenmark, as the future ruler of this land, I could not stomach such a public humiliation. To wear a weak, begging face just to buy time was already the first step of defeat.
We must never — never ever! — bow to the likes of you!
The voice rang out from somewhere within me, and yet somehow felt like it didn't belong to me at all.
Eisenmark — the northern grand duchy, the people of the north — never knelt. Would never kneel. My reason wanted to stall and temporize, but my instinct would not permit it.
Strangely, in that moment I felt a kind of clarity. Like puzzle pieces clicking into place, Katerina's identity and mine seemed to fuse into one.
I drew a deep breath, lifted my head, and looked Volgar dead in the eye. Hesitation no longer existed.
"Volgar. My answer is this."
The square went so quiet that even breathing seemed to stop.
"I congratulate the unification of Sergen and the achievements of the Unifier Kurgan. But we will not yield to threats."
The instant the words left my tongue, some weight that had been crushing my chest simply fell away. This was right. Even Father would have done exactly the same.
Volgar's lips curled slightly, as if this were what he'd expected. He gave a slow nod.
"So that's it, then. Understood."
He rolled the parchment scroll back up and tucked it into the leather pouch at his belt.
Sighs of relief drifted out from the crowd. Behind me I heard Bielka let out a small, shaky breath.
But the relief lasted only a moment. A sudden change came over Volgar's face. His blue eyes glinted colder, and murder seeped into his voice.
"However, my own personal business is not yet finished. Last winter, my younger brother Droga was killed on this land."
The air around us froze in an instant at that confession.
"My brother gave his life for his tribe. I mean to collect his blood-price. I am told a man called Cormac is the one who slew him."
Volgar's tone was no longer official. It was the voice of something personal now — a flame, and a dangerous one.
"Cormac! Show yourself! You cannot hide from the blade of vengeance forever! Cormac—!!"
His shout rang off the stone walls. Behind me, I felt the guards stir. The small clatter of weapons, the rasp of armor against armor, wound the tension tighter still.
Cormac, is it...
The name wasn't unfamiliar. One of the sergeants serving under Royal Guard Captain Woldin — a brave man who led the elite unit that patrolled the coastal villages of the north.
Just as I opened my mouth to answer Volgar in hopes of shielding Cormac, one man stepped forward from the line of guards behind me.
He bore a squad leader's epaulettes on his shoulder, and a deep scar ran down his face from his left eye to his jaw.
"I am Cormac."
His voice was unexpectedly calm, but his eyes burned with a heat that didn't yield an inch to Volgar's icy glare. Cormac took another step forward.
"Why would your brother die in an Eisenmark village across the sea? Because he was a murderer and a raider, that's why.
That brother of yours butchered two innocent village lads, and before he took their heads he cut off their ears and noses — trophies, the way I hear it. I merely paid him back in kind."
Volgar's face twisted with fury.
"So you confess it freely! Then you shall die torn limb from limb!"
The two men glared at each other as the distance between them shrank. I moved to wedge myself between them and stop it, but the rage surging between these two had already passed the point where words could settle it.
"My lady, Sergeant Cormac is among the finest soldiers we have guarding the northern frontier. You may trust him."
Royal Guard Captain Woldin drew near and murmured reassurance in my ear. But looking at Volgar's bulk — and at the sheer size of the axe he carried — an unease I couldn't shake kept welling up inside me.
"Eliza..."
"Understood, my lady."
As Eliza and Bielka threaded their way through the crowd back toward the citadel, the Sergen delegation and the Eisenfels guardsmen began, almost naturally, to clear a wide circle in the center of the square. The citizens retreated even further back.
Cormac stepped aside and took a shield from one of the guardsmen. Into his hands went a shield bearing the crest of Eisenmark, and a long, keen sword.
On the opposite side, Volgar hefted his enormous axe in both hands and planted his legs shoulder-width apart.
At last, the two men faced each other and began to circle slowly, each tracing the rim of an imaginary ring.
Cormac moved first. Shield leading, he closed the distance in a heartbeat and went for Volgar's flank. His sword flashed and split the air — but Volgar twisted aside with an agility that seemed impossible for a man of his size.
"Ha! Quick little mouse, aren't you!"
Volgar sneered and swung his axe in a tremendous arc, and Cormac angled his shield to deflect the blow.
Even blunted, though, the impact splintered part of the shield, wood chips flying, and Cormac staggered backward.
Volgar's strength was simply overwhelming.