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Emrael Ire and his father Janrael were the first to step from the barge onto Iraean soil. Janrael breathed in deeply, then spat to the side. He flexed his powerful hands as he stopped to survey their surroundings. “Every time I set foot here, I remember my fool father. Too proud to join the United Provinces, too weak to defeat them.”
Emrael had often been told he didn’t look much like his father. His pure white hair—the result of a training accident years ago, and the subsequent healing—was a stark contrast to his father’s dark brown hair and beard. He still felt short standing next to his father, though he was only an inch or two shorter by now, and neither were all that tall. It was his father’s presence that embellished his stature, an aura of command that made him seem the biggest man in the room regardless of physical size.
None would say that Janrael was a small man, however, and Emrael shared his father’s build. Wide, powerful shoulders built through long hours of training with sword and shield; broad backs that had lifted many a supply crate; sturdy legs shaped by long hours of marching with the Legion. They were built to be warriors.
A thrill of excitement coursed through Emrael at finally being allowed to visit his ancestral homeland. He had just seen his twentieth summer, graduated from the Barros Junior Legion, and would be assigned a post soon if he chose to enlist in the Barros Legion right away. He couldn’t contain his eagerness, despite his father’s foul mood. The Iraean countryside looked much like the northern Barrosian countryside, giant pines, oaks, and maples quilted between large swaths of farmland and pasture. Still, it felt different to him. He stepped closer to his father so they were shoulder to shoulder. “I don’t understand why you and Grandmother never returned, after the war ended.”
Janrael chuckled darkly, hand now gripping the rune-carved hilt of his sword, the ancient sword of Ire kings, passed down from father to son for centuries. “We didn’t have many options, son. My mother and her guard fled just before the Corrandes and the armies of the Provinces besieged Ire’s End, and Corrande would have killed our entire family. We’ve had to rebuild our lives from nothing.”
“But you’re the Commander First of the Barros Legion now. Why don’t we go back?”
“The Iraeans that stayed in Iraea don’t like us much either, Em. Many don’t see us as true Iraeans, despite the blood of Mage Kings in our veins, and they’re right. I was born at Ire’s End but raised in Naeran, as you were. The Iraeans would likely throw us to the Watchers or kill us themselves as soon as help us take our ancestral Holding back, never mind handing us a throne. A throne that doesn’t exist anymore, mind.”
Before Emrael could ask more questions, Janrael clapped Emrael on the back. “Let’s go help our men.”
Emrael followed his father back to the barge to help the four squads of fellow Barros Legionmen unload their horses and gear for the campaign. “But you earned your Mark as a Master of War at the Citadel, you could have gone anywhere you wanted and been respected after that. Even Iraea, right? Why do we still fight for Barros?” He said that last quietly, not wanting the other men to hear.
Janrael grimaced, staring at the tattoo of the Citadel’s sword and infusori coil crest on his forearm for a moment, then responded in a grim tone as they led horses from the deck of the ferry. “Many in the Barros Legion are Iraeans like us, who’ve fled the Watchers’ brutality and taxes in our homeland and can’t go back. I’m lucky my mother’s guard joined the Barros Legion and supported us until I was old enough to go to the Citadel, then join myself. I couldn’t leave them behind after what they sacrificed for us. For me. We might have starved, without them. Many did.”
He grunted, facing Emrael to grip his shoulders. “We are Barrosians now, and we dance to Governor Barros’s tune. Just the way it is. Right now, he wants these bandits run out of this stronghold of theirs on the Iraean side of the river. Lord Holder Syrtsan—that’s your friend Halrec’s bastard of an uncle—exiled his own brother to appease Corrande and Sagmyn after the war. He and the Watchers won’t deal with bandits on the river like they’re supposed to, so it’s us.”
His father spat as he hoisted a crate and turned to take it to one of the waiting wagons. “Still don’t understand why he’d send me to see to it personally, though, other than to get me out of the capital so he can turn more of my subcommanders against me while I’m away. He’s regretted allowing the Legion to make me Commander First from the day it happened. Can’t have Corrande thinking he’s giving an Iraean power to lead a rebellion,” he growled with a mirthless chuckle, then spat again.
They arrived at their target after a half-day ride on a dirt road barely wide enough for the small wagons they had brought with them. The bandit stronghold turned out to be a vine-covered castle, most of which was an empty, crumbling shell. Emrael supposed that once, only a generation or so earlier, before the War of Unification, it had likely been home to some Iraean noble and scores of his retainers. Now the roof had caved in and the windows had all been broken out, leaving only the large main hall intact. A wisp of woodsmoke rising from one corner of the structure was the only sign that any living thing inhabited the place.
Janrael, Emrael, and the four squads of Legionmen that had accompanied them waited at the tree line of a ridge above the castle. Emrael’s father shook his head, anguish darkening his eyes.
“These are probably remnants of the Whitehall rebellion. That Norta boy asked me to join he and the Raebren heir, you know. To ‘take my crown and rightful place as a Mage King.’ If not for your mother, I may have been tempted,” he mused. “I may have, but I’m no more a king than I am a mage. Now I hunt them. Such a fickle world.”
A scout on foot made his way through the trees, saluting when he reached them. “Commander First, Sir!”
Janrael nodded. “Captain First Loire. Report.”
“The hills are clear, sir. Only this one set of recent tracks leading to the ruins and another on the other side of the castle. Judging by the traffic, there’s a dozen in there. Two dozen at most.”
Janrael nodded. “Thank you, Captain. Gather your scouts and hold here. Emrael, stay with them.” He raised his voice so the soldiers gathered behind him could hear. “Squads one and two on me, three to the back gate, four on cover.”
Emrael and the small group of scouts waited a few hundred paces away at the tree line as two squads of Legionmen moved into position in front of the main gate, which hung askew but still partially blocked the entrance. They formed up, shields overlapping and swords at the ready. Another squad trotted around the structure to block any escape from the rear service gate. The last squad, crossbows slung across their backs, crouched near a pile of pitch-filled jars and torches a few dozen paces away.
Oddly, there hadn’t been so much as a warning shout as the Legionmen advanced. Emrael watched as his father approached the ruined castle, shield-less, sword still in its scabbard.
“Aho the castle!” his father shouted.
No response.
“If you’re in there, surrender yourselves and you’ll come to no harm.”
Still nothing.
“Last chance! We’ll burn you out if you do not surrender!”
The Commander First shrugged, then gestured to his men nearby.
The waiting squad of Legionmen lit jars of pitch and tossed them over the walls. Smoke soon billowed from several places within the castle, but still no motion from inside. Emrael saw his father’s brow crease in puzzlement.
His father’s confusion turned to shock and dismay as black crossbow quarrels soared from the tree line nearest the front gate, cutting down a large portion of the Barros Legionmen, who were facing the wrong way. A quarrel punched into Janrael’s unprotected thigh. He fell to one knee.
Emrael shouted his surprise and anger, punching the first solider who tried to stop him from running to his father. A second Legionman tackled and pinned him to the ground before he could cross more than a dozen paces of the open ground. Some of the enemy crossbowmen had noticed them, and a few quarrels whistled through the air above Emrael’s head. He watched helplessly as more quarrels flew, lodging in the shields of the few Legionmen who had managed to pull into a defensive circle around Janrael.
Just then, a group of mounted riders burst from behind the ruined gate of the castle. Emrael could see more formed up in the castle’s courtyard behind these, at least fifty of them. They had been ready for this attack, had laid a trap for them. How?
Emrael struggled harder against the men who restrained him as the riders crashed into the Legionmen surrounding his father, hacking with swords and axes, trampling with hooves.
Copyright © 2021 by Scott Lofgren Smith
