Book 6: Chapter 47 - Insertion (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 47 - Insertion

“Forgive me, oh lord, take my life for my impertinence. I am not worthy!”

- Attributed to Cordelia de Aserac

We had driven deep into the Savant March without so much as a scream raised against us. No resistance. No struggle. No blood spilled to mark our passing. We were deep now, down in the guts of Aranthia’s borderlands. The question was no longer how far we could push into Damien de Savant’s ancestral lands, but when we would finally reach the capital of the March, Eloishe.

Damien’s company did not pillage as it advanced, nor did it strip the villages bare like common raiders. The men paid for fresh supplies in the towns and hamlets we passed through. A thousand men was no small force, but it was nothing beside what a Marquess could truly muster. We looked like what we were meant to look like: a hard company of the Guild on the move, trudging toward some next miserable campaign, perhaps another border skirmish with the Empire. Something ordinary. Something forgettable. That was the lie of it.

What they did not know was that Damien’s company was little more than a delivery system for its deadliest cargo: me. I was meant to be more than the tip of the spear. I was the spear. The hammer. The sword. The men who came behind me were necessary only to occupy what I broke open, because one man, no matter how powerful, cannot hold ground alone. They were the cold strategic appendage grafted onto my violence.

The scraggly borderlands of brush and forest had slowly given way to a patchwork country shaped by human hands for centuries. This was not wild land merely subdued. It was cultivated, beaten into obedience. Soil broken beneath the yoke so many times it had forgotten it had once been primeval forest, and that once, long ago, it had hated man.

I had not been wholly idle on the journey. A slow, mean trickle of experience bled into me, seemingly from the bare fact of my existence, from putting one foot before the other, from speaking when speech was required. Sometimes I gained a little even from passing on scraps of wisdom from this world and the one I had left behind.

And yes, I had even paid down a sliver of the debt forced upon me. Watching the elven sisters throw themselves into servile work stirred an ugly, needling guilt in me, a sense that I ought to give something back, however little. So I taught them, and Larynda with them, a little of what I knew. The old style, as Fen had once taught it to me. And, it was a review of sorts.

I spoke of the simple temptation every warrior chases: to be faster, stronger, sharper, more. A thing of simple addition. I told them this was a false way of seeing the path of the Mantis. Strength did not come through addition, but through subtraction, by cutting away every stray motion, every wasted thought, every indulgence, until nothing remained but the blade. But, coming from me, it sounded thin and hollow even to my own ears. My youthful countenance lent no weight to words like those.

But what did lend weight to my words was my overwhelming mastery. In terms of raw skill, raw power, I doubted anyone could be my equal now. To fight me was to fight the mountain’s avalanche. It was folly.

My old master Fen had always been full of this sort of polished drivel. Over one of her endless tea sessions, Fen once told me it took the skill of a master to equal that of a novice, because the novice does not yet know all the ways he might die. It had sounded like nonsense to me then. It sounded like nonsense now.

Still, I earned a tiny scrap of experience by feeding my master’s old words to fresh ears. Not that it bought me so much as a single point in any meaningful attribute.

I also made a point of avoiding Cordelia whenever I could. The woman was intense. A thought that had preyed upon my mind more than once. No, that was too soft a word for her. She had a kind of gravity that dragged at the mind, the sort that could pull a man in. Her voice rose and fell with a demagogue’s cadence, sweet and measured, the kind that could dress lies in the robes of truth and make truth sound like fresh gospel. Which was fitting, I supposed, because that was exactly what she was doing: building a church around me. Or perhaps she was destroying an old one.

And some of the men listened. Hardened men. Veterans. Men who knew life could be measured in ounces of gold, in the rust on a blade, in whether a wound closed clean or stank and soured. Still they gathered by the campfires and listened, giving the occasional nod as Cordelia mixed hard truths with her own fevered revelations and the monstrous lie of my divinity. If they had known the hatred I carried in my heart for the Goddess Avaria, whom Cordelia held with such veneration, they would have fled.

The irony was not lost on me. Not for a single moment.

And so at last, we entered the capital, Eloishe.

The town announced its wealth before one ever passed beneath its gates. High curtain walls of old grey stone ringed it in a broad, hard line, weathered by generations yet kept in good repair. Squat towers rose at intervals, practical rather than elegant, their battlements manned by sentries in mail and plate who watched the roads with the flat-eyed patience of men long used to trouble. Pennants stirred overhead in the wind, and beneath them the gates stood open wide enough for wagons, riders, and foot traffic to pass in a steady, uncomplaining stream.

There were no tolls. No questions. A thousand men who promised no immediate violence were a blessing to a place like this. More men meant more coin spent, and more coin meant more tax flowing into the local lord’s coffers. Such a host only became a problem when it came with fire and steel already in hand, and because we rode beneath Guild flags, they placed a great deal of trust in us.

The people here had known war before, and they were not fools. There were rules, and we were made to follow them. No group of men in our colors larger than ten. A “Scale,” by the reckoning of the Guild. Small enough that the local watch could handle matters if things turned ugly. Large enough to protect themselves.

From the open shutters of my wagon, I saw that the guards at the gate were dour, hard-faced professionals in dull steel caps and quilted surcoats, spears in hand, short swords at hips, with crossbowmen posted above in the gatehouse. They let us through with little more than a glance at our banners and a few curt exchanges with Damien’s officers, but I still caught the way their eyes lingered. Not openly fearful. Not openly hostile. Merely watchful with shades of resignation.

They barely glanced at one man alone, and with my armor and weapons packed away in the chests of my wagon, I was just one more unremarkable youth suckling at war’s bitter teat among the many. Or perhaps a lordling, away on adventure. 

Inside the walls, Eloishe opened around us in a maze of paved avenues and narrower side streets, all hemmed in by timber-framed houses, stone-fronted guildhalls, and shops whose painted shutters stood open to the day. It was a prosperous place, that much was plain. Bakers’ stalls sent out the smell of fresh bread. Butchers had hooks full of meat, and wine merchants displayed casks with almost vulgar pride. Cloth in rich dyes hung in open-fronted shops, and smithies that rang with honest work. Wagons heavy with produce rattled along, and servants in the livery of the de Savants’ hurried about on errands. It was no Al-Lazar, but the town had meat on its bones.

And yet there was something else beneath it, something I could not quite name. A woman gathering in washing from a line did so with needless haste. The children, though clean and well-fed, did not run wild as children ought. They stayed close to doorways and mothers’ skirts and looked at the world with old eyes.

Fear, then. Or the sediment of fear. But of what, I could not yet tell. Not poverty. Not hunger. Not the ordinary dread of brigands or taxes or a bad harvest. It was something deeper set into the place, like rot hidden under good plaster.

“I wonder what sort of inn we will be staying in,” Larynda asked, reaching up to touch her ears, her fingers still tracing them as though she did not quite believe they were real.

The wagon jolted as we rolled over a rut in the paved avenue.

“A good one,” I answered simply. “And if all goes to plan, tomorrow we will be staying in the main keep. The citadel at the heart of the city. We will stay wherever Damien places us, with his most disciplined men, the ones who know how to keep their mouths shut.” My gaze remained fixed on the stone fortress brooding over the city center.

Looking out from the wagon, I could see it rising above the lesser buildings, hard grey stone thrust upward with brutal authority. Against a larger army than ours, it might still have proved impossible to take. But I had made a habit of dragging the impossible down and forcing it to kneel.

“So... the plan is that you are just going to what, break down the fortress?” Larynda asked. “The stones are warded. The whole place is warded. Even from here I can feel the power in it. It draws from the bones of the Earth.” Doubt sharpened her voice, making it rise. “Then there is the moat. I do not believe even you have learned to walk on water just yet.”

I smiled then, the thin, superior smile common to teachers when a prized student stumbles onto the right question. “I will not need to walk on water, and every fortress has a weak point.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “A weak point? This is lunacy, even for you.”

“Think on it. The gate is vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable? Yes, to siege engines, if they can cross the moat. I spoke to some of the soldiers. It would take months to fill that moat, and that is with ten Dragons of men. They said the gates are made of the thickest—”

“Exactly, Larynda. They are made of things that can be destroyed, and most easily destroyed at that, by the power of my Path. As for the moat, you could simply command the water to part, or to leave, could you not?”

“Command the water to part, or to leave, could you not,” she repeated, shaking her head. “I probably could, if I made preparations. But do you think the builders of that fortress never considered that? I told you, remember? It is warded. The whole thing. That means the moat as well. The Water will not listen.”

Most would have taken that as the end of the matter. I did not. I was as certain as day gives way to night that my abilities could overcome “wards,” or whatever name the magically inclined of this world gave to such things. My magic, though similar in some respects, slipped around many of this world’s limits, albeit slowly. Time remained the resource that was both enemy and accomplice to me.

The real question was whether the Mercenaries could hold against the watch, which by Damien’s estimate vastly outnumbered them, never mind the professional soldiers within the citadel itself.

“So, do you have an answer for that too, Gil?” Larynda pressed, as our wagon turned into the yard of an inn.

“I am sure, Larynda, that Gilgamesh has an answer,” the waifish Estaza drawled lazily, straightening a little as the wagon finally lurched to a halt. “He would not have come this far without one. From the men’s tales, your guardian has broken armies and monsters, or so the telling goes. There is truth in that, I think? They call the First Tamkar of Al-Lazar a ‘Djinn’”

Larynda could not deny that. Yet neither, it seemed, could she quite bring herself to trust me without reservation. Good. That only made the breaking of her expectations sweeter.

Those were my thoughts as I stepped down from the wagon and left the score of servants now assigned to me to their work, with Estaza hanging prettily from my arm. As I did, I caught the elven sisters glancing at me while they helped the other servants. The pair, even in servitude, had the air of nobilty that would put most of the preening courtiers of Al-Lazar to shame. Not in ostentation, but in the way they carried themselves, as if everything was beneath them. As if difficulty was just an minor incovenience.

Marimae and Saranea, Elvish trouble distilled into darker skin. The same haughtiness in different packaging.

I shook my head and helped Estaza and Larynda down from the wagon, making sure they did not tread upon the manure on paving stones. 

***

While my people busied themselves with their duties, I went in search of Damien. Sure enough, guided by both the men of Damien de Savant’s Dragon and the inn’s staff, I was led to a room fit for a merchant of means.

The floorboards were thick, scarred planks gone dark with age and hard use. A narrow bed stood against one wall, its mattress stuffed well enough, though the blankets were fine wool rather than velvet or fur. There was a stout table, ink-stained and knife-marked, two high-backed wooden chairs, a travel chest bound in iron, and a washstand with a chipped ceramic basin. Beeswax candles guttered in iron holders, giving off a dim, yellow light that deepened the corners into shadow. t was a room meant for a man with coin, but not enough coin to pretend at luxury.

There I found de Savant half out of his armor, a grimace passing for a smile plastered across his face as I knocked, opened the door, and stepped inside.

“Gilgamesh... I assume you are here to confirm and check on a few things? As has been your habit these past few days.”

“I am. Has there been any change to the plan? A plan does not survive contact in its original form once it clashes with the enemy, but it does grow firmer as one draws nearer to the day of its making. Seeing your home like this, do you truly believe it can be done?” I opened, uncaring that I was intruding.

“It can be done. I saw what you did in Al-Lazar, and it can be done. Yes, even against my family, it can be done. But it is the matter of my family that we must discuss,” he said, the exhaustion of the long road plain in his voice.

“Speak plainly. What do you mean? Are you getting cold feet now, milord?” I said with a false chuckle. “Succession coordination does not usually conclude without a few casualties.”

“What a turn of phrase. Succession coordination. You sweep all the ugliness neatly beneath the rug,” Damien replied, rising from the edge of the bed and pouring himself wine from a carafe. “You have a strange dance with words, Gilgamesh.”

“It is what people do when they need to stomach what must be done. Better that than calling it familial slaughter,” I replied bluntly. “But my command of language is not what I came here to discuss, and I have noticed you have yet to answer my question. Has the plan changed?”

“Yes,” he barked. “In defeat, I see the end of everything. And even in victory, I do not see how this ends well. Family, you see, will remain a problem even in death.”

Involuntarily, my eyes hardened. “You speak as though you have cold feet. As if you have already started regretting before actually do anything.”

“No,” he said with a shudder. “I am prepared to do what must be done. We crossed that river long ago.”

“Then...”

He raised a hand. “Peace, Gilgamesh. The plan will continue, but with a few amendments. This, I am sure, will place a greater burden on you, for I cannot be seen taking my own family’s keep by naked conquest. The other local lords would rebel. My father’s vassals, his Knights, would likely swear fresh oaths elsewhere. This must wear at least the veneer of legitimacy if I am to rule these lands, for I have but a thousand blades I can rely on.”

“You have me,” I countered.

The unspoken part was for how long, which we both chose not to broach.

This was beginning to sound complicated, and in my experience complicated things had a bad habit of ending up messy.

Damien swallowed more wine to steady himself, drawing a little desperate courage from the cup. He finished removing his greaves, buying himself a few more moments.

When he turned to me, he still did not quite meet my eyes. This, I feared, was the difficult part. 

“I need you to do what you do... and make sure there are few, if any, survivors. Alone. My sisters... you do not need to fight them,” he said, pausing for a moment. “In fact, it would be best if you did not. They are strong in the Change. Perhaps one day they will find advantageous matches and challenge my claim, but that is a problem for later. More likely, they will fight among themselves for the honor of tearing me apart. If I possess the citadel, that will be enough. And, better that you strike the men in good armor for they will be my father’s Knights if you see them about the keep. I will need their places filled by my own men. You must be seen attacking openly... and then later, I will ‘rescue’ the situation.”

Understanding started to dawn on me. Damien wanted me play a part in his little drama.

“It is one thing to kill one’s family. It is another entirely to avenge them. That is the version most will accept. Yes, even the king,” he explained, refilling his cup.

It was the brutal arithmetic of the game of kings.

Strong in the Change? What in the world did that even mean? More drivel, I thought. More useless drivel. They could bleed. They could die. I had overcome things that could do neither. I judged my chances in such an encounter to be very good. After all, they were only women.

Victors are often so focused on victory that they do not see the day after. “And me? What is your grand design for me once the dust settles?”

“Well, I will be Lord Marquess, and you, my friend, if I may call you that, will be long gone if this deception of mine is to be swallowed.”

“The men will talk. People will talk,” I warned. “And such a performance lies is in the belief that underpins it.”

“People always talk, Gil. But people also believe what they are told if one has power. Truth can be a malleable thing. Even my sisters will have to acknowledge my claim. And, I think that you will perform well enough.”

I looked him long in the eye. “I see… Well at least you will not have to war on the streets with the watch.”

“And you, I think, are not the sort to remain in one place, giving advice on crop yields or how much rot has ruined this year’s grapes. Nor do I think you would be enchanted by the complaints of peasants or lesser lords. No, I do not think that life would suit you in the least,” he added with a sigh, as if this were an afterthought he had just come up, instead of a staged line he had prepared.

It certainly was not what I had envisioned. Even so, I did not enjoy hearing my own thoughts spoken back to me.

“This is a transactional arrangement, my would-be Lord de Savant. Pray tell, what recompense do you envision for me?” I asked, with a faint snort.

“You are a man of great wealth. Richer, I think, than most lords, though you do not yet fully grasp it after the adventure in Al-Lazar. I can offer only a pittance in gold and silver, but I can offer a promise, and repay in kind what you deliver to me.”

“And that is?” I asked, genuinely intrigued at this new angle.

“A promise that if ever you call me to fight, I will come with whatever men I have at my command. Yes, even before my obligations to my own King,” he said seriously.

For a moment, the world seemed to pause around those words. The muffled noise of the inn beyond the door, boots on boards, distant laughter, the clatter of cups, all of it seemed to dull, as though even the house itself were waiting for my answer.

“Words are cheap.”

“But my promises are not. I am worth a thousand blades now, and should you succeed, my promise will be worth many more. Consider this a investment,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulder, finishing the win in his cup before reaching for the carafe once more.

De Savant, for all his preening and bluster, had a point.

“Very well, milord,” I answered with only the smallest amount of sarcasm. “You have your amendment to our understanding. We have an accord. I do not think I need to tell you what will happen if you renege on our bargain.”

He shook his head with the resignation of a man who had just seen the executioner’s block. That was answer enough for me.

“Well then, good evening to you. Tomorrow, I will win you your castle, this town, and your ancestral lands. You are right in one thing: it would not do for me to stay in one place overlong and sour my welcome. I learned that lesson well in Al-Lazar.”

I had my own quest to fulfill, outside of system messages.

Eternity, after all, waits for no one.