The Undying Emperor [Grand Conquest Fantasy]

Spying and counter-spying is one of the most nebulous aspects of warfare. To delve into it would be to unravel a new field of mathematical logic, but this text is one of history. Yet, I must touch on it briefly. To quote a maxim, the most effective form of intelligence gathering is the one which your enemy does not expect. The year before, the Aillesterrans demonstrated this with the deployment of exotic stigmata users to extract information from the movement of Lucius' army. Time and time again, I or Golden were able to get a wealth of information with the animation of deceased birds.

Neither of these were available to the last of the Warden Blades, and yet Lucius knew that there existed a means for Theo to signal them. He surmised that they occupied a position within the ashfall mountains which could see the heavy doors of the keep. Either they were told to expect a special kind of smoke, or they had with them a most precious seeing-eye glass. It would have been wasteful and infeasible to throw everything Theo had brought into a fire and see what might have belonged in a firework, particularly when it was already a known fact that the man had brought poisons.

Instead, he took an indirect approach. The family that had hosted them were shaken by his treatment of Theo, even with the assurance that the man was a criminal, a killer, and had meant them harm as well, but the eldest son of the family held his heart. It was he that volunteered his hunting dog and outfitted it with a jangling bell. The following morning, Lucius embarked on what appeared by all measures to be a nobleman's hunt. He and Leomund, together with helpers from the village, took off on horseback with boar spears glinting in the light.

The expedition was a gamble that the Warden Blades would see it and believe it to be a perfect opportunity. Death by hunting accidents was an all too common event in Vassermark's history, though few believe just how few were accidental. Riding out was akin to throwing meat to dogs, and he coupled it with an intent to circle back on any ridge the locals could think of that had a vantage over the village. Even without a deliberate signal from Theo, he believed they would make their move. The Troll Blade was akin to a river, slow to act but ferocious when the floods began. The Gorgon Blade was the more likely culprit. Young and distraught, the news would have just reached her of the death of the Ladies Montisferro and he assumed that she would blame him for it.

There was a risk the Warden Blades would see his departure as an opportunity to go after Aisha, but it was a risk he had to take. They had no way of knowing Theo had been neutralized, and furthermore he had every confidence that the Troll Blade possessed too much honor to consider endangering a woman and child. Of all the Warden Blades, the Troll Blade deserved a manly respect. Lucius gave it to him, and was rewarded by having the Troll Blade step out to meet him upon the road.

They had only checked two or three suspected hiding spots when the encounter happened. A great deal of information passed between them by the mere meeting of gazes. The Troll Blade was a man of few words, but not a simple mind. "You've come for war then."

"War came for me, Where's Rey?" Lucius asked as he dismounted and couched his boar spear. It was a heavy weapon, but far from unwieldy. In a sense, his foe that day was more dangerous than the demons he had fought in the past. The Troll Blade's power was his bane.

The Troll Blade shoved his metal visor down and drew his blade. Despite not a drop of trollish blood in him, he dwarfed Lucius and his blade was big enough to cut down a horse. "She's here, for you. Theo was right, was he? You're not the real Solhart?"

"Does it matter? You didn't know Solhart until I made the name famous. No one even knows your name, you vaunted lowborn knight."

"True enough," the Troll Blade agreed, watching as Leomund brought his horse up to the clearing. The cliff was too stony for trees, and his mount didn't care for the churning stones underhoof. The northman didn't much urge it either.

Lucius lowered himself into a spearman's stance. "I don't suppose you'd turn your cloak?"

"No."

"Even if you kill me, what's been set in motion won't stop."

"You say that like a revolution is a danger to me. Change whoever is in charge, and there will still be monsters that need killing. Better I keep my honor," the Troll Blade said, edging closer until their weapons could nearly touch.

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Lucius laughed and gave his horse a thump with the butt of his spear, sending it away. "Don't besmirch me when you meet the Shepherd."

"Likewise," the Troll Blade said, and made the first move. He jammed his blade forward, aiming for the cruciform projections intended to catch upon a boar's ribs. Lucius had to leap back lest the weapon be smashed from his grasp.

He retaliated with a slip-strike and again, biting the point toward face and toward thigh. It stymied the knight's advance but drew no blood. Their weapons circled each other warily until a whistle pierced the air as darkness swallowed Lucius' vision. It was Rey's signal and the Troll Blade had been expecting it. Their conversation had given the girl time to adjust herself into position and the Troll Blade hacked forward.

This was precisely why Lucius had brought a spear to the fight however. The weapon was already pointed at the Troll Blade, himself a massive target. The heavy shaft and sturdy tip had enough power to punch through armor, or at least gouge through a seam even inexpertly thrust. The Troll Blade was thus obligated to defend as Lucius reflexively lunged forward. Sword beat upon shaft, a note of knowledge for the blind fighter. The crunch of gravel beneath boot, another. His second stab was quick and wild, like a cornered lion. It too met nothing but air, but it kept the sword from cleaving down on his own skull.

It bought time for Leomund to intercede. He was unarmored, but not a fiber of his being quavered at the difference in size. He too had fought trolls. No man was as scary.

Rey was forced to change the focus of her stigmata the moment the Troll Blade was forced back by the quick flurry of sword strikes. Had she been a few years wiser, she might have realized that Lucius didn't dare stab his spear where it might carve open his greatest ally. When vision returned to him, Lucius whooped a cry and lunged. The wings of his spear smashed into the Troll Blade's temple, knocking his helm from his head. The knight countered with an upswinging cleave, finally breaking the spear in half.

Lucius wasted no time in abandoning it, throwing the broken shaft at the Troll Blade's face. He swatted it aside but couldn't redouble the attack before Lucius had drawn his own blade. Then, again, blindness switched between Lucius and Leomund. Without the distance granted by his spear, he had no particular way to defend himself from the overpowering blows except to retreat.

Leomund had to bark out a warning before Lucius walked himself off the cliff's edge, and for it earned himself a blow to the chest from the Troll Blade's pommel. It bruised but barely injured as Leomund attempted to thrust his blade down the man's gorget. They rolled like graceful beasts on the cusp of a grapple, blades ever seeking the other's flesh.

Then Lucius regained his sight. He jumped from the edge, toward the melee, prepared to intervene for Leomund but the northman didn't miss a beat of the fight. Laughter caused him to hesitate a moment for he knew the gambit had succeeded. Leomund was not the only ally he had brought and now he had proof that Lupa had played her part.

His wastelander bride-to-be still had not mastered the art of horseback riding and elected to move through the shadows. Just as there were only so many vantages to the keep, there were only so many places Rey could hide. Falling upon the girl, they too were in a grapple at once. With body upon body, even when darkness claimed her sight it made little difference to Lupa's ferocity.

Her falling to Rey's blade wasn't a risk Lucius could take lightly. He spared but a single attack for the Troll Blade, smiting him in the head. It was a gruesome blow, but not immediately fatal, taking but a good amount of flesh from his skull. Blood fell in curtains across the man's eyes, obscuring Lucius as effectively as the Gorgon Blade's blindness. From there, the Troll Blade was Leomund's problem to end, as Lucius sprinted for the women. Their grapple disintegrated in a roll, kicking off of each other as they tumbled down rocks and roots. Blood marred both of their slender forms and his thundering footsteps drew the Warden Blade's attention.

He did not immediately cut her down, though I suspect he had the raw strength to push through her defense. She took it as nothing more than his concern for Lupa, and turned her stigmata upon him. The last thing he saw was a pivot of her stance and then he made a simple cut toward her position. The girl twisted like a dancer, moving her own blade around his before plunging it up through the segments of his armor. The tip sank deep, piercing one of his lungs. Breath failed him, but he retained a moment of strength.

It was enough to close his arms around her and throw her to the ground. The move twisted the sword lodged within his chest, ripping it deeper as he got his own blade to the girl's tender throat.

"Leo!" Lupa cried as she ran forward.

"It's done," he barked back, one thick arm still wrapped around the Troll Blade's neck. Even he didn't have the strength to close off the man's life, but a hand's span of steel had been sunk through the knight's eye. The Troll Blade died there, later to be buried by locals who sold off his possessions and knew no name to put on his gravestone.

Lupa grabbed the blade in Lucius' chest and ripped it free. The boy gasped, feeling his own stigmata surge and then his blindness faded. Rey Montisferro relaxed beneath him, tears rolling down red cheeks. She swore and cried and accepted her death, but Lucius did not end her. She alone of the Warden Blades he had use for.