Arcane mercenaries emper.., p.1
Arcane Mercenaries: Emperor, page 1
ARCANE MERCENARIES: EMPEROR
MARK AUGUST
Copyright © 2022 by Mark August
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Cris
May our next year have fewer plot twists and a happy ending
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Strategy
2. Challenges
3. Enemies Closer
4. Frenemies
5. Empire
6. Decision
7. Called Out
8. Showdown
9. Ride
10. Emissary
11. Deployment
12. Battle of Krosno
13. Battle Continued
14. Raid
15. Aftermath
16. Alliance
17. Attrition
18. Team
19. Marching Order
20. Change of Command
21. Evasion
22. Patrol
23. Terdam
24. Village Council
25. Papers
26. Move Out
27. Prison Camp
28. Sympathizers
29. Church Envoy
30. Separate Ways
31. Hit and Run
32. Assessment
33. Resistance
34. Counterattack
35. Consequences
36. Discovery
37. Delegation
38. Not Fun and Games
39. Invitation
40. Honored Guests
41. Bird Cage
42. Negotiations
43. An Offer
44. Show of Strength
45. Outrage
46. Appeal
47. An Afternoon Ride
48. Church Deals
49. Loss
50. Update
51. Battle is Joined
52. Desperate Measures
53. Last Stand
54. Proposal
55. Soul Searching
56. Krosno
57. Tough Talk
58. Mists
59. Fog
60. Rain
61. Battle on the Nanfell
62. Cracks in the Alliance
63. Tul Surprise
64. Hasty Defense
65. Colors
66. Breach
67. Courtyard
68. Aftermath
69. Apocalypse
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Mark August
PROLOGUE
Flagging morale, devastating defeats, and limited supplies.
This is what defeat looks like.
When the Tul stormed across the ancient borders, the Alenann generals thought an ample dose of firepower would scatter the invaders and send them fleeing back to their camps. The staff predicted a short but violent conflict to restore the borders and didn’t issue orders for supplies and reinforcements. Arrogant commanders, overconfident in their technological wonders, forgot the men and women who had to stand and fight.
The Tul didn’t make the same mistake.
They overran the border in hours, barely enough time for brave defenders to fire a few shots before the outposts surrendered. Scattered reports came back to sleepy headquarters used to the luxuries of an easy assignment and were ignored. Alenann lost precious opportunities to mobilize its resources against the horse armies racing north.
After fifteen years of the Mage Wars, I thought Alexander finally had a cadre of wartime generals. Since time immemorial, politics reigned supreme, and inept commanders floundered as they tried to counter the fast-moving assault. Why wouldn’t Alexander fire them?
Too many nobles worried about their political fortunes and occupied senior positions desperate for military expertise. They could be the end of Alenann if we can’t check the Tul onslaught.
Then the emperor summoned me to the capital. There were parades, elaborate dinners, and countless parties. A waste of time as soldiers died on the collapsing front lines.
Alexander III understood the requirement for a show, and I think I knew deep inside what came next.
A promotion.
Sina beamed as she watched her grandfather pass me the field marshal’s baton and place me in charge of the disastrous defense.
The Apocalypse was upon us, and the emperor smiled. Everyone knows I’m StarTouched, and their hatred seethed at the honors laid at my feet. Every general and noble cursed my luck. The church would be first in line to take my head, but they’d all wait and watch me fail like every other officer expected to stop the Tul.
Another impossible job.
Being StarTouched wouldn’t be enough this time.
- Grant Gwydian, Field Marshal of Alenann
1
STRATEGY
Impossible. After fifteen years of defying the odds and pulling through the most unlikely scenarios, Grant Gwydian faced the unthinkable.
The former mercenary crushed his fists into the wooden grain of the broad table and hung his head. He couldn’t envision a way out of this one, and he couldn’t blame anyone other than himself this time.
He shook his head and straightened his back. Pain shot through his hips from too much time spent huddled over tables in the command center, and his Touched abilities surged to heal the aches. Grant rubbed his eyes and ran his palm across the thick sandpaper of whiskers along his jawline.
Grant glanced at the collection of maps and hand-written reports for the hundredth time as the staff officers made their way around the headquarters, avoiding getting too close to him.
Fatigue clouded his strategic thinking, and he couldn’t remember the last solid night’s sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, his mind couldn’t release thoughts of enemy dispositions, lines of advance, supply rates, combat effectiveness, hospital reports, and reserves. Sleep jumbled the estimates and didn’t provide rest.
Those weren’t numbers; they were people.
A cup of coffee would help cut through the haze. He figured he was up to about two pots a day. Pretty soon, he’d have to check if blood was still running through his veins rather than cheap, black, military-grade liquid.
Grant tore his sight from the map depictions and guided his sheathed sword away from the table legs. Staff officers avoided his gaze and moved around the room, posting their reports and discussing their latest findings. The indistinct murmur in the cavernous space was soothing. At least they weren’t panicking—yet.
Grant knew there were fifteen steps between him and the coffee mugs. His headquarters staff learned to keep several pots brewing, and they kept the steel carafes over the iron stove in constant motion to provide the lifeblood of the headquarters pumping. He picked up his tin field cup from the table, ignoring the glass and china variants. He scoffed at the clumpy sugar and warm milk and favored his beverage precisely as they brewed it.
After the first sip, he examined the morning rhythm of his team. The room was at the heart of his headquarters building. Grant still grappled with the thought of his command post. As a conscript, he slept in his cloak and often found himself in a damp cell. For a decade as a mercenary captain, he lived with a tent, a cot, and an easel. A handful of maps waited for his morning ritual, and he could hold a staff meeting in his tiny quarters.
With a sword and a few loyal friends, he fought on every battlefield in nearly every country in the Mage Wars. Today, his spacious chamber had stone pillars supporting a ceiling twenty feet over his head. Leaded glass warped over the years let yellow shafts of light into the room. Swirling dust hung in the illumination, uncaring about the nearby commotion. Flagstones covered the floor, and the thump of each boot strike matched the murmuring voices.
How did a small-town family man end up here? Why did everyone wait for his decision?
StarFall and the Mage Wars. Unlike so many names on his latest casualty reports, he had survived impossible odds.
Armed with his steamy cup, his favored weapon to tackle staff work, Grant brought his coffee back to the table to study the lines for the thousandth time. Their situation didn’t look better.
The Tul campaign against Alenann continued its unrelenting advance across the empire. Three main axes lined up in what he called the west, center, and east axes. Each axis represented an entire Tul army of horses and infantry pushing aside Alenann resistance. To date, the Tul brushed aside Grant’s hasty defense.
The Tul armies paused only long enough to destroy local opposition. Sure, Alenann had a few lucky days where victory seemed possible. But an achievement in the east meant the west would falter. The center might stall, which allowed the wings to advance in the east and the west. Every day, the lines shifted north.
Grant’s greatest success to date was convincing the emperor the valor of the empire would not stop the Tul. They required support from other nations. The past month brought in friends and reluctant allies into the headquarters. Grant allowed the partners unrestricted access to his reports and intelligence analysis. It was heresy in a bureaucracy to share that much information within a shaky alliance with former enemies, but Grant had nothing else to offer. They should see the entire threat.
It worked.
Bohem, Eklund, and Nanteene j oined forces with Alenann. Grant had to buy more time to deploy their units in the field. Of course, he’d also have to wrangle through national issues like the chain of command and swaying the opinion of ego-centric commanders who thought their careers were more important than their duty.
Grant paused and took a sip of his morning brew. A spurt of his Touched power healed his burned tongue before he knew the mug was still too hot. His mind wandered away from the beverage and back to the battlefields.
“All those deep thoughts will hurt your mind, Grant,” Ez said.
Grant couldn’t keep his grin off his face. Esmerelda, everyone called her “Ez,” was Grant’s second in command when he led the Arcane Mercenaries on the Mage Wars battlegrounds. He glanced at the new rank on her shoulders, a full colonel. She probably hated being anything other than a lieutenant in their mercenary company, but no one worked through the logistics and the detail-oriented issues of command better than Ez. And she was one of the few who still spoke her mind around him.
“Those deep thoughts better figure out a way to blunt these attacks. We’ll be on the Ismorian islands before winter at this rate.” Grant took another sip. This time it was cool enough to let his body enjoy the heat while he waited for the caffeine to pump through his veins.
“Field Marshal, when was the last time you slept?” The deep voice laced with genuine concern was from his command sergeant, Jafran Syed. Grant’s title still made him wince, and every time someone addressed him as a field marshal, Grant wanted to glance over at his shoulder to make sure the rank belonged to him.
“Sleep is overrated, command sergeant.”
“Not if we have to carry your unconscious body out of here, Grant,” Ez said. She stood by his side but didn’t offer him pity. She’d seen him worse. Instead, she focused on the map. “Anything change since last night?”
“Intelligence coming in points toward an east push. Supplies are moving in that direction, and more movement in their camps.” Grant pointed at the known supply depots at the rear of the Tul advance.
“Now that we have an alliance, the Tul might want to take out our allies in the east. Losing Eklund and Lundmarch would open up Alenann to a sweeping attack.” The fresh voice was light and airy, long practiced for big speeches and songs. Rienne was a skilled bard who attached herself to the mercenaries and couldn’t find a better place to record this phase of the Mage Wars.
“Rienne.” Ez glared at the new arrival.
“Ez.” Ez’s blunt recognition didn’t faze Rienne.
The two stood on opposite sides of Grant, and he didn’t have time for this first thing in the morning. He leaned over the table again to let the moment between them pass.
“Grant, this is the largest war of the past hundred years. But no one should have to carry this burden alone,” Ez said. “That’s why we’re here, to help bear that weight.”
“Command is lonely, Ez. The emperor expects marvels that I can’t find. This is nothing like commanding the mercenaries. We could deliver miracles.”
“Yes, but only on one stretch of ground. Maybe as far as we could see, but that was the limit of our influence.” Her fingers traced their lines of defense in the traditional blue ink. “Your area of operations is an empire.”
“You brought the alliance together, Grant. Only someone who had fought on all this land and earned the respect of foreign leaders and their generals could have pulled this off. The emperor was too proud to consider an alliance when it appeared his prophecies were true,” Rienne added.
“Rienne, these are Alenann officers around us. Please keep your voice down. Treason is possible in the headquarters. Even standing next to the field marshal,” Jafran said.
Rienne was usually quick with a quip or a retort, but she nodded at Jafran’s words. A dark morning indeed.
They were right. The alliance provided numbers and supplies the Alenann forces desperately needed, even if the nobles grumbled about the other nations in the headquarters. Without their contributions, Alenann would fall.
“You’ll find a way, Grant. The answer’s not here on this map or hidden in these icons,” Ez said and placed a hand on his chest. “It’s in your heart. You’ll find the solution here.”
Grant’s heart thumped under his uniform shirt.
A staff officer in the black uniform and red stripes of Alenann stood at a respectful distance and waited to be recognized. Grant nodded and waved for the man to continue. He didn’t like the formalities of his command, but he couldn’t afford more of his mercenaries filling staff positions.
“General Michaux and the Nanteene command staff are waiting.”
Grant glanced longingly toward his coffee and wished for a few more moments before the day's responsibilities weighed on his soul. That choice was already gone.
“Show them in.”
2
CHALLENGES
“General Michaux, welcome to the alliance headquarters. The last time we met, you were a captain working for the minister of war.”
“Your memory serves you well, Field Marshal.” The words were curt and formal, and General Michaux spoke with barely an accent.
The young general must be thirty, but he was dressed as the perfect image of military leadership. A blue uniform coat with two columns of polished brass buttons covered an impeccable white shirt. Knee-high boots were shined to a reflective coat, and the sword at his hip had tasteful decoration to highlight the position without sacrificing the weapon’s utility. The only thing missing from the dress uniform was a row of medals and ribbons. The man was impressive.
“Command sergeant, would you take the general’s team to their assigned rooms and let them get to work?” Jafran came to attention and moved to carry out the order.
“We’ve set up a command section for you and your staff, and you have access to everything in this room, general. My chief of staff—“
“Field Marshal, I’m certain your offer will meet all our expectations. You shouldn’t worry yourself with these details. Our staff can work them out. It is the battlefield that concerns me.”
Rienne shifted her place away from Grant’s side and moved to the opposite length of the table. She had the perfect view of the national leaders gazing over the map. Ez stood next to the senior commanders as the Nanteene general took in the strategic depiction.
“Do you have more detailed maps of these advances, field marshal?”
“Of course,” Grant said. “This map lets me see the full scope of the battlefield and their advance. They could have pushed any of these axes through our defenses and raced toward a capital. Any of them.”
“Your intelligence is dated, field marshal. They have broken through the eastern defenses.” General Michaux delivered his blow and watched Grant’s response.
Grant didn’t know what to say.
“What are your sources?” Ez challenged, and Grant didn’t like the tone in her voice. Grant threatened to leave Alenann if the emperor didn’t bring in allies, and Nanteene answered the call. This wasn’t the time to be overprotective. She caught Grant's look and cast her eyes downwards.
General Michaux made no note of the outburst and pointed at the eastern axis. “The Tul broke through the line of defense here and have begun their advance.” He traced a line to Lundmarch and Eklund. Grant didn’t need to be a brilliant strategist to envision the Tul army turning west to encircle the Alenann capital.
