Book 6: Chapter 1: Rockfall
Guapo’s hooves echoed hollowly on the wide, wooden archway of the bridge as Victor rode his spirit steed toward the center of the expanse. The river below rushed and rumbled as it coursed over the massive granite boulders that dotted its bed, and as a gust of powerful, chilly wind rushed over him, Victor shuddered at the idea of falling into those white-capped waters. He urged Guapo to stop as he reached the apex, and then, with a clear view ahead, he studied the jagged, enormous peaks of the Granite Gates.
Even at this distance, they were awe-inspiring. He could see how those who’d named them had thought of them as gates—at this distance, the range was like a gray wall blocking off one part of the world from another, with the two peaks directly ahead standing shoulder to shoulder, separating a narrow canyon. He could imagine them shifting slightly and closing off the passage. Even with a few days’ travel worth of distance between him and the mountains, they were gigantic, seeming to stretch up into the sky, their sharp peaks scraping the border between sky and stars.
Beyond the bridge was a small hamlet, ringed with a high stone wall. The cobbled road continued past the walled village and turned to gray gravel as it passed between the first two peaks, smoothly rising until it wended behind the shoulder of the one on the right. It seemed smooth, at least, a gentle grade up to those high gray mountains, but Victor knew it was deceptive; they were still fifty miles or more from the first of the foothills, so the distance hid all the ripples in the land’s contours. More than that, the two foremost gigantic mountains hid the dozens lined up behind them. His army would be marching through that gap for several days.
Borrius told him the town was called, aptly, Rockfall, and the people there were primarily employed in the Imperial granite quarry at the mouth of the pass. He could see activity on the road and outside the town; it looked like wagons heading in through the gate, not out, which made sense—it would be dark in the next hour or so. Victor turned, Guapo stepping lithely, rotating, sensing his desire.
Far down the road, looking much like a row of insects in the distance, Victor saw his army approaching. A column of soldiers, flanked by two narrower columns of cavalry, and behind them, like beetles following ants, were the wagons, moving through the dust stirred up by the mounted soldiers. It was an impressive sight—their numbers had swelled as they advanced over the hills and plains at the southeastern edge of the Ridonne Empire. The last count Victor had read showed that their ten cohorts were back to full strength and then some.
Borrius hadn’t created a new cohort, though they had the numbers to support nearly two more. He wanted them overfull, wanted them resilient to losses. After all, if things went as expected, they’d be fighting soon. Victor was ready for it. He’d been ready for a fight ever since the Empire had tried to crush their army before their campaign even got started. The Ridonne hadn’t been eager to test his wrath, though. They’d not made a peep, not shown a single Imperial soldier to Victor’s scouts.
Even the towns and villages they’d passed through were deserted of Imperial officials. Word traveled fast, and adjudicators, soldiers, and other representatives of the Empire seemed to flee ahead of the army’s arrival. Victor was fine with that. He figured the town down the road would be similarly bereft of Imperials, though they’d probably slink back home after the army passed through. For all he knew, they simply doffed their Imperial garb and hid among their friends and family. He turned and looked back at the mountains.
They were impressive, no doubt. Much higher, sharper, and ominous than the ones they’d skirted around the Starfall Sea. Much, much bigger than anything he’d seen around Tucson. Rellia and Borrius were nervous about passing through them—something about “wild folk” and rock trolls. Victor wasn’t worried. If something terrible attacked them, he’d deal with it, and if it was just a tribe of monsters tossing rocks down on them, the army would endure. He clicked his tongue, and Guapo started forward, walking with the drum of hooves on hollow boards toward the bridge’s far side.
He'd charged ahead of the army, wanting a bit of peace, some time to himself. Nobody tried to keep pace with Guapo, and the other commanders had grown accustomed to him ranging forth. While good for such a considerable force, the army's pace was mind-numbingly slow to Victor, and if it weren’t for his daily sprints on the Mustang, he’d probably have gone mad. Weeks of travel weren’t his cup of tea, and the passage over these mountains couldn’t be over soon enough as far as he was concerned.
He paused at the far side of the bridge, breathing in the fresh, cool air, examining the well-traveled road and the sparse plains between the river and the hamlet. He figured they should march the army a few miles beyond the settlement and set camp for the night. They’d push on toward the pass early in the morning. “No sense lingering around the town, making everybody nervous, eh, boy?” He scratched Guapo’s neck.
Looking up, he saw three figures riding out of the hamlet toward him. They rode animals that looked similar to vidanii, though they were stouter and shaggier, and their horns were thicker and swept backward in a curl, kind of like a ram’s on Earth. As they grew nearer, Victor saw they were all Ardeni. They all wore mismatched armor, though some looked like it was well made. The one in the middle was a bit older, a bit stockier, and carried two crescent-moon axes hanging from his belt. The others both had bows on their backs and had various weapons strapped to their saddles, from javelins to a fur-wrapped great sword.
Victor had begun to grow used to such sights—adventurers and fortune seekers coming to join the expedition. They made up a sizeable percentage of the new recruits they’d picked up along the march. The trio brought their mounts to a halt a good fifty yards from Victor, and the bigger one cleared his throat. “Well met, sir.”
“Hello.” Victor sat still, his hands folded on the muscular mound of Guapo’s shoulders. Lifedrinker buzzed eagerly on his back, perhaps trying to urge him to leap into battle simply because three armed men stood before him. He grinned at her eagerness; he could relate.
“Are you him? Victor?” the same man asked, eyeing Victor through wide, silver-blue eyes.
“Of course he is, Thed. You ever seen another like him? Or that beast he’s riding.” The second speaker was on Thed’s left, and he clicked his tongue, urging his sturdy mount forward a couple of steps. “We was surprised to see you come over the bridge so soon—word is your army’s still a few hours out.”
“I’m Victor. What can I do for you, fellas?”
“We,” Thed said, nudging his mount’s side with his heels, moving it forward so he was, once again, in the lead, “were wanting to join up with ya. We heard tale of your expedition some weeks back and rode like a banshee-chased boyii to get here ahead of you all. We made it with some time to spare; spent near a week at the tavern over yonder.” He gestured back toward the walled hamlet. “Can’t say I could stomach another pot of the stew the innkeep makes. What do you say, sir? Are you recruiting?”
“Well, boys,” Victor said, smirking inwardly as he considered the very real possibility that these three men were more than twice his age, “we can always use some tough pendejos in the army. What tier are you three?” Sensing his desire, Guapo started forward so Victor could better size the men up.
“We’re all tier-four, sir; been making our fortune testing the dungeons out near the free cities.”
“Fourth tier, huh? That’s good.” Victor nodded, rubbing his chin, looking further and further down his nose at the three men as he and his big Mustang grew closer. He stopped when he was only a few feet away, and the men’s faces had lost a shade of blue, growing pale as they watched him loom over them; he wasn’t even in his titanic aspect. Still, he let just a fraction of his aura start to bleed out, touching the three adventurers, and watched to see if they flinched or, worse, fled. To his surprise, they held up all right, only tightening their grip on their reins and grimacing as they fought to control their mounts.
He grunted and pulled back his aura, nodding. “Good. All right, head up the road to the army. When the scouts stop you, tell them I sent you to speak to Sarl, the captain of the Glorious Ninth. You’ve got a lot of work to do to earn one of their armbands, but if you work hard and fight bravely, you’ll find yourselves surrounded by the best soldiers in the legion.”
The three men babbled their thanks, speaking over each other to profess their gratitude, and then they urged their mounts around him, cantering over the bridge in a noisy rumble. Victor grinned, always pleased to see more strong recruits joining the ranks. He’d just turned back toward the mountains when he heard a thunderous roar echoing through the air, reverberating over the wooden bridge. “Uvu,” he chuckled.
A few moments later, he felt more than he heard Uvu pad over the wooden planks and then stir some gravel nearby. “Hey, Valla.” He didn’t turn to watch her approach.
“Getting better at noticing people coming up behind you?”
“Not hard when Uvu’s scaring the shit out of some poor adventurers.”
“They didn’t react nearly as badly as the last ones who came along.” Valla and Uvu stopped on his left side, and she smiled up at him in greeting. Victor felt his heart racing as he looked down at her, saw those big teal eyes, and basked in the brightness of her smile. She really didn’t smile often, and he felt like it made the few she threw out every day a lot more meaningful. He supposed there was a lesson in there for him—something about swearing too much, perhaps.
He wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked to him at that moment, with the reddish-orange sunset lighting her eyes and face with a sort of golden glow. He’d tried that, though, and when he was blunt about his attraction, it seemed to chase her off, make her withdraw a bit. He’d found that if he just played it cool and made himself available, she was apt to show him a little affection, hinting at the heat they’d shared the night of the battle with the Imperials. She definitely wasn’t ready for an open, romantic relationship, but he felt like slow and steady might win the race. He hoped. The truth was, Victor had no damn idea if he was doing things right—maybe he should be more forward. On a whim, he said, “Your eyes look pretty in this light.”
“Is that any way to speak to your Primus?” Her voice was scolding, but her eyes were laughing.
“Yeah, when she’s got eyes like polished turquoise, and the sunset makes ‘em look like they were dipped in gold . . .”
“All right, enough, Sir Legate.” She chuckled and, as some color flooded her cheeks, turned toward the hamlet. “We’ll push past before camping?”
“Yeah, I think that’s for the best. No sense panicking the locals.”
“Agreed. Imagine how it would look if we encamped outside their walls. The children would be terrified. Let’s march five miles or so past the walls. The moons will be out tonight, and the soldiers are sturdy. I know you’re eager to get through the pass in any case.”
“Damn right. I know this is important, and the rewards will be worthwhile, at least for everyone back there,” he jerked his thumb toward the army, “but I’m ready to do something else for a while. I’ve been talking to Khul Bach, and the old bastard still doesn’t think I’m anywhere near ready to do what he wants me to do on Zaafor. I think we need to find a place to adventure when we’re done here. A world that’ll challenge us and where we can learn ways to push ourselves into new improvements.” He frowned momentarily, reaching down to tug her chin toward him so their eyes locked. “You’re coming with me, right?”
“That’s my plan.” She nodded gravely, pushing his arm away. Then, in a softer voice, she added, “Not sure how I’m going to explain it to Rellia . . .” She always used her mother’s name when she was frustrated.
“We’ll cross that one when we come to it. She’s going to have her hands full, anyway.” He clicked his tongue, and Guapo started forward at a walk. Valla and Uvu kept pace with him. “I mean with the kingdom building and whatnot.”
“Indeed, she’ll be a pig in a banquet.”
Victor looked at her sharply, thinking the System had broken down for a moment when he heard the word “pig” come out of her mouth. Then he remembered all the bacon and stew laden with pork he’d eaten in this world and nodded. “Trips me out that you have an animal here close enough to the one I have on my world that the System uses the same word. It’s weird the System doesn’t call holbyis ‘sheep,’ too, ‘cause they’re pretty damn close.”
Valla didn’t reply immediately, just looking at him with narrowed eyes, perhaps trying to make sense of his words. After a moment, she shook her head slightly. “The System is certainly interesting. Have you given any thought to the treasures we found after the battle? And the more potent items Edeya discovered in the valuables you had her catalog for you?”
Victor grunted, his mind turning to the list of items she was referring to. The army had scoured the fallen Imperials, taking their weapons and armor and recovering over a thousand storage containers, from rings to pouches to magical backpacks. Valla wasn’t talking about the more mundane treasures—beads, jewelry, gems, various potions, lesser armor, or weapons. No, she was talking about the half-dozen racial enhancement items, a conscious rapier, and a few magical artifacts that would enhance users of certain affinities.
None of those treasures were of much use to Victor. He could eat all of the racial enhancements and probably only gain one rank. He didn’t want the rapier, and none of the artifacts were much good for a Spirit Caster. Edeya had cataloged a trove of wealth, and he’d taken ownership of it all; he could pass some out here and there as rewards or use the money for purchases at another time. The racial enhancements were from the field, though, found in an overturned Imperial supply wagon. Could he just hand them to whomever he wanted? If Edeya had been the one to find them, he would have had her consume one immediately.
“I told you I want Edeya to have at least one.”
“And I reminded you that the unit that recovered those items spread the word around camp. Soldiers are eager to see how you’ll assign them.”
Victor nodded, thinking it over while they rode. They were only a half mile or so from the town, and he wanted to assure the people within that the army would be passing by without any threat to their populace. “I have the lists from the captains. The ones I used to hand out medals and commendations.”
“Yes, but you already did that.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now, and I’ve come up with a plan. First, I don’t care what anyone says; Edeya’s getting one of the racial enhancements. After that, I think I’ll put together a list. I’m going to write down all the treasures we have available, and I’ll institute a token system.” He looked at Valla, instantly knew what she was about to say, and cut her off, “Yeah, I’m ripping off the Warlord’s idea. We’re going to have Campaign Tokens, and soldiers will earn one for every battle they’re in.”
“That won’t help if everyone has the same amount of tokens . . .”
“No, hold on, let me finish. They’ll also earn them by doing special tasks, like scouting in dangerous areas or training recruits. They can earn extra tokens for valor, for which they have to be nominated by a higher-ranking soldier. We can flesh out the system and add some details, but I think if we have a bunch of items for, like, one or two tokens, many soldiers will blow them early, and then it will be a race for the more frugal ones to build up enough for the better items.”
“I like it.” Valla didn’t say more, as they were nearly in front of the gate to the little town. Victor admired the hard work that had gone into the wall—carefully chiseled stone blocks, likely cut with Energy, fit together nearly seamlessly to form a rather formidable barrier almost twenty feet high, and if the tunnel behind the gate were any indication, about half that wide. Nobody was present outside the gate or further down the road. Victor had watched them all going inside as he and Valla approached. The gate was open, though, so he didn’t think they’d terrified the populace too much—that, or they were afraid of offending him.
After they sat outside the gates for a few moments, Victor heard some commotion from the tunnel, and then a woman appeared, walking hesitantly through the tunnel and out the gate. She was clad in soft-looking yellow linens, and a white fur cap sat atop her bright green curls. She was an Ardeni and young, with little freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. She stopped by the gate and looked from Victor to Valla to Uvu, then back to Victor. “May we help you, Lord and Lady?”
“We just want to assure you that we’ll be passing by. The troops marching past your town will not seek to enter or harass any of your citizens.” Valla spoke—Victor was used to her doing so when they met strangers together.
“Will it enrage you if we close the gates until you’ve passed by?” The girl, for Victor didn’t think she could be older than fifteen, shrank back a little as she spoke.
“That’s fine.” Victor shrugged. “Why’d they send you out here instead of the mayor or whoever’s in charge?”
“I lost the lottery . . .”
“What the fu . . .”
“Thank you,” Valla said, speaking over Victor’s outburst. “Go inside now and close your gates. We’ll be gone before you’ve all had your supper.”
“Hang on,” Victor said before the girl could fully turn around. He reached into his dimensional container and fished out a small bag of beads. “Catch.” He tossed them to the girl, and she deftly snatched the pouch out of the air, causing the beads to click together satisfyingly. “Don’t share that with those chickenshit assholes in there.”
“Thank you!” Before Victor could reply, she was gone, slipping through the gates, already swinging shut—the operator must have heard Valla’s words.
“A lottery,” Victor scoffed, clicking his tongue to get Guapo moving again. “Come on; let’s pick out our campsite. I want to set up my house and kick my feet up for a while before Borrius starts boring me.” He shook his head, laughing at his choice of words. Valla didn’t join in, so he stared at her for a minute until she broke, a smile spreading her lips as her low, soft laugh joined his.
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