Blood of Empire

Chapter 36

Vlora watched an approaching column with no small amount of trepidation, knowing that if she’d still had her sorcery, she could spend this time closely studying the faces of the men and women, gaining an early edge on her political enemies. Instead, she was left to stew in her impatience, while her mood grew darker with every passing moment.

Her army had stopped for the night, and she could smell the smoke from fires as company cooks began to turn rations into something vaguely resembling dinner. She’d been told she would enjoy venison herself – a bit of meat shot by one of the camp followers and sold to the general-staff chef. She doubted she would actually enjoy it. Everything seemed to taste of ash these days, even after her recent realizations.

One of her first duties as a commanding officer receiving politicians was to invite them to dinner. Vlora had no intention of doing so, and decided she would have to get her pleasure from the petty snub.

“That’s almost two thousand soldiers,” Bo said. Nila was off aiding the wounded, but Bo had elected to join Vlora. General Sabastenien was here as well. No one else had bothered. Delia Snowbound was not popular among any of the soldiery, and less so among the senior officers. Even under the best of circumstances Vlora herself had trouble dealing with Delia without losing her temper. It was not even close to the best of circumstances.

“The High Provosts,” Vlora spat. Even at this distance she recognized the flags flying above the infantry column. One of them was the classic crimson with the mountains and teardrop. The one below it was small but no less bold – a contrasting military blue with the same exact emblem, but an added chevron below the teardrop. The High Provosts were a wing of the military police created after the Adran-Kez War as a sort of royal guard for the new ministerial government. Delia Snowbound and her allies had managed to gain control of the High Provosts and turn them into a check on the military leadership of the country. It had been the High Provosts who oversaw the disbanding of much of the Adran Army.

Delia herself was insult enough. But the presence of two thousand High Provosts was a slap to Vlora’s face and a clear statement of Delia’s intentions – she wasn’t just here to make sure that Vlora played nice in a foreign war. She was here to remove Vlora from power.

Vlora couldn’t let Delia get the better of her. Not now. She had to remain calm.

Bo glanced in her direction and did a double take. “Are you okay?”

“I’m practicing a pleasant smile,” Vlora told him.

“You look like you’re about to chew your own leg off.”

“That’s why I’m practicing.”

“Maybe just not smile at all. Try total neutrality.”

Vlora rubbed at her jaw, trying to work some of the tension out of it. “How about now?”

“You look constipated.”

“Sabastenien?” She turned to her general.

Sabastenien cleared his throat, seemed about to say something, then think better of it.

“He agrees with me,” Bo said confidently. “Just relax. This won’t be that bad.”

“Two thousand High Provosts and Delia Snowbound. How could it possibly be worse?”

“Four thousand High Provosts?” Sabastenien suggested.

“You’re not helping.” Vlora leaned back in her saddle, attempting to loosen the knot between her shoulders. The column continued their approach, and she noticed that hundreds of her soldiers had turned out to the edge of camp to watch. She had a pang of fear. High Provosts were paid better than the regular army, and their numbers had been heavily recruited from the surviving scions of the old noble families who’d been exterminated by Tamas and their sympathizers. She worried that she wouldn’t have to do or say a damned thing for her soldiers to turn on the provosts.

Anything they did on their own initiative would reflect poorly on her.

The column finally reached the edge of camp and came to a stop. A small group detached itself from the main body and rode up the hill toward Vlora. She recognized both Delia and the man at her side. Delia was a tall, slim woman with hawkish features and an overbearing air, her nose turned up and her lips fixed in something close to a permanent sneer. Her long blond hair trailed all the way down across her horse’s back. She wore a riding jacket and pants as if she’d turned out for a fox hunt rather than to join a military expedition.

The man’s name was Valeer, and what he lacked in height – being only an inch or two taller than Vlora herself – he made up for in arrogance. He’d inherited the High Provosts from their original commander and done his very best to turn them into Delia’s private little army. He wore the blue-and-crimson uniform of a High Provost, with an epaulet on his left shoulder.

The pair looked every bit the part of the old aristocracy, and the presentation was, Vlora understood, absolutely deliberate.

“Provost Marshal Valeer,” Vlora called as the two approached. “To what do we owe the honor?”

Neither of them answered until they’d ridden up close to Vlora and her companions. Valeer eyeballed both Bo and Sabastenien before turning to Vlora. “A military crisis,” he said.

“Lady Flint,” Delia greeted with a nod.

Vlora ignored the clear implication from Valeer and returned Delia’s nod. “Lady Snowbound. What an auspicious visit.”

Delia looked around. “You had warning of our arrival?”

“We did.”

“Then where is the rest of the general staff?”

“Having dinner, I believe.”

“We should join them.”

“Should we?” Vlora asked. Her voice cracked. Beside her, Bo cleared his throat. “Pardon me,” Vlora continued, pressing a hand to her chest and coughing. “I mean to say, I’d rather not interrupt anyone’s dinner. They are dining with their troops tonight.”

“I see.” Delia cast a long look at Bo. He smiled back at her.

“Lady Snowbound, is there something I can do for you?” Vlora asked in her most neutral tone. Even to her it sounded defensive. “We only found out about your impending arrival yesterday morning and –”

“Lady Flint,” Delia cut her off. “Marshal Valeer and I have come to relieve you of your command. I would rather have told you the news formally, in front of the general staff, but there you have it.”

“In front of witnesses, you mean?” Vlora asked lightly.

Delia ignored her. “We’ve been instructed to send you, Magus Borbador, and Privileged Nila back to Adro to answer to the governing council. They turned a blind eye to your brigade of mercenaries, but you are still a sitting member of the Adran Republic Cabal and an Adran general, and the fact that you’re now leading a field army across a foreign continent puts our entire web of international relationships in peril. Once you are gone, Valeer and I will remain behind and attempt to sort out this war that you and Borbador seem to have thrown us into.”

Vlora leaned forward onto her saddle horn and frowned at Delia. The silence stretched into nearly a minute, and Valeer was the first one to break it, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle. “Did you hear her?” he asked. “You’ve been relieved of your post, effective immediately. You should gather your general staff to pass on the news and formalize the changing of command.”

“That’s not happening,” Vlora said.

“Pardon?” Delia looked taken aback.

Vlora made a show of checking her pockets, then removed a small book from one of them. She’d borrowed it from the Riflejack military attorney. She licked one finger and flipped through the book, then ran the tip of that finger along the page to a sentence that had already been underlined for her. She quoted, “Under extraordinary circumstances, and in possession of individual knowledge that affects the well-being of the motherland, a ranking general may operate his or her army in foreign territory independent of orders from Adopest.”

Delia sneered. “You believe that you can invoke Tamas’s Clause. At me?”

It took Valeer a moment to catch up, but eventually his eyes widened. “That clause was written during the Gurlish Wars to give Field Marshal Tamas leave to operate without waiting for orders that might take months to arrive.”

“The clause is still very much on the books,” Vlora assured him.

“And you think it applies to this circumstance?”

“Absolutely,” Vlora replied confidently. “These are extraordinary circumstances, and I possess individual knowledge that affects the well-being of the motherland.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid that since you must have left Adopest between six and eight weeks ago, you couldn’t possibly know about those extraordinary circumstances. Therefore, I can override your request to hand over command of this army.”

“It was not a request,” Valeer barked. “It was an order from your government!”

“Speak that way to Lady Flint again and I’ll slap that mustache off your face,” Sabastenien said coolly.

Both Vlora and Delia held up a hand in a mirror gesture to silence their subordinates. It almost made Vlora laugh. “An ill-informed government,” she assured them.

“Tamas’s Clause does not allow you to act with impunity,” Delia warned.

“No, of course not,” Vlora replied. “I would never dream of it. Accordingly, I will order a briefing drawn up for you and Valeer. It should be ready tomorrow. Once you know everything that I know, I’m sure you’ll agree that these circumstances are extraordinary and you will take your provosts and return to Adro.”

That last bit was, Vlora knew, wishful thinking. But she couldn’t help but try to steer them that way. Delia’s nostrils flared and her horse pranced to one side, as if sensing its rider’s anger. She spoke through clenched teeth. “We have the authority to take your command.”

“And I have the authority to tell you to buzz off,” Vlora replied. “Don’t think I mistook your intentions, showing up with two thousand provosts. You may hate me because of who my father was, but you can’t possibly think me a fool. I have no intention of risking my legacy on an unsanctioned foreign invasion – I will be vindicated in my actions.”

Delia snorted and turned her horse away. “Prepare your briefing,” she snapped over her shoulder as she began to ride back to her provosts. “We shall be the judge of this.”

Vlora felt herself once again missing Olem as she looked over a hastily-drawn-up briefing titled “The Dynize-Fatrasta Conflict.” Normally, Olem would handle this sort of thing and she trusted him so implicitly that she wouldn’t even have felt the need to read the draft. That sense of loneliness cut deep every time, refusing to go away until she consciously pushed it aside. She had no more time for self-pity. There was too much riding on her ability to think clearly.

She read through the briefing for a fourth and fifth time, adjusting the language here and there in light pencil. She finally called for a secretary to take it to be read over by a handful of her Riflejack officers. Instead of a secretary, it was Bo who popped inside.

He took the draft out of her hand without a word and dropped onto her cot, reading through it quickly. “This looks good,” he finally said, handing it back. “I would change ‘threat to Adran interests in the region’ to ‘Adran interests worldwide.’ A new god would, after all, be a worldwide threat.”

Vlora made the change without comment. “Hand this to the secretary outside.”

Bo did as she asked and returned, taking a seat back on her cot and frowning at the wall.

“Well?” she asked him.

“Well what?”

“I assume you’ve spent the last couple of hours making contact with any spies or old allies you have among the High Provosts.”

“Ah. Yes, that I have. Not a very good lot unfortunately. Delia specifically made sure that most of the High Provosts she brought with her have good reason to hate me.”

“She has always been annoyingly thorough.”

“Indeed. I was able to bribe a lieutenant.”

“Get anything good out of him?”

“Her,” Bo corrected. “But yes, a few interesting tidbits. It turns out that when Delia began to put together her expedition, she was absolutely convinced that I had just left to invade Fatrasta.”

“What did you tell everyone?”

“ ‘Cabal business.’ ” Bo shrugged.

“You got forty thousand soldiers into a fleet on ‘Cabal business’?”

“It’s easier than it sounds when you do it in little chunks. Only the generals actually knew what we were doing. The rest of the soldiers all thought they were going on small, isolated missions. They didn’t find out until they reached a rendezvous well off the coast.”

“You say that like it isn’t a terrifying feat of subterfuge.”

“It took some planning,” Bo admitted. “I’m honestly surprised we left without a major inquest by the First Minister.”

“Well, they’ve caught up with you.”

“Right! About that – so, they thought I was leaving to invade Fatrasta. However, they found out about the Dynize invasion just before they left and didn’t really get any new information until they reached our fleet a few days ago. They thought they were coming to arrest a rogue group of generals and a couple of Privileged – those provosts include half a dozen mage breakers among their number. Instead, they find out that I’ve handed command to you and that no one is planning any sort of foreign invasion. Everyone in the fleet, and indeed our own general staff, considers this a peacekeeping mission.”

Vlora frowned, feeling a tiny thread of optimism. “Are you saying we might be able to convince Delia that we’re in the right?”

“I’m saying that Delia is going to spend the next few days rethinking her position. She didn’t actually know you’d be here until she met with our fleet commanders. Seems to have thrown her off a bit. Quoting Tamas’s Clause at her has her in an absolute fury. I have no doubt she’s going to figure out how best to make your life miserable – but I’m fairly confident you can keep your command without going into open rebellion against the Adran government.”

“And if that happens?” Vlora asked.

Bo crossed his legs and tapped absently on his prosthetic. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I break a lot of rules because I can get away with it, but I’d really rather not get involved with actual treason. I imagine most of the general staff feels the same way.”

“So, no treason,” Vlora mused. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She took a few deep breaths. Delia had arrived and Vlora still had her command. One step at a time. But she had to remain vigilant. Delia hated her, Bo, and every other officer and soldier who’d helped with Tamas’s coup ten years ago. She wasn’t going to give up simply because of a clause named after the very man who had executed her family.