A Charge of Valor

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Romulus stood on a high knoll north of Neversink, watching the horizon in a fit of rage. Commander of all Empire forces in Andronicus’ absence, number two general only to Andronicus himself, Romulus was known to suffer no fools. He stood just a bit shorter than Andronicus, but nearly twice as wide, with a stocky face, a wide jaw, and shoulders so large that his neck nearly disappeared. He had wide, brutal lips, blazing black eyes, huge ears, and smaller horns than Andronicus. He did not wear a necklace of shrunken heads, like Andronicus did. He did not need to. When he encountered his enemies, he snapped their heads off with his bare hands, and was known to hold them in the air and stare into the corpse’s eyes long enough to memorize each face. He branded the face of his enemies into his mind that way, and he never forgot a single one. He held in his head a vast catalog of all the faces of the men he had killed, and sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would lay awake for hours picturing the contours of their faces, and he would smile wide. It gave him a warm feeling inside, and sometimes it helped him fall asleep.

But Romulus was not one to sleep much. He lived for battle, for ambushing his enemies in the middle of the night, on their own turf, and he was famed, deservedly, to be at least as ferocious as Andronicus. Most people knew him to be even more brutal. And that was what irked Romulus: he was greater than Andronicus, he knew this in his heart. So did the people. There was not a single person in the Empire he answered to—except for Andronicus. And if it weren’t for Andronicus, he would be leader of the Empire.

Romulus hated being number two. He had suffered being number two only because he had been biding his time, because the time had never been right to stage a coup. Andronicus was too paranoid and kept too many spies, too many checks to save himself from his own men.

But now that Andronicus had left the Empire to invade the Ring, Romulus sensed an opportunity. For now at least, he, Romulus, was the de facto ruler of the Empire at home; now all the forces were looking to him while Andronicus was out there waging his silly war, following his obsession to dominate the Ring. It had been a foolish misstep, and Romulus was determined to make him pay dearly for it.

Romulus smiled wide: he was preparing his coup, and when Andronicus returned, he would have his head on a plate. First, he would make Andronicus kneel to him, admit his superiority. Admit for the entire Empire to hear that Romulus was the fiercer of the two.

For now, though, Romulus had more pressing matters on his mind. That stupid Sword, the ancient Destiny Sword that had been a thorn in the Empire’s side for centuries, had been so close to his grasp. He had sent a contingent of men to kill the thieves from the Ring before they could cast into the lake. But it had all gone terribly wrong. His men had caught them in time, but they had all been ambushed by the dragons. There was nothing Romulus had been able to do but to stand there, at a distance, and watch as the hideous beasts carried away his treasure, the Sword, flapping their wings, flying high into the horizon, the Sword gleaming in their claws.

As Romulus stood there now, in a rage, still rooted in place, he watched the dragons fly away, farther and farther north, their victorious screeches cutting through the air. Hundreds of men stood behind him with bated breath, all knowing better than to utter a word until he was ready to move.

As he watched the last of the flock of dragons disappear into the horizon, Romulus took a deep breath. It would be a long and hard march to follow them, deep into the Land of the Dragons, and he would lose tons of men confronting these beasts. He might lose them all. It had been centuries since the Empire had dared face off with the dragons.

Yet he had no choice. That Sword was what he needed to establish his legitimacy, to make all the Empire see that he, Romulus, was the one and only great leader; it was what he needed to oust Andronicus. With it in hand, he could make the case that he, not Andronicus, was the one; without it, though, he feared his people would not rally behind them. He had only chance to oust Andronicus, and he could not take any chances.

“MARCH!” Romulus screamed, and as soon as he did, his men began to follow, in unison, without question, on the long trek north to the Land of the Dragons.

The chanting began, the symphony of armor, of weapons, clacking their way down the mountain, as they all marched as one. Romulus searched the horizon as he went, watching the final vestige of dragons in the sky. He would find that Sword. Or have all of his men die trying.