The Storm King

Chapter 424: Stakes

“So, how did it go on your end?” Roland asked Leon as they rode along toward the camp where August had returned once the battle was over.

“Fairly well…” Leon replied, quickly giving Roland a summary of what his people had done.

“That’s impressive,” Roland said appreciatively. “It’s not easy keeping nobles and their retainers under control in the best of circumstances, let alone with the added complexity of being the flanking element. It’s good to see that you were able to keep your people in line, despite the actions of Lord Gellius.”

“Don’t be too impressed, I’m sure the giants did most of the work just by being present,” Leon replied, easily dismissing Roland’s compliments.

“If that’s how you want to see it, then I guess that’s how it is.” Roland shrugged and the two continued onward.

“How was it on your end, by the way?” Leon asked. As soon as the question was out of his mouth, Roland’s expression turned dark.

“It was… not easy. We just had to sit here for hours as Duke Duronius sent his own Legions against us time and time again. We took many casualties.”

“Is that why we’re not pursuing Duronius?”

“Probably,” Roland acknowledged. “I made sure Prince August knew how bad of a situation we were in, and only after I did that did His Highness make the call not to launch a pursuit.”

“How bad is it?” Leon quietly asked.

“I’d say roughly five thousand of my soldiers were killed, alongside probably twenty thousand wounded, but that’s just a preliminary estimate, I haven’t gotten the official numbers, yet.”

Leon winced. Twenty-five thousand out of eighty thousand Legion soldiers in total, and that wasn’t even touching on the possible casualties sustained by the nobles. It was no wonder why August wasn’t willing to pursue Duronius given that the Duke still undoubtedly outnumbered them.

“Do you have any idea how long it might be before we get most of those wounded back into shape?” Leon further inquired.

Roland gave him a quick, tense smile. “I’ll be honest, Leon, I’m almost as new to all of this as you are—don’t forget that I’m only thirty-two.”

Leon reeled so hard he almost accidentally hurled himself off of Anzu. He knew that Roland was young, but it had slipped his mind just how young the man was.

Seeing Leon’s reaction brought a smile to Roland’s face. “I get that a lot,” he said. “I’m sure you do too, given the difference between your age and power.”

“Not so much, actually…” Leon replied as he tried to think back. Most of the time he found that his status as a Valeman took precedence over his power as it related to his age. Most people heard his last name and made up their minds about him, or so it seemed.

“I’m sorry to hear that…” Roland whispered. “Have you ever considered… I don’t know… changing your name? Even if other Valemen can’t just change their names, I’m sure you can,”

Leon glanced at Roland out of the corner of his eye to see the man give him a very brief meaningful look.

“No,” he unhesitatingly replied, his voice carrying a tinge of annoyance. “I am a Valeman. No use in denying it, no matter what technical arguments someone may use to try and convince me otherwise. I lived my entire childhood up there, and the Forest of Black and White is what I envision when I think of ‘home’. Or, at least it was until I bought myself a house with Elise.”

“How is she, by the way?” Roland asked. He could tell that Leon wanted to change the subject even if the young man could’ve said more.

“She’s fine,” Leon answered. “She’s pissed though. Our home was seized by Prince Octavius after I left. Fortunately, she moved back in with her mother for the time being and, to my knowledge, has been trying to exert pressure from Heaven’s Eye to get it back. Given Heaven’s Eye’s political neutrality, though, she doesn’t have many ways she can make it happen. So, I suppose if I want my villa back, I’m going to have to make sure Prince August wins this thing.”

Roland smiled, but the smile quickly turned dark. “That’s rough…” Roland said. “I don’t even want to think about what happened to my home, I don’t have Heaven’s Eye in my corner to fight for it in my absence…”

“Right, how’s your family, by the way?” Leon politely asked.

“My wife and son settled in fairly well in Ariminium, along with most of our household.”

“In Ariminium? Not in Ironford?”

“No. They went to Ironford first, of course, but I figured that Ariminium would be safer in case…” Roland trailed off as his eyes stared off into the distance, a look of fear on his face.

“… in case we lose?” Leon finished.

Roland nodded. “If we do lose, then they’re only a few miles away from the border. If they were to stay in Ironford, then they’d be hundreds of miles away from safety. Better to stay in Ariminium, even with Octavius’ eyes turned to the city.”

“Then I guess it’s doubly important to you to keep Duronius from seizing the city?”

“Absolutely.”

Leon nodded. “It’ll stay safe. Sir Constantine holds it with a Legion and one of the fleets. The city won’t fall to anything short of overwhelming force of the sort that Octavius won’t be able to bring to bear.”

“I like your confidence.”

“I wouldn’t call it confidence, I would call it certainty,” Leon said with a smile. “Don’t forget that I spent more than a year there. Not much time compared to many knights, especially those from Prince Trajan’s retinue, but long enough to get an idea of just what kind of defenses the city has. I would bet my life on saying that it would be impossible for Octavius as he is now to take the city.”

“I hope so,” Roland wistfully whispered, a smile of his own spreading across his face despite his worry.

The two rode on in silence after that, not speaking for a long few minutes as they approached the main camp. The first place they went to was August’s tent, but some of August’s aides told them that the Prince wasn’t present. After a few bewildered seconds, Roland asked them where he was, and they were informed that August had gone down to visit the field hospital now that the battle was over.

A thoroughly confused Roland and Leon made their way there—along with those who followed both knights.

The field hospital was a set of about a dozen large tents, each one big enough to shelter about five hundred. Naturally, that wasn’t nearly enough for every single injured person, and there were far more soldiers and noble retainers languishing out in the late afternoon sun than were inside the tents. Additionally, there were a few supply tents nearby as well as an overflow space consisting of a two hundred foot ring of open space—all of which was crammed with people—between the hospital tents and the rest of the nearby camp.

In the aftermath of such a large-scale battle, the hospital was a truly terrible place. Healers ran this way and that, the air was filled with the stench of blood and the screams of the injured and dying. The expressions on every face were those of stress, fear, and pain. Only the oldest and most experienced of the healers remained calm in such an atmosphere. Even Leon, with all of his killing intent, was struck a bit speechless at the sight of so many bleeding and broken men and women. But he remained as stoic as he could, for he could tell that Anzu beneath him and Alix beside him were far more affected by the atmosphere than he was, and he needed them to remain strong.

Leon and Roland dismounted. Anzu and Alix continued to follow Leon, but Roland left his horse with his followers, who remained outside the hospital. Their first destination was the main tent where the healers were based. Inside was a hurricane of activity as healers and their managers tried to keep up with the influx of patients still streaming in from the battlefield in the hundreds, and nowhere could Roland or Leon see the Prince.

It took about ten minutes of searching and asking around, but eventually, they found him back outside accompanied by only a few guards.

During their search, Leon hadn’t known what to expect. He hadn’t thought that August would’ve ever come down here—Leon didn’t think he’d come down there either, and now that he was, he never wanted to come back. After a bit of thought, Leon figured that he’d have been helping out a bit, taking the opportunity to show himself to the troops and show them that he knew what they were doing for him and appreciated it.

August wasn’t doing that. In fact, he wasn’t doing much of anything. Roland and Leon found him in the most private place in the entire camp, the place where the bodies of the fallen were being stored, just staring at the veritable mountain of corpses with a look of blank shock on his face.

The area was basically just blocked from the rest of the camp and field hospital by a number of cloth walls tied to tall stakes about ten feet high. There was no ceiling, allowing the entire area to be illuminated by the sun. Near the entrance were a few priests from Lineage Hall cataloging each and every fallen soldier and noble retainer brought to them and preparing them for transport. August was near the priests but separated enough to be left alone and not get in their way.

“… Your Highness…?” Roland asked as he and Leon approached. August had barely reacted to their appearance, and that greatly concerned the Paladin. Leon didn’t much mind; his attention was captured by so many corpses just as August’s had been.

Each body was put into a lightly enchanted linen bag that would keep it relatively preserved for several weeks. During that time, they’d be taken to the nearest Legion fortress so that transport back home could be arranged—at least, that was what would happen under normal circumstances. Now, Leon guessed they’d be sent back to Ironford or Ariminium until such a time as their transport back to wherever these soldiers had come from had been rendered safe.

But there were still bodies being brought into this cordoned-off area, and a significant number hadn’t yet been bagged by the priests. It was these bodies that August was staring at, his eyes glazed over as more and more were brought in.

“Your Highness!” Roland repeated with more firmness to his tone. He reached out and laid a hand upon August’s shoulder, causing the young Prince to almost jump out of his skin.

“Ah! Roland! And Sir Leon! When did you two get here?” the Prince almost cried out.

Leon was tempted to respond with some sarcastic remark about how long they’d been there, but he was hardly in the mood for it when surrounded by so much death.

“We just got here,” Roland said reassuringly. “We’re here to give you our preliminary reports…”

“Oh… ah, yes…” August mumbled as his eyes turned back to the corpses. In the grand scheme of things, a few thousand corpses weren’t that much, but when gathered together like this, it was overwhelming, and August was having a hard time just processing what he was seeing. He took a few more seconds to burn the image into his mind, and then he silently turned and walked back toward the field hospital.

The others followed him, everyone glad to be away from the scene. But just because they had left it didn’t mean that it was immediately forgotten. August didn’t say a word for almost five minutes as he slowly led them through the hospital; he just watched as so many men and women had their injuries tended to, many of whom were in such pain that they were moaning or crying.

“I’ve always known…” August whispered, barely audible even to Roland and Leon’s sixth-tier ears above the noise of the hospital.

“Known what, Your Highness?” Roland asked as he matched the Prince’s quiet tone.

“The price of seizing a throne,” August said as he turned to look Roland in the eye. “And those who would have to pay it. I’ve always known, but I’ve never really seen it before…”

“It’s a terrible thing…” Roland agreed.

“That would be putting it mildly…” August murmured as only twenty feet away, three healers held a young man down as he screamed in pain while a fourth healer pressed a spell to his eviscerated leg, telling the man to calm down and let the magic work or else they’d have to amputate the entire leg from the hip down.

“I hope it’s worth it…” Leon said as he looked from the young Legion soldier to August, catching the Prince’s gaze as August turned toward him. “Whether or not it is will be up to you.”

August nodded, ignoring his bodyguards who were glaring at Leon for speaking like that to their Prince.

“I understand…” August whispered. He then took a deep breath, straightened himself up so that he didn’t look quite so defeated, and then said, “Let’s go. We have a lot of work to do if we’re to win this war, and I’d like to get started on it as soon as possible.”

With that, he led the group out of the hospital and back toward his personal tent. Before he left, though, he glanced back over his shoulder one last time, burning the image into his mind of tens of thousands of men and women broken and bleeding and dying all for him. It was a sight he didn’t think he’d ever forget, and he had a terrible feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time he saw it either.