Alm said nothing after he killed Duma. When they returned to Rigel Castle, he disappeared. The day was somber, and the survivors of the expedition into the Temple of Duma were ragged and wretched, exhausted after battling their way through the labyrinthine underground complex, and the final battle with Duma. Alm slipped away from them without noise or raising notice, ghostlike even in his bloodsoaked armor. Lukas suggested he needed time to unwind on his own; Faye knew firsthand that sitting silently to obsess was the last thing he needed.
He was easy enough to find; the guards at the emperor's bedroom recognized her and let her in without hassle. The room was large and airy, cool despite the summer heat, with a large hearth with chairs nearby, a sink and faucet, several wardrobes, and across all of the walls, great engravings of the Great War of Duma and Mila, the dragons colored in contrasting green and red. In the room's center was a large table. Alm sat at it, facing away from the door, furiously working at something on the table's surface.
"Alm, it's me," Faye announced. "I'm coming to see how you're doing."
No response.
Faye approached Alm, but he paid her no attention as he worked, his movements stiff and comfortless.
"Alm?" she said, touching a hand to his shoulder.
He snapped into motion, jumping back from the table and facing her over his left shoulder, his right hand clutching a reddened dagger, his left hand with almost all of the skin scraped off the back and palm, bleeding everywhere onto the table and his lap. Alm stared at her like a cornered lion; threatened, scared, violent.
Faye gasped and jumped back. "Alm, what are you doing?"
"Get out! Who let you in?"
"I'm not leaving. Alm, why are you hurting yourself?"
"I'm not. Get out."
"Not until you give me the knife. Alm, what's wrong?"
He swore under his breath, and buried the dagger into the table. "I'm sick of seeing the damned mark every time I look at my hand. It's… it's some sort of joke, from the gods. Meaningless, now Celica's dead, like they're just getting the last laugh. So I cut it out."
"You could lose the entire hand, Alm! Show it to me."
Alm hesitantly extended it to her, and Faye clasped it in both of her hands. She shut her eyes, muttered the words for a healing spell, and felt her energy flow into him.
Healing work always hurt. Too much of it left Faye dead on her feet, bleeding out of her nose, mouth, and ears, and with headaches that lasted for days… but it was always worth it whenever she got to touch Alm again. Giving him her energy connected them; for just a second the barrier between them was weakened, and they were one. Then it ended.
Faye checked her work. Alm's hand was still bleeding at the surface on both sides, but she had healed all damage to the muscles or tendons. She had healed worse wounds of his in the past, and couldn't help but feel proud of her work. Faye let go of his hand, and he pulled it away, but she hugged him tight, caring nothing for the blood soaking his clothes. Alm remained stiff, and didn't wrap his arms around her.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
Faye shut her eyes and held onto him for a few seconds longer. Then she let go and moved back, looking Alm in the face. His eyes were red and distant, with large bags under.
"Alm, I'm coming to check on you! Right now you need somebody who cares about you-"
"Give it up, Faye. It's never going to happen."
The familiar feeling hit her stomach, confirming itself yet again. She ignored it.
"I… I know, Alm. I just want to make sure you're alright. Everyone is worried about you."
"I'm not 'alright'. Just go. I need some time to think, okay? I'll come and see you guys in the afternoon."
"Alm, it's six o'clock. You've been in here all day."
"I don't..."
"Alm, I can tell you haven't slept or eaten. I can't leave you alone, not like this."
"If I mean anything to you, Faye, leave now."
"Alm, please!" Faye stepped closer to him, and his face whitened.
"Get. Away. From. Me."
"I care about you, Alm. You can't just push everyone away."
Faye reached for his hand, when Alm jerked into motion, and swung at her, striking her across her cheek with the back of his right hand - sharp pain burst across her face and she staggered back in shock, against the table. She put a hand up to her warm cheek, feeling at the tingling pain where he had touched her.
It's not too bad, he could've hit me harder. Alm didn't mean to hurt me. I shouldn't have startled him.
Alm stepped back from her, looking at his hand in shock and disgust.
"This… this is what I am, Faye. This is what I do to people. I kill everyone I touch... not you too."
He lunged forward and grabbed Faye by her hand, pulled her to the door, and opened it to push her through, but she latched onto the frame, as the tears came, and she struggled to speak.
"Alm…" she choked out, "I just want to help you."
He shoved her through, and Faye fell to the ground, unable to will herself to stay afoot.
"Run," Alm said. He shut the door.
Late Autumn, 402 VC
Alm had rode on the highway of southern Rigel three times before.
First, northbound, leading the Deliverance over the border to seek battle with Rudolf and any who would block their path to the capital.
Second was the ride south, to the coronation he and Conrad shared at the border; third was back north again, to put an end to the Faithful. With each trip the whole region had grown more ravaged, desolate, increasingly devoid of life. When leading the Deliverance Alm had sought to minimize the campaign's brutality -
Pointless. There are always excesses in war. Imagining otherwise is a child's folly.
- but even with their well-stocked supply train the army had gobbled up anything edible they came across. The second and third trips had been through the same ravaged region, only in the cool early autumn rather than the heights of summer; then the land was clear of life, with nothing but rolling plains and twisted, windswept trees.
But none of those sights could compare to Southern Rigel in the wake of the Arthegnii.
They had crossed over in the Empire's southeast while the imperial army was deployed in the north against the Duma Faithful, and split in two groups, then ravaged as deep into Rigel as they fancied. No help was forthcoming from Zofia. Alm spent the rest of the spring, then the summer, then the autumn, chasing them about to zero effect; one of their hosts would retreat and retreat and retreat when Alm tried to pin them into battle, and the other would spread itself wide over the country; burning, looting, killing, enslaving. When they had their fill of slaughter they returned east, leaving Alm just enough time to make his summit with Conrad.
But passing through the lands the barbarians had destroyed was harrowing. Not dangerous - they had never made any attempt to hold land - but difficult to bear, even considering all that Alm had seen since he left Ram Village.
The Arthegnii were devout in their adherence to the War Father, but lacked even the basic restraints practiced by the Faithful in Rigel. When they sacked a village they put the healthy in chains, and sacrificed their choice of the rest; the favored method was to crucify a victim by the roadside, then slash open their guts and drag their intestines out to hang free in replication of Duma's tentacles. Alm's army buried three hundred and seventy eight such sacrifices in the fighting season, and in the week spent riding south to the summit, his party had found twenty-nine more.
Four hundred and seven.
There were many more killed in other ways - and near four thousand confirmed as dragged off in bondage - but that number stuck with Alm. Four hundred and seven. Four hundred and seven butchered for a dead god's favor. Four hundred and seven failures, four hundred and seven times he wasn't there for his people.
Four hundred and seven scores to be settled.
The one before Alm now - number four hundred and eight - was a man of perhaps seventy, with long, matted green hair that hung down limp. His eyes had been picked out by crows before his body froze too solid to eat at. He was naked with an empty torso, his innards having fallen free to collect in a rotten pile at the base of the post.
"I wonder what his name was,' Alm said.
"The land is cleared for ten miles, and I doubt there is hope of finding his family. I will order his remains burned and buried." Zeke said, then rode off to find the burial team. Alm stayed staring at the dead man, whose features were twisted into the blank expression most dead men shared.
Four hundred and eight.
Rest easy. I won't forget you.
To the first Valentian Summit, Alm had intended on bringing wagons of gold liberated from the treasuries of the Duma Faithful, to demonstrate the progress of the great enemy finally laid to rest. But the gold had all been spent in months keeping Rigelian armies in the field against the Arthegnii; the summer campaign's costs had left him with nothing to show from that of the spring.
The summit was meant to be yearly, to the extent that was feasible, swapping in location between the Rigelian and Zofian capitals, also, as much as possible. It was the latter that had failed; Alm couldn't spare going so far south with the Arthegnii active recently and so the meeting was politely shifted to Arais, a small city on the south bank of the border river. Like most Zofian cities prior to the war, it was unwalled, and had fallen to Rudolf's armies in the first days of his invasion, having put up little resistance.
King Conrad met Alm's party at the city outskirts; he rode forth in gleaming white plate armor, a red cloak flowing from his shoulders, and the Zofian crown perched atop his brow. Twenty Zofian knights rode with him - Alm recognized them all - and a large crowd had gathered in advance, not to mention the sizeable contingent of troops that lined the highway's course.
"Brother," Conrad said in his airy tone, "I welcome you to Zofia, and Arais."
He extended his hand with a smile, and though Alm felt the eyes of his guard scrutinizing Conrad's hand, he shook it. White and black gauntlets intertwined for a moment.
It was a warm welcome for a Rigelian emperor, though one balanced out by the army's presence - Alm estimated it at two thousand and change - encamped at the city and standing along the road.
Warmth, then, but not weakness. The display is, mostly, for the citizens of Arais. Nothing wrong with showing strength.
"Thank you, Brother. Let's get going. We've got a lot to discuss."
Conrad nodded, and wheeled his horse around to ride beside Alm, with each followed by their guard. Riding up the road, Alm caught a quick glimpse of many familiar faces - Clive first, followed by Mathilda and then Lukas, then near the end of the line, Gray and Tobin's unmistakeable faces. Alm couldn't help but smile; Gray gave him a wink through his visor.
Arais was a pleasant little town; it had flowerbeds planted by the roadside, though they were limited to just winter flowers in the cold weather, and the city was blessed with the river's clean waters and a strong enough breeze to keep the urban stench from growing too strong. Alm and Conrad rode through together, taking a few detours to give a chance to the whole crowd to see them. The Zofians seemed fond of their new king and his roster of knights, refreshed after the war's attrition did a fine job of rooting out the old and corrupt men from Lima's reign. The crowds cheered just as loudly for Alm as they did for Conrad; rather charitable, considering the last time they had hosted the emperor of Rigel.
They went on a brief parade through the city streets, before Conrad led them back to the city's central hall, a small palace along the river that had enough room for Alm's household and retinue, and several large buildings with meeting rooms ideal for the summit.
When Alm's party had cleaned off and changed after their ride, royal servants guided them through the palace's wide hallways to a central meeting room. Conrad's party lounged outside it - one, Alm recognized in particular.
"Sir Clive!" he said, dashing over to the man. "How have you been?"
"Alm! Well met!" Clive jumped to his feet, clasped Alm's hand, and they shook vigorously. "You've… grown," he laughed. Alm realized, suddenly, he had. Clive always seemed to over him, and had something like a quarter of a foot on Alm the last time they spoke. Now they were at eye level - that, even, was generous to Clive.
Alm chuckled. "I'd hardly noticed. I guess we've just been so busy. How have you been? And Mathilda, too!"
Clive beamed. "She gave birth to our first child, early last month, a strong little girl." Clive produced a little drawing done of a baby - her appearance was largely interchangeable in the way most children her age were, but Alm was too happy for Clive to draw attention to the fact.
"What's her name?"
"Anthiese," Clive said, still smiling, not missing a beat.
Oh.
Don't stop smiling, don't stop smiling, don't stop smiling.
"That's lovely."
"Anthiese is already such a clever girl, I know she'll be as great a knight as Mathilda," Clive said, then, "Clair suggested she might be a pegasus rider, but she's already too big!" and then something else, but Alm didn't catch much of it.
Shut up, Clive, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up-
"That's great, Clive. That's really great."
"I'm sure you can meet little Anthiese…"
Stop saying it! How dare you take her name?
The final moments of Celica's life were the last thing Alm wanted to think about, but there she was again in his arms, in agony, choking on her blood.
"That's lovely."
Clive smiled again at the drawing.
"Now that everyone is here, should we begin?" Conrad cut in.
Alm's Rigelian companions hadn't made an attempt to socialize, and had stood back to stare down their Zofian counterparts, so Conrad's breaking of the silence was welcomed by all.
"Yes, that sounds good." Alm said.
Everyone made their way into the conference room. It was a comfortably-sized room, mostly taken up by a rectangular table with room for five on each long side. The south side of the room had a large stained glass window depicting the heroes Zofia and Rigel fighting together against the Sea Peoples, while the north had a hearth burning hot and bright, leaving the room warm, almost stuffy.
When they were seated, Alm's scribe passed him a folder, containing papers with various important figures and points written on, most of which Alm had memorized already, but he found having them on paper helpful. Conrad spoke.
"Are things as bad as we have been told?" he asked, straight to the point.
"Yes, they are. Worse. The Arthegnii ravaged half of the eastern provinces intensively, and did harsh damage to others. They prefer to follow a pattern; they capture a village, put the children and elderly to the sword, and drag those of working age off as slaves."
Alm saw as several of the Zofians had their eyes involuntarily go wide in surprise, Conrad as much as any. "I had heard of their savagery in the Arthegnii wars, but I'd always thought it was mere exaggeration, for greater glory over a defeated enemy," he said.
Alm frowned at that. "We buried bodies on the ride here, Conrad. Nailed to crosses, with their guts cut out of their stomachs. My father defeated the Arthegnii, but seemed to have failed in destroying them. That needs to be our first priority."
"First?" Conrad asked. "I had thought it would be relief efforts in the afflicted provinces. We've been preparing supplies for weeks."
"Of course we need to provide relief. But there's no point in rebuilding houses and stocking granaries just for the Arthegnii to burn and loot them again. After all, we're here to discuss how to deal with their threat."
Alm stood to gesture at the map of the Empire spread out between him and Conrad, dragging his finger along the southeast. "The Arthegnii move south from the Deadlands and cross south over the inlet, with some raiding in longships along the coast, further north and west. From what rumors and scouting information we've managed to get, they move the slaves much further north, but we don't know where they end up, or if they're split into smaller groups and spread out. We'll find out in the spring, I suppose."
Conrad raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"We're launching our own expedition into the deadlands in the spring, to defeat them and rescue the slaves they took. I mean… didn't you know? I thought that was the entire point of us speaking here."
Conrad and his advisers - Sir Clive, who represented the Zofian knights, the kingdom's chancellor, and a mixed handful of others - looked amongst themselves in confusion.
"This… comes as a surprise to us. We had thought we would be trying to discuss terms with the Arthegnii."
"Discuss terms? After they've torched a third of the empire?"
"Yes. It's not worth getting overly impassioned about it, particularly when we have better courses of action than escalating the war."
"Like what." Alm said; prompting, not asking.
"We would negotiate a non-aggression treaty, and their return of all captives, in exchange for regular tribute. Surely you can see that a few thousand pounds of gold per year will convince them to stay on their side of the inlet."
The room was too hot and stuffy around Alm, so that he felt sticky, and would've been irritable even without the discussion's turn toward appeasement. He stared Conrad down, and the small, curly-haired king seemed to shrink away a bit.
"Never."
No-one said anything for a few seconds, so Alm followed it up.
"The day I beg those savages for peace is the day I throw my crown down a well and ride into the sea. They threatened Rigel thirty years ago, and Emperor Rudolf crushed them. Nothing has changed. We were not their slaves then, and we are not now."
"I cannot see how that is relevant. Paying them to leave us be is no show of weakness, and we wouldn't think to disband our armies. This merely makes their work easier; there is no need for violence when it can be avoided so easily. "
Idiot.
"A show of weakness is exactly what it is. If we show them we're not willing to fight them, then they'll just wait until we hit some other crisis, and they'll be there asking for more. If we take a strong stance now, we'll show everyone what happens to our enemies."
"What other enemies?" Conrad asked. "The Sea Peoples were defeated centuries ago by Zofia and Rigel themselves. There is an entire desert between our borders and the mercenary kingdoms of the east. There is no-one to fight save for the Arthegnii, and peace can be bought so easily we needn't bother."
Blind, foolish, thrice-damned idiot.
"How can you be sure? If the Sea Peoples came from the east once, they can do so again-"
"That was hundreds of years ago."
"Who knows what else we might face? To half of Rigel I'm some Zofian conqueror, and they'd love to see me toppled. If the empire slips into civil war, then the Arthegnii invade just as they did before, and to top that, for all we know the land's fertility may never recover. If we don't deal with the Arthegnii while we can, we might just be stumbling into an even bigger crisis we could have avoided in the first place if we showed a bit of spine rather than cowering and begging for the savages' mercy! Why don't you trust my judgement on this?"
Conrad shrunk a bit, and took a second to compose himself. "Brother, if we wish for this partnership to work, you will have to trust in mine as well."
Alm ground his teeth and stared Conrad down. His mark burned, and the hand curled into a tight fist under the table.
Breathe.
Alm inhaled, held the breath, and exhaled.
"You're right," he conceded. "Let's set this aside for now. We're getting nowhere."
Conrad nodded. "We can return to it on the morrow. Thank you for hearing our concerns, Albein."
Don't push it.
The cold air felt comforting to Alm after hours cooped up in the near-furnace of the conference room, and he shut his eyes for a few seconds as he walked out into the dusk. Fresh snow crunched under his feet, and fresh flakes fell onto him and soon melted against his cloak. Alm rubbed at his temples, his head and throat aching from hours of negotiations. He surely spoke as much that day than he had in the last three months altogether. The cold was nothing against what Alm was used to back in Rigel, so he felt fairly comfortable even wearing indoor clothes.
The smothered silence of the evening, more than anything, was refreshing for Alm. It was like home.
The courtyard they stood in was enclosed by buildings and a few gates all around, and was mostly deserted, save a few knights heading back to their rooms after an evening training session in the snow.
A pair walked slowly and dropped behind the others. Alm recognized their voices, and even after the long day, couldn't help but smile.
"I swear to the gods, Tobin, you could be king of the world and you still wouldn't know your crotch hair from your shoestrings."
Tobin's useless fingers fumbled at his bootlaces, only serving to shuffle them around more and, perhaps, indicate Gray had something of a point.
"Sh-shut up, Gray. It's cold, and I'm tired."
Gray stretched out, then shivered a bit. "You're right there. It's freezing! All the sweat in my gambeson is hardly helping any. Maybe you should, y'know…"
Tobin looked up. "I am hurrying!" he snapped.
"Then hurry harder!" Gray shot back. "I don't wanna leave you to die out here, buddy."
"Oh, Gray, you can just go fu-"
Something white smashed into Gray's stomach, so fast Tobin just saw a blur of it across his vision before it exploded into a white powder and mist, sending Gray toppling over and gasping for breath. Tobin shot to his feet to check what it was, when Gray, lying on his back in the snow, reached up a weak left hand to point.
"Behind…"
Tobin whipped around fast enough to see something black and green flash towards him before it opened its arms and tackled him, wrapping itself around his chest, driving its shoulder into his ribs, and sending them both into a snowdrift.
Tobin lay back, unable to breathe, hurting everywhere , the thing still wrapped around him.
I'm dead. This is how it ends. I survive a war and help kill a god and I die to some monster in a snow drift after training-
The thing broke out into laughter.
"Hey guys, it's good to see you again!" said the monster.
That's Alm's voice.
Tobin looked down at it.
And face.
"Hey Alm," he tried to say, though it came out closer to 'heeeyarm.'
Alm laughed and climbed off, tugging Tobin up to his feet like he was a thin fallen tree branch. Tobin kept his footing, and Gray staggered over, clutching his gut. "The hell was… why're you throwing rocks?" Gray groaned.
Alm, seeming twice the size of the last time they saw him, raised an eyebrow. "It's just snow, and I barely even packed it. Don't tell me a year without fighting's gotten you two all soft."
"I think you throw a bit hard, Alm," Tobin said. But he wrapped an arm around him despite the pain, and smiled a bit. "It's good to see you again."
"You too, Tobin." Alm shone, with the smile all of the girls used to love so much.
They ended up back at Alm's guestroom, where he went drink-for-drink with Gray and Tobin until Gray passed out, Tobin was half-awake, and Alm was in a storytelling mood. He stumbled his way through one about exploding heads, while Tobin stacked as many pillows as he could on Gray's stomach - five total - one on top of another.
"It's, it's good to have you back, Alm," Tobin mumbled, unsure if he was interrupting, as his sixth pillow sent the whole tower tumbling down. Gray snorted a bit, but didn't wake.
"I… I think I'm turning into Albein, Tobin."
"Hail Albein Alm Rudolf the second, Emperor of Rigel!" Tobin shouted, most likely too loud for the late hour. "You're an Emperor, and Albein, and Alm. Rudolf too. I'm just 'Sir Tobin'."
"Sir," Alm laughed. "That must be nice."
"Better than just 'Tobin', I'll tell you."
Alm walked around the massive bed and flopped down on his back. "I'm so fucking tired of all this shit."
Tobin didn't know what Alm was talking about, and didn't say anything for a few seconds. When he turned back, Alm's eyes were shut, and he had passed into sleep. Tobin went and extinguished the remaining candles, kicked off his boots, crawled into the middle of the bed, and twisted around until he had enough of the covers wrapped around him to stay warm.
"Goodnight, Emperor Alm."
The next morning, Alm left Gray and Tobin to sleep off their hangovers, and returned to the talks with Conrad. They didn't bring up the Artheugnii, at first, and managed to make some decent progress in a half-dozen other issues. To Alm's satisfaction, they agreed to end trade tariffs in coastal cities, easing the import of cheap Zofian grain. They would encourage cross-border marriages between the nobility, and when a compatible match was possible, one of Alm's children would be wed to Conrad's.
If it hadn't meant spending most of a day talking about everything but the actual issue pressing them, Alm would've considered it a job well done. But even that had to come back up, once they had nothing else to speak of.
"I suppose that leaves the Arthegnii issue," Conrad said.
"I suppose it does," Alm said.
"Albein, we have discussed it in more depth, and would at least like to hear your proposal for an offensive into the Deadlands."
"Well, it's exactly that. We would take the eastern army north over the inlet this spring, with some units from the capital army sent to reinforce the border in their absence. I'll spend the summer raiding Arthegnii lands to force them to come to battle, and defeating them when they do. Through raiding we'll locate and rescue the captive Rigelians, who we can evacuate by ship. The loot we take can help offset the costs of the invasion."
"I see," Conrad said. "Are you sure you would be able to force the Arthegnii to give battle? What if it takes longer than the summer?"
"They'll come. My father's campaigns forced them to fight by destroying their villages. Burn enough and their king won't have a choice. Prestige and all that. And if it takes longer than the summer, we stay the winter. That'll be their problem, not ours."
That didn't convince Conrad.
"Are you sure the army is willing to spend the winter fighting?"
Zeke cut in. "Rigelian soldiers are not deterred by the weather."
Conrad and Clive gave him a look for that.
"I see," Conrad said. "But how would you fund this?"
Alm leaned back in his seat. "Well, the Duma Faithful coughed up plenty of coin. I can't see why your Faithful would be any different."
"They... what?"
"The Mila Faithful, Conrad. They've got temples full of silver and gold statues of the Earth Mother, plus the rest of their trinkets. For the last year they've been praying to a dead god. Shake them for some gold and we'll go to war with what falls out."
"It would hardly be that simple, Albein. And, regardless, I can't see what it give us that simple negotiations and payments wouldn't, for far less cost."
"Fear, Conrad. And their respect. The Empire has fought these savages as long as it has existed, and they've always pressed hardest when they thought we're weak. If we go to them with coin, begging for mercy, then as soon as we reach a real crisis they'll be back. If we destroy them today we won't have to worry about them tomorrow."
"But your father's wars against them didn't end the threat."
"Perhaps if yours had lent a hand they would have."
Alm felt everyone's eyes on him.
"But the past is the past," he retracted.
"I would hope so," Conrad said.
"But still , Conrad. We can't just leave the Arthegnii unfought."
"Regardless of what is desirable, we don't have the money to fight them. We've been over this."
"Yes, we do! We just have to take it."
"We do not need to trade a barbarian invasion for a religious uprising. The Kingdom of Zofia will gladly work to find a negotiated settlement with the Arthegnii leadership. But it will not subsidize an excursion over the inlet. That is my final statement."
Before Alm could respond, a knocking came at the door - even though they had ordered the guards only to let through the most vital messages. "Come in!" Alm shouted through.
The door swung open, and a haggard, bleary-eyed woman staggered through, unarmored but in the clothing of one of the horse regiments of the Rigelian border garrisons. Her clothes were battered, covered in water and mud, so filthy that Alm could smell from across the room.
"Your Excellence," she said, beginning to kneel.
"Rise," Alm said as soon as she started lowering - for all he knew she wouldn't be able to get herself back up again - "Speak at once."
She took a breath to compose herself, opened her mouth as if to start speaking, tried to speak and instead swayed, nearly losing her footing. It seemed like trying to speak took up all her willpower; she was set to collapse.
"The Arthegenii are returned. A… a horde of them crossed the inlet a fortnight ago, I'm from the eastern garrison, only just made it to you…"
"How many? And where?" Alm demanded, his heart pumping up, ready for motion. He waved for her to approach.
The rider leaned forward on the table, and for a second Alm thought she would pass out, when she put an unsteady finger on the map northeast of Fear Mountain, where the inlet was narrowest. "At the fords near Relastan Village… ten, twenty thousand, we couldn't know. They're burning everything they see."
The war comes again.
Thank the gods.
"Go with General Ezekiel, and tell him everything you know, before you pass out." The general guided the messenger out with him, steadying her with an arm so she didn't collapse. Alm stood up after them and stretched, then chuckled.
"I think we're done here. We're off," he said.
"Wha-off? We still have issues to discuss."
Alm's companions rose and began gathering the few documents they had brought.
"We can discuss them when this is dealt with. We've got barbarians loose in the empire, and I'm not negotiating with them one bit. They're going to leave because we drive them out at spearpoint, not because we beg for their mercy." Alm looked at Clive and Lukas, where they sat at Conrad's left. "If you two are still up for fighting, I would welcome Zofian reinforcements. We leave at dawn."
Alm turned and left, not waiting for their answer.
Notes
I can't say I like this chapter, or CH3. Both lose a lot of momentum from CH1, and serve mostly to set up CH4. Though, in hindsight, I think CH4 is definitely worth the payoff.
Added note: I think the calendar year is right by the Valentian Calendar. For the purposes of this story, the events of Echoes, from Lukas arriving in Ram Village to Alm slaying Duma, to Alm and Conrad being crowned, took up most of 401 VC. Busy year. Alm fought the Duma Faithful in the spring of 402 VC, then the Arthegnii all summer and into the early fall, leading us to where we are now. If I turn out to have the date wrong I might fix it, or just acknowledge the error; whichever causes the least confusion. I'm playing with canon and stuff I've thrown in, so if something is confusing, please say so I can clarify it.
