Laira's world was falling apart. Her father, King Grictus of Nanon, was dead, along with her younger brother, leaving her the sole royal. He had gone to meet the leaders of the neighboring Sindhu Kingdom to forge an alliance against the looming threat of the expansionist Zoran Empire. The Zoranians had been subsuming realms left and right for decades and with defeat of Amlain, were almost at their doorstep, with only the loose federation of highland tribesmen, Nogal, and Sindhu between them.
Her father had been a man of wisdom, keeping the peace between the bickering nobles, and even working towards bettering the lives of everyday Nanoans. He had the courage to name her his heir over her brother. The idiot nobles had raised a fuss over that declaration, even though it was clear he was upending long upheld tradition for the sake of their realm.
Her brother Linus would not have been a good King, with his short temper and lack of foresight. Their father had waited for years for him to turn into a better man, but ever since he "grew up", all Linus cared about was hunting, whoring and gambling. No amount of pleading, begging, bribing, lecturing and threats worked on him. She had wanted to berate their father at times for not being strict with Linus during his younger years, but she understoodhe had spoiled the boy in an attempt to never let him feel the lack of a mother.
Seeing no hope of him ever changing his ways, the King had finally given up and publicly declared Laira his heir. Linus's tantrums, accusations and the words that came out of his mouth had astounded even her and had been the nail in coffin that was their shaky relationship. Even that dolt was dead now, leaving her all alone. She had cousins, but most of them were too obsessed with either power or gossip. It was difficult to form a genuine connection when you had to always wonder about the other party's ulterior motives.
Not even a month had passed since the funerals and her coronation as the Queen, when the courtiers began nagging her to marry noblemen of their choice, no doubt generous men who had filled their pockets with plenty of gold. She somehow kept herself in check, with her only true friend and confidant, Reshma, for company.
She was wondering how to protect Nanon, when one day Reshma brought her a very interesting report.
"Read this."
"What is it?"
"An interesting report I came across as I was trying to entertain myself." The tease replied, before relenting. "Count Zock of Nobara is dead. Went to the Treacherous Bog with a force of six hundred soldiers, but not even half of them came back, babbling about fire raining from the sky, magician archers and invisible shades. All nobles dead."
That got her attention. "Curious."
She didn't completely trust the report, so she had some reliable men question the survivors. The picture she gathered from it was horrific. The idiot led hundreds of men into the Treacherous Bog and faced a foe securely entrenched in the forest beyond, while his men were still on the aptly named Bog. Even she, with no military experience, could tell that he was at a serious disadvantage.
Was he that stupid or arrogant? She couldn't remember ever meeting the man, but if she just thought about the average noble, it wasn't that difficult to figure out: both. Stupid and arrogant. No wonder he got more than half of his force killed.
She would have just ordered a blockade of the border with the Bog until she could launch a much bigger attack in retaliation, and sent some feelers ahead, but maybe the Count's failure was a blessing in disguise.
The survivors' accounts were quite interesting to read. They swore the enemy archers were firing an arrow every heartbeat without retrieving any from a quiver. Many reported being shot from directions from which they couldn't see anyone and men just disappearing in front of them.Too many of them made similar claims for them to be dismissed as babbling of cowards. Were these just tricks or some kind of sorcery?
Whatever it was, with the threat of Zoran Empire looming over Nanon, she wanted such power, and would pay anything for it. How to approach this party? She couldn't appear too genial, as they had killed a Count of hers, whatever his faults, but threatening such a competent force would also be stupid, especially without knowing anything about them. In the end, she decided to send a neutral letter inviting them for a discussion.
---
We had won our first battle. Hundreds of Nanoans were dead, while we had lost onlyfour to arrows from enemy archers, before they all had been silenced by the Frogmen. While the soldiers cheered our victory, my mind was swinging between guilt from being the one whose one mistake might have pushed us into further conflict with Nanon and relief over an overwhelming success.
We stripped the enemy soldiers of their equipment, gave the dying ones mercy, and laid them to rest in mass graves.
We took the bodies of our fallen four on wagons, held a town wide procession for them and had them cremated according to Cha tradition.
"Say some words for them." Lothar nudged me after the ceremony.
"Is it necessary?"
"Yes." He glared at me.
I nodded, gathered myself, and addressed our entire, tiny nation.
"These four brave souls are the first martyrs of the Chadom Republic. I might have declared it's founding a few months back, but these brave soldiers and their peers have fortified it's foundation, with their blood as the cement. They proved that we are a free people who will not bow to others' whims. In recognition of our military battle for survival and victory, let us celebrate this day every year as Victory day. The day we showed the world that Chadom will not grovel, will not give up, will persist and last as long as any Cha is alive. For a free Chadom!"
I raised my fist in the air, which was answered by every soldier and most civilians.
I might look fine on the outside, but I was anything but that on the inside, and Lothar seemed to sense that. After the ceremony, he took me aside. "Don't blame yourself for what happened. I don't think the Count came with hundreds of soldiers just to talk."
"We will never know if he would have attacked us without seeing my face. So here we are, in conflict with a kingdom with a population almost a thousand times bigger than ours. Do you regret supporting me now?" I asked him.
"No. Where would we be without your help?" he whispered. "As you said at that very first meeting, we would have been easy pickings for anyone with some muscle. Yes, our soldiers are resolute and brave, but that would not have been enough. Your weapons are the reason why only four of us are dead, instead of forty or four hundred. Don't let your mind bury itself in the pit of misery. You have people to protect and cherish. Think about them," he said, pointing to Aprilia, who was patiently waiting close by.
Seeing her sympathetic expression, I nodded to him in understanding.
"So dust yourself off, drink some of our new grape wine, go sleep in the embrace of your woman and then get to work," he ordered.
"Yes, Sir." I said in a mocking tone, saluted him and did just that.
The next day, I realized with a fresh mind that we had managed to recover the incriminating document. If we could get it to the King somehow, we would be the ones who helped uncover Zock's treachery and be the heroes who killed a traitor, instead of foreigners who killed a ranking noble.
How to approach him though? If it was easy, I would have done it when we covertly visited Nanon. Unfortunately, my memories of Jack's past were quite spotty, or I would have sent a message to someone he would have known at court. My dilemma solved itself when we got the shock of our lives at the arrival of a royal messenger from Nanon some days later, bearing a letter for us from the Queen herself.
"The Queen?" I asked the messenger quizzically. "Hasn't she been dead for years?"
"The new Queen, my lord. Laira Nanon."
"The Princess? The King married his own daughter?" I asked, scandalized.
"No, you dol- No, Sir. The King was killed by some thrice damned villains while he was visiting the Sindhu Kingdom, along with Prince Linus."
My face paled at that. The King was dead, quite likely due to the information Zock gave to his foreign friends. Now if I show her the document, will she be thankful to us for killing the traitor or angry for not revealing his treachery earlier? There wasn't anything clearly incriminating here, but it would be stupid to hope that a grieving daughter would act rationally. Why couldn't life ever be simple?
We gave the messenger refreshments while I cracked open and read the new Reigning Queen's letter, with my heart threatening to leap out into my mouth.
Dear Neighbors,
I very much regret the actions of Count Zock, which were not officially sanctioned by the Crown of Nanon. I would like relations between our realms to be cordial and to that end, I invite you to visit me in the capital, to discuss how we can move past this unfortunate incident. I promise safe conduct to your entourage.
Yours Sincerely,
Laira the First, Queen of the Nanon Kingdom.
I would have jumped with joy upon receiving such a cordial letter if that old coot Grictus had survived. But now, what to do? I definitely couldn't just ignore it and not do anything.
I tried to figure out the Queen's personality. One of her Counts was killed, but she tries to be cordial with his killers, whom she knows nothing about. She probably wants something from us, but what? If she was thorough in her investigation, she would know that his forces were badly defeated by a less numerous but far superior force. She wants that kind of military advantage, quite likely against the threat of the Zoran Empire.
If she could get me ingredients for gunpowder and Cha refugees to increase our numbers, I could then safely give her repeating crossbows and bows.
"Well?" Lothar asked. I handed him the letter.
"How nice of her." He said. "How will you respond, Supreme Commander?"
"I'll meet her. I think we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement."
"The nobles don't do mutually beneficial agreements though," he added. "They see others' gain as their loss."
"Yes. I get it. It's their first instinct, but this letter makes me believe the new Queen is not that kind of noble. She might be actually noble, or at least pragmatic."
"It's still risky though, and Chadom cannot afford to lose you. Without all the weapons, knowledge and techniques you have introduced, we might not have been alive to see this day, or that brigand might have been ruling us by now."
"You exaggerate. The Cha are a strong people. You would have survived somehow. Besides, I'm imparting as much knowledge as I can and as fast as I can into Cyrus, Aramid, Kovar and you. You already have the seeds of a great and powerful nation within you, and this is a risk worth taking."
I decided to trust in the Queen's nature and told the messenger to expect us at their border in two weeks.
I would need a week to just build something worthy of the leader of a nation. Can't have them thinking we're just a bunch of refugees, since appearances were important to nobles. These people made their carriages as ostentatious as possible, adorning them with bright colored, high quality exotic fabric and other baubles. I had none of those. What I did have a lot of, was steel. Shiny high quality steel, a lot more than them. I planned on adorning my carriage with it. While it would no doubt look impressive, my coach would look very militaristic, but as Sun Tzu said, appear strong when you are weak.
So I again disturbed my master craftsmen and had them build a carriage with wide wheels and leaf springs. The former jeweler was happy to make decorations out of steel and brass for it. For our coat of arms, I chose a white spear with wings, rising up out of a valley with a river of blood flowing through it; the spear symbolizing strength and progress, the wings symbolizing our strong defense and compassion and red signifying the blood of the martyrs.
I also packed something special I had been working on, to impress the Queen, just in case. I decided to covertly travel beside the coach as a guard, with poor Wenik as a decoy. Lothar and the Council reluctantly agreed to the plan. Aprilia, on the other hand, was impossible to convince.