Back of the Envelope

The Rest of the Story: The whole of Fire can be found on my Writings page in PDF format, while the portion of the story that's been published on this blog so far is on this page.

This is the first time I give Gar's point of view. I never really intended for him to be a very important character, but I found him so interesting once I got to know him that I started coming up with ways to give him more screen time.

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Chapter 9
The An-sul Warlock
Gar cursed Talnek one more time for good measure. He had better things to do than chasing after this ragtag patrol of humans. The warlocks did not have any hierarchy along the same lines as the Coven, but Gar did have influence among his colleagues, enough that his place was in council with them, discussing the coming war. Whether out of spite or actual respect for Gar, Talnek had insisted that he deal with these Novari personally. The force which first encountered them had come away bloodied, two of their warlocks dead and a third mortally injured before they fled. The remaining warlock had informed his brethren of what had happened before he died, which had allowed Talnek to respond with this extravagant effort, thousands of Orcs trying to catch a few hundred humans. Dozens of small patrols, scouts, and hunting parties had harried them, weakening their number and slowing them to a crawl while a larger force, at least twice the human numbers and with more warlocks than would normally travel with an army five times the size, rushed ahead to place themselves between the humans and their goal. Talnek had given them the task of stopping any messengers that slipped past the other patrols and destroying the main force if it made it this far. The warlocks, who could sniff out any human coming within miles, had already caught five scouts riding their massive beasts hard in a vain effort to reach the pass. Now they headed toward the second part of their task. The scouts had told them what the warlocks already knew: the humans had turned and fled at the sight of them. The Orcs followed at a walk, certain that the exhausted humans could not outrun them.

Gar had secretly hoped that the humans would be destroyed before reaching this point, but they had proved resilient, likely due to their Domini. The warlocks remembered the Domini from the last war, men with power nearly equal to their own. Some whispered that it might even surpass theirs, but no serious student of history believed that. Gar wondered how many Domini it had taken to defeat three warlocks. The dying survivor of that encounter had only seen one.

The opportunity to meet these Domini in magical battle kept Gar from complaining too loudly. Battles were what warlocks did. They had other abilities, of course, but in most things the witches could match or even best them, though their potent charms and potions took longer to prepare. When it came to raw power, though, the warlocks had the edge, and nowhere was this more apparent than in war. Most battles among Orcs had warlocks on both sides, working magic and counter-magic with equal enough skill that no one saw any outward sign of magic. This had led to the rumor that warlocks only pretended to fight one another in battle, saving their magic for use against those armies which refused to hire enough of them. The fact that enemy warlocks usually died first once one side gained the magical advantage did little to dispel the rumor. The sul wanted to believe the worst of warlocks, and with the sky raining fire, who paid attention to who died first? Once the warlock’s magic became visible, his job was done. Those with refined taste much preferred the magical dueling, with the strike, parry, and counter, to the actual destruction victory wrought. Gar wanted to test the mettle of these Domini, see if they could challenge him. Few warlocks could. In raw power as well as skill, he overwhelmed most opponents, giving him worthless victories. He didn’t expect much challenge from the Domini, but the sheer difference in their magics intrigued him enough to keep him sitting on this animal when he would rather have his feet on the ground.

Gar sat on his pony uncomfortably, but he did not fidget or complain. Sul riders jostled for position all around him, their eyes sometimes wandering from the forest ahead to glance in his direction. To show weakness in front of these sul would reinforce their condescension towards him. He always felt uncomfortable among the sul. He detested them, of course, hated the fact that they considered him inferior to them simply because he had been born an-sul. Though he was as smart as any of them and more educated than most, they considered him a lesser Orc on the basis of his birth and his features. His skin had a deeper shade of green, his eyes were smaller and his nose larger. He looked an-sul, but the differences between him and the sul ended there. The sul thought differently. They refused to acknowledge the an-sul born with the intellectual gifts that would have raised them to the sul class in another age, insisting that they remain in the class where they had been born, that the birth of a few intelligent an-sul was an aberration rather than a blurring of the distinction between the classes. They would point to the superficial physical traits as proof, though Gar suspected that the physical features of which the sul were so proud came from nothing more noble than inbreeding.

He had grown up an-sul, where he had always known that he was different from the others around him. They could not begin to grasp concepts which seemed simple to him. His questions about such things as the sun and the moon, the nature of animals and plants, drove his parents mad. Most of all, Gar had questioned the distinction between sul and an-sul. The an-sul lived in squalor, in wood or clay huts with dirt floors, drawing water from dirty streams, while the sul lived in palaces and dug wells for clean drinking water. The an-sul performed back-breaking labor in the fields for a mere pittance of food, coarse barley and a rare bit of nearly spoiled meat. The sul took the lion’s share from the fields and meat for no labor at all. While an-sul might grumble about the nature of things, they all groveled before the sul, whom they knew to be better by their educated speech and intelligent manner as well as their refined features. Gar did not see them as any better than he, as he could affect their manner and speech easily. That he did not know about the things of which they spoke was a mere function of education. When he asked his parents about learning, however, they gaped at him as though he were mad. He could not possibly think he could learn to be like the sul. They had forbidden him from making the attempt, but he had long since decided that his parents lacked the ability to guide him. When he turned to the sul, they had coldly rebuffed his plea for education, regarding him as they would have a talking dog, a clever and unusual freak, not an equal. With no other options, he had sought out the warlocks. The an-sul warlock he went to tested him and found him capable, but although the master who discovered a new warlock usually apprenticed him, that one had had no desire for an apprentice. Instead, he sent Gar to a half-sul warlock.

All Orcs despise warlocks. Unlike the witches, who had managed to find a place in the religious system, the warlocks had no place. The Orcs feared their powerful magic, sought their help in war, but that did not make the warlocks any less outcasts. They in turn had little concern for the customs of Orcish society, including the separation between sul and an-sul. Since either might manifest the magical ability, the warlocks trained any recruit to the best of his ability, regardless of class. Gar’s new master had recognized both his mental and magical gifts, so he had taught him more than just the magic. He had given Gar a full education, in reading and writing, arithmetic, history, the physical world: all he knew he passed on to his pupil. Gar’s experience with his mentor did not soften his view of the sul, however. His master had hated the sul even more than Gar did, since he thought himself robbed of the birthright his mother’s class should have brought him. A jealous aunt had made sure his family disowned him just before he reached legal age. He too had gone to the warlocks rather than live out his life as an-sul.

Gar wished he didn’t have to spend so much time with the sul. Maybe he didn’t fit in among the an-sul, being educated and a warlock to boot, but he preferred their company to the arrogant sul whose fear of him barely masked their contempt. He preferred the an-sul’s honest fear over false courtesy. Besides, when Gar spoke with the an-sul in their own simple yet quick-paced dialect, they would become almost comfortable with him. The an-sul warlocks, who did feel comfortable around him, were the closest thing that Gar had to friends.

Gar pulled his pony to a stop, nearly falling as it stumbled in the mud, in order to avoid running down a ragged an-sul Orc who was hopping up and down, shouting something barely intelligible. “Man in black. Des-lar say come.”

He couldn’t grasp what the an-sul meant, aside from the fact that the fool whom Talnek had put in charge of this expedition wanted him. Gar almost respected Talnek. Though he certainly didn’t like him, Gar thought him intelligent enough to think past his prejudices, even if the Kawyr had too much influence. Gar had a much lower opinion of the other chieftains. The warlock supposed he might have ended up with someone worse than Deslar, who was paranoid but at least had enough brains to be afraid. Gar could intimidate him.

Gar kicked the pony, and nearly fell from the saddle when it lurched into a trot. Soon the pony was moving more quickly than Gar felt safe traveling. He managed to stay in place through sheer shame at the thought of the most powerful warlock killed by his own riding ineptitude. He wove through the thick trees, following the muddy path left by Deslar’s retinue. The sunlight filtering through the green roof above only reminded Gar of how much he hated this dark forest.

He began to feel the slow throbbing, gradually increasing in intensity, at the same time the small crowd of Orcs came into view. His body seemed to vibrate with it, though he knew that only his sensitivity to the magic made him aware of it at all. The only thing his mundane senses detected was Deslar, with a warlock on either side and guards all around, watching an an-sul hack at a figure in tattered black cloth. With each stroke, sparks flew and metal rang. At first, Gar thought that someone had placed a black robe on a statue. He soon realized that the figure was human, a Dominus whose body had somehow hardened to stone-like rigidity. No matter how hard the Orc swung his axe, not a drop of blood flowed.

The throbbing was becoming more and more powerful, and the other warlocks clearly felt it and just as clearly had no idea what was happening. Gar could feel them wrap their magic around the statue to contain its crescendoing power. Their efforts would not work against this, and realizing this, one of them, sweat beading his forehead and breath panting, tugged at Deslar’s sleeve, urging him to move away from the Dominus. Deslar seemed inclined to agree.

Gar shouted for them to flee, meaning Deslar, the warlocks, the poor, ignorant an-sul hacking away at the seemingly harmless statue, for everyone within earshot. Mostly though, he meant it for himself. He whirled his pony with all the skill he could muster, yelling, kicking, lashing it in an attempt to coax it into a gallop. The pony promptly reared in response, depositing Gar on the ground before it galloped off without him. The warlock rolled onto his stomach, black spots flashing in his eyes, to find himself looking at the Dominus again. Deslar’s pony ran past Gar, his guards trailing behind, on its way to the main force which was still marching in this direction. They couldn’t escape that way. The two warlocks remained near the statue, valiantly but stupidly trying to surround the now audibly humming statue in their magic. The an-sul axeman obliviously chopped away.

He couldn’t run--he wasn’t sure he could stand--so he crawled into a depression behind a large tree root for some shelter. He huddled there within two hundred feet of the statue, much too close. The other warlocks, who must have forgotten their lore, continued in their hopeless magic. The Domini had used this magic on only two occasions in their last war against the Orcs. They had the ability to transform their own bodies into weapons, destroying themselves and everything nearby, but they lacked the resolve to use this ability as an effective battle tactic. Whenever one did show a willingness to sacrifice himself, he wrought untold devastation. The hardening of the body may have been deliberate or a side-effect, but Gar had recognized the sign of this magic right away.

His magic came to him when he called it, humming through him in counterpoint to the throbbing which still grew. He wrapped the magic around himself, not even attempting the selfless actions of the other warlocks. He couldn’t save the others, but he might save himself. His magic blanketed over him, sealing off the human magic, surrounding him in stillness which the pulsing penetrated faster than he could shut it out in layer after layer of power.

Then the buzzing statue burst. A blast of light seared his tightly sealed eyes, heat scorched his skin, a great rush of air and magic tore away his magical protection. He grasped hold the magic as it fled, trying to hold it in place, and felt his spirit being flayed as it flew from his grasp, layer by layer stripped away in a moment. When the last layer had gone, he discovered what Hell was like.



He was dead. Gar saw no reason to deny it. No one could have lived through that. He had felt his body burning and suffocating even before his protection had vanished, when he had been blinded, deafened, and burned as the concussive force literally picked him up and threw him. He could not have survived that.

Yet he had always believed that in death there should be no pain, and right now he hurt all over. His leg twisted in some odd way that said it had broken, bruises covered his body, his eyes burned and saw nothing. In some places his skin felt dead, while in others he thought he must be alight. The witches, who claimed that their power came from direct communion with the ancestors, taught that death released the trapped spirit to become the god it had once been. Since this did not describe his current state, that left Hell. The witches insisted that all warlocks went to Hell, banished there by the ancestors who judged them unworthy. The witch-run religion did not have much of a following among the warlocks, but Gar’s disbelief in Hell had never kept him from fearing it. If this was Hell, Gar was disappointed. In his imagination, it was not a place of fire--the domain of warlocks--but a place of cold darkness. That much seemed true enough, but missing were the horrors of mad, jabbering voices and unseen, unknown things that would touch and hurt him in mind, soul, and body. In short, though it was dark and cold and he hurt all over, this did not live up to his vivid imaginings of Hell.

He realized that he could hear voices, though they sounded hushed and fearful rather than mad and jabbering. In addition came the sounds of rhythmic pacing, interspersed with shuffling. Gradually, his eyes began to pick out stars overhead, as well as trunks illuminated by a nearly full moon, just creeping over the trees. As he stirred, Gar reluctantly concluded that he still lived. He wondered how long he would remain living: those voices were not speaking Orcish.

He sat up, his leg protesting any such movement, but the effort allowed him to see. Of himself, he could make out little, which was probably for the best. Aside from the twisted leg, he seemed to be covered in burns and bruises which he could not tell apart in the darkness. Only charred bits remained of his red robe. He had lain in a fold in the ground, one of many created by the explosion, where the ground had rippled outward like water. The black earth had shaken loose and gathered in the troughs, while red clay, scorched and cracked, lay exposed on the crests. While the explosion had not completely consumed the great trees near Gar’s current location, more than a few had toppled over, blackened and stripped, roots torn from the ground and branches strewn about, leaving a gaping hole in the canopy.

Where the Dominus himself had stood, nothing remained but burned clay and a shallow crater. All else, trees, rocks--and apparently an an-sul warlock--had been tossed aside. A human army traveled through this devastation, some marching, most staggering along, a few riding on their oversized ponies. Mostly the seriously wounded, as well as a few officers and scouts, rode. They all seemed well equipped, with uniform armor and weapons marking out those who had originally been foot, mounted, and archers. The equipment looked like steel, and in better condition than the men. Most marched with their heads downcast, moonlight glinting on their armor, and looked only at the ground directly in front of them, but some of the officers kept glancing sharply from left to right, making Gar cautious. The scouts might miss him in the darkness, but he had to keep still. Less than a thousand feet separated him from this army.

Maybe he shouldn’t call it an army after all. There looked to be no more than three hundred, exhausted, wounded, and demoralized. If no other Domini appeared, he could handle that many. On a better day, he could have. He too was exhausted, wounded, and demoralized. He tried to consider his odds rationally, and the difficulty of thinking it through indicated his weakness more clearly than any mathematical weighing of odds. He could hurt them but not stop them, and they would kill him before it was over. Most likely, riders were already on their way, and it would only take one to upset the surprise Talnek wanted. The mission had failed, and Gar alone had survived. That did not bode well.

He watched and counted as he waited for them to pass. Once Gar could no longer see or hear them, he carefully prepared his report so that it wouldn’t get him killed. Watching the dancing flame in his hand, he repeated his message until he felt certain it would do more good than harm, both for himself and for the Orcs. As satisfied as he was going to get, he released it. The flame lifted toward the sky, then streaked eastward, toward a warlock whom Gar trusted to make sure Talnek heard the message.

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This is a 3,266 word chapter of a 90,110 word novel.

The Rest of the Story: You can find the complete, uncut version of Fire, in PDF format, here. Or you can read the story that's been posted to the blog so far on this page.

When I started posting chapters of Fire as my contribution to the Storyblogging Carnival, I had hoped that this respite would give me a chance to work on Fire's sequel. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way, and I've instead been spending my time first working on a fanfiction for Maritza's College Roomies from Hell!!! and then working on my entry for Faith*in*Fiction's Conversion Story contest. Now that I've finished both of those, I'll hopefully be able to return to Fire's sequel. Wish me luck!

Meanwhile, here's Chapter 8 of Fire. I particularly like the scene at the end.

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Chapter 8
Flight
Paulus came up to Gaius, looking as haggard as the tribune felt, with the blood splattered on his face smeared where he had wiped it from his right eye. All around him, men looked equally bad, most sitting or lying on the ground in exhaustion. A few tried to care for the wounded, but most lacked the strength for even that. Paulus saluted, hand to his heart, before he spoke. “Commander, the men want to know if you want to disband our century.”

Gaius blinked at him stupidly for a moment, then slid from his horse and into the muck, where he stumbled and barely managed to right himself. “Disband your century? Why would I want to do that?”

“There are only thirty of us left, and with the centurion and his second dead, no one is left in charge. If you disbanded us, you could use us to fill out the other centuries.”

“The men selected you as their spokesman?”

Paulus looked nervous. “Yes, sir. I didn’t mean to presume—if you’d rather—”

“Paulus, you’re now the centurion. I’m afraid I don’t have an extra set of silvered armor to outfit you.”

“I’m centurion? But sir, I’m not qualified at all. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“You’ve already begun. Just keep it up.” Gaius wondered if he looked as frightened as Paulus did. Well, now there’s two of us who aren’t so sure they’re prepared for their job, he thought.

“Sir, if I may ask, we’re wondering what you plan to do next.”

“What I plan to do next? Victrinus, and I, had planned to visit two more villages before returning to the pass.”

“Yes, sir,” Paulus said slowly.

“But you don’t think we should?”

“We think that it’s time to go back.”

“You think we should run? Would Victrinus have run?” Gaius said, his voice hardening.

Paulus’s eyes dropped, but only to Gaius’s chest before he took hold of himself. “Yes, sir, he would have.”

“What did you say?” Gaius asked, though he knew he had heard correctly. “Don’t mutter.”

Paulus raised his eyes to meet Gaius’s. “I said that Victrinus would run. We’ve seen the Orcs and we know they’re heading west, towards the pass. We need to go back there and report, not get ourselves killed trying to complete some mission that no longer makes any sense. I-I... I’m sorry, sir, I only meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Gaius said. “More to the point, I agree with you.” If he hadn’t been so determined to live up to Victrinus, he might have managed to do so. “Congratulations, you’re now First Centurion.” Gaius ignored the look of shock on Paulus’s face. If they lived through this, they could worry about the propriety of raising a first-time enlister to the rank of First Centurion. “You need to get the men together, get them ready to move. We can’t stay here, even for a day. And tell that physician to tend to the Dominus. If the man’s still alive, I want him to stay that way.”



It was raining again. The rain plastered Gaius’s hair to his face and crept into his armor. Despite the discomfort, Gaius was grateful to the cold rain for keeping him awake, filling eyes with water so they couldn’t drift shut and sending a shiver down his spine to keep him upright. Even so, he moved like some sort of walking corpse, shambling along with no real will of his own.

Though the men were striking camp, preparing to return to the pass and their home, most believed wouldn’t make it. The Orcs may have fled, ground to a fraction of their original numbers by the Novar soldiers, but there were more out there, and it worried Gaius that they had no way of knowing how many. He just hoped that the two legions at the Austral Pass could stop them. Meanwhile, he had to get his men back there and hope that if he brought warning soon enough, Publius could summon reinforcements to the Pass.

Gaius stopped as one of the slaves came running up to him and nearly fell as his shambling feet came to a halt. Pulling himself together, he blinked his eyes clear of water until they could focus on the man. “What is it?” he asked.

“The physician, he says that the Dominus will live.” The man didn’t seem to regard that as good news, but Gaius was relieved. He didn’t like Domini at all, and he had formed a particular dislike of this one, but the man had proven his worth against the Orcs.

“Tell the physician to make sure he rides in one of the carts. If he has to displace someone more seriously wounded, put that soldier on my horse.” That reminded Gaius of another problem, that the battle had resulted in too many wounded for the physicians to tend to them all properly. They used carts to carry the wounded, but they couldn’t hold all the injured. They should have brought more, he supposed, but just moving two through the forest had been difficult, the lack of trails making for difficult going, even with the paucity of underbrush in this forest. Those whom the carts could not carry would have to ride, although the physicians said it might kill some of them. They had found what remained of Victrinus soon after the Orcs had fled, so the responsibility to make that call had fallen on him and he had decided to move on now at the cost of those lives. He didn’t like the choice, but with Victrinus dead and no other centurion senior enough to tell an Imperial prince what to do, he truly did lead the cohort now.

It took Gaius a moment to realize the slave had left. He ceased staring blankly at where he had stood and left to make sure things were proceeding apace. He wanted to leave within an hour. Though he couldn’t be certain, with the sky hidden by leaves and clouds, he thought that the sun had just passed his noontime peak, leaving them with enough time to put a few miles between themselves and the site of this battle. With any luck, they could keep ahead of the Orcs all the way back.



The Novari had a notoriously vague concept of the afterlife. For the most part, it insisted that the spirits of the dead hung around in the real world, influencing the lives of their descendants; however, there were also more fantastic myths, which persisted more for their poetic descriptions than for any real belief in them. Among those lurked Tartarus, the dark and terrible place where the gods punished the truly wicked for eternity. A sense of futility and hopelessness united these punishments, from Tantalus, parched and starving, with water below his knees and grapes above his head, both of which would recede even as he reached for them, to Sisyphus, forced every day to roll a tremendous boulder up a steep and rocky hill, only to watch it roll back down at nightfall. Gaius could well imagine his return journey to the Austral Pass as one of those punishments.

They had traveled all the way to the Kawyr village without encountering a single Orc. Now Orcs appeared everywhere. From small parties of a dozen riders to larger forces with scores of footsoldiers, the Novari encountered them at every turn. Gaius’s cohort fought where necessary, but for the most part they ran, driven north, south, sometimes even east, while all the time they strived to turn their path westward. They could have fought through the small forces they encountered, but Gaius could feel the Victrinus’s prophesied “much larger force” closing in on them. So he avoided the Orcs altogether when he could, taking detours rather than engaging them. When he had to stop and fight, he drove them off but did not pursue them when they fled the Novari. Even so, it had taken seven days to travel as far west as they had traveled in three days eastward, and the young tribune felt certain that they had ended up much further north than when they had begun.

The march had taken an incredible toll on his men, with a third of their number dead, and those remaining exhausted and demoralized. They plodded along as quickly as fear could motivate them through the weariness, gulping the muggy air as the rains turned the ground to mud and drenched men already damp and miserable with sweat. Many became ill, but he could not give them the option of bed rest. They continued as long as they could, but many simply gave up, succumbing to their misery and dropping on the side of the road. Gaius refused to abandon any of them. Though they had abandoned the wagons days ago, he ordered those too weak to walk carried by horse or donkey. Still, the physicians could not keep all of them alive in these conditions, but not even they advised stopping to rest.

The Dominus refused to die. Though obviously ill, he had managed to ride upright since the second day. His magic had preserved them against more than one encounter with Orcish forces, but it had dimmed to a shadow of the wonders he had performed at the Kawyr village. He confided to Gaius that restoration to full strength would require a full week of rest, without which he didn’t think he’d be a match for any warlocks. Fortunately the army managed to avoid those.

Gaius himself was beginning to feel ill. He felt weak and tired, his eyes burned and his face felt feverish, and despite the damp air, or perhaps because of it, his throat felt raw and dry. He pressed on anyway, sitting his horse as best he could, doing his best not to show weakness, continuing to shout orders when his voice worked and personally receiving every report from his scouts.

One of the forward scouts rode hard toward him now. He signalled a halt, then reined in his own horse. No sense going forward into trouble. He watched the column behind him come to a halt as the remaining calvary, who served as screeners and scouts, adjusted to the change in pace. Gaius had eschewed conventional wisdom for travelling in Kawyr lands, and so far it seemed like a good choice. If the Kawyr were about, they had not caused his scouts any trouble, and his scouts spotted the Orcs at least as often as the Orcs spotted them. They had managed to avoid more than a few encounters that way. Five men had even taken on the task of delivering a message to Publius, riding hard to try to make it to the pass alone.

The scout pulled up right in front of him, both man and horse winded. His scouts traveled lightly, not even wearing the usual leather armor, which Gaius didn’t have for his cavalrymen-made-scouts. Panting, he made his report, “Orcs... a large force... more than we had at first... straight ahead...”

“Ahead? How’d they get ahead of us?” Gaius demanded.

“Most likely by moving faster than we did,” came a voice at his shoulder. Gaius didn’t even jump at the Dominus’s sudden comings and goings these days. It shouldn’t surprise him that the man had come once he saw the scout, anyway. “That wouldn’t have been hard. You should have taken my advice and left the wounded behind.”

Gaius snorted, “In that case, I would have abandoned you that first day.” And been better off for it.

“Perhaps you should have.”

Gaius wondered yet again whether the man could read his thoughts, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. “Can we get around them? Avoid them somehow?” he asked the scout.

“No... I think they know we’re here. They’re coming straight toward us,” the man’s voice cracked. “Sir,” the scout added for the first time. He was scared, and Gaius couldn’t blame them. Now might be a good time to pray to those gods he didn’t really believe in.

“How long do we have?”

“If we stand still, maybe an hour.”

The Dominus spoke while Gaius was desperately trying to think of a way out of this, “Were there any warlocks with them?”

The scout didn’t wait for Gaius’s nod, “The ones in red? I counted seven, but there could be more.”

Gaius looked at the Dominus, who had not bothered to obscure his face since the first encounter with the Orcs. His expression told him everything he needed to know. “You can’t handle seven, can you?”

“In this state, I doubt I could take two.” He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, his face hardened to reflect the look in his eyes. “Take your men, turn them around and head back in the direction you’ve come as quickly as you can move. When it happens, reverse direction again and come straight through here. Your path will be clear: you should break free of the forest by tomorrow evening.”

“When what happens?”

The Dominus ignored him. “They want to stop you from reaching the pass, going through a lot of effort to bring this force here. If they’re this afraid you’ll give warning, we still have time. Maybe a few days, maybe a month, but if you reach the pass quickly enough, you can give your people and mine time to prepare. They might even be able to stop the Orcs.”

“When what happens?” Gaius insisted.

“Don’t question me. Just do it!”

Gaius looked into the Dominus’s eyes for a moment longer, then turned to the scout, “Tell Paulus to get the men turned around. Now!”

It took surprisingly little time. Weariness and injuries made parade ground precision impossible, but the soldiers were well-trained. Within minutes, the column had turned around, and within ten, they began marching in the opposite direction, taking the Dominus’s horse with them. That gesture convinced Gaius that this might be his last opportunity, so he waited behind, watching as they moved out. When they had gone about a quarter mile, he turned to face the Dominus, who didn’t return his look. The black-robed man stood with his back against one of the huge trees, head down with his enormous black hood hiding it, hands clasped together. Gaius had seen that position held by Manuelites when they prayed, though he couldn’t imagine a Dominus doing so. The rain had ceased for the moment, and small spots of sunlight skittered across his damp cowl.

Gaius dismounted and walked to position himself in front of the unmoving Dominus. Drawing his sword, he placed the point at the man’s throat. The Dominus looked up. “Now what?” he asked wearily. “I have work to do, and it’d be a lot smarter for you to ride off.”

“I have a question I want you to answer.”

“Or else you’ll kill me, is that it? I could burn you where you stand.”

“Before I could open your throat? I don’t think so.”

“You’d be surprised at how quickly flesh can burn, but go ahead and ask your question.”

Gaius leaned forward, so he could see the man’s eyes beneath the hood. He had wanted to ask this since the journey began, and he had started to believe that he could when the Dominus had admitted his weakness. A Dominus wrapped in mystery and power was untouchable. One who confessed that he had grown too weak to deal with Orc warlocks was one that Gaius thought he could force an answer out of. Gaius noticed his sword trembling in his too rigid grip and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths and relax his muscles. His eagerness and trepidation made this harder than it should be.

“I want to know what you did to my brother.”

“Marcus? I didn’t do anything to him. He was perfectly fine when we left the pass.”

“Don’t toy with me, Domine. You know I don’t mean Marcus.” At least he should know that. The fatigue hadn’t made him that stupid, had it? “I mean Victor. The one you took eight months ago.”

“Oh, him.” Maybe the weariness had dulled his wits. “That I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

“It is not permitted for me to say.”

“Tell me! Or else I’ll—”

“Yes, I know. You’ll kill me. Do you think that matters? What I’m about to do will kill me anyway. If you do it first, you’re only sealing the doom of you and your men.”

Gaius paused at that, “What do you mean?”

“You obviously didn’t think this through, did you? You need me. If you kill me now, those Orcs ahead will have no problem massacring your little army. You’re threatening your only hope of survival.”

It was true, Gaius hadn’t thought it through. He didn’t really want to kill the Dominus; he wasn’t even sure he could kill the man. Gaius had only thought that he could coerce him into a confession, but the Dominus had called his bluff and empty threats would not do the trick. Something else had caught his attention, however. “What do you mean, you’re about to die anyway?”

“What I’m saying is that the situation looks like it’s a choice of either all of us dying or just me. Even worse, if the Orcs catch up with us, there’s a chance they might take me alive. That I won’t let happen. So I’m going to do the only thing I know that might stop them, and it’s going to kill me.”

“What is it?” Gaius asked, still searching for some way to get his answer.

“I’m going to cause an explosion, one much larger than anything you’ve seen me do before. In order to do that, I’m going to use the substance of my own body to fuel it.”

“That will kill you?”

“I won’t have a body left. What do you think?”

“Then what does it matter if you tell me? You’ll be dead anyway.”

The Dominus began to shake, a soundless heaving of his shoulders which Gaius recognized after a few moments as laughter. A spot of blood appeared where the sword pressed against his throat. “Sometimes, you’re much smarter than you look. Sometimes. Telling you may be worth your life. Do you really want to know?”

“Yes. I don’t care about the penalty.”

“Neither do I. I’ll be dead, so it won’t matter to me, and I don’t much like you anyway.” Bitter amusement laced his voice. “So why not? The Order took Victor Julius Principius to be trained.”

“Trained? For what?”

“To become one of us, of course. What, did you think Domini grow on trees? We must get our recruits somehow.”

Gaius’s head spun. His brother, a Dominus? He looked at the man whose presence he found repulsive and tried to imagine his youngest brother wearing those dark robes, that arrogant sneer, that condescending manner. He couldn’t imagine it of Victor, not his quiet, shy, polite brother. What would these monsters do to him?

“So... he’s still alive?”

“Probably. The training kills some, but not this early on.”

“What—?”

“That’s enough. Now that I answered your question, you should go. I have work to do.” Gaius made no move to leave. “Hurry! If you die in the blast, you won’t be able to give your warning. The Order will want to know what’s coming as much as the Novari will.”

Gaius sheathed his sword and mounted Zephyrus, sparing a backward glance at the man as he kicked his horse into motion. The Dominus didn’t move, still standing there with his head down and hands clasped. Gaius wondered whether he could do what he intended, then decided that he didn’t want to wait around to find out. He rode hard to rejoin his men.

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This has been a 3,322 word chapter of a 90,110 word novel. A total of 40,476 words have appeared in this blog.