Chapter 187: Commands Issued

Book 4, Chapter 28 - Commands Issued

Azurus gazed into the night through the budding branches of the Oakwood's tall trees. Three full moons shone back at him.

It was Triluna day. A day of celebration in Xenaria. Lights, colors, and song would smother the streets of Exaltyron. A festive day when even the less fortunate could smile, and the poorer yet would have a feast to thieve from. Memory touched the film of Azurus' aching heart. Oft on days of festival he and Emeria had snuck out from the palace ball and immersed themselves into the excitement of open stalls, harp thrumming gleemen, and candied foods found on the city's streets. Twice she'd gotten too close to the Impoverished District and had been robbed of her purse, making nothing of it.

' They probably need it more than me ' Emma had said. And they did of course. Azurus knew it well having lived an orphan's life in the capital's slums once upon a time.

Her, that wonderful woman he'd fallen in love with, now did things Azurus never imagined she could. The burdens of a ruler differed harshly from the optimism of youth. These were words Odain oft repeated with a head tilted unto the sky. Ever the Vicegerent sought penance and forgiveness of transgressions past, of a genocide done. Azurus saw these same ails mirrored in his beloved. The throne had changed her. He knew she'd come into it one day, but with that knowledge had come the belief that he would be there beside her, holding her hand when none else would.

It was not to be.

Pots and pans clanged . Soldiers in white sung with irritable voices to mark the night. The camp had been set as light had begun to fail an hour ere. A year ago, these woods had been the site of a vicious plot to kill Eildred Aegis, former captain of the queen's guard. A plot Elizia and Azurus had put an end to. All to no avail. Both queen and knight had fallen still during riots in the capital. The Indomitable Thundersword they called him… What am I in comparison?

Azurus sat down next to a cooking fire before his own humble tent. Tongues of flame licked the edges of a black iron pot, a salted stew bubbling within. An un-spiced stew, but the aroma of cooking meats could not be denied. Azurus stirred the contents with a wooden spoon, eyeing his soldiers sitting in groups near fires of their own. They laughed and drank with each other. A merry band one might consider them, but these new and ill trained recruits were far from men of any prowess, let alone combat prowess.

Azurus shivered. The chilling notion of an ambush ran its course through his blood. He could not dismiss it. The trees of these woodlands found their nourishment from many a human remain —many of them true Whitecoats of House Lakris' armies. Soldiers who'd died fighting for queen and country. Should remnants of the rebellion or even a bandit band come on to this camp, these men were the last among whom Azurus would want to make a desperate stand.

He snorted at his own incompetence. Fear when it was not he who'd spent numerous days trapped between the trees. Fear when it had not been he who'd seen friend after friend succumb to wounds or starvation. He'd only arrived at the very end, but imagination was a powerful enough tool to weaken even the stoutest of foundations. Would I have survived as long had I been in Sir Aegis' place?

No. No, he would not.

Azurus turned his attention back to the bubbling stew. He stirred and stirred, losing himself to the spiral of the fatty broth, as if its every turn wound time backward to better days long gone. He believed still. Odain had changed his ways and turned to advocating for pacifism. If such a man could turn to a better path after all he'd done, then Emma too would one day change. She'd one day remember the days they'd shared together, one day look beyond her own grief and unto her friends again. She had to.

You've been betrayed .

“No, I haven’t,” Azurus muttered. But the pirate woman's words echoed in his ears. They'd felt hollow at the time. But he could not forget them. The possibility of them being true so, too, did not die. He removed his stew from the fire and poured some into a wooden bowl. He began to blow at the steam rising from within when a lone whitecoat approached him. A young man perhaps two years Azurus' younger.

“Sir,” the soldier greeted, straight backed and fist to heart.

A better salute than most in this company could manage. “What is it?”

“Sir, should we not have a perimeter? I know its festival night, but we're outside and in a dense woodland. The very site where many of us fell last year. And also—”

Azurus cut him off with a wave of his hand. A drop of stew sloshed out and rolled down the edge of the bowl. “And who's to tell them to stand watch, soldier?” he asked, pointing to the raucous company. “You?”

“Sir, I was hoping you could…”

Me? Azurus shook his head. The men hated him already. A commander much younger than most of them, and the captain of her majesty's guard no less. They assumed him of strong lineage who'd attained the position through connections. Odd that. New knights of the queen's guard despised him for his high station and low birth while the Whitecoats thought the opposite. He had no favor among those of his charge, and no name like Thundersword behind which to rally his own confidence.

Azurus the Whirlwind.

That was to have been his title. The name given him by his teacher. “Let them celebrate,” Azurus said. “What's a single night matter anyway?”

The soldier's lips thinned. He offered a bow, letting out a subtle exhale of disappointment before turning to leave.

“What's your name?” Azurus called after him.

“Calan, sir. Fifth battalion, tenth squad.”

Sharp with his answers too. Young, but he could not be of the new order. The son of an old squad captain perhaps? “What is your father's station, Calan?”

“I am an orphan, sir. Born on the outskirts of the Impoverished District.”

Azurus raised a brow. “And thus you find yourself without friends to laugh with this night?”

The soldier shuffled his feet. “I have friends… of sorts… We can have guards on rotation. I just don't agree with not having a perimeter. If, say, Queen Emeria were here, we would not be lazing about like this. Even on the night of three full moons.”

Azurus scowled. Hearing Emma's name from another's lips pricked his skin. “Do you presume to tell me how to do my job, Calan of nowhere?”

Calan swallowed. He bowed his head. Shadows from the dancing fires swept along the sweat marring the sides of his slightly crooked nose. “Of course not. Sir.”

“If you've nothing to do, go catch me a hare or some small creature,” Azurus said, waving his hand. Perhaps some work would put this young man's mind at ease. “You can scout our surrounds while you're at it.”

“Yes sir,” came the reply, followed by another sharp salute.

Azurus let loose a sigh as the soldier walked away, his colleagues bereft of any wonder about where one from their group was off to in the dark of the woodlands. Plenty of them stepped away now and then to relieve themselves anyhow. Azurus ate from his stew, watching as the men cracked open another cask of ale and pried open yet another box of dried and salted fish that Lady Coraine had been generous enough to provide. They were going through supplies like a pack of starved wolves without a care for the remaining two or three cycles it may yet take to march back to the capital.

And Azurus had not a care in the world to command them otherwise.

His bowl of stew disappeared before he'd even noticed. He moved to pour more from the pot when Calan reappeared within the campfire's light, holding in his hand a squirming hare by the neck. “Sir,” the young man said with a salute.

Azurus itched at his brow. He never imagined the soldier would actually find game so soon, let alone bring it back alive. I did want it back alive, didn’t I? There was a Chronary experiment he'd been wanting to try. “So soon?” he questioned, eyes narrowed.

“I'm used to catching rodents, sir. Orphan, remember?”

The ground beneath Azurus seemed to turn into quicksand. He felt himself shrink as he cringed at his own behaviour. I had the luxury of living in a rundown orphanage at least. And Calan hunted rodents to live. The aftertaste of the stew felt bitter in his mouth. “Put the thing in a cage, soldier. And then bring it to my tent. You can finish the remainder of my stew.”

“Yes sir,” the soldier said, turning away.

The flames were too bright for Calan's eagerness to remain hidden. This boy had lived on the streets until recently. The relaxation in recruitment proceedings had allowed a nobody like him to enter the ranks of the queen's armies. A nobody who knew of the slums and the terrors they offered. A person committed to carving out a better life for himself through better choices. He looks to me as an example for an ideal of those who would laud themselves better than the beggars living in the slums. He looked to Azurus, who had nothing to offer. How was he to guide anyone when he was lost himself?

Azurus retired to his tent. Calan dropped off the hare shortly after. The thing squealed in its cage. Azurus pulled out his research papers from his pack and looked them over. He used a fresh sheet to formulate the exact sentence he wanted, writing out multiple iterations and doing his best to ensure no contradictions could be deduced from the words. It didn't go as planned, but he thought he had a working sample after about an hour.

Azurus eyed the caged hare and began chewing on the edge of his lips. To bind a creature's soul to my own, compound the life force of us both, and tether its mind to my commands. The hardest part was convincing a mindless creature to accept submission. A human of similar ideals might be convinced of accepting such a trade, but an animal? It wasn't smart enough. Yet still Azurus sought to try. It was his first large step towards creating the immortal army he sought.

Chronary uses life force to enforce its magic. That was another difficulty. Done wrong, he could kill himself. He altered his sentence some more, making sure the hare's life force would end up being used during the experiment process. Satisfied with the words written, Azurus took a knife to his own arm and let drops fall into an empty ink jar. The red was near black in the dull light of candles within his tent. He then grasped the hare's leg and made an incision, squeezing the limb to let both his and the animal's blood mesh within the jar.

The hare squealed louder, its beady eyes flitting back and forth in fear.

Azurus dipped a clean quill into his new, red ink, and penned the sentence he'd decided upon. He read it over multiple times. And then he closed his eyes and meditated upon the words. He breathed in and out, repeating the words in his mind, feeling each syllable on his tongue. A final released breath saw a stinging pain strike his heart as life was pulled from within him to be used as a catalyst to activate the magic.

Azurus felt an instant block in his head competing for control of his thoughts. It was a weak, and fragile thing, pushing at him like the dull throb of a headache after a long day's work. It was the hare's mind connected with his own. He pushed back on it, and felt the force dissipate. A great sense of control rushed through his limbs —an excitement the likes he hadn't felt since he'd first gripped the hilt of a sword as a young boy. He felt powerful.

Azurus opened his eyes. The hare, which'd been squealing in pain and fear just a second before, sat quietly now, staring into his eyes as he did the same to it. It was still, just as he was.

Azurus imagined it hopping.

The hare bounded up once, its head striking the roof of its small cage.

“It worked,” Azurus breathed. “By the flames. It actually worked.” An animal could not be convinced to lose its mind, but an animal was a creature of low sapience. It could easily be forced into submission by a person. Azurus tested several more commands, and the hare obeyed. This was it. This was what he'd been searching for. He opened the animal's cage and played around with more commands.

Five minutes later, the hare's fur began to change from the bland brown it'd been to a dull grey. Another five minutes later, it stopped moving altogether, keeling over and lying still, eyes wide open. Dead.

Right. I'd used words that made my every command extract life force from it. Hares didn’t live for many years anyhow. The struggle now would come from figuring out a sentence that would allow two beings to combine their life forces, but still allow Azurus to retain ultimate authority over all minds tethered to his own.

And of course, finding people sharing his values and morals, willing to be his immortal army. It needs to be a massive army. For any fatal wound to one man will extract life force from us all. Every command I give will extract life force from us all. I need an army with a large enough combined life force to last thousands of years…

But still, he'd made a great accomplishment, and his mood was healthier for it. His confidence surged, and for once, Azurus felt balanced after a long time wading through life in the dark. He was a step closer to creating a just world as he imagined. A step closer from relieving Emma of her duties and burdens, so that she could once again feel the joys life had to offer her. So that she could once again feel unburdened when glancing his way.

It suddenly occurred to Azurus that he already had an army. He just needed to make it his own. Starting with the one hundred Whitecoats lounging outside. He stepped outside of his tent. Calan sat at the cook fire next to, sipping from a bowl of stew. The young man looked up at his commanding officer, shrinking back as if thinking his meal would be usurped from his hands.

“Soldier,” Azurus said. “You're right. I should have set a perimeter. And I will.”

Calan glanced at the encampment, many of the soldiers now drunk and singing incoherently. “Sir, with all due respect, it might be a little late.”

“It's never too late to change, Calan. Watch and learn. Learn well. I'll wager you'll be a captain 'fore long.”

“I'm flattered, sir but—”

Azurus waved his hand. He was already walking toward his soldiers. The only way to discipline men like these was to play their game. A game was exactly what he'd give them. He marched to the center, hand to the pommel of his sword. Many eyes turned to him, but most ignored him otherwise. “Listen up you lot. You think yourselves a proper squad of soldiers, but you're worse than the rabble thieves I could pick out from the slums. You don't even have a proper perimeter set up, and don't give me the filthy excuse of this being the night of three moons. Death does not wait for your celebrations. Neither will any would be enemies wait for you to break from your drunken stupor. If we came under ambush, you'd all be dead already.”

Angry hisses and hushed slurs were thrown his way.

Azurus smiled. “Why don't we play a game then, all of us. A one on one duel between me and whoever thinks they can take me, Azurus the Whirlwind in a fight. Winners take home ten gold crowns. Losers will stand half the night on watch on the camp's perimeter. What say you lousy excuses for her majesty's royal arms?”

Cheers and curses rung out as half sober men stood up and drew their blades. Dirt was kicked into campfires to kill their light and allow an effective arena to be formed where the duels could take place. Arguments broke out about who the first challenger would be. Calan, pushed his way past his colleagues and entered the arena proper, drawing his blade. A model soldier.

Azurus drew his own sword and took a stance. He'd make proper men out of these louts. Proper soldiers of high morals and rigorous training. An army that he could be proud of. An army that would look up to him as so many once looked up to Eildred Aegis. An army that would be willing to entrust their minds to him in exchange for near immortality.

Azurus lunged towards his opponent, smiling. Calan did the same, wearing a grin of his own.

Inside the young captain's tent, the flickering light of a waning candle flame reflected within the cold, beady eyes of a now dead hare.