Be Thou My Good: Chapter 5 (Patreon)

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Chapter 5: Forced Marche

Catherine Foundling cut a commanding figure as she strode into the mansion, legionaries at her side.

“Who’s in charge here, exactly?”

I was there too of course, because in the six days to Marchford, over games of Dread, and through deep philosophical conversations about the nature of reality (thank you, Masago) I’d become part of Squire’s group.

An older man in a steward’s garments stepped forward at her words. “That would be me, my lady. Fourth Steward Greens, responsible for the manor, and the city, I suppose.”

Not an integral part, by any means, or even a trusted one, but a part, and that meant I got to be on screen for little things like this, or however the gods of this strange world reckoned it. That was the predictable end of helping someone on the road. Of course, walk by that someone and you’re like as not to meet your end instead.

I imagined that this world had a very different take on the Good Samaritan.

Squire took in the man’s response, before giving a half snort of amusement. “Latrines. You’re the sanitation man.”

The man gave a jerky, nervous nod. “That would be me, your ladyship.”

To my side, Masago continued to look at the walls of the mansion, muttering about architectural confluences or something like that. He was beyond me, most of the time, even if the only reason he was here was because he wanted to ask me more questions about my home reality.

“Do you have the authority to surrender the city to me, Fourth Steward?” Foundling asked. I found my eyes drawn back to the front of the room.

I’d seen how she treated her borrowed legions, how she was making them her own, maybe without even realizing it. It would be just as interesting to see how she treated her old people.

“I do.” He took a steadying breath. “I think. But whether the people will observe that surrender is beyond my means to ensure.”

Foundling nodded, I saw the side of her face tensing slightly, but she didn’t say whatever she was thinking about. “Then kneel, Greens. As of this moment, Marchford is returned to the Imperial fold.”

He knelt, and then the real work began.

By the same twist of fortuitous circumstance, I was in the room as Squire called her general counsel together to oversee the city. Ostensibly, I was there because there was paper, and I was working on some new rules revisions for Hakram’s game. But, I was still in the room while the fate of Marchford was made.

I’d had time to contemplate my role. Being an outsider, someone who’d grown up with stories, grown up dissecting them when Squire was learning how to throw and punch… offered a unique opportunity.

Names.

Grooves worn in creation, one that, like a wagon wheel, another life would slip into, gaining some measure of its importance, its myth. Out of everyone in this world, I was perhaps one of the few that would even think about trying to choose my own name, and more than that, I probably had the best chance of actually pulling it off.

And after some thought, I knew what I wanted, or at least, what I was aiming for.

I was never one to turn down power, after all. Not even when it came with chains.

Especially not then.

So, I was cognizant of this, paying more attention to the rules of Hakram’s game, affecting disinterest, even as the key points of the conversation came to me as if carried on the breeze. They were parts of the story after all, so it only made sense that I’d get the gist, didn’t it? Or maybe I was reading too much into things.

The important points:

They’d taken the city, but the people were frightened. Young boys and women were the only people still living here, as the former Baroness had taken all the fighting men for her rebellion, leaving the rest here for the legions to cut down.

They were looking to build some siege engines. I was interested to learn that the goblins were the sappers and engineers for most of the legions. The more I saw, the more clearly these legions were from the same mold as the Roman Legions from Earth; they even had Greek—excuse me, Goblin—Fire.

Then the sky outside went red and creeping tendrils of corruption drew across the moon.

“Oh Merciless Gods,” a tribune whispered.

I paused in my writing.

Ah.

“Shit.” Masago’s hand was clenched white as he dropped the scrying spell he’d been using to locate the last of the Silver Spears. A scrying spell that had fizzled abruptly, before spitting out one last cryptic warning. “There’s a demon on the loose.”

That would be the plot then.

*~*~*

It’s said that anyone can bear adversity; if you want to test someone’s character, give them power.

After the room briefly lost their heads, Catherine Foundling rallied them, before taking stock of the situation. It showed an iron will, even as red light continued to spill in through the windows.

“Masago, can you narrow down where the demon is? Wait, scratch that, can you tell me what it is?”

I wondered what else she’d show me, before the night was over.

Masago grimace, knuckles still white. “Hell Egg. There’s a Hell Egg in the hills.” He paused, working his jaw for a moment. “That’s what Lord Black was trying to say.”

I blinked at that. So, that pale, green-eyed face at the end of the scrying spell was the titular Black Knight?

Hmm.

Squire sighed. “Pretend I don’t know what that is.”

Masago nodded. “Dread Empress Triumphant—”

“May she never return.”

I blinked, raising an eyebrow at the sudden chorus. I felt like I was missing something here.

Foundling rubbed her nose. “That’s going to get old fast.”

Masago cleared his throat.

“That one Empress used demons and devils when she conquered Calernia. Most demons were bound to the standards of her legions, though she kept several on hand for personal use. By the time she died and collapsed the Tower atop the heroes that came for her, there were only a handful left.”

He paused, taking a sip of wine as the room hung on his words.

“Black assigned Father to find those in our newly-acquired territory after the Conquest,” he continued. “Ah, that would be Callow, of course, like in the game.”

“Dammit, Apprentice, this isn’t the time to be talking about Dread.”

Hakram let out a low rumble. “I still haven’t agreed to that name.”

“It’s a damn sight better than yours.” Catherine held out a hand, and her Adjutant gave her another glass of wine. “Anyway, back to the matter at hand, you know, sometime tonight.” She looked annoyed, but I could see that she was still gauging the room.

The moment of levity had cut through the thick tension. It reminded me again how young these so-called soldiers were. Just graduated from their war college.

I had, what, three years on Catherine Foundling? Four? All of them war.

“Of course.” Masago nodded. “As for the demon itself, it must be Absence or Corruption, according to the records.” He paused, tilting his head. “I’m inclined towards Corruption, considering we remember why we need to have this conversation at all.”

Catherine pulled a face. “That would do it. We’ll operate under that assumption.” I looked around the table. “Any objections?” Of course, no one did. Catherine sighed again. “It’s Heiress, has to be. And the Choir’s forsaken Silver Spears are all up in those hills.”

One of the legates, the large ogre blinked. “The Heiress is an Imperial citizen.”

Masago tapped his fingers against his robes. “She is also from Wolof. They would have records of the remaining Hell Eggs.”

“In addition.” Every eye in the room snapped to me. “She’s your nemesis at the moment. I imagine that’s all the excuse she needs.”

Another Ork, Legate Juniper if I remembered correctly, growled, flashing fang at me. “And why are you here, still? This is a matter for the Legion.” No doubt she meant to have me escorted out. There was no trust there, and at the moment, it looked like Catherine Foundling would toss me out as well.

Then Nauk spoke up. “We should hear what she has to say.”

I paused, turning to look at the massive Ork I’d spoken too that night, over his friend’s pyre. He gave me a short nod, showing the barest hint of fang.

At some point, I’d have to learn what all of those expressions meant.

But at the moment, I had someone else to convince. I turned to Squire. “Before the Battle of Three Hills,” as their clash with the Silver Spears had been named, “I gave the Exiled Prince a single piece of advice. He discarded it and died ignominiously by a rival’s hand.”

Foundling let out a low breath. Then she cursed. “Fine then, what advice do you have for me then?”

Juniper crossed her arms but didn’t gainsay the other girl.

I let out a breath, rising to my feet.

It bought me a moment to think.

The Exiled Prince had been the Squire’s foil. Bright, heroic, and so honorable that it got him killed. Catherine was the apprentice to the Black Knight, a villain, and her own brand of honor didn’t stop her from having him shot in the throat.

So, it stood to reason that this Heiress would be Catherine’s foil in some way as well, didn’t it?

I’d heard enough of the Wasteland, and the type of horrendous and vainglorious people that nation produced with frequency. A Named from them would be the embodiment of those traits, wouldn’t she?

Iron sharpens iron, they say.

How fitting.

Catherine was straightforward, had her own brand of honor, and was Callow to the bone.

Heiress would be the opposite of those things.

“I would say that, it doesn’t matter who released the demon. If it was the spears, well,” I waved to the window, “they didn’t live long enough to regret their mistake.”

“And if it was Heiress?” Catherine Foundling asked.

I tilted my head. There was… yes. I could almost feel the grooves around me. Was I still just imagining things?

Or was I at the point where imagination and reality were simply two sides of the thinnest coin?

Ever spinning.

Heads?

Or tails?

“Then I’d say that she’s no doubt accomplished whatever she set out to do with it.” I met Catherine’s gaze head on. “And if you all were to fall over and die for her, then that would be a nice bit of icing on the cake.”

Catherine huffed, leaning forward over the table. “She would, wouldn’t she?”

Aisha Bishara, the Wastelander Tribune who had processed me when I was still a prisoner, gave a courtly smile. “Akua Sahelian is a wretched bitch with more ambition than sense, if you’ll pardon my language. Wolofites are a notoriously proud and fickle lot.”

Well, at least I had a name to go with a Name.

Squire snorted. “You’re telling me. So, our goal is to survive, because even if she was up in those hills, she wouldn’t be there now.” She paused for a moment drumming her fingers on the table. “Yeah, that’s just like her. She didn’t stick around the last time we fought, either.”

“So, what’s the plan, Callow?” Nauk asked. “If we can’t just march on the bastard, we still have plenty of Goblin Fire, don’t we?”

“The plan isn’t to fight anything.” Catherine Foundling cut her hand through the air. “Demons are above our paygrade, and our resident oracle just told us the winning move is not to play. Juniper, start drawing up plans to evacuate the civilians.”

The room went silent.

Catherine blinked once, before her face darkened.

“There are at least eight thousand people in this city, Warlord,” came Juniper’s reply.

“It will be nearly impossible to get them out of their homes in time even if they cooperated, which they won’t.”

“By then, we’ll have corrupted cataphracts to deal with. Worse,” Hune, the ogre, said.

I shifted backwards some, letting the spotlight shift back to the Squire as her friends and advisors told her that it would be impossible to save her people.

I waited.

What will you show me, Catherine Foundling?

“You know,” her words cut through the chatter. “I just can’t help but wonder if any of you would have the balls to say that if we were in Aksum, or Thalassina, or even Wolof.” Her smile was dark as she listed off Imperial cities. “Or if the only reason this option isn’t on the table is because we’re in Callow.”

“We don’t have the firepower, by your own admission.” Juniper frowned. “The only sensible move is to withdraw.”

Foundline nodded slowly, more to herself than to anyone else, as she looked around the room. “Is Callow part of the Empire?” she asked. More silence. “No really, feel free to answer.”

A tribune cleared his throat. “I don’t think anyone is denying that, Lady Foundling.”

“That’s funny.” Catherine bared her teeth. “Just like all those cities I just named, huh?”

“These are rebels,” Juniper said.

“So is the entire Wasteland. You know, it strikes me that, among the goals that Heiress could have ‘already accomplished’, the corruption of eight thousand innocent people by a greater demon is pretty far up there, because you know she’d leave this death trap in a heartbeat.” Catherine put her hand down on the table. “And she’d assume that we’d do the same, because the Empire’s talked a good game since the Conquest, but they haven’t had to match those words with action.”

She rose, and for a moment, she seemed much taller than her diminutive height. “Now is the time where we find out whether it was all just talk after all. Does Praes stay the course, when it costs something to do it? Taking a country isn’t enough to rule it, Juniper. That has to be earned. If Callow is part of the Empire, then our oaths apply to it. Every soul within its borders is under our protection, whether that means fighting Procer or the Free Cities or the children of Hell. We don’t get to pick and choose who those oaths apply to.”

Her eyes swept the room.

“The eyes of Calernia are on us. So tell me now, are we hypocrites, or not?”

“Not,” said Nauk almost instantly. His face was intense. “I didn’t bury my… my command just so I could walk across these hills in ten years to put down another rebellion.”

I blinked. Those were my words, from the fire.

But he’d made them his own.

“Not.” The goblin engineer grinned. She’d been the one asking to build siege engines. “I’ve always wondered if a trebuchet of Goblin Fire could kill a demon.”

“Ah, and here I wanted to live to spend my pension,” said the fearful tribune, the one who’s name I hadn’t got. “Not.”

Not. Not. Not.

One by one, the soldiers of the fifteenth legion went around the room, affirming their oaths, one at a time. Until Catherine Foundling got to Hakram.

The stolid orc simply chuckled. “Do you even have to ask?”

They turned to plan again, when I cleared my throat.

Something told me that now was the time to speak up. That any sooner would have been…

I don’t know what it would have been.

All I knew that this was the moment.

Catherine froze, groaning, turning to look at me. “What is it now?”

“It was a good speech, I wholeheartedly approve.” I nodded. She’d shown me some mettle now. Something that felt like a mirror once more. “So I suppose I should say that running away isn’t the solution here. Not if you want to save your people.”

Juniper let out a low growl. “There will be riots if we try to get them moving.” It wasn’t quite an agreement, but close enough.

“Marchford is under martial law,” Catherine Foundling tried. “We’ll do what we have to.”

“What we’ll do is try to get them moving, and then the city will be on fire when the demon shows up.”

Catherine bit back a curse.

“Our wounded are still as much as half a day’s march from the city, as well, Foundling,” Juniper said.

Catherine cursed.

“Apprentice, how likely are they to be targeted?” she asked.

“Normally, I’d say the odds are low.” The boy grimaced. “But stronger corruption demons can affect creational laws—there may already be a force on the way there.”

“Infantry wouldn’t move fast enough, but the cataphracts might.”

Catherine clenched her fist, before slowly relaxing it. “Juniper, how likely do you think we can get our wounded moving in the opposite direction while getting the civilians ready?”

The orc made a dour face. “Impossible. We’d lose half of them still.” The entirety of her bearing said that this was a bad idea.

Catherine took a deep breath. “Hune, Hakram, take a detachment, and one of the scouts too. Get the rest of the legion here.” Then she rounded sharply on me. “And as for you, little miss prophet, how are we supposed to win, then?”

I smiled. “Isn’t it obvious? The Defenders of Callow, the nation with a sword over every hearth, and armor hidden in every home, rally the people, holding till the dawn.” I gestured towards Masago. “How fortunate you brought the dawn with you.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “Apprentice?”

The bow swallowed, looking towards the window. “If we could find the demon… I could probably contain it.”

“Black will be coming too.” Squire started pacing. “But there’s one problem with that little yarn you’ve woven for me. Three, actually.”

“Oh?”

She glared at me. “The only people left are women and children too young to fight, we’re a Legion of Terror, not Callowan Knights, and I’m a Villain, not a Hero. I don’t get to have stories like that. I get to die in them.”

I hummed. Legion of Terror? Had I been saying it wrong in my head the whole time?

Well, anyway, to answer her questions.

“Women can help raise palisades, children can run messages, and anyone can use a crossbow.” I allowed a small smile. “I’m told you use them to great effect.”

Nauk snorted. The air in the room shifted, stoking the fire that Catherine Foundling had already lit.

“As for Legion, didn’t you just say that Callow is part of the empire?” I waved a hand to the room. “I present to you, the new Defenders of Callow. Because damn all the demons back to hell, before the Empire gives up an inch of what it owns.”

A rumble of agreement went through the surrounding officers.

But Catherine’s eyes just narrowed further. “And the last?”

“Why, Catherine,” I said. “Just because you’re not a Hero, doesn’t mean you’re not the Hero.”