Robert Newcomb: Rise of the Blood Royal

At once a terrible fire poured through Tristan’s bloodstream. He desperately needed to move, to scream, to cry out and beg that it stop. But he couldn’t. He could only endure it. On and on the pain went, coursing through his system like a raging river. Sweat poured into his eyes, his heart raced, his soul shrieked in torment. As the process continued unabated, some were forced to turn their heads, while others brushed away tears that only kept returning.

In the end, the torturous process would take five full hours.

TWO DAYS AFTER DESTROYING THE CITY OF KAGOYA, Vespasian triumphantly stood in the Shashidan valley through which ran the mighty Alarik River. It was midday, the weather clear and bright. As he looked out across the amazing scene, the emperor couldn’t have been more pleased.

His destruction of Kagoya had been total. Despite the lengthy warnings that he had received from Gracchus, even he had been astonished by his new gifts. As Gracchus said, choosing a particular forestallment and then summoning its power had been simple things. Controlling it as it went about its awful work and then causing it to vanish on command had been far more difficult, however. With experience, your ability to control your new gifts will only grow, Gracchus had told him. Like some highly addictive drug, Vespasian’s new gifts beckoned tantalizingly, and he hungered to taste them again. With his day terrors finally gone and the banned forestallments waiting to be summoned, he had never felt so alive.

On seeing their emperor destroy Kagoya, his legionnaires had acquired an even greater reverence for him. They now considered Vespasian a demigod, his awesome command of the craft unlimited in its scope and fury. The final victory over Kagoya had fully redeemed the scheming lead cleric in the emperor’s eyes, and everyone believed that the total dominance of the Vagaries would not be long in coming.

Aside from his supply lines that stretched ever northward, Vespasian’s entire war machine had been moved to this valley by way of hundreds of azure portals. The Shashidan resistance had been stronger here, and many legionnaires had died.

Even so, the campaign had progressed too easily, Vespasian thought. His massive war machine’s string of successes continued to worry him and his advisors. It was almost as if the Shashidanswanted them to succeed, but the Rustannicans were at a complete loss as to why this might be the case. What was done was done, Vespasian realized, and there would be no turning back until their mission was complete. To stop the campaign now that the gold deposits had been taken would be absurd, even though the newly empowered warlord and every advisor in his service feared that a Shashidan trap was in the making. They had come for the gold, and they would stay in this place and take it.

Trying to cast off his concerns, Vespasian turned to admire the lush, beautiful valley and the majestic river that flowed through it. This area was one of the most awe-inspiring that he had ever seen, not to mention the richest. In the Rustannican dialect it was called Vallesis Majestatis, or the Valley of Majesty. The Shashidans called it Tani Kinkiro, the Valley of Gold. Vespasian found both names apt.

Running due north and south for more than one hundred leagues, at the valley’s heart laid the mighty Alarik River, fed by its seemingly endless branches. Legend said that hundreds of centuries were needed for the river to carve its way south through the imposing granite peaks and to divide them into two separate mountain ranges. On leaving the valley the river flowed south toward the broad, flat plains that would later give rise to Ryoto, the capital of Shashida.

The opposing mountainsides rose leagues into the air, their tops so high that they lay perpetually covered with snow and ice. The craggy slopes had long ago become laden with pine trees, their green needles casting a clean scent into the air. Lush pastures and knolls lay on either side of the Alarik, their gentle swells extending from the riverbanks to where the mountainsides began rising toward the sky. Fish filled the Alarik and its many branches, and wildlife of every kind flourished amid the serene protection granted by the opposing mountain ranges.

To everyone’s surprise, the phrase “Shashidan gold mines” had been a misnomer. On reaching the Vallesis Majestatis, Vespasian and his forces were stunned to find that there were in fact no “mines” at all. Instead, the gold lay all about for the taking, the earth humbly offering up her treasures without demanding a great struggle of any kind.

Gold nuggets-the smallest among them easily the size of man’s hand-could be seen lying atop the Alarik River bed, their bright yellow color waving temptingly up through the rushing water. More gold could be found in countless veins that reached up the mountainsides, their vast wealth easily dislodged with the craft to tumble down the hillsides and land literally at the legionnaires’ feet. The pickings were easy, and seemed too good to be true. No matter from what source the gold came, more was found beneath it.

As best the Rustannicans could tell, these amazing deposits abounded for the entire length of the valley. Vespasian could easily understand why guarding this place was so difficult for the Shashidans. Because the valley was so huge, protecting it would require the presence of so many katsugai mosota that few would be left to fight the war. And because the gold fields lay so deep in Shashidan territory, an attack on them was highly unexpected. Even so, there had been many katsugai mosota here. Killing them had come at a cost, but not so great as to stop Vespasian’s legions from ruling the day.

After dispatching the enemy, Vespasian’s legions set to work harvesting the golden bounty that so temptingly presented itself. As an incentive to speed the task, he issued a decree that every legionnaire who survived and returned home at the end of the campaign would share in the plunder.

Hundreds of thousands of men toiled at picking up the gold, their sweating, bent backs stretching away toward each end of the valley as far as the eye could see. War tents by the thousands stood along the riverbank, forming an impromptu city made of canvas. The southerly flowing Alarik ran particularly fast through the valley, making Vespasian’s planned use of his barges to ferry the gold upstream largely unworkable. Even so, many tons of gold had already been sent home to Ellistium by way of the azure portals, and more was leaving Shashida by the minute.

Despite this place’s obvious temptations, a great danger lay here, and Vespasian knew it. The very idea of his army being enclosed in a valley was a military nightmare. If the Shashidans closed off both ends of the Vallesis Majestatis, his forces’ only avenue of escape would be the azure portals, which in turn would mean abandoning the gold fields. Unless his trapped legions escaped by portal, the barbaric katsugai mosota would come charging down the valley from both ends, trapping Vespasian’s legions in the middle. In hopes of preventing an attack inside the valley, he had sent three legions to guard each valley entrance. As his worries taunted him, Vespasian was soon reminded of a famous military tenet. No man fights so hard as he who defends his homeland, he remembered. If and when the katsugai arrived in force, they would fight very hard indeed.

Vespasian turned to see Lucius and Persephone approaching. The First Tribune held a wax diptych in one hand. Smiling broadly, he removed his helmet and placed it under one arm. Persephone came to her husband’s side and looped one arm though his.

“It goes amazingly well, my liege,” Lucius said, handing the diptych to Vespasian.

“Is this the latest count?” the emperor asked.