Chapter 195: Rnd’s Investigation II


    <em>‘Who would ever want to live in these dreary Northern Territories…?’</em> Rnd thought as he rode his horse along thest dirt path on his journey. The sky was overcast, the ground was rocky and broken, and what few forests he’d seen were thin and hardly inviting.


    It had been more than a month since he’d left the capital, and he felt like he’d been riding all over the Northern Territories looking for the Consul of the North. First, he’d gone to Cyrenaica, arge fortress city located near the center of the Northern Territories—itself a more than two-week journey from the capital—only to find that the Consul wasn’t there. When he’d asked where the Consul had gone, he’d only been told that the Consul hadn’t returned from Cyrene.


    Naturally, Rnd then rode with all haste to the harbor fortress, expecting some kind of trouble there—the Valeman incursion had long been dealt with, so he’d expected the Consul to return to his central base. However, Cyrene was calm as could be when he arrived, much to his confusion. He’d gone to the citadel looking for answers and was only then directed to Fort 127. With some mild annoyance, Rnd departed for the Fort with a guide, who he was sure took him on as winding and circuitous route as he could.


    But, finally, after a month of riding through the Northern Territories, Rnd and his guide crested a hill and the fort he was seeking appeared in the distance. It looked incredibly differentpared to when Leon had firstid eyes upon it, as it was now staffed with a full Legion—Clovis having sent two of his three Legions back to their respective posts. Thousands of simple wooden barracks had been constructed, and much of the forest on both the southern and northern sides of the wall had been cut down for wood.


    “… I didn’t realize this ce was so big,” Rnd murmured as he looked out over the fort.


    “It didn’t use to be,” his guide replied, “that recent raid really shook things up out here.”


    “Oh really, I didn’t notice…” Rnd said sarcastically as he nced back south at the other camp in the area.


    This other camp wasn’t nearly so big as the Legion that was entrenching itself at Fort 127—Rnd estimated it was only big enough for two or three thousand men—but it was certainly close enough that it could cut off supplies going to the fort if those in the camp wanted to. The banners flying over this camp showed that these soldiers were Count Whitefield’s personal army.


    Moving along the dirt road between the camp and the fort, Rnd and his guide were watched by hawk-like soldiers on both sides, making this final short leg of the journey more than a little nerve-wracking.


    “Hold there!” came a shout from ahead. A ten-foot-tall wall had been built on the southern side of the fort, with short battlements and stocky guard towers along its length.


    Rnd wasn’t too impressed with the fortifications, but since they had only gone up in thest month, they were rtively remarkable. The gatehouse appeared more formidable in his eyes, with a clearly enchanted gate built into the foot of a tall and sturdy looking tower.


    The person who had called out to him to stop appeared, walking out of the gatehouse and onto the ramparts.


    “Identify yourselves!” the soldier demanded. He wasn’t too overbearing, as he was a third-tier mage and could tell that Rnd was stronger than him, but he also couldn’t allow them to enter the fort unchallenged.


    “I am the Pdin Rnd! I’m here to speak with Sir Clovis!”


    The third-tier mage in charge of the gatehouse paled a little, but to his credit, he didn’t back down. “Wait right there, I’ll send someone out to verify your identity!” he shouted.


    Rnd was wearing a full suit of gleaming silver armor polished to a near-mirror shine, with his blood-red Pdin cloak hanging from his shoulders and his aura proudly unrestrained. He found it doubtful that anyone would really doubt his identity, but he patiently waited several minutes until a fourth-tier mage—the man in charge of the all the gatehouse guard shifts, Rnd guessed—appeared out of a smaller door built into the gate.


    The Centurion hurried over and checked Rnd’s ID, and several minutester, the gate was slowly opening for the Pdin. Rnd couldn’t help but be a little surprised and disgruntled that the only person waiting for him on the other side of the gate was a single fifth-tier Tribune.


    “This way, Sir,” the Tribune said, pointing the Pdin and his guide toward the nearby stables.


    The two quickly got their steeds taken care of, and the guide was directed to the guest barracks; he’d stay in the fort until it was time for him to take Rnd back to Cyrene. The Pdin, meanwhile, followed the Tribune to a rtivelyrge two-story structure near the center of the main fort wall. He could sense dozens of people within, including several high-tiered mages.


    “I assume this is themand building? This is where Sir Clovis is?” he asked the Tribune.


    “This is the fort headquarters,” the Tribune confirmed. “However, the Consul may not have time to see you today. I’ve only been ordered to escort you here, for anything else I’m afraid you’ll be waiting on those inside to make time for you.”


    Rnd couldn’t help but visibly frown.


    “Perhaps things might have been a little different had you sent a message ahead informing us of your arrival,” the Tribune said in a hard tone.


    <em>‘Don’t bite, don’t get angry,’</em> Rnd repeated in his mind like a mantra. He had no idea why the Tribune would be so snippy with him, but he refused to get outwardly angry—Prince August’s position was too fragile for him to alienate high-ranking members of the Royal Legions.


    Wiping his frown off his face, Rnd politely asked, “That couldn’t be helped. Perhaps you could take me somewhere I could wait for the Consul to finish his business and find some time to have a quick chat with me?” It was a tight rope the Pdin had to walk; he couldn’t be subservient, but he also couldn’t act superior, given his own uncertain position. Regardless, he was still a sixth-tier mage at the end of the day.


    The Tribune stared at him for a moment but seemed to decide against further passive-aggressiveness. “Of course, Sir,” he said, guiding Rnd into the headquarters.


    Ten minutester, Rnd was sitting in afortable chair outside the Consul’s office, waiting to be shown in. Toplete his investigation and find Leon, he was willing to wait for as long as it took. Fortunately, he had to wait no longer as a group of Centurions and Tribunes left the office, and one of the Consul’s assistants waved Rnd in, where the Consul was sitting at his desk waiting for him.


    “Ahh, Sir Rnd,” the Consul of the North, said with a jovial smile. “It’s been too long, how are you doing?”


    “I’m well, Sir Clovis,” Rnd answered. Clovis offered him a seat in a nearby chaise lounge, and Rnd gratefully epted.


    “I’m surprised,” Rnd said, “I didn’t expect to find so many Legion soldiers up here. What’s more, I wasn’t expecting to see you all but fighting with Count Whitefield’s own soldiers.”


    “Well, we had about twenty, twenty-five thousand Valemen attempt to get past this wall. Not an insubstantial raid, to be sure, but easily taken care of. Unfortunately, Count Whitefield attempted to dy my dealing with the raid.”


    “I wouldn’t imagine he likes the idea of thousands of Royal Legion soldiers upying hisnd,” Rnd observed.


    “He does <em>not</em>,” Clovis said. “However, I’m not giving him a choice. He can bark about legality, but he allowed a Legions’ worth of Valemen into the Kingdom—I’m not going to let him dictate how the passage to a hostile nation is guarded. If he attempts to force us out, he’s going to have to fight in open battle, and if he does that, then I’ll execute him as a traitor to the Kingdom.”


    The Consul’s face twisted into a sadistic smile, and Rnd urately guessed that Clovis would only be too eager to send Count Whitefield to the headsman’s block.


    “Anyway,” Clovis said, moving on, “what brings you so far away from the capital? The Prince-Regents not giving you enough work?’


    Rnd was about to correct him to ‘Prince-Regent’, singr, as Prince Octavius was still in the Western Territories, but he mped down on that foolish impulse. “Actually,” the Pdin said with a good-natured smile, “I was looking into a certain trainee from the Knight Academy that was sent up to this very fort for his squireship. I believe I sent you a letter a couple months ago inquiring into his status…”


    “Ah, yes, I remember,” Clovis said.


    “You told me that it wasn’t my ce to know,” Rnd continued, narrowing his eyes as he did. “You imed that I wasn’t a real Pdin, and as such, didn’t have the authority to make the request that I did.”


    “Well, to be fair, you <em>aren’t</em> a real Pdin,” Clovis said, his own gaze bing sharp and angry as he did.


    “I was appointed to my post by Prince August,” Rnd responded, barely keeping his voice from quivering in anger. “Princes have all the rights needed to appoint Pdins.”


    “True, but Pdins serve the King, not any Prince,” the Consul stated. “Without the King confirming your status, you could very well be removed, especially since you’re not even a seventh-tier mage…”


    Rnd clenched his jaw in anger, but he managed to keep a straight face; the Consul had just poked his berserk button, hisck of magical powerpared to the five other Pdins.


    “I’m sure the King will remove you from your post whenever he emerges from his training,” the Consul continued. “There’s no need for you to get toofortable in that spot.”


    “Do you have a problem with me?” Rnd bluntly asked, deciding that his best course of action wouldn’t be to dance around the issue.


    “You’re a <em>Central Territories</em> knight,” the Consul exined. “I’ve never met a knight from the Central Territories who wasn’t corrupt to the bone. And what’s more, on this rare asion that one of my Legions in the Northern Territories receives a squire from the <em>venerable</em> Knight Academy, you contact me wanting to take him away. What makes <em>you</em> so much more deserving than one of my knights that puts their life on the line and spills blood every day to keep the barbarians from marching through the gates?”


    Rnd took a deep breath; the recent raid wasn’t big enough to be of much interest to many people in the south, but he knew there had undoubtedly been some casualties in cleaning it up. One thing he absolutely didn’t want to do was to insult the memories of those fallen soldiers.


    “Your knights are more deserving than most,” Rnd said quietly, carefully selecting each word to avoid offending the Consul. “They are some of the Royal Legion’s brightest—certainly more so than thezy bastards in the Western Territories. However, this one squire in particr is special. I met him in the Northern Valesst year, his family did me a great service. If possible, I’d like to protect him to the best of my ability.”


    Rnd hoped that his reasoning would appeal to any honor Clovis might possess, but the Consul stared at him unmoved, his face passive and his bodynguage all but hostile.


    “I don’t care about <em>your</em> honor,” the Consul said. “If you wanted to protect this boy, then you should’ve made more of an effort, gotten him before he was assigned to my Territories. You’re toote.”


    Rnd scowled, then reached into his breast pocket. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to this, but since we aren’t making any progress, I guess I have to,” the Pdin said as he pulled out August’s letter demanding that Clovis cooperate with him.


    The Consul opened the letter with far less reverence than Rnd had carried it, and quickly looked it over. Rnd resisted the urge to smile triumphantly as the Consul began to scowl.


    When he was done, the Consul almost whipped the letter down onto the table between the two of them and shouted for his assistant.


    “Sir!” the assistant said as he entered the room.


    “Find me all the information on one ‘Leon Ursus’! He was assigned to this fort as a squire a couple months ago!”


    “Yes, Sir!”


    The attendant immediately departed, leaving the two knights in oppressive silence. Neither man spoke until the assistant returned almost half an hourter. When the assistant entered the room, the Consul waved him over and took the small stack of papers from him. At the top of this stack was a light grey paper with the bright red seal of a blood priest upon it.


    Rnd’s heart sank when he saw that paper, and Clovis pointedly avoided meeting his gaze, instead choosing to examine the paper. Slowly, the scowl on his face disappeared, reced by a look of disappointment and dejection.


    “It seems that, regardless of our disagreements, you’vee here in vain,” Clovis said. “The garrison that was stationed here sustained more than ny percent casualties before I was able to arrive, and the squire you seek was among them. Leon Ursus is dead.”