The Lives of Velnin chapter 16

The Dark Empire on the Move

Mar 21, 2025

We gathered in my father's council chamber to hear the scout's report. We were a small council: my father and myself for Tarmel, Aloree and Lordan for Talore, representatives of the other members of the League of the Citadel, and a single trusted scribe, to record all that was said.

The scout had ridden hard from Mermaid's Point, sunrise to sunset, switching horses at every post to come with utmost haste. He moved as one with sore muscles who had not yet recovered. His face and clothes were dirty and sweaty. He took a sip of water every few minutes, and looked ready to keel over from exhaustion.

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He had been sent by ship in secret to the Dark Empire by my father, a spy dropped off on a far shore at night. He had not made his rendezvous, but had been immediately captured. The local governor had made ready to execute him as a spy, but was overruled at the last second by the Dark Empress, who was passing through the region. Instead of watching him die, she gave him a good meal, good wine, and a tour of the area by her side.

"My father's dying wish was to punish Tarmel—your kingdom, if I am not mistaken—and Talore. But let it be known that I am merciful. Tell your masters that I will be content to reduce them to provinces in my empire, if they will only obey, only surrender, only make a minor, token offering of submission—ten souls, magic users or maidens. And tell them of the forces that await them, if they choose to resist."

With these words, she took him to a hilltop near the Empire's side of Mermaid's Strait.

Ship after ship sailed by, an Imperial Sailpast presenting itself in full-dress for its Empress. Our scout quietly counted them and observed their size and type. The crews did not all look the same, nor did the ships: they had clearly been drawn from different regions of a large empire. Our scout noted many different styles of dress and armament, counted the ships of each type, and gave us his total: one thousand two hundred and seven large galleys with three banks of oars, and over three thousand of the smaller single-banked ships. Of the crew's arms on the large galleys, he noted most equipped with daggers, sword, and javelin, with small shields and helmets. Of the 1,207 large galleys, he noted several hundred where the crew was not equipped with bows. 200 had heavy axes among their equipment as well as longer spears. Most, but not all, wore either reinforced cloth or leather tunics as their heaviest armor.

Then came the presentation of the ground forces. They paraded by in enormous squares, making their numbers eminently countable. They walked in rows three hundred and sixteen men wide, by the scout's count, and squares approximately that many rows long.

The first several squares contained grim-faced men with short spears, light shields, long daggers, and powerful bows. They wore caps or turbans, not helmets. The next had metal helmets, shields, spears, daggers, clubs, and reinforced cloth armor. Then came the ones with shorter bows, battle axes, daggers. There were then archers with spears wearing leathers, pure archers with recurve bows, and pure archers with extremely long bows. A square of wildly painted men, their bodies half white and half red, had spear, club, and bow. The next had short spears, helmets, small shields, daggers, and javelins.

Sixteen squares in this fashioned marched by the scout. At the end, 32 rows clad in black armor, crossbow and sword in belt, large shield and spear in hand, walked up the rear. I grimaced at this. The Black Legion lived, and indeed those we had fought were but a small contingent. Wise to our tactics, and unlike the rest of the Empress's forces, they had adopted the large shield.

After the infantry came the mounted troops. They did not ride nearly as tightly, but they were sufficiently orderly for our scout to get a good count: there were approximately 90,000. Most had shield, spear, dagger, and bow. A few had long ropes with loops tied at the end, and in the rear, pure archers, on horse, in chariot, and finally a contingent riding camels.

All in all, our scout estimated seeing 1.7 million men.

The review done, the Empress brought him north to the closest point of Mermaid's Strait. A large number of smaller ships had set out, ready to be roped together into a long bridge. The scout boarded a large ship with the Empress, and with a convoy of ships, sailed to the other side. As the Empress's troops disembarked and formed a beachhead, to no resistance whatsoever on the other side, small ships parked behind them at Mermaid's Point, and began roping together into a bridge at the other side.

The Empress gave him a horse and some provisions, then bid him farewell. "You see this bridge of ships behind me?" she asked in parting. "Soon, my men will march across. Spread the word for me on your trip: those who surrender will be spared." She lightly touched his horse on the rump, and he set off.

We questioned the scout a little more. He gave some tidbits of the Empress's appearance and personality, the general demeanor of the forces he had seen, and wild guesses as to how long the attack would take to arrive. Finally, my father told him to get a meal and some sleep. If we had further to ask, we could do so once he had rested.

The scout sent away and the scribe as well, we held our council of war—if you could call it that. The countenance of the minor members of the League of the Citadel was ashen.

"Four thousand ships. THOUSAND! 1.7 million men. MILLION! We must surrender," said one.

"Life under the Black Citadel wasn't utterly unbearable, you know. You get used to losing the occasional young lady, and life goes on."

My father thumped the table. "Listen. Our scout saw millions, yes, but they are not here. They may never be here. Not only will our forces resist them, but so will our two great allies: the sea and the land.

"The Empress must march more than a million men across Mermaid's Strait. One storm during their march across their bridge of ships, half of them die. She must keep more than a million men fed. She must hope they do not catch disease and die of plague—and we know the Dark Empire does not care for magic users, so they may not have healers to cure their illnesses.

"She must make sure they have enough water. One drought, and they will all keel over. She must keep them supplied with her ships. One storm, and they will be so much timber upon the rocks. And all the while, with storms, plague, thirst, and starvation at her back, she must also defeat us—on the land and in the sea, at the places, the highly defensible places, of our choosing.

"I will not sell our kingdom into slavery. I will not send our daughters and mages to their deaths. We will fight."

Aloree and Lordan looked at each other and nodded. Aloree spoke. "Talore, too, will fight." Not a surprise, considering that the Empress would probably do with her the same as they did with other magic users, even upon a surrender.

The rest of our council looked uncertain and skittish. One spoke. "We will fight, as we have promised." His words lacked conviction to them, but none gainsayed.

With that, we made our plans.

Our fleet would hold the coastal straits to the northeast. To sail around would expose their fleets to storms and cost valuable time, at which point we could first harass their rear then outsail them through the shorter straits and continue to block their fleets further south. To fight us would require fighting in confined waters, where their thousand ships would not have the advantage of numbers, and must engage us ship for ship. And ship for ship, our heavy troops could defeat their lighter-armed crews when it came to boarding battles. Perhaps we could even capture their vessels and bolster our own numbers; we had less than three hundred large galleys, all told.

Our land army would hold the main pass through the Dragonclaw Mountains: Dragonclaw Pass. An old wall remained there that we would rebuild. Our troops had proven superior at the Black Citadel, and indeed the scout's description of the Dark Empire's armaments, rather than their numbers, was unimpressive. Small shields, short spears, weak bows? This was no million-strong Black Legion: this was the call-up of every soldier, strong or weak, the Empress could muster. In a narrow pass, we would hold, and with healers, keep our forces strong in the face of the enemy onslaught. And if the Dark Empire treated their healers as the Black Legion had treated magic users in general, our forces would heal, and theirs would not.

I would lead the land forces. The decisions taken, I made ready to muster my troops and begin our march.

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Brian Heming - author and pulp fiction fan

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