A War Dawning Ch. 03

"Give me your will. Give it to me. Release it."

With a moan, his head came forward the fraction of an inch needed to meet her lips. Her tongue darted in and with that, everything but his own tongue and cock went limp. His balls churned and he could not resist.

His cock began to buck against that firm, milking hand that was moving faster now and he did not resist.

His throat burned as he screamed his surrender into Bryana's mouth and he no longer wanted to resist.

She was his better. It was her right to do what she did. He challenged and lost and the terms were hers to dictate.

Lian, eyes closed, focused on the kiss, saw nothing, but he felt his will shoot from his cock with ferocity, again and again. Stream after stream never ending as though he would be a husk by the end.

And he was happy to let it go.

***

In Erette, as in much the rest of the world, appearance mattered and Neral had hoped her appearance today in full dress uniform would impress upon him how seriously she took this meeting. The black, double-breasted coat felt stiff against her in away that wasn't foreign to a woman who lived in armor. It was decorated with pins marking her campaigns in service on the right and pins marking the many instances of valor fate and the needs of the moment led her to. The gold buttons caught the light in a way that could blind a soul if one caught the reflection just so. She usually gave up on wearing the black gloves that came with because it felt to her that she was keeping herself above and detached from reality and her soldiers.

Today though, she wore them because they did indeed help her appear imposing. Her pony tail was perfect and the gold barrette that held it in place matched the buttons and the lampasses that drew a perfect line from shoulder to ankle. Finally, a blood red cape flowed smoothly to her knees and she admitted that in full dress as much as in full armor she felt powerful and she liked that feeling. She, in a way, liked the burden that came with both, too. It made her proud that both the queen and her soldiers trusted her.

Today, as with every day, she would work to see that that trust was not misplaced as she srood in a windowless room with Bae, in her own most formal attire, opposite Salish Kon, third assisstant to the House Mistress of the Royal House of Erette, a man of middle age,eyes in a perpetual squint, and with a thin frame that hovered around gaunt. He wore a simple white tunic with dark woolen pants and boots of a dark brown soft leather. In every way he had appeared as the middle-class soul he was, He looked upon Bae with composure, fingers laced together. That he rubbed the thumb of his right hand on his left was the only sign that pointed to tension. Leaving him to stew in the room for several hours before beginning seemed to have put him on the desired edge.

"I really don't know why you're questioning me about anything at all," he began smoothly. "What happened to the queen is terrible. Vile. Reprehensible. But it's nothing I had anything to do with."

"That may well be true," Bae began in her most diplomatic tone, "but you must understand that we are speaking to everyone who was in a position to place the assassin so close to the queen."

"And you think I was?" His tone was slightly incredulous. "I'm nothing but a link in a chain. I move paper and deal with resource allocation."

"Which includes personnel," Neral said flatly.

"They are resources," he agreed. "But there are people below me as well as above that handle those matters, too."

Bae opened her mouth to speak, closed it to choose her words, then began again. "There are. And they have been spoken to and some are being spoken to even as I speak to you. It is a matter of trust in that chain as well, no? As things go up the chain investigation doesn't start simply start anew. "If General Jaye came to me to say that something is so, I would accept it as fact because it came from her."

"By the same token, should you slide a name into consideration, few would question it. And the farther that name made it, the fewer questions would be asked until none at all."

"All applicants are thoroughly investigated," Kon said, by matter of rote. "Themselves. Their families. I have done my job and have never knowingly placed a threat before the queen."

Neral's eyes met Bae's and she knew they exchanged the same thought: his word choice was quite particular. Neither said anything about that. Instead Neral decided to play her own game with words, "And there were suspects more interesting than you as the investigation has proceeded. You cannot expect to be skipped over simply because you're offended."

"Are you ransacking their homes, too?" Anger from him seemed to be not much more than a slightly raised voice. "Three times and do tell me what you found? Nothing is what. You've found nothing because there is nothing. Since there is nothing, I would like to leave."

Bae leaned back in her chair, enjoying the moment."Since we do have something, I would like you to stay."

He turned both curious and pensive as Bae looked to Neral, "I give you the honor of proceeding."

"Thank you." She leaned against the table. "We searched many homes seeking evidence of complicity. You were not singled out because of that. You did indeed speak the truth in that nothing was found at your home that might bring our attention to you. Beyond your household though was another matter. As you might be aware, this attack upon the queen is of particular interest to me. What you may not be aware of is the fact that I have taken it upon myself to investigate matters personally."

"Pardon my interruption, General," Bae began with some enthusiasm, feeling positively about things for the first time in what seemed like forever, "but I see you in parades in full battle dress, complete with honor guard and standard-bearer and it is most impressive. I imagine it is more so to see the sight closing in on you on the street before your little shop or your modest farm."

The looks never failed to amuse. "It did tend to impress upon those I questioned the gravity of the situation. Turning back to Kon, she continued. "Bae's staff, mine, and that of the White Guard cast our nets wide. One would have to be a fool, after all, to hide their traitor's gold under their own beds, so we looked at family members. We looked for conspicuous spending."

"My salary is what it is. I live well, but there is not much left to be...conspicuous with." His voice betrayed nothing, but he did lean back in his own chair, easing himself away from his accusers.

"And your brother lives more modestly than you as a records clerk for his village and his relatively small farm, Neral pressed, "yet a search of his farm yielded two new workhorses and equipment."

Those eyes widened a touch that, on him, looked as though they bulged to the point of caricature. "He has long spoken of attempting to open more acreage at his farm and his been saving to do so."

"He must have been saving for a long time to afford from a breeder that generally only caters to the grand Houses." Neral concluded.

"And six children is no small expense, even if they were helping tend the farm," Bae added, her voice becoming harsh. "He tells an interesting story, Salish Kon. He tells the General after she rides out to his farm...complete with standard-bearer and a bit of evasion until he finds out where your treasure came from."

"He simply assumed that it was the product of a lifetime of quiet embezzlement," Neral filled in as she weaved her own net. "Not unheard of in procurement; a few extra blankets here, rations or a master-crafted sword there. Sell it, and if it's done sporadically enough, it sometimes isn't even noticed for years. You are good at your job, and the Royal House is allowed a few additional excesses, so there's no reason for him to think beyond that."

She straightened herself, walked carefully behind him, then bent to his ear, her gloved hand pressing firmly at the juncture of shoulder and neck, feeling his body tense at the discomfort. "Fortunately, he has more loyalty to his queen than you do, it seems. Once he realized where it came from he was anxious to be truthful. You promised him a share if he'd hold it, so he spent what he thought was his share of your untraceable lifetime of pilfering. He had no interest in blood money."

"How did it begin, Kon?" Bae demanded to know. "The usual passing around of bits of information for gossip or sale?" It was frowned upon, of course, and prosecuted when need be, but mortal men were flawed, and, truth be told, that sort of soft espionage created deeper connections between kingdoms, painted pictures of the real goings on there, and, in its own way, helped keep the peace. "Bits of this and bits of that leaked out over years until a fat payment to slide a name into consideration. How far did it go? Did you help falsify her records? Did actively help to kill your queen or did you just turn your head the other way, so your conscience could be clear?"

He came forward in his chair again, his voice almost mechanically even, though he laced his fingers together above the desk and gripped himself tightly. "I did nothing to the queen and I know nothing of what you're talking about. Perhaps he told you what you wanted to hear. Perhaps he told you what you wanted to hear to cover his own theft? So, what? You jail me for nothing? Torture me until I tell you what you want to hear?"

"Torture?" Bae played at being aghast at the idea even though she was by no stretch above it as a matter of vengeance. "You're right, it wouldn't work at all. You would tell me what I wished to hear until I confirmed your lies as lies and we had at it again. Aside from that, it really would be a waste of personnel, when, by all accounts, you are an exemplary resource clerk."

"I could use a resource clerk," Neral said casually, reaching into her uniform to withdraw a neatly folded paper. Unfolding it and placing before him, she let him begin to read it.

His eyes scanned the paper, "Conscription?"

"Permanent and immediate," Bae told him with no small bit of glee.

"And I will need you on the front lines of any engagement. Only by being there will you truly understand the needs of the men and women you will serve." She squeezed his shoulder more firmly, making him lean into the pressure. "Of course, you will train as any soldier does: full pack and as prepared for any conditions as I can make anyone under my command. My regimens are harsh because battle is even more so."

Neral's tone turned deadly, "You played a role in an attempt to murder the queen that the people cherish, that I cherish. I will oversee your training personally, Kon. You will be broken or you will be ready. Even if you are broken you will go where I send you. You will go to places where you will bake in the sun or places you will never be warm or dry."

"And, while I will do all I can to keep the why of your conscription from my soldiers, you surely know how fleeting secrets are, don't you?"

Bae turned and twisted her head to get a good look at the man who now seemed to have shrunk and focused his eyes on the table, "I believe he sees the levels of misery in his future, General Jaye. Physically pushed to points that have broken far better men. Living with men and women who will openly revile him. All while he waits for the spear, arrow or sword that releases him."

"Whenever that might be. I have the best healers in the world among my troops. How much suffering as death might you endure, Salish, before you come to pain that they cannot undo? How many years? How much torment will you endure?"

He swallowed hard as he imagined how bad it could all be from stories he'd heard from soldiers who had seen battle and realized that words probably paled against the reality. Some didn't come back mentally whole. He wasn't fit for that. He just wasn't, and Neral Jaye would make it last so that one lifetime felt like fifty. "I...don't know how much help I can be. He is...was a longtime contact." His head snapped up, eyes fearful as he sought mercy from Bae. "If I tell you what there is, will I not be conscripted?"

Bae shrugged, "Conscription in this case is completely the purview of General Jaye. She could even take me if she saw the need. I cannot undo it and the one person that could..." She sighed with a smirk, "Let's just say I wouldn't believe her to be inclined to aid you."

"Nothing will keep you from prison, Kon," Neral told him. "You are only talking your way out of a noose or a lifetime at my mercy." Every word dripped venom. "How ever many years your tongue buys you in a cell, you will look upon them as paradise compared to what I would offer. I wear my uniform gloves today that I never wear because the idea of touching you makes me sick. I hate the sight of you."

He didn't look upon those years long before he began to speak.

***

Neral was glad for something that could be called a positive resolution of the matter that was Salish Kon as she left the interrogation room for her offices. He was talkative and held nothing back, having no idea the true intentions of a contact he'd dealt with for decades. He gave them more of the puzzle and she'd hoped that Neral and Bryana were piecing things together from their end and a permanent cure for the queen could be found quickly.

And justice dispensed to those responsible in the manner that they had earned with their treachery.

Seeing Nelina turn the corner and nearly march to meet her was warning enough even without the tension on her face that somehow didn't fit on one so young. Neral stopped, keeping her own bearing more or less official until Nelina stopped before her and offered a quick salute.

The General braced herself. "Report."

"Rangers have just arrived from the border post near Nelos. "They report the village attacked and destroyed with few survivors."

"And the attackers?"

Nelina used her focus on discipline to cover her anger, though not with perfect success. The fire in her eyes hinted at the one in her belly. She wanted to be pointed toward them and loosed without limit. The witnesses that remain say bandits by all appearance, but two elderly veterans mentioned that they recognized military training."

It wasn't uncommon for outlying villages to be hit by bandits or slavers. There was money to be made and there could be quick strikes without fear of massive reprisal. It also wasn't necessarily unusual for military training to be evident. Some outlaws in the making enlisted simply to get that training, then leave. Those that would be otherwise retired or drummed out for a lack of fitness in body or mind simply switched careers. Thinking of the Draleth, the other ready option occurred to her: a test of defenses that, under cover of the lawless, gave the culprits plausible deniability.

No matter the reason, it demanded a response and Neral was honestly grateful that she had something against which she could act. "Inform Colonel Dion of this and ask her to ready a company that we will lead. We depart at first light."

"Yes, sir." She turned, heading back the way she came.

"That includes you," Neral called after.

"Yes, sir." Nelina's voice carried the edge that Neral now felt in her belly. There would be many things to take care of before morning and she now had that much more reason to take care one of the most important ones immediately.

***

Neral closed the door to her inner offices and threw both bolts to secure it. Once done, both hands went to her neck to unclasp her robe, having done it often enough in her life that she didn't have to give it much thought. Holding it so that it didn't fall, she whipped it forward and draped it on the back of the chair nearest her moving behind the desk to the mantle above the small fireplace that wasn't alive at the moment since her schedule didn't set her there for any length of time. Given that, she was somewhat happy for the thick fabric of her uniform.

She opened a small box made of a pale wood, varnished clear and took the palm-sized orange crystal from within and gazed upon it in her palm. She had to admit that even after all of these years with mages as her mates the magics still made her a bit nervous. It wasn't just that the magics they practiced were forbidden by law going back centuries upon centuries. It was that she only understood the very basic tenants of how it operated and what it could do. There was also the truth that she knew that Bryana and Deres both held back even talking about their skills to her. Suggestions of their scope were often done in a dismissive, joking tone, so she too could dismiss it.

But she never fully did. Glimpses of that power told the military mind of hers that she couldn't. With the mage guilds largely unknown to the greater world, but now reasonably frequently interfering in its affairs required that she not.

She had never used this bit of magic before as the three had rarely been so separated and the need just didn't exist, though Deres made sure she never forgot how. Closing her hand around the communing crystal firmly she felt the edges and the weight. To anyone else it would be nothing but a curious bauble, but as a tool and gift from Deres and a product of the mix of technology and science that his adopted home lived with, it was much more. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind of everything, focusing her will as the tip of a sword and projected that will, piercing the center of the crystal.

An instant later she couldn't recall ever seeing the sky so blue. It was cloudless and the sun was high. There were beaches in Erette, of course. There were more temperate climes if one chose to go and could afford to travel, but she had never seen anything like this. The gentle hiss of the waves was soothing to her soul and the foam of those waves churning forward before caressing the white sand as the ocean pulled away bits of this place only to build a beach someplace far away looked like divine artistry. The water seemed to stretch back to eternity. And she was warm. She was beautifully warm. It looked and felt like a place some priestesses described as where one went after death to rest with the Goddess.

After taking stock of the world around her, she took stock of herself and wasn't surprised, nor displeased. Her usual pony tail was gone, letting her dark hair flow just past his shoulders and she looked down to find herself in a sunset red, almost too small top and with a matching wrap around her waist that left her right leg exposed. She wiggled her toes in the almost too hot sand and could feel the grains make their way between them.

"Does this place please you, my love?"

She looked up towards the familiar voice to see Deres walking towards her, barefoot himself with white pants with a simple yellowing rope to tie it. Those eyes reminded her of the sky above him and she smiled. Sometimes she smiled for him when only moments before it would be the last thing that she wanted to do because it was him and her love for the man could overrule the darkest mood. She started walking towards him, choosing to put a bit of sway into her hips as she made her way. "It does. The question is, is it even real?"

There was that roguish grin that could pull a smile from the depths or make her want to melt her body to his. "Define 'real.' That's a bit more fluid for Adarans than outlanders."

"You're adopted," she quipped.

"Even so." He looked around. "It is real in that where we are is a representation of a real place in the world that I've been. Would you like to visit someday?"

She drank it in again, "I would. Are we actually there?"

His brow knotted in contemplation. "In a sense," he called out. "A piece of us is. Reality, at the end of the day, is just perception."