Story:Kings of Strife/Part 48

Part Forty-Eight
The day after Queen Vainia’s army had started to march to Inusia, Leader Rin gathered the Eternal Corps and the group left Shorekeep for their mission. The plan had been discussed with him and Vainia shortly after she gave the Eternal Corps their mission, and Baron Casvaal of Intelligence had spoken to Rin much longer, in order to share the details completely. Since the Shorican loss at the Battle of Icarun, a faction of disgruntled Shorican citizens had erupted beneath the underbelly of a few major cities like pimples rising beneath skin. Calling themselves the SSR – the Seventh Shorican Restoration faction – the group was born with the crude notion that Vainia had taken over their previous group, Fifth Brine, and drove it in a completely wrong direction. ‘A bunch of ignorant, power-hungry fools,’ Leader Rin had thought to himself on the SSR after hearing about them. ‘It matters not who holds the power, as long as it is not Inusia. As long as Shorica is free.’ Liberation was liberation. The Eternal Corps were moving in swiftly to eradicate the SSR and safeguard Shorica once Vainia left. Baron Casvaal had heard from his various spies – of which Rin was sure there were hundreds – that SSR was situated in the forests of northern Shorica, above where the ruins of Phenicks lay, and that they were planning to move in on Shorekeep very soon. The mission of the Corps was to move in and ambush them before they could make any conclusive moves, and they had to move before anyone noticed that Vainia’s army did not actually mean to march through Shorica. That was a fact known only to Rin, the Revolutionary Barons, and Vainia herself. The army was going to march out of sight of Shorekeep, a few miles further past the horizon, and then take to the sea in a set of pre-prepared ships that would take the entirety of the army to the shores ahead of the Shorica-Inusian border. Transportation in this way cut the travel time of the army in half, and saved their much-needed strength. If the SSR never saw Vainia’s army march past them, it would not take them long to figure out what happened and attempt to get in contact with the Inusians. Though such an option would likely not help their revolution, it was well known that the SSR despised Vainia and her politics more than anything – so they would stop at nothing to impede her plans. A day had passed since Vainia’s army marched away from Shorekeep, and six members of the Eternal Corps stood in a dense area of the Shorican Wilds, light snow falling around them all. A tall, densely forested hill rose ahead of them, past which the SSR were camped in one of their largest enclosures – or so reported the single spy Casvaal employed to go with the Corps, dressed conspicuously in black when all of the others wore khaki bodysuits and silver cloaks. A single pair of footprints broke the snow leading forward, up the gentle hill and beyond, into the whiteness of the forest. “Are you sure sending just Posmos was a wise move, Leader Rin?” Allen Trius, a tall youth with long dark hair, stepped up to Leader Rin’s side and looked up at his commander. “There’s supposed to be a huge camp down there.” A laugh came from the back of the Corps’ small gathering, and Trius looked back to see a fair-skinned Corps member fold his arms beneath his cloak. “You newbies really don’t know much about that kid, do you?” asked Dolfh Rveld, an original founding member of the Eternal Corps. He was younger than Rin by at least a decade, but he was still a handful of years older than the five new members of the Corps’ second incarnation, and that simple fact gave him a superiority complex of sorts when it came to his comrades. “We know,” the hooded Corps member said. Known only as J. Horn, he was of the more mysterious new additions, but he was a ridiculously skilled marksman – and a laconic one, as well. “He’s stronger than any of us.” “Indeed,” growled Leader Rin, his jaw tightly set and his eyes set straight forward, into the forest ahead. “He will not fail.” Moritaka Posmos had been sent ahead to perform reconnaissance, but his mission was twofold; not only to investigate, but to eradicate. As the most capable Eternal Corps member, there was virtually no chance of him failing. When the boy drafted himself into Vainia’s army mere days after her initial riots in Shorekeep, only Rin and Azur Atrai – one of the Corps members who died in the massacre of Vainia’s parents in Mortis – had existed as members of the Eternal Corps. The others came after, and all of them trained together at the same time, under the tutelage of Rin and Vainia’s Knight, Constantus Veit. Out of all of the trainees, including Rin himself, nobody had been able to hold a candle against Veit; nobody but Moritaka Posmos. The boy was incredibly powerful. He was proficient with any weapon, but especially a sword. Strong, fast, and calm, despite his age and body type, Posmos quickly proved to be the perfect warrior, and his only goal was “to serve Vainia”. Moritaka Posmos was the embodiment of what an Eternal Corps soldier, and Tlerius Rin was afraid of him. “He comes,” a female voice said from Rin’s left. Alma Venu had spoken, an incredibly skilled and dangerous woman, despite her blindness. The handicap came at almost no expense to her, for her other senses were so radically jacked up in response to her disability that she was more observant than any of the other Corps members. Just as she said, within seconds Rin could hear light footsteps in the snow getting closer to the group. ‘Already?’ Rin thought to himself with a darkening brow. Posmos had left the group just fifteen minutes ago, and there was no possible way he had wiped out a compound full of rebels within fifteen minutes, not even with his skills. “Stay here,” Rin said, holding a hand out behind him to command the Corps. He stepped forward, being careful to walk in the already-made imprints that Posmos left behind, though his boots were larger than Posmos’ had been. As he ascended the hill slowly and cautiously, Rin pulled out a long, jagged knife from the side of his pants and held it just beneath his cloak. A long black rifle was strapped to his back, but he did not want his gunfire to ring out so near to the enemy base, especially if an enemy had captured Posmos and was retracing his steps. Near the top of the hill, Rin lowered his center of gravity and held his knife out in front of him, ready to strike, as he hid behind a tall and wide tree. He kept his blade from singing through the air when the oncoming figure spoke. “For the Queen’s glory,” a male voice simply said. A moment later, peeping out from the side of the tree he stood behind, Rin could see the shining multiflourescence of Posmos’ trademark hat. “I thought I told you to take that stupid scarf off,” Rin growled as he slid his knife back into its holster and stood to his full height. Posmos walked into his full vision then. The boy had a disinterested, youthful face and a slim body, one that bordered even on androgynous. He was not wearing his silver cloak, and his well-fitting khaki underclothes were decorated here and there by blood. A reflective green scarf sat on top of his head, and beneath the scarf trailed out short bangs of unruly blond hair. “I did,” Posmos simply said as Rin returned his folded silver cloak to him, and the blond boy started to put it on over his head. “This is a new one.” “Whatever. What happened down there? You took care of the entire camp?” “Yes, I did, but that was not the entire SSR. It could not have been.” His cloak now returned to its default position over his shoulders, Posmos unstrapped the medium-length blade that was belted to his waist and now secured it over his chest, allowing the deep wooden handle of the blade to poke up from his shoulder. Now completely returned to his uniform state, the Corps member started walking down the hill nonchalantly. “Wait, what do you mean the entire SSR wasn’t there?” Rin frowned at the casual nature of his operative and followed him briskly, no longer bothering to shadow in his footsteps. “Where were they? Did they escape?” “They were never there, I believe. It appeared as if a great many people fled hours ago. Most of the tents and furnishings were empty.” “Empty tents…? This makes no sense.” The wind started to pick up in Tlerius Rin’s ears, a wind he remembered from the turbulent waves of the Forgotten Sea and the stormy, froth-covered rocks of the Lord’s Straits. This was a wind that preceded a storm. Rin had never survived a storm without loss. The two arrived back at the gathering of the Corps soon after, and were greeted with the lifeless, dulled fall of a corpse sinking to the snow. Every Corps member jolted in alert except for Moritaka Posmos, and as the other six warriors around him reached for their weapons collectively, he pointed a pale hand towards a body in the midst of the group, clothed only in black. “The spy has died.” New Corps member Alma Venu rushed to the corpse of the official spy, a corpse that had fallen and landed lifelessly inconspicuously, despite being in stark contrast to the white ground, the gray forest, and the silver sentinels within it. Venu bent down, her hands searching quickly in the snow before touching and grabbing the body. The female spy looked dead, with her pale countenance and mute mouth, but especially now she appeared to be a cadaver – her eyes were rolled to the back of her head, and thick cream-colored froth playfully creeped out from the corners of her mouth. “She is dead,” Venu confirmed. “Her heart is not beating.” The wind continued to blow, and Rin stood still in the midst of the storm, just as he did on his ships for years and years. He could feel the froth encroaching in the horizon, and distant rumbles of thunder disturbed the sky, but he stood still, staring forward with his jaw tight; his mind racing. “I think she killed herself, Leader Rin,” Posmos said quietly. The air, frigid and saturated with death, was quiet, and Moritaka spoke as if he wanted to preserve such a peace. Most of the Corps stood around the body, silent, but a number of silver-cloaked warriors stood around with their weapons drawn and their eyes constantly searching the forest for a potential assassin. Moritaka’s suggestion took even them by surprise. “It is likely,” Venu chimed in. “I do not feel any wounds on her body.” Rveld took a step towards Rin and Posmos, who stood at the base of the hill and were still some feet away from the circle and the body. “Did any of the enemy get away, Posmos? Could you have missed someone, a scout somewhere or even a sniper?” “No.” Posmos looked disinterested and distant as ever, but he was as confident in his skills as a predatory beast would be in hunting mice. “I erased them all, but there were only twenty or so men. The majority of the SSR were not there.” “Twenty or so men, he says” Rveld muttered, his dandelion yellow teeth biting hard onto his lips. “In only fifty minutes. As if that’s child’s play.” “But why would the spy kill herself?” Allen Trius stood farthest away from the body, but his eyes were glued to the motionless face, disturbed. “I don’t get it. How could she even do that?” “I wouldn’t put it past members of the Intelligence Division to carry poison around on them, in case they were caught doing something they weren’t supposed to,” chimed in Horn. He was one of the three Corps members aiming a weapon at the forest around them, alert and observant. “Nobody knows what those snakes are up to in the shadows.” ‘Caught doing something wrong – that has to be it,’ Rin realized with widening eyes. The storm had finally broken on the horizon, and he felt a sense of relief that came in having control over his ship, its men, and their destiny. Now he had the choice of diving right into the storm or turning around, evading it, and seeking calmer waters. ‘I am a man of Shorica,’ he reminded himself, and he pulled his long black knife out from its sheath on his thick leg. ‘We do not seek safe waters. Only righteous ones, with prosperity and strength on their cold, hard tips.’ The provocative call of metal on metal, rehearsed and drilled before for hours on end with the group, summoned the attention of every Corps member. Rin stepped forward grimly, his knife idly twirling in his calloused hands. “She knew,” he started, “and so did the entire Intelligence Division. Especially that bastard child Casvaal.” Posmos looked at his Leader with leery eyes at the disrespect of the Revolutionary Baron, but he said nothing. Rin continued. “He knew, and the SSR knew, that we were coming. They must know everything. This was a setup to bait us away from the city, and she killed herself as soon as her job was done.” “What could they want with the city when Queen Vainia is marching to Inusia?” Long haired feminine Trius frowned deeply, and could not decide if he wanted to stare at the dead spy or his Leader. Either way, he looked like he was going to be ill, and soon. “The city is what they want,” Rveld said, half with grim acceptance and half with disbelief. “They played us like a bunch of fools, and we played right along.” “No,” Rin growled, his fists growing ever tighter. The storm loomed on the horizon, and he started to breathe heavily. ‘My sons are in the city, my strong sailor sons, because I forbade them from joining Vainia’s army. To protect them. I will not let them be lost.’ He looked up to the Corps members to find all of them staring at him, expectedly. To hesitate like this was commonplace for thoughtful Tlerius, but the Corps could tell that this was no simple squad exercise he was thinking over. “They will not take the city. We will beat them back. We will crush them all. We will hold Shorica for our Queen!” Every member of the Eternal Corps slammed their fist on their chest at the same time, even disinterested Moritaka Posmos, and the forest clearing rang with the slam of flesh to rib. “For the Queen’s glory,” they all exclaimed in agreeance, and as they did Rin knew that his ship would sail true and strong. ‘I have sons to protect, and sons I will go to war with,’ he realized with a hint of a smile, ‘And they are all unending.’

*****

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