Chapter Six #3
Healing felt like a rush of… other, a bit like there was something inside you that didn’t belong.
Still, he was very grateful for the ability.
He and Varex had been a bit wild as children, and they’d needed bones mended more than once.
He didn’t envy Bavil even this comparatively quick recovery given what was going on now.
King Forex was beside himself, and he wanted to rally all his guards—which he kept calling his army, not that they were supposed to have an army anymore—and send them to destroy the exiles once and for all.
Tor agreed that an attack like this had to be addressed, but there were still the peace accords to take into account. The exiles were protected on their side of the mountain, and Tor feared that if that part of the accord was broken, more might follow.
All too fast, this could turn into either a slaughter or an incident that threatened the United Realms as a whole. With the exiles behaving erratically, Tor didn’t want anyone to make decisions in haste.
“I would be happy to represent the High King in this,” Tor told Forex, smooth but forceful, one of the first times that he’d suggested he could be his brother’s deputy since Varex had become High King and it had become apparent that Tor was meant to be quietly dutiful and uninvolved.
(Who had picked this job for him? Had they met him?)
Tor could see this going very wrong, very fast. He was here, and he was the High King’s brother. He and Varex didn’t always see eye to eye, but Tor was confident that he wanted to maintain the peace as much as his twin did.
King Forex looked mutinous, his bloodshot eyes narrowed, but he didn’t outright reject Tor’s suggestion.
“Perhaps it’s time to remind the exiles of their place,” Tor pointed out smoothly, trying to channel his brother.
They’d switched places frequently as children, and Tor needed some of that energy now.
“We’ll ensure they’re aware of the boundaries of the mountain and that any show of force on your side of the mountain will result in retaliation. ”
“They’ve already shown what miserable cowards they are! It’s time to attack!” Forex seethed.
“They’re back on their side of the mountain,” Tor said as calmly as he could.
He suspected Tond really was within its rights to attack at this point. A little sneaky pilfering was a gray area but distinctly different from killing Tondians and burning their houses to the ground. They had so little information, though, and King Forex wanted to kill everyone.
“They can’t keep hiding on their side of the mountain!” the King raged, clearly working himself into more and more of a fury. “My hands shouldn’t be tied like this! It’s unreasonable!”
It was much more complicated than that—but then, none of the rest of the realms were dealing with exiles who were killing citizens.
“We will march on the exiles immediately!” King Forex roared.
“You have to stay on your land,” Tor reminded him, trying to stay calm in the futile hope it would calm the King a little.
“Write to the High King. He needs to be informed, and I’m sure he’d be willing to discuss options.
The terms of the peace accords are clear.
We can’t go after the exiles when they’re over the mountain. ”
“On my land,” the King spat out, face nearly purple with rage.
Yes, that was probably the root of the whole problem. Tond had shrunk in the peace accords, the land over the mountains given to the exiles. King Forex had never been happy about that. And now he had what he felt was a valid reason to respond with force.
Bavil tried to intercede, too.
“I think this may have been a splinter group, Father, or a group of rogues. They were far more violent than we’ve ever encountered before. They didn’t behave like other reports have indicated.”
The King scoffed, eyes still hard and angry.
He was continuing to drink steadily, hand shaky on the glass, and Tor felt a surge of understanding towards his brother.
If it had felt like this, wanting to snatch the glass from the other person and make them sober up and see sense…
Well, Tor probably wasn’t going to apologize, but he realized now that his brother might have had a point about Tor’s drinking.
Forex growled, “They’ve realized that we’ve been soft, and they’ve grown bold! We have to respond with equal boldness! We’re marching!”
Bavil couldn’t march with the guards, and Larexa wouldn’t, but Pel and Tor both insisted on going, which Forex acceded to with poor grace. He bellowed for the captain of the guard and dismissed the rest of them with clear annoyance.
Bavil asked to see Tor privately, and Tor followed after the man as he was wheeled and then lifted up the stairs to his room. Once they were alone again, Bavil spoke.
“Look, I know what it looks like, but Father can’t march on the exiles.”
Tor nearly rolled his eyes. “I’ll mitigate the damage as best I can, but it’s clear he’s not listening to a word I say. I don’t want a war any more than you do.”
Bavil looked sheepish. “Sorry. I’m feeling useless at the moment and sort of like I’m the messenger that’s going to cause all of this.”
“This definitely wasn’t you,” Tor countered immediately. “Someone has an agenda here. It might simply be desperation. If it’s a splinter group like you said, then hopefully, we can stop them without it going any further.” He hesitated for a moment. “It’s truly never been like this before?”
Bavil shook his head emphatically. There were still lines of pain around his eyes, and his golden blond hair was a tousled mess.
“No. I would have said they were actually quite careful not to do anything that might call wrath down on their heads. I mean, obviously sticking to their side of the mountain would be best, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they needed the supplies to survive, or even that they wanted to harry us a little because they were annoyed with what we had that they didn’t.
There was virtually no violence unless they fought with the guards, and they seem to have worked hard to avoid patrols whenever possible.
They never engaged civilians, and they never damaged property. This was highly atypical.”
“So, either a splinter group, or—” Tor straightened.
“Or?” Bavil demanded.
“Or someone is trying to get us to do exactly this. Move a large contingent of guards to the mountains.”
Bavil’s eyes widened. “We’ve got to tell the King.”
Forex was still furious, but he reluctantly agreed that it would be unwise to leave the castle with minimal defenses.
“It would be just like them,” the man spat. “Taking more land that never belonged to them! I won’t have it!”
Tor could have done without Forex’s speech before they left, which basically amounted to the desire to raze the exiles to the ground and obliterate them utterly, but it still meant that when Tor and Pel left with the guard, it was with about half the force originally intended.
Tor was still determined to prevent a slaughter if at all possible.
“They took the risk with the raiding,” Pel pointed out. “This was always a danger.”
“But they went from minimizing the danger to courting it. I don’t like going into this without knowing why.”
“We may not get the chance to find out,” Pel observed with a furrow between his brows.
Tor made a face. “I know. But I’m confident that the two of us will at least try, and I can’t say the same for anyone else traveling with us.”
Pel conceded this with his own grimace.
Tor stared up at the ominous clouds that hovered over his least favorite mountains. They were at the head of a huge group of guards—truly, it was an army right now—who had been ordered to kill every exile in their path.
Tor would pray to the goddess that the exiles were smart enough to stay out of their way. There was still a chance this was a misunderstanding, and Tor hoped they’d learn something new that could help stem the tide.
Goddess, he really hated these mountains. It was like their dismal presence loomed especially large in his mind, coloring all his thoughts.
It was possible that Tor was leading people who were going to die in them once again.
But this time, Tor would be clearly ordering them to uphold the law and stay in Tond.
If they chose to obey King Forex instead of the High King…
Well, Tor couldn’t actually stop them if they rode up the mountain.
But he’d sure try, even if it stirred up all the worst of his terrible memories.
He knew not everyone had agreed with the idea of leaving the exiles alone, of granting them this area free of the Fealty to the United Realms. Tor had only been ten at the time the war ended, and he and Varex weren’t involved in those long, laborious meetings as the peace accords had been hammered out.
But Tor’s mother had insisted the exiles be left alone, and eventually, the others had agreed—as long as they stayed on their side of the mountain.
High Queen Ralexa had seemed certain they would.
He’d heard his mother point out that the one thing the exiles wanted was to be left alone, which was what made her confident this would work.
Some had viewed them as traitors or cowards, though, citizens who’d forsaken their oath of Fealty to their ruler and tried to stay out of the war.
Tor had been protected from almost every aspect of the war by virtue of his position and his youth, but he thought condemning the exiles for not wanting to die and for choosing to flee was way too simplistic.
Forex was one of the loudest agitators, but he wasn’t the only one.
Tor heard grumblings amongst the guards sometimes, and he’d overheard one say that they wouldn’t have so much work if the exiles had been done away with.
The man hadn’t made that remark ever again in Tor’s hearing.
They didn’t have accurate numbers when it came to the exiles, but there were probably thousands.
Anyone who could calmly suggest that slaughtering them would be better than having to go on patrols didn’t have any of Tor’s respect.
If not for the exiles, Tor might not have made the worst mistake of his life and sent his guards into the mountains to die.
But that was his fault, not the exiles’.
Tor didn’t know about anyone else, but he didn’t want to build peace on the slaughter of hundreds or thousands of people who’d refused to fight sooner than anyone else.
But if those people were killing now, what did it mean?
His stomach clenched. If Tor couldn’t handle this, they might be looking at the breakdown of a twenty-five-year peace.
Tor wanted a hundred more years. A thousand!
And sure, this might distract Varex from the fact that Tor wanted to bond with Pel, but not even his love for Pel could make Tor take that bargain.
He was here now, and there was still a chance that he could fix this.
He had to try.