Chapter 27 Sariel #2
“Your borders,” Isabelle said, and she traced her finger along the map to Vivarai.
“Retreat if you must, King Murta, but let me spin you two tales. One is where you hide within Vivarai’s borders, while my brave men and women slaughter a red dragon.
I will be the dragon slayer and have proven myself capable of defeating the mightiest of foes.
What then of your allies? I wonder who they will feel safest with… a dragon slayer or a coward?”
King Murta’s face turned beet red, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Isabelle interrupted him with an almost primal cry.
“I am not done.”
Her words rippled over the crowd. Murmurs and whispers turned to dead silence. Sariel shivered. Her words… they carried the coercive power of radiance.
“There is a second tale, one where you get your limp-willed wish, and my fellows and I are destroyed by the dragon.” She took the dragon’s red cube and shoved it straight east into Vivarai.
“Its carnage will continue, and its flight already carries it toward your borders. Will your forces, far fewer than ours united, be able to defeat that which defeated mine? No, Murta, they will fall. Your people will suffer dragon fire. Their villages will burn, and their sons and daughters, eaten .”
Her words carried farther, beyond the vale. A deadly promise. An inviolable truth.
“And while your people suffer, I shall ensure all of Kaus hears of your cowardice. The dying shall know you failed to protect them. The destitute and broken will know they were abandoned. Have you the wisdom to envision what happens next? Kaus’s history is filled with graves of nobility who lost the love and trust of their people…
and I know of what love you garner, and it is nothing compared to mine. ”
Isabelle stepped away from the map table, and it seemed all the world could breathe again. King Murta stammered something unintelligible as he adjusted his collar underneath his metal breastplate.
“You spin pointless tales that carry not a hint of truth,” he said, trying, and failing, to match the power of her voice.
“Not once have I denied my loyalty to the defense pact. My fears are that you would use this opportunity to benefit yourself, or worse, seek unearned glory. I will grant you neither. The peace between us shall last until three days after the death of the dragon. As for our combined forces, we shall each remain in charge of those loyal to us, and while we will listen to the advice of our fellow kings and queens, we will accept no orders from them.”
“You only reiterate the established rules of the pact,” Isabelle said, unimpressed. “But I accept such terms, if hearing me say so will put you at ease.”
“It does,” King Yarrick said, trying to lower the meeting’s tensions. “The question is, if we are to unite against this dragon, how shall we go about it?”
“I have a plan,” Isabelle said, and looked to the others. “If you are willing to hear it.”
Murta waved for her to begin, and so she did. Sariel listened, with mild interest at first, then more focused as what she described deviated from his own explanations of how a chase against a dragon would proceed.
“The three chasing armies will suffer the brunt of the battle,” Isabelle lied as she moved the pieces.
“We will endure these skirmishes, for there will always be losses when dealing with a dragon. But this keeps the dragon on the move, tiring it from flight, until at last it realizes it is trapped on all sides. That is when it will land, and the final army rides in to seize the kill.”
“My knights will lead the charge,” King Murta said, grabbing his own piece and positioning it last. “You said yourself the dragon flies toward Vivarai. Have your and Jehan’s armies corral it toward me, where I shall wait.
When the wounded beast lands, it shall face a cavalry charge unmatched by all the kingdoms of the west. We shall bury its red scales in horses and steel. ”
“Agreed,” Isabelle said, so quickly it raised King Murta’s suspicions.
“This will only work if your forces do not break during the chase,” he said. “Can I trust in the bravery of Doremy?”
“As much as you can trust the honor of Vivarai,” Isabelle said, and smiled.
“It is a plan. Appoint one of your advisers to be part of the pact council, so we can best coordinate our movements, and then send them to my camp before nightfall. Until then, farewell, all of you, and may Leliel watch over and guide your steps.”
With that, she and her retinue exited the shrine. Sariel marched behind the queen, uncertain why she had asked him to accompany her. When she halted in the empty vale midway between the shrine and her waiting army farther uphill, he suspected he was about to find out.
“Spread word of our plans,” Isabelle told King Yarrick. “The rest of you, prepare your armies to march. For now, I would speak with my friend.”
The others cast wary looks in Sariel’s direction but obeyed.
“You lied,” Sariel said once they were alone. It wasn’t an accusation, nor was he upset about the fact, just curious. Isabelle glanced over her shoulder at the shrine, where a lone priestess of Leliel was busy sweeping up the clutter.
“King Murta is a coward to the last,” she said. “He thinks to watch us throw our armies at the dragon, weakening it until his own troops can swoop in to claim the victory.”
“And so he unknowingly faces the worst of the assault,” Sariel said. “I am impressed, Your Highness. A threat to all the realm appears, and you wield it as a weapon against your greatest rival. So very opportunistic of you.”
“Either way, the dragon dies,” she said. “If Murta had any bravery, he would have volunteered to lead one of the corralling armies. He has no one but himself to blame for the deaths that follow.”
She hesitated.
“No one else to blame,” she repeated, and cast a curious gaze in Sariel’s direction. “I brought you with me for a reason, Sariel. What do you think of King Murta and his alliance?”
Sariel drummed his fingers along Redemption’s hilt, thinking.
“He clings to power like a babe does to his mother’s breast. He cannot imagine a life without it. His people are nothing to him, and his alliance, weak and breaking. The war is ours, in a few weeks if we are aggressive, a few months if we are careful.”
“Months,” Isabelle said. “And how many more battles would that take? How many more good men and women would die to carry us to a victory already assured?”
Sariel arched an eyebrow in her direction.
“Isabelle?” he asked, curious about where this was leading.
She looked about, as if to confirm they were alone. Armies surrounded them on all sides, but there in that vale, they were as isolated as one could hope for.
“How far are you willing to go to secure my reign?” she asked. “What lines are you willing to cross to dethrone Mitra and destroy the Church of Stars?”
Sariel’s guard immediately rose against such a question.
“I will do all that I must to break the Astral Kingdom,” he said, offering nothing more than that.
“Then I have a request of you, Sariel Godsight, if you would obey your queen.”
“I will gladly accompany you on your assault against the dragon, if that is your concern,” he said, still uncertain of her plans.
Isabelle shook her head.
“No,” she said, glancing once more to the shrine and the eastward-retreating kings beyond. “You will not battle the dragon at all, for I have need of you elsewhere.”