The Fall of Erlon (The Falling Empires Saga Book 1) Read online

  “No,” the Lakmian said. “I’m not much of a fighter.” His smile grew, as if a funny thought had hit him.

  “Who are you, then?” Elisa said.

  “I bring a message.”

  “A message.” Elisa took a quick glance at the empty forest around them. She had no idea what was going on.

  “Yes. A warning. There’s no need for those pistols.”

  Elisa kept the pistols pointed at the intruder’s head.

  “They wouldn’t hurt me anyway.”

  Elisa’s wits returned to her at this comment. She felt the breeze shift around her in a mysterious way. She felt a chill run up her spine and realization came to her.

  “You’re a sorcerer?” she said.

  She’d felt the same feelings in her spine before, but only around her mother. This man was certainly more dangerous than he was letting on.

  “No, but similar. I’m more of a guide. Although your world has long forgotten me.”

  “A guide?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did my mother send you?”

  “No, I don’t believe she knows I’ve returned yet.”

  A long rumble of an artillery volley reached them and the man glanced south at the city.

  “I bring a warning,” the man said again. “You must flee this area, Elisa Lannes. You, of all people, should not be this close to the Horde.”

  Elisa didn’t respond. She could only stare at the Lakmian with her mouth open.

  “You must flee.”

  “And go where? I have no family left.” The words burst from Elisa’s mouth. A dam burst and her anger threated to pour out towards this strange vision.

  “North. Fly north. You must run as far away from the Horde as possible.”

  Elisa wanted to turn and look at the city again, but restrained herself. She kept the pistols aimed at the intruder. Something in her mind was telling her it was okay to trust the Lakmian, but she wasn’t sure what to believe.

  “You know the farm won’t protect you,” the Lakmian said. “You must flee and escape this war on your own. Go north, I will appear to you again soon and help you along the way. But you must run, before that army comes over the hills in search of the emperor’s daughter.”

  The Lakmian began to fade before Elisa’s eyes. It happened quickly and she barely had time to process her shock before he was gone. Elisa was left standing in the clearing, pointing her pistols at nothing, the guide’s last words echoing inside her head.

  “You must run, Elisa. You’re far too important to this war to be lost at the very beginning.”

  Chapter 2

  The defeat at Riom foretold of future loss coming for Wahring. But no one, not even King Charles himself, could’ve predicted what waited for them once Gerard Lannes fully rose to power. The emperor would destroy the royals of Wahring and wreck the realm’s armies completely on a scale not seen since the Ascended One.

  Tome of the Emperor

  Nelson Wellesley

  Rapp

  “Fire!”

  The muskets erupted. Smoke billowed across the open field and into the Wahrian prince’s face. Rapp held his breath and let the black cloud pass before returning to glare at the rows of musketmen from the city guard.

  “Reload!” The regiment’s captain yelled the orders down the line.

  The unit was too slow. Did these guards ever practice? Did they drill at all when the king was off at war?

  Rapp bore holes into the back of the captain’s hat.

  The prince shook his head and spat into the mud and continued observing while he seethed through his teeth. One musketman dropped his ramrod while attempting to stuff wadding down his barrel. He bent to pick it up from the mud and his musket toppled into the soldier’s next to him and both guns clattered to the ground.

  The captain in front of Rapp took a quick glance at the prince before continuing his cadence.

  “Make ready!”

  The muskets came up at different times. A few soldiers were still finishing the reload.

  Enemy Erlonian lines would’ve gotten off two volleys in this space and overrun these Wahrians by now.

  Rapp shook his head and spat again. He turned his back on the line as the second round of shots finally went off and smoke returned to blow across the field.

  The Wahrian capital of Citiva, jewel of the eastern realms, stood behind where the army drilled. A grand wall encircled her for defense and the rows of houses and buildings stretched behind.

  In the city center, the land shot up like a spear thrust and formed a tall plateau with sheer rock walls. The royal seat of the realm sat on top. Spires of large stone around a palace with marble floors and tall glass windows. Luxury and power and majesty.

  Rapp hated it all.

  He turned his back on the sight. The guard unit was reloading again. Their captain kept one eye on the prince and the other on his struggling soldiers.

  Rapp wanted to be anywhere but here with these second-rate soldiers. Even if it was only the eastern front, along the Lakmian range, with General Neipperg. He would much prefer that than to be stuck here with his mother and the pointless diplomats of the world.

  Rapp was a Prince of Wahring. He should be a general. He should be with the soldiers fighting in the great war of their time.

  Erlon was about to fall. And Rapp was going to miss everything.

  His father fought in the west. The king led a combined army of Brunians and Wahrians for the Coalition and would take the great Erlonian cities from the emperor’s marshals. All while Rapp sat in stuffy rooms with foreign dignitaries hundreds of miles away.

  There was certainly nothing dignified about it.

  The Ascended One praised war. The god wanted to see bravery and valor and brilliant strategy. What could Rapp possibly hope to achieve up on that plateau in the palace at a peace summit?

  “Captain.” Rapp kept his voice stern.

  The captain scrambled over to his prince and bowed.

  “One more volley only. We shouldn’t waste shot until the guard is better at their motions.”

  The captain nodded and bowed again.

  “I’d like us to practice formations again too. Hollow squares.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  Rapp could only hope this regiment of city guard would be better at maneuvers than they were at reloading.

  He glanced back towards the city and the towering plateau. Movement at the outer wall caught his eye and held it. The city gate was opening.

  A caravan proceeded out. Royal guards on horseback in front and a carriage in the middle with more guards behind.

  Rapp rolled his eyes. His mother was coming to see him.

  Great.

  Rapp turned his back on their approach and watched the regiment move about in continued rushed chaos.

  The captain called out orders for the last volley and the men fumbled about. Rapp had half a mind to stop the whole proceeding and yell at them. But he was now too focused on the sound of the approaching Royal Guard.

  He glanced west. Open fields of flat land that would run all the way to the Lakmian Range and the eastern theater of the war. Rapp could grab his horse right now and ride for the front. He could find Neipperg’s Corps and take over the fight with the Lakmians and their stubborn alliance with Erlon.

  He could even push farther and enter Erlon and find his father’s army marching south on the western front.

  He could run away and no one could stop him.

  Except for a queen.

  “Form up! Make ready!”

  The regiment had to stop mid motion and reform to greet the queen. They scrambled into crooked rows as the carriage procession turned on the path through the drill field and pulled to a stop in front of them.

  Rapp stepped forward as the doors to the carriage were opened by a servant. His mother stepped down and the regiment saluted.

  Rapp’s mother was the image of Wahrian beauty. Tall, with flowing golden hair. Fair cheeks and strong po
sture.

  Her eyes were green. They glared at Rapp.

  “Mother,” Rapp said as he stepped forward. He put on his best smile. “I’m drilling the city guard to strengthen our defenses, I’m so glad you came to view their progress.”

  “Walk with me,” the queen said.

  She walked away from her guard and the city regiment. Rapp trudged after her.

  “You will return to the plateau with me in my carriage,” his mother said once they were out of earshot of the soldiers.

  “The city guard needs a lot of work,” Rapp said truthfully.

  “The delegates have already started to arrive.” His mother walked smoothly down the dirt road. But Rapp could feel her anger underneath the words. “The Lainian ambassador has already asked about you. You have a duty to Wahring to ensure this peace summit is successful.”

  “I have a duty to the army.” Rapp held his frustrations in check behind the words. It was all he could do to not yell them back in his mother’s face. “I have a duty to ensure victory and glorify the Ascended One.”

  “You have a duty to lead.”

  “Yes.” Rapp waved an arm back towards the guard regiment. “Lead the army.”

  “No.” Caroline stopped and looked Rapp in the eye. The green was an even harder glare this time. “Your duty is to the realm. And your family.”

  Rapp looked away. He looked west across the plain again. Neipperg’s army would be a few days’ march away. What good did a peace summit do? War had the glory, war had the fun.

  “War almost ruined our family,” Caroline’s voice softened. Rapp kept his eyes to the west. “War ruined your childhood. It tore our family from this place.”

  His mother’s eyes flicked back to the plateau and the palace.

  War is what brought the family back, Rapp thought.

  The Coalition finally defeated and captured the emperor. That’s what returned the royals to power. The lifting of the occupation of Citiva was what allowed them to return home. It was what gave his mother back her precious palace.

  The queen had done nothing but sit and weep and despair while in exile for years before their fortunes turned. At least King Charles had tried to fight.

  His mother had never been religious. She’d never approved of war. Rapp knew it was hard for women to be pious towards the Ascended One without serving in the army.

  But the queen should still be able to see what would bring Wahring back to glory.

  Rapp’s father may have lost the first wars against Emperor Lannes, but that wasn’t what turned their family out of power and into the streets.

  The sorceress’s betrayal had caused that. Wahring and the Coalition would never have lost if Epona hadn’t defected from his father’s bed to the emperor’s.

  Rapp shook his head. Bringing up that subject would most certainly make his mother’s mood worse.

  “You’re done sleeping in a tent with the army,” Caroline said. The sternness had returned to her tone. “It’s time to stay in the palace. You came back to Citiva for a reason.”

  “I came back because you made me.”

  Rapp regretted saying the words even before he finished. At least he hadn’t said his opinions on his mother’s lack of religion or his thoughts on his father and the sorceress out loud.

  “Rapp, it’s time to forget boyhood fantasies of valor.”

  Boyhood fantasies? The Ascended One’s teaching was a boyhood fantasy? The defense of the realm was a boyhood fantasy?

  Caroline turned and walked back towards her carriage. Rapp stayed rooted to the spot.

  The citizens of Wahring wanted a strong ruler again. They wanted the royal family to return to their golden age when Rapp’s ancestors were the strongest royals on the Continent and all feared their soldiers. The prince glanced at the crooked line of the guard regiment and shook his head.

  He let out a grumbling sigh.

  His parents had let Wahring’s greatness waver even before Lannes and the Erlonians had come from the west. They were the reason the realm had fallen. They were the reason the entire Continent was in the mess with Erlon in the first place.

  It would be up to Rapp to change that.

  “Rapp, come now.” Caroline’s voice was soft, but her words somehow had the most bite behind them yet.

  Rapp’s feet moved on their own accord. It was a reaction built from the years of his childhood under the woman. He hated his legs for responding in such a way.

  “I will finish the drills today and join you and my sisters for dinner tonight,” Rapp said. He thought that was a good compromise.

  “No, you are returning with me now.” Caroline reached the carriage door and turned to glare at Rapp. “We have things to discuss before the rest of the delegates get here.”

  Rapp looked at the Royal Guard around them. The queen wouldn’t want a scene in front of them and the other soldiers.

  “I have drills to finish with these men. I will see you for dinner tonight, Mother.”

  Rapp turned away from her and left before she could respond. He looked to the west and thought briefly of running off to the front once again.

  He wouldn’t go that far, not yet at least. But he relished in the small victory over his mother as he heard her carriage door slam shut.

  The city guard truly did need the drilling work. If the queen was going to make Rapp stay in Citiva for the pointless peace summit, the least he could do was improve the standards of the city’s defense.

  He ordered the captain to resume the drill and stewed on his thoughts about his family. He would let things simmer but not boil over. The Ascended One taught how a general had to be level-headed and Rapp knew he would have to be strong to survive being trapped here.

  He could bide his time. His mother’s peace summit was pointless. Erlon would be broken up according to who conquered what, not which ambassadors signed what agreement hundreds of miles from the main fighting.

  His father would get the glory with the army. But once Rapp became king, he would have his time to fight and win and be praised. His parents would be gone then. Glory would return for Wahring. And Rapp would be able to fight whatever war he wanted in whatever way he saw fit.

  Pitt

  The armies made camp along the edge of a forest with a stream bed between them that ran towards Vendome. The Brunians sat in the forest on one side and the Wahrians camped in the adjacent fields. General Pitt crossed the bridge to the Wahrian side at a trot. The air was cool and the sun wasn’t too heavy on either the rider or the horse.

  Commotion and movement surrounded the Wahrian king’s tent. Beyond, on the main road leading towards the Erlonian city, Pitt could see the Wahrian cannons being hauled towards the city. The siege was moving quickly.

  Pitt rubbed his horse’s neck as he tied him to a post. The general paused before turning towards the tent entrance.

  He took a deep breath and tried to settle his thoughts before going in to meet with the king. He adjusted the cuffs of his jacket and straightened his collar and said a quick prayer to the Ascended One for the army.

  A guard pulled the tent flap open and motioned for Pitt to enter. The general ran a hand through his brown hair and hoped it would fall back into a neat enough position after his ride. He ducked into the king’s tent.

  The cabal of Wahrian generals were strewn about the inside and King Charles Franz of the Wahrian Realm sat in the middle of them.

  “Ah, Pitt, welcome.” The king lounged in a chair and gnawed on a greasy chicken leg. “Please join us.”

  Pitt bowed to the king and walked forward. He politely refused the glass of wine offered by a servant.

  “Artillery should be in place by tonight.” One of the Wahrian generals leaned across a map on a table and shifted markers around. The Coalition army was in the north of the former empire, with the major rivers still to cross and plenty of dense forest between it and the Erlonian capital to the south.

  “Good, good,” King Charles said between the last bites of the
chicken leg.

  The generals around the king wore the normal black and yellow jackets of the Wahrian army. A flowing silk bedroom robe hung off the king, striped in the same bright yellow of his realm. Pitt’s red Brunian uniform clashed badly with the others in the tent.

  The Wahrian generals slouched where Pitt stood straight and tall. He kept his hands locked together behind his back and held his chin up, the formal stance ingrained into him since his schoolboy days back in Brun.

  The Wahrian culture was significantly more lax when it came to manners and formality, even in the military. To Pitt, the present scene in this tent only highlighted the strange nature of their alliance against Erlon even more.

  The king turned towards Pitt and pointed the greasy chicken bone at him. “Pitt, do you think the garrison will surrender?”

  “No, Your Highness.”

  Wahrian heads turned towards Pitt, surprise strewn across their faces.

  “Why not?” the king said.

  “These Erlonians won’t surrender a city easily, it’s not in their nature.”

  “We outnumber them ten to one,” a tall general said.

  “They don’t have long cannons,” another said.

  “If I were them, I’d give up and save some lives.” Charles checked to make sure he’d gotten all the chicken meat off the bone before tossing it over his shoulder.

  “They’ll fight, sir.” Pitt took a step closer to the map table and looked at the positions of attack. “I’ll state again that we don’t need this city, sir. We could push farther south and let our rear guard besiege these walls.”

  “No, Vendome is important. It’s the gateway to the north,” Charles said.

  And we’re moving south, Pitt wanted to say.

  He looked around the room. He’d made that argument before. There would be no changing the king’s mind.

  Charles looked around for more food and waved a servant over. “When will your artillery be in position around the south, Pitt?”

  “It’s already in position, sir.”