generals to the palace. He then looked over at the motley group by the door. “Your friends, will they be helpful or are they just tagging along to get a chance to visit my palace?”
Sheillene took a moment of staring at her friends before answering, “I think they’ll be helpful. Thomas is always a good source of knowledge, and the smaller of the two large men is a Novarran General. The man in black is probably the cause of the Vulak invasion. The woman is his sister and the giant is, well a giant, and he can handle himself pretty well in a fight.”
The queen stood and excused herself. The Abvi prince, Aven, moved closer to the king’s conversation as did the king’s daughter, Princess Adria.
“You don’t need to stay,” The king said to his children. “This is likely going to be a boring conversation.”
“I will be King someday,” Aven said. “We don’t often have a reason to plan for war, I should learn at every opportunity.”
“I’m staying with Sheillene,” Adria said. “I’ve been Archery Champion too, that qualifies me to be here as much as her.”
“You just want to be here with Kehet,” Aven said. “He’s not going to change for you in the dining hall.”
“No,” Adria said, “I’m here to learn from Sheillene just as you are here to learn from father.”
“Kehet?” Sheillene asked. She looked straight at Kehet. “You’re the Unicorn god?”
Kehet nodded. “So it seems.”
“He doesn’t have all his memories,” King Allaind said. “He’s still as sharp as I remember.”
Sheillene chuckled, as did Adria. Aven didn’t even crack a smile. Kehet had no doubt the prince got the joke. The man seemed to have very little sense of humor.
Sheillene then asked, “Where has he been?”
“Even I don’t know,” Kehet said. “Beldithe is telling me what I should know, but she can be mischievous and I don’t really know how far to trust her.”
“You always trusted her completely, if the tales are true,” Sheillene said. “Of the gods, she is your closest ally. The two of you are the gods who interact most with the people. She can always be found at her temples and you have a long history of meddling.”
Kehet didn’t know what she meant by meddling, so he asked her to be more specific.
She replied, “There is a fight coming with the Vulak. The other gods may aid their followers, give them courage and possibly even heal their wounds after the battle, but you will probably be out on the field, killing Vulak with the mortals.”
“My love lives in this city,” Kehet said. “If it comes to defending it, I would see no other honorable choice but to fight.”
“And you have a mortal love?” Sheillene said. “Gods take mortal lovers, not loves. Again, you have a reputation for being different than the other gods.”
King Allaind waved his hand towards Sheillene’s friends. “We have all been trying to help Kehet remember his past, but we have more pressing matters. You said your dark clothed friend over there could be the cause of all this. I think that is a far more important topic of discussion.” He gestured to Sheillene’s friends to join them by the high table.
Once they approached and finished with their bows of respect, the King asked, “Sheillene, could you introduce your friends?”
She walked to the man in the black shirt, “This is Pantros Phyreshade, the one you’ve heard of. The woman is his sister Tara. The man in the blue hat is Thomas, but you knew that too. He is Tara’s husband. The largest man is Marc Williams, a swordsman who sometimes plays a bass guitar. The last is Bryan Aaronson, also the one you’ve heard of, who has since earned the rank of General in Novarra. He’s also pretty handy with a damned big sword.”
“So, Pantros,” The king said, “This is all your fault?”
“My fault?” Pantros replied, “I wouldn’t go that far, Your Majesty. The events that brought about the Vulak invasion were in motion long before I became involved. From my understanding of things. When I came into possession of the Nightstone Key, I have only brought about the best possible outcome so far.”
The king appeared thoughtful for a moment. Kehet was curious what a Nightstone Key was but felt it would be a question to ask later, if the answer didn’t come on its own in the meantime.
King Allaind said, “The Nightstone could certainly produce a far larger problem than a Vulak Army if it were in the wrong hands. No one wants to deal with the denizens of Hell. Do you have the Nightstone with you?”
“I do, Your Majesty.” Pantros pulled a pouch from his shirt and produced a very large dark, glowing gem. “I don’t know who I can trust with it, I should assume I can trust you but I was hoping to make it to Vehlos and see the Archmage about it.”
“I can have the Archmage come here,” The King said. “He’s not a subject of mine, but for him such travel is trivial. I’ll have to get a Sorcerer over here to send the message by wind, but he should be here by this time tomorrow. Until then I’d have you keep the stone and I will move you to more secure quarters than the guesthouse.”
“Why do I have the sinking suspicion I’ve just been placed under arrest?” Pantros asked.
The King smiled a little. “The cells below the palace are the most guarded place in the city. The rooms are quite nice since we only use them for nobility when they get into unpleasant circumstances.” The king motioned to two guards. When they approached, he instructed them, “Keep this man under close watch. Let nothing happen to him. He will be staying below in the big cell, but he is to be allowed to go anywhere on the palace grounds, under close guard. His name is Pantros; treat him as a noble.”
“The King of Thieves, Your Majesty?” one of the guards asked.
“The same,” The king said.
“The thieves have a king?” Kehet asked.
Several of the people in the room chuckled. “No.” It was Sheillene who explained, “It’s a fictional title describing his prowess, not his relationship to the other thieves of the world. There are only two kings in this room, you and His Majesty. I apologize I don’t know your particular address.”
“I’m a prince, not a king,” Kehet said. “I don’t know my address. Some call me Majesty, if you insist on using one with me, that will do, but I have no need for such things. Just a couple weeks ago, I thought of myself as simply Charles the blacksmith’s apprentice. King Allaind has met me before and I’ve met a few others who have known me over a thousand years ago. They just call me Kehet. I suppose you may do the same.”
Three of the King’s Generals joined them and, after introducing the officers to Kehet and Sheillene’s friends, the King moved the meeting to a planning room. A table with a model of the kingdom stood in the center of the room. It was enchanted to always represent the current view of the kingdom and it could be enlarged to focus on a specific spot, but only the king could control it.
The king spent several minutes silently moving the perspective of the model around. Views of several Vulak groups passed across the tabletop.
Malithe, a general with blonde hair so long she had to tuck it as a loop in her belt, spoke out, “They’re not terribly organized.”
Kehet asked, “They don’t look like more than a bunch of Vulak moving in towards the city, but can we be sure they are not acting in coordination?”
“We can’t be sure,” Bryan said, “but, they don’t share any banners or markings. Whatever is causing them to share a goal does not have a complete grip over them.”
“I suspect even they do not know the scale of the invasion,” Malithe said. There are no map tents, no intense planning, just moving as quickly as is reasonable, towards Melnith. There are already a couple thousand just beyond bowshot. The siege has begun.”
“So, how do we prepare?” The King asked.
“Have everyone start hoarding water,” said Shera, a general with silver hair cut above her shoulders. “Fill every barrel in the city. They will try to damn the river upstream of the city.”
“Amateurs,” Bryan said. “The Vulak are amateurs, so they will probably try to cut off the water. A better strategy would be to dam the river downstream of the city, flooding is far more devastating than forcing us into rationing our water. How soon do you think it will be before they start defiling the river upstream?”
“They won’t,” The third general, a bald man named Wun, said. “They need the water as well if they have
