Page 54 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)
By the time the distinct odor of a war camp assaulted my nostrils, the six-pointed sun scorched through my shirt, pinpricks of burning fabric growing larger. Sweat poured down my spine, and I ground my teeth, jogging the last few feet.
Once over the threshold, I released a breath of relief. The sun sank back into its dormant black ink, the fire in my skin gone, and I inhaled the overwhelming scent of men, livestock, and cooking meat.
Winter air slammed into me, and I hissed through my teeth. Not even my magic could penetrate the spell—an oversight that wouldn’t happen next time, if there was a next time.
I sprinted to the closest tent. By the time I threw the front flap open and strode in, my hands were numb, my skin stinging and muscles shivering.
It was hardly a tent, nothing more than a large dressing room with a fur pallet taking up the majority of the floor, my extra clothing haphazardly strewn atop it.
Teeth chattering, I pulled on the wool undershirt and thick coat, then turned on my heel and exited as I shoved my hands into leather gloves.
Rows of tents stretched as far as the eye could see, soldiers meandering about, plates of food in hand.
A cook bundled head to toe sat at the entrance of his tent with a large pot of stew, waves of steam rising around him.
As I passed by, he lifted a bowl to me, but I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, the line of waiting soldiers long and growing.
Based on the ongoing clash of swords in the distance, the sparring rings had already started—steady work and practice I’d required, not because they weren’t skilled, but because I didn’t want them growing idle.
The butcher’s tent was also already at work. The repetitive thunk of his knife on the wooden block echoed from the open door flap as I walked by.
“Sire!” Shuffling footsteps preceded the butcher. He emerged from the tent in a bloodied apron, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand as he pulled a satchel from his pocket and tossed it to me. “Good morning, sire. I’m glad to have caught ya.”
I tugged the strings open to find a good deal of dried meat, smoked in a variety of spices. My stomach growled in response, earning a laugh from the butcher.
“Thank you.” I gestured to the cook and his line. “Are we keeping them fed?”
“Oh, aye. The kitchen is handling the load with ease, though we could use more cattle. That is to say, we have enough for now, but I wouldn’t want the supply to dwindle too terribly low, you see.
With it being winter, we want to keep meat on their bones.
We…” His cheeks reddened, and he cleared his throat.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. You’ll have to excuse my informality. ”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, stifling a sigh. We went through this exact scenario every time we spoke, and he still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that my sole purpose was to provide.
“Cattle would be good, i-if you could. Or perhaps sheep, or pig would be mighty fine, or even wild boar, or?—”
“Meat,” I interjected. “We need more meat?”
He nodded, the blush reaching his hairline. “Aye.”
“Consider it done,” I said before clapping a hand on his shoulder. “And as I’ve said a hundred times, no formality.”
His expression relaxed into a smile as he bowed his head. When he retreated to his tent, I turned and strode ahead, sinking my teeth into the tough jerky and tearing off a bite.
They’ll need more meat soon. Any livestock will do, I said to the wyverns stationed throughout Auryna. They stirred and took flight.
I’d been gathering these men—these armies for months, and not all were the noble kind.
Those who devoted their lives to loyalty and honor were respectable soldiers, cherished comrades on the battlefield, but we didn’t have enough.
We needed more feet on the ground, more weapons in hand, and I’d sought them out in grittier places.
I found the merchant armies, the men who’d long since sold their honor and loyalty to the highest bidder, and I commissioned every single one I came across.
More than that, though, their generals swore the blood oath to me in exchange for high positions in the ranks of the crown’s armies.
This guaranteed not only power and respect, but a stipend for life, on top of the obscene amount of gold I’d already given, a large lump sum to the general with the rest of the gold distributed through the ranks equally.
I was explicit in my instructions during the negotiation of their commission and fully expected friction from the generals, but to my surprise, they didn’t question it.
They were more than happy to accept their small fortune and guaranteed position.
It was the higher-ranking officers below them but above the infantry who took personal offense, enraged by their lack of superiority in terms of payment, but they didn’t win wars.
The grunts did, the masses, and I wanted them on my side.
Once the first general, Drustan, had taken the blood oath, he recruited two more.
He also introduced me to the familial armies at the edge of the world.
A century ago, in the furthest northeastern corner of the realm, skirmishes broke out among the prominent families, and with growing tension, their people chose sides.
Those sides grew into full blown battalions, two of which now fought under me—also for obscene amounts of gold.
Between three merchant armies and two familial battalions, I’d amassed thousands.
My army, my Bloodsworn, was nearly ten thousand strong, and every person beneath the cloak of the spell was blood bound.
They swore the oath by willingly entering behind their general—a specification used by Stryath Draki in the War of Brothers.
Not much good it did him in the end, but this time would be different.
History would not repeat itself.
To betray me now would be at the detriment of the soldier’s own life, as proved by the poor soul torched while I was in King’s Port.
Nearing the generals’ tent, I finished the strips of meat and tucked the emptied pouch into my pocket.
The door was already tied open, and I dipped inside to find the large table lined with pillar candles, lit and flickering.
Pieces were strategically placed along the map of Auryna and Ravaryn, their shadows dancing on the black tent walls.
Drustan stood at the center of the table, flanked by two more on either side, a total of three male generals and two female.
They were clad in black armor, their chest plates engraved with a blood red dragon, their cloaks a matching velvet, made to match my scales.
Once upon a time, they would’ve matched my wings, too.
Clenching my jaw, I ignored the stinging itch that started along the scars between my shoulder blades.
Samuel, the last general brought in, had given life to their idea of matching cloaks, convincing the others of their necessity.
I’d denied the request at first; cloaks were a hindrance in both battle and daily life.
The only benefit they provided was a symbol of status, which was, ironically, the exact reason they wanted them.
At my refusal, they’d resolved to buy them with their own coin.
So, here we stood: they in their sparkling armor, and I bundled in black wool.
“Well?” I asked, scanning the table. Wyvern pieces were stationed in a circle of twelve, spaced out through the kingdom.
A medallion of ten sat in the center of Auryna, and one of twenty sat near their capital—the two largest stations.
More soldiers resided within the capital walls and scattered around the outskirts, along with the smaller platoons placed in various towns and villages.
“Six wagons have been intercepted,” said Garrick, head of the first familial army brought in.
He was the youngest of the five but brilliant, and his men respected and trusted him—an invaluable asset on the battlefield.
“They arrived the night before last. Three of grain, two of dried meats and hide, and one of weapons.”
My eyes snapped to his, and his lips twitched with a grin.
“Weapons?” I asked.
Kaelin braced her hands on the table. She towered over half the men, muscled from decades of training, and her mind was equally as skilled. “ The weapons, sire. The large bows and spears.”
The weapons meant for me and my wyverns.
I stiffened. “Burn them.”
“Sire, what if we used them instead?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t particularly like the idea of their existence at all.”
She cleared her throat before pointing to our location on the map. “Say we’re here?—”
“We are here, love,” Samuel said, and Kaelin shot him a glare.
“Say we’re here, already at higher ground, and his brigade moves through the east pass, the only way to the Marsh.
” She slid a one hundred piece across the board, closer to our position.
The east pass was the only route toward our camp, deceivingly low ground.
“Behind the cloaking spell, they won’t see us, and even if they could, they wouldn’t until it’s too late.
If we repurposed the spears, say dipped them in the oil of wildfyre… ”
“They wouldn’t survive the hour,” I said, my voice low.
She shook her head and repeated, “They wouldn’t survive the hour.”
Thrilling as the idea was, it would never be enough. We could kill every human in existence and still face the real threat.
“What is it?” asked Boyd, the oldest Fae of the group, his white hair sparse and skin mottled with scars.
His army had been familial, which, unlike Garrick, left a chip on his shoulder—a rather large, irritating one that he loved to replace every time I knocked it off.
“There’s something else, clear as day on your expression. ”