The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [113]
In retaliation to those distant threats, which grew ever nearer, she sought to conquer the surrounding lands. Her tactics were mediated at first through simple political negotiation, but the governments beyond her borders did not approve of her insistence that they become one country with hers...they sought for an alliance, whereas she wanted total domination and rule.
They all knew that despite the genius that she was, there was within her an intense fixation for security in ultimate power that her own people could not see.
Her proposals rejected, she publicly began to place blame upon the governments of the surrounding lands, that they were at fault for the conditions of her own country before she came to rule and rectify them all.
This propaganda was to these surrounding governments an outrage, but before they found ample opportunity to act against her, and with the impending oppression of the distant empires growing less distant with every country they conquered, the Queen made the decision to strike against them.
She would have her way.
And, through a short but bitter war, she did.
One by one, the lands submitted to her rule through much bloodshed. The peoples of these lands began to think twice, mostly out of cowardice, discerning that it would be better to submit to her than to the outside conquering empires, thus relinquishing their morale to her whimsical and imposing conditionings.
Her army more than tripled in size and likewise so did her country’s borders. She executed any of those who chose to oppose her still.
But in the land to the west of her, there grew rumors of unyielding defiance.
These rumors spoke of a certain opposing soldier who could not be stopped, could not be killed, but in opposition had killed over two hundred of her men.
By himself.
And further rumor had it that he was not a soldier at all, but a simple peasant. A pauper.
And he used no weapons of any kind.
She made an order to have him captured and brought directly to her, to see for herself his remarkable courage and skill.
Frankly, she scoffed at the rumors, and referred to her soldiers as being incompetent, for any one man can certainly be killed when pitted against odds far greater than himself. Unless he be a sorcerer.
With extraordinary ease, the soldiers were able to bring him before the Queen.
“I hear you can’t be killed,” she said to him in bold speculation, “but I see you can be captured.”
“I allowed myself to be captured,” he told her, quite sure of himself.
“Is that so?” she mused. “And what do you consider your talents to be, that you are capable of committing such reportedly outrageous acts as to have slain so many of my men?”
“I am uncertain. I can’t quite put a finger on it, but I suspect I’m blessed with a curious charm. Why don’t you indulge me, and we can find out together right now?”
The Queen stared upon him blankly. Then she laughed and laughed. This man appeared to possess no more strength than enough to squash a bug. He was scrawny. He was dressed in rags. And there he was, standing before her, shrugging his shoulders.
“I am a storyteller in my village and a writer as well,” he continued. “I also serve as a political advisor and I use my writing to voice my opinions in letters submitted to my lawmakers and the lawmakers take them as wisdom. I suppose I use the right words to persuade them and I’ve proven myself worthy. I advised them to oppose you.”
“Is that so?" she responded, her amusement turning to insult.
With nothing further spoken but for a purposeful nod, she summoned the soldiers who brought him there to seize him and execute him.
They no sooner had drawn their weapons when a whirlwind force magically materialized, encompassing the man who, within the eye of this force, stood perfectly still and serene. The bronze-colored limbs of a she-demon surfaced from beyond the blur-seamed drapery of transparent void surrounding the man, as though invoked to protect him by an unspoken incantation.
And protect him it did. Not merely that; one by one,