Chapter 8

Several Years Later...

Sharn remembered that day fondly as he sat upon one of Raisa’s foals in a barren gorge in the Netherlands under a lead gray sky. Memories kept floating up at him out of the past as he sat, waiting. The gorge, or something more, told him the gorge was anticipating him. So he sat to await whatever wanted him here. The Academy had been hard but challenging. The classes were easy but the physical demands were more suited to someone who was already an adult, not someone still waiting for their final growth spurts. But he had many friends, not only among the cadets but among the instructors. Sergeant-Major Kaykyssa and General Vaelossa made sure of that, with the not-so-secret support of the Vice-Chairman of the General Staff, General Paraezal. It was a well-known and never talked about secret that Prince Sharn, or rather Cadet Sharn, was to be watched over, encouraged, tutored, and whatever else was needed to help him through the Academy without skimping on the training and education. Of course, by the time he was ready to graduate it was plain to all that it was probably to the good that he was on the runty side when he started. Otherwise the top cadet would have been four years younger than the next oldest graduate and that would have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. His starting physical performance evaluations were just low enough that he graduated fourth in his class and not first. By the time he was sworn in as a lieutenant, nobody would spar with him, either afoot or mounted. Everyone knew to come to him to get politics and government explained. And he was the Tactics and Strategy instructors’ assistant in his spare time.

He smiled sadly as he remembered his frantic first year as a lieutenant. His mother found every shit post and dangerous assignment for his men and him, hoping to either make him quit or get him killed. That she failed to do either, while getting some men he cared about dead in the process made him an enemy of his own House. While he had long ago decided that he was no longer of House Jenni, he held back from actively conspiring against it. That ended when the bitch got Sergeant-Major Kaykyssa killed by sending her son and his men into an ambush. Fifty cavalrymen against a thousand-man strong band of brigands out of the Barrens. Kaykyssa and ten others sacrificed themselves so that the rest could make it home to report. None of those who survived was without injuries and Sharn himself spent two months in bed with the healers working on him frantically. In the end they were able to save him. Or rather his body. Prince Sharn of Jenni never made it back from the marches. Lieutenant Sharn Jenni crawled out of his sickbed after two months, hobbling on a crutch, and walked the length of the city to the Palace of the Council. He managed the stairs only because Samantia appeared as he struggled up the fourth step. He walked through a crowded and silent rotunda, every eye on one of the heroic survivors of the Battle of the River of Nultra. He pushed past the Guards at the door to the Council and marched (hobbled) into the chamber, completely ignoring anything but the outraged scowl on his mother’s face.

There had been a gorgeously dressed woman and several of her flunkies standing before the Council, but the woman bowed to Sharn, pity in her eyes, and backed away from the center of the chamber, ceding the floor to Sharn. Sharn had looked into each Matriarch’s face, gauging which of them knew what had happened to his men. Only four faces looked like his mother’s, the rest were surprised and keenly interested in what was about to happen.

“So, Lieutenant Sharn,” his mother’s voice hissed hatefully, “not only were you content with getting your unit ambushed, you have the temerity to interrupt the Council’s business. What makes-”

“Shut up, woman,” Sharn said coldly, cutting her off. His blue eyes were dark with pain, physical and emotional, as he turned his hate-filled visage up to his mother. “Five of you knew what was going to happen. You, you, you, you, and you, Mother, all knew what would happen to my men when you sent me out to the Barrens.” Each Matriarch pointed to shrank back before the heat in those cold blue eyes. “Fifty men sent to the slaughter against one thousand!”

This woke a hissing, rumbling shock that rolled through the chamber. He could hear the commoners and guildsmen behind him murmuring to each other and he saw the other Matriarchs not singled out by him flicking their eyes from him to his mother to their own allies and back, over and over as they tried to anticipate where this was going.

Lady Shiena opened her mouth to angrily denounce her son’s accusations when he chopped her off with his free hand. “I told you to shut up, and I meant it. You may still rule here when I leave, but at this moment, the floor is mine and it will remain mine until I decide to relinquish it,” he told her with such venom she recoiled into her deeply cushioned chair, staring in horror and fear at her eighteen-year-old son. He ran his scathing gaze over her four allies as well, insuring their silence. “My name is Prince Sharn Jenni of House Auley. From this day forth, I am no longer of House Jenni. I take as my family the Clan Auley in honor of their fallen hero, Command Sergeant-Major Kaykyssa of the Cavalry Corps and the leader of the sacrificial victims placed on the altar of Shiena of Jenni’s hatred, and choose as its Matriarch Masterhealer Lilith Auley. Since none of you bitches saw fit to stop the tyrant sitting so arrogantly in the place of honor amongst you, I cast you all in the same light and a pox on all of your Houses for allowing her growing stupidity to reign. And before I leave you with this, I warn you to not make the mistake of underestimating the cruelty, idiocy, and maliciousness of her chosen heir, Ceilia, either. You will all follow after Kaykyssa if you do not put a stop to Lady Shiena now.”