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Chapter 3
Ivan

Admittedly, this was not what he had expected. He could understand why there were no generals there to greet him. He could understand the serious lack of personnel. He could even, if he tried hard enough, understand why they had to pay for their own lodging rather than simply using the barracks.

What Ivan could not understand, no matter how hard he tried, was why the man in charge of the soldiers stationed in Volgrad felt the need to send one lone enlisted man, and only one lone enlisted man, to meet with him. He stared at the boy for several minutes in silence trying to fathom it, but failed to come up with even one viable reason. Didn’t the son of the Emperor deserve an officer, even a Lieutenant? He would have accepted a Sergeant with the right excuse, but this was ridiculous.

“S-sir?” whimpered the rankless youth after some time.

Ivan snapped out of his reverie. “Yes? What?” he hissed.

The boy jumped. “I-I just wanted to g-give you y-your orders,” he explained, holding out a stack of papers, which Ivan snatched from his hand before turning and leaving without another word.

Out in the hall he was greeted by Uri and Wulfric. “What did they say?” enormous Uri inquired upon seeing Ivan’s expression.

“A fresh recruit. They sent a boy just out of training to give us our orders,” Ivan growled, storming past the two older Knights.

“That’s too bad, but what are our orders?” Wulfric repeated for Uri, falling into step on Ivan’s left.

“I should write home about this,” Ivan raged on, apparently unaware of the existence of his two subordinates. “This is an outrage!”

Uri jumped in on Ivan’s right. “You do that. What do those papers say?”

“I mean, really, who do they think they’re dealing with?” Ivan shouted down the corridor, sending a chambermaid running for cover.

Wulfric snatched the papers out of Ivan’s hands and shuffled through them. “They say…we’re supposed to stay here,” he said to Uri, ignoring the Prince’s continued ranting. “Wouldn’t you know it, the entire local force has been dispatched.” He passed the papers to Uri behind Ivan’s head.

“Unfortunate,” Uri grunted, staring intently at the first page. “Wait…they were traveling toward Ulenstad.” He stared ahead for a moment before throwing a sidelong glance at Wulfric. “You don’t suppose…”

“I do suppose,” Wulfric agreed, and slapped Ivan on the shoulder, making the Prince sputter confusedly.

“What is it?” he barked, practically baring his teeth at his older comrades.

“Uri and I are going back to the battle site we found yesterday,” Wulfric informed him. “Is that okay?”

“Why are you doing that?”

“We have a hunch that we know what happened,” Uri said, staring down an errand boy who happened to be passing them in the corridor. “Do you mind?”

Ivan frowned and shook his head slowly. “I don’t have any complaints.” He jumped, startled, and looked at his hands. “What happened to the orders?”

*****

“Pavel, it’s your move.”

The boy grunted quietly to indicate that he had heard his brother speaking, and moved a piece across the game board, where one of Ivan’s immediately captured it. He always won when they played games of strategy…or sparred, or raced, or pretty much whenever they competed at all. Pavel admired his brother for being so incredibly skilled, but at the same time he resented forever being the lesser of the two Nemevar boys.

“Ivan, remind me again why we have to stay here in Volgrad,” he said, looking the board over for any hope of salvaging the game.

“For the last time,” Ivan growled, cutting off the retreat of Pavel’s key pieces, “it’s because the regular garrison has been called away and they need somebody to defend Volgrad in the interim.”

Pavel nodded slowly, eyes widening with excitement as he hewed a path down the middle of Ivan’s formation. “Why did the regular garrison have to leave?” he asked quietly.

A triumphant snort from Ivan as his trap was sprung and Pavel was soundly defeated. “The orders didn’t say.”

“That’s suspicious, don’t you think?” Pavel ventured, rising from his chair by the fireplace and retrieving a pitcher of ale from the table. He stared into the middle distance as he refilled his sturdy iron cup, and set the pitcher down again.

Ivan copied his brother’s actions and returned to his chair, beginning to reset the game board. “How so?” he asked offhandedly.

Pavel shrugged and walked across the room to look out the window at the heavily frosted ground several stories below Volgrad Castle. “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem right somehow. This isn’t the sort of job for a contingent of Gray Wolf Knights, especially not one led by the elder son of the Emperor.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Ivan admitted, watching Pavel with mild interest. “Perhaps they simply couldn’t find anybody else who was available?” A shrug, and he began to move pieces around the board again, playing against himself, a habit that had always confounded and irritated Pavel.

“Maybe, but what if something’s wrong?” Pavel insisted, turning and looking urgently at his brother, who was thoroughly engrossed in his game.

“The Empire still hasn’t recovered from the revolution, Pavel,” Ivan said quietly. “Everything is wrong.”

“The revolution,” Pavel repeated. “I spent the whole thing guarding our father, or so was mother’s excuse for not letting me fight.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Ivan said. “The Tenzenites decided that they had had enough of being ruled by another nation, and managed to get almost all the way to Avikstad before we realized what was going on and put them down. The battle itself was more or less a slaughter of farmers with swords. I’m not proud of it.”

“They had no soldiers?”

“Not many. Most of the Tenzenite army had been annihilated when the Empire first conquered Tenzen. They were fighting out of desperation.” Remembering things he preferred not to, Ivan stopped moving game pieces and leaned back in his chair, taking slow sips from his cup.

Pavel frowned and sat awkwardly on the windowsill. “Is the Empire really so terrible?” he asked, half-rhetorically.

Ivan answered the half that wasn’t rhetorical. “Vankadi is not infallible, but we are a better alternative than many,” he said. “The Tenzenites simply responded as badly as they could have.”

After a few minutes of silence, Ivan stood and stretched, yawning loudly. “I’m going to bed,” he informed Pavel, and exited into the adjoining bedroom.

Pavel stayed on the windowsill for some time, watching the snow fall and listening to the dead trees creak in the wind. “I hate this weather,” he informed the pieces on the game board.