Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian (2 page)

Before Alec can grow accustomed to the Hill, he is sent on an urgent mission back to Goldenfields to serve as the Duke’s personal bodyguard. The city has grown troubled because an army of lacertii has opened warfare upon the outlying regions of Goldenfields. That is followed by the murder of the king of the Dominion back in Oyster Bay, and then a coup attempt against the Duke.

Alec’s tremendous abilities are the key to rescuing the Duke and winning back control of the Goldenfields palace. In the process of fighting, Alec receives a wound that appears mortal, and at the end of
At the Seat of Power
, Alec manages to work with others to miraculously heal his wound.

In volume III,
The Loss of Power
, Alec struggles to learn how to be a leader in Goldenfields as Duke Toulon faces hostile forces on all sides of his duchy. When Oyster Bay rebels begin to take over Bondell, Goldenfields’ neighbor to the west, Alec teams up with the Guard’s new cavalry to deliver a surprise raid that rescues hostages and overturns Oyster Bay’s forces, but in the process Alec overuses his ingenaire powers -- crippling himself severely.

Desperate to be healed, Alec rides off in search of a mythical holy place, where he has mystical visitations; he is partially healed, but also given obligations to overthrow the usurpers in Oyster Bay as well as to complete his healing of Noranda.

As Alec returns to Bondell, he finds that Oyster Bay has re-taken the city. Alec and the local militia defeat the invaders so that the prince of Bondell can regain his throne and resume his alliance with Goldenfields.

Alec leaves Bondell in single-minded pursuit of his goals, and arrives in Oyster Bay, alone. He battles the corrupt noble classes, persuades the army to support him, then dramatically confronts the coup leaders from Ingenairii Hill, absorbing their energies in an explosive ending that wipes out those powerful malefactors.

In volume IV,
The Lifesaving Power
, Alec sneaks out of Oyster Bay, and journeys up the river incognito, arriving in Stronghold as the member of the crew of a merchant ship. When the ship crew is attacked, they flee the city, and Alec journeys alone back to the city. On his way he meets a group of Locksfort family youth on a camping outing, and falls in with them as an unlikely friend. Back in Stronghold, Alec solidifies his role as a friend, but then finds himself deep under the Locksfort compound, and in another conversation with John Mark, who limits his use of his powers. Alec moves back to the Locksfort compound, and heals Noranda. At the same time, the unscrupulous leadership of the Locksfort family realizes who he is, captures and then tortures him. Alec eventually escapes and helps overthrow the leadership of the Locksforts, then leaves to return to Oyster Bay.

From Oyster Bay Alec leads an army to help the Duke of Goldenfields battle the lacertian invasion. Alec joins Imelda’s squad that fights behind the lines, cutting off the supplies for the lacertii invaders. The ambushers are then confronted by lacertii, and flee towards their own army. In the process, they become ensnared in the climactic battle, and Alec calls upon an extraordinary exercise of his powers to save his friends and himself, sacrificing his powers to keep them alive.

Section 1

The Dominion

Chapter 1 – Awakening in Camp

Imelda awoke with shafts of late-morning sunlight shining into her eyes, filtered through the fabric ceiling of a tent. She’d slept several additional hours since she first awoke, she knew. The cavalry leader for Goldenfields sat up and turned to her left, checking to see that her companion was still on the next cot over. He was, and he looked gray, drawn and worn. Conversely, he also looked different in a manner beyond fatigue, she noted. His face was younger, with fewer creases, softer angles. The diffuse light caught no wrinkles or crags or other evidence of his age. The light flowed shyly around the curves of his features and fell softly away from his skin, yet the warmth that was evident where the light illuminated the rest of the interior of the tent was chilled by the weariness that veiled Alec so heavily.

She felt surprisingly refreshed, by contrast, and stood up so that she might leave the tent to find a place to relieve herself and to discover whatever awaited her. There was news out there that she wanted to know.

As she pulled the tent opening ajar, a soldier stepped across her field of vision, and called out clearly, “Let the colonel know they’ve woken up!”

“You mean to say, ‘She’s woken up,’” Imelda corrected the young infantryman. “I’m the only one awake,” she told the thick-bodied boy, who was probably nearly her own age, despite her classification of him as a youth, a differentiation she felt entitled to make after her experiences throughout the campaigns of the war.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he apologized.

“Not a problem. Where are the latrine tents?” she asked promptly, and walked where directed.

After her quick return to her tent, she found Colonel Ryder awaiting her at the entrance. “Cavalry Captain Imelda, reporting for duty sir,” she said in a light-hearted effort to cover the emotions she felt upon seeing her commanding officer. She’d not seen him for weeks, maybe months, and for much of the day yesterday she hadn’t expected to ever see him again. Regardless of the circumstances, she looked upon him with the highest respect, and seeing him was a reminder of the best things in life she was still able to enjoy.

A lump gathered in her throat momentarily, until she swallowed it down. Ryder was a leader who held the Goldenfields Guard together seemingly through sheer personality. That seemed true, although Imelda knew it was false, for she’d seen the mountains of paperwork he filled out and the hours of observing he logged at the Guard section of the Palace – the work he devoted to truly run the organization.

He returned the salute, then held out his hand, and enclosed hers in a warm clasp between both of his. “Shall we talk?” Ryder asked. “Should we go awake his majesty?”

Imelda mentally paused at hearing the title used so easily. Alec was Alec for her, a simple name for a complex relationship, but after weeks out in the wilderness with him, she had forgotten the impact of his title when used with respect, especially when used by someone she respected.

“He probably needs to sleep, but you might put someone in the tent with him. When he overused his ingenaire powers back in Bondell last year, I think he slept for two or three days before he woke up,” Imelda warned, remembering the hours she had sat with Bethany, watching him lie inside a tent, recuperating from overuse of his extraordinary abilities.

Ryder raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you come with me then, and give a report on what you’ve done and how you got here?” he ordered in a tone that sounded like a polite request. He began to walk away, and Imelda fell in step beside him.

“
I’ve heard some of the ingenairii tell stories about what happened to your command. I’d like to hear what you can add to it all,” Ryder opened the conversation as they sat down.

Imelda began to give a professional debriefing, describing the encampment along the river and the destruction of the supply barges that had starved the invading lacertii army in Goldenfields.

“So you had an idyllic campout in the hills. Then what happened?” Ryder asked.

“Everything.” Imelda let the single word sum up the compression of events that had been folded into the past few days. “We saved the lacerta Alec wanted to be their leader, then delivered her army to her, then delivered another army to her and sent her home. Then we rode back here and fought to the death.”

“Did Alec make the right decision about this Rosebay, the renegade lacerta?” Ryder asked. “I gather some of your companions thought this lacerta leader should have been put to death like the rest of the ship crews, or maybe brought back here as a bargaining chip?”

“Most of us felt, uneasy, at first,” Imelda said with hesitation, reliving her own conflicted view, “but it seemed correct eventually, and it ended up taking several hundred lacertii away from the battle with the Dominion, hopefully on a journey to their home to end this war, so I think his judgment was right.”

“But you almost died carrying out his plans,” Ryder commented as he leaned forward.