Firebrand 6 the renegade, p.1
Firebrand 6: The Renegade, page 1
THE RENEGADE
©2024 D.E. OLESEN
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ALSO IN SERIES
Firebrand
The Novice
The Fire-Touched
The Acolyte
The Spellslinger
The Warrior
The Renegade
(Untitled Book 7)
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CONTENTS
Summary
1. Familiar Lands
2. Swimming in Lakes
3. Walking on Water
4. Living Free
5. Between a River and a Hard Place
6. Beset on All Sides
7. No Fighting
8. Azar
9. Supper with the Enemy
10. Native Asterians
11. Threads Bound Together
12. Parting Ways
13. Warning Signs
14. Drop by Drop
15. Marked
16. The Words of a Firebrand
17. The Stronger Mettle
18. What the Future Promises
19. Out of Joint
20. A Council of Command
21. Imperium
22. A Question of Authority
23. We Kill Them
24. Plundered Victory
25. Cold Winds
26. Nineteen, Twenty
27. Ad Portas
28. The Road Taken
29. Dark Clouds
30. Opposite Sides
31. Dark Skies
32. As the Day Dawns
33. Private Celebrations
34. A Captain’s Choice
35. Swift Negotiations
36. Subterfuge
37. The Meaning of the Name
38. Balancing Act
39. The Tower
40. The Right Tool
41. The Wrong Tool
42. Two Crosses
43. Saint Marcellus
44. The Third Starlit Eve
45. A Fair Trade
46. A Captain’s Voice
47. Intimidation and Surprise
48. Master and Student
49. Master and Mageknight
50. Catching a Play
51. Intelligent Moves
52. A Crown in Hand
53. Putting on a Performance
54. Friendly Enemies
55. A Political Future
56. A Comedy of Decisions
57. The Right Head
58. A Break from the Past
59. Porcupine
60. Method and Opportunity
61. Onions
62. Satisfaction
63. New Quarters
64. Golden Promises
65. Second Round
66. One Among Many
67. Alliances
68. Fate and Future
69. A Lack of Faith
70. Fiery Reminders
71. On the Trail
72. Grey Words
73. From One Saint to Another
74. Something in the Air
75. The Riddle of Two
76. Third Round
77. Final Round
78. Right Teacher, Right Hour
79. Two Letters
80. First Among Equals
81. The Last Starlit Eve
Thank you for reading The Renegade
Groups
LitRPG
SUMMARY
After completing his training as a battlemage, Martel is assigned to the Tenth Legion at Esmouth, which defends the Savena Delta and engages in constant skirmishes against the Khivan enemy. Eleanor Fontaine, daughter of a legate and accomplished mageknight, chooses to become his protector rather than seek a career as an officer. Together, they fight numerous battles as the legion tries to push the Khivans back and extend its control over the area under the leadership of the ambitious Legate Varus.
Besides the other prefects of the legion, Martel befriends Henry, the stonemage assigned to reinforcing the defences of the legion’s camp and Esmouth itself. He also gains an understanding with Starkad, a Tyrian berserker, who has been hired along with his companions to be scouts and trackers for the legion.
As the Khivans become aware of the presence of a battlemage, they dedicate their efforts to ambush and kill Martel, who is continuously being sent into battle specifically to lure out Khivan troops and kill them as best he can. Martel and Eleanor spend a harrowing summer surviving cannons and sharpshooters, the latter hunting them with golden bullets.
As summer turns to harvest, and winter approaches, Eleanor obtains permission for them to take leave that they might spend solstice in Morcaster before returning to the front in spring. Martel is hesitant to go; many of the legionaries dislike him already for the danger he brings, being a valuable target for the Khivans to kill, and such preferential treatment will only make it worse. But as Eleanor is unlikely to leave without him, he accepts, and they sail to Morcaster.
Away from the routines and hardships of the previous months, Martel finds ordinary life difficult. Sleep eludes him, the smell of charred meat reminds him of the battlefield, and loud noises makes him suspect Khivan sharpshooters behind every streetcorner.
This does not diminish his capabilities as a battlemage, though; with all his experience in combat, Martel has only become more dangerous and capable. At the solstice celebration held by House Fontaine, Martel demonstrates his abilities by handily defeating three mageknights from the Praetorian Guard. The reputation of the fire-touched battlemage begins to spread.
Their leave is cut short by the dreadful tidings of a Khivan incursion across the Savena River into Asterian lands. Martel and Eleanor travel with the Thirteenth Legion to assist them in a confrontation, but while they are dispatched on a separate mission, the Khivan army attacks the camp of the Thirteenth and drive them away before beginning their siege of Esmouth.
Martel and Eleanor sneak past the Khivans to join the defences of the town. During the assault upon the breached walls, Martel repels a cannonball that would have struck Eleanor, and they hold the Khivans back, who eventually abandon their invasion and retreat back over the river.
Emboldened by the enemy’s retreat, Legate Varus orders a spring campaign to strike into Khivan territory. He sends the fifth and sixth cohort ahead in advance along with two hundred horsemen and their prefect, Sir Dominic, whom Martel has a poor relationship with. He and Eleanor are also commanded to join the vanguard in holding a strategic location ahead of the rest of the Tenth and the Thirteenth Legions.
It proves disastrous, as the Khivans regroup faster than expected and prevent the legions from advancing. Cut off from reinforcements and in danger of being encircled, the vanguard faces destruction. Sir Dominic orders them to remain as per their last orders; knowing this will lead to the death of everyone, Martel kills him and assumes command alongside Eleanor and Sir Avery, prefect of the fifth cohort.
Together, they lead a desperate flight from the Khivans, who hunt them through the forests for days with the battlemage and his protector fighting skirmishes without end to guard their retreat. As they cannot retreat directly to Esmouth, the Asterians must cross the river to reach safety. Once they do so, the delay in getting to the other side allows the Khivans to catch up. Throughout the day, Martel, Eleanor, and a diminishing group of legionaries hold back wave after wave of attackers.
Sir Avery joins them to cover their retreat as the last to evacuate, and she is slain for her efforts by a golden bullet. Another strikes Eleanor, who falls dying to the ground. Overcome with emotion and in the throes of his magic, Martel unleashes fire on a scale hitherto unseen. Revealing the true power of the fire-touched, he torches every Khivan at the riverbank.
Reaching Eleanor’s side, he uses his healing elixir on her, a powerful potion once gifted to him by Mistress Rana. Her life is saved, and although magical exhaustion claims Martel, he wakes
Returning to Esmouth alongside the two cohorts they saved, Martel receives a hero’s welcome from the legionaries, but not his superior officers. Legate Varus charges him with insubordination for killing Sir Dominic and for disobeying orders by abandoning their position, and Martel is to be sent to Morcaster to receive the Inquisition’s justice.
There is a deeper reason for this. Awaiting departure, Martel is visited by Wulfstan, an Asterian spy. He offers Martel a choice: face the Inquisition or venture deep into Khiva to destroy the powder mill that supplies their cannons and muskets. Neither choice bodes well for his survival; refusing to be manipulated, Martel denies the mission. Wulfstan reveals his true leverage: Eleanor will be sent to the siege up north and commanded to lead a charge straight into the enemy’s cannons unless Martel complies.
Before Martel can be sent into Khiva, however, Eleanor intervenes and liberates him. Together, they make their escape from Esmouth, no longer prefects of the Tenth Legion but deserters to be hunted by all those loyal to the Asterian Empire.
ONE
FAMILIAR LANDS
In desperate flight, the pair of deserters galloped away. In the distance, the walls of Esmouth manned by archers faded from sight, but one of their arrows had struck Martel’s steed; they did not get far before it began to fall behind Eleanor’s. Glancing backward, she halted her own mount and waited for Martel to catch up. “What is wrong?” she asked with an anxious look at the road behind them before her eyes fell on the arrow sticking out of his horse.
“They will catch up to us soon enough.” Martel stared at the Imperial road as it wound through the landscape ahead of them, allowing riders a swift journey. The legate would send every man on a mount after them.
“We have to leave the road. Go where the horses cannot follow.” Turning on her saddle, Eleanor looked toward north. “Into the marshes.”
They emptied the saddlebags of provisions and a Tyrian shortbow and arrows. Eleanor grabbed the weapons, they divided the supplies between themselves, and she gave each horse a slap to send them running off. On foot, they turned north and entered the wetlands.
The surroundings were familiar. Martel had moved through this landscape plenty of times. They had come here to harvest herbs, to find and destroy Khivan crossings, to pursue the fleeing Khivans and in turn also march through here during their own flight. At this point, they knew how to navigate the terrain, and despite the meltwater of spring flooding more parts than usual, it barely slowed them down.
But while the marshes were known to him, the situation was new. Previously, Esmouth had always promised safe harbour. No matter the danger, Martel knew that once they reached its walls, he could rest and feel secure.
Now, no place for hundreds of miles would offer refuge. All land west of the river was the Empire; to the east lay Khiva. Either place, they would be killed on sight. And they were right on the border, where both realms had most of their forces concentrated, ready to hunt down a pair of renegade mages. It was hard to imagine how the situation could be any worse. He looked at Eleanor walking a few steps ahead on the narrow trail, keenly aware that she had thrown away everything in her life to save him.
They continued to walk until nightfall, where darkness made it impossible to find the safe path. They located firm land big enough for both of them and made camp, which simply consisted of them sitting down, as they could not risk a fire and had no tent to raise. Instead, Martel found a small rock, which he cast a short enchantment of heat upon that should last until sunrise.
“We need to determine our route,” Eleanor declared as he finished his trance, and the rock began spreading warmth. “They will soon scour these marshes for us. We should be gone before that happens.”
“You’re right.”
“It will take us a couple of days, but there are a number of small towns dotted along the coast. I brought all my money with me.” She touched the purse hanging by her belt. “We find a fisherman and pay him to sail us to Sindhu.”
“That requires us to cross the Imperial road, which must be swarming with troops. And they will send couriers to every town to keep an eye out for us,” Martel argued. “If an Imperial warship comes for us, we will be defenceless at sea. We can’t fight back or run.”
“We find somewhere small that will be overlooked, a fishing village without a garrison.”
“Yet big enough to have vessels of a size that can brave the journey all across the Emerald Sea?” Martel questioned.
“Fine. What is your idea?”
“We continue along this route, keeping northwest,” he suggested.
She held up one finger. “That will also take us into open land, and for a much longer distance than if we go south and hit the coast.” She raised a second finger. “I understand your instinct to go towards Nordmark, but, Martel, you cannot go home. They will expect that.”
“Of course, I know that. We shouldn’t come within a hundred miles of Engby. But we should aim for Nordmark. It is a vast province, yet sparsely populated. We stand a much better chance of avoiding discovery marching through there.”
“It is still a province in the Empire, under military administration. It has five legions!”
“Which is why we do not remain there, but continue north until we cross the Frosten River.”
She stared at him in the dark. “You want to go to Tyria.”
“They will expect us to go south.”
“Tyria is a thousand miles away! There are five legions guarding the border!”
“Yes, but the land in between is desolate. The legionaries at the river won’t be thinking about a pair of runaway mages a thousand miles to the south.”
She crossed her arms. “Just because you have made friends with one berserker, it does not mean all his tribesmen will welcome us with open arms.”
“We do not have to stay interior. I’m sure we can find passage on one of their ships going to the Western Isles.” He let out a deep breath. “Alright, you’re the most sensible person I know. If you think we stand a better chance of escape by going south, crossing the Imperial road, I’ll go with you without further argument.”
She held his gaze for a long, silent moment. “Fine. I will concede there is wisdom in going through less populated areas. We will go north.”
“As you say.”
“Do not give me any cheek. You can take first watch as punishment,” she declared, and she laid down with her cloak huddled around her.
“Agreed. Also, Eleanor? Thank you.” He did not know how to express how much he owed her, a debt of gratitude he could never repay. She had done it once before, giving up her career to become his protector. Now she had given up her home, her reputation, and all ties to her family and friends. “For everything,” he said awkwardly.
“You are welcome.”
TWO
SWIMMING IN LAKES
They walked for a full day, going deeper into the marshes while keeping to a northwestern direction. Although they cast many anxious glances behind them, they saw no sign of pursuers. Either the legion had not guessed their route, or they had yet to catch up to the fugitives. They spent a second night in the wetlands, mostly scratching themselves; spring brought not only melting waters and blossoms, but also countless insects.
With the sun rising to their right, they continued on their course the next day. As Martel recalled, they should reach the edge of the wetlands before nightfall. If so, it might be wise to keep going through the night, given that open land awaited them. They could find their footing well enough in the dark, and they would put some distance between themselves and their pursuers before daylight returned, making it harder to hide in such terrain.
The land was still muddy and wet beneath their boots when Eleanor reached out to grab him by the arm. She dropped to her knees, pulling him with her. He understood at once why and began scouting around them. “What do you see?” he whispered.
She pointed toward his left. He turned his head and discovered what she had seen. A band of legionaries, probably a score. Martel was not afraid to fight such a number, but it would reveal their position. They would have no chance of reaching Nordmark undiscovered. Hundreds of soldiers would converge on them, hunting them down.
