A Soldier's Life
chapter-91

Konstantin walked through the city gates from his small house outside the city walls. He enjoyed his job teaching language and history to the children. Not many parents in the city sent their children after they learned to read and write. They would rather have them apprenticed in a trade. So, it was rare for children older than ten to be in his classes. In his opinion, the school was more of a means for the mother to get some rest from raising their child.

His small schoolhouse was situated against the outer wall of Barvima. Barvima was a city set away from the coast in the northeastern reaches of the Empire. Its only claim to fame was a dungeon nearby that the Adventurer’s Guild administered. Konstantin did not see the allure of risking your life for treasure from a dungeon.

He arrived at his schoolhouse, happy to see his classroom already full. Even though he was a strict disciplinarian, his young students revered him. He was a great teacher who taught reading, writing, and basic math in the morning, then history and literature in the afternoon. He quickly counted forty-nine full seats, with only six open. He knew every student by name and was glad to see Maria back in class today. Her mother was a seamstress, holding her back more often than not to work in her shop. She waved at him, smiling. She was a brilliant young girl, and he hoped she would do amazing things.

The Imperial Scholar, Javier, stood at the door smiling in his blue robes, “Another good showing for our young teacher. At this rate, you will be making more coin than me.” The scholar was here to count and subsidize the education of the children. The Imperial College paid Konstantin three silver a week and an additional copper for every student he taught each day. His was one of seven schools in the city. But he believed his school was the most popular. He taught six days a week, and usually earned around six silver, a high wage for a teacher.

Konstantin smiled at Javier, who was here just as much to count the students as to make sure what Konstantin taught aligned with the expectations of the Emperor’s wishes. This morning, Javier was not just here to count, and he repeated a warning, “Do not teach about the Duke’s grandfather’s loss in the Third Southern Campaign. I am reminding all the teachers.”

Konstantin was young, just twenty-six summers, and had only been teaching for less than a year. “How can we not tell it as it actually happened, Javier? Will me not telling it change the fact that it did happen?”

Javier grimaced, “The Duke runs this province and sent word down. If you do not want to lose your tongue or worse, gloss over the Duke’s grandfather’s mistakes.” Konstantin nodded but planned to teach the material as it was. He had studied in three libraries and knew the Empire rewrote a lot of the history. Piecing fact from fiction and finding the missing pieces intrigued him. Thinking his job done, Javier left to count the attendance at the other schools for the day.

Konstantin knew a lot about the expansion of the Telhian Empire. He knew of the old Empires they conquered, the battles that were fought, the Dukes who commanded the armies, and the victories and failures of those armies. The Empire grew from the seed of the First Legion into one of the most dominant kingdoms in all of Desia. You were doomed to repeat your mistakes if you did not learn from them.

That day, Konstantin made one of the biggest mistakes of his life. He taught the Third Southern Campaign as it had happened. It was one of the biggest losses the Legion of the Lion had, losing over five thousand legionnaires and fifteen thousand army soldiers when they got trapped in a mountain pass. The Duke that commanded them fled with only a thousand men and most of his mages through an improvised portal.

It was a week before the Duke’s grandson took his revenge. Two Hounds arrested Konstantin for aiding the Esenhem Kingdom. Esenhem was the elven nation across the channel. He passed the Truthseeker’s interrogation at his trial but had been held almost a month before his trial.

However, when he returned to Barmiva, he had been replaced, and Javier informed him he would not find a teaching job anywhere in the Empire. Konstantin worked as a lumberjack for two years. A dangerous job where he ran from all kinds of monsters and watched companions and friends die. A particularly brutal attack by a gnoll raiding party left his arm shattered and him unable to work.

He took out a loan to have his arm healed by a healer. After seven months, he fell too far behind on the payments and was forcibly constricted into the army. Due to his physique that he developed as a lumberjack, he was allowed into the legion training camp instead of the army training camp. Every day was a struggle to remain on top, and he was slowly forged into a fighter. He was surprised that he had a knack for fighting and graduated fifth in the class of legion conscripts.

His first assignment as a legionnaire was guarding the portal in Varta, a large coastal city in the Western Empire. His commander at the time was an ancient legionnaire. Whenever they were not guarding the portal they were practicing. Konstantin found himself apt with a bow, extremely proficient with the sword, and growing steadily in mastery. So much so that a mage company commander passing through recruited him.

Mage Commander Cassius took him into his service. Cassius worked heavily with the Hounds as his magical spell set made him an incredible tracker. They routed out creatures in cities and towns. Mostly creatures capable of mimicking humans or living deep beneath the ancient cities of the Empire. They hunted humans that were affected by lycanthropy, doppelgangers, specters, trolls, and even an entire nest of kobolds in his time with Cassius. Cassius was a highly intelligent and competent mage and admired by his men. He also had access to healing spells, so they rarely lost men while hunting.

As Konstantin had matured as a legionnaire, he became friends with his companions. While working with Cassius and the Hounds, Konstantin also imprinted his own spell forms. The first of which was his minor affinity for healing. The spell form allowed him to obtain a full rest after just four hours of sleep. His strongest affinity, air, got him some minor force magic for moving small objects. His lesser affinity for nature got him an awareness spell form to determine what plants were safe to eat. It allowed him to sense any organic poison.

After a few years, his company returned to Barvima, where Konstantin used to teach so long ago. This visit was at the Hounds’ request to hunt a rogue necromancer in the city. The Hounds were skilled but always called on specialist mage companies when their quarry exceeded their skills. This was one such case. Animating the dead was against Imperial Law.

Two zombies were found outside the city, but the Hounds had no leads. When Konstantin arrived with Cassius’ company, his mage commander quickly located the necromancer in a network of ancient tunnels deep below the city. They were not aware of just how many animated undead the deranged mage had made from an ancient dwarven catacomb. The necromancer released his creations into the city in a distraction in an attempt to flee.

Cassius’ company caught up to the necromancer anyway, and Konstantin sent the pale death mage to his final rest. But all was not well, as half the company had died in the expedition, and the necromancer cursed Cassius. Cassius’ body aged rapidly, growing older by a year every day. The wave of undead unleashed had also wreaked havoc on the city. In the clean-up, Konstantin found one of his past students, the seamstress Maria, had been killed along with her two infant daughters.

Konstantin became bitter as he watched Cassius grow old and die over the next months. The healing of mages of the Empire could not stop the curse imprinted on his aether core. When Cassius passed in his sleep, Konstantin was ready to retire from the Legion. He had repaid his debt and no longer wished to see his friends die. He only needed to finish out his current year of service, his 12th, before ending his time in the Legion. He was in the East Legion Hall in Telha, the capital of the Empire, when he took a pear from a crate, and his nature spell form tingled, telling him it was not safe to eat.

He quickly learned this spell form extended to any plant-based poisons. He had discovered a shipment of poisoned fruit intended for the Imperial Legion Hall. The shipment had been split between the three Legion Halls in the capital. The owner of that shipment was Antonia Segreto. Konstantin had just saved hundreds of legionaries from being fatally poised.

Antonia Segreto was the merchant who sold the fruit but not the one who had poisoned it. After she was cleared, she questioned Konstantin in private and then made him an offer. She was of the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard were the Emperor’s most loyal subjects who helped him police the Empire from within. This was an attempt by the Empire’s enemies to weaken the Legion and discredit her as a traitor.

She attempted to recruit him, “Konstantin, don’t you wish you could do more? Have a greater effect on the Empire’s fate?” Antonia asked him.

“I am content with the work I have already done, Master Merchant. I have killed dozens of threats to the Empire. My time of service is coming to an end,” Konstantin replied to the merchant queen. He knew she was powerful as she was one of the few who was allowed by the Emperor to trade with the Elven Nation of Esenhem.

The tall woman had gray streaks in her dark black hair. She walked around a seated Konstantin like a predator. “You have worked with the Hounds regularly. What if I could get you to be one of their number?”

“I am too old to be trained by the Hounds,” Konstantin laughed as he was almost forty. He had worked with them many times, and they operated in small groups and were elite fighters with a variety of spell forms.

“Age is not a requirement. Being competent is,” came a voice from behind him. An athletic man stepped from the shadows. His lean and muscular body made the aged, wisened face appear out of place. “I am Cornelious. One of the trainers for the Hounds. Your spell form for detecting poisons is something I am interested in.”

Antonia was smiling as Cornelius continued, “Antonia has a few favors she wishes to call in, and the Emperor has granted them. Your discovery of the poison in the shipment might have just saved the Empire. She,” he nodded to Antonia, “wishes you to be trained as a Hound.”

“And what if I decline your generous offer?” Konstantin said, unconvinced.

Cornelious looked to Antonia, who answered, “Give me ten years of service. I will buy you a villa in any city to spend your boring years after service. Because that is what your life will be like after the Legion. Boring.”

Konstantin sat and thought. He had wanted to retire and raise a family before he got too old. Now, he would be almost fifty by the time he was free of the Legion. Antonia placed six large red spheres on the table. They rolled around briefly. Konstantin knew what they were. Apex essences. Constitution, if he was not mistaken. Amelia continued, “Now let me tell you a secret about essences…”

Konstantin spent three years with the Hounds. It made him rethink his entire perception of the Empire. The Hounds hunted people as much as they investigated monsters. He hunted soldiers, legionaries, spies, and insurgents. Most of the time, their quarry was definitely guilty of abandoning or opposing the Empire. But there were always cases where he had his doubts. And when the Hounds hunted you, it was not to bring you in for a trial.

Konstantin became a skilled woodsman and tracker. He worked with the same four men for his entire service, reporting directly to Cornelius. The men he worked with took too much joy in pursuing, capturing, and killing. He was quickly souring on his life in the Hounds. That was when news arrived that Duke Artorious had died. The Duke had been the one who had ruined his life when he told the truth about his grandfather in his class so long ago.

Shortly after this news, Cornelius said his time in the Hounds was over and that he was to report to Antonia. Antonia smiled as he met her in the gardens of a small villa in Barvima a few weeks later. “Konstantin, how have the last few years treated you? Cornelius said you are a quick learner.”

Konstantin considered his answer, knowing he was trapped in her web until his service expired, “I learned a lot. Why did you summon me? Is it time for me to serve as your agent?”

Antonia smiled, “I thought you would be in a better mood now that Duke Artorius is dead.”

“Did you kill him?” Konstantin asked, half serious.

Antonia had a musical laugh, “Be careful what you ask. Just know he fell out of favor with the Emperor for his incompetence.” She circled the gardens with him, “What do you think of this villa?”

“It is quite beautiful. Not many villas have gardens this large in their inner courtyard, and I can see a number of useful plants among the trees,” Konstantin said, studying the surroundings.

“I was hoping you would be a little more impressed than that,” she said, frowning. “This will be yours after you finish your field service for me. Of course, you will be an agent for me in this city after you move in.”

Konstantin stopped, “So, I will be serving you for life and not just seven more years?” His tone hinted at anger.

“Don’t look surprised. You knew in your heart that would be the case.” She indicated the villa, “This is an investment for me. You will be my eyes and ears in the city when you retire here to start a family. The essence I gave you means you can still sire children aplenty,” she said harshly. She stepped back, “I assumed you understood what I offered and what I expected of you?”

Konstantin sighed. He was not surprised. He did not think she would have followed through on her promise of giving him a villa. She watched him as he processed the information. He nodded acceptingly.

“Good, now I plan to assign you a legion company with an interesting mage commander. She has run into some opposition from Duke Octavian. She is in desperate need of a good scout, and you are going to be it. She is very active across the Empire, so you can expect to be busy,” Antonia began.

“What is your interest in her?” Konstantin interrupted.

Antonia had added a few more gray hairs since the last they met. Her face remained impassive but still had a powerful presence, “Her spell repertoire is of interest to me and others. For now, just report her actions to me.”

“For how long will I be attached to her company?” Konstantin asked, resigned to his assignment.

With a little impatience, she answered, “Until I tell you otherwise. Now her name is Mage Castile…”