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I took a deep breath, then just blurted it out. “General Rufus is planning on starting his own kingdom in the eastern forest with a combination of the soldiers he brought with him and the wild wolves he’s been recruiting.”
“But he’s under King Julius’s command,” Lefric said with a confused frown. “What does he expect to do when King Julius sends someone after him—”
I cut him off with, “And he’s currently amassing all his men near the mountain pass to the Old Realm because he intends to destroy it so that it’s impossible to travel between the Old Realm and the frontier.”
Lefric froze with his mouth open. The rest of my friends gawped at me as well.
“He…he can’t really do that…can he?” Sebald asked with a frown of deepest concern.
“It would take a lot to completely destroy an entire pass through the mountains, wouldn’t it?” Neil asked, looking uncertain.
“Would it?” Jace asked in a much more dangerous tone. “All they would have to do is cause a few avalanches that rained rock down on the narrowest parts of the mountain road,” he went on. “He could accomplish that with gunpowder.”
“If he can find any,” Lefric said. “Gunpowder is rarer than the most exotic spices these days. Believe me, after living in Good Port for a month, I would know.”
That didn’t seem to faze Jace. “He could do it the old-fashioned way, then. Sending a few men higher up the mountain to dislodge a few rocks at the top would do it. And a few blockades like that, and it would take years to clear it all away.”
“Would the Old Realm have the men and resources to put into the effort?” Sebald asked, frowning and stroking Avenel’s shoulders, as if he were nervous.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? How badly does the Old Realm want the frontier back? Why do they want us back at all?” I asked the questions.
“Because we have abundant resources that they need after the wars and famine of the last several years,” Lefric said, perking up a bit, as if he’d gotten the right answer on a test.
He immediately deflated though, and a look of stark realization replaced his smile.
“But if the Old Realm needs the frontier back for our resources, then maybe they wouldn’t have the resources to repair the mountain pass,” he said. “Maybe cutting the old kingdom in two really would sever all contact between the two halves.”
“It would do that for several years at least,” Jace said, leaning back against the edge of the pool, though he kept his hands on Gennadi’s shoulders. “Anything could happen in that time. And doesn’t the Old Realm have other problems to keep it occupied?”
“King Julius is new to the throne,” Lefric said, the inspired look back in his eyes. “He probably does have his hands full.”
We all contemplated in silence for a moment before Sebald furrowed his brow, staring into the center of the pool, then said, “So, if this General Rufus person wants to sever the frontier definitively from the Old Realm…shouldn’t we just let him?” He glanced up at the rest of us. “Wouldn’t that take care of all of our problems for us?”
I drew in a breath and sat straighter. “It actually might,” I said.
I thought back to everything I’d seen in the eastern forest. It was chaotic. There was no organization at all. If General Rufus did plan to build a kingdom there, it would take time, possibly years.
Magnus and the other leaders of the Wolf River Kingdom had years’-worth of a head start. So did the Kostya Kingdom.
“It sounds like this General Rufus person would be our enemy,” Peter said with a frown. He glanced across the pool to me. “Did you meet him at all in your time in the eastern forest?”
I winced and shrugged slightly. “I met him briefly. I didn’t sit down and have a conversation with him. Ludvig, Dmitri, and I, and our two friends who were killed, Riley and Barber, were dragged in front of him when we were captured. He questioned us for all of five minutes, then had us imprisoned. That was it.”
“What sort of an impression did you have of him?” Hayk asked.
I liked the way he went straight to trying to gauge General Rufus’s character. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing. That fit with what I knew about him so far—that he was a quick judge of character, and that people and their stories fascinated him.
I twisted in his arms to tell him, “He felt like a general, like a man who is sure of himself and used to having his orders obeyed.” I glanced back to the others, particularly Peter and Neil. “He doesn’t have any of Magnus’s charm or magnanimity, but he did strike me as intelligent. I think he could very easily become a king. A ruthless one.”
“But do you think he’d be our enemy?” Jace asked. “Would he start up a war none of us wants to fight?”
I blew out a breath and pushed a wet hand through my hair. “Maybe? Possibly? But it will take him time to get organized enough to make any sort of military advances.”
“Does he know about the Wolf River Kingdom?” Lefric asked. “Or does he think that the cities are the be all and end all on the frontier, like most of the people we spoke to in Hedeon?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Everyone knows about the Wolf River Kingdom at this point. It’s just that they don’t think much of us. They think we’re all just a bunch of tame, castrated wolves, and that Magnus is a whore.”
Jace huffed a humorless laugh. “The wild wolves think we’re domesticated dogs, and the city-dwellers think we’re rabid beasts,” he said in a wry voice. “No one understands what we actually are, which will work to our advantage in both cases. We can crush our enemies before they understand us.”
