Chapter 37: Challenges

Sam

December 8, 1786, Realm Timeline, Buda, Hungary

There were awkward conversations and awkward silences. Their video meeting had them both in spades. Although Sam was looking at the others on his laptop's screen, he could feel the tension as if he were in the same room. Somehow, the discussion had slipped back to the subject he wanted most to avoid.

"I had no idea The Seer used you as bait," Sam excused himself yet again. "I—"

"Please, stop. Just stop!" Eliza yelled, putting her hands over her ears. "You've said that a dozen times. I'm... I'll be fine."

"I'll carry the guilt for the rest of my life," Penelope said. "I went with it because I thought you were suicidal, and—"

"Trust me, I'm not suicidal," Eliza growled. "If anything, your constant whining makes me feel murderous. You're lucky this is a video call."

"What if we address the elephant in the room?" Kaunitz, one of the two other participants in the Zoom meeting, asked, clearing his throat. "Are you going to tell the council about your trip to the future?"

"What I saw is just one possible future," Sam said. "My other self clearly had no Time magic, because otherwise he would have saved his wife. And by the way, I don't even want to become a bloody duke."

"Remember your beef with the Council, before you kissed and made up?" Little John said. "You said the Protectorates need somebody with real-time decision power. Maybe you changed your mind in the future."

"Oh, man, I hope I won't!" Sam whimpered. "Responsibilities are not fun..."

"I thought exactly like you when I was young," Kaunitz said.

"If you tell them you'll be a duke, the first thing they'll do will be to vote you out," Eliza said. "Or throw you in a dungeon."

"When you were in the future, did you notice if the Habsburgs were still—"

"No, sorry," Sam interjected over Kaunitz. "My grandson was the chancellor of the Austrian Empire. Not Holy Roman. On Earth, the title changed at the turn of the century. Ferdinand changed it."

"Francis!" Eliza snapped.

"Yes, him. I hope he doesn't get the throne..."

"He tried to kill both of you, plus Joseph," Penny said coldly. "We should return the favor."

"He's a teenager with an attitude," Sam retorted. "I'd rather not."

"Hm..." Little John rubbed his chin. "My clientele is made up of Viennese rich kids, right?"

"You want to manipulate one into assassinating him?" Eliza asked.

"No, I want to lure him into my casino. Maybe he could be... compromised. Taking photos of him naked and drugged. Getting some whore pregnant."

"Marrying one! Like in Vegas!" Eliza exclaimed.

"I'll take care of it," Little John promised.

"That would ruin his chances to get the throne," Kaunitz said. "There is a matter Joseph personally asked me to discuss."

"The railway?" Sam asked.

"The elves. Do you still recommend granting them an enclave? We are drafting the act."

"Yes. It would serve as a buffer between the Kingling and both of us."

"Do you trust them? Could they use the enclave to bring an army and attack us?"

"You mean like Earth did? It's a tricky question. If what they said is true, their world is a giant rainforest. An enclave offers them a bit of land to farm properly, and a comptoir for trade. About trusting... in general, yes. So far, they delivered on their promises."

"Then I'll pass the message to Joseph."

"Next topic," Eliza said, "is important for me. What if some of us, the awakened, go rogue and try to take over the world stuff?"

"It didn't happen in the future I saw, and it's unlikely it will happen here," Sam said. "Dorian is more indestructible than you, and all you have to do to counter him is lock him in an isolated prison."

"As long as he doesn't develop teleporting," Penny said.

"It's not Dorian, the problem; it's the other teams," Eliza said.

"How many of you are out there?" Little John asked.

"Us, the group you know, a second team led by the Juggernaut, and a third one we have almost no info about. We're a mixed bunch; the Juggernaut's is all about combat, so far as we know, and the third is purely Magical, or Mental."

"Or both," Penny said. "How many people outside of your team do you know about?"

"Not many. The Smiths are in the Juggernaut's team. They're very strong physically, but have low mental resistance; Tristan figured it out. The Juggernaut is nigh invincible. He reflects damage, and it makes him stronger and tougher," Eliza said.

"There are only two more Interface users we know. You know them too, Iron Choir, and Jane Doe," Sam looked at Kaunitz.

"The detective?"

"Yes. Allegedly, Jane is one of the best in her line of work. I can bet Iron Choir would be on our side because he's a big Mozart fan, but I cannot vouch for Jane."

"We need her," Kaunitz said. "Could she be financially motivated?"

"I don't know," Penny said. "She was in the same batch as I was; it had police and Intelligence. Some of them are okay, some shady, some fanatics."

"I'll keep an eye on her," Kaunitz said.

"I can discreetly build an Interface detector," Sam said. "That would help detect the other people we don't know about."

"Discreetly is an exaggeration," Penny retorted. "You still have to rely on the engraving and enchanting team."

"I was thinking more about using precision lathes. Work outside the base, with a few jewelers from Prague I can... trust..."

"What's up?" Penny asked, observing his hesitation.

"Just crossed my mind. We have a few dozen doses left of the Interface."

"You want to try it on others?"

"As is, it would be a waste. The test idea gave me an idea—"

"Which gave you an idea which gave you another idea, which... sorry," Eliza said, putting a hand over her mouth.

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"We take one dose of the first shot, break it into smaller parts, and we make medical tests like for the flu. We check people's blood to see if they have awakening probability, and then we give them the Interface." Sam grimaced as he spoke, because it was common sense, and he should have thought about it before proceeding with the wide Interface experiment.

"I dunno, Sam. I was thinking about destroying the chip machine," Penny said. "Just in case. If a kill-all-horses virus were made, a kill-all-humans virus is just a step away."

"I was talking about the shots we already have in stock," Sam said.

"And what if the System from the future depends on it?" Kaunitz asked.

"Right," Eliza said. "Let's not rush things."

"Making that kind of plague still needs both the Elves and the Council on the same page," Sam said.

"Plus the horse plague is the only way to keep the Kingling in check," Eliza said. "Maybe we'll need some more."

"Maybe not the only one. I want to hit them hard," Sam hissed. "Teach them a lesson."

"The Tatars?" Penelope asked, following his gaze.

"And the Kingling."

"Despite what Napoleon said?"

"Yeah... I find the borders Napoleon proposed unacceptable."

"That's why you're in Buda?" Eliza asked.

"Yes. I want to lift the siege."

"The Council voted against direct military intervention," Eliza said.

"I know, I voted against it too. However, who says I can't fight as a private person? I want blood."

"Hey, that's my line!" Eliza yelled.

The video call ended late. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and the day was short. Sam needed to move. He was already dressed in what the locals considered outdoor gear, all black. On the nightstand was a head mannequin with a latex mask, made to his measure. Five minutes later, Sam looked like a forty-year-old man with gray hair, a severe frown, and a scar traversing his face.

As a last detail, he donned a cape embroidered with real gold threads and buttons. It had once belonged to Black John Haugwitz, one of the generals of Mattias Corvinus, and, allegedly, a Vampire. Enchanted to last, the cape looked spectacular, and Sam had paid a small fortune for it.

"I am ready," he bellowed.

The squire assigned to him by the fortress commander rushed to open the room. The commander and his officers waited at attention outside. A pretense, just in case Kinglings spies were observing. Sam strode through them, heading toward the main gate.

"I hope you know what you are doing," the garrison commander said. "They selected their best people."

"I'll find out one way or another," Sam said, deadpan, enjoying the commander's shiver.

Outside the gate, a perimeter had been arranged, a fighting area. About a hundred officers—Tatars, Vlachs, and Transylvanian Germans—were standing at the opposite side. They had crossed the Danube unimpeded, after two days of negotiations.

A trumpeter ran forward, sounded his instrument, and yelled.

"The new commander of the Buda fortress, Count Leu from Moravia, has presented himself to test the Kingling champions. Count Leu renews his promise that if any of your warriors defeats him, Buda will be surrendered tomorrow morning."

Another trumpeter imitated the first, but from the other side.

"The Kingling's warriors are ready for the challenge. General Petrush Hurmuz, our army's commander, swears that if Count Leu defeats all our champions, the siege will be lifted tomorrow morning."

"How do your champions wish to fight?" the first announcer yelled.

"The first champion has chosen short swords. The second the pistols. The third will use a saber. The combat will last until one of the contestants yields, is incapacitated, or is killed. Killing blows after incapacitation will be considered a loss for whoever delivers them."

"Quite civilized," Sam said. "Short sword," he forwarded his hand laterally. One of the aide-de-camp put a weapon in his palm, and he squeezed his fingers around the hilt.

From the other side, a young man advanced, dressed in a white shirt and blue pants. The French tattoo was prominent on his forehead.

"I count on your honor to declare if you're wounded," the French man saluted with his sword, his smirk displaying all the arrogance Sam would have expected from a Robespierrian. The man thought Sam had put on black clothes to hide his blood.

"And I count on you dying on the first exchange," Sam said, making his voice sound lower.

The Jacobin snorted and saluted again. They touched the tips of their swords and took position. The arbiter, a German Transylvanian with a baton in his hands, advanced in between them, lowering it before retreating in a hurry, yelling:

"Begin!"

There was little Sam knew about the small sword, except holding it; he counted on Prediction and Enhanced Speed to fill the gaps. Sam's adversary was a First Order, and he had some form of Speed Enhancement as well, plus the small sword was a fast weapon anyway; the French had the advantage. The only way forward was to block that sword somehow. Sam did it by accepting the first thrust, putting his shoulder in the way instead of his chest.

As the Frenchman's blade entered his flesh, Sam threw up his own small sword aside, grabbing his opponent's arm and twisting it backward, while putting a foot on the other's boot to keep him in place and bending forward. Under the leverage, the blade broke, and in the next second, the stump lodged in the Frenchman's forehead, in the middle of the word Egalite. The Frenchman died with his eyes widened in shock, looking at his own arm curved inward, his hand in front of his face.

Sam shoved the body away and pulled out the tip of the blade from his shoulder, grimacing under the pain.

"Next!" he yelled.

The Kingling's trumpeter exchanged a few words with an officer, then yelled.

"Can you continue?"

"Yes!" Sam yelled.

The next adversary was a woman. It did not come as a surprise, as the Kingling was known to also use women in his army, like the Outworlders. Maybe she was a Vlach, or a German; Sam couldn't know. She looked angry, in her early thirties, and by her Mana, he could tell she was a Second Order. A ranged mage.

Under the same arbiter's instructions, they began back to back, then took ten steps before turning and aiming.

"Fire!" the arbiter bellowed.

Prediction told Sam that the woman's shot was aimed at his heart and had a magical component that guided it. Sam fired a fraction of a second before her and used the pistol recoil as a pretense to move his gun in the way of her bullet. It slapped the weapon hard before whistling away into the woods, sending the gun on a date with his face. Other than a bad bruise, he was unharmed. Her arm, however, was broken. Sam had aimed center mass, but old weapons were crap.

"Next!" he yelled as a couple of Healers were rushing to assist the woman. He had to wait until they stabilized her, accompanied by the cheers coming from the fortress—the soldiers on the ramparts.

The last opponent was a middle-aged Tatar with a Turkish saber. Sam chose a shashka because it had no guard and was almost like a katana. The exchange began tentatively, and, for all intents and purposes, it looked like a flashy, spectacular fight.

One small detail bothered him, though. The Tatar—who was an excellent swordsman—was trying to lose on purpose. Discreetly, not suicidal, leaving some small, controlled openings, trying to get wounded to be able to yield. The reason was not hard to guess. The Tatars had lost thousands of their warriors in Slovakia, and many others in their attack on Vienna. The man wanted to go home. Sam focused on changing his Translator to Turkish.

"Hey, uncle," he whispered, flourishing his saber while backpedaling, like he wanted to gain distance. "What's your name?"

The man's body froze, then he followed. "Timur Mirza," he whispered.

They crossed swords a few times, for the show. "I know what you're trying to do. It won't work. Even if you lose, they won't leave. The general isn't even here. Are you interested in a deal?"

"Speak," the Tatar whispered, pretending to deliver a cut that Sam avoided easily.

"A draw. Hit me in the shin, then I'll wrestle your sword, then you punch me in my shoulder, and I kick your knee."

Fast as lightning, the Tatar threw the tip of his sword around Sam's guard, reminding him one could also thrust with a saber. The stab was an inch deep, but looked much worse, bleeding profusely. Yelling in pain and anger, Sam hit the Tatar's sword as strongly as he could. Both let go of their weapons. The kick and the punch came simultaneously, then the men collapsed on the ground, crawling away from the other, pretending they couldn't stand up. Soccer players would have been proud of their theatrics.

"Both adversaries are incapacitated. It's a draw," the German arbiter yelled.

Cheers erupted in both camps. The aide de camp rushed to help Sam rise, and so did a younger Tatar, with Timur.

"Wait!" Sam yelled, as the other group was preparing to leave. "It was a good fight. I want to reward my worthy adversary with a prize."

Jumping on one foot, he approached Timur, took his cape off, wrapping it around the man's shoulders. Now, the cheers were even more enthusiastic.

"Good try," the real commander told Sam when they got back to the room, following him inside. "The men's morale is up. Too bad—"

"They wouldn't have retreated, even if I'd won all three bouts."

"I know. I meant it's a pity you gave up the cape."

"Sometimes... Never mind. It felt right at the moment. I'd like to sleep, if you don't mind."

"If you need healing, let me know," the man said, exiting.

Undressing, Sam set his phone to ring at midnight, then lay in bed, his eyes closed, waiting for his regeneration to close his shoulder wound. The shin one was almost healed already. He dozed off, waking up when the phone buzzed.

He yawned but remained in the same position, stretching his senses. The cape, he would have given it up anyway, even if by covering the French man's corpse in a sign of 'respect', big air quotes.

There were a few things Sam had discovered recently, and they concerned the rope he had looted from the French Mage. It couldn't make him fly, no matter what, and was quite slow. However, the range at which it remained still connected to Sam was huge.

Eyes closed, Sam connected his sight to the rope. It showed him a bluish view, like night-vision goggles. Timur was snoring, sleeping on a camping roll, in a tent. Extracting itself from the cloak's edges, the rope fell on the floor and started crawling. The general's tent was not far away, which meant Timur was a high-ranking officer.

Wiggling itself under the canvas, the rope entered the tent slowly, scanning around. The man was sleeping on a camping bed. Wrapping one end around the general's throat and the rest of itself around his body, the rope squeezed gently. The general woke up, trying to scream and fight, to no avail.

Two minutes later, the rope detached itself, leaving behind a dead body. Sam left the bed to make himself an instant coffee. The night was young, and there were many officers to kill.