Chapter 20

The Village of Pertmig

“Commander,” Sophus’s voice said, ringing through Ky’s head.

It was a vague thing, something far off in the distance. It was impossible to tell if it was imagined or real at first, the hazy first few seconds of consciousness making it seem almost like a dream, or how Ky imagined a dream would be like.

“Commander,” the voice said again.

“Yes,” Ky sub-vocalized, and then stopped, taking stock of the situation.

For a moment, Ky almost didn’t realize where he was or what was happening, and then everything clicked into place. The loss of control in one leg, Sophus going silent and the translation stopping, and finally the darkness that had overtaken him.

“What happened,” he said.

“I went offline. Failsafe systems remained in place for vital system processes, but all other systems experienced complete and sudden shutdown.”

“Other stage of your system expansion?”

“Although that is the most probable explanation, I am running a self-diagnosis now to try and determine the exact nature of the fault.”

“Will it happen again. This was embarrassing, but it could be fatal if you go offline during battle.”

“Unknown, Commander. Until the nature of the failure is determined, it is impossible to predict reoccurrence with any degree of accuracy.”

“Could...”

“Commander, you are not alone, and they have noticed your stirring,” the AI warned him.

Ky’s eyes popped open to the view of a tent, although not the one he and Talogren had been in when Ky had lost consciousness. The face of one of the men he’d met who regularly served Talogren loomed above him.

Checking the chronometers in his HUD, Ky saw that almost a day had passed since the meeting with the village leaders.

“He’s awake,” the man said, and Ky was relieved to be able to understand the man.

Sitting up, Ky looked around the room.

Someone was just leaving the tent as he did so, probably the person the man who’d been looking at him had spoken to, since only he and Ky remained in the tent.

“Talogren?” Ky asked.

“He’ll be here in a moment. He asked us to stay with you until you recovered from your ... until you recovered.”

Ky just nodded and sat in silence on the dirt that made up the floor of the tent. Unlike Roman tents which, for legates at least, put down carpets and thick cloth floorings, the Caledonian’s didn’t see the need for flooring beneath them unless it was raining and the ground had turned to mud.

Ky did a mental check of himself while he waited. Everything seemed to be fine and in place as it should be. There was no permanent damage and, thanks to his nanites, any bruising he might have suffered would have already been mostly healed.

KY pushed himself off the ground and stretched to release the tension in his body as Talogren came through the tent flap.

“You can go,” he said to the man who’d been waiting for Ky. As soon as he left, Talogren said, “I’m glad you’re standing. Were you poisoned?”

“No. I ... I’m not sure how to explain this in a way that will make sense. All I can say is that I’m fine, now.”

“You understand that one of the reasons our people have decided it’s worthwhile joining the Romans is because of the strength they see in you. There is already talk around the camp that you might not be as indestructible as you seemed to be.”

Ky did realize that was going to be a problem. For the Caledonii, strength was everything and they’d followed him because he’d thought he was some kind of invincible harbinger of death, much like the Romans had followed him because they thought him some kind of messenger of the gods. Ky had fought against this kind of thing with the Romans, not wanting to lie to them and give them the impression he was some kind of magical being, but with the Caledonii, he’d remained silent.

The alliance with the north men was trickery, and on paper it shouldn’t have worked at all. There was a century old hatred between the two people making any kind of treaty a hard sell, a point proven when the agreement pushed the Romans into open revolt to stop it from happening. Based on comments from Talogren, one of the things that had kept the Caledonii from having a similar reaction was their impression of Ky and desire to have that level of power on their own.

Eventually, he personally wouldn’t be the key to holding the alliance together, but in it’s infancy, it was incredibly fragile. For this moment, his collapsing just while standing silently during a meeting could be enough.

“I do understand that,” Ky said. “I have never claimed to be indestructible or anything greater than any other man. I am the same man as when your people decided to follow me into an alliance with the Romans. I’m the same man whose stood before each village and demanded their surrender, and led the assault when they declined.”

“Don’t be naive. A leader is only as good as his last victory and the men’s fortunes and support change like the wind. You don’t prove yourself once to the men you lead, it happens every day. Today, they saw weakness.”

“I understand it could look like that. I will do what I can to continue proving to them that you haven’t made the wrong choice. What happened to the village leaders.”

“Thankfully, you did not collapse in front of them. They complained like old women, but they agreed to submit and join the league. That leaves us with one more large group of villages to deal with, and then the majority of the north will be with us or dead.”

“I hadn’t realized how much of the country had already rallied to you. I’d been under the impression that half of the north had decided to stay independent.”

“There are only a handful of villages large enough to be significant. There are more villages that will be dealt with in time, but they are tiny, barely able to sustain themselves. Most could only send three or four warriors in total to the war bands. I will leave their pacification to local chieftain I assign to watch over the area they’re in.”

“Good. We’ve already passed the height of winter, so it won’t be long until the Carthaginians come for us. I want to be back with the legions in time to make sure they’re ready.”

“You will be. There’s one fight left, and then we’re done.”

“Maybe they’ll surrender like Pertmig did and make this easier on everyone.”

“They won’t. I know the chieftain of the main village. He’s proud and has been the most outspoken against the league. He had dreams of bringing the north under his own banner until I took the opportunity from him. No. he’ll fight.”

They broke camp within the hour, the new warriors from the surrendered villages added to Talogren’s total. Ky could feel the eyes of the men following as he led the horde towards their last victim. They hadn’t been openly discourteous, or at least discourteous in the way it counted among the Caledonii, but Ky could feel their wariness towards him.

If anything, Talogren had been understating the level of uncertainty and concern his people had towards Ky. He had two days to their destination to figure something out, or there was a chance the entire alliance could fall apart just as it was forming.

Ky was just starting to work through possible solutions when he heard the ping that indicated Lucilla was trying to reach him. Lately, she’d been leaving the connection open, letting Sophus connect them if the AI saw Ky was free, which made the use of the query ping unexpected.

“Is everything alright?” Ky sub-vocalized when they connected.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Lucilla said. “I was trying to reach you most of yesterday, but neither you or Sophus replied. I was worried something happened.”

“Everything’s fine,” Ky said, not wanting to alarm her.

“He is obfuscating. There was an occurrence of some concern,” Sophus said, causing Ky to frown.

Although he found he liked the AI and it’s new found personality, it could, at times, be unhelpfully honest.

“What do you mean, an occurrence?”

“My system expansion has begun its process of extension into Ky’s brain. Subversion of his neuron fibers caused a clash between my electrical impulses and his neuron transmitters that caused a cascading short, taking me offline and rendering Ky unconscious.”

“What?” Lucilla asked, sounding completely perplexed.

Ky wasn’t surprised. He understood at least the basic idea of what was happening, and much about it was confusing to him. Half the words Sophus had used had been in imperial standard, since the concepts behind the words, let alone the words themselves, had no Latin translation.

“It’s fine,” Ky said.

“No. I understood the part about it knocking you unconscious, so clearly it’s not fine. Ky, one of the things that’s important for two people who are looking at a relationship like we are is being honest with each other. If this is going to work, you have to be honest with me now.”

“Sophus is in the process of becoming alive, in a way. Up till now, he’s been conscious, but not a distinct personality in his own right. As you met me, he had just started this process. Had you been able to communicate with him the day we met, he would have seemed very different to you. To do that, he needs to grow his ability to think, which means extending his connection to me, and more specifically my brain. That process is causing problems.”