Chapter 29: Elsewhere – Frankie Graham

Frank stood on his balcony overlooking the Capital city of Toulouse. His imposing figure had a regal bearing as he looked out at the Empire his family had ruled for almost 1000 years now. The Graham household had been founded when the first barbarian war chief had united 100 tribes, they had established the Kingdom of Flowers, since then the Kingdom had grown an expanded till it had become the Empire of Sun that it was now. His people boasted that the sun never set on their Empire because their reach was so vast.

Frank had ruled over the Empire for only 2 years before around a month ago new collective nobles began appearing all throughout and surrounding his Empire. It had only taken 2 weeks to completely subdue the "nobles" in his own territory, his men had either killed the nobles if they resisted or had gotten the nobles to sign contracts binding them to serve his lineage till death. 70% of these new nobles had signed the contract. He now had almost 70,000 new citizens that use to be nobles and any citizens they had summoned already were allocated to his work force.

On top of the Collective nobles he had subdued in his own Empire, he had sent teams out searching for these new "nobles" and either dispatching them or forcing a contract and removing their summoning gates.

Frank's blonde hair that fell to his mid-back, blew in the breeze as his piercing ice blue eyes wandered in the distance. He stood close to ten stories above the highest buildings in the capital. The city stretched as far as his eye could see. It took almost a complete day to cross from one side of the city to the other. Surrounding the colossal walls were miles and miles of farms that provided the food that the inhabitants of the city needed to survive. 

The castle was surrounded by a moat along with another curtain wall making it a fallback point. The city was in a circular pattern and with the normal buildings reaching close to 5 stories high the castle towered over the center. Rippling out from the center castle were another 7 walls each guarded as if they were the bright white outer most walls. 

If you had walked out and saw this city in the middle of the open fields they would be stunned by the beauty of the white walls surrounded by the amber grain fields and green orchards that seemed to surround the city as if besieging it.

Turning to walk back into his office Frank paused as he saw his most important advisor, Corin, bowing to him. Walking by the man bowing at his waist Frank walked back in not even glancing at the servants dressed in Greek looking togas.

"You may rise."

Standing and walking to stand in front of the emperor Corin bowed again briefly before speaking.

"Your Imperial Majesty, I bring news that the Elven and Dwarven Kingdoms to the south have found our squads hunting for the collective nobles. They have sent messages stating that if we continue our actions they will see it as a declaration of war since we are sending undercover troops into their territory."

"They also seem to have contacted the Ogren and Orc tribes, I am guessing their hope is to stir the tribe's animosity against us for taking away prey for them. As we all know the Orc's and Ogres are mindless brutes that will jump at any excuse to fight."

"And what of the Minotaur war chiefs, has there been any movement with them?"

"Unfortunately, every scout party or even individual scout we send into their territory never comes back. We can only go based off what our teams can observe from a distance. We tried aerial reconnaissance but, unlike the Orcs and Ogres the Minotaur's use counter measures to either knock our ships from the sky or force them back into our air space."

"Pull the teams that are hunting for the collective nobles from the dwarven, elven, and minotaur lands. Send an official notice that we condone the acts of those who were caught or killed and make it clear to them that we as an Empire do not claim them as ours. Deny all involvement and be sure to strike all their names from our records."

Corin bowed and turned to leave the room, as he opened the door and was slipping out he heard the emperors voice call out to him.

"Corin."

Pausing and looking back at the imposing form staring him in the eye Corin paused.

"Make sure to erase ALL information about those teams, EVERYTHING."

Corin bowed his head and backed out of the room. Closing the door behind him.

"Yes, Your Majesty. It will be taken care of."

After the door shut there was a few minutes of silence as Frank stared off thinking hard. Eventually he broke from his reverie and looked a corner of the room.

"Davos, arrange for diplomats to be sent to the Kingdoms of the Elves and Dwarves. Have the diplomats reiterate that we do not claim the actions of the men caught and killed by them."

"And for the Orcs, Ogres, and Minotaur's?"

"The Orcs and Ogres are no threat so long as they are not united with the elves and dwarves. The Minotaur's are solitary and will ignore this so long as we stop sending men there. Sending a diplomat will just be another dead body."

After receiving his orders Davos bowed and disappeared out the door also. As a royal attendant he would do his duty quickly and efficiently.

"The rest of you leave the room." The emperor's edict the other attendants in the room left one by one leaving the emperor seemingly alone.

Leaning back in his seat Frank turned around to stare out the balcony as he leaned his head back on his palms in a relaxed position. After a few minutes of staring out the open balcony doors he finally broke the silence that lingered.

"Little Raven, tell your captain I need to speak with him."

Materializing from a corner of the room where an attendant had been oblivious to their presence a shadow moved forward and disconnected from the wall.

Moving swiftly the shadow knelt and acknowledged the order before disappearing again.

"As you command."

Frank waited for 30 minutes before two shadows seemed to detach in front of him and almost as if they materialized the previous shadow along with another appeared in front of him bowing on one knee.

The first one, after getting a nod from the Emperor moved back to their original position and melded back with the wall. The second asked.

"You called for me? Your Majesty."

"Yes, we might be facing some issues with the Elves, Dwarves, Orc, Ogres, and Minotaur's. I need you to begin preparing the Ravens. Also, on our shared borders with those nations I want you to begin covertly deploying the special legions."

"My Lord, how many of the special legions do you want deployed."

"All of them, it is time that the world remembers why the Graham's are the most powerful. It is time for the world to see the might of our Asuran battalions once again."