Great Chief

by Lindsay Buroker

  Dak noticed the glance and didn’t respond to Yanko’s comment.

  Yanko kept his mouth shut as they followed hilly terrain littered with seaweed-draped boulders. He didn’t see any dead fish or other sea creatures and assumed the Turgonians had cleared them away from their camp. It didn’t help much with the smell. If anything, the air of decay grew more pungent as they walked over a rise and a huge lake came into view.

  Halfway between the rise and the lake, a group of uniformed men stood around a supine man on the ground. A supine dead man, Yanko realized, as he swept over them with his senses. He had Turgonian coloring and wore one of their uniforms.

  “Uh oh,” he murmured, hoping there was no way he or his group could be blamed for the death.

  Were some of those pirates about? There couldn’t be any predators unless someone had transported them here.

  “Sir?” one of the soldiers escorting them called. He ran ahead, saluted a gray-haired man in the middle of the group, and reported.

  Dak continued forward, so Yanko followed, but warily. The men surrounding General Aldercrest had noticed Yanko and Jhali and were fingering their weapons. Dak earned no more than a glance, though Lakeo, wearing clothing of Nurian make, also drew concerned stares.

  The general pointed at the body, then back toward camp, and said a few words before walking out to meet Dak.

  The soldiers hefted their dead comrade and headed toward the tents. Others came to stand at the general’s back, eyeing Yanko’s group and pointing their weapons at them.

  Dak saluted the general and began speaking. Yanko used his magic to lightly touch Aldercrest’s mind and try to get a read on him. He lacked Dak’s collection of scars, so maybe he wasn’t a hardened infantry officer. Would an intelligence officer have been sent to lead the expedition? Or maybe an engineer, if they’d intended from the beginning to hunt for ore.

  Aldercrest seemed to recognize Dak, but Yanko didn’t sense the warmth of old friends meeting. Hopefully they weren’t old enemies.

  After speaking for a while—Yanko had no idea how Dak was explaining his presence here or why he was with a group of Nurians—he pointed at where the dead body had lain and asked a question.

  The general shook his head and answered tersely.

  Finally, Dak stepped to the side and introduced Yanko by name and also said Zirabo’s name. He didn’t name Lakeo and Jhali, but Aldercrest waved at Jhali’s garb and said the Nurian word for mage hunter. Istapa. She crossed her arms and glared at their scrutiny.

  After a few more minutes of discussion, Dak said, “General Aldercrest says he doesn’t speak Nurian, Yanko.”

  He says? Did that mean Dak wasn’t sure if that was a fact?

  “You can come into camp to present Zirabo’s offer,” Dak added, “if everyone in your group leaves their weapons with his men.”

  Dak waved at a soldier who walked forward expectantly.

  “I see.” Yanko didn’t question what Dak meant by Zirabo’s offer, assuming that was a way to get him the meeting, that a general wouldn’t otherwise speak with a boy. The fact that they wanted Yanko’s weapons—everyone’s weapons—suggested that Dak hadn’t mentioned he was a mage. That was a little surprising. Did Dak think they would refuse to speak to a mage? Or simply shoot him? “Does that mean you don’t have to leave your weapons?”

  Yanko unbuckled Sun Dragon’s scimitar. He was loath to give it to someone else, especially after his mother had implied it had some interesting history and might have more value than he’d believed, but he trusted he could get it back when needed.

  “Not as far as I know,” Dak said.

  Lakeo didn’t look happy about it, but she removed her bow and quiver and knives, piling them into the soldier’s arms.

  When the soldier turned toward Jhali, she stepped back and shook her head. “I am not Prince Zirabo’s messenger. I will wait outside the camp for you to finish.” She met Yanko’s eyes. Silently letting him know that she would be out there if he ended up needing rescuing? Or just refusing to go along with this?

  The soldier frowned and asked a question. Dak translated for the general.

  Aldercrest’s eyes narrowed, and he barked what sounded like a firm order at Dak. Yanko thought of his concern that Dak would be commanded to act against them. Dak lifted his hands with a shrug.

  Aldercrest stalked off with his back stiff and conferred quietly with two of his soldiers. Yanko sensed that he didn’t like the idea of a mage hunter skulking around outside of his camp. He also thought of the bay and seemed to be wondering if the Turgonian ships there were in danger. What vessel or vessels had brought Yanko’s team here?

  The two soldiers saluted and ran back toward camp. To put together a team to check on the ships in the bay? Or to warn them to look for other ships? Yanko grimaced. The last thing he wanted was to get Tynlee in trouble.

  Jhali chose that moment to spring away from the group. She sprinted toward the boulders, zigzagging her route to make an unpredictable target.

  Two of the remaining soldiers whipped up their rifles.

  “No,” Yanko barked, throwing a pinpoint gust of air to knock their weapons aside.

  Dak lunged to break the aim of the closest soldier but too late. Yanko had already kept them from firing. With magic.

  As one, the general and his troops turned to face Yanko. Jhali had disappeared behind the boulders, and Yanko trusted the soldiers wouldn’t find her, even if they sent out a search party. At the moment, they all appeared more concerned about Yanko.

  The general pointed an accusing finger at his chest, then addressed Dak, his tone equally accusing. Yanko could tell his anger was more because Dak hadn’t disclosed that he was a mage than that Jhali had gotten away.

  Yanko thought Dak might pretend he hadn’t known, but he only shook his head once, his face closed and stony.

  The soldiers surrounded the team again, more of them this time, and the general jerked his chin toward the camp and strode toward it. The soldiers pointed rifles at Yanko’s group, ensuring they followed. Dak’s weapons hadn’t been removed, but he was in the line of fire, right alongside Yanko. Ferret god’s luck, had Yanko gotten him in trouble with his people again? Guilt by association?

  “Have we just gone from a diplomatic party to prisoners?” Yanko asked quietly.

  “More or less,” Dak said. “I think he’ll still talk to you.”

  “Talk or interrogate?”

  Dak spread his hand, palm up. Uncertain? “You shouldn’t have brought her. I should have warned you that a mage hunter would be as much cause for concern among my people as a mage.”

  Which they now suspected he was. Wonderful.

  “Will they send a party to hunt her down?” Yanko asked as the tents came into view again.

  “Likely.”

  Aldercrest frowned back at Dak. Annoyed that he was explaining things to Yanko?

  If Yanko hadn’t wanted to speak with the general, he might have been tempted to conjure gusts of wind to knock everybody—and their tents—down, so he could leave and make sure nobody troubled Jhali, but escaping wasn’t what he needed to do. He needed to convince these people to leave.

  “What happened to the soldier that died?” Yanko asked.

  “Aldercrest wouldn’t tell me,” Dak said quietly. “He’s suspicious of me for showing up with you on a continent that nobody is supposed to know about yet. Our intelligence people back home have been careful to keep the information from leaking to the newspapers.”

  “Did you tell him that you were here when it first popped out of the ocean?” Yanko asked.

  “Yes. He sent those two men to confer with Admiral Ravencrest.”

  Yanko groaned. “Is that the admiral commanding those ships?”

  Dak nodded. “Yes.”

  Yanko guessed from his clipped tone that he’d hoped they could avoid the officer.

  When they reached the camp, the soldiers pointed Lakeo and Yanko toward a large tent. Yanko headed to it, already s
tarting to rehearse what he would say to the general but paused because a soldier held up a hand, keeping Dak from following them.

  Dak asked Aldercrest a question and received a brief response and a gesture for him to follow him somewhere else.

  Dak scowled, looking like his feet might root to the ground, and the soldiers wouldn’t be able to move him.

  “We’ll be all right,” Yanko said, waving for him to go with the general. He didn’t want to get Dak into any more trouble.

  Dak met his gaze. “Will they?”

  He tilted his head to indicate the soldiers.

  It took Yanko a moment to realize what he was asking. When had he become someone that Dak worried was a threat to his people?

  Yanko nodded solemnly. “Yes. You have my word.”

  Dak hesitated, then nodded back. “Thank you.”

  The soldiers, oblivious to the conversation in Nurian, prodded Yanko and Lakeo. They ducked into the tent.

  “Just hope Jhali doesn’t go on a rampage and start killing people,” Lakeo muttered.

  Yanko’s gut twisted. He hadn’t considered that. He prayed to the bear god that he hadn’t just lied to Dak.

  A Turgonian in civilian clothing entered the tent, whistling and carrying a box. The box was loaded with hunks of rock that Yanko feared were samples of valuable ore that one of the teams had found.

  The man glanced curiously at Yanko and Lakeo, who sat cross-legged on the ground with two soldiers pointing rifles at them, but he must have assumed they weren’t a concern, for he continued past them. He had a ponytail and a scruffy beard, both of which marked him as not-a-soldier more than the lack of uniform did. He also looked like he might have a mixed heritage, with skin a couple of shades lighter than the olive to bronze typical in Turgonia. All manner of tools hung on his belt and his many-pocketed shirt and trousers bulged with who knew what.

  He opened a trunk next to a table in the back and dumped his collection of rocks into a larger collection. Yanko gaped. Lizard dung, how much ore had the Turgonians found? They couldn’t have been here for that long.

  As the man headed for the exit, Yanko asked, “Do you speak Nurian?”

  If the man was a scientist or researcher rather than a soldier, maybe he was more traveled and experienced with other cultures than the average soldier. He paused and asked something of Yanko and Lakeo’s guards.

  They shook their heads firmly.

  “I do,” the man said in scarcely accented Nurian, “but I’ve been instructed not to speak with you.” He smiled, as if he didn’t much care.

  The guards scowled at him and one repeated what he’d said before.

  “We came in peace, to negotiate with the Turgonians in regard to this new landmass, and we’ve been taken prisoner for no reason.” Yanko didn’t mention his display of magic. He was a little surprised the general hadn’t assigned more guards to watch him, but maybe Aldercrest thought he was too young to be much of a threat.

  “You were sent as a negotiator? You’re just a kid.”

  The guards sighed, but they didn’t threaten the man for speaking. Maybe civilians were outside of the military chain-of-command.

  Yanko lifted his chin. “I am moksu.” If the man knew his language, he ought to know enough of Nurian culture to understand what it meant to be from an honored family. “Prince Zirabo sent me.”

  The man shrugged. “I’m just here to look at rocks, kid. You’ll have to negotiate with the general.”

  “We tried. He doesn’t speak Nurian.”

  “Are you sure?” The man—a geologist?—smirked and started for the tent flap.

  “What happened to the dead soldier?” Yanko asked.

  The man paused and looked back. “Nobody’s sure. He died in his sleep. I think the sawbones was ordered to do an autopsy, but Turgonian medical science isn’t the best. I haven’t heard if they found anything.”

  “Died in his sleep?” Yanko asked, confused. “Out by that lake?”

  Now it was the geologist’s turn to look confused. He asked the soldiers something and received a short answer. The man tried to question them further, but they shrugged and pointed him toward the exit.

  “I guess another man died,” the civilian said. “That’s a little disturbing. I was—”

  The tent flap stirred, and General Aldercrest ducked his head and came in. The geologist scurried out without finishing his sentence. Maybe even civilians deferred to generals.

  The soldiers saluted and then one added a report, pointing at the exit. Tattling on the chatty geologist, perhaps.

  Aldercrest sighed and gave Yanko an exasperated look. Funny how many Turgonians looked at him that way.

  “Are you here to let us go?” Lakeo asked.

  “What did you do with the colonel?” Yanko reached out with his mind, prepared to search the camp for Dak’s familiar aura, but Dak entered the tent first.

  The general waved for him to pull up a stool.

  “Translator?” Yanko guessed.

  “Translator,” Dak agreed, sitting on the stool and facing Yanko.

  He didn’t sport any fresh bruises or contusions. Yanko hoped that meant he hadn’t been interrogated.

  “Are you a trusted translator or their only option?” Yanko asked quietly as the general also pulled up a stool. Maybe Aldercrest didn’t know that the geologist spoke Nurian. Or maybe he didn’t trust a civilian with whatever information Yanko might share.

  “The latter,” Dak said dryly, then tilted his head toward the general as he sat.

  The gesture seemed a warning. Another hint that Aldercrest might understand Nurian? Yanko would be careful with his words.

  “I’m here to negotiate on Prince Zirabo’s behalf in regard to this continent,” Yanko told the general without preamble. “The Nurians were responsible for it being raised, thus we have the right to it. We are, however, willing to share it if it turns out that the Turgonians also have an interest.”

  At his side, Lakeo stirred as Dak translated for the general. Was she surprised at his offer? Well, Yanko wasn’t being entirely honest. He still hoped he could find a way to trick the Turgonians into leaving, though that would be more difficult if they truly had found a trunk of valuable ore already.

  “To demonstrate my good will,” Yanko added, “I volunteer my fledgling skills as a healer to examine the bodies of your dead soldiers to help you figure out what killed them and if there’s a danger to the rest of your camp.”

  The general’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Before Dak translated.

  Dak was hesitating. Because Yanko claimed to have a healer’s skills? Or because—

  Yanko’s stomach sank as he realized he might be implicating himself by implying he could figure out what had killed the men. Would they think it was because he’d caused it somehow?

  Dak looked like he wanted to say something like, “Are you sure you want to say that, Yanko?” but he translated the words instead. Yes, he believed the general understood Nurian. Yanko was almost positive.

  Aldercrest’s response was on the grumpy and terse side. Someday, Yanko would meet a chatty, cheerful Turgonian officer, and he would fall over from shock. So far, the agent Amaranthe was the only one who’d come close. The men were all Dak-like.

  “He says there’s no point in healing dead men,” Dak said.

  “Isn’t he worried that whatever killed them is contagious? What if the Kyattese plague somehow survived the centuries and still exists?”

  Yanko didn’t think that was remotely possible, but Aldercrest rocked back on his stool before the translation came through. Yanko sensed that the plague hypothesis had occurred to him, that he’d also been telling himself there was no way it could have remained viable through the centuries and underwater, but… a niggling fear had started up in his mind. Fear for himself, for his men, and for his homeland if they brought back an infectious deadly disease. The general’s thoughts were so vivid that Yanko didn’t need to understand Turgonian to grasp them.


  Outwardly, Aldercrest recovered quickly and gave another terse answer.

  Dak watched the general, his eye closed to a slit, and Yanko wondered if he’d read on his face what Yanko had read in the man’s mind.

  “He says you can look at the bodies if you want,” Dak said, “but that he won’t be held responsible if you get sick.”

  Lakeo’s eyebrows flew up.

  The general stalked out.

  Yanko watched him go and stared at the tent flap after he disappeared. “Is that the end of our interrogation?”

  “Apparently.” Dak sounded surprised.

  “I was expecting a lot more bloodshed from my first Turgonian interrogation.”

  “Yours or his?” Dak asked.

  Yanko tried to tell if that was a joke. Dak smiled slightly, but Yanko still wasn’t sure. His older and more experienced adult advisors seemed to be treating him differently lately. They had gone from telling him what to do to waiting to see what he wanted to do. Was it because he’d killed that soul construct? It was strange that Dak, in particular, would think differently about him for that. It wasn’t as if that had been some odd coming-of-age ceremony in which he was suddenly made a man. And Dak had also killed one.

  “So,” Yanko said, shifting back to the more important topic, “he believes it’s a disease?”

  “From what I’ve heard, nobody’s sure, including the sawbones.”

  “That’s what you people call your doctors, right?”

  “Military doctors. The civilian doctors usually use smaller tools for cleaving people open.”

  “I’m glad I was never sick in Turgonia,” Yanko said.

  Most reputable Nurian healers used magic to repair body parts rather than cleaving them off. Some of the mundane rural poultice and potion makers, such as Arayevo had once been training to become, were less sophisticated, but Yanko didn’t think even they used saws.

  Dak glanced at the two soldiers, then stood up. “They’re preparing the bodies for a funeral pyre. If you want to see them, it had better be soon.”

  Yanko and Lakeo followed Dak out. Yanko wasn’t surprised when the two soldiers trailed after them. He hurried to walk beside Dak so they could, he hoped, speak without being overheard. If Dak would learn to let his mental defenses down long enough for telepathic conversations, private communication would be easier.