Ari frowned slightly. The Mardux must have been suffering from extreme tor weariness, which means he has been using a lot of magic recently. What is happening at Domus Palus?
“Come, Ari, we have an envoy to bend to our will.” Robert gestured, and Einar came out of the myst like an obedient slave. When they returned to Leiben, a cyan waited for them — one of Sven’s magocrats named Weard Asfrid Staute. She looked up at them with eyes clouded by morutsen, and one side of her face was a swollen mass of bruises.
“Thank you for your patience, Weard Staute,” Robert said sweetly. “I must say that the terms of surrender you have offered us are quite attractive, but you will excuse me if I cannot accept them. So here are my terms.”
Ari turned away as Robert began his Will-Breaker. He knew that in the prison Robert had made for Sven’s family, Erika and Asa would soon be weeping. Ari found himself missing his mother.
* * *
Eda Stormgul chose a wide, flat expanse of Flasten’s marshes surrounded by deep pools in key locations. The damnens would not be able to sneak up on the Mar here, but nor would they have an easy time reaching their prey. The thousand wizards with her stood in rough lines just barely within recon range of the southernmost prisoners.
The magocrats had cast aside the drab garb of the Teleport War and donned the bright colors for which Mar wizards were known. There were more greens than any other single color of cloak, but there was also an abundance of auburn, blue and amber. Here and there, cyan and lavender cloaks marked the most powerful wizards — magocrats who could crush a dozen greens at once in magical combat. Against damnens, though, they were only slightly better than their skill with javelin, spear and marsord.
Across the field, the damnens gathered, their tall, muscular bodies looking like the shadows of monsters instead of the monsters themselves. The Drakes carried no weapons, for their claws and teeth had served them well enough. Their hides, Eda had learned, were far from impenetrable, but they were immune to magic. That alone made every wizard fear damnens. Eda could almost hear all the Mar behind her silently counting the damnens as they appeared in front of them.
Hundreds. We have killed several score in a span. No wonder they wanted to meet us like this, Eda thought. A nagging doubt crept in. Unless this isn’t all of them, of course.
Weard Klarein appeared abruptly next to Eda. “Weard Stormgul.”
“Fight or flight?” she asked without turning her attention away from the army of damnens.
What answer do I really want to hear? she asked herself.
“Fight. There are less than a hundred guarding the prisoners. Our attack will be swift and deadly, and our withdrawal will be silent and untraceable.”
Eda nodded slightly and turned to face the wizards behind her.
“We stay and fight.”
There were nervous murmurs and a few grim laughs but no cheers. Odveig Spitz summoned Power and raised himself off the ground so everyone could see him.
“Hear me, my fellow Mar,” he said, and his voice carried farther than was possible without magic. “Our ancestors believed that the gods answered no prayer without sacrifice. These were not the painless libations of alien lands — a wasting of food without fear that it might bring starvation. No, their sacrifices were of a sort that might mean dying for their faith — whether it meant destroying food they could not spare or giving the last of their food to a stranger.
“Thousands of years ago, the mapmakers of the Affe Expeditionary Force prayed to Marrish for deliverance from the Drakes that threatened to wipe out the Mar. Instead of risking starvation, those brave mapmakers performed daring reconnaissance missions in Drake lands. In those dark times, the Drakes ruled all of Marrishland except for Domus Palus, and so for every mapmaker who returned from such a mission, nine others did not. The Affe Expeditionary Force faced every mission unflinchingly.
“Now it is our turn to stand on the altar, resolved to pay whatever price the gods demand of us. We pray that they will accept this offering and restore the Duxy of Flasten to even greater glory. We pray that they will accept this offering and bring an end to the war between Domus and Flasten. The people who bleed together are truly one people, and we are Mar!”
There were cheers this time, and Weard Spitz lowered himself. He turned to Weard Klarein.
“Return to the Mar and tell them that we will fight the damnens — not as Flasten magocrats and Domus magocrats but as Mar. Any further violence between our duxies — or any duxies — is an abomination in the sight of the gods and all the heroes who have bled for the Mar.”
“I want to stay and fight with you.”
Odveig placed a hand on the green’s shoulder. “Allow us this one conceit, Weard Klarein. Live today. Tell our story. Die in another tale.”
Oysten Klarein raised his right hand in salute. “By the Oathbinder and by Fraemauna, my patron, I will do as you command, and the epics Mar will write of you will place you among the stars.”
To the north, the damnens approached the Mar army. Nonagons of magocrats flickered in and out in flanking maneuvers.
“Go,” Eda told him.
Oysten obeyed, flickering away in a flurry of green cloth. As she watched him leave, she knew that her part in the story had come to an end.
* * *
“We should go to the Protectorates and bring back the Mardux,” Weard Kiarr Bukaltar said.
“The Protectorates’re big,” Bui reminded him. “An’ we’ve got insero comin’. They’ll have ravits with them, an’ that means poison darts an’ fallin’ rocks.”
“We still have Blosin gloves, including morutdyjiton,” Rig Marspur said.
Bui examined the recon stone. The insero and ravits were not as numerous as the other Drakes in the Mass — a few thousand all told — but they had apparently already been warned about the morutdyjinon, for they kept their distance from each other. Morutmanon might knock down two or three at a time, if it was well-aimed enough. Worse, they were carefully avoiding the front of the army, creeping around on either flank.
“Guard the flanks, an’ be ready for them to attack our rear,” Bui told them. “We’ll need mobile roofs and Power ‘depts to keep the darts off our heads.”
Bui thanked Her that the priests never thought to question him. By the time the insero reached the Lapis Amnis, the army of adepts was as ready as they could be. After that, there was little he could do except watch the recon stone and adjust tactics as needed.
The ravits and insero rained poisonous darts and large stones on the adepts. The Mar retaliated with morutdyjinon, reducing insero and ravits to floating dust. When they had sustained a hundred casualties, the Drakes broke off the aerial assault and flew north to regroup.
At that moment, thousands of jabber and stinger guer pressed across the Lapis Amnis to engage the Mar there, and the adepts — distracted as they were by the presence of insero — barely repulsed them before they gained a beachhead.
“Get those gloves to the back ranks!” Bui called to the priests without looking up from the recon stone.
The insero surprised them by flying south toward Domus Palus. Meanwhile, the guer continued pressing the assault on the river. A hundred striped guer risked another crossing, and in the confusion, the Mar failed to stop them. Stinger guer flooded onto the south bank in half a dozen places. Bui called his draxi to him and sent them to break the assaults.
“What are the insero doing?” Rig asked.
“They’re cutting our supply lines, such as they are. They know the lan’s out here’re dead, an’ think if we don’t take back Domus Palus soon, we’ll be, too. They’re not wron’, either. We need to get Domus back or die tryin’. The Drakes likely don’t know the wizards there’ve decided they’re our enemies.”
“They intend to split our loyalties,” Guthrun Snelfus noted. “They might also think the adepts are actually wizards and expect to face less resistance from the city’s defenders.”
“Even worse,” Bui murmured, still l
ooking at the recon stone. “They inten’ to surroun’ us. Look.”
On the recon stone, three more groups of a thousand insero and ravits moved into sight — one directly to the north and one on each flank. Bui knew the adepts were about to lose control of the river and started considering how to minimize casualties.
* * *
Domin deflected Sven’s marsord with a casual movement of his hand.
“Whatever Guardian you think you are, surely you do not think you can defeat a god.”
“I can, and I will!” Sven snarled, hurling the deity backward with a wave of Power.
He spun around to strike Dinah with the shorter of the two blades. The steel struck the mud on her skin. Sparks flew as the attack glanced off.
“You think steel can strike the goddess of the earth? What I made I can unmake.”
The marsord rusted rapidly, aging centuries in mere moments. Sven tossed it aside, and it burst into a small cloud of red dust before sinking in the mud. He called Energy and Power, knocking the Bald Goddess backward with a bolt of lightning just as Domin’s black hand reached forward to touch his face.
If he touches me, I’m dead.
He took a hasty step backward and flung up a wall of Power.
Dinah stood up, patches of her muddy skin blackened by Sven’s attack. “You cannot fight us forever, Sven Takraf. You are mortal, and we are gods. Our Mass walks the land. Soon, Her will set on the Mar for the last time.”
He tried to take another step backward, but the mud had grabbed his boot, rooting him to the earth.
“You, too, are my creation. Who else could have given us free reign to destroy Marrishland as you have?”
He felt himself beginning to sink.
“And now that your usefulness has ended,” Domin said as he reached out to touch Sven’s face, “we will destroy you.”
“Divine patrons, my life is yours,” he whispered. “Without you, I am nothing.”
“They cannot hear you, Mardux,” Dinah snarled. “I have silenced your voice to their ears.”
Domin’s fatal fingers brushed against the left side of his face. Death crept into his flesh.
Seruvus, I know you can hear me. I am ashes in the hearth. Preserve the fire.
Chapter 46
“Uesdyn (mysterious magic dynamics) is a catch-all category for the study of things that affect Mar magic but are neither myst nor tor. The clearest example is the kalysut, the tree from which both torutsen and morutsen are made. Another is the Tempest, an inhospitable darkness accessed only during teleportation. Some uesdyn topics have passed into mysdyn and tordyn, however. The Kaliheron never discovered how to use Elements, Knowledge, Wisdom and Presence, which they regarded as shadows or echoes of Energy, Mobility, Power and Vitality.”
— Weard Oda Kalidus,
The Origin of Nothing
Horsa sat on a small bench in Flasten Palus’s walled garden, which had been one of the few places in the city the two sieges had not touched. All around him, the flowers of summer were beginning to fade, but they were still more colorful than any place on the marshes of the Duxy of Flasten. It was said the magocrats who first built the city, weary of the drab browns and greens that surrounded them, had collected flowers and flowering trees from across Marrishland to plant here, creating a refuge of vivid color amid the marshes.
It was also one of the few places in Flasten that did not reek of decaying Mar and damnen corpses. Horsa had set the army to work burning the dead, but it was a slow task, both because there were so many dead and because of the damnens still prowling the city, killing any stragglers they found. The Mar were gradually rooting out the Drakes, but even three spans after the magocrats had taken back Flasten Palus, no one dared travel in groups smaller than a company.
He stared down at the marsord in his hands — Eda’s marsord. The steel shone in the sun now, but when Weard Oysten Klarein had found it among the dead on the battlefield, so he said, it was covered in the blood of a hundred damnens.
“Eda Stormgul lived her chosen name,” the green had assured him. “Odveig Spitz brought Flasten and Domus together and bound their wizards together with his own blood. Three hundred damnens died on Mar spears and marsords. The Mar of Stormgul’s legion fought to the end, and while they sacrificed themselves, the rest of us stole the entire population of Flasten Palus from the damnens. By the time we reached the place where Stormgul’s legion had been, the damnens had fled the field without leaving so much as one grisly totem of Mar corpses. We spent the day erecting a great pyre of the dead. That night, a thousand new stars shot across the sky, and I thought I saw two new stars in the sky — one in the Guardian and one in the Slave.”
Horsa blinked away the tears. Eda had lived and died bravely, but he couldn’t help but remember the playmate he had teased since they were both children — his first love. And now she was gone from him forever.
Watch over me, my friend. By your sacrifice, I am warmed. By your sacrifice, I can see. By your sacrifice, I live on.
“Weard Verifien, we have recovered the dux’s marsord.”
Horsa looked up from his reverie. The lavender held the blade out to him.
“Forgive me, good weard. I seem to have forgotten your name.”
“We have not been introduced. I am Olvir Bedaulich. I was with Weard Stormgul in the south.”
Horsa accepted the marsord numbly.
I have too many marsords and not enough hands to wield them.
“Do you come from Domus or Flasten?”
“I am loyal to you as I was to her,” Olvir said fiercely.
Horsa suddenly recalled a time when Eda had played a prank on Katla and arranged for him to take the blame. He laughed softly and wiped his eyes.
“Have I said something funny, Weard Verifien?”
“Of course not. Forgive me, Weard Bedaulich. Eda was an old friend, but I suppose everyone has lost someone dear to them.”
“Grief is no sin, Weard Verifien.”
Neither of them spoke, but Horsa noted that more wizards had joined them. He looked around nervously, suddenly painfully aware that his face was flushed with grief. He stood up, trying to look harmless even with a marsord in each hand and a third peeking through the hole in the front of his yellow cloak.
He looked over the heads of the dozen weards waiting his words. All were Mar who had proven their leadership and loyalty — to him, to Ragnar, to the Mardux, Flasten and Marrishland. Any one of them could lead the army now. He felt proud to know them, and sad to think how he had come to know them.
“Flasten needs a dux,” Olvir said. “Dux Feiglin and his children are dead. Magocrats on both sides agree no one deserves it more than you.”
The yellow focused on the younger man closest to him, ignoring the murmurs of the rest of his advisers.
It could be you, Olvir. You could lead these magocrats and be a dux. I have only tried to follow Sven’s example. So did Eda. And you are only trying to follow her example. There is something to be learned, here.
He shook his head. “I am a priest of Marrish.”
“Every Duxess of Pidel was once a priestess of Marrish,” Olvir reminded him.
“I am not an eighth-degree.”
A yellow stepped forward and thrust a red cloak at him. “Take it, Weard Verifien. The Mardux himself will not dispute your right to wear it.”
Horsa set the two marsords on the bench behind him took the cloak from her, but he did not put it on. He stared into her brown eyes.
Or this woman, whose name I cannot remember. She is like a jug, filled with the water overflowing from my jug. Or like a torch, lit by my fire. She could make a great leader.
But I hold this cloak.
“This is not how wizards ascend to eighth degree.”
“Perhaps it should be,” the yellow said. “Reds were rare enough a few years ago, and most of them are dead now. Those who survived Dux Feiglin’s dispute with the Mardux are not fit to rule a village, much less a duxy.”
“I have sworn to serve Sven Takraf,” Horsa reminded them. “If you make me your dux, peace will not come swiftly to Flasten. The Mass has crossed the Lapis Amnis by now, and it was always my intention to lead the Domus army north to provide reinforcements to the Takraf Protectorates as soon as we had finished dealing with the damnen and ochre invasion.”
“The Mass is a dire threat to Flasten’s safety,” a cyan declared. “Lead, and we will follow you, Weard Verifien. Time enough for peace when the war is won.”
The words of agreement were even louder this time.
Weard Klarein did not wait for Horsa to answer. “The Stormgul Legion prayed fervently that their deaths would bring an end to the war between Domus and Flasten. What better way to show our duxy’s good faith than to aid the Mardux’s own homeland in its battle with the Drakes?”
Several wizards shouted their agreement. Horsa opened his mouth, but the yellow that had brought the red cloak spoke before him.
“We have heard that Weard Wost has taken slaves of those who owe him no tribute and who have broken no oaths. We must bring him to justice for his crimes. Perhaps we can undo some of the damage he has done there, as well.”
Horsa bowed his head as magocrats of two duxies called for him to rule them as the Dux of Flasten.
They need a leader, and I am the best figurehead they have left. It isn’t what I expected, but both Eda and Sven would want me to accept this opportunity. Who am I to argue?
When he lifted his head, they quieted.
“When I became a priest of Marrish, I vowed to obey the commands of my patron. It seems clear to me that he is manifesting his will here, and I will not break that oath.”
Horsa removed his yellow cloak and put it aside reverently on the bench behind him as the crowd looked on breathlessly. He forced himself to put on the red cloak of an eighth-degree wizard. His breath caught when he noticed the embroidery on the breast of the cloak was not the broken, burning marsord of Sven Takraf but a grey tower being struck by a bolt of lightning.
The fortress that stands against the darkness, the storm that bows the trees by night. This cloak was meant for Eda, not me.
Horsa looked at them with eyes brimming with tears. He raised his right hand in a gesture of salute, choking back sobs as he spoke, “I accept the power and duty of Dux of Flasten. By the Oathbinder and Marrish, my patron, I vow to lead its magocrats, serve its people, and protect its territory from all foes, be they Mar or Drake, internal or external. I serve at the pleasure of the people of Flasten, and I swear to uphold the Law to which I remain bound.”
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