Doom's Break

by Christopher Rowley

  She found it all very confusing.

  Finally, there was the colder understanding that Aeswiren the Third was the only hope for ending the war without more bloodshed. For he was the true Emperor, and the man the soldiers of Shasht would always follow.

  In Shasht itself, his son, Aurook, had taken the purple mantle and the title of Norgeeben the Second. But the common soldiers would turn to Aeswiren, if given the chance.

  "We have much work to do, you and I," he said.

  "Yes, Lord," she said, using the honorific constantly employed by the men aboard the ship. He was the Emperor, after all, even if he did not insist on ceremony. Aeswiren was a man with great dignity, but also one who was comfortable in his own skin. His men loved him for it.

  Nuza wondered how it would go when Aeswiren finally met Toshak. Two giants brought together like that could raise sparks, even a conflagration. Yet they shared a common need, to end the war. Plus, Nuza knew both of them and how their minds worked. She could defuse any conflicts.

  A wide swath of land was rising into view. Captain Moorsh was up in the mainmast topstory taking observations. Soon he would try to match what he was seeing with what the charts depicted. These charts had been drawn up by the invasion fleet and sent back to Shasht in the first year of the war. They offered considerable detail concerning shoals, rocks, and headlands. The interior was simply labeled "unknown."

  Aeswiren climbed down to the deck and began pacing. Nuza had to smile. His impatience was so clear. He was itching to get back on land.

  But sometimes even Emperors have to wait. So he paced back and forth while Captain Moorsh completed his observations and scrambled down with a chart tucked inside his coat.

  Nuza watched them go, the Emperor beside the captain. Aeswiren intended to move very quickly once he reached the expedition forces. They were known to be harbored on an island south of the main mass of the Land. From the description of this island—nearly circular, dominated by craggy peaks, with a harsh, hot climate—Nuza knew it had to be Mauste. The mots there were mostly fisherfolk and shepherds, since the rivers were too steep and rocky for the farming of polder land. From what she had heard from Aeswiren, the Mauste villagers had either fled to the neighboring peninsula of Fauste or were dead, slain by the men of the expeditionary force.

  Nuza prayed that Aeswiren could end the war and take the expeditionary force away. He said he would take it back to Shasht to be the core of the army he would build to take back the throne.

  Nuza and the four men who were going to row her ashore were lowered down the side of the Duster in the ship's small boat. As the boat was lowered, Nuza felt his gaze upon her. She looked up, and their eyes met. Aeswiren, as Emperor, could not wave, but Nuza could.

  "I will come back," she had told him. She thought he believed her, but perhaps not entirely. The trust between them had never been tested like this. She had always been the one forced to trust him, and, of course, her trust had been rewarded. Once she was free on her home soil, though, there would be nothing to stop her from remaining there.

  She looked across the water to the town. Her heart skipped a beat once again. With its steep gray roofs, the buildings packed tightly into a narrow space beneath a great brown bluff, it was undoubtedly a town built by mots. She would be among her own people again, for the first time in two years. By the breath of the sweet Spirit, it would be wonderful just to see a crowd of mots and brilbies in the street.

  Nuza had insisted that she be the first person to contact the townsfolk. Aeswiren and the others had accepted this. The ship had put in at a couple of villages so far, only to find the folk had fled inland at the first glimpse of their sails.

  "What else would you expect?" she'd said to them when their boat came back with the news that no one had stayed to greet them. "Mots are not fools. We learned that your ships come seeking meat, not friendship."

  At those words, every man had had the grace to drop his gaze.

  So they'd had to accept that she was their only real chance of opening communication with the folk of the Land.

  The boat splashed gently on the water. The men unhooked the chains and settled over their oars. Soon they were moving steadily away from the Duster.

  It was a cloudy day, overcast but without rain. Nuza kept her gaze on the town. From the charts, Captain Moorsh was certain they had made landfall in the Northern part of the Land. Certainly the vegetation on the hills was of a Northern variety, pines and firs almost exclusively. Nuza did not know the region. She had never really traveled farther north than Dronned, which had to lie some distance to the south.

  The inner harbor ahead was crowded with shipping: single-masted cogs, the predominant style of ship among the mots. The presence of so much shipping had made Captain Moorsh nervous. The Duster had not even put down an anchor, since he feared fireships such as those that had caused havoc in the first summer of the war.

  The town was a sizable place, she could see, but smaller than Dronned or Tamf. The black roofs were made of slate, and they were steeply angled to shed the snow that would come in winter. She couldn't see anyone on the jetty or in the streets, but she had the feeling that many eyes were watching the boat as it entered the harbor.

  Those eyes would have noticed by then that though men rowed the boat, a mor sat in the front of it.

  A few minutes later, they approached the stone jetty. This was a dangerous moment. Arrows or spears might greet them. But the boat ground against the jetty without any sign of life in the town. A seaman named Kunkus, a gentle giant who reminded her in some ways of dear old Hob, the brilby that had been a part of her acrobatic act for many years, formed a step with his massive hands and she vaulted lightly to the top of the jetty. She stood there for a moment, struggling with powerful emotions.

  "Thank you," she said to Kunkus and the others in Shashti.

  "We will wait here, if we can," said Kunkus.

  "I think they will leave you alone. I will tell them that you mean them no harm."

  She took a step and almost tripped over her own feet, unused to stable land after so many months at sea. Recovering, she steadied herself on a bollard and then, taking careful steps, walked into the town.

  The streets were deserted, though a flock of gulls wheeled above with their harsh cries echoing off the building fronts. While there was not a soul to be seen, she could feel concealed eyes following her movements. This was not a small village. There would be a militia ready to resist a landing from the ship.

  She sniffed at the strong smell of fish. There could be no doubt of the town's primary occupation.

  "Hello?" she called.

  Her voice echoed back to her. She'd never been this far north. She hoped she could understand the Northern accent. Down in Tamf, they'd often joked about the clipped Northern way of speaking.

  She wandered up the widest street leading off the harbor. Sunlight broke through the cloud cover for a few minutes. She noticed the glass windows all along the street, indicating that these were shops rather than homes. This town was clearly a commercial center.

  The street was clean, with whitewashed curbs. A small pile of rubbish, bushpod husks mostly, had been swept up on one corner awaiting removal.

  Someone had just moved into one of these houses, she realized, and grinned. It was common all over the Land to use bushpod husks to wrap around one's valuables when you packed them for a move.

  She wondered where the sweepers were, running for the hills or crouched inside one of these buildings with a bow in their hands and an arrow trained on her.

  "Hello?" she called again, but the silence continued. The sun slowly faded behind the clouds again.

  She came to the corner. A side street cut across here on both sides, narrow and dark. She turned right. "Hello?"

  Down this street there was no glass. The windows were all firmly shuttered with wood. Painted designs on each shutter spoke of candle makers, cobblers, and a hat maker. The designs were exactly the same ones used in Tamf.


  Suddenly doors opened on either side. A half dozen mots and brilbies came out and surrounded her.

  "Who are you?" said a tall mot with streaks of white in his cheek fur. He did not seem friendly.

  "I am Nuza of Tamf."

  "You came from a man ship. Why did they not kill you?"

  "I was captured by the men at Sulmo. They took me to their own land. That ship brought me back."

  The mot gave her an inquiring look. "To say the least, this is unusual treatment. We of Eskalon have only known the men as killers, not as hosts."

  "I understand. Before I was made captive, I had seen the work of men. My own family lost everything when Tamf was burned. When I was taken captive, I expected death at their hands. They put me on one of their ships and we sailed to Shasht, which is what they call their land. I was very fortunate. Perhaps the Spirit took pity on me, I don't know, but the Great King of Shasht himself protected me. He befriended me. When I told him what his army was doing to our people, he understood. He had already decided to stop the war. He has now come to Shasht to put an end to it."

  There was a long silence from her ring of listeners.

  "You're saying that the Great King of the men is on that ship?"

  "Yes. He is not like the other men. He is a good man."

  "I have never heard a man described that way before."

  "I was as surprised as you are now when I was first told I was not going to die. I had been separated from the others as soon as we landed in the city of men."

  The mot had noticed Nuza's beauty and lithe presence. "They took you because you are beautiful."

  "Perhaps. I have a gift at acrobatics. That's what I used to do, in the old days. It pleases him to watch me. When I learned that the Great King wanted to meet me, I had little to say in the matter, so we met. He told me many things, explained much about the world that I did not know. He had decided to stop the war."

  "Then why has it not stopped?"

  "There are other forces involved. The Great King rules on sufferance of another authority, an ancient being called 'the Old One.'"

  The mot drew back with a hiss. "That sounds like sorcery."

  "It is. And the Old One moved against the King."

  "So the Great King fell from power, and now he comes to us seeking forgiveness?"

  "The Great King fell, but he comes here to take command of the army of men. He will reorganize them and then take them back to Shasht."

  "And win back his throne with it?"

  "Yes."

  Her listeners drew back. Three of them huddled together to exchange views. Finally the first one turned back to her.

  "Your tale is fantastic and would be dismissed as nonsense except that we have seen you come from a man ship."

  She shrugged. "Whether you believe me or not, what is important is that you take this message." She handed over a sealed envelope.

  The mot scrutinized the envelope carefully. "It is addressed to the great Toshak."

  "It is. He is a friend of mine as well. He once worked in my troupe of acrobats. He was the sword fighter."

  His eyes widened. "Truly, you are a well-connected mor..."

  "Fortune has forced this on me. I would prefer to still be earning my living tumbling in the villages of Tamf and Dronned. It was a good life, and I loved it."

  There was further discussion.

  One voice, that of a brilby with prominent eyebrow tufts, arose in dissent. The spokesmot turned back to her.

  "The message will be sent to the South at once. Jilba here thinks you should be sent to the Assenzi at Highnoth. What do you say?"

  "I will see the Assenzi soon enough, I'm sure," she said. "But first I must escort the Great King south. I must be there when he and Toshak meet. It is vital that they be able to work together. I can help them, because I have learned the language of the men."

  The mot was incredulous. "Are you saying that you want to go back to that ship?"

  "I have been treated well on that ship. Yes, I want to go back, and I hope I can take back some food with me. We have been at sea for a long time, and our rations are running low."

  The mots and brilbies drew back with a collective hiss. "You want us to give them food?"

  "I know it sounds crazy, but yes. You must understand that the Great King is our best chance of ending this war without further bloodshed."

  For a long moment the crowd stared at her, then at each other. At last, the spokesmot turned back to Nuza.

  "It is fell chance that brought you here. None of us would wish it known that we had given aid to the enemy. But you pose us a difficult choice. How can we turn down an opportunity to help bring about an early peace?"

  And so, when Nuza returned to the jetty an hour later, a cart was driven up behind her and casks of flour, jars of oil, and cartons of cheese were set down there. The mots and brilbies would come no closer than ten yards, though, and remained nervous.

  Kunkus and the other men rolled the barrels across and lowered them down to the boat. A few minutes later, they pushed off from the jetty and, now heavily laden, with Nuza in the prow, rowed back to the ship.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Nuza could not fail to notice one striking change about the city of Dronned. A pall of smoke hung over the city, rising from newly built iron foundries. When she looked more closely, she observed that large new buildings had arisen, too, though whether they housed forges or their workers it was impossible to tell.

  Standing near the top of the tall sand dunes that lined the bay south of the city, she was able to overlook the city walls, about two miles north. The bloody battle of Dronned, in the first summer of the war, had been fought right there, on the flat plain that lay between the dunes and the wall.

  Which made it an oddly fitting place for this meeting. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Toshak was waiting nearby. She knew that her role in this was small but essential. She was the only person in the world who knew both of these huge, masculine personalities. She was the only one who could keep them from butting heads at this all-important encounter.

  Just ahead of her, Aeswiren climbed the slope, and just behind her came the heavy tread of Klek, the bodyguard. There were just the three of them, the agreed number. Their boat, with six rowers, had remained behind at the water's edge.

  One reason for such a small meeting was that Filek Biswas, the former chief surgeon of the fleet, and a genius of medicine, had begged the Emperor to keep all contact with mots, brilbies, and other folk of the Land to a minimum. He was convinced they were the source of the plague that had slain one in three of the Shasht colony.

  Aeswiren had heeded the good doctor's warning, of course. In coming here alone, Aeswiren had accepted the risk that the mots might take him prisoner. Nuza said that General Toshak's word could be trusted, but Aeswiren knew that the exigencies of war could overwhelm the best intentions. Aeswiren had taken the risk, nonetheless. The gains were too great to be missed, and at this point in the game Aeswiren needed information that only this General Toshak could give him.

  Besides that, Aeswiren wanted to meet this mysterious figure from Nuza's life. Aeswiren had heard much of him from Nuza, enough to know something of their history together. He wanted to put a face to the picture her words had painted.

  When they were a few feet short of the dune's crest, Klek halted. Aeswiren and Nuza went on, carrying no weapons. Ahead, alone, waited a figure clad in a blue jacket with three red pins on one shoulder. The general wore no helmet nor a sword, but he radiated a sense of authority. The face was leaner than that of Nuza, harder, with deeper cheekbones and a gaunt fierceness to the eyes that Aeswiren noticed at once. Where Nuza was a dove, this mot was a hawk.

  As they drew close, the mot opened his arms, stepped forward, and hugged Nuza, lifting her off the ground.

  "Nuza! Nuza! Nuza!" he called out, swinging her around in complete abandon. Aeswiren gave Klek a look over his shoulder. General Toshak was obviously a character. Here was the Em
peror himself, and the general was ignoring him.

  "Nuza, my dearest, I thought I'd never see your face again."

  Toshak crushed her in his grip.

  "Toshak," she murmured, pushing him back slightly, concerned about Aeswiren's feelings. It was vital that this meeting went well. Jealousy could cloud things, ruining the clarity that they needed to have.

  "Toshak," she said again. "Here, you must meet the Great King. You must not be rude to him; he is a great man."

  "Bah," snorted Toshak, still holding her tightly.

  "Toshak, listen. The Great King, he is a good man. You must talk with him. You can make peace."

  Toshak didn't seem to hear her. "I have never heard a man described as 'good' before this. They are killers, hungry for the flesh of our children. They leave us nothing but piles of heads."

  Nuza recalled the horror of that day in Bilauk. "I know, I know all that. But, Toshak, this man is different. He offers us a chance for peace. We must seize it."

  Something cold and dangerous gleamed in his eyes for a moment. She saw how wide was the abyss that had opened between them. She and he, who had once been lovers, were now almost strangers, separated by her exile to Shasht and the war he had waged in the Land. He studied her with chilly precision, then relented.

  "Yes, yes, dear Nuza, I know."

  His shoulders sagged, as if a great tension went out of him.

  "Toshak, dearest, you have saved the Land."

  "No, dear Nuza, the Land is not yet saved. The men still threaten us. They still hold forts on the coast of Sulmo."

  "That is why I am here to interpret. The Great King has been learning our language. Speak slowly to him, and he will understand most of what you say."

  Toshak struggled with something, but could not say it. Instead, he turned to Aeswiren, who had waited patiently while Nuza and this fierce-looking mot had hugged and babbled at a speed far past the Emperor's ability to comprehend.

  Nuza watched the two of them as they studied each other at close range. The man was the taller by an inch and heavier, too, but she doubted that would help him in a fight with Toshak. She knew all too well that Toshak was a master of the sword and all other edged weapons. For years he had been the swordsmot of her troupe of acrobats, jugglers, and entertainers. And yet there was something very similar about both of them, mot and man. They were leaders, steeped in the ways of war.