by Robert Brady
He meant he was pissed off at his wife, Jack knew, and he may feel he had a right to be, but that didn’t change anything now.
“Be great if we had control of stuff like that,” Jack said.
“Tell me about it,” Lupus agreed.
* * *
Zarshar slipped through the standing pines in the Salt Wood, pressing through the northern tip to see what was on the other side, or here waiting for them.
The girl, he had to admit, was coming along nicely. She’d be a daughter to Power soon, a convert to the younger god. Already she’d been able to commune with Earth—something which only the most solemn of Dwarves were thought capable of, and then only after years of meditation. For her to do so by the force of her will showed how much promise she had.
The Slee had actually advised caution, and directly to him. His dedication to this daughter of Men overcoming his racial hatred, he worried that this one might suffer the fate of so many with the gifts of Power, and no long gifts from Life to perfect them.
At thirty, he was past what most Swamp Devils considered to be his prime, much as he had risen to the position of ‘The Black Adept.’ Back in his swamp, he’d likely have to fight just to keep his name of Zarshar. You earned names and titles among the Swamp Devils on the bones of your enemies.
Even still, he had mastered magic. Not so much as this girl, younger than he, but more than enough to crush his enemies, and more than enough to feel her touching him through Earth below, as she followed them. The Slee felt the same and hissed to him.
“I feel her,” he whispered back, quiet by nature while hunting. He sensed more than saw the lizard fifteen feet in front of him. He had to admit, the thing moved almost undetectable in any terrain—a useful skill to have. Slurn could find their enemies, Zarshar could destroy them.
When this was done, he would gather his own people and he would make peace with the Slee. Together they would remake the south in their own image, Slee finding enemies and Swamp Devils destroying them. If the two races combined, then the Men and Uman on Fovea would soon be a memory.
“Two-legs to the east,” the Slee hissed to him.
“How many?” Zarshar hissed back, crouching, the talons in his feet sinking into the ground.
“The ground shakes,” Slurn informed him. “As many as one hundred.”
Too many to fight—he needed to see if these were warriors or refuges from Kor, or perhaps a hunting party out of Andurin. Their path on the plains of Eldador had been no secret.
“Can you get close enough to see them?” Zarshar hissed.
The hiss in return was pure scorn. Of course Slurn could get that close. The thing slithered deeper into the brush, Zarshar crawling cautiously after. Slurn could keep himself concealed; however Swamp Devils were not so easy to hide.
Using a fraction of his power, he pressed a report into the skin of Earth for Raven to hear—a force of Men or Uman found, one hundred strong, investigating.
Slurn’s next message came fainter on the wind. “Warriors, small, yellow skin,” he said. “Bowmen, waiting for something, and an Uman-Chi among them—not one I know.”
Zarshar had met a few Uman-Chi. They lived so long there were legends almost for each of them. They wouldn’t regard the Slee as anything more than animals, and wouldn’t make much of an effort to know them.
Zarshar drove his talons into the skin of Earth again. “Confluni warriors, an Uman-Chi. You should send Glynn and that fat thing that leads the army.”
“Stop that!” Slurn hissed.
“What?”
“What you did, stop it—the Uman-Chi is looking right at me now—I feel its magic on my scales.”
Power’s bloody claws! Zarshar swore. A Caster, and a good one. They’d identified themselves. He didn’t dare call for help or he’d be found. Even Raven’s efforts were dangerous now. It wouldn’t betray his whereabouts, but it would tell this ‘Chi there was something here to look for.
This could get interesting fast.
Chapter Seventeen
The Right Questions
The light was dying in the dusk of the last day of the month of War. Vulpe Mordetur stood in the crow’s nest of his ship, The Dark Maiden, his crew on the weather decks, the associated Eldadorian Regulars crowding the port and the Sea Wolves which had pulled in closer to hear him. It was always a major event when Vulpe sang and everyone wanted to hear him.
Nina stood next to Jack on the bow of the Bitch of Eldador, Wolf Soldiers lined up behind them. Admiral Jaspar, a Man from Kor who commanded the Bitch, stood behind them to one side with a couple of his captains.
“Have you heard him?” Nina asked Jack.
Jack, still dressed in his Volkhydran furs, a ridiculously large falchion over his shoulder and a pouch at his hip, crossed his arms and looked down at her. “I haven’t,” he said.
“I envy you,” she said to him. That got a look of surprise. “There’s no time like your first time hearing him.”
“He’s that good?”
“He’s magical,” Jaspar said from behind them. Jaspar had been a Koran pirate once—not a lot of things touched that dark soul. “You—well, you’ll see.”
The ethereal call of the flute drifted out from the deck of the Maiden, then a violin or something like it played an eerie tune. Vulpe leaned out over the crowd, his middle pressed against the crow’s nest’s banister, and he looked out over the crowd.
You could have dropped a pin and it would have sounded like a shotgun blast, Jack thought.
“Alone, alone out on the waves,
The Conqueror and his Wolves did stand.
To face, to face the terrible wrath
Of Tech-Ships come to kill the man.”
It was like a soaring eagle had picked Jack up off the ship’s bow and carried him out over the waves. His mind filled with the images of a sea battle, Lupus standing at the bow of his ship, the salt spray on his face, his blonde hair streaming out behind him. Jack could smell the acrid smoke from burning ships, hear the screams of dying sailors, feel the ship rock beneath him as Men and Uman fought each other from the decks of their ships. The steam from where the water boiled, the Eldadorian Fire burning in it, actually stung his eyes.
“The ships did roll, the fires they burned,
The warriors did shout, did scream.
And all along, the Conqueror,
Did breath his fire, did drink the steam!”
Jack couldn’t know how long the song went on. He went through all of it, the whole battle, felt his heart lift with the Emperor’s victory, felt the tears run down his cheeks as he grieved the fallen on both sides.
Suddenly the song was over, and his feet were on the deck of the Bitch, and he was staring at the droplets on the toes of his boots and the wooden boards that were his tears.
“Oh, it’s been a long time since I heard that,” someone was saying.
“So amazing,” said another.
“The gods, you know,” he heard Jaspar telling his captains, “the gods give ‘im that power. They ‘ave to. How can we be defeated with the gods sing to us through ‘im?”
Jack turned to Nina. His cheeks were wet and he wiped them on his sleeve. She didn’t seem as affected.
“I,” he began, and stammered. “I—don’t know what to say.”
“It’s always like that,” she said. She turned and pushed her way past the Wolf Soldiers, who seemed more than willing to give way to her. He followed.
“The first time is the best,” she said, “because you aren’t expecting it. But it’s always like that when he sings.”
Jack knew this was telling him something, but he couldn’t really be sure what.
* * *
Duke Ancenon Escaroth could usually consider himself, if not a lucky male, then a male who made his own luck, and did it well.
He’d discovered Outpost X, created and lead the Free Legion, founded Metz and the most influential and important independent army on the planet, and finally become an advi
sor to the most dangerous Man in history.
Lupus might prove hard to control, but he left a trail of gold wherever he went. Ancenon bent his knee to Angron Aurelias, King of Outpost IX, but he did it as a wealthier person.
Angron had made an unfortunate decision. Ancenon, D’gattis and Avek had been clear—Trenbon did not have the strength to stand against Eldador. Their only reasonable path had to be to side with Lupus and ride out his short life, then replace him as the leading force on Fovea.
Ancenon had considered that a good plan. His King, apparently, disagreed. This left Ancenon Escaroth in the unfortunate position of being at odds with his liege lord in his effort to preserve the King’s future.
His ship, She Sails Like a Cloud in the Heavens, hadn’t even passed the Salt Wood before he found himself sailing into the path of a mixed fleet of Confluni warships, bound south. They’d hailed him and demanded that he surrender his vessel. He’d simply turned his ship to the east, to outrun them on the Forgotten Sea.
Without warning, the wind left his sails and the sails of the Confluni fleet. He’d been becalmed before, but this time Weather withheld her favor for a week, and he’d ordered his ship skulled to shore, terrified Confluni after him.
The Confluni had been trying for the Great Mid River, having left a huge army in Eldador and fearing to cross the Straights of Deception after. They’d only thought to cross his path because they hoped he could be coerced to use his magic to speed their ships. Ancenon found himself amused by the irony.
Now, standing on a white sand beach, Ancenon watched something watching him from the Salt Wood—something with a strange magic born of Earth that burned the very ground beneath him. Magic wielded like a bludgeon, where a dagger would have sufficed.
“Your Grace?” the Confluni captain asked from beside him. He’d noted Ancenon’s distraction—it mustn’t have been very hard.
“We are being watched, Sirrah,” he said, “and by more than one. If you would be so kind as to summon the mainstay of your sailors, I think we need to consider returning to our ships.”
“Our ships are becalmed,” the captain protested. He was the usual squat, yellow-skinned and black-haired Confluni Ancenon had seen not change during his whole life. Challenge them and they fight—if they die, then they just didn’t fight well enough.
“Better our archers against warriors crossing the surf,” Ancenon informed him, not turning from the Salt Wood, “than our swords against them face-to-face in the sand.”
He turned to the captain. “There is no disgrace in improving your position, Sirrah. The idea is that they die, not you.”
The captain nodded. He ordered a stand of archers to cover the Salt Wood as his warriors collapsed their simple tents and moved their supplies to their ships. Meanwhile Ancenon watched the woods.
Every Uman-Chi knew other races couldn’t read their eyes. He had his suspicions of Black Lupus, who’d searched his face on many occasions, and seemed to find something to focus on. Turning his face to his left now, he kept his eyes focused to his right, to a slightly less green patch in a stand of shrub, almost motionless, certainly not something anyone else would pay attention to.
Except that, every once in a while, it blinked at him.
Ancenon had been to the Slee Nation, and he’d seen Slee.
He also knew his new sister’s group of vagabonds included one, and Dilvesh had informed him they were headed in this direction.
The thing watched him with that serpentine patience his kind possessed. They’d watch their prey for hours and not strike, either waiting to be hungry or just savoring the kill. This one’s breathing didn’t even disturb the grass around him.
The archers formed a semi-circle around Ancenon and he ignored them. He knew the benefits of surrounding himself with armed warriors. In this case he knew it wouldn’t matter.
They weren’t going anywhere.
* * *
Jahunga loped along at Magee’s stirrup, a hand on her horse’s side, missing his countrymen and remembering the fighting in the Battle of the Vice. It had been glorious, a tale for legends. They’d stood against Theran Lancers and Daff Kanaar, and prevailed, in that they’d been able to leave the field. Few if any were so fortunate.
“Sirrah, I wish I could entice you to ride,” Magee informed him. Jahunga just shook his head. It would make him weak, and he needed to be strong, instead. The times he would soon find himself in would demand it.
Glynn opened her mouth to press him when she noted Karl and Raven riding back through the marching ranks of their Confluni soldiers to find them.
“What news?” Glynn demanded, as they reined in before her.
“Zarshar and Slurn are scouting out the Salt Wood,” Karl said. “It’s a trap. A stand of Confluni bowman and an Uman-Chi are waiting for us.”
The news clearly upset Raven. “We don’t know that it’s a trap,” she said. “They could be a relief force, or—”
Glynn shook her head. “We can’t just assume that, not with so much at stake,” she said. “I will consult with the Ymir, but I believe she and I and a vanguard of Confluni must treat with these, an endeavor which I fear will take time.”
Karl looked to the West. “Time isn’t something we have a lot of,” he warned her. “You make it look like we’re stopped here, and those Daff Kanaar are coming right up our arses, pikes and all.”
Jahunga grinned wide. Karl had a way with his words.
“If you must engage them again, Sirrah, do you believe you can prevail?” Glynn asked him.
Karl shook his head, still looking west, then spat on the ground. “Not with these,” he said. “They’re demoralized and they’re exhausted. They’re trained well enough where they won’t break, but warriors fight different when they know it’s a last stand. Those Daff Kanaar will plow right through us and keep going to the sea.”
“Then we must hope Eveave has treated well with our Raven,” Glynn said, “and trust in Her—”
“It’s exactly what she’d do,” Raven said.
They all turned toward her. Around them, their army marched on like a sea of yellow faces.
Raven looked around her once, and said, “The Taker and the Giver—she’d give us a way out, and give them a way to block it.”
Glynn nodded. Jahunga wondered at the young girl’s wisdom. Those of his own tribe weren’t so forthright. They had the same fire, but not her intuitive mind.
“You’re learned well, my protégé,” Glynn said. “What, then, would you advise?”
Raven bit her lower lip, but Jahunga knew the answer without her. She was wise, but he was worldly.
“I’ll stay,” he said.
Now he had all of their attention.
“Leave me five hundred,” he said. “We’ll make a camp like their jess doonar. That will make them dig their cleats in the sand. When you’ve settled with these ones on the coast, we’ll come running, and you can cover us with arrows and your magic.”
Karl shook his head. “And if those archers are there to pepper us?” he asked.
“Then, my good friend,” Jahunga said, “we’re dead anyway, and I’d rather be buried in the sun than have my body thrown in the ocean.”
Karl’s face split into a smile. He reached down and took Jahunga’s forearm in his strong right hand, Jahunga doing the same.
“I’ll send that Swamp Devil back for you,” he promised. “I think he’s craving some bloody mayhem.”
“See that you do,” Jahunga assured him. He turned on the heel of his sandal, his spear a comfort to him in his hand, to pick out his warriors. The smaller ones, he thought. The quicker ones, who could run the fastest back to Salt Wood.
He didn’t plan to die here, after all, not knowing how all of this would turn out.
* * *
“Forward, HARCH!”
“Straighten up, you!”
“You think you’re a Duke’s brat to me? You’re nothing to me! Nothing!”
“Stand up!”
&
nbsp; “Sit down!”
“Why can’t you do anything right?”
‘Well,’ Hectaro justified to himself, as he fell into his creaky bed, called a ‘rack’ with its too-thin mattress, its thin sheet and its pillow like a napkin, ‘at least the food is good.’
And it was—Lupus prided himself on the food his ‘Pack’ ate. Plenty of meat, corn and milk with the fat not skimmed off. Every meal with bread with butter and vegetables until his stomach groaned. As much as you could eat in the fifteen minutes they gave you.
The first night he’d gone to bed hungry. The second he’d known better.
They were criminals and persons who’d run out of luck. Male and female treated the same. Some of them, he knew, had paired off, however mostly this was the Pack, the Pack was, and you, as they said, ‘Didn’t get your meat where you got your bread.’
Hectaro had found that pretty funny once he’d figured it out.
You came into the Pack with what you brought to it. They’d given him the tabard and the armor and the boots. He used his own sword, and he kept Bastard, his horse. He had a locker at the foot of his cot, with no lock on it. His second day there, he’d found a bag of silver inside.
He’d taken it and thrown it into the center aisle in their barracks. Every head turned. The sergeant for his squad stepped up and asked him, “What do you think that is, RIT?”
“I don’t know what that is?” Hectaro answered him, looking him in the eye. “Someone put it in my locker, it doesn’t belong there, so now whoever owns it can find it.”
“You didn’t steal that; get afraid you’d get caught?” the sergeant, a Man, demanded of him, invading his space, running an eye up and down his face.
“You wanna ask me that outside, sarge?” Hectaro asked him, holding his gaze. “I promise you, you won’t like the answer.”
The sergeant straightened, the barracks fell silent.
“I say he’s in,” someone down the row said.
“Aye,” another, a Volkhydran who called himself ‘Death,’ said. “I’ll fight aside him.”
“And I.”
“He’s in, sarge.”