The coach that approached the palace was not one of mere surface looks. The four gray horses pulling it pranced a delicate step that bespoke of rather cruel training at a younger age. Each horse had its mane worked with small braids and the tails were also worked with several small braids. Each braid was tied off with a small yellow ribbon and all the individual braids of the tail were tied off with a single large white ribbon. The coach was laid over with gold. At first Sajani thought it was simply electroplated, but the areas where the most wear would have taken place failed to show a metal base and the wheels, even with the heavy steel ribbed shocks, stayed firm and forced the wagon to ride low. It was a heavy coach. What wasn’t gold (or functional steel) was white and with how much opulence the coach had already displayed, Sajani deduced that it was probably pure ivory and not painted wood.
The door had the figure of a right hand, palm out, fingers and thumb spread. Over that was a hammer. The whole symbol was, of course, done in gold.
“Odd.” Sajani heard Simon say to himself. “Why here?”
“You know who that is?” Sajani asked.
“Yes,” the fraudster said quietly. “I might have spent a little time in his jails.” He had the presence to look shocked at the glance she gave him. “Just a little misunderstanding, a tiny dispute really.”
A vykati soldier opened the coach door and a very old dwarf stepped out. His beard was white and reached almost to the ground. It undoubtedly would have if the end wasn’t turned back up and held in place by a large and plain looking gold ring. His suit was white with gold trim shining through in pleats.
“You know how dwarves can be with their paperwork.” Simon finished.
Honestly, she didn’t. She’d never had direct dealings with dwarves before. That was a state issue.
“Time for us to depart, my Lady.” Simon said quickly as the dwarf turned towards them. Simon tried to shove her away but settled with only hiding his face in his hat as the dwarf turned from the approaching Benayle and instead began walking towards her. The poor actor went very pale and nearly tripped over himself when the dwarf called out to them.
“Lady General Sajani!” he shouted.
As she turned to look at him, she noticed the slight grin that Benayle threw at her. Somehow, he thought this was really amusing. He altered his course to meet up with them. As the dwarf got closer a look of slight confusion crossed his face and he turned to Benayle as though for approval. “My apologies, Mr. Benayle. I thought there must have been some mistake.”
“No mistake, Prince Rameum,” Benayle said smoothly, “May I introduce you to Lady Sajani Adida, our former Minister of War. Lady Sajani, this is Prince Rameum of the dwarven principality of Rahar. I believe, your Grace, you’ve met Simon Francis before?” Simon regained his composure quickly and managed a well-intentioned and deep bow.
“Then this is indeed the Lady General… but former?” The prince nearly shouted. “I don’t need to tell you, Mr. Benayle that this is hardly the time for drastic changes. And in such company as this man, why he…”
“My people are all about change, your Excellency.” Benayle interrupted smoothly, placing an arm on the dwarf’s shoulder. “We have our traditions that we love and hold fast to, like bones to flesh, but change is the blood of our being.”
Sajani nearly snorted. Benayle had just quoted a line from a play that was very popular right now: one that she knew he could not have been to see, at least not with the proper protection he would have needed from her organization. She shot him a glance that he totally ignored.
“I was under the impression I’d be meeting with her this evening, concerning the matter with Zenache…”
“I’m sorry if I gave that impression, your Excellency, but Lady Sajani will not be present at tonight’s state dinner.” With a completely straight face he added, “She doesn’t really care for cake” as if that explained the entire matter.
Based on the look the dwarf adopted from the statement, Sajani guessed that he assumed such a statement must be some sort of vykati colloquialism. “But that one…” he began, motioning again to Simon.
Benayle interrupted him yet again, and said in sotto voce, “I can’t tell you her current duties without committing a grievous sin against the security of my state.”
“Well,” the old prince sighed heavily, “that might explain why she’d be seen with a nearly convicted…”
“ut ut uh!” Benayle chided in an almost playful voice. “You must not compromise my state secrets!”
Now Sajani was curious, but there was no way to question the old wolf now. The prince turned to her and bowed deeply. “My Lady, I’m glad to have had the opportunity to have met with you.” His voice then dripped with venom, “Simon.” Both tentatively bowed to each other looking more like wrestling opponents waiting for a bout to start. He then turned back to Benayle, who seemed to be beaming with enjoyment over the near altercation. “I will not detain Lady General Sajani from her important mission any longer.”
The two started up the steps talking animatedly about, of all things, an upcoming rugby match. Sajani shook her head slowly and glared over at Simon. “State secrets?”
“Very kind of him to fib like that on my behalf. It was becoming a rather awkward exchange.”
“You’ll need a better answer than that you old gong farmer.” Sajani said tersely. “But not here. Later.”
“It was just a paperwork error,” Simon repeated yet again. They were now clear of the city, riding a pair of magic horses that Simon had summoned. They appeared to be made of solid shadows. While just about any practitioner of the arcane could summon such a steed, they were often associated with con artists and mountebanks. Simon never cared, but he was what some thought of as an almost respected con artist. He was more a showman than a cheat. “You know how persnickety those dwarves can be with their paperwork.”
“Actually…” she said in a slightly quieter voice. “I don’t. I always assumed that what I heard was more allegorical than real. Kind of like any ability you might happen to display.”
He took her comment in stride, as he always did her playful taunts of his usual pastimes. “In this case… no.” He said with a laugh. He then started speaking to her like he was a professor of political science, something he’d probably pretended to be at one point or another. “If anything, the dwarven preoccupation with their Great Engine, is far closer to theological than it is allegorical. They don’t worship the machine, per se, but they do revere it and put a good amount of their personal safety and trust into it. It’s not something that many of the Eastern Continent can even pretend to fully understand.”
“You’re doing it again, Simon.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to me like I’m a mark or something. Just answer the question.” He’d been talking like this, on and off, for the last hour at least and it was getting tiresome.
“Ha… a mark?” He sounded like she’d accused him of a grievous sin. “I don’t ` know what that would be like. I never ‘mark’ anyone. You say that like I’m one of the worst of scallywags.”
She stayed silent and allowed irony to fill the emptiness.
“A small paperwork error. That’s all it was. Apparently, a single hole had shown up, probably through just normal wear, in a place on my punch card where it shouldn’t have been, and the Engine opened up a restricted door for me. I was found in a part of their city they felt I shouldn’t be. While they sorted it out, I had to spend a little time in their jails.”
She stayed silent, hoping that he would continue on his own.
“Nice jail really. I’ve definitely stayed in worse… Worse places that is. It’s the only jail, I’ve ever stayed in, of course.”
Well, that last part is a lie, she thought to herself, but it was all she needed to hear. From what little he’d said, and what she’d seen written on Benayle’s face, it was obvious that at some point the old actor had been on the Western Continent doing something for Benayle—some
thing that required him to enter a restricted area and do… what? The dwarves didn’t really have anything the vykati wanted, at least not as far as their former Minister of War was aware. It was impossible to predict what Benayle could have wanted. The old dog was meticulous in his planning and very protective of his people, but he was hardly the sort to care about espionage against a friendly nation. If he wanted, he asked. He wouldn’t have resorted to spying. He’d have left that to his Minister of State and stayed out of it.
And she could be sure that was all Simon would divulge. The only reason that she’d gotten any information from him at all was because he valued their friendship. Someone less close to him would have been completely stonewalled. He was very good at his craft: whatever you cared to call that craft. She couldn’t resist trying to rile him at least a little, now that she had all the information she was going to get.
“Prince Rameum didn’t seem convinced…”
Simon smiled, obviously aware that she was taking a new angle: one that made more use of their usual moral banter. “Ah,” Simon sighed. “The good prince was never convinced of my innocence. He was under the impression that the extra hole seemed rather deliberate and lodged an official complaint to the government of Rhidayar. They of course had never heard of me.” He noticed her raised eyebrow and quickly added. “He thought my ship was registered there at the time. You know I keep more than one registration on the Wisp, so don’t try your moral high ground on me. It’s what is making our trip possible.”
“Who were you working for?”
Simon placed a hand over his chest and put on one of his better hurt looks. “Working for? My dear, I was ‘working for’ no one. I was there on vacation at the time—just taking a little time off from my normally high stress profession.”
Sajani laughed. “From being a gong farmer?”
“An actor’s life can be extraordinarily stressful, my dear tin-headed soldier.”
“Because if you don’t keep shoveling, you’ll be in over your eyes in no time.”
“There she is!” The cry was from a uniformed male vykati further up the trail. Simon bolted, but Sajani held her ground. She reined in her steed. They were part of the Vharkylia Army.
“You idiot!” she shouted to Simon when she recognized the soldier ahead. Colonel Lahnk was near his retirement in the Wolf Pack, the unofficial name for the Vharkylia Army. He was covered in grey fur and wore his white hair pulled back in a totally non-regulation pony tail. The cuffs of his uniform were frayed. Once he'd made as high of a rank as he thought he’d make, he stopped trying and no one seemed to care.
The colonel smirked, “Should I send a soldier after him, Lady Gen…er.. I mean my Lady?” Simon continued to flee.
“No Colonel,” Sajani replied with a smile. “My gallant bodyguard will no doubt return to protect me if the need arises. I’m sure he’s just getting distance for a good charge.”
The colonel and the three soldiers accompanying him, in that time-honored tradition of the military, managed to only laugh on the inside. “We were worried sick about you, My Lady. Your letter said you’d be here after your resignation became official and would need fresh mounts. You said…” The look of surprise on Sajani’s face was not lost on the colonel. “Sergeant Tess. Do you still have the letter?”
A very young and curvy gray vykati reached into her leather satchel and pulled out a letter with a large wax seal at its base. She looked like she wanted to say something, but held her tongue as she presented the letter to the colonel who handed it over to Sajani.
It was a short and direct letter, very typical of the military. “Colonel Lahnk,
I will be retiring from my post as Minister of War and expect Benayle to accept my resignation tomorrow. I plan on traveling to Zenache to better assess the threat.
There will be an airship waiting for me two hours past your area. I will require two fresh mounts waiting for me at your outpost.”
It was dated three days prior. Something that was supposed to be her seal was affixed after it, but the stamp tilted to the right and was missing the date at the bottom that signified her start of service as the Minister of War.
Colonel Lahnk shot a look at his sergeant and answered. “Yes. I noticed the seal was tilted the wrong way, but assumed that perhaps you were in a hurry.” The sergeant rolled her head slightly as if prompting him to say more. “And I suppose I should have noticed that if you were retiring, you’d not have made a request like that without mentioning that it was a favor and not an order.” At this point the sergeant’s eyes looked like they were about to bore a hole in the colonel’s head. “The messenger was wearing the colors of Benayle though, so it all seemed pretty official.
“When you didn’t show up yesterday, I got worried and when there was still no sign of you this morning, I..” a slight smile broke across the sergeant’s lips as he said this, “or rather, Sergeant Tess thought it would be prudent to come looking for you.”
Sajani didn’t answer, but slowly worked a claw under the wax seal. It wasn’t Benayle who did this, but she was supposed to think it was. The old wolf knew that she was leaving before she did, that much was sure, but he could have sent anyone with the message ahead and made it seem like it came from anyone.
“Ugh,” Simon’s voice came suddenly from behind her. “Any act of forgery should be well worth paying enough to get it done right. I didn’t realize my eight-year-old niece was doing government forgeries.”
And that summed up exactly how Sajani knew that Benayle wasn’t the one who did it.
Chapter Two:
Invasion
The engines of the elven behemoths hummed with electrical current. Each moved forward at exactly the same speed, staggered back and forth across the entire road so that no single unit stood at the same distance from the others, although they formed two even columns. A signal flashed from the lead vehicle and they began to pull off one at a time, taking turns going left to right until the two columns became a complete circle with more than 15 vehicles having their turrets facing out. The last four vehicles of the convoy, large support vehicles that looked like nothing more than large bricks running on tank-like tracks, moved to the center. Another flash from the lead behemoth and the hatches on each behemoth popped open and in unison four ground troops emerged from each, armed with large rifles and wearing what looked like armor made from heavy cloth and displaying random patterns in green, brown, and black. They rushed to the starboard side of each vehicle and took up a prone defensive position.
The main hatch on the lead behemoth opened and an elf, also in uniform, emerged. He did not carry a weapon, but gave off a distinctive air that loudly proclaimed that he did not need one. A group of officers leapt from one of the support vehicles and began walking quickly towards him. While it was obvious he saw them, it was equally obvious that he didn’t care for their presence.
“General Sestus,” the lead elven officer, a woman with a large communications system on her back began, “We’re not supposed to…” His look silenced her and, just to be sure, one of her other compatriots touched her on the shoulder and motioned for her to be silent.
General Sestus removed his driving gloves carefully and placed his goggles meticulously back up on his helmet before he spoke again.
“Major LeBene,” he said evenly, “In this man’s army, majors don’t tell generals what they should or shouldn’t do.”
She was proud enough to not look down when she spoke again. “My apologies, General, I assumed…”
“Ah,” General Sestus said calmly, “And there we see the problem. War is too swift and fluid to allow us the comfort of assumptions. While you’re busy coming up with those assumptions, the enemy is busy making them…obsolete.” He stared her in the eyes and she was forced to look away from his gaze in embarrassment. “Return to your duties, Major, and leave the war to the real soldiers.”
She left in a hurry without looking at any of the others.
“Were there any more que
stions regarding this stop?” the general said with a sardonic smile.
“No sir,” the officer who had motioned LeBene to be silent, said quickly. “We’re awaiting your orders.”
General Sestus turned from them and looked out over the horizon, removing his helmet and holding it to his side as he squinted into the distance. “And as I said, there is no time for assumptions. I thought the vykati were the most likely to have mobilized and moved reinforcements, but now I don’t believe so.” He turned quickly to face his officers. “We make camp here. Set up mess and see that the soldiers are fed a hot on the hour for four rotations. Officers on the first rotation, I think.”
“When will we bed down?” another of the officers asked. “Some of these troops haven’t slept in over a day and a…”
“And they probably won’t for a little while longer at least. I have three days, colonel: three glorious days before regulations and common sense say that I cannot work them any longer. They lived past the dying of a planet, another day without sleep will not harm them. I need more information before I can move any further. One set of scouts hasn’t reported yet. Normally, I wouldn’t even care, but I don’t dare move forward under an assumption.”
Fresh horses were definitely welcome. Phantom steeds of the type Simon used were, in many ways, far superior to their flesh and blood cousins, but a real horse could do a little of its own thinking if necessary and drew a lot less attention. They also didn’t disappear after a couple of hours. She held the reins loose on her mount, allowing it to get a last drink and snack of oats before she left. Sergeant Tess handed her a small sack.
“The horses’ daily ration of apples and carrots,” she explained. “I figured you’d want to save them until after their long ride.”
“Thank you,” Sajani replied. “And thanks for seeing through that forged document. It’s confusing and I’m pretty sure wasn’t meant maliciously, but it’s a comfort to know that someone was watching out for me.”
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 2