Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1)

by Chaaya Chandra

  She had, he knew. But he had to come here. Standing back in Vharkylia was not an option. “I only just brought it here myself, my lady. Are you sure you’ve read my treaty and not some other request for aid?”

  “You wrote it while you were still in Vharkylia…”

  He tried to say something in protest, but she continued unabated.

  “…and we know how to move information very quickly if the need is great.”

  Well, that settled it. Taleetha was more a spy than an ambassador. Somehow that didn’t bother him much. He wondered what else had been passed along with the treaty.

  “But what if I made changes?” he challenged.

  “I’d be surprised, based on what our mutual contact has told me, but have you?”

  “No,” he said simply, taking a moment to look down at his hands in embarrassment. “I worked it all out in my head before I wrote it down. General Crore helped a little, but you insisted on so much secrecy, his knowledge had to be kept very limited.”

  “I would apologize for that if I felt any remorse, but I don’t,” she answered bluntly. “Our old enemies would storm this place immediately if they knew we were present, and unlike what we have heard so far of them, we have not brought our war machines here. Most dwarves don’t even know we’re here and the few who do, will not allow any visitors. The fercar were neither welcome nor expected on this world.”

  “Your spy…representative did tell me that.” Benayle quickly caught himself, but he still noticed a slight smile form on the elf noble’s face. He wasn’t used to speaking so carefully. His own people didn’t care if he misspoke. There was even a section in the Drtithen newspaper that gave his best mistakes for the week and it was never short of material. “I was worried at first, but she assured me that some production had already started.”

  “The first of the warships you requested is almost ready. Your daughter will have…”

  Benayle smiled. That was a new way to refer to Sajani, although he could see how someone with only cursory knowledge of his people could make that mistake.

  Lady Valanna apparently noticed the look of chagrin that crossed his face. “The famed Copper Wolf is not your daughter?”

  Benayle bowed—an action that caused the top button of his shirt to come open and the shirt tail, already not properly designed to accommodate his real tail, to noticeably come free. “I’m honored you would think so, my lady,” he said with total sincerity, “but her father is yet alive in Vharkylia and many of the people of my nation have acted as a mother to her. She, herself, lost her mother at age ten.”

  “I see,” Lady Valanna said slowly, “but no matter. She will have the warship, complete with defenses, weapons and a good deal of ammunition on your return. I’ll be sending a gnome with you to assist in training.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” Benayle said with total sincerity. He didn’t dare bow again.

  “Now, while Lord Zerant finishes up his work here, I suggest we move to a setting that you will find more comfortable.” She motioned for them to follow her and she walked, upright and regally as only someone born to a high position can, through the doors, across the hall, and into…

  Heaven.

  Just as she had said earlier, the new setting was a dining room. It was smaller than the hall they’d just come from, but better lit. A large chandelier made of what had to be thousands of clear glass crystals and alight with spells called for immediate attention with its sparkling beauty. The table had three settings at it with the plates still empty.

  Food was on carts around the edges and servants stood ready to bring the dishes out to them. All of this was pleasant enough, but one cart in particular caught his attention. It contained a huge, three layered cake with chocolate frosting and just so he knew that it wasn’t like the dwarven ones he’d heard of earlier, it was sprinkled over with powdered sugar.

  He wasn’t sure who to thank, Simon or Taleetha, but someone had obviously let his host know at least one small detail about him. Breakfast with cake included was always welcome.

  Sajani was checking off the items on the manifest as Fenther called them out. It wasn’t much, but it was too risky to move a lot on the Zenache roads—some rifles and ammunition, a few grenades and some bandages that they happened to have to spare. Those few items checked off, Fenther replaced the false bottom on his handcart and stacked some of his many random possessions above it.

  She’d tried to convince him that he should take a soldier with him, but he refused by saying it would only raise suspicion if there were a vykati wandering around with him, especially one still wearing a wolf pack uniform. Sajani handed the singer a sheet of paper that was covered with letters and diagrams. “Here’s Gingers list.”

  Fenther looked at it with a puzzled expression and then began turning it around and tilting his head as he looked at it.

  “He says even a really low spark will be able to read it.”

  “I hope so,” the entertainer quipped back, “I don’t think a sane person will be able to read it.”

  Sajani laughed. “I think it’s actually in some kind of code.”

  “So are my nephew’s crayon drawings.” He crammed the paper into his satchel.

  The Copper Wolf handed him a set of papers that looked much more formal than the last thing he’d taken. “These are the battle plans for your resistance fighters. I helped Ginger with the coordinates, so they should be able to figure out where the depot is, if they haven’t already stumbled into it.”

  Fenther shoved the papers into the satchel and said, “Won’t be able to understand that either. Anything else?”

  “Just a couple more things.” She handed him a folded sheet of paper.

  He got a happy expression on his face. “Dirty pictures?”

  Sajani pretended to not hear that. “These are the basic sizes of clothes I need for some of my troops and…”

  “Pictures of you?” Fenther said hopefully.

  Sajani was grateful she was incapable of blushing. Instead she handed him a small package wrapped in leather and tied off with string. She set it in his hand and his arm dropped forward under the weight. “And this is four bars from our raid to pay for it all. It should be more than an enough. If you have any extra…”

  “I’ll use it to buy dirty pictures…” he said and then paused.

  Sajani was tempted to slap him.

  “…but not of you.” Fenther shoved the gold into his satchel and then turned quickly and ducked under the pull bar and picked up his handcart.

  If he hadn’t done that, he would have been slapped. “Use it to get us some real food. I’d like to give the soldiers one good meal if possible.” She expected him to make another comment on the same theme, but instead he leaned into the pull bar and started on his way.

  She watched him go and had turned to look for Tess when his voice boomed out so that the whole camp could hear him: “And don’t worry Lady Sajani. I will bring back the dirty pictures, just as you asked.”

  At least no one would believe him—she hoped.

  There was no need to wait around and find out. Sajani turned her attention to finding Tess, Chass, and ‘fang. The three had already gathered outside her tent, so it wasn’t a long search.

  Chass greeted her first, “Hail, Captain.” He stood and gave an over-exaggerated salute. The others stayed seated, but nodded politely to her.

  Tess had a rather silly looking smile on her face as she asked, “So…what’s this Fenther is bringing back for you?”

  Sajani rolled her eyes. “It’s Fenther. Ok? I shouldn’t have to explain.”

  The other three laughed. “It did make my day a little bit…” Chass started to say.

  “Weirder?” ‘fang attempted to finish for him.

  “Sure,” the large vykati said simply. “That works.”

  “On to more important matters…” Sajani said.

  “Like food?” ‘fang asked excitedly.

  “It wasn’t on the list, I couldn’t h
elp but notice,” Tess said with a small amount of sadness in her voice.

  Sajani didn’t think the elf rations were that bad, but even she had to admit, a change would be nice. “Sorry about that,” she said, “I meant to put it on the official list, but forgot. I did let him know to bring some back. As I was saying, though, on to more important things.

  “You have more information from Ginger?” ‘fang asked.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. The behemoths have all entered the compound proper, but the artillery is holding back. They all approached the compound, but then fanned out about 100 kilometers away.”

  “I’d have placed them right inside the perimeter,” ‘fang suggested.

  Sajani pulled a map out of a drawer just under the table where they were sitting. It was a new one that Fenther had brought back with him on his last trip. It was almost 2 feet square, contained Zenache and the surrounding areas and was, the singer had assured her, as close to scale as anything available. Once she laid it down, the others leaned over it.

  They already knew the basic location of the new elven supply depot, but this would give them some idea of the distance out the elves were placing their artillery. Chass was already measuring distance with his fingers. “The area they’re concentrating on is only about two square kilometers. If we just assume their new perimeter is 100 by 100, just to keep it mathematically simple…My lady, did Ginger have the final numbers on the artillery?”

  “He didn’t. He says there are too many to count accurately while they’re moving, but if we assume 650, we won’t be too far off. Once they all stop moving, he’ll know for sure.”

  “That puts one about every 500 meters,” her second mate concluded.

  “Yes. If he uses the behemoths for close range support, he could mean to use the outlying artillery as a sort of contingency force, although, that still doesn’t explain why so far out.”

  “What did Ginger say the speed of these things was?”

  “On the road, about 100 kilometers an hour, but off the road, they slow down to about half of that.”

  “About two hours, if they have to get to the furthest point, although, I doubt all of them would respond.”

  Sajani had already worked out the math, but was impressed Chass was doing all this in his head. “Yes. The behemoths, which are a bit slower, would take four hours to move that distance. It makes less and less sense, the more I plug in the numbers.”

  Chass was apparently still doing the math. “Unless,” he said slowly, “you assume a ten kilometer range on them.”

  Sajani was stunned, but knew exactly what it meant. That kind of range would mean that there were 20 cannons supporting any given spot near the perimeter. “How would they aim them?” She asked. “We can lay down shells very accurately up to a kilometer away, a little further with the help of some spells, but 10 kilometers? Their cannons are even smaller than ours.”

  ‘fang was nodding slowly as it seemed to settle into her mind as well. “With what we’ve seen that they can do, we probably want to plan for 20 kilometers.”

  The captain realized ‘fang was correct and let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re right. This changes things drastically.”

  “The behemoths had been our biggest worry, but with how highly they’re concentrated in the area, their cannons won’t be very effective,” Tess said. “The reports from Fenther’s last trip, had no normal infantry sighted. There’d be no room for them.”

  “They’re probably counting on the ones in the behemoths for that,” Chass said carefully, “but with that much artillery support, they shouldn’t need much else. No one’s getting anywhere near there.”

  “We are,” Sajani said firmly. “Ginger is almost done with the first batch of his behemoth killer rockets and what will take out a behemoth, will take out their artillery.”

  “We’d have to take out at least fifty of them, just to make a large enough hole to get a major force through,” Chass advised. “This first set of rockets is only ten. We wouldn’t be able to get close enough to use the hot charges we used before.”

  Sajani shook her head slowly. The more she thought about it, the more impossible it all became. It had been a bold move and stood to weaken her enemy’s confidence, but right now, it looked like Sestus had the advantage. “I just sent Fenther with the latest orders.”

  “We noticed,” Tess laughed.

  Sajani gave her slightly exasperated look.

  “He can’t have gone far,” ‘fang said hopefully as she rose from the table. “I’ll see if I can find him. What do I tell him?”

  “Tell him that we can’t move forward just yet. Hopefully the resistance will understand.”

  ‘fang ran off quickly.

  “In hind sight,” Sajani said remorsefully, “it was too much to hope for taking them out just as they got set up. I guess I was just hoping we’d be able to do much more with the help of the Zenache resistance. It seemed like an opportune time to take out a lot of their forces while they were gathered so close together.”

  “It is good, though,” Chass said politely, “that we figured this out when we did.”

  “I still want to wipe that supply depot off the planet,” Tess said bluntly.

  “I will, just not as soon I thought,” Sajani said with determination. “He needs those behemoths and artillery if he plans on moving forward. He can’t keep them all there for defense, once the job is done. I’m surprised they all moved up like that. It was very inefficient and in a lot of ways, totally unlike Sestus.”

  “It’ll mean that he has them out again to attack Rhidayar,” Chass supplied, “but I’m not really sure what we can do about that.”

  “Nothing,” Tess answered. “If we could stop them all at the depot, yes, but barring that, this war is just going to have to continue without us.”

  “It has anyway,” Chass said calmly. “You both know that. Ginger’s reports have told us that it has slowed their forward movement, but not stopped it. Vidava fell the same day they came to it.”

  “This would have slowed them.” Tess said with certainty.

  What followed could only be called a lament, not a debate. Sajani was still somewhat doubtful that the enemy’s artillery could fire that distance, but the range Chass proposed made the whole layout make sense and ‘fang’s suggestion gave it a healthy cushion.

  After a few moments, ‘fang returned to tell them that the action was now officially called off. It was more of a relief to Sajani than she wanted it to be.

  The breakfast itself was very good, Benayle thought. Most of it was items that allowed a vykati some discretion on the use of utensils. Proper table etiquette was something that Benayle had bothered to learn. He was sure the elf’s idea of what was proper and the way he learned things were different in many cases, but he felt like he was able to at least not appear as a total savage. If he didn’t know what a particular utensil was for, he either refrained from using it or watched his host very carefully.

  He was just enjoying the last bit of his piece of cake, when a rather tall dark elf dressed in a long black overcoat entered the room. His hair was a deep brown and his eyes sought out Benayle immediately and continued to focus on him in a way that would have been unnerving to most people. It took more than a glance to intimidate the old wolf—he made a point of not caring.

  Lady Valanna stayed seated but motioned to the newcomer graciously. “Mr. Benayle Ramisa and Mr. Simon Francis, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you, Lord Casius Fortelth Myzgath the third, High Commander of what little remains of our military force and, with your gracious permission, advisor to the nation of Vharkylia on matters of security and defense. Lord Casius, I’m pleased to introduce Mr. Benayle Ramisa, of the sovereign nation of Vharkylia and his…” she paused for only a moment “representative, Mr. Simon Francis of the principality of Vesve.”

  The Lord of Many Names bowed, his left knee noticeably unable to bend enough to make the bow very deep.

  Benayle could see a slight look o
f shock pass the lady’s face when he and Simon rose to return the bow. Did that mean that he was supposed to just sit there? Perhaps the top rank of a nation, which he might, by some loose definitions, claim to hold, was not supposed to bow to… Oh. He didn’t bow to Sajani or Crore either. It was a small error that seemed to amuse the high commander.

  “Please,” the man responded, “call me Fort.”

  Benayle couldn’t remember any time that his current military advisor used only four words to say something and was immediately impressed. He did manage to catch the tail end of the glare that Lady Valanna shot the commander. Apparently, she wasn’t happy about his informality. So, Benayle found himself mentally making social connections, Crore will get along better with Lady Valanna and Sajani and I will get along better with “Fort.”

  “Lord Casius,” the noble lady said with punctuated emphasis, “wished to share some information with you regarding our enemy. He felt that there were a few things you should know immediately.”

  “It’s not much and I have it prepared for you in your language,” he took a piece of folded paper from his pocket and held it out to Benayle, who took it from the commander, but didn’t open it, “but I thought it might be helpful to share what we know about the weapons that the uh, fercar, have brought with them.”

  Benayle nodded once quickly. He was pretty sure that Sajani would know most of it by now and he said so.

  Fort nodded and replied, “yes, it is unfortunately too little too late, but there were a few things that she might not have figured out, such as artillery range, and a few more that one of your own...” he seemed to struggle to find the right word. “You call them sparks?”

  Benayle and Simon both nodded.

  “Yes,” the commander said cryptically, “something like that would not have been tolerated on our world…”

  Lady Valanna interrupted him with a raised voice, “What the high commander means to say is that such an ability did not exist on our world.” Her eyes were looking directly at the lord and her expression was harsh.