Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4)

by Olan Thorensen

  When Yozef and Maera arrived home an hour after sunset, word had preceded them, and a hot bath awaited them. Once clean and dressed in fresh clothes, they ate evening meal with Anarynd. Yozef was half asleep when he stumbled into a bedroom and fell asleep still dressed on top of the covers.

  He woke with morning light coming through the bedroom windows and felt stirrings next to him. He was undressed, but he didn’t remember taking off his clothes the previous night. He turned to look at Maera and found his face enmeshed in blonde hair.

  “What . . . ?” he started to ask before his mind realized the answer. Anarynd. I didn’t know which bedroom I crashed in last night, but I see there’s no doubt whose bed I’m in. Two wives. How strange that sounds and somehow wrong, but I’d better get used to it.

  The mattress moved, and a hand slid around to his stomach, and a warm body snuggled next to his. A soft, naked body.

  “I was wondering when you would wake up. I’ve been lying here the last hour. Another few minutes and I would have given up. You can hurry,” she said, tugging at him. “Maera will be waiting at morning meal.”

  Sixteen minutes later, the bed shifted as Yozef stood and reached for a robe. Anarynd waited a moment before following suit. There had been no foreplay, and she had focused only on her husband. She liked having him inside her and giving him pleasure. So different from her adolescent experiences or the months with Erdelin, when she tried to shut her mind off from the physical sensations. So different when she wanted Yozef above and inside her.

  CHAPTER 25: LAUNCH

  At first light, on the morning of the fourth day, the second sixday, the month of Makothon, 31,546 Caedelli men and 313 women left encampments at Lanwith in Moreland Province and Dornfeld in Keelan Province. The women were part of the medical, supply, and intelligence units. Diera Beynom was in charge of all MASH units in the Southern Force and would accompany the force everywhere it went. Maera Kolsko-Keelan would remain at the retreat encampment in the mesa and ravine country east of Wrexton, the Eywell town destroyed in the earlier raid.

  “I don’t like it that both of you are going into danger,” Anarynd wailed. Yozef and Maera had been back from Orosz City only six days, and both had spent most of their time in Caernford participating in the whirlwind of preparations.

  Maera embraced her friend and wife. Yozef had visibly winced and mumbled something about “tee-vee,” whatever that was, the first time he heard Maera use the term sister-wife. It had gained wider usage now that several more multiple marriages had taken place after “Yozef Kolsko” had shown it was acceptable. The two women were wrapped together when Maera frowned at Yozef and, with a jerk of her head, indicated he was expected to join in.

  He put his arms around them both. “Now, Anarynd, we’ll be fine. Maera will only go partway and won’t be near any fighting. I’ll be in the middle of thousands of armed men and probably won’t even hear gunfire, much less take part.”

  Anarynd glared at him. “As if I’m to believe you. Maera has told me about those other times when you were not supposed to be near the fighting and how you got involved anyway.”

  Well, hell. Now I’m going to have two of them nagging at me, thought Yozef, unkindly. It’s not as if I planned anything like that at Moreland City and at the raid Denes led. I only went a couple of miles ahead of the encampment to help set up a forward defensive position for Denes. And once the Narthani stopped chasing Denes, and I got sent back like a naughty schoolboy.

  “I’m sure Yozef won’t do anything like that this time, Ana,” said Maera, adding a glare of her own. “You can be sure I’ll remind him when I stay at the retreat camp.”

  “Be sure and tell Carnigan and Wyfor to watch out for him,” Anarynd told Maera.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” said Maera. Although that didn’t help the other times either, she thought, and I . . . we shouldn’t nag at him. He only does what’s necessary, and he’s braver than he thinks. I have to be honest and know that I wouldn’t want him to be any different.

  They left Anarynd holding Aeneas on the front veranda. Yozef noticed Gwyned say something to Carnigan, who replied and patted Morwena’s head before climbing up to drive the wagon of supplies Yozef and Maera would ride in to Dornfeld. Man o’ War was tied to the back of the wagon. Yozef had considered also taking Mr. Ed but had decided that he needed to get comfortable with other horses if Man o’ War needed a rest. He couldn’t always count on having ones he knew and trusted at hand.

  They passed Keelan Manor and made an obligatory stop. Breda, Ceinwyn, and Mared made efforts to bravely see off their daughter or sister, and her husband, and mainly succeeded. The stop lasted only five minutes, and they were off again, bypassing the center of Caernford to meet up with units and wagons from nearby parts of Keelan. A Mittack train had passed the previous day, as evidenced by manure piles from thousands of horses being ridden or pulling wagons.

  Although all the Mittack units had traveled together, given that they came from the opposite side of Keelan, the Keelan units took the shortest route from their origin. Thus, half of the Keelan contribution to the Southern Force was already at Dornfeld when the Caernford party arrived.

  The launch point encampment was on the Keelan side of what had been Dornfeld, a unique town on Caedellium for originally spanning both sides of the Gwillamer/Keelan border. A single bridge over a ravine connected the two sides. Through the ravine rushed a large stream to a waterfall into the sea not far away. The first time Yozef came to Dornfeld, Culich Keelan had requested Yozef accompany him to meet with the Gwillamer hetman after Eywell riders had been seen in greater numbers than usual near the Keelan/Eywell border twenty miles north. At the time, Culich was formally considering the idea of a stranger to Caedellium marrying his eldest daughter. He took along the suitor so he could interrogate him further and see if the man had anything useful to contribute when they met with Hetman Gwillamer. Yozef had impressed Culich with insightful comments, which had solidified his decision to grant permission for the marriage. Yet he acknowledged to himself that against the united front of Maera and his wife, Breda, he wasn’t likely to disapprove.

  On Yozef’s second time at Dornfeld, he saw the results of a suggestion he’d made on the first visit. Keelan had taken down every building on their side and reassembled them on the Gwillamer side of the ravine, then cleared the land to provide no cover if the Eywellese or the Narthani attempted to invade by the coastal route.

  On this, Yozef’s third time to Dornfeld, when the Keelan party topped a rise and Yozef saw Dornfeld for the third time, the difference astounded him. Now, tents, horses, and wagons of the Southern Force covered the cleared land north of the existing town of Dornfeld.

  Yozef and Maera slept that night in a room provided by Hetman Gwillamer in a private home.

  “I know I’ll enjoy the bed,” he told Maera, “but I’ll feel guilty when the other Keelan men sleep on the ground tonight.”

  “You’ve told me and others enough times that leaders need to be as rested and alert as possible. You may not be commanding a unit, but we all need you to be at your best to give advice and notice things others might not. As for me, I have no problem accepting the occasional prerogative of station. So hush and go meet with Denes and the others. I’ll be with the MIU members for about an hour to see if we’re organized. We might not be in the forefront, but we’ll evaluate all the reports that come to us and relay them to Father. I think he’s finally accepted that with his age and missing part of a leg, he’ll never lead in the field again, but he and the rest of the War Council need to be kept updated.

  “I’ll take Carnigan with me and have him fetch you when I settle us in our room. I’ll not have you staying up all night looking at maps you’ve already memorized or getting pulled into drinking too much so that you have a hangover tomorrow.”

  “A hangover?”

  “Oh, all right. You think you don’t get bad hangovers—something to do with why you heal so fast, but I’m still going to see you a
sleep early. I don’t know how much you’ll get in the next sixday or more. It’ll be different for me, because I’ll be at the retreat encampment.”

  An hour and a quarter later, Carnigan pulled Yozef away from a cluster of men huddled around a large map spread on a table.

  “Thanks, Carnigan,” said Yozef. “They’re going over the same information for the tenth time. We’re all nervous about this, so I don’t blame them, but I hadn’t thought of a good reason to get away. Your announcing Maera Kolsko-Keelan expected me shortly was accepted, at least by the Keelanders.”

  “I hope I acted nervous enough. I figured if they saw me worried that I’d get in trouble with Maera, it would be better than for you to seem intimidated by your wife.”

  The thought that anything would intimidate Carnigan didn’t compute for Yozef. “Well, you could have begged me to put in a good word for you with my wife—just to be sure she didn’t thrash you if we were late.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe instead I could just pick you up and carry you off over my shoulder.” Carnigan slapped Yozef on the back, almost causing him to stumble because he didn’t expect it. Yozef had learned to read the signs and avoid most of his big friend’s gestures of camaraderie, but this time he’d been absorbed in coming up with a witty repartee.

  Selfcell

  Roblyn Langor, hetman of the Selfcell clan, awoke well before dawn and walked out to a balcony to stare at the starry sky. He felt hopeful, exhilarated, and fearful. Yet he was tired. Even six solid hours of sleep weren’t enough. Not after the previous months. When he returned from the meeting with Stent and the strange man named Kolsko, he watched carefully for two sixdays to see whether any hint of the meeting had reached the Narthani—but nothing indicated that it had.

  Karvan Sewell had returned from the Stent border after meeting for several days with his contacts in Stent Province. The elderly former tutor and now adviser to Hetman Selfcell learned that Kolsko, whom people more commonly called Yozef, played a key part in clan resistance and had married into the Keelan Clan—though Kolsko’s origins remained murky.

  Langor had also worried that Sewell’s absence would have been noticed by the Narthani officers and officials who were constantly around. They needn’t have worried. While the excuse for Langor’s two-day absence had raised moderate suspicions that required some creativity to assuage, the elderly tutor Sewell was beneath their attention.

  Langor and Sewell spent several hours going over both the meeting with Stent and Kolsko and information gathered by Sewell. Whoever Kolsko was and wherever he came from, his words had burned into Langor’s thoughts.

  Langor had done as careful a dance as he dared the last few years. He knew the Narthani were not pleased with his clan’s commitment to their cause, but he had not given the hated invaders enough reason, as yet, to crush Selfcell as they had the Preddi. Langor admitted—initially only to himself—that he had been a fool to think his clan might be able to accommodate the Narthani enough that they would allow his clan to exist into the future. He had finally reached the conclusion that his clan would have no such future. While Selfcell might not suffer the dramatic repercussions that Preddi had, the end would be the same: the Selfcell Clan would disappear into dusty details in the history of the Narthon Empire. Just another of the many peoples absorbed.

  This realization left him in despair for a month. Yet quiet discussions with Sewell drew him out enough to be alert to possibilities. Then had come the meeting. It had not provided salvation but had at least opened a small window—left slightly ajar by Kolsko. While Stent gave Langor no encouragement, Kolsko did. He suggested that although Selfcell might have to pay a high price, the Narthani could become vulnerable at some time, and action by Selfcell might sway the tide against them. If Selfcell took a chance at that point, then there was hope. Kolsko’s words had a vague promise but also an equal threat, though it wasn’t direct. Eywell had been banished. A clan had not been banished in more than a century, but should the clans prevail, Eywell would never be accepted back as a clan. The fact that Selfcell had not been similarly banned gave Langor a sliver of hope.

  Yozef had also said Langor himself would need to decide when such a redeeming action presented itself. Seeking more advice, Sewell had availed himself of several one-on-one talks at the Selfcell/Stent border with a man whose true name he never learned but who said to call him Owill. The not uncommon first name in eastern Caedellium matched the man’s Adrisian accent. Sewell passed on to Langor some of Owill’s suggestions on developing information useful to the free clans.

  Langor had been so focused on his own clan, he had not paid much attention to the Narthani top commanders as individuals. That changed. Within a month of the meeting in Stent Province, Langor developed an extensive network of spies. Some were Selfcellese and others, strategically placed Narthani slaves working near the Narthani colonel Metan, who oversaw Selfcell, and several third-layer commanders in Preddi. Sewell gave Owill the information the spies had gathered.

  The new network of informants was how word of a new Narthani army came to Langor. A stable slave had overheard Metan say to a subordinate, “When they come, things will change.” A Selfcell merchant returning from Preddi City reported on fortifications around the city but, more interesting, had noted that south of the city, a large tract of land was being cleared, buildings constructed, tent material stacked high, and extensive stakes driven into the ground, as if demarcating future construction. The Narthani had brought thousands of horses to an area west of Preddi City. Langor and Sewell put the pieces together: the Narthani expected reinforcements. Large numbers of reinforcements.

  The Narthani withdrawal from Moreland after the indecisive battle had shocked Langor. He had seen what the Narthani did to the Preddi Clan, and the Narthani had made sure Langor witnessed demonstrations of massed muskets and cannon. Then rumors came that the other clans had raided into Eywell and even into the edge of Preddi Province, possessed cannon of their own, and had returned to their own territories unscathed. None of those events matched Langor’s original assessment that the Narthani were invulnerable.

  The final element fell into place when General Akuyun ordered Langor to prepare two plans to give to the Narthani overseer of Selfcell, Colonel Metan: one describing how all Selfcell fighting men, their horses, and supplies could be mustered in a single sixday; and the second, how many of the same men could be assembled into groups of what size within one day.

  Langor had quietly met individually with twelve of his most trusted leaders: two of his brothers, a cousin, an uncle, five of his ten boyermen, and three of his leaders of the Selfcell cavalry organized by the Narthani. These men already knew something of Langor’s thinking, though not his contact with the other clans. Late one night, in a dimly lit cellar reached by a narrow tunnel from Langor’s Narthani-observed manor, the Selfcell hetman and Sewell laid it all out to these twelve men.

  “Sers,” said Langor, his face somber in the candlelight, “I’ve spoken to each of you about what the Narthani have tried to keep from us. In addition to the battle near Moreland City, where we mainly watched and hardly fired a shot, I’ve learned that the other clans have successfully raided up to the Preddi border.” Langor went on to relate details about Preddi City’s fortifications, the building of what might be a large encampment, the gathering and training of thousands of horses for no obvious immediate purpose, and Colonel Metan’s sudden order for Selfcell mustering plans. “What none of you have known, until now, is that I’ve been in contact with the other clans.”

  Exclamations, heavy sighs, and grunts followed their hetman’s announcement.

  “I was told that the other clans have expelled Eywell but not Selfcell . . . yet. It was also stated, or hinted at, depending on how I interpreted it, that Selfcell might be accepted back by the other clans, but only if we earn their forgiveness.”

  “Earn?” blurted Eflyn Langor, Roblyn’s youngest brother. “What does that mean?”

  “It was unspecified, but
I believe it means the clans are planning an attack on the Narthani. I have had some other information to support this belief. Karvan Sewell has carried several messages back and forth from the Stent border. He’s given the clans information on Narthani commanders and what we’ve gathered about Narthani activity inside Preddi. While I’m sure they also wanted information on the Narthani troops inside Selfcell, so far we haven’t revealed that kind of information because we can’t be sure of the clans’ intentions against Selfcell, no matter what was conveyed at the meeting in Stent. While the clans haven’t passed anything of consequence to us, Karvan has made surreptitious observations and managed to pick up bits of information from overheard conversations.

  “When Karvan and I put everything together, we suspect more Narthani soldiers are coming to Caedellium and that the clans intend to attack before that happens.

  “You all also know my current thinking about the future of our clan. When we—and I assign myself primary responsibility for the decision—agreed to an alliance with the Narthani, it was out of desperation. We couldn’t have stood alone against the Narthani when the other clans refused to take action. I made the alliance in hopes of saving a future for Selfcell. I now believe that while that decision was understandable, my hope was futile. We’ve all lived with the Narthani long enough and heard many stories of what’s happened to other peoples they absorbed to know that by our great-grandchildren’s time, Selfcell will be lost even as a memory and our descendants will be or on the way to being Narthani.”

  “I told you this day would come,” said his cousin, who never missed an opportunity to state he had always been opposed to the deal they thought the clan had with the Narthani.

  “As you always remind us, cousin. And as I always reply, what choice do you think we had?”