Kings of Ash

by Richard Nell

  Some of the scouts soon fled towards the trees. Most ran alone or in small units of three or four to the call of ‘cowards!’ from their fellows. Others fell back, moving down the road on the other side of the river and re-grouping.

  A small force stayed at the end of the bridge, guarding the last ‘wall’ that would at least slow the Mesanites down.

  Osco’s front rank broke apart and threw their javelins. Many skewered the defender’s upper bodies before they rammed the deadwood, toppling most of it at once.

  The scouts began to scream and panic, and as these men broke or died the ‘battle’ seemed already over.

  Kale, though, sensed danger as he’d done in Nanzu before a dozen assassins tried to kill him. He reached out with his spirit and felt nothing, saw nothing to alarm him. But the ground, he realized, it smelled strange. And it was sticky, and dark.

  The air crackled, and the remnants of the deadwood scattered all around the Mesanites feet. Everything around them burst into flames.

  Kale panicked. Threads of heat sprouted all around, and he swept his spirit’s arm through all of it, seizing at everything he could touch as he hurled it away.

  A roar followed like wind through a tunnel, and Kale felt the men around him lean and stumble against the force of it, half-panicked themselves from the fire rising around them, but too disciplined to break formation. With a huge whoosh of air, everything burning took flight.

  Some of the scouts beyond the bridge managed to scream. Red and orange flame spotted with flying tar blew in a wide cone through the air. The men in its path seemed to vanish. The flames roared past them, over them and to the trees beyond. The dry, summer-heated woods, now spattered with tar, and densely packed with fuel-filled needles, lit at once.

  Kale watched, surprised as everyone else, as the forest began to burn. He had not even pulled at the mountains, nor the strong winds above, nor the river. His windows had barely moved. His energy remained wide and ready to seek out more light, more energy, more death. Smoke rose before him, and his Mesanites butchered in the flickering shadow, as the world around him burned.

  “Woe to the enemies of Mesan!”

  Osco took up the shout as the enemy fled, and the men answered. Soldiers with tar-stained boots—singed but unharmed—stepped over and around the dying, thrusting spears down or chopping with the sharpened bottoms of their shields to deal with the wounded.

  Kale walked on, stunned, and horrified, not just at what he’d done, but that his allies made sharpened shields just to kill wounded.

  Asna was patting his arm, the Condotian’s weapons still in their sheaths. Osco slapped his back, wiggling his eyebrows in encouragement.

  “Half-way there, islander,” he said, then jerked his head towards the flames. “Do what I can, he says.”

  Asna laughed and joined in the back-slapping, and the Mesanites raised their voices in a marching song, the battle all but forgotten.

  Kale looked and didn’t think they’d lost a single man. He watched the fire spreading and wondered how far it would go, how many people would die or lose their homes, how many animals, how many hundreds and thousands of years of trees.

  He wondered briefly if trees suffered too, and if that mattered. Yet didn’t God burn them on his own with the sun? Didn’t he make the threads and the fuel and Mesanites and everything?

  Kale missed Amit desperately in that moment, and Li-yen, Tane and Lani, Thetma and Fautave. He wanted only someone to speak with who didn’t think killing was easy, and glorious—someone who could hold him and say it was alright and not his fault. Except it was.

  He thought perhaps he could stop the fire, but destroying was far easier than protecting. Stopping it would sap the strength he’d desperately need to survive.

  Before him lay a long road filled with enemies, and more were gathering already, perhaps even an army near the borders of Nong Ming Tong. God knew what lay beyond.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, repeating ‘why I do it matters’ in his mind like a sacred prayer. But in his heart, he knew, he could still be wrong.

  Chapter 20

  By the Kubi river. 1562 AE. Six months after freedom.

  Ruka pointed and slashed his finger at the river’s East bank.

  “No, we make it angled, like this.”

  Blood rose to his face as it always did far too easily in this heat. He knew his voice was too loud, his tone too harsh.

  Chief Builder Hemi squinted, and the king’s builders snuck their hundredth ‘look’ since the morning started, unmoved from their parallel positions across the Kubi.

  “It must be diagonal to the flow to maximize the length of the crest,” Ruka explained, “do you see?”

  Chief Builder Hemi stared, unblinking. Ruka held back his sigh.

  For a moment he pictured his last meeting with the king and cursed him. They watched the sunrise and played Chahen once a moon, just as Farahi promised. They discussed their lives or the many things Ruka learned with his tutors, or the efforts with Chief Builder Hemi. And every time, no matter what he did, Ruka lost. Every strategy he chose, no matter how boldly or cautiously he advanced, Farahi always seemed to predict, and counter him, all the while giving ‘advice’. The man was infuriating.

  “You must occasionally take an indirect route to your aims, Ruka. Learn to influence Hemi—negotiate with him, compromise. You must preserve an islander’s…face, his honor, eh? While he does as you ask.”

  Ruka had clenched his hands and nearly thrown his piece over the balcony.

  “Why do you let the river flood?”

  The king blinked, and smiled, though Ruka hadn’t intended to be amusing.

  “We don’t let it. It happens. There isn’t much we can do.”

  “You don’t try, so how could you know.”

  They’d argued, and Ruka had explained his thoughts to control the flow, and shore up the river banks, all inspired by watching Pyu fountains, which made him even angrier. Farahi had eventually shrugged.

  “Even if you’re right, that’s a tremendous project.”

  Ruka said nothing because yes it was, and so what.

  “Convince Hemi first, and we can discuss it.”

  “Hemi is a coward and higher in station than intellect. Convince him how.”

  Farahi laughed at this, the act from him always brief and sharp, like unexpected pain. When Ruka said nothing the king shook his head.

  “You haven’t been listening. Use your patient voice. Give men what they want when it benefits you or costs you little. Start with that.”

  Ruka was not aware he had a patient voice.

  It had taken four days just to convince Hemi to look at the river together, and every night he grit his teeth and accomplished a hundred tasks in his Grove thinking the living lazy wretches unworthy of their ancestors.

  He could hardly believe the king’s words and suggestions. In the Ascom a chief did not need to ‘convince’ his retainers of anything. He demanded, and was obeyed. Words and schemes were for women because for them violence was forbidden. For men, the stakes were far greater, and in any case men had farms and villages and mines to manage, and no time for such nonsense. To Ruka it was all cowardly, Northern horse-shit, devised by weak, corrupt little…

  “And how do we build such a structure in a flowing river, exactly?”

  Ruka blinked and stared at the pot-bellied little Chief of the builders. He tried to take just one full, satisfying breath, and to tolerate the hot afternoon sun of Sri Kon without the desire to strangle the closest stinking, sweating islander he could grasp. Eventually he sighed, trying to do as Farahi suggested. He stooped to show Hemi what he meant with sticks in the sand using his best ‘patient voice’.

  The man wasn’t as incompetent as Ruka initially believed, of course, and had not earned his position entirely without merit. He was a middle-aged bureaucrat with three wives living in three houses filled with his children. He was an ‘Orang-Kaya’, a land-owner with voting rights, and had business p
artners and friends all over Pyu. He was a plump, arrogant creature, grander in position and demeanor than knowledge and intellect. But he was not incompetent.

  Hemi spit black tobacco-y goo on the ground as he peered over Ruka’s sticks, face blank and eyes half-closed. “It won’t hold,” he said flatly, “and even if it does, it’ll disrupt fishing and I still don’t see the point.”

  Bukayag finally woke at Ruka’s rage and whispered in their native tongue.

  “Enough. I’ll drown him in the river.”

  Ruka prevented his brother’s attempt to rise and do just that. He breathed and watched the birds till he felt calm, then turned back to his ‘master’.

  “You don’t need to see it, Hemi.”

  In his Grove, a team of the dead already cut the stone ‘steps’ that would form the base of the structure. They prepared the ground and fired the huge clay siding that would rise up above the river bank like a half-closed pipe.

  “Buy property along the river,” he said, as he met the man’s eyes. “Tell your men I’m a fool, if you wish. The king will pay you, and you them. Do as I say, and by next year the flooding will end. In a few years, when the property remains undamaged, prices along the river will soar. Claim the credit with anyone who matters. Say somehow you managed it despite my interference, and you will be the hero who tamed the Kubi.” Here he shrugged. “If we fail, sell back the property for what you paid, and blame everything on me.”

  He knew his tone and expression had been wrong—that he challenged the man’s pride and dared him to refuse unnecessarily. But they were alone, and he expected men like Hemi were a practical sort.

  “My only concerns are for the workers and the people who rely on this river.” The Chief Builder spit and shook his head, arms crossed. “But if the king wishes it, however ill advised, let no man say I refused.” He rose and waved a flabby arm.

  Ruka promised him that in his homeland such things already existed, and that the king desired one here. Both were of course lies.

  There was nothing like this back home. Rivers did not often flood in the Ascom. Ruka had watched water flowing through the islanders round pipes, or over v-shaped notches, steady and controlled into fountains and pools, even as pressure built from behind. For a time he had wondered why they didn’t do the same with rivers but assumed there was an answer, and it had just been one more question amongst many until the wet season brought a flood.

  Then, along with everyone else, Ruka had watched homes and docks and lives swept away, and Farahi only shrugged and said it happened often. For this disruption the Pyu blamed their gods, or in any case did nothing, and so their reasons made no difference.

  When it was over, Ruka took long, wooden sticks and walked the Kubi. He measured the depth, the width, then floated leaves and timed them. He traveled from one side of Sri Kon to the other to see how high it could rise safely upstream, the height, the depth at the sea, what would happen if the water moved, if the banks could be raised, how many people and buildings and animals would need to be moved. Then he made his plans.

  Now he stood from his sticks, towering over the islander beside him.

  “Bring your workers back, Hemi. The markers are adequate.”

  Hemi rolled his eyes. “Why did I bring workers if we aren’t using them? We could have driven in your bloody stakes ourselves.”

  Ruka felt the frustration easing now as he looked out at the opposite bank. He had the agreement he needed, he knew, and already saw it all constructed in his mind.

  “We will need them, and more.” He handed Hemi a note he’d prepared with all the stone, wood, and tools they’d require. “We’re going to need more men because the season fast approaches.” He turned to look at the man, knowing the effect his words would have. “The first thing we’re going to do, Master Builder, is divert this river.”

  Hemi’s jaw dropped, and Ruka knew he should have handled it all differently, more carefully, and in any case shouldn’t enjoy the shock. But he couldn’t help himself. Subtlety was for the weak.

  * * *

  “So, tell us about your day.”

  Ruka glanced at Kikay—especially the distaste oozing from her eyes.

  They’d invited him to dine with the royal family, and now he sat at a huge, rectangular table in another of the king’s many dining halls. The king sat next to his concubine, Hali, which was different than a wife in a way Ruka didn’t quite understand. His young sons sat with their nursemaids, save for the youngest, who giggled and smiled in his father’s arms.

  Kikay would have already spoken to Hemi, of course, or whoever her spies were. No doubt she’d warned Farahi of Ruka’s ‘madness’ before their meal.

  “It was productive, Princess.” Ruka skewered a piece of herb and salt covered chicken correctly, then spooned it to his mouth correctly. When no one spoke he chewed and swallowed. “The plan will work. But we will need to move the river. Temporarily.”

  Even Hali’s eyes widened. Kikay looked at her brother, but he was ignoring them both and making faces at his infant son.

  “And how…,” Kikay’s face had turned a pleasant shade of pink, “where exactly will you divert it?”

  Ruka shrugged. “Not far, and not all of it—only enough to build the weir.”

  The princess and perhaps great matron of Sri Kon shifted in her seat.

  “And you have done this before? Successfully?”

  “Of course. In my homeland. Many times.”

  She stared and stared, and he knew she did not believe him.

  Farahi lifted his youngest son and set its feet on the table, taking the spoon out of its mouth as it slurped. “I hadn’t realized your interest in irrigation, sister.”

  The pink gave way to a shade of red, and Kikay’s hands squeezed closed on knife and napkin. “You’re just going to allow this? Move the Kubi?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” He held the boy up and nudged it forward.

  “Because it’s disruptive and risky and dear spirits there’s more important things to do.”

  “More important than the health and safety of my people?”

  Kikay shook her head and looked away. “King Trung breaks your laws and you do nothing. Your many enemies gather around you and you do nothing.”

  “What would you have me do, sister? They want me dead, only dying will satisfy them.” Farahi’s voice never raised or changed despite his sister’s fury. He smiled at the boy and its mother. Kikay stood.

  “Send the navy, the army, and kill him! Tomorrow! What on earth are you waiting for?”

  The various servants spread about the hall clinked and scuffed to a stop, suddenly very interested in the tapestries, floor-tiles and windows.

  “Do you think Trung hasn’t considered that, sister?”

  “He’s overconfident. He believes in his own family’s myths and thinks his allies bolder than they are. But his navy is half the size of ours.”

  “Yes, he seems weak, and yet provokes us. Do you think King Trung a fool, sister?” Farahi tickled his son’s ear and it giggled.

  “No, not a fool. But he’s arrogant because of his friends and his name.”

  “Or perhaps you are.”

  Kikay’s eyelids splayed. She threw her knife across the room, pointing a painted finger straight at Ruka.

  “I’m tired of your god-cursed pet. I’m tired of his projects, his uglyness, his disruption. He’s unnatural. He knows too much, and too fast, and he has put some spell on you, Farahi. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  Special, Ruka thought, yes, always special. Cursed by Noss. Marked. A demon.

  “That’s enough, sister.”

  Finally the king’s voice held a mote of emotion. Kikay sneered.

  “Why all the new guards, brother? Don’t you think I’ve noticed? You’re afraid of him, that’s why, and rightly so.”

  Ruka considered this, trying to decide if he had seen more guards since he arrived. Perhaps, yes, but not while he and the king sat and played their games.
Surely that meant he felt safe? Still, the thought annoyed him.

  ‘Why do you care’, he almost heard Bukayag growl. But the truth was he did not want Farahi to be afraid of him.

  “I have more guards because my own lords are apparently trying to kill me again, sister.” The king rose with the boy in his arms. “As with all new and difficult things you fail even to try to understand.” Farahi looked at Ruka. “Tell my sister—how many languages have you learned?”

  Ruka felt entirely uncomfortable to be caught between them, but it seemed here as in the Ascom, a king ruled alone. If he had to choose his allegiance, the choice seemed clear enough.

  After he had learned Pyu common, Farahi had suggested he try other tongues. These had come just as easily, the words now gathered and organized in different rooms in the Grove’s rune-hall, labeled and corresponding into what he thought were related groups.

  Ruka put his knife and spoon to the table and sat at attention, trying to look at least like a tamed beast.

  “Seven, Farahi.”

  The king snorted. “Seven tongues in six months. And whose idea was it to heat our iron purely with charcoal, to change the forges, to add air to make what my smiths call the greatest metal in the world?”

  “It was mine, Farahi.”

  “And tell my sister, have your people really moved great rivers and built ‘weirs’ as you suggest, or is that your idea too?”

  Here he hesitated, but not for long. “They have not, king, but I assure you it will work.”

  Farahi strode across the room with his son in his hands, stopping beside Ruka’s chair. “Take him.” He looked at the guards. “Leave us.”

  Hali jerked towards the child, but stopped.

  Ruka thought back to the last time he had touched another human being without killing them, and knew it had been many years. He had never held a child, but stood and extended his hands as he’d seen others do.

  The boy, Kale, seemed pleasant enough. He didn’t cry or fuss as a stranger held him, even one as strange as Ruka. He was soft, small enough to crush with one hand, and to Ruka he looked like a girl.