“Good,” Mar approved, already turning Number One and accelerating into the face of a reddening sun.
The wide expanse of the Ice appeared ahead of them within moments, just beyond a line of worn hills. The Lower Gray swept back and forth, carving a slow path through the hills, and dropped into the river’s flood plain. Earthen levees and narrow canals defined the course of the stream through the lowlands and larger embankments restrained the Ice. The eponymous marshlands at the confluence were now rice fields that stretched for leagues.
Mar climbed to the pilot deck and grabbed the bowsprit to brace himself against the wind. Old Marsh was a small village of a score stone houses built on raised ground about a long wooden jetty. From the air, they appeared arrayed in a crescent. The dock extended into a broad bend of the river, with heavy pilings and bolsters along the upriver side to brace it. A short stone dyke adjacent to the jetty kept a shallow inlet free of silt, and in this pool, moored side by side, waited three barges. Two others had been hauled ashore on skids and were in the process of being disassembled. The workers wrecking the barges and several fishermen on the jetty fled as Mar circled the skyships above the inlet. A general uproar passed through the village as people poured from the houses to point and yell at the skyships floating above.
“I think the three floated barges will do,” Mar judged, “but the other two look too far gone.”
“Aye,” Ulor confirmed. “They’ve already gotten most of the hull off those.”
“The keel of the one on the right has already been cut,” Phehlahm pointed out.
“We’ll take just the three then. I’ll be back in just a second.”
“Be careful!” Telriy cautioned, her mouth a thin line.
“I will.”
Mar dove overboard. Spelling the brigandine had become second nature to him, and he hardly thought about the magic as he swooped down toward the jetty. When he caught sight of a large rowboat tied to a tarred bollard, he decided to take it as well. A smaller sky craft was sure to come in handy.
The rowboat rose from the water, dripping and stretching its tie as he spelled it. The wood wasn’t oak, but responded well. The pitch caulking and brass fittings had interesting properties when delved, but he dismissed further examination of them for the moment and landed on the jetty to untie the rope. Swooping up from the weathered planks, he lighted on the forward seat of the rowboat and immediately guided it toward Number One. As the rowboat climbed, he looked upriver and the flotsam and silt restrained behind the dyke came into view. Along the edge of this long greening bar was a short stretch of recently laid reddish sand, sculpted into terraces by the receding river.
Telriy, Ulor, and Phehlahm stood watching from the rail when he brought the rowboat alongside.
“We’ll need to cut the hawsers on the barges before I can raise them,” he told the two marines. “And I’m going to need some sand from the bar other side of the dyke.”
“Sand?” Telriy questioned as the two men swung over to the rowboat.
“For weapons,” Mar told her, then stopped to consider the girl for a moment. “And for Conjunction.”
Telriy raised her eyebrows curiously as the rowboat dropped slowly away.
Mar left Phehlahm with some appropriated buckets on the sandbar and returned to the jetty with Ulor. It took the two of them just moments to cut free the hawsers and raise the barges. All three had evidently been moored for some time and had taken on a considerable ballast of water. They flew sluggishly and trailed drips and steams of water from the leaky seams. By the time he had he boats secured in line behind Number Two, some of the villagers had grown bold enough to congregate into a small gawking crowd at the end of the jetty.
Mar let the rowboat hover nearer the shore and waved encouragingly at the murmuring group but received no response.
“We should leave a receipt, my lord,” Ulor suggested hesitantly.
Mar blinked uncomprehendingly. “Receipt?”
“Aye, for the barges. The owners will expect to be reimbursed.”
The necessity of accounting for the barges had not occurred to Mar. He had taken it for granted that they would simply lift the barges and be on their way. It was clear, now that he had become a magician, that the habits he possessed from his life as a thief would require reassessment.
“Well,” he asked the fugleman, “do you have any paper and ink?”
“Ah, no, sir. Just the chart.”
“We can just tell the villagers that we are taking the barges for the Prince – would that do?”
Ulor grinned. “Aye. The price will have to be sorted later.”
Mar banked right and headed for the crowd. Instantly, the women and children, as well as many of the men, scattered back toward the houses. Seven or eight men, all of them armed, stood their ground.
“Best not put all the way down, sir,” Ulor advised.
“Right.” After making sure that none of the group had bows or crossbows, Mar brought the rowboat within shouting distance, but stayed out above the shallows of the inlet. The village men tensed as the boat closed, laying hands to weapons, but made no other hostile move.
“I am High-Captain Mar of the Mhajhkaeirii’n Skyship Fleet,” Mar called in a clear voice, choosing his words to sound as officious as possible. “We are commandeering these barges in the name of the Prince.”
Various expressions of surprise and cursing drifted from the men. One of them, with some encouragement from the others, stepped forward. He was a tall man with a sparse red beard and wore a serviceable long sword hung from a plain leather baldric.
He bobbed his head respectfully, apprehensive but resolute, and shouted up, “I’m Elsdaen nh’ Elvraen, my lord, factor for the Whedstahn’s Mill. The barges would be their property, sir.”
“A fair payment will be made once the present emergency is passed.”
“Emergency, sir? We saw smoke to the south yesterday. Is there fighting near Mhajhkaei?”
At first, Mar thought to lie but the man’s earnest look prevented him. When no reassuring words came to him, he announced plainly, “The city is taken, Elsdaen. You should prepare your village.”
Elsdaen’s eyes snapped wide in shock and the other men shouted in alarm. “You can’t mean that Mhajhkaei is fallen, sir?” the factor demanded. “This cannot be!”
“It is true!” Ulor spoke up. “The Citadel is taken and the Phaelle’n occupy the city. Secure yourselves and be on watch!”
As Elsdaen and his men broke and began running back to the village, Mar whipped the boat around and raced across the inlet. After retrieving Phehlahm and the sand, he landed the rowboat on Number One just behind the pilot deck. He erased the driving spell but left the lifting spell in place to prevent the rowboat from tilting over on its side.
“Tie it off so it won’t shift in flight,” he ordered Phehlahm. “Ulor, you can help me unload the sand.”
As Phehlahm stretched the line from the bow of the boat to the starboard rail, the other marine hefted two of the buckets. “Where do you want it, sir?”
“Take one bucket below. Put the rest out here.” He set his own two buckets near the end of the pilot deck next to Ulor’s pack and the navigation instruments.
Telriy studied the squat buckets of coarse, slightly damp earthbone, obviously trying to discern their magical use.
“Is this something new that you’re going to show me?” the girl asked, watching as Mar took the handles of two more buckets.
“Not exactly. Give me a moment to get us headed back toward Mhajhkaei and then I’ll explain.”
Once the train of skyships was firmly fixed on a direct course back to the fallen city, Mar, gesturing for the girl to accompany him and for the marines to remain above, climbed down the ladder to the deck below.
“What is this about?” Telriy asked suspiciously, studying the bucket as if expecting it to undergo some incredible magical transformation.
“A test of magic,” Mar told her. “I want you to bind th
e sand into a solid shape.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“I cannot say. You must discover that on your own.”
“Do you mean only with magic? I don’t think I can.”
“Try.”
“Can I touch the sand?”
“Yes.”
Telriy looked thoughtful for a moment and then planted her fists on her hips. “This is silly.”
Mar frowned, but did not reply.
Telriy rolled her eyes. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”
When Mar returned to the upper deck, he began, with the marines’ assistance, to enchant sun infused spheres from the remaining sand. Phehlahm and Ulor watched the process intently, stowing the spheres with exaggerated care in the emptied buckets after he explained their use. When he had converted all of the sand into spheres, the three of them climbed to the pilot deck and fought the wind in order to look forward toward Mhajhkaei. The outer walls had just become visible in the distance when Ulor took Mar’s arm to catch his attention.
“My lord?” the fugleman wondered, shouting to be heard. “Can you raise any wooden wagon, no matter how large?”
“Yes, I think so,” Mar shouted back.
“Look there, at the edge of that pasture.”
“What are those?”
“Hay wains, sir. They’d hold almost a quarter troop of marines as likely as not.”
“Have we got any more rope?”
Ulor nodded. “Enough, I’d imagine.”
The sun had finally reached the horizon and dusk had scattered deep shadows over the Citadel when the skyship train, with the five recently added hay wagons, finally returned.
Mar, concerned with the lost time and intent on gaining the Old Keep and beginning the second phase of the evacuation, gave little thought to observing what the Phaelle’n might be doing. He rushed across the city toward the fortress. He had decided to spiral the train in a tight formation centered on the inner bailey and this objective compelled him to come in from a good bit to the west, rather than aiming for the keep directly. The length of the train had grown to greater than five hundred armlengths and turning it took a lot of sky.
”Watch the tail end,” he told Phehlahm. “This is going to be tricky.”
FORTY-SEVEN
Thirdday, Waxing, Second Springmoon, 1644 After the Founding of the Empire
As the big freight wagon rolled off the macadam onto the packed red soil of the detour, Trader Ghoelt, an unrepentant teller of tales, jerked his head to indicate the main road, which ran straight and disused into the forest.
“That, children, is the Cursed Battlefield of Ghraen and the Evil Lake of Terhselan, which finally swallowed the Imperial Highway some fifty years ago to this very month!” he announced.
One of his middle daughters, knitting socks while she nestled in a quilt, rolled her eyes. “Yes, father, we know! You tell us that every time we go north!”
Her legs dangling off the end, Telriy listened from her spot on the tailgate. She leaned comfortably on a fold of canvas tarp and enjoyed the morning. After lunch, she would have to take a turn driving the wagon, but now she need do nothing but ride. She welcomed the middle-aged waggoner’s stories. All were new to her, and they did help while away the time.
“Mhylan has not heard them yet, have you Mhylan?”
“No, sir,” Telriy replied.
The broad hat and warm coat that she had stolen could not hide the fact that she was a woman, but the stout glamour that she recast each day did. It convinced all that looked that her spare frame, unbearded face, and soft voice were actually the broad shoulders, thin whiskered cheeks, and baritone of the young workman from whom she had pilfered the clothes. She had begun her disguise at the first hamlet she encountered along the Imperial Coastal Highway, had quickly learned to be circumspect with her toilet and subdued in her mannerisms, and had had no further difficulty in her journey to Mhajhkaei. In the capital, an appearance as a nondescript man had provided anonymity in the crowded streets, and she had navigated the labyrinthine metropolis easily. Finding work with the gregarious Ghoelt and his welcoming family, however, had simply been a stroke of luck.
Ghoelt and his wife Selreyn, who drove the lead wagon with their oldest son and his wife, made their living and had raised their family on the long trading route from Mhajhkaei to Khalar. They had no permanent abode in either city, but would settle in an inn in Mhajhkaei for two months through the worst of the winter weather, outfit new wagons, and join a train bound for Khalar as soon as the weather cleared. Once the long journey to Khalar ended, they would spend a few fortnights in the Imperial City, and then ride a barge down the Ice to The Greatest City in All the World to begin the cycle again.
“The Battlefield of Grain?” she questioned, as the rutted detour jounced the wagon.
“No, Ghraen,” Ghoelt corrected, his eyes and attention firmly fixed on the reins and the six draft horses that pulled the wagon. Stacked high with cases of Bholsdskarii’n wine, the wagon moved ponderously but steadily, following the ten wagons ahead of it.
“When the Northern Highway was new, long ago in the early days of the old Empire, the battlefield was a farmer’s wheat field. Now, it is an impassable swamp of doom!”
Telriy laughed. Ghoelt’s daughter and her two brothers chuckled obediently, though the youngest made hidden faces at Telriy.
“What makes the land cursed?” she asked, temped to stick out her tongue at the boy, but knowing that a young man would not do such a thing.
“Oh, it is a sad and terrible tale! The Lost Legion of Terhselan fought and died heroically there to a man. It was during the invasion of the Great Khelmuldurii Horde of Archchieftan Khalmoshec. The Horde had caught the Emperor Lloresfon and his army by surprise one evening just before dusk. Khalmoshec’s Khelmuldurii tribesmen were demons when fighting at night, and the Emperor had no choice but to order a withdrawal. It was clear to all, one legion must delay the Horde so that the Emperor and the army could regroup. Terhselan, one of the most senior commanders, put the question to his legion and they one and all volunteered for the terrible duty! As their comrades broke free of the fight, Terhselan and his legionnaires, outnumbered twenty to one, strove against the Khelmuldurii. A terrific slaughter ensued! Though they struck down five for each of their own, Terhselan’s men fell one by one to the bows and spears of the screaming wild men. But not a one showed cowardice, true to the end to their honor and their oaths! As the battle raged, the legionnaires became completely surrounded. The foul beast, Khalmoshec, exhorting the Horde on his giant ebony warhorse Ahl’steraei, ordered that none should be given quarter. The Imperial square continued to shrink through the night and into the morning, as legionnaire after legionnaire met his doom, till finally only Terhselan and ten imperials remained alive. Khalmoshec, his cold heart moved at last by the great heroism that he had witnessed from the legionnaires, called for a truce and personally offered to set Terhselan and his survivors free. Terhselan refused, declaring that he had been told to hold the field until relieved. This answer so enraged the fearsome chief that he ordered a final murderous charge! The mounted tribesmen rolled over the legionnaires in an avalanche of hooves and the brave imperials were seen no more.”
Knowing how such stories went, Telriy prompted, “And with his last breath Terhselan called down a curse from the Gods on his enemies?”
“No, no one knows. The tale I tell is from one of the few survivors of the Horde who galloped to safety just as the curse fell. He was captured and his account recorded by Imperial scribes.”
“Survivors?” Now the story was getting good.
“Yes, the Great Horde and Khalmoshec were annihilated in a tremendous inferno that flared the moment a spear pierced the heart of Terhselan. When the imperial army returned, they found only a huge, perfectly circular lake where the battlefield had been. Thereafter, the tribesmen would never again ride against the Empire.”
Ghoelt’s jocular tone became hushed. “It was if,
in the final moment of their hopeless glory, the sacrifice of the legion brought forth some immense, unearthly power that wreaked their terrible vengeance on the Khelmuldurii.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Senior Specialist Brother Whorlyr took stock of his cloister, checking their positions. Most had hidden themselves well, but Recruit Brother Ehlereone, as usual, had chosen a concealment that was less than satisfactory. Whorlyr signaled Veteran Brother Bh’sh, who crouched further down the wall with the reserve fire team. The Veteran Brother rose to his feet, keeping his body bent at the waist to remain below the top of the low wall, and ran quietly to Whorlyr’s side. As did the entire cloister, Bh’sh wore the traditional headband and stretched canvas robes of the K’hilb Clan hunter, but instead of the mottled greens of the upland forests, these had been dyed to match the whitewash and stone of Mhajhkaei.
“Recruit Brother Ehlereone requires instruction,” Whorlyr snapped.
Bh’sh grinned, his ancient olive face wrinkling. “I’ll go sit on ‘im, my chieftain.”
Bh’sh was an old style K’hilb with the rapidly disappearing thick foresters’ accent and insisted upon using the traditional forms. Whorlyr himself was full K’hilb as well, though educated in the Brotherhood school, but he made no objections to Bh’sh’s anachronisms. The Veteran Brother was the best scout in the cloister and understood better than anyone how to shape raw recruits into disciplined fighting men. He had trained Whorlyr himself.
As Bh’sh moved off to upbraid the negligent Ehlereone, Whorlyr checked the extra loads in his vest. All showed the orange of fully recharged. He then rechecked his bolt thrower, operating the mechanism to eject the jade load cube and then reinserting it.
Though he owed his rank to his lineage – for reasons not fully understood, only members of certain K’hilb families could operate the enervated bolt throwers that had been discovered in a strange wrecked conveyance deep within the forests of the K’hilbaeii’n plateau -- he fully intended to continue his advancement within the hierarchy of the Brotherhood. Such advancement would require continued success in his current command and he was convinced that that success relied on his own single-minded focus on details. Nothing must be left to chance.
Key to Magic 02 Magician Page 25