by M. C. Planck
“You want us to turn the ulvenman kingdom we just conquered over to you?” Gregor asked, his voice flat and hard.
“What remains of the ulvenman treasure lies at my feet. The rest of the swamp is of little value to you. You cannot run it like a fief. Nor will your affiliation let you keep it as a royal park, hunting ulvenmen like animals for your profit and amusement. All you can do is kill them, and then come back in a decade to kill them again.”
Torme had heard a different part of her words. “You would put your life on the line for these monsters? You would bind your fate to theirs?” She had said that failure to tame them might lead to her death.
“Yes,” she said obliquely, “though perhaps not in ways you understand.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lalania said. “The King will never accept this. March home and tell him you left the ulvenmen under the supervision of a slip of a girl? He would hang you before you finished the story.”
“Not a girl,” D’Kan said. “A Lady Elf.”
Lalania shook her head. “That only makes it worse. Even if you could convince the King that elves were real, it would only be read as collusion with the druids, whose loyalty is already suspect.”
The lady in question spoke up. “I have been told that kings are convinced by tael. You have conquered the ulvenmen; by tradition you may demand a tax. Will not your King be satisfied with this?”
It had worked so far; Christopher kept buying his way out of his faux pas. There was no reason to think he couldn’t buy this one off as well.
“And you have to free the slaves,” Christopher said. “No more slaves. Of any race.”
She nodded. “That accords with my own plan. Also their fecundity must be contained. On these foundations I will be able to build a stable social order.”
“Will you make them all Green?” Christopher asked her. “I met a Green ulvenman once.” He did not add, But then I had to kill him. Perhaps it was obvious.
The girl looked at him with slightly more respect. “That is my goal. I hope in time to breed a race of Greens.”
“That could take a while.” Christopher wasn’t sure the girl really understood the pace of evolution.
“Perhaps,” she conceded, “but I think it a good use of my time.”
“You speak as if we have already agreed to your scheme,” Gregor said.
But of course they had. The girl could surely read it in Christopher’s face or, for that matter, Gregor’s tone of voice. Here, once, was a chance to lay down the meat cleaver. Even if the scheme were doomed to failure, the fact that the girl was willing to risk her life meant that Christopher could not balk at risking his prestige.
“Do you really think you can do it?” he asked her.
Her answer was simple and direct. “I have to at least try.”
Christopher’s answer was equally direct. He nudged his horse forward and drew his katana. He could not bear the thought of more slaughter, and babysitting a race of dog-men while breeding them into a semblance of humanity was not what he had been brought here to do.
The girl raised her hands, the chain stretched between her wrists. Christopher had been planning something practical, like cutting the chain against the stump, not this absurd display of prowess.
Stifling a sigh, he cast the weapon blessing. After that he had the confidence to lash out with the sword, sundering the chain in a squeak of metal. The girl didn’t blink.
She stepped forward and bowed at the side of Christopher’s horse. Royal snuffled welcomingly to her. When she stood up the horse swung his head under her hand, eagerly accepting her friendly scratching. Christopher felt betrayed. First his scout and now his mount were smitten with the girl’s charms.
“Order me to call Rohkea forth,” she said.
“Okay. Call forth Rohkea.”
She turned and barked imperiously at the camp. Christopher didn’t have the speech spell up yet, so the scene was ludicrous. Briefly he wondered if he looked that silly when barking, and then he cast the spell. He wanted to hear this conversation with his own ears.
A huge ulvenman crept out, ducking its head in caution. A dozen more followed behind it. Christopher’s men shouted and cocked rifles, but Karl was already bawling at them to stand down.
When the monsters were within a dozen feet, they ducked lower.
“Tell the god-man we do not wish to die today,” the huge one said. With such mastery of diplomacy, this had to be Rohkea.
The elf spoke sternly. “The god-man questions whether you deserve to be chief of all clans.”
This resulted in angry barking. Not words, just barks. Eventually Rohkea calmed down enough to argue.
“I hunt better than any in this camp. It is known. Who else could lead?”
“Hunting and leading are not the same. Your hunting skills will not send this army away.”
Rohkea glared at the girl, a sinister red tongue thrashing about in a forest of fangs. “You said that your gifting would bring peace.”
“There is peace,” she said. “The god-man has not killed you yet. But for peace to continue the ulvenmen must listen to the forbiddings of the god-man in all things.”
“Do we live to be servants of these puny creatures?” Rohkea asked, pulling his lips back in disgust.
“Or servants in death.”
Rohkea looked like he was considering it. Royal flattened his ears, and Christopher was comforted that he had not put away his katana. That the ulvenman could project such menace even while unarmed and facing an entire army was impressive.
But the elven girl had picked her champion well. After a moment of low growling, Rohkea capitulated. “What does the god-man forbid?”
“He forbids the hunting of men, or in man territory. He forbids the keeping of slaves. He forbids more than one female for each male.”
With each commandment the ulvenmen had snarled louder, and on the third one they broke into angry howls. Christopher allowed himself a grin at the expense of the poor creatures. Even the human Kingdom did not enforce such a Spartan rule.
The girl put her fingers in her mouth and whistled, piercingly. Biting at the air in frustration, the ulvenmen quieted.
“The god-man also gives to me the power of forbiddance, to use as I see fit. I will stay, and the god-man and his army will go away. But if I am killed or unheard, the army will return and kill all.”
Rohkea huffed a few times. Then he asked, “What will you forbid?” Christopher was impressed again. Asking about the terms of service before swearing to them was more than he had managed.
“A few things, here and there. Nothing so hard as the things the god-man has demanded. Now you must choose. Do you hear the god-man in these things or not?”
“If I hear the god-man, then I will be chieftain of all the clans. You will forbid in his name, but I will forbid in mine.” Rohkea made it a statement, not a question.
“For as long as you are able,” the girl promised him.
The huge creature roused itself, standing upright. At eight feet tall it could look Christopher levelly in the face even though he was on horseback. Rohkea stalked forward, walking in the stilted gait that his dog-legs compelled. Christopher did not feel sorry for him; when the ulvenmen ran their clumsiness disappeared, replaced by supple speed.
He did feel sorry for his horse, who was trying to go into fight mode. Royal had never been this close to an ulvenman without running into or over it. Christopher started to have a real battle of control, one he was losing, until the elf looked at Royal and made a gentle shushing sound. The horse quieted instantly.
Rohkea, now within arm’s length, exhaled heavily, his breath washing over Christopher. For a moment the two locked eyes. Rohkea was looking for fear, even a shred, a simple flinch. Christopher steeled himself and stared back.
Kneel or I will have to become the butcher again.
The ulvenman knelt, placing his furry head under Christopher’s boot and pushing up. It was such a doglike action that Christophe
r almost reached out and petted him.
“Now go,” the girl said. “Bring forth all the slaves, without harm or wounding. Deliver them to this spot. I will go and speak with the god-man and learn his other forbiddings.”
“I will look foolish to be giving away so much treasure,” Rohkea complained.
“Then kill anyone who barks at you,” she said.
Rohkea answered by baring his teeth. He trotted off into the camp, followed by his pack. Only the pack threw backward glances at Christopher’s army. Rohkea was too proud and too aware of status to do so.
“You have signed yourself up for a lot of killing,” Christopher said to the girl. Ruling this realm would require an iron fist in a steel glove, and the death penalty would be handed out like Halloween candy. He wasn’t sure how she could remain White under such conditions.
“Only what is necessary.” She glanced behind him, where his men stood ready. “You should withdraw the bulk of your army. To do less would be to show fear. Also, if it is convenient to you, I would like to discuss some specifics of our arrangement.”
Apparently he wasn’t going to hammer out a treaty from horseback.
“I’ll wait for the prisoners,” Gregor volunteered. “Leave me the cavalry and the priestesses. If anything goes wrong we can quickly retreat.”
“If any ulvenman disrespects you,” the girl said to Gregor, “kill them. But please do not pursue further vengeance, or kill without provocation.”
Gregor blushed furiously and muttered something that might have been, “Of course not.”
Christopher looked back the way they had come. “I guess we should pull back to the fort. It’s a fair distance.” He turned to the elf, realizing he didn’t know how to address her. “Can you ride?”
She answered him with a look. A stupid question; she had mastered his warhorse with a single word.
“Take mine,” D’Kan said. He led his mount to the girl and offered the reins. She smiled at him, and while he melted she studied the strips of leather that bound the horse.
“I do not understand these restraints,” she said. “Can you remove them?”
Blushing, D’Kan extricated the bit and bridle from his horse.
“And this,” she added, pointing to the saddle.
D’Kan leapt to please, unbinding his horse and taking the heavy saddle onto his shoulder. The girl whispered to the horse and gently sprung onto its naked back. The creature shook its head in freedom and walked away, bearing the girl toward Christopher, and leaving D’Kan to stare dumbstruck after her.
Christopher felt a little empathy for Lalania. He’d worked hard to master the respect of his men and animals, yet only Cannan seemed undazzled by this slip of a woman. The elf had the same effect on men that Karl had on women: Christopher became invisible.
Sighing, he turned his army back to their fort, the men alternating between grumbling over the lack of a battle and mooning over the spoils.
20
PEACE CONFERENCE
He examined his new subject from the other side of his dining table. The subject was the Lady Elf Kalani, the name she had finally provided with a small smile as if it were a quiet joke, and the title a gift from D’Kan. The table was a plank set on two barrels; the chairs, short kegs or stumps destined for the fire. Roughshod, but the army felt the high-ranks needed a dignified place to eat. The men, including the officers, ate from their bowls while standing or sitting on the ground. The exception was Karl, who ate at the table despite having no rank. Although this could arguably be explained by Karl’s close personal relationship with his lord, Christopher chose to interpret it as the beginnings of his republican reformation.
Taking on a feudal vassal would be a step in the wrong direction, but there was no other way to describe the arrangement the girl was proposing. Christopher could not pretend it was an alliance when the tael only went one way. And how, exactly, could the master of a village engage in foreign treaties for the whole Kingdom? Lalania assured him he could not.
But he could still take the allegiance of a lesser lord, because that would make her a subject of the King, via his own vow of fealty.
“Except, of course, the King will not accept a nonhuman as a subject. Let alone a tribe of them. Nor will you be able to keep the peace, Christopher.” Lalania continued to expound on the many reasons this would not work. “Other lords will ride down here and hunt for sport. If ulvenmen are killed, you are shamed as too weak to defend your property. If lords are killed, you are shamed as having failed the King’s orders to pacify the region. Either outcome leads to the destruction of the ulvenmen, once the lords realize they are easy pickings.”
“It is true,” Gregor confirmed unhappily. The slaves had been turned over quickly, and had fled from their captors in such haste that the cavalry struggled to keep up and maintain order. Their column had returned to fort only moments after the infantry arrived. “The mystery of the jungle kept the free-booters at bay. When even high-ranks like Baron Fairweather could disappear without a trace, few cared to hunt in such an inhospitable land.” He paused to slap a mosquito, an act so automatic no one noticed it anymore. “But now that you have broken the back of the beast, the lower ranks will rush to feed on the scraps.”
“Normally this is considered a boon,” Karl said. “The lower gentry gain a rank or two, and the land is cleared of stray monsters. The next step is for you to raise a castle and import peasants to work the land. You gain a fief, free and clear; the realm expands, gaining a peer and a county.”
Everyone stared at the young soldier. Such political knowledge seemed out of place for one so unconcerned with promotion.
“Once, when young and foolish,” Karl confessed, “I may have looked into it.”
“Nobody’s going to want to build farms down here.” Christopher wasn’t even sure they could, the ulvenman slaves’ efforts notwithstanding. “And I’m already a peer.”
Disa did not say anything, but she laid her hand on top of Gregor’s.
“Gods no,” Gregor said in alarm. “Surely I’ve done nothing worthy of such a banishment. Also, there is still the matter of the ulvenmen.”
“You care for the beasts?” D’Kan asked, incredulous. No one had ever formally invited the Ranger to these meetings, but he seemed to assume he was entitled to attend. For all Christopher knew, he was.
“Care is perhaps too strong of a word,” Gregor answered. “Still, I find myself in a dilemma. I cannot justify their wholesale slaughter, at least not as long as there is a chance at another way.”
“I concur,” Torme said. “Not just because I am a loyal servant of the Lord Bishop. My affiliation compels me to speak against any course of action that does not give due regard to the Green we once saw.”
“A servant of who?” Christopher asked, alarmed.
“You, idiot,” Lalania said. “Did you forget your new rank gained you a new title?”
“Oh.” Christopher had forgotten.
“You’re all idiots,” she continued. “You sit here and discuss the moral rights of man-eating monsters, apparently oblivious to the realities. You cannot defend these creatures, and they cannot defend themselves.”
“Give us but a little time,” Kalani said, the first substantive words she had spoken since the conference began, other than “please” and “thank you” when offered water and food. She had turned down ale, but accepted dried meat, which had surprised Christopher. He had expected vegetarianism to accompany that hairstyle. “Within a few weeks Rohkea will have subdued the remaining clans. From that tael I will build a force of ranked warriors that should be proof against any but an army.”
“That’s even worse,” Lalania exclaimed. “When the King finds out you’ve ranked monsters, he’ll name you traitor in a breath.”
“So don’t tell him,” Christopher said, but he knew it was stupid as soon as it left his mouth.
“Then what’s the point? If people don’t know there are opposing ranks, then they’ll come hunting.
And die. Either way, you’ll be blamed for creating monsters.”
“But they’ll be monsters under our control,” Gregor objected, his voice trailing off as if he realized the weakness of his argument even while it was still being birthed.
Lalania just rolled her eyes, too exasperated to speak.
“Do not dismiss such a claim so quickly,” Torme said. “The King tolerated Black Bart, and surely he was little more than a monster under the leash of the Gold Apostle.”
“And the Lord Wizard of Carrhill,” Disa added. “Few even consider him human.”
“So what we need,” Christopher said, “is a force that the lords will recognize as dangerous, but that the King will recognize as fully under my control. One that doesn’t involve rabid dogs with ranks.”
“How can I tame the clans, or even defend myself, without rank?” Kalani asked. Her tone was simple curiosity, with neither outrage nor sarcasm. Christopher wished he could be so diplomatic. Or innocent. Whichever it was, really, would be an improvement.
“If all you need to do is kill things,” Christopher said, “I think I have an answer.”
He watched the group carefully, interested in seeing how quickly each of them figured it out. Karl and Cannan showed no reaction, one because he had probably already seen it coming and the other perhaps because he just didn’t care. Gregor and Torme were next, the knights turned priests grinning in amusement or irony, as their respective natures warranted. Disa and Lalania were almost last, the priestess making a small “O” of shock with her mouth and the minstrel making a large “O.” At least it kept her from speaking for a moment. D’Kan was the final domino to fall, releasing a veritable fountain of outrage.
“You cannot be serious!” the Ranger barked.
“You forget yourself, Ser,” Torme was saying to the Ranger, but Christopher interrupted him.
“It’s okay, Torme. It’s a shocking idea.”