I snorted. “I’m sure that’s nice, too.”
“It’s more than nice, it’s insidious. It gives us a permanent advantage over the other races. When you can just out-live your biggest problems, it gives you a much different perspective on such things than more ephemeral races enjoy. Your own race, for example,” she presented. “When the New Horizon arrived and complicated matters, there was much discussion about what should be done: should we welcome these new people? Should we treat them as invaders? And, most importantly, what would the Vundel think, especially after we messed things up so badly?
“So we did what we always do: we were friendly, we invited you in, we learned your ways, we learned your dangers and your weaknesses . . . and only after generations of your folk had passed did we take any real action. And when we did, we did it slowly and subtly. Your race lost its place in the skies and became a glorified menagerie. We let you lose the apex of your culture and your greatest assets. We encouraged division among you even as we preserved the elements of your culture and homeworld we liked. And when we had a problem with your leaders . . . we just waited for them to die and be replaced by new, more gullible leaders.”
“That is not a terribly flattering description of your people.”
“I’m one of the few among my people who recognize it, and only because I’ve studied other races so extensively,” she confided. “It came to mind because that’s essentially what the Vundel have done for us, and we’re just starting to realize it. When we first came here, certain agreements and assurances went into the negotiation for our rule of the lands. Some of those were not in favor of the Vundel. But they waited us out, for a change, and now the Alka Alon have lost the ability to challenge them on those terms just as surely as your people lost the skies.”
“We’re getting the skies back,” I reminded her.
“The giant falcons! Yes, I was intimately involved in that project,” she said, beaming. “I always thought it was a shame that you lost that power, after the Magocracy fell. It was terrifying, but I loved flying! More than sailing. It’s nice to see the Sky Lords return to at least a semblance of their old glory. It’s one of the reasons I undertook the project.”
“There were Sky Lords?” I asked, confused.
“That’s how the Alka Alon described your race to the other races, when your colonists arrived,” she explained. “They had hundreds of types of craft, from gliders to electrogravitics to fusion rockets,” she mused. “I think I saw the last one in the air about forty years before the Conquest began, down near Cormeer.”
“Do you think it’s something we could recover?” I asked, intrigued.
“The basics? Surely. Your Sky Riders already know the basics of lift, drag and velocity. Action and reaction. Gravity and wind resistance. But the mathematics involved, alone, would fill many parchments. Developing the technologies to produce the materials would take fifty years, at the earliest. Without the New Horizon factories to rely on, flight was just too complex for Perwyn to maintain for long on its own,” she said, sadly. “Then you lost Perwyn. And most of the rest of your technologies in your incessant wars.”
“I’m sure flying was fun – I know it is, I’ve done it – but it couldn’t have been that important,” I prompted.
“It was,” she said, shaking her head. “Your people could move vast amounts of material and manpower without relying on the Ways. And you could do it without regard for river, mountain or ocean in the way. At need, they could also deploy some devastating weaponry from the air. Castle walls are no defense against that. We knew that,” she emphasized.
“Once you lost flight, and the Horizon, you lost some of the greatest advantages your race had here. That and your great store of knowledge, and the artificial servants who tended it for you. When you first got here, it became apparent to our people that a direct conflict would be disastrous for both sides without even considering the reaction of the Vundel. Flight and your knowledge were the reasons the Alka Alon feared you.”
“So they subverted us,” I reasoned. So much for the “Fair Folk.”
“Yes. First your resources were taken away with the New Horizon’s scandal. Then, several generations later when you’d mostly forgotten about all that, you lost the essential colonial services on Perwyn when it sank. We offered our help and support relocating the survivors, but not most of the machines that were based there. We were hailed as your saviors for a few generations, before you started killing each other again. So we waited a few more generations, allowing you to fall largely into illiteracy, save for the elite. That cut you off from what little history you had left. Particularly the institutional knowledge to even know what my race has done to subvert yours. Now you’re more domesticated pets than anything,” she confided, sadly.
“That . . . makes me angry,” I admitted.
“Good. It should. That’s a perfectly natural and human response,” she encouraged.
“You aren’t defending your people?” I asked, incredulously.
“No. We were wrong to interfere with you, like that. Part of our motivation was fear, of course. You were friendly, but you did not fit into our neatly-constructed societies. You were warlike and powerful in strange ways. You were in a position to make demands, if you wanted to, and that frightened us.
“But part of their motivation was frustration,” she explained. “When the Vundel put us on probation after our own wars, we felt properly rebuked. We knew if we complained, we could be expelled from Callidore. Or destroyed. Even those of us who didn’t feel a maniacal need to dominate the entire world felt a bit rebuked by the probation. We hoped that, with further study and dedication to our tasks, we would re-earn the trust of the Sea Folk. That’s one reason I, among others, was tasked to study the Vundel to learn their history and ways.
“Then you lot fell out of the sky and messed things up for a lot of factions,” she sighed. “Most Alka Alon who felt that they should rededicate themselves to peaceful recovery felt spurned when the Vundel decided to grant you permission to colonize, to bring your new techniques to bear on the problem of restoring the Dry. We behaved as if a new child was brought into the family and favored while the older child was ignored. They found it humiliating.
“The smaller factions – people like the Enshadowed, just not usually so fanatical about it – found it a direct challenge to their unrealistic dream of someday defeating the Vundel – as if that was even possible,” she added, scornfully.
“What did we ever do to them?” I asked, confused.
“You were alien. Worse, you were nice. The anti-humani factions advocated treating you as invaders, at first, but then they were always a tiny minority. And they couldn’t very well argue with the magnificent gifts you offered us to sweeten the deal. Not that it mattered, by that point. Once the Met Sakinsa approved your colony, the Vundel didn’t much care what we had to say. Officially, they rank higher than we do in the Vundel’s eyes.”
“They do? And they approved us?” That was amusing, for some reason. I’d never even met one of their legendary race.
“They liked your trees even more than we did. You performed some service for them, when you first arrived, and they were kindly toward your race ever since. And your seafaring intrigued the Vundel. Our naive attempts to travel the seas on our own were . . . disappointing. There are no great oceans on our homeworld. We’re generally not even buoyant enough to swim,” she admitted, “although I could do it in this body. But both the Enshadowed factions and the more reasonable leaders understood that once the Met Sakinsa approved, our objections would be pointless.
“So we endured the ignominy and volunteered to help your people get their colony established, in exchange for some of the worst-damaged lands on Callidore. We waited just long enough for your people to perform their mightiest work, and once they were done and ready to settle in, we kicked their civilization out from under them. Without it, and the power of flight, you were really not much better than gurvani or Tal Alon.”
“Well, don’t expect us to return to our former glory on the backs of giant falcons,” I warned. “They’re becoming effective scouts and fighters in the air, but I can’t foresee them move men and material without magic. Hells, they can’t even bear a rider long without magic.”
“They don’t compare with a CalAir continental stratoliner, no,” she agreed. “But don’t you wizards say that magic will find a way?”
It turned out that Gareth was fascinated with the idea of air travel, too. His association with Nattia and her Sky Riders had seen him travel by falcon-back several times when it was expedient, and while he was no Sky Rider himself, he enjoyed the experience so much that he’d been researching what he could do to replicate it with magic. I don’t know where the man found the time, with all he had to do, but more than once that summer he discussed several thaumaturgical approaches to the problem and revealed he had begun simple experiments.
While I encouraged him, I wasn’t going to wait for him to discover the secret that birds and bugs seemed to know about flight. I had larger considerations. Specifically, disturbing news from the Penumbra that arrived while I was in town.
Raids like the one I’d repelled at Menthem had occurred sporadically all summer long. Most of the villages targeted were on the edge of the Penumbra, but several had struck more deeply into resettled lands on the east bank of the Wildwater. Those were particularly disturbing because they had seemed to avoid our (admittedly weak) defenses in the area. Their intent wasn’t in doubt, however: they were slaving raids designed to capture as many humans as possible, not kill them.
Our folk accounted for themselves as well as they could, but most raids were at least partially successful. Thankfully, only a few hundred were ultimately taken before winter. When the response by the Hundreds was too stiff, the gurvani changed tactics and began burning and slaying again, as a warning. As summer came to a close that began happening more and more.
But the most troubling issue was the seemingly endless line of wagons and troops that were streaming out of the Umbra to support the advanced citadels. The Nemovorti were gathering power to strike. The only question for us was when, where and how hard.
That question plagued Mavone, and he was the one best to answer it. We convened my war council in the freshly-completed tower room in Vanador where he had built his command center, complete with an accurate map of the region burned into the whitewashed walls of the chamber with magic. I was having a similar facility built at Spellgarden for my own use, something far more thaumaturgically advanced, but Mavone managed to get by with strips of parchment and simple magical displays.
“I’ve analyzed all of my reports and have come to some conclusions,” he revealed to us, when we were all assembled before the map. “I think we face a strike from Gaja Katar. By this autumn.”
That inspired a chorus of profanity only a room full of soldiers could produce.
“That soon?” Sandoval asked, glaring at Mavone. “Unacceptable! We won’t be ready!”
“We will,” Terleman said, pursing his lips. “Depending on what route they’re coming from. And how soon. And whether they will employ dragons.”
“Thankfully, I think I have answers for both those questions,” Mavone nodded. “They will likely take a northernly route near to Lotanz and Rognar, rather than brave our stronger forces south of there. If they can take the bridges and fords over the river, they can move most of their troops over the Wildwater far north of its rapids. Then they can go down the east bank with impunity.”
“Hardly impunity,” Terleman grunted. “They’ll have to pass three of our towers just to get here. Lotanz, Rognar and Traveler’s.”
“Their forces will be more than sufficient to survive such encounters,” Mavone insisted, dryly. “There are at least six full legions of goblin infantry already prepared at their stronghold. More arrive daily. And we know not what heavier forces they’ve prepared. Not yet.”
“Even with three good cracks at them as they pass by, they’ll still be here in force!” moaned Sandy.
“Oh, I intend to do more than wait behind tower walls for them,” Mavone promised. “My Ravens have some of the best rangers in the world among them. We will prepare the ground for battle well ahead of when our foes will pass. And they will suffer along the way.”
“We still don’t have a good place to meet them until they make Spellgate,” Terleman observed. “We can strike them at the fords below Traveler’s, but we cannot deny them the way. Not without a lot more men than I have.”
“Spellgate will be sufficient,” Mavone countered. “Consider how long their supply lines will be, by the time they are in a position to menace us. Their trains will have to go past three of our towers, as you pointed out. Assuming they don’t lay siege to any one of them and destroy it, we can make life difficult for them.”
“They have a pocketstone too,” I reminded him. “If they think about it hard enough, they’ll figure out how to supply their armies with it, as we have.”
“They haven’t,” Mavone informed us. “Or if they have, such spells are reserved for the elite Nemovorti, who don’t eat, and their Enshadowed officers, who don’t require the same diets as gurvani soldiers in the field. They are employing huge wains pulled by siege beasts. Thankfully, few enough. But they bring giant six-wheeled wagons laden as high as possible with gear and food from the Umbra.”
“That will be fun getting past that ford,” Terleman mused.
“And up some of those grades,” agreed Mavone. “But they can, and they most likely will. They can roll through Asgot with impunity. But once they get to Spellgate, that’s when they’ll be forced to fight. They won’t get up that hill and through the pass without one.”
That was true enough. Carmella’s folk had been working with more speed and effort on the defensive works at Spellgate than any other project. Their efforts made the construction at Spellgarden, a few miles down the road, seem puny in comparison. That gap was the only easy way to gain access to the plateau unless the Nemovorti led their armies way to the north, through Callierd, and come down the eastern side as they had in the original invasion, or attempt to force an entrance to the more southerly pass . . . guarded by Salik Tower, where Carmella had spent years experimenting with all manner of magical siege engines and constructs.
The gap where Spellgate was being built was their best chance to push through and into the plateau and besiege Vanador. And they weren’t aware that we were fortifying it. That made the planning for the coming battle a simple matter of having to defend a place they had to conquer.
We discussed various strategies and contingencies well into the night, occasionally conferring with other magi mind-to-mind when we had a question or needed intelligence. Mavone was fairly certain of his estimations of when the enemy would move, tough he did not yet know how many, and he placed that date near the end of autumn, after the harvest . . . specifically so that they could loot Vanador’s freshly-stored grains and our people at the same time. We proceeded on that basis.
Sandoval quietly spread word among his officers in the Vanador Guard of the coming attack, urging them to prepare without alarming anyone. Terleman began splitting his time between the Spellgate fortifications and recruiting warmagi for the coming battle; as Pentandra’s deputy as he was technically in charge of the magical corps. Gareth began preparing for a siege, encouraging his own people to train and to finish up what fortifications they’d been able to construct.
Alas, due to the demand for stone from the quarries, even with magic it was hard to get what was needed to protect the town. Instead Gareth spent lavishly on several crews of woodsmen and Malkas Alon timbermen to harvest a small forest north of town and turn it into a hastily-fashioned log palisade that stretched between the rocks and hills under the Anvil.
Meanwhile, crews of wizards and peasants added a ditchwork in front of the palisade. It was a crude but effective measure of protection, especially once it was augmented with the powerful sp
ells we were now capable of. As the harvest began, as much as could be carted into town was brought and stored in the Crevice storehouses or placed in a hoxter against need. Rael handled most of the supply for convenience’s sake. Thankfully, she kept excellent records.
Within a week of our meeting it was generally known that we were going to be attacked without me having to announce it officially. I had reasons for that. Once I raised the banners and called the militia to order, that would effectively end the harvest . . . and I wanted every grain of wheat those peasants’ grew to come in. They had fought too hard all summer long to abandon their fields before they had to.
I will admit – I was worried. My nascent realm was facing challenge my first year in power here, and it was all too reminiscent of my war against the Warbird of West Fleria in my first year as Magelord of Sevendor. Much had changed, since then. I was more powerful, better informed and more confident of my men and magic than I’d been back in those days.
But facing a foe – much less three foes in succession – seemed a little much. An ordinary wizard might blame such ill-fortune on the gods. Unfortunately, I knew too many gods and too much about the divine to be so egocentric. I suppose I could invoke a few and bitch them out about the situation, but I also knew that they were already doing everything that they could.
It was frustrating. Having a theological tantrum wasn’t going to help.
I was consoled by my friends and allies and the robust nature of the Vanadori in responding to the danger. The ring of hammer on anvil from dawn to long past dusk was reassuring, as was seeing more folk walking around with their bows and quivers for practice.
Big Wilderlands longbows were being made and strung. The Kasari fletchers were turning out scores of laminated shafts and fletchings to match the steel points the smiths were crafting. With magic and the Tera Alon aiding the process, our armory grew.
The songs in the taverns switched from bawdy summer ballads to more martial tunes. People urged each other to stay vigilant and prepare. A mixture of excitement, fear, and expectation began to permeate the conversations in the marketplace as everyone did their best to secure what they needed not just for the coming winter, but for the inevitable siege.
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