The Spear of Stars

by Edward W. Robertson

  That afternoon, a full day since fleeing the artificial city, they came to the coast. They found the sloop, climbed aboard, and collapsed into their hammocks.

  The Tanarians wanted to get away from their homeland as fast as they could sail, but Dante woke and made them stop as they came to the Hell-Painted Hills. He got back in the canoe with Blays and two clearly uncomfortable sailors. Once they'd drawn near enough, Dante sent a pair of dragonflies into the black hills. Heat backed from the naked rock, making the red and orange streaks waver like actual fire.

  After crossing miles of wasteland, the dragonflies came to the oasis of green and the heights of the Silent Spires. Passing into the influence of the Odo Sein, the undead insects reverted to simply being dead, tumbling down into the grass below—and, with any luck, delivering the rolled-up message Dante had tied to them.

  This done, they left the swamps and struck out to sea. With twelve days having elapsed from the moment Dante had decided to make the voyage to Tanar Atain, the port of Bressel congealed from the seaside haze.

  Dante eyed the outskirts with interest, then with a deepening scowl. "Do you notice anything about the city?"

  "The Golden Hammer hasn't burned the place down in our absence?" Blays said. "If you're that upset about it, you could always cause an earthquake or something."

  "The Tanarians were supposed to be fortifying the outskirts against the attack. All I see is a couple of ramparts and a single string of pickets."

  "I see. Good thing we've kept our arms strong with all that paddling. I sense the need to dispense many whippings."

  They docked, taking the carriage that awaited them and making straight for the palace. Drakebane Yoto had been informed of their approach and had prepared the hall in the tower. Dante cleaned off the worst grime of their travels, then convened with the others in the hall.

  "We survived," he said. "Other than that, nearly all of our news is bad."

  Yoto grimaced. "Spare us no details."

  "As we'd suspected, the lich has taken all of Tanar Atain. He's amassed an army of tens of thousands of Blighted, with some number of lesser liches for support. He has also constructed a model of Bressel to practice assaulting a foreign city."

  "One would assume the point is to practice assaulting the specific foreign city of Bressel."

  "One would assume. Then, when I was testing how well I could infiltrate them with the Blighted, the lich sensed my presence. He used my link to the undead to access my mind. Doing so, he learned how we intend to defend ourselves, along with the potential numbers we can field against him."

  Gladdic chuckled. "You traveled to Tanar Atain to glean the Eiden Rane's plans, only to deliver ours to him instead."

  "Rub it in, why don't you?" Dante said. "As it turns out, that's the sort of thing that happens when you're working against the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Unfortunately for him, the link he opened between us ran both ways."

  Gladdic laughed again, this time with some actual mirth. "Tell me you fished the lich's plans from his head!"

  "He means to march soon. Before summer's end, if he can. He'll bring the Blighted through the ocean—and unless ill conditions force them from the water, they'll march straight up the mouth of the Chanset to flood into the city, bypassing our defenses and throwing the citizens into terror. If we attack aggressively, he'll swarm us with Blighted and batter us with sorcery. If we choose to retreat to fortifications, he'll target the citizenry, Blighting them and turning our own people against us."

  "That sounds…" Yoto tapped his fingers on the table. "Effective."

  "Unless we do something about the river. That would force them to attack through conventional tactics, i.e. across solid ground. That means we need a hell of a lot of walls. So my question to you is where the hell are our walls?"

  The emperor lifted an eyebrow, perhaps not used to being addressed so bluntly—as a swamp-bound Tanarian, he had no experience with discussions with foreign rulers who could speak to him as a peer.

  "I ordered my men to the outskirts to begin the fortifications the very day you left," Yoto said measuredly. "Maybe you can guess what happened next."

  Blays tapped his chin. "They didn't do their jobs, so you locked them in stockades and pelted them with fruit?"

  "The mob arrived. They harassed my men all day, minimizing the amount of work they could complete. And when the laborers retired for the evening, the mob ripped everything down."

  "This mob—did you try beating them?"

  "He can't," Dante said. "Not without turning the city against us."

  Yoto nodded. "I found myself in a bind. I could either put down the mob by force, and so tear the city apart. Or I could forsake the fortifications, and let the city be torn apart by the Eiden Rane."

  "I can raise ramparts. Those will be a lot harder to dismantle than the palisades."

  "Will they be enough to stop the army?"

  "That depends on how much I can get done in addition to closing off the river."

  The Drakebane stood, pacing over to the window. "What if your barriers work well enough to repel them, and the lich decides to siege us out instead?"

  Dante shrugged. "Then I'd say we're doing pretty well."

  "You don't understand. When we set forth from Tanar Atain, we could only bring so much food with us. We have already gone through most of our supplies. I've assigned many of my men to fish, and others to forage, but to weather a siege, I would need to enact a tax."

  "Which would then require you to weather a rebellion." Dante pinched the bridge of his nose. "I can grow food. Whole fields of it. I've done so before."

  "But this would further limit the work you can put toward the fortifications."

  "Meaning there won't be enough in the way of the Blighted, who will save us from starvation by killing us all within hours of their arrival."

  Silence overtook the table, as stifling as the still humidity of a summer thunderstorm.

  Blays took a silver coin from his pocket, flicked it into the air, and caught it. "With the city locked down like this, the mob isn't exactly up to business as normal. Has it occurred to any of you that they might be getting hungry, too? "

  "You want to give them food," Dante said.

  "That would be my first suggestion. If that fails, you can massacre them and raise them into a zombie army to stand against the one the White Lich is bringing."

  "That would stop the lich from being able to turn them into Blighted, too."

  Blays mouth fell open. "Don't tell me you're actually considering it."

  "Of course not," Dante said. "I could never control that many zombies at once."

  "Hungry men are angry men," Gladdic said. "But they are not so much more complicated than dogs. Fill their bellies with bread and see if they stay so unruly."

  Dante leaned back in his chair. "Am I mistaken, or do we have a real plan? Get me some wheat, and I'll start growing more at once. I can have the first batch ready for harvest in minutes. That means you can fire up the palace kitchens and start cranking out bread. We'll bring it with us to the fortifications tomorrow and see if it's enough to convince the citizens to let your men get to work."

  The Drakebane ordered soldiers to the palace granary to gather a few sacks of wheat. Within minutes, Dante sat in a cart, dressed in a brown robe of no particular significance, and rattled toward one of the northern gates. The streets held much less traffic than normal, but they looked grungier.

  They exited the gates, passing through the slums just outside them and then the small farms beyond that. The cart turned down a dirt trail and delivered Dante to an open field.

  He hopped down. Birds chirped from the trees at one end of the field. One of the porters brought down a sack of wheat, which Dante sliced open. With the help of the porters and some hand carts, they walked up and down the field, casting grain onto the weed-spotted soil.

  Once everything was thoroughly if sloppily sown, Dante moved near the center of the field, gave his arm a
nick, and brought the nether up from the soil and the spindly dead roots permeating it. He sloshed the shadows across the ground like water from a bucket.

  The seeds began to wriggle. A few extended pale tendrils into the dirt. It had been some time since Dante had used his harvesting skills in a large-scale manner, and being relatively recently acquired, he found that he was rustier than expected. He shrank his focus to a small patch of seeds, slowly feeding them nether. They put down roots, then sprouted, making a quiet rippling noise as they grew upward, protruding thin leaves and then spikes that flourished into a seedy head.

  The next section of the field was a little easier, and the one after that was easier yet. Within ten minutes, Dante had remembered his skills to the point where he could walk slowly among the ragged rows, uplifting new wheat as he went. It wasn't long before the entire plot, once bare, boasted a wavering spread of golden-yellow stalks.

  "Lyle's balls, that's a full field." The porter took off his cap and rubbed the bald spot on his crown. "Should have brought more men!"

  "It's ready to harvest as soon as they can get here," Dante said. "Just save me enough seeds to make the next crop."

  He returned to the palace and inquired after Gladdic, finding him in one of the king's studies, where he was engaged in battle with a legion of books.

  "There's something I forgot to mention earlier," Dante said. "When I entered the lich's mind, I saw something else. It was like an hourglass, but it was made of light. And it was enormous, stretching from the ground up into the clouds. It was twisted near the middle, too, like someone had grabbed it at each end and given it a quarter turn."

  Gladdic set down his book but didn't close it. "What about it?"

  "Do you know what it means?"

  "Are you truly this ignorant?"

  "Just wait until you see the list of all the other things I don't know."

  "Within our theology, it is known as the Mirror Bridge, and it is a symbol of the saying 'As above, so below.' The idea that the order of the world is influenced by—or, as some argue, determined by—the order of the heavens."

  "Why would the White Lich be dwelling on this?"

  "You are the one that saw his mind. Do you expect me to be able to read yours?"

  They spoke a while longer, yet nothing Gladdic told him shed any light on what Dante had seen. Dante left the study and, feeling piqued, summoned Sorrowen and Raxa to his quarters.

  They arrived together. Raxa looked appraising while Sorrowen appeared tucked-in and apprehensive.

  "I have a new task for you," Dante said. "I need you to return to Narashtovik and get the bone sword."

  Raxa's head swayed back. "What about our deal?"

  "I've just renegotiated it."

  "Are you sending us away because we screwed up with Adaine? Do you think we're a liability?"

  "You've been cooped up ever since your fight with him. Your cover's blown. I can't use you as my spies anymore." Dante gazed between them. "Or maybe that's just a story I'm telling you and this is a test of your loyalty to me. Or maybe I just want my sword back that you stole from me so I can use it to cut the stupid lich in half."

  Sorrowen nodded, eyes downcast. "But, well, what about when the lich comes? We could help you fight him."

  "This is how you can help most. Now do as I say. And try to get back here with it before we're all dead."

  Sorrowen reddened for no obvious reason, bowed, and left. Raxa looked like she might say something, then turned and followed him out.

  That night, Dante dreamed of baking bread. When he woke in the morning, he discovered the entire palace smelled like fresh loaves. He hurried through his morning routine to get to the serving hall where impatient lords could take their fare and found that Blays was already there, tearing up a steaming hunk of bread and smearing it with butter.

  Dante requested his breakfast from a servant and seated himself beside Blays. "Strange days when you're up earlier than I am."

  "Do you really think," Blays said, talking around a mouthful large enough to choke a goat, "that I'm going to just let them feed all this to the peasants?"

  It was only bread, but it was fresh, which hadn't been true of all the tack they'd eaten on the way to and back from the swamps. Blueberries were at their peak and Dante helped himself, along with multiple slices of bacon. Halfway through his meal, he stopped and gazed down at it. If they came under siege, it could be a long time before he ate like that again.

  The bakers had been working through the night and were soon finished. Women wrapped and loaded the bread into baskets and piled them into the wagons. Once this was done, a band of Tanarian soldiers and laborers marched forth from the palace gates, bringing with them wagons full of cut lumber, thin trunks of smaller trees, and all the tools necessary to entrench these in the ground.

  Dante and Blays rode with them, dressed in plain brown robes. The procession had barely exited the palace when people began to turn out from their houses. Nearly all of them were men and most were Dante's age or younger. As the wagons rolled on, some of the men followed a short distance behind, but most ran down the streets, their calls echoing between buildings.

  "There's about to be a riot," Blays said matter-of-factly.

  "I can see that," Dante said. "Let's make sure the commander sees it, too."

  He nudged his horse forward, coming alongside Commander Seto, a man in his mid-twenties whose red-flecked hair marked him as a Tanarian noble while the flint in his eyes marked him as one who, despite his somewhat tender years, had already done his share of killing.

  "I see it, north-lord," Seto said without turning his head, as if he'd heard their conversation. "It will be their choice whether they taste bread or steel."

  The Tanarians passed through the outer walls and through the slums, which were even slummier than usual now that the city's offal collectors weren't doing their job. Dirty-faced, shoeless children watched them pass, then ran inside their shacks. The crowd of citizens trailing them grew in size.

  The slums ended quickly, disgorging them into open fields. The Tanarians had dug out some earthworks and ditches here, but the tops of the low ramparts had been trampled and ripped open. The mob had removed the palisades too, either to take the wood for their own use, or simply to destroy the efforts of the invaders.

  Seto turned his horse awkwardly—strange, for a noble, until Dante realized the Tanarian was still learning how to ride—and addressed his men.

  "As before, we are here to work, not to fight. If the crowds return and will not go, we will depart." The left corner of his mouth pulled down, as if he were fighting to swallow something rotten. He lifted his chin. "Until then, we take on the role of the Skin: sealing the Body away from outside harm and illness. Get to your labor."

  The soldiers and workers took up shovels and mattocks. Some went to work extending the ramparts while others gouged holes atop the existing earthworks and others yet planted spikes and pickets in the holes, tamping them firm. Despite the cause of the need for this labor, there was always something comforting and encouraging in witnessing people at hard and honest work, and Dante began to feel mildly guilty that he wasn't helping.

  "Ah," Blays said. "I was starting to wonder how long it could be before everything went to hell again."

  He had turned to gaze behind them. Dante twisted in the saddle. Two hundred citizens had followed the Tanarians to the site and had been watching from the road, yammering to each other but causing no particular disturbance.

  Now, though, hundreds more streamed from the edges of the city, carrying clubs, rakes, knives, wooden spears, and hunting bows.

  ~

  Where the floor of the bay was sandy, the water was teal and empty; where it was rocky, the water was darker blue, and the fish thrived. The surf was so calm it washed on the shore like the snore of a sleeping child. In the shade of the palm, with the steady wind from the sea, it wasn't even all that hot. Not unbearably so.

  "Sir." Jona stepped beside him, boots
sinking into the thick yellow sand. "Lady Winden's just waiting on your word. Should I go and fetch her?"

  Naran stared at the Sword of the South at anchor in the royal blue water where the sea ran deeper. "Do you ever think about how we got here, Jona?"

  "Well, sir, my mind isn't half as sharp as yours." Jona removed a cube of dail stalk from his pocket and tucked it between his gum and his lip. "But I believe it was through the sails of the ship now occupying your vision."

  "Captain Twill agreed to bring the northerners here in exchange for a cure for the disease that was positioned to kill her. The priest cured her, but striking this deal entangled Twill in a web of dangers that soon got her killed regardless. Since then, all I have wanted was to avenge her. To deliver justice to Gladdic. But that option is long gone."

  "I'm afraid your point and my understanding have passed each other like ships in the night, sir."

  "I am like a man overboard on typhoony seas. I am not a sorcerer, Jona. I am not even a great warrior. What am I doing pretending that I have a role in this war? This is a war between great men. Between titans. The only role in such a struggle for sea captains—and their crews—is to be fodder, and to die."

  "Hmm."

  Naran had been standing still for long enough that the crabs were beginning to emerge from their holes in the beach. "There are many lands besides Bressel. The continent itself is only one of many. Mallon isn't even my homeland, in truth. In climate, and in many ways in the temperament of its people, this island is closer to my old home than anything to the north. So why must we return to Bressel?"

  "Captain, if you're trying to get me to explain why we ought to sail back into the teeth of a war, you'll need to bring someone around to convince me of it first."

  "Jona, there is no one else with us. You can drop the 'sailor who's been struck on the head by one too many yardarms' act."

  Jona looked at him sidelong from beneath brambly eyebrows beginning to go gray. "Aye, we could sail away. We've got a ship, and that's what ships were meant to do. But we're merchants, sir—or that is, we're merchants whenever we've no need to be pirates. As merchants, most of our lives are spent bringing people trinkets, spices, wines, and so forth. We make their lives a little brighter, and they make our pockets a little fatter. It's honest work—excepting, of course, the odd need of piracy—but there's no part particularly divine about bringing people things they like.