"But every once in a great while, we have the chance to bring people the one thing they need."
Naran thought on this. "Send for Winden. We sail by hour's end."
Jona bobbed his head and walked away. Naran stepped from beneath the palms, closing his eyes and letting the sun warm his face as the surf rustled like mice in dry leaves. He gave himself just long enough for the moment to crystallize in his mind, then opened his eyes and stalked toward the longboat waiting on the sand.
An hour later, the Sword of the South weighed anchor and struck north from the bay.
~
On their way out through the northern gates, the city guards gave Raxa such a long look she was afraid she was going to have to stab someone. Then a local scumbag made one of the sloppiest pickpocket attempts she'd ever seen, and a fight broke out, and the guards ran over to beat everyone until they calmed down, and Raxa and Sorrowen rode free of the city.
They passed through some fields, yeoman farms and things. After that came a forest. Judging by the fact almost none of it was chopped down, it had to be the king's forest. Out of general principle, Raxa stopped in it to cut some walnuts from a tree, knifing away the green pulp surrounding the inner shell as she rode.
As soon as the woods were too dense to see the city behind them, a black mood fell on her. Her whole time in Bressel felt…stupid. What had they done, really? Let Galand know about the Tanarian takeover? Big deal. It's not like it was a secret, he would have found out soon enough. After that wild success, they'd been booted out for incompetence. Amazing job, that.
She'd let herself get dragged out of her element. Wars and politics were for fools and kings. She was a being of the night. And that was what she should return to. Once they were a few days out from the city, she'd wait for Sorrowen to fall asleep, then ride out on her own. Go back to Narashtovik and take the sword for herself.
From there, the smart move would be to lead the Order right out of Narashtovik. They could raid northern Mallon for a while, see how the war played out. Wars were always good for people like them, a kingdom's chaos was their opportunity.
The thought put a smile back on her face. You were who you were. Stick to yourself, and you'd always be happy. Try to be something else, and the soul starts to rebel.
They rode on.
There were messengers going back and forth on the road. Bandits, too. By the second day, after having to hide or detour seven different times, Raxa said to hell with it and led them away from the river and across a plain toward another forest. She hadn't known it was there, but they soon found another northbound road. It was narrower, without any ruts in it, and the spiderwebs spanning it and the vegetation growing from its shoulders showed it didn't get much use.
They traveled for miles without seeing another soul. But as dusk fell, they came to a T-shaped fork, with one prong turning eastward while the other one bent dead west.
Sorrowen stopped his horse, slowly swiveling his head between the two options. He looked so dismayed you'd have thought someone had stolen the necklace that was the only thing he had left from his dead mother.
"Which one do we take?"
"Beats me," Raxa said. "This is your country."
"Yeah, but I was never out here. How can we tell which way to go?"
"Doesn't matter."
"But if we take the wrong one, we'll get off track."
"I'm telling you, fool, it doesn't matter. The road doesn't dictate your course. You do. If we wind up going the wrong way, we'll figure it out and then we'll fix it."
Before he could do any more indecisive blabbering, she took the left fork, just because she thought most people would have taken the right. Sorrowen lingered behind a moment, looking down the rightward lane, then spurred his horse to catch up.
"You're right," he said. "We don't have to follow the road. If we don't like where it's going, we can just, well, step off of it. Why didn't I think of that?"
She was about to tell him it was because he was a naive, over-hesitant dummy, then stopped herself to spare his feelings.
Then, for the very reason he would stay like that as long as people kept biting their tongue, she said, "Because you're a naive, over-hesitant dummy. You've spent too long in the monastery. We're in the wilds now. It's time to start acting like it."
He gave her a spooked look, like he might turn around and run all the way back to Bressel.
Then he began to laugh. "I'll do my best. It's easier when I know that even if we get lost, you're here to get us home."
She grunted. They'd ridden another hundred yards down the trail before it hit her: he believed in her.
Damn it all. They'd go back to Narashtovik together. And when they got the sword, they would return together, too.
~
The mob walked slowly down the street, letting itself congeal. Some men shouted slogans about invaders while others hollered about king-killers and usurpers and whatever else they could think of to whip up the anger necessary to get a motley crowd to attack a group of trained and well-armed soldiers.
Apparently they'd already brought plenty of anger with them. Within a minute of emerging onto the road, the mob gave a roar and marched toward the Tanarians.
"Oh," Blays said.
"Yeah," Dante said.
"Are we going to step in here?"
"We have to leave this to the Tanarians. They're the ones who need to learn how to work alongside the Mallish."
Blays shifted in the saddle. "If we're relying on the Tanarians, it's a good thing these robes have hoods. I hate getting blood in my hair."
Commander Seto yelled to his men, ordering them down from the earthworks and into formation. He trotted forward alone, halting his mount a ways in front of the crowd.
"Citizens of Bressel!" Like most well-bred Tanarians, his Mallish was almost flawless; in fact, it had an aristocratic Bresselian accent, which seemed to surprise the crowd, because it was obvious from his slight features that he was not one of them. "We have come to this field to work to defend your city. Without the barriers we mean to erect, the armies of the White Lich will tear apart everything you hold dear!"
A tall and broad-shouldered man advanced from the safety of the crowd. His shaggy hair was blond— there seemed to be a rebel streak in every Collener—and he was carrying a heavy woodsman's axe.
"Bullshit, you skinny little foreigner," he said. "None of us never heard of this lich before you got here. Seems to me he's coming for you. You're the reason we're in danger. Why don't you walk out of our city and take your troubles with you?"
"You're right, man. If we left, the lich would follow us for now. But it's as you said. You haven't heard of the lich. You don't know his ways. If we leave this place, and he conquers us, it won't be long before he returns for you. And you will fall just as we did. We stand and fight together or we all die alone."
The blond man spat in the dirt. "Why not let's try it and find out!"
"You don't know what he's like." Seto lowered his voice, as if he and the man were standing face to face rather than thirty feet away. The crowd hushed. "When the Drakebane abandoned our home, I stayed behind. Not for glory. But to find my family, who had been taken from the quiet of their village by the rebels. Through the rumors of other survivors, I tracked them to the Ibo Ran, one of our holy sites.
"There, I found my family. But they weren't like me any more. The White Lich had turned them into unsouled demons. The Blighted. His army. I called the names of my wife and children, and stood frozen on the turf as they loped toward me. But I could see in their eyes they didn't recognize me. All they had left was hatred. I turned to flee to my boat, but they were too fast. They caught up to me. They began to claw at me—to bite me.
"I cut them down. I cut down my family, and I left their bodies there on that island." Seto's voice rose again, more ragged than before. "The lich will come. In time, he'll come for everything, and since you are among the closest and largest prizes, you'll have less time than most. When h
e gets here, you will be made to join his demons—or else be fed to them."
The blond man stood silent. His axe was still in hand and his jaw was thrust forward, but his eyes were softened with doubt. The mob seemed to sway, like stalks of wheat in an unsteady wind.
"Drakebane Yoto understands we are not welcome," Seto said. "He knows our presence has caused you hardship. Today, we have brought you bread. Every person here may have some. If you return with your family, they will be given more. And if you lend your hands to help us, you will be granted full rations for your day's work. All those who are hungry, or those who wish to work, come with me—in an orderly manner."
Gripping his axe mid-haft, the blond man lifted it and gave it a shake. "Do you think you can buy our obedience with a bit of bread?"
Seto turned his horse and trotted toward the bread wagon, calling to his soldiers to begin allotting the fare. The crowd murmured like a hive of bees on the swarm, then moved forward—at a genial walk, tucking their weapons into their belts where they could.
The Tanarian soldiers guided them into several rough lines. The Mallish shuffled forward, keeping one eye on the well-armed foreigners for signs of deceit. When those at the front of the line were handed their bread, they retreated rapidly, condensing into small knots to eat, gossip, and watch for any eruption of violence.
Once all the members of the crowd had gotten their share, however, many began to wander off back toward the city. And a small portion headed back to the soldiers to register as laborers. The blond axeman did some grumbling and orating to those who would listen, but his once-defiant gestures now carried the air of defeat.
"Madness," Blays marveled. "That actually worked? Just talking to them?"
"And bread. Don't forget the bread."
"Think what they'd do if we brought them beer. They'd pledge their lives to us."
The mob dissolved rapidly. A small portion remained, watching curiously as the Tanarians and the few local volunteers went to work on the defenses. After Dante was reasonably sure no massacres were about to happen, he left to grow another field of wheat. He stopped harvesting once he'd exhausted roughly half his shadows, intending to return to the fortifications late that night and add to the earthworks under cover of darkness.
The day concluded without any serious trouble in the streets. Nak's troops had encamped outside Bressel during Dante's return voyage from Tanar Atain, and two days prior to rolling out the bread wagons, Dante had summoned a small number of soldiers and monks to leave the camp and come to the city. They arrived that night.
Dante forged four sets of loons, then told the men to get some sleep. He hopped on a horse and rode out to the fortifications, where a crew of Tanarians guarded the work against sabotage. Dante gathered the nether and sank it into the earth, scooping out ditches and piling the fill into ramparts. Between his and the Tanarians' efforts, they did more for the fortifications in one day than they'd managed in the week before.
In the morning, he set his loon-bearing monks on boats bound for the coasts of the swamps, where they would watch for any sign that the lich was on the move. He got word that a team of Bresselians had shown up in the earliest hours of the morning to sabotage the palisades, but the Tanarians had arrested some and driven the rest off.
The soldiers and laborers breakfasted, then set off for the defenses. This time, there was no band of angry citizens following them, yet a crowd soon appeared a few hundred feet up the road from the earthworks.
Beneath his hood, Blays squinted. "Notice anything different about them today?"
Dante scanned the mob. "They aren't carrying as many things to beat us with."
"I was thinking they look less like a swarm of angry hornets and more like a flock of hungry gulls."
Seto rode forth to invite them to take bread. Yesterday, hardly twenty of them had agreed to help, but that morning, more than sixty Mallishers joined the Tanarians in their efforts.
With everything in hand, Dante returned to the wheat field. It could have been his imagination, but on his way back through the streets, it seemed as though more people than normal were out on their stoops, sitting and chatting.
He napped, then rose for dinner, seating himself at a table with Blays and Gladdic.
"Bread is all right and all," Blays said, tucking into some of it. "But would it kill you to learn how to grow venison?"
Dante reached for a bowl of bean stew, suspecting it would contain bacon grease, if not bacon itself. "Good suggestion. After I'm done learning how to make new deer, I'll make a team of new myselves, and make them do all my work while I drink the beer I order them to make from the wheat I order them to grow."
Blays got a startled look on his face. "If you could learn how to make animals, could you do that? Grow new versions of yourself?"
"I have never until this moment thought about it."
"Would they think like you, too? Or just look like you?"
"There would only be one way to find that out. But if they did think like me—and if they had my memories—then every time I started to get very old, I could just nether up a newer, younger me."
Blays was now thinking hard enough that, for perhaps the first meal in his life, his mouth wasn't full of food. "But it wouldn't really be you, would it? You wouldn't have any control over what it thought or did. When you died, you would still be dead."
"But the avatar of me would still exist. It would be a bit like being a god."
Gladdic was shaking his head in disgust. "You are a nethermancer. The actual High Priest of Arawn. It is at the very core of your faith that all people are born and thus must also die, for that is the cycle of the nether that permeates us all. Then why are you so obsessed with defying the law of your god by living forever?"
"Well," Dante said. He stirred his beans, which had not yet yielded any bacon. "There's nothing in the Cycle that says when you have to die. If you were born, then lived a long, full life before dying at the age of twenty thousand, you'd still be within the bounds of Arawn's laws."
"This path of argument, which is in obvious violation of the spirit of your god, is the path through which corrupt priests destroy their own faith."
Dante felt himself reddening. "Speaking of paths, we've completely lost the one that's relevant. Which is that we're finally getting the locals to trust us. If the Bresselians and Tanarians are ready to work side by side, it's time to start thinking about how to best put that alliance to use."
"We shall see what the future brings," Gladdic said. "But I will not trust the strength of this new-found friendship for some time more."
In the morning, a few score of citizens were already waiting outside the palace gates. They followed quietly in the wake of the wagons to the growing defenses, the first line of which the Tanarians were about to extend to the southern shoreline. Another crowd waited at the dig in reasonably orderly queues. Commander Seto greeted them and began passing out bread. More than a hundred people joined the lines for labor.
Dante crossed his arms. "At this rate, I'm going to have to start harvesting more wheat."
Blays smiled. "When you were risking your life chasing after forbidden books, and spending years of study and practice to master your art, did you ever imagine that it would all be so you could become a better farmer?"
"Not really, no."
The soldiers were dispensing rations with military precision, but as quickly as they could process those waiting in line, more arrived to join them. A commotion arose from the rear; the crowd divided down the middle, opening a lane forward. Through this, a gang of men strode forward, gray robes swirling about their legs.
"Spit out what they have fed you!" Adaine led the way, his arms spread wide above his head. "They tell you that you are eating bread—but what they have put in your mouths is dark poison!"
10
The crowd went silent. Those who had been in the act of eating stilled themselves; many spat out what was in their mouths.
Adaine turned to face the
people, pointing behind him at the wagon full of food. "Do any of you know where the bread they've given you comes from?"
A woman holding her loaf in front of her with both hands bent her eyebrows. "A field?"
"A field, yes. What is grown in this field to make this bread?"
"Ah…wheat?"
"Wheat, yes! Wheat, as intended by nature, grows from the ground as little sprouts. It takes months for it to be fed and nourished until it's ripe enough to feed and nourish us in turn. Now, do you have any idea how the wheat these men milled for your bread was grown?"
He looked across the crowd. Every person he met eyes with seemed compelled to respond, shaking their heads.
"Nether." Adaine spoke the word with the care he would use to step past a venomous creature. "They cut themselves, and feed their tainted blood to the shadows. Then they feed those shadows to the wheat. Last, they harvest that wheat and feed it to you. So the sickness of blood and shadow, of the corruption of nether, becomes you."
At this, he threw his arms wide with a snap of robes.
Around him, those who hadn't yet spat out their bread did so now. Others bent over and gagged. Some ripped their loaves into stone-sized pieces and hurled them at the Tanarian soldiers. The soldiers backed up, hands on their weapons but not yet drawing them.
"I told you they meant to buy us off." The blond man stepped out from the mob, knuckles whitening around the handle of his axe. "Excepting it was even worse than I thought. These foreigners meant to work us to the bone at the same time they poisoned our flesh. Don't you see? They'd use your blood and sweat to build these walls, then bury you under them and claim our city for themselves!"
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