“Then you are an even bigger fool. For who will cart our supplies? Who will harvest the fields or slaughter the feed animals or dress the deer our hunters bring in? Who will care for our mounts and repair our wagons? Who will build the temples to Scathmizzane, or do you believe that we have enough mundunugu and macana to spare for such menial tasks? Our army moves by conquest, not extermination. We grow Tonoloya by gaining subjects, not corpses.”
“Slaves,” Matlal corrected.
Tuolonatl conceded that much with a shrug, as if it did not matter—even though, to her thinking, it most certainly did. This was more than semantics to her, but whatever one might call these wretched, captured humans, she knew from long experience that they would be easier to control and far less dangerous if there remained something for them to lose.
She glanced back at the man whimpering and bleeding on the floor. Abbot Chesterfield had nothing left to lose. If the remaining humans of Appleby saw him, they might come to the same conclusion about themselves.
“Pixquicauh—” Matlal began.
“Is not here,” Tuolonatl cut him short.
“He will arrive this morning,” the augur insisted, and Ataquixt confirmed it with a nod.
Tuolonatl tried to keep a calm facade as she chewed her lip. That one would complicate so very much, she knew. His impatience galled her, but more than that, Pixquicauh did not know what he did not know about a military campaign.
There was nothing more threatening to the success of this ambitious adventure than that.
“Keep him in this place and let no others see him,” she ordered both men. She looked hard at Matlal as she added, to Ataquixt, “If Augur Matlal harms the human priest again, crack his skull with your macana.” She paused, noting the augur’s supreme scowl, as if he were about to explode in protest.
Smiling wickedly at him, Tuolonatl then pulled her own macana from her belt and held it out to Ataquixt. “Or here,” she explained, “use mine, as your hand will be my hand in the act, and if High Priest Pixquicauh is angered by the deed, let him be angry with me.”
“How far into the skull would you have the teeth bite, Commander?” Ataquixt asked, in just the right tone to make the blood drain from Matlal’s face, his nose seeming more that of a human than a xoconai in the moment.
Tuolonatl shrugged. “Just clean the blood and the bits of brain from the teeth of the macana before you return it to me.”
Ataquixt smiled.
Tuolonatl left the church.
* * *
Out of breath from running up the tight spiral staircase in the tallest tower in Ursal, a watch turret centered in the city’s southern wall and rising some four hundred feet from the ground, King Midalis crawled up through the trapdoor in the floor to join the two watchmen and the Allheart Knight who had summoned him.
With just the four of them up there, the floor was crowded, and Midalis was a bit unnerved to be pressed so close to the waist-high wall at such a height. He was glad that the tower’s top room was roofed and that the corner posts were thick and reassuring.
“The south wall, my king,” said Dame Koreen of Vanguard, a giant of a woman, obviously rich in Alpinadoran blood. She pointed to the spyglass in the middle of the south wall, set on a rotating base so that it could swivel enough to command a view of all the lands south of the city. An enchanted crystal, a quartz similar to the one in Talmadge’s lens, offered far-sight so powerful that when he first looked through the item, Midalis could clearly see a cluster of houses nearly halfway to the Belt-and-Buckle, mountains that loomed more than a hundred miles to the south.
With Koreen instructing him, he brought the angle lower, nearer to the city, and turned a bit to the west.
And then he saw them, a line of carts and mules and desperate people carrying large packs. The refugees of the western towns he had been wondering about only a short while earlier. He couldn’t make them out clearly, but enough to know that there were children among the caravan, and that they were moving with all speed.
“The poor souls,” he whispered.
“Further west,” Dame Koreen told him. He shifted the spyglass—too far at first, and he had to turn away and blink from the sting of the bright wall of golden light. He went back more carefully, searching the fields and forests before the wall.
And he saw them, and he knew that Aydrian had not lied to him.
“How far?” he said, standing straight and staring out with his naked eye, where all seemed calm.
“The refugees are a day’s ride south,” Dame Koreen explained. “The pursuers will catch them soon after that.”
“So you believe that I should send out the Allhearts to rescue them?”
“A task I would eagerly accept.”
Midalis glanced back at the woman, his first appointee to the knightly order. Koreen of Vanguard had served in the Coastpoint Guards on Pireth Dancard, the sentinel fortress on the islands in the center of the mouth of the great Gulf of Corona. She alone had held the docks against a barrelboat crew of vicious powrie dwarves, striking down a half dozen of the bloody caps and suffering several nearly mortal wounds before reinforcements reached her and pulled her away. Now in her midthirties, Koreen was even stronger and better with the blade, and her skills at commanding soldiers had most of her peers whispering that she would one day serve as the garrison commander of the Allhearts in Ursal, perhaps even becoming second to the king in the hierarchy of Honce-the-Bear’s military.
“Why are they not turning for Ursal?” Midalis asked, looking back out to the south, even returning to the spyglass to try to glimpse the long refugee caravan yet again. “They know we are here. Should they not be running for the safety of our walls?”
“Perhaps those in the front believe that the long line behind them will slow the enemies enough for them to get away, and that the enemies will turn for the city,” Koreen offered. “Or perhaps they are too desperate to even consider where they are and where they should go, other than away from those pursuing. It is difficult to think tactically, my king, when you are dragging your children down a road just ahead of murderous pursuit.”
“Tell me your advice,” Midalis bade her.
“Two score knights,” she said without hesitation, and Midalis knew that she had been planning this out carefully long before he had arrived. “We will turn them north to the city and form a line behind the refugees to protect them.”
“Only two score?” Midalis asked. “How many enemies can forty knights fend?”
“The pursuit is not a sizable force. A forward expeditionary group, I expect, or cavalry sent out to chase down those who flee, while the main army houses and regroups in and about the captured villages.”
“You assume much.”
“It is how I would do it,” Koreen told him, and he nodded.
“That is a lot of open ground between you and the city,” Midalis remarked. “Perhaps too much.”
Her nod informed him that she hadn’t dismissed the possibility of this being a trap.
“Two score,” he agreed after a few moments of consideration. “And do not find yourself in a pitched battle. We know not what lies beyond that shield of light, but if what I have been told proves true, we will need all the Allheart Knights and more to defend the city.”
“My king, I go,” said Koreen, and she dropped to the trapdoor.
“One monk for every five knights,” Midalis told her. “Go to Abbot Ohwan and tell him to give over eight brothers skilled in riding and strong in the Ring Stones. Give them the fastest horses you can manage—they are there to keep you alive, but I’ll lose no monks out there in the fields when their healing skills will be sorely needed here in the city.”
“Yes, my king,” Koreen said, her voice already distant.
King Midalis stood in the high tower, staring out to the south. The two men flanking him didn’t seem to know what to do or how to react, both shifting nervously. When he noticed their unease, he offered each a smile and a pat on the shoulder.
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“Eyes often on the south and the west,” he said. “I will send couriers up here that you can relay news of any skirmishes.” He started for the trapdoor, then paused halfway into the hole and looked back at the two. “But do not ignore the river,” he instructed. “If our enemy is cunning, they, too, will not ignore the Masur Delaval.”
“Aye,” said one, while the other said, “Yes,” and both looked to the other nervously.
“And well done,” Midalis said as he departed. “You may have saved many lives with your vigilance this day.”
* * *
Tuolonatl spent a long while staring into a golden mirror, studying the set of her jaw, her scars, the wrinkles about her eyes—all of it well earned. Now their god walked among them. Not the line of God King imposters, children sitting on the throne, put there by the augurs only so they could control the direction of their religion and the whole of Tonoloya more fully.
No, this Scathmizzane was the true god of the xoconai, in the flesh and riding a dragon.
For most of the people, this revelation, this god walking among them, had lifted their spirits and strengthened their faith, but for Tuolonatl, strangely (even to her), the appearance of Scathmizzane did none of that—in fact, quite the opposite.
She had been a warrior for all of her adult life—even longer! Her first kill had come at the age of sixteen and, by twenty, she had survived more than a dozen major battles and had become a legend among the macana warriors. Her reputation had only grown when she was appointed to the mundunugu lizard riders. By her midtwenties, she could not enter a room anywhere in Tonoloya without hearing awe-filled whispers whenever she passed.
She hated those whispers.
She fought out of a sense of duty and honor, not for any love of battle. She did not relish the warm fountains of blood her macana had brought spraying back upon her. She never rejoiced at seeing the light leaving the eyes of a vanquished foe.
Now came Scathmizzane, the Glorious Gold, the God of Light and Truth and Justice and Joy, and all that he spoke of was war. His every order.
She took a last look at her reflection, a reminder to her of who she was, and closed her eyes, taking a deep and steadying breath.
Pixquicauh, the high priest of Scathmizzane, had come to Appleby and was awaiting Tuolonatl at the pyramid being constructed to hold this flash-step mirror.
She spun around before opening her eyes, wanting to carry that last image in her thoughts.
“He will demand sacrifices,” said Ataquixt, who had delivered the news of the high priest’s arrival.
“We cannot resist his orders,” she replied to the man and her other officers assembled about her. “If Pixquicauh demands a sacrifice, we cannot and must not intervene. The augurs will do as they choose.”
“Matlal already has High Priest Pixquicauh’s ear,” one of the other mundunugu leaders warned.
Tuolonatl nodded. Of course, the sniveling fool had run right to Pixquicauh to complain about Tuolonatl’s intervention and the scolding and threats she had levied upon him. She had known that would happen, from the time she had walked into the human church beside Ataquixt.
In fact, she had counted on it.
Pixquicauh would register his complaints, and so would Tuolonatl, and in this case she would be able to make a practical argument—that torturing and killing Abbot Chesterfield was counterproductive to the needs of the xoconai in this town—and not a moral one.
A moral argument, she had come to understand, would hold no sway with Scathmizzane or his high priest.
“Those of you who will remain in the towns, and for those serving you, I say with conviction, do not mistreat the humans. They will serve us, and we need that service. If they try to escape or to organize a violent resistance, kill them as you must, but do so with efficiency and, yes, even with mercy.”
“Pixquicauh will sacrifice,” the mundunugu said again.
She held up her hands helplessly. “I cannot speak for the augurs. They will do as they choose. But I speak for the mundunugu and the macana. The children of Cizinfozza surrendered. They are our captives, thus they are in our care. And that care will be just and decent, and any under the command of Tuolonatl who violate this order will face my wrath—and so will become the next sacrifice to Glorious Gold.”
“And if High Priest Pixquicauh orders a macana to kill some humans?” the same mundunugu asked. “Or if he tells my riders to have their cuetzpali devour a human?”
Tuolonatl considered her response for a long while. She thought such a scenario unlikely, but the question was valid, and important.
“Do not disobey him,” she instructed, much as it pained her to do so. “Ever. He is the mortal voice of Scathmizzane. You have my commands, and they will serve you, will serve all of us, well. Keep my orders, my advice, in your hearts, for your own sake. But if Pixquicauh countermands my commands, do not disobey him.”
“Yes, Commander,” the mundunugu said.
Tuolonatl could see the grimace, even as he tried to hide it, and she understood the source of it, surely. There had always been a rivalry between the proud mundunugu forces and the augurs, and the warriors too often had to choose between conflicting orders of the religious leaders and the city sovereigns.
But none of the sovereigns, even those who had distinguished themselves in military campaigns, had as yet moved beyond Otontotomi. Scathmizzane had excluded them from these early days of his campaign.
Tuolonatl noted more sour expressions about the room and knew that not all of them had come from the same place. No, she understood, some of them had nothing to do with the unending rivalry between the sovereigns and the augurs but were simply reacting to her demands for mercy. To many of her forces, even among leaders she had selected, the humans, the children of Cizinfozza, were not worthy of mercy, whatever practical gain might be found from it.
Many macana, many mundunugu, were truly relishing each and every kill.
And she could not deny them that bloodlust. She could make no moral arguments against that murderous urge or she would risk losing their loyalty.
Such a fine line she had to walk.
“Pixquicauh awaits you,” Ataquixt quietly reminded.
Tuolonatl nodded and closed her eyes again, this time imagining riding her beloved Pocheoya about the golden autumn hills of northeastern Tonoloya amid the scent of ripening grapes. She found a place of calm, then brought forth the image she had seen in the mirror, the image of Tuolonatl, the great mundunugu, who had earned every scar, every wrinkle, every one of the gray strands now intermingling with her dark hair.
“Well, for the sake of all that is golden, let us not upset the mortal voice of Scathmizzane,” she said, not even trying to hide her sarcasm.
She crossed the town with all of her officers in tow but entered the small, newly constructed pyramid with only Ataquixt beside her. Pixquicauh awaited her, and it was no surprise to her to see Augur Matlal standing at his side.
“Cochcal,” the high priest greeted.
“High Priest Pixquicauh,” she replied cautiously, surprised by the lightness in the typically dour man’s voice. It was hard to determine Pixquicauh’s mood, since most of his face was covered by the skull, but he did seem to be smiling behind the teeth of the upper jaw covering his own, and there was an unmistakable sparkle in his eyes, even in the shadows of the empty skull sockets set before them.
“You have assessed this town?” Pixquicauh asked.
“Of course.”
“How many xoconai to handle the slaves and keep the fields and shops tended?”
“A hundred macana will properly guard,” she replied.
“Half that,” said Pixquicauh, drawing a curious look from the woman. “It is time to move forward with all speed,” he continued. “Do you not know the jewel that is in sight of the forward lines?”
“The great city, yes,” she replied. “Ursal, the humans call it.”
“We will give it a proper name soon enough,” Pixquica
uh said.
“Soon enough?” she echoed doubtfully. She had been to the front lines, only two days before, and after seeing the truth of Ursal, Tuolonatl had designed a plan to bypass the place, leaving it besieged. She had thought to present that plan at the war council before any action was initiated. With their swimming cuetzpali, the mundunugu could take the river north of the city and command the lands in the south easily enough, but the losses in going against a fortified stone city surrounded by high walls and guarded by the finest warriors the humans had to offer seemed foolhardy. Would they leave ten thousand dead xoconai on the field about Ursal? Twenty thousand?
Would they even be able to breach those towering walls against the withering fire of archers that would surely meet them?
“Of course!” Pixquicauh replied. “Now is the time for boldness. Now is the jewel to fall to us, and let all the humans between this city and the sea flee to the water’s edge and into the waves. We will break them, here and now.”
“You have seen this city, then?” she asked. “I had thought you in Otontotomi.”
“I have not seen it.”
“It is more than you imagine,” she warned.
The high priest laughed at her. “Scathmizzane has seen it. He has already prepared.”
Her sigh drew a clear scowl from behind the priest’s skull condoral, which, unlike the vulture skulls of the other augurs, was the facial bones of a xoconai—indeed, of the high priest who had preceded this man, an augur who had disappointed Scathmizzane and so had been melted by Glorious Gold.
Tuolonatl thought of that, then, before arguing here against what was apparently the edict of Glorious Gold. At least it seemed that way, given the obvious confidence in Pixquicauh’s voice.
“Let us begin,” Pixquicauh said, indicating the golden mirror that would flash-step them to the next mirror in the east, then through several more to the front lines. “The first preparations of the battlefield have already begun.”
She eyed him warily. She had issued no such commands.
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