Stung by the thought that I had almost nothing to fix for the evening meal, I repaired to the kitchen to take stock of my stores. The pantry, I discovered, was now stuffed full. In the icebox I found a thin package of wetland marmot meat, among other things. The hearth was already lit, and a new cord of wood waited to be burned.
“How much did all this cost?” I wondered. The empty house gave me no answer. But then the front door burst open, and Tamöd rushed through the door, his arms spread wide and a joyous smile on his bruised face.
“Dervaaaaaan!” he cried. Pyrella followed close behind him, and the hugs they gave me were not awkward at all.
There may be no greater indicator of societal stress than a dearth of proper cheese. When I met the bard the next day at a south side cheese shop, the proprietor nearly wept as he recognized Fintan and apologized for having only two rather stinky varieties for us to choose from and few prospects of restocking anytime soon. Dairy was disappearing fast, and he figured he would disappear with it, since few people would pay for expensive imports.
“I might need to go into the supply side myself if I want to make it,” he said. “Become the dairy farmer I need to make cheese.”
His situation, as with Elynea’s and so many others, made me wonder what our country would look like in the months and years ahead.
We were both at pains to assure the proprietor that we were there as much for the bread and tea as the cheese. Fintan in particular swilled the tea as he fought off a couple of yawns.
“Didn’t sleep well?”
He shook his head. “I rarely do. 1 mean, I do have restful nights, but they’re almost always interrupted. Nightmares, you know. I keep waking up with the stench of burning men in my nostrils. But I’ve been telling myself that Kaelin just needs it all fresh in my mind to do my duty and tell the tale, and once I do, those memories will stop haunting me at night. That’s what I’ve been hoping and praying for. I’ll go up on that wall today and purge it all, and then Gorin Mogen can let me sleep.”
“I hope it happens as you say, for your sake,” I said, but didn’t feel optimistic about his chances. Once horrors take hold in the mind, they tend to clutch and linger, and it takes waves and waves of laughter to wash them away. The problem was that we still had so little to laugh about.
The view from the wall looked different when we got there. The bleachers below were still full, but something was off. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. “Oh! There’re no kids.”
They were back in school. Or rather they were getting out of school now but hadn’t arrived in time to fill in some of the bleacher seats in advance of the bard’s appearance. Looking out beyond the bleachers, I saw some smaller figures mixed in along Survivor Field. Elynea and the kids were most likely at Dame du Marröd’s now, and I wondered how the kids’ first day back at school had gone.
Fintan pulled out his harp, greeted everyone, and announced he’d be performing a traditional Hathrim song still quite popular today.
“I will, in typical Raelech fashion, only perform three verses, but there are many more variations. When it was taught to me by my master during my apprenticeship, he pointed out that this particular song is important as the source of the Hathrim tendency to look upon destruction as a new beginning rather than an end. They often shrug off disaster and say that ‘something better will rise from the ashes,’ as we’ve seen with Gorin Mogen and the population of Harthrad. It makes the giants of the west a resilient people, which is admirable. But it also makes them a people willing to burn anything at a moment’s notice.”
Fire burns! And it cleanses,
And something better
Rises from the ashes,
Like sunspot blooms
On the Hearthfire Ranges.
Fire burns! And it cleanses,
And something better
Rises from the ashes,
Like hardwood saplings
That will fuel our forges.
Fire burns! And it cleanses,
And something better
Rises from the ashes,
Like hot colored glass
In storytelling sculptures.
“Today’s first tale is a bloody one. Let’s head west to Ghurana Nent, where I was given a very rude awakening.” The bard took on a seeming of himself, the slightly younger and less worn version, dressed in the Raelech red leather armor.
I woke up alone at dawn to the sounds of men dying. Trust me when I say few things bring you to full alertness like the final anguished cry of a life ending in violence. Snakes in the pants or a bucket of ice water will work as well but not linger in the mind. That chorus of terror, though, still echoes in my head.
Numa was long gone, and another courier had come at sunset the day before to fetch Tarrech back to Rael, so I was the only Raelech left in the stone bunker that Tarrech had made to protect us against flesh eels and other plains creatures. The roof served as a good vantage point, so when the screams began, I peeked out the breathing vents and then emerged from the bunker to climb to the roof, where I could feel properly horrified and helpless.
To the south, the Hathrim oil trench was all lit up with flames and foul clouds of black smoke billowed into the air. Behind it, in the distance, a formation of giant infantry was shouting and pounding their chests, lifting axes and spears high.
And to the west, directly across from me, men were sprouting into flame as if their heads were the wicks of candles, and many whose heads weren’t on fire had them struck off by the axes of Hathrim houndsmen, a large formation of them charging through the Nentian camp four deep, trampling, hacking, biting, and setting tents on fire.
The Nentians were caught badly off guard, many of them asleep as I had been. The houndsmen traversed the length of the camp from north to south, came to the edge where a line of sharpened stakes was ironically pointed to keep them out or slow them down, and turned around to form up for another pass, ready to mow the camp again like a field of hay. Tactician Ghuyedai had bothered to protect only the southern side of his camp, a halfhearted effort and a strategically stupid decision. Perhaps he thought that he was safe with the juggernaut nearby, but of course he no longer was. Mogen knew how to take advantage: his houndsmen had simply ridden around to the north in the darkness.
Someone rallied a group of pikemen together to stand in front of the next charge, but it was a line only two deep and not wide enough to matter. The houndsmen in the front rank were lavaborn, and they pulled up short and attacked with their kenning while the other ranks of hounds split out to the flanks, got behind the pikemen, and tore them to bloody shreds, grasping their whole bodies in their mouths and biting down, shaking their heads a few times, and then tossing their carcasses aside to land among their comrades. They were utterly destroyed, but they did get the houndsmen to stay still and broke the charge. That allowed the Nentians to charge in on their own from the flanks with pikes, not in any organized fashion but with mad abandon and desperation. And some of them were successful: they sank their pikes into the vulnerable sides of the hounds or even into their hindquarters; there were yipes and whirling hounds to attest to it.
Realizing that they were in an exposed position, one of the giants sounded a retreat to the north; they had to get out of the middle of the mob. Though one hound went down, the rest broke free to the north of the encampment where the charge had begun.
The rider of the hound that went down leapt free before it fell. It was a giantess, judging by the lack of beard, and I soon recognized her as Sefir, their hearth. She kept her hound’s body to her back and then swung her axe in long, wide swaths, keeping the Nentians at bay until she could set them on fire one by one.
Once clear of the camp, the houndsmen with wounded animals dismounted and left them there while those with untouched mounts formed up anew and charged back in. The giants on foot followed in their wake, laying about with their axes, with the lavaborn continuing to spread flames. Nobody fights well while on fire except for the lava
born themselves.
The infantry from the city approached, taking long strides across the field toward the trench, stepping over their own siege breaker walls, and soon they joined in the massacre. The whole of the Nentian army, surprised out of bed, was slaughtered before the sun was entirely above the horizon, and all I could do was watch. Another two thousand or more added to the toll of two thousand from a few days ago.
Bards are not renowned warriors, and I had no weapons apart from a belt knife and a fighting stave. In my youth I had done my martial arts training like every other kid in the Colaiste, but none of it was designed to take on mounted Hathrim houndsmen. That’s what juggernauts and temblors were for. And if the Nentians, who were armed with weapons designed to take out houndsmen, could not do it without surrounding them and taking huge losses, then there was nothing I could do. I was waiting for one of the lavaborn to see me and casually set my head afire. There would be no hiding in the bunker because there was no way to secure the door. Tarrech had made it invulnerable to fire from a distance but hadn’t counted on Hathrim arriving in person to say hello.
For that was what they did. The screams from the camp lessened and then were cut off altogether as the last of the Nentians died, including Ghuyedai. After that there was only the sound of cooking meat and giants laughing and blackwings calling out to one another as they circled above, eyeing the feast below. I didn’t try to hide, and I fully expected to die. It was the least I could do to help things along; though I would miss Numa and regretted that I would never get to tell this story, I thought my death would at least spur the Triune Council to order something more forceful against Gorin Mogen than the rescue of the stonecutters he’d duped. I said my prayers to the Triple Goddess and consigned myself to death when one of the Hathrim pointed to me through the smoke and shouted to Hearth Sefir. He strode through the carnage in my direction, and Sefir joined him. I expected to be set aflame any moment, but instead they stopped in front of me and squatted down, removing their helmets. Thanks to this and my position on the slightly elevated roof of the bunker, we were eye to eye. Sefir nodded once to me, and smirked, her armor splattered in the blood of Nentians.
“We meet again, Fintan, Bard of the Poet Goddess Kaelin,” she said. I nodded in return as the other giant removed his helmet. “I present to you my husband, Hearthfire Gorin Mogen.”
The Hearthfire was likewise covered in gore, but mostly lower down. His beard was trimmed on the sides but fell from his chin in a black wave to midway down his chest plate. His eyes were ice blue under a heavy brow.
“First,” he said, his voice a deep rumble, “be assured we mean you no harm, Raelech. Thank you, in fact, for staying out of the way during this messy business.”
“That’s what you call it? Messy business? You slaughtered those men in a sneak attack!”
“Do you believe for one instant that they would not have done the same to us if they could?”
“Any attack on Nentians here is a violation of the Sovereignty Accords. You are in the wrong no matter how you try to twist it to claim self-defense.”
The giant shrugged a shoulder. “Fine. We have played long enough. We’re staying here, and I want you to let the viceroy in Hashan Khek know. This city is named Baghra Khek. All peoples—especially Nentians—are welcome to trade in Baghra Khek and to live among us, as many do in Hathrim cities to the south. But make no mistake: this will either be a Hathrim city-state under my rule, the modest boundaries circumscribed by the trench, or a Nentian city of which I am the viceroy. We want logging rights to the northern side of the Godsteeth, for which we will gladly pay, and we will plant a new tree for every one we cut down. If the viceroy or the king wishes to discuss reparations for the men they lost here, I am open to discussing that. I am ready, in fact, to discuss any way forward that will allow my people to remain here permanently and peacefully. We will not entertain any demands that we leave, and any military force sent to drive us out will be destroyed without mercy just as you witnessed here this morning.”
“I’m to be your messenger?”
“Yes. We’re fresh out of Nentians at the moment, heh heh.”
His casual disregard for their lives—making a joke out of all that death—left me slack-jawed. His hearth elbowed him and he flicked his eyes to her, and when she gave a tiny shake of her head by way of scolding him, he turned back to me and cleared his throat. “Apologies. I am often ill suited to diplomacy.”
“Noted. You must know the Nentians will never agree to this.”
“Not at first, no. But that’s where we’ll end up after they’ve sent some more men to die. We can hope it won’t come to that, but we know that it will.”
“It won’t simply be the Nentians. You’ll never have it this easy again.”
“Oh, yes, I’m well aware we will never again have such favorable odds. Too bad your juggernaut ran off on you like that or we might have had a real fight. What was so important that he had to leave?”
“The Triune Council required his presence for something, but I don’t know what.”
“I hope they will have the good sense not to test my resolve. We have dealt with you fairly and harmed no Raelechs and hope that Rael will be a prosperous trading partner with Baghra Khek in the near future.”
“I’ll pass the sentiment along, should I get the opportunity,” I said. “Though I’m not sure how I’ll return to Rael at this point.”
The hearth replied, “We will escort you to Hashan Khek by boat to deliver our message. We’ll even pay for your services, which will hopefully allow you to arrange transport home.”
I had very little choice. There was no reason to stay and every reason to leave, and they offered the only transport that wouldn’t get me eaten by something on the way. But it turned out that when Sefir said “we,” she had no intention of escorting me herself. She and Gorin did escort me to the city, but not inside of it, rather to their docks. They boarded me onto one of their glass boats and set a guard so that I had to stay there and not snoop around. I waited for my actual escort for more than an hour.
It turned out to be Jerin Mogen, whom I’d met before when he returned the stonecutters to us, and another giantess whom I had yet to meet. Both were armored, axes in one hand and helmets carried in the other. I noted differences in the armor: Jerin’s had the same stylized bronze and copper sigil of Thurik’s Flame on his breastplate that his parents wore, whereas the giantess had what looked like the head of an open-mouthed lava dragon on hers, worked in silver and gold rather than copper and bronze. The plating and shape of her armor also were different from the Mogens’, the steel itself of a different color, perhaps of a different quality, though I am not qualified to judge such things. And both of them were different from what the infantry and houndsmen typically wore; that suggested to me that this giantess, whoever she was, must be high status somehow, on the level of the Mogens.
She had long red wavy hair touched with sun-bleached strands of yellow and brown eyes under elegantly arched brows. Her mouth appeared to be wide in a narrow face, and she probably had a winning smile when she had cause to give one. Meeting me, however, was not such an occasion. Her gaze took in my Jereh band and armor with interest; I was probably the first Raelech bard she’d ever seen.
Jerin, who was only slightly taller than she, introduced us. “Hello, bard. I’m Jerin Mogen,” he said, “and this is Olet Kanek.”
“Related to Hearthfire Winthir Kanek?”
She nodded but didn’t bother to clarify the nature of her relationship. I was going to ask, but they just stepped onto the boat, put their axes down, and untied us from the dock, asking me to sit near the aft to work the tiller. They used huge oars resting in the bottom of the boat to pole us into deeper water, and then they sat and rowed us out a bit farther, pointing us north before unfurling the sails. That task done, they returned to their rowing benches, facing me in the stern but not each other, and resumed rowing as if they could not get away from Baghra Khek fast enough. Th
ey did all this in complete silence, and I witnessed it with a growing sense of awkwardness.
“Would either of you like a song or perhaps a story to fill the time?” I ventured, and Olet finally opened her mouth to speak.
“No,” she said.
Jerin chuckled briefly at my disappointment, and then the void was filled only by the slosh of waves lapping against the hull and the repeated dip and splash of the oars. I noticed that they both studiously kept their eyes square with their shoulders, as if a glance near the middle of the boat would unforgivably invade the other’s privacy or perhaps nightmarishly invite conversation. It was a bizarre mix of avoidance and respect.
“I’m not well versed in matters of Hathrim etiquette,” I said after this stretched for a few minutes, “so please correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears that the two of you might be in the silent phase of an extended quarrel.”
“Not at all,” Jerin said, his tone affable, even amused. “We have yet to quarrel.”
“Because you barely speak?”
“Ah, you’ve a keen mind. Well done.”
“Why are you here, Olet?” I asked, thinking perhaps that she would be willing to speak to me as Jerin had. She cast a resentful glare at me for drawing her into conversation, then looked away, considering.
“The short answer is because I was ordered to be,” she finally replied, “but the truth is I am here because Jerin and I have fathers who are driven by the kind of fire that would devour the world.” She slid her eyes across to Jerin to see how he took it, and he met her gaze.
“You will hear no argument from me on that. I agree completely.”
Olet stopped rowing, heaving the oar out of the ocean and setting it in its cradle before turning to face him. Jerin did the same.