The traveling city was followed by its own guards. Each Delegate had an entourage, varying from dozens to thousands of their own peoples. The city could be compared to Flasten Palus in size, but with many times the number of people. And nearby, the Fifth Wave amassed. Staging points for the Sixth and Seventh waves were marked within five miles east and west. This was a political city, but it was bent on war now, to move at the whim of those who spoke behind the gargantuan tent wall at the north edge of the city.
As her party approached the massive space reserved for the Delegates, she counted more than a thousand armored striped guer with spiny-tailed guer atop their backs, keeping watch. Jabber, spiny-tailed and snatching guer filled the streets, not all were warriors but certainly each was capable of wielding a weapon. Most intimidating, though, was the deep buzz of the five stick-limbed, dragonfly-winged giant insero sweeping periodically over the town with blow dart-wielding ravits mounted on them.
The spiny-tailed messenger pressed his hand against her belly to make her stop; he had refused to speak with her the entire trip. He disappeared through a well-guarded gate in the twenty-foot high tent wall, looming in front of them like a cliff stitched together from the hides of thousands of deer. Next to her, another one silently handed her the skin of morutsen. She tipped a drop onto her tongue, deciding she was sick of the flavor.
“The Delegates welcome Yee Ka Lah and bid her welcome to the Delegates’ tent.”
Katla entered. She remembered Brack’s distinction of the Mar, as opposed to those the Drakes called Yee.
The Mar are proud, ruthless and savage, but the Yee are humble, polite and eager to serve.
Inside, twelve of the hundreds of Delegates were there, each with at least a half-dozen retainers. Across from the entrance, hand clasping an ancient, carved staff, stood the Overseer — first among equals, according to their rules. This was Doh Zue Sah, a striped guer. If the males of her species were large, intelligent and trustworthy, their female counterparts were huge, brilliant and generally considered incapable of lying.
Katla stepped into the circle of Delegates to present herself, bowed slightly to Zue Sah, then stepped back. The Delegates would finish their current agenda before introducing her issue, so she had time. Zue Sah gestured to the spiny-tailed delegate, Tee Rah Rue, to continue, while Katla considered how to speed up the proceedings or interject her own issue into them.
“The Tee have finished refurbishing the arms and equipment of the Thirteenth Wave, but Tee Rah Rue humbly asks the Delegates to give these Tee soldiers more time to prepare for the march from Tee Province, for the journey is long and not without perils.” He gestured to the snatching guer delegate, and his voice took on a snide tone. “All the Hoh lands stand before us. The Tee have heard the Hoh forced the Twelfth Wave to find another, lengthier route or be attacked. The Thirteenth Wave will be of no help to the Mass if the Hoh attack them!” He glared at Zue Sah. “The Tee request a delay of half of a yellow moon.”
The Mar Council would be shouting over itself at such silliness, Katla thought. The Hoh were the snatching guer who had chosen not to join the Mass — a blessing, as far as Katla was concerned. The snatching guer delegate here, Hah Po Ket, bridled at Rah Rue’s suggestion that the Hoh were his responsibility, but he did not step forward when Zue Sah asked for comments. Instead, Joh Zoh Ta, the jabber guer delegate, stepped forward.
“The Delegates recognize Joh Zoh Ta,” Zue Sah said, the staff twisting in her hand.
Katla suppressed a sigh. The news was good for her — dissent. But she had to get back to the front, to see what was happening. Has Sven returned? Is Domus prepared? She had to know.
“The Joh don’t like Tee Rah Rue’s suggestion. The Joh of the Thirteenth Wave are ready to march now, but the Tee are not? While the Joh wait for the Tee, the warriors of the Da and the soldiers of the Za win glory and territory for themselves in Yee lands. By now, the First Wave has reached the Yee’s great city, and the Second Wave cannot be far behind. The great Yee city has never endured more than five waves! The Tee are not assigned to any of the first ten waves! The Tee would not have to ask for more time if they had readied their soldiers sooner!”
Tee Rah Rue snorted derisively. “If Five Waves of Da, Za and Joh cannot take down the Yee, then one wave of Tee will have to.”
Zoh Ta’s entire body turned bright crimson from its normal gray, which all jabber guer did when extremely embarrassed or enraged.
“Enough!” Zue Sah shouted, before Zoh Ta could leap on his fellow delegate. “Tee Rah Rue you are out of line. You may leave, or remember the pact you agreed to.” Rah Rue did not move, but lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgment.
“Now,” Zue Sah went on as Zoh Ta faded to his usual shade and stepped out of the circle. “Are there arguments that do not challenge the plan of attack, or shall the Delegates make their decision regarding this matter?”
Finally, Katla thought, but another spiny-tailed delegate, the aged Zeh Goh Soh, stepped forward, a silver chalice held urbanely in one clawed hand.
“The Delegates recognize Zeh Goh Soh.”
“The Zeh thank Doh Zue Sah and all the Delegates for hearing their concerns. Long has Zeh Goh Soh represented the Zeh among the Delegates. It has been a time of peace and prosperity, and the Zeh are saddened by the grim necessity of mobilizing the Mass against the Yee, for it means fewer Zeh working in the fields and shops of Zeh Province.”
He shot a brief glance at Katla before continuing.
“Joh Zoh Ta is right to say the great city of the Yee has never resisted more than five waves. Therefore, the Zeh humbly ask the Delegates to consider whether it is in the best interests of the Drakes they represent to fully mobilize the Mass.”
Katla could not have hoped for something better, even as the rest of the room rumbled its thoughtful dissent. Zue Sah raised the staff to silence them, but Goh Soh raised his voice, outlining his argument.
“No matter how strong Yee Seh Tah has made the Yee, it will not take three hundred waves to defeat them. It will not even take a third of that. The twenty waves the Delegates have already ordered mobilized will crush Yee Seh Tah’s armies!” A brief cheer, mostly from the younger retainers. Katla was impressed that the Drakes held Sven in high enough appraisal to name him. It is funny that Seh Tah, means Stubborn Fire. “Any other mobilized wave will have to be recalled, and while they mobilize, wait, march, return and disband, our fields and shops are empty.”
He stepped back. Katla stepped forward before any other delegate could consider a response.
“The Delegates recognize Yee Ka Lah, bearer of Domin’s Favor.”
“Yee Ka Lah thanks Doh Zue Sah and all the Delegates for this opportunity to speak.” She nodded to Goh Soh, and spoke loudly and clearly. “While it is true the Yee’s great city has never endured more than five waves, much has changed. Yee Seh Tah has convinced the Yee that he is the chosen one of their gods — the one who will defeat the Mass. Every Yee wields magic, because of Yee Seh Tah.”
She pointed to one of the gobbel delegates, Hue Ta Heh, drawing his complete attention. The Hue had lived in the Morden Moors, what became the Takraf Protectorates. “The Hue well know what magic Seh Tah teaches his students. Drakes will die without ever seeing their enemies, and those who reach Yee towns will not find them easy prey.”
“Yee Ka Lah speaks truly,” Ta Heh said. “Yee Seh Tah as a child invaded us and pushed us out of our homeland. If all Yee children are as him now, we are in danger.”
Zue Sah glared at Katla and Ta Heh, thumping the staff against the growing uproar.
“Yee Ka Lah and Hue Ta Heh are out of order!” she cried, but Katla pushed forward.
“The Tee and Zeh might think sending twenty waves is a waste of energy! The Joh may fear the Thirteenth Wave will never know battle! But I warn you that Yee Roh Yeh was right to fear Yee Seh Tah, for he wields power far greater than you can imagine.”
Yee Roh Yeh. Brack, my old master. You did well, Katla though
t.
The room calmed down, and even Zue Sah lowered her staff. The glower remained, though.
Now to set them on fire. Katla raised her hands. “He has united the Yee in common cause against the Mass and given them magic! Do not send a mere twenty waves against the Yee capital, Delegates. Do not send a third of your strength.”
She lowered her hands into the silence, and spoke in barely a whisper as sweat streamed down her own brow.
“This time, the Mass will need to send all three hundred waves against the Yee.”
She paused. The murmurs began again: A Yee asking for all Yee to be destroyed? And she thought, Hopefully, at least some of them recognize my bluff.
Doh Zue Sah, in calm anger, raised her staff to question Katla.
“And should the Delegates choose not to, Yee Ka Lah?” she asked. “If we send only twenty waves, and they are defeated, how will the Yee react?”
It was a ridiculous question, and the Delegates all sat in shock. The Mass, defeated? At all? Katla smiled grimly. Yet they entertained the idea of it.
“Delegates,” she said. “If such an impossibility were to occur, the Yee would not rest until the Mass is never a threat to them again. Do not let it happen. If you are not willing to spend every drop of your people’s blood in this war, then allow me to negotiate a peace with Mardux Sven Takraf.”
Her choice to use his Mar name proved powerful as again the room filled with the whispered discussions of the Delegates and their contingents.
“The Delegates recognize Hue Ta Heh.”
“The delegate from the Hue thanks Doh Zue Sah and all the delegates for granting him this audience. ...”
After that, the meeting progressed quickly. Of course the situation had been oversimplified: The waves would not all be directed at Domus Palus. The Hue and their gobbel brethren, the Gue, of the Twentieth Wave, would attack the Protectorates as the farthest east assault force. The Tenth Wave would move earlier, thus forcing the Tee’s proposal for more time from the floor. The Tenth Wave would attack along the Domus-Protectorate front, to push south and cut off any other aid.
Nor would they heed Katla’s advice for a peace treaty or bring the whole Mass to bear, neither of which she had really wanted anyway. She left the meeting with some sense of accomplishment, though they had also called for the mobilization of the next twenty waves. The factions within the Drake species were easy to push and pull, and while she was here she would push and pull them.
The greatest weapon I have is encouraging dissent.
Chapter 37
“Perhaps the greatest irony of the marsord is that those who can afford to own one are those least likely to use it, and those who would put it to the use for which it was clearly designed are not likely even to see one. A weard must not be like a marsord. Power serves no function if it is not employed to a constructive end.”
— Nightfire Tradition,
Ethics of Magic
Finn Ochregut wore a marsord because he had been at the right place at the right time. He had taken it from Dux Yver Verlren when the adepts had drugged and captured the wizards in the citadel of Domus Palus. Finn had ordered Piljerka’s ruler confined to a tower cell — he had overheard something about teleportation being limited by height. The weapon pressed uncomfortably against his leg now.
I am probably the only mapmaker who has ever taken a marsord from a vanquished red.
He sat in the Chair and sweated, waiting for the endless line of advisors and petitioners who would soon come to him. Finn knew it was an empty gesture. The adepts who sought to counsel him knew no more about readying a city for war than Finn did. They would tell him the same things today as they had every other day.
Mardux, come back. Someone needs to rule these people! I have no idea what I’m doin’!
The reports began, and they were the same, no one sought a solution.
Weard Salt spoke of the reconnaissance stone. A sizeable Drake army, possibly the Mass, would arrive in three days. A small force of adepts harried it from the flanks, but remained near the Lapis Amnis. Someone suggested this meant more Drakes were coming, and the room erupted in discussion, punctuated with the normal, unalterable news.
As soon as word got to the general populace that the Mass was approaching, the riots began. Tens of thousands of slaves quit working, stole, looted and tried to flee. Finn had asked the adepts to stall them, to put them back to work harvesting kalysut leaves to make the torutsen the adepts needed. Several thousand on both sides had been injured, and hundreds killed, before someone decided to just let the slaves go, unprepared for the trek before them.
The Black Road leading to Pidel Palus was flanked by so many funeral pyres for those who had died in the panicked flight south that it must have appeared to observers a hundred miles away as if Domus Palus was burning down.
Not much later, the desertions began. A sizeable group of adepts left en masse after raiding the torutsen and Blosin glove supplies. No one knew where they had gone. Most deserters took only the cloaks on their shoulders, luckily. Finn listened tiredly to the argument in the room, estimating what they had left and no one suggesting they actually count. He had tried, surely. It was just his throat got so dry and too swollen to speak sometimes.
Just when things had seemed under control again, when the worst of the riots were quelled and most of the adepts were staying, someone brought the news that Verlren had escaped or been freed. That was yesterday. Finn had not slept.
He’s going to kill me! I don’t want to die.
The great doors at the far end of the room swung open, and a wizard in a red cloak swept inside. Shocked and relieved adepts as well as mundanes followed in his wake.
“Mardux Takraf!” Finn said, leaping to his feet.
Sven marched up the stairs of the dais until he was standing before Finn. The mapmaker stepped to one side before the glare, taking a moment to wipe off the seat before the Mardux sat down in it. Instead, the red-cloaked weard turned to face the suddenly quiet room.
“How many adepts do you have?” Sven barked.
“I don’t know,” Finn said.
“How much torutsen?”
The mapmaker shook his head.
“Blosin gloves? Surely some have been prepared.”
“Since the slaves left ...”
“How many weards are around?”
Finn felt his throat go dry and swell again.
The Mardux turned his eyes to the rest of the room. “Find out,” he said quietly. “Our lives, our country depend upon intelligence, and I see little of it in this room.”
Finn slunk to a corner of the vast room to watch and listen. As far as he could tell, Sven was pleased with the number of adepts there were in Domus Palus, and the Mardux seemed delighted to learn they had made Blosin gloves for the defense of the city. Sven was much less cheerful about the looting and lack of discipline, and he seemed genuinely concerned about Dux Verlren’s mysterious disappearance.
The Mardux never asked about Pondr, Erika or Asa, however, and Finn did not want to risk his wrath by mentioning them.
* * *
A mist rose in the evening on the western edge of the Takraf Protectorates. Erika rose and peered through the dreary twilight at the empty walls that had once been the village of Erscht, water droplets forming on her chilled face. A sip of torutsen confirmed its defenses no longer scanned and protected it. By the look of it, the town had been abandoned for at least a month.
What is left of my home? She stared east in the gloom. Oh, Sven, how could you have let this happen?
It was worse than Erika had imagined. They found the burned and savaged bodies of the militia in the last town, and adepts had spotted bands of gobbel raiders at least three times since they crossed the border into the remnants of the Protectorates. The Drakes had kept their distance. The adepts on perimeter duty wore a strip of bright green cloth around each arm, and the gobbels of the Morden Moors still feared Mar wearing that color.
Aroun
d her, the camp stirred to life. Adepts started fires, often fueled entirely by magic. Forcing them to use magic for nearly everything had led to incredible growth in their ability to use the myst. This close to the Fens of Reur, it was a necessity. Drakes were certainly not the only reason only the maddest mapmakers braved the Fens.
Power shielded legs from Dinah’s Curse when they were forced to wade or dried and cleaned clothing splashed with water. Even with good boots, foot rot could force amputation. Vitality, then, helped heal blisters, scratches, rashes and other results of daily hazards. Without wood or dry peat, the adepts were forced to cook with Energy. In the desolate, war-torn landscape, magic fed them and sustained them.
“Weard Unschul, there is smoke to the east.”
Cook fires or funeral pyres? Erika wondered with a shudder.
“Shall we investigate?” one of the adepts asked, her wiry grey hair snarled from spans of travel.
Erika quickly placed the face with its name.
“I will go, Nanna. The Protectorates are my home, and even if I do not know everyone who lives here, everyone on the Morden Moors will know me as Sven Takraf’s wife.”
“We should all go, Weard Unschul.”
Erika shook her head. “I will take six adepts. More, and they might think we are with the invaders who did all this. Asa, honey, you stay here with Pondr until I get back.”
“Okay, Mom, but when are we going to stop walking?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“How about if I tell you the story of your father’s trip to Nightfire’s Academy from Rustiford, Asa?” Pondr asked.
How does he know about that? Sven never even mentioned it to me, Erika thought as she left them.
Asa leaned forward attentively.
“Nightfire came early i’the mornin’, a year after Sven told his father, Pitt Gematsud, he’d offer himself as a tribute slave to Nightfire for savin’ Rustiford ...”
Chapter 38
“Choosing an apprentice is serious business. Magic is power, and not all people are capable of employing power responsibly. Before choosing an apprentice, it is essential to learn something of the potential candidate’s character. To do otherwise is as irresponsible as leaving a large stockpile of weapons in Drake territory.”