Kingdoms at war, p.29
Kingdoms at War, page 29
“You saw that?” she asked.
“I saw the result. The last time I saw Coxen, half of his face wasn’t burned off. Or peeled off?”
“Burn is the more accurate term. I made an acid in case I needed to defend myself.”
“There’s not a laboratory in your suite.”
“There’s a kitchen.”
Jak, who’d seen Mother make things from all manner of unlikely liquids and powders, wasn’t surprised. Now that she was free, he quickened his pace toward her, but he paused when he came even with the explosive the zidarr had planted. The portal might appreciate having that removed. But when Jak reached for it, he paused in puzzlement.
It was… a mitten. At least it looked like a mitten. Was this some strange mage tool designed to appear innocuous but actually be a weapon?
“He won’t need that now.” Malek walked over, picked it up, and tossed it onto the smoking corpse.
“I don’t understand,” Jak said.
“No? It was your idea.”
“Convincing him to threaten the portal? You were reading my thoughts when I, er, thought that?”
“I wasn’t, but you projected.” Malek’s eyebrow twitched, reminding Jak of the other threat lurking. He lowered his voice to add, “I suggest you not do that around other mages if you wish to avoid notice.”
“You manipulated him?” Mother looked back and forth from Jak to Malek. “Into what? Believing his own mitten was an explosive?”
“And that the only way he would get out of the situation was to use it to threaten to blow up the portal,” Malek said. “I admit I wasn’t sure if the portal would believe it was being threatened.”
“I hope it’s not mad that we tricked it.” Jak regarded the artifact uneasily. In case it made a difference, he sent soothing and apologetic thoughts toward it.
“Let’s hope ancient artifacts don’t experience anger,” Mother said, though she was also eyeing it again. “I am a little chilled to learn that it may be able to read minds. It had to have been reacting based on the zidarr’s thoughts, his belief that he was threatening it, rather than having a mitten plopped down on it.”
“Powerful mages can read minds,” Malek said, “so I’m certain the dragons were able to.”
“And they were able to pass that ability into the tools they made?” Mother sounded skeptical.
After watching the portal fry the zidarr, Jak had no trouble believing it could read minds. It had heard his attempts to communicate with it. He was certain of that.
A guard captain came up and saluted Malek. “My lord, we’ll have the bodies removed and take these prisoners to the dungeon for interrogation. Is there anything else you wish of us?”
“Sweep the castle for any more intruders, and find out how these got in.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Malek looked at Jak and Mother. “I’ll have someone escort you back to your rooms, and I’ll check on you later.”
“That’s not necessary,” Mother murmured.
“The escorting or the checking?” Malek asked.
“I wouldn’t object to an escort right now.” She grimaced as two guards dragged the dead zidarr’s body away.
“I see. It’s the checking,” Malek said dryly, unaffected by the bodies around the area. “I’m afraid the king wants an update at the end of each day, and I’m the one he’s put in charge of that, so you’ll have to report to me and endure my odious checking in on the progress.”
Mother touched her bloody neck and didn’t respond to his words. She nodded to Jak. “You have your rubbings? We’ll look at them in better light inside.”
“Is there any chance we could use a library tomorrow?” Jak asked Malek. “Is there one in the city?”
“There are many,” Malek said, “including one in this castle.”
Jak wouldn’t have minded getting out of the castle. “Does it have lots of atlases?”
“And linguistics reference books?” Mother lowered her hand. “I want to see if I can find a match for the symbols.”
“Yes. King Uthari’s collection is extensive. If it will help your research, I will request his permission for you to visit his library.” Malek looked toward the courtyard entrance.
General Tonovan was walking in with several of his uniformed men. Mother groaned, but he barely glanced at her, instead stopping in front of Malek.
“We’ve got new trouble. You better come with me as I report to Uthari.”
“It’s begun?” Malek asked.
“If by begun you mean did two of Queen Vorsha’s mageships strike at some of our barges gathering food from farms, then yes. They didn’t even try to hide their identities. This is an open declaration of war. I sure hope this was worth it.” Tonovan kicked the portal, scowled at Mother and Jak, and strode toward a door leading into the castle.
Jak watched, wishing the portal would electrocute him in the ass, but the foot must not have been threatening enough. Too bad.
19
It wasn’t Lieutenant Sasko’s first time in Zarlesh, the cloud city of three hundred thousand where the grumpy middle-aged King Zaruk ruled, but she didn’t have fond memories of the last time, so she pretended this was a new experience. She also pretended, as usual, that she wasn’t awed by the towering structures or alien architecture defying the laws of gravity. They were mage buildings made by mages showing off their magic, nothing more. The balls floating at the apexes of the great stone arches lining the wide main street weren’t impressive, even when they spun and occasionally bounced to a different arch, bumping an existing ball out of the way and causing it to bounce to another and so on down the line. Someone who liked puzzle games must have built that.
Captain Ferroki walked at her side, with Sergeant Tinder, Dr. Fret, Rookie Tezi and the rest of their mercenaries marching in neat squads of fifteen behind them. The other mercenaries who’d departed from the transport vessel came behind Thorn Company, also marching in tidy formations.
A few pedestrians on foot, bicycle, or magecart glanced at them as they passed, but the citizens didn’t seem alarmed by armed troops striding down their main street. Nor did any of them take interest in the newly appointed mercenary leader, Colonel Sorath, now walking with his hood back at the front of the formation. The white-haired zidarr, Stone Heart, strode in front of him, leading the procession, with a few green-uniformed officers from the ship marching in his wake. Thorn Company had been told they were being taken to the local garrison, where they would wait while more mercenaries arrived.
A chilly breeze made Sasko wish she’d opted for the sleeved version of her uniform. They were now thousands of feet above sea level, the temperature notably cooler than it had been in the desert. Sorath must have felt it, too, for he pulled the sides of his cloak around his shoulders to drape down the front of his body.
“Are you going to have a problem with this, Captain?” Sasko tilted her chin toward Sorath’s back.
“With what?”
“Taking orders from a former nemesis.”
“We were rarely nemeses, and I respected him even when we were pitted against each other.” Ferroki looked over. “Are you going to have a problem with it?”
“You know how I feel about taking orders from men.”
“Unless it’s under the covers?”
“Especially if it’s under the covers. Someone tries to boss me around, and I’ll put a death grip on his dick.”
“A move that must make you popular on shore leave.”
“That and my great tits.”
“You’re a soldier through and through, Sasko.” Ferroki nodded toward Sorath. “We always have to work for men, either when our units are joined with others for larger missions or when we take jobs they assign. It’s the way of the world.”
“Yeah, but they order you around, and then you order me around. That works for me.” Sasko didn’t go into her past or the reasons for her feelings—the captain knew it all.
“Nothing will change.”
“What if he thinks that because we’ve spent a couple of days together, he can boss us around? You followed him into a brothel to deal out carnage.”
“It was a hotel, not a brothel. And don’t remind me.” Ferroki lowered her voice. “Don’t remind anyone.” She looked at the back of the zidarr’s head.
“Sorry.” Sasko had been useless in that situation, busy chasing her camel and dodging lightning bolts. Knowing Ferroki had gone off and risked herself without Sasko annoyed her to no end. That mages could wave a hand and flatten an entire company of soldiers to the ground was infuriating. “Do you think we’ll be punished?”
Sasko didn’t nod to the zidarr’s back; she trusted Ferroki knew who she meant.
“He’s either forgotten that we played a role in that—” Ferroki tilted a thumb back toward Tezi’s squad, “—or he’s lumping us in with Sorath as people who might be useful in his impending battles.”
“The rookie is going to be useful?”
“She shot one of them.” Ferroki shrugged. “It’s also possible he believes we’ll die and that the mages will be avenged.”
“That seems likely. I could see the zidarr knowing about Sorath and believing he could be useful, but our reputations aren’t nearly so vaunted.”
“My reputation isn’t bad,” Ferroki said dryly.
“Yeah, but it’s not vaunted.”
“As my second-in-command, it’s not your job to batter my ego into the ground.”
“Are you sure? Vanity can get a commander and her troops killed. That’s in Ostark’s Way of the Soldier, isn’t it?”
“He mentions overconfidence, not vanity.”
“Practically the same thing. My point is that I don’t know if having Sorath in charge is a good idea. Yes, he won a lot of battles, and he’s smart under that punched-in-the-nose-fifty-times face, but he got his entire unit killed. There were what, five survivors? Ten? Out of hundreds.”
“Because three kings colluded to pretend to hire his company, then turned their combined forces on them to take them out. They weren’t even kings known to be aligned with each other—the opposite. They’d been enemies sniping at each other for decades. I’m sure that’s the only reason he was led into that trap.”
“That’s one version of the story. There are a lot. There’s one that says they paid him a fortune to lead his people in there for massacre.”
“That’s ridiculous. Does he look like a man with a fortune?” Ferroki waved at Sorath’s forgettable clothing, as travel-stained as their own. “Besides, he’s the only one the kings would have cared about. His men were well-trained, but they weren’t the thinkers, the leaders. They weren’t the ones the wizards feared might one day be turned against them…”
Sasko dropped the subject. She didn’t truly believe the other versions of the story she’d heard, but she hoped they wouldn’t end up under his command. Betrayal or not, Sorath had lost his unit. The man was cursed by the gods.
Their leaders turned down a side road, taking them toward a walled fortress within the greater walled city. Zaruk’s castle-and-lightning-bolt crest hung on giant blue banners to either side of a fortified gate. Magical and mundane weapons were mounted on the crenellated walls.
“This isn’t his castle, is it?” Sasko asked.
“No, his garrison,” Ferroki said. “I’ve been in it before. The castle is over there. You can see the golden walls glinting in the light.”
“Of course you can.”
Guards waved their unit through the open gate, a raised portcullis leering sharp wooden teeth down toward them. On a parade field inside, the ground made from some strange textured gray stuff that served as a reminder that this city wasn’t built on land, numerous mercenary companies already waited. There were far more soldiers than Sasko had expected, troops lined up in formations facing the center of the gray field, with little separation between the units. In some spots, only the colors of the uniforms served to delineate one company from the next. Some were small, like the Wrath Rangers they’d ridden up with, and others had fielded hundreds of soldiers.
“Form them up, Sasko,” Ferroki said, then pressed something into her hand. The damn medallion wrapped in a kerchief.
Feeling the thing was even more cursed than Sorath, Sasko almost thrust it back at her, but Ferroki was already jogging after Sorath. They were being waved toward a meeting of commanding officers in the center. Sasko stuffed the medallion in her pocket, hoping a few dozen yards was enough to keep the mages out there from sensing it. That and the fact that everything in this place had to be made from magic. Hopefully, with all that around, nobody would notice a little old ancient medallion.
Two zidarr in dark clothes without ornament, save for their weapons, waited, and the white-haired Stone Heart joined them. Ten unit commanders were in the group—twelve if Sasko counted Sorath and Ferroki—as well as several officers in the uniforms of Zaruk, Vorsha, and King Dy. A couple of them glanced toward a central tower on the garrison’s main structure, as if receiving telepathic instruction.
People stood up in that tower, watching the proceedings, but Sasko couldn’t make out faces. She wondered if the three kingdom leaders were here or if they’d sent minions. It wouldn’t be that surprising for Zaruk to be in his own city, but it was rare for the kings to leave their sky castles. Vorsha and Dy might be attending through communications nodes.
There weren’t many open areas left on the parade field, so it took some finesse for Sasko to march Thorn Company into formation without breaking rank. But she maneuvered them into a corner and took her place up front, waving Corporal Jinx out with the guidon.
Then came the waiting, standing in a silent parade rest while the higher-ups decided their fate. The rest of the troops had to be patient until their commanders returned and relayed what information they wished. At least, that was how it usually went. But Sasko was close enough to the group meeting that she could overhear some of the louder voices.
“I know who he is. My people aren’t following him… got his whole unit killed.”
Ah, some of the other commanders had the same objections that Sasko had. Sorath stood next to Ferroki, his jaw clenched as he stared up at the tower. He’d been wearing a scowl since his confrontation in the transport vessel, since learning his fate. Sasko wondered if he would have preferred death to working for the kings and with the zidarr again.
Stone Heart kept pointing to Sorath while he spoke to the twelve mercenary commanders in the gathering.
“…happy to listen to his advice but… Colonel Ramhorn should be in charge.” One of the commanders pointed out another.
“Colonel Sorath is known for his effectiveness against mages.” That was one of the zidarr, his tone as dry as sandpaper. “You’ll be battling almost nothing but mages.”
“Fantastic,” someone muttered.
“Mind your tongue in our presence.”
“You said you wanted us to be blunt.”
“To be blunt, my lord.” The zidarr lifted a hand, and the offending commander gasped and dropped to one knee, gripping his forehead as if someone had thrust a dagger into it.
Nobody else reacted, though Sorath didn’t conceal the cool stare he slid toward the zidarr.
“And I wish bluntness regarding our military tactics and the planned raid, not your feelings on mages.” The zidarr released the commander, who gasped again at the cessation of the pain. “Is that understood, Captain?”
The commander pressed his knuckles against the gritty ground, and a long moment passed before he could push himself back to his feet.
“Yes, my lord.” This time, there was no disrespect in his tone. His face was ashen.
Sasko was glad the second-in-commands hadn’t been called up for the meeting. Working for mages was hard to avoid in this world, but she preferred to interact directly with them as infrequently as possible.
“Is there a chance of a surprise attack?” Sorath asked.
“Several of our allied mageships attacked theirs as they were stealing an item from King Zaruk’s land, and there was a battle,” Stone Heart said. “Thanks to their trickery, our ships were destroyed. Uthari will be able to guess that we’ll retaliate.”
“You’re going to retaliate because they defended themselves adequately?” Sorath asked.
Stone Heart squinted at him. “Because they stole something priceless from our land. Do not assume that because you could possibly be useful that your crimes will be forgotten and that we won’t kill you.”
“The urge to serve you adequately is building up in me like flatulence.”
Ferroki elbowed Sorath to shut up, but it was too late. Stone Heart or one of other the zidarr used magic to force him to his knees, and his face twisted with pain.
Ferroki’s fingers twitched toward him, as if she wanted to help. All three zidarr glared at her, and she clasped her hands behind her back.
“If you punish everyone who speaks up,” Ferroki said—damn it, why was she speaking up?— “we will not have time to plan a campaign and catch them off guard.”
Her voice held little accusation or censure, just her usual calm, as if she were quoting from one of her fables. Even so, Sasko cringed, anticipating she would be the next one struck down. But maybe the zidarr felt less threatened by a woman. They released Sorath.
He stood up, as wan as the other commander, but he drew a steadying breath and continued where they’d left off. “Is the primary goal to utterly defeat Uthari and take over his kingdom? Or to get this item that his people have taken?”
Sasko didn’t know why they were being vague about the artifact. By now, gossip about it must have spread throughout the kingdom—maybe all of the kingdoms. She wagered everybody here knew what they were talking about.
“We would love to take over his kingdom,” one of the zidarr said with a snort, “but reacquiring the item is the primary goal. Damage done to his city while it’s being reacquired is encouraged. His theft was an act of war. He brought this on himself.”
