Lesson of the Fire (39 page)

* * *

Eda came to a sudden stop in her exercises,
panting. Something was different in the room.

The bed was splintered. The mattress was so
many thousands of incinerated bits across the floor. A chair could
just be recognized in the mess, and the splatters from the candles.
The only thing intact in the room was the door — which hung open
now.

The cyan-garbed weard lowered her sword and
stepped quietly toward the door so she could see through it,
watching the myst for any sign of attack.

Here in Domus? Who would dare?

Katla stood in the room, her red hood thrown
back, with her hands clasped in front of her.

“Weard Katla Duxpite,” Eda said, lowering
her marsord but not her guard. The woman had teleported here.

“Weard Eda Stormgul.”

The greetings were strained and formal —
childhood friends who had sworn allegiance to very different
masters. They stared at each other for several minutes, and then
Katla seemed to break. She sighed.

“Peace in the swamp, Eda,” Katla said. “I
have not come to harm you.”

Eda relaxed a bit more, but not entirely.
“Why have you come then?”

“I cannot find my brother, but I am certain
he is unaware the Mass will soon be upon us,” Katla said, finding a
chair and sitting, adjusting her cloak as she did so.

Eda sat down heavily. “The Mass?”

“Have I ever deceived you — you who know the
oaths I have sworn and the name of my patroness?

Eda smiled wryly. “Brand would owe you a
pair of boots if he was still alive. He never was one to make good
on old wagers.”

Katla managed a wan smile. “I am afraid the
Mass is every bit as real as Nightfire teaches, and the Drakes are
more numerous than any Mar can imagine without having seen them. It
is at the edge of the Fens of Ruer, and prepared to descend on
Domus Palus.”

Eda felt the familiar eagerness for action.
She had never intended to sit in the citadel waiting for Sven to
give her something to do. That was Erbark’s gift, not hers. The
decision was surprisingly easy.

“What would you have me do?”

“Find the Flasten and Domus generals, and
pass the word to them. They must get to Domus to protect the
city.”

“Weard Verifien, I think I can find,” Eda
said. “But why bring the Flasten army?”

“The Mass is beyond comprehension,” Katla
said, her hands expanding. “The first wave will be as big as all
the weards in one of those armies. And there will be a score of
waves after that. Domus must be protected, and the Mass ground up
against it.” She leaned forward. “Sven once told me that Vitharr
Taffer offered to go with Nightfire, but you fed him some bad soup
a few days before, and he was too sick to go — so you had to.
Stormgul, they called you even then. ‘The fortress that stands
against the darkness, the storm that bows the trees by night.’
”

Eda flushed.
And what of your name, Katla — “one who thwarts
the duxes?” How have the duxes not seen the threat you have hidden
there, or has Nightfire convinced them you no longer pursue your
namesake?

“What about here, now?” Eda asked. “I could
be helping out here. You could go to Flasten.”

“You would not be taken seriously. The
Council knew me as Brack’s apprentice. They will know me as
Brack.”

Eda opened her mouth to object. She wasn’t
strong enough to hop around hunting for Horsa. And to assume peace
could be made! At the hands of a cyan! She stared at her own small
hands. Katla seemed to sense her hesitation.

“A tongue of flame tastes every piece of
fuel to find the most flammable,” she said, her voice low and
sincere. “The Mass seldom attacks cities, and the armies should
have enough time to occupy it before it arrives, so the capital
will hopefully survive the siege. If Pidel joins Domus and its
allies in a battle against the Mass, they might inflict enough
casualties to discourage the Drakes. It is even possible the Mass
can be turned against itself, making it far less of a threat. If
all these other blocks of peat are drenched in water and coated in
clay, though, I must keep the Mass focused on sacking Domus Palus
long enough for Sven to solve this unique military problem.”

“There is not a lot of time,” Eda
murmured.

“You are correct. I would be asking the help
of reds if there was time to argue. But I trust a fellow student of
Nightfire’s, someone I grew up with. Horsa will listen to you for
the same reason, and there may be others. Anyone else would be
suspect.”

Eda nodded, blushing slightly. That had
ended years ago, when Horsa was still a cyan himself. But they were
still friends. Horsa would trust her.

Katla was right. Yver Verlren ran Domus now
that Sven was away, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone who was not
eighth-degree.

“Bui,” she said. “Katla, find Bui Beglin the
guerilla.” She rushed over Katla’s dismissal. “If anyone can defeat
Drakes if they attack before the army gets here, it is him. He will
know how to train people.”

Katla nodded slowly. “You and he stopped the
Flasten army.”

“Yes. He will be useful.”

“I will find him. Now, Eda, you must
go.”

She hesitated again. “Does Sven know?”

Katla shook her head. “He will find out
soon, though. About everything.”

“He will be angry.”

“He will be victorious together with all of
Marrishland, or he will be dead. Pray my patroness is humbled this
time.”

Eda met Katla’s green eyes,
hard as agates. She summoned the myst and slipped into the Tempest,
but couldn’t help but think Katla had manipulated her for some
other purpose.
How does she know so much
about the Mass, and what did she mean when she said she is Brack
now?

“Lead me through the fearful times ahead,”
she prayed softly. “Lend me the strength and wisdom that set you
forever in the heavens. Help me be worthy of your patronage.”

* * *

Katla made her way through the enormous camp
of Drakes. All around her, twenty thousand Drakes — mostly
man-sized, humanoid jabber and stinger guer with a sprinkling of
the larger striped and snatching guer — rested in advance of the
next morning’s march south. It would be a matter of days before
they reached the Lapis Amnis, which marked the boundary between Mar
and Drake lands.

Calling this the First Wave was an apt
title. A few hundred scouts flowed up to the doorstep of Domus
already, racing back along what would be the front. The swell was
the twenty thousand she purposefully walked through now, which
would break over the Lapis Amnis, reform and smash itself against
Domus Palus. And this was the first of more than three hundred
waves that would pile their dead against the defense of the
Mar.

Brack, Nightfire and centuries of Mar were
right to fear this enemy.

This part of the camp was primarily stinger
guer, and their lizard-like eyes regarded her as they raised their
arms away from her, intentionally showing her how careful they were
being with the bony, poison-secreting stingers under each forearm.
She kept her eyes on them warily in any case, but did not
hurry.

She had lied to Eda in one respect. She had
not spoken to the people in charge in Domus Palus. She did not want
someone to usurp Sven’s place by becoming more of a hero. Domus
would fall, despite their adepts. Their training was simple,
minimal. They would collapse quickly. Piljerka had always been a
chauvinistic simpleton, perfect for following orders from men he
deemed more powerful.

Sven will have to return to save the Mar. He
will have to show them he is the torch they must follow.

They thought so differently sometimes. The
loss of their mother had ignited Katla, but she had controlled the
fire, had nursed it and fed it just enough fuel to keep from going
out before the proper time. It would burn exactly what needed to
burn, and not a stick more.

Sven had always had a fiery way about him —
an enthusiasm that could exhaust those around him. Tortz had
changed him, had redirected his passion along a path he never would
have taken on his own. He had slipped out of the hearth and was
burning the floorboards. Soon he would take the house, and then the
whole town. He was blazing out of control without realizing he was
consuming himself.

She did not like seeing Sven raging wildly
like this, hurting those around him and seeing enemies where there
were none. That had been Brand’s undoing, and it would be his.
Katla knew she would have to contain Sven eventually. But his was a
fire more easily extinguished than controlled, and Katla had sworn
not to destroy her brother no matter what he did.

An identifiable line marked the border
between the stinger guer camp and the jabber guer one, but the
increase in noise level was unmistakable. They were jabber guer
because they always made noises. Sometimes they were speaking, but
now, as they readied for sleep, it was the growing amount of uneven
snoring that sounded like a cross between a cricket and an axe
chopping wood. Katla passed by them without causing any stir.

She had spoken to Bui Beglin, because what
kind of a hero could a mundane make? The thick rural speech was
difficult to comprehend at first, but his intelligence had
surprised her. He and his small band would do what they could to
stop the Mass, and Katla judged he would be enough of a thorn for
the First Wave to make the commander do something stupid — like
hole up until the Second Wave arrived less than a span later.

Creating defensive positions would be fatal
to the Mass, Katla knew. Oh, there were millions of Drakes coming
in regular waves of thousands against a much smaller number of Mar.
But they were not supernatural beasts. They had to eat, and drink,
and defecate, and heal — one wave would strip a region to the
ground. A second one in the same area at the same time would lead
to smaller rations. A third one would beget starvation. When the
Mass crashed against Domus, it would hurt itself as much as the
weards who stood behind the walls.

She thought this as she approached the
palanquin that carried the Wave Commander. Guer of all shapes gave
reports to the jabber guer, who responded eloquently. She pushed
through them until she stood next to him. His head turned slowly to
look at her, first with one eye, then the other.

“Wave Commander, have you received word from
the Delegates?”

The Wave Commander was a jabber guer — a
reptilian humanoid with a short, broad tail, strong legs built for
jumping and three-fingered hands with bony wrist spikes. He spoke
both Mar and Middling Gien, Katla had learned, but never in front
of his troops. He spoke the Drake common tongue now.

“Yee Ka Lah, I was about to send for you.
The Delegates are disappointed you failed to kill Yee Seh Tah, but
they have consented to meet with you.”

Finally,
she thought.
I can
teleport there and be back in a few days.
“I will visit them directly.”

“You must follow the appropriate path to
visit the Delegates,” the Wave Commander said, gesturing to one of
his adjutants. The jabber guer produced a large skin and handed it
to him.

Katla sniffed. The sickeningly sweet,
faintly fermented smell was morutsen.

“I will submit to the morutsen,” she said
carefully, “before I visit with them.”

“Yee Ka Lah will begin her regimen now.” The
skin was thrust under her nose. “A messenger must return to the
Delegates to say you are coming. You may not arrive before him.
This is the only way your kind may visit the Delegates.”

“It will take spans to walk
there.”
Who knows what will happen while I
am away!
She tried to keep complaint from
her voice, but the Wave Commander grinned, showing three rows of
sharp teeth.

“It will take as long as it takes,” he
said.

Katla hesitated, remembering Brack’s
travel-worn boots and cane, his long expeditions away from Tue Yee.
She thought of all the Mar blood that could be spilled before she
even reached the Delegates, and she felt renewed respect for
Brack’s patience and fortitude.

For the first time, she
reconsidered her plan.
Can I do this
without talking to the Delegates?
In the
hundreds of square miles of Marrishland around her, four Waves
poised to descend on Domus and all its innocents in the next few
spans.

But in the thousands of
square miles to the north, more than a dozen Waves were
massing.
Isn’t the choice as simple as
that? To save the many, a few must be sacrificed?

Katla lowered her gaze respectfully and took
the skin. “As you wish, Wave Commander.”

* * *

Erika Unschul neither owned nor desired a
marsord. Despite claims that it was mostly a tool, she knew wizards
seldom used it except to kill other Mar, and her parents had raised
her better than that. But it seemed like everyone who served Sven
wore one — even the yellow-garbed priests who stood guard in the
citadel.

Pondr does not, but he is not a Mar, so that
doesn’t count.

She adjusted the black apprentice’s cloak
covering her sturdy, cotton pants and shirt. Some luxuries could be
afforded the Mardux, and her clothing was one of the first things
Erika had upgraded. Dux Ratsel of Wasfal had gifted her half of her
wardrobe, from Mar-made leather belts, boots and vests to the fine
Kafthaian cotton she wore. Smoothing her sleeves, she gestured that
her visitor be brought in.

The man the yellows brought to her was the
first she had seen in months who didn’t have a marsord gouger
peeking out from a slot in his cloak. She would have rather seen
another marsord than a face that dredged up the memories his did,
though.