Lesson of the Fire (53 page)

Most of the Hue — those gobbels from the
Morden Moors — had gone to invade the Takraf Protectorates along
with the Nineteenth Wave of the Mass, but they had left a hundred
of their best warriors with Katla, ostensibly to protect her from
stinger coercion in future meetings of the Delegates, though she
noted that they were quick to point out the advantages of
supporting the Hue in every meeting since she had supported their
attack on the Protectorates.

The Gue delegate spent most meetings
opposing any measure the ravits — and especially the Koh —
supported, even though his lone vote had no weight compared to the
ten votes carried by the ravits and their insero allies. The jabber
guer seemed largely uninterested in her, though they seemed glad to
fight a Mar civilization worthy of their race’s glorious reputation
and had mobilized their forces more eagerly than any other Drake
race.

Katla knew Doh Zue Sah — the leader of the
Delegates — did not trust her, but it was impossible to read the
striped guer’s reptilian features for any sign beyond her tendency
to find arguments against anything Katla said, even if the guer
ultimately supported the Mar when it came to a vote.

I wonder if she trusted Brack more.

Katla almost pitied every Drake tribe that
had no delegate present for the meetings of the last few months.
Whenever the Delegates needed someone to do an unpleasant or
impossible task, they immediately handed it to a tribe that lacked
a representative to protest. The spiny-tailed guer delegates were
the worst offenders by far — quick to find excuses for delays in
the mobilization of their tribes’ shares of the Waves. The jabber
guer were bad in their own way, but rather than avoiding battle,
they seemed eager to place their warriors in battle.

The stinger delegates
waste no time in delegating the dirty work to other tribes,
Katla mused.

A spiny-tailed guer arrived in her tent with
a vial — her regular dose of morutsen, which was the only thing
preventing her from slaughtering the Delegates or escaping to
inform the Mar of the limits of the Mass’s intelligence. Even with
insero-mounted ravit messengers, it took a month or more for any
information to get to a Wave from the Delegates, and Katla
suspected any messages the Waves sent back took just as long.

Katla seized the container and drank without
comment, but she instantly had to force herself not to screw up her
face in surprise. She eyed the departing stinger, looking for some
mark of its tribe but found none.

One of the spiny-tailed guer tribes is
preventing them from dosing me with morutsen, and they’re being
subtle about it. But which tribe and why?

Katla had little time to consider the
possibilities, much less how she should react, before another
spiny-tailed guer arrived.

“The Delegates call Yee Ka Lah to the
Delegates’ Tent for a meeting,” the guer said.

“Did they mention the subject of the
meeting?” Katla asked as she rose to follow him.

“Word has reached the delegate of the Ko
that the Twenty-first Wave has been mobilized and awaits the
Delegates’ instructions for its deployment.”

Katla tried to remember the composition of
the Twenty-first Wave, but it eluded her for most of the walk to
the Delegates’ Tent. She was only ten paces from her destination
when the realization struck her.

The Twenty-first Wave is made up of ravits
mounted on insero, and is no smaller than any other wave.

Suddenly, the Mass’s shortage of military
intelligence did not seem like such a handicap.

Chapter 43

“
Less often celebrated but ultimately
more important, Mardux Sven Takraf used takstuf mystalton
exclusively. Unlike ordinary mystalton, which eventually expired
and needed to be rebuilt each time, takstuf mystalton could be
renewed simply by adding Energy to their existing reservoirs — like
adding fuel to a fire while it still burns instead of letting it go
out and rekindling it anew. Without takstuf mystalton, the
Protectorates would not have been possible, because Weard Takraf
would have spent all his time replenishing his supply of Blosin
gloves. Later, it allowed him to send allied wizards and even
apprentices on rounds of spell renewal — all without revealing the
secret of his Blosin gloves to them.”

— Weard Oda Kalidus,

The Origin of Nothing

When Horsa finished describing the events in
Flasten Palus, Eda shrugged.

“We should leave this duxy to the damnens.
It certainly seems like divine retribution to me. The Mass is the
real enemy, and Sven needs us.”

Horsa was glad none of the Flasten magocrats
were close enough to hear them.

“It is not that easy, Eda. If we march
north, the Flasten wizards will not follow us. In fact, they might
attack us outright if we try to leave. They still outnumber us,
remember?”

“Yes, but besieging a city occupied by
damnens sounds like a mapmaker’s adventure, and chasing an unknown
number of damnens into the Dead Swamps seems even more suicidal, if
that’s possible. You said yourself that our recon can’t see
them.”

“It cannot, but we can find the Mar they are
herding.” The last word came out as a snarl. After a brief pause,
he spoke more softly. “You are right to be afraid.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Most of these magocrats do not even have
weapons, and forces and fire wizards are useless against damnens.
Our chances would be better if they were all mundane warriors like
your guerillas.”

“They are not mine. I’m just their magic
support.”

“But we both know why we must stop the
damnens from taking slaves among the mundane Mar. We were both born
in Grun and lived in Rustiford. We both swore to stop slave-taking
among the mundanes, if we could.”

Eda bowed her head and said nothing.

“I have saved many lives since the Academy,
but I caused many more deaths in the Teleport War than ever I
prevented as a priest.”

“Sven needs us, Horsa,” she said softly
without raising her brown eyes.

“Yes, but the magocrats of the Duxy of
Flasten need us more. Their mundanes need us more. If we ignore
that, the entire Duxy will hate us.”

“They already do, and I don’t think we can
end that enmity. Sven just killed their dux in advance of a Drake
invasion. And you just left Ragnar to die in their capital
city.”

“He was already dead. Magic cannot get
within three feet of a damnen, so I could not even have teleported
him with me.”

“You are right to invoke Grun and Rustiford,
though. Leading the Flasten magocrats against the damnens is not
prudent, but it is the right thing to do. I’ll lead half the
wizards south to deal with the damnens. The guerillas might prove
their usefulness yet again before this is done. Lead the other half
in a siege of Flasten Palus. Both groups will need to have a mix of
Domus and Flasten wizards. We’d better make some kind of
announcement soon, though.”

“Yes. I do have one concern. How will the
Domus wizards take this? We are ordering them to assist an enemy
army instead of returning to their home duxy.”

“I never said it wouldn’t be messy. In the
end, the damnens might be the least likely to kill us.” She kissed
him on the cheek without warning. “Watch yourself out there,
Horsa.”

Great gods, please grant
me the power to keep peace between these wizards,
Horsa prayed.

* * *

Finn Ochregut sat on a stool at the foot of
the dais leading to the Chair, listening to the reports of Domus
Palus events. He no longer had any illusions about his importance
or power. He knew Sven had left him in charge of the administration
of Domus Palus because Sven was leading the adepts at the Lapis
Amnis, his closest advisors were scattered across Marrishland and
the city magocrats had gone with Horsa to make war with the Duxy of
Flasten — in short, because Finn was the only one left for the job
whom the Mardux could actually spare. Sven, of course, had not
explained it that way — citing instead Finn’s rapport with the
adepts and his proven loyalty to the Mardux.

Day in and day out, the reports were the
same, from the same people. Supply figures — weapons growing, food
shrinking. Desertions and new recruits — plenty of the former and
few of the latter. A group of former slaves stealing a handful of
wands and threatening their old masters. Complaints from the
imprisoned, drugged magocrats.

Finn invoked Sven’s name in everything he
decreed. He didn’t want anyone to look back at this time and
remember his mistakes.

Today there were two unlikely faces,
though.

Rig Polchef approached first. He had been
the chief cook in the kitchens of the citadel, and for his role in
Erika’s conspiracy, Finn had put him in charge of city security.
The job had proved too big for him, and his assistants did most of
the real work now, but he occasionally learned something
useful.

“We’ve foun’ two mun’anes i’the square near
the citadel — the one where wizards appear. They’re sayin’ they’re
kin of Sven’s an’ have a message for him.”

“What’re their names?” Finn asked.

“Brita somethin’ and Erlend Littlehart.
Mardux ever talk about such?”

Finn shook his head. “The Mardux has lots of
frien’s an’ lots of enemies. What’s their message?”

Rig flushed. “I didn’t ask.”

“Well, fin’ out. Sven’ll want to know, but
he doesn’t like his time wasted. If it soun’s important, sen’ them
with the next legion of adepts that goes to the Lapis Amnis.”

“I’ll do as you’ve said.”

The other was a very impatient Weard Salt,
the keeper of the recon stone.

“Tell me it’s still workin’.”

“It is working, adept,” she said, always
unsure how to address him. At least she had no problems with who
was in charge. “But a new army has appeared, to the south.”

“The south,” Finn muttered. “Not the Domus
army returned?”

“We are not sure. It is about the correct
size.”

“Sen’ someone to fin’ out. Give them
morutdyjiton just in case, but make sure they don’t start a fight
if they don’t have to.”

Finn went to bed that night comfortable with
his position and decision-making. He woke to a nightmare of battle
and smoke. He dressed in the dark and strapped the marsord to his
shin. Taking a sip of torutsen from a flask, he opened the door to
face the horrors outside. The sea of myst danced before his eyes,
allowing the mapmaker to make his way through the darkened
corridors of the citadel. It gave him no sense of texture or color,
but he could at least see solid objects as silhouettes among the
colored specks of magic flowing through the air.

Dead and dying Mar lay in the hallway not
far from his room. Finn caught a glimpse of two Mar wrestling on
the floor in a side room, weapons drawn and seeking blood. Neither
was using magic.

One of Bui’s tactics for fighting wizards.
Get close enough, and your tor buffer makes it a little harder for
your enemy to wield magic. If he tries to do it anyway, he’s almost
as likely to do himself harm.

Finn approached them as quietly as he could,
though they were obviously too locked in their own struggle to
notice him. He summoned Energy to create a small light that lasted
long enough for him to identify the adept and stab the wizard in
the neck with the short blade of his marsord. Blood pooled rapidly
on the ground as the green crumpled and clutched his neck, calling
Vitality to heal himself. Finn and the adept never gave him the
opportunity to recover, stabbing the wizard repeatedly with knife
and marsord. When it was done, the mapmaker let his light fade,
fearful that it might attract the attention of more wizards.

“What’s happenin’?”

“I don’t know. There’re wizards i’the
citadel — hun’reds of them. I don’t know how they got in, but
they’re killin’ everyone.”

“You’ve torutsen?”

“Yes. He’d’ve killed me, otherwise.”

“We need to rally th’adepts an’ make
formations like Sven told us.”

Finn wiped off the blade of the marsord and
slid it back through the hole in his cloak and into the shin
sheath. The adept said nothing, following Finn out of the room and
closer to the source of the commotion. They turned a corner into a
corridor leading into the Mardux’s audience chamber and found at
least three dozen wizards waiting for them.

Never mind then,
Finn thought, ducking back around the
bend.

The adept reacted differently, summoning
myst and hurling fire at the wizards. There was a brief cry as the
magic scorched one, but the retaliation from the others reduced the
adept to a smoking corpse.

Fool! These aren’t Drakes. A few burns don’t
kill them.

A woman’s voice called from the audience
chamber. “Surrender or die, adept.”

Finn knew he could flee. Those adepts who
had once been slaves knew of hiding places in the citadel that were
beyond the knowledge of the wizards.

In the swamps, swift movement kills more
surely than caution.

Finn raised his hand in a gesture of
helplessness and stepped over the adept. The woman who had spoken
wore a red cloak.

“Peace i’the swamp. I’m Finn Ochregut —
actin’ leader of th’adepts in Domus Palus. You’ve bested me, an’ I
submit.”

The red opened her mouth, but Yver Verlren
stepped out of the crowd beside her and spoke first.

“I know this mapmaker, duxess. He led the
adepts’ rebellion.” Yver sneered and turned his attention to Finn.
“Return what is mine to me.”

Duxess? Why is Glyda Zaun involved in
this?

Finn drew the marsord and walked toward the
duxes. A pair of auburns intercepted him.

“That’s close enough,” one growled.

Finn shrugged and slid the marsord closer to
the Dux of Piljerka. “We don’t want to fight wizards. You’re not
our enemies.”