The Four Forges (56 page)

“That one. I simply must have that one.”

She pointed at the gown Nutmeg had nearly finished for the Warrior Queen Lariel.

“I’m so sorry, madam, but that’s been commissioned.”

“Oh! Of course, of course it has. And the fabric, exquisite, although not my color. I prefer greens. However,” and the mayor’s wife dropped her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Surely you can tailor another gown?”

They needed the coin. Adeena knew that from the raft of bills that came in, and from the pinched look on Lily’s face. The magnificent gown was not to be copied, but how would its wearer know? A different fabric . . .

“Let me suggest some beautiful fine
shattan
we just received, and in a soft jade that would be most flattering to madam’s eyes and coloring . . .”

“Perfect!” cried the woman, clapping her hands together.

And the deal was done before Lily returned, and Adeena had gone back to her own panels, pleased at bringing in a nice sum to the shop’s coffers. She hadn’t the backbone to run the place by herself, but she knew how to be a good support to Lily Farbranch, and by all the Gods, she would!

“WE ARE MET TO CONSIDER Petitions set forth to the Four Kingdoms and to share our welfare and concerns with one another.” Bistel Vantane stood at the front of the assembly, shoulders slightly bowed but his wiry frame otherwise straight, his silvery-white hair cropped close to his skull, his eyes of dark, blazing blue watching his audience with piercing keenness. Only close enough to be struck by him could one see the rings of lighter blue around each iris, a distance few cared to approach with Bistel. Bistane was an echo of his father’s physical presence and only slightly less feared. Like the vantane, the Vaelinar falcons brought to Kerith, Bistel gauged those he watched for weakness. He let his gavel fall on the podium at his elbow. It rang with agonizing sharpness.

“The Petitions have been gathered, and we shall weigh their merits. First, I will digress. Azel d’Stanthe of Ferstanthe had hoped to appear in a few days, when our own concerns will be presented, before misfortune struck him down. Queen Lariel Anderieon has asked to speak on his behalf.”

A murmur shot through the room. Rumors had sharpened the ears of everyone, and Lariel rose with slight trepidation and made her way to the podium. Acoustics of the room made it possible to be heard quite well from the front, and she paused to take a breath.

“First, I will address the rumors. Yes, he has been struck by an assassin. As of this moment, he survives. We can’t predict beyond this moment. He has the best care we can give, but he will have no visitors. I’m sure you all understand why. When his condition changes, you’ll all be apprised as soon as possible.” Lariel stopped speaking to let the reaction sweep the others, listening to murmurs and protests and a few shouted questions at her, which she did not intend to answer even if she could. When the assembly quieted again, she continued. “Azel hoped to present as well as attend this year. Because he deserves a voice, I’ll give to you now, for your consideration in future days, what he proposes.” Lariel looked over them, saw them listening, a mix of expressions on faces familiar and unfamiliar. “He wished more libraries built, and the funds not only to construct them but to train new scribes and copyists and historians to maintain them. Libraries not only on this coast but to the east. Three, in all, across the continent.” She lifted a hand and placed it on the podium more to steady her voice than to steady her body. She eyed Sanfer, Azel’s nephew and only heir, who looked as shocked as anyone, before moving her gaze onward. The burly man carried the d’Stanthe looks and, she hoped, ambitions. “Moreover, he wished to have the libraries open to all on Kerith who wish to use them.”

That brought outbursts. She knew it would. She waited for the furor to die down a bit, then raised her own voice. “A proposal set forth to you by the House d’Ferstanthe. Consideration, arguments, and judgment to be given, as customary.” She left the front then, returning to her place by Jeredon.

“That went well,” he said dryly to her ear. “You’re still standing.”

“Thank you,” she replied, then took her seat. “I wondered. Sanfer, from his reaction, knew nothing about any of this.”

“Azel didn’t expect to need an heir just yet.”

“No. I imagine he didn’t. I think we’ve all been forewarned.”

Jeredon put his hand on her arm and squeezed gently.

Bistel dropped the gavel head again, gaining instant and absolute quiet. “Now we begin the Petitions. Foremost is that of Bregan Oxfort, trader, of the lineage Oxfort . . .”

Lariel sat back and let Bistel’s crisp words dissolve into a drone. The elder Vantane had no love for the Oxforts but agreed to present their petition in her stead, as Lariel presented Azel’s wishes and hopes. She’d had no desire to hold the podium any longer than necessary. Jeredon on one side, the wall and Sevryn on the other, and Bistel’s own severe overseeing kept those around her from leaning over with inquiries and comments. She should listen well, she knew. The foreknowledge that this assembly would be exceptional danced along her nerves.

 
 
Abayan Diort knelt on one knee by the great-stone-and-earthen dam and put his palm to the thick wall of the structure. At his right shoulder, the still blue waters of the lake held by the dam lay, a great eye staring back at a sky of its own color. At his left shoulder, the river tamed by the dam and its fertile valley, its far-flung city of Inthera, fanned out below. He remembered his days as a child when this valley had been flooded out, ravaged with ferocious regularity by the river. He remembered the laborers going off to work on the dam, many losing their lives, but it had been built. Rakka growled at him, the war hammer in a new harness across his back, as he sifted through his memories.

A messenger rode up the steep hill, and Abayan rose to greet him.

“What word?” He did not fail to notice bandages bundled the left hand of his soldier, and fresh blood stained the linen. He wondered if the city had barbarically cut off the left thumb of a messenger who brought terms that would not be accepted.

His soldier saw his glance and covered the bandage with his good hand. “They reject any terms you bring them.”

Abayan stared down at Inthera again. “Why do they not see?”

“Commander, I spoke as you bade me.”

He had warned them of consequences if they refused his terms. He told them to send their children, their revered out of the valley. He saw no movement below despite his words. “I know you did. They’re stubborn and blind.” His countrymen believed that the downfall of the Galdarkans sprang from the Magi themselves, each Mage fiercely independent and jealous of any other’s power, each holding elemental magic in a unique way, and each commanding his own small kingdom with Galdarkan guards. His own name, Abayan, came from the Mage Abas that his family had served. The battles of the Magi had also turned the Galdarkans upon one another until the end. Once released, they retreated to their own holdings, fiercely independent. That separation played into the hands of any enemy. Already divided, they could be conquered one by one. He allowed himself a single sigh of regret.

“Give the order to stand down, and remind the troops to stay on the high ground as I instructed them.”

“Yes, sir.” His man reined away, hissing through his teeth as his horse broke into a rough trot, jarring his maimed hand.

Diort waited several long, crawling moments for word to spread through his troops, his hard look ever on Inthera, staring to see if any one at all below him took his threat seriously. A few moved to nearby hillsides, but whether they did so because word reached them or because they were shepherds preparing to go out and round up grazing flocks, he had no way of knowing. The wagonloads he hoped to see, he did not.

After a time, he raised his hand to give a signal. His cavalry turned as one, facing downhill, readying themselves to go in. Horses stomped and champed at their bits, and spurs rang as they moved restlessly.

Abayan reached back for his war hammer and the weapon leaped into his hand, wood vibrating with a low buzz only he could hear. A guttural whisper for his ears only. He flexed his fingers tightly about it as he brought it forth. No need for a practice strike. Rakka knew stone and earth. He swung it overhead, and waited another long moment.

Nothing hopeful moved below. With a murmur of regret, he tensed his shoulders and swung the war hammer into the dam’s wall. It struck with a
BOOM!
like a crack of thunder, and he jumped back, off the wall and onto the high hill, and then even farther in case the crag of the hill should give away. Logic told him that he would need to hit once, twice, or even three more times to affect it. Instinct told him that Rakka had shattered the heart of the dam and he would die if he stayed to strike again. The earth spoke, groaning, echoing the Demon’s name as it shuddered,
rakka
. A ripple moved across the lake, then another, then a singular wave rose, racing away from the dam, cresting across the sky-blue water.

His heart beat harshly. Once, twice. Then it skipped a beat as the war hammer rattled in his grip, wanting to be loosed again. He struck a second time, but the power of the first had faded considerably as it thudded into the dirt. The Demon was not limitless, it tired, and he could feel the fatigue in his anger. He wrapped his hand about the weapon tightly, lowering the head slowly to the ground and leaning upon it.

The stone began to crackle as ice does breaking upon a spring warmed pond. Puffs of dirt shot up as it fractured, and then the hillside started to rumble, dirt and stone boiled up and began a slide downward, carrying brush, grass, trees with it, a river of ground on the move. The earth-and-granite walls of the dam shuddered, holding a moment, then spidery cracks ate up its sides and began to split open. The stone walls of the dam broke in a series of loud jolts, pounding his ears with pain, and scores of the troopers around him covered their heads as the percussions sounded.

Then the water roared forth, freed, spurting out over the moving dirt and rock, blue water gray with froth and then brown with soil, cascading down into the valley. He watched the waves, wondering vaguely if they would turn crimson when they hit the city.

The butte crumbled as the water hit it. One of his troopers fell, and the horse slid downhill. It scrambled to its feet to run. A swift, light, long-limbed horse, it put its head down and stretched its body out in a panicked gallop. He knew how fast it must be going, ahead of the landslide, ahead of the raging water, and yet it lost the race, swallowed up and gulped down, swept away like nothing.

Inthera did not last much longer.

He looked back to see what, if any of the lake remained, its body pouring forth in a thunderous tumult through the broken dam. When that slowed to almost ceasing, he faced his troops again. With a wave, he signaled them to move in on the ruins of the city.

“You know the drill. No survivors unless they surrender totally.”

He heard the echo of his order being yelled down the hillside, and his army moved. He stayed where he stood, Rakka talking to him, wanting one more strike into the stone and earth of its desire, and he refusing it. Well pleased with the pounding of the earth beneath it, now it wanted flesh and blood, the taste of life and souls. His head thudded with the effort as he withstood its demands. His muscles tensed into knots of pain as he stood and looked at the leveled Inthera, its fabled beauty floating off in tiny spots of rubble on muddied waters.

Far beyond, where those he thought might have been shepherds roamed, he saw the release of birds on the wind.
So,
he thought ironically.
The traders believed me and went to high ground and now send word of my conquest.
He considered sending archers down and then decided against it. The birds would have flown too far at any rate, and what would it hurt him to have fear and truth of his threats sent ahead of him? Perhaps it might save another Inthera.

He had tried logic to construct a nation, and it refused him. Now he would ply fear.

QUENDIUS DANGLED THE LIMP bird in his hand, dropping it as soon as he tore the scroll from its leg. He read it quickly, his skin darkening with his temper as Narskap watched. When he lifted his eyes, they went to Narskap in his darkest obsidian stare.

“Bad news.”

“I want to know how you mistook the hammer.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“This! This!” and Quendius shook the missive violently in the air. “First, he brings down a walled city that battering rams and catapults could barely scratch. Now, he hammers apart a dam, turning the escarpment it sat upon to powder and flooding Inthera.”

Narskap tilted his head in thought. “Perhaps the nature and strength of the Demon escaped me. Perhaps it bonds with its true user. Perhaps only Diort can control it, as only I can control and focus the sword.”

“Perhaps?” The cords on Quendius’ neck stood out in barely muted fury.

“Can you number a God? Can you trap and compress one into what you wish?”

“He has power I would never have given him, if I had known.”

“It is part of a God’s being to be part of the great unknown.”

Quendius crumpled the letter, dropping it to the ground with the bird’s body. “Now tell me what I should do about it.”

“I would stay his ally. I would become as close to him as a brother, a lover. I would have his troops know my voice as well as his.”

“And then?”

“And then take him out.”

NUTMEG STRETCHED UP to pat down a seam across her brother’s shoulder, before stepping back and looking at Hosmer critically. Finally, reluctantly, she said, “It’ll do.”

“Do?” he echoed, turning about in appeal to his mother and Rivergrace. “Do I look good or not?”