On the far side of the table was Decimar, who commanded the Balarian longbowmen. Castor hadn’t thought much of his unit at first, probably because they almost never actually dropped into the jungle with Wormwrot, but instead enjoyed the luxury of remaining in the skyships all day and sleeping in their own bunks each night. But his opinion of them changed when he saw Decimar and his men in action. They’d been salting rice paddies from the air, and were lucky enough to catch three scores of Jaguars in the open. Decimar and his archers had sent them all down the river with three volleys.
None of them had missed. Not even once.
Then there was Garret the Hangman—the gray-eyed assassin Osyrus Ward kept in private employ—who was standing to the side with his arms crossed. Castor was unclear on why Garret attended these meetings, seeing as he never said anything in them, but so long as the Hangman stayed out of his way, he didn’t really care.
And, lastly, there was the Papyrian widow. Vera.
She was lounging in a windowsill, apart from the rest, which Castor imagined the others were grateful for. Everyone was afraid of Vera because she and that gray-eyed Balarian had been crisscrossing the realm of Terra, intimidating and torturing and killing any lord or governor or general who seemed to have even the kernel of an idea about bucking Ward’s authority. Every man in that room knew that if their minds sprouted similar ideas, it would be Vera’s face and Vera’s blade that came for them in the night.
“We’ll begin,” said Osyrus. He picked up a preserved dragon bone that was fit with a kind of ratchet gear, which he twisted a few times, as if he’d forgotten what purpose it served and was trying to remember. Placed it back amongst the pile. “Commander Vergun, how is our little jungle war going?”
Vergun sucked a pink scrap of gristle from between his teeth and spat it away.
“We ran ten drops last month. The eight patrols with an acolyte attached didn’t encounter the enemy at all, other than those fucking mud totems they leave everywhere. One patrol wandered into a dragon nest like morons and got themselves eaten. My drop didn’t have an acolyte attached, so we naturally saw contact.”
“Combat report.”
“They waited until we were halfway done crossing a river, then attacked from both sides. I annihilated the war bands that attacked my side, then crossed to assist the others. We prevented the unit from being destroyed, but they still suffered heavy losses. Two score dead. Twice wounded.”
“Losses to the enemy?”
“They carried away their dead. Pretty sure they know about the bounties Wormwrot collects for masks.”
“Give me your best guess.”
Vergun muttered a curse under his breath. Gave Castor a look, silently asking him to take over.
Castor shrugged. “I’d say about a score.”
“A score,” Ward repeated.
“Give or take.”
Ward returned his attention to Vergun.
“You lost twice as many men as our enemy. How did you muck that up so badly? No, forget some ambush by the river. Let’s back up. How is it that despite the fact that I have allocated immeasurable resources to your war effort—resources that quite literally did not exist until I built them—along with a domineering advantage of troop numbers, equipment, and rations, all you’ve managed to accomplish in the last six months is a protracted stalemate?”
Vergun stood up. “Fuck your supply lines, Ward. You’re not a soldier. You’re not a tactician. You’re just an old man in a tower with a bunch of metal toys.”
“But you are a soldier. You are a tactician. Explain to me why you’re failing to win this war. The Jaguars are hamstringing our ability to extract vital resources from the jungle, and it is putting my work behind schedule.”
Vallen seethed. Castor realized that if he didn’t answer, nobody would.
He cleared his throat.
“We’re doing everything that needs doing to root a native force from their homeland, but the Jaguars are doing everything they can to stop us,” Castor began. “The skyships help us dump men deep into the jungle, but once we’re down there in the gloom and the mud, that advantage is gone. And if I’m being honest, the Dainwood wardens are the best warriors in Terra. Especially when the fighting’s in their own jungle.”
“Elaborate,” said Osyrus.
“A hundred wardens can camouflage themselves a stride back from some muddy tract, and Wormwrot will march right past them being none the wiser. When they do strike, they do it fast and almost always at our most vulnerable-but-important point. Then they disappear before we can counterattack. Far as we can tell, they have no central command. No rigid battle structures. Each band of wardens sets out on their own and adapts to the situation as they see fit. And they are always adapting. They never fight the same way twice. Conquering the villages along the northern rim of the Dainwood was easy enough at the start of this war, but the men we left behind to hold the villages were slaughtered. Any ground we gain is impermanent. These days, we can’t seem to find any villages at all. It’s like the people just … disappeared. Some of my men think they built new villages in the trees, but there’s no evidence of that.”
Castor paused. Seemed to realize that he’d rambled off course.
“Anyway, that’s what’s giving us trouble from a, uh, tactical perspective.”
“I am not hearing much about how my acolytes are being used to forge a tactical advantage from your perspective, Castor.”
Castor put up his hands. “The acolytes are an undeniable asset. Whatever you did a few months back to stop their spines from getting ripped out has certainly stuck. But the Jaguars have learned to avoid ’em, mostly. And there are still occasional losses, like Lieutenant Droll’s unit.” He paused, not sure if he should proceed. “There’s rumors amongst the men that the Jaguars have a sorceress in their midst. Some say it’s Ashlyn Malgrave.”
“Ashlyn Malgrave is dead,” said Osyrus. “And sorcery does not exist.”
“Then what’s killing the acolytes?”
“According to Private Rigar, the lone survivor of Lieutenant Droll’s unit, it was Silas Bershad and a rather vulgar Skojit man wearing an old prototype of mine.”
“Oh,” Castor said, surprised. “I thought Silas Bershad was dead, too.”
“Not yet. But I would like to rectify that issue. Double the bounties on Jaguar wardens in general. Let’s also put a special bounty on Silas Bershad and his Skojit friend. Ten thousand gold per head.”
“Might help,” Castor said.
“It better. You cannot fathom the rarity of the materials that go into my acolytes. I want their destruction completely stopped.”
“Why not just firebomb the whole jungle, then?” Castor asked without thinking.
Ward’s stare made him regret the comment immediately.
“Well, that’s a good question, Castor,” Ward said in a tone that made it sound like the exact opposite. “The reason we don’t firebomb the Dainwood is because that jungle contains the highest density of the rarest resources in this realm. Conquering the jungle has no value if those resources are destroyed in the process.”
“What are you doing with those resources?” Vera asked from the window.
They were the first words she’d spoken during the meeting—each rough Balarian word pronounced in that smooth Papyrian accent of hers. Despite Vera’s cold and threatening exterior, Castor found himself oddly soothed by her words.
“Pardon me?” Osyrus asked.
“We’re fighting this war to preserve and extract those resources, which you are hoarding in the King’s Tower. What are you doing up there?”
Osyrus smiled. “The same thing that I am always doing. Trying to forge a better world.”
Vera stared at him, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. But she knew as well as everyone else that there was no way to compel extra information from Ward so long as he had his acolytes in the room.
And they were always in the room.
“Perhaps you would be
willing to update everyone else on what you have been doing on the far side of the Soul Sea?” Ward continued. “You were gone for a long time.”
She sighed, then spoke again in that silky, beautiful voice. “The Lysterian governor of Kushal-kin was indeed fomenting rebellion, so I killed him and his three coconspirators. There were also some Lysterian natives in the southern reaches who had overwhelmed the local garrison. I defeated their war chieftain in single combat and they have sworn loyalty to Kira’s empire anew. Five ministers in Burz-al-dun were skimming profits from their kilns, but a nocturnal visit set each of them straight.” She paused. “And lastly, the count of Argel has seen the error of his dawdling ways. He arrived this morning on the first carrack from Ghalamar with fresh troops. More are on the way.”
Castor had never heard Vera speak so many words at once. It made his head go fuzzy.
“You see, Vergun, this is the type of successful mission report I would like to hear from Wormwrot,” said Osyrus.
“Murdering some milk-drinking savages and intimidating corrupt government pawns is not difficult,” Vergun said, then slid his eyes over to Vera. “Come into the jungle with me, and we’ll see how fearsome you truly are, widow.”
Vera returned his gaze, but didn’t say anything.
Osyrus turned to Decimar next. “Lieutenant.”
The longbowman straightened his posture, ever the good soldier.
“While I was in Ghalamar, my longbowmen split their forces across three ships and had success on their strafing runs of the southern coast. They caught five frigates moving along the coast from Dunfar to Almira on an old pirate route.”
“Eradicated?”
Decimar licked his lips. “Nearly. We lost one ship to the fog.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“I agree,” said Decimar. “But this is one more supply line of theirs that we’ve severed. Between that and all the farms that we’ve already destroyed and salted, we must be getting close to exhausting their ability to feed their army.”
“How close?” Garret asked.
That was the first time Garret had ever asked a question in a council meeting. Castor thought the Jaguars’ food supply was an odd thing to grab his interest.
“Uh, well, I don’t know exactly,” Decimar said, sounding equally surprised to get a question from the Hangman. “But we know food’s scarce because the people are willing to risk foraging the open fields, even though they know we patrol them.”
Garret nodded, but said nothing more.
“What I don’t understand is how the bastards are so adept at seafaring smuggling,” one of the engineers said. “They’re a bunch of jungle savages.”
“There are rumors that they’re aided by the pirates of Ghost Moth Island,” said Decimar.
“Ghost Moth Island is a myth,” said another.
“No, it’s not. I used to know an old drunken sailor in Burz-al-dun who—”
“Enough,” Ward interrupted. “Lieutenant, please send two of your ships to Dunfar.”
“Dunfar. Why?”
“They were aiding the Jaguars, and must be penalized. Have your men annihilate, oh, three villages.”
“But we don’t know which villages were giving them food.”
“That isn’t the point. Pick three, and eliminate the entire populace. No survivors. That will dissuade the other villages from reopening any supply lines in the future.”
Decimar swallowed. “By your orders.”
“Good. When that’s done, I need you to resume patrols along the northern rim of the Dainwood. There have been attacks upon the rubber farms that are inhibiting production.”
Decimar scratched his ear. “We can patrol them, no problem. But what’s so important about those damn trees?”
From the outset of the war, Osyrus had been running teams of laborers into the rubber plantations of the Dainwood. They’d been harried and ambushed from the outset, too, and there was good reason to believe that more than a few enemy agents had slipped across the Gorgon due to the open supply line. No security system was perfect, even the seals.
“Huh?” Ward asked. He’d become distracted by the dragon bones on his desk again. “Oh, I need the rubber to make gaskets.”
“Gaskets?” Decimar repeated when Osyrus didn’t elaborate. “And that’s why we’re going through so much trouble to conquer the Dainwood? For gaskets?
“Among other things.” Osyrus turned to his engineers. “And now to my illustrious team of engineers. What good news do you have for me?”
A Balarian named Nebbin—the de facto leader of Ward’s engineer cronies—stepped forward to speak. He had close-cropped, snow-white hair and eyes the color of sparrow eggs. He was the definition of soft-palmed, but he was also a ruthless bastard in his own way.
All of Ward’s engineers were eager to push Ward’s insane projects forward to the best of their ability. They brought him new formulas scrawled on scraps of paper. Worked furiously through the night to repair his machines when they broke down. They also cheated and lied—scrambling to take credit for new discoveries and pointing out the mistakes of others. The reason Nebbin had risen to the top of their fucked-up pecking order was because he was simply better at the betrayals than everyone else. Castor was fairly certain he sabotaged his colleagues’ work, and Castor knew for a fact that he had hired two Wormwrot men on side contracts to murder his rivals.
Osyrus either did not know about Nebbin’s behavior, or did not care.
“Two more warrens have been successfully harvested,” Nebbin said in that nasally voice of his. “Both middle-grade samples, which have been moved to the upper levels for processing.”
Ward’s face made it clear he wasn’t thrilled with that result.
“I know that progress is slower than we’d hoped,” Nebbin said carefully. “Perhaps we might try another attempt at harvesting from the Heart of the Soul Sea? Those islands are so riddled with warrens, a single skyship could bring back enough specimens to put us back on schedule.”
“No. We’ve already lost too many skyships to the dragons in that area,” Ward said, brushing the idea off. “Speaking of which, give me an update on that latest crash. The Eternity.”
Nebbin nodded. “We’ve had ships patrolling the borders of sector thirteen for two weeks now, waiting for an opportunity to salvage the cargo. But they have yet to see an opening in the Blackjack horde.”
“Yet the crash site itself remains unharmed?” Ward asked.
“Yes. Our theory is that the Kor was damaged during the crash, and may be emitting some kind of noise or signal that is deterring the lizards.”
“That is possible. And interesting.”
There was a long silence while Ward appeared to be internally exploring the interesting nature of this fact in more depth.
Nebbin cleared his throat. “Shall we continue the patrols, Master Ward?”
“No, we’ve wasted enough fuel on that errand,” said Ward. “At this point, we can declare the Eternity unsalvageable and move on. Divert rations from the colonies to feed the soldiers.”
“The shipment was our largest to date. The loss of that cargo will put a considerable strain on satellite colony supplies, where unrest remains a problem, even with the acolytes stationed in each city and the, uh…” Nebbin glanced at Vera. “Other efforts we’ve made toward control.”
Osyrus thought about it. “No half measures, then. Select four cities and cut off their entire food supply. Preferably ones that have already been deprived of resources for an extended period of time. They will be too weak to revolt as they starve to death. The slums of Burz-al-dun are an obvious choice. Figure out the other three. Now, please.”
“Yes, Master Ward.” Nebbin turned to the engineers, who quickly huddled together and started rattling off the cities that they were planning to starve out. They seemed to approach the task as if it was a mathematical puzzle rather than a genocidal order.
Vergun’s attention wandered back to another piece of
meat stuck in his teeth. Osyrus picked up another one of his tools and started messing around with it. But Castor remained on edge. Something had changed in the room.
Staying sensitive to subtle change was one of the first things they teach you as a Horellian. You can be the best there is with a blade or your hands or a bow or any weapon, really, but you couldn’t protect anyone for shit if you got surprised. And little changes were the precursor to a surprise. A man in a crowd who’d been standing still for an hour, but starts to move. A gentle draft in a room with closed windows. A doorknob slowly opening. Like that. Once you got used to looking for them, it was the fact something was different that registered before the difference itself. It took Castor a few moments to hone in on what had his hackles up, but he got there.
Vera’s posture had changed. Stiffened, just a little. And her eyes were flicking back and forth between Osyrus Ward and the engineers with a calculated kind of wrath. For a moment, Castor wondered if she was about to attack Osyrus. He wondered if he should intervene.
Before he’d arrived at a firm decision, Vera straightened up and slowly put both of her boots on the floor.
“You’re going to starve thousands of people to death, just like that?”
“Better to amputate a finger than let the entire hand go to rot.” Osyrus motioned to her gloved hand that was missing its little finger. “You of all people should know that.”
There were a lot of stories about how that had happened. Some said a drunken Wormwrot bit it off in a tavern brawl, which she repaid by pulling his stomach lining out of his mouth. Others said she bit it off herself to intimidate some local governor.
Castor didn’t believe either story.
“Losing a finger is only better when there’s no other option,” Vera said.
“There isn’t. The Eternity is unreachable, and we cannot risk more of these troublesome rebellions before the war with the Dainwood is resolved. The acolytes are stretched far too thin as it is.”
Osyrus went back to his dragon bones. The engineers continued to murmur.
Vera moved to Decimar and whispered something in his ear. The longbowman leaned back from her, shaking his head. Apparently, he didn’t like what she had to say. But they went back and forth with whispers a few more times, and eventually Decimar gave a defeated nod. Vera stepped back from the table.
Fury of a Demon Page 12
