“That’s a very rough plan,” Regina said.
“But it is a plan, one I’m happy to rely on my master-strategist to improve on.” I glanced over at Rose, who seemed disturbed by my statement. He then scrunched his brow, as if committing it all to memory.
“All right,” Rose said. “It sounds good. I think we can work with that.”
“Thank you,” Kana said. “My people are desperate and you are the best hope we have for victory.”
I wanted to comment the Golden Arrow would have more allies if they stopped murdering innocents, but I had enough sense not to.
“I’ll work out the details with Ketra and Kana,” Regina said, nodding. I could already see the wheels spinning in her head. If anyone could cut the knot before us, it would be her. “Serah, can you send message to our coastal fortresses from here?”
“Yes,” Serah said. “Though getting our troops here that quickly won’t be easy.”
“I ordered a large multi-branch force to be gathered before we departed,” Regina said, smiling. “I figured we’d be invading soon enough. We just need to give the signal.”
I smiled back.
“You are very well prepared,” Rose said, not entirely happy.
Kana, however, was not convinced. “I’m going to need more than your word, Black Sun. The Golden Arrow has many agents both inside and outside the city in the forests beyond. I speak for them, but if you are to gain their aid and not their resistance, I will require guarantees. Agreements in writing and publicly spoken plus magically sealed compacts.”
“My word is my bond,” I said, putting my hand over my heart.
“As is mine,” Regina said much more defensively.
“I’m afraid that is not good enough. Make your decision now,” Kana said. “Do you abandon the people of this city and prove yourself to be liars or do you stand by us? Now is the time to choose what sort of friend you are to the Fir Bolg.”
“No,” Serah replied, surprising me. “You are in no position to negotiate.”
Kana snorted at her. “Am I not? This city will not be so easily taken by whatever force you can cobble together overnight.”
I was about to speak but Serah raised her hand to silence me.
I fell silent.
The entire group stopped moving. Serah looked right into Kana’s eyes and the much-taller woman took a step back.
Serah’s voice was calm, but there was a hint of deep anger bubbling just beneath the surface in her next words. “You have dressed like a j’tekr maiden for courting in hopes of drawing either Jacob’s attention or Regina’s, because of their false reputations. You have played on their sympathy and anger at injustice, hoping to turn them against Rose’s allies at the meeting as well as predisposition them to favoring your people, but while you may trust their oaths—you will not get guarantees from me. The Golden Arrow has no choice but to support us.”
Kana asked, sneering. “Do you think the Golden Arrow is yours to play with? That we have no pride, no—”
“Spare me your speeches because I am about to make one of my own. For centuries the Grand Temple has preached against the Fir Bolg’s gods, stolen your children, converted your communities under pain of death, and tortured said converts because they cannot believe you voluntarily worship the Lawgiver. All because of the so-called Saint Jassamine and her desire to wipe your people off the face of the World Between. The same Jassamine who rules behind the empress. You will lend the Golden Arrow’s archers, scouts, and shamans to our cause because you recognize we don’t want to annihilate you.”
Kana stared at Serah for almost a minute, then laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh, but more the kind you gave before being hanged. “That might actually work as something I can bring to the Golden Arrow’s elders.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Forgive me,” Kana said. “But the elders have not been impressed by your brief tenure as Dark Lord of Dark Lords. They expected…more action. Saving this city, while not expected, would go a long way to winning them over.”
“What do you mean it’s not expected?” Ketra asked.
“They don’t expect Kerifas Fir Bolg to survive the purge,” I said. “In fact, given the amount of anger Redhand was able to drum up, I suspect they’ve been deliberately targeting this area for months now in order to incite one.”
“What?” Ketra asked, horrified. “Why?”
“Because that is the way the Golden Arrow works,” I said. “Any survivors and those Fir Bolg in nearby communities would be outraged by the act and compelled to lend the Golden Arrow aid. They would also join up in great numbers.”
Kana looked away. “The Golden Arrow favors the R’tosh, or country Fir Bolg, over the Y’tang, or Fir Bolg who live amongst humans. You are right that they consider the Fir Bolg living in the Nonhuman Quarter to be expendable. You, however, offer an opportunity to save them all.”
Regina growled. “Assuming we want to deal with such untrustworthy allies.”
Serah put her hand on Regina’s shoulder. “A blade is a blade and so is a bow. It doesn’t matter who wields it.”
“Unless it’s pointed at your back,” Regina snapped back.
Ketra stepped away from Kana in horror.
Kana lowered her head. “Please, help them.”
“I will see what I can provide you and your people in the way of protections, justice, or your own land,” I said. “But I require honesty in return, not deception.”
“The Golden Arrow wishes all humans driven from Fireforge forever,” Kana said. “They wish their homeland back and are ready to cleanse it with blood if they have to.”
“That may be difficult to provide,” I said. “Given I see little justice in mass murder and deportation.”
Kana’s voice returned to being cold and unfeeling. “Then you will not find us trustworthy allies.”
“And the regular masses of the Fir Bolg?” I asked, noticing she’d mentioned only the Golden Arrow.
“They do not fight,” Kana said. “They believe in peace.”
“And you don’t.” It was not a question.
Kana clutched her staff tight. “You wouldn’t either after what I went through.”
“I understand.” Regina’s next words had a tinge of threat. “But you will get the trust you give.”
“Sometimes.”
“We need to focus on the Jarls,” Rose said, looking as if he were passing a stone. “Their safety could mean all of Winterholme falling if they’re caught up in this.”
“We’re saving everyone,” Regina said.
“Of course,” Rose said. “I’ll take you to them and then go get in touch with my contacts.”
Regina nodded.
Rose is a spy, you realize, the Trickster said. You saw how defensive he got regarding the empire.
Possibly, I said. It’s also possible he’s simply uncertain about the treason he’s committing against his homeland.
Then he’s a liability and should be killed.
I forced the Trickster from my mind and gestured forward. “Let us continue this elsewhere.”
“We are close anyway,” Rose said, gesturing to a walled-off section of the city that was already surrounded by an angry mob.
Getting into the Fire District was going to be harder than expected.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Fire Districts in my day were not constructed by the empire but by the Fir Bolg themselves. That ancient race of farmers, warriors, and tinkerers had always treated other races as ritually unclean. Much as they were treated. They raised their stonework walls up around their territories to keep outsiders, or anass, out, as much as other species grew to consider them ways of keeping Fir Bolg in. The Fire District within was, due to their heritage as masons and architects, always of the best architecture in whatever nation they were built in.
Kerifas’s Fire District was not built by Fir Bolg. They were hastily constructed with cheaply made bricks, boarded-up buildings, and lots of w
ooden boards with barbed-metal wire. Graffiti with anti-nonhuman slogans were written on its sides, many quite colorful in their expressions of hatred. It was obvious Prince Alfreid or his masters had ordered the Fire District expanded, and recently too. They must have moved it to cover an eighth of the city. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people had been turned out of their homes to do such as well as how many had been forced into locations beyond.
The crowd gathered outside the nonhuman district’s crude gates was, perhaps, better referred to as a mob. There were hundreds of individuals, all angry and some sporting crude weapons. I saw a pair sporting a pole-mounted banner made from a bedsheet and sporting an anti-Fir Bolg message written in shit. There was chanting as well, though not organized to carry a single message, the general gist seemed to be, ‘Go away’ and ‘Give back our homes.’ To think, this was the crowd formed before Redhand’s speech had been given a chance to spread amongst the citizenry.
I gave credit to the twelve or so human guards in front of the Fire District gates, who didn’t back down but kept ordering the crowd to disperse.
“This isn’t good,” Rose muttered, staring at the gathering.
“As if anything today has been good,” Kana grumbled.
“I take it the prince moved all of the city’s nonhumans here?” Serah said, looking from her horse at the Fire District.
“Yes,” Rose said solemnly. “Needless to say, the Fir Bolg didn’t appreciate it. Everyone has been at everyone else’s throats since then. That crowd is made of the city’s poor who were evicted to make room for them all.”
“The perfect sort to form a mob,” Serah said, frowning. “At least they are consistent in their methodology. They want this city to boil over. That is why they armed the revolutionaries inside the city and have been stirring them up.”
“One does not arm revolutionaries if you plan to put them down,” I looked at Ketra then Kana. “This strikes me as the work ot two people planning opposite agendas.”
“Hellsword and Redhand?” Regina asked.
“They would be the obvious candidates,” I replied. “One should never attribute to genius what could better be explained by ignorance.”
“Be that as it may,” Rose said, sighing, “the Jarls were unhappy to be meeting with you in the Fire District to begin with. They might start to leave if this gets worse.”
“Which is strange since there’s no way you could have known I would be arriving this day as, even if Ketra left for Everfrost, it would have been a week’s-long journey both to and back,” I said.
Rose blinked. “Huh. I wonder how that happened.”
“We have a traitor,” Kana said.
“Or they simply learned through other means,” Ketra said. “We are all committed to the struggle.”
Kana snorted at the very idea.
“Your faith warms my heart,” Rose said, putting his hand over his chest.
“Any idea how we’re going to get past them without drawing attention?” Regina asked.
“I’ll clear us a way,” Serah said, moving her horse forward in front of the group.
Serah lifted her fingers and made a series of intricate arcane gestures. She had the hands of a master musician and they were well practiced. The words that flowed from her mouth, like the gestures, were merely aids to the magic that was generated in her mind, but the result was the same.
Before us, a hideous creature with the head of a lion, dragon, and a gryphon appeared plus the body of six-legged scaled beast that ended in a scorpion tail. The monster, a chimera, let loose a terrifying roar before running through the crowd. The screams and shouts of the crowd as it immediately broke away were accompanied by the complete panic that broke loose amongst the guards as well. Of the dozen or so there, only a single one chose to draw his sword and charge at the beast. Because it was an illusion that affected all the senses, the creature knocked him away with a furious swat of its tail, which left absolutely no one barring our passage. The creature vanished moments later as the panic spread elsewhere.
“That was your solution?” I said, appalled.
“So much for keeping a low profile,” Regina said, rolling her eyes. “That was ill done, Serah.”
Serah shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“It will draw attention,” I said, shaking my head. “The wrong kind of attention.”
Serah started her horse to the Fire District. “If we’re to take this city, Hellsword and Redhand are the only people who matter. Everything else is secondary and can be dealt with in good time. We must see how they react to such an incident and be sure we can lure them out to their doom.”
“Unless they choose to burn down the Fire District from above with their dragons,” I said, pointing out the hole in her logic.
“I have barriers capable of repelling such,” Serah said.
I didn’t comment that such barriers always took human sacrifices for the level and power she was describing. It was possible to pre-prepare barriers around cities, but such took months of spellcasting at low levels or potions to enhance the strength of the caster. Serah preferred blood magic, which simply would require her taking down a dozen or so of the guards around the city.
Technically, it was a good plan.
Technically.
Our group followed Serah into Fire District. The portcullis around the makeshift gate was badly assembled and would do little to keep away a determined set of attackers. The sight that greeted us on the inside was tragic. Even in my time, the Fire Districts were always surrounded by the kind of people who didn’t have options of living elsewhere or hoped to profit from the services of the Fir Bolg. There were dens of filth and pornography, dreamlily dens, makeshift stills, and gambling halls that bet on the lowest forms of entertainment like animal battles. The rattiest and foulest housing had been emptied and were now packed with a new variety of inhabitants: nonhumans of every type, age, and class.
I wish I could say it was surprising to see respectable four-foot tall boggans in clothes far too nice for this environment, standing next to foul-toothed powries and emaciated dryads selling their bodies, but it wasn’t. I’d already known what to expect even before entering this place and had seen similar sights during the Fourth War. Whenever things went bad, the nonhumans were relocated to the Fire Districts and their wealth confiscated. It was just the way of the world.
Indeed, by the looks of things, the new inhabitants had embraced the low entertainments of the out-turned dwellers. I saw an eight-foot-tall Jotun lying in a puddle of his own piss with a smell of whiskey so cheap it might have made good armor cleaner. There were numerous prostitutes, mostly recently converted amateurs, trying vainly to sell their bodies to people who didn’t have much money themselves. A gallows was nearby, five bodies hanging from it, and I could tell the guards had not been kind in their attempts to maintain order.
There were few locals paying attention to us, which meant our cloaking spell was still functioning. Few Fir Bolg were amongst the crowds around us, which was understandable since I doubted many of the locals were too happy with them. There was no love lost between boggans and Fir Bolg on most days, with Jotuns considering both a blood enemy race. The fact they’d all been shoved together was another sign the lords of Kerifas were doing their best to provoke a riot. It was a miracle they hadn’t succeeded yet.
“We can fix this,” Regina said, much to my surprise.
I looked at her. “Fixing millennia of mismanagement and race hatred is not going to be easy.”
“We have millennia to fix these things,” Regina said, raising her hand. “I wasn’t raised with the same daintiness and courtly intrigue other noblewomen were in the empire. I wasn’t given concubines to teach me how to use sex from the time I bled or laid seed like my cousins.”
“That’s mildly insulting,” Ketra muttered.
“Mildly?” Serah asked.
Regina continued, “But I know the ways of politics and war. We can conquer our enemies, divi
de them, marry the ones we need to our allies, seduce the ones who are drawn to power, bribe the ones who are greedy, and kill the rest. It will be hard, lonely, and bitter work but we can do this…together.”
I could tell Redhand’s speech had affected Regina, just in the reverse of the way it was intended. When she’d been a young woman, not even her age of majority, she’d witnessed the purge of High Hold’s Fire Quarter at the hands of House Rogers. While House Rogers had since paid for its perfidies, the experience had inflamed Regina’s passions against those who would hunt the Stagmen, Treekissers, giants, and Smallfolk. Regina’s instructor had prevented her from trying to interfere then and she’d been trying to make up for it ever sense.
Even if it did nothing to banish the ghosts of the past.
Rose looked at Regina with a somewhat distasteful look on his face. “Changing the world is what the Nine Heroes are supposed to be doing, isn’t it? I thought you would be fighting to keep it the same.”
“Tyranny and oppression is nothing new,” Regina said. “What made you turn against the Nine?”
Rose stared down at the impoverished masses around them. “Something stupid.”
“Oh?” I asked.
Rose sighed. “I wrote a play that made fun of the queen in a single scene. They shut it down and ordered me to change it.”
“Just change it?”
Rose frowned. “Yes. I was infuriated by that and did the most vicious satire I could. Pamphlets, cartoons, limericks, and more. I didn’t think about all the lives being ruined. I just had my pride prickled—Gewain found me through a mutual friend and sent me to start gathering allies as well as figure out ways to undermine the empress.”
“Is it working?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” Kana said. “Other times, it just gets the people found with his literature killed. I also find it far too soft a critique.”
“Even propaganda must be entertaining,” Rose said, looking around. “This would just depress people.”
“It’s a depressing place,” Regina said. “How did you convince the Jarls to be come here? Surely, it was conspicuous taking some of the richest and most powerful nobles in Winterholme to the slums.”
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