The Cycle of Galand Box Set

by Edward W. Robertson

  The water flooding through the two channels would have done away with the plug of boulders and silt by itself, but Dante had no intention of giving the Mallish priests the time to figure out an escape. He continued to jostle and weaken the soil, letting the titanic strength of the ocean take care of the rest. The strip of land shrank on all sides, opening a third gap through it, then a fourth.

  Soldiers ran from the crumbling embankments. As the land dwindled beneath their feet, spilling them into the tide like grain poured into a boiling pot, a few flung themselves over the northern banks. The foamy eddies swallowed them up. Dante watched with a perspective that didn't feel entirely human.

  On the eastern shore of the flooded valley, the Colleners unleashed a battle cry that could barely be heard over the torrential wash of the sea. They charged the Mallish vanguard, which had scattered from their formation, trying to get away before the flood claimed them next.

  Dante watched from afar as the most organized of the enemy commanders redrew their lines. Most didn't. The Colleners punched through their slipshod ranks like a spear through untanned leather.

  In a matter of minutes, five thousand men had been reduced to five hundred.

  On the west bank, less than two hundred yards from where Dante crouched in the sagebrush, Mallish officers yelled commands to their men. Dante killed each officer with a bolt of black nether. The enlisted men cried out and danced back, covering their heads.

  Dante reached out with his right hand. Black mist congealed over the fallen bodies, sinking into their skin. The dead staggered to their feet, launching themselves at the men they'd once commanded, biting ragged hunks of flesh from faces and necks.

  Blays grunted. "I almost feel bad for them."

  "If they'd taken the basin, they would have murdered every last person in it."

  "I said 'almost.'"

  Dante brought ten more undead to their feet. They grappled with the soldiers and made clumsy hacks with their swords. After a brief skirmish, the surviving soldiers broke, streaming west through the yellow grass.

  "Why are you letting them go?" Blays said.

  "So that they'll be able to tell King Charles the story of what happened here."

  ~

  The entire valley had flooded for miles inland, running all the way to where Dante had started his barricade of ridges and ravines. He and Blays rode north along the new arm of the sea. The water was as brown as tilled earth, sloshing chaotically as it made sense of its new shape.

  The waterway was at least a quarter of a mile across at its narrowest, widening to a mile or more at others. Conceivably, the Mallish could sail a fleet up it and debark on the eastern bank, but with a few watchmen along the coast, the Colleners would have no troubles defending it. The rocky cliffs bordering the shore would prevent a landing elsewhere.

  The barrier was complete.

  They swung around the northern tip of the inlet and struck south along the eastern shore. Blays scanned the horizons. "Suppose the Walking Fish made it out?"

  "No idea," Dante said. "And I'm not sure if I want them to have."

  Blays laughed. "You're in a dark mood these days."

  "That's the natural reaction to getting jerked around." He was quiet for a moment. "The norren are stubborn. But they aren't stupid. After we found the Face of Dozundo, Kadda knew we weren't just lunatics. She would have people watching for any signs of trouble."

  "Then I'm sure they had a great time watching the giant, inescapable flood."

  "We warned them. We did everything they asked of us. If they chose to stay, then that's on them."

  Riders appeared ahead. Cord galloped at the front of the Colleners who'd crushed the Mallish vanguard, grinning like she'd gone mad. She reined her mount to a stop, dust blossoming from its hooves.

  "Friends!" She carried her wheel in one hand. Both the point of its spear and the iron ball on its butt were coated in blood. "Do you know what we've done?"

  "Won a war?" Blays said. "Or are you referring to this brand new beach you've acquired?"

  "We did more than win. As I killed the Mallish, I felt the calling of the gods. This was where they always meant for us to triumph. We've fulfilled our destiny!"

  Around her, the other soldiers thrust up blades, spears, and fists and screamed at the sky.

  "Collen is free!" Cord bellowed. "Today and forever, Collen is free!"

  The atmosphere among the other soldiers was equally ecstatic. Almost religious in its fervor. When Dante and Blays returned to the city of Collen, they were greeted with such overwhelming gratitude Dante was afraid his ass would fall off from all the kissing.

  Men rolled kegs of beer into the street, pouring cups for any and all. People danced in the squares while women strung strips of red cloth between the upper windows of the buildings. Boggs had arranged a great feast for them, peppered asparagus and quail eggs, venison with gravy, squares of almond paste served at the end. The volume of beer tapped for the occasion was enough to flood the Valley of Northern Spirits all over again.

  "Have you ever seen people this happy?" Blays said between bites of red venison. At a nearby table, two men were in the process of falling out of their seats from laughter. Others were dancing with their plates in hand, asparagus spilling to the tile floor.

  "No," Dante said. "But then again, I've never seen people celebrating the end of nine hundred years of armed occupation."

  Until that moment, he'd felt removed from the outrageous good cheer of the Colleners. But when he put their achievement into words, he was brightened. No matter how much awful shit had come attached to the victory, they had nonetheless done some good for the world.

  He was kept up late by the well wishes of a steady stream of farmers, who in Collen were granted the esteem of minor lords. At last, he was allowed to sleep. He dreamed of walking a world free from people, questing in perfect solitude. As he moved on, the landscape shifted around him with each step, and he was supposed to find a silver doorway, with the other side holding the answers to all his questions. Yet every time he glimpsed it and tried to walk toward it, the world shifted again, and the doorway disappeared.

  When he woke, he summoned a meeting of the Hand at their customary balcony. To his lack of surprise, no one was in a state to convene until well into the afternoon. Even the Keeper had the glassy eyes and flushed skin of someone who'd struggled valiantly to empty a keg all by herself.

  "I'd congratulate you on your victory," Dante said. "But from the look of your face, you probably don't remember it."

  Boggs laughed raspily. "And as soon as we're done at this table, I'll be getting back to the one with venison and ale on it."

  "We would never be here without you," the Keeper croaked. "Thank you for your aid. And for playing the part given you."

  Dante raised his eyebrows. "The part was 'given' to me? More like 'thrust upon.'"

  "Clobbered by, as if with a giant mallet," Blays said.

  "Ground up and fed to, like corn to a fatted calf."

  "You have made your point," the Keeper said. "Regardless, you will always have friends—and a home—in Collen. Will you require horses for your journey back to Narashtovik?"

  "You think we're leaving?" Dante frowned out at the sunny fields below the butte. "I don't see any snows yet."

  "Mallon is defeated. They won't have time for a third attack before winter. I doubt that they have the will to continue the war at all."

  "I expect you're right. But this isn't the first time the Collen Basin's booted them out, is it? They've always come back. It might take years, but the king's army will return."

  "Let them!" Cord pounded her fist on the table. "You've built a barrier from one end of our nation to the other. If they want to shed their blood against it, we'll use it to water our wheat."

  "It isn't the barrier I'm concerned about. Not when they have a much easier route into Collen."

  He unfolded a map he'd copied from one of their own. Setting his finger over Bressel, he moved out
to sea, tracing his way along the coast.

  "Our coasts are sheer cliffs," Boggs said. "But they can make landfall in the Strip. Come straight up through our guts."

  Dante tapped the coastline. "That's what I'd do. If you want this victory to last, you're going to need allies. Starting with the Strip of Alebolgia."

  "They will have no desire to ally with us," the Keeper said. "They wouldn't even sell us grain."

  Blays twirled a knife in the air, catching it by the blade. "That was before you kicked King Charles' ass clean off his hips. Go to them now, while the afterglow of your victory's still blinding everyone, and they might switch sides."

  "Even if they don't, you can't leave the matter there," Dante said. "The cities of the Strip are ruled by individual families, right?"

  "Dynastic houses," Boggs said.

  "Families with fancy titles. Go straight to the top and see if they'll support you."

  "I been running the Twill business for years now. I know that nobody does nothin' out of the goodness of their hearts."

  "It's one thing to run a business. It's another to run a kingdom. There are always houses who aren't happy with the current order. If the ruling house isn't willing to help you, we might have to replace it with one that is."

  They prepped for the trip that same day. Dante was fairly sure the news of the battle would reach the coastal cities on its own, but just in case rumor was sleepier than normal, he had Boggs dispatch a rider to the south. It would be best if the houses had a few days to gossip and scheme amongst each other before the Collenese delegation arrived.

  They left the next morning: Boggs, Dante, Blays, and the Keeper, who seemed hellbent to take every opportunity she could to violate her oath not to leave the Reborn Shrine. Then again, considering the Reborn Shrine was in the midst of being rebuilt from the ground up, remaining in it would be something of a health hazard.

  They took a small retinue of servants and soldiers as well. Dante thought about using the time to ask the Keeper to show him more of the ether, but the thought of spending so much time talking with her was exhausting. Maintaining his temper while he traveled with her was hard enough.

  After two days of riding, the landscape shifted to rolling hills of tall grass and stunted trees. Small farms scattered the slopes, trellises of vines growing in orderly rows. Most had already been harvested, but a few sections sagged with bunches of red grapes hanging from the vine.

  "What do they think they're doing?" Blays said. "Aren't the frosts due any day?"

  "Yes, forget the Strip." Dante tightened his reins. "We must save the wine!"

  "Laugh all you like. When dinner comes, and you have nothing to drink but water, you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

  "Freezing them's the whole point," Boggs said. "Makes the sweetest wine you ever drank. The price they pull is even sweeter."

  According to Boggs, whose trade had left him well-informed with regards to Collen's neighbors, the land they were currently crossing was under the control of a hilltop city called Poloa. Originally, it had been a colony of Cavana, the port city they were headed toward, but over the last several decades, its burgeoning wine trade had swelled its wealth and influence to the point where it had broken loose.

  Poloa, Cavana, and as many as a dozen other small cities composed the Strip of Alebolgia. This was a geographical title, not a political one: the cities were regularly at war with each other. At the moment, however, Alebolgia was trying out a radical new notion known as "peace." By presenting a unified front, it was hoping to leverage more favorable deals from Mallon, Parth, and various trade partners to the south and out to sea.

  The group that had forged this alliance was House Itiego. Cavanese spice merchants, they'd amassed a gigantic fortune which they were currently employing to make their home city the jewel of the Strip. With most of the coast being rugged cliffs or jagged reefs, the city was the only deepwater port in the area large enough to accommodate a Mallish fleet. If the Colleners could convince the Itiegos to deny Mallon the right to make landing, the basin would be all but closed to attack.

  Their delegation arrived on a blustery afternoon. Cavana was dug into a steep hill overlooking the ocean, its levels descending in concentric rings down to its heart, the bustling piers where it did business. Arms of rock embraced the bay, protecting it from rough seas. Ships jammed the waterway.

  The grander houses were built with their backs against the hillside, pale stone with long, slanted roofs to keep the rain off the verandas. The people of Alebolgia had the same olive-toned skin as in Mallon and Collen, but the streets jostled with sailors and merchants from all corners of the known world. It was far smaller than Bressel or Narashtovik, home to no more than thirty thousand residents, yet it felt no less vibrant.

  House Itiego occupied a small hill of its own. Its sandstone central tower climbed to nearly three hundred feet, overlooking a sprawling compound of high walls and lush courtyards. The wrought iron gates were decorated with the albatrosses of the Itiego family crest.

  Boggs had sent a messenger ahead to announce their arrival. The gates were opened by pikemen wearing purple tabards bearing the white albatross. The Colleners were greeted by a man with thigh-high boots and a collar so big that a good gust of wind might blow him halfway to the Plagued Islands.

  "Welcome to House Itiego." The man bowed over one knee. "I am Gareno. Master Itiego awaits you in the Hall of Soaring Sails."

  Grooms materialized to lead their horses away. Several of the Colleners' servants went with them. Gareno took the rest of the expedition to the central keep, a round and massive sandstone fortress with two shorter rectangular wings of the house extending in a V from the center.

  Inside, sunlight spilled through high windows, splashing the black marble floor. The hall was an immense cylinder, the walls rising for thirty feet before bending inward to meet in a dome. A walkway encircled the wall just below where the ceiling began to curve, protected by a railing of thin copper bars. Great sheets of dirty canvas hung from the walls, completely at odds with the dark bleakwood furniture and copper fixtures.

  Gareno's assurance that Itiego was awaiting them turned out to be highly optimistic. While they waited for his arrival, Gareno, who was either a high-ranking servant or a low-ranking noble, told them the history of the canvas sheets, which turned out to be from some of the House's most famous ships.

  He'd gotten halfway around the room when hard steps echoed from the front doors. Gareno smiled and bowed over his knee. "My friends! Give welcome to Tanelo Itiego, Lord of House Itiego, Prime Navigator of Cavana, and first Speaker of the Confederated Cities of Alebolgia."

  The Colleners made their bows. Dante winced. Mallish nobles had trained them to bow as inferiors rather than as foreign equals, but though Lord Itiego surely noticed this lack of worldliness, no sign of it touched his expression. Like Gareno, he wore an enormous upthrust collar, which enfolded his head like a palm cupping an egg. He had hard, narrow features like carved wood and a long black mustache that drooped below his chin. His boots were turned down above the knee. He wore a dark coat fitted at the waist that was crossed with multiple belts.

  As Gareno introduced them, Itiego gave them each a respectful nod. His gaze lingered for an extra moment or two on Blays, who could have passed for a Collener, and then Dante, whose features were a picture of the basin's mortal enemies.

  "In Cavana," Itiego said in staccato-voweled, accented Mallish, "we have a saying: what separates us from the fish is that, among people, sometimes it is the smaller who wins. Congratulations, then, to the victory of the smaller fish."

  Cord grinned, rolling her shoulders. "Are you calling me short?"

  "Only your odds, General."

  "Ah! Then I won't have to give you a display of how we sent the Mallish running."

  Itiego's eyebrows flickered, as if he couldn't decide how to feel, then he laughed. "The only red I tolerate being spilled on these floors is wine. Be seated, and let's have some."

>   They took their places around a bleakwood table. Servants arrived with pewter cups of wine; Itiego toasted the Collen Basin's victory. Dante was no expert on vintages, but every sip of the deep red seemed to taste like a different.

  "I am happy to hear the war concluded so swiftly," Itiego said. "Given the nature of my last contact with Collen, I was afraid a siege might prove very costly."

  Blays gave Dante a flat look. Dante blinked twice, the equivalent of a nod. Itiego was making a gambit to get them to boast about how exactly they'd ruined a superior Mallish army in the open field—he'd heard rumors, no doubt, but was now trying to determine how much truth was in them.

  And thus how much, if any, he needed to fear the people in front of him.

  "We took a risk," Cord said. "And our victory was so large Gashen must treasure us like his own children."

  "Gashen?" Itiego raised a thin dark brow. "Or Phannon?"

  Boggs chuckled. "Got to wonder what the Mallish did to piss off the lords of war and the sea."

  "I'm sure their priests will be scurrying to divine the same thing. In any event, I'm glad events turned out as they have."

  "That so? Last time we sent people your way, you seemed happy to send 'em back empty-handed."

  "There was nothing happy in that decision."

  "In hindsight, I'm sure there wasn't. But only because you gambled on the wrong horse."

  Itiego stared Boggs down. Dante wasn't sure if it was a rebuke, or if he was just taking the man in. Boggs' face was chapped and weatherbeaten. His speech was as plain as yesterday's bread. He was a good fit to lead the farmers and soldiers of Collen. It was an open question as to what kind of fit he would make with the lords and merchants of Alebolgia.

  "Publicly, I said many things to many people," Itiego said. "In the interior of my heart, however, I hoped that Collen would win. Not because I admire you so much, mind you. Nor because of any especial dislike for the Mallish. Rather because your survival—and, one hopes, your growth—is better for balance. Just as you must prefer that the cities of the Strip remain independent and not proxies of the empire on your doorstep."