Fires of Memory

by Washburn, Scott;

  Atark. He was her biggest worry. She still had no clue what he was going to do with her. In some ways, it was so odd being a slave. With her own people, a wife was, to a certain extent, the property of her husband. He could demand certain things from his wife and she had to obey. He could even be cruel and beat her and nothing would be done. But the woman still had some rights. Here, with the Kaifeng, she had no rights of any sort. Atark could take her to his bed, or he could beat her or torture her or kill her and no one would say a thing. He could sell her to some other man. She was his property and had no more rights than one of his horses. Less, really, for the Kaifeng would strongly disapprove of a man who beat or killed his horses.

  It was clear to her that Atark did not like her. He did not like Easterners in general, and her role in the escape of the prisoners had made him hate her on a personal level. And he was jealous of how close she was to Thelena. She could see that in the way he would frown when he saw them together. They had done nothing more than snuggle in the tent at night, but it was obvious that Atark did not like even that. She worried that Atark would decide to kill her or sell her away. It was frightening to have no control of any sort over her life…

  “Hello, Kareen.”

  She twitched and her eyes popped open. Teela Deseter was standing there with a silk robe wrapped around her. Her lovely red hair spilled down to her waist. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Please do,” said Kareen, sliding to the side in the tile bath. Teela let the robe fall away. She was far more slender than Kareen, but still a very pretty woman. She was the re-ka’s slave, and Kareen instantly saw that, unlike Atark, Teela’s master had certainly taken her to his bed. There was a very obvious swelling in her abdomen.

  “Teela, are you…?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the woman with a smile as she lowered herself into the bath. She ran her hands around the swelling. “I’ve got a little Kaif growing in my belly. Must have happened almost that first night.”

  “That’s…that’s…” Kareen had no clue what to say.

  “Wonderful? Terrible?” asked Teela. “I wasn’t sure myself at first.”

  “What do you think now?”

  Teela seemed to draw herself up. “In the spring I will bear the re-ka’s child. He is happy, and therefore, so am I.”

  “I’m glad for you, Teela.”

  “Dara and Felaa are pregnant, too. Almost all our old friends are. The place is going to be overrun with babies in a few months.” Teela paused and looked at Kareen’s smooth stomach through the water. “I have heard that Atark never touches you. That must be hard.” There was a note of smugness in Teela’s voice that marred any sympathy in her words. Back in the fort, they had been rivals of sorts, the two most beautiful girls in the regiment. Now it appeared that Teela thought she had won. Her master found her attractive and had taken her and given her a child, while Kareen’s master did not even bother to use her. A strange anger surged up in Kareen. “The re-ka can be very passionate,” Teela added with a sly smile.

  Kareen bit back her anger and jealousy. It would do no good to say anything back to Teela. And it could do a lot of harm. As she had said, she would bear the re-ka’s child in a few months. That made her important. Far more important than Kareen. She did not need any more enemies. As her anger faded, her envy grew a bit. She had managed to avoid becoming pregnant, thanks to an ugly, bitter root that Thelena had given her to chew. Thelena had used the same thing in the fort. Apparently it was a common herb that the local women knew about. At first, she had been very grateful. The thought of bearing the child of some unknown father from her rapes had horrified her. But now… She looked at Teela’s swollen belly and felt envy.

  “How… how do you get along with Zarruk’s wives?” she asked instead.

  Some of Teela’s smugness disappeared. “They are all right, I suppose. They are far more demanding than Zarruk—in bed and out—but they are kind enough. And they seem excited about the baby, too.”

  “What about…what’s her name?…the Berssian general’s mistress?”

  “Ha! That slut! She’s gone. She tried to use her little whoring tricks on Zarruk to get special treatment. All three of us beat the hell out of her. So he gave her away to one of the new noyens as a gift. But she’s stupid; she’ll probably try the same thing with him. If she’s not careful, she’ll find herself in a slave caravan headed west come spring. I hope she ends up in a brothel serving a hundred men a night. It would serve her right!”

  Kareen looked at Teela in shock. She was a single man’s slave; what could she possibly know about serving a hundred men in a night? Well, Kareen didn’t either, not a hundred, but she wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

  “How are you and Thelena getting along?” asked Teela suddenly. “I remember how terribly we used to treat her back in the fort.” She reached out a hand and touched the scar on Kareen’s cheek and then ran it down her back, feeling the scars there. “I guess she got her revenge, didn’t she?”

  “She… she was angry at first. But that’s past.”

  “You’re lucky… I guess. The other Kaifeng women all hate her, you know. They call her ‘The Berssians’ Whore’.”

  “That’s not her fault! She had no choice!” Kareen was getting angry again.

  “I know, but what difference does that make?”

  Kareen got to her feet and stepped out of the bath. She grabbed a towel and walked away without another word.

  * * * * *

  “Squadron…Halt!” shouted Matt Krasner. The double line of horsemen reined in their mounts smartly and stood waiting for his next command. He glanced up at the watery, late-winter sun. Lyni had told him that there would be no bad weather until tomorrow. He would still have the afternoon to drill his men, so he could let up on them a bit this morning. “One hour break! See to your horses and then rest.” The men made sounds of appreciation and dismounted. Matt dismounted himself and an orderly took his horse. He rounded up his officers and leading sergeant and they sat down on some chairs at the edge of the formal gardens.

  “A good morning’s work, gentlemen,” he said. “The men are shaping up well. My compliments on your efforts.”

  “Thank you, sir,” they said in unison.

  He looked them over. They were mostly young—except for the sergeant—and eager. When General DeSlitz gave him permission to raise a ‘wizards’ guard’, he had just announced he would be accepting recruits. Since then, men had been pouring in. So far, they were mostly lesser nobility from the Zamerdan region, but he knew the word was spreading. He already had an overstrength squadron, and it would soon be necessary to split it into two. At this rate, he would have a regiment by the time the campaign began—assuming he could pay for it.

  The wizards seemed to have an unlimited treasury at their disposal, and as a part of them, Matt could draw upon it. He had done so shamelessly. Horses and uniforms, weapons and armor, he had placed orders with the local craftsmen for all of that and more. As long as the well did not run dry, he should be all right.

  “We can expect another load of the helmets and breastplates by next week,” he told the officers. “I’m still trying to see about armor for the horses.”

  “You really think that’s going to be necessary, sir?” asked Sergeant Holmanz. Matt looked at him. He was like—and unlike—Sergeant Chenik in a lot of ways. But then, he was a sergeant and the good ones were all out of the same mold.

  “If—when the wizards stop the Kaif magic, it will then come down to a stand-up fight. I want a force who can cut a swath right through the bastards. We’ll have plenty of light cavalry, but not enough heavy. I want us armored so that we don’t have to worry about their arrows.”

  “Right, sir. And you still plan to arm us with lances?”

  “Yes, I do. We’ve got a few Laponians who know how to use them. They can train the rest.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the sergeant. The look on his face told what he thought of the whole thing. But he was a good man. They were
all good men.

  “Colonel! Colonel Krasner!” shouted a young voice. Matt turned and saw Carabello's young servant running up to him.

  “Yes? What is it, Gez?”

  “The wizards wanted to talk to you. Can you come over?”

  “All right, I’ll be there shortly. The rest of you carry on.” His subordinates saluted him, and he returned it before following the boy. He had been in the city yesterday, conferring with General DeSlitz, and had not talked with Carabello or the wizards since the day before. Perhaps they had something good to show him; he certainly hoped so. They had been out here working for nearly a month and with precious little to show for it—beyond blowing up the gunpowder shed. He headed for their workshop, but the boy told him they were in one of the fields on the other side. As he rounded the building, he saw Carabello, Thaddius, and all three wizards a few hundred yards away. He slogged across the muddy field to reach them.

  Hesseran was standing about a hundred yards away from the others. Idira and Lyni and Carabello and Thaddius were by a small table. When he came up to them, he saw a small bowl with a small amount of gunpowder in it.

  “Ah, there you are, Colonel,” said Idira. “We thought you might be interested in this.”

  “Indeed? What is going on?”

  “A contest of sorts,” she explained. “Hess is going to try and explode my gunpowder, here, and I’m going to try and stop him.”

  Matt’s eyebrows shot up. He’d seen dozens of demonstrations of the wizards recreating the Kaif’s fireflies, but this was the first time they had claimed to have any defense against them. “I’ll be very interested in seeing that, Idira.”

  “All right, Hess, you can begin,” she called out to the alchemist. He nodded and started doing whatever it was that wizards did to cast their magic. Idira seemed to be doing something, too. A few seconds later, a single golden firefly appeared in front of Hesseran, and an instant later came streaking toward them. Almost immediately, a second firefly appeared in front of Idira. It took off in the opposite direction—straight at Hesseran’s oncoming Seeker.

  The two fireflies met—and vanished. Matt almost expected there to be a ‘pop’ or a ‘bang’ or a flash, but there was not. They simply met and were gone. Carabello and Gez cheered and clapped their hands. “You did it, Idira!” cried Carabello.

  But Hesseran wasn’t done yet. Two more fireflies appeared and came toward them. Idira immediately made two of her own, and all four vanished when they collided. Hesseran responded with four and Idira did as well. The next batch had ten and Idira countered them. After that, there were too many to count easily. Twenty, thirty, fifty, maybe a hundred golden fireflies, and Idira matched him, fly for fly. The gunpowder lay in the bowl untouched. Matt felt a giddy exhilaration growing in him. She was doing it! She was stopping the damn things!

  It went on for another few minutes. More waves of fireflies dashed each other into oblivion, but Matt noticed that the numbers were no longer growing. In fact, there might have been fewer. He could see that both wizards were getting tired. Finally, Hesseran threw up his hands.

  “Enough, Idira,” he cried. “I call a truce!”

  “Agreed!” answered the woman. Hesseran waved and walked slowly toward them. Everyone, including Matt, had a huge grin on their faces.

  “You did it,” said Matt to all of them. “How?”

  “It was Idira’s idea,” explained Carabello.

  “Simple, really,” said the healer, breathing deeply. “The Seekers normally carried a bit of wind to make a noise. The fireflies had fire substituted and were made to seek gunpowder. I thought that I could make a Seeker that carried a tiny bit of water—and have it seek the fire carried by the other Seekers. As you can see, it worked.”

  “Waterbugs, eh?” said Matt with a grin. “Very clever.” But then his grin disappeared. “I don’t want to sound negative, but was that all you could make at one time? The Kaifeng necromancer sent a million of the damn things against us in the battle. A few hundred waterbugs isn’t going to help at all.”

  “Yes, we know,” said Lyni a bit testily. “Each of us can make a few hundred at a time, and we know that is not enough.”

  “We’ll get better with practice,” said Hesseran.

  “That much better?” demanded Matt. “Enough better that you can stop a million of them?”

  The others looked uneasy. “Probably not,” admitted Idira. “But this is at least a start.”

  “I don’t need to remind you that we’re going to get exactly one—one!—chance at this. In about two months, the army will assemble, and a month or so after that we’ll probably meet the Kaifeng in battle. If we lose, if that army gets wiped out, then it is the end. Aside from the fact that we’ll all be dead—or slaves,” he paused and looked pointedly at Lyni, who, although not terribly pretty, was still a healthy, young woman. “Aside from that, it will be the end for the east. There will never be another chance to stop them, and they’ll roll over everything. We need a lot better than just ‘a start’!”

  “We are doing our best, Colonel,” said Lyni, returning his stare. “What more can you ask?”

  “They have all been working terribly hard,” added Thaddius.

  Before Matt could reply, Carabello broke in. “Colonel, we did find something else of interest yesterday. One of my student helpers actually found it in an old collection of…”

  “What did you find?” interrupted Matt.

  “Oh. Well, it was instructions for how to make containers that the Seekers cannot get through.”

  “Really? Well that’s wonderful! If we can just safeguard the powder, we won’t even need those waterbugs of yours!”

  “Don’t get too hopeful, Colonel,” said Idira. “What the instructions call for is a rather fine grade of lead crystal glass.”

  “Crystal? What the hell good is that going to do us? We can hardly make 70,000 crystal cartridge pouches! Or even line the artillery caissons with the stuff!”

  “We know,” said Hesseran. “In fact, that’s exactly what that Hegurian gentleman said yesterday when I told him about it.”

  There was a long silence as Matt stared at him. “What Hegurian gentleman?” he asked, at last.

  “The one who came here yesterday while you were in the city. He said you had given him permission to visit our facilities and ask us for a status report.”

  “I didn’t give him—or anyone else—permission to come out here!” snarled Matt. “What did you tell him?”

  “Well, pretty much anything he wanted to know. We told him what we had accomplished, demonstrated the Seekers and the counter-Seekers like we just did for you. Frankly, he did not seem any happier than you did. I don’t think any of you realize just how difficult…”

  “Gods!” groaned Matt. “You are sure he was a Hegurian?”

  “Well yes, I’m from there originally, and I was quite certain he was, too. Why is that so important?”

  “Because Heguria is supplying a third of the army, that’s why!” exclaimed Matt. “We’re going to assemble in Hegurian territory!” He turned and looked to the southwest. Heguria lay that way. It was hundreds and hundreds of miles to Heguria, but Matt was quite sure there was already a fast courier on his way there with the news that the wizards could not stop the Kaifeng magic.

  “Gods,” he said again. “What have you done?”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Atark, thank you for coming so quickly,” said Re-Ka Zarruk.

  “I could hardly ignore the summons of my re-ka,” said Atark. “But your message indicated that something interesting has happened.”

  “Yes, indeed, we have a visitor,” said Zarruk with a strange grin. “An embassy from the Hegurian Empire has arrived.”

  “From Heguria?” asked Atark in surprise. “In this weather?”

  “Yes, through the sleet and rain and mud, all the way from their capital of Zienne. The ambassador was most eager to see me.”

  “What does he want?”

  Z
arruk laughed. “For once I get to instruct you! How delightful! What would you guess he would want?”

  Atark paused for a moment, puzzled, but then it became clear. “They want to buy us off?”

  “Exactly! They have offered us fifty large wagons loaded with treasure if we will leave them alone this year. And another twenty wagons each year after that.”

  “A handsome offer. Are you going to accept it?”

  “Well, I’m going to discuss it with the kas for form’s sake, but I am inclined to accept.”

  “Why? Not that I disagree, I’m just curious about your thinking.”

  They were in the same conference chamber they had been in before, with the lovely map on one wall. Zarruk now got out of his chair and went over to it. “We’ve been hearing rumors that the eastern kingdoms have been banding together to try and fight us. They are trying to raise a huge army to match ours. That’s not surprising, but we’ve also been hearing that they are trying to re-equip their men with bows and crossbows and pikes so they are not dependent on gunpowder. I find that a far more disturbing rumor.”

  “I do have other magic I can use against them,” said Atark. “Between that and our own warriors we can still defeat them.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Still, it could be very costly. This offer from the Hegurians is clearly a break in the ranks of the Easterners. I would much rather deal with them separately than together. The Hegurians would be the first in line for our conquest in the spring, and apparently they don’t think they can stop us, so they are trying to buy us off. If we turn them down, that will force them back into the arms of the other kingdoms, and we'll have to fight them all at once.”