by Phil Tucker
Tharok hesitated, jerkin half over his head, then yanked it off altogether and turned to face her. Shaya steeled her features, clearly determined to not show emotion. Tharok wavered, then beckoned to her and stepped outside once more.
They were on the highest ground, as befitted the warlord, a rocky knoll about which spread the Red River huts. Tharok moved back to his perch of stone and sat on it, then looked out over his tribe and at the encircling Crokuk. The sounds of industry, rough laughter and the high-pitched calls of the children reached him as if from another world.
Shaya joined him but did not sit.
"You are free to go whenever you wish," said Tharok.
"I know," she said, her kragh crude but noticeably better than when they'd first met. Nok must have been teaching her.
"Then why are you still here?"
Shaya didn't answer right away. Instead, she clenched her hands tight and looked out over the huts and tents and the spread of kragh, then up at the savage chasm walls that reared around them on both sides. "It's hard to explain."
The strain in her voice caught Tharok's attention. He studied her and saw that her knuckles were white, and the wind that was gusting fitfully about them was already making her shiver.
"I lived another life before this," she said at last. "I was raised a slave in the city of Bythos. My mother, my father, my brother – we were all slaves."
"You were spoils of war? Caught in battle?"
"No," said Shaya. "All of our kind – we Bythians – are slaves. We are a race of slaves. Our only freedom is death, when we hope to be reborn as Agerastians, higher up the cycle of Ascension."
Tharok grunted, feeling wise. "Ascension. Nok spoke of this human religion."
The wind blew Shaya's white hair over her face, and she raked the tendrils from her eyes and bound them back. "My brother and I were lucky. We were freed against all tradition by a man called Enderl Kyferin and taken to his castle in the land of Ennoia. We were told we would be the equals of those around us, but instead we were hated. Lord Kyferin had changed his mind. He didn't want us, but he had sworn he would only release us if we asked to be slaves again. He did everything in his power to convince us to do so."
Tharok wished he was wearing the circlet. "Why did you not run away?"
Shaya laughed quietly. "To where? All Bythians are slaves. We would have been caught immediately and killed for fleeing. I eventually asked to be returned to Bythos. I thought life wasn't worth living under his roof. Lord Kyferin gladly agreed. I... abandoned my brother. He refused to leave with me. Lord Kyferin sent me back to Bythos to serve a friend of his. I became that man's slave."
Tharok nodded. Kragh might be enslaved, fight their way free, then be enslaved again years later if they were unlucky. Still, he had never heard of a kragh asking to return to slavery.
"The man I served was very important. We Bythians – those who remain in Bythos – work in the mines, digging out metal and stone. My new master, Lord Rzhova of Sige, was responsible for selling what we dug to the bonded merchants, who then in turn sold it across the empire."
"Bonded merchants?"
"Yes." Shaya hesitated. "The empire is connected by large portals, but as big as they are, there is a limit on how many can go through during the day while they are open. For a merchant to have the right to trade through the portals, they have to buy a license. It is very expensive, and few can afford one."
Tharok rubbed his jaw. This was important. This was how the empire worked. He had to pay attention. "So, if only the rich can buy a license to trade, then only the rich can make more money?"
"Yes," said Shaya with a bitter smile. "Exactly. There are guilds that share a single license between... but never mind."
Tharok sat up a little straighter. Maybe he didn't need the circlet to figure everything out. "Continue."
Shaya sighed. "At night I would creep into my master's study and read his notes and try to understand what he did and why. It gave me something to think about during the day. Reminded me that I was more than just a slave."
There was a wistful tone to her voice. Tharok kept his silence. Shaya was gazing out at the kragh camps, but he was sure she did not see them.
"Lord Rzhova caught me one night and began to beat me to death. I cried out a solution to a problem he had been working on, and he... he stopped hitting me. He talked to me as if I was a human being for the first time, and soon he set me to work for him. It was a good time for me. For six years I worked for him, trying to save the empire."
"Save the empire? From what?"
Shaya sighed. "It is complex. The old systems are corrupt. The Aletheians still rule and tax everyone, but they are focused on their luxurious lives and have their eyes on Ascension. They may have spiritual authority, but the empire is truly run by the Sigeans, who are in turn losing control of the Ennoians who either refuse to pay their taxes or use an inheritance law to become forever free of taxation."
Tharok felt a quickening of excitement. "The empire is weak, then?"
"Not weak. Just... growing twisted."
Tharok grunted. He didn't see the difference. "What happened to you? Why are you no longer serving this lord?"
"I discovered something I shouldn't have." Shaya looked down at her hands. "I felt that there was more going on than Lord Rzhova was telling me. I started... investigating, and I learned about what you kragh call shaman stone. It is mined in Bythos, and most of it is sent to Abythos to pay kragh. But I discovered that a lot of it is also sent directly to Aletheia."
"Hmm." Tharok frowned, trying to look thoughtful. "Are there shamans in Aletheia?"
"No." Shaya laughed bitterly. "Our 'shamans' were put to death centuries ago. Which is why it was so confusing. I told my father, who is very respected amongst us Bythians. He grew alarmed and made me swear to not tell anyone else. He said that information could set off a rebellion amongst the Bythians."
"Why?"
Shaya shrugged. "I don't know. It would raise questions with dangerous answers. Either way, it didn't matter. I was caught. Lord Rzhova had me whipped, but in his mercy simply sent me to be sold as a slave to the kragh."
Tharok mulled that over. There was silence but for the moan of the wind. The kragh were settling down around their fires, and the stars were beginning to prickle the night sky. Shaya shivered but seemed not to care.
"The reason I tell you all this," said Shaya, turning to stare at Tharok with eyes that were raw and burning, "is that there is an honesty here amongst your people that I didn't find with my own. No matter my intelligence and willingness to work hard; nobody ever saw me as more than a useful slave. But here, you kragh – you don't lie to each other. If I work, I have a place. Nobody here expects me to be weak or stupid because I am a Bythian woman. Your women are strong, are respected, are called wise. That is something I admire more than I can say."
Tharok stood. A plan began to grow in his mind. "If you were to return to Bythos and spread this information about the shaman stone, what would happen now?"
Shaya grew still. "I don't know. A rebellion, perhaps. Why?"
But how would he get Shaya into Bythos? Through Nok, perhaps. Nok would know how to navigate Abythos, how to get through the portal by legal means. Perhaps he could pretend to lead a mercenary clan..?
"Shaya." He turned to her. "I am going to conquer the human empire. I am going to tear down its rulers and punish them for treating us kragh like animals."
"Yes," said Shaya. "Nok told me."
"You could help me. I do not wish to kill slaves. If you were to lead your people in a rebellion, you could distract the empire and prevent them from defending Abythos properly. Then, when my kragh come through the portals into the human lands, we will make it so that all Bythians are free."
Shaya's pale face could have been carved from ivory. "And if I say no?"
Tharok shrugged one massive shoulder. "I will not force you to help us. No highland kragh makes a female do anything she does not wish to do. It
would be your right."
The cold wind whistled between them, and Tharok turned to look away once more. Maur was making her way up to his tent. Personal, or Women's Circle business?
"I'll do it," said Shaya, almost blurting it out. "I mean, I'll help you. I'll go back to Bythos, speak to my people, tell them the truth. I don't have any loyalty to the likes of Lord Kyferin or Lord Rzhova. That was my old life. I've never felt this free, this clean, this independent before. I want my mother, my father, I want all my people to feel this way."
Tharok grinned. There lay his salvation. There lay his way out of the madness into which he had been stepping. He sat silently, enjoying the moment in all its savage purity. This owed nothing to the circlet. He had purchased Shaya without its influence, had freed her without its prompting. He had treated her in the manner of all kragh, and now, here, she was willing to help him, to give him gifts that would change the course of history. All without that damned circlet's help.
"Thank you, Shaya." Tharok placed a hand on her bony shoulder and squeezed it as gently as he could. "Go rest now in my tent. Sleep, eat, do what you will. I will speak with Maur, and then join you and Nok within. We'll discuss this further soon."
Shaya nodded, pulled her goatskin coat tight, and ducked into the hut mere moments before Maur arrived. The kragh woman strode up to Tharok's hut with ease, the thick muscles of her thighs and calves handling the steep gradient as if it were level. She was wearing a heavy wolf pelt about her shoulders, but had left her midriff bare as was the custom of single women of the tribe. A pair of close-fitting bronze leather pants hugged her lower body. Her blood-crimson hair was pulled back into a thick braid which she wore coiled behind her head in the warrior's fashion, and her broad, harsh face was set as she stopped where Tharok was sitting.
"Warlord," she said.
"Maur," replied Tharok, pointing to a rock by his side upon which she might sit.
Maur shook her head and instead crossed her arms over her chest. "Golden Crow has been speaking to me in strange and infuriating hints. I've marked how he favors you now, where but a day ago he wouldn't spit on your shadow if it was on fire. What's going on?"
"Ah, Maur," said Tharok. His gaze drifted over her muscular abdomen, her broad shoulders, the latent power in her hands. How different she was from Shaya. This was a true woman. "Things change so quickly that I have trouble keeping it all in my head. Yesterday I was set on one path; today I'm on another. The plan with the trolls is over, killed by Golden Crow and my own common sense. Tonight I'm on a different path."
Maur was looking strangely at him, her slate-colored eyes probing. "You are the strangest kragh I've ever met, Tharok," she said, her tone changed. "One moment you speak like some figure out of the myths, all infuriating self-confidence and ridiculous plans, and the next you sound like the Tharok I once thought I knew. Have you banged yourself so hard on the head that even your thick skull has failed to protect your tiny brain?"
Tharok snorted. "Nothing so simple." He hesitated. There was nobody nearby. Just to be sure, he rose and walked in a small circle around his hut, Maur watching him with open curiosity, before returning to his seat. "Look, I'll tell you what's going on. You'll be the first I'm completely open to, but I'm tired of hiding this secret."
"What secret?"
"Just promise me that you'll keep my secret close until I've figured out the best course of action. Can you promise me that? To not tell anybody until I'm ready? You'll understand why when I tell you."
Maur frowned, then drifted closer and sat down next to him. He could feel the heat radiating off her body, keeping the evening chill at bay. "Alright," she said. "Fine. You have my word."
Tharok sighed and looked up at the night sky. He knew he'd be able to name the million stars overhead if he just put on the circlet. "I did find Ogri's body, up in the Valley of the Dead. That much is true. I was badly wounded, running from Tragon assassins. I killed them all, mostly by luck. I don't think they expected me to turn on them while I was so outnumbered. Then I climbed the Dragon's Breath, ready to die, and there I found Ogri and Jaemungdr, frozen solid in the snow."
Maur nodded slowly. "That's where you found World Breaker. But Ogri's spirit never spoke to you?"
"No," said Tharok, shaking his head slowly. "I have never seen nor spoken with Ogri's spirit. That was all lies to give my claim to the title of warlord legitimacy. I found World Breaker, but that wouldn't have made a difference. It was a metal band that Ogri wore on his head that changed everything. I put it on, and suddenly I just... knew what to do. I knew that Jaemungdr's tongue would burn even after all those years. I don't understand it now, but it was something to do with what it was made of, and a dragon's ability to breathe fire. I ended up capturing a wyvern and riding it down to where I fell and was captured. The rest you know. But what you don't know is about this metal band. It was what told me to give World Breaker to Porloc. It asked for the Crokuk, it suggested calling the Grand Convocation, then made me think of summoning the trolls. Each step has made sense only because the circlet has shown me how the bigger picture would look."
Maur sat still, staring at him. Tharok held her gaze for as long as he could, and then dropped it.
What a relief! He felt light, hollowed out, as if the Sky Father himself could pass through his body. But beyond that was a growing sense of shame. It was as if every kragh was staring at him through Maur's eyes, staring through the web of lies and manipulation that he had wrought without thinking once about right or wrong.
"That explains it," she said at last. "At Porloc's feast you were like a brute, drunk and ignorant, just another kragh amongst the hundreds celebrating his claiming of World Breaker. But then I saw you put on that metal band. You changed. Became... more than you are. That explains it all." She shook her head. "To think that all this time you have been manipulating us. No, worse. Manipulating yourself."
Tharok took a deep breath, trying to settle himself. "It's over now. I've put it aside. Golden Crow showed me that it was leading me down the wrong path. That it was convincing me to use that human's power over others when such power would have been more wrong than I can express. Did you know that that human, Gregory, is going to one day become – never mind. I should have killed him when I had the chance. But it's over."
"Not while you still own the circlet," said Maur. "While you still own it, you have the choice of putting it back on."
"I won't," said Tharok, his voice suddenly heavy, vicious. "It's done me nothing but harm."
"Not true," said Maur. "It saved your life up in the Valley of the Dead. It made you warlord when Wrok would have made you a slave. It has brought you to this point."
Tharok shook his head, trying to understand his own feelings. "True, but that was all. There is a darkness to it. Ogri wore that band. It must have used him as it was using me to acquire power. To unite the tribes. But Golden Crow said that Ogri's spirit was lost as a result, and I would have lost my own as a result of its power. The decisions it was convincing me to make, forcing me to make, by making those choices seem to be the best. Ogri became the greatest kragh we have ever known. But at what cost?"
Maur pursed her lips around the nubs of her tusks. "What are you going to do?"
Tharok grinned at her then, the expression apparently so unexpected that Maur's brows rose. "I may be but a simple kragh, but I have managed to find my own solution. I haven't worn the circlet all this time. Once, while we were in Porloc's city of Gold, I took it off and got drunk. I ended up buying Nok's freedom, and he's about as close to personal clan as I have. And that human woman – I don't know why I freed her. Pity, perhaps. But, Maur, the knowledge in her head! In that small, delicate skull of hers is the knowledge that could set humans fighting humans. She knows secrets that will make the empire's slaves rise up against their masters. With that distraction, they won't be able to fight us off. With this information, I can win through the Grand Convocation."
"Humans fighting humans? But what of their r
eligion?" Maur's frown deepened. "They all obey their leaders for fear of their souls."
Tharok opened his mouth in quick rejoinder and then closed it again. He hadn't thought of that. "I will speak of this with Nok. He knows their religion well. If we can but understand how to twist the knife, then the humans will fight each other and never see us coming. All we need do is show the other kragh that Abythos will be ours for the taking, and I'm sure they will flock to me as if I had brought a hundred trolls to our side."
Maur rubbed at her jaw. "Perhaps. Even more so because I can't think of any other option." She paused. "What do you think of her? This human woman?"
"Think of her?" Tharok blinked. "How do you mean?"
"Her hair is very fine, like spun moonlight. Her skin looks very smooth."
Tharok laughed. "She is like a bird's nest, so frail that a touch might break her bones. She reminds me more of a sickly child than anything else." He paused then, and canted his head to one side, eyeing Maur, who turned to look away. "No," he continued, his voice growing deeper, quieter. "There is nothing about her that makes me think of her as a true woman."
Maur growled and rose to her feet. "Enough."
Tharok grinned and stood as well. "How long have you been without a mate, wise woman?"
Her punch, thrown from the hips with all the power of her legs behind it, caught him across the jaw, snapped his head around, wrenched at the thick muscles of his neck. He staggered, blinking away the tears, and righted himself with the help of the rock on which he had been sitting. Maur was glaring at him, and that caused him to grin wider, putting one hand to his jaw.
"Too long, it seems," he said. She growled again and stepped forward, fists raised, and he put up his hands. "Enough. I've a mind to survive the night."
"Then see to it that you stop speaking nonsense, idiot. I am the leader of the wise women, and you are a fool who has been led by the nose to where you stand today."
Tharok's grin slipped from his face, and he narrowed his eyes. "I have learned from my mistakes."
