Seven Forges

by James A. Moore

  “Are they armed? Do they prepare for battle?” Swech spoke softly, but it was easy to hear her. None of the Sa’ba Taalor spoke out of turn and most barely moved as they listened to the discussion.

  For the first time Merros realized on a conscious level what he’d noticed and acknowledged silently before: Swech was the leader of this group. It wasn’t unheard of for a woman to be a fighter, not even a solder, but it was rare. Never had he run across a female who was in charge of any sized group of soldiers before.

  Still, considering her talents, he could not exactly blame them for choosing her. Her skills as an archer alone would have made her a just choice.

  He had been gifted with the ability to understand their language. For that reason he was genuinely surprised when Swech spoke again and not a single word she said made any sense to his ears.

  After several minutes of the group conversing they broke apart, each moving back to their mount and quickly undressing, gathering different clothes and then different weapons.

  “What’s going on, Swech?”

  Swech spoke as she stripped out of her clothes and changed into darker fabrics. “We are going to investigate the camp. And then we are going to handle the matter of the Guntha for King Marsfel.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  Swech shook her head and took off her shirt. He looked away out of old habit, despite their recent intimacy. “You are here to observe for your Emperor. You are not here to be a part of this. We are here to handle the matter as Drask has requested.”

  “I am to do nothing?”

  “You are to wait here.” She patted the face of her mount. “And you should avoid getting eaten.” The beast made a rude noise. Sometimes he was certain the things understood every word said around them.

  “Why are you changing your clothes?”

  Swech looked at him as she pulled on a dark gray blouse that fell loosely around her. “We do not need armor for what we are about.”

  “And what is that?”

  “There are times when a warrior needs shields and swords, Merros Dulver, and there are times when silence and a short blade are better suited. Now is a time for silence and fast actions.”

  “What?” He shook his head. They couldn’t actually mean to attack, could they?

  “Do not think about this. Simply know that when we return it will be time to leave.”

  Within moments Swech had gathered a small collection of weapons and was on her way. The others moved with her, slipping into the night and running along the beach where the sounds of the tide quickly washed away any noises they might have made.

  Merros waited exactly long enough for them to move out of sight before he followed. He prayed very hard that the great beasts had not been told by their masters to keep him there. Apparently the gods listened, because he was not torn apart for his insolence.

  ELEVEN

  Swech moved quickly, her feet barely touching the ground before lifting again, her body crouched low and when necessary falling to hands and feet alike to maintain her balance and speed.

  Behind her and around her, nine others moved much the same way, all of them following her subtle orders.

  There was no speech. None was necessary. The language they used was the one every Sa’ba Taalor learned as soon as they were walking, the language of the body. Wrommish and Paedle moved with them, of course, guiding them in their time of need. The gods always watched. That was what Merros Dulver could not understand.

  Swech pushed thoughts of the stranger from her mind. He was a pleasant distraction, but now was not the time to be distracted. Now was the time to move with the speed of the Cutting Winds and to move just as effectively.

  They crested the last small hill between the ocean and the shoreline and saw the tents spread across the beach for what seemed an impossible distance. Apparently a thousand souls required a great deal of cover. The notion would have been amusing if it weren’t being used to the advantage of the Sa’ba Taalor. The leather hides and canvas that made the tents offered excellent cover. Swech and her charges took full advantage of that fact and spread out.

  Most of the camp was sleeping, but there were exceptions. They would handle the ones who moved around as they came to them.

  The wind from the ocean was blowing harshly, whipping the hides and making them thrum with their own music. She liked the noises. They were pleasant to the ears and they also provided cover for the sounds of her feet moving over the ground. The breeze itself provided cover should the Guntha have guard animals that might smell their approach.

  She found no guard animals.

  She found few guards and those she did locate were easily avoided if that was her choice.

  It was not.

  The first guard she encountered was staring at the distant waves with a bored expression on his tanned face. He never had a chance to grow excited. One hand covered his mouth. The other jammed the long, thin needle blade of her dagger through the base of his neck and into his skull. He stiffened for only a moment and then fell. She helped him to the ground with the care of a mother tending to a child, and then moved on. He would eventually be discovered, she knew that, but before then they had much work to do.

  To her left she saw Jost lock her arms around a guard’s throat and drop the man in a quiet slump as her hands cut off the flow of blood to his brain. She had Jost staying close to her because this was the first time that Jost had ever been taken for a group expedition. The young girl was doing brilliantly. One more move and the man’s lifeblood was puddling on the ground around him, a crimson shadow to match the shape of his prone form. Jost moved on without seeking approval, a sign that she had earned this privilege.

  Beyond Jost she saw another guard fall quickly and knew that Ehnole was moving with her usual efficiency. Ehnole was first and foremost a follower of Paedle. She could have run through a room full of wind chimes and trinkets and no one would have heard her.

  Around her the other Sa’ba Taalor moved quickly and efficiently. There would be no room for error. The odds against them were grave.

  There would be no mercy for the exact same reason.

  Once the guards had been dispatched the group began the serious work. Swech opened the first tent and slipped in as quietly as she could. Four people rested within the cramped space.

  She struck four times.

  The sleepers did not awaken.

  Far away from her yet with her in her soul, the Daxar Taalor watched on. She felt them in her mind, in her heart, and knew that they approved.

  Merros followed from a distance and kept it that way. There were ten very dangerous people moving ahead of him and while he had every intention of watching what they did, he had no desire at all to get them annoyed.

  The Great Star was rising and that helped a little with following their tracks, but despite the fact that there were ten Sa’ba Taalor, he had trouble finding tracks to follow. Their footprints were deceptively light and as often as not they ran where the waves came to wash away evidence of their passing. He had been worried that they would leave an obvious trail back to the camp, but the worry was wasted.

  He kept himself from running into them by being as careful as he ever had been. In time he followed their ghostly trail to the last of the small hills above the vast camp of the Guntha, and there he waited.

  The Guntha were an interesting people. They seemed perfectly content to live on their islands, but for the fact that those islands were sinking. That did not mean that they were easy targets, as he’d learned when the Empire had demanded they be driven back previously. They were hard, violent fighters and they were not to be taken lightly.

  That said, the camp was almost silent now. To be sure there must be lookouts and guards stationed around the area, but he saw none of them and they did not see him. Instead he saw their people gathered around fires or moving to the tents they’d pitched, or in a few cases preparing for whatever their next day was supposed to bring. They had not attacked the Ro
athians that he’d heard of, but they were in the kingdom and they were not welcome. There was something to be said for their current dilemma. There was also something to be said for his personal theory that they were waiting for the Roathians to make the first move.

  But for now, there was this odd silence and the calm of the air, the gentle sighs of the surf and a cool, clear night. Were it not for the sure belief that he would soon be hearing screams he would have possibly gone to sleep.

  Merros waited, moving just enough to keep himself alert. Above him the Great Star rose and reached its zenith, then began to slide toward where it would eventually rest for the night.

  He stared at the camp without looking at any one thing, the better to see any possible changes. He was rewarded with small motions, subtle hints that something was going on. Far in the distance he saw one of the Guntha moving back away from the fires. He also saw the shadow that rose from the darkness and seemed to swallow him whole. Moments after that the shadow moved again, but the Guntha did not. It could have only been his imagination, but he didn’t think so.

  He almost missed the guard that came for him. Almost.

  The man came up from the surf and moved toward him from behind. He would have never heard a thing, would never have noticed him at all, if the Great Star’s light hadn’t cast a shadow for warning. The man was crouched low, one hand holding onto a knife designed for cutting and filleting fish. It would do a fine job on a fool’s throat and that was exactly what the man must have intended because he was creeping up from behind and almost standing atop Merros before he was noticed.

  Merros grabbed a handful of sand and rolled. The man had been very careful and he was probably firmly of the belief that his target was as good as dead. Instead of cutting a throat he got sand in his eyes and his face, enough to blind him and to leave him spluttering. And as he tried to recover, Merros kicked a heel into his knee. There was a cracking noise and then a bark of pain. That could not be avoided. Merros reached for him and felt the man’s knife cut across his forearm. The strike was more luck than anything else and the line of blood it drew was annoying but not fatal. He aimed to hit the man in the face and missed, instead punching his knuckles into his attacker’s throat. Sometimes the gods are kind to fools. The blow was enough to leave his enemy gagging.

  The Guntha fell forward and Merros rolled from under his weight. He had feared a second strike but the man continued to struggle for air.

  And while he was struggling, Merros drew the dagger from his boot and carved a hole in the man’s neck. There was nothing clean about the kill. The man grunted and fought and Merros held him down, felt him thrash and fight to live. It was one thing to defend himself against a great beast like the Pra-Moresh and another entirely to kill a man. He did not regret his actions. He knew that either he would live or the Guntha would, but he’d been a soldier long enough to understand the consequences of his actions. Somewhere, possibly in the camp below, that man had a family. They would mourn the loss and curse his existence. If they were determined enough, they might even come looking for him. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life.

  Blood stuck to his hands, coated his arms, soaked his shirt and pants. He dared not move just yet. The Guntha had made a good deal of noise and someone down below or another guard might have heard something. He had no choice but to wait a few moments and listen for sounds that an alarm might have been issued.

  Stupid. His actions could well have endangered the Sa’ba Taalor. He was up here on a hill. They were in the campsite doing the gods alone knew what.

  But he had suspicions, didn’t he? Shadows moved and people vanished down below. Yes, he had suspicions.

  After almost three minutes had passed, after the blood on his body began to cool, Merros finally allowed himself to rise from the sand and look at the camp again. Nothing seemed to have changed. The man under him had dark skin and hair that the sun had bleached nearly white. Several tattoos covered his arms, his chest. He was a fisherman according to the marks on his body. And a warrior. Though Merros didn’t understand all of the markings, he knew enough to know that the man left behind a wife and two children. Their names were marked on his chest.

  He dragged the Guntha away from the camp. The sand was loose enough. Though it took a few minutes he managed to hide the body in a new sand dune.

  By the time he was done burying the body, the screams started to come from the encampment.

  At first he thought he’d been discovered, but then the fires bloomed below. He dared a look and saw that the tents on the far side of the camp were burning, the canvas flaring in great sheets of flame that let him clearly see the dead bodies lying around them. The boats of the Guntha burned as well, not one or two, but seemingly all of them. Impossible that any of what he was seeing was an accident.

  The tents that were closer to him bled shadows as people moved to investigate the screams, the blazes. Some of them moved toward the fires. Others fell to the ground without warning and occasionally twitched a time or two before growing still.

  He didn’t mean to stare. He meant to move, but the sight froze him. He watched as the Guntha died, some dropping without apparent reason, others swallowed briefly by shadows or merely touched by them before they grew still. Some had time to draw weapons before they were felled, but fall they did.

  Not enough of them. There were a great many tents, but not many of them showed life or movement. He shook his head and worried. The Sa’ba Taalor were fighting down below and they were apparently doing very well, but there were too many tents and sooner or later the people in those tents would come out, and when they did the ten who were with him on this journey would die. There was no other way around it.

  Even as he contemplated that, however, another dozen tents caught aflame. The blaze ran like water from one to the next and they burned furiously, fairly exploding into brilliance.

  From some of those tents he finally heard screams, and saw movement. Oh, how they moved as they burned.

  Merros wanted nothing more than to look away, but he did not dare. The gods sometimes demand witnesses, and he had been ordered here for the purpose of witnessing exactly this, hadn’t he? He had been bought and paid for that he might witness exactly this.

  And so he watched as the Guntha died, and as he watched he remembered Swech’s words from the day before. We are here to show your Emperor what ten Sa’ba Taalor can do. That is what Drask Silver Hand said.

  Eventually Merros rose and walked to the water’s edge. Once there he washed the blood of the dead man from his clothes and from his skin, and then he headed back for the camp where he was supposed to be waiting for the Sa’ba Taalor. He made no attempt to hide his tracks. He doubted there would be anyone left to follow him, at least not any of the Guntha.

  The great beasts watched him as he entered the camp and not one of them made a noise of warning or a threatening move.

  It would be untrue to say he slept when he got to the camp. But he closed his eyes and managed something like rest. When he opened his eyes again, Swech was moving into his tent. She was freshly scrubbed, well cleaned and dressed in different clothes. She looked at him without speaking for several seconds. He looked back, uncertain what he should say, what he should do.

  “You watched us.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a statement of fact. He nodded his agreement.

  “You understand now? We did what we were sent to do.”

  He looked at her more closely and saw the bandages on her left arm and on both legs, as well as across her neck. She had received several injuries to his one scratch. Then again, he had only killed one man. Who knew exactly how many she was responsible for?

  “Will they go back to their people and say they were attacked?”

  “There are none to go anywhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are no survivors.” Her words were calm. Merros felt a deep chill creep through him.

  “All of them?”

  She reached
out and touched the wound on his arm. “You should tend to that. There is always a risk of infection.”

  “You killed all of them?” He had to ask a second time, had to make sure that he had heard what he thought he’d heard. Madness, it had to be.

  “They cannot go home and claim they were attacked by King Marsfel and his people. They cannot go home and report anything to anyone.” Her logic was flawless, of course.

  Oh, and terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

  Desh Krohan ate breakfast surrounded by four beautiful women. Three of them worked with him. The last was his apprentice. They ate together because they could and because it was likely to be the last time they were together for some time to come.

  Tega picked nervously at the fare, though all of the foods presented were excellent.

  “You should eat, Tega.”

  “I know.” She nodded and looked at the table, not meeting his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” He reached out and caught her chin with his fingers, making her look up at him. One thing he did not tolerate from his apprentice was a sudden need to be shy. Shyness and sorcery of any sort did not mix well. That was a lesson he had learned the hard way and one he insisted that his students learn.

  “I’m not ready for this.”

  “Of course you are,” he countered. “If I had any doubts I wouldn’t be sending you.”

  “My parents–”

  “Will miss you horribly while you are gone, but you are an adult, and you chose to be my apprentice, and that means you have offered yourself to my guidance, yes?”

  “Yes, Desh.”