Seven Forges

by James A. Moore

  “If there were a need, of course, but the invading forces have been repelled. Your father’s right to rule has been made extremely clear to the invaders and he has time to redistribute his forces before any more attacks can be considered, surely.”

  The girl was lovely, and her brow was troubled. She considered the Emperor’s words carefully and then bowed before leaving his presence.

  “That went better than I expected.” Pathra spoke softly to Desh. There was no one else in the room, but one could never be too careful.

  “All in all, this week has gone remarkably well.”

  “I suspect you are to blame for most of that, Desh.”

  The sorcerer shook his head. “I do what I can. Nothing more.”

  “I understand you might have let a bit of information fall to Drask’s hands regarding the life offered on his behalf.”

  “Nonsense. I merely let Tataya know that the good captain had placed a small wager on the decency of Silver Hand.”

  “Mmm. Well, at any rate, I suspect I owe you thanks.”

  “What you should consider, Pathra, is why the offer by the good captain would make any difference at all to the Sa’ba Taalor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why is he important to them? What is so very special about Merros Dulver that he could change their minds about anything at all? Why did they seek him out in the Blasted Lands? Why did one of their kings meet with him and another come back with him as an escort?”

  “You ask too damned many questions.” Pathra’s brow knitted in concentration.

  “I ask the questions you choose to ignore.”

  “Precisely my point.”

  “That’s why I’m your advisor.”

  “You came with the crown. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Have you stricken that damned law yet?”

  “Oh yes! No more duels to answer insults. No more duels to handle charges of assault. No more duels.”

  “Good. Excellent. Now if you can change the rules regarding nephews of the Emperor drinking to excess at formal affairs…”

  “The boy learned his lesson. He’s still dealing with multiple bruises from the beating Wollis March gave him.”

  “You should promote that man. Him and Dulver both.”

  “They’re no longer with the military.”

  “You’re the damned Emperor. Pull them back into service and then promote them.”

  “I wish I thought you were joking.”

  Desh looked around the empty throne room. The Sa’ba Taalor would be leaving soon. They had plans to head for their distant homelands. The great skull from the thing called a Mound Crawler gleamed in the western corner of the room. Pathra was smitten with the thing and looked at it almost constantly. It fed his desire to travel. “I don’t joke about that sort of thing. It comes back to the fact that Dulver is respected by the valley folk for whatever reason. And the fact that March just spent two days showing your upstart nephew how easily he could be bested in combat. A much needed lesson in humility, I might add.”

  Pathra Krous rose from his throne and stretched his back. He hated the throne. Not being the Emperor, but the throne itself. No matter how he sat or what sort of cushions he used, he always rose with a sore back. That was one of the finer and subtler magicks Desh had ever employed. No one sat there without feeling a bit of the weight of their authority. He felt it left the crown-bearers properly humbled. He had no idea if that was an accurate feeling or not, but he wasn’t about to go and change a spell that had worked for the last four hundred years. “What else is on your mind?”

  “That’s it, really. I think if they have brought us allies they should be rewarded. If they have earned the attention of potential enemies – and I’m not saying they have, but we never know, do we – then we should make sure they are in positions to keep the attention of said enemies.”

  “Write up the papers. I’ll sign them.” Pathra looked askance at him and moved over to the skull again. His fingers touched the gold-plated surface, skimmed over rough gems of differing values. Even without adornment, the value of the skull to the academics in Canhoon would surely have been enough to feed the army for a few months. The Sa’ba Taalor had offered a phenomenal amount as their way of saying hello. “But Desh? Make sure that’s what the men want, please. I have no desire to reward anyone with consignment into the military.”

  “I’ll make sure, Pathra.” He watched the Emperor’s hand play around the eye socket of the great skull and then move down to touch a tooth larger than the blade of most swords. “I’ve asked that artist you’re so fond of, the one who handled your portrait, to render images of the Mound Crawler based on notes from Tuskandru. The work should be done soon. Tusk was very generous with the details.”

  Pathra’s face lit up in a broad smile. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  Sadly, that would never happen. The Emperor of the Fellein Empire would be dead before the work was completed.

  Sometimes the world moves smoothly. Other times the world trembles.

  SIXTEEN

  The morning after Drask Silver Hand spared a young man his life, he and several other members of the Sa’ba Taalor stood on the Western Field, a large area not surprisingly to the west of the Emperor’s Palace, and watched an impressive gathering of soldiers going through exercises. They watched avidly, seldom speaking, as over a hundred soldiers went through basic maneuvers with sword, shield and bow. The men were dressed in standard uniforms, not wearing armor, and all of them were on their very best behavior when they realized they had unexpected observers.

  There were none among the soldiers who failed to recognize the travelers, and though none of the observers had said a word, rumors had already begun to circulate about what had happened to the Guntha in Roathes.

  After noticing that several of his people were spending as much time looking at the people watching them as they were actually practicing, the sergeant in charge of the maneuvers walked over to the group, feeling remarkably self-conscious.

  The man, Morton Darnaven, was a long-timer, having spent over fifteen years in the military and a good portion of that along the borders handling skirmishes before being recently brought in to train some of the newer recruits. There was a real chance that he might have been absolutely pissy about the entire situation, but he recognized Wollis March and spoke to him instead of getting into an argument with the visitors.

  Wollis was there because he had been asked, again, by one of the Sisters. He was beginning to think Pella liked using him as a buffering agent between civilians and the Sa’ba Taalor. He was not wrong in his assumptions. That did not make him the least bit happier about the situation.

  On the other hand, the wizard was still paying him handsomely, and he definitely liked making money.

  Wollis and Morton spoke the same language; both were grunts, had seen their share of combat and understood that now and then you just plain had to follow orders. Wollis was also smart enough to introduce him to Tuskandru, who was watching the entire operation with crossed arms and the air of a man who was not the least bit in a hurry to go anywhere.

  Morton took Tusk’s measure with one glance. Tusk did the same back. Five minutes after that, Morton had invited the strangers out on the field to practice with the troops if they were so inclined. Starving children offered the finest meals could not have responded with more enthusiasm.

  The Sa’ba Taalor were among the soldiers in short order, except for Drask and Tusk, who walked with Morton and Wollis for a while.

  “Do your people have a formal military?” Morton was looking at the king, craning his head just a bit to meet the man’s eyes.

  Tuskandru shook his head. “No. We don’t have armies.”

  “How do you defend yourselves from enemies?”

  Tusk grinned under his veil, the crow’s feet around his eyes immediately becoming laugh lines. “We are isolated. Mostly we don’t have friends or enemies outside of the valley.”

  W
ollis explained exactly where the visitors were from, and both of the strangers were amused by the reaction. Somewhere along the way the rumors had started that the strangers were actually from the far south, well beyond where the Guntha lived on their islands, and where Roathes ended and Brellar began. No one had ever been that far south. It was one thing to know that there was a place called Brellar and another entirely to have been there. The people were said to have strange skin and to cover themselves with scars. The confusion was understandable.

  Drask shook his head when the mistake was clarified. “So the people in Brellar scar themselves on purpose?”

  Morton nodded. “They are said to tell stories with the scars. That each one has a meaning.”

  Drask laughed. “Ours do too.”

  “How so?”

  He ran his gloved finger across a thick scar on the left side of his chest. “Here I survived my first encounter with the Pra-Moresh.” He stroked a deep indentation on the ribcage on the same side. “This is where Tenna hit me with a spear.”

  “What did you to this man, Tenna, that made him try to kill you?”

  Tusk laughed at that and slapped Drask hard enough on the back to earn him a withering stare. When he was properly balanced again, Drask responded, “Tenna is a woman. We had a disagreement about whether or not she was going to be with me as a life mate.”

  Wollis stared at him for a long moment before he started laughing. Morton took a while longer. “Wait. Are you saying she tried to kill you because you wouldn’t move in with her?”

  “To be fair, she was my first. I was the one trying to make something more serious of the relationship.” Wollis laughed so hard he couldn’t stand for several moments. Whatever, exactly, Tusk said in response was in his home tongue and neither of the local men had the vaguest clue, but Drask roared a challenge and rather than fight him, the king merely laughed harder.

  When they had finally calmed down, Morton continued his questions. “So, no one in your valley is in an army?”

  Tusk contemplated that before answering. “We have seven kings. I am a king. If I tell my people it is time to fight, I expect them to take up arms for me.”

  “Has anyone ever said no?”

  “No.”

  “No one?”

  “Why would they?”

  “Well, I think if I went down the streets outside of this palace and told people to take up swords and prepare to fight, most of them would tell me to sit on the tip of my sword.” Morton scratched the back of his neck as he spoke, and shrugged.

  “If the people of Roathes came today with swords and spears and attacked the palace, the people outside of the palace would not fight?”

  “Well, to be sure a few would, I suppose, but most would expect the army to do the fighting for them.”

  Tusk shook his head. “How many soldiers are in this army of yours?”

  Wollis coughed into his hand. “I don’t really know. Thousands and thousands, I mean if you add all the soldiers from the different kingdoms of the Empire together, of course.”

  “How many soldiers do you have here, in Tyrne?”

  “Well, there’s the City Guard, the Imperial Guard, and I think close to a thousand if you added in the reserve soldiers.”

  “Reserve soldiers?”

  “Aye. Citizens who are trained with sword and shield and can be called on to support the Guard.”

  Tusk nodded. “I suppose that is what we have instead of an army. We have many reserve soldiers.”

  “You would expect a lot of your people to come to arms if you called?”

  Tusk shook his head and stared hard at Wollis as he answered. “No, Wollis March. I would expect all of my people to come to arms if I called.”

  “All of them?” Wollis shook his head. “The women, the children?”

  Tusk gestured to the field where the Sa’ba Taalor were currently testing their archery skills against a good number of the soldiers of the Guard. The locals used crossbows. The visitors used mostly long bows though a few seemed content to merely try their luck with the weapons that the soldiers showed them how to use. Crossbows seemed a fairly novel idea to the lot of them.

  Tusk said, “There you see the women and men of my people. Some from my kingdom and some from others.”

  “All of your people know how to use weapons?” Morton sounded perplexed.

  Tusk looked long and hard at Morton and sounded just as puzzled when he responded. “Don’t all of yours?”

  From that moment on, Morton paid much closer attention to the people working alongside his soldiers during his practices that day.

  Andover looked at his belongings and sighed. There really weren’t that many of them, aside from his clothes, which were really quite nice, he supposed.

  It was almost time to go. In the morning they would be heading out and in the meantime he was packing his belongings into proper bundles. There were wagons, of course, two of them with supplies, and those supplies would include his possessions and the gifts that were being offered to the Sa’ba Taalor by the Emperor.

  He almost went to visit his parents. He almost went to tell them that he would be going away, would be headed to a foreign land to serve as ambassador for the Empire, but in the end he decided against it. He hadn’t told them when his hands were ruined, hadn’t told them when he made his apprenticeship, hadn’t spoken to them since they had kicked him out from their home and told him never to come back. Did he miss them? Of course, but they had made their point clearly enough, hadn’t they?

  Servants had been sent in to pack his belongings. He’d sent them on their way. He could pack all by himself and he had done so before. Also, Tuskandru was a king and he packed his own things and took care of his own animal. He would probably frown on anyone who couldn’t manage that sort of stuff by himself.

  The bundles were deceptively heavy, so he made two trips down to the wagons and packed away everything that needed to be packed.

  And as he was feeling the butterflies gathering together in his stomach to swarm again, he saw Tega heading toward the wagons.

  She faltered when she saw him, but managed to force a quick smile.

  “I did not expect to see you, Andover.”

  “I just wanted to finish packing my things. What brings you down here? Did Desh Krohan ask you to check over the arrangements?”

  “No. Not exactly.” She looked down at the ground, once again carefully avoiding looking at him. “I am to make the journey to Taalor on his behalf.”

  “What? When was that decided?” His voice cracked and he felt himself blush just the slightest amount. He sounded like he was excited by the prospect of traveling with her and that wasn’t what he wanted. He was excited, of course, but he didn’t want to be and he didn’t want her to know it, either. Being near her was a wonderful drug, but it was like the wine his uncle Brann consumed. It was deceptive. It felt so good you didn’t know it was doing you harm. Being around Tega was distracting and he thought he’d need his wits when dealing with the Sa’ba Taalor.

  Tega looked at him for a moment and looked away again. “It was not my choice. Desh and the Emperor decided for me.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll try not to be in your way.” She quickly shoved her belongings into the wagon and turned away.

  “Tega. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just, the Blasted Lands are dangerous.” As if the explanation was any less foolish than his initial reaction.

  She waved off his explanation as easily as he might wave aside a persistent insect, and headed away from him.

  Andover did not follow her. He wanted to, but what would he possibly say?

  It was annoying, really: he could fight two men in combat, beat them both to pulps, receive wounds in the process and keep fighting, but the idea of talking to a woman almost a head shorter than him was enough to make him quake inside.

  He continued packing away his belongings, unsettled by the fact that Tega coming along on the trip was putting him in bett
er spirits and simultaneously making him miserable.

  “You want to reinstate my commission in the Imperial Army?” Merros stared at the wizard. For a change of pace the man’s hood was down and he could see the rather unremarkable face, which normally hid in a darkness that seemed more than mere shadows. The eyes that looked at him did so with a certain amusement.

  “That’s correct. With a promotion, of course.”

  “By the gods, man, why would you want to do a thing like that?”

  “Well, Emperor Krous would like to thank you for all of your loyal service.” He could smell the lie coming off of the man.

  “Mmm. Hmm. Perhaps you might try telling me the actual reason?”

  Desh Krohan sighed. “Fine. You have more experience with the Sa’ba Taalor than anyone else.”

  “By a fortnight. It’s hardly like I’ve studied them for years.”

  “No, but you have studied them.” The wizard leaned in closer and pinned him with a stare. Unremarkable? Hardly. The man just did a very good job of hiding his personality behind a veil of average. “You can deny that if you’d like, Merros, but I know it. I can see it on your face when you look around any place where you are standing, that you see everything. It’s an excellent trait and one that few people have.”

  “There are plenty who do. Most any career soldier.”

  “Not true. Most career soldiers merely manage to get through their routines without consideration for what goes on around them. If they did otherwise they’d demand substantially more pay for what they face.”

  Merros shook his head in response. “Look, I’m really very flattered, but you’ve just paid me enough money to let me retire in comfort. Why would I want to go back to work?”

  “Because you aren’t designed to sit on your backside and relax, not any more than I am.”

  “I would hardly compare what I do with what you do.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’re a sorcerer! You’re advisor to the Emperor.”

  “You’d be advisor to me.”