An hour later they began again. Orosz struck the gong.
“The question we have before us is, what action should the clans take to deal with the Narthani?”
Seven hetmen rose to be recognized. Orosz had arranged with Stent that he would be recognized first. Orosz wanted to keep the session focused on the main issue and not let clans such as Nyvaks cause diversions.
“Hetman Stent,” Orosz intoned, “what say you?”
Welman Stent waited for the other six hetmen to reseat.
“Fellow hetmen, I see three possibilities. One is to accept that the Narthani are a permanent presence on Caedellium and to do everything possible to restrict them to the three provinces they now control. The second possibility is to drive them off Caedellium by force. The third is to do nothing and pray to God they take no further action against other clans.”
Orosz had to ring the gong a dozen times before the tumult died. Stent’s third option was quickly dismissed, when Hetman Farkesh reminded two hetmen who seemed inclined to favor that option that men may pray to God, but God expected men to act. “And not be like a stupid Neslender murvor and close your eyes, hoping danger thinks you’re not worth its time.”
The large flightless bird was originally found in western Caedellium thickets and was renowned for freezing and relying on camouflaged plumage to escape predators’ notice.
The first possible action proposed by Stent could not be easily rejected.
Hetman Pawell was recognized. “Who is to say that if we leave the Narthani alone, now that they lost at Moreland City, they won’t realize taking over the rest of Caedellium will be too difficult? They’re like the hornet’s nest. Best left alone.”
“Hetman Pawell,” said Culich, “what do you do if the hornets move and try to establish a new nest in your house? Is that not what the Narthani have already done? First with Preddi, then Eywell and Selfcell, and most recently their invasion of Moreland? What do you do if you wake up one morning and find a new nest already in your house? Do you live with them and hope the nest doesn’t proliferate, or do you take whatever action is needed to remove the first nest? No. All of us here would take action.”
Hetman Pewitt rose. “I appreciate your analogies, Hetman Keelan, but we have to balance the perceived threat and the costs of any action we take. What if we simply wait and see what the Narthani do next?”
“What if their next action is to attack a clan from the sea?” asked Stent. “We stopped them when they came inland, but they also gave us time to gather the clans. Remember how they moved slowly and then waited in place for several days when they neared Moreland City? They obviously wanted us to gather so their army could defeat us in a battle. They won’t make that mistake again. They could directly invade Gwillamer or Stent, moving fast and with the support of their navy. Before other clans could come to those clans’ aid in enough numbers to stop them, the Narthani could have burned every structure in the province to ashes, killed or run off all animals, and killed or captured who knows how many of the provinces’ people.”
“I agree with Stent. They don’t have to do it by land,” interjected Adris. “With their complete control of the sea, they could land thousands of men, cannon, and horses on the shores of any clan on a coast. No one clan could stop thousands of Narthani from destroying the province before more clans came to help. Even if clans did come, as soon as the Narthani felt their men threatened, they could just re-board their ships and go elsewhere to attack a clan on the other side of Caedellium. Maybe a clan whose men were sent to help the first clan.”
Stent rose again. “Each hetman needs to ask himself what he and his clan would do if the Narthani invaded, either by land or by sea, and moved quickly. Hetman Skouks, what would you do?”
The rough-looking, scared hetman with long gray hair appeared grim. “I pray to God I would act wisely and not waste the lives of my clanspeople in a futile fight. If necessary, we would flee inland to the mountains, where we would fight until the other clans came to our aid.”
“A wise decision, Hetman,” said Stent. “However, what happens to Skouvona? I’ve been to your capital. It has some of the oldest buildings on Caedellium and is unique. The Narthani would burn it to the ground. What of the other towns and villages? How many of them would suffer the same fate? And your animals. Would you have time to drive all of them to safety, or would you have to focus on saving the people and leaving the herds to the Narthani?”
The Skouks hetman’s face became even craggier, as his jaw clenched and unclenched. “Then we would rebuild Skouvana better than before, and animals can be replaced.”
“Yes, and I’m sure your people would try to endure the consequences, but then what if you rebuild and the Narthani come again and repeat the destruction? How many times could your people endure such a cycle?”
Skouks didn’t respond.
“And you, Hetman Swavebroke, what would your people do in such a situation? Would you abandon Shullick, your capital and one of the largest cities on Caedellium?”
“We would defend Shullick until help could arrive from the other clans. Although their army might be too much for us in the open, it would be different among city streets, where we know every corner and turn.”
Two of the six men sitting behind the Swavebroke hetman shook their heads, and the six murmured among themselves.
Stent pressed harder. “What if you couldn’t stop them before help arrived, if it arrived? What, then, for the people of Shullick? You would be gambling with their lives to think you could stop the Narthani.”
Swavebroke’s confident expression melted into desperation. “Then what are we to do? Neither Shullick nor any other town in our province has mountains to fall back to for protection. Thousands of my clanspeople might be captured or killed if the Narthani landed their soldiers and we tried to flee, no matter how bravely our men tried to slow them in the open country. Yet how could we abandon Shullick and move our people away from the coast?”
“You should stand and fight them to the death, that’s what you should do,” scolded Eldon Vandinke. “Better all should die than end up slaves of the Narthani.”
“Easy for you to say, Vandinke,” said Teresz Bultecki, the Bultecki hetman. “Your clan and mine have no coasts, so the Narthani can’t get to us without first going through other clans. And we have plenty of mountains to hide in. If anything, we would be among the last clans overrun by the Narthani. But make no mistake, if the others fell, our turn would come. You talk bravely about dying. But what about the children? Do you decide their fate so easily?”
Orosz held up his arms. “I think we can get back to what we should do. No one doubts the threat the Narthani pose to all of our clans. However, we have to do something.”
“Could we try to negotiate with them?” asked Milton Ernmor, the Pewitt Clan hetman. “I know it’s something none of us want to do. Even if what we want is to have the Narthani gone from Caedellium forever, we have to face all options, one of which is the first possibility Hetman Stent listed. If we could come to an agreement with the Narthani that we cede control of those three provinces, would they be willing to leave the rest of Caedellium alone?”
Culich stood. “Milton, while I understand your desire to settle all this with as little additional bloodshed as possible and with the security of our clans assured, how could we ever trust the Narthani to keep such an agreement? They will do anything necessary to further their goals. Look at the two assassination attempts. Hetman Stent was fortunate to have enough armed men nearby to foil the attempt on him. Lordeum Hewell also survived, but only because the assassins mistook his brother for him. Consider how they brought in the Buldorians to raid and kill and then continued with their own men. Look how they turned the Eywellese loose onto Moreland, burned two towns, and killed over six hundred Morelanders. Can you honestly say you would trust them?”
“No, Culich, there is no way I’d trust them, but what is the harm in at least trying to have representatives meet with
them? The worst that would happen is they refuse to meet. Still, on the slim chance something positive may result, shouldn’t we try? Maybe it would make them pause, if they are planning further attacks.”
Culich didn’t respond. He saw the conclave slipping away from united clan action. He believed the argument to try negotiating, while rational on the surface, had no chance to succeed and would only provide an excuse to do nothing, while waiting for the outcome. Months could slip by, months he intuited Caedellium didn’t have.
Two hours passed with the hetmen arguing back and forth, stating and restating reasons to act or do nothing, and repeatedly returning to the negotiation proposal. Culich limited his participation and waited for the next break, which would come just before dusk. The men would eat, the clan delegations would talk among themselves and with other clans, and all clans would reconvene for an evening session. He needed to get ready for a last chance to influence the direction of the conclave.
When they reconvened, Orosz rang the gong to gather the men’s attention.
“Hetman Keelan has asked to speak.”
Culich rose, walked to the front of the room, and faced the room full of men. “I will yield to someone who has played an important role in fighting the Narthani. Some of you have met him, others have not, though you know of him. He has unique perspectives on what we face, and I have asked him to speak to the conclave.”
Culich motioned to the Keelan delegation. “Yozef Kolsko.”
Culich had told Yozef he might be called on, if necessary. They needed to bring the clans back to facing the imminent threat of the Narthani. Yozef had spoken to a group of hetmen and others previously, at the end of the Battle of Moreland City. However, at that time his head throbbed from the wound whose scar he carried and his body was coming down from the physical and emotional consequences of having survived the fight. Thus, he hardly remembered what he had said, though Denes told him he had warned that the Narthani had merely withdrawn, had not been defeated, and were still a threat.
Today was different. Both conscious of the setting and aware of the stakes, Yozef didn’t feel optimistic. Everything he’d heard so far showed that too many clans still hoped to avoid becoming involved and still remained incognizant of the level of the Narthani threat, because it hadn’t yet impacted their clans. Nevertheless, he had to try. If nothing else, perhaps something he said would influence them later when they remembered it.
At least, there had been good news. A semaphore message had arrived from Caernford the previous day. It took the station in Orosz City several hours to track him down, the station assistant explained, as he handed Yozef the folded, sealed sheet.
“Not sure what it means, Ser Kolsko,” said the assistant. “Sounds like gibberish. Tell me if you want us to ask Caernford to resend the message tomorrow.”
No secrets could be kept from the semaphore station staffs. Thus, Yozef had cautioned against sending information too sensitive, in case a Narthani agent had been placed at a station anywhere on the island. This also limited loose lips that couldn’t resist spreading titillating news.
Yozef had broken the seal and read.
To: Yozef Kolsko
From: Maera Kolsko-Keelan
News from Yawnfol. Success 6.
10 test okay.
Triple burst.
Mounting and 5 more.
He was sure it meant that Yawnfol Nyfork, the foreman at the Abersford foundry, had reported the successful casting of a 6-pounder cannon barrel, based on ten successful test-firings without damage to the barrel, and it taking a triple charge to burst the barrel. They were proceeding to mount the barrel on a carriage and would cast five more barrels. He had told Culich the news and let the hetman decide whether to tell the others. For now, he faced the room full of bearded faces.
Yozef remembered being nervous on boarding the flight from San Francisco to Chicago, but that was because of flying and not at the prospect of presenting his research results to a room full of hundreds of scientists and engineers. He knew he would speak about a topic he had supreme confidence in—his chemical research and its implications. He could remember giving talks in undergraduate and graduate seminar classes on topics new to him and how petrified he felt the first few times, although it gradually became easier the more he did it. For the Chicago meeting, it was a topic he considered himself an expert on. Now, he would be talking about subjects on which he remained a dilettante. He feared leading astray this room full of leaders.
Yet here he was, facing clan leaders, most of them older than he was, most having many years of responsibilities beyond his experience, and he faced them ready to launch into what he believed they needed to hear. He couldn’t control whether or not they understood.
He cleared his throat and did his best to look calm, confident, and wise—a troika that seemed, respectively, true, false, and in the realm of “in your dreams.”
“Hetmen and Sers, I stand before you as someone not originally from Caedellium. I came to your island unexpectedly three years ago and now consider myself a Caedelli, if only by adoption. Wherever my origin, now my life, my future, and my family are irrevocably tied to the same fortunes as your own. I believe I bring a different perspective than most of you. One built on the history of my own people and the histories I have read of other realms. Many of those histories are apparently not available here on Caedellium. Therefore, I consider the Narthani problem from that background.
“The first thing I would ask you to consider is simple. Why did the Narthani come to Caedellium? The island is not on trade routes, and while the island has admirable natural resources, they aren’t enough for the Narthani to spend the effort so far from their closest port. Although I have no way to be positive, it comes to me that the Narthani plan to use Caedellium as a base to attack Landolin or the Iraquinik Confederation, perhaps both.”
Yozef had deliberately chosen to use the phrase “it comes to me” to play into the Septarsh rumors. As much as he cringed, the stakes were high, and he had to discount his personal qualms. He had no way of knowing that the Keelan, Orosz, Stent, and Gwillamer hetmen had casually sprinkled their conversations with other hetmen and their advisors with references to the Septarsh rumors, never giving a firm affirmation, yet leaving the impression they were open to the possibility.
His choice hit a nerve, because he thought at least half of the hetmen and many of the advisors sat a little more upright or their eyes widened slightly at his words.
“Whether this is true or not, there is no reason to believe they have any intention other than to conquer all of Caedellium. If you see a storm coming in your direction, do you assume it will pass you by, even if your neighbors are hammered by rain and wind, or do you close your windows and bring your children inside?
“You’ve already heard Hetman Orosz refer to the Neslender murvor. It closes its eyes and hopes for the best. Same with the storm. Who among you would close your eyes as the wind and lightning got closer and not assume you’d come under the storm? The Narthani are coming. When, I can’t say, but as sure as the sun rises each morning, the day will come when a Narthani army comes for each of you. Together, you can resist them, but do any of you now think your clan can turn them back by yourselves? It may require working together in ways alien to you, even suborning the immediate interests of your own clan in favor of the many. Likewise, the time will come when the other clans will do the same for you.
“Imagine a single thin two-foot-long piece of a tree branch. You can easily break it. Yet bundle eighteen of these together, and none of you could break the bundle. United, you can stand tall; divided, you fall. You will either hang together or hang separately.”
Yozef paused to let the last lines sink in. It wasn’t the greatest oratory, but thanks to Ben Franklin again for the hanging quote and the fact that hanging for the most egregious crimes was known on Caedellium.
He remembered the bundling reference from once looking up the origin of the fasces—the symbol made of sticks o
r rods tied into a bundle, sometimes with an ax head protruding from the top side. The example came from an Aesop fable, and Romans adopted it as a symbol of strength through unity. Yozef’s curiosity in the symbol’s origin stemmed from seeing it on dimes in a coin collection given him by an uncle when he was nine years old. The Mercury dimes had the head of the Roman god Mercury on one side and a bundle of rods on the other side. No one he knew could tell him what the bundle represented, so he asked the librarian at school. She told him the bundle was a fasces and explained the symbolism. It was more than appropriate for what Yozef saw the clans facing. He saw no reason to soil the image by providing further information that Italy’s Mussolini had used the fasces as the symbol for his political party, thus giving rise to the word fascism.
When the men in the room started to mumble among themselves, Yozef spoke again.
“Neither I nor the people I come from have personal experience with the Narthani, and I have asked four persons who have such experience to come today to tell you what it’s like to fall under the control of the Narthon Empire.”
Yozef had thanked Maera for suggesting that he bring in witnesses, because she believed personal stories would have more impact than general warnings.
“These four persons,” Yozef said, “escaped from the Narthani and fled into Moreland, Gwillamer, or Stent Provinces.” He gestured to Denes, who had moved to stand by the main door in the back of the room. Denes now opened the door and motioned to someone outside.
“The first person is Ubeladuhbando Badaleesha, as close as I can come to properly pronouncing his given name,” said Yozef. “That name had not been used for twenty-eight years before he escaped. The Narthani simply called him ‘Slave’ for most of those years. He is thirty-six years old.”
Through the door walked a man appearing closer to fifty-six years than thirty-six. He was short, his face bearing several scars, and he walked with a pronounced limp, yet he walked tall, as if proud of the scars and the limp. At the front of the room, he turned to face the clan leaders. He spoke passable Caedelli, though with a harsher tone than Caedelli’s softer vowels.
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 20
