The warriors of Arden, the bravest and strongest of their realm, are only ants from up here, Cam thought, the realization spinning his mind. That's all we are, insects bustling across the world. Viewed from far enough above, the wars of men are no more significant than those of ants.
"We're flying!" Nitomi's eyes widened. "Everything looks like toys from up here, as if I can just reach down and pick them up."
The little dojai leaned over the basket, reaching into the air, then yelped as she tilted over. Cam had to grab the seat of her pants and tug her back into the basket.
Qato groaned and clutched his belly. "Qato queasy."
Nitomi bustled about the basket, tugging ropes and pulleys. Vents opened in the balloon, releasing streams of hot air, propelling the vessel westward toward the riverbank. Cam himself felt queasy as the basket tilted, the balloon dragging it through the air, and he clutched the rim. Qato turned green.
Only Nitomi remained high-spirited. "It's like flying on a dragon!" She grinned. "Did you know that Koyee and Torin flew on a dragon once? Really, I saw it! Do you think they have hidden dragons in Timandra? Do you think we'll see one? Do you think they have elephants here?" She hopped about, rocking the basket. "Maybe it'll let us ride it—the dragon, that is, if they have one—though I hope it's not scared of this balloon, because when I was a little one, I saw a floating lantern once, and I thought it was a ghost, and then—"
"Nitomi!" Cam grabbed her. "We're sinking. Fly this thing!"
She gulped and nodded, tugging more ropes and twisting knobs. Vents closed and more heat blasted upward. The balloon began to ascend again, then veered westward. They left the riverbank behind, floated above the Red River, and were soon flying over the plains of Mageria. Hornsford Bridge seemed smaller than a toy from up here, its towers no larger than wooden counter-squares pieces. Further west, however, Sunmotte Citadel still seemed forbidding, even from this high above. Its mote, double walls, and guard towers shielded its inner core of many towers and banners. It seemed to Cam almost as large as Kingswall.
But Kingswall is a city of tradesmen, artists, thinkers, families, he thought. This citadel houses nothing but soldiers dedicated to destruction.
Myriads of those soldiers stood outside the citadel, drilling in the fields: swordsmen clad in black armor, riders upon horses, and mages in black robes. Lines and lines of the troops stretched across the fields, Radian banners rising among them. Most of the troops remained still, maintaining their orderly rows. Only a handful bustled about, pointing up at the balloon.
"Nitomi, take us a little higher," Cam said.
She nodded, tugging more ropes to seal the vents, then twisting knobs to release more heat. The balloon ascended higher, hovering over the army below. A few Magerian archers tugged back bowstrings, and arrows flew into the air. Cam winced and caught his breath, but they were high enough; the arrows reached their zenith below the basket and fell back downward.
Cam leaned over the basket, frowning. "Only a handful of archers are firing. Only a few soldiers are moving—mostly the ones on the perimeters." He tilted his head. "Something is wrong here. Nitomi, take us a little further west—over those lines of troops."
She nodded and the balloon moved across the sky. They hovered over the lines of horses and swordsmen. And yet the troops below stood frozen.
Nitomi opened a cylindrical case which hung from her belt and pulled out a long instrument. It looked like a leather scroll, but glass lenses sealed each of its ends. The little dojai brought one lens to her eye, leaned over the basket, and stared down. She gasped.
"Oh dear! They . . . Cam, they're just frozen. Frozen like freezing ice frozen by freezing spells!" She gulped, straightened, and handed him her instrument. "Look."
Cam frowned at the cylinder. "What is this tool?"
"A scope!" Nitomi grinned. "We build them in the Dojai School in the mountains. Nobody else in all of Moth knows about them, only us spies. Well, I guess you know about them now too. But don't tell anyone!" She growled and raised her fist. "It's supposed to be a secret, but I've gone and talked too much again, and now you know too, so you have to promise to be quiet, because if you tell anyone about scopes, I'd probably have to kill you—the Dojai School demands it!—but I don't really want to kill you, because I like you, almost as much as I like elephants, so—"
He patted her shoulder; the little woman seemed so agitated her eyes were dampening and her cheeks flushing. "I won't tell," he said. "I'll just look and return the scope to you."
Gently, he took the scope from her hands, placed the lens against his eye, and looked downward. His breath caught. He lowered the scope, raised it to his eye again, and shook his head in amazement. This piece of Elorian ingenuity amazed him as much as the hot air balloon. Staring through the scope, the soldiers below seemed several times larger, so large he could make out the Radian sigils upon their breastplates.
He frowned. "Something's wrong."
Nitomi nodded. "I'd say a massive army mustering right on our border is something wrong. Almost as wrong as skinning elephants. I—"
"Not that." Cam stared through the scope again, looking at the rows of swordsmen, horses, and archers. "They're . . . dummies. Straw dummies. Thousands of them."
Nitomi tilted her head, grabbed the scope from him, and stared down. She gasped and covered her mouth. "Evil magic! Somebody turned them all to straw!"
Cam's heart sank, and a tremble seized his legs. "No magic," he whispered. "A ruse."
He tightened his jaw and balled his fists. He thought of his wife, beautiful Queen Linee; of his best friend, Torin; of hundreds of thousands of people back in Kingswall.
He turned to the two dojai. They were staring at him silently—Qato somber as ever, Nitomi gasping.
"Take us back to our camp," Cam said, forcing the words past stiff lips. "Kingswall is in danger . . . and a month's ride away. We head back at once."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
INTO THE WOODS
The wagon trundled down the road, jostling the Elorians inside their cage. With every bump, Madori slammed against the bars, and her fellow outcasts swayed and pushed her harder against the iron. They were only a few miles away from Teel University now, but bruises already covered her body. The gloomy sky and clammy rain did little to alleviate her discomfort.
"Damn shackles!" For the hundredth time, she chose and claimed the shackles that bound her wrists and ankles. Try as she may, she couldn't change the metal, only rattle it, nor could she snap the iron—it was too hard. "I can't break them."
Jitomi stood with his arms wrapped around her, providing only partial protection from the iron bars and the elbows of their fellow students. Still, she was thankful for his embrace.
"We're too weary for magic now." He kissed her cheek and tucked one of her strands behind her ear. "And it's hard to change something as intricate as a lock when the wagon keeps bouncing. When we stop, we'll try again."
She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder, only for the wagon to bounce again and toss them against the bars. She winced. She imagined that under her robes, her body was striped like a zebra. Shivering with cold, weary, and aching all over, healing magic was beyond her grasp too. She made a halfhearted attempt—the latest in many—to claim and bend the cage bars, only to slump in weariness again.
"If only we had stayed at Teel another year, we'd be powerful enough to break out of this place," Madori said. She sighed. "I didn't think our first year at Teel would end like—"
"Silence, nightcrawler!" shouted the wiry, one-eyed soldier Madori had secretly nicknamed Patchy. Walking beside the wagon, the brute lashed his club between the bars. Madori tilted back just fast enough to avoid the blow. "You talk again, I open this cage and bash in your teeth."
On the other side of the cage, the second guard—this one a beefy, older man with white stubble—burst out laughing. "We'll soon do some bashing. Lord Serin said we reach the forest first. There we—"
"You too shut
your mouth!" snapped Patchy. "I'll bash your teeth in too."
The larger guard fell silent. The two kept trudging through the mud, the rain pattering against their helmets and armor. Ahead upon the wagon, the third of their captors—the dour coach rider—leaned forward in his seat. Madori had still not heard that one speak nor seen his face. From the cage, the driver seemed like a gargoyle, hunched over and stony, the rain streaming off his cloak.
We'll soon do some bashing . . .
Madori looked at Jitomi. She saw the same concern in his eyes.
He leaned against her, pretending to kiss her ear, and whispered in Qaelish, the language of her Elorian homeland. A child of Ilar, his accent was thick but his words confident. "Conserve your magic. You might need it yet."
She stroked his head and nestled against him, pretending to nuzzle his cheek. "Where are they taking us, Jitomi?"
He held her close, stroking the stubbly hair on the back of her head. "I don't know but I doubt they'll just set us free." He let his hood droop, curtaining their faces, hiding them from the guards. When he spoke, his lips brushed against hers. "Whatever happens, I'll look after you."
She nodded, her eyelids brushing his cheeks. "And I'll look after you. I'm a better mage than you are."
He sighed. "With me battered and bruised, there are lumps of coal that are better mages than me right now."
She stifled a laugh, glancing back at the guards. "I've seen you in Magical Healing. There were always lumps of coal better at magic than you, at least in that class."
"Well, Madori, you are the best healer Teel has had in—" He bit down on his words and glanced out the bars; Patchy was walking near again, grumbling under his breath about nightcrawlers and their stench.
Madori too feel silent, deciding to conserve her breath along with her magic. She stood still, holding Jitomi, wishing the cage left her room to sit down or even stretch. The other outcasts pressed against them, silent and dour, rain dripping off their robes and white hair.
The hours stretched on and the guards gave them no rest. Thunder rolled in the distance and lightning flashed, illuminating a distant fort upon a hill. Madori was nodding off—even as she still stood on her sore feet—when she saw the marching army.
She stiffened. Jitomi inhaled sharply and held her closer. Around them, the other students narrowed their eyes.
Countless Radian troops were marching toward them along the road, each man clad in steel and armed with a sword, dagger, and spear. When lightning flashed again, the Radian eclipses shone upon breastplates, shields, and helmets. The wagon was moving north while these troops marched south, moving in two lines, mud staining their boots.
"Elorian prisoners!" one soldier cried out, his eyes widening to see the cage. "Damn nightcrawlers."
Another soldier guffawed and slammed his blade against the bars. "Hang these bastards. Death to Eloria!"
The wagon kept trundling south, and the soldiers passed them by, one line of troops on each side, as if the wagon were rolling down some great, steel throat. Some soldiers stared with wide eyes, others sneered, and some guffawed. One man began to sing a song, its words lovingly detailing the plunder of Eloria and the slaughter of "nightcrawlers." Soon all the troops were singing as they walked by. One man tossed a rock into the cage, hitting Jitomi in the shoulder. Another soldier dropped his pants and wriggled his backside at the cage.
"Kind of looks like Lari," Madori remarked to Jitomi.
"Enjoy your bars, scum!" one troop said and spat onto Madori. "Once we invade the night, we won't just cage you. We'll drive our swords into your bellies." He waved his sword as if to demonstrate.
It seemed an hour that the troops kept walking by, two by two; there must have been thousands. Finally the last stragglers passed them by, leaving the wagon to trundle alone along the cold, empty road.
"They're all riled up and look ready for war." Jitomi whispered. "Where do you imagine they're going?"
Madori chewed her lip. "Not to attack Arden; an army that size would have to cross at Hornsford, and they're moving the wrong way. Might be a battle on the southern border with Naya. Or maybe Serin just wants to bolster his troops in the capital, and—"
"Silence!" Patchy's club swung through the bars again, hitting Madori on the arm. "One more word and teeth spill."
She fell silent but her mind still worked feverishly. With Serin on the throne and his troops moving across the land, war was near. She had heard enough of her parents' war stories to smell it in the air. She thanked Xen Qae, Idar, and the constellations of Eloria that at least Mageria shared no border with the night. If Serin had access to Eloria, she had a feeling all those troops would be streaming into the shadows right now, plundering and butchering and burning.
Arden still separates Serin from the night, she thought, feeling some relief. King Camlin and Queen Linee defend that land. Serin cannot cross. She took a shuddering breath. Eloria is safe.
Trying not to remember the stories her parents had told her of the last invasion of Eloria, she leaned her head against Jitomi's shoulder. He held her close and stroked her hair, running his hand again and again between the stubbly back and the long, silky strands that drooped from over her brow.
They must have been traveling for at least a turn now, maybe two. Madori's belly ached with hunger, and her eyelids drooped with weariness. At some point she nodded off, pinned between the bars and Jitomi, sleeping fitfully even as the wagon bounced and her feet ached beneath her. When she opened her eyes again, the rain had stopped, though thick clouds still covered the sky; it seemed almost as dark as Eloria, and she was thankful for her oversized eyes. Jitomi was still awake, his own large eyes gleaming as they moved back and forth, scanning the landscape.
While she had slept, they had entered a forest. Oaks twisted around them, their trunks forming the shapes of beasts and cruel faces in her imagination. Pines coiled, sending branches like lecherous fingers to slap against the bars. With the canopy shielding the overcast sky, the light dimmed further. The leaves turned dark gray, the shadows dark like demons lurking between the trunks. Madori was reminded of the dusk, that twilit strip that lay many miles away, a land neither day or night. When lightning flashed, the trees—white, looming, twisted—seemed like goblins about to strike, their faces long and cruel.
Finally the wagon rolled to a halt.
The prisoners—Madori had come to think of them as prisoners rather than outcasts—jostled against one another. After moving for so long, even in stillness Madori's head spun and her legs swayed. Patchy—she still did not know his true name—spat into the dirt, unlocked the cage, and tugged its door open.
"Everybody out!" He banged his club against the bars. "Out, vermin! Out or I'll burn the lot of you."
Madori stood closest to the door. She had spent the ride wanting nothing more than to leave the cage. Looking around at the dark forest, she suddenly preferred staying behind the bars. Yet when Patchy raised his club again, she winced and began to climb out. Her ankles were still hobbled, her wrists chained behind her back, and she could only move slowly. Once past the cage door, she slipped off the wagon's edge, tilted over, and thumped facedown into the mud. The foul paste filled her mouth, and Patchy stood above her, his boot inches from her face.
"Up, maggot." He grabbed her by the collar and yanked her to her feet. Madori growled, spat out mud, and lunged toward him, intending to knock him down. He stepped back and Madori, weak and dizzy, fell back into the mud.
It was Jitomi who helped her rise, as gentle as Patchy was rough. The other Elorians emerged from the cage too. They stood together on the roadside, twenty-five banished students.
"Where are we?" Madori said. "You can't just leave us here. We're in the middle of nowhere. We'd never find our way home from here."
The trees creaked and a rider emerged onto the road, still cloaked in shadows. A voice rose, smooth and cruel as a blade.
"My darling Madori, that is exactly the idea."
The horse ste
pped closer, revealing the rider—a tall man in armor, his hair golden, his eyes cold and blue. The hard, handsome face twisted into a smile.
Madori sucked in her breath and took a step back.
"Lord Serin," she whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
THE BATTLE OF MUDWATER
Torin walked through the palace gardens with his queen, missing his home so badly even the aromatic flowers, the bright birds, and his queen's company could not soothe his soul.
"I've never seen you so troubled." Linee's brow furrowed in concern, and she placed a hand upon his arm. "Torin, smile for me."
He looked at Linee—his queen and his very old friend. Her golden hair was raised in an elaborate construction of braids and curls, and her gown shone with jewels. Idar's sigil, a half-sun, gleamed upon her breast. Torin took her hands in his and squeezed them, thinking back to that turn—twenty years ago—when he had first come to these gardens and met his queen. Linee had been only twenty then, a silly young woman, flighty and careless as a butterfly. The years had filled her eyes with wisdom but had not dulled her beauty; her skin was still unlined, her hair untouched by white, the only sign of her age a lingering sadness that hung about her like a shadow over a summer garden.
"Queen Linee Solira," he said softly, her hands in his. "Few will know what we've been through, how we fought, how we suffered, what we saw all those years ago. We've lived in peace since then. We cannot let this peace burn."
"We will not!" she said. "Cam guards the bridge; it will not fall. Our walls here are strong; they will stand."
Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) Page 21
