“Excuse you?” he said, his face growing red. “Excuse you before or after your great, lumbering beast tramples me in the street?”
“I hate to say it, but I didn’t see you,” I said. He probably got that all the time and I doubted that he liked it. I was right.
“We Scitai are citizens of the Silent Isle too, you know,” he growled up at me. “Gods, but what would a Man know of that. You know what I say of men?”
“That we are so tall that only the thinnest air feeds our brains?” I asked, quoting from Kvitch.
That gave him pause. “You have heard that, have you?”
“From the Simple People,” I answered.
That brought his head up. “And there are not many Men who would call them that,” he noted. He looked me over, dressed in Dwarven Armor, sitting my Dwarven-made saddle on my horse from the Wild Horse Plains.
Remembering my first encounter with Kvitch, I dismounted to speak with him. He stood a little under three feet – I towered over him. Still, I resisted the urge to squat down and talk to him as if he were a child, and instead stooped enough to extend my hand.
“I am Mordetur, a friend and emissary of the Simple People to the Fovean High Council.”
He took my forearm in his in a surprisingly strong grip. “I am Xinto of the Woods, a Scitai of the Silent Isle, and a warrior.”
I nodded appreciatively. “I will likely seek training while I am here.” This was the truth. I had learned a lot in Volkhydro and I wanted to learn more while I could still afford it. I had learned long ago that wealth is a fleeting thing.
“Well, train with the Uman-Chi, not me. They are long of Life and have more experience than all of the other races.”
“I will.”
He sighed wearily. “I suppose if you can give an honest man a ride on that great beast of yours, then I can get you to where you are needing to go to bear your message. Obviously, you have no idea.”
“And what would make you say that?” I asked.
“You are a light-headed Man, that’s what”
I laughed. He came across as a likeable, if not particularly agreeable, fellow. I lifted him up onto Blizzard’s back and mounted behind him immediately to ensure that he was not thrown. Blizzard eyed him warily but seemed willing to tolerate him so long as I was there. The stallion had proven time and again that he had no other loyalties.
We picked our way through the street. Xinto commented that he had seen no bigger horses than mine. I kidded him back that they likely all looked the same to him. I dodged the obvious “where did you get him” question by asking him about the Scitai and politics on the Silent Isle.
“Trenbon is ruled by the Uman-Chi majority,” he said. “In as much as we do not live in their cities and pay them no tax, we Scitai call ourselves of the Silent Isle. There is some farmland by Outpost VII that we claim, and that some Uman-Chi Baron or another is always trying to get back from us, which keeps that argument alive. If the Silent Isle were to be invaded, then you can believe it would be Scitai archers on their walls and our children in their cities, though their generals would be giving orders and their king doling out food.”
“Are you invaded often?” I asked.
He looked at me strangely, as if I had asked him the color of the sky. “Never happened, not even once.”
“So it is kind of a moot point,” I concluded.
He smiled. “There you go, then.”
“Are the Scitai good archers?” I asked. My archery remained terrible.
He looked at me even more strangely. “Good?” he asked. “How about `the best?’ Or are you some sort of champion with that Uman stick you carry?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Exactly the opposite – and if you wanted to teach me …”
That got a smile from him. Luck or War had shined on me again, it seemed. I had met another willing accomplice.
A modest, open-air coliseum had been built between the outer and the inner walls. It had room for eighty seats on its floor and another few hundred in five stadium-like tiers. I saw neither a refreshment stand nor an awning for protection from the elements, so I guessed that things got cancelled often. Here, the Fovean High Council sat for a few hours every day.
So I rode my horse with Xinto to the Proxy to the High Council, a round Uman with long, white hair, dressed in a white robe and, from what I could tell, almost nothing underneath. He needed a bath and I could tell that his breath stank before I got off of my horse.
“That is who you need to talk to,” Xinto said.
“What do I do?”
He looked over his shoulder, up at me. “What do you think you do?” he asked me.
Sarcastic little bastard. I already liked him.
“Introduce myself, tell the Man sitting there that I am from the Great Dwarven Nation, see when I can get in to talk to them?”
Xinto shook his head. “The thinnest air,” he repeated. “Let me down, I don’t want you on my conscience.”
I lowered him to the ground and dismounted behind him. There were armed Uman warriors that I hadn’t noticed, just inside the entryway to the coliseum. One took Blizzard’s reins, gave the stallion a nervous look, and nodded to me. “He bites,” I warned him, to which he didn’t reply.
Xinto marched directly to the fat man and announced me as Lord Mordetur of the North. I had business and no time to wait – it was imperative that I speak within the hour.
“Your nation?” he asked me, looking right over Xinto’s head.
“The Great Dwarven Nation,” I answered. I still wore my Dwarven armor. I had polished my horns, as well. Blizzard snorted and stomped a steel shod hoof, making a spark on the cobblestones. Xinto put his hands in the pockets of his voluminous cloak.
“Kind of tall for that, no?” he smiled up at me from his desk. The stench wafting from his mouth as he spoke made me want to gag.
“Will we get in today?” Xinto demanded. The fat man grimaced down at him.
“Don’t see why not,” he said. “Nothing going on, they were about to break.”
“We need to hurry,” Xinto told me.
The man stood and waddled off, I looked down at Xinto.
“We didn’t have that big of an emergency,” I told him.
“I know,” he said.
“So why the rush?”
He shook his head. “Because they speak two languages here, Mordetur. Emergency and not. The wait for the latter is much longer, and usually last until it becomes the former.”
I nodded. We had a few moments at least, so I decided to make the most of it. “How should I behave with these people?” I asked.
This time Xinto didn’t look up at me, but waited until after the man had left. “They aren’t people,” he told me, “they’re diplomats. Their responsibility is to decide matters of international law. Every Fovean nation is entitled to ten delegates to the Council, and any of them can ask you anything he wants, for as long as he wants, as many times as he wants. You will know them because, while they are in Trenbon, they all wear white robes in order to distinguish themselves.”
“And to make sure someone else pays their bills?” I asked him.
He smiled. “Now you’re showing me something.”
The man hadn’t returned yet, so Xinto continued, “Don’t believe that the Council represents peace. It furthers Law and it assuages War. It stands as a dam against the flow of violence and ambition. In extreme situations, it can summon the combined Fovean armies.
“Conflu knows this well. Years ago, they annexed the nation of Andoran, lock, stock and barrel; claiming frequent pillaging of their boarders by Andaran raiders. Their cities were taken and held by large Confluni garrisons, but that only lasted until the combined Fovean armies marched in. The Volkhydrans hammered especially deep into Confluni land, paying back for years of raiding. After another threat from the Council they pulled back their invasion.
“Since then, Confluni kill anyone who sets foot in Conflu.”
“Will there be… civilians here, as well as politicians?” I asked.
Xinto nodded. “It’s anyone’s right to observe the proceedings, though few do until something spectacular is going on. Mostly the High Council maintains records of international goings-on, solves trade disputes and relative values of coin and listens to and weighs the merits of each Fovean nation’s complaints about the others. These complaints are aired between the members of the Council, of which the Simple People are, technically, a part.”
I wanted to ask, “Why technically,” but then without preamble we were summoned by our fat friend and put on a dais, near one end of the coliseum. Men in white robes looked up at us in various degrees of limited interest. On the tiers there were maybe twenty people, mostly Uman-Chi, although some looked to be black Men.
Xinto nudged me. “Just read your writ, answer questions, and go. Expect the Dorkan delegates to fight you and to deny everything. Don’t try to leave until they dismiss you. For the love of Eveave, don’t lie!”
The sun told me that I had about three hours until dusk. I inhaled, exhaled slowly, and broke the seal on the leather tube. A squire or some sort of person, an Uman or an Uman-Chi by the green hair, took the tube and passed it down to a group of Men in white robes, who bent over it. I assumed that they were studying its authenticity.
I don’t like public speaking. Basically, I held the parchment up in front of my face with both hands and read the following, as loudly and as clearly as I could:
From: Hvarl, Dwarven King, Great Dwarven Nation
To: All Delegates of the Fovean High Council
It is hereby reported, via Our delegate, that on the seventh day of Chaos, year eighty of the Founding of the Council, that the Dwarven nation was unlawfully and illegally Invaded by two thousand Dorkan warriors. That event was in an effort by Dorkan to annex and to control Our Dwarven mines. The Great Dwarven Nation demands Reparations mandated by this Council for Loss of Dwarven Life and the immediate and extensive Punishment of the Dorkan nation.
Presented this day, by Our hand,
Hvarl, Dwarven King
I lowered my hands, and looked out over the eighty assembled diplomats.
There were ten Men with long, dark ponytails, seated directly in front of me, wearing huge smiles on their faces. Several had fu-Manchu-style goatees.
Behind these were more Men, grimmer faced, with short-cropped hair or bald. Most wore earrings and other jewelry. I knew their ilk – they were Dorkan Wizards.
To my left sat thin Uman, plain-looking men and women. To my right, more Uman, varying hairstyles and just male. Behind them, more Men, dark hair, tan skin, kind of Asian looking, all clean-shaven. Behind the other group of Uman, on the left, a very rough crowd of men, obviously out of place in their robes, looked at me unhappily. I knew from having lived among them that these were Volkhydrans.
In the back sat the Trenboni delegation, their white robes somehow whiter than the rest. Something about them seemed wrong, but I hadn’t gotten close enough to one to pick out what. They seemed nonplussed by the whole thing, and I noticed there were eleven of them.
One of the Dorkans cleared his throat. He stood, squared his shoulders, and addressed me.
“Why would you bring these lies from the Dwarven nation?”
I felt myself bristling. “It is no lie,” I said, trying to keep myself in check. “I was there, fighting on the side of the Dwarves.”
I noticed a little commotion to my left and right, between both sets of Uman. The rougher-looking Men, the Volkhydrans, stopped looking unhappy and unanimously switched to pissed-off.
“Men fighting for Dwarves?” the Dorkan asked, with a sideways look towards the Volkhydrans.
Someone whispered, “bounty hunter,” and I saw some nodding. I just stared at him. I didn’t think that he wanted to hear my answer, regardless of what it might be.
Another diplomat stood from among the plain-looking Uman, whom I assumed were Sentalan. “There is evidence from the Sentalan nation to prove that a large force from Dorkan passed through the Dead Oak Forest and along the south of the Great Northern Mountain Range,” he said.
They sat; the Dorkans buzzed amongst themselves like bees. The Sentalan sat as a Volkhydran stood. “Volkhydran nation, move to adjourn.”
“Trenboni say nay,” an Uman-Chi said, in a dull tone of voice.
“Don’t let that throw you,” Xinto whispered, standing next to me. “Point of Parliamentary Procedure – the Volkhydrans support the Dorkans – “
“Andaran delegates would like to know,” a man from the front said, standing, “what the results of the invasion were.”
“Annihilation,” I said, looking at the Dorkan delegates, meeting as many eyes as I could. “All two thousand Dorkan soldiers, as well as thirty Wizards, were killed in the mountains within the Dwarven Nation.”
“Ha,” barked a Volkhydran. The Dorkans weren’t laughing.
“Dwarven losses must have been heavy, then?” the Andaran pressed.
“Why?” I asked, my eyes involuntarily narrowing.
He sighed. “You seek reparations for loss of life. We need to know how many lives were lost.”
I nodded. I was tempted to lie – but Xinto had warned me, and I couldn’t think up a good one. In this case, I figured that the truth could be no worse.
“Seven, I believe,” I said.
“Seven?” he asked.
“Maybe nine,” I conceded.
The delegates chattered among themselves. Then all eyes turned back to the Uman-Chi.
The same one as before said, in the same voice, “He speaks the truth.”
“Confirmed,” a Dorkan said, grudgingly.
The debate continued past dark. The questions remained the same in various forms. It was mind numbing; my back and feet ached by the time they finished with me.
The common theme: why were you there, what did you see, how can you be sure you saw an invasion?
I travel, a large force of armed Men, what else would they be doing there?
They agreed to debate further. They thanked me for my services and dismissed me.
“Always better to show up late,” Xinto said as we limped away. My bones ached, I felt so exhausted. I must have lost three pounds of sweat into the padding for my armor.
“Why?” I asked, irritably.
Xinto laughed. “Because they are tired and you spend less time in debate,” he said. “The night is still young, Mordetur. I thought that I might even let you buy me a drink.”
I chuckled. “If it is with a meal, then I will oblige you. It is the least I can do. I’m glad that that chapter in my life is over.”
Xinto laughed. “Never call any chapter in your life over.”
Chapter Eleven
The Forces that Guide Us
The city of Outpost IX represented the focal point of culture on Fovea. I believed that, if War had a purpose for me, then I would find it here.
War had been oddly quiet in that regard, and in every other regard for that matter. Other than the occasional ill feeling and warning, my patron deity hadn’t bothered to do more than dump me in a foreign land and to leave me to my own devices.
That made no sense. War had major plans for me. It made sense that I would be under His thumb almost constantly, being told what to do, when and how.
Unless my presence here made this “thing” happen or, perhaps worse for me, I had already done what He brought me here to do. Maybe I had touched off a war between the Dorkans and the Dwarves that he needed, or I had killed someone or caused someone not to be killed. In that case, I remained on my own and He was done with me.
That made no sense either. Someone local could do that. If He wanted me for something, then I represented something that He couldn’t get on this world. I had no idea what that could be.
So I rented a room and spent some of my hard-earned gold to get some more training from an Uman-Chi swordsman named Saa Saraan. Even for an Uman-Chi he was considered old, and
claimed that his father had actually walked the Tren Valley. His hair fell like gray flax down past his thin shanks, and he moved like a dancer when he fought.
He made me look like a kid with a stick when we practiced. He clucked his tongue and criticized me repeatedly. I moved too slow, acted too head strong, and had been born too simple-minded to be anything more than a grunt swordsman. His great-granddaughter had forgotten more than I could ever hope to learn.
In fact he wouldn’t be wasting his time on me at all if Xinto hadn’t intervened, as he assured me twenty times a day. Xinto worked as some sort of international agent much like Kvitch, except that Xinto sold his services to other nations for a price. An ambassador for hire, held in high regard among the Uman-Chi and other races.
“So what is your attraction to me,” I asked him when, after three days, he still met me for breakfast and dinner.
“Pity case, nothing more,” he assured me, ordering a drink on my tab. I had spent my gold at an alarming rate. Outpost IX wasn’t a cheap place to live.
“I don’t see you as being very much the pitying kind,” I said. I didn’t know very much about Xinto, so I couldn’t be sure if he was some agent of War or of some other god who opposed War. I could be sleeping with the enemy and never know it.
Intrigue within intrigue? It hurt my head.
“You make me curious,” Xinto said. He scratched his beard, as he did when he waxed thoughtful. “You work for Dwarves, and Dwarves don’t like Men. You speak like an educated man and live like a common. That sword of yours marks you but you aren’t a good swordsman, Mordetur. In fact, I don’t see what you are good at.”
“Paying your bar tab,” I said, smiling to myself.
He ignored the barb. “I have time to spend here in Outpost IX, so I chose to spend it with you. If that bothers you, I can find others.”
I shook my head. “No,” I told him, “if you’re willing to be around then I am willing to learn from you. We Men, who have to rely on only the thinnest air to feed our brains, need to gather as much wisdom as we can from you wise Scitai.”
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 16
