Warlords Rising

by Honor Raconteur

  “Then stay up here all day.”

  With his orders given, she expected the official to leave, but instead he eyed her up and down like a man would a prize mare. “I have never heard of a Weather Mage before you.”

  How to answer this? Becca didn’t think she should say anything at all and stayed quiet.

  “How many are in your family?” he demanded.

  If he thought he could track down her family, he was sorely mistaken. “I’m the only magician in my family. I was adopted.” Both true, if very misleading.

  This didn’t deter him like she thought it would. Instead he gave a leer. “Then we need to make sure it doesn’t stay this way.”

  What was he suggesting? Her head canted as she stared at him, perplexed at his meaning.

  “The Life Mage or Earth Mage, either will do. Get pregnant by one of them.” The official turned to go, then paused to add, “Anyone will do, if you don’t prefer them, but I want a child out of you by the end of the year.”

  Becca’s jaw dropped. What did he just say?!

  As if he hadn’t just said anything spectacular, he returned the way he had come, retreating back down the staircase. She watched him go, certain that her ears had betrayed her. Either that or this was a nightmare. A nightmare of nightmares.

  “Work,” the guard to her right commanded brusquely.

  Becca trained her eyes on the sky as if focusing, but in truth, her mind whirled like a twister. Were slaves nothing better than dogs to that man? Did he think he could just order them to breed when he wanted to?! She tried to imagine having a child by either Trev’nor or Nolan and gagged. They were brothers to her, not lovers. And she certainly couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else in the slave pens. Khobunter was an absolutely revolting country.

  It was so revolting that she nearly let her storm system escape and had to track it down and pull it back into the right direction.

  Rain. She would think about rain today. Rain and nothing else.

  Four days into staying in the slave pens, and they had the routine down. A chamber pot was shoved into a corner of their cells every morning and taken away again at night. They all did their best to give each other what privacy they could, turning their backs so no one saw something, but there wasn’t much dignity in such situations. Their meals were shoved in on metal plates twice a day, usually something hard and of poor quality, and they had to stand at the back of the cages when someone came to deliver the food and take the plates away again.

  Once a day were they told to come to the front of the cage, and that was right before breakfast was served. Only then was a wizard of some sort there to renew their amulets. He always put the same five types of amulets on them, one on everyone else, and it was a quick on-and-off thing. He had this down to a science after doing it so many years. Becca found being anywhere near the man to be revolting but the one time that she had flinched from him, he’d slapped her hard across the face, so she hadn’t dared to do anything again.

  Orba was quick to grab them, yanking them this way and that, for fear of them doing something that would get them all in trouble. He would shush them if they tried to talk when the guards were in the pens with them. Even if the guards were out of the pens, in the guardroom, he would only let them talk in whispers.

  Everyone grew tired after working full days in the hot desert suns. The only relief came after Becca brought in the rains, but those were sporadic, as they discovered it wasn’t a good idea to let it rain all of the time after that first day. From then on, she was brought out in the mornings to let it rain for a few hours, and then shoved back into the pens. It was blissful outside, terrible inside, and she fell to talking to the people around her to distract herself.

  She had discovered a man in the adjacent cage more talkative than the rest. Roskin was his name. He had only a bare grasp of Solish, but he was willing to teach them Khobuntish, and between his lessons and Nolan’s, she started to pick up the basics. It was similar enough to Solish that it didn’t give her too much trouble. Well, the sentence structure and the basic syntax at least.

  Most of the slaves here had been slaves their entire lives. Few had been captured and even the ones that were captured had been slaves for years. They didn’t really talk to each other. There was little to talk about. They slept, or stared listlessly toward the ground, or sometimes taught magical techniques to each other. Becca listened in on these conversations and winced. Even with her understanding only one word in five, it was obvious that they had no concept of magical theory at all. It was just: do this, you get this result, do this, and this will work. How had they not destroyed something or burned out their magical cores already, that was her question.

  Dinner arrived, and Becca was hungry enough to eat, even though the food was just as unappetizing as usual. She ate every crumb then put the plate back toward the front of the cage and retreated to her usual spot in the back corner. It was nice here, as Nolan normally slept next to her, keeping her warm, and Roskin sometimes talked to her. He was one of the few that still had a sense of humor to him.

  Roskin came back to his corner, sitting down facing her, legs crossed comfortably. His hair stuck up in every direction after sleeping on it but he didn’t have a mirror to tell him that and appearances didn’t matter at all in the slave pens, so she didn’t point it out. “Hey, Becca. I was wondering. Why does your friend keep his hair so long?”

  “Trev?” At his nod, she struggled to phrase the answer. “Mages’ power in body. All body. Hair too. So more power if hair long.”

  “But Nolan keeps his shorter.”

  “I can’t stand long hair,” Nolan answered, eyes still closed as he leaned against Becca’s side. “That’s why.”

  “That explains it.”

  Seeing that Roskin was in a talkative mood, she tried to get a few answers to some questions. “Just wizards and witches here? No mages?”

  “No, there’s mages too,” Roskin assured her.

  Nolan didn’t sit up, but she felt him tense against her shoulder, so he was obviously paying attention now. Trev’nor, too, had stopped slouching and was looking at Roskin with keen interest.

  “Really.” They’d suspected as much as the slimy official had none of some types. Becca leaned forward, hands wrapping around the bars. “What kinds?”

  For her sake, Roskin spoke slow and pronounced clearly so she could follow but even then she lost words here and there. “Hmm, we don’t really know the types. Just heard that there was some. Before I was throbough here, I heard of a mage ani north that was being used diesorl. Rumor said that the warlord des him because he kept any attacks from ginhap.” Roskin shrugged, silently stating that was all he knew.

  Frustrated, she glanced at Nolan. “He was being used as what?”

  “A soldier by a warlord,” Nolan filled in, frowning.

  Was that what they were going to do with them, too? But if they wanted them to fight, they’d have to take off a few amulets at least first. Wouldn’t that give them the chance to escape? Or…no, they’d do something to them first to make sure they wouldn’t fight back. Like the Star Order would have done.

  Becca sat back and leaned into Nolan. These people were as evil as the Star Order ever was. Her doubts about being rescued from here grew. Trev’nor still believed they would be rescued, but this world was huge, their magic was sealed off and undetectable, and their families had no idea where they had gone. It would take a miracle to find them.

  Nolan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned against her ear to whisper fiercely, “Don’t you dare give up. We will get out of here. My word as a Von on that.”

  She managed a wan smile and nodded as if she believed him. Becca fervently wanted to but she had been in this situation before, or something very like it. She knew better than the other two what ruthless men would do. No, if they were going to leave this place, it would be under their own power. Not someone else’s.

  Trev’nor carried on the conversation as if she hadn
’t fallen into abrupt silence. “Orba says they make magicians work, most don’t, just…” he paused, visibly searching for the word. “Nolan, how do you say ‘sitting around all day.’”

  “Jothanen da sou,” Nolan supplied.

  Rosking nodded understanding before explaining, “This is a holding ground. We’re here giwai until a slave caravan comes and buys us. We’re only giwai here another few days before ubury comes for us. I’d be pahi of here and get some sun.”

  “Huh, is that so.”

  Move? They were going to be moved? Becca’s heart sank at the thought. If they were moved from place to place, that would mean possibly splitting up the three of them. Standing alone against a whole country was not a thought she liked. At all. No, she’d better go back to her first idea and get free of here fast. Although she still had no idea how to get past the bars. Waiting for the moment when they were taken out, with one amulet taken off, was not a good idea. After two days of being outside, she realized that the place was crawling with guards. She did not want to tackle them without Nolan and Trev’nor at her back. Not on minimal magic power at least. Splitting up in this place was a terrible idea and broke at least three of Shad’s rules.

  Nolan leaned in again, whispering into her temple, “Remember, Shad, Aletha, Garth, and Chatta are experts at finding hiding magicians. They did it for nearly two years. Also, if nothing else, the Gardeners cannot afford to lose you. They’ll go and tell someone where you are if we can’t be found. As long as one of us is found, they can find all three of us.”

  It made sense, what he was saying. But still, if they wanted to get out of here, she had the feeling they’d be better off doing it on their own.

  Not for the first time, Trev’nor blessed that he was an Earth Mage.

  It didn’t seem to matter where he went, people always needed something fixed. Walls, buildings, wells, streets, there was always something majorly broken in a city. Even a town as small as this was no exception. Garth once told him that being an Earth Mage often opened windows where there were no doors. He hadn’t really understood that until Rurick.

  The guards treated every magician as if they were some sort of subclass human, little better than an animal. The citizens of Rurick weren’t much better. They certainly weren’t going to talk to Trev’nor, no matter how charming he might be. Aletha had taught him that there was more than one way to connect with people, and he used every trick she had taught him.

  The first two days in Rurick, he was outside of the city and repairing the wall. But eventually he had to move inside to work on the interior of the wall. He couldn’t do it all at once. (Which wouldn’t have been the case if he had his full power handy, but the guards weren’t about to believe him on that.) That was when he was finally presented a window.

  As Trev’nor walked through the streets, fixing the wall, he would catch other things that were damaged. He would automatically stop to fix those too. At first the guards poked him hard in the back, not understanding what he was doing. When they did that, he would turn to them with a look of absolute confusion plastered on his face and say, “But you want me to fix this too, right?”

  Having a slave that looked for work to do was inconceivable to them. They really didn’t know how to react. But it was true that other things aside from the wall needed fixing, and he was faster than conventional methods, so they let him do so.

  That was their mistake.

  The people of Rurick got used to seeing him. He was radically different in appearance from them—it sure wasn’t hard to find him in a crowd—and the braver ones came to tentatively request his help. It had happened twice yesterday. Trev’nor would bet his eye teeth that he would be swamped by requests today, and the guards would likely let him, as the first section of wall was mostly fixed now.

  A woman that everyone called the Rikkana came with a young man in tow. Trev’nor had met her twice before, as no one would approach him without her at their side. She always spoke to the guards first, as protocol likely demanded.

  “The grill pits are splintering,” she informed them. “We need this mage.”

  Guard A (as Trev’nor thought of them) jerked his chin at the young man standing behind her. “Noogre can’t fix them?”

  “Beyond repair,” Noogre replied with a helpless spread of the hands. “I’d have to rip them out entirely and fix them, and that would take a solid week. At least. We don’t have enough food laid in for me to do that.”

  Food was very dear to men that worked all day in the suns. The guards immediately saw his point and gave Trev’nor a grunt that meant, Let’s go.

  Trev’nor of course started walking, but he greeted them both politely. “Rikkana, Master Noogre, glad you came to see me.”

  Noogre blinked at him as if a dog had just started talking. Only the Rikkana, an aged woman with silver hair and years of experience etched into her face, wasn’t startled. Then again, he’d spoken to her twice yesterday so of course it wouldn’t surprise her. “Why are you glad?”

  “Because I like to eat.” He grinned at her, a boyishly charming grin. “I’m still growing, y’know.”

  If he had tried to speak to anyone else, it likely wouldn’t have worked, as the guards would have shut him down. But this woman was highly ranked in this society (somehow, he was still figuring out how) and if she thought it was appropriate to talk to a slave, no one was going to argue with her about it. “You do not mind the extra work?”

  “I like to work. I was raised to work. If it’s work that puts food in my belly, I’m all for it.”

  This answer threw everyone listening. They didn’t know what to make of it. Trev’nor wanted to shake them until they gained some sense. Of course the magicians did exactly what they were told and nothing more. They had been trained from birth to obey orders and nothing more. No one learned initiative that way. They certainly didn’t gain a work ethic.

  Was this whole country full of idiots? Corrupt idiots?

  It took fifteen minutes to walk to where the firepits were. Trev’nor counted every guard, noting their positions, as he moved. It had slowly dawned on him that the guards had their own sections of the city they were in charge of and they didn’t really communicate with each other until the end of the day. Why they were organized so, he didn’t know, but he had a feeling that they could really take advantage of this.

  The pits were worse than he had imagined. They were nothing elaborate—brick structures as long as two troughs with metal grills or spits hanging over them. They were meant to roast a huge amount of meat at a time, and from what Trev’nor had seen, it was likely these pits that provided meat for both slaves and soldiers alike. The amount of meat that could be cooked at once seemed about right, at least.

  Trev’nor knelt down and examined it, looking at every angle, and really spending more time on it than he needed to. This was a beautiful opportunity to talk and get more information. “How often do you use these?”

  The Rikkana, as usual, answered, “Twice a day.”

  “Ah, makes sense.” Trev’nor leaned his head over to investigate the interior of the open brick enclosure. “Some of these bricks are cracked clean through. Let me fix those first, then I’ll worry about the thing as a whole.”

  Noogre stood nearby wringing his hands. “But you can fix it? Soon?”

  “Sure, sure.” Trev’nor sat back on his heels and blinked up at him, shielding his eyes from the suns with a hand. “You need this soon?”

  “I have to start the meat cooking in two hours.”

  “Oh, I’ll be done by then,” Trev’nor assured him. No way was he drawing out this show that long. “Go ahead and start prepping the meat.”

  Relieved, Noogre bobbed his head and took off for the nearest building, which Trev’nor assumed was the kitchen. It smelled like it, anyway, as there was a pungent mix of spices wafting from that general direction.

  “I’m surprised this hasn’t already been fixed. It’s been past the point of needing repair for a while now
to get this bad.”

  Guard B snorted. “Trexler doesn’t spend money on things like this.”

  Trev’nor found that reaction highly interesting. The man sounded bitter about it.

  “No, he’d rather nidh another campaign,” Guard A agreed, sounding just as bitter but also resigned. “Why he keeps trying to win against Riyu is pare me.”

  “We should be more focused defending against the east instead of the north,” Guard A agreed. “They attack us more often.”

  As if spurred by this thought, Guard B prodded Trev’nor with a flat palm—gently, for once, “Hey. You can improve the walls, can’t you? Make them more abhe.”

  It didn’t take a genius to know that last word was probably something like ‘impenetrable.’ “Sure I can,” Trev’nor agreed amiably.

  “That’s a great idea,” Guard A agreed, noticeably perking up. “But you think it will kam if we suggest it?”

  “No way, we’re just gaard. Rikkana,” his tone became very respectful, “would you put in the suggestion for us?”

  Was it Trev’nor’s imagination or did she glance his way first? “I can. Perhaps we should ask how long this will take?”

  “Depends on what you want me to do,” Trev’nor responded. There, bricks were fixed. Now it was time to deal with the structure as a whole, make it a little more fireproof. “I’ve seen one section of the wall for myself. Is the whole wall built like that?”

  “It is,” Guard A answered, seeming to forget temporarily just who he was talking to, although he still spoke in the ruder, more casual form of the language.

  “How do you want me to improve on it?” Trev’nor asked. “Thicker walls? I can draw up bedrock from the ground, reinforce them with stronger stone.” He had to default to Solish to explain all of that, but no one seemed to mind. They were instead excited about this new possibility as their walls was made of the same material that their houses were. Trev’nor thought of it as hardened sand dunes.