The Argument of Empires

by Jacob T. Helvey

  “We have to have passed the Front by now,” Livran said from behind her. “We’ll hit forest soon, if the scouts I talked to back in Kwell are to be trusted.”

  “You said that yesterday,” Kareen told him. This was the third time he had repeated himself. She hoped it was dehydration that was addling his mind, and not the head injury. The latter was easy to fix, the former not so much.

  “I did?” He shook his head as if he disbelieved her earlier statement.

  Kareen sighed. Maybe once they reached a larger Cutaran camp, Livran could get some real attention. There had to be an equivalent to surgeons among the savages—medicine men or the like.

  But despite his confusion, Livran was right. The land was getting greener. The scrub and dry grass of the northern savannas were slowly giving way to bushes and short trees. There was still little in the way of water, but where there were forests, even sparse as these gnarled copses, there had to be rivers.

  Kareen sighed. Rivers… She had found herself dreaming of lakes and streams recently, of throwing herself into their embrace, letting the cool water envelop her. Perhaps it was the dehydration, or perhaps the homesickness, but much longer like this, and she’d be jumping into dry river beds, thinking they were full to the brim with rushing crystal waters.

  Abruptly, the lead Cutaran turned, taking them through the tall grass and down into a dry gulley. They were led down single file. Kareen’s took several cautious steps down the steep slope until her boots hit mud on the ground below. Tirrak? she asked the god, hoping he had an ear open for her. A dry stream bed? Are you trying to torture me?

  When all the prisoners were down, the lead Cutaran motioned them forward. They trudged around several bends, pushing aside the few clumps of reeds that clung on in the last of the decaying river’s water. The further they marched, the wider the gully became, until they were standing at the entrance to what must have once been a lake. Hundreds of tents had been raised within the dry bed. Cutarans moved in amongst them, more than Kareen would have thought possible. This wasn’t the home of a simple tribe. This was the camp of an army, like that she would have expected from the Corrossan positions along the Front.

  “Tirrak be damned,” Livran breathed behind her. There was awe in his voice. “I never thought they would be so organized. There must be…” He gave the tents a quick scan. “Two, maybe three thousand of them.”

  Kareen knew next to nothing of the people they fought. Truthfully, no one in the Empire did. But from what they’d gathered, the Cutarans seemed to be organized in a tribal structure, with each chief commanding a party of a few hundred warriors.

  Was this some kind of gathering of leaders? Each tent was emblazoned with a complex pattern of painted lines, the same as the skirts worn by the warriors who had captured them. That pattern repeated over and over again without variation, blue, green, and white, brushed across the fabric in rough strokes. Kareen wondered if they were like a coat-of-arms. If that was the case, all those assembled were of one clan, under one chief.

  The Cutaran with the painted shield gave an order and they were pushed towards the center of camp by a half-a-dozen of the raiding party’s largest warriors. The men and women they passed looked on with suspicion and interest. Some cooked over fires, others sewed clothing, and she even spotted a few children in amongst the tents, already a hand taller than Kareen herself. And above it all, was the clear ring of metal and the smell of casting. Without the sounds and scents of weapons being forged, it would have been easy to forget this was in fact an armed encampment.

  At the center of the camp stood a tent no larger than the others. It’s only distinguishing feature was its position, apart from those below, pitched on a rise where a small island might have once poked above the waters of this ancient lake.

  Two men stood at attention at the tent’s entrance, which sat atop a flattened rock, almost stage-like in appearance. The pair were larger than any of the Cutarans who had captured them, even the monster who had first tried to take Kareen. Each must have stood eight feet tall, with bodies like the well-muscled statues Kareen had seen in the Imperial Palace of Akiv writ large. They wore the same green and blue skirts as their kin, along with bronze breastplates and skullcaps. It was the first armor she had seen amongst the tribesmen.

  A woman emerged from within the tent, nearly a foot shorter than the first two, but no less muscled. Scars crossed her bare chest, some of them so ugly and twisted that Kareen wondered how she had survived the injuries that had caused them. Her features were sharp, her hair braided into a single long tail that fell to her waist. With the exception of the old cuts and tears, she was little different from any other Cutaran woman.

  But her presence… it was a physical thing, given form by her dark brown eyes. There was a fire there, only embers, but ready to be fanned into a blaze. Kareen had spent enough time around men and women in positions of power to know a person of importance when she saw one.

  “I apologize,” the woman said in Sasken. Kareen was taken aback. Her accent was light, hardly noticeable. Where had this woman learned the Empire’s tongue, and learned to speak it so well? “My warriors still don’t know how to properly treat your people.”

  She stepped forward and snapped something to the men who had taken them prisoner. They fell to their knees, eye cast downward. She smiled, showing off a set of those unusually flat teeth. “You are fragile, need food and water more regularly. But I don’t blame you for your inbuilt weaknesses.”

  With another word, their bindings were undone. Kareen brought her arms forward, gasping at the pain that lanced through her limbs. She came close to falling forward as her muscles cramped and twisted beneath her skin, but caught herself with shaky hands before she could make any more of a fool of herself. They were given water and small bits of dried meat. Kareen ate and drank with vigor, the pain in her arms forgotten at the sight of food and refreshment.

  “When you are well fed, I want you,” she pointed to Kareen and Livran, “the young man and woman, to come into my tent.” She turned to walk back inside. “We have much to discuss.”

  Kareen glanced back at the other prisoners. There were only half-a-dozen left now, all of them battered and broken in their own way. They looked on with unconcealed envy as Kareen and Livran ate their fill, eyes unmoving even as they were collected by the leader of the Cutaran war party, the man prodding each to their feet. Kareen watched as the line of prisoners was led down amongst the tents and out of sight.

  “Where are you taking them?” Livran demanded, trying to rise to his feet. His legs wobbled, and he fell back to his knees, letting out an animalistic growl at his inability to take action. He had regained both his fire and wits in the days since receiving his injuries.

  “They will not be harmed, I can assure you.”

  Kareen didn’t know why, but she thought she could trust this woman. There was a weight of command to her words that compelled her to believe in every word the warrior woman spoke.

  In contrast, Livran looked ready to pounce at any moment, but understanding the need for strength, stuffed his belly regardless. When they were finished, the two armored warriors brought them inside. The tent was dark, and smelled of spices and incense. There was a certain barbaric coziness to the place. Furs were spread across the floor, and clay pots of various makes sat on folding stands around the tent walls. And at the center of the room, sat the Cutaran woman, legs crossed, hands resting on her knees.

  “Sit,” she commanded. Livran glanced at Kareen and nodded. Best to humor her for now, that look said. They took a seat, cross legged, across from the chieftain. She opened her mouth as if to speak again, but closed it just as suddenly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your names. Your symbol.” She pointed to the crest on Livran’s doublet. “It is not one I recognize.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Livran said. Every muscle in his body seemed to tense. He had lost most of his company�
�more than nine out of every ten men. She could see the hate in his eyes. He would kill this woman, given the chance, perhaps even if it meant his own death. “But you will soon enough.”

  “Quite an introduction. My name is Xisa,” she said, smiling, ignoring Livran’s threat. “Chieftain of the Coldwaters Tribe. If it is the death of your men that angers you, I can offer nothing but an apology. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”

  “And how was it supposed to happen?” Livran hissed, rising to his feet. “Were your men supposed to kindly ask us to surrender? You must know you would have had the same outcome. I know what your people do to prisoners and so did my men.”

  Xisa sighed. “There was no easy way of handling this. The other chieftains, the ones who have slaughtered your soldiers in the past, they have done irreparable damage to the relationship between our two peoples. No quarter can be taken, and none can be given either.” Strangely, she sounded almost apologetic.

  “And I suppose that in all your wisdom you’re going to change that?” Livran spun on his heels and put his hands over his face. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. Your savages killed my men. I should find my sword and run you through-”

  “The pair of men outside may have something to say about that. They have given me two children each. They would hate to see the mother of those children taken from them by a pale-skinned northerner.” Xisa hadn’t raised her voice a bit. She seemed to be in complete control. Except…

  Kareen could see the ripple of muscle beneath Xisa’s skin. The anger barely hidden, threatening to bubble to the surface.

  “Livran-” Kareen warned, afraid of what the chieftain might do if provoked.

  “Why did you capture us anyway? What use do you have for a few half-starved soldiers?”

  “There were smiths among those we captured, were their not? I told my men to look for men with hammers at their belt and whose clothes smelled of coal smoke.”

  Livran looked confused, but behind his eyes, Kareen could see his mind working. She was doing the same. Smiths? Why would the Cutarans want smiths? Steel, she realized, although she didn’t voice the word. Three of the captured men could work steel, couldn’t they?

  Livran seemed to have come to the same conclusion, but he was not so adept at hiding his emotions. Xisa smiled. His silence was all the answer she would need. Just say yes, Kareen thought. The chieftain would puzzle it out regardless.

  “There were,” he finally said. “Several actually.” He cleared his throat and began to pace as if he was standing in his own command tent, and not the home of an enemy leader.

  “I would very much like to speak to them.” Xisa whistled and one of her husbands—partners—Kareen didn’t know what to call him, poked his head into the tent. She said something to him in Cutaran as she rose to her feet.

  “Your men are being kept in a few spare tents in the east of the camp. I will take you to them.”

  Direct, this woman, Kareen thought. Of course, to become a chief among savages, you probably had to be. Even her father, who ruled over a people that could cautiously be called “civilized,” had been similarly aggressive at times.

  Xisa took a fine sword from its stand, a seemingly privileged position around which had been placed an array of votive candles. She strapped the weapon to the leather belt she wore wrapped around her skirt. Its blade was hidden behind the fur of some kind of spotted animal, leaving only the hilt visible, made of ivory and decorated to resemble one of the great cats that prowled the savannas.

  They exited into the light of day and crossed the camp in the opposite direction from the way they had entered, passing dozens of tents and hundreds of Cutarans. Hadan isn’t prepared for this, Kareen concluded as they passed yet another group of milling warriors, bronze spears and swords held in casual poses. Hadan would be expecting attacks by small tribal raiding parties, not an assault by an army. If that was where this army was headed. Regardless, they needed to get word to him, and quickly.

  A scream broke the low chatter of camp just as they reached the first clearing. Livran went stiff. That shriek was pitched too high to have been produced by a Cutaran throat. Only a human could have made that sound. And the only other humans in camp were Livran’s soldiers!

  “You bitch!” Livran shouted, wheeling on the chieftain. Kareen put a hand on his shoulder, trying desperately to calm him, but he shrugged away her touch with a scowl. “What are you doing to them?!”

  Kareen looked to Xisa. She was as tense as Livran, the muscles of her shoulders rippling beneath tan skin. No, Kareen realized, almost too late. This wasn’t part of the plan. Livran seemed to have just caught on as well. He stopped his shouting for just long enough to share a glance with the chieftain. Then, all three were running.

  Nine:

  Kareen

  Chaos reigned within the circle of tents in which Livran’s men were held. Four had already been beaten to bloody pulps. Another writhed on the ground, groaning through broken teeth and a swollen face, while the fifth lay disturbingly still, seemingly unmarked. The last of Livran’s soldiers was still alive, but half-a-dozen Cutarans had him on the ground, trying to punch and kick from him what life he had left. If someone didn’t intervene, and quickly, he would likely share in the same fate as his comrades.

  Livran shot forward, giving a war cry. His hand went to where his sword would have been. He cursed as his fingers curled around only air.

  Xisa came trotting past him, a look of barely controlled rage crossing her face. She shouted something, and four of the six Cutarans broke off from the beating. They backed up against the tents and put their heads down in what Kareen guessed was shame.

  The other two carried on with the beating, their chieftain ignored. They were covered in blood to their elbows. Kareen gagged at the sight. How could these men, even savage as they were, take pleasure in such brutality?

  Seeing that they wouldn’t stop, Xisa came forward. Her sword left at her side, she rushed the pair of disobedient warriors, so quick that she was only a blur to Kareen’s eyes. She grabbed one of the men by the throat, his eyes bulging wide as she began to squeeze. He pawed at her hands ineffectively, until with a pop, his body went limp. Blood welled from beneath Xisa’s fingers as she tossed the man into one of the tents to her right, snapping the supports and collapsing the canvas structure.

  Kareen had seen the strength of the Cutarans first hand, but this was something else entirely. She’s a Delver, Kareen realized.

  The other Cutaran drew a knife from his belt and lunged, managing a thrust to Xisa’s back. But where the blade should have sunk to the hilt, it instead glanced off, skidding across the chieftain’s shoulder and leaving only a shallow gash. Xisa turned and with a shout, backhanded her would-be-assailant across the face. The blow tore a flap of skin off his cheek and sent blood spraying across the tent behind him.

  He fell backwards, his arms scrambling like a cornered cat. Xisa ripped her sword from its sheath, raising the bronze blade—as long as Kareen was tall—above her head. It hung for a moment, the sun reflecting across the geometric patterns carved down its length. The chieftain brought it down in a series of sweeping arcs, slashing and withdrawing the blade with unnatural speed. Her victim let out horrified bellows as the first two blows descended. By the third, he had gone deathly silent.

  Kareen caught a glimpse of the blade each time it rose into the air, silhouetted before the sky, its surface becoming more and more bloodied with each chop. She cringed back at each crunch of bronze on bone, the brutality of it all threatening to overwhelm her. She turned away, tempted to run, to get as far away from that horrible noise as she could. Livran stood stock still, watching the brutal execution with cold eyes. She had half-expected a smile from her companion, but instead she found only a scowl. “How can you watch that?”

  “I must,” Livran replied, his eyes fixed on the carnage, clenching and unclenching hi
s fist all the while. “For my men’s sake. They died because of my stupidity. I should at least witness their murders face justice.”

  He wants to be the one to swing the sword, Kareen realized. How easily a man could kill, for revenge’s sake.

  Xisa finished and withdrew from the ruins of the tent, leaving a bloody mass half-hidden in her wake. Her sword and body were both splattered with blood. She spat a string of words in her native tongue. They sounded like curses.

  The battle over, Livran ran to what was left of his soldiers.

  “I’m not in the habit of killing my own men. But the fools left me no other choice.” Xisa threw her sword to the ground and went to kneel next to one of the Livran’s beaten soldiers. “Three of them are already dead,” she observed. “And the other two likely won’t make it through the night.” She cursed again. “This one might survive though.” She pointed to the man who had been saved from the worst of the beatings. She shouted orders to a woman who had just stumbled upon the carnage. Her face paled at the sight, but she followed her chieftain’s commands all the same.

  “I have a few healers among my tribe. They’ll be here in moments.” There was a tense uncertainty to her voice. She turned back to the beaten soldiers. “These were…”

  Livran bit his lip. “Those men of yours might be savages, but they knew what they were doing when they took prisoners. These were my blacksmiths.”

  * * *

  The healers did what they could, but within an hour, two of the smiths had gone on to join their comrades in the Sea Above. The last however, a gray-haired man Livran had named as Tason, stubbornly held onto life. His wounds were bandaged, bones set, and herbs administered in half-a-dozen ways. There only one thing to do now: wait and hope.