by Guy Antibes
Barian nodded. “Horani said it would be easier that way.”
“Who else is afflicted with mind-control?”
Barian struggled to keep his mouth shut, but he was too weak. “The Queen.”
“What about Elder Furima?”
“She doesn’t need to be controlled.”
Pol had one more question before carrying out a dreaded execution. “Are there any other Winnowers in Shinkya?”
“Why would there need to be?” Barian said.
Once, Pol would have accepted that as an answer, but he knew better. “Who are the Winnowers in Shinkya?”
Barian leaned over and pulled a knife out of a drawer. He started to plunge it in his stomach, but Pol froze the man. He removed the knife. Pol climbed up on the bed and straddled Barian, holding his arms to his sides.
Unfreezing him, Pol repeated his question. “Who are the Winnowers in Shinkya?”
Barian’s answers did not surprise him. Elder Furima made sense. She didn’t need to be controlled for a reason. Two Lake Elders and a Fearless Elder Pol hadn’t heard of.”
“Are there any others who sympathize with the Winnowers who aren’t mind-controlled?”
“Enough to make it difficult for the Great Ancestor to rise to the Shinkyan throne.”
Pol grimaced. “The Great Ancestor doesn’t need to rule Shinkya. It’s time to deliver the Emperor’s execution.”
Pol put Barian to sleep. He shuddered at the thought of assassination, but these two were traitors to Shinkya and to the Empire. His mind inevitably returned to the scene of Val killing the Borstall stable master years ago. The act once terrified Pol. He could not understand how Val could do such a thing. Now he could, and that saddened him. He sighed, steeling himself for what he had to do before dawn, and then put splinters into both of their heads. Neither had lasted more than a moment before they breathed their last. Pol arranged them with their hands folded over their chests after he removed Barian’s medallion. He had two more stops before he returned to the Fearless compound.
He stepped outside into the darkness. A hint of light began to show. Pol had to hurry. Leaving the palace behind him, he ran to the Fox faction, where Pol executed Elder Furima in her sleep and removed her medallion. Pol needed to put a guard under a truth spell before he found out where the two Lake Elders slept. They were in adjoining apartments. The dawn was breaking. He quickly entered each set of rooms and retrieved two more Winnower medallions.
Whoever visited Shinkya had come with confidence. He had only one more to retrieve. Pol had to resort to invisibility as he left the Lake compound in the brightening day. He hurried to the Fearless faction and woke up the Chief Elder again.
“You have a traitor in your midst.”
The Elder looked surprised. “We do?”
“I’m sure Elder Furima had her allies when she all but ruled the Fearless,” Pol spoke the name.
“Not her. I’ve known Elder Daruna for years. She wouldn’t…” She put her hand to her mouth. “When did this happen?”
“After I left for Daera.”
“A year after?” the Chief Elder said.
Pol nodded.
“She changed around that point. Not a lot, but we all thought it was due to Elder Furima’s departure. I must have gotten used to the way she threw her weight around like Furima.”
“Get dressed. It’s time to confront her.”
Pol only waited a few moments. The Chief Elder hastily exited her rooms, tying her hair into a long ponytail in the back. She picked up an Elder and a Grand Master along the way.
“Restraining spell?” Pol asked.
The woman nodded.
“I can be a backup. I know it.”
The Elder looked up at Pol and pursed her lips. “Perhaps you know too much,” she huffed.
“I am the Great Ancestor.”
“I know.” She snorted and led him on.
They stood at the front of an apartment in one of the long two-story buildings.
Pol shielded everyone around him, not knowing how solid Shinkyan shields were. “Come out peaceably,” he said.
The door blew open, and Elder Daruna stood with blue lightning crackling around her fingers. She wore her Winnower medallion outside her robes.
“You dare disturb the slumber of an Elder?” she looked at the Chief Elder and then at Pol, “You should be dead.”
“I am very hard to kill,” Pol said.
Daruna bathed all four in the lightning. The woman’s power surprised Pol, but he reached out with a restraining tweak, and the woman grimaced as she tried to summon up the power to continue to defend herself.
“You are under restraint,” Pol said.
“Obviously,” the Chief Elder said, drily. “Why do I even bother?” she said to the women who accompanied her. “I’m not sure I have shields strong enough to have withstood that,” she said.
The other two women agreed.
Pol froze the renegade Elder.
“What will you do with her?” Pol said.
The Chief Elder pulled a knife from her robes and plunged it in the immobile woman. Blood seeped out slowly. “She attacked me. That is enough of a reason for this. We have three witnesses.”
The Chief Elder removed the necklace. “This is the Winnow Society’s?”
Pol pulled out four more just like it. He had not even checked Horani for one. “Barian said there were five others. The Queen is under mind-control. I am going to visit her next.”
The Chief Elder put her hand to her mouth. “Do you think that is wise?”
Pol smiled. “Don’t you think she knows exactly what we are doing?” He pointed to Danura.
“See her. I don’t think the Queen will relent, even when you remove the mind-control. She wanted you dead before Barian had been turned by the Winnow Society.”
“I know, but I like to warn people.”
“Except for those.” She pointed to the necklaces in Pol’s hand.
“Executions for traitorous behavior.” Pol bowed to the three women. “Be careful when you unfreeze her. The blood will flow out faster.”
~
After he had changed out of his black clothes, Pol marched through the front gates of the palace compound. A few guards stopped him.
“I am here to speak with the Queen.”
They were dumbfounded to see him alone in the courtyard. Two ran off towards the building to the right of the pagoda that held the throne. Pol, fully shielded, stalked across the pavement and entered the Queen’s pagoda.
“What do you want?” a woman said, adjusting her robes. The guards must have woken her. It was still early.
“I need to see the Queen immediately.”
Pol followed a guard to the Queen’s study and sat, surrounded by four guards, all of them women, and probably all were Grand Masters. He tapped his foot while he waited. No one had dared to ask him to remove his Demron weapons.
The Queen rushed in, followed by Lini. Both of them looked disheveled.
“What is all this?” Shira’s mother said.
Pol sensed a ward on the Queen’s mind. It must have been there when the Winnower visited Shinkya.
“Barian had an Imperial magician put a ward on your brain. I would like to remove it.”
“Impossible,” she said.
The guards looked unsettled. “If I just remove it, you will die. Your daughter and I have both seen it in the Empire. It is a Winnower magical device.”
“Fetch my healer,” the Queen said.
“She won’t know what to look for. I do. You may hold a knife to my throat while I remove it.”
The Queen snorted. “I won’t succumb to your tricks, young man.”
Pol sighed and began to remove the tweaks first. The Queen stared at him. Without physical contact, the process taxed him, but Pol continued until he was able to dissipate the ward.
The Queen put her hand to her head. “What have you done?”
“The ward is gone. You still harbor
hatred for me, right?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I do.”
“See? I didn’t change your mind. It would have been nice, but,” Pol shrugged. “I’ll be leaving now. I executed Elder Furima, Barian, Horani, and two other Lake Elders. The Chief Elder of the Fearless did the same to Elder Daruna.” Pol pulled out the Winnower medallions and handed them to a guard. “These are what the Winnower Society wear. You may keep them as souvenirs. Now,” Pol looked around and froze the guards, “if there isn’t anything else, I will be on my way.”
Out of the Queen’s sight, Pol winked at an astonished Lini and left. He tweaked invisibility as soon as he was a few steps down the corridor. He had to press himself against the wall on his way down from the Queen’s study as messengers ran up the stairs to inform the Queen of Pol’s activities.
He visited the Fearless Chief Elder before he retrieved Demeron. “The Queen is no longer influenced by the Winnowers. They put a ward on her brain that would kill her if anyone removed it.”
“But, but,”
“I know the trick. So does Shira. The Winnowers wanted Shinkya disrupted. At any time, one of the society could kill the Queen by removing the ward, leaving no trace of their regicide. They certainly didn’t need to throttle Queen Anira’s behavior. However, I think you’ll be able to protect yourself with wards again.”
“What do we do with the aftermath?”
“The Foxes, the Eagles, the Lake, and the Blues join the Fearless and the Bureaucrats. We have more soldiers to muster. If you coordinated supplies to keep us all fed, I would appreciate it,” Pol said. He pulled out the Demron star. Could you make badges that the Shinkyan troops can wear into battle with the Winnowers? You can use this as a pattern. This is genuine.”
The Elder took Pol’s amulet and held it gently. “I will. Good luck.”
“Thank you. We still need it.”
~~~
Chapter Twenty-One
~
P ol looked across a lazy river. It seemed that Shinkyan rivers were all slow-moving. An army camped on the other side, supported by Port Inirata. Pol had begun his Daeran journey through that harbor. The sea was still miles away.
“Shinkyan Royal Troops,” Shira said. “They won’t be so easy to bring over to our camp.”
Pol looked back at over ten thousand troops that he had swept up in his journey from North Shinkya to South Shinkya. They still had to move up from the South on the east side of Shinkya towards Tishiko.
The troops facing them had expected Pol’s forces to meet them here. Queen Anira had obviously decided not to wait to defend Tishiko from Pol’s forces, since the Shinkyan capital was not defensible, having no city walls.
At his feet lay a map that detailed all the surrounding countryside. A scout rode up with a message that she had already conveyed via a rune book.
“I wish they would send out champions.”
“It couldn’t last, you know,” Val said, rubbing his chin and looking down at the map and up at the army’s morning fires. Smoke drifted as lazily as the river up into the air. A breeze at an upper level smeared the smoke trails across the sky as if someone painted the haze. “We have to cross that river, and the moment we do, they will attack us coming out of the water.”
Pol smiled as inspiration hit him. “What if we leave them where they are? We aren’t fighting a war to gain territory, but to gather troops.”
Val pursed his lips and grimaced. “Will the Shinkyans think that a dishonorable tactic?” he said in Eastrilian.
Pol looked at the seven generals that stood behind him. “What do the Shinkyans say? What if we leave them and pull them to a more favorable battlefield. Is that a dishonorable act?”
“Not for the Great Ancestor,” the Fanira said.
“Is there a rule for non-Great Ancestors that says we have to fight where our opponent chooses?”
They all grinned. “No, My Lord,” they all said in one form or another.
Pol used the crooked pointer that Val had carved for him. “Then we withdraw. I want three thousand troops to move at the oblique out of the enemy’s sight. You precede us. We will wipe out your tracks. I’ll want you to circle back to become a flanking army. We will decide where to turn to fight and keep you apprised by rune book. Can we do that?”
“We can,” the officers said.
“Good. It’s a simple strategy, but we need to carry it out with precision. Remember, one of our goals is to minimize the loss of Shinkyan blood.” Pol picked up the map and rolled it, giving it to Val, who had become Pol’s aide as they accumulated more soldiers.
The officers returned to their armies and relayed the word to sub-commanders in smaller units.
Val shook his head when they were alone. “I don’t know how you do it. Everything has to have a twist.”
“I’m practicing,” Pol said. “We haven’t begun to fight yet. I worry about too many casualties. The Winnowers are getting closer to pouncing, while we are still mired in Southern Shinkya. It’s past time we moved closer to the Empire.”
“Are you going to lure them all the way to the Finsterian border?”
“I would if I could. No, we can’t avoid a confrontation in Tishiko. Our Shinkyan allies require it. We have to leave behind a united Shinkya.”
“More or less,” Val said.
~
The Royal army decamped and crossed the river as Pol drew his forces closer to Tishiko.
“We intercepted a rider,” a scout said. This one did not have a rune book. “He doesn’t have anything in writing on him.”
A bound man with a bruised face, riding a Shinkyan horse, trailed behind the scout.
Shira quickly used a truth spell on the messenger. “What message did you take to Tishiko?”
“A request to send the Queen’s reserves south.”
She looked at Pol. “Squeeze us between two armies.”
“Have him sent on his way,” Pol said, “but do it tomorrow. We will finish our battle with this army and face the rest later.”
“That’s quite a gamble,” Fanira said. Pol had attached himself to her army, feeling she gave him the best advice of all the Shinkyan commanders.
“And if we win?” Pol said. “The Queen is throwing her forces at us. She will have nothing left. Our numbers match up to the Queen’s.”
“They have more Sisters,” the Fanira said.
“Do you think that will matter compared to our strategic advantage? Your hesitation assumes we won’t be able to turn any of the soldiers to our cause. That is another point in our favor. I’m sure the word has spread of my work in Tishiko.”
“Does it help if they fear you more?”
“Do you fear me?”
“No.”
Pol had an idea. “Shira, do you have the rune book that links to the Bureaucracy?”
She nodded and left. She returned with the book in hand.
Pol wrote out his request to the Bureaucrats. He received a positive answer.
“Now is the time to start collecting the lodestone the Bureaucracy has been collecting. We need it when we push north.”
“You sound optimistic,” Shira said.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Pol said smiling at her.
Shira frowned. “I just want you back in my life.”
“I see you every day. What’s changed?”
“All you think of is the war.”
“And you don’t?” Pol asked. He realized he needed to spend a little more time with her.
She still frowned.
“Come with me and tell me what you think of the land just ahead for possible battle sites.”
They rode in silence for a quarter hour until Pol stopped in the middle of the road.
“What if we fight them here?” Pol said.
He watched Shira look around the site. “It fits my eye. Rises on both sides to hide troops. The ground slopes to the north, so we will have the higher ground.”
“Good. Let’s go a little farthe
r,” Pol said.
He took her over a higher hill and had her look down at a bowl. “What about here?”
Shira frowned. “It’s too small for both armies. We won’t be able to maneuver, and that will reduce our numerical advantage.”
Pol smiled. “I thought the same thing. This is where we fight the Royal forces from Tishiko.”
“You are going to wait for them to travel all the way here?”
“They are on the way,” Pol said.
“But the messenger…”
Pol laughed. “Think of an appropriate pattern for your mother.”
“That’s why the southern army didn’t engage.”
Pol nodded. “If it were you, would you let an army travel all the way south and then do nothing?”
“But you said if we crossed the river, then they would attack.”
“I don’t know who directs your mother’s armies, but I want that person on our side.”
Shira scratched her head. “I don’t know, but we can ask Fanira.”
Pol nodded.
“Give me some ideas for fighting two battles at once.”
“Instead of being squeezed, we have a battle on two fronts.”
“Three,” Pol said.
“Flank the smallest?”
Pol smiled and put his arms around Shira. “A squeeze on the squeeze.”
She put her head on his shoulder. “That’s better. I need to be loved, and I love to be listened to.”
“I can do both, some of the time.”
Shira lifted up her head. “And now?”
“We have to get back and prepare our strategy. The pattern tells me the Queen has a good chance of acting as I predict. We need to make sure that if I’m wrong, we can recover from our gamble.”
“Gamble after gamble,” Shira said.
“Think of it as practice for what’s to come with an opponent that might be as unpredictable as we are once we get to Eastril.”
They returned to the army and began preparations for the two battles. If Pol’s guess turned out to be wrong, the soldiers in the rear would return as reinforcements, attacking from each side.
Shira noticed her wristband light up.
