Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy)

by Bell, Hilari

  Kavi stopped arguing and struggled to pull the ropes that held him from under the boots of the Hrum guards, but he wasn’t going to succeed, and everyone could see it. The guard’s sword rose above Kavi’s bare neck. The unarmed crowd surged forward and then back, driven off by Hrum swords. If Kavi fell, they would probably overwhelm the guard. But Kavi would be dead, others would die too, and Soraya didn’t want more blood, not today. But she had used up all her will and all her weapons—she felt a flash of pure despair.

  “Stop!” The voice ringing over the field spoke Faran with an accent, just as it spoke Hrum, but it was a voice trained to command armies in the deafening chaos of battle, and for a moment everyone stopped.

  That was all Substrategus Barmael needed to jump from the dais and push his way into the circle, over to Kavi—where he grabbed the would-be executioner’s wrist and took the sword away from him. “Just stop, everyone, and let us think for a moment.”

  Kavis whole body sagged with relief, almost falling to the ground. The crowd eased back, but only a bit. Barmael turned, not to them, but to the dais, to the senators who perched there.

  “This is futile and you know it,” he said. “We cannot win.”

  “Almost a centri of Hrum soldiers against a mob? I beg to differ, sir,” said one of the senators.

  The mob growled. It should have sounded silly, but it made the hair on the back of Soraya’s neck stir.

  “If you think that,” said Barmael, “it proves you’ve never fought them. But even if we win this fight, in this field, right now, what after that? For we have already lost the war.”

  Half a dozen Hrum voices cried out in protest, but Barmael ignored them. “Yes, the strategus defeated this land’s army—although one city still holds against him, and I don’t think it will fall within the month we have left. But even if Mazad does fall, I ask again, what after that? Strategus Garren has ruled so wrongly that half this land seethes with rebellion. And the rest will join them once this day’s tale is told! How many troops will it take to subdue Farsala now?”

  Silence fell as the crowd awaited the committee’s answer. The senators said nothing. The soft creak of pulled bows relaxing lent emphasis to Barmael’s next words.

  “We probably couldn’t win free of this field with our lives, but even if we could, there is no point in it.”

  “No mob dictates to the Iron Empire!” said one senator. But several faces on the platform had become thoughtful, and Soraya remembered that the committee had its own agenda.

  “This isn’t a mob,” said Barmael. “This is the Farsalan army. The new Farsalan army that’s been fighting us, and mostly winning, since the battle at the Sendar Wall. We will not subdue this land in a month—I don’t care how many troops we bring in. It would take years to conquer Farsala, and by the time we finished … even if we won, our victory would cost far more than we’d gain.”

  The Hrum’s own law, that conquest must take place within one year, was designed to prevent just that kind of war. The senators were silent.

  “Farsala has won this war,” Barmael told them flatly. “It’s not a matter of us granting their independence—they’ve taken it. We can acknowledge that truth and survive this day. Or we can die, knowing that whoever follows us will be forced to acknowledge it in the future.”

  The mob rumbled agreement, as fierce as the thunder of the storm now passing into the distance. Even the most arrogant Hrum officers weren’t completely immune to the lure of survival, Soraya noted gratefully.

  “But with whom would we negotiate?” another senator asked. “If their commander is dead … Was that boy really Sorahb? He seemed very young.”

  Barmael shrugged. “I don’t know, but Tactimian Patrius might. Sorahb’s army held him prisoner for a time. Patrius”—he gestured to Fasal’s limp body—“is this Sorahb?”

  Tactimian Patrius came slowly toward the front of the dais. His eyes weren’t on Fasal but searching the crowd. Only someone who knew what the tactimian was looking for could have seen the swift, negative shake of Jiaan’s head.

  Jiaan’s gaze went to Kavi, who was still on his knees, for his guards had just stepped back. The peddler was already shaking his head, emphatically. Kavi turned to Soraya, the question in his eyes: Do you want it?

  To be Sorahb herself? Surely she had the least right to that title … or did she? She too had spied and fought and risked herself. But then, so had many Farsalans. Some of them … She looked at Fasals body, crumpled in the grass. Some of them had died for it.

  There was a time when she’d have thought that as a deghass she had not only the right, but a duty to take that job—that deghan blood must rule. She had learned better, Azura be praised—there was nothing in the world she wanted less. She looked at Patrius and shook her head.

  He made no sign of acknowledgment, jumping down from the platform and making his way to where Barmael stood, not far from the place Fasal had fallen.

  “I only saw Sorahb a few times,” he told Barmael. “And only at a distance, for his identity was kept secret.”

  It seemed to Soraya that the whole crowd held their breath as he looked down into Fasal’s still face. “Yes, this is Sorahb. And I believe your prisoner here, who worked closely with him, can confirm that.”

  “Yes,” said Kavi instantly. “He was.”

  A sigh of awe and grief whispered around Soraya. In Kavi’s voice she heard an echo of that grief—as well as considerable relief at having ducked the title himself. Odd that when the time had come to name Sorahb, Jiaan had looked to him.

  “With whom can we negotiate?” the senator asked again. “The old ruler’s heir is a child, and most of the lords of this land are dead.”

  “Ah … I have a suggestion about that.” Kavi struggled, still bound, to his feet. “You could have every city, every town, even the small villages that want to, each send a representative to speak for them. Like the old gahn’s Council of Twelve Houses, only bigger. I know that’s what Sorahb intended.”

  Soraya suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh. Fasal would have been appalled at that idea. But even though he’d go to his pyre under Sorahb’s name—a few of the bolder townswomen had already pushed through the circle of guards to tidy his body, reverently straightening the bent limbs—he had only given the legend flesh. Everyone who had fought for Farsala had given it heart.

  Some of the senators grumbled when the majority appointed Barmael to lead the army. It seemed that Substrategus Barmael was the one who had written to the emperor about Garren’s misrule, and even though the committee had been sent to check that rule, they were mostly ex-strategi themselves, and they didn’t like promoting a man who had informed against his own commander. But Soraya had little doubt how it would end, especially when Barmael said that it didn’t matter to him who was appointed interim governor, as long as the land was handed over to Farsala’s new rulers as soon as possible. It wasn’t so much that the speech clearly marked Barmael as the best man for the job, it was the cheer that burst from the crowd when he made it.

  Now that politics had suppressed their martial spirit, the idea of dying at the hands of the Farsalan mob clearly didn’t appeal to the senators. Somehow, in all the chaos, as the townsfolk of Setesafon carried off Fasal’s body and Garren’s guardsmen took his away as well, Farsala’s freedom declared itself, without anyone making a fancy speech or even a decision. That was appropriate, Soraya thought, staring after the men who carried Garren’s shattered body. Farsala’s freedom had been decided by every Farsalan who had fought for it.

  She grieved for Fasal’s death. She hadn’t known him well, but she recognized a deghan’s heart—once, she had shared it.

  She didn’t grieve for Garren at all, though she was sorry she’d used magic to kill him. The rain had stopped, but it was still cold enough to make her shiver in her damp clothes, for the sun hadn’t yet returned. Yes, she was sorry she’d used magic—magic should be given to life, not death. Yet it had been the only weapon, the only tool
within her grasp. Maok had once told her that magic was only a tool; it was the use that made it good or bad. Soraya understood that now.

  However she had done it, she’d accomplished what Fasal set out to do—Kavi would live, Garren was dead, and Farsala was free. And, Soraya suddenly realized, she too was free, for the first time in her life, to choose a future that she wanted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  JIAAN

  HAVE YOU HEARD what they’re wanting now?” Kavi demanded, bursting through the flap of Jiaan’s tent, where the lady Soraya had already found him.

  The peddler’s face was flushed with indignation. His bruises had long since faded, but the memory of how he’d come by them still had the power to make Jiaan flinch.

  After Fasal’s death, after Kavi had been freed and the attention of the Hrum had turned elsewhere, he’d walked stiffly up to Jiaan. “Today, salute, mile, serve, deep. And I am never doing that again.”

  Sometimes treason woo easier than it should be. The sudden realization of his own betrayal had stricken Jiaan speechless, and his newfound sense of guilt had enabled him to work with the peddler over the past weeks, as the new Farsalan government took shape. He hadn’t forgiven the man, at least not as completely as Soraya seemed to have done, but he knew that the peddler … that Kavi had paid a high price for his actions. As Jiaan watched him speaking out in support of this town or that village, he also saw that Kavi had earned the loyalty of the people who’d spied for him. So even if Jiaan couldn’t completely forgive, he’d abandoned revenge. In truth he was glad to see it go.

  It was still unusual for the peddler to burst into his tent.

  Shortly after the members of Farsala’s new governing council started arriving, they’d decided to move their gathering out of the city, for the country folk claimed that meeting in the city—any city—gave the townsfolk an unfair advantage.

  The Hrum senators, as a gesture of goodwill, had provided them with Hrum army tents. Jiaan, who was representing the armed Farsalan rebels, had been living in one for some time. He was beginning to get used to it.

  “What who wants now?” Soraya asked calmly. Somewhat to Jiaan’s surprise, she had come to tell him good-bye. But the peddler … Kavi was so excited, he didn’t even notice the pack at her feet.

  “The Ruling Council, or the Governing Council, or whatever the idiots finally decide to call themselves. They can’t even agree on a name! But they’re agreeing that they want me to run them. Every last one of them voted in favor! I think it’s the first time they’ve agreed on anything unanimously since they first met. Even Governor Siddas agreed, and he’s a man I can usually count on for sense!”

  Mazad’s council had appointed Siddas as the city’s temporary governor. The title might change, but Jiaan had no doubt that Siddas would keep the job. Unless, of course, Mazad’s townsmen learned about his taste in drinking companions. Working together on the council, Siddas and Barmael had become friends. When they settled in a tavern in the evening to discuss the siege from their different perspectives and share tales of battles long past, half Setesafon seemed to gather to watch them drink. And the other half gossiped about it the next day. To Jiaan their friendship wasn’t surprising. Not since he’d come to know them both.

  “The council wants you to run them?” Soraya asked.

  “To organize them,” said Kavi, pacing across the small floor. A decimaster’s tent was barely bigger than those of his men, even though he was expected to meet with all of them there. “To run things whenever they hold a session, and make emergency decisions in times between. ‘Council headman,’ they’re calling it. I think ‘council herdsman’ would be a better term. Or better yet, ‘council goatherd,’ for they’re being as stubborn as goats. No, they’re worse—they make goats look like sensible folk!”

  “But where else,” asked Jiaan reasonably, “are they going to find someone who knows the needs of the small villages, and the midsized towns, and the mining camps, and the craft houses—and grew up in a large city? You’re the only one I know who could understand their different problems and not favor one group above the others.”

  It was all true—as Jiaan had pointed out to quite a number of representatives over the last few weeks. Maybe Jiaan hadn’t abandoned the idea of revenge after all—this was a good one too. He hoped Kavi never found out about it.

  “But all they’re wanting me to do is organize—and stand between them when they start butting heads. I won’t have a scrap of real power. Trying to get even a third of them moving in the same direction … it’ll drive me mad within a year!”

  Jiaan tried not to smirk.

  “Stop whimpering,” said Soraya impatiently. “You love the idea.”

  “Council goatherd,” Kavi muttered gloomily. But his eyes were very bright. He seemed to actually notice Soraya’s presence for the first time.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he told her. “I was going to look for you next. You know how the Hrum have already started returning the slaves, since we’re letting them launch their fight against Kadesh from here?”

  “Of course,” said Soraya. “Though it may take some time before those who were sold far away can be returned. I’ve arranged for someone from the village near our manor to come for me when my mother and brother arrive.”

  “Well,” said the peddler, missing the implications in his excitement, “letters are traveling faster. I’ve one here addressed to the head of the House of the Leopard, so I figure its for you.” He handed the girl a small roll of parchment.

  Jiaan’s nerves tightened, fearing bad news, but joy lit Soraya’s face. “It’s Pari’s writing! She must have survived!”

  Jiaan remembered Pari, vaguely, from the commander’s family gatherings. She was a plain girl, a bit younger than he was, who’d been polite to the servants. That was more than he could say for Soraya in those days!

  She broke the seal and unrolled the scroll, her eyes sweeping over the neat, black letters. “She says she’s fine,” Soraya reported, relief brightening her expression. “She says she’s … she’s …”

  “What?” Jiaan asked.

  Soraya’s voice was thin with astonishment. “She’s gotten married. She says she was sold into the household of a prosperous merchant. One of his younger sons fell in love with her—she with him, too, it seems. She raves about his virtues for several paragraphs. He talked his father into buying her freedom, and they were married two months ago. She’s not coming back, not yet, though she says she will someday. With her husband. For a visit, or perhaps to trade.”

  She rolled up the letter, her face a study in bemusement. “I didn’t know a Hrum slave could do that. Marry. Gain her freedom that way.”

  “I told you all along, the Hrum aren’t that bad,” said Kavi softly. The words were addressed to Soraya, but he was looking at Jiaan.

  Jiaan took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he admitted. “They’re not that bad.”

  Under the circumstances, he could hardly deny it.

  Soraya snorted at his grudging tone. Kavi looked at her, and finally noticed the pack. “You’re leaving?”

  “We both are,” Soraya told him. “Though Jiaan won’t be going for a few more weeks.” She grinned at the peddler. “Ask him where he’s going.”

  Kavi turned obediently to Jiaan. “Where are you going?”

  Jiaan sighed. “It’s no secret. You know that when the Hrum conquer a country, they enslave most of the people who resist them. But sometimes, if they think they can trust them, they ask the best of the officers they fought against to join their own army.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Kavi. “But it sounds like them.”

  Heat rose in Jiaan’s cheeks. “It doesn’t happen a lot, because mostly they can’t trust them. But they say that other armies, even armies they’ve beaten, usually have something to teach them. And they … Patrius says that’s even more true of armies that have beaten them. So he asked me to join them, and I agreed.”

  He kne
w his face was scarlet. He’d once vowed to kill this man for allowing himself to be recruited by Patrius.

  Kavi’s grin held little sympathy, but all he said was, “With the Kadeshi forces gathering on the border, Barmael will need good men.”

  “Yes,” said Jiaan gratefully. “Siatt’s still got that mob of peasants—though in a straight battle, they’ll probably get in his way more than they’ll help him. Strategus Barmael is already holding meetings, trying to think of ways to spare them as much as we can.”

  “Meetings,” said the peddler with distaste. “I hope Barmael’s accomplish more than the council’s have—those poor Kadeshi need someone rescuing them.”

  “They are,” said Jiaan. “Accomplishing things, I mean.” The Kadeshi did need rescue, and not only the peasants Siatt had black-mailed to fight. All Kadesh would benefit from Hrum rule—unlike Farsala, they needed the Hrum. Or had Farsala needed them too? What Kavi and the council were building now … It wasn‘t as black and white as Jiaan had thought.

  “What matters now is peace,” he said aloud. “The council’s plans sound promising, but it’s going to take time for Farsala to grow into them, time to put down roots. Until then, we won’t be able to defend ourselves from the Kadeshi or anyone else. If Farsala lies inside the empire’s border, no one will be able to attack it. If we have some space to grow, it could be very good here, for a very long time. But for that we need peace, so I’m going to go with the Hrum and be a part of their wall.”

  There were other reasons for his decision, of course. The knowledge, bone-deep now and from both sides, of how commanders with conscience—or without it—could influence a war. And the knowledge …

  “It’s a good choice,” said the lady Soraya firmly. “You’ve an excellent commander, not just for making men obey you, but for tactics and strategy and things. My father would have wanted you to use that.”