01 - The Compass Rose

by Gail Dayton

  The Compass Rose

  GAIL DAYTON

  The Compass Rose

  For Robert. Thanks for all the brainstorming help

  and for paying attention when I told you

  how much fun fantasy was. I’m glad you’re my kid.

  And for Lindi. Keep at it. Dreams do come true.

  CONTENTS

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  GLOSSARY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Kallista Varyl-captain in the Adaran army, naitan of the North, lightning thrower

  Torchay Omvir-Adaran sergeant, Kallista’s bodyguard

  Stone, Warrior vo’Tsekrish-Tibran warrior

  Fox, Warrior vo’Tsekrish-Tibran warrior, fighting partner to Stone

  Aisse vo’Haav-Tibran woman

  Obed im-Shakiri-Southron trader

  Joh Suteny-Adaran guard lieutenant

  Serysta Reinine-ruler of Adara, North naitan truthsayer

  Viyelle Torvyll-Adaran prinsipella of Shaluine

  Belandra of Arikon-the near legendary godstruck naitan who unified the first four prinsipalities to establish Adara, a thousand (or so) years ago

  Huryl Kovallyk-Serysta’s high steward

  Erunde Nonnald-Steward’s 4th undersecretary

  Irysta Varyl-Kallista’s birth mother, East naitan healer

  Karyl & Kami Varyl-Kallista’s twin sisters by blood

  Mother Edyne-Mother Temple prelate in Ukiny

  Huyis Uskenda-Adaran general in Ukiny

  Merinda Kyndir-Adaran East naitan healer

  Mother Dardra-Kallista’s 5th mother, Riverside temple prelate and administrator in Turysh

  Domnia Varyl-founder of the Varyl bloodline, West naitan and prelate

  Oughrath, Bureaucrat vo’Haav-docks and trading official in Haav

  Beltis-South naitan firethrower, Adaran trooper under Kallista’s command

  Hamonn-Beltis’s bodyguard

  Adessay-North naitan earthmover, trooper under Kallista’s command

  Kadrey-Adessay’s bodyguard

  Iranda-South naitan lightmaker, trooper under Kallista’s command

  Rynver-East naitan plantgrower, trooper under Kallista’s command

  Mora-South naitan foodspoiler, trooper under Kallista’s command

  Borril-Adaran guard sergeant

  Smynthe-Tibran female magic hunter

  Gweric-Tibran male magic hunter

  GLOSSARY

  Adara-the nation occupying the northern half of the continent south of the Jeroan Sea

  aila (aili)-Sir or Madam, a title of respect in Adara

  Alira River-tributary of the Taolind, descending from the Shieldback Mountains near Arikon

  Arikon-capital of Adara at the edge of the Shieldback Mountains in western Adara

  Athril River-center, navigable branch of the two western arms of the Unified River

  Boren-town where the Alira becomes unnavigable, where the road to Arikon begins

  Devil’s Neck-impassable isthmus connecting Tibran continent to the Adaran

  Devil’s Tooth Mountains-the mountains that make the Devil’s Neck impassable, habitable only in the lower southern reaches, above the Empty Lands

  Djoff-Tibran port on the western coast, at the mouth of the Athril

  Dzawa-Tibran city where the Silixus descends from the central plateau to the coastal plain

  Empty Lands-an ancient lava-flow desert on the northern edge of Adara, thought to have been created in the Demon Wars 2000 years ago, habitable if one is careful

  Filorne-prinsipality north of Taolind, upriver from Turysh; coat of arms: crossed swords, black and silver

  Gadrene-Ukiny’s prinsipality; coat of arms: blue-and-white ship

  Haav-main port of Tibre, at the mouth of the Silixus River, easternmost of the rivers coming out of Tsekrish

  Heldring Gap-wide valley in west central Adara, famed for the mines on either flank, and the swords made there

  ilian (iliani)-four to twelve Adaran adults joined into a family unit, their version of marriage

  ilias (iliasti)-spouse (spouses)

  Kishkim-port city west of Ukiny, at the mouth of the Tunnassa River, known for its swamps and smugglers

  Korbin-northernmost Adaran prinsipality, just south of Devil’s Neck land bridge in the Devil’s Tooth Mountains and the Empty Lands, Torchay’s home prinsipality; coat of arms: red-and-gold stag

  Mountains of the Wind, Mother Range-mountain range that marks Adara’s southern border, Mother Range is Southron name; Mountains of the Wind is name used by Adarans

  naitan (naitani)-a person with a magical gift

  Obre River-westernmost branch of the Unified River, fast and full of rapids

  Okreti di Vos Mountains-the name means “Arms of God” in the ancient language; separated from the Devil’s Tooth range by a lava-flow desert and from the Shieldbacks by the Heldring Gap

  prinsep (prinsipi)-the ruler (male or female) of one of the once-independent governmental units now joined together to create Adara

  prinsipality-the province ruled by a prinsep

  prinsipella-the offspring (male or female) of a prinsep

  Reinine-the priestess-queen chosen by the collective Adaran prelates and prinsipi to rule Adara; a lifetime appointment, but not hereditary

  Shaluine-prinsipality north of Turysh, between Taolind and Tunassa Rivers; coat of arms: gold lion

  Shieldback Mountains-a western mountain range separated from the Mother Range by the Taolind and Alira River valleys and from the Okreti di Vos Mountains by the Heldring Gap, where Arikon is located

  Silixus River-important transport river in Tibre, easternmost of the three branches of the Unified River, the only one that empties into the Jeroan Sea

  Taolind River-Adara’s major river, leading from northern coast at Ukiny southwest deep into the interior

  Tibre-the nation made up of most of the continent north of the Jeroan Sea

  Tsekrish-capital of Tibre, on the high central plateau where the Unified River breaks into three

  Tunassa River-secondary river, north of the Taolind, rarely navigable, empties into Jeroan Sea at Kishkim, runs southwest to northeast

  Turysh-Kallista’s hometown, at the confluence of the Taolind and Alira Rivers, also the name of a prinsipality, coat of arms: green tree surmounted by a gold crown

  Ukiny-port city on Adara’s northern coast, at the mouth of the Taolind River

  Unified River-flows into Tsekrish from northern mountains, once considered sacred

  CHAPTER ONE

  The wind off the sea snapped the banners to attention on the city walls. It ripped at the edges of the captain’s tight queue and set the two white ribbons of her rank fluttering from her shoulders. Kallista Varyl tugged her tunic, blue for the direction of her magic, into be
tter order. Yet one more time she wished that if she had to have North magic, she might have been given some more useful type. Directing winds, for instance.

  She abhorred the way the wind here in Ukiny constantly tugged at her hair, destroying any attempt at neatness and order. And wind magic had civilian uses. Practical, productive uses. Her magic had no use other than war, so here she stood, captain of the Reinine’s Own, on the walls of this besieged city waiting for the coming attack.

  “What’s the mood below?” Kallista continued her slow patrol of the ramparts.

  “Quiet. Tense. They know what’s coming.” Her shadow moved forward to fall into step beside her. Torchay Omvir had been her constant companion for the past nine years. His tunic was bodyguard’s black trimmed with blue to show whom he served. The folded ribbon set on his sleeve below the shoulder indicated his rank. When they went into summer uniform in a few more weeks, his tattooed rank would show on his upper arm. Most of the men making the military a career did the same.

  “Not too tense I hope.”

  He shrugged. “Who can say until the moment comes and the battle begins?” Torchay paced alongside her, always keeping his lean height interposed between Kallista and the enemy spread out on the fields and beaches below.

  Their white tents dotted the land like virulent pustules of infection as far as the unaided eye could see. Ukiny stood on the lone patch of rock floating to the surface of Adara’s flat northern coast. The city’s chalk-white limestone walls towered over the plains where the enemy camped. That advantage hadn’t meant much so far.

  “True.” She neither needed nor even wanted the information she’d asked for. She asked to force Torchay to answer, to have some contact with another human at this loneliest of moments.

  Torchay preferred his invisibility, claiming he could protect her better if he went unnoticed. But hair the color of Torchay’s—deep, vibrant red—seldom escaped notice even when ruthlessly confined in a proper military queue. And wherever a military naitan went, everyone knew her bodyguard went also. At moments like this one, Kallista preferred company to protocol.

  “Tomorrow?” Torchay stopped beside her at the northwest corner tower.

  Kallista stared down at the rubble spilling from the breach in Ukiny’s western wall and on down the steep slope of the carefully constructed glacis below. The setting sun gilded those broken stones, mocking the coming death they heralded.

  “Likely,” she said. “At dawn or just before. That’s when I’d attack, when we’re at our most tired.”

  The enemy ships had appeared unexpectedly off Ukiny just a week ago, hundreds of them. Adaran ships were built for speed and trade, not fighting. With a North magic naitan to call winds on almost every ship, they rarely had to deal with pirates or more political forms of banditry because their vessels were hard to catch. The few local ships in port when the strangers sailed up had fled. The city—still reeling with astonishment that any would dare invade Adara—had fastened itself inside stout walls.

  Soldiers had poured from the clumsy ships, hundreds and hundreds of them, unloading bizarre equipment and strange-looking devices. The foreign army outnumbered the small force garrisoning Ukiny before half their ships had unloaded.

  By careful listening at staff meetings, Kallista had gathered that one of the quarrelsome kings on the continent across the Jeroan Sea to the north had taken all the lands he could on his own continent and now had cast his eye toward Adara. No one seemed to know what drove Tibre on its conquest, whether greed, religion or something else. They were strange people according to the traders stranded in town when the ships fled, divided among themselves according to rank, each rank worshipping different gods.

  Stranger yet, they had no naitani of their own and were known to kill those from other lands who demonstrated a visible gift of magic. That was why, despite the overwhelming numbers ranged against them, the small Adaran garrison had been confident of victory over the invading Tibrans. If they had no naitani at all, they certainly wouldn’t have any attached to their army.

  They had something else. Cannon.

  Traders had been bringing reports for a number of years about the wars among the northern kingdoms. They told of a weapon that required no magic to break down walls and fortifications, a weapon far more effective, far more devastating than ballistae or catapults. The Adaran general staff had discounted these tales as exaggerations. The Tibrans might have something, but nothing without magic involved could have such a deadly effect. The generals were wrong.

  Now they were paying the price for their smug assumptions. Adara was a nation of merchants, a matriarchal society that used its army primarily to control the aggression of her young men. A long succession of prelate-queens had seen little need for violent expansion. The last of the independent prinsipalities between the impassable Devil’s Neck land bridge to the north and the nearly impassable Mother Range spanning the continent to the south had joined Adara two hundred years ago, the result of diplomacy and trade, not war.

  The Reinines in the years since had believed Adara’s superiority so obvious that no other nation would dare challenge it. And they hadn’t, even though some Adaran traders skinned those they traded with a bit too close to the bone. Adara had more naitani than any other land, and the naitani were Adara’s strength.

  But they should have expected the other nations to develop alternatives to the magic Adara used so extravagantly. When the traders came home complaining of cloth made waterproof through the use of powders and mechanical techniques, someone should have noticed. This new stuff wasn’t as good as Adaran waterproofing, but it was much cheaper. How far from there to mechanical weapons as effective at massive destruction as a soldier naitan? More effective, because the cannon could be used by anyone and could be forged by the hundreds. A naitan had to be born.

  These terrible cannon belched forth fire and destruction. They battered the city walls hour after endless hour, day upon day. The constant boom!-whistle-crack! as the iron ball exploded from the mouth of the weapon, sailed through the air and smashed into stone, was enough to drive anyone into screaming fits. Anyone, that is, of lesser moral fiber than a captain of the Reinine’s Own Naitani.

  Kallista had destroyed one of the awful machines, the only naitan of her troop able to do so. The enemy moved them farther from the walls then, and still kept up the relentless bombardment. These cannon could fire their iron balls farther than she could throw her lightning. She could not hit what she could not see. At least her magic was line-of-sight and not touch-linked. She’d heard of some who could visualize what they aimed for and strike without seeing, but she could not.

  This morning, the cannon had breached Ukiny’s walls. Soon the enemy would pour through the gap and bring its advantage of numbers to bear. Kallista knew her fellow soldiers would fight bravely, but the outcome was not optimistic.

  “Have you decided where to post your troop?” Torchay never looked away from his view over the wall at the enemy.

  Kallista sighed. That was the supposed reason for taking this little stroll into danger. She couldn’t tell her bodyguard that one more second in their austere quarters would have had her chewing holes in the furniture, even if he already knew it. “Yes. Half here—East and South. Except for Beltis. I want her fire-throwing skill with me and Adessay on the far side of the breach.”

  “In the tower.”

  “Tower’s too far away. On the wall. Near the breach.”

  “Too close. It’s not safe.”

  Kallista turned her head and looked at Torchay, at his bony, hawk-nosed visage silhouetted against the orange sky, waiting until he looked back at her.

  “It’s a battle, Sergeant,” she said. “It’s not supposed to be safe.”

  He gave a tiny nod in acknowledgment of that truth.

  “We need to be as close to the breach as possible.” She moved to the edge of the battlements to peer over, ignoring Torchay’s hiss of displeasure. “It’s going to be up to us to slow their
advance, thin their numbers as they come through.”

  “You can’t do anything if you’re dead.”

  “If we can’t stop them, everyone in the city could well be dead by this time tomorrow. And we haven’t enough regular troops to do the job. It’s going to require magic.”

  “Just—” He broke off and took a deep breath. That wasn’t like him, to be fumbling for words. “Don’t make my job harder than it has to be, Captain. Promise me you’ll do nothing reckless.”

  Kallista raised an eyebrow. “You forget yourself, Sergeant.”

  “Probably. But if it means that you don’t forget yourself when the battle begins, I’ll bear the punishment.” Torchay held her gaze until Kallista had to look away.

  She did have a tendency to take risks in battle. Too much caution could lose a battle. Generally her risks paid off, but once…Once, she’d nearly got the both of them killed.

  “I’ll be as careful as I am able,” she said finally. “But if my action will make the difference in winning or losing, you know I will act.”

  “If your lightning can turn the battle, I’ll carry you into it on my back.” Torchay paused then, so long that she glanced up at him. His gaze caught hers, held it. “But I won’t let you throw your life away on a lost cause, Kallista.” He turned away to look out over the enemy camped below. “Do you understand me, Captain? I will do my duty.”