Trail of Pyres

by L. James Rice

  Solineus chuckled, forgetting the rest of the world hadn’t witnessed the wonders of the Eleris. “Current-tamers, Edan who control the flow of water to take a boat upstream. No, not horseshittin’.”

  “Even if they lend us an army of Current-tamers, we’d still need the boats to carry us across.”

  Limereu’s voice brought a jump to his toes; Edan needed to wear bells. “A Trelelunin caravan should arrive tomorrow with half your bows and arrows, but you will need more wood for this plan of yours.”

  Solineus spun. “How the hells long have you been listnin’?”

  She didn’t bother to answer as Ivin went straight to the point. “Have you ever heard of anything like our floating bridge? Will it work?”

  “It touches a memory, the name… Warlord Sholtopomim jumps to my tongue but I don’t know why. If done well, I believe it will work.”

  Solineus said, “So we need wood, more than we bargained for I suspect. What’s the price?”

  “It is a great many logs and planks. No small thing. Wheels and axles.”

  “What price?”

  “They won’t allow wood cut from the Mother Wood. The Eleris is sacred, to cut a tree is to give it a name and purpose.”

  Just when you think a people sane and rational… “Named? South of the Eleris then, there must be a grove somewhere we can cut.”

  “I will speak to the Trelelunin.”

  Solineus grinned at Ivin, then grimaced. “Do Trelelunin even like gold and silver?”

  Limeru laughed. “They are not so foreign to you as we Edan. They value silver and gold. And Inslok promised you wood.”

  Ivin said, “The clans have treasure and not a damned thing else to spend it on. Negotiate a deal and get every man with an axe or pull-knife to work.”

  Rinold stared at them. “You sold this ladder of rivers to the rest of the clans yet?”

  Ivin glanced to Solineus and shrugged. “Tedeu and Remnar won’t be a problem. The northern clans will fall in line whether they like it or not. Isn’t much choice, unless they want to march back to New Fost.”

  It took near a day’s ride before they escaped the blackened dirt of the fire. Meliu found a creek to the north plenty easy soon after, but a day later she’d begun to wonder if Ulrikt hadn’t sent her on a fool’s hunt. Thank the heavens for Lelishen. Turned out she was a pleasant riding companion, if for no other reason than she didn’t talk much while giving comfort in that no woodkin arrows would soar their way by accident. Without her, she would’ve been stuck with six bearded Choerkin warriors both doting on and fearing to look too close at her, because they got wind Ivin was her man. She put up a fight to travel with just Lelishen, but they compromised, which was better than the small army he wanted to send with her.

  They camped in a washout along the creek’s edge without a fire both nights, shelter from the wind, but cold sinks that brought a chill to the bone as the nights grew cold. After their second night’s rest she awoke with tight muscles and joints popping as they limbered up.

  Lelishen stared at her with big, alien eyes as Meliu groaned and fought the urge to cuss aloud. She uttered a prayer and couldn’t resist a moan of relief as the Heat came.

  The woodkin lit a fire and brewed a flowery tea, a drink far finer than the jerked pork they ate, then they rode northeast following the twists and bends of the creek.

  The sun crept toward the western horizon by the time Lelishen spotted smoke on the horizon, and within a candle they’d found the Silone encampment. Even from a distance there was no mistaking who they were. Holy habits from the seven clans replaced the work clothes of the common folk and the panoply of warriors. There were more than she’d expected, she guessed three thousand at least.

  They sauntered the horses down a trail leading angled from a steep bluff, threading their way through bushes and brambles with thorns long as a lion’s tooth. On reaching the bank of the creek four priests greeted them in a less than holy fashion: with spears and swords.

  “Ain’t no room for clan folks here.”

  Meliu flipped her hair and smiled at the young priest. “I’m looking for High Priestess Sedut who served at Istinjoln, tell her Meliu has come looking for her. Tell her: Tomarok.”

  “I don’t know what the Seven heavens you speak of nor a thing of High Priestess—”

  “I am Priestess Meliu, servant of Burdenis at the Shrine of the Chanting Caverns, the bearer of the Codex of Sol, and I have word from Lord Priest Ulrikt himself she is here. Do not insult me.”

  “Ulrikt is dead with every other Lord Priest.”

  “You think the gods brought him from the dead to kill him again? He lives, and he sent me. Tell her: Tomarok.”

  The priests mumbled amongst themselves before one trotted into camp.

  Lelishen leaned in Meliu’s ear. “What is this Tomarok?”

  “A place, I believe. They sent me to find it.” Her eyes crinkled with suspicion. “You know the name?”

  “No, but it is a word similar to those in other tongues. But they are of little use.”

  The priest returned with speed in his strides. “The High Priestess will see you and the Trelelunin woman, you men will stay here.”

  Meliu dismounted and turned to the men with a nod. “Stay here and don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

  The priest led them down a crooked path through the scattered encampment until reaching a copse of young trees. A fire burned outside a round tent and the priest pointed. “You are expected.”

  Meliu pushed through the hide flap, the tent’s interior lit by shadowless Light. Sedut sat alone at a table; she didn’t rise to greet them. “A bold lie, claiming the Lord Priest lives, just to gain an audience.”

  Meliu snorted. “Gain audience? You callin’ yourself Lord Priestess these days?”

  The woman smirked. “No.” She eyeballed Lelishen and gestured to chairs. “Sit, please.”

  Meliu sauntered close as she reached into her bag, then dropped the Codex of Sol on the table. “He is alive, how else would I have this?”

  “A scholar with a book, should you impress me?”

  “The Codex of Sol.”

  Sedut stood, flipped the book open. “Gibberish.”

  Lelishen glanced at the pages. “Cypher?”

  Meliu said, “Yes. Ulrikt, or his Face, gave me this book in Inster.”

  Sedut sat, leaning back in her seat with a smile. “The Lord Priest’s Face? You come here with children’s tales and legends?”

  “I saw him. Then he was not him, he changes faces.”

  “How can I believe such nonsense? I heard his voice from the Shadow in Choerkin Fost.”

  Lelishen said, “It can be done.”

  Meliu gasped when she turned; the Trelelunin’s face shifted, the bones moving, skin tone darkening, and her eyes blinking into those of a Silone. “He came to me as a child, a young boy, but his eyes were Ulrikt’s.”

  Lelishen asked, “He changed his body?”

  “Yes. And his voice, mimicked Angin so I wouldn’t know them apart. ”

  Lelishen’s face became Trelelunin again. “That… I must think on that.”

  Sedut waved her hand in the air. “An impressive trick, but your say so doesn’t make him alive.”

  “He knew you were here, you might’ve traveled by his side and never known, and he said there is a map here which shows Tomarok.”

  This last bit set Sedut back in her chair. “You came here for a map?”

  “No.”

  “This is unfortunate.” She stood and strolled to a chest large enough to stow a grown man and lifted its lid. She leaned and came up with an armful of rolled scrolls and she dropped them on the table in front of Meliu. “I have maps. Good luck. There’s more, please, enjoy yourself.”

  Lelishen’s eyes damned near glowed with the light of the Edan as she stared at the bundles. “May I?”

  Sedut shrugged, “Be my guest.”

  Lelishen glanced through at least twenty scrolls; Meliu’s determin
ation was crushed as it was on first opening the Codex to find cyphers she didn’t recognize. It took flickers to recover, remembering her true goal. “They aren’t why I’m here, but thank you. Ulrikt sent me for a map, I came to bring you back to your people.”

  Sedut laughed. “My people are all around me.”

  “They are fellow adherents, devoted to Sol as you are, but they are not all your people. After the Tek fires the clans are moving south. You will need them to survive, and they will need you.”

  “South? How far south?”

  “As far as the Dragonspans.”

  The high priestess’ squint suggested she believed this less than Ulrikt being alive. “You jest.”

  Lelishen glanced at the markings on the exterior of a rolled map and dropped it on the table before grabbing another. “The Dragonspans meet the Remeleun Forest south of the Gediswon River, the Tek will not venture far beyond the Gediswon.”

  Sedut said, “A long journey.”

  Meliu said, “The Edan granted Rikis Choerkin and a couple thousand people the privilege to remain at New Fost, to seek a return to Kaludor, but burned, these plains will not feed everyone. South is the only answer.”

  “And even if I agreed, we agreed… the clans would accept us?”

  “Both Ivin and Eredin Choerkin spoke for you.”

  Sedut leaned with cheek to her palm. “How do I know to trust a word you’ve said?”

  Lelishen spread a map on the table. A single continent spread across the depicted world; The Age of God Wars. Her eyes plied the oceans and lands until she tapped her finger on a plain of green depicted with rolling hills and rivers. “Tomarok.”

  Meliu’s eyes moved in a hurry. The characters were in the ancient style of the God Wars, but they were clear: Emerosu fa ilin Tomarok. Easy to pronounce, more difficult to understand. “But what does it mean?”

  Lelishen said, “The plains of the holy mountain, Tomarok… Roughly.”

  Sedut came around the table to stare; the silence stretched to a wick. “I will travel with you to speak with the Choerkin and other clans. But, I make no promises for my people. These maps stay here.”

  Meliu’s eyes stuck to the map’s words. “A day to study these maps, then we’ll travel.”

  Ivin stood with Eredin, Solineus, and Polus beneath a shading canopy on a northern hill overlooking the Ilmen River. The waters flowed wide and lazy through a broad river valley, fifteen feet deep in its middle.

  To the west three hundred archers, each with a Silone holding a tower shield to form a fence, and a hundred horsemen were ready for an attack. It was more impressive in appearance than reality, as most of those men had no more than a couple days’ training with their weapons. Some of the finest bows in the world in the least capable hands Ivin could imagine.

  Over the rise to the east another hundred Silone trained with bows and spears and axes. Those who couldn’t handle the draw weight of the longbows took up axes or spears, and everyone did their damnedest to kill men woven from bundles of grass.

  It was all important, but the work straight down the hill was the most impressive and vital: barge construction. By the time he arrived at the growing camp logs already floated down the river, felled, cleaned of branches, and ready to lash together. More stunning still were the three inch planks drawn in by the wagon-load. Limereu explained that the Trelelunin used sawmills run by water wheels to cut the planks, which he’d heard of, but the round saw blade she mentioned was new to him. However the woodkin accomplished their task, it was swift and with an unexpected quality.

  Combined with a thousand men and women looking to save their families from a brutal enemy and starvation, more sat accomplished in six days than imagined. They worked every wick of the day, taking shifts at night by torches and lanterns, or even the moon when it was bright.

  A dozen barges, each twenty feet long, and wagons to haul them, minus a finished wheel here and there. Stakes sharpened to drive into the banks and river bottoms. They could cross the Ilmen now, but the widest river crossing expected needed at least another thirty barges. The Destil River, next to last in their southern descent, was the one they all worried about, even if worrying felt foolish when it lay so far away.

  Eredin grinned as he looked on. “It’s enough to give a man hope, watching all these people.”

  Solineus said, “Six days’ work turned to ash in a flicker, if the Tek get frisky.”

  Ivin fought the urge to cuff the man in the head. “Outside of a few arrows here or there, the Hidreng have forgotten us.”

  “They haven’t forgotten nothin’, they’re just counting on the Tek Reshu to do the job for them.”

  Eredin laughed. “I thought I was the pessimist.”

  Ivin slapped Solineus on the shoulder. “So long as we all keep smiling—”

  A horn blew to the north, and the men turned in unison. Riders crowned the next hill, nine horses in total. It didn’t take long to pick out Meliu’s auburn hair blowing in the wind, but guessing who rode beside her, with long black hair, brought an awkward swallow.

  It took Solineus to say it aloud. “Looks like she found Sedut.”

  Eredin turned to them both. “The woman got thousands of us off Kaludor alive, without her I’m not standing here.”

  Ivin said, “No one’s going to argue her worth, it’s whether we can trust her.”

  They stood in wait until the riders dismounted, the three women facing the three men.

  Sedut nodded toward the river. “A lot of work getting done, but doing what?”

  Ivin cleared his throat. “A mobile bridge, so to speak. We’ve a lot of rivers to cross to make it to the Dragonspans.”

  “That’s the goal then? So far south?”

  “Even if we could go back to Kaludor, what ships to carry us? We go as far south as we need, make a new home.”

  “Bold. Have they burnt off grass to the south?”

  Solineus said, “We’ve scouts riding for the Kovo River, a hundred horizons or thereabouts south, they should return in the next couple days.”

  Sedut said, “Let’s strip the bark so we can carve the wood, shall we? The clans claimed many holy lives—”

  Solineus glared. “Because you godsdamned holies brought demons to Kaludor.”

  “An accident! We were trying to bring the gods for a new golden age!”

  “And thousands died, their souls lost to the Shadows of Man, and assassins struck the clan lords.”

  “I know nothing—”

  “And you brought the artifact that raised that son of a bitch from the dead. Say you didn’t, I was there.”

  Sedut calmed herself with breaths. “I admit the hand I played, and I would not do it again if I had that choice.”

  Ivin stepped between them. “Enough. The past needs buried if we’re to make a future.”

  Sedut nodded with a quivering smile. “If the clans ride south, the devout are vulnerable. Without your host to draw Tek attention, they’d notice us. And our welcome in New Fost would be tepid if we don’t help you.”

  Ivin nodded. “It’s no more complicated than we all stand a better chance of surviving if we work together. The holy need warriors, the warriors need their prayers, and the common folk are meat for the vultures without both.”

  Sedut smiled. “I will tell you this, Choerkin… I was skeptical, but after a day in our camp, your warriors who rode with Meliu, I saw them eating, drinking, and joking with the devoted. They were one people. But can such good will spread to so many? There is venom on both sides.”

  “The venom will fade when they work together. See us together.”

  Sedut studied him. “Explain your bridge, Choerkin, and if I’m convinced I will join you. But I can make no promises for the entirety of Sol’s Devoted. Some may wish to remain.”

  “New Fost will welcome all who stay behind. Solineus, why don’t you explain our idea to our friend?”

  The man’s smirk didn’t cover his irritation. “Aye, I can do that. Walk with
me.”

  Ivin moseyed to Meliu and Lelishen as Solineus led the high priestess downhill with Eredin in tow. “What do you think? How many will join us?”

  Meliu shrugged and slipped her arm around his waist. “Most will travel south, the rest will move to New Fost. But, I’ve no doubt a few hardened souls will stick it out in the wilds.”

  “You did good.”

  “I did.” Her half-smile dented his confidence, and he wondered what she held back, but he didn’t pry. He decided to take today’s win in case tomorrow brought loss.

  54

  Awakening the Night

  Show the people a lie they wish to be true, and scant few will mutter dissent, and only the most courageous will shout the truth.

  –Codex of Sol

  Ten Days on the Trail of Pyres

  Ivin watched with no small amount of pride the day their bridge of barges shoved into the water and linked to the southern shore. Meliu had ridden by his side as they crossed away from the Hidreng border, and the smile on her face was beautiful in its confidence as they watched the holy cross the river, amid the common folk, wearing their robes for all to see. Hundreds had hidden among them, doing what they could, but it wasn’t until Sedut and her people stepped from hiding with a returned confidence that they came forward.

  The train of people extended from one horizon to another, and threatened more distance between, but Solineus, Rikis, Lelishen, Stugin Mulharth, Danwek Bulubar, and Budothe Tuvrikt struck for the front and slowed the vanguard. Ivin, Polus, and Tudwan held to the rear, while other clanblood spread throughout the caravan.

  They traveled so far east they could see the Eleris, not only to be as far from the Tek Merseng border as possible, but to keep with the fields of grass and the life-sustaining grain; folks called it Starver’s Wheat, because most wouldn’t touch the stuff until hungry enough to chew leather, and the porridge they boiled it into, they named Gutgrinder, but it’d keep a person walking day after day. He appreciated the humor, but without the tasteless paste, Ivin could only imagine the desperation of his people.