The Four Forges

by Jenna Rhodes

  “Azel didn’t expect to need an heir just yet.”

  “No. I imagine he didn’t. I think we’ve all been forewarned.”

  Jeredon put his hand on her arm and squeezed gently.

  Bistel dropped the gavel head again, gaining instant and absolute quiet. “Now we begin the Petitions. Foremost is that of Bregan Oxfort, trader, of the lineage Oxfort . . .”

  Lariel sat back and let Bistel’s crisp words dissolve into a drone. The elder Vantane had no love for the Oxforts but agreed to present their petition in her stead, as Lariel presented Azel’s wishes and hopes. She’d had no desire to hold the podium any longer than necessary. Jeredon on one side, the wall and Sevryn on the other, and Bistel’s own severe overseeing kept those around her from leaning over with inquiries and comments. She should listen well, she knew. The foreknowledge that this assembly would be exceptional danced along her nerves.

  Abayan Diort knelt on one knee by the great-stone-and-earthen dam and put his palm to the thick wall of the structure. At his right shoulder, the still blue waters of the lake held by the dam lay, a great eye staring back at a sky of its own color. At his left shoulder, the river tamed by the dam and its fertile valley, its far-flung city of Inthera, fanned out below. He remembered his days as a child when this valley had been flooded out, ravaged with ferocious regularity by the river. He remembered the laborers going off to work on the dam, many losing their lives, but it had been built. Rakka growled at him, the war hammer in a new harness across his back, as he sifted through his memories.

  A messenger rode up the steep hill, and Abayan rose to greet him.

  “What word?” He did not fail to notice bandages bundled the left hand of his soldier, and fresh blood stained the linen. He wondered if the city had barbarically cut off the left thumb of a messenger who brought terms that would not be accepted.

  His soldier saw his glance and covered the bandage with his good hand. “They reject any terms you bring them.”

  Abayan stared down at Inthera again. “Why do they not see?”

  “Commander, I spoke as you bade me.”

  He had warned them of consequences if they refused his terms. He told them to send their children, their revered out of the valley. He saw no movement below despite his words. “I know you did. They’re stubborn and blind.” His countrymen believed that the downfall of the Galdarkans sprang from the Magi themselves, each Mage fiercely independent and jealous of any other’s power, each holding elemental magic in a unique way, and each commanding his own small kingdom with Galdarkan guards. His own name, Abayan, came from the Mage Abas that his family had served. The battles of the Magi had also turned the Galdarkans upon one another until the end. Once released, they retreated to their own holdings, fiercely independent. That separation played into the hands of any enemy. Already divided, they could be conquered one by one. He allowed himself a single sigh of regret.

  “Give the order to stand down, and remind the troops to stay on the high ground as I instructed them.”

  “Yes, sir.” His man reined away, hissing through his teeth as his horse broke into a rough trot, jarring his maimed hand.

  Diort waited several long, crawling moments for word to spread through his troops, his hard look ever on Inthera, staring to see if any one at all below him took his threat seriously. A few moved to nearby hillsides, but whether they did so because word reached them or because they were shepherds preparing to go out and round up grazing flocks, he had no way of knowing. The wagonloads he hoped to see, he did not.

  After a time, he raised his hand to give a signal. His cavalry turned as one, facing downhill, readying themselves to go in. Horses stomped and champed at their bits, and spurs rang as they moved restlessly.

  Abayan reached back for his war hammer and the weapon leaped into his hand, wood vibrating with a low buzz only he could hear. A guttural whisper for his ears only. He flexed his fingers tightly about it as he brought it forth. No need for a practice strike. Rakka knew stone and earth. He swung it overhead, and waited another long moment.

  Nothing hopeful moved below. With a murmur of regret, he tensed his shoulders and swung the war hammer into the dam’s wall. It struck with a BOOM! like a crack of thunder, and he jumped back, off the wall and onto the high hill, and then even farther in case the crag of the hill should give away. Logic told him that he would need to hit once, twice, or even three more times to affect it. Instinct told him that Rakka had shattered the heart of the dam and he would die if he stayed to strike again. The earth spoke, groaning, echoing the Demon’s name as it shuddered, rakka. A ripple moved across the lake, then another, then a singular wave rose, racing away from the dam, cresting across the sky-blue water.

  His heart beat harshly. Once, twice. Then it skipped a beat as the war hammer rattled in his grip, wanting to be loosed again. He struck a second time, but the power of the first had faded considerably as it thudded into the dirt. The Demon was not limitless, it tired, and he could feel the fatigue in his anger. He wrapped his hand about the weapon tightly, lowering the head slowly to the ground and leaning upon it.

  The stone began to crackle as ice does breaking upon a spring warmed pond. Puffs of dirt shot up as it fractured, and then the hillside started to rumble, dirt and stone boiled up and began a slide downward, carrying brush, grass, trees with it, a river of ground on the move. The earth-and-granite walls of the dam shuddered, holding a moment, then spidery cracks ate up its sides and began to split open. The stone walls of the dam broke in a series of loud jolts, pounding his ears with pain, and scores of the troopers around him covered their heads as the percussions sounded.

  Then the water roared forth, freed, spurting out over the moving dirt and rock, blue water gray with froth and then brown with soil, cascading down into the valley. He watched the waves, wondering vaguely if they would turn crimson when they hit the city.

  The butte crumbled as the water hit it. One of his troopers fell, and the horse slid downhill. It scrambled to its feet to run. A swift, light, long-limbed horse, it put its head down and stretched its body out in a panicked gallop. He knew how fast it must be going, ahead of the landslide, ahead of the raging water, and yet it lost the race, swallowed up and gulped down, swept away like nothing.

  Inthera did not last much longer.

  He looked back to see what, if any of the lake remained, its body pouring forth in a thunderous tumult through the broken dam. When that slowed to almost ceasing, he faced his troops again. With a wave, he signaled them to move in on the ruins of the city.

  “You know the drill. No survivors unless they surrender totally.”

  He heard the echo of his order being yelled down the hillside, and his army moved. He stayed where he stood, Rakka talking to him, wanting one more strike into the stone and earth of its desire, and he refusing it. Well pleased with the pounding of the earth beneath it, now it wanted flesh and blood, the taste of life and souls. His head thudded with the effort as he withstood its demands. His muscles tensed into knots of pain as he stood and looked at the leveled Inthera, its fabled beauty floating off in tiny spots of rubble on muddied waters.

  Far beyond, where those he thought might have been shepherds roamed, he saw the release of birds on the wind. So, he thought ironically. The traders believed me and went to high ground and now send word of my conquest. He considered sending archers down and then decided against it. The birds would have flown too far at any rate, and what would it hurt him to have fear and truth of his threats sent ahead of him? Perhaps it might save another Inthera.

  He had tried logic to construct a nation, and it refused him. Now he would ply fear.

  Chapter Fifty

  QUENDIUS DANGLED THE LIMP bird in his hand, dropping it as soon as he tore the scroll from its leg. He read it quickly, his skin darkening with his temper as Narskap watched. When he lifted his eyes, they went to Narskap in his darkest obsidian stare.

  “Bad news.”

  “I want to know how you mistook the hammer.�
��

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “This! This!” and Quendius shook the missive violently in the air. “First, he brings down a walled city that battering rams and catapults could barely scratch. Now, he hammers apart a dam, turning the escarpment it sat upon to powder and flooding Inthera.”

  Narskap tilted his head in thought. “Perhaps the nature and strength of the Demon escaped me. Perhaps it bonds with its true user. Perhaps only Diort can control it, as only I can control and focus the sword.”

  “Perhaps?” The cords on Quendius’ neck stood out in barely muted fury.

  “Can you number a God? Can you trap and compress one into what you wish?”

  “He has power I would never have given him, if I had known.”

  “It is part of a God’s being to be part of the great unknown.”

  Quendius crumpled the letter, dropping it to the ground with the bird’s body. “Now tell me what I should do about it.”

  “I would stay his ally. I would become as close to him as a brother, a lover. I would have his troops know my voice as well as his.”

  “And then?”

  “And then take him out.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  NUTMEG STRETCHED UP to pat down a seam across her brother’s shoulder, before stepping back and looking at Hosmer critically. Finally, reluctantly, she said, “It’ll do.”

  “Do?” he echoed, turning about in appeal to his mother and Rivergrace. “Do I look good or not?”

  Lily smoothed a wing of hair back from her face, catching it up in the knot at the nape of her neck from which it had escaped. “To me, you look quite handsome.”

  He tugged at the Town Guard’s tabard. “It doesn’t make me look short?”

  “You are short.”

  He scowled at Rivergrace. “Not by my family!”

  “No, but in a place like Calcort.” She spread her hands without further words.

  “Can’t argue with the truth.” He turned to his mother and tugged the tabard one last time before casting a look at Lily. “Do you mind?”

  “It seems terribly sudden. They snatched you up like prime steak on a table in a room full of starvin’ people,” Nutmeg said.

  “There’s need and opportunity. It was handed to me, and I was told I couldn’t wait long if I wanted it, so I took them almost as fast as they took me. Da told me t’ trust my instincts.”

  Nutmeg tossed her head.

  Hosmer made a stubborn noise, adding, “Still, it’s what I want to do.”

  “Then go and do it,” his mother responded. “We’ve strong backs and many hands still here at home. You’ve already proven yourself, but I think it’s something that runs in you, or it doesn’t. You can’t make a tashya horse out of a mountain pony like Bumblebee, but neither can you make a mountain pony want to race like the wind. It’s either in the blood or it’s not.”

  He clasped Lily’s hands. “I hope Da thinks the same.”

  “We’re two different people, my lad, but we’re of the same mind on many, many things. That’s how we fell in love and stayed that way. You should be remembering that as you grow older.” With a faint smile, she tilted her head back to kiss him on the forehead. Hosmer was, indeed, the tallest of any Farbranch yet born. “When do you report?”

  “In the morn. I won’t be wearing my fine clothes then, of course. It’s training for me, and I hear they’re tough on the new lads.” He grinned then. “Wait till I show them what a Farbranch can do!”

  “Wait, indeed!” Lily stepped back, beaming.

  He cocked an eyebrow at Nutmeg. “I don’t think I’ll be hearin’ any complaining if I bring home a handsome friend or two for dinner now and then, will I? Since Vevner and Curly didn’t seem to catch your eye.”

  Nutmeg scurried off, but not before her rosy cheeks went apple red as she ducked her head. Rivergrace stayed a moment longer to watch the man she’d grown up with as her brother, and he took his tabard off to hand it to her fold as she did.

  “You’re thinking, Grace.”

  “I know. It seems like yesterday you were taller and faster than me.”

  “I’m still faster.” He winked. If he did not get the laugh he wanted, he did get a bright smile. He reached out and gave her a tight hug. “It’s all right,” he said to her, his voice muffled by her shoulder and hair. “I’ve recovered and the past is awful to remember, but this is still something I’ve always wanted to do. Da is the protector in this family, I’ve got to go out and find my own to protect.”

  “Is that what it is? It’s not the need for blood?”

  “I saw plenty of blood spilled on Beacon Hill. No, that’s not what it is. It’s because I don’t care to see any more, ever, particularly from those I love.” He let her go with a light shake. “A’right?”

  “All right, then.” She folded his tabard over and left him alone with Lily while she went to put it in his bureau.

  She gazed at her son fondly. “Well said.”

  “Meant every word of it.”

  “I’ll say no more then, except good luck. I already know you’ll do us proud. I’ll leave lunch fixin’s for you in the pantry, I may already be gone by the time you’re up.”

  “And I’m up at dawn!” he said mockingly. “Mom, you work too hard.”

  “It’s the party season. When that’s come and gone, hopefully I’ll have paid all the debts and put aside a sum for the slow months.”

  “Da will have the brewery righted in another month, I think.”

  “He works harder than I do.”

  “Then I know where I get it from.” He bent over to lace his boots before heading back to the cider press.

  “Tolby was never one to quit, even if he knew he should.” Lily folded her hands in her lap as she sat, her brow creased a touch as she remembered. “If he had been, he would never have won me. I had another courter or two, but he came along and would not give up.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever go home?”

  “Maybe. I know your da wasn’t ready to give up there, but we hadn’t much choice, had we? As for here . . .” Her hands rubbed each other lightly, soothingly. “I used to think this was where I’d want to be, but I think now that I’d rather plant a sapling and see it grow into a wondrous, blossoming tree than deal with a vain young lady wanting to be pretty for a dance. One lasts for a lifetime and gives throughout. The other seems to be interested only in taking.” She gathered herself then, and stood. “I’ve work to do, and so have you, before the night is dark enough for sleep. Off with you!”

  Grace paused in the doorway, knowing she’d heard words between her mother and brother she perhaps hadn’t been meant to have heard. Hard work had caused the joy to fade from Lily’s eyes as she laid out patterns and cut cleverly against the fabric, coaxing garments out of plain cloth, but her time for weaving her own materials had to be shunted aside. And that was one thing Rivergrace remembered keenly about her growing up . . . Lily in the candlelit corner, her loom and spindle moving like a finely tuned instrument in her mother’s hands, the fabric flowing forth like a river of many hues and textures. Lily had wished for a shop and gotten it, and seemed to have found out that her wish and its fulfillment hadn’t been quite the same.

  She wouldn’t ask to go home, but sometimes the River Silverwing cut its way through heart as it would carve through soft dirt banks in spring meltdown. She missed it keenly, in all its facets.

  Nutmeg touched her, and she jumped.

  “Come on,” her sister urged. “We can get a few more candlemarks’ work in tonight, while it’s a little cooler.”

  “All right. Let me get my veils.” Grace went to their room and pulled down the prettiest set Nutmeg had designed, stars and moons spinning across its blue gauze in silvery-gold tones. She placed them over her head and face carefully, hands patting them into place, thinking that never had she thought she would have to be concealed so that she could walk city streets. Yet even the Vaelinars looked through her as if she did not exist
. How could she be so much of one, and yet nothing of it in the eyes of others?

  She joined Nutmeg, her thoughts in silent knots. It mattered little that Hosmer’s threat of bringing fellow recruits to dinner now and then set off a litany from Nutmeg of qualities that would and would not interest her in a lad. She didn’t seem to notice that Grace answered rarely, if at all.

  Adeena had the door flung open, and the shop lights sparkled against a cloud-dulled evening. Nutmeg bustled in, but Rivergrace paused on the threshold. She turned her head, listening. A booted step sounded behind her, yet when she turned, she could not see anyone there.

  “Derro?” she called softly.

  No answer from the street or the nearby alleyway. Had she even heard anything over the murmur of her own thoughts?

  “How many more days of Petitions?”

  “Are we guessing or do we want an authority?”

  Lariel lifted her head from a pillow and glared at her brother across the room.

  “An authority,” he ventured. “Well, I overheard Bistane telling Tranta three more. And Bistel has taken leave, putting the representation in Bistane’s hands.”

  “The coward.” Lariel groaned, dropping her head back down, pulling the pillow from under it and placing it over her face.

  “Oh, faint of heart one!”

  “It’s not my heart, but my ass and my head. Both hurt exceedingly from sitting and listening to the arguing.”

  “Which is why you rarely attend these Conferences, but your presence is needed. Most of these Petitions came in only because you’re here, and your attention is needed for them to pass or be tabled.”

  From under the pillow, a muffled protest. “They can pass laws without me.”

  “Not many.”

  “Allow me a little more self-pity, if you please.” Lariel reached up and hugged her pillow closer about her head.

  Jeredon sat back. He considered the nearby bookshelf which held his fletching and carving supplies. He could finish an old project or start a new one, he supposed, until Sevryn returned. Or he could sit and doze until his sister threw her cushion at him for snoring.