“I see them,” Tipp added in a surly whisper.
“At least ten, and—Cherry, get me a range?”
“Two hundred sixty-six meters to the closest target,” Cherry answered.
“Two-six-six. Easy shot, but I don’t know what their weapons are,” Nolan said, though it was more a murmur to himself. “Everyone down. I’m going to attempt a little diplomacy.”
“This oughta be good,” Avina said, but she was smiling.
Nolan stood tall, lifted his rifle—
—and spun in place, leveling it at a point forty meters to their left flank. The rifle cracked once, sending up a jet of dirt.
“Fuck that was close!” came a voice.
“I know. Next one goes through your eye. Stand up,” Nolan ordered.
The scout rose, wiping at his face with a hand that trembled a bit. He was short, dark, muscular, and more than a little pissed to be seen. After lowering his own rifle, he lifted both hands and stood, squinting at Nolan.
“If you’re going to shoot me, you should do it before they charge you. Viburno leads the squad, and she’s aggressive,” the scout said.
“You don’t live unless you tell the other scout to stand down,” Nolan remarked, cutting his eyes to the side.
“Shit. Okay.” He cupped his hands and called out. “We’re made, Kam. Stand up slow.”
Nothing happened.
“Kam?”
After a long, tense moment, a voice drifted up. “Royster, got a problem over here.” It was a female voice, clearly in pain.
“What is it?” Royster asked.
“I’m—the grass has me, I think. Can’t lift my head,” Kam said, her voice fading.
Nolan and Avina leapt into motion, covering the distance in seconds. They found Kam in a small depression, leaning face-first against a damp surface where a hillside spring dripped across bright green mosses—and a juvenile patch of chimegrass, still less than a meter high. The filaments were attached to Kam’s scalp, pulling her face into an expression of horror and shock.
“Stay still,” Nolan said. He slid on a glove, reached into the damp soil beyond Kam’s black curls, and tore the grasses free. The patch was less than a meter across, and it shuddered like a dying animal as the roots, wriggling like worms, came out into the sunlight, their cores thin pink lines—full of Kam’s blood.
“How fast did they get you?” Nolan asked.
“Seconds. Had to stay still. You were ten meters away and couldn’t give up my—fuck that hurts,” Kam hissed. Nolan was pulling the chimegrass out of her skin without hesitation. It was the only way to do it. Fast, ruthless, and thorough.
Tipp and Royster arrived, herded by Avina, who’d peeled off, covered them with her gun, and brought them the short distance to Kam’s hide.
“You look like shit,” Royster said, but there was a note of relief in his tone.
“Feel like it, too. Fastest I’ve ever seen them move, and they immobilized my head. Had about a minute to go before they—before they got in my brain, I think.” She twitched, hawked, and spat, a bright gobbet of bloody phlegm that glistened on the moss.
“Sit right there. Royster, call your people over here. She needs care, and not anything out here in the open. Might be some chemicals in her blood from the grass, and she’ll need plasma at minimum,” Nolan ordered.
“What if they—” Royster began.
“We’ll deal with them if that happens, but for now, let’s work on the idea that we can get along,” Nolan said.
Royster stared at Kam’s pallid face, then gave a small nod. “Medic!”
The Vikun approached, hesitant, spread out in good formation, and silent. Nolan was waiting, his rifle held at an idle angle. Avina’s gun was pointed at Royster, who stood, hands spread in helpless supplication.
“Are you Viburno?” Nolan asked the woman who stepped a meter ahead, her small eyes narrowed in deep suspicion. Her shaved head sported black stubble, scars, and the indentation of a serious head wound some years earlier. The scars leapt out on her bronze skin, and her entire body was angles and shadows and long muscle. Every Vikun wore an array of light body armor, skins, and good boots. Their blades were silver-bright, and Nolan saw no less than ten kinds of guns and at least one longbow as thick as his wrist. The giant carrying it was a redhead with brown eyes and a face made for yelling.
Viburno spoke after looking them all over, marking details like a seasoned officer. “Yes.”
“Thank you for the extra details. It’s so hard to find chatty people, especially out here on the grandeur of the plains,” Nolan said, sweeping an arm in a wide gesture.
Viburno worked her lips to spit, then grinned. She had good teeth and crow’s feet. It made her look more human. “Yes, I am Viburno. Thanks for saving Kam.”
“My pleasure. Ran into some chimegrass when I first came down. Not my favorite experience, but it makes damned good building material.”
“Keeps the kids busy,” Avina added.
Viburno pointed to Royster with her chin. “How’d he make you?”
“With my AI,” Nolan cut in. “She saw motion. It wasn’t much, but—it was enough.”
Viburno nodded at that. Nolan had given her something by admitting he had an AI. It was, after a fashion, diplomacy, and she understood. “You’re fresh down the well?”
“In a manner of speaking. Long enough to see what’s going on and pissed enough to do something about it. We’re building a community, and we need information. That’s why we’re coming west. We don’t want anything from you except to see the Consult,” Nolan said.
Viburno’s crew went rigid at that, but she stilled them with a gesture. “The Consult? Why?”
“Short version or long version?” Nolan asked.
“Let’s start with short.” Viburno crossed her arms to listen.
“If the AI is an original artifact, then it will have data about why this planet is being used as a resource by the Calabria Prelate,” Nolan said. He revealed as little as possible while stating his case to pass through the Vikun lands without further incident.
“You’re well-informed for someone who just fell out of the sky. What then? Let’s assume she speaks to you. Then what?” Viburno asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Honest, at least.” Viburno uncrossed her arm and invited everyone forward with a wave. “Let’s go to the beach. I don’t think you’ll want to spend the night inside, but—”
“Why not?” Avina asked.
Viburno gave them a curious look. “Because you’ll lose your mind in there. No one comes out in one piece.”
Ferdwick
North
Ferdwick was unimpressed, but then Cablers were, to him, little more than criminals. Unlike his anglers, they held control of a system that ran smoothly based on something far older than their own skillsets. Boats hooked to the Cable for the long journey upriver—if the captains could pay, of course—since well before any of the three kingdoms rose to power.
Other than the Clockstones, the Cable was oldest among everything except the river itself, and just as important. Without the steady, smooth pull northward, the river’s vicious currents and wild flooding would render commerce a near impossibility, unless a merchant considered the dangerous option of a land caravan at nearly ten times the cost and twenty times longer in duration. It was the Cable that went from island to island in the middle channel, starting in the north, following more than six thousand klicks of raging water, and ending just before the broad river mouth near the deltas.
Only near the deltas did the river calm itself, widening to a broad fan of five lands spanning a hundred klicks or more, but those were troubled places, filled with warring tribes who trusted no one, least of all the Anglers who would compete with them for schools of valuable fish.
Thus, Ferdwick dealt with the Cablers, their decaying monopoly, and the river itself, a crashing, swirling, vicious force that took as many lives as it supported, all while the halfkin and th
eir devilry challenged his own authority for the prime fishing spots.
Considering what was to come in Master Orli’s offices, Ferdwick took three long breaths to clear his head. He needed calm, deliberate words, not warfare, and Orli was the most powerful person in all the river valley. He could ill afford to cause a rift between their guilds when Silence lay open to all, and half the royal families of the world rested in their funeral shrouds. Her summons had been pleasant enough, the words neutral but free of any threat. Such a tone gave him mild hope, even if his natural cynicism threatened to snuff such a light before it could flare into anything like optimism.
Chaos was near; he could feel it. And that meant Orli would use her position for some advantage, regardless of what it meant to the wider world. She never missed an opportunity for advancing the Cabler’s interests despite the fact that they were a monopoly.
He disliked her because they were so similar, and confronting that reality meant his own morals were in question.
“Not in question. My morals are not present,” he told himself, stepping off his skiff onto the dock. Two burly Cablers waited, their helmets pulled low in the gloom. It was dusk, with low clouds scudding by to conspire against the evening stars. Rain would move in, he knew, but it was nothing worth worrying over. He brushed past the scowling guards without a word, looking to the sky.
His Angler’s sense told him that it would be a soft rain, not one of the violent summer storms waiting after the next cycle of moons. Late spring storms were mild when compared to the howlers that came up from the ocean, leaving sunken boats and corpses in their wake, but he kept an eye to the west just in case. It wouldn’t do to be stranded on an island with Orli when she wanted something he could not give. People had been known to vanish under such circumstances, regardless of their importance, and Ferdwick had not remained guild leader by being soft or naïve. Though he had no wife or family, the idea of his body tumbling a lonely path in the river muck left him chilled inside.
More often than not, the river kept its dead.
Rain began to fall in a soft patter as he ascended the stone stairwell, then slipped under the mossy eave and lifted a hand to knock on the wide door. It was sun-bleached and bound by hammered copper, which was green with patina from the damp river winds. In three sharp knocks, he announced his presence, then waited.
How long she left him to stew in the rain would show the purpose of his visit, but he had little time to consider such things because the unseen bolts snapped back with a ferrous thud, door swinging inward to reveal Orli’s sergeant at arms, the hulking Mutokah. Her sharp brown eyes narrowed in accusatory silence as she waved a thick hand to the left, saying nothing and just giving a sullen grunt.
Mutokah was a killer and nothing more. She led a fanatic’s life, traveling up and down river to quell issues that needed a hammer’s touch rather than the subtle ministrations of Orli’s attention. Tall, thick, and cruel, Mutokah kept her long braid coiled around a broken sword hilt as a reminder of the only fight she’d ever lost, years earlier and to a clever North’r who had circled her like hunters around a cornered boar. The hilt remained with her as a constant jab at her pride—which was considerable, but it was also a subtle reminder of how many fights she’d won.
Inwardly, Ferdwick cursed the unknown fighter, thinking the world would be far better had they finished the job and sent the big woman down river to the sea, preferably stone dead, but he fixed a bland smile on his face and slipped past her as a small shadow flickered over his eyes—a bird, no doubt, though moving slowly, like he imagined Mutokah should move, though he knew that not to be true. She was dangerous in ways he didn’t like thinking about. When he turned away from her, his skin tingled at the act of exposing his back to someone he knew would take great joy in driving a sword through his ribs.
“My thanks for the hospitality, Lady Mutokah.” With minimal effort, Ferdwick turned and gave an oily bow before she could react, earning a murderous glare as he began ascending the internal stairs.
“Piss off,” she growled, then her attention was diverted away as the shadow—a filthy river bird, no doubt—flitted away on busy wings. With some effort he ignored her and took the flinty steps one at a time, calming his heart with each upward movement. Ferdwick knew his will was strong enough to hold together a guild of pampered elites, many of whom thought him overmatched by the office.
In that vein, he began to relax the tightness in his jaw as an opinion of the moment coalesced, giving him the first flutter of hope. It would achieve nothing if he could not enter the meeting on even terms, though his invitation into the guild quarters without waiting meant that whatever Orli needed, it was serious, and serious needs made for desperate people.
Ferdwick liked that condition in his opponents.
It left them weakened and open to exploitation, presenting an opportunity to peel back some of the Cabler’s considerable power, even if the gains were only temporary. Better a weakened enemy, even if they always return like the tides, he mused, arriving at the wide door to Orli’s offices. Like every guild leader before her, she lived in apartments on the island equidistant to the cable ends. Three thousand klicks to the north and south, her influence ended at the last spinning cable wheel.
To the north, the river was narrow, fast, and cold, slicing through the rock canyons just below Sindelaar. The first Cabler island there held a garrison of sixty, their weapons bright and ready to enforce the charges for any barge captain who hooked his craft to the cable. After the long ride south along hundreds of island stations, the ride ended at an identical island just above the five deltas, disgorging the barges and ships into open water like ducklings leaving the protective shadow of their mother.
Only the plant life was different at the southern terminus, and the lack of snow, and the constant war against salt rust and sunburn, two problems soldiers in the north would have given anything to see after a deployment under the grim winter of North’r skies. Another garrison waited there in the tropical heat, though artillery bolstered their force with arbalests that could hurl iron bolts up to two klicks.
Piracy was a way of life on the deltas, and Orli’s guild hated competition. She preferred the guild coffers filled with coins rather than those owned by a gallery of scum who plied the waters south of Marwai, falling upon ships under the command of people too stupid or bold to avoid open water.
“Are you coming in, or are you that enamored of Lady Mutokah’s company?” asked Orli, a light smile playing at her thin lips. Her door was open, swinging silent on oiled pegs to reveal the guildmaster herself in front of a welcoming room, fire blazing in the hearth.
“In, I think. It’s just cool enough to remind me I’m nowhere near Salt,” he replied, stepping around the small woman with a courteous nod.
“You are far from Salt, Ferdwick.” She closed the door with a solid thud, then regarded him beneath black lashes. “In every sense, you are far from home but not unwelcome. Please, sit.”
The chairs were low, soft, and angled to the fire, leaving the rest of the room in flickering gold save two watery squares of dusky light. It was a working room, with desk and books and papers, a place where the most powerful guild ever known in the world conducted business through the deft touch of one woman. All business and power was like that. One person. One decision. A single path, carved by someone whose lofty perch relied on the masses in a precarious web of favors and need.
Orli was that person, just as Ferdwick was her counterpart, representing thousands of anglers plying the river for fish and other food animals. Between the two of them, they controlled the bulk of an economy based entirely on the river and its capricious rise and fall, but their guilds had one critical difference.
The Cable was eternal.
“Wine?” she asked, and he accepted. There was no reason to be rude, even if he only sipped politely at the deep red vintage, making a noise of approval. It was easy to do so; Orli had the best of everything at her fingertips, including wine.
>
“How often do you send ships upriver on our cable?” she asked without preamble.
If she was direct, then he would return the favor. After the fire popped twice, he placed the glass down on a small table, its surface gleaming with lacquer. “Often enough, when they’re full. As to when we’re fishing, you know the answer to that. Never.”
“Because the channels are too dangerous for anglers?”
“Among other reasons, but yes. The three main channels are a league deep, perhaps more in some places. Not only is the current too fast for fishing, but the deep water would capsize any craft that put down nets in such a flow,” he stated. He had seen it happen. A greedy captain would chase a fat school of fish into the roaring central channels, only to lose his nets, and sometimes his craft and crew when the pull of water was too great. The river was massive beyond belief, and humans survived only if they treated it like a beast in a cage.
The beast was never tame, only kept at bay. That was how the Angler guild survived, even if the fisherman died every season. Respect and fear of the water. It was as natural as breathing to anyone who got their feet wet for coins.
“What is the status of your relationship with the River Children?” she asked, getting to the point. Her face was round, plain, and framed with dark curls that made her seem young and inexperienced.
She was neither.
Her eyes were dark with intellect, and she left her hands folded in a patient order on her lap. Outwardly, she was calm, but Ferdwick knew better. He could sense her need like a submerged rock in the river.
Ferdwick picked at a thread on his heavy green coat, the fabric worn shiny in places from leaning against countless barge rails. He avoided shows of wealth even though he craved it, but for a guild that worked hard, such signs would be imprudent, so his figure was modest, even subtle in comparison to Orli’s understated elegance.
After making her wait long enough to grow irritated, his eyes flickered up, bright and cutting. He was not a petty man, but he believed in softening up an opponent before any trade came to pass. It was how his parents ran their timber company, and the method stood his family well, so he saw no need to deviate from their example. With a slow smile, Ferdwick bared his teeth and leaned forward.
Lost Kingdom: Book 1 in the Lost Kingdom Series Page 19
