General Sumroth and the five hundred troops under his command arrived at Ingot, a hamlet that had formerly been a suburb of Femturan, two days after the start of the Conflagration.
The ten thousand survivors of the fire had swamped the small village. Thousands of people milled about, some injured and all distraught, while exhausted Protectors sat leaning their backs against walls and cushioning their heads in their sooty hands.
Riding up the road through this chaos, Sumroth turned to his high flamers: “First, establish a chain of command over these troops and get them off their butts. Get the men to triage the wounded and put them in whatever shelter you can find, separate the dead, and—especially—round up the orphans. My tent goes there. Picket the aurochs out of town near the river; requisition that barn over there for supplies.”
“Yes, sir. Will you be in your tent?”
“No,” said Sumroth, sliding off his beast. It had taken all his discipline to waste time dispensing these commonsense orders. “No. I have to find my wife.”
His only thought was to find Zea. He ran through the crowds of survivors shouting her name. Desperate children and women saw his uniform and grabbed at him—he pushed them off. Femturan soldiers and officers saluted and tried to confer with him: “General! How should we—?” “General! Do you have healers?” “Sir, all praise to Pozhar—” Sumroth bulled them all out of his way.
“Zea! Zee-aa!” He put his hands to his mouth and dashed into the deepest press of people. “Zee-aa!” No answer. He ran toward a cluster of more citizens in a small square; he banged his sword against his breastplate for silence, and he screamed again, “Zee-aa!” He climbed onto a wagon and shouted. “Zee-aa! Zea, where are you!”
Faces swarmed around him, but he recognized none of them. If he saw a woman her height, he would grab her shoulders to turn her around, but she was never the one person he wanted to find.
He began searching the major buildings of Ingot, the tavern, the school, the livery stable. He dashed into Ingot’s modest Worship Citadel, where people too injured to stand lay stretched out on the benches. Women walked among them, trying to nurse them without any medical supplies. General Sumroth stood in the doorway and bellowed, “Zee-aa!”
A woman halfway down an aisle turned, ran at him, and threw herself at his chest. He clasped her against himself with both arms. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I escaped unharmed,” Zea answered.
“All praise to Pozhar,” he whispered. Sumroth held her away from him so he could see for himself. Her sleeping shift showed singe marks, her white hair had turned gray with soot, but arms, shoulders, face, hands, feet, ankles—unmarred. Again he folded her against his body. She shook with emotion; he gathered she’d been through a terrifying ordeal. But she was alive, and that was all that really mattered.
Once he had seen Zea fed, decently clothed, and resting in his own tent attended by adjutants who understood that their careers (perchance their lives) depended upon their making this woman comfortable, General Sumroth agreed to see the sixth-flamer who had been the highest-ranking officer at the Forge during the Conflagration.
The brigadier standing at attention outside his tent swayed on his feet. He had burns up and down his arms and a large gash in his scalp. “Sir, I regret to report that we have good reason to believe the Magi all died in the fire,” he said to Sumroth. “The Octagon burned and no one escaped.”
“Really?” Sumroth was astonished. “Then I’m assuming command here now—over both civilians and military. I’m sure you did the best you could in these circumstances. Get yourself tended and get some sleep. Report when you are fit to stand.”
Ignoring the people trying to importune them, Sumroth and two fifth-flamers walked a short distance on the Broad Way east of Ingot to survey Femturan itself from a slight hill. The capital city had burnt to its foundations; the obsidian-paved streets wandered past piles of charred ruin. Small orange embers still smoldered in scattered corners. Not a building stood to represent the great metropolis that once stood there. The Octagon, the Bejeweled Gates, the Library of Reverence, the central Citadel of Flames—all gone. The stone city wall had collapsed in several places. The fire had completely destroyed the Forge Army Headquarters outside the wall as well as spread partway into the western valley. Pine trees stood as blackened fingers. Ash covered the ground, and smoke lingered in the air.
Returning to Ingot, Sumroth soon learned that civilians had died by the hundreds from being trampled, caught in burning structures, or inhaling smoke. Sacrificing themselves, the Femturan Protectors had done their best to save the populace until they too had been overwhelmed by the billowing, black clouds.
His first orders concentrated on establishing an organized camp and starting the funeral pyres for the dead. Protectors set up tents to shelter the weakest citizens, including the children and the elderly, and medical stations where healers could tend to hurts. They fed the civilians the soldiers’ rations they carried and sent for more supplies from the patrols in the Iron Valley and from Drintoolia. The chaos that had reigned right after the catastrophe began to give way to orderly—if lengthy—lines for information, food, or medical care.
The next morning Sumroth convened a court of inquiry into the cause of the tragedy. This court was held in a tavern room big enough for the three judges and two dozen of the most important surviving officers and civilians as witnesses. The chairs his soldiers had scrounged together formed a motley assortment, and the table he sat behind wobbled, but in such a situation these rough surroundings hardly registered.
When Sumroth questioned city dwellers they could recount only their own trauma trying to escape the raging flames. However, one officer offered a credible story that three strangers on horseback, followed by birds, had penetrated the city through the Bejeweled Gates. Other seemingly sober figures spoke of birds spreading fire.
“Birds carrying fiery brands!” Sumroth shook his head. “I hear you, but I can hardly credit such a notion.”
“Smithy will vouch for what we say,” said a man who had identified himself as the head of the Obsidian Bank. “He stayed in the thick of the city longer than anyone else. Shall we send for him?”
Sumroth assented. Smithy, so large and so marked by his deafness, had long been a famous figure in Femturan, a figure Sumroth had known vaguely ever since he and Zea had first arrived. Although he worked as a lowly blacksmith at a forge near the central Citadel, he didn’t carry himself meekly. Sumroth believed he had some ambiguous religious function but he had no title and no other name.
Watching the burly man now as he strode into the tavern, Sumroth’s first impression was favorable: clearly, here stood neither a sick, loon-headed Magi nor a pewling, fanatical priest. And his bravery spoke in his favor; during the inquiry Sumroth heard again and again that Smithy had dashed back into the fire to single-handedly save many children. Yet Smithy did not carry himself with the arrogance of the late (and to Sumroth, unmourned) Champion Tulsham. Perchance in this strange character, garbed in a leather apron dotted with scorch marks, Sumroth might find a much-needed, and much-longed-for, ally.
“Smithy, I would like to commend you for your rescues,” Sumroth began. “I hear they were quite remarkable.”
The dour man had stared closely at his lips. He responded flatly, “I didn’t do them for you. I save children for Pozhar.”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t, but just the same they showed valor,” Sumroth replied, determined not to take offense at the man’s brusque manner. “Our purpose here is to discover how the fire started. Do you know anything about how all this happened?”
“A Weir witch penetrated the heart of our capital. With the help of enchanted birds, she brought down a rain of fire.”
“What!? A Weir witch?” Sumroth was incredulous, and the room broke out in surprised exclamations.
“How did she invade a guarded city?” Sumroth pressed.
“She didn’t invade. She was brought into the city as a captive,” Smithy stated.
Sumroth started. He remembered sending the girl he had captured on the Iron Valley battlefield to Femturan. Surely, that unassuming bitch wasn’t— Could he actually be responsible for this catastrophe? He rubbed the open cut on his chin and shifted in his seat uneasily. Did this strange man know of his role? Might he be about to expose his blunder publicly?
“What do you know about the birds?” Sumroth asked, changing the subject.
“They helped the witch. She could command them.” Smithy shrugged.
“How do you know such things?”
“I just do.”
Abruptly, Sumroth stood up. “Gentlemen, thank you for your time,” he said to the assembly. “We can proceed no more today. The air in here is smoky, and I tire of sitting.
“Will you walk with me to discuss this further?” he asked Smithy.
Smithy shrugged again as if being invited to converse with an eighth-flamer was the equivalent of being offered ale instead of water.
Leaving the other attendees of the court of inquiry to discuss the information and reach whatever conclusion they wished, Sumroth walked out. He shooed his orderlies behind, and together he and Smithy strode the perimeter of the survivors’ camp alone. Smithy walked to the side of the general so that he could read his lips when he spoke.
Soon Sumroth relaxed. If his companion knew that he was the one who had sent the girl into Femturan, he appeared to have no intention of speaking of it. The general couldn’t figure out what Smithy’s role had been in Femturan or how he came by the knowledge he possessed. But he quickly discerned that the man’s priorities did not lie in self-advancement—all his concerns were for their countrymen.
As they discussed immediate survival, the general asked, “What do you see as the biggest issue?”
“Food,” said Smithy.
“Aye,” said Sumroth, rubbing his chin. “That’s been the problem for years. The granaries and storehouses are the most dire of our losses, worse than the historic buildings. All that work to send food here from the Free States, only to have it all burn to cinders!”
He kicked a rock on the ground in front of him to vent his frustration. Smithy said nothing.
“I have been thinking,” Sumroth continued, “since we have no food stores for the people, we must take these people to food.”
“Where?” asked Smithy.
“Alpetar. I marched through it years ago. The Alpies are cowards, and unlike Melladrin, their land is rich and fertile. I would lead these Femturans through the Trade Corridor and settle them in the flatlands of Alpetar.”
“Occupy Alpetar? Farm there?” Smithy sounded reluctant, as much as his limited vocal range could express.
“Aye. If we had tried this in earlier decades, perchance there would have been an international outcry, but I think we can count on our enemy’s quiescence now. We may not wish to settle in an alien country, but we must stay until we can lift the plagues that poison our land. Do you know how we can get out from under this curse, Smithy?”
“Kill the witch’s spawn.”
“How do you know that will do it?”
“It will avenge the Initial Crime.”
“The Initial Crime?”
“Aye. When Weirs killed Oro immigrants for worshipping Pozhar.”
“When was this?” asked Sumroth.
“Four centuries ago,” said Smithy.
As they tramped with their equally long strides, Sumroth smiled at the thought that this man, who probably was unlettered, would be a student of ancient history.
“Well now, this ‘witch’s spawn.’ Where is she? Are you sure she survived the fire?”
“Don’t know where she is,” said Smithy, biting off his answers. “But one day she will return to Cascada.”
“Ah, there’s the rub. We have never had any method of marching to Cascada in force.”
“Don’t need to,” said Smithy. “Assassinate her.”
This suggestion surprised Sumroth. “Well, that’s as may be. If we knew where she was. Though there’s honor only in battle, not in assassination.”
“Honor,” said Smithy, in such an uninflected tone that Sumroth couldn’t tell whether he agreed with the sentiment or mocked it.
Overall, Sumroth found the craftsman impenetrable. He appeared to know things that no one else did, but Sumroth found his emotions even more inscrutable than his officers’. And to his deep disappointment, the man made no friendly overtures, offered no respect or comradeship.
They walked awhile in silence. Sumroth snapped orders to Protectors who were loafing on duty.
“Pellish ships,” Smithy said out of nowhere.
“Have the Pellish rebuilt their fleet?” Sumroth asked in surprise. “And if they have, why would they loan them to us? Their ships are their national treasures.”
“There are other treasures.”
“Hear me, General,” interrupted a bedraggled but bold woman who had seen them approaching and moved to intersect them. “When will we have something to feed our children? My youngest one cries that his belly is empty.”
“More supplies will be arriving soon, sistern. You must be patient. Protector,” he shouted to a red uniform in the distance. “Deal with this woman.” He turned and shouted to the fourth-flamers following the pair. “See that we are not interrupted again.”
Sumroth picked up his conversation with Smithy. “Yes, well, if I had an eighth of the riches the Magi hoarded, even just one of their fuckin’ chairs—don’t imagine you ever saw one of those—I would have more options. But they took their riches with them into the Eternal Flames.…”
Sumroth stopped short as a thought struck him. “Ahhh! No. Jewels don’t burn.”
“They lie in the rubble.” Smithy nodded his head in the direction of the destroyed Octagon.
Sumroth’s face brightened. “Excellent! All we need is to sort through the ashes.…” Sumroth called to the nearest soldier, “Find a fifth-flamer. Tell him I want him to collect all the rakes, pickaxes, and hand tools he can. I don’t care where or how he gets them; he must find us dozens.”
Sumroth rubbed his hands. “I’d wager the ashes are still too hot to work in. As soon as they cool I’ll send in teams of eight. I’ll have the teams work naked; that way no one can pocket the stones.
“Meanwhile, I have issued orders to pull in all my troops that are spread throughout the Iron Valley. In a week or more we will escort these evacuees into Alpetar. We will set them up there with food and protection. I will march on to Ixtulpus with all the riches of Femturan in my purse.”
Smithy nodded approval. “I will stay with our people in Alpetar.”
Heedless of the comment (for he really didn’t care where this strange, deaf blacksmith settled), Sumroth carried on outlining his plan. “If we have to wait moons, years, we will set sail for Cascada, burn that city to the ground, and I will personally cut out the liver of the witch and roast it over a fire!”
“We will have the vengeance we’ve been owed for centuries,” said Smithy in his longest sentence in a while. “And then we will have salvation.” He offered Sumroth his hand, and the two men sealed the pact.