“It occurs to me that I have almost no clothes.” Andover looked at the room he’d been staying in and shook his head. What meager belongings he owned had been brought to him when Tega stopped by Burk’s smithy to let him know Andover had been assaulted. That had been a while back now and looking at his spare clothes – one pair of trews and two tunics – he shook his head. “Does it get as cold as I’ve heard in the Blasted Lands?”
Drask stood in the corner of his small room and looked at him. The man seldom spoke to Andover, but he was almost always nearby. “Yes. The cold will sink into your bones.”
“Do you suppose I’ll freeze on my way to your valley?”
“You are to serve as ambassador for your Emperor. Even if he were not planning on clothing you, I would find something you could use to stay warm.”
“I’m fairly sure whatever you might offer me would be too damned big. You’re really quite large.”
He could not see the man’s smile behind his veil, but he could sense it. “Adjustments can be made.”
“Do you really suppose the Emperor plans on clothing me?”
“From what I have seen clothes are very important to your people. You would no sooner be asked to represent your Emperor without the proper clothing than I would be asked to come here naked.”
Andover looked down at his new hands again and felt the same shiver of excitement. He had hands, which was amazing. They were real and they could feel things. And they were metallic. He shook his head in wonder.
Drask stepped closer. “Do they hurt you? Your hands?”
“What? No. I just. It’s hard to get used to them.” He looked to the other man. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Drask shook his head. “Not me. Truska-Pren.”
“Then I can’t thank Truska-Pren enough.”
“You will have your chance to thank him.” Drask put his right hand on Andover’s shoulder. “I will teach you how to offer your thanks when we travel back to the valley.”
“When do we leave?”
“Three days from now. First we wait for the rest of my people to arrive. There are offerings that must be made to your Emperor.”
Andover shook his head. “I don’t understand this. How have we never heard of your people before now?”
Drask shrugged his thick shoulders awkwardly, mimicking the gesture he’d likely seen from a few soldiers. “Your people have never reached the Seven Forges before now.”
Andover stared at his hands again, at a loss for what he wanted to say.
Drask spoke up. “The men who did this to you. The ones who ruined your hands. What happened to them?”
An instant anger swelled in Andover. “Nothing. They sit in a cell and await a decision. They are to be punished, but no one seems to know what their punishment should be.”
“They attacked you? They broke your hands because you looked at the girl Tega, yes?”
He hadn’t discussed the situation with Drask at all, but obviously someone had. What was there to say?
“Yes. A man named Menock claimed to be her fiancé and broke my hands because he saw me looking at her.”
“We have a name for such men where I am from.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Drask stared into Andover’s eyes. For the first time he noticed the faint glow inside the stranger’s own eyes. It was hard to see until you noticed it and after that it was hard not to see.
“Dead. We call them dead.”
“I am not a fighter, Drask. You are a fighter. I am a weapon smith. And I’m only an apprentice.”
Drask reached out suddenly and grabbed Andover’s hands. He held them fast and raised them until Andover was forced to look at them, to see the fine workmanship, the amazing finesse with which they had been crafted.
“These are a warrior’s hands. They are the hands of a weapon smith and a warrior and a man. You are not given these hands without purpose, Andover Lashk. You are given these hands because Truska-Pren, the God of Iron, the God of Armed Combat, has given them to you. He does not grant his blessings without a reason and he does not offer his blessings to cowards. Do you understand me?”
He nodded. He would have nodded just as vigorously if the man had asked him if he wanted to weave butterfly wings from silk and then fly to the Great Star. Drask exuded a confidence that was nearly contagious.
“Your Emperor asks that you serve as his ambassador. That you go to my country and speak to my kings. That you learn to understand our ways and better create an alliance between our people. You understand this, yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
Drask nodded. He squeezed Andover’s hands and Andover marveled that he could feel the pressure exerted on the artificial extremities. “Then know this. My people, my gods, are not always kind. They do not respect weakness. They respect strength. If you would be respected, you will have to demand satisfaction.”
“What do you mean?”
“The guards who hurt you. You must fight them. You must punish them for what they did to you.”
“I don’t know.” Andover shook his head.
Drask shook his head right back. “You do know. I am telling you. If you do not fight them, if you do not restore your honor in this fashion, you will fail your Emperor. You will dishonor yourself in the eyes of my people and the eyes of my gods. You will lose face before Truska-Pren.”
“How–?”
Before he could finish his question Drask interrupted him. “If you lose face before Truska-Pren you could well lose the very gift he has granted you.”
Andover pulled away from the stranger’s grip. “What?”
“You understand already.” Drask pointed. “Your hands come at a price. You must now pay it. Demand satisfaction from the men who took your hands. Do this thing, Andover Lashk, or risk losing the hands you have been given.”
Andover stared at his hands for a very long time. While he stared, the stranger who had granted him those hands slipped away as silently as a bad dream.
The night found Merros Dulver sleeping in his own country for the first time in months. It did not, however, find him sleeping in a room. They were in the middle of the plains to the south of the Wellish Steppes. Aside from wild grasses and the occasional tree there was little to see as far as the horizon. Two days of traveling had moved them a great distance, leagues farther than he’d expected. The damned things the Sa’ba Taalor rode on were fast and had the endurance of a dozen horses. They also moved differently from horses, which meant that his hips, thighs and buttocks were sore in places he had not been prepared for because he had no idea how to ride comfortably on the beasts.
All of which meant that when sleep finally came for him it came hard and fast. When he awoke he found that several of his fellow travelers were down at the river bathing. Because he desperately wanted to wash the stench of the Blasted Lands from his body he joined them.
Males and females alike washed themselves in the waters of a tributary that ran down from the steppes. The water was as clear as the sky and almost as cold as the Blasted Lands themselves. Just the same, Merros followed the lead of the people around him and stripped down and moved into the stream. To the last, the people with him were covered in scars, except for their faces, which remained hidden behind veils.
Merros shook his head and looked down, moderately embarrassed by both the shape of his body and oddly enough by the lack of scars. If the people with him judged him, their veils hid whatever decisions they had come to.
Within an hour they were on the move again, heading toward the south. Swech sat before him on the saddle and he rode, his hands resting on two runners that seemed designed specifically to allow a second rider. The beasts – he still could not decide if they were feline in nature, but he was leaning in that direction – were larger than horses by at least half again and capable of pulling the carcasses of several heavy animals. He supposed it was possible that they often carried more than one rider with ease.
Swech looked at him over her shoulder and for a moment her veil shifted, showing more of her face than he had seen before. Her nose was straight and slightly shorter than he would have expected; he could not see her mouth. He found the glimpse oddly intoxicating.
“Tell me about the place where we go. What is it like?”
“Very warm.” He thought back. It had been a few years since the last skirmish he’d been engaged in. “The land is flat, and the ocean is nearby. The winds are almost always blowing, but not like they do in the Blasted Lands.”
“Will there be so much… green?” She waved her arms and he looked around them. He hadn’t thought about it, but he could only imagine how different this was for her and her people.
“No.” He thought for a moment longer. “Have you ever been away from the valley or the Blasted Lands?”
“No. Never.” She looked away from him and he could sense that she was, if not embarrassed, at least uncomfortable with her lack of knowledge.
“Before I traveled there, I had never seen a place like your valley. You will see a lot of things you have never seen before.” He pointed. “This, this is just an unsettled area. There are many. But there are a lot of towns between here and Roathes.”
She shook her head but made no other response.
Just to keep the conversation going, he asked, “Did you make all of your weapons? Tusk said he did.”
“We all do.”
The notion still shook him. “Why?”
“That is what the gods demand. The Daxar Taalor say we must learn to forge our own ways, and that means we must make our own weapons, hunt for our own food and till the land if we would have crops.”
“Everyone?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What about children?”
“Children too. We learn to make weapons when we are small, so that when we are old enough to train we already understand the weapons.”
“How old were you when you made your sword?”
“Which one?”
Seriously?
“The first.”
Swech laughed. “Seven. It was not a very good sword.”
He thought about what he’d seen at the last smithy he’d been to, watching the man hammering away at a length of blazing hot metal, watching the sparks that danced away with each blow. He tried to imagine a seven year-old girl using the same hammer to shape the rough metal, or even the smaller hammers to work on the nearly finished product and shook his head. “I can’t be surprised.”
“Have you ever made your own weapons?”
“No. I haven’t even shoed a horse.”
“What did you do when you were growing up?”
“Honestly?” Merros thought about that. “Not really very much. My father was off handling life as a soldier, and my mother stayed busy. She’d find a few odd jobs about the house for me, but mostly just to make sure I wasn’t underfoot. When I was old enough I joined the army. Before that, I just did what my parents told me to do.”
“What about your gods?”
“What about them?” He shrugged. “I have never been a very devout follower.”
Swech turned her entire body to look at him, her eyes surprisingly wide above the veil. “And have your gods had nothing to say about this?”
“I don’t think my gods are quite as concerned as yours.” He felt his face flush red. “Drask told me that your gods told him where to find me. That your gods spoke directly to him. None of the gods of my people have ever spoken directly to me. Or to anyone that I know for that matter.”
Swech turned away from him, shaking her head. “They do not speak to us every day. They speak when there is something that must be said. There were many who were called to look for the travelers. For you.” She was silent for a few moments and he looked around them at the other riders, checking for landmarks or signs of a town anywhere in the distance. “Your gods confuse me.”
Merros nodded. “That’s alright, they confuse most of us.” He stared at her back for a moment, mesmerized by the play of solid muscles under skin that varied between nearly flawless and heavily scarred. “So tell me about your gods, Swech. Tell me what makes you so obedient to them.”
Swech nodded her head and looked around. The beast under them let out a grunt and then a noise that could have been a roar waiting to happen or possibly just gas.
“The lands were not always as they are now. You know this.” Merros nodded his agreement. “When the land was shattered, when the war of sorcerers took place and the city of Korwa was destroyed, everything along with it was ruined too. The lakes were boiled away, the ocean was pushed aside. The great fields of battle were burned to dust along with armies so vast that they spanned the horizons.” Her words were passionate, but bore the metered tone of tales recited again and again. “All destroyed by the men who thought they were gods. All that was left was what you call the Blasted Lands. All that remained was dust and ash and smoke. The ground was so hot that it boiled. That is why there are so many uneven places there. Even a thousand years later, the Ta-Wren, the cutting winds, have not smoothed away the waves of earth.”
Merros found himself drawn to the story. Possibly it was her passion for the tale, possibly merely boredom. It could have been a bit of both.
“Do you know that not everyone died?” She spoke with a reverent awe. “A thousand years ago the Ta-Wren were harsh enough to polish stone in a few days, but not everyone who was in the fields of battle died. The ones who lived were broken, though. They broke and they bled and they suffered first in the great heat of Korwa’s death and then in the biting cold that came afterward. The Daxar Taalor call that the First Forging. The spirits of the people were hammered and leveled until the impurities could be driven from their flesh and bones and then they were allowed to cool off, the better to prepare them for what happened next.”
“What was that?” Damned if he wasn’t being drawn along. She shot him a look and he apologized before allowing her to continue.
“There was nothing left but wreckage. Dust, ash, the charred remains of too many people to count, and the glass spires of the Mounds. The people who survived tried to go to the Mounds first, seeking shelter in the hidden tunnels where the earth still moves and the air screams. But there were things in the Mounds that could not be challenged. They killed anything that came too close and so the people were forced to move on.
“After they had walked a great distance and traveled through the clouds for too many days to count, the people began to die off. There was no water. There was no food. And finally seven of the survivors got together and decided to move on while the rest fell to exhaustion. They meant to go on, to find a place of shelter for those too tired to move any further. But because they were warriors and because they were human they did what all people do when they are angry. Those seven argued as they walked. They debated what could be done. Finally they all agreed that it was better to die as warriors than to live as victims. When they could no longer move forward they found whatever weapons they could scrounge – mostly melted remains of weapons or the bones of the dead – and they prepared to attack each other.
“The Daxar Taalor saw as they fought in the Cutting Winds and stopped the air from moving long enough to watch. The seven battled until all were broken and bloodied, but so great was their spirit that they would not die. And the gods looked upon them and asked what it was they wanted.
“Two of the people could still speak and they answered. ‘We want to live,’ said Wheklam. ‘We want to grow strong again,’ said Ordna.
“And Durhallem, who was the first of the gods to speak to them, asked what they would do if they were granted their lives and the chance to grow strong. What they would offer in exchange for the help of the gods.
“And Wheklam and Ordna spoke together: ‘All that you would have of us would be yours.’
“The Daxar Taalor granted their favor to the seven. They were so impressed with them that they chose to take the names of the warriors as their own. They offered their help. They created the valley by forming the Taalor, what you call the Seven Forges. The Hearts of the Gods were bared to the world, and the shelter they offered was mighty enough to stop even the great waves of fire and ash, the Cutting Winds and the things that came from the Mounds.
“The gods reached out with their hands and carried the people from where they had fallen, laying them within the valley. They gave the people water and clean air. They offered food and protection and most importantly, the offered wisdom and a chance to grow strong again.”
“So your gods provided food and shelter?”
Swech nodded. “Yes. For the broken and healing. When they were healed, the remaining people were told to find their own way. This they did but always under the watchful eyes of the Daxar Taalor.”
“And then they stopped? They just stopped helping?”
She nodded again.
“Why?”
Swech chuckled and shook her head at the same time. Her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “Why did your mother let you go into the army?”
“Because I needed to grow up and be out from under her feet, I suppose.”
“And did she stop being your mother when you left? Or did she still offer advice? How about your father? Did he ignore you?”
“No.” He sighed. “I see your point, I suppose.”
“The gods are not there to make our lives easy. They are there to aid us when they must and to guide us through the worst of times.” She patted the hilt of the weapon at her side. “The Daxar Taalor tell us to make our own way. They also show us how to make our way. When we were at our weakest, they gave us comfort and shelter and food. Now we are stronger because of what they have taught us.”
Considering that he’d supped on the flesh of the monster she and her sister had slaughtered without ever breaking a sweat, he had a hard time arguing with her words.
“So what will you do when you meet the Guntha?”
Swech remained silent for a while and he found himself watching the gentle sway of her hips, the play of muscles. When finally she spoke he had to force himself to listen. “We will do as the gods suggest. We will make ourselves known.”
“Yes, but how?” Swech did not answer. It wasn’t long before he forgot the question and once again let himself contemplate the shape of the woman in front of him.
Pathra Krous looked at the man who had been his advisor since he was born. “And where is this coming from?”
Desh looked back and shrugged. How it was that the man could manage a boyish aw, shucks expression with such ease would likely always remain a mystery. “I’m just the messenger. The kid says he needs to confront the men who broke his hands, and I can’t blame him.”
“I can. What if the damned fool gets himself killed? How will that look?”
Desh leaned halfway across the table and carved a slice from the breast of the bird in front of them. The meat was roasted to perfection and despite the conversation the Emperor reached for the meat when it was offered. A chunk of bread torn from the loaf worked perfectly to hold the hot roast, and a moment later he was chewing contentedly while Desh contemplated his next words.
“The thing is, I’m almost certain that Drask put him up to this.” Desh looked at the various dipping sauces and finally settled on a spicy brown concoction. He dipped bread and meat alike and then chewed.
“Almost certain?” Pathra rolled the food around with his tongue, trying to speak and simultaneously avoid burning the inside of his mouth.
“It might have come up in conversation before Drask actually arrived here.”
“Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“So as to avoid you being part of any possible incidents that arise from this.”
“I rather like being informed of potential disasters before the fact, not after, Desh.”
“Granted. But in this case it was a rush decision. I really had no time to consult with you.”
Lies. All lies. He had no doubt the damned sorcerer was playing him like a harp. “Fine. I’ll accept that. But no more of this, Desh. I have a great fondness for you. I would rather not lock you in a tomb.”
“That trick didn’t work the last time. It won’t work the next.”
“I’ll make it a better tomb than the last Emperor who tried.”
Threats never worked against Desh Krohan. Very few of the royal family wanted to imagine a life without him there to lean on. He’d been a part of the Empire’s council for almost as long as there had been an Empire.
The sorcerer sighed. “Either way the facts remain the same. Andover Lashk wishes to conclude his business with the guards who wrecked his hands in combat.”
“Well, I don’t want him to.”
“According to the laws which have not been changed despite numerous suggestions to the contrary, the right to trial by blood is still on the books. Also, as you have already pointed out, you want the boy on your side in this argument because fate has chosen him to be your ambassador.”
“Fate had nothing to do with that. I seem to recall your hand being involved.”
Desh waved the comment away. “I’m sure I had perfectly valid reasons.”
“Oh, don’t you always.”
“I’m an advisor. No one said you had to take my advice.”
Pathra shook his head. “What are we going to do here, Desh? Do I allow the boy to get himself killed in an effort to seek justice?”
“Well, you could hang the damned fools for misuse of authority.”
“I’d have to kill over half the Guard,” he snorted the words.
“We’ve had this discussion before, too, Pathra. They need to be put right.”
“So fine then. Let this serve as an example to anyone who wants to misuse their position.”
Desh cut another slice from the bird for himself and one for the Emperor. “I wonder how long it will take to teach the boy to use a sword.”
“Don’t you have a spell for that?”
“Probably. Doubt I’ll use it though. That would be cheating.”
“I thought you said it would be justice.”
“No. I said the justice he seeks is still allowed by your rules. I also said you should have changed the laws a long time ago.”
“I could order you to fix the fight.”
Desh looked at him as he slopped more of the spicy sauce across his food. “That would end poorly.”
“Why?”
“Because that sort of sorcery demands a price.”
“And who pays the price?”
Desh offered a thin and genuinely unpleasant smile. “That’s where it gets complicated.”
“Then let them fight. Arrange it for the dawn if that’s what he wants.”
“Maybe if he doesn’t choose a sword?” Desh was staring at his hair again. He could tell that the wizard was going to make a comment. It was something he had to deal with, he supposed, especially if he was going to continue seeing the same girl to do his hair.
“They always choose a sword. It’s tradition.”
“My good Emperor, have you seen anything at all about Andover Lashk that struck you as traditional?”
Pathra reached for a green fruit the delightful Princess Lanaie had brought with her from her father’s kingdom. “There is that, I suppose.”