The next morning, Emrael and Ban were alone in a loading yard to the rear of the keep.
“Okay, Ban, show me what you’ve got,” Emrael said, genuinely happy for the first time in days. “Glory, it’s good to have you here.”
Ban stood next to an enormous wagon that had been freighted with him from the Citadel. The thing looked like an ordinary enclosed wagon, but this had sides that folded out to reveal a mobile Crafting laboratory, complete with rows of secured drawers, smelters, casting dyes, infusori coils, transfer mechanisms, the whole lot.
Rather than respond, Ban held up one finger, then pulled one of the sides down and began rifling through the drawers.
“Shit, what do you even need me for?” Emrael asked, eyeing the various tools. “You’ve got all the supplies you need already.”
“Who said I need you?” Ban retorted. They both laughed while Ban hopped up into the wagon to start pulling things out of drawers and cubbies where they had been stored.
“Take a look at this,” his brother said, holding out a leather vest that was thicker and heavier than it should have been. The inside had been lined with fine linen, and copper strips had been sewn into the vest at various points.
“What is it?”
“Put it on, touching your skin.”
Emrael pulled his shirt off, revealing the deep-carved scars and hard, lean muscles beneath his naturally tan skin.
“You haven’t been eating enough, Em.”
Emrael just shrugged. “I haven’t had a lot of time to sit around getting fat, Ban. That time will come, I hope. But there’s a lot of blood between us and peace.”
Ban nodded, his eyebrows drawn down in a serious expression. “That’s why I made this. Put it on,” he ordered again, already digging around in more drawers for charged infusori coils. He tossed them down to Emrael, who pulled the armored vest on and fastened it.
Emrael shrugged his shoulders and worked his arms. “It’s a bit heavy, Ban. What does it do?”
“Just draw the infusori from the coils and push it into the vest, Em.”
Emrael chuckled and did as he said. He gasped when the infusori sank into the vest just as it would into a coil. “What … what did you do? How did you do that? There aren’t any gold coils in this, I’m sure of it!”
Just as he always had when he did something he was proud of, Ban smiled, his mouth slightly lopsided. “It’ll take five standard coils of infusori and I think I can improve the design considerably if I build the right equipment. This is just an early prototype. Em, coils as we know them are incredibly inefficient—all I’ve done is shrink the geometry needed to retain rather than emit infusori, and then extend the length into small cables I’ve sewn into that vest. It’s like you’re wearing five coils’ worth, but with only the equivalent of a coil or two of gold in the vest.”
Emrael shook his head, amazed. “Glory and Absent Gods, Ban, you are a genius. You’ll have all the copper I can lay my hands on and more.”
He practiced drawing infusori from the vest and pushing it back for a moment. “Can I keep this in the meantime? I think I can fit it under my armor.”
Ban shook his head. “No, that’s the only one I have and need it for my work. I’ll have a new one built right into an armored vest for you as soon as I can. You like the idea, though?”
“I love the idea,” Emrael said, smiling and slapping Ban’s leg. “Now, I have a few other things I want you to make. First, you told me about the network of Observers you set up for Elle in the Sagmyn Province. Can you do that here so I can talk to Halrec in Larreburgh, and Mother in Myntar? Maybe more?”
“Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be practical. To be reliable, there would have to be a fully powered transmitter every few hundred leagues, and that’s just not possible given the terrain we’ll cover here in Iraea.”
“Still, that’s something. If I can give one to each Imperator in my army and communicate over even just a few leagues, I’ll have a significant advantage. How many can you make in a week?”
“A week!” Ban exclaimed. “I’d be hard-pressed to make a single one in a week, and I’m the only one who can make them at present. I can go set up my workshop right now, though.”
Emrael shook his head. “You’ll have to do it with whatever you can load into your mobile workshop here, and you’ll have to teach some of the other Crafters the trick. I have other plans for us. We’re going to take back the Ire Holding. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? So soon?”
“We need to move fast, Ban. But we’ll finally have a home of our own, and you’ll have everything you need to make your Crafts. You and your Crafters are the fulcrum of our strategy. I hope you know that. If we win this war, it’ll be because of you and your inventions.”
Ban nodded and hopped down from the wagon. Emrael cupped the back of his head affectionately with one hand. “Leave Dorae a Crafter or two but bring the best with us. You have a lot of work ahead of you.”
Emrael ducked into a small room located in a distant, sparsely lighted hallway of Whitehall Keep. Within the musty stone-walled room, he found a group quite a bit smaller than he had expected.
Jaina waited with a dozen Imperators, seated on benches facing the door, all unarmored but carrying their copper-colored weapons. Not actually copper at all, he had discovered, but rather a superconductive steel alloy that only the Ordenans knew how to forge. He wondered if any of the Imperators here with them knew the secret to making it.
Timan and a few others he recognized were among them.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
The Imperators exchanged quick glances, then looked to Jaina. She pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Loyalties among the Imperators are … complex, Emrael. Those here are those loyal to Maira’s faction within the Council of Mages in Ordena. The others … they can be trusted, but how far? There are some that owe loyalty to those on the Council that oppose Maira’s goals. Best to keep some plans to us, for now.”
Emrael chewed on his lip, considering. He didn’t know much of Ordenan politics—nobody did, Ordenans being a remarkably closed society as they were—but this surprised him. He had assumed that the Imperators who came with his mother would have been loyal to her and Jaina. If he couldn’t trust them, there could be major problems.
“Does that mean that we might have more to fear from them, Jaina? If Barros offers your Councils a better deal, for example, or if one of your Councilors decides to move against my mother, will we be caught in the middle?”
Jaina looked back at him calmly. “Perhaps.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. He was about to start a war for Iraea at the same time as he was fighting the entire Provincial military, and now he had to worry about his own allies stabbing him in the back.
“You Ordenans don’t make for very good allies, do you? Can’t we just send the others back to Ordena?”
Jaina shook her head. “No, we cannot send them back. The Council might rescind the authorization for any of the Imperators to be here, even your mother and me. All would have to return or be declared foradan, outlaws to be hunted like rats. So, you see, it is not simple. We must keep them, but not trust them too far.”
“And you’re certain I can trust these here?” He gestured to the Imperators seated in front of him, several of whom had the gall to look offended.
Timan laughed. “As much as you can trust anyone, Ire. We here were handpicked by your mother herself.”
Not for the first time, Emrael was impressed with how quickly his mother had risen to prominence back in her native Ordena. She had only been there for the three years Emrael and Ban had been at the Citadel, after all. It seemed very quick for an outsider to ascend to power in a governing body. He had some questions for the next time he saw her.
After an agreeing nod from Jaina, he addressed the room once more. “Fair enough. I need two volunteers to escort my squads carrying messages to the Lords Holder of the Barros Province. The four Holders in the south are ready to revolt against the Lord Governor, and I am going to offer an alliance if they’ll keep Barros off our ass. I need another two of you to stay here with Dorae, and two more to go to Halrec in Larreburgh.”
“Where will the rest go?” one of the Imperator Healers, Cailla, asked. Several others nodded at the question.
“The others will be with me,” Emrael said. “We’re going to Trylla, where we’ll build a settlement. From there, we’ll fight a war to reclaim the Ire Holding and eventually the entire Iraean Kingdom. It will be fast, ruthless, and I’ll need every one of you.”
The Imperators nodded, and Emrael looked to Jaina. “We have three Healers, correct?”
She nodded.
“I’d like to send one to Halrec and keep two with us. I’ll leave the rest of the assignments to you. I’ll have the sealed letters ready for the Barros Lords Holder in the morning. They are to leave immediately.”
“Can I leave Tarelle here with you, then?” Emrael asked Dorae as they sat together in the Lord Holder’s private study. Shelves of books filled the room, a large writing desk perched near the single window, and a few cushioned chairs for reading sat in a crescent about the large stone fireplace. Timan, ever present, sat near the door and kept to himself.
Dorae pursed his lips as he thought about it. “I suppose, but if he is working with Corrande and the Malithii, he’ll be easier for them to reach here. I don’t know what good it’ll do them now that you hold Larreburgh, but he might be able to stir up trouble. He still has his family lands in the west of his Holding, and a personal guard he could call on. He didn’t retain his Holding by being a brainless lump, you know. Watch him carefully.”
Emrael clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Fine, I’ll cart him along with me. But I swear to the Absent Gods, if he causes any trouble, I’m hanging him.”
Dorae laughed and lounged back in his chair. “Fine by me, but I won’t save you if his Holding goes up in flames. I’ve got more than I can handle just keeping the Fallen-damned Watchers at bay. Half the city is in ruins, Absent Gods only know where I’m going to find the coin to pay for repairs and supplies for the city. Ships have stopped sailing up the river, and I suspect Syrtsan is as much to blame as Barros.”
Emrael nodded slowly. “Raebren obviously believes the same. The Ordenans will likely want to make a deal with us, but I don’t know what kind of volume they’ll be able to move or for what price. I’ll deal with Syrtsan, Barros, and the rest of them in time.”
“Bayr?” Dorae asked.
Emrael kept a straight face. “We’ll see about Bayr. We’ll see. I offered him Syrtsan lands if he joins us.”
Dorae smiled and lifted his eyebrows, incredulous. “How did you know Syrtsan wouldn’t give you his ring?”
Emrael shook his head. “I didn’t, not for certain. The offer was for Ire lands if Syrtsan allied himself with us. But you and Toravin said that Bayr covets the Syrtsan ports more than anything else. We’ll only know for sure if he shows up in Trylla.”
“What if he runs to the Watchers, has them waiting for you at Trylla?”
“I haven’t told him where to meet us yet. I’m not an idiot. I told him to be ready to travel, and that I’ll send him word shortly.”
Dorae stroked his chin, face serious but eyes gleaming mischievously. “Clever, Emrael. Very clever. Seems as though you’ve thought of everything.”
“I’m trying,” Emrael said, pouring himself more brandy to hide how pleased he was at the compliment. “There’s one more thing. As I said before, Halrec is going to need your help.”
He passed him a letter sealed with wax stamped with his family’s ancient crest that was carved into the butt of the pommel of his sword, a shaggy red mountain stag surrounded by angular runes.
“I sent Halrec an offer. He will be the new Lord Holder of the Tarelle Holding if he can keep it intact, but that won’t happen unless you keep supplies flowing to him, and men. He’ll be fighting on two fronts. Maybe more.”
Picking up his mug of dark ale, Dorae took a sip before responding. “I have problems of my own, remember?”
Emrael smiled. “Yes, but you have more men, more supplies, and I’ll make sure trade resumes up the Stem. And if Larreburgh falls, you’re next. All the same, there’s something in it for you. That letter grants you half of Tarelle’s fertile lands west of the Burned Hills … if we hold the Tarelle Holding with your help. Make sure Halrec has the men and supplies he needs, Dorae.”
Dorae licked his teeth, nodding. “That’ll work.”