Chapter Forty-One
Caine resisted the urge to roll his eyes when Pandora Veriden glanced over at the tall swordsman and complained, “You could have just told us your name, you know?”
“And how was I to know the name ‘Tirolane’ would mean anything to you? Did I have suspicions that you might prove to be friends rather than a rogue band of harrows and scythes? Certainly. Your means of crossing the river required discipline they lack. And the concern you have for your followers marks you as their antithesis. But that did not lead me to conclude that you must therefore be friends of the Legate in general, Tasvar in particular, or that my name had ever come up in your conversations.”
He shrugged. “Besides, first meetings are not the time for further conjectures. I had to determine if my initial impressions were correct. And I perceived that I would be able to speak directly with your leadership, inasmuch as your whakt lieutenant did not resist taking us to you.”
Dora turned dead eyes back toward Bey, who was following the lead group.
Bey raised her chin and her voice. “Leader Veriden, please ask before you judge.” Though phrased as a request, Bey’s tone was much closer to an ultimatum. “Given what I have seen your armor suits withstand, I did not deem the weapons of Tirolane or his men dangerous to Leaders Caine and Miles.” She shrugged. “Besides, I not only saw the newcomers’ rad in the distance, but the pennant it was flying: the Legate’s crossed sword and pen.”
As Miles chuckled, Dora grew annoyed: whether at him or Bey was unclear. “Then why didn’t you just say that when you returned with them?”
Bey shook her head sharply. “Although I deemed it unlikely, it could have been enemies traveling under a false flag. And since our Leaders were far more likely to kill than be killed, and would surely summon aid with their magic helmets, I chose not to reveal that I had seen and recognized the newcomers’ symbol. Doing so might have emboldened them, if they were impostors.”
Tirolane, who was as tall as Newton but as smooth and heavily muscled as a tiger, tilted his head and nodded appreciatively. “I see why you have her as your lieutenant, Lord Riordan.”
Caine waved a hand at the honorific. “We are not your, or anyone’s, lords.”
“No? That is unusual. Welcome, but unusual. So you have heard my name. Did Tasvar share any details in connection with it?”
“Only that you are from Zrik Whir, that you and the caravan with which you traveled were ambushed upon the wastes, and that you left in search of two friends who were taken captive. But we would never have guessed that you and he were the same person.”
“Indeed? Why not?”
“Because we have been told that the natives of Zrik Whir are very dark of skin. And you are, well, anything but.”
“Pinker than most of us,” Dora groused.
Tirolane nodded. “Your confusion is understandable. Zrik Whir is the land of my birth, but it is not the land of my ancestors.”
Riordan and the others waited for him to say more, but he did not do so. “You mentioned seeing us cross the river.”
“I did not see the entire process, but what little I witnessed convinced me you were extremely methodical in your use of tools. Very advanced tools. I heard what sounded like boomings—”
“Boomings are gunfire?” Craig ventured.
“That is an interesting word for it; more precise. At any rate, yes, but it was both deeper and less sharp. That is when I saw what appeared to be a heavy quarrel completing its arc just above the high-water bank, trailing a shiny cord in its wake.
“I led these scouts toward what we hoped would be an upstream vantage point. However, most of your position was concealed by low rises, and we dared not ascend for fear of being spotted. What we did see was a very complicated crossing using impossibly fine yet strong tackle and an uncommonly disciplined formation.”
He glanced sideways. “Harrows and scythes are dangerous, but they resist taking orders and are impatient when giving them. You were neither. Your pickets were attentive and their placement was very thoughtful.”
“Yet they could still have been troops of a hostile liege,” Arashk pointed out.
Tirolane nodded. “Whether or not their liege was hostile, my expectations were as you suggest, Friend Arashk: that they were part of an x’qao’s human stable, or the forces of a liege that is not sworn to one of their M’qrugth suzerains.”
The Dornaani translator, which Riordan had activated before he’d known the newcomers were friends, gave him the English equivalent in his earbud: “M’qrugth. Meaning: Great or Evolved Lord of killspawn. Accuracy: low to average.”
“However,” Tirolane continued, “I have never seen any liege with so many humans uniformly equipped in what are clearly pristine ancient artifacts. And whereas humans are rarely more than twenty percent of any force they send forth, you are almost twice that portion.” He shook his head; his very straight and very black bangs swayed slightly. “I have seen much in my travels, but never anything like you. I should be interested to see the land, or secret holding, that gave rise to a group such as yours. It must be quite different.”
You have no idea. But Riordan only nodded and said, “That might be possible, one day. In the meantime, though, it is our intent to visit Zrik Whir.”
Tirolane’s expression slipped back into a stern mask. “Zrik Whir does not welcome visitors.”
Caine could almost hear the slight bow in Ayana’s reply. “We hope it will make an exception for us.”
“Why should it?”
“We have a piece of knowledge that will be of keen interest to its leaders.”
“Having never been there, you seem strangely certain of this. Why do you think Zrik Whir would be so interested in this knowledge?”
Duncan’s offhand comment could not have been better if Riordan had scripted it. “Well, Tasvar was interested. He not only found it very useful, but very, very valuable.”
“Oh? And why did he find it so ‘valuable’?”
Riordan shrugged. “You are familiar with the ancient guns that fire without stopping? The ones that do not require so much as a touch to reload them and will fire until they have no more shells?”
Tirolane frowned. “I know the guns you mean, but unless found along with the ancient shells they fired, they no longer work as you say. Now, the gunner must ready each new shell by hand.”
“The knowledge we have would allow those weapons to function as they did originally.”
Tirolane’s eyes widened slightly before he mastered his reaction. “Perhaps you may be welcome in Zrik Whir after all.” His voice became a low murmur. “Speak this to no one you meet here. Such knowledge is dangerous to those who have it. Particularly when they or their companions walk on paths that may lead to capture by x’qai. We shall talk at length when time permits, but not in haste.”
“Agreed.” As Riordan nodded, they topped a small rise. Several hundred meters ahead and further inland, a cluster of large rocks protruded from the sand and dust. Nestled in among them were figures and two large, boxy silhouettes.
“Are those . . . rads?” Peter asked eagerly. When asked what his favorite role had been when on IRIS operations, he’d always admitted, “wheelman” with a slow, sly smile. Then he usually had to explain what that almost-forgotten term meant.
“They are indeed rads,” Tirolane replied, waving one of his men forward to report their return and that their visitors were friendly.
One of the two rads was the kind they’d glimpsed in Tasvar’s fortress. Little more than stripped chassis with engines and seats, they had honeycomb rather than inflatable tires and rear sections that could carry cargo or personnel.
However, the other rad looked like a cross between a vehicle framework and a skeleton. It was made of varnished bone and had a tall drum rising up from its center. Pointing at the stubby vertical column, Riordan asked, “A windrad?”
Tirolane glanced sideways. “You have not seen one before?”
“I have only heard of them.”
“How the hell does that thing even go?” Dora muttered.
Newton cleared his throat. “It is equipped with a rotary sail.”
“You mean, like a windmill?” Girten sounded more amazed than confused.
“Er, yes, if you built one sideways. Imagine an anemometer, but with tall vanes instead of cups to capture the wind.”
“I don’t see any vanes,” Dora complained.
Tirolane nodded. “That is because their housing—the short column at its center—has its sealed part facing us. When in operation, the guide vent, which is approximately a third of its circumference, is turned toward the wind to capture it. That not only focuses the force of the breeze but protects the rotary mechanism.”
“Must be a bitch when the wind don’t blow,” O’Garran laughed.
Tirolane nodded. “They are not vehicles that one can ride into an attack. However, they still carry light loads, consume no fuel, and move much more swiftly than dustkine when the wind is sufficient. But when the air is still, it is as you say: they must be concealed until the breeze returns.”
“Just like most logistical vehicles,” Bannor sighed. “Really vulnerable but really useful . . . so long as the conditions are right.”
“You sound like a soldier, rather than a warrior,” Tirolane observed, glancing at him.
“At last!” Duncan exclaimed, “Someone else who understands the difference!”
Tirolane could not suppress a small smile. “There are more of us than you might think. Come: let us meet Sharat. He is one of Tasvar’s most reliable field commanders. He will wish to hear your story.”
***
The meeting of the two groups very nearly resulted in a friendly-fire event.
At one hundred fifty meters range, Ta’rel cried out in surprised joy and ran toward Sharat’s encampment. The defenders raised their weapons instantly . . . but reluctantly lowered them when a vastly different mangle—Riordan saw tufted ears and large lambent eyes—came running out toward him. The humans that had bent meaningfully over guns and the humanoids hunched behind crossbows didn’t relent in their intent so much as they no longer had a clear line of fire to Ta’rel.
In the end, though, it was probably a fine way for the two groups to meet: bonding over shared frustrations with the impulsively sociable mangles. Even as the first tentative handshakes were exchanged, the soldiers on both sides were shaking their heads over how the otherwise clever species never quite got the hang of what they should and shouldn’t do when traveling with war parties.
Sharat himself hung back with a lieutenant and two large humanoids until Tirolane approached and apparently conveyed some particularly reassuring details about the much larger party of visitors. Smiling, Tasvar’s field commander came out in place of Tirolane and extended an open hand toward Caine.
The formal introductions took a few minutes, since Caine’s group was comprised of a dozen equally important human “leaders” in addition to four locals of similar stature. In that time, Riordan and Bannor were able to get a head count of Sharat’s unit. The four other humans bore no insignia, but their equipment was familiar: a match for what they’d seen on Tasvar’s retainers. The same was largely true regarding the four whakt, half of whom seemed to be capable archers as well as axemen. Of the three h’achgai, Arashk recognized two: their reunion was loud enough that leaders from both groups had to bend warning glances in that direction.
Of the other three significantly larger beings, both were of species that none of the Crewe had encountered personally. Two were prakhbrai: outsized trogs with markedly smaller skulls but longer limbs. But the third was completely unknown to them. Slow and oddly thick, the being’s genetic roots might have arisen from trogs, but it was almost well over two meters tall, with profoundly stunted toes and fingers. Two of the whakt seemed to be its handlers, and their exchanges with it were always in simple words, often repeated several times.
Caine gestured toward the closest of the trogs—Bey’s old friend Zaatkhur—who approached warily. “That large being,” Riordan muttered, “what is it?”
Zaatkhur, a paragon of subtlety, turned directly toward the creature, stared at it intently, turned back to Caine and shrugged. “I have not seen its like. Well, not exactly.”
As Riordan braced himself to extract the additional information Zaatkhur clearly had but hadn’t thought to include, Bannor forged ahead: “What does it remind you of?”
Zaatkhur shuddered. “Cave things.” He made a warding sign. “The Great Tunnels; that’s what gives rise to ’em what looks like that. I’ve only seen one or two with those stumpy toes and fingers. Though now, I’m one to talk, hey?” He held up his half-fingered hand, apparently oblivious to the fact that the humans to whom he was speaking had led the attack which had cost him the other half. “They’re not natural, though. At least, that’s what folk say.”
Riordan nodded at him. “Your information is helpful, Zaatkhur. You are no longer needed.”
The maimed kajh nodded and moved away as quickly as he could.
“Great Tunnels?” Bannor repeated with interest.
Riordan sighed. “Yep. Another thread that we should pull on. But some other time: Sharat is gesturing toward the space between the rads.”
Bannor nodded. “A community mixer, or council of war?”
“I think we both know which is more likely, but let’s go find out.”
***
When Tirolane had returned, Sharat looked around the leaders of the two groups. “All our guests are very welcome, and well met, indeed.”
Riordan knew a leading tone when he heard one. “It sounds like we have arrived at an opportune moment.”
“You have indeed. Tirolane was not at liberty to disclose this until he conferred with me, but we are here to settle a few accounts with a mutual foe.”
“We do not have any foes.”
“Hmmm . . . you made a very fast, hard march north from Forkus through some awful weather. I take it you had a compelling reason to do so. And, from what I intuit, it probably involved upsetting one or more x’qai vassals, maybe even lieges.”
The Crewe’s eyes rotated from Sharat’s face to Caine’s. “Actually,” he answered easily, “that may be correct, but we deemed it unwise to remain there to investigate that possibility.” The smiles and isolated chuckles that answered his reply were genuine. So far, so good. “But if we have angered one or more x’qao lords, it would be unwise to make a habit out of it; we wouldn’t want to annoy those not already angry at us!” Riordan’s tone of honest jocularity apparently had the desired effect; his reply landed not as a veiled rebuttal to Sharat, but an ironic commiseration over the challenges of being a human leader on Bactradgaria.
Sharat’s grin was easy. “All excellent points, all of which invite further details from me. As you may know, there are x’qai leaders in Forkus which are part of a larger faction which we independent humans dub ‘the Rustics.’ They’re seeking strategies to diminish and eventually eliminate their human stables, particularly the troops.”
Riordan nodded, suppressed the anger and revulsion that rose up every time a local referred to human “stables” as if such thralldom was simply an accepted fact of existence. Which it had apparently been for a very long time.
“For a variety of reasons, Tasvar believes that your activity in Forkus frustrated the plans of one of those Rustic x’qai. Others, who translate their faction as ‘the Erudite’ are often willing to pay handsomely for the most promising ‘breed stock’”—Sharat’s eyes narrowed—“from these discontinued stables. It’s one of their caravans that we’ve come here to intercept. Tasvar wishes to send a message to a liege in Forkus—Suradán, sworn to the Erudite suzerain Zhyombphal—that the Legate will not let his maneuvering there go unaddressed. But we also have word that this caravan may have a source of information regarding the location of Tirolane’s missing friends.”
Riordan nodded. “Those are both compelling reasons for considering a cooperative action, but I have one concern.”
Sharat nodded. “Share it, that we may set it aside.”
“You had no idea who we were when we arrived, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Then how could you know what Tasvar does or doesn’t believe in regard to ‘our activity’ in Forkus?”