fate's pawn 27

 

Chapter 27

 

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for a raid on the food pens, for trógling,” said Kaz to her friends. “Getting in and releasing them is the easy part; it’s escaping afterwards, and that is what has to be planned meticulously.”

“In other words, we are going to be pursued by warriors of Tor and priestesses of the Blue Moon, out for our blood, whilst nursing along a group of terrified civilians who may be weak and ill, uncertain what’s going on, and half likely to go back to the slavery they know, slowing up our escape and making us more of a target for not having the discipline of silence,” said Protasion.

“Yes. You have a problem with that?” said Kaz.

“No, just wanting to make sure we know all the drawbacks in advance for you to scheme around,” said Protasion.

“I will need Evgon to use his best brokerage skills, and obtain me boats,” said Kaz.

“Oho! Is that how you plan to do it?” said Kuros.

“It’s the only way I can think of to escape at speed,” said Kaz. “I came downriver on a log. It was the most frightening experience of my life, not excluding our little excursion to kill undead. It’s the white water. And I’m not even sure how feasible it is with boats.”

“Not at all, I believe, unless you have the skills,” said Evgon. “Below all the rapids, yes, it’s a good idea. But taking out panicking refugees through something already dangerous… face it, Kaz, you are exceptional, and you are courageous.”

Kaz flushed mauve.

“Certainly stubborn,” she murmured.

“How averse are you to going in winter?” asked Protasion.

“It will be hard to travel through snow, especially for any children, who will cool down quickly,” said Kaz.

“Sledges,” said Protasion.

“Sledges? What do you mean?” asked Kaz.

“Don’t Toróg uses sledges to carry goods through snow? Carts on runners, not wheels, that go over the snow,” said Protasion.

“No,” said Kaz. “Trade comes to a halt in the Long White. Hunting using snowshoes can carry on – wide, flat frames with osiers woven in them to strap to the shoes,” she explained.

“Fine; we will learn to use snowshoes to go, and we will leave sleds ready to pack people into,” said Protasion.

“With runes of warming carved on the inside and plenty of quilts,” said Lelyn. “Snow deep enough for that can reach as far as Melokome, and then we have a ship chartered to bring us down Lake Hudrogeminas, to Mesolimnos.”

“Good, that is sorted,” said Kaz. “And we pull the sleds?”

“And ride them down hills,” said Protasion. “If we can find somewhere steepish to leave them, and we get everyone in, and let them run… or we can have horses trained to pull them.”

“We get snow on the Great Plains,” said Svargia. “Sleighs or sleds are used.”

Vulk’s big bulk lowered over them.

“I could find you some intelligent wolves to pull sleds,” he said. “If they were paid in meat.”

“Interbred with normal wolves?” asked Kaz.

“Yes; it happens. Not all Lycoids can keep their minds at full of the moon. I must change, but I need not be animal. But breeding happens. Those with some reasoning tend to band together.”

“They would make excellent allies,” said Kaz. “Were you volunteering to come, in order to get things set up?”

“Why not? Polia speaks the Toróg language, you know. She once got away from a Warlord of Tor by winning a riddling competition. He took a slice from her rump, but she was able to heal herself and leave.”

“That must have been nervous,” said Kaz.

“She’s sassy. It gets her into trouble, but it gets her out of it, too,” said Vulk.

“Why are you all staring at me?” said Kaz, plaintively, as eyes swivelled.

“Because it could describe you, too,” said Protasion. “And Rynn.”

“It’s why we’re alive,” said Rynn. “Able to talk our way out of trouble.”

“Fine,” said Kaz. “I’ll clear it with Pythas. We’ll want to get to Melokome before winter sets in to sort out our supplies.”

“Nothing wrong with sailing there as well as back,” said Evgon. “My father will be able to recommend a sailor for hire.”

“Make sure he knows he will be carrying freed tróglings,” said Kaz. “Some people do make a silly fuss.”

Evgon nodded.

“If he suggests a man I fancy I know, he’ll do anything to put one over Toróg,” he said. “His brother was killed by them,”

“Fine, I leave that in your hands,” said Kaz. “We need to scout well, have the sleds made, and contact wolves. I fancy it’ll take about a month to set up.”

“But it will only take a couple of days at most to sail there,” said Protasion. “And then we will have to work quietly and covertly. Any word of our plans getting out might be sold to the Toróg, because there are plenty of adventurers in Melokome, and we all know that few of them have any honour, or care what trouble they cause for their profits.”

Vulk scowled.

“I grew up with men’s hands against me,” he said. “I was orphaned young, and had to leave anywhere I might get work before the next full moon. It gives a feeling that who cares, when they don’t care for you. You accept me. I’ve changed once, and you smuggled me out to go run by the red river, to get rid of my energy. This means a lot. Once, only Polia accepted me.”

“As once only Vulk accepted me,” said Polia. “I was used by my uncle when I was eight, and he pimped me out.”

“I trust his demise was bloody?” asked Kaz.

Polia gave her a fierce grin.

“Very,” she said.

“Are you ready to fight for others in your situation, who don’t have your strength?” asked Kaz.

“I suppose I am,” said Polia. “You people are not soft; I thought caring for others was soft, but it isn’t.”

“You can admit it to Vulk, you know,” said Kaz. She winked at Polia. “And we’ll all take turns to walk your puppies.”

Polia laughed.

“That’s the first time anyone has ever got away with calling me a bitch in public,” she said. “I can’t have children; I went to the temple of Phrodine, and to the temple of Latrika, and both told me it was impossible, as I was too damaged.”

“I want to kill your uncle again, and slowly,” said Kaz. “Perhaps it is a gift Alethos can give; but I fancy only if Vulk chooses to lose the chaos.”

“I might think about it,” said Polia. “I plan to rise in the cult now I’ve proved I can keep my temper, and work within the rules. I… I have come home.”

“I felt the same way, sword-sister,” said Kaz.

“It’s the first time you’ve called me that,” said Polia.

“Maybe I finally feel like welcoming you as a sister,” said Kaz. “Which human two will be coming inside we will argue about later. We have two rings of darkseeing, from cultists of Aima, which is not as good as darksense, but is better than human sight.”

“I’m handy in the dark if it is not total,” said Vulk. “I may as well use it before I lose it to a two-edged gift.”

“Oh, Alethos will happily bargain over the precise gift,” said Kaz, a gentle smile touching her mouth. “He might give you a second geas if you are greedy about how much you keep, but then, you might end up with the ability to shift when you want.”

“That would be something,” said Vulk. “Would that not still be chaotic?”

“No, because it would be at your volition and not caused by the chaos moon,” said Kaz.

“She’ll probably talk him into it now,” said Protasion. “I look into those eager amber eyes of hers, and I have a vision of trógling wolf-cavalry.”

“You have to admit, they’d be rather special night troops,” said Kaz.

 

 

oOoOo

 

“I do not like boats,” said Kaz as Lelyn helped her rinse out and wash her mouth. “I was fine on the river, but this lake bucks more than the log I rode down the rapids. And there I was too scared to be sick, even if I’d had anything in my belly.”

“You can’t be good at everything,” said Lelyn.

“Oh, well, it’s only a couple of days,” said Kaz. “If it’s a trógling problem, we should try to get some meat on them before we get to the lake.”

“We can worry about that when we have them free,” said Lelyn.

Kaz endured; by the time they came into dock, she mostly had her sea legs, and was only a slighter greener shade than the normal delicate blue grey of her skin.

As Rynn had been unaffected, it appeared not to be a racial flaw, which Kaz found heartening when she found out.

“An’ we’ll dance back as smooth as smooth with the wind in our favour, Mistress Kaz,” said the sailor. “You kill me a few toróg, now.”

“I’m more concerned to save tróglings, but it will probably come to that,” said Kaz.

Melokome was the northernmost city of Limnesthos, and was in a festive mood, about to celebrate the Winter Solstice, and sundry street entertainers told the story of how the King of Ice fought Solos, and the great stalemate led them to negotiate that the King of Ice would hold sway for three months, and Solos would overcome him at the middle of his reign to be ready to succeed to the throne as the King of Ice receded. It was a muddled sort of myth, owing much to the tales of northmen from the Great Depression, whence came Harkon. Some portrayed the King of Ice as a Toróg, presumably Tor; others, in a motley of whites, blues, greys, and black, as Daze, and others as the Sky Wolf who ravished the gentle Blue Moon. Here, away from Selenite influence, the chaos influence was portrayed strongly.

“Seasons turned before chaos,” said Protasion. “Though the wind gods were sent insane, and I suppose seasons got a bit muddled for a while before they were healed. Still, we should be tolerant of local superstitions.”

“You’re being pompous again,” laughed Kaz, happy to be on dry land.

 “What’s the Toróg version of winter?” asked Lelyn.

“It involves Solos having a fit of the sulks, and having to be tricked out of the cave where he hid by Umbros, god of storms, who invented ball lightning, which he tossed into Solos’s cave, chasing him out with his robes held above his ankles,” said Kaz.

They all sniggered.

“Here’s Evgon,” said Kaz. Evgon had gone ahead, to arrange accommodation.

“I got us a country house out of town,” said Evgon. “The family are staying with relatives over the celebrations; and we shall have to move on, but working on the likelihood that we would be doing this more than once, I asked Pythas about finances, and he gave me enough to buy a small farm. I’ll be looking for that, and we might put a tenant in to work it so long as we can come and go with no questions asked.”

Kaz nodded. “There’s good bedrock under the soil here, we can add tunnels if we have our own place. Try to get one within a mile of the lake, so we can run a tunnel clear down to the water.”

“Oh, good thinking. Yes, I will keep that in mind,” said Evgon. “I haven’t called at our temple; the lord-priest isn’t such an old fool as the one in Kallos, but he’s a bit of a tippler. And we all know that when secrets are shared with a wine glass, the glass sings them to all and sundry.”

“Indeed,” said Kaz. “Well, let us go and settle in.” She sighed.

“Missing… Alathan?” asked Lelyn.

“Like mad,” said Kaz. “But I can’t ask him to guide me every step of the way, I need to establish myself.”

“I hope he will send you those nice dreams,” said Lelyn.

“He does; most nights I can almost feel him beside me as I drop off,” said Kaz. “It keeps me calm. This is horribly risky, and I probably should not have asked any of you to come along.”

“We are your self-sworn followers since that prophecy,” said Lelyn. “You aren’t getting rid of us.”

“Prophecy?” asked Polia.

“Behold! The Daywalker brings in a new dawn, with joy for the cursed, and the ending of curses, the healing of the land and the moon. The Daywalker brings death, and truth, and life, and love; and she shall be cursed to live forever and desire Death; but the curse shall become a blessing, indeed.”

Polia shuddered.

“It sounds terrible,” she said.

“Well, there are mitigations to it,” said Lelyn. “If we get closer to you and Vulk, we’ll tell you about it, but we’re still feeling our way around.”

“Understood,” said Polia.

 

The days in the run up to the solstice involved procuring sleds, down-filled comforters, blankets, and food, and a few sheep for Vulk and Polia to take into the hills to contact the wolves. They also spent much time learning how to walk on the unwieldy-looking snowshoes, until they could go as fast as walking on normal ground on them. A few falls and contusions were readily dealt with, and by the time Vulk and Polia returned, with half a dozen wolves, they were ready to take the three sleds up towards Toróg country, Evgon having found the farm of a man who was retiring to live in the city with his sons, who had not wanted to inherit it.

It would be a good base, and the farmer’s last remaining hand willing to stay on as a caretaker, so long as he was not expected to run it at a profit.