Oathkeeper (47 page)

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Acrid relief arrived in the form of a bit of shredded
jallek
root so old and shriveled Wylant wondered if it was a dose she had left behind on her last trip to Fort Sunder all those years ago. Wylant watched as, along the walls and battlements and in the courtyards and buildings of Fort Sunder, warsuits patrolled in grid-like patterns looking for more hidden reptiles. They hadn't found any other assassins, but that did not stop them from patrolling in greater numbers and more actively than before, even to the point of shifting their coverage at apparently random intervals to make it harder for stealthy infiltrators to go undetected. It actually seemed to have lifted their spirits. She had to chuckle at that. Give an Aern or a warsuit a problem to solve or an enemy to hunt, and they're happy.

Vax, far more prone to wandering since their link had been completed, rested in her lap looking like a crudely fashioned figure of a metal cat. Lacking a proper sense of the importance of a good mattress, the billet in which she sat was appointed with a hard metal berth, little more than a flat bench attached to the wall, a chair, and a worktable. There was likely a bed in her old quarters, the ones she had shared with Kholster. He would have thought of that long before she completed her trip from Port Ammond.

I should fly out to meet the king
, she thought for the hundredth time.
Mazik and the Sidearms have it handled
, she countered. He had Bash, too, and the combined might of the Eldrennai and Aernese Armored military—as far as that went—and Sargus would look after the king in a way Wylant knew he would no other. Hard to believe any seed of Uled's could find praise in her thoughts, but Sargus was proof that there was no such thing as bad blood. She pitied the Zaur who tried to kill the king Sargus protected.

Still she thrummed her gauntleted fingers on the worktable, trying to put herself in the mindset not only of Warlord Xastix or Kholster but also King Rivvek. Xastix had attacked the Overwatches with assassins. Cutting off enemy lines of communication made sense. More so with the Aern because it had so rarely been managed in anything but a temporary manner and even then only through tricks or extremely unlikely circumstances.

Attacking Port Ammond from the sea made sense as well.

“But what do they have to gain from letting the Eldrennai evacuate to Fort Sunder?” Wylant sucked at a wiry strand of
jallek
root that had worked itself between two teeth as she chewed thoughtfully. “Why not crush them at Port Ammond? Pierce the irkanth's heart and be done, as it were?”

Had it been a matter of them failing to account for Hasimak's power? Even she had not known the extent of his abilities. Now the armor network was alive with assembled memories, any interaction the High Elementalist had had with any of the Armored compiled together as a batch of recollections to be explored and examined freely by one and all. There wasn't much there other than to confirm Hasimak had never held the leash. He'd kept to himself and his students unless forced to appear at state functions. She'd always respected the old elf, known he was old, but not quite how ancient—

“Hasimak held off the Zaur with the help of the Elemental Nobles?”

Yes,
Clemency answered.
Glayne left one of his soul-bonded weapons behind to continue to observe.

“And then what?” Wylant steepled her hands, eyes closed. When she still saw through Clemency's eyes she imagined the sensation of shutting her eyelids again, the second time bringing the inner dark she wanted.

They remain in place and continue resisting,
Clemency said.
The Elementalists traveling with the evacuees are weaker without their assistance, but King Rivvek and Kholster Rae'en's combined forces have been able to successfully repel all attempts to hinder the retreat to Fort Sunder.

“Can you show me one of them, please?” Wylant watched the harrying attacks unfold. After the fourth, she cursed. “Are you doing what I think you're doing, Warlord?”

Ma'am?
Clemency's thoughts were tinged with mild confusion.

She knows he can't hear her
, Vax sent.
She's just working it through. Like a kholster whispering into her hands.

“The Zaur are resistant to magic.” Wylant leaned back in her chair, drawing a deep breath and picturing the path from the port to Fort Sunder. “But not immune like the Aern.”

Correct, Mother
, Vax chortled.
I must admit I respect their ingenuity.

I do not follow.

I do
, a young male voice whispered in her mind.
Well done, kholster Wylant. Are you available to lead an escort to intercept the evacuees?

“Who the—?”

It is the Prime Overwatch, Kazan,
Clemency explained.
You said you did not mind if I shared information with him.

“Two things.” Wylant stood, eyes snapping open, and sheathed Vax. “He read your mind, not mine?”

Of course.

“I have no objection to that, if you don't.” Striding for the door, she asked the second thing, it only now dawning on her that they'd referred to this Kazan person as the new “Second of One Hundred.” “Wait. What happened to Vander?”

He died and passed on his warsuit, Eyes of Vengeance, to Rae'en's initial Prime Overwatch.

“Just his warsuit?” Wylant floated down the hallway and out on to the ramparts again, exactly where she had stood when the assassins attacked.

“Tell Kazan I may be needed here, please.” Wylant muttered.

You could think to him, if you wished.

“I don't wish.” Wylant ran gauntlets over the black stubble on her scalp. Soon she'd have to attempt a hairstyle again. “Vander, though. He gave Kazan his warsuit?”

Yes.

“His warpick, too?”

Yes.

“His memories or skills?”

Neither.

“So, like Kholster then?”

I suppose.
Clemency paused. The sensation of that break in conversation, the conveyed knowledge that more words were coming, but the warsuit needed a moment or two to think things through was one of the best things about mental communication. Never having to guess what the other person grasped or didn't . . . never being unsure about whether or not to fill a silence.

Down in Bark's Bend, the village at the edge of the Shard River, Wylant spotted the tiny shapes of villagers. What did they make of the renewed life breathed into the fortress so nearby? Did they worry? Were they reassured? Did they wonder if they would once again be paid in bone-steel for cattle ranching? The news of King Rivvek's death sentence would not have reached them, yet, but then . . . how many of Bark's Bend's simple folks would have ever had the chance to give any Aern an order?

There are no warsuits at Oot,
Clemency answered eventually,
to allow me to fully answer the question of how closely the actions of Vander, post-death, have mimicked those of your husband.

“I could always ask him . . .” Even at that simple thought, not naming him but speaking and thinking of Kholster, she felt him nearby, awaiting her call. But did she need him? Certainly he could slay the whole of the Zaur and Sri'Zaur in existence if he wanted . . . and might do so . . . if she asked. But what would that kind of interference do to him? To meddle in the affairs of those who remained mortal. He had interfered on her behalf with Dienox, and with Vax, but Kholster . . .

“Gods, but you are infuriating,” Wylant hissed. His name lingered on her tongue unsaid. For their entire marriage she had avoided giving him an order. Why then, now that he was finally free, would she do so?
No, I may be the one person who could order him to slay my foes no matter how numerous, but I will not do so. I am Wylant. I defeated the Aern. As distasteful as it may be, there is always a way . . .

You're close, Mom
, Vax told her, the pommel of his hilt resembling a snake, eyes upturned to watch her.

Close to what?
Wylant thought back.

To figuring out what Father wanted you to know.

“The Vander thing, the finding a way thing, or . . .” Annoyed at the ambiguity, she flung her hand out to indicate the Eldrennai hamlet below. “. . . this view?”

At a thought, Clemency increased the magnification of her vision. The Eldrennai in the village. What about them struck her as so unusual ? Not all of them could cast, but at least two of them could. Two children played tag in the air, young Aeromancers zipping in and out around the small buildings, zooming close to farm animals that were no longer spooked by their antics. That close to the northern edge of Fort Sunder, the shrubland and jagged terrain of the Broken Plain met a withered mirror of its former lushness. Drinkable water flowed from the river, and crops would grow . . . there the elemental magic of the Eldrennai functioned properly for those who were not protected, as she was or those of royal blood were, from the aftermath of the Sundering of the Life Forge . . .

“Hells.” Wylant grasped Vax's hilt. Hard.

Why would a warlord, a demonstrably clever one capable of building a vast network of tunnels right under their careless gazes, invade from the sea while possessing a superior land force? Why not surround and hem in the Eldrennai? Why allow them to flee to a place of martial power, well fortified, where they would have strong allies to assist them?

“It has to be in your strategic interest, Warlord. And I think I see your plan or part of it. . . .”

Fort Sunder, to the reptilian warlord, had to be a preferable place to engage the Eldrennai. A place of strength for the Aern that would prove a weakness for the Eldrennai. Wylant watched again those images Glayne had observed: Five elves (the most powerful and well-trained Elementalists to be sure, but still only five) slew hundreds, even thousands of troops. But take any one of them and remove his or her arcane might, and that left four well-trained combatants and an old schoolmaster who might slay tens, even hundreds with luck and good weather, but never thousands.

Lack of magic aside, what would the cramped conditions do to the refugees? Down below, warsuits moved about the courtyard, training ground, and every scrap of available space, making preparations for the incoming flood of evacuees. Poles were being laid out and tents assembled. Had Kholster completely restocked the fort when he, for lack of a better word . . . reforged it? No. She saw no animal pens. No livestock. Just physical equipment, then?

“The tents won't be enough.” Fort Sunder was large, with walls now made of bone-steel after Kholster's bit of divine remodeling, but even if the refugees camped on every scrap of training ground between the main gates and the rise of steps up the butte to the fortress proper, Wylant couldn't imagine things would go well. Fort Sunder had once been home to more than a quarter of a million Aern, but . . .

Dropping over the lip of the wall, Wylant eyed the berths built into the fortification. Thirty feet thick and just over forty feet tall, the wall surrounding Fort Sunder ran just under a quarter of a jun from one side of the butte upon which the fortress proper stood to the other, and it was honeycombed with berths for the Aern, two thousand, two hundred and fifty in all with no ladder leading from berth to berth. One just used the berth below or above and climbed.

No Eldrennai would sleep there.

She had done it once, to prove that she could, but it was not her idea of comfort. To be fair, Mazik and some of Lancers might, but not many.

Wylant crossed to the nearest barracks building and stepped inside. Claustrophobic was an understatement. Twelve-foot ceilings were high and good, but with each set of bunks wrought of stone and going from floor to ceiling and only a space of five hands between one bunk and the bottom of the next (roughly the same distance from elbow to fingertip for an average Aern) . . .

“Five-by-five-by-five.” Wylant ran her gauntlets along stone, feeling its cool rough surface on her fingertips despite the intervening metal. Holding out her arms, Wylant could easily bridge the distance from one rack to the next. “By five again. Five bunks in a stack with five stacks in a shelf and five shelves to a single barracks . . . and only nine hands of clearance between each row of shelves . . . gods but it would get hot inside these things.”

Six hundred and twenty-five Aern in such a confined space creates a lot of body heat,
Clemency thought,
but I fail to see why it would prove to be an issue. Isn't kholster Rae'en using the evacuation, the larger, stronger mobile force to ensure the maximum number of Aern survive any assassination attempts while they regroup?

“No.” Wylant sniffed. “She's acting in good faith. I've never met a kholster who didn't . . . from their own point of reference.”

Surely,
Clemency argued,
they will be willing to submit to minor discomfort . . . ?

“It's still insufficient.” Even if the Eldrennai would sleep in such close quarters, since only one-fifth of the Aern on duty were asleep at any given time, there were only eighty barracks buildings, so they could only house fifty thousand people in them. True, there was space inside the main fortress itself, rooms that had been meant to serve as homes for the Eldrennai observers, visiting Eldrennai troops for training, and, of course, Uled's old chambers . . . and her own.

Exiting the barracks, she flew up to hover near the center of the courtyard. Could they defend it against the Zaur? There was no doubt that a proper Aernese force could do so, and had done so against Ghaiattri in the Demon Wars, but then the Aern had been supported by the full elemantic might of an unbroken Eldrennai people. A people who had not lost a full half of their population in the first Demon War, been halved again by the second, and a third time on Freedom Day and the days of rage that followed it. . . .

A few thousand Aern, even with warsuits, even assuming the bulk of the population of Port Ammond made it to Fort Sunder in fighting trim, wouldn't be much over one hundred thousand people, and only a tenth of those were active military. Perhaps another twenty percent would have served at one time or another. . . .