Oathkeeper (49 page)

“Do you have any blue flower?” Kholburran asked.

“What sort of blue flower?” Goumi smiled, amused.

She doesn't understand
. Kholburran growled in frustration. It wasn't her fault; it was rare enough to find in the wild, and importing gnome-made versions was expensive.

“Not an actual flower,” Kholburran said. “It's a mineral you find around copper deposits.”

Goumi stared at him blankly.

“Other names . . . blue vitriol, uh . . . there's another name, too.”

“Do you mean blue stone?” Goumi asked. “We can get some from the Arborist Cache. They usually have some, probably the same chunk of crystal they showed you in your training, but we can only use it with royal . . .” Kholburran smiled at the priestess, baring his fang-like thorns, “permission . . . ah . . .”

“Arborist Cache?” Kholburran scoffed. “I always just told Malli what I needed.”

“Well, where did you think the supplies came from, little brother?” Yavi waggled her ears at him.

“I didn't think about it.”

Kneeling over Malli's still form, the priestess leaned in close, her head petal fronds brushing Malli's forehead. Forcefully enough to make Kholburran wish she'd been more careful, Goumi depressed Malli's chest, rough bark hand between Malli's breasts.

“Her breath smells okay to me,” Goumi muttered.

“Trust me,” Arri laughed. “Snapdragon is an expert on all of that one's parts. If he said her nose tasted funny, I wouldn't even bother to wonder how he knew.”

Goumi's leer left him wanting to cover himself with a big, thick coat, but if a little embarrassment and ogling got him what he needed to help Malli heal, he resolved to persevere.

CHAPTER 35

ALCHEMICAL BONDING

Being escorted by a new group of Root Guard, these all uninjured and without blemish, gave Tsan the answer for which she had been waiting without the queen uttering a word. Thus far, all their conversations had taken place in the Arboretum with an air of informality Tsan had come to expect from the Weeds. Reports that the Weeds had no throne room proved to have been in error, for what else did one call a large space with a raised seat larger than everyone else's?

As in the Arboretum, both Hashan and Warrune were represented, intermingled roots becoming one throne of living wood upholstered in fabric of a rich dark green with the appearance of felt but holding the scent, like all Weed-wrought creations, of flora. Upon the throne Queen Kari sat, clothed in formal armor cast in white.

Some form of laminate?

She wore no crown, but as Tsan had learned, many of the non-evergreen Weeds were losing their head petals and that Kari had not (never did) served as its own regal display. Tsan did not pretend to understand what being a Root Wife entailed, but as Kari was one, and she was older than the other Weeds, it seemed to convey political advantage rather than the disadvantage brood Matrons endured.

Sunlight shone down as it had in the Arboretum, but here the overhead panes had been tinted to create an image of Kari and two male Weeds touching hands.

Hashan and Warrune, I presume?

Kari's solid red eyes met Tsan's slit-pupiled ones. Tsan prayed for insight from He Who Ruled in Secret and in Shadow. Life was preferable to death, and though Tsan had been allowed to fulfill so many of her lifelong dreams, the destruction of a Root Tree, the burning of a human city, even the killing of countless Weeds, there was more she wanted to accomplish: to be a female who was not forced to hatch a brood, to keep her name, and her rank . . .

Surreptitious sniffs and tongue flicks revealed a nervousness in those around her. Not fear of Tsan personally . . . surely not, but of her reaction.
They still hope for peace
, she thought.
Or at least to avoid open warfare. They are afraid this peace, this chance for it, is about to slip through their grubby little roots. How interesting. Maybe there is room for success despite the Weed queen's decision?

Six Root Guard took positions at either side of the throne; another six positioned themselves on either side of General Tsan.

“Bad news?” Tsan stood on her hind legs, tail stretched out behind as she bobbed her head toward the assembled protectorate.

“You have my deepest regrets, General,” Queen Kari said. “I cannot agree to a truce so readily. Please convey my regrets to Warlord Xastix and inform him that, while the Vael are happy to remain on peaceful terms with the Zaur and the Sri'Zaur, we have existing agreements with the Eldrennai and the Aern that preclude any such new arrangement without consulting them.”

“Is that all?” Tsan chortled in the back of her throat, keeping very still, studying the queen. “May I be permitted to ask the queen why she declines to open such a dialogue?”

“I was under the impression you required an answer now, General,” Kari said.

“Requiring and desiring are two different actions, Your Majesty.” Tsan tasted the air, hoping for more olfactory cues, but it told her nothing other than there was a young Vael running down the exterior corridor. The prince? She could not tell. Not an Eldrennai . . . therefore not the idiot Prince Dolvek, though for him to barge in would have proved most useful. “Perhaps you would consider a temporary truce while you arrange discussions. As I have said, my people cannot accept peace with the Eldrennai, but we are not so close-minded as that requirement paints us. We are also an imaginative people. There exist, as your saying proclaims, more than one way to hunt an irkanth.”

Kari's eyes narrowed.
Had colloquialism been inadvisable?

If so, the mouse was in her mouth now, might as well swallow it, sick or not, eh?

“What do you propose?” Kari asked.

“Merely what I was hoping you might propose. We could be amenable to a war of mutual avoidance with the Aern: an array of territories that would be considered neutral ground, as it were, and others where any faction upon detecting the presence of the other would be completely within their rights to destroy the offending party. The Vael would serve as mutually trusted intermediaries and arbiters over any violations before the Aern come marching into our territory or we go tunneling into theirs.”

While not the overwhelmingly one-sided treaty she knew Warlord Xastix would prefer, Tsan suspected he would go along with it, assuming the bulk of the Eldren Plains were ceded to the Zaur. . . .

“You could have opened with that suggestion,” Queen Kari said.

“As could you, Highness,” Tsan said.

Raising an eyebrow (eye petal?), the queen quirked her lips. “This new proposal appeals to the Vael at our heartwood. Peace is of tantamount import to us, as you know, and—”

“Mother.” The young prince, Kholburran, burst into the audience chamber, and Tsan had to close her mouth tight to keep from hissing at the male or even ripping out its annoying throat. Of all the ill-timed, idiotic . . . were there simply not enough Root Guard left to keep the brat out of the adults' work period? To fail to delay him? Tsan had calculated she had a full minute or more before the Root Guard let him in. “I need permission to send a group of Root Guard to Kevari Pass. There is an old copper vein there where we have harvested blue stone in the past and—”

“Kholburran!” Kari said coldly. “As I am sure you can plainly see, I am in the midst of negotiating a truce that—”

“Malli needs it soon,” Kholburran insisted, “or she might die!”

“Surely the Arborist—”

“With the war on, no one has been able to go out and gather any.” Kholburran approached the throne, his entire posture marking him as prey by his supplication. Even so. Perhaps Kilke had a claw in this interruption after all. Blue flower. Copper. Did the boy mean copper sulfate? If so, why not simply have one of their alchemists create a batch? The Weeds did not appear to use much metal in their modes of construction, but did they smelt no metal at all? Surely they possessed some level of alchemical knowledge and metallurgy. . . .

“Ah.” Queen Kari tuned to Tsan. “I beg your indulgence, Tsan, but the female in question is the one my son intends to wed, if she will have him, and—”

“Of course.” Tsan held up a paw. “Though we understand alliances far better than we do these emotions like friendship and love that you possess, we are not unpracticed at making allowances for the perversion.”

“Thank you,” Kari said.

Pausing until the queen redirected her attention to her son, Tsan counted to ten in her head before interrupting.

“Were we allied,” Tsan began, “I would surely be able to arrange an escort. But . . . I wouldn't want to use the treatment of the injured as a bargaining point.”

“You wouldn't?” Kholburran blurted.

Of course I would, you whining thing, but it serves no useful purpose in the long term. Not if we want a lasting alliance.

“The destruction of the hale and strong in battle is a demonstration of strength.” Tsan clenched her claws into a tight fist. “Persecution of the injured,” she said, lingering on the word “injured,” opening her fist and wiggling her claws as if flicking away the remains of some unseen crushed thing, “is evidence of cruelty.”

General Tsan smiled, her attention fully on young Kholburran. The Weed's desperation flowed from him in a heady mix of pheromones as intoxicating when emitted by an enemy as they would have been repellant to emit herself. “This blue stone,” Tsan asked. “Does it have other names? You said it came from copper?”

“Yes, a blue crystal that grows in copper—”

“Ah,” Tsan's eyes flashed wider. They truly lacked such simple knowledge? What was another name they would know it by, one that would not reveal too much . . . she could not bring herself to call it blue flower . . . what did the humans call it? “Copper Vitriol?”

“Yes.” The young Weed's hope-filled eyes locked with her own.
And here is where we show our superiority, yet again, but in a manner these foolish Weeds will find much more laudable.

“Then, if you'll pardon me,” Tsan said, interlacing her foreclaws, “have you no copper?”

“Yes, but—”

“Have you no oil of vitriol?” Tsan tried to keep her tone politely puzzled rather than condescending, but it was so hard when one considered the inferiority of the Weeds.

“It is possible we have that, but how will it help?” Kholburran asked.

“Queen Kari.” General Tsan's tail twitched as her muzzle shifted directions. “Many think that because Kilke is god of secrets and shadows he delights in deception and trickery. And while we employee those methods tactically from time to time to defeat those unwilling, or unworthy, of alliance, our focus is on the value of secrecy, the power of knowing what others do not. It is not unusual for my kind to hoard knowledge or, on occasion, to reveal it as a sign of sacrifice. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” Queen Kari nodded. “I believe I track you.”

“Then,” Tsan let her volume drop, forcing the Weeds to lean a little closer, try a little harder to hear her, “allow me to make a gift to you of knowledge. The substance you require can be created, here, using only copper, the proper vitriols, and simple tools. Let me show the technique to your Arborist before I leave to take news of our temporary agreement to Warlord Xastix. You can come to specific terms and areas of territory with the representative Xastix sends in my place, and in the interim, perhaps you could approach the Aern on our behalf?”

“And what of my people?” Prince Dolvek asked from the shadows. Had he been present all along and managed to remain silent?

Interesting. How did I not smell his arrogance?

Tsan opened her mouth wide, in a fang-baring yawn, eyes wide and flashing. “By now you are likely a very rare specimen indeed. Dryga's forces will have already taken Port Ammond, and the survivors will flee for safer havens. Except, I can assure you, Prince Dolvek, there are none. Nowhere on this entire continent is it now safe to be an Eldrennai.”

Prince Dolvek's lips drew into a white line, but he said nothing.
No denials. No tirades? Unimaginable.

“Your permission, Majesty?” Tsan asked, giving the Eldrennai her back.

If Kari's eyes flicked from Dolvek to her son, it was impossible for Tsan to discern. Silent and unreadable she sat, like a reptile soaking in heat, checking the distance to prey, waiting perhaps for them to cross the line of no return where they strayed too close to the waiting jaws of a Zaur to escape.

“You have it.” Kari stood. “But I ask that you take with you a representative from my kingdom, one whom I trust to make agreements on my behalf. Few of my kind have had experience with the complexities inherent in negotiations between warring factions, but she has. Take Princess Yavi with you and we will accept her safe return as a token of the warlord's sincerity.”

“I fear the environments in which we make our home may be unpleasant to a Vael.” Tsan dropped lithely to all fours, stretching her hindquarters.
But if Warlord Xastix was pleased with the sample of Vael blood Kuort had delivered, would he not be amused, at the very least, by having his very own Weed? And if the negotiations went forward, so much the better. The Weeds, their appearances so much more pleasant to a warmblood's eyes, might serve as excellent intermediaries as the Sri'Zauran empire grew.
“But if you would prefer to expedite negotiations in this manner, I can guarantee her safety only so long as I hold my rank. And, as you may recall, I fully expect to be executed.”

“Can you make the same promise to me?” Prince Dolvek asked. “If what you say is true, if my people have been crushed and scattered, I request they be allowed to abandon the Eldren Plains. We will do as the Aern did and flee beyond Bridgeland, never to return.”

“The Eldrennai must die, Prince Dolvek.” Tsan rolled her neck, peering back over her shoulder. He looked so resolute it was hard to laugh him off. Foolish, but brave. There was a glow about him, too. Was he god-touched? Tsan let her tongue flick out, nostrils flaring, and breathed deep. A blend of fire and blood lay buried in his scent. Could be Dienox. Could be nothing. But . . .