“He’s alive!” Criston said. “Captain—Orico is alive!”
But the cook’s hemorrhaged eyes were blank. Thick dark blood still oozed from the wound in his stomach. The dead man sat up
and grasped the gunwale with one hand.
Prester Jerard blessed himself. “He was dead. I’m sure of it!”
“He still is,” Sen Nikol mumbled. “The island calls him.”
Criston tried to pull Orico back down; one of the sailors released his oar and grabbed the cook’s other arm, but Orico shook
them off with inhuman strength, pulled himself to his knees and then to his feet, nearly capsizing the boat.
“What is he doing? Stop him!”
But the dead man did not hear them. He saw nothing but the island, and the wall, and the skeleton armies there. He threw himself
over the side of the boat with a great splash. Criston shouted after him.
Orico bobbed to the surface again and began to swim, making his way back to the strange shore, mindlessly determined.
With the oars stilled, the boat drifted and the men sat in uneasy silence, terrified and not sure what to do. Criston felt
the sticky blood on his hands and clothes. Shay clenched and unclenched his fists, staring into the water. “The island has
him now.”
“It’s not the island that has him,” Sen Nikol corrected. “It’s the war. He is part of that endless battle now. He will never
rest.”
On the Uraban coastline south of Ishalem, Zarif Omra inspected the new and heavily armed bireme war galleys being constructed
in Khenara. The attack ships could not be built fast enough, as far as he was concerned. The Aidenists’ appalling response
to Ambassador Giladen’s peace overture could not be ignored.
Long oars extended from the sides of each war galley. Beaten sheets of bronze plated the hulls. The melted-down statue of
Oenar had provided enough metal for sixteen ships and two hundred curved swords. A sharp bronze beak thrust forward from each
prow, ready to splinter the hull of any enemy vessel. Brightly dyed square sails of reinforced Yuarej silk were emblazoned
with the Eye of Urec, which was no longer a benevolent guide, but the angry eye of a vengeful demigod.
Praying together and interpreting one another’s dreams, the sikaras said they had received clear guidance, granting them not
only Urec’s permission but his
blessing
to melt down the second giant statue in Olabar. The spirit of Urec would live within the metal—so their dreams said—to guide
the resulting weapons to shed Aidenist blood. Crowding the churches for sunset services, Urabans cheered and gave thanks,
but Omra watched them in cynical silence. He knew the priestesses were simply being practical in announcing their revelations.
Uraban armies needed the metal.
The surreptitious Gremurr mining operations had also been dramatically expanded and stocked with hundreds of new slaves. Iron
from the mines was used to make adequate steel, which would produce the best swords.
In order to launch this swift attack fleet from Khenara, Omra had ridden long and hard from the capital city, following the
caravan route from Inner Wahilir, over the pass, and down to Outer Wahilir, where Soldan Attar was still drunk with self-satisfaction
at how he had “defeated and punished” the Aidenist pilgrims in the ruins of Ishalem.
Omra despised the other leader for that stupid act. Inexorable tides had thrown Urecari and Aidenist against one another in
this deadly clash, but Attar had forced Uraba into battle before they had time to prepare adequately. Fool!
Pointing to the offense against Ambassador Giladen, Attar felt vindicated in his actions. “You see—they are all animals!”
All Urabans had recoiled at the story of how the emissary had been murdered, the proposed peace document skewered to the deck
and covered in excrement, the corpse-filled ship left to crash clumsily into the harbor of Tenér. The Tierrans had given their
answer.
Though his father was sickened by the news, Omra had found the inner steel to make the necessary decision. “You tried, Father,
but now a new course has been set for us. If this is to be war, we have no alternative but to crush the Aidenists. In the
name of Urec and Ondun, we have to wipe them out. All of them.”
He gathered his armies and departed from Olabar immediately, leaving his wife, Cliaparia, behind in the palace, barely remembering
to say farewell to her. For several months, she had doted on him and given him gifts, but she had not secured a place in either
his heart or his mind. Though a skilled lover and certainly beautiful, Cliaparia lived only in his peripheral vision.
Omra occupied his thoughts with war, violence, bloodshed; it was the surest way to distract himself from the loss of Istar.
In the past, whenever he’d had to leave sweet Istar behind, their parting had been difficult, and he had missed her every
day. By contrast, although he had not seen Cliaparia in weeks, it took him a moment to recall exactly what she looked like…
Soldan Attar came up to him, accompanied by sixteen guards that made him appear important. After giving a formal bow, the
leader of Outer Wahilir gestured toward the harbor, where the warships were being provisioned. “We can launch by the next
full moon, Zarif. The autumn winds will pick up, but the storms will not yet have set in. We can overwhelm the Aidenists.”
“I believe that this war will not be won by a mere clash of weapons and soldiers,” Omra said. “The Tierrans have armies too,
but we must be smarter. We must follow my plan.”
He was not naïve enough to think that their enemies would surrender easily or be defeated within the first year—or even the
first five years. Urec’s Log stated that each life had more than one possible course, and the bravest navigator considered
all paths. So Omra had already developed an unusual scheme. When raiding the coastal villages of Tierra, his soldiers had
very explicit orders.
“Our men are trained and ready,” Attar continued. “All those who rode with me to Ishalem, who helped to punish the Aidenist
prester-marshall and his followers, wish to join this attack and bring pain and ruin to Tierra. I, myself, shall captain one
of the ships.” The soldan’s chest swelled. “Thus I avenge my brother’s death.”
“You have had your revenge,” Omra said icily. “You will stay here.”
“It is my right! These are my ships.”
Omra did not raise his voice, but it was as sharp as a newly forged sword. “These ships belong to the soldan-shah, my father.
They will serve the cause in whatever way I see fit. You are the soldan of Outer Wahilir. You will stay here and manage your
lands, operate your shipyards, and prepare to receive the hostages we bring back from Tierra.
That
is the course I have set for you. If you cannot follow the map, then perhaps Outer Wahilir should have a new soldan.”
Attar took an involuntary step backward, quickly raising his hands. “Please forgive me, Zarif! My emotions run high with thoughts
of battle, and I forget myself.”
Omra was sincere when he added in a faintly conciliatory tone, “This is but the first battle—the first of many, Soldan. Before
this war is over, there will be enough blood spilled to slake the greatest thirst. That is my promise.”
He did not add that his prediction was also his greatest fear.
After the Urecari atrocities, Mateo knew it was time for him to become an adult. Once he entered the Tierran army, he would
leave his current life and set a new course, far from everything he’d ever known—from Calay, from the castle, from Anjine.
Before returning home, he would have to complete a year of service and instruction in each of the five reaches. By the time
he finished five years of training, he would be almost eighteen. That seemed so far off, he wondered if Anjine would still
remember him.
Mateo spent the next several days in the Military District watching the royal guard drill. He saw the soldiers’ families,
watched their children playing around the barracks. No matter how hard he tried, he could not imagine what his life would
soon be like. Although he had always dreamed of serving as a uniformed member of the royal guard and protecting King Korastine,
just as his father had done, he had never given much thought to the training process.
His thoughts were interrupted by a tiny, plaintive squeak. Glancing around, he spotted a stray kitten in an alley, looking
up at him and mewing. Mateo bent down to play with the kitten, whose mud-crusted fur was mostly white, with large patches
of black and highlights of tan. Its ears were nearly as large as its oversized head. The kitten appeared very young, very
alone, and very hungry. It could not have been weaned for more than a few weeks—if that. Yet when he bent down and extended
a hand, the kitten seemed to burst with joy, butting Mateo’s palm with its head, rubbing against him, and purring with great
exuberance. It mewed with a shrill, earnest plaintiveness.
“What are you doing here? Where’s your mother?” He picked up the kitten, and it curled against him, settling into a perfect
pocket between his arm and chest. It showed no intention of ever detaching itself from him. Since Mateo would soon depart
for training, he could not keep a pet. But he knew exactly what to do with it.
Cradling the kitten in the crook of his arm, he made his way back to the castle. There, in the kitchens, he scrounged a bowl
of milk from the cook staff. While they all adored the cute kitten, two flour-dusted women commented that the scrawny thing
would not live another week. But the kitten ravenously slurped the milk, then finished a second bowl more slowly before it
licked its chops, immensely satisfied with itself.
The kitten was less pleased, however, when Mateo scrubbed at the caked mud with a wet rag. After it was nearly clean, the
kitten took over and contentedly groomed itself. When the kitten—a male—was fully presentable, Mateo carried him off to Anjine,
where she sat at her studies in the solarium of the castle.
“My going-away gift to you.” Mateo felt strangely awkward. “
Someone
has to watch over you and keep you entertained while I’m gone.”
With an indrawn breath of delight, Anjine accepted the kitten, which seemed as contented to be in her hands as in Mateo’s.
She scratched the back of its head until the kitten released another burst of loud purring. “What’s his name?” The castle
had plenty of cats to keep down the mouse and rat population, but Anjine had never adopted one as her own.
With a mischievous wink and his best courtly bow, Mateo said, “The honor of naming His Royal Furriness is yours, Princess
Tolli.”
Anjine grinned, regarded the kitten with its black, white, and light tan fur for a moment, then touched its little pink nose.
He batted her finger with a paw. She giggled and gave Mateo a warm smile. “Since
you’re
going away, I’m going to call him
Tycho
. He and I will have to make our own adventures while you’re gone.”
A warmth spread through his chest. “I wanted to give you something to help you remember me.…”
“Of course I’ll remember you!” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and he blushed furiously, but Anjine, engrossed in
playing with Tycho, seemed to think no more of it.
In the large Soldiers’ Hall in the Military District, Mateo joined the other new recruits—the first hundred young men gathered
from the districts of Calay. The call for new soldiers had gone out across the five reaches, and more recruits would be trickling
in soon.
A square-jawed man with a long shock of gray hair that looked like the crest atop a warrior’s helmet bellowed for them all
to be silent. Comdar Delnas, who had been in charge of the Tierran military for many years of relative peace, bellowed, “You
must serve a year in each of the five reaches, and at the end of that time some of you may wish to sign up for a further year
of service in the Calay city guard. By moving from one end of the continent to the other, you will become familiar with every
land and every people, every hardship and living condition. Not only is this good for you, it is good for Tierra, for in this
way our continent’s army is perfectly mixed, and every battalion understands that we are five reaches but one kingdom.”
Mateo observed the recruits around him. Some of the young men were nervous, some excited; most wore prominent fishhook pendants
at their throats. Two young boys argued in whispers about whether they preferred to go to Erietta or Alamont first. The general
consensus was that Soeland and Corag were the most miserable reaches. Since he would have to serve in each place, Mateo didn’t
particularly care where he started.
Two veteran soldiers came forward with stiff steps. One man held a tablet and stylus, the other a large beaten-copper pot.
Delnas announced, “Each of the five chits inside this pot is inscribed with the name of a reach. Come forward, speak your
name so it may be recorded, then draw a chit, which will tell you your first assignment.”
Though many of the soldiers had known his father, Ereo Bornan, Mateo expected no special treatment, nor did he receive any.
As a soldier, he might eventually distinguish himself by his own skills or bravery, but for now he was the same as all the
others.
The young men formed a line and came forward, each speaking his name for the first veteran to inscribe on the tablet, and
reached into the pot to withdraw a chit. After all five disks had been withdrawn, they were thrown back in and the process
started again. Occasionally, one of the young men cheered or grumbled about his assignment.
Mateo drew Alamont. He nodded without comment. He was issued a standard pack and a weapon. The Alamont destrar would provide
the armor and uniform during his year of service there.
Now that he knew his assignment, Mateo had one day to get his things in order. Returning to the castle at dusk, he found Anjine
playing with Tycho, who already seemed much healthier. She had fashioned a toy from a scrap of cloth tied to a length of string,
which she wiggled above the kitten’s head. Tycho seemed to find it endlessly entertaining, jumping again and again to catch
his “prey.” Princess Anjine smiled uncertainly at Mateo. “When do you leave?”