The Map of All Things (22 page)

50
Iboria

Up in the frozen steppes, Destrar Broeck and his nephew spent each night alone and cold in camp after camp. This was not one of the survival quests Broeck enjoyed so much; this was for the defense of Tierra.

In the early summer most of the snow and ice had melted, leaving marshes and standing pools that became breeding grounds for mosquitoes and biting black flies. The two men wore thick furs and covered their exposed skin with a soapy salve that discouraged the insects from biting, though not from flying maddeningly around their faces.

On their sixth day of wandering the open landscape, following beaten trails and prominent spoor, the two finally came upon the mammoth herders they'd been seeking. Iaros spotted the shaggy beasts while he and Broeck were trudging up to their ankles through the cold muddy waters of an extensive bog. “I knew Iboria was big, but I didn't know it'd be so hard to find these creatures. Look at how big they are!”

“Don't celebrate yet. We'll need at least a dozen herds like this.”

Iborian nomads used the entire landscape as their domain, wandering the steppes in clan units, hunting woolly deer, harvesting lichens and shelf mushrooms, herding mammoths across the open grasslands. Broeck and his nephew stopped to survey the distant herd; he counted seventeen beasts grazing on shoots in the marsh. A black curl of smoke marked the herders' camp.

With evident excitement, Iaros led the way, sloshing heedlessly along, intent on reaching the camp of clustered hide tents. Broeck picked his path with greater care, not surprised when his nephew slipped through a matted covering of grasses and plunged up to his waist into peaty muck. Iaros laughed at his own misfortune and clambered out, wiping the mud off of his breeches. He kicked his leg to shake his hide boots, but water continued to slosh inside them.

“We'll be at the camp soon enough,” Broeck said. “You can warm yourself by a fire then.”

The mammoth herders spotted the visitors when they were still a half-mile away. The vegetation was sparse, and the voracious beasts had already cleared much of the underbrush. In the camp, a group of women sat together next to piles of rushes they had harvested, peeling cattails and adding them to a stewpot, while others wove the dried leaves into mats.

The men were out keeping watch over the beasts, though if any steppe predators attacked, the mammoths could protect themselves far better than their herders could. Some of the beasts were tame enough that the Iborian boys could ride them; several mammoths stood munching on willow shoots, untroubled as herders used combs as big as rakes to brush the rust-colored woolly hair, collecting the strands for their own uses.

These clans generally followed the movements of the herd, instead of actually training or directing them, but Broeck intended to change that.

He and Iaros raised their hands in greeting. The herders were not suspicious people as a rule; out on the steppes, they had plenty of room and few rivalries, and they were far from the nightmares of war. Visitors were unusual enough that the herders left the grazing mammoths and came in to join their families.

Broeck slapped his fur vest. “I am your destrar, and this is Iaros, my nephew.” The herders greeted them in return, showing no awe or deference. Tierran politics had little to do with the life of the nomads. “We have come to purchase your mammoths.”

“How many?” asked the gruff clan leader, not surprised.

“All of them—and any more you can find.”

“If you buy all of our mammoths, then what will my clando?”

“You'll wander the steppes and find another herd,” Broeck said simply.

The man pursed his lips. The destrar reached into his pack, removed a leather pouch swollen with gold coins. “Queen Anjine has given me full access to the royal treasury in Tierra. With this, you can go to Calavik and buy a year's worth of food and supplies for every member of your clan. That should give you plenty of time to gather and adopt a new herd.”

The chieftain regarded the gold, adding sums in his mind. The money itself didn't impress him, for the nomads had few possessions and little need for commerce, but he did understand how gold could make their lives easier.

“It is a challenge to find unclaimed mammoths these days.” He leaned back on his woven grass mat, smoking a rolled cylinder of leaves. “Then again, our lives have been quiet lately.”

While the destrar negotiated with the clan leader, the women prepared a feast of stringy meat from a grandfather mammoth that had been culled and butchered. Old men squatted around smoky peat fires, using tools made of durable Corag metal to etch and carve bits of mammoth ivory.

Iaros played with the children and told loud jokes with some of the men. The mammoth herders had five girls of marriageable age, all of whom giggled and flirted with him, impressed by his long walrus mustache. Iaros would normally have preened, but now he turned away, blushing. He didn't know what to do with the attentions of the young women. At first he seemed flattered, but as the girls pressed closer, stroking his bare arms and his fine (but mud-spattered) fur vest, he seemed to panic. One of the stocky girls nuzzled him, poking him with a finger like a cook testing meat to see if it was done. “Stay here. I'll take you as my husband.”

A second girl crossed her arms over her breasts in indignation. “Oh, but he's mine. I saw him first.”

The first young woman didn't seem bothered. “We can share. It gets lonely enough out here, and there are too many cold nights.”

Iaros swallowed hard, and his voice cracked. “But I am the next destrar of Iboria!”

“I'm sure you can make babies like anyone else.”

“I… I'll have to consult with my uncle.” They laughed as he fled back to Broeck, trying to strut like a proud man but almost running in his haste. He brushed down his bristling mustache and attempted to regain his dignity, but the flush had reddened his entire head.

Broeck had seen his nephew fell large trees, hunt narwhals, and stalk the white bears, but his shy reaction around these girls was unexpected. Iaros had seemed a vain and self-confident man, but now he was tongue-tied. Broeck lowered his voice. “You do know you're going to have to get married and have children someday?”

Iaros remained embarrassed. “Let me face only one fear at a time.”

The clan leader finished counting the gold and stored it securely. Each season, herders brought domesticated mammoths into Calay, where the beasts were put to work hauling logs or pulling blocks of stone. Even so, the clan leader seemed surprised. “You ask for so many mammoths, Destrar. We have never heard of such a need. Is there a great construction project in Calavik?”

“These beasts won't be hauling logs or dragging sledges.” Broeck's eyes took on a far-off gleam as he imagined the reaction of an enemy that had never laid eyes upon such creatures. “No, these mammoths will be outfitted for war.”

51
Stoneholm, Corag Reach

Deep in the mountain fastness, Destrar Siescu walked alone, carrying a lantern. The glow stretched ahead into the dark tunnels and threw long shadows behind him. Year after year, Corag miners delved deeper into the living rock, tunneling into the heart of the mountain itself, searching for new veins, gems, or subterranean mysteries.

Siescu's skilled miners claimed they could smell a vein of metal ore and follow its winding path through solid stone. Every Corag destrar had encouraged them to excavate more and more extensively until the mountain range was as riddled as wormwood. Siescu, though, had his own goal in directing the miners to dig deeper shafts.

Holding the lantern before him, he wound his way endlessly downward. Even wearing leather gloves and wrapped in thick furs, he still felt cold. Always. For some unknown reason, Ondun had given his body a smaller, weaker internal spark than other men possessed. His pale skin reddened easily if he spent too much time under the sun; he kept himself covered, even indoors.

Beyond the pool of lantern light, the darkness was intense and impenetrable, but he didn't mind… so long as it was warm. The tunnels were like a womb. Reaching a low point in the shaft, Siescu removed his left glove and reached out to touch the rock with his bare skin, pressing his palm hard against the rough surface.

He thought he felt a warmth there, a residual heat. Somewhere far below, beneath strata of rock, lay the Fires of Creation. Once his tunnels reached them, Siescu would move his main throne room to the heart of the world, where he could finally be warm. He stood for a long time at the tunnel's end, trying to sense the elusive fires through the palm of his hand. His workers would just have to dig deeper and deeper.

Siescu did not know how long he had been away from the main city above, but he saw torchlight, heard footsteps, and turned to see two of his councilors, hurrying to find him. “Destrar! Raga Var has returned with the report you requested.” Both men looked uneasy. Siescu was not surprised, since most men disliked the unruly scout. For his own part, Raga Var was just as uncomfortable among people inside the stone walls of the mountain city.

Reluctantly, Siescu drew his hand away from the warm rock and tugged his glove back on. With a sigh, he followed the two councilors.

Inside his meeting chamber, a pile of dry logs formed a roaring blaze in the man-sized fireplace. The heat felt like a glow of sunshine on his body, and Siescu opened his fur wrap to let the warmth play across his skin.

The scrawny scout was already seated at a dark wooden table with a platter of food before him. He chewed enthusiastically on the leg bone of a roast mountain goat. Though Raga Var had stripped off all of his clothing save for a loincloth, he still sweated in the firelight. His body was all wiry muscle and sinew, and ribs showed at his sides, but he didn't look unhealthy. The shaggy hair and long beard were tangled, like the wool on a mountain sheep. Siescu's barbers had once offered to shear him, but Raga Var vigorously declined.

Seeing the destrar enter, the scout straightened his bony shoulders. “Didn't think you'd get here before I finished my meal.” He licked his fingers and wiped the back of a hand across his forehead. “Why do you keep it so hot all the time?”

“I keep it comfortable.” Siescu took a seat next to him. Dirty, handmade patchwork clothes lay in a pile beside the table; Raga Var must have shucked them off in layers as he waited near the fire. “After spending so much time frozen out in the mountains, I doubt you know what warmth feels like.”

“I know what it feels like now—and I could do with less of it.” He went back to eating while Siescu watched him, smiling indulgently.

The destrar had always liked this man who paid no attention to courts, rivalries, or formalities. Raga Var was an aimless scamp, thrown out of his village because the other families considered him untamable. Siescu had suggested that the near-feral man take up a career of wandering the unexplored mountains, living off the land, and reporting back to the destrar whenever he found something interesting. Self-sufficient out in the wild, Raga Var didn't need money, but a profession gave him something to do. Whenever he came to Stoneholm, the scout was in awe of the huge caverns and titanic stone-walled chambers, though he didn't like to be inside for very long.

Finished with his meal, Raga Var lounged back and gave his report. “I've sneaked over to the Gremurr mines four times now. I found two distinct routes an army could use to cross the mountains. Each has its own advantages, but I know which route I'd recommend.”

“Then I'll accept your recommendation.”

The scout shrugged as though he'd expected nothing less. “It'll take a lot of work. You have strong crews?”

“We have plenty of Urecari prisoners to assign to the labor. Destrar Shenro is sending workers up from his Alamont camps. We'll clear the route before the snow starts to fall again.”

Raga Var picked something out of his teeth. “I can't draw you a detailed map, you know—I'm not a Saedran. I'll have to lead the way myself.”

“I
want
you to lead us. We'll mark the route, then slave teams with pickaxes and shovels will clear the way. Destrar Broeck is due to bring his mammoths in a few months. The road must be ready by then.”

Raga Var's bony shoulders bounced up and down in another shrug, as if he didn't care. “So long as I don't have to do the work, I can show you the way.”

“I'll organize the teams and equipment we need. Can you come back in a week and take us up there?” He didn't expect Raga Var to stay in Stoneholm for the intervening days.

“I'll be here when you need me.”

The scout pushed aside his finished meal, wiped his mouth and beard with his hands, and gathered his discarded clothes in an armful. “I've got to be going, so I can find a place to make camp before nightfall.”

Siescu didn't bother to suggest that quarters could be found for him inside the mountain city. He bade the scout goodbye, then summoned his chief metalworkers. From now on, his smiths would have to forgo work on decorative jewelry items and concentrate on making armor… enormous armor.

52
The Great Desert

Once Imir had retired as the soldan-shah, the soft life in the Olabar palace no longer appealed to him. The desert called to him now: the sands, the heat, the bright yellow sun, and winds so dry they made his skin crackle. He liked being in the settlement at the edge of the dunes, sleeping in a fabric-walled shelter not far from the sand coracles that had recently returned from the Nunghal lands.

Today, though, the balloon-borne ships would not embark on a trade voyage. Instead, they were going to war.

For most of his rule, the despicable bandits had plagued the soldanate of Missinia, and now Imir would finally hunt down and eradicate the vermin, once and for all. He drew a deep, hot breath and grinned with anticipation.

A squad of mounted soldiers had ridden down from the Missinian capital of Arikara on sturdy desert horses, ready for the follow-up assault across the barren dunes. Two of the sand coracles had been repaired, their wicker baskets reinforced with thin sheets of metal to protect against any high-flying arrows.

Imir dressed himself in a buffalo leather jerkin and went out to stand beside Soldan Xivir, who stared upward with a hard expression. Fires inflated the silken balloon sacks, and the coracles strained against the thick ropes and wooden stakes that held them to the ground.

Xivir sat astride a restless black horse. He wore loose, pale desert garb and a dusty white olba wrapped about his head, with the end of the cloth trailing as a scarf he could tuck around his mouth and nose. He didn't look at all like his sister, whom Imir had taken as his First Wife long ago. The only good thing he could say about Lithio was that she had given him Omra as a son… and that was a good thing indeed.

“Today will be a good day,” Xivir said.

“Not for the bandits.” Anxious to get aboard, the former soldan-shah swung himself into the basket of the coracle that he would be guiding. Three Missinian archers were already there.

With great care, two nervous camp workers lifted aboard a basket of hollowed-out gourds, each one filled with explosive firepowder. “Please keep these far from the burning coals in the brazier, my Lord.”

Imir chuckled. “I'm the one who showed you the precautions.”

In the saddle, Soldan Xivir wrapped the reins around his hand. “My horsemen are mounted and ready. Scouts have marked the direction of tracks where the desert bandits have made raiding forays.”

“Burilo and I will find them from the air and direct you. I intend to start dropping our firepowder bombs as soon as we see the camp, but your men on the ground can mop up any stragglers.”

“So long as we get Norgo himself, I'll be satisfied.” Xivir's black horse stamped restlessly. The rest of the desert cavalry squad had mounted up, ready to race off into the wasteland after the bandits.

“Hah, you think too small! We will eliminate them all. I'm tired of waiting for the sand dervishes to get them.” Inside the basket, Imir called over to Omra's cousin, who had climbed into the second coracle. “Ho, Burilo!”

The other man called back to Xivir, “We'll save some for you, Father! The men need to keep in practice, after all. Let's be off while the morning breezes are still strong.” Burilo signaled for the ground crews to loose the tether ropes.

The two coracles sprang into the air, climbing higher and catching the invisible currents. When Burilo's coracle drifted off to the east, he and Imir used polished metal mirrors to signal each other with a code they had developed for the purpose. On the ground, Soldan Xivir and his horsemen followed along the untracked sand dunes, keeping the bright coracles in sight.

After three hours of slow travel above the hypnotic sandy landscape, a glint from the scout mirror in Burilo's coracle attracted Imir's attention. “They've found something.” He turned to one of the archers. “Drop down to find a westerly air current—we have to get ourselves over there.” As the archer covered the heat from the central brazier, Imir felt as anxious as a child, leaning over the edge of the basket to scan the ground. “Look there, trampled paths. We're close.”

Both balloons approached the bandit encampment. In a sandy depression lined with protruding rocks, he spotted a cluster of tents, tethered horses, and a small water seep surrounded by hardy vegetation. It was a pathetic place. Imir had hoped for a more worthy target, a sturdy fortress rather than this squalid collection of tents and dung-burning campfires. Regardless, Norgo and his bandits were vermin and they would die as such.

The men below had seen the balloons high in the sky. Defiant, they gathered their weapons, shook their spears with impotent threats, and shot arrows as high as they could, though the arrows fell well short. Only one of the shafts struck with a weak-sounding thump on the bottom of Imir's basket.

“Archers, indulge yourselves.” With a gleam in his eye, the former soldan-shah watched the Missinian fighters shoot back, raining death upon the scurrying men below. Some of the panicked raiders threw themselves onto their horses and fled out into the sands, scattering like beetles from beneath an overturned rock.

“Time for something more impressive.” Imir grabbed one of the powder-filled gourds, twisted the thin cloth fuse, and touched it to the coals of the brazier. He tossed the smoking bomb over the side of the basket and watched it tumble through the air. Two of the bandits looked up to see what it might be.

The gourd exploded only a few feet from the ground, spreading fire, smoke, and shrapnel in a bright burst that bowled the men over. From the second coracle, Burilo's soldiers also began throwing explosives. Thunderous eruptions blasted craters in the ground, destroyed the encampment, and split the rock spring, spilling water out into the churned sand.

The bandits' horses screamed and plunged at their tether lines; some broke away and galloped pell-mell into the dunes. Terrified men provided good target practice for the archers; soon, many bandits sprawled facedown.

In hindsight, Imir realized he should have restrained himself so that Soldan Xivir could retrieve the stolen property, but he was so infuriated by these parasites that he did not try to check his anger. He used every one of his explosive gourds and wished he had more, though there was nothing left to wreck. What had been a camp now looked like the cratered face of the moon. Bodies lay strewn about, and only a few of the bandits had escaped. His grin was so broad that it made his face ache. “This was most enjoyable.”

As smoke continued to curl into the sky and shouts faded into dying moans, Soldan Xivir and his horsemen finally reached the site of the carnage, but saw little left for them to do.

When the bodies were counted, there was no way to identify which one might be the infamous and violent leader, but Imir didn't care. They would launch the coracles again until they had hunted down all the illicit camps, and they would obliterate each one just as they had the first. Within a week, there would be no more desert bandits left in Uraba.