She shook and threw, reading the meanings behind the symbols as easily as words on a page.
—Alagai Ka and his princelings will not come to Everam’s Bounty this Waning.—
Curious. Her eyes scanned the rest of the symbols and she started. For the first time in weeks, the one day she had not cast for Ahmann’s fate, the dice gave her a glimpse.
And her world collapsed.
—They go to defile the corpse of Shar’Dama Ka.—
Abban watched the Andrah’s closed circle of advisors—Asome, Asukaji, Aleverak, and Jayan—from the safety of his small writing desk in the shadow of the Skull Throne. The open circle, including all twelve Damaji, would not be called until Inevera took her place and the internal debate finished. Already Abban could hear them bickering in the hall.
Both circles tended to ignore Abban unless he spoke, and some of them even then. Abban was wise enough to encourage this, speaking only when spoken to, a rare thing now that Ahmann was gone.
Inevera had been in her chamber a long time. What in Nie’s abyss could be keeping her? There were riots in the streets, and the Damaji were close to losing control.
“First they strike us at night,” Aleverak shouted, “and now on the first day of Waning, profaning the bones of our heroes and the very temple of Everam! It is outrageous!”
“No thing happens, but Everam wills it.” Damaji Asukaji’s forearms had disappeared up the wide opposite sleeves of his robes, clutching his elbows as he had taken to doing now that he and Asome were forced to stand apart. Leader of the largest tribe in Krasia, his smooth faced betrayed a boy of but eighteen. “It is a sign we must not ignore. The Creator is angry.”
“This is what comes of being gentle with the chin after their cowardly attacks on the sharaji!” Jayan said. “Our show of weakness has only emboldened them to further aggression.”
“For once, I must agree with my brother,” Asome said. “The attack on Sharik Hora cannot go unanswered. Everam demands blood in response.”
Everam, Abban prayed as he penned their words, set a cup of couzi before me now, and I will give one of my wives to the dama’ting.
But as ever, the Creator did not listen to Abban. All of them, Jayan, Asome, Asukaji, were children forced into roles beyond their experience. They should have had Ahmann’s guiding hand for decades to come. Instead, the fate of the world might rest upon their shoulders.
He suppressed a shudder at the thought. “He shall have a lake full of it.” None had noticed the Damajah exit her private chamber. Even Abban had been unaware, though she stood mere feet from him. He only glanced at her a moment, but it was long enough to note she had applied fresh makeup, though it did not mask entirely the puff around her eyes.
The Damajah had been weeping.
Everam’s beard, he thought. What in Heaven, Ala, and Nie’s abyss could make that woman weep? Had she been a lesser woman, he might have attempted to offer comfort, but he respected the Damajah too much for that, and turned back to his parchment, pretending not to notice.
The others, oblivious, had no need to pretend. “Have you found the rebels at last, Mother?” Jayan asked.
Abban did not have Ahmann’s ability to see into hearts, but such skills were hardly necessary to read the eager gleam in the young Sharum Ka’s eyes. Jayan stood to win threefold this day. Once for appearing right when all his rivals were wrong, once for the glory he stood to gain when he quelled the rebellion, and once for his brutal nature, which already relished the prospect of inflicting pain and suffering on the chin.
“The rebels are puppets.” Inevera rolled her dice thoughtfully in her hand. “Vermin placed in our silos by our true enemies.”
“Who, Mother?” Jayan could not hide the eagerness in his voice. “Who is to blame for these cowardly attacks?”
Inevera called a touch of power from the dice, causing them to glow. They cast her face in an ominous light that lent the will of Everam to her answer. “Lakton.”
“The fish men?” Ashan gaped. “They dare strike at us?”
“They were warned by Leesha Paper,” Inevera could not keep the venom from her voice at the name, “that we might attack as soon as spring. No doubt the dockmasters seek to sow discord to keep our armies at home.”
It was perfectly plausible, if patently false—at least so far as Abban knew. He suppressed a smile as the others accepted the accusation without question.
“I will crush them!” Jayan clenched a fist in the air. “I will kill every man, woman, and child! I will burn—”
Inevera rolled the dice in her fingers, manipulating the symbols, and their soft glow became a flare of light that cut Jayan’s words short as he and the others turned away, blinking spots from their eyes.
“Sharak Ka is coming, my son,” Inevera said. “We will need every able man that can lift a spear before it is done, and food for their bellies. We cannot afford to punish all in their lands for the actions of Lakton’s foolish princelings. You will keep to the Deliverer’s plan.”
Jayan crossed his arms. “And what plan is that? Father told us he meant to march just over a month from now, but no plan was ever discussed.”
Inevera nodded to Abban. “Tell them, khaffit.”
Jayan and the others turned incredulous looks his way.
“The khaffit?!” Jayan demanded. “I am Sharum Ka! Why does this khaffit know of battle plans when I do not? I should have been advising Father, not some pig-eater.”
“Because Father spoke to Everam,” Asome guessed, “and did not need your ‘advice.’ ” He glanced to Abban. “He only needed the tallies.”
Something about the cold assessment of Asome’s stare frightened Abban in ways Jayan’s aggression did not. He used his crutch to stand, then left it leaning on his desk. The men would give more weight to his words if he stood on his own two feet to deliver them. He cleared his throat, molding the clay of his face into a look of nervous deference to put his “betters” at ease.
“Honored Sharum Ka,” Abban said. “The losses to our food stores during the last Waning are greater than the Deliverer wished known. Without a fresh supply, Everam’s Bounty will starve before spring begins to bud.”
That got everyone’s attention. Even Ashan leaned toward Abban now, rapt. “Sixteen days from now is the date the Laktonians observe the chin holy day first snow. The beginning of winter.”
“What of it?” Jayan snapped.
“It is also the day the chin deliver their harvest tithe to the dockmasters of Lakton,” Abban said. “A tithe that would keep our army fed until summer. The Deliverer made a bold plan to capture the tithe and the chin lands in one move.”
Abban paused, expecting an interruption at this point, but the closed circle remained silent. Even Jayan hung on his next words.
Abban signaled Qeran, who pulled out the carpet Abban’s wives had carefully woven to match the maps of the chin lands to the east, setting the run on the floor and unrolling it with a kick. Abban limped over as the others moved to stand around it.
“It was Shar’Dama Ka’s intention to send the Sharum Ka and the Spears of the Deliverer, along with two thousand dal’Sharum, overland in secret,” he traced a path over the open territory with the tip of his crutch, avoiding the Messenger road and chin villages, “to take the village of Docktown, here, the morning of first snow.” He tapped the large town at the lake’s edge with his crutch.
Jayan’s brow furrowed. “How will capturing a single village give us the city on the lake?”
“This is no simple village,” Abban said. “Closest to the city proper, seventy percent of Lakton’s docks are in Docktown, and all will be brimming with ships waiting to be loaded with the tithe once the talliers have counted it. Take the city on first snow, and you can take the tithe, the fleet, and the closest landfall to the city. Without the stores, or ships to go in search of more, the fish men will be ready to offer you the head of their duke, and his dockmasters besides, in exchange for a loaf of bread.”
Jayan clenched a fist at the thought, but he was not satisfied. “Two thousand dal’Sharum is enough to take any chin village, but not enough to hold and guard any length of shoreline through the cold months. We will be surrounded by enemies that outnumber us greatly.”
Abban nodded. “This is why the Deliverer, in his wisdom, planned to send a second force of five thousand dal’Sharum up the main road a week after to conquer the Laktonian villages one by one, levying them for Sharak Ka. They will act as spearhead, clearing the path for forty dama and their apprentices, ten thousand kha’Sharum, and twenty thousand chi’Sharum who will settle the land in their wake, sending for their families and assisting the local dama in instituting Evejan law. Before any true snow falls, you will have seven thousand of your finest dal’Sharum at hand.”
“Enough to smash anyone fool enough to stand against us,” Jayan growled.