They climbed the steps, picking up gawkers as they went. Some were merely interested; others shouted welcomes or taunts, Balam was not sure. He, of course, spoke Hoka, just as he spoke all the known languages of the Meridian, but there were subtleties of the common language that eluded him, his studies being limited to the more formal form. There were noisemakers and drums and flutes, and the din grew louder as they rose. Hands reached out and touched his white jaguar cloak, until one of the guards made his presence known with the shaft of his spear. After that, the jeers increased, but no one tried to handle him again.
“Who are you looking for?” Powageh asked.
“Hmm?”
“Don’t play coy with me. I see you searching the crowd.”
“I do not like to walk into these situations uninformed.”
“You have a spy here,” Powageh said. “In the palace.”
“Of course I do. But he was to meet me when we boarded the barge at the mouth of the Kuukuh and did not come. And now I don’t even see him here, and it worries me.”
“A dangerous game, Cousin. What if he was discovered?”
The prospect worried Balam, but he kept his expression smooth and untroubled. “And what if he was? We are friendly, Hokaia and Cuecola, are we not?”
Powageh snorted, unimpressed.
They reached the top of the mound, and Balam took a moment to look back over his shoulder. The whole of Hokaia was visible from here, riverland and city as far as the eye could see. No mountains or forests to break the sightlines, which meant enemies could not hide their approach. What Hokaia had not foreseen was an army approaching from the air. It was the combined armies of Tova and Cuecola that had taken Hokaia, warriors on wingback and water striders moving swiftly upriver with Cuecolan foot soldiers and sorcerers. Balam was sure that if he allowed himself to sink into that place in his mind that he now associated with dreamwalking, he would see it all before him, a memory that would look and feel as real as the events that had created it.
“And who is it that rules Hokaia these days?” Powageh asked.
“A man named Daakun. His title is Sovran. I know he is relatively young but, by all accounts, a reasonable man and practical.”
“You mean malleable.”
Before the War of the Spear, Hokaia was ruled by spearmaidens, women married only to war and trained at the war college when it was still exclusively for the scions of Hokaia. They had no lovers and therefore no blood heirs, and often succession was decided by combat. It made for a warlike people, but their skirmishes had never strayed beyond the river valley, so the rest of the continent had not taken notice of their provincial practices. Until a spearmaiden named Seuq became not only a warrior but a warrior-sorcerer, the first dreamwalker, and used her knowledge and power to lead her people to conquest. After she was defeated, the spearmaidens were forbidden to rule Hokaia, and leadership had gone to a politico, one of the men who had helped broker the peace that saved what was left of Hokaia from ruination. Combat had been replaced with debate, and now the city was ruled by the person most skilled in rhetoric rather than warfare.
“Do we need to worry about him?” Powageh asked.
“Daakun? No. But rumors are there is a faction of spearmaidens who oppose his rule, led by a woman named Naasut, and she is a concern. How much of a concern…?” He lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I was hoping to find that out beforehand, but here we are.”
A shell horn blared, and Balam took it as the signal to join the others at the front of the entourage. They stood together left to right, the four merchant lords of Cuecola—Balam in his pristine white, Tuun in her green, Pech in his yellow and red, and Sinik in conservative brown—and waited for the leader of Hokaia to greet them.
She did not keep them long.
She stood upon the top step of the palace, keen eyes sweeping over them. On her head was a crown of elk antlers, and across her shoulders the elk’s tanned hide. Gathered around her were spearmaidens, each in armor of leather and fur, faces painted black below the eyes, hair divided along a central part and braided close to the head. They held bone spears in hand, as did the woman in the crown.
“Welcome to Hokaia,” the woman said, her voice booming across the mound, “Bright Star of the Riverlands, Heart of the Meridian, Forger of the Great Treaty.” She tilted her chin up. “I hear you have come to help us make war.”
The four lords exchanged looks, and Balam, for the first time, felt a slight twinge of concern. Clearly, this was not Daakun. He ran his overlong pinkie nail across his palm, thoughtfully. Even if he spilled blood and called shadow magic now, there were more than a hundred and fifty steps between him and their boat. And a long river on a slow barge to the Crescent Sea. And he was certain that those black and silver ships would make quick work of anyone trying to escape on water.
He could see Lord Tuun thinking along similar lines, her slate eyes narrowed, and he wondered if perhaps she could turn them all to stone long enough for them to run.
“And who are you?” Lord Pech asked, stepping forward. “Why has not Sovran Daakun come to greet us?”
“Daakun is indisposed,” the woman said, and the spearmaidens around her rippled in amusement. “But you may call me Sovran.”
“And why would we call a woman Sovran of Hokaia? Were not your kind found unfit to rule this city three centuries ago?”
The woman’s eyes flashed, and she raised her spear. Two dozen maidens followed suit. “Careful, little man, lest I remind you how Cuecola fell to spearmaidens before she was rescued.”
Pech stepped back, affronted. Cuecolan guards moved between them, their own spears ready. The promise of violence filled the air.
“His low opinion of women will get us all killed,” Lord Tuun whispered to Balam.
Balam had often wondered how he would die. A traitor cousin within his house, a disgruntled trader who felt cheated, wild magic that turned against him. All possibilities for a man like him. However, dying because piddling Lord Pech could not set aside his prejudices and his ego was intolerable.
“Sovran Naasut.” He pressed a hand on a guard’s shoulder to let him through. “It is our honor to be welcomed to your fine city. And although we hope that we will not have to call upon the people of the Meridian to take up arms once again, I am afraid you are correct, and these are dark times we must discuss. But I assure you, we are not your enemy.”
Naasut’s sharp eyes seemed to flay him, skin first, then flesh, and finally bone. He stood there and let her look. Whatever she saw of him made her grin. She thumped the white spear in her hand against the ground three times. The maidens around her echoed her call with answering thumps and howled in delight.
Lord Tuun’s eyes tightened. Lord Sinik made a small whimpering sound. Lord Pech covered his ears.
“And who are you?” Naasut asked.
“I am Lord Balam of the House of Seven, Merchant Lord of Cuecola, Patron of the Crescent Sea, White Jaguar by Birthright.”
“All those titles, and yet you know my name.”
“As do all across the four corners of the Meridian,” he lied.
Her smiled widened, and Balam took it as a sign that she was a woman amenable to flattery. Perhaps this would not come to bloodshed and magic after all.
“And the rest of you sulking behind your soldiers. All of you are Cuecolan lords?” she asked.
The other three had the sense to step even with the line of guards and introduce themselves. Lord Tuun first, then Sinik, and Pech last. He did not look pleased, but at least he did not insult Naasut again.