“We must prepare ourselves, Muchinda,” Seafarer says, the heavy jowls on her face shaking in her vehemence. “I will die before I bow to foreign masters.”
“My sentiments exactly,” the Dark Sun says. “But how would we do this?” The warlord’s red gaze lands somewhere next to the Maidservant. “Black River?”
River almost scratches his head before he catches himself and lets his hand fall. He grimaces. “Er . . . perhaps we should . . . send assassins to deal with this new king, Muchinda.”
The Maidservant almost shakes her head. Idiot.
“Absurd,” Hunter scoffs. “Even if the assassins got to him, which is unlikely, the high mystics would trace them back to us, and then we’d have every legion and Jasiri guardian riding down the Artery—exactly what we’re trying to avoid.” He addresses the warlord. “Muchinda, I propose that we begin building alliances with the other fiefdoms. We must present a united front, or the legions will find us easy prey.”
Sand Devil snorts. “A sound plan in theory, but alliances would never work. Warlords have warred over Umadiland for centuries. Good luck undoing that kind of ingrained thinking overnight.”
Northstar gives a nod of his head. “War is indeed the Umadi way. It is written in our blood, the essence of our ancestral gift. Any alliance would break almost as soon as it was formed.”
“I am inclined to agree,” the Dark Sun says, and then he finally looks at the Maidservant. “What about you, my dear Maidservant? How would you solve this problem?”
She wants to roar and attack, but the curse holds fast, and the pain searing her skin is what keeps her from ripping her hair out in frustration. “Great Muchinda, I believe there is only one solution,” she says. “If you cannot ally yourself with your peers, then you must conquer them. Bring all of Umadiland under your Seal, and you will be powerful enough to repel any KiYonte invasion.”
A chilly silence engulfs the hall as everyone takes a second to envision what such a thing would look like. How powerful would a warlord be if his shards drank from all corners of Umadiland? Would he even be human?
Sand Devil breaks the silence, releasing a heavy breath as he shakes his head. “Impossible. That’s why no one’s done it before.”
“But if there’s someone who can,” the Maidservant says, “it is you, Muchinda.”
The worst thing is that she actually believes these words, because unlike most warlords, the Dark Sun is no simpleminded brute. He shows order and restraint in the way he deals death. He has a vision, plans that go beyond the mere holding of territory.
While most other warlords punish their disciples for breathing without their permission, the Dark Sun built a hierarchy that rewards disciples who show ambition and initiative, giving them a fair degree of autonomy to expand his territory on his behalf. Other warlords will attack and invade a weak enemy the first chance they get, but the Dark Sun will wait until he knows he can hold a territory before he moves to conquer. He expects the same of his disciples.
She despises him, but even she must acknowledge that he is a worthy foe.
“I want you all to think heavily on this matter,” the Dark Sun says at last. “We will convene in a week to discuss it at greater length. Come with ideas. We will avert this disaster before it comes, by all means necessary, even if it means taking all of Umadiland for ourselves.”
“We are your humble servants, Muchinda,” Sand Devil says with a bow, but he is wasting his breath. Flowery expressions of praise and adulation can never win the warlord over. That doesn’t stop Sand Devil from trying, though, much to his constant disappointment.
“I have one other matter I wished to discuss with you,” the warlord says. “Before you arrived, Hunter informed me of something interesting. Apparently a young mystic on his way to Yonte Saire saved a thief from execution in Seresa and escaped before either of them could be apprehended.”
“He did not escape, Muchinda,” Hunter says with an indignant timbre in his voice. “I let him go after exacting a heavy price for the trouble he caused. I did not see the need to take things further.”
“Either way, the result is functionally the same,” the Dark Sun says. “In any case, I am not interested in whatever laws he supposedly broke. What interests me is that this mystic is reportedly Yerezi, which is curious, considering the Yerezi do not allow their men to wield sorcery. Not as far as I know.” He lets this marinate. “It raises questions, does it not? Why now? And is it a coincidence that he is journeying thousands of miles to Yonte Saire so soon after Mweneugo’s death? I’d find that hard to believe.”
Hunter clears his throat. “Muchinda, they did just suffer an unprecedented and unprovoked attack on one of their kraals.” He glances at the Maidservant. “From one of our own, for that matter. This mystic might be an emissary under the guise of a Bloodway pilgrim, sent to broker an alliance with the new king.” Belatedly, Hunter adds, “An alliance against us, that is.”
The Dark Sun appears to consider this. “I sense we’re missing a vital piece of the puzzle,” he says at length. “Whatever the case, such an alliance must never come to pass. The Yerezi tribe may be small, but their sorcerers are very cunning and their cavalry exceedingly effective. If they allied with an expansionist KiYonte king, we would face pressure on two fronts. Divided as we are, this would be catastrophic. We cannot allow it.”
He falls into another thoughtful episode while his lieutenants wait in silence. The Maidservant feels River watching her, but she doesn’t look to him.
“Yes, I have many questions for this Yerezi mystic,” the warlord says, returning to the present as if he never left. “Send whoever you can spare after him, or go after him yourselves if you can. I want him brought to me alive if possible, and if not, my necromancer will extract whatever information she can from his corpse. You are dismissed. Except for you, Maidservant. And you as well, Black River. Stay. I wish to have a word with you.”
If he somehow divines the worried spasm that takes hold of the Maidservant, he makes no show of it.
She bows. “As you wish, Muchinda.”
Next to her River maintains a stiff posture while the others share meaningful looks before bowing and quietly retiring from the hall, though Hunter doesn’t miss the opportunity to toss a smirk at the Maidservant on his way out.
Upon their exit the Maidservant and River move to stand in a central position before the throne and wait for their warlord to address them.
“So,” he says. “Tell me. How did you do it?”
By the focused intensity of his tronic eye, the Maidservant knows he’s talking to her. “How did I do what, Muchinda?” she says as evenly as her voice will allow.
“Those sacrifices you performed in the Plains,” he says. “The rush of power was . . . intoxicating. I didn’t think it was possible for someone so sullied by blood as you are to perform sacrifices so potent. Each of them felt like . . . a mother offering up her beloved child to me. Are the Yerezi like the Faraswa, perchance? Is there some hidden power in their blood that makes it especially potent?”
“Not at all, Muchinda.” The Maidservant knew he would ask her this, so she has an answer prepared, with just enough truth to satisfy the question and no more. “It is simply an old ritual I pieced together after extensive reading. At the zenith of a waxing half moon, shed the blood of the innocent in an unconquered stronghold beneath the light of a Seal, and it will drink the power of the fallen.”