The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection

Vaja said, ‘Good question.’

‘Hatonis, Praji, you have any ideas?’ asked Calis.

Hatonis said, ‘Conquest for its own purposes is not unknown in this land – for booty, to enlarge one’s domain, for honor – but this simple taking of everything …’ He shrugged.

Praji said, ‘If there was something I wanted in Maharta, and I couldn’t trust to have those other cities at my back …’

Erik said, ‘Maybe it has to do with getting every sword under one banner?’

Calis looked at him for a long minute, then nodded. ‘They plan on bringing the biggest army in history against the Kingdom.’

Then Roo said, ‘How are they planning on getting there?’

Nakor slowly grinned as Calis said, ‘What!’

Roo looked embarrassed as he repeated, ‘How are they planning on getting there? You needed two ships to get us here, with stores and all. They’ve got, what? A hundred thousand, two hundred thousand soldiers? And a lot of horses and equipment. Where are they going to get the ships?’

Hatonis said, ‘The shipbuilders at Maharta are the finest in Novindus. Only the shipwrights in the Pa’j-kamaka Islands are their equal. Our clan has long purchased our ships in Maharta. It is the only shipyard that could possibly produce enough transports in a short time, perhaps in two years or so.’

Calis said, ‘Then we must make a stop there.’

Nakor said, ‘Yes. We must burn the shipyards.’

Hatonis’s eyes widened. ‘Burn … But the city will be under siege. They will have put hulks into the harbor mouth to keep the Emerald Queen’s ships from sailing in, and it will be impossible to get within twenty miles of the city for the patrols on both sides.’

‘How long will it take to rebuild those yards if they’re destroyed?’ asked Calis.

Hatonis shrugged. ‘The yards are massive, and have been built up slowly over the last few centuries. It would take years to restore them. Lumber must be harvested up here and in the Sothu and Sumanu mountains and shipped downriver or carried in wagons. The great keels take a year or more to be cut and brought down, at great expense.’

Nakor almost danced, he was so excited. ‘If we burn the yards, we get five, six, maybe as many as ten years before ships can be built here. Many, many things can happen in that time. This Emerald Queen, can she keep her host together that long? This I think unlikely.’

Calis’s eyes seem to light with the prospect. Then he fought back his enthusiasm and said, ‘Don’t sell her short, Nakor.’

Nakor nodded. The two had spoken at great length about what they had seen, and knew they were dealing with the most dangerous foe since the Tsurani invasion of the Riftwar. ‘I know, but men are men, and unless the Pantathian magic is so powerful as to make their hearts change, many of these soldiers of hers will forsake her banner without payment.’

‘Still,’ said Hatonis, ‘denying her the shipyards would be a major victory. My father ran the most successful trading consortium in the City of the Serpent River. We can send men to the Pa’jkamaka Islands and ensure they do not sell her ships. I will personally guarantee no shipwright in the City of the Serpent River will work on her behalf.’

Calis said, ‘You know that after Maharta she will march on you? It’s logical.’

‘I know we shall have to fight her. If we must, we can abandon the city and live again in the wild. We men of the clans were not always city men.’ Hatonis smiled a dark smile. ‘But many of her greenskins will die before that day comes.’

Calis said, ‘Well, first things first. Jadow, Sho Pi, see if you can find us a way down from here.’

The two men nodded and trotted back along the trail, looking for another way down.

‘As long as we wait,’ said Nakor, opening his bag, ‘anyone want an orange?’ He grinned as he pulled out a large one and stuck his thumb in, squirting juice on Praji and de Loungville.

They found a trail down, a narrow rocky pathway as treacherous as the first one had been kind. Three men fell to their deaths when a ledge of stone, seemingly solid, had collapsed under their feet. Now the remaining sixty men huddled in a narrow defile, huddled around two campfires, vainly trying to withstand the cold as a sudden change in weather sent the temperature below freezing.

Calis and another three men had gone hunting, for the remaining rations were gone, but could only come back reporting no game was near. The company was too large, said Calis, and game was staying clear. He said he’d leave before first light and try to get as far down the trail as possible, to see if he could find a deer or other large game.

Praji said there were bison roaming the plains and many of them lived in the woodlands of the foothills. Calis said he’d keep that in mind.

Erik and Roo sat shoulder to shoulder, holding out their hands to the fire, while others huddled miserably as close together for warmth as they could.

The only exception was Calis, who stood a short distance away, unmindful of the chill.

Roo said, ‘Captain?’

Calis said, ‘Yes?’

‘Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?’

De Loungville, from near the next fire, said, ‘Keep your mouth shut, Avery!’

Roo spoke through chattering teeth. ‘Hang me now and get it over with, why don’t you? I’m too cold to mind.’ To the Captain he said, ‘You and Nakor have been thick as fleas on a beggar since you came back, sir, and, well, if we’re going to be getting killed, I’d like to know what for before I close my eyes.’

A few other men said, ‘Yes,’ and ‘That’s right,’ before de Loungville’s bellow silenced them.

‘Next man opens his gob will find my boot in it! Understood?’

Calis said, ‘No, there’s some justice in what he said.’ He looked at the men nearest him and said, ‘Many of you will not get home. You knew that when you were given reprieve from your sentence. Others of you are here because you’re loyal to the Lion Clan or because you’re old friends of Praji’s. And some of you are just in the wrong place.’ He glanced at Greylock, who smiled a little at the last.

Calis knelt and went on, ‘I’ve told you some of what we face, and I’ve warned you that should this Emerald Queen prevail, this world as we know it ends.’

The clansmen and Praji’s mercenaries hadn’t heard that, and several muttered disbelief. Hatonis silenced his own men, and Praji shouted, ‘He’s telling the truth. Shut up and listen.’

Calis said, ‘Long ago the Dragon Lords ruled this world. You may have heard legends of them, but they were not legends. They were real.

‘When the men of the Kingdom fought the Tsurani a half century ago, a door was opened, a door between the worlds. The Dragon Lords, who had left this world ages ago, tried to use that door to return. Some very brave and resourceful men stopped them.

‘But they’re still out there.’ He pointed into the night sky, and several men looked up at the distant stars. ‘And they’re still trying to get back.’

Nakor suddenly spoke. ‘This woman, the Emerald Queen, she was once someone I knew, a long time ago. She is what you would call a sorceress, a magician. She made a pact with the serpent men and they promised her eternal youth. What she didn’t know was that she would lose her soul, her spirit, and become something else.’

Nakor continued, ‘There is very bad magic under that mountain.’

Calis said, ‘You don’t believe in magic.’

Nakor smiled, but there was little humor in his expression. ‘Call it tricks, then, or spirit force or anything you like, but those serpent men, they use their powers in a very twisted way. They do evil things that no sane man would think to do, because they are not sane.

‘These are not the creatures that mothers tell children of, to make them mind. These are very bad creatures who think that one of the Dragon Lords, named Alma-Lodaka, is a goddess. More, they think she is the mother of all creation, the Green Mother, the Emerald Lady of Serpents. She created them as servants, living decoration, nothing more, but they think they are her “favorites,” like children she loves, and once they open a door for her return, she will elevate them to the status of demigods. They will never believe that if they do this terrible thing, this Alma-Lodaka will sweep them away along with everything else.’

Nakor fell silent a moment, then said, ‘Calis makes no stories. If this woman, this Emerald Queen, is behaving as I think she is, then things are very bad. Calis, tell them of your father.’

Calis nodded. ‘My father is called Tomas. He was a human boy as all here were. He came to own some artifacts of power, ancient armor and a golden sword once the property of a Valheru, by name Ashen-Shugar. My father wore that armor and carried that sword through the Riftwar, against the Tsurani, and over the years he changed.

‘My father is no longer human. He is something unique on this world, a human body changed by the spirit of the long-dead Dragon Lord who owned that armor and sword.’