Book One Raw Liberties : Captain Levoyn
BURRIN, DAUMIAND
FOURTH DAY OF AUTUMN
FOURTH DAY OF CONCLAVE MILITANT
Bygga squinted at the checkerboard and the pieces gathered near the four outside edges, little figurines carved from wood and painted yellow, red, blue, and green. She reached for her pieces, then put her hands back in her lap. “I’m not sure I like this Daumie game.”
Captain Lynget Levoyn fixed her eyes on the lieutenant, who shifted in her chair but kept staring at the pieces on the board.
“I mean, captain, I don’t really understand it. Are Spræt and I supposed to be on a team or is everyone on their own?”
“Or is it all three lieutenants vs. the captain?” Hawre offered with a sly grin.
“Cut the shit, Bygga, and move.” Levoyn chewed on her lower lip. “It’s however you want to play it, but if you want to make an alliance you’d better be prepared to trade crowns.”
Bygga leaned back in her chair and held her palms to the sky. “And how the living hells am I supposed to do that, again?”
The four of them sat around a stone table on the summit deck of Auberge Domet, the inn Levoyn chose for their lodging because it overlooked the roundhouse where the Conclave Militant was meeting. Lieutenant Spræt sat across from her, Bygga and Hawre to either side. All around them, the captain could survey the Daumie capital of Burrin, ancient stone domes spread out like a plate of brightly colored eggs. Levoyn and her three lieutenants were taking a break from their duties as a special Hyrsian security team deployed to the Conclave Militant. Their official orders from Karvald were to keep the delegates from Hyrsia out of trouble.
Levoyn knew this meant that they were to make sure that braggart buffoon General Ugræss didn’t bed too many foreign whores. And tell them things he shouldn’t. It’s nothing but a fucking cock watch.
She gritted her teeth and looked past her lieutenants, down the avenue toward the roundhouse hosting the Conclave. She had chosen their quarters carefully, and Karvald was pouring gold into their mission like a coin foss, no cost too high. She could arm a company for what they were paying for the suite but, from atop the Auberge, she had a hawk’s vantage of the goings-on. The attendants were still clustered around the doors of the Conclave Militant like flies on dog shit. That meant the delegates were still inside, spouting their boasts and babble. The general was still safe from himself.
“If you want to play a bridged game,” Levoyn said, “that’s fine. That’s how it normally works out. But if you and your ally don’t take each other’s crowns there’s nothing to guarantee your loyalties.”
Bygga glanced at Hawre and Spræt. “But, that makes it simpler?”
“Why are you looking at them? They’ve never played either. Damn it. Look—”
She pulled the opening moves back to their starting positions. “It’s like the Long War. Four sides, four colors. Just like in the war, you can make an alliance, like the elves and the giants. Then, the other two will be pressed to make an alliance, like the human and dvergan. The normal way the game works out, you’d be partners with Hawre, not Spræt, because she’s across from you. That’s what’s called a bridged game.”
Levoyn wagged her finger back and forth between the two women.
“He would then be my partner.” She wagged the same finger back and forth between herself and Spræt.
Hawre punched Spræt on the shoulder. “Looks like you’re the tree-bedder.”
He shoved her nearly out of her chair. “And you’re the dverganwife!”
Levoyn glared them back into attention. “A bridged game is simpler, Bygga. You’re right.” She moved one of her cauls forward, starting the game over and threatening Hawre’s elder.
Bygga nodded, staring intently at the board. Cowed. She nodded. “Like the war.” She hesitantly moved one of her shield men forward to block Levoyn’s caul.
Levoyn could see that her lesson was starting to sink in. She didn’t care for the Daumie game, either. She didn’t care for many foreign habits, the sickening smell of the Daumie waterpipe, the gaudy woodcarving of the Vergueños, the skittering, roach-like reticence of the dwarves. And their weak drinks, that sour Daumie beer and bitter Verqeño wine. Give me a strong bolt of Hyrsian whiskey any day! She was looking forward to that familiar indulgence once the wayward general was safely stashed away and sleeping in his suite.
But, she thought the Daumie game would be a good opportunity to educate these homelanders on the politics of the war. None of them had ever served outside of Hyrsia except during raids west into Væntaria, dipping their swords into taigalfan and rime goblins. They needed to learn the complexities of the Long War if they were to be any good to her. But, she had learned as a young officer that you can’t lead mounts into a leap by force. You have to nudge, little taps of the heel, gentle tugs on the reins, slowly guiding them toward the hurdle.
Then, when it’s too late to turn back, when the leap is imminent, gouge without mercy.
“A bridged game looks like the war. Simple. Too simple.” She let her eyes fall on each of her lieutenants. She had also learned the power of her gaze. She wasn’t sure what it was, the set of her brow, the leonine amber of her eyes, the hard angle of her jaw. She didn’t much care, so long as it seized upon the mind of her targets. “The real war is more complex. The dwarves really only care about their elven foes. The jotan only care about destroying us humans. And, three nations of humanfolk all squabbling. Treasons and backstabbing on every side.”
Hawre grinned. “And women vs. men…” She moved her own caul forward to threaten one Spræt’s priests.
Spræt moved a shield forward defensively. Levoyn leveled her gaze on Hawre. Once she met the captain’s stare, Levoyn leaned forward, never breaking eye contact with her gritty lieutenant, and took Hawre’s caul with her own.
She held the piece up for all to see and waggled in it her fingers. “If only it worked that way, lieutenant. But, that’s no way to win.”
Spræt chuckled. Hawre rolled her eyes and shoved him. Bygga stared at the board, her turn up once again.
There was a sound from the stairwell, a muted thumping. Someone was at the suite door, downstairs. The lieutenants sat upright in their chairs. Bygga’s hand settled on the pommel of her long sword. Well, at least she’s able to make a move when it matters.
The thumping came again, a bit louder. The midday Daumie sky seemed suddenly darker. Had a cloud crossed the sun?
Levoyn cocked an eyebrow at Hawre. “Are you going to answer that?”
∇
Hawre returned from below with the visitor, a dwarf, a ruddy skinned woman in a dark cloak with long, graying hair braided tightly to either side of her head. Levoyn felt her eyes tightening. This dverganwife was Dame Brÿt, a special envoy from the underground, full of intrigue and dwarvish paranoia. What in the hells does this dirt mother want with us?
“Captain Levoyn,” Brÿt said, “may we speak in confidence?”
“My team enjoys my confidence,” she said.
The dwarf glanced at Spræt. Levoyn knew there could be no debate on this point. She looked down the avenue, checking the status of the Conclave. The attendants were still milling around outside. She gestured at Spræt with her head. The lieutenant dropped his eyelids in acquiescence and stood from his chair. As he moved toward the stairs, Dame Brÿt stepped forward to sit in his abandoned seat. Hawre pulled her own chair back out.
“Lieutenant,” Levoyn said, “before you do that, can you get something for our guest to drink?”
Hawre pushed the chair back in.
“Thank you,” said Dame Brÿt. She gave Hawre a half-look. “One of your distilled root wines, if you have some.”
Levoyn took a deep breath and watched her lieutenants disappear into the suite below. “May we speak, now?”
“I have detected a threat to our alliance.”
She studied the dwarf’s face. The brassy eyes spoke of an annoying confidence. Even so, she knew Brÿt to be a crafty woman, dedicated to the Conclave and zealous in her defense of it.
“I guess you’re not talking about the elves and giants.”
“An internal threat.”
“Something the Hyrsians should know?”
The dverganwife shrugged, sending her gray braids tumbling over her back. “Something in which a Hyrseman has implicated himself.”
That damned Ugræss! No doubt he had spilled some state secret to a Daumie or Verqeña harlot, embarrassed Hyrsia and it was uncovered by a noxious dwarf. She passed her eyes over Lieutenant Bygga to gauge her reaction. She had remained admirably stoic in the presence of the foreigner.
“Go head,” Levoyn said.
Brÿt smiled. “We have a shifty malcontent in our ranks. A dverganwir who has been under watch for some time, a colonel from the clan Qetul with the war-name Hosmantel. Elf-Foe.”
Hawre rose onto the summit deck, holding a bottle of reddick in one hand and two glasses pinched in the fingers of her other hand. She set one glass in front of her captain and one before the dwarf.
“Colonel Kettle,” Levoyn said, using the human nickname for the old dwarf. “I know of him. He’s a signatory of the Conclave.” She nodded at Hawre as she poured for the guest first. A fine point of etiquette the lieutenant had learned well.
“Yes. But, lately, a trouble-maker.” Brÿt lifted her chin and looked at Levoyn down her red nose. “He was secretly planning to withdraw his signature from the alliance, and he has retired from the Conclave proper, only attending the committee meetings to which he’s been assigned. But, he’s been carrying on a secret correspondence.”
“With a Hyrsian, I guess?” She nodded again at Hawre and lifted her glass to the Dame. Brÿt met her wordless toast and they took a sip. The whiskey had a nice bite. It spread like a grass fire through her chest and arms, stiffening her nipples against the wool of her shirt.
“Intriguingly, no.” The red-faced woman squinted. “With a Daumie marshal. But, using as courier a Hyrsian boy who traveled hence with one of your captains.”
Huh. So it wasn’t Ugræss after all. Small blessings. Levoyn let her tongue play along the ridge of her left teeth. She looked at her lieutenants, first Hawre then Bygga, driving home the lesson she had started earlier. Treasons and back-stabbing.
“Which of our captains?”
“Gærste. The one with the ludicrous mustache they call Giant-killer. And, a couple of Verqeños are also implicated.”
“Well, this just gets more interesting by the minute.” Levoyn leaned back and lifted her brows in what she hoped was a an invitation for the dwarf to spill all.
“The dverganwives have been keeping an eye on Colonel Qetul for some time. He’s a brute who seeks to antagonize the elves at every turn.”
Levoyn took another sip of reddick, savoring the heat seeping into her stomach. She grinned at the dwarf woman. “Well, they are your enemies.” It was part statement, part question.
“The alfan hold our Matrix, yes.” Brÿt’s stare was harsh. She sipped the whiskey carefully. “They hold our Matrix as the giants hold your relics. Without it, we are daughterless. Doomed to spawn only savage sons. Ruffians like Qetul who threaten any hope of negotiating its return.”
Levoyn probed her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, tasting the hints of reddick there, taking it all in. “So, Colonel Kettle is sending messages through Gærste, back and forth with some Daumie?”
“The marshal who spoke out of turn at the Conclave. He’s been banned from the roundhouse. Another brute, a mindless savage who wants to escalate the war, sabotaging any chance to win back your Cornerstone through diplomacy.”
“Sounds like trouble,” Levoyn said. “You’ve got my attention. What have you learned?”
“Qetul sent a message to this Daumie marshal, who sent his response by way of Gærste’s boy.” Brÿt slid the bottle of reddick aside and rested one ruddy and wrinkled hand on the stone table. Levoyn noted a plain-looking ring on her middle finger. It was set with a drab black stone. “The colonel sent another message back. He has been using his assistant, Damsel Ásil, as a courier.”
There was an air of conspiracy in the dwarf’s face that made Levoyn uncomfortable. “We all have our lieutenants.”
Brÿt smiled, tapping the ring against the stone table. “I stop the Damsel in the street whenever we meet. She knows it is a formality, a courtesy greeting. The Dames are not permitted into the Conclave but we still have our influence. So, she shows me the delegate’s seal on the correspondence and I let her go on her way.” She tapped the ring again. “What she doesn’t know is that I bear this copystone on my ring. Anything written with a dvergan markstone, it records, sealed or not.”
Bygga and Hawre leaned back in their chairs. They were unfamiliar with dvergan magic, but Levoyn knew well how tricky the dwarves could be with their stonework. God had granted the dwarves power over the rocky part of the world, and they used this gift to great advantage. They crafted stone to give light, to give heat, to pass words at great distance. To mark paper like ink. And, Levoyn guessed from Brÿt’s report, to copy those marks.
Levoyn was careful in her words. “My sisters are not abreast with the milk of dwarven stonework.”
Brÿt let her tongue wet her brick-colored lips. She looked at Levoyn’s lieutenants. “The first letter Qetul sent must have been written in human ink, because my copystone drew nothing from it. I didn’t touch the Daumie’s response, but humans prefer ink to markstone, so I assume it was also unreadable. But, for whatever reason, Qetul used a markstone with his second message. When I set the copystone to a blank sheet, it reproduced the Colonel’s letter and I saw Gærste’s name there, mention of a Verqeño scout and pistoleer, and their intended meeting place in the Vale, beyond the Wood Lands.”
Levoyn stared at the dwarf’s ring. “So, we have a rather broad conspiracy in the works.”
“They’re calling it a Shadow Conclave. Impulsive men threatening any chance we have of regaining our relics. They plan to fortify the fumarjóls with companies of human soldiers, impose roads on the alfan woods, and expand their cruel abuses of captives in some fool effort to gather intelligence.”
The captain took another swig of reddick. She closed her eyes. The fever of the whiskey poured into her thighs. She felt her muscles tighten and suddenly wished she were speaking with anyone but this surly dverganwife. Preferably a strong-shouldered man who would fortify chimneys, throw down roads on the foe, and beat the truth from them.
A half dozen memories played in the dark of her eyelids, comrades-in-arms in Væntaria, a bashful Daumie caul during her first assignment in the south, a Verqeño ship’s captain whose wit had caught her ear, in the undisciplined days before her captaincy. Oh, the raw liberties of being a warmaid like Bygga and Hawre. There was even one handsome alfan lord she had been sad to shove her sword into, rather than the inverse.
In the dark of her reverie, she remembered her commission, lifted her eyelids and her chin together. “We know the Daumie and the Hyrsian. Any idea of this scout’s identity?”
The dwarf’s eyes were tight and bitter. “Our sister among the Verqeñas believes she knows who it is.”
Levoyn pushed her upper lip out until it touched her nose. This dverganwife was steeped in conspiracy, no matter how clever she was at uncovering the conspiracies of others.
“Which sister is that?”
“My contact among your Verqeña allies is Pátriqa, a cousin of the Verqeño delegate and his chief assistant, deep in his counsel. Captain Barreto Qadareiña, the man this Daumie marshal interrupted at the Conclave’s opening.”
Angels of the stars, Barreto. Another hollow braggart like Ugræss! Levoyn knew this man to be a fussbudget, a mouthpiece for feeble southern generals who couldn’t be bothered to attend the Conclave. Even so, maybe his staff were better informed and better positioned than he was to act on threats to the war effort. She found herself studying the checkerboard array of pieces, the remains of her interrupted game. Her analogy for the Long War, deceptively simple yet subtly complex.
“So, you trust her? And him?”
Dame Brÿt pursed her lips. “He seems a well-behaved man. He treats Pátriqa well. And, he seems well-disposed toward the elves, ready to mediate an agreement if the opportunity presents itself.”
“He treats her well.”
“Like a daughter.”
Levoyn followed the hint. “This is a clue to his character, that he treats her well as a daughter.”
Brÿt stiffened in her chair. There was a change in the color of the sky. A reddening, giving the hue of the day to the ruddy-faced Dame. The dying day. Levoyn stole a glance over the dwarf’s shoulder, down the avenue, noted that the attendants were still gathered at the door of the roundhouse. The general was still safe, inside. She noted her lieutenant standing alone in the avenue, waiting for Ugræss to emerge. Good boy, Spræt.
“Captain Levoyn,” Brÿt said. “You may one day know the joy of a daughter. Having lost our Matrix to the elves, I have long forsworn my dverganwir as have many of the dverganwives. I wish to bring no more boys into this world.”
She let that sit for a moment. The dwarf withdrew her hand from the table. Hawre and Bygga were looking at her for a response, but she kept her eyes on the dverganwife. “If I ever let a man put a child in me, you are right, I may yet know a daughter.”
“And,” Brÿt went on as if invited, “she may go into combat against our foes, as you do. That is a privilege of human women. The selfish dverganwirs keep us segregated, for fear of losing their wives to the war.”
Levoyn slowly closed her eyes. It was a hard case to counter, the daughterless waning of the dwarves in the loss of their Matrix, the protective stance that ancient loss engendered. Even so, she knew it was a shallow argument. She leaned over the checkerboard and pinched Hawre’s fallen caul between her fingers.
“Dame Brÿt. How many of your sons have died as warriors in your defense?”
The dwarf’s bottom lip became as stiff as stone.
“And,” Levoyn went on, “how many of them died for lack of men standing beside them, while the dverganwives held fast in your sonless chastity?”
Brÿt leaned back in her chair. With effort the captain could see in the precision of her movement, the dwarf reached for the glass and lifted it to her mouth.
Levoyn felt she had made her point. “As far as the humans are concerned, this is a joint effort. If you want to intercept this Shadow Conclave at their meeting place, in order to get the warriors we’ll need, we must bring General Ugræss into it. He’s a loose cock, a wild dog of a man, but that’s the way of it. It will require a company at least, and that will require some fairly high-placed approvals.”
Brÿt nodded without relaxing her face. “I guess that is unavoidable. Our sister Pátriqa wishes to bring in Captain Qadareiña, of course.”
“He seems unfit.” Levoyn kept her own face as still as rock.
“I have served with him on committee,” Brÿt said. “As I said, he seems well-disposed to negotiating the return of our Matrix from the elves.”
She had endured enough of this dwarf’s selfish intrigues and prejudices. She wrapped her fingers around her glass, eyes locked on Dame Brÿt, lifted the reddick to her lips and downed the remaining half of Hawre’s generous pour.
“I don’t give a lemming’s shit about your Matrix.” She stared impassively at the dverganwife’s face, letting the reality of her position sink in. “I am here to protect the interests of Hyrsia, and to support you in that end alone. If you want to disrupt a subversion of our common effort, Hyrsian and dwarf in our alliance, I am with you. But I am not here to indulge some Verqeño brat because he serves your partisan dverganwife interest in placating the alfan foe.”
The dwarf’s brassy eyes burned like fire, raging at the sunset behind the captain. But, the amber twilight now belonged to Levoyn. As the day died, so would the tedious negotiation with this dverganwife. Lieutenants Hawre and Bygga both shrank in their chairs, clearly wishing to be anywhere else but in the crossfire between their captain and this sullen Dame.
Brÿt spoke: “A company of Hyrsians, led by Ugræss. I will keep the Verqeño out of it. If that’s what it takes to stop Hosmantel and his accomplices, so be it.”
∇
Levoyn stared at the board, three moves into an unfinished game, thinking about the way forward. She drew her sword, a curved Nagshandi blade she had won on a dare while bedding the Verqeño ship’s captain years ago. At the shuffling sound of steel withdrawn from the sheathe, Bygga reached into her leather sark and set a stone on the table.
“You’re quick with the right move when it’s not on a checkerboard.”
Her lieutenant nodded, mouth tight with a stifled smile. Good girl. Levoyn took the stone and began slowly grinding it along the edge of the sword.
Hawre climbed the stairs with a lit lantern. It was the Auberge’s, a Daumie design, and looked like a copper egg with wedges cut into it and decorated with blue glass. Levoyn surprised herself liking the foreign thing despite its predictable echo of Burrin’s roundhouses, spread out below and mottled in the glow of a thousand dusk-fired lamps. There was something pleasant and calming about the cool light the lantern spread over the stone table and summit deck. She smiled and nodded at Hawre as she took her chair.
“Captain, are we really going underground?”
Levoyn did not look up from sharpening. Stroke after stroke along the blade. “Hawre, you’ve fought the unsleeping elves of frosty Væntaria and their hoary jotan flunkeys. Are you yet afraid of the dark?”
She could hear her lieutenant shift in her chair. “Captain, I am game for any foe. Any foe I can see.”
Levoyn could not suppress a chuckle. She let herself look up. “You think we’re going to let Dame Brÿt lead us hand-by-hand through the sunless roads of the dverganrealm?”
Hawre didn’t shrug, but there was a shrug implied by the crook of her mouth.
“There will be light, lieutenant. Dwarves can’t see in the dark any more than you and I can.” She lifted her eyes into the black sky. “Better than us under dimmer light? Perhaps.”
“But, why can’t we go overland?”
Hawre’s voice was trembling. Levoyn looked her lieutenant in the eye and tried to channel some confidence. “Overland would mean through the strangling brambles of the Wood Lands, and our dverganwife knows a secret way. She wants this to succeed more than we do. She won’t lead us into any futile peril.”
Bygga grabbed the bottle of reddick, pulled the stopper, and took a short nip. She handed the bottle to Hawre, who took a deeper swig. Good girls, good girls. Push through the fear, into simple action.
But, what was the simple action here? Levoyn methodically slid the stone against the edge of her sword, admiring the plain craftsmanship of the ancient blade, thinking of the dozens she had bled and murdered with it. Summer elves and taiga elves and jotan of all fleshly forms: goblins and trolls and hybrid monsters of every grotesque combination imaginable. A trio of Hyrsian deserters executed in the meadows under Qol Fürükh. A dirty little Rhenarian pickpocket in Strandel. A half dozen mongrel pirates off the drowned ruins of Ghur.
She felt drunk with resolve. Unresponsive to reason. Her rational angel beat against the numb gate of the pledge she had made to the dwarf. She knew Ugræss would agree to her request of a company of men. He’d probably insist on coming along himself, for the borrowed glory of it, the grandeur of a general, won at the effort of others.
But, what of this Shadow Conclave and their plans? The Long War was stalled. Perhaps Dame Brÿt was right, and it was time to negotiate an end to it. If a peace could be made with the alfan, using this elf-loving Verqeño captain, the game would change. It could become three sides against one, all against the giants. At the very least, with the elves pacified, human armies might pass unmolested through the Wood Lands and bring the war to the jotan in their home.
Find the Cornerstone, seize it by brute force, and end the war. End the long deluge, saving humankind and regaining their sunken homelands. Simple.
But wasn’t that the goal of this Shadow Conclave? Find the Cornerstone by brute force, seize it, and end the war. Simple. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Until you’re up against the hurdle and forced to leap or stumble.
The creak of the suite door sang from below. Spræt’s voice called out, “Reporting, captain!”
“Upstairs, lieutenant!” She nodded at Bygga, then at her empty glass. Before Spræt stepped onto the summit deck, the glass had been refilled. Levoyn nodded at him, then at his empty chair, then at the glass of reddick.
“The general is safe in his room, alone.” He sat and lifted the glass to his pink lips. A sip and he hissed through his teeth, squinting. He regained his composure. “And, according to his adjutant, sleeping like a milk-fed pup.”
“While you were gone, I committed us to a new mission.”
He glanced back and forth at his fellow lieutenants, whose expressions did not please him. “Captain?”
“The dwarf discovered a conspiracy against the Conclave. One of their colonels, one of our captains, a Daumie marshal, and a Verqeño scout. Maybe others.”
“Living hells.” He looked at the glass of reddick and decided to take another sip. “Which one of our captains?”
“Gærste,” Levoyn said. “I’m going to request a company of Moosegunners from General Ugræss and we’re to head out to intercept them at their meeting place.”
“On the far side of the Wood Lands,” Hawre said. “And, we’re taking the dverganroads.”
To his credit, Spræt shrugged that off. He nodded, brow lifting like he thought the whole thing was a fine idea. “I’ll be glad to get out of this city and back into the field.” He took another swig of reddick.
Bygga leaned in, grabbing the edge of the table. “Hawre and I know Captain Gærste. He’s a rakehell, but he’s no traitor.”
“Is he not?” Levoyn set the stone on the table in a sliver of blue light. “How exactly do you know him?”
The two of them passed an awkward look. The raw liberties of war maids. Levoyn spared her lieutenants. “You may be right. Treason is in the eye of the beholder.”
Spræt sniffed and gasped in the airs of his drink. “Captain?”
“One way or another, we’re going to gather a company and intercept these conspirators in their secret Conclave.” She eased the sword back into its sheathe and reached for the bottle.
You have to nudge toward the leap, little taps of the heel, gentle tugs on the reins. Even when the unresolved mount is your own mind.