Book One Conclaves: Colonel Kettle
BURRIN, DAUMIAND
EQUINOX, FIRST DAY OF AUTUMN
FIRST DAY OF CONCLAVE MILITANT
“Our dwarf allies too have suffered the loss of the Cornerstone, as they dwell under our lands!”
The Hyrsian general extended a pink hand toward the dvergan delegation seated in the fore of the Conclave Militant. They nodded ruddy beards at the human and tapped their crystalline arms on the floor in courteous acknowledgement, a drumroll of maces, axes, and hammers against the flagstones.
Kettle stood apart from his kinsmen, though, on a raised dais against the rear wall near the huge and ornately carved double doors. He wasn’t sure the shelf of stone was intended to be stood upon but, from there, he could look over the heads of the humans and see clearly the entire assembly.
The Conclave roundhouse was not large, at least not by dvergan standards. And, Kettle had seen vastly larger humanwork in Strandel. But, this was Burrin, the ancient seat of Daumiand, and Daumie etiquette demanded an intimate space. As it was, thirty envoys from each of the three human folks sat or stood in a semicircle around the dvergan delegation: tall, pale Hyrsians on the right; dark-haired Vergueños on the left; Daumies in their brightly colored patecloths in the center nearest the door. Being the hosts this year, the Daumies would speak last out of courtesy. Ever the stewards of civility.
The room was windowless, dimly lit and sealed for the comfort of the dwarves. The surface air moved too much and breezes made dvergan eyes water. So, he was grateful for that courtesy. But still, he could do without the speeches. Useless, blustering speeches.
This year, when it came time for the dwarves to speak, he intended to confront the entire assembly with their failures and their fanfare. They were losing the Long War. He would claim his right to stand, delegate to a powerful dvergan House, and withdraw his signature from the alliance. God and the angels only knew what the result would be. Likely, he would be cast out of his House and out of dvergan society, driven into the depths or, worse, exiled to the windblown surface.
Hells, they might just beat me to death in the streets of Burrin. But, something has to be done. The plain truth has to be spoken.
The Hyrseman’s lips wettened with fervor. “So, they know our urgency, as the advancing seas drown their homes and ours alike!”
It was General Ugræss who opened the Conclave, and his rant was a polite fiction, Kettle knew. The realms allotted to humankind were lowlands, affording little room between wind and water for the burrowings of his own kind. The grand cities carved under the high plateau in the West were the true home of the dverganfolk. When the Cornerstone was stolen from humans at the war’s ancient outset, and their broad plain in the East began to sink inexorably into the sea, the dwarves under its far reaches had been forced to retreat just as the humans had. This much was true. Their tunnels had become sumps of brine, remote towns and mines lost year by year as the salt water encroached mercilessly.
But, it was a retreat from the hinterlands for his own folk. For the humans, it had been a slow deluge swallowing their homeland.
The thick pink hand swung backward, gesturing behind the immense Hyrseman, toward the distant Wood Lands. “And the Long War makes their foes ours, as the elves stand between us and the Far Mountains where dwell the monsters who stole our Cornerstone!” At this, the human warriors responded, Verqeños slapping sabers in their scabbards, Daumies clapping solemnly, and Hyrsemen whooping and hollering like a pack of wolves.
As, as, as. This fellow needs a new rhetorical device.
Kettle found the pleasantries of the annual Conclave tedious. Human and dvergan had been allies for three centuries, and he had been there from the first. He missed the ferocity of the Nardemen, the clever tactics of the Rhenarians, the eloquent arguments of the Nagshandi. But, those nations had been reduced to remnants, their lands drowned, their numbers devastated by the Long War. There weren’t even enough of them left to justify delegations to the various Conclaves.
The humanfolk remaining were full of hollow boasts, dry manners, and mindless commerce. More real business was done by the traders at their Conclave Marchant, and their warriors were mouths without fists. There was no longer anything militant about the Conclave Militant. Everyone knew the causes of the war, the circumstances of their alliance. Too much needless diplomacy, too much stoking of morale. And not enough strategy.
It was time to make his break with these bluffards, as soon as he had his opportunity to speak. Even if he stood alone.
The towering General Ugræss stomped an impotent boot against the flagstones. His golden mane was speckled with the spittle of his rhetoric. “And, as this is a Conclave of four united armies, three united humanfolk and two races, I yield to my comrade-in-arms, the esteemed chief delegate from Verqia.”
Everyone turned to the Verqeño delegation. Nearly everyone. Kettle noted a single head of dark, close-cropped ringlets among the intricately tied patecloths of the Daumie delegation. This man did not cover his head as his fellows, had not clapped with his fellows, and his dour brown face matched Kettle’s impatient mood. He had a rough look, and wore an iron gorget over his throat. A marshal, then.
A Verqeño stepped forward, his near-black hair was held back by a silver pin decorated with two shriveled, green-grey ears. Alfan trophies. A braggart’s ornament. Kettle noted the crimson epaulet on his left shoulder.
A captain! Verqia hasn’t even bothered to send a general this year.
The Hyrseman, standing a full head taller than the Verqeño, slapped a thick hand on the man’s shoulder. “Captain Barreto Qadareiña, son of Orixo, sent here by General Tavalero.”
As General Ugræss rejoined his Hyrsian fellows, the Verqeño captain tugged at the bottom edge of his gaudy, samite surcoat and let his hand rest daintily on the ruby pommel of his rapier.
“Each autumn we gather here to discuss the coming winter’s incursions into the Wood Lands of the foul elves, seeking salients toward the Far Mountains of the foe!”
We all know this, you tiresome coxcomb. The war is at a standstill. Kettle stole another glance at the dour Daumie. The man stepped forward as if he wanted to throttle this Verqeño prig. From his solid stance, Kettle had no doubt he could do it.
Instead, the man spoke: “Captain Qadereiña, each autumn we recite the plans of the previous year.”
The room was suddenly still. One of the Daumie elders leaned in and spoke a word toward the bare-headed man. His name?
The heckler stiffened, but went on defiantly: “My apologies to the Conclave. Each year we recite the same strategies and each year we are no closer to reclaiming the Cornerstone.”
An elder in a green-and-yellow checkered patecloth stood from his chair: “Marshal, you were not invited here to address the assembly!”
Kettle grinned. This might actually turn out to be interesting after all.
“Let the man speak,” came a voice from the Hyrsian delegation. A pink, moustachioed face rose to claim the comment. “He’s earned more ears than the lot of us!”
The Daumies grumbled and became silent again. One of them offered the bare-headed marshal his orange patecloth, but the man shrugged it off and stepped forward to take the floor.
“Marshal Voight,” Qadereiña said, “You have something new to add? A woodrunner’s rumor or the tales of some elf-witch you bedded in the bushes of the wild?”
To the man’s credit, he ignored the captain’s insult. Kettle took note of his name. Voight. A low-born name among the Daumie.
“In the past few years,” the marshal spoke, “the fumarjóls of our allies have come under increasing assault from both alfan and jotankind. Our enemies intend to close off the dvergan chimneys, stifle their manufacture, and cut us off from our supplies. No sooner does a wisp of smoke arise from the industry of the dwarves than the hillock is beset with foes.”
The dwarves stared at the flagstones, looking weary, as if they could not bear the weight of honest words. Kettle ground his teeth. Beaten old widowers.
Voight turned to Qadereiña, who was standing to one side with thumbs hooked in his filigreed belt. “This I learned not from the timid woodrunners of winter nor the councils of a captured elf, but from witnessing the assaults with my own eyes, at Qol Fülükh and Darseqírow, during the heat of summer when other marshals were resting safe, here in Burrin and in Karvald and Sientaría,” he eyed each human delegation as he mentioned their capitals, “resting safe and waiting for the leaves to fall. Waiting for the elves to sleep.”
So this Voight is the so-called Summer Marshal! The infamous Elf-Hunter of Daumiand.
The bare-headed Daumie turned to the wretched dvergan delegation, their brass-red eyes barely meeting his gaze. “The elves and their allies in the Far Mountains are patient, and their strategy has evolved from stubborn defense to strangling our common effort. They have their immortality and their fecundity, and they can well afford to wait out the daughterless waning of the dwarves and the slow drowning of humankind.”
He lifted his eyes to his Daumie countrymen, a company of cavillous, wood-brown faces under a rainbow of patecloths: “We have been reduced to a fifth of our God-given realm, our backs to the sea, facing the wooded hills of the wild. Will the Markholds pressed against that forest wall long withstand the brutal alfan raiders who murder our fellows, sell our wives to the giants, and shrivel the crops on which our children feed? When the ports of Strandel and Vickers and Miguen succumb to the rising tides, where then shall we retreat? Into the throttling roots and brambles of the enemy?”
“Woodrunner,” the captain sneered, “what more would you have us do?”
Grim sounds of accord rose not only from the human delegates, but from the dvergan as well. One rusty-faced old general lifted his emerald mace and growled, “How can we open our chimneys with the greencloaks and their troll confederates ever lurking in the trees?”
Marshal Voight stared down the Conclave for a long moment, the iron of his eyes making clear that he was not searching for an answer but waiting for them to acknowledge his resolve. When the still of the assembly was to his liking, he faced his human brothers and spoke again.
“Clear the roads into the Wood Lands. Maintain them by force, and pave them by log and stone.”
He ignored the laughter, and it was quickly stifled.
“Fortify the fumarjóls with standing companies of men, in defiance of solstice and equinox. Secure the industry of our allies and have our men take their supplies there, up from the very source rather than carried here to the rear of the fight. Reach deep into the realm of the foe until we sally not merely into alfan lands, but across the Vale of the Wilderness and into the home of the giants.”
There were gasps of incredulity like the whisper of a waterfall echoing from walls of the roundhouse. Marshal Voight seemed to reach into that whisper and find resolve.
“Discover where they have stashed away our Cornerstone, beat and burn the information out of their scouts if we must, and take back the birthright of our race.” It was a command and a statement, as firm and certain as stone. There was blood and faith in it. This was talk a dwarf like Colonel Kettle could respect.
But, there were few dwarves like Kettle.
“Is that your speech, then?” Captain Qadereiña asked.
Voight scanned the room. It was silent, the waterfall of doubt suddenly gone.
“It is,” he said.
“Now then,” the captain said. “Every autumn we gather here to discuss the coming winter’s incursions into the Wood Lands of the elves, seeking salients toward the Far Mountains of the jotan foe. Our knights, scouts … and yes, even marshals, lead the charge.” He smiled at Voight. “Occasionally with admirable if ill-considered zeal. Nevertheless, reaffirming our bold alliance is indispensable to our common struggle!”
So, the standard niceties resume as if no bare-headed hound had interrupted the Conclave’s earnest ritual.
Marshal Voight rounded the dvergan delegation and pushed his way through his Daumie fellows toward the door of the roundhouse. All eyes were on the Verqeño. Kettle hopped down from the dais with a grunt and stepped between the marshal and the old keymaster guarding the doors.
“Let the marshal pass, please,” the keymaster said, suddenly closer behind him.
Kettle turned to the old Daumie. He was wearing a gray robe and a plain gray patecloth. His eyes hinted at remorse, but were steady. Kettle knew that look; this man had seen war. He did not want a confrontation, but he was ready for one. The keymaster lifted his white beard to reveal an iron gorget.
Kettle nodded. “Just a word with Marshal Voight, Marshal …”
“Alemeinga Proust.”
“Marshal Proust.” Kettle nodded his head again. It was a human gesture he still had a hard time understanding.
“Say your piece,” Voight said, “or hold your peace.”
Kettle turned to face the bare-headed man. “Peace is the last thing on our minds. Outside on the portico, among the staffers and hangers-on, you’ll find a dverganmaid wearing a crimson sash. Damsel Ásil, my assistant. Please give her the address where you are staying during the Conclave. I wish to discuss your strategy.”
Voight and Proust passed a look back and forth over Kettle’s head. These two have fought together.
“You may have saved my life today,” Kettle said. “Give me a chance to repay you.”
_
∇
Kettle’s suite was atop the Ferese Inn, the broad balcony decorated with delicate wood carvings of running horses. Probably Verqeño work. Kettle stood leaning on the handrail, one fist wrapped over the back of a mare and the other resting on the mane of a stallion. The ancient capital of Burrin looked like a table covered with overturned mugs, domed roundhouses of red and brown stone reaching to the distant edge of the mesa on which the city was built. He could see the House of Elders, topped by the barred circle of the Twin Angels. A gentle wisp of smoke rose from a chimney along its broad dome.
He always found it curious how humans, dwellers upon the open plain, seemed to prefer artificial caverns in which to live. They had lived this way for as long as he could remember. He wondered if they had learned the habit from his own folk.
“Colonel Hosmantel?”
His assistant, Damsel Ásil, was standing in the doorway holding small writing desk. She set it carefully on the balcony’s iron table and smiled. He could see the delicate eyes of his clan on her face, round and the color of dark clay. She was among the last daughters born to the dverganfolk, a precious reminder of the urgency of the Long War. But, Ásil was precious beyond her waning sex. She was a bright and steadfast aide. He would trust this correspondence to no other.
What he was about to propose to Marshal Voight was treason.
“Thank you, Ásil. I guess I should be about it.”
“You didn’t have to be the scoundrel after all?”
He grinned. She grinned. He chuckled, in spite of his mood.
“No,” he said. “This Daumie marshal took the bullet for me.”
“It’s all the talk,” she said. “Outside the roundhouse, of course.”
He nodded. It was her way of saying they would need to be especially careful passing letters back and forth with Voight. She held out her fist in the dvergan fashion. He clasped his hand over it. She backed into the suite and closed the balcony’s double doors.
Kettle sat at the table and lifted the lid of the writing desk. It, too, looked like Verqeño woodwork, intricately carved with a pattern of leaves and berries. Provided by the inn, maybe, since he did not recognize it. It contained an ink bottle and quill, definitely not dverganwork. He wondered why Ásil hadn’t brought a markstone pencil. Perhaps it was a diplomatic gift.
He looked out into the darkening sky. The air was calm, and he thanked God for that. He marveled at the colors in the sunset, green and red and purple with swirls of white cloud, as if the whole of Creation were set inside a glorious gemstone.
He was stalling. He uncorked the ink bottle and dipped the quill into it.
To the Honorable Marshal Voight of Daumiand:
My hope is that this message finds you well and finds you early. As you know, I heard you speak at the Conclave Militant. More importantly, I listened. You were correct to impugn the redoubled strategies of our long-stalled alliance.
It may help that I knew you at the battles you mentioned during the Conclave, at Qol Fülükh and Darseqírow, where you raked the foe with your long gun from their rear and rent them in confusion. I did not then know you by name, only as the so-called Summer Marshal, the lone human woodrunner who braves the forest cloak of the alfan at the height of their awakening. Of late summers, my own folk will hardly venture above even in company, even so nearby is their refuge. Yet at Darseqírow on the edge of the Vale you were on your own, months from the nearest human farmhold.
This alone would recommend you to me, even if I had not seen you shame our generals at the Conclave with your free and honest words. Has another marshal set eyes on the Vale of the Wilderness within your generation?
I also suspect you may have been present at Tumjól Pélem and Qol Seqébir, where the elves and their goblin allies were broken by an unseen gunman. These were lesser skirmishes, but a well-placed shot at the Pélem Ridge spared my fool head the kiss of a giant’s bone mace. If that was your doing, I owe you a great debt.
I propose a meeting, at the fumarjól of Qol Murikh upon the winter’s solstice.
– Hosmantel Cloak-Foe of clan Qetul of the dverganfolk
He sealed the letter with ribbon and wax. The sun vanished over the edge of the city. He stood, corked the ink bottle, closed the writing desk. He had a committee meeting to attend, another pointless bit of Conclave theater.
_
∇
The next day, as Kettle was reviewing a stack of exorbitant arms requisitions from the Verqeño delegation, a knock came at the suite door. Ásil answered it, and returned with a human boy, platinum hair marking him as Hyrsian.
“He says he has been sent by a Captain Gærste to carry a response from Marshal Voight.”
The boy had a paper in his hand, folded and sealed. He recognized the seal from Voight’s gorget. He tucked his markstone pencil into his shirt and looked the messenger in the eye.
“Do I know Captain Gærste?”
The boy’s brows dropped defiantly. He’s going to be a rough one, some day. Kettle stifled a smile.
“Kjempemyrd, the Giant-Killer, said to tell you he was the man who spoke out to defend Marshal Voight’s right to speak.”
“I understand Hyrsian,” Kettle said. “You need not translate the captain’s war-name for me.”
The boy looked at the floor and held out the letter. Ásil took and and walked it over to the Colonel. Kettle took it, inspected the seal. It looked unbroken. He flipped the letter over.
“Tell me, boy. Does your captain ever trim that lemming he wears on his upper lip?” He broke the seal and started unfolding the letter.
The messenger glared at him and balled his little hands into fists, but he was still just a child. He giggled. “Not since I’ve been working for him.”
Kettle nodded. “Nobody saw you?”
“Nobody cares about a boy. I kept it under my sark until she let me in.”
He looked at Ásil. She closed her eyes in confirmation. “Nobody cares about a boy. I guess that’s generally true. But, a boy becomes a man eventually. Do you know what this letter is about?”
“Nobody trusts a boy, either.”
“Captain Gærste and Marshal Voight have trusted you with something very important. Part of becoming a man is understanding that war sometimes requires secrecy.”
The messenger looked at the floor again.
Kettle sniffed and studied the boy. He asked himself if he were stalling again, afraid of what the marshal might have written.
“You took a big step toward becoming a man today. One day, if all goes well, you’ll know how much you were trusted today.” He waved the letter at Ásil. “Give him a piece of silver. He’s done well.”
Blue eyes grew wide and round, almost as round as the coin Damsel Ásil put in his small hand. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“Don’t spend it. Don’t show it to anyone. Keep it secret. Save it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you remember the way back from here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No you don’t. You were never here.”
The boy looked sideways, then nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
As his assistant closed the door, he opened the letter and read the ink scrawled there.
To Qetul Hosmantel:
I am deeply honored by your proposal. However, I feel I must be forthright in stating that collaboration with me would be ill-considered on your part.
I am not highly placed among the war councilors of humankind. I am despised by many for being Daumie, as we are thought to hoard the best remaining human lands. Indeed, Daumiand is neither as bleak and cold as Hyrsia nor as burnt dry as the lands of the Verqeños, but I suspect that the Three Folks would find cause to hate each other no matter who held what lands.
I am again despised among my own folk for not being Daumie enough. I never bothered to learn to tie the birjan, which I consider a foppish affectation of merchants and politicians. I often go about with my head uncovered, which many consider scandalous and vulgar, and when I wear a hat I wear it against my hair like I did as a boy. I have influence neither in the House of Elders nor among the captains of our armies.
What little I could offer you would begin and end in my head and the reach of my flintlock.
I must also set accounts straight on a few matters. I am alone at most of engagements, but at Darseqírow I had the happy company of two fellows, one of whom is this Conclave’s keymaster, Marshal Proust, who has ties to several prominent families. The other was a Verqeño lieutenant who ranges as a Beater along the Great Gorge, who had come with me to survey the landmarks of the Vale. I could make proper introductions with them, if you prefer.
You owe me no debt for the skirmish at Pélem, as would likely have put a ball in that ogre in any case and I take my targets as quickly as I see them. Also, I am of a mind that the appellation Summer Marshal is as much a play on my given name, which is in no way derived from the season, as it is a reference to the range of my routines.
– Marshal Summ Voight
He sighed and let the letter drop between his knees.
“Bad news?” Ásil asked.
He glanced at the stack of requisitions, then out the window to check the time. He envied the humans their daylight schedules. God gave the updwellers the sun for a clock. In the shadows of the dvergan realm, time was much harder to regulate.
“Looks noon,” he said.
“Nearly. Conclave resumes soon.”
He shook his head, ran one rough hand over his shaven skull.
Ásil moved up beside him and began shuffling through the requisitions. She was offering to take them off his plate. There was a long moment where he stared at his hands and she read the paperwork.
“You know,” she said. “This Voight is an outsider. Low-born. Voicing unpopular opinions. No longer welcome in the Conclave Militant.”
He looked up at her. She had that look. Thinking.
“Give him something to belong to. Somewhere to feel welcome.”
He huffed a breath of realization. A true daughter of the Qetul, she is.
“Get me the writing desk.”
_
∇
After Ásil had stepped out, knowing he could not write while being watched, Kettle sat on the balcony for a moment, simply staring over the city. He pulled the markstone pencil from his pocket and spun it in his fingers. The bulb of the Conclave roundhouse was topped by a weathervane that pointed almost directly at the Ferese Inn. Away from the fight. How appropriate.
The shadow of the roundhouse fell along the street to the building’s north. The doors, crowded with attendants and returning delegates who looked like bees before a hive, were on the south, brightly lit by the sun. The Conclave cannot see its own shadow.
The pencil came still in his hand. “They cannot see their shadow,” he said aloud. He set the markstone against paper and began to write.
To the renowned Summer Marshal and Elf-Hunter Summ Voight:
In your head you offer something the elders of the Three Folks and their meets and captains seem to lack: a knowledge of the strategy of our enemies. The sure work of your flintlock, however, would suffice.
At the opening of this year’s Conclave Militant, I had planned to withdraw my signature from the alliance, thus nullifying my clan’s rights at the assembly. I fully expected to be driven from my people, perhaps conveniently hammered into silence before I had a chance to return underground. Your blunt talk spared me that rash move. You may have just saved my fool life once again.
I leave Burrin tomorrow on the third day of autumn, my business with the Conclave Militant being more or less complete. Meet me at the fumarjól of Qol Murikh along the ridge of Felarqráq, which your folk call the Yellowflower, on winter’s solstice next. From there may we rally like-minded allies at the Pentacle from among your woodrunning marshals and my few but steady-minded dvergan fellows. Any introductions should come later.
My proposal is no less than to form a new alliance, a Shadow Conclave. I can think of no Daumie I would prefer as a founding member. Your ally Gærste and this Verqeño scout you mentioned would square it off neatly.
Whatever the origin of the Summer Marshal, the appellation serves you well. I have heard it in the mouths of captured goblins and fully expect you would appreciate its timbre there.
– Hosmantel Cloak-Foe of clan Qetul of the dverganfolk
He double-sealed it, stepped back into the suite, and handed it to Ásil.
“Wait for the response,” he said. “I trust the boy, but wait for the response this time.”
_
∇
When the response came, in it were several names. He was glad he had instructed Ásil to carry the response herself.
The Hyrsian captain, Gærste, was at the top of the list. The scout, whom the marshal identified only by the given name Adago, was also apparently in Burrin but not with the Verqeño delegation.
Ásil was reading the response over his shoulder. “He’s bringing in the Conclave keymaster?”
Kettle shrugged. “Proust and Voight seem to have a history. What did the Rhenarians used to say? The more, the merrier.”
“The Rhenarians,” Ásil said. “How many of them are still around?”
Kettle turned to look at his cousin. “Not many, and not merry.”
She sighed. “It’s done. He’s already spoken to the man. And, he’s going to meet with some caul on the edge of the Wood Lands? He doesn’t even mention his name.”
“This other Verqeño, the pistoleer he wants me to contact. I recognize his name.”
“Can he be trusted?”
“He’s good at killing giants,” Kettle said. “Or at least that’s his reputation.”
“So,” Ásil said, “we have seven.”
“Not counting the boy.”
They shared a look, then a grin.
“I guess I should meet with these two before we leave Burrin. Gærste and Adago. Can you go arrange a quiet dinner while I pack up our things? Reserve a dark room downstairs?”
“My things are already packed,” she said.
A true jewel of the Qetul, this one.