The Past The Hazard #2
Nirana stumbled but managed to arrest the bucket’s motion just before letting it fly. The shadowy group of presumably Descar-arik soldiers and hangers-on hastily vanished into the night, and everyone else in the little camp immediately found tasks that needed their attention.
Kai walked past them all and ducked inside his tent.
There was a glass lamp already lit in the overhead holder and his and Ziede’s bedrolls were stacked on the ground cloth with their few bags.
Kai started arranging things the way they always did, his mind more on that last insult from the Descar-arik, or from whoever it was who had come into the camp with the Descar-arik.
He had known for a while that it was a problem, but he had no idea what to do about it.
He had their bedrolls laid out and had sat down on his blanket when the flap rattled. Bashasa’s voice said, “All is well?”
Bashasa made his own rounds to check that all his people were present and accounted for, though he usually confined himself with speaking briefly to the commanders of the different troops and upper cadres. Kai said, “Yes, come in.”
Bashasa ducked inside and threw himself down to sit. His shoulders slumped a little in weariness, and he looked far more tired than he had after the meeting. “Ahh, it has been a long day.”
Kai absently rustled though his bag, old muscle memory from being Kai-enna insisting that when someone visited your tent you had to offer them food. He realized what he was doing and gave up; he didn’t have anything with him, anyway. “There was news from Enalin?”
“There was, and it is somewhat troubling.” He correctly interpreted Kai’s expression and said, “It’s not as bad as what we heard of Renitl-arik.
The message came from the commander who is gathering their forces in the northeast. They say the Tescai-lin still wants to join us, but some of their people are reluctant.
” Bashasa’s mouth twisted, and the confidence he always wore in public dropped away like a veil.
“There are many Enalin who wish to try to retake Nibet first, even though it is of no strategic value at this time.”
Kai winced. It was like the Arike in Benais-arik who had at first wanted Bashasa to free the city-states, with the Hierarchs still waiting to come right back in and conquer them again, or more likely destroy them utterly.
There was no point in saying if the Enalin don’t come we’re dead because Bashasa clearly knew that better than he did.
Literally dead, as the Hierarchs would continue their plan to wipe out the population of the west, east, and north to take the land and everything on it for themselves.
“They have to understand that won’t work. ”
“Their commanders certainly understand, as does the Tescai-lin. Perhaps the others understand in their minds but not their guts. The place is sacred to them.” Bashasa rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“Lots of places are sacred. Were sacred,” Kai said.
Bashasa made a gesture. It looked like indifference to Kai, but he knew it was the way the Arike expressed something that seemed to mean yes, but what can anyone do?
“The road through this caravansarai used to lead there, did you know? Long ago when Nibet was the home of the first people to call themselves Enalin, before they spread further northwest. It eventually became the center for their worship. Nibet’s ports became closed to trade, only open for pilgrims coming from up and down the coast to visit the place, so the trade all shifted to the roads further west, into the central part of Enalin. ”
Kai tried to picture it. “So the whole land was like a temple?”
“Something like that? But people still lived there, as guardians of it. It had become a replica of the sacred country where the Enalin go when they die. So each bit of it had a special meaning, this mountain is such and such, this lake is so and so, down to every pond and stream and rock, I think. And all those who lived there cared for it, and kept the sacred fires alight. It is, or was, a great honor to be born there, but no one was allowed to die there, from what I understand.”
Those rules wouldn’t have stopped the Hierarchs. Kai thought a great many people must have died there. “Did you ever see it? Before?”
“I meant to, for I’ve heard it is—was—a place of great beauty.
I am not entirely sure what the Hierarchs did there, if they spared anyone or simply took what they wanted, as usual.
” From Bashasa’s expression, he wasn’t thinking of a place he had never been.
Kai had seen the state that Benais-arik was in, and he knew how it would feel to someone who had grown up there.
The Hierarchs apparently made a great many promises about how the inhabitants of the captured Arike cities would be treated, and very few if any of those promises had been kept.
Bashasa seemed to shake off the memory and added, “The Hierarchs used Nibet as a corridor for invasion, and they captured the Tescai-lin there, which was how they got the Enalin by the throat.” Sighing, he took a flask out of his coat pocket and pulled the cork from it.
As soon as the distilled stink hit the air, Kai was furious. He leaned over and grabbed the flask out of Bashasa’s hand. He said, “No.” He had no plan for this, but he knew it needed to be done, and now was as good a time to start as any.
Bashasa’s expression flashed from incredulous to angry, his brows drawing together. “Kai, give that back.”
Kai didn’t move. “No.”
Bashasa huffed in frustration. He sat back and Kai watched him bring his temper under control. He was obviously marshaling his powers of persuasion. He said reasonably, “Kai, let’s not fight.”
Kai assured him, “No, we’re going to fight.”
Bashasa pressed his lips together in annoyance. Then he tried his flat death glare. It didn’t have anywhere near the impact when he didn’t mean it, when deep down he knew he was in the wrong. “Kai. I am a Prince-heir of Benais-arik. I am due respect.”
Kai tilted his head deliberately. “I’m a Prince of the Fourth House of the underearth. And both our titles are worth nothing until the Hierarchs are dead.”
“I realize that,” Bashasa snapped. Then he blew out a long breath and looked away. They sat in silence for a fraught moment. The fact that Bashasa had no real argument to make said more than Kai could. Bashasa finally said, “Who is the Third Prince?”
Wary, Kai frowned. “What?”
Bashasa clarified, “If you’re the Fourth Prince, who is the third Prince?”
“Tashiatieron of the Third House.” Kai knew Bashasa was de-escalating the situation like the master he was, but he had to add, “I never liked her.”
Bashasa met Kai’s gaze, letting some of his chagrin show. It might have been effective if Kai didn’t know he was just checking to see if Kai’s resolve had failed yet. Bashasa drew breath to speak and Kai said, “I know all your tricks. They don’t work on me.”
Bashasa slumped a little, pretending defeat to try to lure Kai into relaxing his guard. “I don’t use tricks,” he said, grumpy. “I am a reasonable person, I speak reason to others.”
The fact that that was true didn’t change the way Bashasa could wield candor like a weapon.
He wasn’t ambitious, he didn’t seem to want anything from anyone that they weren’t willing to give, he had never had anything to conceal.
Lahshar tried to stab at his hidden wounds, not realizing Bashasa was more than willing to expose them to the world if it got him closer to his goal.
Fortunately for all of them, that goal was keeping as many people alive as he could while destroying the Hierarchs.
Kai said, “Then as a reasonable person you know there is no way you can reason me into giving this back to you.”
They stared at each other in silence. Kai saw the moment Bashasa gave in. Actually gave in, not just pretended to give in as a trick. Bashasa’s shoulders relaxed, and he shrugged. “It’s just a crutch. I admit this. Sometimes a person needs a crutch.”
“The wooden thing Hiranan uses to walk is a crutch.” Kai lifted the flask. “This is poison.”
Bashasa’s mouth twisted, but he didn’t try to argue. “I would say it is hard, but of course you know that. It’s hard for everyone.”
Kai snorted, half amused, half wry. “You knew it would be hard. It’s always been hard.”
“I did not expect to be alive for this long!” Bashasa flung his hands in the air.
“Who knew this was going to work? That we would get even this far?” He ran a hand through his hair and said, serious this time, “A great many of our people are going to die in this fight, despite all our plans, all our efforts. Even before taking Renitl-arik into account, a disaster in the making I can’t lift a finger to prevent. ”
And there were Arike who even now wondered if the fight was worth it, who thought it might be true that the Hierarchs would spare the rest of the Arik city-states, as they had promised.
If they only submitted enough, if they gave the Hierarchs what they wanted, if they let the Hierarchs take everything the land had and grind its people into dust. Kai had heard his cadre talk about it.
None of them believed the Hierarchs intended any mercy, the cynical veterans of the Hostage Courts that they were.
Arsha had said sarcastically, Of course, just because they massacred everyone in Suneai-arik and the Arkai and the Sana-sarcofa and the Witchlands and all the way up the coasts to the north and east and south and west, I’m sure they’ll let us live.
Telare had added seriously, People say the Hierarchs left the far south alive, but those messengers from Palm, they say that’s only what the southern legionaries are made to believe. The coastal traders haven’t seen a civilian southern ship since last summer storm season.