Chapter 2 #2
“There’s a new mission?” Vorik asked to change the subject. That topic seemed safer.
“Why are you pulling on wyvern tails, Vorik?” Jhiton asked.
“It sounds like some of the older and more crotchety wyverns have a future planned that would not be good for our people. And would ensure the gardeners are enemies for all eternity.”
“That’s ensured anyway.”
“Why?”
“We’ve killed almost all of their royal family, slain many members of their military, captured their high-ranking leaders on Harvest Island, and delivered damage to two of their major cities. So far.”
“Yes, I realize that. I was there.” For the Castle Island attack, he had been.
Thus far, Jhiton had Captain Lesva leading the troops on Harvest Island, and he hadn’t sent Vorik over there since its shield had fallen.
“But war is war. That’s how things go. If we can establish a treaty with their people after we’ve claimed enough islands to nourish the tribes going forward, we wouldn’t have to constantly watch our backs in the years and generations to come. ”
“You’ve a naive belief in that regard. Or did Queen Syla suggest that?”
“She doesn’t talk politics with me and is evasive about answering my questions on most subjects. This is my own opinion. I don’t think enslaving a population should be a part of our plans.”
“Our goal is to obtain all of the Garden Kingdom islands for our people. There will be no place else for the gardeners to live except under our rule.”
“We don’t have enough people to establish rule over twelve islands.
Unless you plan to kill most of their population—which would not be honorable and I hope is not your plan…
” Vorik watched his brother’s face for a reaction but didn’t get much.
“Unless their population got a lot smaller, we’d never rule successfully over so many. ”
“History tells us that it takes very few people to reign over a population. Before the storm god’s mad tinkerings, there were many human civilizations, and an elite few always ruled over the masses. There are ways to keep people in line.”
“That’s not really our goal, is it? Your goal?
I know you spoke of taking all their islands, but don’t you really just want there to be a food supply and safe place for our people to live in the future?
A world where children can be raised safely without being killed by the storm god’s creations?
” Vorik raised his eyebrows, certain Jhiton’s lost son, Jebrosh, was never far from his mind.
“I do want that. As to the rest, I’m a soldier, Vorik. As are you. I may have some sway with the chiefs, but I’m not in charge of our people.”
“How many of our leaders want to enslave the gardeners? I know Shi was lying to me.”
“Not all of them. It’s being contested at the tribe meetings. Chief Tenilor is the one pushing for that. Swordhawk and Sunchaser speak as you do and have no interest in ruling over others. Chieftess Marvola of the Starlion Tribe just wants hazelnuts and pears.”
“I knew it. She’s my favorite of our tribal leaders. I wish she were in charge of Wingborn.”
“Because her loyalty might also be won with a berry cobbler?”
“You know my loyalty is to our people.”
Jhiton smiled slightly and waved to a couple of troops who’d walked their way but hesitated to approach while they were speaking. He pointed them toward the three components.
“Be careful with the urn,” Jhiton said. “The contents are magical, but I don’t believe the container itself is.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m told it’s an amphora,” Vorik said. “Not an urn.”
“By the queen?” Jhiton asked.
“She was a princess at the time, but yes.”
The two men wrapped the components in hides and carried them off.
Aware of Jhiton watching him, Vorik didn’t ask where they would be taken.
He’d already issued enough questions that his superiors didn’t care for, and he didn’t want Jhiton to suspect that he’d been contemplating taking the components to Syla.
Besides, it wasn’t as if Vorik had seriously considered that.
He’d mostly daydreamed about Syla’s potential gratitude and how she might physically reward him if he showed up with them, but it had been a fantasy, nothing more.
“What’s the new mission?” Vorik asked again.
“I’m considering if you’re the right person to lead it.”
Vorik fought the urge to bristle and grow indignant. “Does that mean it has to do with Queen Syla?”
Eyes of the moon, what were his people contemplating now? He already worried that Captain Lesva, who’d requested the mission of assassinating Syla to ensure she was no longer a threat, would find a way to slip away from Harvest Island and make her desire a reality.
“It shouldn’t,” Jhiton said. “Harvest Island is fully under our control. While the Kingdom is trying to figure out how they’ll get it back, it’s the perfect time to take control of another island. As long as the queen stays on Castle Island, she shouldn’t appear in your flight path.”
“She has a dragon and wants those components back. I wouldn’t assume she’ll stay put.”
“Perhaps not, but she shouldn’t have a reason to visit Bogberry Island anytime soon. If she’s scheming ways to get the components, she shouldn’t be looking in that direction.”
“That’s probably true, unless their intelligence officers figure out that we’ll strike there next. Since it’s the other of the three northernmost islands that are clumped relatively close together, it makes sense as a target. Wouldn’t it be wiser to strike at one farther down the chain?”
“As we’ve discussed before, our chiefs believe that if we ultimately can only acquire three islands, it would be easiest for us to defend the ones together at one end of the chain.
” Jhiton hitched a shoulder, as if indifferent.
He wanted all the islands and probably believed they could get them.
“As to the Kingdom’s ability to obtain information on our plans, we’ve been careful about finding and ostracizing Freeborn Faction spies.
And the intelligence officers that the Kingdom itself sends out are hard-pressed to even find our camps.
Without dragons of their own, they can rely only on their slow-moving naval ships.
Ships we regularly attack at various locations around the Sea of Storms so that their crews are confused about where our people originate. ”
“Yes.” Over the years, Vorik had been a part of many of those attacks. He’d also watched as his people hid and did nothing while enemy ships sailed past within sight of their camps. “What do you want me to do on Bogberry Island?”
Jhiton didn’t answer right away. Did he doubt that Vorik was the right officer for the job?
“Jhiton, you can trust me to competently lead a military mission. Even if I have doubts about what some of the tribal leaders want to do in a hypothetical future in which we’ve been successful at all our aspirations, I wouldn’t act against your wishes.
You’re—we’re… With Mother and Father and our brother gone, you’re all I have left. And I owe you for… a lot.”
“I believe you, but I would like you to give me your word about something.”
Vorik tensed, worried this would be about Syla. “What?”
“If you do decide that you disagree with the tribal leaders and the direction they want to take the tribes, fight them in the way of our people, not through covert sabotage.”
“What, by challenging Shi to a duel for the leadership of the tribe?”
“Exactly that. If you want to effect change…” Jhiton spread his palm toward the roof of the cave.
“I don’t want to be a tribe leader. I’m not even— You know I’m not ambitious. All I want is to be a dutiful warrior and to continue flying into battle with Agrevlari. Maybe I also want a few strawberries every summer.”
Jhiton gazed at him.
“You could challenge Shi,” Vorik suggested. “You’d win that duel—I have no doubt—and such a maneuver wouldn’t be without precedent. It’s rare, but there have been chiefs who also commanded the Storm Guard or Sixteen Talons.”
“Not for long,” Jhiton said softly. “It’s never been encouraged, and it’s been during desperate times when it’s happened.
Remember the warlord Avidrak from our own history?
And how a dagger in his back ended his life?
People want their government, even a government as simple as ours, and their military separated so that the tribes don’t turn into dictatorships.
Besides, commanding soldiers is more appealing to me than leading civilians.
Soldiers are disciplined.” He gave Vorik a sidelong look. “Most of them.”
“My discipline is excellent.”
“Until someone drops a strawberry in your path.”
“Please. It would take a handful of strawberries and a peach to deter me from a task.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“While I’m away on the mission you’re going to assign me?
” Vorik didn’t yet know what the mission was and mostly longed for it because…
to have been considered for it and not given it would mean he’d lost his brother’s faith.
Maybe some of his trust. The idea stung, and when Jhiton hesitated again, Vorik closed his eyes.
As difficult as it would be, he needed to get all thoughts of Syla out of his mind so there wouldn’t be conflicts of interest going forward.
“You should have kidnapped her,” Jhiton said gently, as if he knew exactly what Vorik was thinking and wasn’t completely without sympathy.
“To use her against her people and keep her prisoner for her moon-mark forever forward?”
“To be your mate,” Jhiton said dryly. “We discussed that.”
“That was before she became the queen. Even as a princess, she wouldn’t have come to live a nomadic life full of danger and hard conditions.”