Chapter 53 - Damsels in distress

“Step forward,” I called from my chair. Fay was sitting next to me on her own wearing a stern expression on her face that looked almost comical to me. She was usually either joking, teasing or seductive in my recent experience.

Ten warriors moved out of the crowd and stood proudly across the firepit from me. Chests puffed out and shoulders pushed back. The snow was falling lightly today and I was starting to hope the worst of the winter was behind us. By my reckoning we were somewhere around the end of January but the locals had thirteen months, based on lunar cycles, in a year so I was probably off by a few weeks one way or the other.

“You have completed your training as lancers and now join Jandak as the armoured fist of our forces.” I spent forty mana and ten saddles appeared at my feet. “You may choose your mounts.” Ten iron tipped spears, nearly three metres long, followed. “Take up your weapons for the tribe.” Ten sets of armour, thick felt lined with crude steel discs from neck to knee came out of the dimensional pocket next. “Do not throw your lives away,” I finished then nodded.

They came forward in a line and scooped up their new equipment and headed off to the paddock laughing and joking with each other about who would claim the best pony. Jandak commanded the lancers and he’d soon whip them into proper shape. The man was merciless when it came to discipline among his troops.

Fay rose to her feet and stepped closer to the fire so her face was lit from below throwing harsh shadows across her cheeks and plunging her eyes into shadows.

“Mondyn! Are you prepared for the summer season?” she called. A roar went up in reply from the crowd. “With our new weapons none can stand against my King. When our son is born a new prince of the steppe will take his place among us! At the Halleth festival we will show the other tribes what we’ve become!” Fay called out in a weird, atonal cant. Her voice flat but carrying across the mob gathered on the other side of the fire. Another roar came back and shrill cries from the women added a counterpoint to the basso rumble of the warriors.

“Eat and drink!” I called. “We’ve worked hard and deserve some pleasure!” I rose and whispered to Fay that I was going to the forge, she scowled prettily but kissed my cheek and took her seat to oversee the feast.

We were almost ready. I had three hundred mounted archers, split into two squadrons commanded by Mune and Kos. A hundred lancers answered to Jandak and we had sixty chariots which I commanded personally. With our steel equipment and innovations like stirrups I was confident we would be able to stand against any other tribe even before factoring in the enchanted items the warriors had all trained with.

Fay, Kril and myself had been pouring our mana into enchanting items every day for weeks and our stockpile had grown significantly. Every warrior had a healing trinket and arrows enchanted with firewall and fireballs were kept in special compartments of the quivers fixed to their saddles. The lancers all had small hide shields capable of creating ice or fire shields. I knew we weren’t capable of facing down Urkash by a long shot yet but the seeds of the army I’d need to go against Mortimer had started to come together .

I slipped away and strolled out of town to cross the few hundred metres from the camp to the entrance to the canyon. Glimpse orbited above me and I could see the guards in the watchtowers at either side of the pass were alert and watchful. The forge had originally been set up under wooden coverings just like Sulk had used back at Jagarnit but it had grown over the last few weeks. A dozen prisoners and some of the boys from the tribe worked feverishly around the clock to smelt the ore being wheeled out of the ancient mines in handcarts.

“Klip. It might be time to talk about the water wheel,” I said as I exchanged a warrior's arm clasp with the man.

“Lord. There’s no fucking water here!” he grumbled. “If I’d known you’d bring us to a day's walk from the nearest river I’d have insisted we set up over there!”

“Water isn’t the only option. The wind can be made to work for us as well.” I pulled out a piece of paper I’d covered in meticulous designs and notes and passed it to him. He wouldn't be able to read the writing but the pictures should make sense to him. “If we build at the top of the walls we’ll get the most out of the wind and we can transfer the power down here with a series of shafts and gears, look here…” I explained the drawing as best I could and his eyes narrowed as I continued talking.

“I can’t spare the men! When the ore dries up I’ll have bodies to spend on this but until then it’s iron or your fancy windmill,” he grumped at me. It seemed nothing could change the man’s general disagreeableness.

“Damn. For now focus on the iron. The water wheel will come soon enough and once it's up and running we'll have more free labour to build the windmills here. It might be best to move the smithing over to the river anyway.”

"What about the smelting?" Klip asked suspiciously.

"Best keep that here. Windmills can run bellows to do that work here and we can ship the finished ingots to the river in wagons," I said as I scratched at my chin. Bloody logistics.

“Hmph. Fine. You going back in again?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and I nodded. He moved over to the forge and lit a torch, the end wrapped in felt and dipped in pine resin, he passed it to me with a glint in his eyes. “Here. no point wasting your magic, lord.”

Torch in hand I went into a nearby tunnel. They were all crafted to look like small gaps in the cliff face from the outside and they all had a short corridor that opened out into a wider tunnel lined with rooms on either side. I’d grilled Kril about the history of the place but he’d not known very much. There were stories of a mighty kingdom that stretched across the tundra and the plains, long stone roads connecting various fortified settlements. The name was lost to time, apparently, but some ancient stone monuments and abandoned cities remained.

I moved into the first room on the left of this tunnel and lifted my torch to illuminate the marks that had troubled me for days. The flickering light shifted in the faint breeze as I stared at the carved words on the wall, throwing dancing shadows around the room. Set above the lintel, carved into the living stone was something written in an alphabet I was certain was from Earth.

Hunc locum Iulius Narbo in tricesimo anno regni sui regem septentrionalium gentium fecerat.

Was it Italian? It was certainly from my world. The letters were angular but cleanly cut into the stone. How long ago had someone from Earth taken power here and ruled as an exile, far from home, stranded among an alien culture? I ran my hands across the letters as I’d done a hundred times before and felt a faint sense of kinship for whoever had been responsible for leaving this sentence behind.

A sense of alarm from Glimpse snapped me back to reality and I hurried back to the campsite, throwing my torch to the side as I left the abandoned mine. Long strides let me cover the distance from the pass in a minute, even while I watched five unknown warriors make their way into the camp from the south under escort by Jandak and two of his warriors. The newcomers had their heads shaved except for a fringe cut level at their eyebrows, the rest of their heads gleamed faintly in the moonlight. I sent Glimpse closer to listen in.

“The King will be back shortly. We have food and water for you if you want?” said Jandak. The leader, walking ahead of his companions, snorted but inclined his head gracefully.

“I accept guest rites. This is a violation of our lands and it will be held to account but if you're lucky we can avoid violence.” His voice was like gravel sliding down a metal pipe. Discordant and harsh, high and low notes mixed together in a strangely accented version of the steppe dialect. I sped up and covered the last fifty metres to the town in a couple of seconds. Then I had to slow as I wove my way through the camp to the central fire just as the strangers arrived.

“Lady,” The leader nodded his head to Fay on her throne.

“Koprigyn. We’ve been expecting a visit from your tribe. Please,” Fay stood and gestured to plates of meat and vegetables. I strode out into the cleared space having taken a moment to straighten my tunic and smooth back my mullet.

“Greetings, warriors.” I moved in and offered an arm clasp which the leader accepted. His grip was strong and I carefully applied the same amount of pressure on his forearm before releasing him and sitting down next to Fay. “These lands are empty in the winter so we haven’t prevented your use of them. Come spring most of us will move south-”

“Lord, come spring none of you will be left if you do not leave now,” he ground out as he lifted a piece of meat and dangled it over his mouth. As he opened his jaws to eat it I saw his front teeth were filed to sharp triangles. “This is our sacred land. It is for us to decide who stops here and which herds graze on our grass. King Mond, I understand you have only recently been appointed to lead these Aerskyn rebels. Did they not tell you how the world truly is?” His shark toothed grin was cold and malicious.

“I am aware of the transgression,” I said softly. This man was triggering my aggression and the urge to attack him had to be pushed down.

“Half a tribe, stolen from one of the weakest tribes on the plains no less, has trespassed against the Koprigyn!” His voice increased in volume as he spoke until he boomed out the last part, stopping any conversations in the area. “Pillaging our land! Putting your warriors in silly metal skirts,” he sneered and pointed at Jandak and his armoured companions.

“Can this be made right?” I ignored most of his points and wasn't particularly worried if he said no. War with the Koprigyn was built into my plans based on their bellicosity and the fact that we had breached their territory.

“In exchange for all your metal, your smith, and four years slavery for your people I am willing to forgive this grave breach of the law.” I was favoured with another jagged smile.

“Perhaps it doesn’t need to be this way? Trouble is coming, Koprig. Trouble from the south that will make the old wars seem like childhood stories,” said Fay.

“Silence woman!” he snapped and I slowly released my grip on the arms of my throne as I heard the wood creaking between my fingers. I was confident Fay could put this idiot down on her own even without magic and I reminded myself that my people had no concept of white knights and damsels in distress. If Snow White had been set in this world she might well have forged an army of dwarves, laid siege to the wicked step-mothers castle and hung her from the highest window by a hook through her ankles.

“I am the wife of King Mond. If you speak to me like that again you will be crippled and thrown out into the wilderness,” Fay said quietly, fingering the dagger I’d given her on our wedding day.

“Oh do stop prattling-” he stuttered to a stop as Fay was suddenly next to him with her blade against his neck. I had one of his companions swinging from my left hand, his feet ineffectually kicking at me, and my own poniard had stopped an inch from his other friend's now unblinking eye. I had moved without thinking as soon as Fay blurred into action. Jandak had the final member of their party; both arms pulled behind his back and locked in place.

“I should take you for the women,” Fay snarled, a feral note in her usually soft voice. “We’ll take your balls and your eyes. The boys can kick your head about for a few days.” Her blade flicked twice, carving lines from either side of his mouth up to his ears. The man gasped and stumbled away, clutching at his face. Fay advanced on him and kicked him hard enough that he landed in a pile three metres away from where he’d started.

I smacked the one I was threatening with my dagger in the temple with the pommel, knocking him out, and tossed the other towards three of my warriors who beat him down as he landed at their feet. I moved towards Fay but she had stopped over the leader and lashed out again with a foot. She struck down on his ankle and I heard the bones crunch as she twisted a foot I used to think of as dainty.

She ignored his screams and her dagger flicked out to slice into the man's right elbow. I watched in horror as his bicep rolled up into a ball under the skin as the tendons holding it in place were cut. She’d crippled his left leg and his right arm.

“A warrior should have better manners when it comes to women. No wonder all the Koprigyn women prefer to fuck goats!” Her tiny foot lashed out again into his balls and he cried out, all the bass missing from the high pitched groan. “Throw these animals back into the steppe,” Fay commanded and warriors began dragging the poor bastards out into the wintry plains.