Forged in Fire

Prologue-1

Orzan Province, the far south of the Kistrill Empire.

Orzan Province, the far south of the Kistrill Empire.The 29th year of the reign of Willard III, High King of Kistrill and, by the grace of Quam, Emperor of the Forty Crowns.

The 29th year of the reign of Willard III, High King of Kistrill and, by the grace of Quam, Emperor of the Forty Crowns.Tennea slung a short, straight, sword over her shoulder to hang on her right hip, then tucked a knife into a belt sheath at the small of her back. She pulled a long linen duster over her muslin tunic and buttoned it down to the waist to conceal the blades, then slipped a slender dagger into a wrist sheath under the left sleeve of the duster. Finally, she lifted her long skirt just high enough to slide a fourth blade into a scabbard cleverly built into her right riding boot.

“Holy Quam,” Lieutenant Coltan muttered. “How many people do you intend to stab?”

Tennea paused before answering, watching the sun slide towards the hazy green mountains. There was an hour or so until dusk, she judged. Just enough time to find out what she needed before the real work of the night.

“I intend to c***k some skulls and bust up some rum dives,” she replied. “Stabbing, though? That depends on who resists. And how hard. Are you ready, Sergeant Workman?” She turned to her oldest provost soldier.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Workman nodded.

Lieutenant Coltan looked nervous.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea, just the two of you going into town?”

Tennea gave the lad a sharp glance.

“Hunter may be in that dirt-hole, Lieutenant. We’re not going to spook him by barging into town with a whole company of cavalry. Don’t worry about Workman and me, just wait for the alarm trigger.” Coltan raised an eyebrow, so she repeated, “Don’t worry. The alarm will work. You’ll feel a tug. Just follow it. Probably to the nearest tavern. Wait for the second alarm, and then come in hard and fast. Understand?”

Coltan nodded.

Tennea crammed a broad-brimmed straw hat over her thick orange-ochre hair and nodded at Workman. The sergeant was also plainly dressed in raw muslin trousers and tunic, but he openly wore a long, heavy, dagger on his left hip. With his weapon, and with the brutal arrow scar that marked his left cheek from mouth to ear, and with an ugly scowl to match the scar, Workman wasn’t likely to have much trouble with casual thieves or rowdies.

Tennea led the way out of the banana grove where the cavalry company was bivouacked. She strode into Orange Grove Town, taking the air of a noblewoman out for a stroll, with Workman trailing behind like a slab of hired muscle. They could have saved the acting. The streets were nearly deserted. The town square was sunbaked, dusty, and empty but for a few market stalls. The sellers were all women, locals, short folk with leaf-green skin and violet hair. They all wore the same sort of clothes Tennea had seen on her way through Orzan province so far, white cotton blouses with bright embroidery at the neckline and hem and on the bodice. Their cotton skirts fell only to the knee, scandalously short for the halls and sitting rooms of the northern heartland of the Kistrill Empire, but admittedly appropriate for the heat of Orzan.

Tennea saw stalls sparsely stocked with vegetables, sugar cane, fruit, colorful thread, or bolts of home-woven muslin, but no buyers. The vendors gave Workman suspicious looks, but they warmed quickly to Tennea. She smiled and chatted, trying to match the vendors’ patois – snatches of Imperial interspersed with bursts of rapid local pidgin. She overpaid for a pair of mangoes in one stall and a foot-long slice of cane in another, and before long they were chatting away with her. It took her less than half an hour to find out what she needed: the mayor of Orange Grove was a lazy crook; the shrine to Quam on Creek Street was crumbling and hadn’t had a priest in years; the roughest tavern in town was a rum-dive called The Filthy Bucket, and it was down on Tanner Street where no one decent ever went.

The sun was dipping behind the mountains as Tennea touched the brim of her hat and bade the market vendors good evening. She strolled down to Creek Street to the shrine. It was wrapped in evening shadows, under the shade of a spreading coulcut tree. It was simple, a ten-foot square, brick-paved floor under a weathered timber canopy. The paving bricks were buckled, or cracked, or missing, and the whole was overgrown with weeds. A brick alcove for votives stood empty next to a simple stone altar.

“A pity to see Quam so neglected,” Tennea said. Workman nodded beside her. “We should pray,” she said. Workman shuffled his feet and bowed his head. Tennea prayed. “Quam, Emperor of Heaven. You put the Forty Crowns of Kistrill on the head of your servant, our Emperor Willard. Give me strength, O Quam, to defend your chosen ruler and bring your glory back to this forsaken province. And give me the wisdom and strength to bring Hunter to justice.” She paused, clenched her fists, then breathed deeply and finished. “Soon.”

Quam,Emperor of Heaven. You put the Forty Crowns of Kistrill on the head of your servant, our Emperor Willard. Give me strength, O Quam, to defend your chosen ruler and bring your glory back to this forsaken province. And give me the wisdom and strength to bring Hunter to justice.” “Soon.”With her invocation complete, they set out to find The Filthy Bucket. It wasn’t hard. Tanner Street reeked like every other Tanner Street in the Empire, reeked of blood, offal, and urine. In Orange Grove a whiff of mud and rotting fish wafted up from the river to add a distinctive local bouquet.

The tavern itself was a ramshackle affair, walls of loosely woven wicker and a sagging roof of palm fronds, all held up by a few slender poles. It was still quiet, the evening crowd just starting to trickle in. Across the street and two-score yards further on, a woman under a mango tree was cooking a huge pot of stew beans and chicken over an open fire and selling supper by the bowl to a little crowd.

Tennea strolled to the open-air eatery and ordered a bowl for herself and Workman. They ignored the other customers and settled down with their backs to the mango tree. They ate slowly, watching the door of The Filthy Bucket. As dusk thickened and night closed over the town a parade of men came out of the shadows and began to fill the tavern. A racket of scratching and thumping that was supposed to be music started up. Singing and cheering mingled with shouted jokes and bursts of hilarity, and by the time they finished their supper the tavern sounded like the site of a perpetual riot.

By and by, the woman packed up her cookpot and went into her nearby hovel. Tennea tilted back her hat and waited even longer, watching the stars come out and wheel in the sky until another hour had passed. She wanted the drinking to be well underway before she arrived. Finally, she stood and Workman followed her over and into The Filthy Bucket.

Tennea shouldered her way through a crowd and slapped a gold coin on the counter in front of a harried barmaid. The barmaid was young, pretty, with a white blouse similar to that of the woman selling beans, but the neckline was so deep it nearly fell off her green shoulders. She took a look at the coin, looked back at Tennea, and her mouth fell open.

“Your best for me, and a couple of rounds for the house,” Tennea shouted over the terrible music. “And a table by ourselves. That one.” She pointed at a corner table where a group of men sat drinking and throwing bones.

“Yes, M’Lady!” the barmaid shouted back. She reached under the counter and produced a pair of dusty, unglazed mugs, and poured a double shot of rum from a jug that looked like every other jug on the shelf. She came around the counter, beckoning Tennea and fluttering her lashes at Workman, and led them through the crowd to the table. “M’Lady wants this table,” she hollered at the men. “And she don’t want company. But she’s buying the house a round, so move.”

The men glared at her, and at Tennea. Tennea smiled. Workman glowered.

“Move it!” the barmaid ordered. “She’s paying in gold, so I guess she gets whatever she wants, don’t she?”

The men vacated the table, trying to decide if they should give Tennea the evil eye for taking their spot or thank her for buying them drinks.

Tennea and Workman sat, backs to the wall, and cradled their dusty mugs. Now and again Tennea raised hers to her lips, pretended to drink, then lowered it untasted. Mostly she watched the tavern.

On the far side of the taproom, thankfully mostly hidden by a throng of watchers, several women took turns performing lascivious dances to the rhythm of the music. The middle of the tavern was full of tables where men and women sat and drank. Some were dining on skewers of pungent roasted meat, others threw bones or played twigs and stones, and the whole crowd laughed and sang and argued at full throat.

There were at least fifty men in the place. More than half were locals, greenies, but there were plenty of brownies too. Big men, brown-skinned like Tennea and Workman, with shocks of ochre or flaxen hair. Most of the men, brown and green alike, were scarred. Many of them were missing body parts: ears, fingers, eyes, arms, or legs. All of them looked up at the barmaid with delight as she moved around, splashing fresh rum into their cups, and pointing over to the corner where Tennea sat, her words swallowed by the din but her lips always mouthing the word, “M’Lady.” Some of the men nodded gratefully. Others glared with suspicion. None of them came over.

Tennea watched the room for an hour. It got louder, and hotter, and smellier. A fight broke out, fists flew, but the only blood was from a broken nose. Before things came to blades a big muscular brownie with a couple of nasty scars knocked some heads together and broke things up. Tennea watched the man more closely. He moved around the tavern, getting nods of respect, but not really stopping to chat for long. A man with power if not friends. A bouncer of sorts, but more than that a man who would know everyone’s business. The man she wanted to talk to.

Tennea slid her hand into the pocket of her duster where she kept her alarm trigger. It was a little cube of wood with a hinge on the side. The hollow top of the cube flipped open to expose a knob. She pushed the knob with her thumb, then closed the lid again.

The barmaid came back, smiled, and leaned close.

“M’Lady want anything else?”

“Buy the house another round,” Tennea said, keeping her eye on the room. She flipped the barmaid another gold coin. “Make it a double. I want everyone to have a good time.”

The barmaid shrugged and scampered off to make another round of the tavern, sloshing rum and pointing at Tennea. She waited another hour and waved the barmaid over again. She came in a hurry, expecting and getting a third coin. She made a third round, and this time, besides the smiling nods, Tennea got the results she wanted.