Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

Tonsho moistened thin lips. She gave the boy who had snickered a meaningful glare. Though for the most part Duke Morn was the distracted, feckless dodderer he appeared, sometimes he gave evidence that the shrewd statesman he once had been had not wholly died with his wife and only son two years ago. The boy pouted and stroked a golden bangle depending from one ear. Tonsho made a mental note to get rid of him at the first opportunity. He was obdurately stupid, and she could not abide that, even in her kept pretty-boys.

In the drafty throne room atop the Palace's highest tower they made a curious contrast, the duke and the commoner who actually ruled the dukedom. Morn's once mighty frame had shrunk to a spindly, emaciated shadow of its former self. His leonine head, once long and fierce, was parchment-skinned and hollow at the temples. Despite the sticky noonday heat unrelieved by the rank breeze crawling through open windows, he wore a heavy robe of yellow velvet trimmed with the fur of the rare gazinga of the Dyla Wilderlands. He huddled within its confines as though afflicted with chill. Whether heat or senility caused it, Morn virtually ignored Tonsho and idly rustled fingers among the maps and charts that covered the tables set by the curving stone wall to his side.

She stood before him, as stubby and ugly as a tree trunk but equally unyielding. Her slit-eyed face resembled that of a pit-bred fighting dog, her eyes watery gray and hair an indeterminate color suggestive of mice. Her lumpy body was decked out in an outrageous robe of scarlet and electric blue, and her shoes were yellow, curling upward at the toes. Tonsho was the most senior and powerful member of the Chamber of Deputies which administered the wealthy port of Kara-Est. She had clawed her way to that lofty position from the lowest gutter of the city's slums.

'The artillerists manning our roof engines can hit an osprey on the wing,' she told him. 'And our ludintip can hoist aloft gondolas filled with archers. For the first time in generations we will carry the war to the enemy in his own element. Most of Synalon's ground forces are still straggling back from the north, and her bird riders are diminished by two hard-fought battles in the last several weeks. Only the dog cavalry the City held in reserve in Bilsinx, the greater part of which already has marched on us according to our spies, is reasonably fresh. And they can be discounted.'

The huge, narrow head slowly moved up and down in a nod. Tonsho had no idea whether he comprehended her words or not. His lucid moments were both infrequent and unpredictable.

'On the debit side: their bird riders, particularly the Sky Guard, are consummately skillful and have the morale to absorb huge losses without breaking. We will have to inflict frightful slaughter on them to turn them back. And as they have made all too clear in recent days, they are more than adept at wreaking slaughter themselves. They have Synalon, who has announced to all the world that the Dark Ones have given her Their favor, and traded her increased powers. This may be true. Lastly, they have Rann. I credit him a greater advantage to them than the favor of the Dark Ones, or of the Three and Twenty Wise Ones of Agift into the bargain.' She smiled grimly at the thought of such an unlikely alliance.

'Well…' Duke Morn stuttered at a loss for words. 'Do what you can. Yes. Let this be your watchword: do what you can.'

'We will,' the deputy rasped. A cold knot gathered in her belly at the prospect of battle, but she held her mind rigidly from her fear. 'We may not win, Your Grace. But we will cost the City in the Sky dearly in this armed negotiation. Perhaps enough to render moot their dreams of conquest.' She made abasement and prepared to leave.

'Yes,' the duke said slowly. 'I know what my part must be. You may leave now, Chief Deputy Tonsho. I will consult the weather. Meteorological data will be of vital importance in the coming conflict. Vital.'

She hid her grimace with another inclination of her head. He had been a strong leader, wiser than many and perhaps less destructive of his subjects than most strong rulers. Then a freak storm had blasted up the sheltered Gulf of Veluz overturning the tiny skiff in which his adored wife and son were taking a pleasurable day's sailing. For a week the duke and his navy searched the waters of the Gulf. The bodies of his wife and sole heir were discovered washed against the first lock of the Dyla Canal. The duke had seemed to shrivel on beholding them.

Since that tragedy he had been obsessed with the study of weather. He had his throne room transferred up to his pinnacle, inconveniently far up flights of stairs for Tonsho's short legs, and the charts and brass meteorological instruments, telescopes and barometers and astrolabes cluttering the cramped chamber were the only things in life that held any interest for him. Tonsho had ambiguous feelings about his fixation. It was sad to see a basically able man so reduced, but at the same time his infirmity cleared her way to power in the richest city of the Realm. And when all was said, she knew she was a more capable ruler than any highborn.

'I'm sure your observations will be of great value,' she said, and left. Her boys trooped obediently behind her, trailing a hint of perfume and the tinkling of weapons harness and gilt finery.

Fost laughed at the wind in his face and followed Jennas at a gallop down the long, sloping plain. Evening came down blue and cool all around, and the vast fields of flowers closed petals of white and yellow and crimson against the coming dark. It felt good to be alive, better perhaps than at any time since the courier had died and been reborn in Athalau.

'Come on!' Jennas shouted back at him. 'Grutz will be as sluggish as a fattened boar if he doesn't exercise. Make him work!'

Fost thumped his heels against the bear's furry barrel of a body. Grutz shot him a reproachful look over one churning red shoulder and dutifully lengthened his stride.

Riding the enormous steppes bear was like riding an avalance in full slide. Fost no longer felt the horrible queazy gut-clutching of motion sickness, nor did the constant back-and-forth whipping of his body threaten to part him, head from neck. He had never been much of a rider, but months in the saddle of the unorthodox southern mount had given him far more skill than he would acknowledge to himself. And it had toned him up as well. There hadn't been much exercise in simply riding the runners of his wheeled dog sled, as he had for most of his career as courier on the highroads of the Realm. Wenching and fighting had kept him more trim than most men then. Now he was conscious of a strength in neck, loins and belly he'd never before known.

Jennas had been riding Chubchuk, her own brown war bear, since both were cubs, as she put it. Pound for pound – and she outweighed the courier by a healthy margin – she was stronger than Fost, or any man he'd known. It wasn't plumpness; the feminine layer of subcutaneous fat, helpful insulation against the vicious chill of antarctic winter, merely softened the outlines of her powerful muscles, making her appear sleek and as strong as some great aquatic creature. Her greatest strength resided in her thighs and solid stomach, thanks to a lifetime of riding. The first time her muscles had clenched in orgasm around him, Fost's eyes had nearly popped out of his head. Since then many were the times when in the heat of passion she'd clamped him so fervently with her legs that he literally cried for mercy.

Tall green grass whipped at his legs. He was a handsome man, another thing he would not admit to himself. His face was more rugged than his years accounted for, showing signs of having been well-buffeted about and occasionally hacked open. His shoulders were broad within a hauberk of mail, his carriage erect, black hair blown back wild and free. When angered Fost looked like death on the prowl, but there were laughter lines prominent about his mouth and ice-gray eyes. He made a splendid barbaric pair with Jennas.