Chapter Fourteen, Fathers

They pulled ou of the port rather slowly. It wasn't promising. But after the third day at sea Alicea noticed that the fishing buoys were passing the ship faster than jetbikes.

"Captain, what's your secret?"
"Answer my question first miss."
"Fine."
"You wouldn't happen to know a shaman name of Aurou, would you?"
She stopped dumbfounded. The Howling Axe clan was secluded even towards other Ga-Vok, and she'd never met this man. How did he know him?"
"How would a traveller like me know a Ga-Vok shaman?"
"Well, I figure only two sorts of people carry that mark." He gestured at the axes at her sides. "And you don't smell like a perfume saleswoman. What's more, I just finished talking to Que'Laed. The whiskery ruddersnipe tells me, that Kelei says that the Shaman Aurou use to keep a little Nielda girl who called herself Alicea. It seemed unlikely that there'd be a second Alicea with howling axes and shamanistic powers."

She probed his mind cautiously. He was no mage, but sections of his mind seemed simply to not exsist. What did exsist told her enough to know he was trustworthy.
"He was my father."
"Certainly didn't sound like you were a prisoner."
"I was going to ask how you get the ship to go so fast without an engine."
"Que'Laed, he's the Nereid. I gave him somewhere to call home, he gives me the ability to get wherever I need to be. He also enjoys telling me where I need to be, so it's kind of like being the wait staff for his palace."
"How'd a simple sailor come to know about sprites, I thought the witches didn't take men?"
"My daughter, Light keep her soul, she taught me a lot in her letters. Before the war that is, she'd taken a post with the coven's research buerau on Mrococo."
"And yet you have no problem with my being raised by a Ga-Vok."
"Why should I? When the word came, I went to Mirkfallow on the western coast and asked them to make recompense."

Alicea knew the Ga-Vok system, a criminal or a drunk would have been picked from the clan and offered up as a sacrifice to prevent the wrath of another clan, or man in this case. It was cruel, but the Ga-Vok rarely demanded it of each other.

"They gave me a replacement. Hrau's below deck, fantastic chef; apparently he'd been in some trouble over killing the chief's daughter. He was fully justified, I proved that, but they insisted that he was a fitting trade; daughter's murderer to father of a murdered daughter. Nice lad, him and his wife stay below decks when we come to Landsen."
"He'll probably stay with you for life you know."
"I know, I've given him my leave to jump ship whenever he pleases. It is nice to know I'll always have at least two more hands on board though. He's like blood to me, his daughter even calls me Daimu."
"Shame we'll be enemies soon. The Ga-Vok attack on Landsen wasn't an isolated event. The Alpha sent Tasand himself to deliver an ultimatum."

The old captain looked out across the water. He was windbitten and his long braid was far greyer than most Nielda his age. She could see that the loss of his daughter had not been the first trial to befall him. She could see the worry etched deep into his weary skin, but the fire of life was till burning in him.
"Would you consider your father your enemy, even if he stood amongst the Alpha's men? Hrau is my son, even if he were the Alpha's executioner with a million Nieldic scalps hung from his walls and I were at his block he'd still be my son. I'd as soon fight him as I'd have fought Juline. I pray he feels as strongly for me."
"But I'm afraid most are not so willing to deal with each other. I love my father, but it's only a matter of time before one of our races must leave."
"A shame, Maybe one day someone will be able to show both our peoples that we can have peace."

Chapter Thirteen, On the Docks

The Gibbet brothers made it through safely. Alec said he'd seen teams of guards patrolling the streets. Reunited with her bodyguards, Alicea chose to make haste to the docks before the situation could get worse. She'd already met with the Guard captain while she'd been in the mountains, there was no need to deliver the Call to Arms.

Ishylde was sitting next to a fresh corpse down on the docks.
"I see the drifters still have the time to pester travellers, even while the city burns." Orion spat on the grungy body. "Good riddance. You'll be her sister then?"
"Companion, something between a guard and a servant really. Is this our transport milady? I'm sorry I couldn't find anyone willing to put to sea."
Alicea held out her hand. Ishylde returned the leather pouch, as heavy as when she'd been handed it.
"This is Captain Waveblade. He's agreed to take us to Ruom."
The captain stepped forward.
"Aye. The nice miss made the significance of her voyage quite clear. The ship's this way."

She was bigger than any of the other ships in the harbor, and the only one made of wood. Two masts, no obvious secondary method of propulsion; she wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect of what was almost certainly the slowest seaworthy ship in the ocean, but it was free.
"Don't worry miss. She's faster than she looks."
"You got an engine hidden in there?"
"The Juline hides nothing, 'cept for a balista in the focsle."
"Well, best get a move on then."

Chapter Twelve, City Aflame

Landsen was probably the largest community of Nielda on the planet. It may even have been the only one that could merit being called a city. Alicea had heard descriptions of Skyknuckle, the holy city of the Ga-Vok Oracles, from Aurou, but Landsen put to shame even her wildest imaginings of what a city was like.

Mostly through its own shame, Landsen was a wreck. As the lift descended she could see the furthest parts of the city were burning. The parts below them, along the stretch of coast that had given the port its name, had a greasy shimmer to them even by the dim starlight. It was loud. Alicea, her senses attuned from years of hunting with the Ga-Vok, could smell rotting corpses and putrefying waste even before she could make out the narrow streets.
"Is that it?"
"Yes ma'am. That's Landsen, only town with access to the mountains and the sea. It's usually darker this time of day."

Alicea looked back at Ishylde and Barret. "It's on fire, of course it's brighter than usual. Get your weapons ready." She threw a small leather satchel to the young archer, "Ishylde, get right over to the docks and secure passage to Ruom Island. The rest of you follow me."

She lept from the platform ten feet from the streets and took off running towards the fire. She'd made it three blocks before the brothers roared up alongside her.
"Need a ride, milady?"
"Are you sure that thing's safe?"
"Probably not, but it's fast and it's fun. You'll love it."
"I'll race you."
"If you could outrun us you would have done it back on the mountain."
"Try me."

The four of them gunned it towards the gates. Alicea turned her mind to the mental image of the city she'd developed as they descended. She focused on the broken stone and ash tainted blood of the gatehouse.
Mages only gave effect to their magic for show. Alicea was not a mage, a shaman used the very essence of nature and the elements to fuel their magics. She did not simply reappear, she reappeared in a cyclone.
The pair of armored warriors standing guard over the shattered gate were far more surprised than she was. She used the still powerful winds and the burning shingles of the nearby houses to dispatch of both before they could recover. Then she surveyed the surroundings. Those buildings she could make out were burned to the ground, she was sure that there was more destruction concealed within the smoke.
"You there." It was a Nieldic voice, though in this filthy a city that seemed no guarantee of friendship. "Get down." A heavy spear of avariety she'd never seen hurtled over her and smashed through a warrior who'd snuck up behind her in the smoke. His howl drew his comapnions, a motely lot of well-equiped but clearly undisciplined Ga-Vok. Before they could strike a collection of barbed spears thrust past her, piercing armor and tearing flesh.

"What are you doing out here miss? This town is no place for a pretty young thing like yourself. Come on, we'll get you to safety."
"Thank you sir, but my guards will be on their way. I told them to meet me here."
"Boys?"
"Cap'n, wouldn't be right letting her stay here alone."
"You heard the boys miss. If you stay we're staying. Name's Orion Waveblade, these here are my boys. Needless to say we picked the wrong day to make port."
"Alicea of the Howling Axes, Lieutenant of the Imperial Army. You wouldn't happen to be intrested in providing a messenger of the Empire with transport around to all the major islands?"
"How's it pay?"
"We win you get to stay on the planet. We lose and the whole planet looks like this part of town."
"I usually prefer to work for less, but you've hired yourself a ship miss."

Chapter Eleven, Conversations

The Lifter was not the most hospitable environment for a conversation, not that it seemed to stop her new bodyguards. The four of them could probably have held a conversation from opposite sides of a battlefield. Ishylde couldn't be heard, but it was clear that she was trying to join in the conversation. Alicea felt somewhat out of place not even making an effort.

The lifter set down in a large town towards the edge of the mountains. The most reliable way to get anything into the high valleys was through a mechanical platform that moved from Lifberg at the peak, down to Landsen Port at the mountain's base. The lift, for which the town had been named, had been built by a couple of entrepreneurs within a couple of years of the planet's first colonization attempt. It had failed then, but after people started moving into the mountains the man to whom the lift had been sold had built a tavern and several warehouses onto it. He'd died soon afterwards, but his son now managed the company from an island further south. His sister and her family ran the day to day affairs of the platform. It made a weekly trip to whichever art of the mountain it wasn't on, and tuesdays they ran an open mic.

As the lifter couldn't hope to manage the assent back up the mountain they would be spending the week waiting for the lift to descend. Alicea spent her time talking with clan leaders who had made the trip to pledge their loyalty, and then in turn offering them strategic advice to ready their towns for the coming attacks and establishing channels of communication between neighboring villages. Her companions practiced their arts and made considerable, and in Johd's case rather to much, use of the platform's tavern.
Except for Tuesday, on which Alicea decided to take her day off. It had been a long time since anyone had let her sing and she thought she'd done rather well, but Ga-Vok pop didn't seem to click with the audience.

"You really should have known better, Mistress. These are people who moved here because they wanted to kill Ga-Vok after all."
"Thank you Ishylde," Alicea took the towel being offered. "I asked what I should sing and Mrs. Rivad said to sing what I knew. So I did."
Ishylde looked up from the piece of glass she was trying to extract from Alicea's boot. "Which begs the question, where'd you learn to sing that song anyways?"

Alicea looked away. She wasn't ashamed of her clan, or her father. Without them she'd never have been the person she was. Why was it then that she couldn't bring herself to admit to her past?
"Can you keep a secret?"
"I can keep anything that won't kill me or get me killed"
"It won't if you can keep it secret."
Ishylde eyed her suspicously. "How dangerous is this? You aren't some kind of spy are you? Are you with the guild?"
"The what? No. I was raised by a Ga-Vok shaman until I was sixteen. I left to find other Nielda and that's how I got to the monastery."
"I thought they ate children?"
"I'm told someone tried. I met his son a few years ago. Neither will be a problem."
"Judging by the song and the way you fought that frost wyrm, and then the way you trounced Hveglir; I'd say you weren't exactly a prisoner."
"I was a warrior, and my..caretaker was the clan shaman. He trained me how to fight, sing, dance, live, everything. I was as free as any of the clan's own blood."
"Hard to believe they're the same people who just gave the whole planet three months notice."
"They aren't. Two Ga-Vok are as different as two Nielda; they're not unlike the people of these valleys. My clan were the Howling Axes, they were exiled by the Alpha for losing a battle. The lake just down the hill from the monastery are the Sickle Ear, they lived in fear of the Alpha's servant Kron; who tried to destroy the monastery. The enemy isn't the Ga-Vok people, it's the Ga-Vok leaders. They're just being lead astray."
"You know, you could do a lot of good if you were talking to people with power. I'm just a hunter; I'm willing to follow you and help you do whatever your going to do. But if you could convince the emperor to see things your way you could end this war."
"He's like what, thirty? How much power does he really have?"
"A %^&@load more than anyone his age should be allowed to. I blame his father, filthy bird-keeper."
"The late emperor kept birds?"
"It's a euphemism. Suffice to say, there's a reason he didn't have kids till he was old."
"Tail-sniffer?"
"I don't know what that means, but probably."
"Did he keep an Empress?"
"He was married, and from what I hear the whole situation worked out perfectly for both of them. She never let dropped a loose hair and he never forgot to knock. Ross met her once, she used to see off the colonists. Kept well for a used dinghy I'm told."
"You've lost me. You promise not to tell anyone?"
"Mistress, I swore to obey you. We mountainfolk take our oaths very seriously. Wish I could say the same for those lazy island weekenders."

Bird keeper; the late-emperor sniffed tail: Alicea made another note on the political intrigues of the Empiere, she never knew when such things might come in handy.
It also explained why she'd never seen any of the Nielda keep falcons.

Chapter Ten, A Continuing Mission

Next stop would be the Islands. She'd arranged with the Wyrmskinner clan, with whom she'd been staying, to provide her transport to Lifberg. From there she'd descend the mountain to the coast and arrange for further transport from there.

She'd packed her meager belongings and was walking down to the lifter when four familiar looking raiders stopped her.
She was quite surprised when rather than fearful avoidance they met her gaze and each took a knee respectfully.
"High Queen, my brothers and I seek your forgiveness for our behavior on the mountainside."
She considered her possible moves carefully. "You can show your repentance by answering the Call to Arms and fighting for Gasca."
"That's why we came your highness. We wanted to make it up to you personally."
She hoped they didn't mean that the way she thought they did.
"Please your highness, let us fight beside you. We would be honored if you'd let us serve as your bodyguards."

It was unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome.
"What are your names?"
"I'm Barett, this is my brother Alec and my cousins Jod and Johd. We're the sons of the notorious Gibbet brothers. We've got our own supplies and equipment, we can walk fast and run for days. It would be an honor to give our lives for you."
They made a convincing case for themselves; and it would be nice to have dedicated guards in her travels. What's more, Ishylde had mentioned the Gibbet brothers. They'd been the most succesful non-guild criminals in the empire before the war, if even a lick of that skill, persistence, and luck had rubbed off on these four she'd be set for a lifetime.
"Load up. My mark is the howling wolf, consider it yours also."
"May I share that honor mistress?"
Ishylde had her pack and Wyrm-rib bow strapped to her back.
"I promise not to get in the way, and I'm use to cooking and cleaning up after others."
She was a fair enough archer, and she had the naieve passion of one who has never killed. It seemed a shame to spoil so innocent a soul with war, but it would be safer to have her close and safe than here on her own.
"Do you swear to do as I order you, no matter the cost; to serve Gasca and bleed for it as I have; and to be loyal to your Empire so long as you live?"
Her eager response was dulled only by her inability to comprehend the magnitude of her decision.

Alicea departed for Lifberg in good comapny. But she took no joy in their loyalty, for she knew the battles ahead would put them all to the test.

Chapter Nine, Tournament

Saturday, the day of the tournament.
They were running it Mob Rules, which was actually a speccific set of rules. Submission, death, or crowd involvement stopped the fight. Whoever was most able to leave the ring at the end of the fight won. Fighter's choice of weapons, magic was frowned upon but not actually banned. And the fight started whenever one opponent managed to goad the other into attacking.

Alicea had done her research on her opponents. The first four or five would be throwaways, no offense. The sheer number of people who wanted a chance at leading the mountainfolk into battle meant that their numbers would likely be halved before a leader was actually chosen. The prefered weapon combination was a short thrusting spear, broad, round wooden shield with a metal rim, usually iron, and a side arm, axes or swords mostly.
Her real challenge would be against the thane of the Frosthammer clan, Hveglir. He was the second generation leader of the Prynen range's, in which they were, foremost clan. He was a minor magic user, he could work alchemy and pierce the thoughts of those around him, but little more. The clan was named for the weapon he'd be using, the frosthammer. It was a one of a kind enchanted mace; bonesteel, with a three-ring head. Within the head was the enchantment's base, a large blue pearl magically suspended within the head's open core. On contact with an enemy or his equipment a dagger of ice as hard as steel would blast from the point of contact in the direction of the blow, allowing a sound blow to cripple or kill any opponent.

She chose to go unarmed. She had no intent to kill, or even permanently injure, any of her opponents. These were all men she knew she'd need for the battles ahead. All she had to do was disable her opponents and make her way to the top.

And she met great success. Each opponent in turn fell to her blows. She managed to dodge spear thrusts and sword swings. She was bruised by the time she faced Hveglir, but he was bloodied.

"How did a woman make it to face me? Go back to your cutlery wench."
"Afraid that if I stay you'll not beat me?"
"Ha! You face Hveglir of the Frosthammer clan. I have never met a foe who deserved my fear."
"I suppose I haven't introduced myself, have I? I am Alicea of the Howling Axes. I've been sent by Commander Haelvan of the Monastary to Call all Gasca to Arms. Will you answer the call?"
"I follow no man."
Alicea chose to forgo the obvious response and instead lunged at her opponent. He deflected her with his sheild and swung wide in response. She flung herself to the floor and swept his legs from beneath him, then disarmed him with a second kick. He pulled himself back up with great speed for one so heavily armored and braced his sheild against her rising uppercut. Instead of faltering under the pain of the blocked punch she reached around the shield and swung him to the ground by his own arm.

She had him beaten, but she didn't stop. She drew sharply on his arm, dislocating it. Then she pulled him to his feet by it.
"Now then; who will follow me to battle?"
Before anyone could respond, Hveglir drew a knife with his good arm and rammed it into her stomach. Without flinching she threw him to the ground and dropped to a knee on his chest. Then she pulled the knife out and stuck it into his hand.
"How about you Hveglir, will you answer the call?"

It was brutal, but the mountainfolk seemed impressed.
"If you can fight that well without a weapon," He spit some blood to the side, "Then the Frosthammers are yours to command, High Queen of the Mountains."

Chapter Eight, the State of the Clans

The ride was bumpy, loud, and very cold. The Lifter, she was informed over the roar of its engines, was military surplus. They'd bought it about forty years ago for exactly this sort of thing.

They set down in a small town further into the mountains. It had a wall over the mouth of the valley, the main road lead up the small valley. The houses were dug into the sides, but even the visible parts were quite large. At the end of the road was a platform, the lifter set down there.

After the engines had cut off a man walked up and began talking to the hunters. Judgng by the hand gestures they were discussing her. Finnaly the archer stepped over to her.
"Name's Ishylde, Dad says to show you to some quarters. Come with me."

She followed the girl further up the hill, taking in as much of her surroundings as possible at the pace set by her guide.
"Ross tells me your here for the empire; are they sending out a call to arms then?"
"Yes actually; were you interested?"
"Of course, I'd like nothing better. But things here in the mountains the way they are dad needs every warrior we have."
"Your father is the mayor?"
"Chieftan."
"Sorry. What's this problem I've been hearing about?"
"Ga-Vok general came up to deliver an ultimatum. High King Jalaan; well he wasn't really the king just said he was, definetly high though; anyways, he told him where he could stick the Alpha's command."
"Tassand took his head off, didn't he?"
"Who? You mean the Ga-Vok guy? Yea, it was pretty awesome actually. The general pulled this masive sword off his back and chopped him in half, Slash! one hit and it was over. The guards were to scared to do anything about it. Since then all the chieftans have been fighting to take his place."

Alicea stopped her.
"You mean to tell me you have less than a season before the Ga-Vok begin exterminating you and you haven't even decided whether or not to fight back?"
"What's to decide, of course we'll fight them. We just don't know who will lead us. There's a tournament here on saturday to settle the matter."

~We should..~
"Shut up"
"What?"
"Nothing; what'll it take to compete in the tournament?"
"It's open to all comers, but there's going to be some pretty tough competition. I hear Hevglir Frosthammer is competing."
"I'll compete, and I'll win. I was sent to bring the Nielda of Gasca to the defense of their world; and I'm going to do it."