The Grace of Kings (69 page)

On a deserted stretch of Lutho Beach, in the dead of the night, a pod of crubens beached themselves.

One, two, three . . . ten crubens crashed through the waves and laid themselves on the sand, where they would have to wait until high tide to swim free again. The sound of their landing was grinding and metallic, less like living flesh, more like the clanging of weapons tumbling across a stone floor.

Suddenly, the crubens yawned and opened their maws wide. But the jaws kept on opening, opening, until the top half of each cruben's head was pulled so far back that it rested upside down on the creature's back.

From deep within the belly of the scaled whales, hundreds of men spilled out. The soldiers hiding within the mechanical crubens wore the uniform of Dasu. They had been inside the underwater boats for days, and they greedily gulped the fresh salty night air.

Then, quickly, they melted into the shadows of the night to join their comrades, who had set up temporary barracks in caves along the shore. The empty vessels closed their mouths and waited for high tide, when they would dive beneath the waves and go back to Rui to pick up more passengers.

If one looked at the flags they carried, one might have noticed a small change. The whale charging the red field was covered by a layer of blue-black scales, and there was a great horn on its forehead. The ensign of Dasu was now a cruben rising from a sea of blood.

The mechanical crubens—underwater boats—had been the proudest creation of both Luan Zya and Gin Mazoti. While trying to come up with a way to bypass the blockading navy to land an invasion force on the Big Island, Gin had joked that she wished Kuni could summon the crubens again, as he had on that legendary ride to bring down Emperor Erishi.

A twinkle appeared in Luan's eyes. “We don't need to summon the crubens. We can make them.”

He reached for Gin's hands, and she let him hold them, taking pleasure at the warmth in her lover's hands.

A boat that could go under water needed to adopt the principles that allowed the airship to adjust buoyancy in a much denser medium. Luan enjoyed the challenge this posed.

The ships were built in secret, in seaside caves on Rui away from the gaze of Zyndu's airships and spies. Plates of thin and strong sword iron were hammered into circular rings around planks of hard ash, much like a cooper puts hoops around staves to make a barrel. These rigid sections were then attached together with short chains to allow the body of the cruben to flex and bend like a living creature. Shark and whale skins were then wrapped around the frame of the body to waterproof the vessels. At the front, a sharpened bowsprit of ironwood served as the cruben's single horn.

Buoyancy tanks along the bottom of the boats would cause the vessels to rise or sink, depending on whether they were filled with water or air pumped in via bellows. The inside of the ships had plenty of room for the crew as well as transported soldiers and goods. The eyes, made of thick crystals, allowed the men inside to see out. Other, smaller portholes were made all along the sides of the boats as well to provide illumination for the dark and dim interior.

The vessels had to look like real crubens from above, from which direction came the most danger of detection. The cosmeticians in Dasu's women's auxiliary corps painted scales onto the smooth skin, and the work was so detailed that no observer, looking down from a naval ship or airship, could tell the reflected light from these arti­ficial scales apart from the real thing.

With the basic plan of the vessel in place, three great difficulties still remained.

One was the fact that water, unlike air, imposed great pressure. No matter how much they tried to waterproof the vessels, they leaked like crazy and would collapse if they dove too deep. This was not fatal, however, as the mechanical crubens only needed to dive under the blockading ships and to hide from airships. Most of the time, the ships would sail near the surface, only diving deeper as the need arose.

Next was the matter of breathing air for the men onboard. Gin, an avid swimmer and diver, learned that some young men in Dasu, in order to observe the beautiful starfish and corals in shallow lagoons, would swim with their heads under water and breathe through straws held in the mouth with the other end poking above the water. Based on this and the behavior of real crubens, she designed a breathing tube. One end stayed inside the vessel, and the other end, attached to a floating buoy, could be let out to peek above the surface of the sea. A bellows could then be used to pump the water out of the tube to let air in, and the resulting spray looked just like the spray from a real cruben's blowhole.

The other matter, that of propulsion, was more difficult to solve. Luan initially tried to have the men inside one of the vessels operate the tail like a giant oar, undulating the tail fin in imitation of nature. But this proved far too exhausting and impractical for a trip that would cover the distance from Rui to the Big Island.

But then Luan remembered one of Cogo's eccentric inventors who had presented a machine that could turn a wheel by means of steam generated from a volcano's heat and a tank of water. Luan generalized the machine's principles. He also had learned, through his years of traveling through the Islands, that the bottom of the ocean between Rui and the Big Island was studded with a range of underwater volcanoes whose peaks rose to near the surface of the sea. The rocks around these volcanic vents were heated so that they glowed red. Luan and Gin trained the crews of the mechanical crubens to hover over these vents, and to operate mechanical arms to scoop up these red-hot rocks into a special tank under the boats.

The rocks caused the water in the tank to boil, and the steam was then drawn through a series of tubes to turn a train of pistons, gears, and cranks connected to the tail fin and the pectoral fins. Engineers inside the mech­anical cruben would scoop up enough heated rocks from one vent to power the ship to the next vent. In this way, rising to breathe and diving to pick up more hot rocks, the fleet of under­water boats swam through the ocean like a pod of real crubens. As long as the crubens stuck to paths marked by underwater volcanoes, they could travel for days.

Slowly and in secret, the mechanical fleet transported the Dasu army onto the Big Island.

With the final wave of soldiers safely deposited on the shores of Lutho Beach, Gin Mazoti gave the order.

Lookouts in crow's nests on the ships of North Géfica, Haan, and conquered Rui saw a pod of crubens passing beneath them again. Sailors leaned over the railings to catch sight of the amazing creatures.

But the great beasts slowed as they passed beneath the ships and began to rise to the surface.

Captains shouted frantic orders to maneuver their ships out of the way, but it was too late. Accompanied by explosive cracks and howls of surprise from the Cocru sailors, the mechanical crubens breached the surface, their giant horns smashing holes in the bottoms of the ships, breaking their keels. The panicked ships ran into one another, tangling their oars, and the mechanical crubens dove and rose again, staving them in.

The fleets around Rui were destroyed within a few hours, and all over the sea, survivors clung to the wreckage.

Dasu now ruled the sea from beneath its surface.

Ginpen fell without a single man having to die. King Cosugi saw the massed spears and arrows outside the city walls and surrendered. Marshal Mazoti allowed him to stay in the newly rebuilt palace as a guest of Dasu.

Gin announced that the Dasu army would not bother the occupied population and urged everyone to go on with their lives. At first, the population of Haan was skeptical, but soon grew bolder as the Dasu soldiers really did seem to keep the marshal's promise.

“So you've found a better master,” Cosugi said when he saw Luan Zya, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Luan bowed. “I still serve the people of Haan,” he said.

The cruben flags of Dasu whipped in the wind. King Kuni had returned to the Big Island.

CLOUDS RACE ACROSS THE SKY

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

DASU AND COCRU

WOLF'S PAW AND THE BIG ISLAND:

THE SIXTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE PRINCIPATE.

Mata Zyndu was in Wolf's Paw again.

He did not want to be here, but that old coward, King Dalo of Gan, had given him no choice.

Once Mata had released him back to the island, King Dalo sank into a deep depression. He spent his days watching actors enact legends concerning the ancient splendor and enviable wealth of gleaming Gan's past, and he lamented his own humiliation by the hegemon.

Mocri Zati, one of his generals, grew restless. Emboldened by the example Mata himself had set, he forced King Dalo to abdicate and hand over the Seal of Gan. Dalo put up little resistance. He declared that kingship was not compatible with his temperament and retired to tend to his goldfish ponds.

Thinking Mata preoccupied with the growing problem posed by Kuni Garu, King Mocri immediately began to prepare for war and revolt against the hegemon. Mocri Zati was a famed swordsman himself, but he had been bedridden with an illness during the Battle of Wolf's Paw and thus did not witness Mata's exploits on the field. He had always believed that tales of Mata's valor were exaggerations, and that his victory was due more to corruption within the empire's command ranks than true skill.

To inspire the populace, Mocri announced that he would recover the territories on the Big Island that Mata had taken from Gan. Then he immediately invaded Ogé, administered by King Hoye, the former Gan commander who had joined Mata during the final stages of the Battle of Wolf's Paw and had been rewarded with the little isles for his effort. Hoye was quickly defeated, given that his entire Tiro state had fewer people than the city of Toaza. But Mocri celebrated his victory as though he had already defeated the hegemon himself and paraded in the streets of Toaza for ten days in triumph.

“Mocri is a fool,” Torulu Pering said to Mata. “Your real problem is Kuni Garu. Go west, Hegemon, and crush him before he stirs all the other Tiro states against you.”

Mata found Pering's meddling annoying. Kuni might have landed on the Big Island, but he only had a toehold in Haan. The three newly created Tiro states in Géfica were all ruled by men who owed their elevation to Mata Zyndu, and they were certainly sufficient to hold back the cowardly Kuni and his girl general. Mocri, on the other hand, was a good fighter and far more dangerous.

In order to keep his world from unraveling, Mata had no choice but to strap on his sword and get back into the saddle. He had no one else he could trust to do the job right. He would deal with Kuni later, after he had pacified the east.

The Tiro states of Dara saw that they had to pick a side. They could either back Mata Zyndu of Cocru, the greatest warrior the world had ever seen, or Kuni Garu of Dasu, the man with a seemingly endless fount of luck.

The King of North Géfica, Théca Kimo, had fought by the side of Mata since the day he killed Huno Krima. Everyone always assumed that he was firmly in Mata's camp.

But before he became a king, before he became a general, before he became a rebel, Théca had been a brawler in Tunoa, a criminal who lived by the tip of his knife. He was sentenced to hard labor for maiming a man. On his face were still frightening tattoos that prison guards had pricked into his skin under the laws of Emperor Mapidéré, so that everyone would always know what he had done. Like Mata, he was a physically imposing man and excelled in battle. But unlike Mata, he never considered himself to be serving a higher ideal.

He understood the culture of the dark alleys and the night streets far better than the formal dance of diplomacy and courtly intrigue. In his view, the life of a noble was no different from that of a petty street criminal. Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu were like the top bosses of two rival gangs fighting for the control of a city's markets and the rich protection money that merchants paid. And he was merely a lowly subboss caught in the middle.

You pick the stronger gang or you're lost.

Théca came to Ginpen in secret to see Kuni Garu. He dressed plainly and did not take any guards. The meeting place was at an old, inconspicuous inn.

When he arrived in the appointed room, he found Kuni lounging in bed with two prostitutes. Théca found this perfectly understandable: It was exactly how he imagined a great crime boss who had everything would act.

Kuni dismissed the women but seemed distracted.

“I believe that Mata Zyndu is the past, while you, Great King Kuni, are the future.”

Kuni yawned. He got up and left the room.

Théca didn't know what to make of his reception. He had come to discuss the possibility of an alliance, but Kuni behaved as if he didn't care about him at all.

Cogo Yelu then came in and invited Théca to lunch. Théca was served a cold meal of the coarse and plain fare that the inn had to offer. The eating sticks were misshapen and cheaply made. His unease grew.

Kuni Garu must be treating him this way because he and Marshal Mazoti already had some plot under way to conquer North Géfica. The big boss had figured out a method to take over his territory without including him at all. He was at risk of losing his land and throne, like poor Cosugi, and worse, maybe even his life.

Kuni's coldness was a warning, a last ray of hope.

He begged Prime Minister Yelu to speak to Kuni. Instead of an alliance of equals, now he pleaded to be allowed to submit to Dasu. He was willing to yield up North Géfica and fight for Dasu in exchange for the king's promise of a new domain once the war was over.

Cogo nodded and said that he would do his best.

Once Théca was sent on his way, Cogo and Kuni clasped hands and laughed.

“He swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker!” said Kuni.

“Sire, you're a very good actor,” said Cogo.

“Never doubt a Zudi gangster.”

The dismissive treatment of Théca had been Cogo's idea, but Kuni had put the fine touches on it to exploit what he knew of Théca's history. Sometimes a clever bit of psychology did more wonders than an army.

“Cogo, I'm going to miss you,” Kuni said, and he grabbed Cogo by the hands as though they were still in Zudi, where the two often worked late into night and chuckled together at some clever plan for city planning or civil administration that would have bored everyone else.

Cogo Yelu had come to Ginpen to help set up the occupation authority with the aid of the documents he had taken from the Impe­rial Archives, but now he had to go back to Daye, where he would keep the islands of Dasu and Rui productive and support the war effort on the Big Island.

“I am honored.” Cogo paused, moved by the tremor in Kuni's voice. “Know that Mata has only his sword and cudgel, but you have the hearts of all your men.”

Once her generals had firmly assumed control of North Géfica, Mazoti sent Théca Kimo—now newly minted as the Duke of Arulugi—to attack King Ponadomu of Amu, confined to the beautiful island of floating cities. Ponadomu was terrified of the hegemon and had refused to even meet with Kuni's messengers.

Mazoti reasoned that the best way to ensure Théca's enthusiasm and loyalty was to send him to secure a new domain for himself; she had to turn her attention to the rest of the Big Island.

Central and South Géfica collapsed before Marshal Mazoti's forces like termite-infested logs before a heavy axe. The two kings, Noda Mi and Doru Solofi, had neglected their own military preparations, thinking Théca would take the brunt of Mazoti's assault. They had no choice now but to flee across the Liru River into Cocru for refuge.

As they crossed, they burned all the ships that they could find in towns along the northern shore of the river, hoping that the river, broad but too shallow for the mechanical crubens, would hold back the Dasu forces. They ordered all remaining ships on the Liru to stay anchored at towns and ports along the southern shore, where garrisons would guard them and make sure they stayed there. While Mi and Solofi kept a fleet of warships at Dimu to help control the Liru, they sent the bulk of the navy—or what was left of it after the devastating attacks by mechanical crubens—to patrol the western coast of Cocru with deep dragnets, hoping thereby to foil another surprise landing by underwater boats.

Mazoti stopped at Dimushi, where she found battle kites, balloons, and airships patrolling the Liru River, vigilant against signs of a Dasu attempt at crossing. Marshal Mazoti tried to construct rafts out of spare bits of lumber—doors, beams from abandoned temples, wagon wheels, even broken furniture—but the surveillance flights by enemy aircraft gave Noda Mi and Doru Solofi ample warning, and they ordered the airships to bombard these construction sites as soon as they noticed the gathering lumber. The few small rafts that Mazoti's men did manage to construct in secret proved too fragile to survive the waves of the Liru and fell apart before even reaching the middle of the river.

Gin Mazoti ordered her own airships to the Liru to engage the defenders. Although the women-crewed Dasu airships were fast and nimble, the Cocru airships benefitted from more battle experience. Dogfights between airships in the sky over the river were cheered on by both sides but proved inconclusive.

Mi and Solofi finally let out a held breath. As Marshal Mazoti had no way to transport her troops across the Liru, the two sides settled down for an indefinite standoff.

Mocri was ferocious. He dug in on Wolf's Paw and made Mata pay dearly for every inch of land he gained. Mata enjoyed the bloody battles against a worthy opponent, but reports from back home made him anxious.

The ever-dishonorable Kuni had reconnected with his old friend, the bandit Puma Yemu—Mata suspected that Jia played a role as well. Once again he was made the “Marquess of Porin” and led his horse thieves, the self-styled “Whirlwind Riders of Dasu,” on hit-and-run raids of Mata's convoys and grain transports. Mata despised these tactics, but he was helpless until Mocri's rebellion could be put to rest. He redoubled his efforts, and more blood spilled.