The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (45 page)

"I won't be telling you about myself, that is a separate tale. One could only note that I didn't share my father's attitude to Malabar — I like peace and harmony and thus decided to go over to the other side. Now about the current situation. Two years ago the husband of this woman," the Advisor pointed to Beth, "who was exiled here, had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. "A few months before that a priest of Vlast came to Beatwick and offered to build a temple. The previous Headman realised that the village was in need of protection and thus gladly agreed to it being built, especially since it was to be located outside the village. Then the Headman disappeared. Not died, but disappeared. The Master of Kartoss probably knows that all the citizens of Malabar that hold position of importance, are imprinted with a special mark, which informs the Heralds whether this sentient is being controlled and whether he's alive or not. The former headman is still alive, but it was decided not to look for him. The Emperor's decree was never recalled. A new headman was appointed to Beatwick from the nearest town, Farstead — a representative of an industrial association. He did not have a mark on him, so I may surmise that he is no longer in this world. From here on I'll be guessing, so you can correct me. The Magister intercepted the industry man on the road, where they had an interesting chat, following which a new headman arrived in Beatwick — who happened to also be a Kartoss Master. The residents accepted him and the Herald received a message that a new person was in charge of Beatwick. In the first few months father didn't do much, making an effort to win everyone over. You can ask any villager and he'll tell you that the Beatwick Headman is the best and most conscientious man in the world. Having secured his position, the infiltrator put his plan into action. First he founded the castle which Mahan managed to find. As an aside, I should say that that castle will soon meet its end. In just a few minutes it will cease to exist. After the castle father began to curse the land, putting a Blackener in each village. Heralds get very nervous when such a thing is put on their territory, so it was hidden by a ziggurat. The Heralds knew that a Blackener had been built on the territory of the Empire, but couldn't find where exactly. Nice move, this one took some creative thinking. Kartoss's aim is as yet unclear, but I can suppose that some pointer to an artefact located in these lands had been found in some archive, which explains the goblin search parties. It's all finished, father. The time had come to answer for your deeds."

The longer the Advesor had been speaking, the more pleased Naahti's expression was becoming. By the end he was smiling quite openly. I was just about to stop the talkative NPC, when a message popped up in front of me:

Change in the status of the agreement with the Kartoss Dark Empire. You were unable to hinder the Kartoss plans. In view of the previous status, the agreement is considered void.

"Such a pity," said the former Headman turned Master slowly. "I would've liked to get a slave like that. Mahan, would you like to make another bet, perhaps? The same conditions, but this time you'll have a day. A day to hinder our plans: What do you say?" The Master was having fun. I didn't really understand what just happened, but it was certainly something very unpleasant.

"Father, you've lost!"

"A foolish little Adviser. You may have stopped me if you started to act straight away. But no, you decided to have a chat first. To relish your victory and present your point of view. That is the difference between the Dark Empire and you. You are weak! You slavishly follow the rules and never see past your own nose. The army of Malabar should appear before the village gates very soon. Enjoy the spectacle!"

With these words the walls of the temple disappeared. In the sense that the building rose about ten meters above ground and was then flung aside in the direction of the forest. In place of the walls there remained several vertical spikes about two meters in height.

"Allow me not to pull them out completely, this would take great deal of energy, SON," the Headman sneered at the Adviser, who had grown pale. "I think you know what these are."

"The Blackeners?" I intruded on their conversation. "There were similar spikes on the Blackeners that I saw by the castle."

The Advisor grew even more pale, impossible though that seemed.

"Father!" Tisha, now awake, was getting up from the ground. "The priest of Vlast is not who he claims to be. He... Brother?"

"Leave him be" the Headman came up to his daughter and straightened out the cloak on her shoulders. "Your exiled brother has other things on his mind right now."

"Naahti, a couple of days ago you said that you would give me your aid should I need it. So — I need it now. Can you explain what's going on? I've heard the Advisor's version of events, now I'd like to hear the truth."

"Why not? All the preparations have been made and now it's time for the interesting part. Nothing really depends on us anymore, so I can give you a couple of minutes. For starters, let us strengthen the Kartoss influence," the Headman said, satisfied, and nodded at the Heralds to his other two sons standing nearby. The Advisor could only helplessly close his eyes — he equalled the Master in strength, but was could do nothing for the Heralds. Any defence would be immediately removed by the Master. Two silent Vagrens slid towards the Heralds with lightning speed... and then Malabar had two new vacancies for this position.

"Nooo!" came Tisha's scream, when her brothers carried out the order. "Father, why? Why?

"You made your children into your assistants," whispered the downcast Adviser. "You have gone too far..."

"What would I do without them? Tisha calm down!"

The Master waved his hand and a small chair appeared next to each of those present.

"Beth, get up. It's stupid and uncomfortable to keep pretending you're still petrified. The ground is cold, you'll catch a chill and deprive me of the pleasure of personally crushing you."

"Father, why are you saying this?" Tisha began to cry. "What are you doing? This is Beth!"

The Headman shook his head as if so show what a handful children are these days.

"Sit down and listen to me. You can scream all you like later. SIT DOWN, I SAID!" the thundering shout made everyone sit down, even the Advisor. Now we were looking at the real Master of Kartoss, without any masks or pleasantries. "EVERYONE READY?! Then I shall begin," he then returned to his previous tone.

"Malabar and Kartoss Empires had existed for a long time. They had maintained a constant armed neutrality: we took turns in attacking each other, but no-one tried too hard. It was just a couple of villages going over to one side of the border or to the other — everyone was happy with such state of things. But fifteen years ago free citizens had become active in the world. They wanted something more than just raids to capture some loot. Instead of coming and quickly taking an object that caught their eye, the free citizens engaged in genocide. How is it the fault of goblins that they were born green? Or trolls? How is it a little warg's fault that he needs meat to survive? But no, the free citizens decided that we were 'dark' and started to kill us off. I visited the castles that had gone through the hands of free citizens. Everyone was killed. Even the little werebeasts that had not yet been weaned. Why? We tried communicating with the Emperor, but boys like this one," a nod in the direction of the Advisor, "dismissed our complaints. What do you say, 'light one'?" the Headman's last words were full of so much hatred that his son started.

"Us... Them... There are always casualties during a war, father."

"There can be casualties on the battlefield, but before they can become casualties, they have to be strong and able to fight back. If the casualty is a child, irrespective of the skin colour, it is no war casualty. And for this you betrayed our family? Because you enjoy watching children suffer?"

"No! I left because of the way Kartoss does things. You are a horror!"

"Emotions without any facts. That pretty much sums up Malabar. We decided to respond. Ten years ago we began to develop a plan. I personally acted as its initiator and main overseer. Malabar will pay for its crimes. With each raid by the free citizens our numbers diminish, so we decided to use one interesting invention. Transformers. One of our leading mages thought of a way to furnish a Blackener with additional powers. Aside from cursing the land, the Transformer changes all the inhabitants within its field of action. Just thirty minutes under its rays and they turn into Kartoss minions. An ordinary villager — into a goblin. A guard into a troll. A warrior into a berserker. Everyone is changed. I had to seriously dampen the effects of the Transformer to stop the residents of Beatwick and nearby villagers from transforming before it was time. Each week my sons travelled between villages to block the action of the artefact. But even they had one day off, thanks to Elizabeth, who heroically decided to protect her village. On those days we had some fun. And now the most interesting part: guess who was the mage that invented the Transformer?"

"Him?" I nodded towards the Advisor. If you followed the Master's logic the conclusion practically suggested itself.

"Mahan gets to score double points with this one," smiled the Headman. "Exactly. It was my rebellious son that came up with this wonder. In Malabar few know what it looks like, but he recognised it from just one pipe."

"Then I don't get this bit. Once a week you don't have to do anything. But at the same time there was a Sklic running around the village, whom you were trying to catch. It just doesn't fit in with the rest of the picture," The Headman's story was interesting, but too many things remained unanswered.

"Catch it? Not in the least. We were taking it out for a walk, to stop it getting out of control and making a mess of things before it was time. Though a Sklic is sentient, but in his fighting transformation he could forget himself. In order to stop anyone recognising it, I thought up of the story with the mysterious monster plaguing the village. I sent a message to Farstead and got a reply: 'you'll have to deal with the mysterious beast yourself.' This made it possible for me to give assignments to free citizens, while concealing the appearance of the Sklic. Then I handed over the issuing of assignments to the Magister.

"And what about Tisha? Why did the priest expect me to hand her over? He wanted to get hold of a Vagren, not a Sklic!"

"Tisha...," the Headman fell silent, looked at his petrified daughter and heaved a bitter sigh. "Everyone has a weakness. Tisha really reminds me of her mother, so I decided not to inform her of our plans. She received a different education — one that was too 'correct': by Malabar, not Kartoss standards. Our ways are alien to her. We had to show her that free citizens are devious and would betray anyone for money, even a beautiful and defenceless girl. When you refused to hand her over to the Magister, I was furious. I even had to fly to the castle and take it out on the workers there. And then there's her obsession with that bear..."

"You know?" a subdued squeak came from Tisha's direction.

"Who would I be if I didn't? Any more questions from you? No? Good. Then I'll continue. A Transformer was build in Beatwick and concealed by a ziggurat, to prevent any accidental discovery. And then everything ran according to the set plan. I sent you to catch the wolves, which started to bother our workers. At the same time, I instructed the goblins to begin hunting you. We had to get that fatso captured. To prevent you finding out too much, I personally put a defence on him. This was done to get the Heralds whizzing all over the place, enquiring about what was going on in Beatwick. In total we prepared ten potential areas for invasion and in each there was a key figure which could have relayed the information about the goblins to the Heralds. You were the only one who was able to take a prisoner and launch the subsequent chain of events. In order to spur on the heroes of Malabar, I decided to build a castle, meant to become our future centre in this region, outside the zone of action of the ziggurat. The Heralds had to have the opportunity to jump to it and observe it by themselves, without having to be summoned. As soon as the castle was ready it was shown to you. The merchant, to whom you were careless enough to show the Eye of the Dark Widow, became our man two years ago. We got him under out thumb straight away. He traded off the information about the Eye and the person who had it in his possession. As planned, the free citizens of Malabar, greedy and stupid, immediately went after such a prize. We could only thank the Herald that he didn't let them kill you. And then you fulfilled your purpose: called the goblins for help. You were shown the castle, which, as you correctly noted, has four Transformers built into it. They were put into operation four hours ago. According to my calculations, it would take Malabar forces about twenty five minutes to storm it, after which the Heralds will teleport them all to Beatwick. Around five hundred free citizens above level 280 and about ten thousands Warriors and Mages from the Emperor's personal guard of level 380 or above. That have already spent twenty five minutes in the Transformer zone of effect, and have no amulet of the kind that's hanging on Beth's neck. Shall I tell you what will happen in Beatwick in just a few minutes or you can guess yourselves? Oh yes, I forgot to add: I removed the suppressors for the transformation in the villages. So, there's just ten minutes left. That's it, I think. The other nine invasion points will be discarded as unpromising, and the Krong province will become part of Kartoss. We don't need much, but we had to show Malabar our teeth. You may have changed it all, my wayward son, if you left everyone to their fate and stopped the attack on the castle. But it is too late now. The action of the Transformer had begun. And here come our 'great warriors'."