Warlords Rising (23 page)

“Can,” Cat assured him. “Why?”

“To help reunite people later,” Trev’nor explained. “Say, we
go into the next city, we can recite the names to the slaves there so we know
if there’re family members. We might not be able to reunite everyone all at
once, but if we can start locating them, then I can always transport them real
quick to the right place. I don’t see why they have to wait for us to win
before seeing their families again.”

It was such a sweet, sweet, thought. Becca couldn’t contain
herself. She slung an arm around his shoulders and hugged him to her. “I knew I
liked you for a reason.”

“My devastating charm and good looks?”

“Nope, that wasn’t it.”

Trev’nor mock-pouted at her, which set her and both dragons
grinning.

“Cat,” Becca instructed, “tell Nolan our plans and ask him
if he wants to join us out here.”

“Cat?” Trev’nor repeated, tone climbing. “You named a dragon
Cat?
”

“This was not my choice, trust me. She’s strange.” 

“Like Cat,” Cat defended, miffed.

“Yes, dearling, I know.” Although heaven knew why, Becca was
not questioning it. Her brain was completely tired of playing Name That Dragon.
If she liked Cat, Cat it would be.

“You want us to fight with you?” Azin repeated
incredulously.

Trev’nor had taken the precaution of bring all both mages
out of the city before having this discussion. He did not want anyone to
overhear them talking. The dragons were taking the time to hunt, although Becca
noticed that either Garth, Cat, or Llona would fly lazy circles over their
head, taking turns keeping an eye out.

Becca anticipated that today would go more smoothly than
yesterday for the simple reason that Ehsan and Azin both spoke some Solish. Ehsan
used the occasional Khobuntish word when he couldn’t think of or didn’t know
the Solish one. Azin would stop and re-phrase entirely if she got stuck. But it
saved Becca from a headache, trying to explain everything with her limited
vocabulary. She’d improved by leaps and bounds over the past few weeks, of
course, but she was not conversational in Khobuntish yet.

“We do,” Nolan confirmed. He had listened to Becca last
night for all of a minute before agreeing that it was a good choice. “There are
two reasons for this. One, we would like to have help in the upcoming battles.
It’s a little rough with just three mages, even with this many dragons. But
every time we conquer a city, we lose at least one pair of dragons to guard the
city. We need to augment our fighting force or we’ll be in trouble later.”

“It’s a good argument,” Ehsan agreed, expression and tone
unreadable. He stood with arms crossed over his chest, as if determined not to
move until he had the full gist of the situation. “What else? There is
something else.”

“We can’t teach the witches and wizards more than we already
have,” Becca picked up the explanation smoothly, “because we don’t know as much
about their magic and we frankly don’t have all of the right tools. But we
can
teach you. It’s safer to teach you, actually, than to try to leave you on your
own to manage your magic. You’re not used to managing it day-to-day as your
power was always sealed when not in active use. This is dangerous, for both you
and the city as a whole. We’d rather take you along with us so that we can
properly train you as we go.”

“We’d also be grateful for the help,” Trev’nor added. “I’m
not sure if you’ve heard this already, but one of our goals is to change
Khobunter back into the fertile land it’s supposed to be.”

Ehsan and Azin blinked at him as if he had gone mad.
“Fertile?” they repeated in stereo, doubt dripping from the word.

Trev’nor gave them a sad smile. “Hard for you to believe it
now, I know, as you’ve been in this desert your whole life. But it was not
originally like this. It was the change of weather patterns that slowly made it
this way. Its state now is such that it will take the combined powers of an
Earth, Life, and Weather Mage to get it back to its former glory.”

“And that’s rather a tall order, for three people to change
a whole country,” Becca tacked on. “Two more people will help speed the process
along.”

Ehsan looked at them long and hard before puffing out an
incredulous breath. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious.” Nolan grinned at him. “Oh, it’ll take a long
time. Decades, probably. But wouldn’t you rather live in a place that’s lush
and green with abundant life in it?”

Azin seemed caught up in some internal vision. “I certainly
would. You think I can help?”

“You can,” Trev’nor assured her promptly. “See, there’s too
much of a mineral deposit in the soil right now, and not enough moisture and compost.
I need help extracting some of the minerals to soften the ground up enough to
be able to accept moisture. I figure that we can use what’s taken from the
ground to build irrigation canals and wells. You have experience building
walls, right? This is basically the same thing.”

“Our part,” Becca informed Ehsan, “is the water. I have rain
clouds forming and on their way this very moment,” she had in fact started that
this morning right after waking up, “but Trev’nor needs water now to moisten
the soil. Otherwise when my rain gets here, it won’t be able to penetrate.”

Ehsan turned his eyes to Nolan. “And you?”

“Plant life. But I can only do my part after the rest of you
are done.” He paused, thought about that, and re-phrased, “Well, actually I
will need to come out here before Becca’s rain comes in. A good, soft rain is
perfect for watering seeds with.”

Did she have a soft rain coming? Becca had been a little
foggy this morning; she barely remembered getting a storm started and heading
this direction. She’d need to check what type it was.

“You’re all crazy,” Ehsan informed them. A grin broke out
over his face. “I like it.”

Azin was smiling too, almost laughing, although the laughter
was born more from self-defense, it seemed. She looked more than a little
overwhelmed.

“We’re not going to just turn you loose,” Nolan assured
Azin, tone gentle. “Let’s go over the basics of power before we start. I know
that your education in your ability was basically passed down like an oral
tradition more than anything.”

Putting a hand to her heart, Azin gathered herself again,
nodding. “That would be good.”

Trev’nor formed up earthen benches for them to sit on, which
everyone promptly used. Becca, already tired of the sunburn she had gotten
yesterday, decided she would not repeat her mistakes today. While they talked,
she formed a miniature cloud to float over their heads.

Pausing in mid-sentence, Trev’nor glanced up. “I have this
feeling that I’m under a dark cloud. Sure enough, I am. Bec?”

“You might not burn,” she responded frostily, “but I
certainly do. I want shade, thank you very much.”

“No argument from me,” Nolan said cheerfully. “I’m tired of
burning too. Go on, Trev.”

Smiling still at the absurdity of it, Trev’nor continued his
lesson, asking questions more than anything. Becca listened very intently to
the answers, as it was important for her to know as much about their new allies
as possible. Basically, it seemed as if they had a foundation of how their
magic was released and used. They just had no bearings on how to store it,
control it, and limited understanding of how intent could form magic.

They talked for half the morning, making sure the basics
were ground into Ehsan’s and Azin’s heads before daring to get back up again
and work.

When they were ready to start, Nolan went back into the
city, wanting to check on how things were going. Becca gestured for Ehsan to
follow her even as Azin went off some distance with Trev’nor. On the wind, she
could hear snatches of their conversation and she frowned. “Azin doesn’t know
how to draw ore and minerals from the soil?”

“She never had to before,” Ehsan explained. “She was always
given either raw ore to work with or metal already forged.”

That did make sense. “What about you? Have you ever had to
hunt for water underground?”

“A few times, in the dry seasons, when they needed new
wells.” He took the initiative and led her to the far right. “There’s
underground streams here, and another that joins up over here.”

“Is that all in this area?”

“No, there’s a few more. Most of them feed into the sea.”

That made perfect sense.

Ehsan stopped abruptly, expression warring as emotions
clashed. “I don’t understand you.”

Becca blinked up at him. “Sorry?” Had she been using words
he didn’t know?

“I don’t understand you,” he repeated, more forcefully.
Rounding on her, he leaned forward, almost looming over her. “You’re all
powerful mages, fully trained, with connections to prominent people. One of you
is an actual prince! Why don’t you call for help? Why don’t you bring armies
into here?”

Oh, that sort of not understanding. This man was a good
decade older than she was. He was more mature in many ways, so perhaps to him
her decisions made no sense whatsoever. Becca admitted (to herself at least)
that her emotions were at the root of what she had decided to do. Logic hadn’t
played into it much at all. How to explain this all to him? “Did you know that
we were captured as slaves too?”

Ehsan stopped dead. “Even you? How?”

“How is that even possible?” Her mouth twisted into a
grimace. “We weren’t expecting that much trouble. We were overconfident, I
guess, and we waltzed into Rurick thinking that we might stumble across a
pickpocket or some such, but nothing more serious than that. They caught us
unawares, blind-sided us, and we were down before we properly understood what
was happening. I lived in a slave pen for ten days, and it was a hellish
experience. I fought my way out of there and swore that no one would be forced
to live like that, like an animal, not as long as I breathed.”

This he seemed to understand. In fact, was it her
imagination, or did he appear more relaxed? “But why don’t you call for help?”

“I have a very hard time believing that absolutely no one
knew that they had magical slaves up here in Khobunter. This has been going on
for at least a hundred years—that much we can prove. Khobunter might be
somewhat isolated, since it’s up here in the far corner of the world, but it’s
not
that
isolated. Someone had to have known.” Becca privately hoped
that neither Vonlorisen nor Guin Braehorn did. If they had, they would have
reacted by now. Surely, they would have, given how they had actively been
rescuing magicians in Chahir. “So, at least some of the governments in this
world are choosing to ignore the problem.”

Ehsan’s face fell into grim lines. He had no counterargument
for her.

“I’m not sure if my own country’s leaders are the same, in
fact I rather doubt it, but it still falls down to a matter of politics: they
would have to arrange non-aggression treaties to bring an army over the Empire
of Sol’s territory just to get here. And then they would have to fight their
way through this country to rescue all of the slaves. After that was done, then
they would come down to the argument of what to do next. Treat Khobunter like a
conquered nation and rule it? Abandon it now that the slaves were out?”
Gentling her tone, she smiled up at him sadly. “Do you see? Most countries
can’t afford to front a war in a far-distant country to begin with. You add
politics into the mix, it becomes impossible to do, no matter how the kings in
question might feel about it.”

His dark eyes searched her face. “You thought all of that
through and still chose to fight? You have no allies up here.”

“I make my allies as I go.” She grinned, not in the least
daunted. “I decided, weeks ago, that I would not leave this country even after
the slaves are all freed. Someone has to stay and properly reconstruct this
country; otherwise other atrocities are going to be committed up here, and no
one will stop them.”

“If you’ve fought two battles and gained a treaty with
dragons, I suppose I shouldn’t underestimate your determination.” Uncertainty
and tension had been riding high in his body language, but as Ehsan said these
words, it visibly dissipated. “But you really have no intention of returning?”

“No. Nolan can’t stay, he has his own country to rule, but
Trev’nor and I are staying.”

Satisfied with her answers, Ehsan settled into a content
expression. “Alright then.” He took in a breath before bellowing, “Trev’nor!”

Trev’nor’s head snapped around, as that was the first time
Ehsan had called any of them by name. Delight exploded across his face even as
he called back, “What?”

“How much water you want right now?”

“Soak all the way to the under crust! No more than that!”

Grunting, Ehsan knelt and concentrated. His power, not
having any constraints on it, leapt to obey. Swearing, Becca slammed a hand
against his back, her own power coming to bear. “Whoa, not that much. Back it
down.”

Ehsan gasped and shook, breathing all over the place. “Is
this what it’s like? Is this my full power?”

“Yes, yes, it is, but you don’t need that much right now.
Let some of it go.”

He seemed overwhelmed by his own power, so much so that it
took several minutes for him to come to grips with it. Becca patiently waited
him out. Rushing matters like this did absolutely no good and often a great
deal of harm. One of the truest things she had learned from Garth was the art
of patience.

The Water Mage’s power seeped down into more normal, working
levels and he cautiously went back to work. Becca just as slowly withdrew her
hand, although she remained ready to leap back in and help contain his power if
need be. It proved unnecessary as he encouraged the underground water to come
up and soak into the ground.

As he worked, Trev’nor and Azin made their way closer to
him, changing the soil composition as they walked for miles in either direction.
Watching Trev’nor in action had always amazed Becca. Her power worked so
differently from his, almost ethereal in its formation, if not in its
execution. But Trev’nor’s magic was very tangible and solid. His seemed the
more permanent of the two.