Before Adeenya could respond, Taennen walked toward the soldiers in the clearing. Jhoqo had always said that a good soldier knows when a command is a poor one, be it unjust or simply mad. Taennen was about to give an insane command, and he could only hope that his soldiers were good and that things weren't as simple as he had always believed them to be. The world had come to look quite different in the last couple of days. Maybe he was seeing things that Jhoqo could not.
"Please, everyone, listen to me," Taennen said, waving for the displaced people to gather around him. Blood spattered his flesh and his armor, his face was worn and haggard.
"Maquar, we have been betrayed," Taennen started. "No, not just us. Everyone who hails from the South. Sadly, that betrayal came from within our ranks."
The Maquar and Durpari stood silent, though the former prisoners began to shout at Taennen, having picked him out as the person in charge they hoped would help them.
"Listen, please, all of you," Taennen said. "I know you want to go home. I know you are beside yourselves wondering why your former slavers are standing only paces away," he said, indicating the formians still gathered nearby.
"My fellow soldiers, I know your minds are spinning right now. Mine is too. Though I was not with you in your battle against the Chondathans, the full weight of Jhoqo's betrayal sits on my heart as well," he said.
The Maquar lowered their heads in unison, a sign of respect to the relationship between Jhoqo and Taennen.
Taennen spoke again, an orator emerging from him out there in the wilderness. "Beneath Neversfall are forces that would break the laws we hold dear, and that some of us have sworn to defend. Weapons are being smuggled to feed the war machine that is Mulhorand. This citadel will make more coin in a month than most chakas make in a year. Illegal coin! Blood coin! Coin pried from the hands of the dead citizens of the next country that the vicious Mulho-randi target. This must be stopped."
The former captives seemed unmoved, standing huddled together away from the soldiers, separating themselves as though some caste system were in place. Who could blame them for not wanting to get involved? This was not their affair. They had sworn no oaths, they were not being paid. Their faces showed only the desire to remain free, to return to their homes and the lives they had known before being taken by the formians.
Taennen noticed the disinterest from the citizens as well and turned to address them. "I am sorry you have suffered. Some of you have been away from your homes for a long, long time. Little would please me more than to take each of you to your homes right now and know that you would never have to return to this place," he said, pausing before continuing.
"But I can't do that. The truth is that the people in that fortress must be stopped. Many, many more people will die if they are not. The Adama tells us that we are all connected, that our goal should be the good of all things because all things are part of us and we are part of them.
"Good trade benefits everyone, but what the warmongers behind this are doing here does not. The victims of the Mulhorandi will not benefit, the citizens of the South who devote themselves to the laws we live by will not benefit."
The former captives murmured among themselves but seemed largely unmoved. Taennen moved closer to them. "And you and those you love will not benefit. You may be harmed by this action," Taennen said.
"How? The Mulhorandi don't attack my homeland," said a short man in shabby clothes.
"Not yet," Taennen said. "But these weapons will allow them to expand their borders farther, to extend their reach into lands that may not have interested them previously. Perhaps they will come after your home next. When they conquer those around them, what will stop their appetite for more war and more land?"
The former captives muttered amongst themselves. After a few moments, one of them stepped forward and spoke.
"We're not fighters, sir. What are we supposed to do? We just want to go home to our families. For some of us, it's been a very long time."
Taennen nodded. "I know, my friends. If I saw a choice, I would latch onto it, but I do not," he said. "Friends, please trust me. You do not want to be alone here in the wilds of Aerilpar," Taennen said. "There are far worse things in these woods than you have encountered before." chapter Tujeotu-Nioe
Jhoqo stared at the corpse of Bascou laid before him in his command building. He dismissed the Chondathan soldiers who had brought the body to him, and then crumpled into a chair. Bascou's thick cheeks hung from his face like sacks of emptied wheat. His wounds still dribbled, sprinkling the floor with red. Jhoqo had barely known the man and would not miss him.
He was a cursed darkblade. Damn all the Chondathans to the Hells, he thought. He would trade the whole lot of them for ten Maquar or even Durpari. He sighed and let his muscles relax, slumping in the chair.
The Chondathans were unimportant, but the people they represented were not. The men and women who had hired the mercenaries knew what needed to be done, and they gave Jhoqo the means to do it. So why couldn't his own soldiers understand? Couldn't they see the degradation of Southern ways all around them?
Fair and open trade was being stifled by petty laws and politics. The very idea of declaring trade with another country to be illegal was absurd, even offensive, to anyone who loved the South and the ways of the Adama. The citizens he was working with understood that, and he knew that he would have to walk away from his entire career. For the South, he would do that.
Jhoqo stood and took a deep breath. So be it, he thought and walked out the door, leaving the lifeless Bascou behind him. He called out to the Chondathan guard who was his shadow, "Go and fetch me your second in command."
The guard, with his downy beard, was one of the youngest the Chondathans had brought. He did not move, though his eyes went straight to the ground.
"Go!" Jhoqo barked.
"He's dead, sir," the boy said, twitching.
"Then the third, and if he's dead, then the fourth. Just get me somebody, boy!" Jhoqo yelled, and he started toward the central tower, namesake to the citadel.
Before he reached the door, an older man, a bit thick through the belly, came to a stop in front of him and saluted.
"You have a wizard in the mines, yes?" Jhoqo said. The man nodded.
"Go and get him right away. Tell him I have a challenge for him," Jhoqo said, craning his neck to look up at the top of the tower.
Of all the feelings that swirled through him, Taennen dwelled the longest on foolishness. He was afraid, intimidated, uncertain… but mostly, he felt foolish. The torchlight held by the man behind him guided his steps through the tunnels. Taennen glanced back once to see the ragged squad behind him, stumbling through the stone corridors. Foolishness.
Here he was, hoping to lead a score of soldiers and ten utterly untrained farmers and craftsman against a fortified citadel held by veteran soldiers who weren't as worn and weary, and who outnumbered them besides. The only advantage they had, by his reckoning, was that the Chondathans and their dwarf cohorts would be unlikely to expect an attack by the very forces they had just routed.
"How many can we expect?" asked one of the former captives-a farmer by trade-and not for the first time.
"We should be ready for at least twice our numbers," Taennen replied.
The soldiers nodded and traded words of encouragement and reassuring claps on backs. The few citizens all seemed to pale at the same moment. They would be the first to die, Taennen knew. Unable to skillfully wield the weapons they had been given and facing trained foes, they would fall quickly. They would serve the cause best if they could live long enough to distract an enemy, allowing a Maquar or Durpari soldier to end the attacker's life swiftly. It was a matter of stretching their numbers. Taennen stopped, the people behind him stumbling into him.