"What are you holding, slave?" Greel asked. He smiled broadly at Haddad, and that alone signaled he was not a Keldon.
"Invitations to another of Latulla's dinners, master." Perhaps if he was obsequious enough, Greel would be bored and go away.
"Let me see those." Greel reached and took the envelopes from Haddad's fingers. He flipped through them quickly. Many of the passersby looked at Greel. A Keldon male appearing to read was unusual. Haddad usually read the message aloud or handed it to a literate slave when he found the addressee.
"Many of these are my friends," Greel slurred. "I will deliver them if I see them." Greel appeared drunk, but Haddad knew it was an act. Failure to deliver the invitations would mean a severe beating for Haddad.
"I would not have expected you to find friends so soon," Haddad said as he reached for the invitations. It was broad daylight, and Haddad was growing tired of fear. Greel gave back the invitations but still smiled.
"I have many friends, old and new, in this land." He tapped the bronze armband concealed under Haddad's clothes. "You could be my friend since you bear this."
Haddad could not stop from shying away. Greel's face lost its pleasant expression, twisting into a snarl. It almost seemed to glow, and for a moment Haddad thought Greel's true form would burst forth. The fiery light sprang not from inside the monster but from streams of fireballs rising into the sky. Haddad and Greel looked toward the heavens and saw the Keldon weapons converging on an apparently empty space. Then sheets of flame outlined a camouflaged blimp and its defensive fields. Haddad wondered if more than color hid it as his eyes refused to lock on. Suddenly a rack of bombs rained down, and the blimp disappeared. The launchers shot at the falling weapons, and one exploded in a green disk of fire that enveloped the other bombs. The weapons did not fratricide but instead diverged wildly, corkscrewing through the air.
Haddad was rooted to the spot as Greel gripped his arm tightly. The familiar's hand did not even tremor as Haddad tried to pull free. Explosions sounded throughout the camp, but Haddad saw only one. The flash was brilliant white, and the League technician was hurled to the ground as Greel keened in pain. Haddad's eyes cleared, and he saw that the bomb had hurled ropes of fire. The material clung to everything as it burned. Slaves near one building dumped water on a strand stuck to an exterior wall. The water just drained away, and the slaves tried desperately to scrape the fire off as the wood burned fiercely.
Greel crouched in gasping agony. Haddad could see channels of burnt flesh across his chest and neck. The skin bubbled as Greel knelt, oblivious to the world. Haddad ran as magic users closed to extinguish the fires. In the sky, the blimp had vanished, though fire-streamers still shot into the air searching for the craft. After a few more seconds the fire barges stopped, the fires extinguished as the might of the Keldon mages turned to ending the fires.
Greel rose to his feet as a group of slaves came to help him. His features were burned away, and bone showed through the charred meat. One of the slaves vomited at the sight. The monster's fists crushed skulls and caved in chests as he tore through the crowd around him. He ran toward the edge of the colony, pulling a screaming slave behind him like a child's rag doll. Haddad hoped that a mage would burn Greel down before he could feed, but he doubted the monster would be caught. Haddad hurried to deliver the last of the letters, hoping that he could escape soon.
Haddad shifted at the back of the crowd. Latulla had been closeted with her circle all night, and Haddad was dismissed before he could learn much of their plans. He did know that Greel was an instrumental part of those plans, and that was reason enough for worry. A platform had been raised in the field with the stock pens in the background. Latulla chose the spot because it was the largest open space, but Haddad smiled slightly as the morning breeze wafted over the crowd. Latulla's words would smell like manure to the listening masses.
There was a stir as the artificer came into view. The stage was low and there was no bunting or color. Latulla did not warm up the crowd as Haddad half-expected. Instead she launched directly into the heart of her speech.
"You have lost everything!" she screamed to the crowd. Mutters rose as they absorbed her words. "You left Keld and the battles of the north. Many of you were shipped in stasis, powerless to affect your destiny. There are no cradle houses in this land, the slaves are arrogant, and there is the tedium and trouble of working without female partners. Why would anyone come here?" Latulla paused and looked at the crowd.
"Because there is a land to conquer!" she shouted, and her supporters cheered her with a few of the crowd joining in. "These lands were the home of your forebears. Heroes and gods roamed these hills and contested with each other. But an evil force swept over the land, killing and slaying in the dark of night. The widows and babes of your ancestors fled north to escape destruction."
Latulla lifted her hands, as if in benediction, over the crowd. "But you have grown strong and have come to take your birthright back. You have arrived in the land from which Keld sprang and found what?
"You have found a race of weaklings who hold what is yours." She whipped a cover off something on the stage. A steel ant lay revealed. "A race so cowardly that it constructs a machine to fight while its soldiers stay behind." She pointed up into the sky. "A race that attacks your camps from the air for fear of your strength."
Finally she whipped the last tarp off the stage. Five dead Keldons lay revealed, none with an obvious wound. "An enemy who, when he failed to kill you, has resorted to the spread of corruption and disease." Haddad had heard of some dying from illness but found it unsurprising in a camp of this size. "The League has shown by its every action that it is the successor of the evil that battled our forebears. Will you let them win again, or will you break the world and remake it in your image?" Cheers erupted again, and Latulla seemed to swell as they rolled over her.
"The final days are upon us, and the final battle awaits in the west. Who will follow me into glory and victory?" Even Haddad cheered and chanted her name-not because he wanted the Keldons to win, but because this expedition west might constitute his last chance to escape. He cheered the fulfillment of his own plans and cursed the Keldons silently.
"Pig slop!" Alexi exclaimed as the deck surged up, a gust of wind grappling with the blimp. "Keep it steady!" she yelled up the cabin to the pilot. A muttered obscenity wafted back, but she ignored it as she tried to keep her stomach under control. When would this ride be over? she wondered silently.
The Hunter and the Eagle were hovering beside a storm. The two Mushan blimps had spent three days tossed by winds as Teferi worked the storm. Jumping from ship to ship, he herded it toward the coast even as he wove his spells into its structure. The planeswalker was ready to expunge the Keldon colony from Jamuraa, and now his moment neared. Far out to sea, a fleet of surface warships waited to land marines and supplies, but Teferi had put the attack on hold. Through magic he observed a huge exodus of the colony's warriors and fire barges the day before.
The surge of power as Teferi appeared in the cabin surprised Alexi. The planeswalker dripped water from his sodden clothes onto the deck, and a puff of ozone and magic assaulted Alexi's nose. Teferi worked inside the storm now. "Signal the fleet to start coming in," he ordered in a tired voice. "I am going to force the storm onshore. The marines should be able to make an unopposed landing. You will report any problems to the fleet." He looked exhausted.