“I’ve seen this clan. They still live in western mountains. Until I came, they watched western heights.”
Yev-yat’s eyes grew wide. “You visited lost clan?”
“Hai. But Muth-pah said they are lost no longer.”
“And Muth-yat knows this?”
“Hai.”
Yev-yat frowned. “She has hidden much from me. You also, I suspect. Did she speak of Morah-pah’s vision?”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Many deetpahis describe visions, and Morah-pah’s deetpahi records significant one. It was written after Yat clan child was born with Fathma. Original is lost, but I have copy.”
Yev-yat went into another chamber. In addition to shelves, it contained a chest. The lorekeeper removed the object that Dar had assumed was a pendant, inserted it into a small, oddly shaped hole in the front of the chest, and twisted it. Dar heard a click. Then Yev-yat lifted the chest’s lid and removed a deetpahi. It had darkened until it was nearly black. The lorekeeper treated it as though it was somehow dangerous. “This is lore that I may impart only to great mothers and their sisters. Thus few know it, and for good reason.”
Dar felt uneasy. “And now that I’m queen, this is something I must know?”
“Hai, Muth Mauk, for I believe it speaks of you.”
Twelve
Murdant Kol opened his eyes and saw a man peering at him. The man smiled, but his gray eyes were calculating. “You were hard to find,” said the stranger. “You’re fortunate I succeeded.”
Kol’s jerkin was gone and a bandage encircled his bare chest where none had been before. It pressed pungent herbs against his wound, which still ached but no longer burned. Kol suspected that the man had been caring for him. He couldn’t imagine why, and his wariness was stronger than his gratitude. He regarded the man again, and with a voice as forceful as his weakened state allowed, asked, “Who are you?”
“My name is Gorm.” “Why are you here?”
“My master desires your service.”
“My service? For what? Someone’s private guard? I’m a soldier, not a watchman.”
“A soldier without an army.”
“They’re always wanting swords in Luvein.”
“Proud words for one in your position,” said Gorm. “You still need this woman’s care.” He gestured to the Wise Woman seated on the other bed. “I hired her. If I leave, she leaves.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“I’ve been to Luvein,” said Gorm. “Its lords want soldiers, but their squabbles are scarcely wars. Do you wish to fight over cattle? To conquer vineyards?”
“With luck, I might rise high,” replied Kol.
“No need to seek your fortune. Fortune has found you. My master is Othar the Mage.”
Kol noted that Gorm’s eyes appeared much older than his face. They seemed capable of more than ordinary perception, an idea he found unsettling. “I heard he’s dead.”
“Now you’re privileged to know the truth. Very few do.”
Kol suspected that knowledge put him in jeopardy. “And what service can a soldier provide a mage?” “Lead a war against his enemy.”
Kol was about to laugh when he saw that Gorm was completely serious. “How could I do that?”
“With powerful friends, ambitious men rise high. Commissions are easily bought. You’ve served under officers. They gave the orders, but who was the better soldier? You or them?”
“War’s hard and bloody work,” replied Murdant Kol. “And no man’s harder than me.”
“Othar agrees. A hard man is what the realm needs, especially now that it’s ruled by a woman. Girta wants for a strong hand to guide her. You could become that hand and push for war.”
“War against whom?”
“The orcs’ new queen.”
Again, Kol suppressed a laugh. “The piss eyes’ queen?”
“Aye, and you know her. She’s Dar.”
“Dar! That’s impossible!”
Gorm smiled. “Not for a conniving bitch. Who knows that better than you?” Gorm paused and his smile grew mocking. “Isn’t she the one who wounded you?”
Kol only grunted.
“So, what will it be?” asked Gorm. “Slink off to Luvein or take on your foe?”
Yev-yat read from the deetpahi of Morah-pah. It spoke of an ominous vision. A queen who appeared in the west would usher in turbulent times. The deetpahi described a disaster that was chillingly similar to Dar’s vision. In it, the royal hall was reduced to ruins. At first, Dar argued that the vision didn’t apply to her. “I wasn’t queen when I was in western mountains,” she said. “I wasn’t even urkzimmuthi.”
“Velasa-pah appeared to you,” Yev-yat replied. “He said he had been waiting.”
“He might have been waiting for someone else.” Yet even as Dar made that argument, she doubted it was true.
“Muth Mauk, I think Muth la placed your spirit in washavoki’s body so no one would recognize you at first. That is reason you were welcomed in this hall. When Muth-yat and Zor-yat aided in your rebirth, they didn’t foresee you becoming queen.”
“If they had, would they have helped me?”
“Are they helping you now?”
Then the lorekeeper spoke of an old controversy that began when a child purporting to possess Fathma was born into the Yat clan. The child grew up to become the first queen of the urkzimmuthi since the fall of Tarathank. At that time, the Yat clan occupied the easternmost settlement. It consisted of only a few rude huts. Six generations had passed since the urkzimmuthi last had a ruler, and they were in disarray. Exiled from their ancestral lands and harried by the washavokis, they were a race on the edge of extinction.
After she was crowned by the Yat clan, the new queen spent the first years of her reign visiting the other orc settlements. In time, all the clans but one agreed that she possessed Fathma. The Pah clan—the former Queen Clan—resolved to wait for a sign from Velasa-pah. Until then, they would neither acknowledge nor disavow the sovereignty of the sitting queen.
Meanwhile, with the other clans’ support, the queen found a way to end the washavoki raids. She bought peace by pledging sons to fight for the washavokis in their wars against one another. By wisely choosing which sides to support, the orc queen ended the washavoki forays. This policy was the precedent for all the treaties that followed, the one with King Kregant being only the latest.
Treaties with the washavokis appalled the Pah clan and exacerbated the schism between them and the other orcs. Their matriarch did not attend the royal councils and her clan remained in the western heights when the other clans moved eastward. In time, the Pah clan became known as the Lost Clan.
Morah-pah’s vision was recorded as the schism was first forming. As word of it spread, the clan’s isolation became more pronounced. “Velasa-pah’s Promise” became “Velasa-pah’s Doom,” the epitome of a lost cause. The wizard came to be seen as an unfortunate figure from a tragic era, someone long dead and best forgotten.
Dar realized that her appearance as queen had stirred up those half-forgotten controversies. Having arrived from the west, Dar saw how she could be viewed as a harbinger of doom or even its instigator. Thus she was relieved when the lorekeeper didn’t shun her as Meera-yat had. “You’re to be queen in troubled times,” Yev-yat said. “That’s Muth la’s will, not your fault.”
After Yev-yat locked away the foreboding text, she spent the rest of the afternoon recounting how former queens had ruled. Dar listened attentively, hoping the past would offer lessons for the future. All the while, she felt as she had when she nearly drowned in the Turgen River—seized by currents beyond her control. In tales from her childhood, becoming queen was always a happy ending. That afternoon, it seemed just the opposite.
Murdant Kol suspected that Othar’s “offer” would be fatal to refuse, but more than fear prompted him to accept it. Gorm promised an opportunity beyond Kol’s wildest hopes—a chance to rise above his station. As high murdant, he had reported directly to the Queen’s Man and his duties for General Tarkum occasionally had taken him to the court. There, the courtiers had treated him as little more than a servant. Though it had stung his pride, Kol always held his tongue, for an offended nobleman could ruin him. But with funds and patronage, his humble background wouldn’t hold him back. Othar could provide both. With those advantages, “ambitious men rise high.”