Strongarm's strong right arm was without a hand since the Battle of the Merrawin Plain, while Morguil, who had no military skills, hadn't fought. So concealing his displeasure as best he could, Morguil deferred to the dwarf. Telling himself if he didn't, the dwarves would not attend the congress, and they'd hold it against him forever.
Lord Naerrasil deeply resented Strongarm's implied criticism, and with some justification. His east ylvin army had fought desperately at Balralligh and Colroi, and under terrible circumstances. He'd lost more men than all his allies together, though mostly by execution after they'd surrendered. But because of his defeats, and his contempt for the Lion's raider strategy, his reputation had suffered. Anything he said would be discredited.
The disarmed hithar, under their own officers, were marched east to Colroi, herded by the remains of the Imperial East Ylvin Army, and units of the west ylver. Rations were short, and it was the prisoners who marched hungry. But there was little muttering in the hithik ranks; the Voitusotar had long since taught them subservience. Eventually, to the compliant, they'd allowed privileges, but any hint of unrest had been punished with quick and ruthless cruelty.
At Colroi, Macurdy and Varia were given a room with an actual stove. Each had anticipated a period of adjustment, of getting used to each other. But the process proved painless. And Varia wore her hair in twin ponytails, as she had in Indiana.
The Congress of Decision was a lot smaller than Macurdy had expected. It consisted of Morguil and his advisors; Lord Gaerimor acting for Gavriel, with the general of the west ylvin forces as his aide; Macurdy acting for the Rude Lands and the Sisterhood, with Vulkan and Lady Cyncaidh as his advisors; and Aldrik Egilsson Strongarm acting for Finn Greatsword. Two hithar, High Admiral Vellinghuus and General Horst, were brought from Balralligh to answer questions.
As far as Macurdy was concerned, the principal issue was what to do with some sixty thousand hithik prisoners of war.
On the first morning, the status of allied and hithik military forces was reviewed. And Vulkan described the nature of Kurqosz's final sorcery, an awesome assembling, molding and energizing of powerful elementals. Without saying how, he stated flatly that it had been Macurdy who'd caused its cataclysmic collapse, and by that one act had won the war.
Subsequent discussions would be colored by the fact that two voitar in Balralligh had briefly survived the shocking event at the crown prince's headquarters. Both had died within two days, without emerging from their comas. But as far as was known, all the voitar at the crown prince's headquarters, Deep River, Camp Merrawin, and even Colroi had died instantly.
Macurdy and the ylver had assumed that the voitik hive mind was unaffected by distance. The two brief survivals seemed to contradict that. Admiral Vellinghuus volunteered that during the voyage, the voitar on his flagship had lost touch with their kinsmen in Hithmearc well before they'd completed the crossing. So clearly the attachment weakened with distance.
Even if only two at Balralligh had survived, for less than two days, and comatose, how many might have survived in Hithmearc, more than five thousand miles away? All of them? Most of them? Balralligh was less than four hundred miles from the event.
To begin with, it seemed irrelevant to the question of what should be done with the hithik prisoners. Morguil demanded reparations and vengeance for the terrible massacres, atrocities and destruction committed in his empire. Lord Gaerimor got Morguil's agreement to consider reparations and vengeance separately, starting with reparations.
Not only the Eastern Empire wanted reparations. Every Rude Lands kingdom that had sent troops wanted restitution for the expense, and something on the side.
But where would it come from? Certainly not from distant Hithmearc. The only voitik "wealth" at hand were (1) military equipment and supplies; (2) the ships of the voitik armada; and (3) the hithik prisoners of war. The value of military goods was of two sorts: their military value, and their value by conversion to civilian use. The main value of the ships was as merchantmen, but there were far more of them than all of Yuulith had use for.
The prisoners were of value primarily for labor.
Initially Morguil insisted that the disposition of hithik prisoners was the privilege of the Eastern Empire. They should, he said, be slaves. Perhaps half or a third could be set to work rebuilding his empire. The surplus would be auctioned to whoever cared to bid, to help finance that rebuilding. Selected ships would be taken over by the Eastern Empire as warships, The rest would be offered for sale. Voitik military equipment-that which couldn't be readily converted to civilian use-would be sold by the Eastern Empire as weapons, or melted down for other uses.
Strongarm objected instantly to the latter. It would swamp the market for metals-the heart of dwarven economy. Macurdy pointed out that so much weaponry could stimulate wars, an argument that brought strong agreement from Lord Gaerimor and, privately, from some of Morguil's staff. Macurdy then cited the Farside example of the American military in the Pacific Theater, where at the end of World War II, large amounts of ordnance had been dumped in the South China Sea, as being surplus to foreseeable needs, and expensive to transport and store.
Gaerimor argued against slavery. Use prisoners of war freely as forced labor, he said, but don't sell them. Both empires had enslaved conquered humans in the early days, and had still not fully recovered from the evil effects. "Let us not revive the practice," he finished. "If we do, it will be over my firm objections. And I promise you without reservation that Gavriel will agree with me on the matter."
Lord Naerrasil had kept out of the discussion till then. Now he spoke, caustically. "And what do you propose we do with the surplus? Execute them? Is that what you'd prefer? We can't afford to feed them." His voice dripped sarcasm. "Or perhaps the rest of you will send annual shipments of grain and cattle to feed them with."
Macurdy replied at once. His voice was matter of fact, but his blunt words were as undiplomatic at Naerrasil's, and more insulting. "Lord Naerrasil, I don't like your sarcasm on this subject any more than I liked it about my military proposals. You were wrong then, and you're wrong now. If His Majesty asked my advice, I'd suggest he fire you on charges of stupidity."
Macurdy's words shocked the eastern ylver attending, and Lord Gaerimor and his aide looked dismayed. Macurdy realized he'd overstepped. This was not, after all, some barracks or bar. He wondered if he'd endangered an agreement. But he continued. "Send the surplus prisoners back to Hithmearc. Then send the rest back when you're done with them. It's already obvious you can't get decent value for the ships."
No one replied to his suggestion, and Lord Gaerimor moved the meeting be adjourned till Three-Day. Morguil seconded the motion, and Gaerimor spent the next day with the eastern emperor trying to heal the damage. It had been Naerrasil's sarcasm, he pointed out, that had triggered Macurdy's insult. And earlier, at Duinarog, he'd insulted Macurdy very personally, on top of which, his criticisms had been proven utterly wrong.
"Frankly, Your Majesty," Gaerimor finished, "his lordship has long had a reputation for a quick and abusive tongue. And while he is your brother-in-law, you may nonetheless wish to speak to him about it. We do, after all, have agreements to work out. And Field Marshal Macurdy provided and led the actions that won the war. He bled, embarrassed and worried the voitar into undertaking a sorcery they could not adequately control. And then destroyed them with it. Without the Lion, it would be Crown Prince Kurqosz, and not ourselves, dictating the peace."