Saint Dane soared above the trees. Below him, the Milago village came into sight.
He made for the staging ground, calm once again after the short flight. Even if the council was onto his plans, and even if Tarek convinced the knights of the barracks to join him, it still wouldn't matter. The Milago were enraged, and they were all he needed. He'd been heaping injustice after injustice onto their backs, shutting down communication between them and their Bedoowan neighbors, spreading fearful speculation, and dredging up every old injury he could for months. With Grail's murder, the rumor of foreign parties interfering to re-open the glaze trade, and the report of the Bedoowan arming themselves with tak, the floodgates had opened.
Nothing was going to turn the Milago off the warpath now.
He needed only to get his hands on the tak. He wished he had sent a Milago contingent to secure it as soon as he'd returned, or perhaps sent Sawil's assassins to do the job, but he hadn't. But if the lab hadn't already been found by the time he returned, he would simply go down there himself and claim it singlehandedly. He might have already had he not had so many roles to play. Frankly, the loss of Sawil was nothing but a boon at this point.
He neared the staging ground and blinked.
Drifting down to perch on a light post, he dug his claws into the wooden structure and glared out on the field where he had left his army. Looking down at the field, he blinked as he counted his troops. He'd left behind nearly two hundred soldiers, all armed to the teeth and raring to march on the Bedoowan town.
Half his army was gone. The men who were left were drifting around aimlessly, talking amongst themselves. Kore was nowhere to be seen.
His eye twitched. He flew into the nearest empty building, transformed into Maal, and strode up to the nearest person in the hopes they could explain to him exactly how their headcount had been halved in the hour he'd been gone.
The man he approached stood at attention upon seeing him. "Councilor Maal!"
No time for formalities. He grabbed the man's collar and pulled him in close. "Where. Is. Everyone?"
The man gulped, his eyes growing round. "Th-th-the girl. The one who k-k-killed Grail. She sh-showed up and started yelling things, about putting us back to work in the mines, about killing two more of our men! She called us animals! Then she got loose, and everyone chased after her!"
"Kore?"
"Him too, sir."
"Half the army? For one girl?"
The man looked very abashed. "Well…uh…at least the rest of us stayed behind, sir."
Saint Dane threw the man back in disgust. It seemed he had misjudged the girl's resolve. He had done everything in his power to turn the Milago against her, and she had evidently found a way to use that to her advantage. But to what end? "Where did they go?"
The man pointed. "Towards the marketplace, I think, sir."
He turned and ran, dissipating as soon as he was out of line of sight. As fast as his bird form was, the smoke was even quicker, albeit more noticeable. He was willing to take the chance just then.
As he flew through the village, he saw dozens of his men wandering around, asking questions, generally disorganized and unsure of where they were supposed to be. They must have either chased the girl but been outrun, or wandered off from the main force to seek their commanders.
This was what he got for trying to make an army out of a bundle of riled peasants. Perhaps he should have gone with the Bedoowan after all.
He got to the marketplace. Nothing. Nothing but a trail of trampled earth heading towards the forest. Towards the outer mine entrance. That was where she was taking them, then. But why?
Never mind. So long as he could catch up with them, he would commandeer the forces, storm the lab, take the tak, reorganize his army, and they would be marching on the Bedoowan before dusk.
He drew near the entrance to find two girls, one of them the friend of Jani, unless he was mistaken, sitting near the mine's entrance in the bushes. They were laughing themselves hoarse.
He coalesced nearby and Maal came striding out of the forest towards them. "You two! What happened here?"
The big one didn't stop laughing. The scrawny one paused just long enough to gasp, "Have you…have you ever seen an army sprint off a two-foot drop? The pile was huge! You should have heard 'em!"
The big one choked out, "Even funnier than when you and Jani did it!"
The scrawny one threw a punch which connected solidly with the big one's jaw. They both fell back and started laughing again.
Insolent wretches. He turned for the mine, dissipating as soon as he was inside and flying down tunnels faster than a viper in mid-strike. Doing so he could feel a hint of strain tugging at the edge of his consciousness.
These rampant transformations were taking a toll on his Solara's reserves, which was why he tended to be more careful. But this was the endgame for Denduron. So long as he achieved his goals, by the end of the day the investment would be repaid tenfold. All he needed was to find his army.
Suddenly, he felt another sort of tug on his spirit. One that he found he could identify easily, though he had only felt it a few times over the last three days. It was her. Aria. And where she was, his army would be. It seemed that once again she would lead him directly to what he sought.
Triumph flashed through his being as he shot in the direction of his spirit's compass, and he was glad that Press' assessment of her had been correct.
The girl did not know when to quit.
She was done.
She flung herself out of the tunnel and across the chamber. She only had to get across the midway line, and it was over. Ahead of her, the cavern lay in near-darkness, a single lantern all she had to guide her.
She made it. Barely. The sound of the crowd took on a different quality behind her as they emerged into the cavern. She forced her legs to propel her just a foot or so off the ground as she reached the midway point. The instant she touched down, Kahlin's voice boomed through the cavern.
"Halt!" She cried, and with a sharp crack and a flash of light, Aria was safe.
Behind her, flames soared as troughs of slow-burning tak were ignited – a variety created by the scientists early on, which released more heat than light. They had been placed across the room, diving it into two sections, and the heat they generated was enough to prevent anyone from crossing them. On one side, Kore and all his men. On the other side, Kahlin, Steric, and almost every scientist who hadn't accompanied Aria to the surface.
Aria crumpled to the ground and rolled over onto her back, chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. Someone knelt beside her to check her for injuries, and once satisfied that she was alright, held a flask of water to her lips. She didn't need to be told to take small sips. Small sips were all she could manage between her gasps for air.
The angry shouts on the other side of the wall had turned into terrified ones. Kore, his voice shaky, yelled, "Who is that? What is the meaning of this?"
Kahlin shouted back, "Councilor Kore. We have brought you here to show you and all your men the true nature of the discovery Maal brought to you yesterday. He told you that the Bedoowan found a vein of tak, and were planning to destroy you with it. This was a lie!"
Unfortunately, her words fell on ears deafened by their owners' own outrage. The Milago army was too busy shouting to hear her. Shouting in fear, shouting in anger, shouting orders, shouting for orders. If they couldn't calm them down, the whole plan was a bust.
Aria's plan relied on them being able to talk some sense into these people, away from Saint Dane's manipulations, in a situation where they would be forced to sit still and look at the evidence in front of them. All of them, not just Kore, who was too brainwashed by Saint Dane to be willing to call off the attack. The soldiers were the brunt of Saint Dane's power, the manifestation of all the Milago's resentment and anger, ready to be unleashed on the object of their immediate ire. After that, war would spread to the rest of Denduron. If Kahlin could talk them down here and now, it would be akin to dousing an out-of-control campfire before it spread to the rest of the forest.
No communication, no luck.
The group seemed to be backing towards the exit, but another roar of surprise sprang up as the way they'd come in was also sealed off by flames. Two of their scientists had taken up in an offshoot tunnel and followed the mob, setting down another barrier to prevent them from leaving until they'd had their say.
The noise levels were rising, and Kahlin's cries for temperance couldn't even be heard over the tumult. At last, Aria realized that there might be at least one good use for the gun in her pouch.
Still lying on her back, she pulled the firearm out, undid the safety, pointed it carefully at the ceiling, and fired three rounds into the air.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The sound was so great in the confined space that several the people around her dropped to their knees and covered their heads. There were a few shrill cries from the Milago.
Silence followed the reports.
Kahlin brought her hands up and rubbed her ears, glancing back at Aria to see what had happened. She'd already stowed the gun, not wanting the weapon to draw any more attention than intended.
At last, Kahlin was able to speak without interruption. "My friends. We have brought you here to see the truth of the conflict we have all been involved in. There is no war brewing. There never was. We found a vein of tak nearly a year ago, but rather than surrender ourselves to its destructive potential, we chose to see it as a force for good. For creation. Now, see what we have created with it!"
She held up the lantern, and as she did so, sparks of light started flying all around the cavern as scientists struck their lighters, igniting the fuses they held. The fuses trailed between the tak troughs from one end of the room to the other, looping up and down chair legs, tables, coat racks, and any other fixture that could be used to hold a lamp or bag of tak. They hissed to life all along the edge of the cavern, and in moments blinding light erupted on all sides of the Milago army. Finally, behind Kahlin, the magnificent chandelier sputtered to life.
In an instant, the entire cavern was bright as day, flooded in chemical radiance. There were gasps, and astonished muttering began to flit through the room. This was what they had spent the morning, and much of last night, preparing – a way to show the Milago army that tak could be used for something other than war, and indisputable evidence of their intentions regarding the explosive mineral.
Kore, however, was having none of it.
He looked around, eyes squinting against the surrounding glare, and cried, "Do you think us fools? We will not be blinded by your pretty little light-show. You are harboring a murderer!"
An angry buzz began to swell at his words, but Kahlin had the floor now. She wasn't about to relinquish it so easily, not with all that was at stake.
Besides, while the lights would keep burning for hours, the fire that was keeping them all safe would exhaust itself much, much faster.
She stood on one of the tables that had been carried in from the lab. Gesturing down to where Aria lay on the ground she said, "This girl is no murderer. She played the part of one to make you come here, but the real murderer is councilor Maal!"
The rise of noise did not subside, but now it was equal parts anger and astonishment. Kore voiced his outrage. "What? Absurd! Maal, murder Grail? How dare you level such accusations?"
Kahlin did not back down. Aria managed to sit up as the woman continued. "It is true. Maal has been aiming to drive our people to war for months, if not years. He aligned himself with a rogue Bedoowan commander named Sawil, and the two have been working together to escalate tensions between our peoples. When Sawil discovered our laboratory, he reported it to Maal in the hopes of seizing the tak vein from us, arming all of you with it, and sending you off to begin a war that the Bedoowan never wanted!"
Aria listened with growing apprehension as anger began to become the more prominent tone in the crowd. Another voice rang out. "I recognize you! You're Bedoowan! Why should we believe you?"
At once, a dozen of the Milago scientists stepped forward. "We're not Bedoowan," one shouted.
Another called out, "We're Milago! Or do think we're all traitors?"
Someone on the other side of the room yelled, "Santra? Is that you? I thought you went to live with the Bedoowan!"
The woman addressed replied, "All of us have been down here these last several months, working on what you see around you! Our only goal has been to fix the problems our peoples have been facing these last few years!"
Kore was not to be assuaged. "So you say! Just because you have tampered with the tak," he looked at the troughs of fire before him which, even now, were beginning to burn low, "Does not mean anything! Tak cannot be tamed any more than a wild beast can! And what proof do you have for your claims? I know nothing of the Bedoowan commander you speak of. Sawil. And even if I did, why would I assume that he was not working on the order of the Bedoowan to take the tak for themselves? After all, they have been building up an army in our village for months! They are in the perfect position to wipe us all out!"
Anger began to overtake doubt. Kahlin was not given a chance respond; Kore had the floor now, and he was not going to let it go. "Councilor Grail was blow apart by the very weapon you have surrounded us with, and you mock Maal by insinuating that he would commit such an atrocity!"
Aria's brow furrowed, and she said, loudly, "Grail wasn't killed with tak."
Several eyes, on both sides of the room, darted to her. She raised her voice further and said, "Grail disappeared just after talking with Maal in the forest, right after that meeting at the memorial. I know, because I followed them. Tak is loud, you know that now. There was no tak explosion anywhere nearby. I mean, the amount you'd need to do what…uh…what you guys accused me of doing…would be enormous. Enough to make a sound like the one I just made to get your attention. Did any of you hear anything like that the day Grail disappeared?"
Some of the anger gave way to disconcertion. Someone in the crowd yelled, "I heard several tak explosions in the mine just yesterday – after Grail had been killed. I'd never heard anything like before."
Kore sputtered for a moment. Then, he said, "What does that prove? Even if he wasn't killed with tak–"
"But who was the one who told you he was killed with tak? It was Maal, right? Why would he lie about that?"
More confusion.
Kore wouldn't back down. He addressed Kahlin once more. "You claim that girl is innocent, but we heard what she said earlier!"
Aria blushed. "I lied," she explained. "I really don't believe any of those awful things I said about you, and I felt horrible saying them. Sorry."
Her completely inadequate apology was ignored. "And what about our men? The ones we sent in to find the tak? They were killed, too!"
Kahlin addressed this at once. "No, they were not. They're right here."
The four Milago they had captured earlier were brought forward. They were bound and looking quite rebellious.
Kore's face purpled at the sight of them, and Aria thought for sure that he would be forced to admit that maybe there was something else going on, that Maal was lying, that this entire thing was a misunderstanding.
She overestimated the man's capacity for reason.
Kore responded with outrage, swelling with the force of the imagined injustice, and thundered, "You call yourselves our friends, but you have attacked and bound our men! You've trapped us all here in your prison of flames, led us here like game herded to the hunter's bow! You've deceived us, insulted us, threatened us with your damnable munitions, and now you expect us to capitulate? To breath in your lies like the toxic gases you have surrounded us with? Do you take us for fools?"
Aria paled as anger began to overtake the crowd again. It was building only slowly, though, so as long as they could–
In the back of the room, a series of sharp, screaming pops resounded off the walls and red sparks flew like grease from a hot pan.
Panic swept through the crowd like a locust swarm, pushing the army not backwards towards the tunnel they came in through, but forwards towards the fiery barricade that was dwindling to a glower. Someone must have brought along a sample of the tak-firework, and somehow it had gotten lit.
Kore bellowed, "Now you show your true colors! To arms! Ready yourselves, men!"
The screech of metal on scabbards sounded across the cavern as swords were drawn. None of them seemed to realize that the firework was harmless. They were all pressing forward, gauging the temperature of the barrier in front of them, looking for an opportunity to jump it.
Aria's heart sank. They'd presented their arguments, exhausted all of their tricks, and it still hadn't been enough. There was no way they'd be able to calm the Milago down again, not now that they were panicking.
The scientists began backing up, eyes wide with fear, and prepared to retreat down the cave behind them. They would have some time to run, and they had one last barrier of fire to keep the army at bay, but it would be a close thing getting them all out. If the army left through either of the other entrances and got lucky picking tunnels, they would cut the retreat off, and the scientists would be trapped.
Aria began to back up, too, until she looked up and saw that Kahlin was not moving. She was standing calm and resolute before the dying fires in front of her. Any minute now the Milago would start jumping the line, and she was the closest person to it. Aria stomach twisted. She wasn't planning on staying, was she?
Aria went over to her. "Kahlin, we need to go. It didn't work. Come on."
Kahlin shook her head. Her eyes reflected the firelight, and were filled with sorrow. "I thought they would listen. Why will they not listen?"
Aria shook her head. She didn't understand it, either.
She opened her mouth to reply, but as she did so, a form came barreling out of the tunnel to her left – the tunnel that had been intended for the arrival of the Bedoowan, if Jani and Tarek could get them.
The form bellowed so loudly that it was heard even through the scraping of swords and the growing sounds of imminent battle. "Oy! Everyone, HOLD IT!"
There was at least a partial pause as the Milago army took in the loud new arrival. However, as the figure emerged into the light – it was Jani – one of the soldiers at last got the guts to jump the flames. The man leaped over the fire and collided with Jani, knocking her to the ground. Blinded by fire and noise, he drew his blade.
Steric flew out of the crowd and flung himself forward; not into the man, but over Jani, who was lying prone on the ground. He covered her body with his own and flung out an arm, crying, "Stop! That's my daughter! Stop!"
The man did not stop. Driven by adrenaline he raised his sword, and without thought Aria stepped forward to confront him. She locked eyes with the man and saw fear and fervor and rage and then…
He blinked, suddenly calm. As Aria looked him in the eye, he came back to himself. He lowered the blade and took a step back, seemingly aghast at what he'd been about to do.
Strange.
Even as he stepped back, Kahlin stepped forward. Once she was sure the man wasn't about to skewer them all she knelt beside Steric and put her arm around both him and Jani, who was just starting to sit up.
The men behind the line were all still as battle-fevered as their more eager friend had been, and Aria knew that, whatever had happened just then, she wouldn't be able to stop all of them.
But then, just as the rest of the Milago stepped forward to make the jump themselves, more people flooded out into the cavern.
First, a dozen Bedoowan knights. They fanned out and positioned themselves, not exclusively facing the Milago, but with half facing the scientists. One of them snapped out an order, and Aria thought the rough, feminine voice sounded familiar. "Stop! Stand down, everyone! There will be no battle today!"
More people began to emerge from the tunnel, eight or nine in all, including a few more knights. None of them were familiar to Aria, though she finally recognized the knight who had led the contingent into the cavern right behind Jani. It was Tal, from the barracks. How had Jani managed to get the knights from the barracks?
Someone on their side recognized the other people coming in. "Councilor Nyja! Councilor Tolk!"
There were sounds of fright and confusion coming from the Milago side of the barrier. It looked like Jani and Tarek had managed to round up the councilors after all. Again, Aria felt a hesitant flicker of hope. With the knights there to keep a fight from breaking out, and the Bedoowan there to attest to their own innocence, it looked like negotiations might be back on.
Tarek came in a moment later, and Aria saw that he looked ragged and worn, as though he'd been in a fight. He lacked the enthusiasm Aria would have expected of him, given that he was finally part of the action, and Aria knew why. If Tal was here, then he would have heard the news about Alder.
He caught her eye, but she looked away. She saw the pain there, and couldn't bear to face her part in it just then.
She wanted to check on Jani, but someone needed to speak to the councilors. She walked up to one where she stood surveying the room and said, "Hi. My name is Aria. Did Jani and Tarek tell you everything?"
The woman, councilor Nyja, perked up in recognition of her name. "Aria?"
She nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
At once her face broke into a warm smile. "Press' niece!"
She opened her mouth to protest. She was getting pretty tired of being called that. But then, she had bigger fish to fry at that particular moment. "Yup. Press' niece. That's me," she confirmed unenthusiastically.
Nyja reached out to take her shoulder. "Do not worry. I gave the orders to have your uncle released before we left. Raig should be filling him in on everything back in town. We will handle things from here."
And with that she stepped forward to address the crowd. "Councilor Kore! It is good to see you, though the circumstances are a bit hectic! How have you been?"
Kahlin's voice had been stern and unyielding; Kore's, enraged and inflammatory.
Councilor Nyja's voice was genial and calming. At once, everyone in the room turned to look at her.
Kore seemed shocked at her appearance. "Nyja? What are you doing here? And Tolk? What is this?" His voice was beginning to regain its accusatory tone. "You brought your knights here to ambush us!"
Aria was afraid this would set the Milago off once again, but before they had a chance to grow agitated, Nyja laughed. It was a high, cheerful sort of laugh that suggested someone had just told a rather silly joke. "Ambush you? By the light of Noab, what makes you think so?"
The Milago soldiers paused, clearly taken off-guard by their enemy's lack of hostility.
Kore replied, agitated by her obviously jovial mood, "You – you brought your knights! And we were led here under false pretenses! And trapped, to boot!"
Nyja walked over to the table Kahlin had stood to address the crowd and hopped up nimbly. She made a big show of looking over the heads of the half-army before her. "It looks like the flames have died down back there. I don't think you're trapped anymore. And if were in league with your 'captors' and wanted to ambush you, don't you think we would have brought tak rather than just our swords? I mean, it doesn't exactly look like they have a shortage of the mineral!"
She gestured around the room, and a few cautious chuckles arose at her words. Kahlin may have been inspiring, but Nyja had something everyone else here lacked: Humor. She was winning the debate with Kore by making him look like a dunderhead.
Indeed, Kore was so flustered that he could barely form a coherent response. "But, you…I mean, there are…the tak! They have tak! They've kept it hidden from everyone for months!"
Now Aria spoke up. "Gee, I wonder why they did that. It's not like they were afraid someone might, oh I don't know, overreact and send an army after them?"
Now laughter was starting to ring through the caverns. Nyja looked down at her and winked. "Honestly, Kore. As astounding as this whole presentation is – I for one think that, with this kind of advancement, the Tryptite curfew will be repealed within the month – why don't we all head back up to the surface for a nice, civil discussion over a glass of wine?"
Kore did not respond. He was just looking around at his soldiers, baffled as to where all the violent tension he'd been commanding had gone. Aria knew. It had been cancelled out by Councilor Nyja's totally mellow, non-threatening demeanor.
She continued. "By all means, if you'd rather stay down here, surrounded by volatile, explosive minerals, breathing in toxic gases, I'm fine with that. I have a table right here. Pull up a chair! Let's talk about this, shall we?"
She sounded completely serious, but at her words a wave of general discontentment spread through the room. After another minute of silence from Kore, one of his men stepped up and said, "Sir…? Your orders?"
Another yelled, "Are we attacking or not?"
Still another. "What are we doing? Councilor?"
An impatient clamor for orders had begun, and was rapidly growing more…clamorous. They were obviously not going to abandon their councilor without his say so, but they also weren't going to just keep standing around while he gaped like a fish out of water.
Aria's watched him, and could clearly see the debate in his eyes. All of the suspicions Maal had justified were crashing down around him. All his assumptions of his enemies were being put to the test, and found wanting. He'd come prepared for war. Not for debate, not for cordiality, and certainly not for peace.
At last, he choked out, "Fine. Dismissed."
At once, a sense of relief pervaded the room. A few people behind Aria and Nyja let out a whooping cheer and some scientists stepped forward to smother the remaining tak-troughs. They had large, thick, heatproof leathers that they draped over the containers to stifle the reactions, and within minutes the troughs were being shoved out of the way. The Milago had all sheathed their weapons, much to the relief of the scientists. As the knights lowered their weapons as well, the two sides of the room began approaching each other tentatively.
In the middle of it all, Steric, Jani, and Kahlin sat crouched on the ground. Aria crawled over to them. Tarek came over, too, and the five of them huddled around as conversation sprang to life around them.
Kahlin raised an eyebrow at her. "Well. It seems your plan may have worked."
Looking around, Aria was forced to admit that it very well may have.