The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Thirteen

"Yes, it is a tragic circumstance, but be at ease," she said to the air schooner Battle-captain and First Mate. "Life aboard a Combat Aerieakon is a precarious thing at best. Those crewmen died living a life they chose willingly. They weren't slaves or bonded chattel and they weren't pawns of the Emperium. Each of us aboard the schooner will eventually fall into the final embrace of the Cold Gray Vicar, but we'll do so without the chains of servitude. It's the best we who are not born of nobility can hope for."

The stout and burly Battle-captain pursed his lips and reluctantly allowed himself to accept Rae'vynn's rough philosophical musing as a balm for his anger and grief.

"I take it you noticed the emergence of the Blood-Haunters from their ship?" he said.

"The Xar'queyeks? Yes, I noticed."

"That ship," Durkka-jan said, "See their ship? The markings? That has the look of an old Niyyadourian air skiff, probably from Warlord Kolag Y'phree's militia fleet. Looks like the damn Blood Haunters have entered into some kind of an arrangement with that territorial powerhouse and maybe they are moving ordinance up here for an outside party, like perhaps for the exiled Prophet-King of Pnahrryagos, of the Kingdom of the Underlands."

"Arms for the Tammoom? No, no, I can't see that. Vyngreak Norrin has a well-earned reputation for being incautious, but even he wouldn't be so bold as to openly run illegal weapons past the eastern outposts of the Vorgianis Territories and into Pang Xa'Omathra," Rae'vynn said. "The Tammoom cannot afford to further antagonize Tomanus Grethvian, the Ymperatur of Peravendath. Allying himself with the criminal activities of Layvis Kroule and his gang of killers runs, at least to my mind, very contrary to the Tammoom's philosophy of Post-Emperium ecumenical political cooperation. And any association with a warlord like Kolag Y'phree of The City , no matter through how many faceless intermediaries, would be very dangerous, indeed."

"True, but, only a few moments ago, I saw Qe'rithda, Sword of the Tammoom and Senator-Prime of the United Tribes, speaking directly with Layvis Kroule," Durkka-jan said. "Something tells me our prophet-firebrand is getting impatient dealing with the famously stubborn, not to mention reactionary, council of Tomanus Grethvian. I think he may be considering more direct means of confrontation."

"I hope not," Rae'vynn said. "I truly hope not. The Ymperatur of Peravendath still has strong ties to the World-Father, His Imperialness Draggyn Han'Khainus-Galorketh. Grethvian's executive advisor, the mutant-wizard Vashnur Xhant, was formerly one of the World-Father's Extraplanetary Territorial Spatial Expanse's Corp of Questors, back before the Great Revocation. None of us can afford the forces of the Emperium to come marching back into the region, forcibly retaking the lands they once controlled, enslaving the people under the banner of their benevolent brand of dictatorship. We can't fight that fight. We haven't any hope of winning against the armies, monsters and pirated alien technologies of the Emperium."

"It doesn't matter. It's not our fight," Durkka-jan said.

"Actually, yes it is."

"Faugh!" Durkka-jan exclaimed contemptuously. "Let them fight one another. They've never done anything of any worth for us and our kind except involve us in one war after another for nearly half a millennium, senselessly battling for control over the Pnahrryian Sea. I say let them go for each other's throats and afterwards we'll be there to put down whichever one of those mad dogs remains standing."

"And you're willing to let that much innocent blood be spilled?" Rae'vynn asked sharply.

Durkka-jan closed his eyes, his broad face wrinkling into a pained expression, and he tilted his head back to face the gray clouds above in frustration.