The Chronicle of the Worthy Son

Conceit

No one was speaking up. The crowd was full of bowed heads and tired stares. They'd been at this for years. Some their whole lives.

At last, Hawking noted, "I hear no objection to preparing to march."

That did prompt a timid murmuring and shuffling in the crowd. Some rubbed their eyes, others touched each others' arms, some even leaned back in relief.

Hawking cast his blue gaze up along the rows of faces and began to walk the parameter of the pit. "All of us have worried this day would come. Some of you are eager, needing to soothe anger or face fears with actions. Others are reluctant, with sorrows that pull at you or fears that instead beg caution. All of us have lost much—some more than others—but every one of us too much. We're not ready to lose more. But like our ancestors before us, beset again and again by invading forces, we still have one another. We have our land. Our sky."

His voice built upon the stillness of the chamber, built upon his own echoes, and the people in the seats leaned into the words. "When others, when outsiders come to take these things from us, take our hearts and souls from us, we cannot allow it. Not without a fight. Not without forcing them to face what they do not see or understand in us. So we will bring this fight, our fight to them. And when I look at all of you, I, for one, am not convinced they have what it takes."

When his last echo died, the small audience tried to revive it with cries of "We fight!" and "To war!" They finally reawakened the chamber with a chant of "Our land! Our sky!"

Able had seen enough. Somehow he found his feet and sidled past a pair of chanting Borealunders to the walkway. He stumbled through the torch-lit passages trying to out-pace his own thudding heart. He turned through the first dark doorway he spotted.

Perhaps he was still confused by the layout of the Burrows, as he had not meant in looking for a quiet place to collect himself to walk into the armory. Then again, perhaps his subconscious had.

The firelight behind him did little to illuminate the stone chamber. As his eyes adjusted, it was as though the rows of swords and spears and even rifles of different origins and eras appeared to materialize out of the darkness. One sword looked like it belonged on someone's ancestral wall, and another that would have been at home in an archaeological collection. Able slumped to the floor before the dinged up strip of bronze and set his forehead on his knees.

The Borealunders had been at this for centuries, maybe a millennium. They were not equipped, they were not organized, and they would not consider surrender. They had no chance of defeating an imperial army but would satisfy themselves with drawing the conflict out as long as possible, shedding as much blood as possible, and calling it virtuous. Because the alternative was becoming slaves with slave children.

"You all right?" Of course Lark had followed him. "I'll be annoyed with you if you say 'yes.'"

"I suppose I'm not."

"Well, that's evasive." She came over to crouch in front of him. "You're not going to tell me what's on your mind?" Her eyes seemed black in the lightless room, but Able could imagine the concern in them. The care. When this all had to be far more painful for her.

"I haven't—I need to sort it out first."

Lark grunted in dissatisfaction and rubbed her mouth a moment.

"I don't want to..." Able groaned. That wasn't right. Well, it was. He didn't want to tell her. He also didn't want to be unfair to her. "I mean, I don't have an answer you'll accept, do I?"

"No, I'll accept it." Lark shrugged harshly, clearly upset. "I can let you be. But I really wish you wouldn't be so shy of potential conflict that you won't participate in this relationship with me."