The Skull Throne

Not for the first time, she wondered at Everam’s plan for Abban. The dice had been vexing vague on the subject.

“Fascinating creatures, the clay demons,” Abban said. A touch of fear rippled across his aura. “They blend, you see. Their armor is the exact texture and color of Baha’s adobe. You can stare right at one—on the steps, clinging to the walls, peeking from the rooftops—and not see it until it moves.”

“The hora see things the eyes cannot,” Inevera said.

Abban nodded. “Inevera, I pray it so. For the greenlanders in Everam’s Bounty outnumber us six to one. They are the adobe, and the chin who seek to strike terror in our hearts with these attacks are clay demons. The dama will not see them until they move again, and shame will force them to look for others to punish, that they might save face.”

“A move that will only deepen the wedge and strengthen the chin resolve,” Inevera mused.

“If we do not step carefully, these attacks will worsen,” Abban said. “Seek and kill the true culprits, but every greenlander we harm beyond those who held the torches will be a martyr to their cause.”

—They are aided from the north.—

Inevera sat vexed on her bed of pillows beside the Andrah as the Damaji angrily strode into the throne room. Her sons and nephew already waited below them as the other men were granted entry.

She spent close to an hour casting after Abban was dismissed and the runners sent, but that was the only useful bit of information to be gleaned about the rebels.

—They are aided from the north.—

It was easy to assume that meant the Hollow tribe. They stood to gain the most from something like this, especially if the Par’chin had survived. But it was seldom wise to assume more than the dice told. The rebels could as easily be supplied and funded by any of the Northland dukes. Euchor of Miln, perhaps, or Rhinebeck of Angiers. Even Lakton, mostly to the east, was north of Everam’s Bounty, and they had already been warned by Leesha Paper that they would be the next Krasia would conquer. Would Duke Reecherd and his dockmasters be fool enough to provoke the attack?

No. It was the Hollow. It had to be, hadn’t it? Or was she letting her hatred of Leesha Paper color her judgment? It would be just like the Northern whore to smile to their faces and light fires behind their backs, and Inevera would welcome the excuse to kill the witch and Ahmann’s child growing in her belly.

There were times she hated the dice. They had ever been vague hints and riddles, even to Inevera, who was more gifted in their reading than any dama’ting in three thousand years. The more important the question, the more the answer would shift the course of the future, the more the dice grew opaque. She had cast thrice daily, seeking her husband’s fate, but the bones told her nothing more than they had in the mountain valley where Ahmann fell, and even that was more than they would tell of the rebels.

Perhaps Everam’s plan required the chin rebellion, or a civil war in Krasia, and knowledge of how to stem them before the time was right would run counter to inevera. Or perhaps she had displeased Him, and Everam had chosen another to speak through.

Perhaps the Northern whore’s child is inevera, as well. The thought nauseated her. She was almost thankful when the Damaji began to shout, drawing her thoughts back into the present.

“I have said from the beginning that we were too gentle pacifying the chin,” Damaji Qezan groused. “We let them bend when they should have been broken.”

“I agree,” Damaji Ichach said, as if to remind Inevera how bad things had gotten. If Qezan and Ichach were agreeing, the sun might as well rise in the west.

Of the Andrah’s court, the dice had been more forthcoming. Ashan she could control, for now. Her sons would look at the rebellion not as a crisis, but as a chance to find glory in its defeat. The Damaji, however, were old men grown to comfort in Everam’s Bounty’s largesse. The danger to their new holdings terrified them more than the children of Nie.

“We should burn the villages where the attacks took place to the ground,” Damaji Enkaji said. “Hang the butchered bodies of every man, woman, and child from the trees and let the alagai feast on them.”

“Simple words, Damaji, when it was not your lands attacked,” Damaji Chusen said. The attack against the Shunjin had taken place in his tribe’s new capital.

“The chin would not dare attack Mehnding lands,” Enkaji boasted, and Inevera wondered at that. The rebels had avoided the lands of the five most powerful tribes—Kaji, Majah, Mehnding, Krevakh, and Nanji—but if they were being aided by the north this was only the beginning.

“Food is scarce enough after the alagai burned the fields on Waning,” Ashan said. “We cannot burn more fields—or butcher those who tend them—if we wish to see the spring.”

“What is to stop the chin from burning fields next?” Semmel of the Anjha asked. “Even the great tribes do not have men to protect the land from its very inhabitants.”

“You cannot let this go unpunished, Andrah,” Aleverak said. “The chin attacked us in the night, when all men are brothers, killing dama and burning sacred ground. We must respond, and quickly, lest we embolden the enemy.”

“And we shall,” Ashan said. “You are correct this cannot be tolerated. We must find those responsible and execute them publicly, but we will only feed the rebel ranks if we hold all the chin responsible for the actions of a few.”

Inevera hid her smile. Ashan had said the words exactly as she had instructed him, though his first reaction to the attacks had not been far from that of Enkaji.

“Your pardon, Andrah, but all the chin are responsible,” said Damaji Rejji of the Bajin. “They are hiding the rebels and the children. What difference if they set a fire or offer their cellar as a hiding place?”

“We must show them their defiance comes at a price,” Jayan said, thumping his spear. “A high price, paid by all, so that the next rebels are turned over by their own people in fear of our wrath.” Many of the Damaji nodded eagerly at the words, turning back to Ashan with skeptical eyes.

“My brother is correct,” Asome said loudly on cue, drawing their gazes. “But the trail is still warm, and we would be fools to muddy it. We can decide how to punish the collaborators once we have executed the rebels and recovered the missing children.”

Jayan looked at him with open mistrust, but he took the bait. “That is why I will take the Spears of the Deliverer and kick in every door, dig out every cellar, and put every relative of the boys taken under question. We will find them.”

The Damaji were nodding again, but Asome tsked loudly and shook his head. “My brother would cut a tree down to harvest its fruit.”

Jayan glared at him. “And what does my wise dama brother propose instead?”

“We send the Watchers,” Asome said, nodding to the veiled Damaji of the Krevakh and Nanji tribes. They never spoke in council, each beholden to a greater tribe. The Krevakh served the Kaji, and the Nanji the Majah.

The Watcher tribes trained in special weapons and combat, and controlled the Krasian spy network. Many of their interrogators spoke the chin tongue, and had contacts throughout Everam’s Bounty. Even their lesser Sharum could move without being seen, and pass barriers as easily as alagai drift up from the abyss.