“Ahriminash! Ahriminash!
AHRIMINAAAAAAAASH!” The
fading crash of smashing tea cup and plate fading behind him and Teel’s laggard
boot heels were drowned by Ahrimaz’s shouts as he sprinted up to the dimly remembered office
that he’d first tried to pretend to be him in.
He bounced off the door jamb of the partly open door
and found Ahriminash already up from behind the desk and the father with him,
already responding. He nearly stumbled
making the turn into the room. “I need a
squad of carbiners! Right now! You have a village down toward Cylak… name
of Mudredyr? I have to leave the
Ambassadors are in danger and in this world I’ll be able to do something! Save Didara!
I need a physician surgeon and Limye and a squad. I can do it with a squad! This time those villains won’t kill her!—“
“Whoa! Whoa! Son, please slow down.” Ahrimiar caught
him by the shoulders, turned him around and sat him down at the stove. “You need to tell us what you need and a
squad takes a bit of time to get together.”
Ahriminash sat down next to him. “I’m not saying I won’t give you a squad but
you have to be a bit more coherent than that.”
Teel arrived at the door and at Ahriminash’s nod
joined them. “I just told Ahrimaz that
there are elephants in this world as well as his world.”
Ahrimiar turned to look at Ahrimaz’s desperate
face. “In your world they were
attacked? And you didn’t say that one of
them died in your world.”
“They were on the way to Inné… got waylaid…”
“What’s this town you’re talking about? At a place
called Mudredyr if I managed to pick that out of the flood of words you just
poured on us?” Ahriminash turned to ring
a bell on his desk and a page came trotting down the hall. “Would you fetch the Stag Lord, please?”
“Mudredyr… it was in Cylak… the war kind of washed
over it and it was half-rebuilt as an Innéan town… um… Innéan settlers.”
“What happened?”
“They were waylaid by bandits who were drawn from all
over this area by the gems and gold they wear as normal clothing. The Rigans in my world didn’t successfully
warn them that they’d be drawing riff-raff like flies and only gave them
infantry escort… their horses wouldn’t go on with elephants and we had to teach
our horses that Jagunjagun wasn’t a horse-eating monster… Didara… their version
of a scientist I thought… had an injury, a wound. It was a spearhead that their medic couldn’t
get out and they pushed on here to Innéthel to get physicians help but it was
too late for her.”
A door slammed down the hall and Pelahir and the page
set to summon him came panting in. At
least the page was out of breath though Pel wasn’t.
“A problem in Cylak?
The herds don’t even come down toward Inné till spring,” he said. “I’ve had no letters.”
Ahriminash laid out what Ahrimaz had blurted out in
such a rush and Pel got to his feet. “I’ll
have my coronshion at the military
dock in less than three hours.” He
pulled his pocket watch out of his vest, chain dangling. “Make that three and a half hours. That village Mudred… we can reach faster by
the river and then taking the White Road across.”
“There’s a road from White?” Ahrimaz asked and Ahrimnash cleared a swath
of papers off his table. An Innéan and
Cylak and Yhom map, with the Rigan cities on the edges, had been painted as a
new top. “Here,” he said, pointing. “Dah if you would…”
“I’ll get the Liryen Carbine Horse Guard. They should be up to this. Ahrimaz, you’ll need to arm up with my son’s
things… I’ll lend you a sword since we won’t hand you the country’s sword for
this. We can save your friend and
perhaps arrange better contact with these people.”
“In this world that’s a Cylak town and yes they’ve had
bandits in the hills for years."
Ahrimaz leaned
over the map, hiding his shaking hands by tracing all the strange roads the
connections between three separate countries, listening to them just accept his
crack-brained demand and start putting together a military force that they
were apparently just going to hand him.
“Um… not your Ahrimaz? You’re
going to just let me ride away with Innéan soldiers?”
Ahrimiar raised an eyebrow at him and Ahrimaz froze,
cringing inside, waiting for a wrath that never came. “What would you do with them? They all know you aren’t our boy but that I’m
accepting you as my son. They think I’m
crazy or that you’ve gone crazy and if you give them insane orders they will
not obey. If you give them sane orders,
and Pelahir and his Bucks are with you, they’ll do as they’re told.”
“Pelahir and his Bucks.”
“His coronshion ,
and all our horses will run with Cylak stags.
Particularly this Horse Guard.”
Ahriminash said. “We can’t slight
the Cylak Stag Lord our protection. All
are excellent shots with both carbines and bows. We don’t have as
many guns as you Empire seem to have. Inné has had to be bowmen for years. Now we have our different shooters.”
“I… yes… how can I help get us on the road
faster. Teel, where did you have word of
the Elephant Ambassadors? The
Rummmammalo?” The familiar rumble shook
its way out of his chest and all the other men in the room jumped.
“That’s their tongue?” Teel asked, then nodded
sharply. “They were at Riga-Feren, last
I heard.”
“And Mudredyr is ten days away by fast horse from
there,” Ahrimaz said. “About the same as
from here. They were ambushed a half day
closer… in the broken hills there." He pointed on the map. "If we
leave today, we can make it.”
“Especially if you go by river.”
“May I come with?” Teel leaned over to lay his finger
on White. “I grew up there.”
“Get your kit together raconteur,” Ahrimaz said idly, mind already racing,
already thinking of how to arrange his men for river and then road. “If you fall behind, I’m not coming back for
you.”