LITMIR.BIZ

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once-independent governmental units now joined together to create Adara

      prinsipality-the province ruled by a prinsep

      prinsipella-the offspring (male or female) of a prinsep

      Reinine-the priestess-queen chosen by the collective Adaran prelates and prinsipi to rule Adara; a lifetime appointment, but not hereditary

      Shaluine-prinsipality north of Turysh, between Taolind and Tunassa Rivers; coat of arms: gold lion

      Shieldback Mountains-a western mountain range separated from the Mother Range by the Taolind and Alira River valleys and from the Okreti di Vos Mountains by the Heldring Gap, where Arikon is located

      Silixus River-important transport river in Tibre, easternmost of the three branches of the Unified River, the only one that empties into the Jeroan Sea

      Taolind River-Adara’s major river, leading from northern coast at Ukiny southwest deep into the interior

      Tibre-the nation made up of most of the continent north of the Jeroan Sea

      Tsekrish-capital of Tibre, on the high central plateau where the Unified River breaks into three

      Tunassa River-secondary river, north of the Taolind, rarely navigable, empties into Jeroan Sea at Kishkim, runs southwest to northeast

      Turysh-Kallista’s hometown, at the confluence of the Taolind and Alira Rivers, also the name of a prinsipality, coat of arms: green tree surmounted by a gold crown

      Ukiny-port city on Adara’s northern coast, at the mouth of the Taolind River

      Unified River-flows into Tsekrish from northern mountains, once considered sacred

      CHAPTER ONE

      The wind off the sea snapped the banners to attention on the city walls. It ripped at the edges of the captain’s tight queue and set the two white ribbons of her rank fluttering from her shoulders. Kallista Varyl tugged her tunic, blue for the direction of her magic, into better order. Yet one more time she wished that if she had to have North magic, she might have been given some more useful type. Directing winds, for instance.

      She abhorred the way the wind here in Ukiny constantly tugged at her hair, destroying any attempt at neatness and order. And wind magic had civilian uses. Practical, productive uses. Her magic had no use other than war, so here she stood, captain of the Reinine’s Own, on the walls of this besieged city waiting for the coming attack.

      “What’s the mood below?” Kallista continued her slow patrol of the ramparts.

      “Quiet. Tense. They know what’s coming.” Her shadow moved forward to fall into step beside her. Torchay Omvir had been her constant companion for the past nine years. His tunic was bodyguard’s black trimmed with blue to show whom he served. The folded ribbon set on his sleeve below the shoulder indicated his rank. When they went into summer uniform in a few more weeks, his tattooed rank would show on his upper arm. Most of the men making the military a career did the same.

      “Not too tense I hope.”

      He shrugged. “Who can say until the moment comes and the battle begins?” Torchay paced alongside her, always keeping his lean height interposed between Kallista and the enemy spread out on the fields and beaches below.

      Their white tents dotted the land like virulent pustules of infection as far as the unaided eye could see. Ukiny stood on the lone patch of rock floating to the surface of Adara’s flat northern coast. The city’s chalk-white limestone walls towered over the plains where the enemy camped. That advantage hadn’t meant much so far.

      “True.” She neither needed nor even wanted the information she’d asked for. She asked to force Torchay to answer, to have some contact with another human at this loneliest of moments.

      Torchay preferred his invisibility, claiming he could protect her better if he went unnoticed. But hair the color of Torchay’s—deep, vibrant red—seldom escaped notice even when ruthlessly confined in a proper military queue. And wherever a military naitan went, everyone knew her bodyguard went also. At moments like this one, Kallista preferred company to protocol.

      “Tomorrow?” Torchay stopped beside her at the northwest corner tower.

      Kallista stared down at the rubble spilling from the breach in Ukiny’s western wall and on down the steep slope of the carefully constructed glacis below. The setting sun gilded those broken stones, mocking the coming death they heralded.

      “Likely,” she said. “At dawn or just before. That’s when I’d attack, when we’re at our most tired.”

      The enemy ships had appeared unexpectedly off Ukiny just a week ago, hundreds of them. Adaran ships were built for speed and trade, not fighting. With a North magic naitan to call winds on almost every ship, they rarely had to deal with pirates or more political forms of banditry because their vessels were hard to catch. The few local ships in port when the strangers sailed up had fled. The city—still reeling with astonishment that any would dare invade Adara—had fastened itself inside stout walls.

      Soldiers had poured from the clumsy ships, hundreds and hundreds of them, unloading bizarre equipment and strange-looking devices. The foreign army outnumbered the small force garrisoning Ukiny before half their ships had unloaded.

      By careful listening at staff meetings, Kallista had gathered that one of the quarrelsome kings on the continent across the Jeroan Sea to the north had taken all the lands he could on his own continent and now had cast his eye toward Adara. No one seemed to know what drove Tibre on its conquest, whether greed, religion or something else. They were strange people according to the traders stranded in town when the ships fled, divided among themselves according to rank, each rank worshipping different gods.

      Stranger yet, they had no naitani of their own and were known to kill those from other lands who demonstrated a visible gift of magic. That was why, despite the overwhelming numbers ranged against them, the small Adaran garrison had been confident of victory over the invading Tibrans. If they had no naitani at all, they certainly wouldn’t have any attached to their army.

      They had something else. Cannon.

      Traders had been bringing reports for a number of years about the wars among the northern kingdoms. They told of a weapon that required no magic to break down walls and fortifications, a weapon far more effective, far more devastating than ballistae or catapults. The Adaran general staff had discounted these tales as exaggerations. The Tibrans might have something, but nothing without magic involved could have such a deadly effect. The generals were wrong.

      Now they were paying the price for their smug assumptions. Adara was a nation of merchants, a matriarchal society that used its army primarily to control the aggression of her young men. A long succession of prelate-queens had seen little need for violent expansion. The last of the independent prinsipalities between the impassable Devil’s Neck land bridge to the north and the nearly impassable Mother Range spanning the continent to the south had joined Adara two hundred years ago, the result of diplomacy and trade, not war.

      The Reinines in the years since had believed Adara’s superiority so obvious that no other nation would dare challenge it. And they hadn’t, even though some Adaran traders skinned those they traded with a bit too close to the bone. Adara had more naitani than any other land, and the naitani were Adara’s strength.

      But they should have expected the other nations to develop alternatives to the magic Adara used so extravagantly. When the traders came home complaining of cloth made waterproof through the use of powders and mechanical techniques, someone should have noticed. This new stuff wasn’t as good as Adaran waterproofing, but it was much cheaper. How far from there to mechanical weapons as effective at massive destruction as a soldier naitan? More effective, because the cannon could be used by anyone and could be forged by the hundreds. A naitan had to be born.

      These terrible cannon belched forth fire and destruction. They battered the city walls hour after endless hour, day upon day. The constant boom!-whistle-crack!

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