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The leather-bound scroll that Scribe unfolded across the table was no larger than a saddle length but I openly lusted for what I saw displayed on it: a map of the Dread Empire, showing not only cities towns and villages but also the roads and typical regional weather. The last of these had been the death of many an incursion into the Wasteland, given how centuries of reckless rituals had turned it into a deathtrap of sudden storms morphing into burning heat or freezing cold on a whim. Gods but I wanted a dozen of these.

“When we’re done with this, we’ll be talking about your upcoming contributions to my personal map collection,” I noted.

She shot me a look, a face I glimpsed to be lightly tanned giving me the impression of disconcertment. Had those been brown eyes I saw? Already my recollection was fading.

“Sometimes you do remind me of him,” she admitted. “Though nowhere as much as some people like to claim.”

“We’ve all got some of our teachers in us,” I shrugged. “And he’s been more than just that to me. But I interrupted, my apologies. Continue.”

She nodded, then idly set down painted iron blocks – regular Army of Callow issue for our general staffs, I noted with some chagrin – on two cities: one black and over Ater, one white and over Aksum.

“On the surface, the situation in the Dead Empire is a classical Praesi civil war,” she said. “Being waged between empress-claimant Sepulchral and empress-regnant Malicia.”

“You even us the proper terminology,” Akua said, sounding surprised yet pleased.

I snorted. Yeah, I supposed considering how often someone raised a rebel flag in the Wasteland to take a swing at claiming the Tower the Praesi would have been forced to develop a very specific vocabulary to address the situation. Would have gotten real awkward in conversation otherwise.

“I have spent longer in Praes than the Free Cities, Sahelian,” Scribe chided. “Few even remember I was not born of the Wasteland. Your preconceptions aside, I was setting out the factional lay of the land. Both empresses have, naturally, gathered supporters.”

A single smaller white block went on the city of Nok, where High Lord Dakarai Sahel ruled. Nok was traditionally considered the weakest of the High Seats, as the Kebdanas of Thalassina had long been kings of the sea trade and dominated overland trade towards Ater even though Nok was physically closer. That said, with Thalassina now largely vapour High Lord Dakarai now sat atop the only major remaining Praesi seaport. His support was no small thing.

“Hardly a surprise,” Akua said. “Dakarai has been looking for a way to get a foothold into a reigning coalition for decades. It is a matter of pride, for him, and pride matters much to the man. He made sure to oppose Mother in public frequently simply to make plain that the Sahel origins as a branch family of the Sahelians did not mean she held influence over him.”

The man had never been a friend to Malicia, I recalled, or at least not been counted among her supporters. Considering the High Lord of Thalassina had been one of her most ardent partisans, there was little need for an explanation as to why.

“It is as tight an alliance as can be had in the Wasteland,” Scribe informed us. “His daughter Hawulti is now wed to Sepulchral’s appointed successor to the High Seat of Aksum, her grand-nephew Isoba.”

Hawulti Sahel, I mused. I’d heard that name before, hadn’t I? I glanced at Hakram in question.

“She was once one of Heiress’ retinue, recalled to her father’s side after First Liesse,” he provided.

“You threatened to have her soul cut out by Lord Masego to coerce her father into supporting the establishment of the Ruling Council,” Akua amusedly reminded me.

I had, hadn’t I? It’d been a while. I could hardly recall her face, or that of her father’s for that matter. I’d only spoken with the man the once. I’d also gotten a little more cavalier with souls in the following years, so the threat hadn’t exactly stuck with me.

“Someone we should be worried about?” I asked.

“Ambitious but cowardly,” Akua assessed. “A born follower. Her father sent her to me for hardening, as she is the only one of his children to be born with the Gift and he favours her for it.”

That’d be a no, then. Probably why Sepulchral had been willing to twine their lines too, which Praesi high nobles were notoriously careful about: they hoarded the secrets of their blood most jealously.

“Malicia’s support, as empress-regnant, is significantly stronger,” Scribe continued.

Black blocks went down, one after another. Wolof, where Akua’s cousin Sargon Sahelian ruled now that her mother was dead. Okoro under High Lord Jaheem Niri, which had been a political nonentity in Praes for most of my lifetime due to the brutal succession crisis that’d eventually put the man on the high seat. Kahtan under High Lady Takisha Muraqib, now the last High Seat in the hands of the Taghreb. The Northern Steppes, where Malicia had raised the chieftains of three southern clans to the office of Lords of the Steppes and charged them with keeping order and collecting tributes. And last of all Foramen, where the former Matron Wither now ruled as High Lady. Pickler’s mother had backstabbed her fellow goblins brutally, and gotten an unprecedented title for it.

“She’s also still got most of the Legions,” I pointed out.

While maybe half of the former Legions-in-Exile had deserted in the wake of the dirty trick that’d brought them home, the forces that’d already been in Praes had stayed largely loyal and absorbed the soldiers that hadn’t deserted. As far as military might went, even if you left noble allies out of it Malicia had a larger stick to wield. Sepulchral was relying on a kind of army Black had built the modern Legions of Terror to beat, too, which was one of the many reasons why she would be avoiding giving battle.

“And that’s where it gets complicated, right?” Archer said, eyeing the map with mild interest.

Wasteland games were no real concern of hers, unless I made them to be otherwise, but Indrani did like an occasional spot of theatre and even at its worst the Dread Empire tended to deliver on that.

“Indeed,” Scribe said. “The first illusion to discard before the situation in Praes can be understood is that there are only two sides in the civil war.”

She set down a small red iron block on the edge of the Green Stretch, where thousands of deserters from the Legions-in-Exile had raised reportedly raised a great camp.

“Lord Amadeus’ army?” Adjutant asked, dark eyes watching Scribe closely.

I watched them flick away more than once, no doubt prompted to do so by her aspect, but they always found her again. It was the obvious guess, now that I was learning more about the situation. Dread Empress Sepulchral’s ability to outwit the Legions on the march, if not beat them, had led many – including me, once – to believe that my father might be behind her. The way this was being described though, made it seem much less likely. Black would have gone for the throat by now, not kept maneuvering in this empty stalemate.

“I’d presumed so as well,” Scribe admitted. “But I have found no evidence of it. The leaders, General Mok and General Sacker, seem to have been acting without orders and out of a degree of genuine disgust for Malicia’s actions with the control contingencies – though Sacker, at least, has sympathies in the Grey Eyries and rightfully fears being killed by Malicia or Sepulchral if she lays down arms.”

It also meant that leadership of the deserters was nonhuman at the very top rung, I mused, since as I recalled General Mok was an ogre. No doubt that was making the two Soninke fighting for the right to rule over them more than a little wary.

“Lots of ogres in charge now,” Indrani mused, narrowing in on the same detail. “Isn’t the last Marshal one too?”

“Marshal Grem is under house arrest in Ater, not dead,” Scribe corrected. “But you are correct that the commander of Malicia’s armies, Marshal Nim, is an ogre as well. It is the most influential their kind has been in imperial affairs for centuries, if ever.”

“But there’s no black block over the Hall of Skulls,” I said.

A grim name for the sole ogre city on Calernia but then they tended to be a grim people all around.

“The ogres are hedging their bets,” Scribe frankly said. “As they always do. It is why no attempt was made to recall your own General Hune. It has historically been their policy as a people to have someone already lodged within every side so that they have a foot in the winning one, whichever it might be.”

And I could see how that spared them crackdowns, I thought, but it’d not really paid off for them either had it? Required military service quotas under Malicia and Black had been lower than under Nefarious but they’d still existed, and there’d been no major push to increase their status as a people within the Empire like there’d been with greenskins. Part of that was numbers, since there were so few of them compared to the constituent peoples of the Dread Empire, but those alone weren’t good enough an explanation. Hune had always been bluntly frank with about her people being on no one’s side because they saw no one as being on their side.

“I can understand the deserters making Malicia wary of overextending,” I said. “Explains why there hasn’t been a serious attempt to siege Aksum yet even though it falling would end Sepulchral. But she should be winning this pretty decisively with this many supporters to call on, Scribe, so what are we missing?”

“Her coalition is fragile,” Akua murmured, “and at odds with itself.”

Scribe nodded in her direction.

“Kahtan eyes High Lady Wither, now the last of the Taghreb bastions, and begs off committing soldiers to Malicia’s war,” she said. “High Lady Takisha ponders her blood ruling both Kahtan and Foramen, and supports Malicia only because Sepulchral has no better offer to make. Wither herself is mired in war with the Confederation, while a combination of mismanagement and hatred makes the humans under her rebellious. There have been riots.”

Off the map went the blocks for Kahtan and Foramen.

“Okoro backs the empress-regnant, but her freshly-raised Lords of Steppes are pulling at the leash,” Scribe continued. “The Niri must keep men out on the fields, lest the Blackspears take to raiding again. Their contributions are measured, mage cabals instead of battalions. And the Clans are pushing back against these lords they did not choose – Grem’s old clan, the Howling Wolves, are at war with the Graven Bones and sending envoys to other clans to assemble a coalition. The Red Shields burned the holy grounds of the Stag-Crowned, and denounce them as traitors to orckind. The warbands that were sent to serve Malicia stayed, but there are no more forthcoming.”

Only a single block was removed, the one in the Steppes. Okoro was committed, if not as much as Malicia probably wished it to be.

“And so Wolof remains,” Akua quietly said. “She owns Sargon, then?”

“I believe she has soulboxed him,” Scribe replied.

I’d never head of the term before, so I cocked an eyebrow at Akua.

“It is much like it sounds, dearest,” she told me. “His soul was severed from his body by ritual and placed in an enchanted box. It is difficult to kill through this, but by sorcery atrocious pain can be inflicted. It is tradition, however, that the box be sealed for only so many years.”

She turned her gaze to Scribe, her silence an unspoken question. Wolof had taken a beating when Sargon overthrew Tasia Sahelian, Akua’s mother, and it’d been the Legions of Terror under Marshal Nim that ultimately re-established order there. With Malicia’s soldiers in the city the freshly-risen High Lord Sargon would not have been in a great bargaining position, so I doubted the length of time would be small.

“At least ten years,” Scribe said. “Perhaps as much as three decades.”

Akua sighed.

“He’ll try to steal it back,” she said, “but with Mother’s spies in disarray the Eyes will have gutted them. Sargon will not turn on the Tower so long as she has the box.”

“Wolof is still handling demonic taint from its latest contested succession,” Scribe said, “and so it has offered few troops, but those it sent are elites. They have been raiding the hinterlands of Aksum with great success, stealing people as much as wealth. High Lord Sargon intends to fill his city anew.”

I drummed my fingers against the table, frowning. All right, so I could see how the stalemate had come into being. Sepulchral couldn’t afford a field battle against the Legions of Terror, she’d lose and her cause would die. Yet since it stood between Askum and Nok, Ater had to be garrisoned with reliable soldiers – which meant legionaries, not household troops with ever-dubious loyalties. That’d peel soldiers off of Marshal Nim’s army, enough she’d be careful about sieging the rebel High Seats and all the nastiness that implied. If she lost too many soldiers storming a city, she risked being caught by Sepulchral and smashed in a war that was frankly hers to lose.

And all the while the deserters were looking on, keeping everyone from taking hard risks lest they intervene and finish off the weakened victor.

The balance of the power was in the south, I thought as I stared at the map. Foramen and Kahtan, the forges and the armies. If High Lady Takisha could be convinced to call on her many vassals and make war for Malicia, Marshal Nim would have troops to throw into the breach when attacking a High Seat. But it was not something the High Lady of Kahtan would be eager to grant the Tower when instead she could try to cement the Muraqib legacy and have her family rule the last two great cities of the south. Which led me to another question.

“How can Malicia afford to make trouble for us abroad, with all these fires in her backyard?” I frankly asked. “She should not have the time or gold to spare.”

“Kahtan and Foramen still pay their taxes, fully and promptly,” Scribe replied without batting an eye. “So do Okoro and Wolof, though their caravans are larger and armed. The Tower has undertaken no rebuilding of Thalassina, so Malicia’s treasury is filled to the brim by taxes and decades of Callowan riches. What can she spend her wealth on, if not trouble for the Grand Alliance? There are no more mercenaries to buy, and the gold does her no good sitting in a vault.”

Huh. That was one way of looking at it, I supposed. And from her perspective the Grand Alliance wouldn’t stop being an enemy if it wasn’t fought, it’d just have more allies and resources to spare when it finally turned its gaze on her after the war with the Dead King was done. But this did raise the veil on a situation that had largely been opaque to us so far, which was more than a little useful. If nothing else, it made it clear what the state of the opposition truly was. I shared a look of understanding with Hakram.

“Malicia’s position is much weaker than it seems from the outside,” Adjutant stated. “And though the military advantage is with her, so long as she cannot bring Sepulchral to battle it means nothing.”

They could keep marching back and forth across the Wasteland for years and little would change. It was hard to tell whether a long stalemate would favour Sepulchral or Malicia, though I was inclined to believe it’d help neither so long as the High Lady of Kahtan kept sitting the fence. I suspected the bribes being offered to Takisha Muraqib were rising by the day, but with riots in Foramen making it clear Wither’s grasp on the city was loose there would always be a greater temptation to the south.

“So where’s the Carrion Lord?” Indrani bluntly asked. “It’s all pretty stuff, this story, but it doesn’t mean shit if he and the Lady aren’t accounted for.”

I glanced at her in surprise.

“You’re not that flattering when speaking of him, usually,” I noted.

She grimaced.

“If the Lady’s stuck with him for two years, they’re up to something that caught her interest,” Archer said. “Her interest isn’t easy to catch, Cat.”

True enough, I thought. Though I’d been given to understand there was actual sentiment between them too, which was bound to weigh on the scales.

“The man does command a remarkable amount of loyalties within the Legions and the bureaucracy,” Akua warily agreed. “It seems odd he has not called on them.”

“I found him near Hospes, on the southern shores of the Wasaliti,” Scribe said. “Without attendants or even companions save for Ranger. He was travelling south.”

“And I’ll believe that’s all you know when it snows in Levante,” I said. “Go on.”

“Before Ime’s purges began to seriously hamper my ability to gather information, I confirmed he’s been in both Foramen and the Grey Eyries,” Scribe said. “I cannot be certain as to why, however. There are also semi-reliable sightings of him much further north, to the west of Okoro.”

Which meant close to the Steppes, where he was a lot more likely to find allies than at a High Lord’s court. I made sense, but I wasn’t buying it. Black had always been popular with greenskins, but stripped of command over his Legions it was almost predictable for him to try to raise fresh armies in the Steppes and the Eyries. My teacher was a lot of things, but predictable was rarely one of them.

“He will be using the Twilight Ways, if can move so quickly and discreetly in a war-torn land,” Adjutant said.

I nodded in agreement after a moment, gauging the distances involved mentally. Yeah, there weren’t a lot of other credible explanations for that. We’d been pretty sure that was how he’d left Salia, as he would have been caught riding through the Proceran countryside otherwise, but confirmation was always useful.

“As for why the two of them have been so discreet,” Scribe continued, “I do have an answer. Or at least part of one.”

She came forward to offer me a folded parchment, which I opened with impatience. To my surprise it was something I’d heard before: wild rumours from the Green Stretch about pale ghosts being glimpsed off the roads. A number had supposedly been put to them: ten. So it wasn’t even Black and Ranger that’d been sighted. I passed the parchment to Hakram, who after a puzzled moment passed it to Akua. She looked equally bemused, and passed it to Archer absent-mindedly. It was Indrani who went still after a casual glance, cursing in what I was pretty sure was High Tyrian.

“Ten. Fuck. You’re sure?” Indrani asked Scribe.

“There have been several independent sightings,” Eudokia confirmed.

“Anything you’d care to share?” I mildly asked.

“There’s ten Emerald Swords,” Archer said. “And when the Forever King gets in a mood and decides it’s time to start trying to kill the Lady again, they’re who he sends. He hasn’t tried anything since the dwarves told him if his people stirred up shit near a dwarven gate they’d take it as an act of war – it’s why people called us a protectorate of the Kingdom Under – but she’s left Refuge behind now. It makes sense they’d go for her again now that she’s low on allies and the Tower can’t do much but complain even if the Swords are seen.”

I hummed. That rang true, considering Hanno had just passed along a reminder from the Golden Bloom that they were going to take it very badly if we let Ranger into the Truce and Terms. They’d want the old thorn in their side as isolated as possible, not under the protection of treaties binding together half of Calernia. Considering the general uselessness and unpleasantness of the elves while we’d been waging a war for survival against Keter, I found myself in the surreal position of actually rooting for Ranger a little bit.

Gods but these were strange times.

“The Carrion Lord cannot formally seize command of an army, else the Emerald Swords would converge on it looking for the Ranger,” Akua lightly said, sounding mightily amused. “Ah, the fickleness of fate.”

I didn’t particularly share her amusement, as if my father had seized the Tower we’d have the east settled instead of this fucking mess going on for forever and a half. He could have signed onto to the Terms and brought the Legions of Terror north instead of playing hide and seek in the Wasteland while trying to get something rather nebulously defined off the ground. Mind you he’d had her father killed as she watched, so I could forgive some manner enjoyment at his expense. Akua could claim Praesi mores as the source of her indifference there all she wanted, she’d actually loved the man who’d died.

No one got over that quite as neatly as she liked to pretend she had.

“Anything you would care to add?” Adjutant asked Scribe.

“Not at the moment,” she replied.

For a moment I considered dismissing her until we were done discussing Praes, then I figured there would be little point: she’d learn what was decided in here sooner or later, anyway, and we might need to call her back in if we had questions.

“Take a seat,” I ordered her.

I didn’t bother to check if she did, already turning towards my councillors.

“So,” I thinly smiled, “the Praesi situation. Thoughts on what our response should be?”

It was not a long debate that followed, or a particularly contentious one. It wasn’t for lack of opinions, though. Archer’s take on what our involvement should be east of the Wasaliti was essentially a shrug, with an added suggestion that the Tower should be made aware of the presence of the Emerald Swords – whether it’d harm the elves or Malicia she cared little, since she smiled on both outcomes. Akua and Hakram were both in favour of intervention, but in different ways and seeking different outcomes.

Adjutant suggested Callow begin providing arms to the Clans fighting Malicia’s appointed lords in the Steppes, noting that my kingdom had much to gain from closer ties to a victorious orc uprising: it could serve as a point of pressure against whichever empress edged out the other, and broadly speaking favoured a faction that in turn favoured Black. Hakram agreed with me that my father in the Tower was our best outcome in the Wasteland, though he wasn’t as inclined to see him as an ally. If we wanted the Dread Empire at peace with Callow and willing to fight north, though, there was no denying that Black was the best choice.

Akua favoured backing Sepulchral instead, though not enough to make her win. She argued that a bolder, better armed Dread Empress Sepulchral might be tempted to give battle to the Legions of Terror – and that ensuring no one won a decisive victory there was Callow’s gain, since casualties and desertions would weaken both sides. She advised leaning on Cordelia and the Dominion to have Sepulchral recognized as ruler of Praes and attempting to broker an alliance between her and the rebel orc clans in the Steppes. Her approach was cheaper on our coffers than Hakram’s, but it carried other risks.

Callow couldn’t afford to get dragged into fighting out east right now, we just didn’t have the men to spare. And adventurism in the Wasteland was brutally unpopular a notion back home, especially now that it’d come out that Malicia’s deal with the Dead King supposedly ensured his undead would not attack us so long as she lived. It was only after they’d all spoken that I turned to Scribe.

“Suggestions?” I mildly repeated.

She stayed silent a moment.

“It is my understanding that the Army of Callow is severely lacking goblin munitions?”

My brow rose.

“True,” I admitted.

“Then I would suggest reaching out to High Lady Wither,” Scribe said. “Who has a large stock of these she is not using, while she could use shipments of grain to quell the riots in Foramen. Rationing is one of the causes of unrest.”

It also meant helping Pickler’s mother, to some extent, while we were nominally allies with the Confederation of the Grey Eyries. Which she was at war with, after having betrayed them. Was I comfortable with that? Not really, but then I wasn’t any more comfortable with my sappers having empty hands.

“Something to consider,” I acknowledged. “Go on.”

“Reach out to General Sacker,” she said. “The defeats she inflicted Sepulchral are what made her desperate enough to rebel, and she is close with the same Matrons who rose against Malicia in addition to being an Amadeus loyalist. Neither empress will suffer her to live if the deserters disperse, which means she is very much in need of a patron.”

My eyes narrowed. That camp was bound to be full of spies, both Eyes of the Empire and Sepulchral’s own, but so long as I didn’t actively support a rebellion against the Tower – which the fighting up in the Steppes was, effectively speaking – I doubted Malicia would make aggressive moves against Callow. She’d be throwing away the advantage she bought with making known the terms of her treaty with the Dead King if she did. It also opened the door to recruiting many of those soldiers if things went bad for them in the Wasteland, which they yet might.

Shit, I thought. Akua had been right, it really would have been a waste to kill the Scribe. A handful of sentences and she’d both given me a shot a steadying my munition problem and figured out a palatable alternative to being a mere watcher to the mess unfolding in Praes. I turned to look at Hakram.

“Can Duchess Kegan be trusted to negotiate with Sacker?” I asked.

It was tacitly accepting Scribe’s suggestion and did not pretend otherwise. The orc’s face tightened a moment, but it went away almost immediately. A spasm of pain? I’d thought his wounds under control. I’d talk to his healers tonight about the dosages in his potions.

“I am uncertain,” he admitted. “She would see the use in it, but she is less than fond of both goblins and Praesi. I’d advise naming a negotiator ourselves instead and putting them under Kegan’s nominal authority afterwards.”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“Have five names for me by nightfall,” I said. “And forward word to our contacts in the Grey Eyries: I want to broach the subject of buying up Wither’s munitions to our friends the Matrons. Just sound them out for now, gauge how bad the fallout would be.”

I doubted the Matrons would be all that offended by backroom dealings even with their sworn enemy – those were a proud goblin tradition – but I’d rather keep things above board so they wouldn’t suspect I was softening on Malicia. Without Callow’s support their situation looked much grimmer, and the Tribes had ended most their previous rebellions by cutting a deal with the Tower when things looked that way.

“Send reports to Vivienne about all of this, please,” I added after a moment.

I would have liked her in the room for this, I thought with a pang of regret, but there’d been no anticipating that Scribe would suddenly come to us. And by the time word got to her, we’d be out on campaign so it would be exceedingly difficult to discuss affairs like this – outright impossible, when we got deep enough in the Dead King’s territory and scrying was broken up.

“I’m sure those will make for a pleasant reading with her breakfast,” Indrani drily said.

I suppressed a grimace. Without meaning to, Archer had reminded me I was slipping back into old habits – keeping Vivienne out of the loop, out of major decisions. I wasn’t doing it for petty reasons this time, but I was doing it anyway.

“You’re right,” I told Indrani, who blinked in surprise, before turning to Hakram. “Arrange a scrying session with her tonight, I’ll tell her in person. Tell her it’s urgent, worth cancelling prior engagements for.”

And we could discuss her suggestions, if she had any, before I handed her the reins on this. Someone was going to have to handle it while I was gone and it might as well be her. She’d be handling the fallout long after I’d abdicated.

“It’ll be done,” Adjutant said.

I nodded my thanks, eyes finally turning back to the still-seated Scribe.

“So let’s talk maps,” I smiled.

Adding another few to my growing collection would give me something to ponder about, when we began the march north.