The Book of Terrus: A Land of Sunlight

Chapter 18 - A Vow of Vengeance

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Vinie bent low over the map laid out before her, studying it with the developing eye of a strategist.

"Danitesk's lawmaker will fight us every step of the way, if we try to use the town as our staging point. When I left Gideo, he said he'd keep working on Kuman. I doubt though that he's made much headway."

Lord Xolani and Lady Oesu stood on either side of Vinie, leaning over her shoulders to peer at the map. Meanwhile Kiiss, resplendent in vivd red, lounged comfortably in Oesu's seat on the other side of the Lord and Lady of Undor's crescent-shaped desk. Here, in their office in the State Hall of Moaan, everyone could speak freely concerning Undor's next move. That did not mean, however, that anyone was letting their guard down. Stationed outside the enormous, gold-embossed doors, a pair of Moaanese guards stood at attention with strict orders not to allow anyone near.

"The clearest route to the tip of Auli's Inlet is by way of the coast from Danitesk," pointed out Xolani. He tapped the little dot where the fishing village sat. "The jungle grows thick all around in that area."

"If we arrive in force, this Kuman will have little choice but to yield to our authority," added Oesu.

Vinie frowned, chewing the inside of her cheek. "With all due respect, Your Ladyship, you haven't met Kuman. He could make things much more difficult for us than they need to be. Besides, now isn't the time to go making enemies of our own folk."

Now it was Oesu's turn to frown. "This Kuman...do you suspect he might have loyalist sympathies to Mahir?"

Vinie thought long and hard, considering her answer. At length, she shook her head. "It's hard to say, but I don't think I want to go that far with guesswork. I think Kuman LawMaker is concerned with Danitesk...and only Danitesk. He was very upset by anything that risked bringing the king's attention to his home."

Kiiss looked up from Oesu's ledger book, which she had been perusing despite having already been told off by the Lady of Undor twice. "It takes a special kind of denial to pretend that one doesn't actually live in the real world. Perhaps a more pragmatic approach might be in order?"

Lord Xolani stepped away from the map to circle around the crescent-moon shaped desk. It had been weeks now since the Uprising, but Vinie still marked the tell-tale twitch of his right shoulder; the instinct to reach out with his severed, dominant arm very much alive. Instead, Xolani feigned having meant to reach up and adjust the patterned fold of his kente wrap over his stump. Then, with his left hand, he pulled out his chair behind the desk and sat.

"I'm afraid that the time for burying our heads in the sand is over and past," said Xolani. "Whether they like it or not, every body born on the southern seas has a stake in Undor. If Kuman thinks that crying 'Not I! Not I!' will mean anything to Mahir in the storm's eye, then he's heading for a very harsh awakening. It falls us – this group gathered here today - to plan for futures others might wish to ignore."

A pleased hum escaped Kiiss; she shut Oesu's ledger with a snap and leaned back, painted nails folded over one knee.

"Before I left Danitesk, Gideo and I talked about other ideas." Sliding the map out into the middle of the table, she pointed out the Rowun River, a narrow ribbon stretching all the way from The Teeth south of Falerik, past Moaan, to the sea at Auli's Inlet. "If Kuman refuses to allow us to use Danitesk to stage an attack on the shipyard, could it be done from Moaan instead? We could canoe down the Rowun from just a little north of the city walls."

Oesu's mental abacus was clacking almost loud enough for Vinie to hear it. "That will create a new set of challenges. We would need enough canoes for, say, two hundred warriors, and the Rowun has numerous rapids, as well as crocodiles."