Rhapsody: Child of Blood

48

After that, it was a matter of steady progress and time. The Bolg from the Teeth had arrived the next day, the members of almost seven hundred clans, over four thousand hunter-warriors and children, some trembling in fear, others with excitement. With them had come many others, not selected by the clans as designated warriors, but intensely curious, wanting to be part of the new warlord’s regime.

Achmed had turned to Rhapsody as the throng arrived, swelling the vast courtyards of the inner city.

“Laborers. Look on them well; these are the men and women with whose help we will rebuild Ylorc. In a way, their accomplishment will be even more historic than the Cymrians’ was in the original building of it.” Rhapsody gazed down in amazement at the sea of eager faces murmuring in the dark cavern.

“Careful, Achmed,” she warned, “you’re starting to sound a little like Gwylliam.”

The Warlord turned to her after a moment’s consideration. “No, actually, he and I are diametric opposites. We both are in the role of the swordsmith whetting a tool against a grindstone. The difference is that he saw his goal as using the tool in the honing of the stone into smoothness, while I seek to use the stone to make the tool sharper.”

“Your imagery is lost on me, I’m sorry.”

His eyes grew brighter in excitement. “To Gwylliam, the building of Canrif, the bending of the hostile mountain to his whim and control, was his objective. The workers were only there to provide the labor achieve his vision. They were the tool that honed his stone into smoothness.”

“My goal is not the building up of the mountain, but rather the building up of the Bolg. They are like the tool, rough, needing to be sharpened. In the rebuilding of the mountain, which is their grindstone, they will learn to work as one people, will gain the destructive skills of war and the constructive skills of renovation. The mountain doesn’t matter to me except as the means by which the Bolg will be united and advanced. What I seek is a sharper weapon, not a smoother stone.”

A look of frank admiration had crept into her eyes, pushing aside the skepticism from a moment before. “An interesting analogy. The clever part is that, regardless of the intention, the stone gets shaped and the weapon gets sharpened either way, simultaneously.”

“Yes.”

Rhapsody looked back at the sea of Bolg swirling below her. They seemed somehow more fortunate than they had a moment before. “They’re lucky to have you,” she said. “Perhaps history granted Gwylliam’s title of Visionary to the wrong Lord of the Mountain.”

Achmed chuckled. “That remains to be seen. Come on; we need to wade into the fray.”

The children and their mothers were immediately committed to Rhapsody’s care. The warriors, meanwhile, were brought to the old guard barracks. Within a matter of a few months they were to be trained and turned into a ferocious fighting force under Grunthor’s command.

The giant Sergeant Major had clearly missed his duties at the head of a regiment, and he threw himself into his new leadership role with relish. Rhapsody was occasionally awakened by the sound of trainees being marched past her chamber, singing cadences that would be awful if they weren’t so funny.

Or Jo’s favorite:

Grunthor’s ringing bass, answered by the raspy croaking of the new Firbolg army, added a surreal quality to the already nightmarish existence that Rhapsody was living in Ylorc.

At her request Achmed had closed off the corridors around the Great Hall, and its surrounding chambers where Gwylliam had held court.

Rhapsody and Jo were assigned rooms across from each other on one of these protected halls, several doors down from the new king’s chambers, which were guarded day and night by the most intelligent and trustworthy of Grunthor’s recruits. Grunthor kept quarters there as well, but had chosen to bunk in with the army in the barracks. Achmed seemed pleased at the speed at which the transition was progressing.

He had renamed the fortress complex the Cauldron, largely owing to the heat produced by the forges once they were primed and running. A thousand Bolg were put to work there, mining the coal and feeding the mighty furnace, bringing it up to a heat level sufficient to forge weapons.

They had agreed that the development and manufacture of weapons was the crucial initial step, because it gave the Bolg the protection they would need, the tools to train the army with, and a source of income once trade agreements could be reached. Achmed had great skill in weapons design, having invented the cwellan himself. He had adapted the other weapons in his and Grunthor’s personal arsenals to complement their respective strengths while compensating for their weaker points. He set up four large pieces of oilskin on stands in the chamber behind the Great Hall where the planning took place, labeled weapons, clans (not aligned), infrastructure, and social.

“We’ve already had some of the Heath clans and the clans on the outer rim of the Hidden Realm come to us, asking to join forces,” he reported, marking their names off the clans list with an inked quill.

“Oi expect no problems in convincin’ those others to enlist, once my troops ’ave a chance to talk with ’em, sir,” Grunthor added. Rhapsody shuddered; the army was growing every day, both in size and enthusiasm.

Achmed nodded. “That should give us about seventy percent of the population united. Once we’ve put Spring Cleaning behind us, we’ll deal with the rest of them, the clans deep in the Hidden Realm, and the Hill-Eye.”

“When can I get to the vineyards?” Rhapsody asked, looking at the notations under infrastructure. “The sooner I can see them myself, the better plan I can devise for their cultivation.”

“Grunthor should have that area cleaned out—er, consolidated—before you leave on your diplomatic mission to Bethany.”

Grunthor’s brow darkened. “Oi still don’t like the idea o’ you goin’ there, miss, especially alone.”

Rhapsody smiled at the Sergeant. “I know, Grunthor, and I appreciate your concern, but we need to try to put a stop to the Spring Cleaning massacres by talking first.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the way men do it,” she replied. “Do we want the Firbolg thought of as men, or monsters?”

“Actually,” interjected the Warlord, “we want them seen as both.”

A deep, annoyed sigh and a thudding sound issued forth from across the room. Jo had exempted herself from the discussions of the cultural structure of the future kingdom, announcing that the subject was boring and she would prefer to practice throwing knives.

Grunthor had set up a little hay target for her on the other side of the chamber. Often heated discussions were punctuated by the thud of Jo’s missiles piercing their target. Achmed was particularly good at timing his remarks to coincide with the decisive sound.

Achmed smiled, then returned to the weapons chart. “The Bolg will need to be outfitted with crossbows, to maximize their range, as well as the swords they’re learning to forge now. For purposes of trade we’ll look to producing curved blades, and these.”

He pulled forth one of the many sheaves of parchment on the table beside him and held it out for the others to see. On it was a drawing of a three-bladed throwing knife, made of steel and bound with leather at the grip. The blades curved like arms bent at the elbow, following in the same direction like a gearwheel.

“These throwing knives will be usable both in the open air and in the tunnels,” Achmed explained. “They’re sharp enough to be deadly in hand-to-hand situations. In flight they turn about the center of gravity, ensuring that they will cut or pierce at almost any attitude of impact.”

“And will they be forged by the same method you were showing me earlier?” Rhapsody asked, still unsettled by the tour of the forges from the morning. Achmed had patiently explained the massive equipment, the vast presses that Gwylliam was still building when Canrif was overrun, but she had been too overwhelmed to follow the discussion.

“No; that’s later, Stage Three. After we have one united land from the Teeth to the outer border of the Hidden Realm. Understand, Rhapsody, this is a lifetime’s work. The Cymrians had master swordsmiths whose work with weapons was as impressive as the great harpers and instrument makers you sometimes speak of, each weapon so finely and carefully made as to be considered a work of art. It will take several generations for the Firbolg to get to that level. The equipment and the new forging process will help achieve it.”

“Sounds like you’re planning to live a long time,” she said, smiling slightly.

Achmed didn’t smile in return. “Forever,” he said simply. “So how is the medical training going?”

“It would go better if I had some facilities. Did you plan those out yet?”

He located another set of scrolls and passed them to Rhapsody, showing her the elaborate schematic he had drawn. In addition to precise notes detailing his plans, scripted in his neat, spidery handwriting, Achmed had done a credible rendering of the internal workings of the mountain, showing the forges, the ventilation system, and the internal structure of the new city that would be rebuilt from Canrif. One small area was labeled medical supplies.

Rhapsody studied the plans intently, a frown drawing her brows together. Finally she looked back at Achmed.

“Where’s the hospital? The hospice? We discussed this already; you should have included them in the plans.”

“I did.” Achmed rerolled the scroll and drew out a separate parchment document, folded in quarters. He opened this in sections and pulled out a field map. “Any immediate medical care can be provided by your trainees in the field. We will be forming a rear guard which will surround the medical station until the worst wounds have been addressed, and then the guard will advance.”

“Doing what with the injured?”

“Leaving them there. We’ll pick them up on the way back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rhapsody said, annoyed. “You can’t leave battle-wounded alone and un tended. They’ll die.”

“Perhaps I need to remind you that these are Firbolg; they are not used to being pampered or coddled like Lirin and men, nor do they want to be.”

“I’m not talking about coddling anyone. If they are wounded in the field, they will have to be transported to a place where they can receive care.”

“I’m trying to explain that they would rather die in the field than have that happen.”

Rhapsody struggled to remain calm. “These are your future subjects. It is you that keeps insisting they are not monsters, but people, and can achieve the greatness of Canrif and more. You can’t have it both ways, Achmed. Either the Bolg are monsters, and if that is what you choose to rule over, by all means do so your way, but I have nothing to help you with; I have already acknowledged that I don’t understand that mentality. Or they’re people; primitive, brutish people to be sure, but children of the One-God, the Life-Giver, nonetheless. They are therefore entitled to same basic rights as other men.”

“One of those basic rights is healing in sickness and care in dying. If that’s your choice, I can help you, but I’ll need facilities within the mountain, not just in war, while you’re bringing them together, but always. People become ill and injured even in peacetime, and the old and sick need someone to tend to them. That requires space. Now, what’s it going to be? Men or monsters?”

Achmed chuckled. There was something ironic and oddly touching about hearing her defend the monsters she had once believed the Firbolg to be. “Exactly how much space is the ‘men’ option going to cost me?”

“A lot. I’ll need two full halls for the hospital and one for the hospice until the Heath and Hidden Realm are fully subdued.” She pointed to two of the larger spaces on the barracks diagram. Achmed winced. “But here’s the good news: once the kingdom is united, you can take back one of the hospital halls for barracks, and the hospice can split its hall with the orphanage.”

“You may be underestimating the number of orphans.”

“No, I have a plan for that. If you bless each of the orphans personally and mark him or her as special, then offer the child for adoption, the clans will vie to take them in, especially if there is some sort of long-term favor associated with doing so.” Achmed nodded, and Rhapsody smiled. “See? I’m trying to be reasonable and practical.”

“No doubt. All right, before I choose ‘men or monsters,’ I have one more question.”

“Yes?”

“Can I count on your sword and musical skills in the subdual, assuming I’m willing to introduce this luxurious medical strategy?”

Rhapsody sighed. This had been a standard argument, and point of resistance on her part, since the planning had begun. She wanted nothing to do with the war; although she was willing to fight for defense and against what she perceived to be tyranny or evil, she was uncomfortable with the prospect of shedding blood, even Firbolg blood, just to take the mountain. Still, she acknowledged that Achmed’s intentions were ultimately good ones, even if she did not like his means.

“All right,” she said, acquiescing reluctantly. “I’ll fight. Now, what’s it to be?”

The hint of a smile came over the face of the new Firbolg Warlord.

“Men,” he said. “Albeit monstrous men.”