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The tunnels were wide enough for five elvan to walk shoulder-to-shoulder unimpeded. They marched in rows five-by-five and columns that seemed endless. The marching Stormheath warriors did not carry torches of their own, instead installing scones of foreign design into the wall every hundred paces.
Returning along the path they came meant that Maat was pursuing a familiar route. The trip back felt quicker, but also proved more exhausting as the path angled up into the high plains.
Once more, the head of the columns stopped briefly in the eight-sided platform above the summoning pits.
Maat approached a Plainswalker he recognized from Secondhome.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the ancient hole my ancestors emerged from,” the Plainswalker said.
Next, Maat checked in with that Stormlander clan-head.
“This place is cursed,” the man in the bird mask said.
“Where are we?” Maat asked again.
“A place of cursed magics, by which the plains-others drew their slaves into this world.”
The clan-head would then introduce himself as Rak’uriel, last head of the bird-herders. This clan was not known to be terribly militant, but nonetheless Rak had both a grooved war club and one of those foreign isle firearms slung around his shoulders.
Hector proved too busy coordinating the trip through the mountain to approach. With Lloyd helping his father out and Kur having disappeared into the crowd, Maat didn’t have anyone to march with. Once they started moving again, he settled into helping Rita guide the group, waving row after row through the purple-marked walkways.
The first twenty rows were armed warriors of various stormland clans, sub-ten percent of which were from Secondhome. After that came more specialized crews carrying packs of scones and hammers with which to embed them in the walls.
Everyone beyond the thirtieth row was a non-combatant, their packs laden with as much food as they could carry. More of these were the various Outlanders, subalterns, and Plainswalkers from Secondhome than not.
One was a woman about twice Maat’s age, a Jean’in, rounded-eared. Maat didn’t recognize her. She could still be from Secondhome and their paths simply never crossed, could be a random shipwrecked Jean’in caught up in the recent unpleasantness, could be a deserter from the soldiers of fortune. Whatever the reason, this human kept her eyes firmly on the floor, following the pack dead ahead and being guided by the two Stormlanders at her flank she was shoulders-to-elbow with.
“You there,” Maat called out.
Big mistake. The woman’s hair stood on end.
“What do you know about this place?”
“My great-grandma told stories that her great-great grandma passed down. They used to summon us to every isle. Drag us from the lost shores, and occasionally strange realms even further afield. The pits – they were all supposed to be destroyed a millennium ago. This isle is unique among all other isles on the world-plain. Remnants of old elvan brutality remain, buried.”
The woman closed her eyes and kept shuffling onward as quickly as the marching columns would allow. A Stormlander relieved her of her pack as she continued muttering, gibbering to herself that, if she’d just keep going, she’d be back in the light before long.
Maat trusted the column to follow the group in front of them through the purple passages long enough to turn around and wave his torch over the edge of the walkways. That maze down in the summoning pit was still there, angular, labyrinthine walls and all.
Only it wasn’t a labyrinth, Maat realized. It was a rune in the style of the old Plainswalker written language. Like the script in those books Sam kept reading. The layout was identical in each of the eight pits. Maat imagined it meant “summon” but with minimal knowledge of these things, let alone fluency in Plainswalker text there wasn’t much to be done.
Instead, he etched the basic shape of the rune into a spare clump of torch wick and ripped it off the roll, stashing it for later investigation. Maat waited for the next narrow gap between marching rows and let himself in.
Maat’s skin prickled in the cool, damp environs. They were already halfway through the mountain, marching uphill. But suddenly the surface couldn’t come quick enough.
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“Move faster!” cried Rak, head of the bird-herding clan, just as soon as the columns emerged into the arid heat of a central plains morning.
Hector repeated this in the Secondhome gestalt-dialect for maximum legibility.
“Pick up the pace. We don’t want to get boxed in these narrow corridors,” the elder Outlander added.
It was only after they emerged out of the ravine and onto the plains proper that Maat was able to leave his position and rush back to the front. He found Hector and Rita talking strategy.
“There are eight more passages under the mountains. At least five of which ought to serve for the chief’s guerrilla campaign.” Rita spoke between sips out of her canteen.
“Those are the ones we know about,” Hector said. “Could be more.”
“Let’s not go unsealing these places if it can be avoided.” Rita cast a glance back at their refugee column. “Anyone with any amount of knowledge at all about that place finds it unnerving. And we don’t even know what’s beyond most of those tunnels. Could be something worse further in.”
“Fair enough.” Hector shrugged. “It’s a miracle enough that we convinced this many people to make the trek.”
Now that they were on open ground it was possible to get a better sense of scale. Maat climbed atop a boulder alongside the route and looked back. He lost count around three-hundred rows, and many more were still pouring out of the narrows.
Now they came in all types – a few rows of warriors from various Laval clans, a few healers from Secondhome helping less-able bodied along, bird-herder civilians carrying rations for themselves and multiple warriors on their backs. There were likely still people marching into the mines on the other side of the mountain even now. For every armed warrior, there were a dozen subaltern of various clans.
For now, it seemed as if the entire Stormheaths were united. Every fiftieth column had a Secondhomer of various stripes coordinating things.
Their subterranean march had taken up the whole night. The sun was wafting along in its low, close approach to the isle from the east. Maat took out the spyglass and observed the valley from this natural observation post.
Forested oases, either ailing or outright dead, pockmarked the land in a uniform fashion. Indeed, the entire valley was almost perfectly divided up into a few hundred plots, each governed from a treetop manse.
Maat stayed on the rock until he spotted their destination, several hour’s march away still. Then, he panned further out, observing the northern mountains that contained the valley in a bowl-shape. To think that these mountains alone kept the tropical monsoons of the Stormheaths at bay, rendering the valley arid.
Little in the valley was hidden from this vantage point. There in the distance, roughly around the isle’s exact midpoint, was a dense raised forest that wouldn’t look out of place in the Stormheaths. The trees were towering, narrow, and leafless aside from their very tops. The entire thicket was a sandy gray and devoid of color – Maat almost mistook it for a cluster of stone pillars at first glance.
Like a copse writ large, Maat decided. And so far away it blended into the distance from their lower treehouse manse. It was something to investigate in time. For now, Secondhome had come to the valley, and they’d brought some friends.
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A half-day’s marching brought the front of the column back to the tree manse. They’d keep flowing in for hours, maybe even all day at this juncture. The beginnings of a camp started to be formed within the forested glen, then out on the surrounding plains.
Just as soon as they returned to the treetop manse, Maat rounded up the children and escorted them down to ground level. Most of their parents were found in the first fifty columns to have arrived, a feat made possible by Hector’s coordination.
The twins were back upstairs with their father. Kur was glimpsed briefly but ran off with three of the settlement’s children in search of a late-arriving mother.
Maat climbed back up to the manse, which had been claimed as a sort of command structure. He found Rita, Rak’uriel of the Bird Herders, three other clan representatives, and of course Hector, his wife, and the twins.
“There is no game here. Barely any wood for spears, let alone shelter,” Rak said.
Two of the three clan-heads agreed.
“For a refuge, this has slim pickings,” Hector’s wife added.
“It’s not mean to be a permanent shelter,” Hector said. “Just a defensible place to hide noncombatants.”
“We can strike through the mountains.” Rita pointed at a bird-leather map they’d arranged on a naturally forged table. “Guerrilla warfare it’s called. Stormlander bands do it all the time, just don’t call it that.”
“Supplies brought in from the Stormheaths can last for months if properly rationed,” Hector said. “Water can be pulled from the well in the central copse, though we should continue to pack more in from home when possible.”
“The neighbors are sparsely populated and politically divided. Shouldn’t cause trouble.” Rita nodded out a window at the burgeoning camp on the prairie. “Might want to post guards still. Just in case. Old walls and barracks can be disassembled for fortifications.”
“Your Quarterchief said he would be bringing firearms from off-island,” said a clansman from the delta.
“Those are being retrieved as we speak,” said Hector. “It’s called a dead-drop. Got Outlanders on it. Don’t worry.”
The clan-heads appeared very worried, certainly unconvinced. This strange Outlander warfare was an unproven art.
“Where is my father?”
Everyone noticed Ma’at for the first time.
“Hey Ma’at. Michael…” Hector looked around at present company. “… The Quarterchief is off with a few loyal men and specialist guides from the cliff-dwellers, hoping to deny water resources to the enemy.”
“Dad’s on the highlands, then?” Maat asked.
Rita nodded. “Don’t know his whereabouts. There’s been enemy movement near the headwaters. When the time comes to rendezvous, we’ll let you know, kid.”
Maat, Sara, and Lloyd were shooed out of the main tree so the adults could talk additional strategy.
“I was hoping he’d be leading the group,” Maat said.
“Don’t worry.” Sara nudged Maat in the shoulder. “You’re closer to seeing him today than the day before.”
“Positive movement, yeah?” Lloyd added.
The twins ventured back down to the ground to look for things to help with among the new arrivals.
“Easy for you to say.” Maat found himself frowning despite himself.
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Partially as a distraction for his embittered mind, and partially because he hadn’t been seen at all since the group had returned to the manse, Maat went in search of Sam’ien. He found the Plainswalker pacing intently from wall to wall in the library-tree. The second treetrunk-thick tome was open on the desk, turned to a page towards the end.
“This is… this is…” Sam repeated to himself.
It was as if he hadn’t noticed the massive refugee column marching into the glen below.
“What is it?” Maat asked, eliciting a fright.
“Ah, it’s this history.” Sam propped two later tomes up right beside book two. “Volume one is all speculation about which cave this manse’s ancestors emerged from mixed in with semi-mythical history. Ancient heroes are inducted into the family tree.”
“It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to have a famous ancestor or two,” Maat said. “Think about how far family lineage would fan out after even five generations.”
“But not a famous ancestor every generation. Besides, multiple other families will all claim exclusive ancestry from these same heroes. Additionally, there’s the matter of this.”
Sam produced another book of the penultimate volume. This had a rudimentary etching of the southernmost valley, though Maat didn’t recognize it as that at first. In place of the rocky highland fumaroles there was a swampy extension of the plains down into the Torrent’s headwaters. The northernmost reaches bled into the valley, filling in lake beds and shallows that no longer existed.
“This was within the last hundred years,” Sam explained.
Rainforests in the Stormheaths were thought to be immutable, persistent. Placed there by some nature god at the beginning of time, to last until time’s end. If the fumaroles were to expand a bit further south and cut off the headwater shrine, it could render the entire south face of the island as barren as the central valley.
“Is there a way to reverse it? Prevent it?” Maat wondered aloud.
Sam read from the last entry in the final volume:
“Since time immemorial, the land has been growing steadily fallow. Crops no longer grow, fields can no longer be irrigated. Even the most genteel planters can no longer afford even indentured fieldhands, and we are far from the most genteel tree-manse. The rivers have dried up, and no new irrigation can pierce the burning soil. I, Sid, the last literate scion of family ‘ien, will be leaving for the mountain passes tomorrow. Travelers claim there is still abundant food there. Many other families have ventured to the fertile southern shore already. No one else will risk the journey. Perhaps if I arrive in this refuge, I will send food back. Until then, perhaps the surviving kin can better ration with one less mouth to feed.”
“Huh. Maybe the refuge they were referring to was Secondhome?”
“Absolutely.” Sam closed the book. “The author, Sid’ien. That was my mother.”
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A full day came and went. The refugee column stopped only briefly three hours after noon, though the second wave could already be seen on the horizon, coming down from the foothills.
Just as soon as the beginnings of the camp formed on the plains, soldiers from various united clans marched back out towards the mountains. According to Rita they were seeking out other passages by which more traffic could be funneled between plains and Stormheaths. There’d be many more Stormlanders in the camp before long. Many more supply routes.
Having been evicted from the treetop manse, Maat spent the first night in a common tent out in the fields. That’s not to say that he slept; the howl of wind against tanned bird leather sounded and felt like a tree constantly falling in the rainforest.
Maat awoke to a commotion, then to Lloyd throwing open the tent flap.
“Angry Plainswalkers on the perimeter,” Lloyd said.
Groggily, Maat put on a presentable birdskin jerkin then stumbled outside. He was at the center of camp, just outside of the tree line, and the camp had doubled in size overnight. Maat followed Lloyd towards the northernmost stone wall that once separated plots of land on the prairie.
The wall was fortified with the remains of one of the old stone longhouses. Warriors in bird masks stood behind the wall, waving war clubs at a gaggle of outsiders on the far side of the wall.
“Groups from three separate neighboring manses approached just before sunrise,” Lloyd explained as they approached. “Nothing has come to blows yet. But don’t go shouting ‘fire!’ or anything.”
It was hard to tell who belonged to which three of the neighboring tree-mansions. They all wore the same borderline rags, ornate colors long faded. A few carried weapons – bladed points made of iron and occasionally steel. Many more carried walking canes.
“Do you have food?” asked one.
“Can you bring back the waters?” another asked.
Maat and Lloyd could puzzle out the basic request thanks to Secondhomer pidgin. The bird-herders though didn’t seem to understand anything the Plainswalkers were saying.
“They’re asking for food.” Maat repeated this in various Stormlander dialects, hoping one of them would be intelligible to the bird-herders.
“I’m going to get dad,” Lloyd said. “Might be a better negotiator.”
“Good idea.”
It was several minutes before the elder Outlander would arrive. Maat tried to keep tensions from boiling over in the meantime, an act made harder by the fact the plainswalkers didn’t understand him much either. If only someone could fetch Sam’ien.
The ranking Outlander arrived on the scene with a few Secondhomer’s of plains descent.
“Tell them anyone who wants to join us can do so provided they help out with the Jean’in situation,” Hector said.
Their translators relayed the message, and the bird-herders loosened up.
Hector brought aside one of the older plainswalkers to ask some private questions.
“We thought you were with the Jean’in,” the old man said.
Hector shook his head, speaking to the translator as much as the elder. “Not Jean’in. Outlander. There’s – look, there’s a difference. The Jean’in that have arrived in force aren’t too friendly to any islanders. Might want to give them a wide birth.”
“Too late for that.” The old man pointed off to the north. “Men riding birds from the wetlands have been coming down from the northern mountains for the past week.”
“Damn.” Hector swore in a few more strange outlander dialects before continuing. “Hoped the northern mountains were impassable.”
After corroborating this with elders from the other two tree-manse, Hector called for Maat.
“Go find Rita and tell her we’ve got ‘bird cavalry’ coming from the north. She’ll understand.”
Maat did so, eventually finding Rita among one of her alchemical yurts.
Odd. The average native bird shouldn’t be able to support a Stormlander’s weight, Maat recalled. Could the interlopers be bringing in other, larger fowl? He rushed to Rita’s tent.
“Bird cavalry? That’s new. Yeah, we’ll be sitting ducks here on the plains. Need to teach our allies how to build trenches and spikes.” Rita continued to work on her capsules. “Not good, not good. We were supposed to have at least a month before the mercenaries even found out we were operating out of the central valley. Boss man needs to know.”
“Where is my father?” Maat asked.
“Got a bird past midnight.” Rita produced the letter, then pointed to a tired-looking messenger sparrow resting on the far side of the yurt. “He’s on the high plains, trying to break a dam the enemy is building in the Torrent’s canyon. Cavalry will run him down in an instant. Yeah, not good at all.”
“But he’s out on the plains?”
“He’ll stick near the headwaters. But yeah, past the fumaroles. Gotta plan a diversion…”
“Thanks, Miss Rita.”
Rita nodded, engrossed in her work. If she noticed him leave the yurt, she gave no acknowledgement of it.
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