Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [164]
First, I must caution you that these texts are a jumble of many archaic tongues, and it is going to take some time to translate them precisely. We have all agreed on the general gist of what we found, however.
Second, the texts themselves are the personal papers of a mixed group of ancient warriors. Some were—we think—mercenaries, and others were liegemen to a Great Lord of some kind.
Well, that certainly fit in with the official history of the Empire. Tremane cupped his chin in his hand and read on.
We have gathered from the papers that this group was part of a much larger force; that they were cut off from the rest when their enemy gained an unexpected and decisive victory. They were warned by their Lord that they must flee as far and as fast as they could, by means of a Gate.
Interesting. That was not part of official history, which stated that the group had marched off on its own to carve out conquest for themselves.
Why they fled, we do not yet know; our guess, and it is only a guess, was that the Great Lord intended his enemy’s victory to be an empty one, and meant to ensure his enemy claimed only ashes by destroying everything before he actually took it. Be that as it may, it is clear that they did build a Gate to reach a location they knew was relatively safe, far eastward of the place where they had retreated after being cut off. Then something happened as they were passing through the Gate, and a catastrophe of—we believe—a magical nature, flung them farther away than they had ever intended to go. This landed them in completely unfamiliar territory—territory that became, as you have probably anticipated, the heart of our Empire. In the days that followed, a series of disruptions that one writer terms “magic-quakes” occurred; another writer describes them as “aftershocks. ” These disruptions seem on first blush to match the kinds of troubles we are experiencing now.
This was exactly what he had been hoping to find! Elation built in him—
—only to be crushed, abruptly, by the words that followed.
You were most urgent in your orders that once we found a match to our circumstances, we should discover what those ancients had done to remedy their situation. I have no good news for you, my Lord. Once again, my colleagues and I are unanimous in our understanding of these papers.
Our ancestors did nothing. They could do nothing. They simply waited for the magic-quakes-or aftershocks—to end, or destroy them. Eventually, of course, the disruptions ended, they consolidated their position, and the rest is offcial Imperial history.
Tremane buried his face in his hands.
They waited it out. This was not good news.
But I am going to have to deal with it. He was not one to try to pretend that bad news wasn’t the truth. If anything, he tended to act as if bad news was only the shadow of worse to come. It would be a good idea to act that way now.
His mages were in a panic; the waves of disruption were growing stronger, not weaker, as each one passed. His instinct to get the Gates up first, and start hauling supplies through them as soon as they were up, had been the right choice. They had supplies enough to last them well into the winter at half rations, now, and if they could just get the Gates back up a few more times, they might get enough to last all the way to spring on full rations.
No. That was the wrong choice—get the supplies, yes, that should be the priority, but why waste time on getting several Gates up, when he only needed one? Just the one to the westernmost Imperial supply depot, the one for foodstuffs. Forget weapons; he wasn’t going to allow his men to waste a single arrow until he had decided what his long-term plans should be. Forget reinforcements; he had all the men he needed to hold firm, and too many for an orderly retreat, if it came to that. He would have all his mages concentrate on getting that one single Gate back up, and he would forge the orders he needed to loot the depot, and to the coldest hell with honesty and