The Ring of Winter - James Lowder [126]
The little gray wombat was chattering away in his inane voice about how everyone would be much better off if they'd stop worrying about things and listen to him. Artus glanced at the frost-flecked gold ring on his right hand, then at Byrt's vacant blue eyes.
"Sorry, Lugg," Artus sighed, "but I guess there's a limit to what even the Ring of Winter can do."
Epilogue
Almost half of Mezro was destroyed by the Batiri raid. The crops for an entire year had burned to the ground. The Scholars' Quarter lay in ruins, though somehow the Great Library remained intact. Cracks snaked across the building's rose marble facade and a few of the columns gracing its portico had been broken, but the vast storehouse of knowledge, the books and papers of four thousand years of Mezroan history, had been miraculously spared.
The dead were interred in the Temple of Ubtao, in a vast mausoleum that held the remains of every man, woman, and child ever to live in the blessed city. The room was lined with statues and plaques commemorating the dead, some incredibly ornate, others powerfully simple. The ceremonies to honor the fallen defenders lasted weeks, and even the vital work of rebuilding the city was put aside to give homage to the slain.
The goblin corpses inside Mezro's walls never rose to join Ras Nsi's army. The renegade bara showed that much respect for King Osaw's ancient pronouncement, though every corpse left outside the city vanished within hours. No one had any doubts where they had gone. Osaw decided that to add more bodies to Nsi's corps would be foolish, so the remaining Batiri dead were either burned or given over to Mainu. The strange bara distributed the bodies amongst her minions, who had held the Olung River so well that not a single goblin managed to cross it. The piranha and lobster-men devoured the corpses greedily, leaving nothing for the zombie lord's army.
With the barae's help, the task of cleaning the city was made easier. Sanda directed various dinosaurs in the movement of large stones. Kwalu used his locusts to destroy any buildings ruled unsafe by the council. Even without his bara powers, T'fima proved invaluable. He healed even the most life-threatening wounds with his gem magic.
For his part, Artus used the Ring of Winter in a hundred ways to aid in the restoration of Mezro. He created braces of ice to steady walls and roofs until they could be repaired, coated the ground with slick sheets so great burdens could be moved more efficiently, and many other more mundane things. Byrt and Lugg stayed at the explorer's side constantly, at least until he managed to convince the wombats they could help the city more by entertaining the children wounded in the conflict.
Finally, after weeks of back-breaking labor, the citizens of Mezro rested. At highsun they gathered in the plaza around the Temple of Ubtao, ready to give thanks to their leaders and their god. The mood was understandably somber. Food was becoming scarce and many friends and loved ones were painfully absent.
The stout-hearted Mezroans found ample reason to celebrate anyway. Their city was safe, the goblin horde turned back to the jungle, and a new bara had been elected. Ras T'fima had admitted to his deceptions shortly after the fight, and Ubtao had chosen a young girl to replace him. The girl had left the barado with the awesome power to control plants, and her work with the devastated fields had already begun to pay off.
Near the door to the temple, Lord Rayburton and Ras T'fima shared a mug of t'ej and looked out over the throng. The amber, fermented honey was almost too sweet for Rayburton, and he wrinkled his nose after each sip.
"What I don't understand," the old explorer said, "is why Artus can control the ring when it turned against us."
Ras T'fima shrugged. "Maybe we turned against it. I think it has an agenda of its own, that it was created for some purpose."
"Such as?" Rayburton poured the rest of his t'ej onto