BECMI Chapter 340 – Halting the Golden Horde
Being careful to stay in the shadow of the Khan, a withered old man with strange body paint, a ratty old cloak of raven feathers, a dozen necklaces carved with skulls of birds and teeth, and a zealous look in his eyes took up position behind the Khan as his lord settled into the chair. As the dwarven captain spun back into proper facing, his chair rose to keep him equal at the table.
The teapot hooted pleasantly for attention, fragrant cerulean steam coming out of it.
Unlike the nomad tradition, I didn’t pour the hot water on tea leaves in cups. Those cups rose out of the stone of the sun table before them instead, and I poured out the slightly-glowing blue liquid, steaming with pearly mists, into the cups before them, dark clusters spinning in the semi-transparent liquid as they watched me effortlessly dispense four cups.
“Cobaltine Tea. It is a gnomish invention.” The disparaging look on the face of the dwarf suddenly looked a bit more interested. “Made to share with dwarf-kind, humans will likely find it rather energetic. If the gentlemen please.”
I could tell the priest wanted nothing more than to take the tea and dash it to the side, but the way his cup floated off the table on a saucer of pure white stone and hovered before him, daring him to take it or strike it away, was simply too much.
He did stare at it as if it was going to bite him, but at last grit his teeth and took it up as I raised the fine, delicate-seeming cup of steaming Cobaltine in my hand and toasted them, “To mutual understandings.”
Unwillingly, they hoisted their cups and drank.
Eyes popped open. Little blue flames shot out of everyone’s noses, including my own. I maintained absolutely complete composure as it did so, pursing my lips, tilting my head back, and carefully and calmly exhaling little circles of azure flames, which drifted up into the air, growing larger and colder as they did so, until they dissipated under the cover of the sun umbrella over our table.
The Khan tilted his head back, and exhaled fiercely. It was a strong, billowing flame, reaching out a good six feet with some fire and fury.
The shaman coughed and hacked and spluttered, blue flames spurting forth and strange things burning in them with poppy-cracks of snapping fires. He looked quite undignified as he dropped his cup and tried clamping his fingers over his mouth, which did nothing to stop his coughing fit.
Captain Hoofcracker calmly exhaled through his nose, and inhaled through his mouth. Little flames seemed to sparkle along his bright red beard as he repeated the process twice, then took another draw of his cup as everyone watched.
The jet of flame coming out of his nostrils did so evenly, about a foot long as it wavered before him, and he just sat there and waited for it to dissipate.
“What manner of foul drink is this?” the shaman nearly screeched at me, trying to recover from his coughing fit.
“If you want to stop coughing, inhale deeply and hold your breath for fifteen seconds, Elder Chogogai,” I replied calmly, taking my second drink in front of them and pursing my lips. More little circles of flame popped forth and drifted up to the inside of the umbrella before slowly breaking apart.
Clearly somewhat amused and impressed, the Khan also took his second drink, while the shaman glared at me, clamped his mouth shut, and with great force of will, held his breath for fifteen seconds.
Then he bent over and vomited a lot of rather unhealthy looking things upon the ground, all of which were burning in azure flames.
“You must engage in the consumption and breathing of rather unhealthy items, Elder,” I observed of him mildly as he staggered back upright. “You should be breathing easier, and you should have no stomach problems for the rest of the day… at least, until you start snorting and drinking whatever unhealthy things you think you must, again.”
He took a deep breath, intending to berate me, and almost fell down as he inhaled, and kept inhaling, far more than he had in years. His head got a little dizzy from the inrush of oxygen, and he sat down rather abruptly, trying to focus and finding it rather difficult as his beads and bone amulets bounced and clattered.
Hiangti Khan finished his second exhalation of flames, and before he spoke, watched as Commander Hoofbreaker pushed his cup forward again.
I rose and calmly filled it to the brim for him. He took it and downed half of it smoothly, watching me warily and saying nothing, but not about to waste the tea.
“Lady Edge. You are of Transyvia, of Zanzyr?” the Khan asked sharply, identifying my accent easily.
“My father is. My own home is elsewhere, somewhere far more hostile. I’m here at the urging of Princess Brittabelle of Erendyl. She has no great desire to slaughter all of you and bade me stop you from making such an error if possible.”
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All three of them glared at me and my perfectly calm face, wondering how I could possibly make such a statement all alone out here as I was.
“You are bluffing!” the shaman cursed, but his voice was a little high-pitched as he climbed awkwardly back to his feet, leaning on his twisted staff. He rattled his beads at me, clearly working up courage to try something. “Believe no lies from this godless wretch of a spirit creature, my Khan!”
I just lifted my eyebrow. “Oh, I am bluffing, yes.”
All three of them jerked, the lie so obvious for what it was that there was no refuting it. I was lying. They were absolutely sure of it!
“There is no magical trap to stop you from advancing further down the pass.” All three of them twitched again, flinching at the untruth. “There is no further trap to pin you there, and then eradicate you all with fires from the sky that will turn your conquering horde into ashes and bones to feed the Land of this pass, and all the Khan’s conquering ambitions will survive to sweep over Zanzyr and drive the cowering mages before him, they will.”
They were all bleeding from the nose as the lies assaulted them. They looked back, and saw all the nomads were similarly clapping at their ears and wiping at their noses, looking my way in horror and fear.
“Every soul within three miles is listening to us, so don’t feel your troops are out of command, mighty Khan. Utter the command, and your whole army will hear it instantly. You can send them streaming to their deaths with but one word from your pious and holy tongue, and they can die knowing their Khan did indeed send them to their dooms.”
There was no pain, only an iron certainty that I wasn’t lying in the least bit, wasn’t exaggerating, and what I had said was pretty damn much what was going to happen.
“This is the one, the Truthspeaker who warned my people of the nature of the blackgum, that it is the Darkrot Plague in disguise, my khan,” Captain Hoofcracker finally spoke up in his grim voice.
“A plague, I’ll note, that a dozen of your dwarves carry, and have spread to well over a hundred of the nomads around them,” I added for his benefit, making all their eyes widen. “You’re on Zanzyran soil. The plague will explode to full strength within a day, and the infected will start spreading it to those around them within the hour. By tomorrow night, they’ll be coughing up bloody bits of their lungs, and three days from now, they’ll be dead.
“The dwarves will have a bad case of blackgum they can chase away with a rather epic drunken bout with dwarven mead… but they’ll still be plague carriers, spreading it to more Tukhmen and other dwarves.” I steepled my fingers before me, my stare not leaving the cold eyes of the Khan. “I am aware that these men will stay in the saddle until they cannot, and that your shamans can Heal some of them. If they can break through the Pass, they can spread the plague throughout Zanzyr, with a death toll that will quickly reach thousands, without having to raise a blade or shoot an arrow.
“Two miles from here, around that bend, over a thousand Zanzyran troops are dug in and ready to stop you. All of them just heard that there are plague-carrying nomads and dwarves in your invading army, and if you get past them, then their spouses, families, children, and parents are going to die spitting blackness from the lips as their lungs rot within them.
“They will fight to the death, and their officers have already called for reinforcements. Wizards are already beginning to Teleport in to aid them, including some of the most powerful Archmages of this whole nation.
“You aren’t getting past them, and that’s even without the traps in place made to wipe your horde out entirely. Zanzyrans are taught very firmly about what the plagues did to them, and they will fight to the death to stop the burnings that would be required to save their kin.
“Congratulatons, great Khan. At this most dire time, you have managed to unite all of Zanzyr against you.
“Of course, all of that is a lie.”
They all flinched back, the obvious untruth almost like a physical assault on them in the face of the sure certainty of my other words.The shaman actually had blood trickling steadily down from his nose, trying to deny it.
I turned cold crimson eyes on the dwarven captain. “So, Captain Hoofcracker, will the dwarves march forth, to spew plague upon women, children, and old men, and savor the dying of babes coughing black phlegm in their final breaths, elders rotting in the streets, and the blameless dying and burned without ceremony in the plaguefires? You’ll have to raise nary an axe to kill thousands of Zanzyrans. All you have to do is make it past the humans ahead of you, spellcasters trained for war and desperate to stop you, and you can slaughter thousands of them just by spitting into a well or two.”
The ruddy dwarven warrior flushed brightly. That was about the most honorless way to wage war that was imaginable, and it struck cruelly at the very heart of dwarven honor and pride. They might hate Zanzyr and its wizards, but using plague to attack them? That was cowardice of the greatest type that was imaginable.
The dwarven captain closed his eyes and exhaled. “My Khan, dwarves bin not make war with poison und disease. We cannot advance, knowing what awaits us und our enemies bin we do.”
Hiangti Khan’s dark eyes studied me sharply, while the shaman behind him remained artfully silent, clearly not giving a shit at all if thousands of Zanzyrans died to the plague, it was a totally appropriate vengeance of the gods upon heathens and heretics of the first order.
“You said this plague will hit my soldiers,” he said softly. “How badly?”
“The one hundred and fifty-six men who have the plague now will be dead in three days without magical Healing, even if you pull back. Before they truly manifest the disease beyond merely black gums, they will probably infect about five hundred others. If you are not off Zanzyran lands by then, those men will be dead in five days, infectious in just over one, and obviously sick in two.
“If you are in Zanzyran lands, the potency and infection risk will remain high. If you are back on the high plains, then the plague merely fades to blackgum again, and it can be treated with enough hard booze washing your mouth clean repeatedly, at least if you don’t want to lose your teeth.”
The great Khan was clearly not happy with me for forcing him to face this problem. However, he had also realized it was a great chance to withdraw from the magical trap I had pointed out, and a fight that was likely harder than he had imagined it would be.
All part of the plan, of course…