(Author’s commentary): I must admit that the part in this chapter where Sanara, who, once again, is a 16-year-old farm girl, is talking about her new ‘toys’… which are incendiary fire balls for use in slings… and how they will work on enemy troops and ships… is sort of awesome… and a little chilling. Then again, she did already kill a man with her sling, and take on a wizard’s magic pet with it… so… yeah…

And Hildy, who is only a year older than Sanara, is now acting as supreme commander of the entire allied army… like a teenage princess version of Eisenhower battling the Nazis… because these ain’t your momma’s princesses… or the Disney corporation’s princesses either.

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The Seven Kingdoms

Chapter 21

The next morning, Hildy was awakened by knocking on her door. She opened it, and Sanara brushed past her, holding something in her hand. She was wildly excited about it, whatever it was. She didn’t leave Hildy in suspense, but turned and thrust the object towards her. Hildy took the thing and examined it. It was round, and nestled easily in the palm of her open hand. It was a hollow sphere, woven from thin, flexible, green sticks. The inside was packed with dried wildgrass mixed with something dark. It wasn’t very heavy at all.

Sanara explained her invention. “I used to weave little baskets when I was small. My dad and I used them for gathering berries and nuts. He still has the first one I ever made, on the mantle place in our house. I mixed wildgrass with tree sap that I know burns well. We will need to make some slings with bigger pouches for these, pouches that won’t catch fire. And that means we will have to train special troops to use them, I suppose. We can make handcarts to carry hundreds of these, a cart for every twenty or thirty men. And we can put the jars of oil in the carts too, to pour over the flameballs just before we light them. And a supply of torches, too. We can stick a lit torch every few feet behind the men, or have men run up and down the line with lit torches, pouring the oil and lighting the flameballs. I still have to work all that out, but I tested some of them. They are incredible. They burst when they hit anything, and the insides scatter all over the place, and it sticks to whatever it lands on. The fire is hard to put out. If you stomp on it, the sap just sticks to your feet. Even water doesn’t put it out easily, and I doubt a Skull army will be carrying a lot of water with them.” Sanara gave a decidedly vicious laugh.

“That sounds positively ghastly!” Hildy exclaimed.

“Just imagine what it will be like when dozens of them hit a Skull ship,” Sanara replied, sounding way too pleased with the notion.

“I think I will wait until after I eat breakfast to imagine such a thing,” Hildy said quietly. She went out into the kitchen with Sanara following behind. The little messenger boy was eating breakfast at the table with the Caster brothers. They were all laughing at something.

“We like this kid,” said Tull, still smiling, when he noticed Hildy.

“Can we keep him?” Tolly asked seriously.

Hildy fought to keep a serious look on her face. “What is your name, young messenger?”

“Seevan Tiller, my Lady,” the boy said quietly, looking down at his plate.

“Would you like to stay here with us and be the staff messenger?” Again Hildy struggled not to smile when the little lad leaped to his feet, bumping the table and almost knocking several cups over. He looked at her with such hope that her heart melted.

“Do you think the queen will let me stay?” he asked.

“Well, the queen put me in charge of the army,” Hildy told him, “and you are now in the army, so I don’t think she has a say in the matter.”

The boy rushed at her and grabbed her in a fierce hug, then, realizing that this might not be the proper manner in which to accept his new responsibilities, he stepped back and stood very straight. “What are your orders, my Lady?”

Hildy didn’t know whether to laugh or start crying again. This brave little fellow moved her to her soul. “How old are you, Seevan?”

“I am seven,” the boy proclaimed, still standing at attention.

“Very well, noble messenger. Finish your meal. You can return to the castle with these two misfits when they go to town, and collect your things.” She turned to the two brothers. “Before you get back to your throwing spear project, take him to the castle and make sure the queen knows that her former messenger is now part of my staff. If there are any problems, tell her to send me a message. She can use my new messenger if she so whishes.”

The brothers exchanged glances. “How can we tell the queen anything at all?” Tolly wanted to know.

“Yes,” agreed Tull, “she won’t be able to hear a word that we are saying.”

Hildy silenced them with a glance, then said to her new messenger, “come back as soon as you can. I want you, right here, where I can find you when I need you. You can continue to sleep on the couch, if that is to your liking.”

The boy just nodded, his mouth hanging open. Hildy patted him on the head and went off to get herself some food. She stopped suddenly, and turned back to the brothers. “Where are Lawry, Nudge and Aluff?”

“They left some time ago,” Tolly told her.

“They are in town, getting dyes and checking on the people who are making the uniforms. They said to tell you they might be there for a few days.” Tolly had the sense to look sorry to have forgotten to pass this information on.

Hildy shook her head and went to get her breakfast. Sanara called to her, “I already ate. I am going to town too. I want to get started on making more of my new toys. A lot more. I might stay in town too, if I can find a place to sleep.”

Hildy waved vaguely at Sanara’s back, piling bread and fish onto her plate. She was famished. By the time she got back to the table, there was no one there. Everyone was off doing important work for the war. Most of the people around her had never so much as seen the enemy, let alone fought in a battle, and yet their lives were all focused on war. It was changing them all, in ways she couldn’t yet comprehend. She was a little worried about Sanara. She was becoming positively bloodthirsty. But then again, Hildy considered, after killing a man, there were only two ways to deal with it. Either decide that you would never, could never, do it again, or accept it as a thing you might be called upon to do again.

She didn’t want those to be the choices that so many good people would be forced to pick between, but she didn’t see that she had any choice.    Three days went by without Hildy seeing any of her friends. All that she got from them were reports on the progress they were making, delivered by new soldiers coming to the camps. She received other reports too, from various people whom she had never met, giving her details on countless subjects. In fact, she spent more time every day just reading reports and going over figures.

She also spent a lot of time walking through the camps with commander Bloom, watching her army grow and train. She talked to the men, saw that they were getting enough food and were happy with the way things were progressing.

On the fourth day, Sanara dropped by, to change clothes and give Hildy a brief update on the slings and fireballs. “It turns out that kids are really good at making slings and fireballs, and they absolutely love to gather stones,” she finished, on her way back out the door.

Later that day, Nudge and Aluff also stopped by for fresh tunics. It was easy to see why they needed them. Theirs were now stained and splashed in all shades of green. Their forearms and hands were also stained green. They gave her big smiles and waved their green hands, but wouldn’t tell her a thing about what they had been up to.

Late in the afternoon of that day, the queen paid a surprise visit. She came with no fanfare, escort or warning. Hildy looked up from the pile of reports spread out on the kitchen table, and there she was, walking stick in one hand and her big, fake, metal ear in the other. Seevan, the messenger boy, who was helping Hildy sort and stack the reports, ran to the queen and hugged her. The queen returned the hug as well as she was able to with both hands full. “Now, now, Seevan,” the queen said to him, in a remarkably quiet voice, for a change. “Don’t carry on so. I miss you more than I can say, but you are doing important work, or so I hear. The other boys are taking up the slack, and they all send their love.”

Hildy watched them, still holding each other, and suddenly realized that the queen obviously went to great pains to take care of any orphans in her kingdom, and that she did it out of love. And Hildy could see why the people of Smilingman loved this old woman in return. It struck her that there would be many more orphans in the future, and she felt a shudder run through her body.

The queen turned to Hildy. “Let’s you and I take a walk together, commander.”

Hildy put down the reports she was holding, detailing the newest numbers of iron spear points that were finished and being sent to the camps. as well as changes in the production process that were allowing more to be finished every day than the day before. It crossed her mind, as she set the report on a pile of other reports, that at this rate, all the wordtrees in the kingdom would be stripped of their bark before too much longer, and that there would then be nothing left on which to write new reports.

The queen led her outside and began to cross one of the recently-planted fields. The queen was careful not to step on any of the breadgrass sprouts, causing Hildy to once more ponder just how bad the queen’s eyesight actually was. “I know my people think I meddle too much, that I have to be involved in everything,” the queen began.

Hildy didn’t bother to say anything.

“I have kept out of all this army business since you arrived. I know when to leave well enough alone. I am quite impressed with the progress you and your people have made. I don’t think there is a person in this kingdom who can walk and talk that isn’t doing something useful. I knew you were the right person for the job.” The queen stepped over another row of tiny green plants.

Still Hildy remained silent.

“I will send you a few people to help with all those reports. Maybe some large cabinets to sort them into,” the queen continued.

Hildy couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything the queen didn’t know about.

“I brought a man with me,” said the queen, stopping in a furrow between two rows of breadgrass. “His name is Tarry Oar. Comes from a long line of fishermen. He was a trader captain, too. As much as he knows about boats and the sea, he knows more about people. He has been my spy master for years.”

Hildy kept quiet.

The queen had more to say. “I don’t know what you two will decide to do, if anything, but I promise to stay out of it.”

However the conversation turned out, Hildy had no doubt the queen would know about it soon enough.

“But,” the queen was saying, “I do still have people in most of the kingdoms, as I may have mentioned, who couldn’t get out in time, or who have resettled and couldn’t bear to leave their new homes and families. There are also locals who owe me favors or perhaps need to be reminded that they have been accepting my coins for many years. And I would imagine that there are many others who are learning to hate the Skulls. It seems a shame to waste them.” The queen’s eyes were aimed more or less at Hildy’s face.

Hildy just nodded.

The queen smiled. “I’m glad we had this little talk, my dear.” Then she turned and began to trudge back towards her castle, the unused metal ear clutched firmly in her left hand. As she walked, she lifted her walking stick and waggled it back and forth, and it seemed to Hildy that the stick was not as important for either seeing or walking as the queen would have people believe. Obviously, the gesture was a signal, for a man stepped out from under the trees at the edge of the field and began walking towards her.