Iscladon Breaking (Book One in the Cerios Chronicles)

Chapter 10-Forward

Chapter 10

Forward

Slikver breathed deep as he smelled the first hint of the desert heat.

He had to admit he had been looking forward to visiting the Steel Titans, not only because of their fame as smiths, but also because of the proximity to the nomads. He could have family members walking among them, or at the very least he might meet someone who had an embarrassing story about his father.

He was staring north, hanging over the side of the ship to get a clear view, the spray coming up in his face and occasionally causing him to blink it away. This far north, the spray felt wonderful, a counterpoint to the heat in the air. In the distance, he could see a vague streak of shore with points he took to be tents, but it lacked definition.

Impatient, Slikver climbed off of the rigging, jumping rapidly across the deck to avoid the crew's speedy movements. He joined Markus at the helm, and he noticed that Karys was behind him, consulting his flames. He caught a brief glimpse of what looked like a snowstorm, which was odd to see made of flames, and he heard a shriek, but the flames winked out before he could take a closer look.

"Anything?" Slikver asked Karys.

Karys shook his head, "Nothing good, I feel like I'm tearing out fingernails, this is the third time I've tried and I'm yet to get anything decipherable."

"Something about a snowstorm?"

"Snowstorms aren't so uncommon as you would think, my guess is it has something to do with the Sheran, perhaps we'll run into them again."

"My mother died in a snowstorm," Slikver said, then rethought, "well, supposedly."

Karys raised an eyebrow at him, "You're still thinking about what the King said to you? He was most likely just creating a distraction for you to chase after."

Slikver shrugged, "I'm not chasing anything, but if information runs into me I won't ignore it. I also don't believe the King is going to lie to me, though he might mislead me. He's going to use that later, hoping that I can be more agreeable to him, and lying to me won't suit his purposes." Slikver rubbed his neck, "That man enjoys playing games, he won't come out and directly hurt me, I feel that the mercenary team Tiberius sent after us is going to cause him more trouble than it was worth."

Karys gave him an odd look, "The King has never bothered correcting any of Tiberius' more questionable tactics, why would he start now?"

Slikver levelled his gaze at him, "He's fighting back against the rebellion." At Karys' confused look, he elaborated, "The rebellion started out as all do, a few disgruntled people gathering others to improve their lot in life. Tiberius was the main reason the rebellion grew as much as it did. He removes Tiberius, or simply gets him to be reasonable, the number of people supporting us drops by half overnight."

Karys bit his lip, concerned, "Then what do we do about it?"

"Two options, get aggressive enough in our recruiting to undermine his newfound favour, or create a situation that removes it."

"Such as?"

Slikver contemplated that for a moment, "Find something for them to fight him for, something he won't simply give them. The Geyser Titans said they still remember what it was like before the King, which means we may have access to information from then."

Karys absorbed that for a moment, "So, we release a few pieces of that information, subtly so the King doesn't pick up on it. I have little doubt the Titans can be convinced to give up a few small pieces of information. When people realize what we lost, they're back up in arms on our side."