“But then where is Shikan?” Sae asked finally.
“You know,” Milalle said, “I’ve been thinking for quite a while about what I would do if I were him. And I don’t think I’d use the Kinma dogs for one final attack, even with such a golden opportunity as the Visit of the Emperor’s Eyes.” She looked at Van. “Were I in his place, I would find a way to multiply the Kinma dogs and the disease agents they carry. Rather than one symbolic act of vengeance, I’d spread the sickness so far and wide that no one could stop it, no matter how hard they tried. Shikan was raised in Otawalle and studied medicine, physiology, and ecology. I’m guessing he thinks like me.”
Van’s eyes narrowed. If that was true, the result would be far worse than a suicide attack. “But how could he do that? Would he breed the dogs with ossam?”
Milalle shook her head. “There’s a much easier way. We’ve been worried about that possibility for a while, but when we heard that Shikan and the others had acquired bomb components, we assumed we were wrong. Honestly, we were relieved when we saw what we thought were Kinma dogs at the tournament.”
“What’s the easier way?”
Milalle’s expression darkened. “Ticks.”
“Ticks…”
“Yes. If the hypothesis we shared with you before is correct, then black ticks are the main carriers of black wolf fever. If infected ticks can pass the disease agents on to dogs and wolves, the opposite is true. Infected dogs can pass them on to ticks that suck their blood.”
Van’s eyes widened. When they’d told him that the illness was passed from ticks to animals and humans, it had never occurred to him that it could be transferred back again. But it made perfect sense. And since Shikan had been born and raised in Otawalle, that possibility surely occurred to him, too.
Her face pale, Milalle said, “Judging from the fact that the disease didn’t kill the Aquafaese, there must be black ticks in this area that carry black wolf fever. But it was fatal for the Otawalle, who live east of Aquafa. In other words…”
“Ticks east of Aquafa don’t carry the disease.”
“That’s right.”
Van rubbed his chin slowly. “If the ticks carrying the disease multiply in the bushes east of Aquafa—say, for example, along the high road that leads from Otawalle to Zol…”
Milalle nodded. “The result will be terrible. Ticks will spread black wolf fever to ossam when they suck their blood, and the ossam in turn will then pass it to other ticks. As the carriers of the disease multiply, the danger will compound for those traveling the road.
“And as we told you before, when passed from one carrier to another, disease agents can become more virulent. If they mutate when they pass through Kinma dogs and back to ticks again, even people who are immune might contract black wolf fever.”
Milalle brushed a lock of hair from her forehead back. “The new strain must already have been transmitted to ticks wherever the Kinma dogs stayed for any length of time. We’ve been worried about that for a while, actually. But if this contagion begins spreading to the east, which has never been exposed to it before, the consequences promise to be appalling.”
So far, black wolf fever had been confined to the frontier region in the north because it wasn’t spread from human to human. There may have been some cases in other areas that went unnoticed. The occasional fur trader or merchant who moved to and from the frontier might have caught it, but even so, people would have assumed that they died of a typical fever rather than a dormant affliction. No one would have bothered reporting such cases.
If the ossam that carried the disease made their home along the Otawalle Highway, a major thoroughfare for merchants, soldiers, and government officials on their way in and out of Aquafa, rumors of the disease would spread rapidly to every part of the realm. Aquafa would become an isolated island. And should the disease agents grow in virulence, mutating as they passed through the bodies of new hosts, the peoples of Aquafa might contract the new strain.
Van could almost hear the voices of Ohfan and his people raised in vengeful anger. “Invaders of our land! You who treated us like dirt! You deserve to suffer. The land that you wrenched from us will be so transformed, it will bring you nothing but agony, and in the end, it will become a paradise reserved for those blessed by the god.”
Milalle grimaced. “Worse still,” she said in a low voice, “there are many farm fields along that route. If ticks communicate the disease agents to field mice, things will be all the worse.”
Field mice reproduced at a far greater rate than dogs and left the farms en masse after the harvest, migrating to cities. They also crawled into the baggage of merchant caravans and could be ferried unwittingly to distant lands.
Milalle put a hand to her forehead. “We believe field mice caused the rampant spread of black wolf fever in ancient Otawalle. The nobles built enclosures in the woods on their property to breed black wolves. The disease agents were passed from the wolves to the ticks in the forest and from them to other animals, until finally, field mice carried the plague into the capital.
“What happened there was a tragedy, but there was one stroke of good fortune. The Otawalle’s capital, where the nobles resided, was on an island in an inland sea.”
“Into the sea the holy ones cast the bridge to the plague-stricken island,” Sae whispered, quoting a line from an ancient song.
“That’s right. Our ancestors shaved off their hair and shed their clothes to walk naked across that bridge so that they would bring no mice or ticks with them. That was how they prevented black wolf fever from spreading beyond the island.”
When Milalle finished speaking, the only sound was the tent rippling in the spring breeze.
“And the young man you call Shikan knows that,” Van stated.
Armed with that knowledge, he intended to release the Kinma dogs into the wild. The disease agents would move from the dogs to the ticks, and then to other beasts and lastly, to humans. The illness would roll across the land of Aquafa like a wave, bringing the wrath of Kinma. To Shikan, those who survived that wave would be those chosen by god to inhabit this land.
Milalle’s fingers trembled as she ran them through her hair. “If the medicine were ready, we wouldn’t need to worry, but we need more time before we can produce anything that we’re sure will work.”
She heaved a sigh. “Why did he have to go and do this?” she cried, shaking her head. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I find it hard to hate Shikan. People misread him because he seems so sullen and moody, but that’s just a defense. He’s a kind boy at heart. He went for days without sleep to care for a dying pup that even Tomasolle had given up on saving. The Ahfal Oma decry gentleness as weakness, so I think he avoids revealing his true feelings.”
Milalle paused then added, “Still, he has a stubborn streak. When he thinks he’s right, he refuses to back down or see things from a different perspective. I think he believes other opinions are excuses.”
A tearful smile formed on Milalle’s face. “Actually, I guess I don’t really know what he believes. He never offered his thoughts. However, that’s the impression I got.”
“I heard that his older brother and maternal grandfather were punished for being involved in the toxic grain incident,” Sae said.
Milalle nodded. “Yes. Tomasolle told us that recently. He said that Shikan revered his grandfather. He insisted that it went against the law of the gods for the Zolians to go unpunished when the blame truly lay with them.”
Van sighed. “So he’s decided to exact justice himself.”
Seven days had passed since Shikan disappeared.
“It’s a race against time,” Milalle said. “I think we still have a slim chance, but if we don’t catch those dogs…” There was a desperate look on her face. “Once they’ve bitten a dog, the species of ticks that will carry the disease won’t drop off for ten days. Some can continue gorging on the blood for as long as two weeks. And the rate of infection from ticks is low. If the Kinma dogs only stay in the forest for around twenty days or so, I don’t think the contamination will spread too rapidly. But…” Her expression darkened. “A female tick swollen with blood lays between a thousand to three thousand eggs at a time. If we fail to catch the Kinma dogs, and they remain in the woods for longer, passing on the disease agents to many more ticks and then other ossam, black wolf fever will spread rapidly eastward. To make it worse, we’ve no way of predicting how the disease agents will change when exposed to a new environment. I doubt that we’ll finish developing the new medicine soon enough.” Her voice shook.
Sae laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.” Milalle regarded her with surprise. “Shikan must still be in Kazan,” Sae continued quietly. “He hasn’t gone near the road yet. That’s the route the Emperor’s Eyes will take home. The Molfah and the Zolians have laid their net so tightly that not even a drop of water could slip through. If Shikan had tried to leave, he would have been caught by now. Even if he attempted to cut through the forest where there are no roads, there are surprisingly few routes for humans to pass through.”
Sae’s expression was calm and composed, like a true-born Molfah. “For centuries, my people have devoted their lives to serving as the King’s Net. We know every possible path that man could take, and he hasn’t shown up yet. He must still be in Aquafa.”
She let out a short breath. “We’re lucky a person is leading the dogs. It would be much harder to track the beasts on their own. We need to capture them now while we still can.”
Milalle frowned and stared at Sae. Then she nodded.
Shikan intended to employ small creatures like ticks to proliferate the disease, and there were plenty of ways to sneak them through checkpoints and roadblocks. However, as Milalle and Sae left the tent, neither of them voiced this fear.