by Garon Whited
Tessera has been easing into her recovery, day by day, but is making excellent progress. She’s been pushing herself to move for the past week, from rolling over to sitting up to feeding herself, and now she’s walking, albeit with a bit of a shuffle. She’s even determined to practice in the morning drills. Leisel has Lennira working with her, taking it slow and easy, so Tessera’s nerves and muscles can adapt gradually. She’s not back to her old self, not by several long jumps, but she visibly improves even as I watch. I’ll keep adding an extra charge to her healing spells before every morning practice, now. The combination of spells and practice should help her improve.
All the morning drills also have a new element, ever since the kidnapping incident. Striking now involves the traditional martial-arts shout. There’s a lot of synchronized shouting going on. I’m told it has some benefit in the sense it adds power or focus or something, but I never noticed when I was learning. What I want it for is so people will—effectively—scream for help. I don’t like how the whole rugged individualist mentality made it easier to grab one of my people.
I’m still annoyed with Naskarl and I’ve never even seen him.
The warriors he sent made it to Spogeyzer without incident. There followed some negotiations for clothes and food. I say “negotiations.” There was some begging involved. I watched in my mirror as they called on the kindness of people in lower castes. It amused me to no end to find the people were reluctant. Not because it was a chance to mock someone of higher station, but because the warriors clearly found my disfavor. Spogeyzer has benefited financially from us being here and they didn’t want to offend me.
Still, Londrin and his squad eventually managed to eat, at least, and get breechclouts. Thus equipped, they made it from village to village, town to town along the road and eventually to Sarashda. Londrin reported to Naskarl, or so I assume. The house they went into was big, well-adorned, and shielded—I lost scrying lock somewhere in the grounds of the estate. Once again, the wealthy, and possibly the merely well-off, can afford the magical equivalent of drapes. Ah, well. At least I know where the house is.
People also know where the valley is. I haven’t seen any scrying spells near me—or not yet—but I don’t know what other interests this world’s wizards might have. I still haven’t found my dynamos, either, despite tuning my Ring of Spying and leaving it running in a search. They’re not being taken out of their shielded area.
A peculiar note in my observations of Londrin’s progress was the passage of a heavily-armored man. He overtook the banished warriors and didn’t bother to slow down. I thought I recognized the helm. Sure enough, it was Osric, riding away from my valley and making for Sarashda.
He’s been haughty, self-centered, and useless the whole time he’s been here. I’m almost pleased to see him go. Almost, I say, because now I’m thinking in more deceitful ways and wondering if Osric was a spy for Tobar. Was he? Or was he simply looking for something better after losing his job in town? He hasn’t liked it here, I know that. Hard to tell, at the moment, what his motives were. Doubtless, I’ll be subjected to the consequences of his actions later. But, damn it all, he seemed like a reasonable, even likable guy when he was down on his luck!
I really need to interview people at night. All of them.
From the Empire—mostly Sarashda—we’ve had another few dozen immigrants. We haven’t yet hit the critical ratio of logistics-vs-military where we can let the warriors turn over all other activity to the civilians, but we’re getting there. Warriors are doing fill-in tasks, rather than carrying the whole weight, though. We also have enough miners so the coal mine is now fueling the smelter at the iron mine, which also means we have a mining camp at the coal site. We’re a thriving little village with a couple of satellite communities. Give us another month and we may be a village with three mining camps—the copper and silver mines are almost on top of each other, so maybe they can be mined by a single camp.
I’ve also noticed the barbarians are eyeballing us a lot. We keep pushing back the jungle in our valley, but there are almost always one or two lurking at the edge when we call a halt for the day. They avoid our workers, but they watch us. I don’t know what they’re hoping to find out. It can’t be simple curiosity. It’s a two-day walk to get here and two days to get back to their village or town or whatever it is. They either want something or want to know something.
I’m tempted to go ask, but I’m afraid I’ll wind up asking forcefully. Or they’ll force me to ask forcefully.
On the plus side, I now have a dungeon. Well, it’s really a basement one floor below the ground floor. It’s a good place to store captives if it turns out I need to in the future. Getting in and out isn’t hard—it still has the standard stairs along the wall and a trapdoor, but the trapdoor has a bolt to keep it closed. I’m not sure we need even that much, at present, but it’s better to be prepared. The underground areas will continue to expand from there, but having a place at all is the important part. Elaboration will follow.
The rest of the tower is growing. I don’t think anyone has noticed, yet. The interior floors are getting slightly taller and forming support arches, but the top floor is just getting taller. Presently, it will start growing arches and a floor, dividing the top space into two rooms. One will be my workroom, the other will be my bedroom. Leisel should be pleased.
I have daily shipments of tailings and overburden—waste rock from the iron mine—hauled in and dumped around the base of the tower, inside and out. It’s slowly adding to the height and thickness of the tower, as well as spreading out to pave what will one day be the courtyard.
I miss my pet rock. It would have grown into a full-sized castle by now. It could have taken over the whole valley by now and be working on the mountain range! My own efforts are miraculous, sure, but I’m a child playing with clay by comparison. It’s a high-magic world, so my spells are practical and useful, but it’s hard to take the place of a reactor.
So, the valley is in good shape. Since the warmeet in Sarashda is tomorrow, I’ve decided to go. Leisel wasn’t entirely on board with the idea.
“What are you thinking!?”
“Uh, warmeet? Third day of the week?”
“Last time you went, you killed the manzhani of House Sarcana. Now you’ve sent a squad of their warriors back naked and unarmed with a message not to cross you. And you want to walk into Sarashda—”
“Ride,” I corrected. Bronze snorted hot agreement.
“—ride into Sarashda alone?”
I glanced at Bronze. Bronze looked directly at Leisel. Smoke issued from Bronze’s nostrils and her ears laid back.
“All right,” Leisel conceded, “not alone. I don’t want you out on the sands without an escort, though. Too many accidents are possible.”
“Are you telling me I need a bodyguard?”
“Are you telling me you don’t?”
“That’s beside the point!” I snapped, knowing it was exactly the point. “Besides, how many bodyguards do you think I can bring? Bronze can carry a hundred men, but they have to be stacked awfully high!”
“We have wagons. Take four warriors as guards in the wagon and leave today with spare horses. Switch horses tonight and keep going while the warriors sleep in the wagon. You can be there for tomorrow, if you insist. Next week would be better. Either way,” she finished, “they’ll accompany you to the warmeet.”
“You think four bodyguards will make a difference if all of House Sarcana tries to come down on me? It’ll just be harder to run!”
“But four warriors as an entourage will make more of an impression and mark you as wealthy and powerful. Their presence will give people pause.”
I wanted to argue, but I’m not as up on the local cultural signals as I could be. What I need is a master of etiquette to educate me. I know they have someone like that and it’s a formal position, but it stays on the tip of my tongue, which can be rather farther away than for most people.
Well, with fou
r warriors in my entourage, maybe I’ll make enough of an impression to hire someone.
“Fine. I’ll take them.” As I spoke, I had an idea for a troop transport wagon. Moving ten or twenty warriors usually involves marching or mounting them on horseback. A pair of horses and a wagon could move them more quickly. “But while I’m gone, I need someone building a new cart with seats and a suspension system.”
“Suspension system?”
“Shock absorbers.”
“Shock absorbers?”
“Bump flatteners.”
“Bump flatteners?”
“Springs!”
“Springs? What for? I don’t understand.”
“I’ll draw out what I want.”
In the interests of my solar scheduling, we left a little after sunset. Bronze agreed to pull a cart, so we didn’t bother with extra horses. Four warriors—all women, hand-picked by Leisel—stood in the cart and braced themselves on the rails. The current cart has no suspension, only a bed on an axle, so every single bump in the road is a brutal lurch. It doesn’t even have pneumatic tires. The wheels are wood with iron rims!
Bronze kept her speed down in deference to the lack of seat belts, but we still had problems. This was more than a little bit outside their experience. We pulled over periodically to let them rest. After the second rest, I crawled under the cart with a waterskin to extinguish the axle and put a thermal dispersion spell on it so we wouldn’t set it on fire by going too fast. While I worked, I also took a shot at putting a spell both surfaces where the axle met the cart. It wasn’t a perfect lubricant, but if the two surface had a smoother interaction, there would be even less heat.
With the flammability problem sorted out, I climbed in the cart with them to show them how to ride. I grew up in a world where toy wagons, skateboards, and pickup trucks were the norm. There’s an art to it, riding in the bed of a pickup truck while standing. You don’t lock your legs and hang on for dear life. You hold on, yes, but you keep your knees sprung, ready to flex and sort of surf over the shocks, damping out the sudden jolts and jostles. Velina, the giant, black-haired Valkyrie, caught on almost immediately and helped me coach the other three as we continued.
Sarashda welcomed us in, as usual, without fuss. Since we weren’t limited by mortal horses, we arrived before midnight and found a place for my guards to catch several hours’ sleep. I, on the other hand, ducked out to find the labor mart. I rented six servants for the next day. Four would attend my guards while the other two searched the city for people and things I wanted.
Slavery is part of the caste system in this culture. I’m not changing it overnight. I’m hoping nobody brings slaves into the valley, though. I have enough problems being an iconoclast and heretic as it is.
With the mundane matters tended to, I returned with the rental servants, sent them to bed, and got busy with some magical preparations. I have a number of spells I routinely carry around, but most of them are for keeping my vampire nature a secret, or for healing injuries, or cleaning, or similar utilitarian purposes. A few empty gems could conveniently hold some extra, just-in-case spells… just in case.
Tauta, 14th Day of Milaskir
Rolling out of bed around sunrise is a habit for the warriors. The servants, too. They have to be up and moving before their masters. Having servants on hand came as quite a surprise to my retinue, but a pleasant one. We sorted ourselves out, ate what the hotel—note that: hotel! It wasn’t simply a tavern with rooms for rent. It was a place to rent lodgings and it also provided other services for the guests. Sarashda has some remarkably civilized ideas. We ate what the hotel served as breakfast and were at the arena right after.
I unhitched the people-carrier and parked it outside my usual entrance. Bronze stood nearby, more as an advertisement of my presence than anything else. She would fit through any of the arena’s entryways, no problem, but it would be extremely unusual for her to be inside. The servants went off to get our lunch or wait in the stands, depending.
My entourage, on the other hand, warmed up with me, anticipating a busy day. We did some stretching, jogged a couple of laps, and did more limbering-up exercises while warriors wandered in.
Galtos and Jolus came in, spied me, and approached. Velina intercepted them, backed by the other three.
Dang. I know their names. Hang on… Kasara, Tellith, and… and… damn. It’ll come back to me.
Velina, I noticed, was perhaps an inch taller than Galtos and maybe three inches taller than Jolus. She looked Galtos in the eye and asked his business. I intervened while they blinked at her.
“Welcome, welcome,” I beamed. “My friends, Galtos and Jolus! I haven’t seen you in weeks. How fare things in Sarashda?”
“Well enough,” Jolus replied. “Is she yours, now?”
The exact phrasing was less uncertain than it sounds. Specifically, he was asking if she was in my employ. Maybe, “Is she now one of your guards?” is a better translation, but, literally, it was “Is she yours?”
“Yes. Remember, I hired most of them.”
“I know. I heard a couple of the men went out a few weeks ago to see if you had any openings.”
“And came back disappointed,” Galtos added, grinning.
“Is there a joke in there I’m missing?” I asked.
“You know,” Jolus suggested. “Twenty or thirty women, only one man? There might be a certain amount of unfulfilled desire lurking about the camp?”
“Velina? Any of that in camp?”
“Nobody lives up to your standard, sir.”
“There you have it, gentlemen. Care to practice a bit before we get started?”
Galtos and Jolus traded looks. I could almost see their brains processing Velina’s comment. I hadn’t anticipated her implying I was personally responsible for… uh… satisfying? Yes, I guess that’s the word. Satisfying the entire guard contingent.
Maybe Leisel doesn’t view it as something to be kept quiet. She probably doesn’t. It’s not like it’s a breach of ethics, at least not here. It’s not exactly expected, but it’s certainly common. Come to think of it, it might explain why none of the other warrior women have made any advances in my direction. Correction. I haven’t noticed any advances. They might not exist. Leisel might have marked out her territory.
“We’ll save our efforts until after the business,” Jolus decided. Galtos nodded. Behind them, Osric entered the arena. He stopped dead when he saw me and made an immediate about-face, departing. He must have come in through one of the other entrances. There was no way he could have missed seeing Bronze. He certainly didn’t want to see me.
Interesting.
“Any idea why Osric doesn’t want to see me?” I asked. They both looked behind themselves.
“No. Didn’t he go out to be with you?”
“He did. I can’t say he fit in too well.”
“He may have been working for Tobar,” Galtos suggested. Jolus frowned, but nodded. I sighed.
“So, Osric, despite my mercy and generosity, may have been a spy for Tobar?”
“Could be,” Jolus agreed. “I don’t know, of course, but it’s possible.”
“Great. Now I have to beat the answer out of him before I kill him.”
“Shell him first,” Galtos told me.
“No doubt.”
Hazir entered at that point and I waved. He waved back and came over. My entourage stepped to the sides and made a salute-gesture, the one where the hand starts in the center of the chest, palm down, and rotates upward and out, as though presenting a gift. Hazir seemed pleased.
“Al, my friend, and manzhani of House Lucard. It is good to see you again. I had not thought you would return.”
“I’m full of surprises. Full of something, anyway, but certainly surprises. How have you been?”
“Well enough, well enough. How go things in your hidden valley?”
“Pretty good, all things considered, although it’s not really hidden.”
“It has but a single r
oad, and one no one has ever found before,” he pointed out. “It was well-hidden until you uncovered its secret.”
“Fair point. Why didn’t you expect to see me again? Why wouldn’t I return?”
“The vendetta,” he replied, surprised.
“House Sarcana?”
“Then you know of it.”
“No, but I guessed.”
“So? Has not the messenger delivered the formal declaration?”
“Not that I know of, unless we missed him on the road last night.”
“It was but recent, so perhaps.”
“Come and sit with me for a bit, please.” I nodded at Galtos and Jolus as we left them. Jolus, I noticed, started chatting at Velina. She didn’t seem too interested, but she wasn’t being rude to him, either.
Hazir and I sat down on one of the benches and discussed the whole idea of vendetta. Around here, when one House insults another—as distinct from one person insulting another—the two can declare a formal enmity. Usually, this results in small-scale actions against each other. A squad of warriors to attack a building, perhaps House wizards laying a curse, financial maneuvering to undercut the other House, political maneuvering to have allied Houses deny aid or privileges to the enemy House, and so on. It opens up a lot of possible actions, making them legal.
For the most part, other Houses or individuals are neutral. A merchant might sell to House A, but he also sells to House B. Both Houses treat him normally—he’s only doing business and has no allegiance to either. He can choose to ally himself with one or the other, but, while this probably benefits him through his chosen House, it also makes him a valid target for the other. If he remains neutral, it’s business as usual. Unless, of course, representatives of both Houses show up in his shop at the same time. Then it’s his problem, although not his fault.
“So, I haven’t seen the formal declaration,” I told Hazir. “Does it start when I get it, or when it’s issued?”
“When it’s issued, but there is customarily a period of grace before hostilities open. Otherwise, one might post a notice in the Hall of Ruling at dawn and have one’s forces begin their work before anyone has even read it.”