“That doesn’t make any sense. If your family wins the royal tree, won’t Greeda’s family lead your tribe? Her family would get your tribe’s guiding tree, and she’d likely still be in charge, right?”
“Probably, but she is being spiteful and illogical.” Yaakova began to pace. “This is a major problem, not only for my family, but for us. The Northern tribe is very strong, and they may be working with the Southern tribe to weaken the Eastern Tribe. So the succession is in question, and as a result, so was our mission to find you. My family did not want to spare the soldiers to accompany us as guards.”
“Oh. I can see where this is going,” sighed Trav.
“Yes, New One. My younger sister Hravalin desperately needs aid to secure the royal tree, and I promised her my help in exchange for hers.”
Trav shook his head. “Why does she need help so badly? If another Guide wins the royal tree, won’t she still be a Guide?”
“Technically, but her position is already very weak. This year, the Guides were chosen based on wisdom. The contest for the royal tree will likely be more...straightforward. If my family is seen as weak, my entire tribe could be absorbed or destroyed by the other two larger tribes. And with the current Royal Greeda not supporting my tribe for whatever reason, it puts us in an even worse situation.”
“Wow. Politics on Earth suck, but harpy politics are wild too. So what about Tiffany? Where is she?”
Yaakova’s nostrils flared. “New One, I must apologize. My younger half sister saw reason, but we have other factions in my family that are less helpful. Finally, Tiffany agreed to stay behind as collateral. Jang-mi stayed with her. This series of events led to our group finally leaving to find you.”
“I see.” Trav felt a pulse of anger, and suppressed it. He wasn’t sure what Tiffany meant to him yet, but he’d be damned if any uppity harpy took away his little family just to make a point. This would require some clever moves on his part, he could tell. He stood from his seat and stared at the ceiling for a while. “Rahim.”
“Yes Mister Trav?”
“Have you seen anything, anything that might help me here?”
The Rakshasa boy laced his fingers. “The only thing I saw was about Captain Bravoosa. She can help you a lot one day, I’m sure of it.”
Around the room, the valkyries looked confused, but Trav decided to tell them about Rahim’s abilities later, before they all left the workshop. He nodded slowly. “I’m not entirely surprised. Okay, we can’t talk about any of this after we leave the workshop, but this place is secure. But before we leave, I want to have a plan.”
“Do you have something in mind, Chief?” Ysintrill stood, bow in hand.
“As a matter of fact, I do. It’s time to start playing Monopoly.”
“What’s that?”
“A game where you try to control everything.” Trav smiled at Yaakova. “Maybe we can help you, help your family, and get all the resources we need in one shot.”
The harpy showed her teeth. “I like the sound of this already.”
“Now, Narnaste. Well, I’m assuming it was Narnaste, we have something to discuss.”
“Yes Master?” The canine Kin’s ears moved and she cocked her head.
“Who all have you been preaching to, and how many new Faithful have you converted?”
As Narnaste sputtered, Yaakova snorted and Ysintrill chuckled.
Faith, thought Trav. He clenched one fist. This little trip might help me build some Faith Power. He liked the sound of that.
Chapter 14
Trav woke up, untangling himself from a half-asleep Ysintrill and stretched. He’d been getting better at building shelters out of magic. The entire way back to harpy territory, he’d built a base camp of walls, two large domes for the soldiers, a building for latrines, and several smaller buildings for him and his valkyries every night. At first it’d been difficult, expending a lot of his magical resources, but he’d streamlined the process. Now Hex was loaded with all of the appropriate rune equations.
Sunlight filtered in through the small porthole of glass that Trav had created from sand found in the soil. Each building had one, which allowed for some light without requiring vulnerable openings. Of course, he could tailor the buildings to still have openings if he wanted.
The trip so far had been uneventful, which had suited Trav just fine. He’d been learning all he could about harpy culture and the larger country, Demona. There were four Demona in this military detachment, and three were male. Trav had learned that male Demona often worked hard and made deals back in their capital to get an assignment to Bernacia, where all harpies were female and many of them could be...feisty.
Each of the Demona males had a number of harpies who were more than willing to share a bedroll on the outskirts of camp, or even take their chances in the dark. One of them had even been shameless enough to ask Trav for a private shelter of his own. A bit of weak lightning in the ass had given him a burn—and his answer.
Oddly enough, Minister Roony, the Demona in charge of all the Demona officials, had seemed to approve of Trav’s reaction.
“Chief, come back.” Ysintrill sleepily patted the bedroll next to her. “Let’s rest for a few more minutes. We have a long day.”
“Yeah, but that’s why I need to get up.” Trav stroked her hair fondly, moving the back of his hand to the dark skin of her arm. “You’re very beautiful, you know that?”
“Yes. But I don’t mind if you tell me some more.” Ysintrill smiled. “Are you sure we need to get up?”
“Unfortunately. Dawn is in about half an hour. We probably already slept too long. I need to get the kitchen set up and the ovens hot.”
“Why do you have to do it? Can’t the harpies do it?”
Trav gave her a hard look. “You know the answer to that, Trill.”
The valkyrie seemed to focus a bit and nodded soberly. Over a week earlier, before they’d left the workshop, Trav had let his inner circle in on his plan. He needed power. Humans or Kin worshipping him still didn’t sit right, and likely never would, but he at least needed their faith. By making a show of how easy it was for him to make life better for those around him, he hoped that Narnaste’s subtle attempts at Faithful conversion would be more successful, and so far it had worked.
Trav had a total of fourteen bars of magical power now. Of his total, he had ten bars dedicated to permanent enhancements, including his first, two-bar upgrade, “Overall Strength,” Ventrilomagic, Air Scribing, a magic shield, two bars in a focus and renewal ability, Shadowwalk, one bar spent on reaction time, and a single bar spent in mental toughness. Hopefully, he’d be able to withstand the magical pressure of beings out of his league if and when he saw one again.
Since he’d been gaining power through faith, he’d elected to focus on permanent abilities that would grow with his power. But even with all of his permanent abilities, he had four bars of power per day for spells. Crafting the earthen buildings for the military every day, and for his own family hadn’t been a strain at all.
He’d actually learned a lot about gaining power through faith. Now that he’d been focusing on the feeling, he could actually trace the general directions of his followers. Some were in the harpy military detachment, but there were a few in other directions too. He could only imagine that some of the Faithful had heard of or seen his fight with the Rakshasa outside of Faith.
Because Trav had an idea of how many revered him now, he’d come to understand that faith power gave diminishing returns. He’d get stronger quickly, but eventually, more followers wouldn’t actually increase his power all that much.
After one last hug from Ysintrill, he left his earthen shelter and headed to the middle of camp, where as usual, he planned to build a kitchen and get fires started for the stovetops and ovens he could make from stone. Once he arrived, he saw that Captain Bravoosa was already there, waiting for him. He walked up and gave her a smile with a slight bow.
As usual, she wore her military uniform, b
asically a dark-green tunic and matching skirt under lorica armor, a chainmail skirt, and greaves. All the harpies wore falcata-style swords as weapons and used them as camp tools too. About half the soldiers carried spears, and half had short recurve bows.
“And how was your sleep, Mister Trav?” she asked. She shot a meaningful look at his valkyries’ shelters and the one he’d slept in.
“Jealous?”
“Not hardly. I am sure you’re very tempting for girls with that...taste, but I do not desire a human man.”
“Fair enough.” Trav shrugged. His relationship with the captain had improved dramatically, not least of which because he’d been helping her out. He’d been assisting some of her soldiers during the trek back to Bernacia. In fact, he’d even healed a few of their health problems, and handed out a number of his enchanted weapons as gifts.
Establishing a gate back in the workshop had been extremely handy. Instead of carting around all the enchanted weapons, armor, and jewelry he’d made, he’d just left them in the workshop, then created a gate back whenever he needed to. It didn’t make a ton of sense to go back and forth much while traveling since it took about a bar of magic power to create a temporary gate back, but he’d been like the Asgardian Santa Claus for the harpies he’d been traveling with.
And it was all going according to plan.
The military detachment he’d been traveling with, although weak, was apparently a third of Yaakova’s family’s military force. What the harpies called a company, Trav thought was more like a large platoon, about fifty soldiers. Since Trav had been traveling with them, he’d learned all the soldiers’ names. The harpies loved him now—the weapons and armor he’d gifted them were very high quality.
It wasn’t a stretch to say Bravoosa’s Pinions, what the company called itself, was currently at least several times more dangerous than they had been when Trav had first met them.
Trav had also learned more about Yaakova’s tribe, and her family. In harpy society, it seemed the families didn’t really organize by last name. Instead, the five most powerful families of each tribe had traditional names that changed as one family fell out of the top five, and another took its place. The East Tribe used different types of precipitation—rain, snow, sleet, hail, and mist. Yaakova was part of the East Tribe’s Mist family. The North Tribe families were named after animals, and the South tribes were named after jewels.
So the Mist family was weak, the Snow family should be supporting them, but was not. At this point, Trav had the knowledge, and had made the preparations to spring his plan as soon as he arrived in Bernacia. He only had a bit more than one more day to do so.
Since he was in a good mood, he began humming Staying Alive while crafting the cooking pavilion for the morning, and without saying a word, Bravoosa helped him where she could. Trav liked her. The Captain wasn’t very open minded, and couldn’t be called clever, but she worked hard and led from the front.
Later today when the company stopped to rest, usually around lunch time, Trav planned to spar with his valkyries and any willing soldiers. He’d been exercising and practicing combat every day for the entire journey, both to polish his skills, and to prove his power to the Pinions.
Trav no longer thought of Odin’s memories as something alien, or just a tool. Like it or not, they were part of him now, and he was finished ignoring what he’d traded for his life. It was time to lead.
As he crafted an oven out of clay, he caught sight of Rahim. The boy was being mothered by a couple soldiers, Tarasha and Rakkala. Rahim was still shy, but he seemed to be enjoying the attention. Trav didn’t know when Rakshasa boys hit puberty, but it couldn’t be too far off.
That was something to think about later.
He was proud of Rahim. The boy had almost effortlessly been accepted by the Pinions, mainly by asking to play chess with the soldiers who knew how. He’d also been asking them for martial lessons. Trav had asked Rahim to do so, but he could tell that his adopted nephew was enjoying it as well, building his confidence.
Najila had raised the boy well, but had been so powerful, she couldn’t really spar well with her young son. Meanwhile, the harpies, although strong Kin, were just right for Rahim’s underdeveloped strength. Trav could only imagine what kind of monster his nephew would be when he was full grown.
All the preparations he’d discussed with Rahim, and with his valkyries before leaving his workshop were complete. Everything would come down to his meeting with Yaakova’s sister now.
Trav stoked a fire, applying a bit of magic to heat his new oven faster, and nodded. Now he could only hope that nothing went too sideways.
***
The next day, Trav saw Bernacia for the first time and stifled a yawn. Harpies really did seem to be obsessed with flying, and building tall structures. Tall for Kin, thought Trav. He’d grown up on Earth, with skyscrapers. Nothing he was seeing now was that impressive.
Captain Bravoosa’s soldiers, the Pinions, seemed disappointed by his lack of reaction. The fact that Rahim didn’t really care about the soaring buildings either seemed to crush them. Trav understood, though. The East tribe was proud of their home, but Rahim had grown up as royalty in a legit capital city.
The buildings were definitely odd, though—made of stone, and a latticework of wood outside the framed building within.
Based on Trav’s understanding, Bernacia was sort of a backwater, at least Kin technology-wise.
He’d long ago put the harpy politics into his own frame of reference. Demona was like the country. Bernacia was a state, and the different tribes were counties. So if Demona was like the United States, Bernacia was like Texas, Florida, California, and New York combined. In this case, the importance seemed to be as much because of where Bernacia was located as the military power they could be relied upon.
Trav could figure out why. As long as Bernacia didn’t crumble, it was one area of the Demonas’ border with Kyvendi, the Rakshasa country, that they wouldn’t need to worry about.
Bernacia was important, and the Guides were too. In fact, it was almost like the three harpy Guides were political finalists going into an election, but in this case, the election would likely be some sort of martial event, or a deathmatch, or even a war. Nobody seemed to know yet. It was up to the Bernacian Elders to decide.
Crowds of curious harpies gathered on the side of the street and opened windows to watch the procession pass. As his little procession passed a gated entrance to a large, paved area, he saw at least several hundred drilling soldiers wearing different colors than the Pinions. He’d been told the East Tribe was weaker than the others, but it seemed the Mist family really didn’t have much military power at all, even in comparison to the other families. No wonder Yaakova’s sister was looking for help.
The government building for the East Tribe turned out to be different than where Yaakova’s sister, Hravalin was staying. Both buildings were adjacent, large, and mostly made of stone. Yaakova whispered, “When there is no succession taking place, the guidehouse is part of the capital. Right now it’s the guidehouse, though.”
“Ah,” murmured Trav.
They all underwent a quick security check in a courtyard, but only Trav, his valkyries, Captain Bravoosa, and Minister Roony were allowed forward. Rahim did not look happy at all that he couldn’t join them, but Trav knew the harpies would take good care of the kid. “Go with them,” he whispered. “But use the amulet I gave you to call me if anything crazy happens.”
“Alright, Mister Trav.” Rahim firmed his lips and marched after the harpies.
Tough kid, thought Trav. The boy had just lost his mother and his entire world had changed, but other than some sniffles Trav had pretended not to hear at night, Rahim had been very brave. Trav was proud of him.
Inside the guidehouse, the harpy guards demanded that everyone give up their weapons. Trav wasn’t happy about this new development at all, but due to the resigned look on Narnaste’s face, and the way Ysintrill sighed, his valkyries h
ad expected it. With a shrug, Trav shed his weapons and armor, and allowed the guards to pat him down.
When one of them lingered on his sensitive bits and gave him a wink, he wasn’t sure how to react at first. Then the guard’s hand kept moving, exploring. Yaakova must have seen what was going on. She almost lazily swiped a taloned hand at the guard, who darted back just in time to avoid being clawed.
The guard hissed, and Yaakova just smiled and said, “Mine.”
Trav tensed for violence, but the surrounding guards just cackled in appreciation.
However, the guard that Yaakova had threatened, an older harpy with a scar across her face bristled. “Slaves are not consorts! You have no more standing, and this one is wild. Let us deal in reality. I want him, so he will eventually be mine, Yaakova. You cannot keep everything you want just because—”
A few weeks ago, Trav might have just rolled his eyes and let Yaakova deal with the blustering guard and her hurt pride. But now he had a goal, purpose, and he understood Kin a lot better than he used to. The dynamic of power being established here was not going to work for him.
While most of the harpies were still laughing, Trav stepped forward and straight-arm punched the guard right in the nose. She fell back, hissing even louder than before in surprise, then sprang up, claws out and one hand on her sword. Her hiss turned into a shriek, and Trav saw murder in her eyes.
“I’m not a slave. Don’t ever fucking touch me again, bitch.” Trav began carving runes in midair, and the harpy guards fell back, even the one he’d just struck. He cast a look at the guard who seemed to be in charge and said, “You’d better make this stupid one stand down. We have just reached an understanding, or we should have. So if she attacks me now, I’m going to turn her into paste with some feathers sticking out.”
The guard leader blinked slowly. Meanwhile, the offending harpy hissed lower and seemed to growl a question. Finally, the leader said, “Stand down, Ereshka.”
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