by Travis Peck
“Something wrong?” Trevan asked.
“No, no… Just tired, I suppose. I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
The lumberman got the hint, whether or not he believed him, and began to clean the dishes for the night.
Ifo went to collect one more load of firewood to keep the fire going throughout the night. It would be chilly in the morning so the warmth would be welcomed, and this way they could make themselves some kof in the morning without waiting to start a fire. He wanted to be bright-eyed for the early morning river crossing.
Once these chores were complete, the two travelers settled down in their blankets. Both men seemed content with going to sleep early to get as much rest as possible before the potentially grueling river crossing. Ifo had mixed feelings about the knowledge that after they reached the far shore of the Nyad, they would only have three short days of travel left. He would certainly delight in partaking of a Merovian, and eating a hearty meal, upon reaching the capital. But he was dreading the return to his old life after the short reprieve. Ifo mused about this contract being his last and finally shelving his career to move on to better—more peaceful and pleasant—endeavors.
***
The morning sun rose over the distant mountains to the east, and the light disturbed Ifo’s slumber enough to wake him. He roused himself from his blankets and stumbled over to a grove of trees close to camp to relieve himself. Shaking his head, he slowly began to wake up. He had been plagued by nightmares of the dark hold of the slaver ship for most of the night and had tossed and turned fitfully, getting little sleep. Rubbing at his eyes, he made his way back to camp, gathering a few fallen limbs and twigs for the fire. He desperately needed kof this morning if he was to be alert for the river crossing.
Trevan was stirring in his blankets but not yet ready to give up the effort. Ifo stoked the fire and set a pot of water over it. He broke off a few pieces of kof and put the two black segments of the root into the pot. Kof was a favorite of his. The taste took some getting used to, but it certainly cleared one’s head in the morning and helped him stay awake if he needed to at night. The root was easy to find along most roads and trails throughout this part of the empire. He tossed the spent kof root, after a thorough steeping, out from the campsite. The portion would eventually take root and would be ready to harvest by another wandering traveler seeking the restorative brew.
By the time the kof was ready, Arin got up with a little grumbling and went to the Nyad to splash some water on his face. Ifo handed him a mug of kof when he returned to camp. Ifo had already finished his own, so he rifled through the saddlebags for some bread, cheese, and sausage, which was their normal morning fare if they had nothing left over from dinner the previous night.
Once the kof and breakfast were finished, Ifo and Arin walked to the crossing site to scout out the situation. The Nyad was running fast and shallow at their intended crossing site. If they were traveling with a wagon they would not attempt the crossing here, but their horses should be able to withstand the rushing water if they kept their heads about them. Arin assured him that their mounts would be fine, that they had even crossed this same spot before, but Ifo, ever mistrustful about placing his life in the hands of others, had his doubts.
“We’ll cross right here,” Arin said, presumably selecting the smoothest entry point. “Just give them their heads and they’ll see you across. If the one you’re riding stumbles and you fall off, try to grab the saddle or reins and it’ll still be able to haul you over. If you let go, we won’t find you for a few days with how fast this river is running.”
Ifo listened carefully to the advice. He trusted Arin but did not especially trust the horses. Though they had proven themselves as capable sentries when they alerted him to the presence of ravinors, they had just been using their survival instincts. Those same instincts were probably now shouting for them to dump their human cargo and turn back the other way and forget about crossing this swiftly flowing river.
The horses were calm after they were loaded up and were waiting patiently at the river’s edge. Arin led the troop across, holding his horse’s reins in one hand while he pulled on the lead of one of the packhorses. Ifo would do the same. He was glad the more experienced rider was leading the way. He did not want to be responsible for the whole group being carried downriver if things went awry.
Ifo’s muscles tensed up as his horse stepped into the river. The horse stiffened after the brief shock of how fast the cold water was coursing by. The horse’s head bobbed up and down, and its shoulder muscles bunched and extended as it forged its way through the river. Ifo urged his horse onward and kept checking that the packhorse was keeping up. He was worried that the baggage horse would tow him out of his saddle if it lost its footing. All he could do was hold on to the lead and the reins and pray to the Giver that the crossing went well.
His boots were in the cool water now, and he was surprised at the speed of the water. Being perched up on horseback had deceived him about the true power of the flowing Nyad. The water rose only another hand, much to his relief, at the middle of the river—in theory the deepest part of the crossing. The horses were struggling to press through the water; the current rippled around the horses as they plodded resolutely forward. Ifo was soaked from the waist down from the spray, but he paid it little mind as his packhorse’s strength began to flag. He felt the trailing mount’s lead tighten, and he had to use all his strength just to keep hold of it.
His own mount’s progress came to a halt as it had to carry him while fighting the current and half-dragging the packhorse along behind it. Ifo shouted encouragement to both horses and they kept fighting. With one final surge, his mount began to pull the lagging packhorse. Ifo thought his arm was going to rip from its socket while he desperately held on. At last the packhorse began to pull its own weight again, and the lead rope blissfully slackened.
His shoulder would be sore, but he hardly cared now that the water was running below his boots in the stirrups. Ifo let out a deep breath as his horse stepped onto the opposite riverbank, the packhorse a half-pace behind. He had never been fond of getting wet. Rain he could handle, but he avoided lakes, rivers, and especially, the ocean. Ifo was glad the crossing was over. He would be sure to use a bridge the next time he needed to cross a river.
Arin greeted him with a large smile on his face. “That wasn’t too bad, now was it?”
Ifo laughed. “For a moment there, I thought I was going for a swim. And I don’t like to swim!”
Trevan chortled then dismounted to check his own horse and packhorse for any injury from the crossing. Ifo followed suit. He half-expected the packhorse to come up lame. He searched them over and found nothing. He concluded that its troubles were simply due to the great force of the fast-running water. “Do we need to rest them a little?” he asked.
“No. Best to have them dry out while they move to keep them from cramping up,” Arin said.
Ifo took a moment to thoroughly rub his horse’s muzzle, praising it for the hard work. He would have to get some special treats for it once they reached the town that Trevan had spoken of reaching by nightfall.
The four mounts, and their riders, drip-dried along the road, now heading to the northeast. Thoughts of a bed, bath, and some Merovian lager in their immediate future spurred the humans forward.
***
As Arin had predicted, the two men arrived in the capital of the empire a candle after noon on the third day after crossing the Nyad. Black clouds were blowing in from the north, making their arrival a timely one. Ifo was pleased that the storm had not found them out in the open terrain they had traversed over the last few days. There had been little cover to be had amidst the endless fields of crops that covered the ground a day’s ride out from the capital. It took a lot of grain, corn, and other crops to feed the bustling metropolis, and even that was not enough. Much of the capital’s food was imported from all across the empire, and even beyond.
Wagons and people poured in and out
of the city on a constant basis. The two men approached Styr from the west. It was the only direction in which the city had a less crowded highway that ran into the capital. That had been one of the reasons why Ifo had chosen this route, and Arin did not like pushing through the crowds thronging outside of the city any more than the assassin did, if not for different reasons.
The capital sprawled across a large valley; seen from a bird’s-eye view, the sight must have been inspiring. Four separate city walls encircled the capital’s circumference at the time that each wall had been built.
The first ring of wall surrounded the inner city that covered a cluster of hills where the city had been founded. The second wall was much longer and only half as tall as the imposing inner city wall. This wall showed where the growing city had begun to spill out into the valley floor that it now fully occupied. The third wall was higher than the second, a clue of the city’s military history, and built in a time when Styr’s well-being had been threatened by invaders. The fourth wall was longer than the other three combined but was only a hand or two higher than a man stood. This barrier seemed to be built more to keep the citizens separated from the shanty towns that always seemed to spawn on the outside of such great cities as they expanded over the years.
Ifo saw that construction was well underway for the fifth wall. From the small section he could see, it would be twice as high as the fourth. The populace must be harboring concerns about the increased ravinor attacks, but he doubted that the capital could ever be overrun by the creatures, even if there were no fortifications. The empire had the largest army in the world, but Ifo guessed that the sultanate of Zhurak probably boasted the same.
The capital was the center of the empire, and as such, was garrisoned by a large number of troops. Patrols were a common sight and dozens of watchtowers were perched around the city so that warning could be given far in advance of whatever trouble had been spotted. Any invading humans or ravinors would be dealt with long before they reached where the fifth wall was being constructed.
The immediate vicinity around the capital offered no shelter for ravinors or for any invading army. It was flat and criss-crossed with canals that supplied water to the city and the growing fields that surrounding it. Unusual for such a large city, there was no river nearby, the closest being the Nyad. This anomaly was possible due to an abundance of deep, bountiful wells in the city itself, and by the presence of aqueducts that carried water from the mountains and the Nyad and into the city. There was also a reservoir that was positioned between the first and second rings of wall that could supply water to troops and citizens if the unthinkable happened and an enemy actually succeeded in breaching the outer defenses; In short, Styr was well supplied with water.
Ifo was not a military tactician, but he knew how to approach a target, and he did not envy whoever, ravinor or human, decided to take on the capital. And that was assuming that the invaders suddenly appeared at the gates without any warning—an unlikely event.
The most striking feature of the city, aside from the four walls that divided it, and the fifth that was under construction, was how the capital had blended and merged with all the different cultures that were found within the empire. Once distinct peoples had been conquered, or had willingly joined the growing empire, they had each made their mark on the cosmopolitan capital through their own unique architecture, clothing, food, and of course, the people themselves.
The inner city was the most homogenous portion of the capital. The buildings were all constructed from the brilliant white stone, styricite, that was the namesake of the empire and the capital where it had first been mined, centuries ago. A historian could look at the growing rings of the city, like a lumberman could calculate the age of a tree from its rings, and tell the story of the empire through the different types of buildings and features placed around them.
The second ring, or district, revealed when Nyssa had agreed to join the fledgling empire. The white stone was still used to construct the buildings, but their styles in this section of the city had changed considerably; Styric and Nyssan styles had fused, resulting in a more industrious and straightforward architectural style that melded with the old, creating its own unique form.
The third district, the part of the city between the second and third ring of walls, incorporated all things from Kharisk—what had been the young empire’s biggest rival on the continent. Khariskian architecture used sharp corners and soaring buttresses, giving the buildings a blade-like appearance. Certainly, the most dangerous looking buildings in Styr were of Khariskian design, with their sharp points and outward-jutting, angled walls.
Ifo had always thought Khariskian buildings resembled beautiful but deadly, sharp snowflakes, and it was a wonder how the children of Kharisk weren’t missing fingers and toes living in, and especially playing around, such structures. The material used to construct these buildings represented a temporal shift from the classic white styricite to the glossy ebon-hued material that appeared to be a cross between glass, steel, and marble.
When he had first come to Styr, a roundabout journey of several years that started from the slave ship and continued as he was passed along and traded through several owners, he had marveled at the wondrous construction. Although his favorite had been the Styric archetype, he had been fascinated by how these black and glossy buildings were made.
The material, kreosk, was a fibrous peat-like substance that abounded beneath much of the soil in Kharisk. The kreosk, he had learned years ago from a knowledgeable kreosk-maker, was extracted from the earth in long, thin layers; much like sod, only much thinner. These sheets were then adhered to a structural post or beam by using a special paste concoction. As each layer went up, a worker would bend, cut, or otherwise manipulate the sheets into the sought-after design or pattern.
Somehow, once the combination of the kreosk and the paste had set, the sheets would become as hard and strong as steel. The structure would be sound and habitable at that point, but it did not achieve the characteristic gloss until it was burned. The fire melted the two ingredients into a fine, black sheen that could withstand decades of weather, extreme heat, constant rain and snow, or anything else the Taker could throw at it.
The Merovian touch could be seen, not in the buildings themselves, but rather in the artistically arranged green spaces and gardens that were painstakingly sculpted botanical and floral masterpieces that filled up whatever spaces were available in the crowded city. In instances where the soil was too hard, or if the dwelling did not have the necessary amount of earth for the garden, the roofs would be reinforced and the garden would grow on top. Buildings with a central, private courtyard would often have a lovingly tended Merovian gardens growing within their sheltered spaces. It was quite a contrast to Ifo’s assassin-trained eyes between the gloss-black Khariskian dwellings and their colorful Merovian gardens nestled between sharp-bladed walls, spires, and flying buttresses.
The last remaining section of the capital, the fourth district, began at the fourth wall and had spread to the unfinished fifth wall. This section was relatively new and had grown from the influx of Nøm-Ünish merchants and craftsmen that had come to the capital once the fierce tribes had finally capitulated to the might of the empire.
In the capital, the Nøm-Ünish were regarded to be little more than barbarians, but so too had the Khariskians and the Merovians been similarly considered during their first decade after joining the empire. It took a century before the new citizens were fully welcomed, and the proud people who resided in the fourth district had only been in the fold of the empire for a half-century.
The Nøm-Ünish did not adorn the exteriors of their homes and buildings, thus the fourth district was drabber than the rest of the city. Their native climate is a harsh one, and their efforts in their homeland were focused either in procuring food for the long winter or fighting one tribe or another for the scarce resources available. This left little time, or energy, to decorate the outside of their dwellings. During
the cold of their harsh winters, the hardy people were forced indoors, and so they had perfected many artisanal crafts to pass the time when it was too dangerous to go out into the elements.
The interiors of their homes, however, were all dazzlingly splashed with brightly colored fabrics and cushions. Aside from their boisterous decor, intricate artwork within their domiciles gave proof of why the Ünish, as they were sometimes called, were the undisputed masters of sculpture. Whether such skills were needed for the mainpiece of a Merovian-style garden, or to embellish a grand-scale styricite facade, the Ünish craftsmen would be showered with gold to apply their art.
Ifo, as much as he had enjoyed the journey, had missed some aspects of life in the capital. He took in the sights and sounds of the jewel of the empire—most Styrics would say their capital was the jewel of the world.
The two men, and their mounts, joined the long queue of people, wagons, and carts filing through the immense gates—one of five such gates that allowed entry, or departure, from the great city. And this was the quick, less crowded way in. Even though the fifth ring of the city wall had not been completed yet, all the gates were finished, and because the gates were on the major thoroughfares, people naturally funneled into the city that way, rather than picking their way through the smaller streets to the fourth wall.
The guardsmen at the gate were there to prevent congestion more than to forbid anyone from entering the city. Ifo counted a dozen guards who were passing people through the gate at this particular entrance. During the day, security was lax, but at night, it was another story. Ifo’s employer had specific times and gates that he, or others in his line of work, could enter the city from after sundown. But bribing guards was expensive, so Ifo, and his employer, preferred that he enter or exit the city when possible during the day.