Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 12

It was a rare clear day when Zu Chiru’s caravan made the final stretch to Elenel, the easternmost city on the Golden Strand. In the depths of winter, the sun offered little in the way of warmth as the winds from the northern ocean endlessly swept over the landscape of muddy fields and orchards long stripped bare.

They were better prepared for the weather than before, however. Fendros, Elise and Ida – who had at first travelled in fashionable city dresses, light mantles and stylish shoes – had exchanged their precious remaining luxuries for more practical options. They now had sturdy boots, comfortable woollen garb and heavy mantles that kept the wind and rain at bay. For some reason, they tried to imitate the militant look of Nemel’s uniform, which was quite awkward for her.

The Quagoa, too, had slowly adapted to winter travel, though it was a long learning process for the subterranean Demihumans. At first, their experimentation was about as absurd as it looked. They would walk together holding a tent over themselves or try to use a tarp to shield them from the wind. This went on until – much to their dismay – a particularly windy day picked them all up and flew them into a copse of trees along the highway.

After that, they tried to imitate Human clothing, which was a challenge in itself. Very little sold in Human cities fit them: hats fell off of their long heads, mittens would be shredded to bits and Human footwear obviously would not work. Their proportions were just wrong when it came to everything, even shirts and pants.

Staying in Norford for an extended period allowed them the opportunity to consult with various artisans over their woes – at least once they found those who were comfortable with Demihuman patrons.

The first and most obvious thing was fashioning fingerless gloves that could fit over their bulky paws and forearms. No one could figure out how to make working boots for their sharp-clawed feet, so they instead settled on a sort of covering for their lower legs. Wraps with long skirts replaced their loincloths and a garment that reminded Nemel of her father’s belly warmer covered their abdomens. A warm shawl went over their shoulders and they bought long scarves to cover their necks and collars.

It looked quite strange for the fur-clad Demihumans to be wearing clothes, but Zu Chiru and his apprentices seemed to be pleased with the outcome. The hooded mantles that they had brought with them from the Sorcerous Kingdom went over it all, so it wasn’t as if one could see anything anyway.

As for Dame Verilyn, she continued to wear the beautiful Dancer outfit that she always had. Being an Adamantite Adventurer, no one ever wondered if she was cold or uncomfortable. Her combination of beauty, power and talent was something people universally adored and never questioned.

Their route took them up the rugged cliffs that dominated the northeastern coast of the Empire and the caravan slowed as they lined up to enter Elenel. The city was built above a sheltered cove, divided into levels that led to its harbour. Nemel was enchanted by the unique scenery, but her newly-recognised aides seemed more interested in the scrolls they had taken out of their cases to study.

“You must pull those out every time we stop for something,” Nemel said. “Why not enjoy the view while we’re here?”

“Liz’s former territory is near here,” Fendros’ replied, “so we’ve all been to Elenel before. I get chills just looking at it.”

“Chills?” Nemel frowned.

“It’s the way that the city’s been built,” Elise explained. “The entire part below is basically a north-facing cliff, so it’s cold there even in the summer. The administration and the upper-class district are on the top level and it gets poorer the further you descend. It might look interesting from up here, but once you know what’s down there you won’t ever see it the same way.”

Nemel eyed the gloomy buildings of Elenel, then at the darkened roads between them. Many parts of the city were probably shrouded in shadow even at midday.

“The Fourth Legion doesn’t keep things safe?” Nemel asked.

“They keep things safe like the fourth-class districts in Arwintar are kept safe,” Elise answered. “The upper levels and main route where goods are sent up and down the harbour are guarded by Imperial Knights, but you don’t want to be anywhere else.”

She had been to the third-class districts in Arwintar before, but never the fourth-class ones. Even the idea that she might ever come close to the slums was enough to make her parents yell at her in fearful worry.

Her curiosity over exploring the city squashed flat, Nemel eyed the scroll in Fendros’ hands.

“Which spell are you studying now?”

“Mending,” Fendros replied. “Going by what Lady Zahradnik said, we’re going to be starting from scratch out in the middle of nowhere. Relying on imports to replace broken stuff will be expensive, so we need to stretch out what we have.”

Much of their time on the road was spent discussing how they would go from an undeveloped wilderness to their first functional settlement. It was a nostalgic feeling. As children, Noble scions would often imitate their parents: pretending they were lords and ladies, imagining how they would develop their lands and what sort of people would live there.

This, of course, would always end well. They would have handsome, charming husbands, big, happy families and all of their people would love them. And they would be rich.

Unfortunately, as with many childhood fantasies, they faded away with their growing understanding of the world. Land was limited, men inherited first and they could only pray that the match made for them was someone decent. Now, all of the sudden, those fantasies were rekindled and they could dream again. Except there were Goblins in those dreams.

“What about the proposals that Lady Zahradnik made?” Nemel asked, “Taking her up on one of them might work out better for the long term.”

“I can see how it would,” Ida said, “but won’t it take us away from our work? Also, I don’t think we’re cut out to be War Wizards like you.”

As they were all mages, it was probably a given that Lady Zahradnik expressed an interest in hiring them for work in the city. The Baroness was nothing if not ambitious. She wanted to establish several service branches of arcane casters for the Royal Army of the Sorcerous Kingdom. Not only was she interested in War Wizards, but mages of every specialisation and vocation.

Above even that, the Baroness was interested in hiring classroom instructors for the school system in her territory. That part was especially surprising, as magical curriculums were usually not incorporated into a noble’s general education. Unless one was lucky enough to have a temple school accessible to their home villages, a commoner’s education revolved around the family business and literacy was optional for many rural vocations.

When it came to magic, one’s family could either afford a tutor or a prospective student could look for an artisan who was looking for apprentices to sign on. Nemel had a friend who just happened to be lucky enough to grow up in the household of a Noble scion who was learning magic and was allowed to learn magic alongside her, but the chances of that happening elsewhere were infinitesimal. The Temples raised divine casters for themselves and the Imperial Magic Academy was an institution that, while nominally ‘public education’, was made inaccessible to most due to its exclusive entry requirements.

Lady Zahradnik’s plans were unprecedented in scope and exorbitantly expensive to establish and maintain. They were something that even wealthy nations could only dream about. The fact that a minor Noble was endeavouring to do this single-handedly spoke volumes of her stupendously prosperous rule.

“I think Rei would be really good at it,” Elise said.

“I agree!” Ida seconded, “She has that Talent, after all.”

“She has a Talent?” Nemel looked over at them, “What does it do?”

“Rei can sense magical ability,” Ida said.

“You mean like the Talent that Arche has?”

Fendros made a face.

“It’s not the same as Arche’s,” she said. “We compared our Talents back in the academy – hers was so much better than mine. She could reliably sense things at will. My Talent only works some of the time; it basically comes down to luck.”

“But that matters less as an instructor, right?” Ida raised a finger, “When it works, it’s not wrong. If you’re teaching a class, you’ll be seeing students every day. Eventually, it will work!”

“I guess that makes sense,” Fendros’ voice remained dubious, “but I’m supposed to be helping everyone out with the new land…”

“Lady Zahradnik said that there would be an office for each of her demesne’s territories in her capital. One of us is going to have to work there to handle things on that end. Warden’s Vale is supposed to be a day downriver from where we’re going to be – it’s not a distance we can casually go back and forth over if we’re needed.”

“Shouldn’t Miss Gran be the one in the office? Having an aide stationed in the capital while the one in charge is living in a bush seems backwards.”

Would she be living in a bush? No, she would at least have a tent. Still, that did sound backwards and it wasn’t quite right, either.

Nobles who administered developed territories divided their time between their territory and their liege’s capital. Dame Verliyn’s territory had no development, however, and Frontier Nobles tended to stay in their lands…did that mean she had become a Frontier Noble? She didn’t feel like she could rip Trolls in half with her bare hands yet.

“We barely know anything about the Sorcerous Kingdom,” Nemel said, “so we shouldn’t assume things work the same way there as they do here. Once we get a better idea of what’s going on, we can consult with Lady Zahradnik over what our best course of action will be. She has that rule about not doing things you aren’t supposed to be doing either…aside from planning and organising the tenants, we won’t have much to do at the start.”

The queue crept forward and it was sunset by the time they reached the gate. Two Imperial Knights eyed the group of three noblewomen, an imperial officer, an astonishingly beautiful Adamantite Adventurer and five suspiciously shrouded Mole Beastmen. After some consternation, one of them settled his gaze on Nemel.

“Are you together with this group, Officer?”

He seemed to realise how strange the question was as the words left his mouth. Imperial officers generally did not attach themselves to Merchant caravans unless they were part of the highway patrol and usually for limited stretches of their journey. Nemel did have a uniform that identified her as a member of the highway patrol, but it was that of an aerial mage from a jurisdiction in the opposite corner of the Empire.

“It’s a long story,” Nemel offered the man an embarrassed smile, “but I am with them, yes. Master Chiru has all of the relevant paperwork prepared in advance.”

“Master Chiru…”

A clipboard popped up from the side. The Imperial Knight stared at Zu Chiru’s claws before gingerly taking the documents in hand. He flipped through them for a moment before looking over his shoulder and calling for the mage in the customs office.

“If everything’s in order,” he said, “this won’t take a minute.”

The customs inspection moved from wagon to wagon and, as the soldier had mentioned, did not take very long. They rolled through the gate and Nemel looked up at the lead wagon’s driver.

“Do you have an inn in mind, Kurtis?”

“A handful,” Kurtis replied. “Things don’t look too busy yet so we probably got a few to choose from. You wanna drop your things off at the plaza first, Master Chiru?”

“Yes please, Mister Kurtis.”

With the expansion of Zu Chiru’s stand came many comforts, but also the inconveniences of having a larger operation. The foremost issue was that there was so much to move around. A pavilion and furniture also needed to be leased in each city they stopped in. At the end of the day, Zu Chiru and his apprentices, as well as the caravan staff, had to move their inventories from the pavilion to a secure place overnight. Then they had to move it back in the morning.

Nemel supposed that this was to be expected for a travelling Merchant with so many wagons, but it still felt annoying to have to deal with. Zu Chiru seemed more pleased at his success than annoyed at the amount of work they had to do, so it was probably just her.

They offloaded everything to the curious gazes of onlookers around the plaza who were drawn by the large procession of Merchants that had latched onto Zu Chiru’s caravan. She wasn’t sure if it was accidentally stumbled upon, but it was an ingenious scheme where all of the Merchants travelling together combined the traffic they generated to increase sales at every stop. Plazas of course were places where this naturally occurred, but, by this point, they had figured out how to position everything to maximum effect.

Zu Chiru’s ‘stand’ occupied the centre of the ‘formation’, as it contained all manner of things. The pavilion was well-lit and heated by magic items, which attracted people in droves and caused them to linger. Fendros and her friends were able to wear spring dresses in the warm interior, which further enhanced the experience that they offered. Efforts were made to collaborate with food stands, entertainers and every business that was willing to cooperate to create a strange sort of trap for the citizenry at every stop.

As Nemel watched them work, Dame Verilyn started to wander off. And by ‘wandering off’ she really did do just that: in every new place, she meandered everywhere attempting to experience everything in her curious Frost Dragon way. She would start from the tent being set up by familiar people, walking back and forth and all around them. When she was comfortable enough, she would begin to ‘explore’ further away, eventually disappearing to places unknown.

Nemel went to catch up to her liege before she lost her.

“Will you be doing work for the Adventurer Guild tonight?” She asked.

“Yes,” Dame Verilyn answered with a nod, “I’m excited over what sort of commissions they’ll have. There’s this thing I have to ask about, as well.”

Dame Verilyn produced the strange gold coin with the head of a Human minted upon it. She had shown the coin to Nemel and the others a few cities previous, but none of them knew anything about it. Supposedly, it was something from a vast nation that once spanned both sides of the Azerlisia Mountains.

At first, Nemel thought it might have belonged to old Re-Estize as it did fit that description. Dame Verilyn, however, mentioned that there were many coins like it in the royal vault of Feoh Berkana, which had been sealed since the coming of the Demon Gods.

The region around The Blister had some unique architecture that the locals claimed was from before that time, but, thus far, Dame Verilyn was unable to find anyone who recognised the coin.

“In that case,” Nemel said, “I’ll see you in the morning. Please take care of yourself.”

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