Chapter Two hundred six (Patreon)

How could there be so many humans? The howls said that humans bred like fuergar, but this… how could Kaz possibly have prepared himself for this?

After they finished breaking down the carriage into unidentifiable pieces, the small group had set out. They didn’t really need the horses to carry anything, but Raff insisted that they would make their pretense more believable.

While many people in his country could use at least a little mana, few were trained in it, and fewer still had access to portable storage devices. That meant heavy packs, wagons, and beasts like horses and mules were far more common than seeing people like Raff, Lianhua, and Chi Yincang, who seemed to carry nothing at all.

It did indeed take all day to reach Cliffcross, but they’d found their speed reduced to a slow walk when their path merged with a well-maintained cobblestone road. Humans flowed like water along this road, which was wide enough for huge, heavily-laden wagons to pass each other going in both directions. Kaz had imagined that Wheldrake must be a large town, since it seemed to hold several hundred humans, but he’d already seen thousands of them stream by today, and the walls of the city had only just come into sight.

It was enormous. The gate was high enough that not even Chi Yincang could have jumped over it easily, and the walls stretched into the distance until they vanished into a dark blur on either side. The road had gradually grown larger, until it had nearly doubled its original width.

Sometimes three carts passed together in the same direction Kaz’s group was walking, and other times the flow shifted so even their small group, with only two horses, could barely cling to the edge. He had no idea how the humans knew who was allowed to go, and when, but it was rare to hear more than a mutter of annoyance from riders, walkers, or cart drivers alike as they shifted out of the way.

The later it got in the day, the more the travelers found that they were carried along by the flow. The number of people moving away from the city decreased, but the number heading inside more than balanced it out. Raff explained that a good number of people worked on the farms outside, or took carts to pick up loads of food from those farms, since there was no room inside the city walls to grow enough for everyone. City dwellers were afraid of finding themselves outside of their walls at night, however, so they all hurried back as soon as the sun began to lower toward the horizon.

“Fair enough,” Raff mumbled as he stared up at the sliver of moon just beginning to pierce the sky. “I wouldn’t want to be out here tomorrow night, either.”

Kaz had spent a good amount of time staring at the farms that rolled away to either side of the road, along with small collections of houses with heavy doors and thick shutters that could be closed over the windows. It was astonishing to him that humans intentionally grew all of their own food, including raising animals for the sole purpose of eating them.

Kobolds did the same with yumi, it was true, but that was only possible because of the array of yellow and blue ki-stones in the yumi caverns. How much easier would life be if you could simply insert part of a plant into the ground, and more food would grow? Could they raise fuergar for their meat and pelts?

One glance at Mei, who was watching the flood of humanity warily through the gap in Kyla’s cloak. The fuergar’s eyes gleamed with intelligence, and she seemed to be taking in everything that was going on around them with a sort of calculation, as if creating one plan after another that would allow her to flee if necessary.

After getting to know the small creature, Kaz wasn’t certain he would ever be able to eat fuergar again. No, he absolutely would if he had to, but he certainly wouldn’t take pleasure in it the way he once had.

Raff turned to look at Lianhua, who wore her cloak over the richest robe Kaz had ever seen her wear. It was fuulong silk, of course, but pure white, with gold and purple lotuses embroidered around the bottom, on the sleeves, and up the sides. Her hair was up, but currently covered by a dull brown cloth that went well with the dirt-stained cloak. Chi Yincang was similarly clothed, in a simple cloak over a short robe and loose pants of a black so deep it seemed to eat the light.

“You about ready, Lianhua?” Raff asked. “As soon as the guards can see you, make like the grandest lady you’ve ever met.” His lips twitched. “Better yet, act like Gaoda.”

Lianhua snorted a little laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand. “Are you certain about this?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to just go in with us and tell everyone the truth? It still seems like you’re making this unnecessarily complicated. I can simply let King Maleim know-”

Raff shook his head. “This whole thing makes me feel like a rabbit walked over my grave. A rabbit with great big teeth and a bad attitude. I’m not smart like you, but listenin’ to my instincts has kept me alive up to now, and they’re screamin’ that I don’t want to go walkin’ in there like nothin’s wrong. Th’ only thing I’m worried about is takin’ these two with me.” He hitched a thumb toward Kaz and Kyla, who were walking along behind the taller humans.

<Three!> Li promptly snapped, from her place on Kaz’s back.

Once Raff told them that guards watched for flying creatures trying to enter the city, they’d managed to rig up a sort of sling for her using the remnants of Kaz’s backpack and the idea of the hammock they’d slept in the night before. It was working, and didn’t make Kaz look like he had too much of a hump on his back, but that didn’t mean she liked it. She had been distinctly unhappy ever since she climbed in.

Kaz couldn’t reach around and pat her the way he usually would, but he sent a flow of understanding through their bond. Raff went back and forth between acknowledging Li as a member of their group in her own right, and treating her like a very strange animal.

“We’ll be fine,” Kaz told them all, including Li. “If things start to go wrong, Li will hide us, and Kyla can conceal herself. You’re the only one who’ll get caught.”

Raff grinned, reaching up to rub the jaw he’d taken great care to shave completely smooth again. “True enough. And you remember where we’re to meet if that happens?”

“Get inside, go four blocks north, then two west, and wait by the fountain,” Kaz and Kyla chorused. Blocks were the distance between one street and the next, but could apparently vary significantly in length. Still, Raff insisted on using them when he gave directions, and he’d already reminded them more times than Kaz cared to remember.

“And you know how to get to the castle to meet me if things go very wrong, correct?” Lianhua asked as the line edged inexorably closer to the looming gate.

“It’s in the center of the city,” Kyla said.

“And there’s a park all around it. You’ll look for us at the western promenade every night an hour or two before sunset,” Kaz finished.

There were so many new words. A ‘park’ was a broad, open area inside a city, where humans went to walk or eat ‘picnics’. In this particular park, which was called the Royal Gardens, broad walkways called ‘promenades’ traveled north, south, east, and west away from the castle. The castle itself was a single enormous building on top of a hill in the center of the city, and apparently it could be seen from anywhere within the city walls.

“Yes,” Lianhua said, and then Raff clasped Kaz and Kyla’s shoulders, slowing them as the crowd surged, releasing Lianhua and Chi Yincang into the small open space where two tall humans wearing armor waited.

As soon as Lianhua saw that one of them was looking at her, her shoulders rose and fell as she drew in a bracing breath. She unclasped her cloak, letting it fall in graceful folds over her bent arm, while the brown cloth that had been covering her pure white hair fell to the ground behind her. Kaz saw it land, and had to force himself not to try to grab it. The human female was wasting precious cloth again!

“I am Lady Lianhua Long, of the Sheng Empire,” she announced, shoulders back and chin up. Her voice carried over the waiting crowd, and everyone turned to look at her, including both guards. A door in the wall beyond the gate opened, and a head poked out, only to be quickly pulled back inside.

Raff didn’t say anything, just nudged both kobolds into the small trickle of people passing by on their left. He was holding their horses loosely, and his hood was back just enough to show the end of his nose.

The door opened again, sending a grim-faced group of humans into the street. They circled around Lianhua and Chi Yincang, hands on the hilts of the swords that hung at every belt, though no one had actually drawn a weapon yet.

“I’ve been gone for over a month, making my way down through a filthy, vermin-infested mountain, all because no one here could possibly be spared until after your ridiculous tournament is over,” Lianhua went on, removing a long, thin object from her pouch.

The warriors tensed, a few inches of metal gliding from their sheaths, until Lianhua snapped it open with her hand and began waving the thing toward her face. It was made of some delicate cloth, no thicker than spiderwebs, but densely embroidered with a glorious burst of colorful flowers surrounding a single tall black and white bird. Lianhua’s hair moved delicately as she waved it, and then she snapped it shut again, gently touching it to her lower lip as she looked up at the warrior with the most elaborate armor.

“I insist upon seeing King Maliem at once. You wouldn’t believe what I was put through in that hole of a town you call Whelbake,” she said, flipping open the object again with a graceful deftness that almost forced everyone there to stare. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. All without anything more than the minutest twitch of her delicate wrist.

“Wheldrake, lady,” the warrior corrected, sounding somewhat overwhelmed.

Liamhua tipped the object toward him. It was closed at the moment, and seemed like an accusatory finger. “You do know what I’m talking about,” she said triumphantly. “You can’t tell me this disrespect was intentional?”

“Go go go,” Raff said, pushing at Kaz, who was as trapped by Lianhua’s performance as everyone else. Obediently, Kaz took a step forward, only to find a hand in the center of his chest, halting him.

“Name and address,” a guard said, though the eyes visible through the opening in his helmet were actually watching Lianhua, whose hand was making her little toy move as if dancing.

“I’m Breth,” Raff said, in a voice that was rougher but also clearer than his own. “I just returned from a voyage-”

The eyes snapped back to take in Raff’s face, then narrowed. “You’re a Mariner,” he said.

Raff sighed impatiently. “Captain Breth Whitmore, of the Barfleur. As I said, I just returned from a voyage of nearly a year, only to find that my wife had passed away while I was gone. I’m taking-”

A hand darted out, pulling Kaz’s hood back to reveal his face. The eyes swept over him, taking in the resemblance to Raff, which was fairly pronounced, since Kaz had used Raff’s general bone structure when creating his image. They definitely looked like they were related in some way.

“Taking the boy to live with family, are you?” the guard demanded. “So you can return to the sea and your other eight wives?”

Raff’s eyes darted toward Kaz, then away again. “Of course not,” he blustered. “I mean, yes, he’s going to live with his aunt, but-”

“Whatever,” the human said. “Go on.”

By now, several more guards had joined the first batch, and they were all looking distinctly flustered as Lianhua demanded everything from a hot bath to ‘the largest carriage you can requisition, drawn by four matched white horses’. The guard talking to Raff and Kaz seemed to find their discomfort amusing, and he waved them through, along with several other travelers, until someone approached with a cart, and he called for them to halt and be searched.

Only when they were several blocks down the street, leaving Lianhua and Chi Yincang behind, did Raff, Kaz, and Li realize that they had lost someone else as well. There was no sign of Kyla or Mei anywhere.