by Alma Boykin
Beeltal rumpled his tail. “Lineages don’t mean much up here, Your Highness, unless you’re one of Daesarae’s bullies. But Tartai hatched from a good egg. If you’d like to climb in?” Beeltal and the others opened the doors of the transport and after some odd looks the newcomers climbed up the short steps into the hot, dark interior.
“Sorry ‘bout the lack of fancy trim, Your Highness,” one of the locals said. “We thought you’d rather be warm.”
Dak-lee made a polite forefoot gesture. Yes, I’d much rather be warm than look at talon-tooled leather and rare weavings just now. The doors shut and with a grinding rumble the vehicle lumbered off. As it trundled into Schree’s Rest, Dak-lee suddenly understood the strange tires: they served as snow feet, spreading the weight and gripping better. The rough surface on the vehicle floor gave good purchase for feet in snow-covers, as well as keeping mud off the benches. Dak-lee made a mental note to suggest something similar for the Imperials and Defenders, especially for Sidara. I wager this costs less than anti-grav does and can go almost as many places, as fast, with a bigger load.
They stopped in front of a squat building with brilliant blue-and-red trim and shutters. The doors opened. “Welcome to the main square, Your Highness,” Beeltal announced. “Tartai’s waiting. We—that is, the city council—assumed that since you’re here on business, that you are not interested in a formal welcome and all that.”
“He probably doesn’t want to freeze to death either, Beeltal,” someone called from the rapidly gathering crowd.
“Thank you,” Dak-lee replied, fuming at the familiarity. “You are correct that this is not an official, formal progress, and yes, my men and I would prefer not to stand in the cold any longer than we have to.”
A second voice from the onlookers said, “Hey! A noble with smarts! That’s a first.”
Beeltal winced. “This way, Your Highness, and I apologize for him. He’s part of the work pack that tangled with Daesarae’s timber thieves a moon and a half ago. I’ll just say that the experience did not inspire faith in the nobility.”
If that’s the case, then my honored sire really does need to look into Daesarae’s conduct, because this is completely unacceptable. Dak-lee kept his thoughts to himself as he strolled into the simple, attractive building. Beautiful wood paneling lined the entry corridor, and the prince wondered how much it had cost and who had done the work.
“Tartai’s here,” Beeltal told him, opening a door. Dak-lee walked into the municipal council chamber to find a large, light-brown-and-tan-striped male waiting. Tartai wore a heavy robe and leather footcovers, plain but very well made. Dak-lee’s two body men filed in behind him and Tartai took a step back, either to give them more room or out of fear. Dak-lee couldn’t tell: Tartai’s control rivaled that of many young nobles.
“You are Tartai of Tarkeela Lineage,” Dak-lee stated.
“I am Tartai, and my sire’s name was Tarkeela, yes.”
“If you are Lord Tarkeela’s acknowledged son, then you are head of Tarkeela Lineage. My honored sire says that you have avoided your duties for too long, and that it is time for Tarkeela Lineage to return to its place in the Pack.” Dak-lee wasted no time, preferring to track straight to his prey.
Tartai listened, tipping his head slightly to the side, as if he had bad hearing in one ear. He considered Dak-lee’s words for a moment, before explaining, “I fear you have wasted a trip, Your Highness, if your sole intent was to come and order me to take up a position that does not exist. Tarkeela, may his spirit rest, declared his line dead with him. His offspring pursue that prey which most suits their skills and training, but there is no lineage of Tarkeela and no duty to the Pack aside from that which all Azdhagi share.”
You may not think you have a Lineage, but you speak like a noble, Tartai. Dak-lee snorted. “The needs of the Pack override the eccentric desire of any one reptile, even one with Lord Tarkeela’s talents. King-Emperor Seetoh may have granted Tarkeela’s wish to ignore the lineage, but my honored sire does not have that privilege. Too many lines are dying out—too many Azdhagi need leadership. You must do your duty to Lineage Tarkeela and to the Pack.”
Tartai remained motionless. “Why?”
Dak-lee blinked, and the bodymen behind him rustled. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why must I do a duty to something that no longer exists? Why do I have a duty and not Beeltal, for example, who has led reptiles and managed a business for three sixts of year-turns and more?”
“Because you are Lord Tarkeela’s son.”
Now Tartai moved, lifting a forefoot and making a complicated gesture of exasperation. “Try again, Your Highness, with all due respect. You have training, you’ve served with the Imperials, you know how to lead, and you know that being born into a Lineage does not grant any special gift or talent.” Tartai snorted to himself, In fact, in a few cases, it seems to guarantee stupidity. But he kept that thought hidden. He was picking a trail over thin ice as it was.
Dak-lee almost ordered his guards to thrash the insufferable male right then and there. Only iron self control kept him from responding until he had calmed and regained full mastery of his thoughts and feelings. This is going nowhere. I can order him to come with me and he has to obey. Or will he? Something about Tartai’s stillness worried Dak-lee, and he wondered if this was the insanity Kirlin had spoken of.
A completely unexpected idea sprang into Dak-lee’s mind. Could it be that Tartai was like the Ooukar: willing to commit self-murder rather than follow an unjust order? The possibility had never occurred to Dak-lee before. Father will kill me too if that happens—I’d better try a different track. “My honored sire orders you to assume your position as head of Tarkeela Lineage because the Pack needs people like you. You are a leader, you are trained, you can speak with commoners and understand them,” Dak-lee guessed. “The name Tarkeela is still invoked in disputes between nobles and common-born. Lord Kirlin says that you are one of very few who can bridge the divide between,” and he stopped, hesitant to acknowledge the truth. “Between us.”
Tartai frowned. “Kirlin said that?”
“Yes. He specifically named you as one who can keep the Free Towns and nobles working together. You’ve stood up to Daesarae but you’ve kept Schree’s Rest quiet as well.”
“Ha, ha,” Tartai laughed. “No, I have nothing to do with managing Schree’s Rest, thanks be for small mercies. I’d have thrown myself into a swamp years ago if I had to keep the Council running smoothly.” He snorted. “But Kirlin thinks I can keep the nobles from tearing the throats out of the rest of us?”
“Yes.”
Tartai looked around the council room. “For Kirlin’s sake I’ll come. My family owes Kirlin a debt of honor for executing my sire’s murderer. But,” Tartai raised one talon before Dak-lee could reply. “First I move my family to safety, because Daesarae will try to kill them otherwise, and my son is too small to defend himself.”
“And your mate?”
Tartai gave Dak-lee a sideways look. “You’ve never seen angry females fight, have you? Or watched a female use a log-steering pole to hold off a head-mad shardi? I cannot vouch for what my lovely Seelah would do, defending her junior. Nothing civilized, that much I know.”
Dak-lee and his bodymen all shivered. Confronting an enraged dam scared the wits out of anyone who had wits to begin with. “A valid point, Tartai. When will you be ready to—”
The door burst open and a male stuck his head in. “Tartai, trouble. Some of Daesarae’s idiots are trying to steal from the lumber lot.”
“Damn those storm catches!” Tartai’s neck spines shot up. “Your Highness, excuse me. I have a massacre to prevent.” Tartai pushed past the three larger males and charged out after Peelak.
“We follow,” Dak-lee ordered.
Tartai hauled on his heavy coat and joined the stream of males and a few females surging to the Tarlek lumber depot. As he rounded the corner of the road leading to the lumber yard, he heard growls and
yelling. Two big transports and four smaller vehicles, all with Daesarae markings on them, parked just inside the now-flat gates. A triple forefoot of Daeasrae’s men, all armed, surrounded the vehicles as furious workers brandished log cutters, steering poles, and other tools and weapons at them.
“This is wood cut from Daesarae lands,” one of the intruders bellowed. “We have a royal warrant to reclaim stolen property, and to collect the fine and to arrest the thieves.”
“Fewmets you do!” Beeltal bellowed back from atop a big log skid. “We’ve got tracking marks on every damn tree we’ve cut and none of them came from Daesarae lands.”
“Prove it at the palace, storm caught scum,” Daesarae’s guard snapped. “Start loading and if they resist, kill the hide-nippers.”
Tartai shoved through the growing mob and launched himself straight for Daesarae’s guard. “You do that and none of you will get out alive,” he panted. “Look behind you.”
“You expect me to fall for that,” the other male raised a blast pistol.
“Boss, he’s not selling you fewmets,” a worried trooper called. “Every damn reptile from Schree’s Rest is here, and they’re all armed.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got a warrant.”
Tartai held out a forefoot. “Show it to me.”
Daesarae’s male shoved a flop-screen at Tartai, who took it and read. “Fewmets. This is pure fewmets.”
“You call a royal warrant fewmets?” The soldier tried to loom over Tartai.
“This isn’t the royal seal. It’s a general announcement about the opening of the season for bloodwood harvest, not a damn royal warrant.” Tartai rose onto his hind legs, towering over the interloper. “Get out while you can.”
“You lie! You’re a traitor to the crown if you deny a royal warrant!” The trooper launched at Tartai, who took the blow, rolling, jamming his hindlegs into the other male’s gut, and throwing him against the big loader’s tire.
“Hold!” Dak-lee bellowed as his guards fired into the air.
“Fewmets, it’s an Imperial,” someone hissed as the crowd split.
“We are so screwed.”
“No, they are. Tartai’d never lie about what he’s reading,” someone else muttered.
Just the size of the three males stomping up to Daesarae’s men took them aback, and they retreated a little. Tartai got to his feet and shook off the snow and sawdust, then picked up the flop-screen. “Your Highness,” he puffed, offering the reader to the newcomer.
Dak-lee read the page. He allowed his steel-tipped spines to rise into a full anger display. “This is not a royal warrant. The seal is that of the chancery, not of my honored sire,” he called, his voice booming over the mob and the would-be thieves.
Tartai’s attacker regained his wind and rolled to his feet. “Who are you to be messing with Lord Daesarae’s business, anyway?”
Dak-lee walked up to the smaller male, pulling an iron war fan out of his carry harness as he did. The prince Imperial slapped the fan across the male’s muzzle, knocking him off balance. Then Dak-lee spun, using his tail to sweep the insolent reptile off his feet. “I am Crown Prince Dak-lee. Take your vehicles and go. And tell Daesarae that he will pay for the repair of the gates and fence, as well as for any other damage done.”
Dak-lee turned to the crowd, Tartai at his shoulder. “I will speak to my honored sire about the afternoon’s intrusion.”
“Will he, Tartai?”
Tartai sensed the crowd starting to solidify into an angry mob. We’d better defuse this and quick, or it’ll be war. He made an affirmative gesture. “Yes, the crown prince will, and I will too. Let these idiots go. There’s no point in giving Daesarae anything that he can go whine about to the King-Emperor.”
“Can we at least claw them a little?” Someone begged. “Just a little?”
“Not while the crown prince is standing here, Teelas. Even you know better than that,” Tartai called back.
“No he doesn’t,” someone else laughed. “Remember, he’s the one who tried to egg the peace-keepers’ window during shift change!” Laughter followed and the crowd loosened up, drawing back from the gates of the lumber depot to give the vehicles room.
Don’t do anything stupid, Tartai begged both groups silently. Please don’t be stupid. Daesarae’s men climbed back into their vehicles and drove off without running over anyone or causing more trouble, and the males from Schree’s Rest yelled insults and made rude forefoot signs but nothing more.
Dak-lee watched, impressed. If he can stop a mob, Tartai’s a better leader than I am. Father was right—we need him on the councils. He and his guards waited as the locals dispersed, muttering and growling. Daesarae’s going to cause a civil war if he’s not careful, the idiot.
Tartai wanted to fall over and sleep for a moon at least. “You see what our difficulty is, Your Highness?” he asked very quietly.
“Yes, I do. When will you be at the palace?”
“Give me a moon, Your Highness. Now I have to get Seelah and Tarlah out of here.” Because that was Daesarae’s junior mate’s brother you humiliated, and Daesarae will be out for my blood.
“No, it will not be warmer, not this time of year,” Tartai reminded Seelah as they packed their small apartment a sixt later.
“But it’s farther south,” she protested, forefeet occupied with feeding a squirming Tarlah. He seemed determined to get as much food on him as in him.
“Yes, and it is almost five hundred li higher, and on the edge of the mountains,” he explained for the third time. He didn’t mind repeating himself, though. The delivery had taken a lot out of Seelah, and Tarlah demanded most of her attention. His sister, Teekah, had arranged for a transport vehicle to drop off a load of material and pick up their furnishings, including all the kitchen equipment. A small house in Singing Pines Village awaited them, near Mountains’ Edge manor house, and Teekah said that they could replicate the kitchen exactly as Seelah wanted it. Tartai just wanted to put as many kliqs between them and Daesarae as possible. And maybe, just maybe, Daesarae will leave Schree’s Rest alone. And maybe I’ll grow wings and learn how to fly.
“Nothing happens unless everything happens,” Prince Ahksi sighed to Tartai as they walked through Singing Pines.
Tartai’s family had arrived two sixts before, and Seelah pronounced the small dwelling “tolerable.” Tartai thought it was too large for three reptiles, until Tarlah had gotten loose from his tether and began rolling and scrambling through and over everything, almost getting recycled along with one of the shipping boxes. Now the house seemed small, even with a better door and latch on the den.
“What now, Your Highness,” Tartai sighed in turn. The oldest prince and future archivist had arrived not long after Tartai’s family, to give Tartai a rapid education in the state of the Empire.
“Something’s simmering on Pokara. Governor Kalaki reports that the movement for self-government is growing despite his attempts to find a compromise. He swears that he’s found a solution for the rural residents, but the cities,” Ahksi rumpled his tail.
Tartai pummeled his memory. Strange, but he’d grown up at Mountains’ Edge, and being here seemed to revive all sorts of memories, good, bad, useful, and otherwise. “The cities. At one time, before the Great Relocation, some of the southern cities had their own non-Lineage governments, did they not?”
They stopped to let a small herd of juniors trot past on their way to the learning place. Akhsi waved his tail, then peered weak and strong ways for any more traffic. He wore lenses over his eyes, making him resemble a fat-muzzled True-dragon. “Yes they did. Some cities were run by oligarchs, much as Zhangki City still is, with the richest and best connected choosing the council. Others held general elections and allowed all adults to select the council. A few, those belonging to Lineages, used a hybrid system where the Lineage lord appointed some of the leadership and the residents picked the rest.” Akhsi rumpled his tail again. “Each system worked, or didn’t work, but that’
s not what Governor Kalaki is trying to accomplish.”
“Hmm.” They strolled over the hard-packed snow as far as the shootee pens. Tartai watched the herd beasts milling and browsing, munching away at their morning feed. They reminded him of how some nobles saw the average Azdhag. Well, we look at them as hide-nippers or stink-flaps, corrupting what they can’t steal. It made his head ache. Once this is done and I’ve paid off the debt of honor, I’m going back to my life the way I like it.
“So,” Tartai began aloud. “There’s the perennial problem of the FreeTowns. There’s ongoing snipping and snarling between the throne and the nobles over land and rights and so on. And Pokara is trying to throw off the crown, or so the governor believes. All of which may or may not be connected.”
Ahksi waved one forefoot. “Correct. I believe they are not directly connected, but that the same scent in the air is stirring all three different kinds of prey. We’re about to lose the last of the Relocation survivors, leaving at best second-telling knowledge of what happened and how Seetoh and his year-pack kept things together. The youngsters are pushing on the den door, eager to get out and do something different. That’s the only connection, despite what Peitak and Kalaki believe.”
Tartai grunted.
Ahksi blew a long snort of steam. “Every few generations there’s a restless surge. I suspect it’s how the Pack survived, back in the day. We scattered out, getting away from our elders and finding new hunting grounds. Then, once things got crowded and the prey harder to track, another wave set out from the home dens.”
“It makes sense, you are right, Your Highness. If the population doubled every three generations, the fourth would have to move out or starve.” The problem of being apex predators, Tartai recalled. Each Azdhag needed a large territory to hunt, at least until the first domestications of livestock began. “And letters and messages going to and from the colonies would spread the news that people are restless.”
