The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom

by Dickson, H. Leighton

And the other flipped open a massive book that they had brought up from the Archives with them. The pages smelled of dust and shadows, but the images were as bright as the sky—sham’Rai from Ancestral times and the rise of the early feline dynasties. They had been quite correct. Without exception, the feline sham’Rai (lions all) would shave their manes, with only a long bolt of hair left to fall from the crown.

  “The helmets are very hot,” said leopard one. “Less mane is better for soldiers.”

  “Hard for lions,” added leopard two and they both nodded. “Lions are proud of their manes.”

  “According to Emperor Felix Augustus Asharbupal Kono, Third Emperor of the Tong Dynasty, a sham’Rai who would not shave his mane for duty could not be trusted.”

  “Too proud.”

  “Indeed.”

  As one, they looked at him.

  He studied the helm for a long moment, not really seeing it, before laying it back on its stand. Then, slowly, carefully and with great deliberation, he reached up and slipped the kheffiyah from his head. He held his breath.

  As one, they bowed, fist to cupped palm.

  “Shogun-sama,” said One.

  “The yori is perfect,” said Two.

  He felt an odd rush of exhilaration.

  He began to slide the Seer’s thick leather gloves from his hands.

  “And what,” he asked, stretching his fingers wide.” Do you think you can do with these?”

  ***

  The day had begun like any other in winter. Dark nights rolled into dark mornings and the clouds stayed low and heavy over the Great Mountains. The days were short and finished early at this time of year. Darkness and wind and snow and darkness. That was the cycle of life at the battle tower above the Gate of Five Hands. The only thing anticipated was the gong for evening meal.

  And so, it was with a puzzled frown that Captain Kimball Windsor-Chan heard not a gong this evening, but drums.

  He looked up from his desk, out the small narrow window that afforded him a view out over the Botekoshi Gorge and the Five Hands Pass. In the blackness thrown by the shadows of the Mountains, he saw lights flickering.

  There was a rap at his door, followed by a leopard.

  “Captain,” said the leopard. They were a quiet lot, his leopards. Efficient, experienced, well-trained.

  “Why the drums? Is there someone at the Pass?”

  “Forgive me but the Lieutenant has asked to see you at the High Gate, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “He does not know the colour for monkeys, sir.”

  The Captain blinked slowly. He was an old lion but strong and his golden mane was pulled back into a tight top-knot at the crown of his head.

  “The colour for monkeys,” he repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  “For the oil, sir.” The guard nodded swiftly. “Blue for rats, orange for dogs, yellow for gowrain. But Lieutenant Yu-Carlyle does not know the colour for monkeys.”

  The lion was out the door in a heartbeat and the Wall spread out like a stone serpent at his feet. The wind plucked at his uniform, the grey clouds billowing in from the northwest and the mountains shone like dark water under them.

  Far, far below, lights rippled like a wave upon the shore.

  “White,” he growled. “White for monkeys.”

  Under the red and gold banners of the Eastern sun, an army was moving toward the Gate of Five Hands.

  ***

  The Wall of the Enemy towered above them, built into the mountainside that rose steeply from the ridge. The snow had stopped early but the wind was stinging and he knew it would be a bitter night. He could not believe he was here, could not believe he was so near the Wall of the Enemy, and not for the first time, he wondered how long he could keep his sister safe. Her gift was making her reckless. They would both surely die for it.

  Soldiers had been dogging them for hours. It was impossible to hide their tracks through the snow and they were nearing exhaustion. The moon was bright, the laughing moon—goddess of his people—shone down on a ridge of black rock and so they dropped to their bellies and crawled to the top to wait, the Enemy’s Wall high above them.

  They could hear the grunting of voices and Naranbataar silently drew his bow, knocking the arrow and praying his sister would not moan or sing or do any of the other things she did when in the Sight. He had twenty arrows in his quiver. If this were a full Legion, they would not be enough.

  Three men staggered into view, trudging through the snow to stare up at the Wall. Legion soldiers, to be sure. Ears cropped, tails docked, they were wearing thick coats of bearskin and he could smell the sweet scent of pine tar from their pipes. They were laughing and one pulled his sword, shaking it like a fist high over his head.

  “Here we are, lazy ones!” he shouted up the mountain to the Wall. “Show us your claws!”

  “Ha!” barked another. “They hide their claws like women!”

  “I piss on their claws!” shouted the third and they all laughed at that.

  “I piss on their Wall!”

  “Yes! Piss on their Great Wall!”

  Beside him, Setse clapped her hands over her mouth as the soldiers proceeded to do just that. Rani growled at her to be quiet.

  Suddenly, the night was awakened by a *whompff* and a blaze of orange fire from a cauldron high above like the sun at midday. Distant shouting in a strange and lilting tongue, and then the rain of arrows from the Wall overhead, pelting the snowbanks and the rocks and the men down below. The soldiers yelped and dropped into the snow. They did not move to get up.

  And then there was silence once again.

  With hands clasped over her mouth, his sister began to rock.

  “No, Setse!” he whispered and he hugged her to him to slow her movements. He could hear the strange tongues shouting once again, pulled her down into a very small huddle as arrows pinged anew off the rock surrounding them. His sister began to whine under his hand, then moan, her slip of a body convulsing now in the Sight. There was a thud in his shoulder and another in his thigh. Pain followed, then heat but he covered her all the more, feeling his hope drain away like the stars at sunrise.

  She stilled, lifted her face, her blue eye bright and filling with tears.

  “Rani?”

  “Hush, Setse. Please. Just once.”

  “Rani?”

  She glanced down at her fingers, the clawed tips dark with his blood. She stroked his cheek.

  “Rani, I understand…”

  “Please, Setse…”

  “No, I do. I understand…”

  And she bolted to her feet, her thin arms waving in the moonlight.

  “Ulaan Baator! Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat!” Followed by a string of syllables that sounded like the voices so high above, in a tongue previously unknown to her, the words of the Enemy.

  “No!” he moaned even as he heard it, the whipping sound of an arrow and the thud of impact and Jalair Naransetseg, granddaughter of the Blue Wolf, fell back into the snow and did not move to get up.

  He closed his eyes and surrendered to the bitterness of the night.

  And the smell of incense.

  ***

  “Wake, wake now.”

  Sireth opened his eyes to moonlight and silver glinting through her hair.

  “You are dreaming.”

  “No,” he said and rolled to sitting. The mattress was low and stuffed with straw. Still only one mattress, as no one had more than they needed at Sha’Hadin. He was breaking many traditions now. “Not a dream.”

  From behind, Ursa slipped her arms around his ribs, covering him like a cloak.

  “What did you see, then?”

  “Eyes,” he said after a moment. “Eyes and an army of blood. Monkeys. Dragons. And a very young girl...”

  She placed her cheek on his shoulder. It was not affection, he knew. It was protection. It was her duty and she lived for duty. She lived for him now. He was her life.

  He turned his head slightly in her direction, smiled.
“Shall we pick up where we left off, my Empress?”

  “Pah. You are old. Again would kill you.”

  “That is true. I’m not a very good husband, I’m afraid.”

  “And I am a terrible wife.”

  She was warm and strong and he loved her very much.

  “You forge the steel, my love. I need you more than life.”

  She snorted, telling him he had said a very good thing. She adjusted her position, slipping her legs round his, sliding her hands through his hair onto either side of his head. Their tails entwined, silver and sand and she brought her mouth to his ear.

  “Meditate, now. Find the steel. Become it. I will protect you.”

  “I know you will.”

  He closed his eyes and was gone.

  ***

  The servant girl bowed in the fashion of women, with the knees and the eyes, as he slipped past her into the Imperial Residence. He found it remarkable how no one questioned his actions, how easily he could move in and out of the most Sacred place on earth and he made a mental note to ask Ling about it sometime. Perhaps, as women, they simply carried certain agreements, certain understandings, about them. It was possible, for he was inexperienced with women and knew little of how they thought or ordered themselves. It was much easier to believe Ling had threatened them with death if they spoke of it. That was how a man would handle it if the roles were reversed.

  It was a mystery, but then again, cats are a mysterious people. Women doubly so.

  He was being followed. A spy most likely or another kunoi’chi commissioned by Chancellor Ho. Perhaps the whole council this time. They would surely be in agreement. He was far too dangerous now.

  It was dark, only a few candles flickering as twilight stretched blue fingers into the room, turning statues into shadows, turning chairs into enemies. He strained his ears. Only the sound of wind chimes, sleeping peacocks, fountains.

  He saw her standing at a far window, made very small by the height and colour of the panes. She was in deep purple, layers of silk and satin, with a headdress of rich gold. It looked like the sun rising and he thought it fitting. The sun truly did rise and set with Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu.

  He moved to stand beside her, noticing a peacock chick asleep in her sleeve.

  “They have scheduled your debriefing in one week,” she said, not looking at him.

  He nodded. “I have much to tell them.”

  “They will not believe you.”

  “The only glass I can polish is my own.”

  She smiled slightly, her gaze fixed on the flickering rooftops of the city below. “You sound like a Seer.”

  “Two years spent in such company.” He smiled now at the memory but shook his head. “I cannot convince them, no matter what I say.”

  “The dangers are real.”

  “Very. From within and without.”

  “The council is not united, Kirin-san.”

  He sighed. “I’ve heard. I am sorry.”

  “This has nothing to do with you. And everything.”

  “I should leave then.”

  “No. I forbid it.”

  “Ling—”

  “I am a bird in a bamboo cage. They can at least allow me my songs.”

  His heart broke for her.

  “I have done everything they have asked of me. I have ruled well. I have furthered the Wall. I have consolidated the Empire. I have married a man of Sacred blood. I have born a Sacred daughter. I have never set foot outside of these walls and I will very likely die never having done so.” She took a deep, cleansing breath. “It is never enough.”

  “You are Enough.”

  “Hmm.” She smiled again. “I used to dream of the time you’d return.”

  He smiled too.

  “I would dream that I would see you in a hallway, just a glimpse of mane or tail or that tattered golden sash. I dreamed I would run to you and you would take my hand and we would flee together out of the palace and down the One Hundred Steps and disappear forever in the crush of the city. I could live like a common woman, love an uncommon man and never have to pick up the burden of government ever again. That is what I dreamed.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “I myself have dreamed that dream,” he said finally. “But it always ends the same.”

  She turned now and he was surprised to see a single tear making a line of silver down her cheek. “How does it end?”

  “With guilt, and shame and a troop of soldiers dragging me to my death while carrying you back to the Palace in a palanquin.”

  “That’s a terrible dream.”

  “Yes. This is much better.”

  She laughed. It was the song of sparrows.

  “And so I am to accept my cage?”

  “For now. But if there is one thing I have learned in these last terrible two years, it is that life is strange. Change is inevitable and not to be feared.”

  “You have become wise, Kirin-san.”

  “No. Just older.”

  She reached up to stroke his face. He took her hand and kissed it, thinking he was the happiest he’d ever been in his life and wondering just how long her songs would last.

  ***

  The drums were loud, stirring the blood and quickening the heart. It was like nothing else in all the world. Captain Yuri Oldsmith-Pak set his jaw and studied the line of soldiers forming a fence along the parapet of the Great Wall. The wind was strong and the night was dark but his archers were skilled. Now they studied the rocks far below for movement.

  “Nothing, sir,” said the Master of the Bow, shouting to be heard over the drums. “We have killed them all.”

  “No,” said the Captain. “Dogs move like rats. Where there is one, there is a Legion.”

  An ocelot appeared at his side, a long metallic device in his hands.

  Oldsmith-Pak snatched it, drew it up to his eyes. It was a star lens, used primarily for studying the skies at night but as in all things, the army had afforded it a rather different use. The Captain swept the lens along the dark mountains, grateful that even with the heavy clouds, the moon gleamed like a mirror. He paused at the sight of a single fire, almost unnoticeable in the distance had it not been for the lens.

  “A Legion,” he said. “Not two hours away.”

  “A Legion has never come this close,” said the Master of the Bow. “Villagers, yes, but never a Legion.”

  “Light the cauldron and dispatch a falcon—”

  His words were interrupted by a cry from the watchkeep and suddenly there was light far off to his right. One after another, alarm fires were bursting into life all along the Great Wall. In fact, the line of soldiers was watching them too and the boom of the cauldrons bursting with flame could be heard growing louder over the sound of the drums.

  “But that’s white,” said the Master of the Bow. “Orange is for a Legion, not white.”

  “White is for monkeys,” growled the lion. “It’s coming from the East. There must be a movement of the Chi’Chen.”

  “Two armies in one night?”

  “Sir,” another soldier jogged up. “The watchkeep is asking for instruction. Carry on the white flame or light the orange?”

  Snow clouds were rolling over them as if rushing to the beat of the drums. Blood was boiling now, hearts racing and the Captain grit his teeth once again.

  “Tell him to light both.”

  The Master of the Bow stared at him. “But such a thing has never been done, sir.”

  “We are under attack. I will not stand on protocol.”

  He turned to face the soldier.

  “Light them both.”

  ***

  It was early and the sun had not yet risen in the Valley of the Seers, but in the stone stables of Sha’Hadin, there was activity and lantern light and warmth. A young serval, Rodgriego, was slipping into and out of stalls, preparing five horses to set out at dawn. Two mounts and three packhorses and Major Ursa Laenskaya’s tail lashed at the sight.


  “No uniform, no boots, no Imperial horse. This is bad.”

  The lynx Tiberius smiled as he strapped the last pack on the sleepy animal. “I have packed much tea, sister. You will be well equipped.”

  “Pah. I would rather have boots.”

  “You have boots, my love,” said Sireth and he led his horse out of its stall. Mi-Hahn was on his shoulder, hooded, wings outstretched as if for balance. “The ones we bought in The’Rhan.”

  “The’Rhan is a desert, idiot. How could they possibly make good boots?”

  He smiled.

  “And these are desert horses. You expect them to plod through snow like it was sand? They will be dead by nightfall.”

  “Well,” said Sireth. “I suppose we could eat them.”

  She snorted. “Yes. We may have to.”

  “Is there one for me?”

  The voice caused silence to fall in the stables of Sha’Hadin and Yahn Nevye stepped into the warmth of the lanterns. Mi-Hahn hissed at him.

  Sireth smiled. “Ah. So you are leaving.”

  “I have had a vision.”

  Ursa snorted again.

  “Indeed,” said Sireth and he stroked the nose of his horse. “Tell me.”

  “Eyes. Eyes and fire and a girl.”

  “What kind of girl?”

  “An Oracle.”

  “I see.” He waited, smiling a long-suffering sort of smile. “What other kind of girl?”

  Nevye glanced up, steeling his jaw. “She’s a dog.”

  “A dog?” Ursa spat on the ground. “Go back to bed, idiot. We aren’t going out in the snow to find a dog.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Sireth, eyes still locked on those of the jaguar. “We are.”

  “What?”

  The two men stared at each other, while Tiberius discreetly continued his packing. The boy Rodriego said nothing, merely finished the buckles and straps that were the tack.

  “We’re not going to find a dog. Tell him the truth.”

  “My love…”

  “No. Never.” She whirled on him. “You remember what the dogs did. To both of us.”

  “I remember.”

  “I will kill the first dog I see. And every dog after that. I will kill them before they know they have been killed.”