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

by Dickson, H. Leighton

  She slipped under the silks and he watched her as she unbound the black wraps that covered her face and hair. It could have been for warmth, but he doubted it. She looked like she intended to blend with the shadows of night and he had long since given up trying to understand her. She shook her hair out and stretched her long body, forcing him to avert his eyes. He had heard about women like this. His grandmother had warned him. It was no wonder she had a baby with her.

  She produced a pair of skins from the satchel at her hip, passed one into his hand.

  “Broth,” she said. “From the soldiers of the Wall.”

  That’s what he heard. He didn’t believe it at all. She could have been meaning something completely different. She could have been offering him poison. It didn’t matter. Days had become nights, nights were now days. He was traveling with cats and they hadn’t killed each other. Life had become entirely too strange for him.

  She knelt down by his sister, stroked her cheek, kissed her forehead like an older sister. Once again, he felt nothing. If she had wanted to kill them, they would have been dead days ago. His shoulder and leg were hurting, reminders of enemy arrows. He was so very tired.

  “Broth,” she said again.

  He looked at the skin. It was thick and well made with a crest of gold stamped into the leather. Twin dragons. The symbol of the Enemy. They were serpents, all of them. Beautiful and deadly.

  “Take it,” she said. “It will increase your strength and perhaps… improve your mood?”

  He could have sworn she smiled at him.

  She unfastened the stopper, lifted the skin to Setse’s lips. His sister shook her head and he wondered if she was feeling the ache from the arrows too. They would both be dead by nightfall, he was certain.

  “Drink, little sister,” she said. “Your people need you strong.”

  “What do you know about our people?” he growled, lowering the skin. “Who are you to talk to us about them?”

  For her part, Setse just blinked up at them, lids heavy and slow.

  “And how did you get this broth? Did you climb the wall and steal from your own people?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Your sister needs—”

  “Enough,” he growled again and he sat forward, feeling strength run through his bones for the first time in days. “Do not talk to me of my sister. We are grandchildren of the Blue Wolf and will let ourselves die unless you give us answers and now. We can do that. You would know if you understood anything at all about our people.”

  The woman looked down.

  “Why? Why are you doing any of this?”

  She turned her large powerful eyes on him. They gleamed like suns in the desert sky, like harvest moons over the fields of Karan’Uurt. He didn’t know where to look now, was trapped in them like a deep, terrible cauldron of gold.

  “Redemption,” she said finally.

  And she lowered herself to the snow, scooped the baby into her arms to nurse.

  The silks above him were turning purple as the night fled the approach of yet another day under a strange and foreign sun. Life would never be the same for him or Setse ever again.

  He stared at the skin in his hands for a long moment before lifting it to his lips.

  ***

  They caught the first glimpse of the Wall at noon, the golden crown of the stone dragon that was their mother, the Great Mountains. It rose and fell, skirted and capped and just the sight of it filled them with awe. Even the two who had made the Wall their home for almost two years could not fail to be inspired by its majesty. It represented the Upper Kingdom in a way that was proud and strong, defiant and unyielding. It was an icon among icons and cats are, after all, an iconic people.

  Ursa pulled up her horse, lifted her hand to shield her eyes.

  “The cauldrons,” she growled. “They are burning orange and white.”

  “What does that mean,” asked the jaguar from the back of his horse.

  “Orange is for dogs,” said Sireth. “But white?”

  “Monkeys,” said the snow leopard. “White is for monkeys.”

  She did not look at them and he could tell she was thinking. Alarm fires of any colour would surely set her warrior’s blood racing. Not for the first time, he wondered how long she would last as the wife of a priest.

  Finally, she turned, her pupils little more than slits in her near-white eyes.

  “You saw this?”

  “Some, yes.”

  “Good.”

  And she urged Xiao forward and they carried down the road.

  Soon after, they caught the smell of sulfur.

  The foundry of Shen’foxhindi was an open wound in the belly of the Mountains, with large pits carved out of the face of the rock that were visible from miles away. Layers of grey and black, purple and blue, like a patchwork of stone, with threads of orange ore running throughout. The sky hung dark over the entire range and they could see smoke from the smelting fires. Heavy wooden beams served as both crane and catwalk to move baskets of ore and iron and men. And there were many many men.

  They had passed several huts on the trail in to Shen’foxhindi and roads radiated in all directions like the spokes of a wheel. Shen’foxhindi was an important place, not only for its iron smelting and smithing, but for its importance as a garrison town. In fact, for years, the debate had raged on as to whether its name warranted a change to Sri’foxhindi but the foundry owners had protested, insisting the name change would increase the taxation of the residents and thus, discourage employment. It was a booming town. Tents skirted the edges of the foundry, running up and down the slopes like the spots on a leopard.

  Ursa turned in her saddle.

  “So we are going there?”

  “Yes, I believe we are.”

  “And we are looking for a dog.”

  “Yes.”

  “There.”

  “Yes.”

  “In a garrison town full of cats.”

  “Yes.”

  “How would it get over the Wall?”

  Sireth frowned, looked back at Yahn Nevye. From the back of his horse, the man shrugged.

  The Seer turned back to his wife. “I have no idea.”

  She shook her head and turned away as the horses began the descent down the road into the foundry.

  No one took note of them, no one even looked up as the small party passed merchants and diggers, bankers and bakers going about their morning here in the belly of the Mountains. Smells other than sulphur began to wage war in their nostrils. Beer and chicken, sweat and earth, yak and woodsmoke. The road was dark, the snow all but gone as both yaks and oxen pulled carts filled to tipping, and they passed more than one broken wheel in the frozen ruts. Many tongues were heard as well, for while Hanyin was the language of commerce in most of the Empire, Imperial, Farashi and Hindi were close behind. There was laughter, there were orders, there were greetings and there were arguments, every conversation known to cats overheard in the time it took to pass through the heart of the foundry and step upon the road to the garrison.

  High above, the Wall towered over the city like a sovereign, protecting it from dogs. Few cities of importance sat this close to the borders of the Lower Kingdom and naturally, the Wall was thick, high and wide. Battle towers were spaced closely and in fact, it resembled a great crown with banners proclaiming ownership and might. It was a terrible, wonderful sight.

  There were several stone gates leading up to the garrison and the road had considerably less traffic than those into the foundry. They passed two carts—one filled with breads, the other with firewood. They passed two men leading a small herd of goats and a haggard woman carrying a basket of leather. She had a cap of yak hide tied over her head and a corncob pipe clenched between her teeth.

  Sireth pulled up his horse beside her.

  “Excuse me, sidala,” he said. “What is going on at the garrison?”

  She did not pause, nor did she look up,
merely chewed on the pipe and kept walking.

  “Please, sidala. Do you know?”

  “Sidala! Hah!” she grunted. “Don’t no one call me sidala round here.”

  “Highly esteemed sidala,” he added.

  She smiled behind her pipe. “Don’t you see them fires?”

  “The orange and the white. Yes of course.”

  “We prepare for war, we do. All Wall towns prepare.”

  “War?” The Seer sat back on his horse, glanced at his wife. She scowled at him. Talking to civilians was not her favourite thing.

  “An army coming, coming from the east. Biggest army since Roar’pundih. Soldiers and monkeys. Damn monkeys. Hate monkeys.”

  “Is there war with the Chi’Chen? Is that why the fires are burning white?”

  “Who am I? Shogun-General?”

  The woman spat on the ground and trudged off, leaving the three waiting in the road for several long moments.

  “Interesting,” said Sireth and he sat for a moment longer before urging Dune forward. Nevye moved in beside him.

  “Do you believe her?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The woman. Do you believe her story about the war? About the army and the monkeys?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  The jaguar shrugged. “How would she know anything? She’s a merchant woman, not a soldier.”

  Ursa spat on the ground now. It made a hole in the snow beside the road.

  “This merchant woman lives in a garrison town, idiot. She makes her living by knowing.”

  Nevye grunted but said nothing, and together with packhorses in tow, the three of them moved off and under the first of the stone gates that led to the Wall.

  ***

  It was a thing unseen since the beginning of the Fanxieng Dynasty – the Great Wall solid with mounted soldiers. They rode ten abreast at the widest parts, two at the steepest as the Wall rose and fell with the Mountains. From the battle towers along the way, the trotting of the horses looked like an undulating dragon, multi-coloured and fierce with banners flying both crests as it moved along the parapet. This dragon carried on for as far as the eye could see, from one end of the horizon to the other and news of such a sight began to race through the Kingdom, of an army of cats and monkeys and horses all heading north.

  At the head of this dragon, the ghost Kaidan accompanied a Shogun-General in blood red. It was an amazing thing, a miraculous thing, but a thing that quickly took root in the collective imagination. It is not surprising. Cats are, after all, an imaginative people.

  The plan was to ride for days, not stopping for sleep or rest as the army carried on up and down the many steps that punctuated the Wall. To stop at any point would cause horses down the line to be forced to stop mid-rise or mid-descent, and if any stumbled, tripped or took lame, the entire army would be compromised. Along the Wall, tigers waited at every plateau with skins of soup and tea for the riders, chickens for the horses and all ate as they willed en route. Those tigers also waited with brooms and spades, for any break in the line would be met with cleaning. An army of two thousand horses and as many men produced a huge amount of dung. Normally, it would be collected and reused in the small infertile farms that littered the mountains and fed the battle towers, but now, the sheer volume was literally swept up and tossed over the wrong side of the Wall, hopefully reaching the bottom before it had the chance to freeze.

  No matter how noble the cause, death by frozen dung was not an honourable death.

  “And so we pulled him up onto the shore of Ancestorland. That’s what I call it. Ancestorland. Solomon calls it NorAm but that doesn’t make as much sense as Ancestorland. Oh mother, I thought he was dead. It took such a long time to get the breath back into him but Solomon is so good at that kind of thing and finally, he opened his eyes and I was so happy! I was thrilled! Honestly! If you'd’ve seen him flying through the air like that! That mis’syle hit the boat and bam! It was just a ball of fire and flying ship bits and of course, Kerris…”

  Kirin could not believe how much this woman could talk. He remembered it vaguely in the back corners of his memory, a memory that was tempered by a long year and a mending heart. But now, as they rode side by side across the parapet of the Great Wall, the memory was crystallizing into reality and he found himself getting a headache, a thing that had not happened in a very long time.

  “So then, when he wakes up, I think he’s gonna kiss me or something but no. He sits up, looks around and you know what he says?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, realized his mistake, promptly closed it again.

  “He says, “The katanah? Where is the katanah?” I could have killed him! Right then and there, with my very fine little black claws. Yep. Strangled the life right back out of him. Oh mother, that was pretty funny.”

  And she laughed to herself.

  He realized that she was grieving.

  It was an odd realization for him. He had never been good at reading people, had never boasted of that particular skill, but this young woman, Fallon Waterford-Grey his sister-in-law, he now understood better than he understood almost anyone. Two mornings ago, she had handed her kittens over into the care of a nursemaid and ten Imperial soldiers. She had kissed them tenderly, promised to be reunited soon and finally let them go to take up her position as Scholar in the Court of the Empress on what could arguably be her last journey. She was a complex and fascinating young woman.

  She had not wept yet. He admired her but wondered how long it would last.

  “And so, do you know what he did? I’ll tell you what he did! He jumped to his feet and ran right back into the water! That’s what he did! Solomon and I thought he was crazy, that maybe the explosion had knocked his grey head about just a little bit but he just stood there up to his waist in the waves, looking out to the far horizon where there was still smoke from the chunks and bits floating on the sea. He raised his hands and I thought he was going to call the lightning but he didn’t. He just stood like that for, I don’t know, a few minutes anyway, then we see what looks like a shark racing through the water right toward him. Oh mother, after so long on the ship, I know a thing or two about sharks. Don’t talk to me about sharks. I really hate sharks…”

  She laughed again, and then sighed.

  “It was the katanah. He called it. He called it from the ocean where it was sinking and it came straight to him like an arrow. He reached down and snatched it right out of the water, turned and sloshed back to us on shore. It still was in the obi so he had both and it was impressive and majestic and wonderful and made me so very proud of him. Sireth said he could do it. I always knew he could. He just never knew he could and finally, now he did.”

  She looked at him, her large emerald eyes bright and brimming with tears.

  “And that was just the beginning. You should see the things he can do.”

  He smiled, grateful that her tale was coming to a semblance of a close.

  “I look forward to hearing the rest of it very soon,” he said.

  “Oh sure. We have three more days, don’t we, until we get to the foundry? I can tell you lots and lots of stories in three whole days. Oh mother, you’re in for a real treat!”

  He swallowed and cursed the fact that now, his was the Luck and that Kerris of the Destiny was far, far ahead.

  ***

  They were stopped by the guards at the second gate.

  The Major swung off her desert horse and strode up to the leopards, cursing once again at her lack of uniform. The guards stepped in across the heavy black doors, staffs held a little higher in their hands.

  “I am Major Ursa Laenskaya, adjutant of Captain Wynegarde-Grey of Pol’Lhasa. I need to speak to the lion in charge.”

  The guards exchanged glances.

  Her hands fell to the hilts of her swords. She carried both katanah and kodai’chi, proof of her warrior status, but she was a small woman in yak hide and winter bear, riding a desert horse. She was accompanied by two monks, not
soldiers. It was suspicious and strange and they did not know what to think.

  “The lion,” she growled. “In charge.”

  And lashed her very long tail just once.

  A leopard bowed, disappeared into the gate. The other hiked his bo a little higher, stepped in to cover the entire door by himself. She snorted and shook her head. She could take him down in one blow.

  She turned to her husband.

  “I told you. This will not do. I need a uniform.”

  “The Captain did promise one,” said Sireth as he swung off his horse. “And very high boots, if I recall.”

  “Pah. He is probably drinking tea with his mother at the great house, happy to be home and out of uniform.”

  “I’m sure that is exactly what he is doing.”

  He smiled at her while Yahn Nevye remained on his horse. It was a very few long minutes before the door opened once again, revealing the guard and a lion in a well-worn military uniform.

  The lion bowed, not quite perfectly.

  “A Major from Pol’Lhasa, I’m told,” he said.

  “Major Ursa Laenskaya,” she repeated but did not bow back. “Adjutant to Kirin Wynegarde-Grey, Captain of the Empress’ personal guard.”

  “You are a long way from Pol’Lhasa.”

  “And you are not the lion in charge.”

  “He’s busy, sidala.”

  “Major.”

  “Major. We are under battle preparations. The alarm fires—”

  “Which is why we are here. This is Sireth benAramis, Seventh Seer of Sha’Hadin and Yahn Nevye, also of Sha’Hadin.”

  “And Agara’tha,” added Nevye.

  “From Sha’Hadin?” The lion paused, ran his eyes over the brown-clad figures. He smiled. “If so, where are your falcons?”

  There was a shrill cry from the mountains when, in a feat of perfect timing, young Mi-Hahn settled on Sireth’s shoulder, talon bells jingling. She looked at Nevye and hissed and feathers settled onto the snow.