by Eric Ugland
“You are.”
I wasn’t comfortable talking about myself, so I decided to change the conversation. “Your people, the kitsune, why are they kept from their dreams?”
“My lineage is, well, strange. Kitsune-girls are, perhaps it is better to say we are created,” she said, but stopped. Then she started talking again, seemingly uncertain of the direction she was taking her thoughts. “We’re created. Our history is debated. Due to, well, certain aspects of our, of ourselves, we are very popular in certain, uh, fields, and those in power often force us to work in those fields. Because we are in such demand.”
“What field?”
She raised a perfect eyebrow.
“What is your guess?”
“Libraries,” I said.
She gave the slightest laugh to that. “I was locked into a horrible contract with ballooning debt because I refused to go back to being a ‘hostess’. I saw my friends disappear into brothels, and though I knew I would earn plenty of money there, it just — it is not for me.”
“That’s not going to be an issue here. And, I mean, if you want to live in the trees, I can get that. Sort of. I think the winter will make that rather miserable. But if you’re avoiding living in the longhouses because of, you know, the male gaze, that’s a different story, and—”
“It is… I have…” Despite interrupting me, she faltered, unable to go into whatever it was she was planning on saying. She just looked down at the ground.
“There are private rooms inside the mountain,” I said. “If you want, you can have one. Even if it’s just, you know, until the leaves grow back on your tree.”
She smirked at me.
“Thank you. Again.”
“Sure. Not a thing. There is, uh, one more thing, which is actually the real reason I’m here.”
“Is this where you disappoint me by asking if I am seeing—”
“No. Not at all. Me and you, shit, this is going to sound bad after that. Look, the two of us and another ranger, we’re going out into the valley to see what’s out there. We might be gone a long while, but when we get back, you’ll have some levels, and hopefully get to the point where you can be one of our main rangers.”
I could tell she was running through scenarios in her head, trying to figure out how to trust me. If she could trust me. Or if this was some scheme to draw her out alone. Which, you know, I got. So I sat there as an acorn dug into my butt, letting her work things out.
“Do I have a choice?” She asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I mean, I’m going. You can choose to come along, get some experience, learn the ways of ranging, explore. Or keep doing what it is you’re doing here. And don’t worry — if you aren’t ready, if you want to hold off, there will be more opportunities later.”
She nodded once. Quickly. “I will come. Or go. I— with you and the ranger.”
“Awesome,” I replied. “We leave tomorrow morning. So, uh, sorry for the late notice, but get what you need ready. Okay?”
Before she could answer, or yell at me for only giving her a few hours to prepare, I dropped out of the tree, and moseyed back towards the smithy. I wanted to see about getting another shield.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Zoey was banging away in the smithy, yelling at dwarves for putting her tools in places they didn’t belong. Notably, down low. Zoey seemed to relish putting the tools in spots where the dwarves had to use stepladders.
Petty, perhaps, but also hilarious.
Just as I was about to open my mouth, ask about Mouse and Lily and get the small talk out of the way so I could ask about a custom shield, a bell rang out.
“The fuck is that?” I asked, looking around for where a bell might have been hung.
“Gate warning,” Zoey said, looking past me to the big gate blocking the tunnel.
“We have one of those?”
“Recently installed,” she said. “A magic tripwire at the base of the tunnel lets us know if someone is coming up.”
“Or leaving.”
“I assume, if that was the case, the guards would not be massing on the gates.”
Sure enough, our newly-swelled ranks were grouping up behind the gate, heavy shields ready to slam together and form a wall.
I jogged across the grass, knowing that our visitor had about a mile of an uphill trek, and there wasn’t really a need for hurrying.
Nathalie stood next to an older man with salt and pepper hair and a wicked scar across his neck. Nathalie watched the formation, then had a whispered sort of conference with the man, and then moved some people around. On the wall, there were archers standing ready. Just not very many.
Taking the steps two at a time, I fairly bounded up the wall, and took a position next to a woman I’d yet to meet. She had a quiver hanging off a hook on the wall, an arrow in one hand and her bow in the other. She gave me the stink eye for a second, until she realized who I was. Then she gave me a curt nod and stood up a little taller.
“My lord,” she said.
“Afternoon,” I replied. “Are you one of the new, uh, recruits?”
“Yes, milord,” she said, keeping her eyes on the patch of ground between the wall and the tunnel.
“Former legion?”
“Yes, milord.”
The complete lack of any additional information made it rather clear she either didn’t want to talk to me or didn’t feel comfortable talking to me, so I just stood there. Waiting. I could hear sounds coming from the tunnel, footsteps from boots and horses, as well as the vague creak of wagon wheels. Whatever was coming up, they were in no hurry. And there were quite a few of them.
Tarryn walked up behind me and stood on the battlements. He put both hands out on the crenellations, looking like he was trying to be the cover model on a harlequin novel.
“That bell,” I said. “Your doing?”
“And it worked perfectly,” Tarryn replied.
“How does it work?”
“Simple. There is a little jolt of magic that runs through a piece of silver that is inlaid into the floor at the base of the tunnel. If anything living crosses that silver line, it triggers a warning up here. The bigger the life form, or group of life forms, the bigger the bell that rings. Up to a point of course. We only have the three bells.”
“Which bell did this ring?”
“The third.”
“Is there any way to tell, like, what’s coming?”
“Something large.”
“Okay, but are we talking a herd of cows being driven up here to sell or a horde of goblins coming to kill us?”
“That remains a mystery. Though, by the sound of it—”
“I get it. Does seem to take a while.”
“I could move the thread up further, but I thought having more time would be better than less.”
“Good point.”
“That’s what Nikolai thought.”
“You told Nikolai about this?”
“I did. Though, if I’m being honest, which I should because you’re the hirðleader and all, it was kind of his idea.”
“And no one thought to ask me about it?”
“We thought it might bore you.”
“Do people really think so little of me?”
“I wouldn’t say we think little of you. It’s more that you clearly aren’t as interested in this sort of thing.”
“Dude, I’ve been doing fuck all lately.”
“We’ve noticed.”
“Then why—”
“Frankly, it’s because there is the thought that you need a little break of sorts. The whole Titus thing. I think it really fucked you up.”
“What? I was fine. I am fine.”
“You brutalized those men.”
“They were here to enslave us! You’d have preferred I write a strongly-worded letter?”
“No, but your performance was rather terrifying.”
“As well it should be. You think any of those assholes are going to come back here? They�
�ll go out there and tell their asshole friends not to come here. That if they do, I’ll cut them in half and dance with their entrails.”
“See, that’s all well and good for being a warlord or a goblin king. But you’re a duke of the Empire. And people want to like you. These people want to trust you, not fear you. Right now, you’re more like the beast parents use to keep their children frightened of the forest. Except worse because the kids know you’re real.”
“I’m frightening children?”
“Yes.”
“Well shit.”
“That’s why we’re trying to give you some room. To, you know—”
“Blow off steam?”
“Learn a way to defend the holding without being so fucking gruesome.”
“Subtlety has never been my strong suit.”
“No offense, my lord, but no shit.”
I didn’t like hearing that I was scary. Well, no, I take that back. I didn’t mind being scary, but I didn’t like scaring my own people. Especially kids. I like kids. I used to think they liked me, but it’s possible they were only ever friendly to me because I was scary. But I wasn’t scary back on Earth, not in the same way. I had a layer of blubber that helped soften my edges. And I didn’t have a massive beard and lots of long hair. Oh, and my weapons were usually hidden. Here, I walked around with a big fuck-off axe. Or a massive sword. And I killed things constantly, usually in full view of my people. It made a certain sense that I was the boogieman here, but it couldn’t last. Not if I wanted to have a healthy society. A place for people to call home.
The first guest came from the darkness of the tunnel into the sunlight. A heavily muscled man wearing mostly rags that did an okay job of hiding the heavy armor underneath. The sword at his hip looked old, but also well-crafted and cared for. And both the horse and the man looked like they had eaten recently. Something was amiss.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Afternoon,” I called down.
He looked up, noting the archers, and then let his gaze rest on me.
“This Coggeshall?” he asked.
“We really need to invest in a sign,” I said mostly to Tarryn. “And yes, this is Coggeshall.”
“I seek Nikolai.”
“Friend of his?”
“You could say that.”
“Mind waiting down there?”
“Are your people going to shoot me?”
I made a show of looking over at the archers.
“Maybe. But their aim isn’t the best.”
That got the hint of smile from the man. I gave him a jaunty wave, and then I stepped back from the wall.
“Keep an eye on him,” I said. “He’s got some decent armor on under those rags.”
Tarryn nodded.
I hopped off the wall, finding it easier to just drop the twenty feet than deal with pushing by people to get to the stairs. Nikolai was in his office off the Hall, his face buried in paperwork.
I knocked on the door as I entered, and Nikolai looked up, annoyed. His eyes were red.
I dropped into the chair in front of his desk, and put my feet up.
He pushed the feet off.
“What are you doing here?” he almost barked out.
“Couple of things,” I said. “I’ve been talking to a few people ,and they told me you think I’m bored with all this governance stuff and that you might as well make all the decisions because I’m, what, insane, maybe?”
“That is not at all how I would characterize what I have been doing, Montana, and you know it. I have more skill in this area than you do—”
“Because you were a Thingman?”
“Because I ran the Thingmen. I orchestrated the entire army. I made sure everyone was paid and fed and housed. I did all the administration for the group. I ordered weapons and materials—”
“I don’t want to inspect your bonafides. I know you can do the job. I just want to be a part of it as well. It’s my fucking name on the door. Which, uh, can we get a few signs on the gate or something? Everyone seems to have trouble knowing who we are.”
“You would like a sign?”
“Yeah, you know, ‘Welcome to Coggeshall, Good Guys welcome. Bad Guys, come get your jaw ripped off.’”
“Rather specific threat, but I suppose it might deter a few individuals.”
“You know, if they have jaws.”
“Or can read.”
“Ah, right. Bit of an illiteracy problem in the Empire of Glaton, isn’t there?”
“Problem? I suppose that depends on how you look at it.”
“I think it’s a problem when more people can’t read than can.”
“Then it is a problem. But you also see the difficulty we would face putting a sign in place.”
“I’m not going to not put a sign up because some people can’t read. That’s just catering to the lowest common denominator, and no one wins in a race to to the bottom.”
“Is there a real reason you are here or is this another fun game of annoy Nikolai?”
As if on cue, a prinky came in the room, holding a shiny pebble in both hands, and presented it to Nikolai.
Nikolai raised his eyebrows at me, gave me a hideously dirty look, and then pointed at the little furry fellow.
The furry fellow, for his part, just stood there with his pebble. Happy. Big eyes looking at Nikolai like Nikolai was just the bee’s knees.
Nikolai snatched the pebble and threw it over his shoulder, where it clattered against the wall and landed in a rather impressive pile of more shiny pebbles. It covered a good portion of his floor.
The prinky ran off.
“Oh,” I said, “there is a reason I came here. An actual reason. Two, I suppose. One is we need to get Amber out of her treehouse — did you know she was living in a treehouse?”
“I did not,” he said, but then he leaned back as if a thought has just come to him. “I knew she wasn’t sleeping in the longhouse, that she was camping somewhere in the boundaries of the holding, but I have to admit I never thought to look where that was. She seemed to be showing up to meals regularly and so I assumed she was fine. Is there something wrong with her treehouse?”
“Yeah, it’s a piece of shit. And it’s in an oak tree.”
“Enlighten me on the oak tree problem.”
“Winter? No leaves.”
“Okay, well—”
“I told her she can have a place in the mountain.”
“Will she take it?”
“I think so, yes. But, I mean, you’ve got some time to find her a place. She agreed to go on walkabout with me.”
“What is a walkabout?”
“When you, uh, go walk about a place.”
“You mean your exploration of the valley.”
“Bingo.”
“You are calling that a walkabout?”
“I am.”
“Fine. The other reason you came to see me?”
“There’s some dude at the gate asking for you.”
Nikolai stood quickly.
“Why did you not lead with that?” he asked as he stormed out of the room.
“Because I knew you’d leave before I had the chance to say anything else,” I called after him.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I caught up to Nikolai, who was speed-walking across the village as if he was late for a very important date.
“We could use some paths,” I said.
“Roads,” Nikolai replied. “When the snows come, we will want roads.”
“And snow plows.”
“Snow plows?”
"Imagine it's a machine that, well, moves snow out of the way."
"Seems superfluous," he said.
As we reached the gate, he seemed to straighten up ever so much, and called out in a voice I hadn't heard in some time. His command voice.
"Open the gate," Nikolai bellowed.
There was a momentary pause as the Legionnaires, as one, all looked over at Nikolai. Nathalie walked over to him. She stood
very close before looking at me, and speaking to Nikolai.
"Those on the other side of the gate are armed and armored, and they are trying to disguise that fact. They are not who they seem they are."
"I know who they are," Nikolai replied. "Now open the gate."
"At least stand behind the shield wall," Nathalie said.
"I will do no such thing. Open the gate — we have left them waiting too long as it is."
Nathalie signaled to some of her guards. They ran forward and used a really cool counterweight system to lift the massive iron-wrapped granite bar off the gates. Then, the stone doors opened inward, revealing our visitors.
There were more of them now, lots of hard-looking men and women standing around wagons, covered wagons. There were also plenty of horses, some being ridden, some not. It was a group equally as large as the dwarves, if not larger, as they were still in the tunnel and grouping up in the small area between the gate and the mountains.
For looks, I pulled out a sword, and planted it in the ground while I stood next to Nikolai.
Nikolai eyed the leader, who was still mounted, and said, "Wian."
"Nikolai," the man replied.
“Why are you here?”
“Sadly, our thoughts on the timetable were incorrect.”
“You are far too early.”
“This is a conversation we need to have elsewhere.”
Nikolai stared at Wian, then nodded. “Let them all in,” he said. “Montana, if you will join us in my office.”
No one was comfortable with this turn of events. Our soldiers moved to one side, keeping together though, ready to charge or accept a charge, I suppose. All the archers on the top of the wall remained in place, ready to rock.
Wian hopped off his horse, passed the reins off to one of his compatriots, and then followed Nikolai. I hopped in behind them. They walked in silence, though I could hear muffled conversation happening behind us. When I looked over my shoulder I saw that the new group was being sequestered to one side. They were numerous, some of them still coming in from the outside world. My curiosity was piqued.
Nikolai opened the door to the hall, and gestured that Wian should go first.
Wian went in.
