“It’s your turn on watch,” Bas whispered as he poked Orion’s arm repeatedly. “Get up.”
Orion tried to block Bas’ hand that was still poking her. “I’m up,” she said in complaint. “Stop it.” She slid past Sirius who was slumped against the side of her blanket. She pulled her boots on. The leaf litter crunched under her feet.
When she stood up, she saw them.
Below the ridge they had camped on, there was a line of people. There were horses, donkeys, and beasts that Orion couldn’t name laden with people and things. Some wagons were piled high with furniture—chairs, sturdy wooden tables, vanities, wardrobes—and lashed together with rope. Some of the people in this procession walked quickly to keep up with the others, full bags and pockets the only things they carried. Only a few places in this line had lit torches, limiting the visibility of how many they were and that there was anyone passing by at all. It was a caravan of people, moving with some purpose at night. They were not soldiers. A few carried swords, but more were armed with common farming and kitchen tools.
“What are they doing?” Orion hadn’t encountered this before.
“It’s not a pilgrimage. They wouldn’t be carrying so much with them.” The small fire crackled as Bas rolled a log into it.
Their small party was on the top of a hill. They were shielded by brush and trees. Those on the road traveled without cover.
“Anyone in charge of a territory can change their policies on a whim. This includes taxes. We’re at the beginning of Fall, before the last major harvest of the year. It’s a common time for nobles to bleed their people dry.”
Orion didn’t need everything spelled out for her. These people were fleeing. She watched for a few moments. “How long has this been going on?” She had no memories of things like this, but she had also never gotten involved with the politics of Malamut before this job. “In Ahan there’s an elaborate federal tax system. Now, the farmers, cutters, and craftsmen also have political representatives. There were a lot of riots and burned fields, which the kingdom couldn’t afford.” In Charlotte’s memories, it was a more recent change. One of the royal family had even petitioned on the behalf of the people—some green haired man.
“This has been happening since Tel Legen became the crown prince. He loosened the restrictions of the nobility. It was advantageous to him, but led to chaos for everyone else.”
Orion wasn’t surprised at that. “How often does this happen?”
“If someone is lucky, once or twice. Others have to move frequently. Crime and poverty skyrocket around Fall.”
Bas and Orion watched until the procession disappeared from view. Bas went to bed and Orion stayed on watch until it was time to wake up Tam.
———
It did not take them long to get to a town down the road. Around the town, the leaves were changing color. Green to red, orange, yellow, and blue. Those trees with purple leaves stayed a brilliant shade of purple; they must be something like an evergreen tree here. These were fields of small trees with beans on them, interspersed with larger trees for shade. It looked like this town produced some of the coffee that fueled the Malamut court’s addiction. When the king liked something, everyone else followed suit.
Orion slowed down when she saw it. “If we keep going the way we’re going, we’re going to go where the other people were leaving.”
“What was that sentence,” Hazel said.
“It’s sort of grammatically correct, I think. I’m not sure.” Tam was a knight who liked to read, not an editor.
Bas shook his head. “I understood it, but I’m not sure how. Orion and I saw some people migrating to another territory last night. It is most likely that they’re from this town.” He pointed to the place in front of them.
“What’s our approach?” Hazel said. On his shoulder, Scorpion clicked her claws.
Bas was thinking and didn’t say anything.
“Honesty,” Tam said. They all turned to her. “If they’re going East, we could offer our services as mercenaries. If they go West, distractions in another direction are still quite easy for us. It’s easy for Hazel at least.”
“I don’t like walking into any situation blind,” Bas stated.
Orion rolled her eyes. “We’re not completely blind. We know that a lot of people were leaving. It was probably half the town.” She watched as Sirius went off by herself, wandering towards the town cemetery.
“Why is important. Information first, honesty second,” Bas countered.
“You were the one saying it was because of taxes last night.”
“It’s the most obvious choice, but I don’t know for sure.”
“If you two get into an argument and pull at each other’s hair again, you’re going to go bald.” Hazel wasn’t really scolding them, but it was effective at getting Bas and Orion to stop. With Hazel and Tam now able to talk, they agreed to Bas’ plan of getting some information and then with Tam’s plan to be honest with helping the townspeople.
It worked out rather well when they entered the town. Orion was actually the best at getting some other teenagers to spill gossip to her.
Bas handled negotiations with the village chief. The three towns around here were in the forest owned by a baron. The oldest daughter had taken over last year and changed the taxes two days ago. There was a territory directly West of the town; a baron that is a vassal to a count and therefore has more supervision and political power. The ones that had left last night had gone to make the two day journey. The townspeople here were willing to leave tonight if it was possible. There were some relatives and friends in other towns that would also want to leave, but they were an hour or two of a ride.
Tam was the one who suggested setting things on fire, to the surprise of the rest of the party. She knew the danger of dried grain. It was easily set ablaze. There had only been one such tragedy in Alita, with the fire put out by the revolutionaries.
The plan was set up from that idea. The town would be set on fire the following night by Orion and company, drawing attention away from the other towns that might want to leave and causing some confusion over who had survived in this town. Hazel provided some corpses to be planted for guards to find.
Tam and Hazel were the fastest riders and so would ride the next day over to the other towns. They would make sure that the other towns knew about the plan, but too late to stop anything. Orion and Bas stayed in the first town. Orion was able to corral the fire with her magic as needed. Bas knew enough about physics and controlled burning for fields—courtesy of that strange lumberjack friend with a phoenix again—to help set up the fire.
The people of that town packed up. It was soon a ghost town since they left that morning. One person kept refusing to leave but was forced to by the reminder that the town would be gone.
That evening, they all split up. Tam entrusted Orion with Bas’ safety and Orion took it seriously instead of making jokes. Hazel didn’t say anything encouraging, just messed up the hair of his younger companions and rode off before they could do anything to him back.
Orion and Bas started to set the town on fire and then waited to make sure enough of it burned.
“Why are you doing this?” Orion’s question wasn’t even really about their current situation and Bas understood that.
“When I traveled by myself, I was able to meet people. The state of the kingdom and the way nobles are allowed to rule their territories, it bothers me. I could see how the Hrea Empire, Shibe, and Alita balance their domestic powers. It was better. The profit of the nobility wasn’t the only concern.”
“Is that really the reason you’re wanting to kill your father?”
“No. It’s not. This is a coup, not a revolution. I’m just determined to be different from him, a good king.” Bas turned back to watch the flames. “How about you?”
“It’s fun and yeah, I feel kind of bad for them.” Orion would never confess that she was friends with them; that factor wasn’t a small part of why she was doing this. There was some sympathy in her. She didn’t like bullies…although she used to be a bit of one when she was a kid.
When the town was almost burnt to the ground, Orion and Bas rode East. Sirius loped alongside them, barely visible in the night.
Unfortunately, they met a squad of guards in the plains and although they lied, they were still taken to the fortress of the baron. Orion wasn’t sure why they were having to go visit, because she was hiding her flint and steel under her shirt. She figured that Bas would tell her to run if they needed to.
The fortress was a large, squarish thing made of timber and stone. Some of the edges weathered down to be smooth and round. The family flag flew over the battlements: a bright blue with a red animal in the middle. The wind blew so strongly that it was hard to tell what animal it was.
Orion wasn’t particularly impressed. It wasn’t very opulent. The fortress was definitely more defensible than the capital though. “It’s practical.”
“It has defended this land’s lords for centuries,” one of the guards responded. She seemed to be in charge. She didn’t have any major scarring, but her armor was well worn. A heavy mace was strapped to the back of her horse.
“Which family’s territory are we in?” Bas asked. His eyes were fixed to the flags as they rode closer.
The same guard answered, “This is the territory of Baroness Margaret the First, Lady Margaret the Second, and Lady Margaret the Third of the Chihua. They are an old family of the kingdom, who gained their wealth through careful planning and investment.” That last sentence sounded parroted, recited from a manual.
Bas made a disgusted face immediately at the names.
Orion didn’t like that sign. She wasn’t familiar with the nobles of Malamut, but anyone Bas openly didn’t like probably wasn’t someone she was going to get along with. “Are you happy to work for them?”
The guard leading the group turned her head and shouted back, “I am! It’s a shame that there’s so few battles. The river pirates are the only real fighters.” She had the muscles to back up her fighting prowess, but she had no scars and a somewhat manic light in her eyes. Her hair was short and hidden underneath the cap that the guards of this territory all seemed to wear.
“Vice Captain Aleh is usually someone that can’t find a worthy opponent. She never gets a sparring partner aside from Captain Nage and then she tries to run away,” a guard to the right of Orion muttered quietly. She was an older woman, with wrinkles and dark eye bags. She smiled when Orion looked at her.
“Is the captain that good, or is the Vice Captain just scared for no reason?” Orion asked. Any information about people they might need to fight was good. However, she had said this too loudly. She saw Bas’ look of annoyance. She was pretty sure if they weren’t riding that he would have put a hand on his face.
The guard at front who must be the Vice Captain Aleh let her horse lag behind slightly, making it easier for her to talk. “The captain is amazing! She is the pride of our force. She came from the swamps further East. Even as a child, she was fighting on the front lines. Meanwhile, I grew up here. The war never reached us. I missed my chance, but I’ll be ready for the next one.”
Orion wasn’t sure what to say about that. She didn’t really have many thoughts on war. She enjoyed fights. She had grown up with a mother that was a fencer and a father that was a historian. Orion’s father had talked about history a lot, even more than Tam and Bas and Hazel combined did. She didn’t want to repeat those stories about starvation, orphaned children, and graves. “War sucks for everyone usually. Most people don’t want it.”
“They’re weak.” It was dismissive in a very simple way, vague bravado and a ‘macho’ attitude.
The only military veteran that Orion really knew was Hazel and that had clearly affected him deeply. It was in his mentality about the war with the Empire and in his actions of raising only the dead soldiers from those old wars. He wasn’t weak. He was weird, sure, but he wasn’t weak. He had a successful career as a bard while also hiding his true identity and planning treason for a decade.
Tam had been an orphan due to the civil war in Alita. Then, she had been taken in by a knight and something else had happened. She was very strong physically and mentally. She was often the more level headed one of their group. Although, clearly she had her own destructive impulses and her occasional educational lecture about any random topic could be annoying.
“I don’t think so…” Orion trailed off. She could see Bas’ frantic hand gestures telling her to stop. She rolled her eyes, but let it go for now.
A/N
We’re back in time for Christmas! I finally finished this mini-arc I wanted to add and you get all 5k of it today (chapters 21, 22, 23). The rest of the novel is written and edited already so there will be no stopping in the posting of the last few chapters.
