Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 6, Chapter 6

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 6, Chapter 6

Chapter 6

25th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE

In the darkness of the night, Nemel lay alone, staring at the ceiling of her manor. It was a small manor – a tent, really – and the ceiling was made of sturdy canvas. Her face was frozen and she didn’t want to leave her bedroll. Not only was it terribly cold, but worries plagued her restless rest.

Many of those worries she was sure were needless, but they bothered her nonetheless. Some, however, were very much real and would affect the future of her territory.

Something struck the roof of her tent with a loud tak. She ducked under her covers. After a moment, she heard the flutter of wings over her hammering heart. The cries of several ravens sounded. They were so loud that they may as well have been inside the tent with her. Nemel squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the cacophony above. Her eyes opened again when a new worry arose.

What if they attack the supplies?

They couldn’t afford that. She threw back her blankets, whimpering over how cold it was as she unfastened the entrance of her tent. Outside, she found a dozen of her men already awake, sitting around the campfire eating breakfast. The ravens were nowhere to be seen. Her men turned their heads to greet her.

“Mornin’ Mistress…”

Their greeting trailed off into silence. The gazes of the men slowly slid down her figure. Nemel frowned and looked down as well. Then she let out a screech and ran back into her tent.

A half-hour later, she came out again, fully dressed for the day. The men at the campfire were gone, replaced by a different set of men.

“Mornin’ Mistress Nemel.”

“Good morning,” she put on a friendly smile. “Everyone’s up so early.”

“Naw, ain’t so early as that. Just seems that way ‘cause half the sky is mountain.”

She checked her pocket watch. It was five minutes past six. She was used to getting up around four when she worked in the highway patrol, but the months of working with Zu Chiru’s caravan – which took advantage of the late crowds – had broken the habit.

Her gaze turned eastward, trying to catch a glimpse of the dawn through the tall conifers. They were in the shadow of a mountain range that ran from north to south, so that meant they would have less sunlight overall. It would be colder than expected as a result. How would it all affect their future crop yields?

Nemel went over to a row of structures on one side of the camp. Their wooden frames were made out of small tree trunks and thatched over with layers of freshly-cut pine and spruce branches. Two of them sheltered their supplies from the rain. Another was being used to dry firewood. The last was a temporary workspace. A few woodcutters were stripping down small branches and weaving them into wattle panels. Dozens of them had already been filled with daub and were drying around a nearby fire.

“How many storehouses will be finished today?” She asked.

“These four we got started yesterday will be done today, Mistress Nemel,” one of the woodcutters replied. “The big workshop is next. Rangers say they need a smokehouse soon.”

Though all they had were Rangers and woodcutters, there was still plenty needed to properly accommodate their work.

“How are you feeling so far?” Nemel asked.

“Feeling? Er…good, I guess? Everything we’re doing’s becoming something. It’s satisfying to see it all come up, even if it’s temporary.”

“Now that we’ve gotten started,” Nemel asked, “is there anything that you need that you hadn’t considered before?”

“Hmm…I can’t think of anything offhand. We got everything we need to turn everything around us into the other things that we need. Just need to work–oh, all these stumps are going to be annoying as hell when the time comes to clear ‘em away.”

“They are?”

“Uh-huh. Guess we never had to deal with it back on Lord Gran’s land since it’s already nice and tamed. A bunch of us tried pulling one up while you were away yesterday and we couldn’t get it to budge. Maybe you got some magic for that?”

She thought back to what she had seen and studied. The Imperial Army’s engineers did all sorts of things related to civil engineering and public works. As far as she knew, however, any magic that they used only saved time by emulating labour. They didn’t wiggle their fingers at a tree stump and make it go up in a poof of smoke. That would be wasteful, anyway.

“I’m a War Wizard,” Nemel said, “but I can’t blast tree stumps out of the ground. Ida might have an answer.”

Ida specialised in Transmutation-school magic, though the reason that she did was tragically stupid. In their rising desperation, Ida’s magic-illiterate parents latched onto the fanciful notion that their magically-gifted daughter could learn spells that could turn lead into gold or rocks into gemstones. They demanded that she study such spells, somehow not understanding that gold and gemstones would be worthless if such spells existed at low tiers.

Their young daughter was burdened with an impossible task that she could only try her best to make progress in. When her parents finally gave up on the idea, they decided to ‘recoup their costs’ by pawning off their ‘failed investment’.

“I’ll ask her, Mistress Nemel,” the woodcutter said. “Where is she, anyway?”

Nemel looked around, then went over to Ida’s tent. The entry flap was still tied shut from the inside.

“Ida? Ida!”

“Heehee…stop, that tickles!”

A frown crossed Nemel’s features.

“Ida? Is there someone in there with you?”

There had better not be. Nemel didn’t want to stick her nose into their private matters, but if they started sleeping with the settlers, it would set an unacceptable premise. That premise could only result in something crazy if there were four women and a hundred men by the end of summer. She was already vaguely wary about their situation as it was.

Another giggle rose from inside the tent. Nemel pointed her finger at the sealed tent flap.

“?Knock?.”

The rope holding the tent shut unfastened itself. The tent flap fell open, revealing Ida, who was sleeping in a very unladylike position.

She was belly up and bow-legged, looking like an upside-down frog. Her linen nightgown was hiked up above her midriff and a hand scratched her belly. A trail of drool leaked from the corner of her smiling mouth.

How is she not frozen like that?

“Heeheehee…”

“Ida!”

The woman jerked awake. She took a deep breath, peering through a crack I’m her eyelids.

“Wuh? Why is it so cold…”

Ida groped around, pulling her blanket over her body. Her breathing grew soft and regular.

“Ida!”

Ida groaned. Nemel grew annoyed.

“Ida, wake up already!”

“But it’s still dark out…”

“It’s already six! We have work to do.”

“Six? But we’re not travelling anymore. Eight is decent…”

“CAPTAIN! GET THE SACK!”

Ida sat bolt upright, eyes wide.

“I’m up! Please, not the sack!”

Nemel stared at the woman’s absolute state of panic. She was starting to wonder what went through their minds when she mentioned sacks.

A while later, Fendros, Elise and Ida were sitting on a log in front of the fire, meekly eating breakfast across from Nemel. The men were already off to work, clearing more space for the base camp. She eyed their dark surroundings. The lighting would be poor until eight or nine.

“How much were they selling those magic lights in the harbour for again?” Nemel asked.

“Eight imperial gold coins,” Fendros said. “I think the commoners here are wealthier than my parents ever were.”

Eight imperial gold coins could support a rural family of two adults and three children for half a year. Or cover the costs for a season in the city. Either way, it was an astonishing amount and the people here were casually throwing money around like that for luxuries.

“We need to bring that thing up with our people,” Nemel said. “We can’t go on as planned.”

“We actually could,” Elise said. “It’s not just timber prices that are depressed here: grain and metalwork are too. We can still achieve a higher quality of life here than in the Empire even if we don’t use the Undead.”

“But think of the progress we’d lose out on!” Nemel said, “Don’t tell me you’re satisfied with the bare minimum.”

The three women stared across the fire at her with blank looks. Nemel sighed. Maybe that was their parents’ fault too.

Everything they shared with her pointed to an acceptance of the status quo. No, maybe it was more accurate to say that they were brought up desperately working to preserve their former status quo. The people here were already going to do better than most, which, in their minds, was more than good enough.

But did anyone really think that way? It was true that most people had to settle for their lot in life and live within their means at some point, but she didn’t think that anyone would pass up the opportunity to improve their situation if it was made available to them.

For Nemel’s part, she was raised to constantly improve. Her family wasn’t obsessed over it, but they sought to advance their magic item business and expanded House Gran’s library of spells. Opportunities to enhance and optimise the operations of their already-developed land were rare and costly, and one like this would be seized without question. Seeing Fendros and the others turn up their noses at the chance felt crazy to her.

Her common sense was apparently not common sense at all. At least between them. She never imagined that they could think so differently being of the same age and attending the academy together.

“Do you really believe that the men will be satisfied with that?” Nemel asked.

“Do you really believe that the men will go along with the idea?” Elise asked back, “There might not be any temples here, but they all worship The Four.”

It was a valid, yet stupid concern. In the Empire, the nature of created or summoned Undead was a major point of contention. The Imperial Ministry of Magic and, by extension, the Imperial Magic Academy, asserted that they were no different than any other summon. The Temples claimed that the Undead were the Undead, no matter their origin, and that they would bring with them all the ills attributed to their unholy and unnatural existence.

Attendance at the Imperial Magic Academy was mandatory for Noble scions, but only the most talented of commoners could win a scholarship or draw the eye of a wealthy benefactor to pay for tuition. Beyond that, almost everyone finished their apprenticeships before academy age. By the time a commoner was fourteen, they had already finished their apprenticeships and would be engaged in their professional careers.

Everyone, however, went to the Temples throughout their lives. Nearly the entire literate population attended temple schools. Thus, those that shared the Ministry of Magic's stance were a tiny minority.

Nemel could just order them to work with the Undead, but she didn’t want to do that. She needed to figure out alternative methods to get them to accept Undead labour. Maybe time and exposure would take care of their reservations.

“I guess we’ll see what happens,” Nemel said. “Let’s sort out our work for now.”

The previous evening, they had divided the woodcutters into teams of five. Their Rangers worked in pairs. The first task – the creation of their base camp – would keep them busy for weeks.

There was a whole pile of processes to observe in the manual Nonna had provided them. Their Rangers had to do survey work, not just for the terrain, but for everything in the area. Plants, animals and minerals had to be identified and catalogued.

Fendros and Elise, who specialised in divination-school magic, could help with identification. Ida would help with construction, moving soil around with magic. She could also use Shape Wood to straighten branches and minimise waste in processing timber. While they waited for their mana to regenerate, the three would study the materials that Nemel left with them and help with accounting.

Nemel, to her great chagrin, was probably the most useless out of them. She was a War Wizard who worked with the Imperial Air Service, meaning that any non-combat-related magic that she had learned revolved around her duties with the highway patrol. Those spells also included many of the identification spells that Fendros and Elise used, but, since they were specialists, she left it to them.

As a result, she was the one flying samples of unidentified stuff from the territory to the harbour. She also delivered reports to Baroness Zahradnik’s manor. The rest of her time was spent checking on the progress of the camp, updating their records and making sure everything was roughly on track.

The day went by and she read through the Sorcerous Kingdom’s materials, discovering that she had to rework almost everything to be in line with the administration’s policies and expectations. With how different everything was, she decided to allocate some time to observe how the people in other parts of the territory worked.

About three hours past noon, a pair of Rangers returned from the most recent leg of their survey, which went ten kilometres up the tributary flowing past their base camp.

“Mistress Nemel, we found some Demihumans upriver.”

Everyone looked up at the Ranger delivering the report.

“…what kind of Demihumans?” Nemel asked.

“Goblins. We started seeing them about five kilometres out, partway into the trees on the opposite shore. On the way back, we noticed more of ‘em.”

“What were they doing?”

“Um…dunno? Maybe a Ranger from the border might be able to tell, but we didn’t have no Demis in the old barony.”

All gazes in the camp turned to her. She placed the binder in her lap on the log she was seated on.

“Is there any way for them to cross?”

“Not easily,” the Ranger replied. “Well, I dunno how well Goblins can swim, but things are warming up bit by bit here and the melt’s flooding the river. They’d have to go the long way around to get to us…”

“Are we going to be raided?” Elise asked worriedly.

“I don’t have any war magic,” Fendros said.

“We could set up patrols,” the Ranger offered. “Our kit’s for hunting, but an arrow’ll go into a Goblin just as easily as it’ll go into a deer.”

“W-wait a minute!” Nemel said, “We can’t start killing and eating the neighbours so suddenly!”

The Ranger blinked.

“E-eating them, Mistress Nemel?”

“I mean being violent. We can’t just go out and attack people for no reason.”

Even if they were allowed to fight and eat each other, there must be something that kept the area from erupting into a perpetual state of warfare.

“Continue your surveys of the territory,” Nemel said. “I’ll figure out what to do about the Goblins.”

“Will do, Mistress Nemel.”

She rose from her log, brushing the debris off of her skirts. During their journey around the Empire, Dame Verilyn always spoke about Human nature and how it tended to place Humans at odds with their neighbours. In the Sorcerous Kingdom, they had already seen Goblins in the border town and E-Rantel, so there was a chance that these ones wouldn’t try to eat her.

“What are you going to do?” Fendros asked.

“I should see what they’re like for myself,” Nemel answered. “If they can’t cross the river, I’ll just watch them from the river.”

Nemel went and put on her equipment before leaving the camp. She cast a Fly spell, rising through the trees and over the river. Lowering her flight goggles, she scanned the gaps in the undergrowth for signs of Demihuman activity.

If I was a Goblin, where would I be…

In hindsight, the education from the Imperial Army concerning Goblins was ‘tactical’ in nature. Her coursework and training went over their strengths and weaknesses, how they fought and how to identify the different individuals that might appear in a raid. She knew nothing about how they lived, their perspectives or anything about their tribal societies aside from the fact that they had tribal societies.

She activated her Invisibility cloak when she spotted movement in the trees.

So close! They’re only two kilometres from the base camp…

The swollen river was two hundred metres across, so there was at least that. Nemel descended to canopy level, carefully drifting closer to the Goblin camp. Being invisible was not a guarantee that one would not be detected. Goblins did not have any senses that Humans did not have, but there was a chance that they could still smell or hear her. A powerful Ranger would have no problems detecting an invisible individual nearby.

Four Goblins slept around a small campfire. A mystic sat under a lean-to made out of woven branches similar to the wattle panels her woodcutters were fashioning. Three more were labouring, though she couldn’t tell what exactly it was that they were doing.

She moved closer, hovering in the branches above trying to identify what sort of equipment they had. All of them had crude stone spears close at hand. A row of unstrung bows was being kept dry near the fire. Aside from the mystic, who had some sort of ceremonial accessories on, all the Goblins had in terms of armour were tanned hides.

Wait, tanned hides?

If they knew how to tan animal hides, then they also knew the rudimentary alchemical processes involved. They had basic construction skills, as well as woodworking and weapon crafting. The pieces of meat roasting over the campfire meant that they could cook and the mystic was working with herbs.

Goblins were generally seen as a primitive race. What they were doing was primitive, but most people’s idea of ‘primitive’ meant having absolutely nothing beyond sticks and stones. The Goblins below her had all of the basic skills required to eventually build villages and towns, so why were they living out in the wilderness with barely anything?

Nemel flew away with a strange new puzzle to think about. She examined three more Goblin camps, seeing more of the same. Upon her return, Fendros, Elise and Ida got up from around the central fire to see her.

“Nemel, are you alright?” Fendros asked.

“Did you get into any fights?” Ida trembled.

“I didn’t go out to fight,” Nemel furrowed her brow. “I don’t think we need to worry about them for now.”

“Are you sure?” Elise looked in the direction of the river.

“I’m pretty sure,” Nemel said. “First of all, they don’t look like they’re preparing to fight – it just looks like they live there. Secondly, it’s freaking cold on this side! Their side is warmer. It’s green and there are animals everywhere. The Goblins use campfires and clothing to stay warm, so I can’t think of any reason why they’d want to come to our side.”

She was starting to grow jealous of the Goblins because of that. Hopefully, Dame Verilyn’s territory would get nice and warm soon.

“Did anything happen while I was away?” Nemel asked.

“The Rangers brought a deer in,” Fendros said. “We’re using all of our mana to summon salt and lime for them now.”

Nemel nodded. Hides and meat both needed to be cured. With the price of almost everything else being so low, what her Rangers brought in would be the territory’s most valuable exports.

“What else?”

“We’ve packed today’s survey samples in the crate for you to take to the harbour…that’s about it.”

Was it already that late? It was. With so much to do, time was flying by.

Nemel flew off to the harbour with the crate. This time, an aerial patrol didn’t intercept her.

I’ve been using too much mana on flight magic lately…

If she went by the rates for magic in the Empire, she was burning through several silver coins’ worth of mana every day on Fly alone. It was convenient to get around quickly, but it wasn’t necessary now that she had a feel for how to pace out her new job. Since she couldn’t conjure commodities like the others, the best use of her mana was to study magic and conduct research.

It was something she would have to get used to. The Imperial Magic Academy only mentioned the subject of magic research in passing, as it was something generally reserved for the Imperial Ministry of Magic – or to more bluntly put it, monopolised. However, Nemel’s parents conducted independent magical research as a part of their business. She would be able to ask her family for help in getting started.

She arrived at Baroness Zahradnik’s manor, alighting on the street in front of its entrance. Two Death Knights stood on either side of it like spiky black sentries.

According to Dame Gronvidr, these ones are footmen…

“Nemel Gran,” she announced herself. “I’m here to submit my evening report from Dame Verilyn’s territory.”

The Death Knights exchanged a crimson-eyed look. One of them came up to her, leaning forward with its arms extended. Nemel placed her crate in its arms. The other Death Knight held open the door as she followed the first Death Knight through.

Wow, they really are footmen.

Nemel fixed the thought firmly in her mind. Before coming to the Sorcerous Kingdom, the Undead were more of a ‘concept’ than anything else. A threat. Unnatural abominations that harboured an unreasoning, unrelenting hatred for the living. That was what the Undead were to the citizens of the Empire…no, that was how they were seen by nearly the entire world.

In the Sorcerous Kingdom, all of the Undead labourers that she had seen so far were created by the Sorcerer King. Furthermore, they occupied familiar roles in society. That made them much easier to ‘digest’ – especially when they acted the part. The Death Knights in front of Lady Zahradnik’s place were footmen. Nonna was a bureaucrat. The Undead in the army base were soldiers. Vampire Brides served as officials for the various branches of the Department of Transportation. The Elder Liches that intercepted her yesterday were patrolling aerial mages, just like her…well maybe not just like her, but the idea was the same.

The Death Knight placed her crate on a table along the east wall of Nonna’s office. Nemel offered her manifest and report to the Elder Lich, then waited quietly as the Undead administrator flipped through the pages. After several minutes, Nonna rose from her seat.

“Thank you for your hard work,” she said.

Nonna went over to remove the items from the crate. Nemel watched as they were neatly organised on the table.

“Is there something else?” The Elder Lich asked.

“Um, yes, two things…”

The Elder Lich turned from her work to regard Nemel silently.

“First,” Nemel said, “I didn’t notice any Merchant Guild branches here. We’d like to hire an agent, but there’s nothing written about that in the provided manuals.”

Nonna produced a clipboard from somewhere. The sound of her pen scrawling over paper filled the room. Did they write that loudly on purpose?

“Your request has been noted,” the Elder Lich said.

“Secondly, is it possible to build a stop for wagons across the river from our base camp? Like the lots we see for wagons around the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“The Ministry of Transportation handles queries of this nature,” Nonna told her. “Their office is above the harbourmaster’s office.”

“I see. Thank you very much.”

Nemel dipped her head before having the Death Knight footman escort her back outside. The sun had dipped below the highlands in the west, but, unlike villages in the Empire, sleep did not come with sunset. Magical lighting turned the area as bright as Arwintar’s market district. The settlement looked far more active than it had been during the day, with people of all vocations coming out to dine, socialise and shop.

Rather than the remote, undeveloped frontier villages described in stories and observed in her aerial patrols, Warden’s Vale represented a different sort of frontier. Baroness Zahradnik wasn’t developing her territory in some effort to ‘catch up’ to the development of the interior – she was pioneering something entirely new. A concept unknown to the imagination of the region. Nemel wondered who or what it was that had inspired her to do so.

She took a wagon to the harbour, meeting with a Vampire Bride official to make her request. The discussion was short, consisting of her asking and the Vampire Bride saying ‘okay’. There was paperwork of a sort, which consisted of her filling out a blank page with what she wanted and why.

Fifteen minutes later, she was riding a freight wagon south out of Warden’s Vale. Nemel was instructed to park the wagon where she wanted the new stop to be. The construction crews would come by at some point and turn it into a proper lot. She couldn’t help but feel a bit strange over the lack of the usual bureaucratic delay in everything.

Her request involved building piers on both sides of the river, which would allow the Death Warrior captain to ferry goods back and forth between Dame Verilyn’s territory and the highway. It was a temporary arrangement, as a barge route was projected to start between the Upper Reaches and Warden’s Vale in two or three years, depending on how well things progressed.

That being said, it would be crucial for when land development in Dame’s territory started to exceed their current capacity to export through the knarr alone. It would also save Nemel mana from flying back and forth every day.

Nemel spent a good half an hour figuring out where she wanted the Soul Eater to park its wagon, as she wasn’t exactly sure where the future piers would be and thus where the wagon stop should be. After that, she flew across the river and returned to the camp. Ida looked up from her place by the central campfire.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“I’m back…I’m home?”

“Does it already feel like home?” Ida asked.

With nothing but endless conifers and crude construction, it was a long way from being the developed lands of the Empire that they were used to. Then again…

“I don’t think it will ever be like the Empire,” Nemel answered, “but that’s not a bad thing. There are a lot of odd rules and regulations to observe here, but we’ll probably end up falling in love with this place once it begins to take shape.”

Ida looked up at her with a quiet smile.

“What?” Nemel frowned.

“You’re really something else, you know,” Ida said. “You’re more of a Noble than my parents ever were. Or anyone else I’ve seen really. Except for Lady Zahradnik…and you’re more like her than us. Looking back at everything me and my parents did and comparing it to you, it all feels fake. I…I should apologise too. Back when we were travelling together with Zu Chiru, we thought you were just like us. That you lived in the same world as us – that world where appearances and prestige are everything; where we constantly have to look behind us and endlessly fight for every advantage against people that didn’t care whether we lived or died.”

“Maybe my approach was different,” Nemel said, “but I lived in that same world, too.”

Ida looked down at the carpet of needles at her feet, her smile turning melancholy.

“But you didn’t,” she said. “You really didn’t. The way you see things; the way you act. It’s all so different. It’s like you’re from somewhere else – some better place that I can’t even imagine. When you talk with us, we hear what you say but we can’t see what you do. We can’t think what you think. Everything you say goes into our ears and it becomes twisted into our reality. We’re just terrible people, Nemel.”

“Do you plan on remaining terrible people?”

Ida looked back up at her.

“Do you plan on remaining terrible people?” Nemel asked again, “Even when you’ve moved to the Sorcerous Kingdom; when you’ve come all the way out to the wilderness, is the Empire still ‘reality’? Did you leave your heart in Arwintar somewhere?”

Nemel sat down on the log beside Ida, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“You say that I’m from some different world, but you’re wrong. The difference is that my house refused to follow the path that your houses did. That meant we couldn’t get ahead like some others and we lived pretty humble lives, but it also meant that we remained free of all the filth choking so much of the Empire and so many of its people. It’s not as if we’re unique in this, either – there are plenty of others who do the same in their own way.

“Somewhere in the past, your houses made a choice. That choice affected every generation after that, but it didn’t force them to stick to that choice. Now, it’s your turn. Your family isn’t here. We’re not even in the Empire anymore. There’s nothing that makes it necessary to remain that way.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Ida sighed.

“I don’t know how hard or simple it is,” Nemel said. “But I do think that a lot of those things you think are terrible don’t necessarily have to be. They’re just experiences and skills turned in the wrong direction. Changing that direction is a choice that you have to make – no one else can change you on your behalf. And, out here, no one can stop you except for yourself.”