Chapter 4 #3
“I will not ask to go with you,” Nohe said quietly, her voice swallowed by the darkness.
No guards patrolled, likely necessary to prevent any of them from accidentally seeing us leave.
“My absence from the palace would raise questions that cannot be answered. But, please, take care of yourself. Homisu lost his mistress once. Can you promise us that you will not die there as Empress Koque did?”
I shook my head, my feet crunching over the small rocks along the path. “I can’t promise anything.”
Nohe nodded. “No. My family is from the region just north of the border with Krustau. We were always taught not to go into the hills, let alone mountains beyond. Their land is cursed and will swallow you whole.”
“Nohe.” I exhaled a long breath. “I—”
A soft whistle in the darkness cut me off. We had followed a path around the emperor’s quarters, ending in the forest just behind it. The jangle of harnesses and faint whispers were the only other sounds. I nodded at her.
In the electric light she held, she looked pale, the natural gleam of her skin flattened out. She bowed to me, making half of a triangle with her free hand.
Heading toward the horses, I heard the flap of wings in the trees and a soft murmur of sound.
Shadows moved around me, and it was nearly impossible for me to tell if they were Dogs or the ghosts of blood monks.
Then I was in front of Tallu, his expression grim in the uneven light from lanterns.
He raised a gloved hand, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone.
I shivered at his touch. The supple leather gloves felt nothing like his own warm flesh, but I could still feel the thrum of Tallu in his touch. It was as though he was a tide drawing me along with him. No matter how fiercely I swam in the opposite direction, I would always go with him.
The light made his expression look like a frown, but before he could say anything, I put my hand over his, gripping the leather glove tightly. I tugged him toward the wagon we would be taking on the journey.
The Kennelmaster had acquired two large carts and teams of four horses to pull each. The carts had enough room that both Tallu and I could lie head to foot and just barely touch the front and back.
Both were covered by a wooden structure that would give us shade and privacy.
Two of the Dogs would ride on horseback beside the carriages, and they stood in the darkness, stroking the muzzles of their mounts.
They had removed their masks, and their bare faces looked strange in the lamplight.
I did not see the familiar features of Sagam or Asahi, but they must have been present given Tallu’s explicit order.
I pulled myself into the first cart, finding seating pillows scattered between boxes. Ostensibly, the boxes contained the goods we were trading on the other side of the Imperium, but in reality, they were all of our luggage and the food and water we would need for the journey.
In a fight, wooden boxes filled with heavy things would also make something good to hide behind.
There were already three blood monks sitting atop boxes inside the cart, and I had seen more in the shadows outside.
Tallu followed behind me, not glancing at the mages, and sat across.
Without light, it was impossible to read his expression, and I forced myself to be calm, to breathe slowly, in and out, in the cold night air.
I extended my leg, letting it lean against his, feeling the warmth of him through his pants. I could feel his thick muscles, the tense way he held himself. In the dark, unable to see him, I pushed my leg harder against his and felt him press back. We were in this together.
“Ready,” came a shout from the cart behind us.
Two Dogs leapt into the cart: the Kennelmaster and another I didn’t recognize without his mask.
The one I didn’t know made his way through the cart, stepping over my sprawled leg.
The Kennelmaster turned, slapping his hand against the wooden roof of the cart.
He sat, facing backward, while the other took a position toward the front, just behind the driver.
There was the sound of metal ringing as the two Dogs outside mounted, and then the cart jerked. We were on our way.
I waited until we had passed outside of the gates of the Imperial Palace and the sun had crested the horizon, to move my leg. It was nearly asleep when I pulled it away from Tallu’s warmth.
“Why couldn’t we have all taken horses?” Gesturing to the boxes around us, I raised an eyebrow. “Not that this isn’t travel worthy of an emperor, but surely horses would have been faster.”
I had been asking Tallu and expected him to answer, but instead, the Kennelmaster, sitting in the back of the cart, turned his head. With more light, I could see his amused smirk.
“Twelve men traveling on horseback? All armed and not wearing the uniforms of His Imperial Majesty?” The Kennelmaster chuckled. “If we weren’t killed our first night for being bandits, then Kacha or any other general paying attention would know exactly where His Imperial Majesty was.”
Tallu’s lips had gone flat, and he narrowed his eyes at the Kennelmaster. But, when he opened his mouth, he agreed. “Pretending to be merchants will invite curiosity but not raise suspicion. Even though travel will be slower than if we took horses.”
“But most of you can use electro magic. Why not take a carriage that runs on it so that we don’t have to rest the animals?
” We had been traveling long enough that we would soon need to stop for breakfast and to make sure that the horses were fed and watered, to guarantee we were not going to kill them on our first night on the road.
“In the capital, you see electro magic more than you do in the rest of the Imperium.” The Kennelmaster’s smile twisted his lip, and he turned to Tallu. “Do you want to tell him why?”
I frowned at the pointed tone, but the Kennelmaster turned away, looking out the back again, even though the only other person we had seen was a farmer starting his work early in his field.
“In the countryside, any child born with electro magic is conscripted into the military. And if they aren’t fit for the military, their power is far too valuable to waste.
There are jobs in the capital for anyone with electro magic that pay more than enough to sustain their family back at their village.
If they do not go into the military, they are often sold to someone in the city.
” Tallu kept hold of my eyes, fury leaking into his russet gaze.
There was no one who hated the Imperium more than Tallu himself.
I put together pieces quickly. The Kennelmaster’s Dogs used electro magic, and their loyalty to each other bordered on familial. More than familial, given how close Sagam and Asahi were, how close Boro and Toji had been.
“Do you buy your Dogs?” I asked.
“No,” the Kennelmaster said. “Being an Emperor’s Dog is a special position. One must work to be a Dog, and only the most dedicated slave wants to work so hard for a master who owns him.”
I thought again about the difference between Sagam and Asahi.
Asahi had wanted to leave, felt as though he could.
But Sagam not only had nowhere else to go but felt as though he had worked too hard to give it all up.
Even if the Kennelmaster had never purchased a Dog, there were other ways to be a slave.
Who was Sagam supporting with his pay that he felt trapped in a role that left him without the opportunity to live freely with his lover?
We went over a sloping hill in silence, the crest revealing a town in the valley beneath.
The mountain on the other side was caved in, the whole thing nearly gone.
The evidence of mining was so extreme that for a moment, I wondered whether I was seeing things.
Perhaps an earthquake had cleaved the mountain in two, but that was just as impossible as the evidence I could see with my own eyes.
“Was that because of the war?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
“Trade with Krustau has been strained for years.” Tallu looked out one of the gaps between the slats that covered the cart. “We couldn’t risk relying on them for the ore we needed. However, we have no stone magic in us. The ability to sing metal free of the stone around it isn’t ours.”
“The wars have been just as hard on the Imperium as they have everywhere else. Armies and warfare have an endless appetite for supplies and raw materials.” Lerolian poked his head into the cart from where he sat in the front with the driver.
“Ask Tallu how many of its own citizens the Imperium killed in the mining here before they started importing elven slaves from Tavornai.”
Tallu didn’t glance at Lerolian, and I realized that I had automatically looked at him. How good was Tallu that he didn’t even look anymore when a blood mage spoke with him? And even still, the Kennelmaster had caught on to him.
“We’ll stop here.” The Kennelmaster gestured to the town.
The main road glanced off the town, touching just enough that the massive transports carrying the mining ore to the processing facilities had room to load.
“If we need to change any of the horses, they’ll have them here, and we can’t know if we’ll have any others on the road. ”
The inn at the edge of town was large enough to be a common stopping place for anyone traveling to or from the mine.
When the driver pulled into the yard, stable hands immediately came out, rushing to help with the horses.
The bustle easily covered Tallu and me slipping out of the back of the cart, both of us exiting with our hoods pulled up.
We made our way in, the Kennelmaster paying with a few coins for a private room. The innkeeper didn’t seem surprised at the request, merely showing us to a smaller room off the main one, the door sliding shut even as it didn’t muffle the noise of the main dining room.
Tallu took the chair at the head of the small rectangular table, and with a slow movement, he drew back his hood.
No one tried to stop him, although I couldn’t help the spike of anxiety that pinched my stomach.
What if the innkeeper came back at the wrong moment?
With his hood back, he straightened, tilting his head to examine the room.
The moue of his mouth was the only indication of his feelings, and I could feel the palpable relief that ricocheted through the Dogs.
He might be dressed as a merchant, but he was still the emperor.
I took a seat next to him, adjusting my pack in my lap.
Peeking inside, I saw the dragon still sleeping, her wheezing snore barely audible.
Tallu reached out just briefly and pulled my hood back far enough that he could see my face.
I felt the skim of his leather gloves at my temple like fire.
He raised an eyebrow, and I closed the pack again.
Three of the Dogs arrayed themselves around the room—two near the door, one under the window.
Two more Dogs joined us, and I recognized Asahi first, Sagam shutting the door behind them.
Asahi was pale and sweating, but on his feet.
He nodded at me first before speaking to the space between Tallu and the Kennelmaster.
“There is a representative of General Bemishu here.” He flicked his eyes toward me, the merest glance before he turned back to Tallu. “The locals are about to hang her.”