Chapter 12
They made it to the city, only to hit a wall, literally.
They were still outside, staring up at fortifications that were ridiculously, unnecessarily tall.
So much for Maiq's orders to ensure a swift entrance.
There was nothing swift about this. They sat at a dead stop, dead last behind a line of twenty-four carriages.
Wanting to make the mood under the shared umbrella a little less awkward, Shiro asked Maiq, "So, I get that you're a merchant, but what exactly do you sell? Guns too, like Anya?"
"You sure are quick to buddy up with people."
"We're sharing an umbrella. Hard not to, under these circumstances."
Maiq gave him a strange look, then answered with a sigh. "No, I don't sell guns. Too dangerous a trade. I trade something more common. Food."
"Oh, that sounds safer. What kind of food?"
"Fruits."
"What kind of fruits?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"Any kind you wouldn't easily find in this region."
"Let me guess, from your homeland?"
The look Maiq gave him, a man Shiro assumed came from some tropical land, told him he'd guessed wrong. "He's an Arad. His homeland is as far from here as mine is," chimed in Chaska, who so far had stayed consistently silent except to laugh at him.
"I see. So the fruits aren't from your homeland, then."
"They are. I was born and raised where my wares are grown and harvested. Bernissac."
"Sounds like the words of someone who's forgotten his true roots," Chaska commented, in a tone that made Shiro glance sideways at her.
"Roots? What other roots would there be for me, besides the place I first saw daylight?"
"The land of your ancestors."
"Heh? That's their land, not mine. This is my land."
"These are the lands of those who stole ours."
"We Arads, unlike you people, sorry, I meant that particular subsection of your people, we claim this land as ours, and our children's after us. We don't cling to some abstract homeland we've never even set foot on."
"Abstract? You call heritage abstract? A man's blood belongs to a place whether he's walked its fields or not. It shapes who you are, the history that carried you here."
"A history of ghosts who didn't make the smartest of decisions," the merchant shot back, turning to look her dead in the eye.
"We've moved past those overly sentimental, unpragmatic ways.
We know now that blood is just red fluid.
It doesn't water the crops. It doesn't feed a starving belly.
The dirt under my fingernails right now," he said, holding up hands that were, ironically, spotless, "and the soil where my fruit grows, that's what keeps me alive.
That's my reality. Your ancestral lands, your ancestral feats, that's just a bedtime story you tell yourself about the greater man you could have been. "
"It's called identity," Chaska countered, her voice dropping low and steady. "Without it, you're just driftwood. Moving from shore to shore, belonging nowhere. Don't you—"
"Okay, that's enough," Shiro cut in. "I don't need this debate. Not under a sun like this."
Both of them shot him a look of annoyance, but conceded the point. It really was too hot for a heated argument. He turned to Maiq instead. "So, this Bernissac, what's it like?"
It was an obvious gap, given his memory loss, but listening to the two of them argue made him realize just how unfamiliar he was with the history and geography of this place.
It was an opportunity to learn something, and since history had already proven to be a thorny subject, he stuck to geography instead.
"Let me see if I've got this right. There are two continents in this world, and we're on Tyrelea.
This continent has three major realms, including the Aelorian Empire.
The empire's made up of ten kingdoms, and inside one of them sits the dukedom of Eudeussac, right at the empire's southernmost border. Did I get that right?"
"Yeah," Maiq confirmed, then frowned at him. "How do you not know that? That's common knowledge, unless you really are what you look like. A continental foreigner. But what would you even be doing this far south?"
Having just watched how tense things got between Maiq and Chaska over the foreigner subject, Shiro had a feeling being pegged as a foreigner himself would bring him trouble, so he hesitated, giving Chaska the opening to answer for him.
"You think a continental foreigner would have an accent like his?"
Maiq's eyes widened. "Now that you mention it."
"She's right," Shiro agreed, even though he'd never once noticed himself having an accent.
"That still doesn't explain why you don't know any of this."
"I've lived a pretty reclusive life. I'm out of the loop on modern geopolitics."
"Modern? There's nothing modern about any of this."
"Don't overthink it, man."
"You're making this difficult," Maiq sighed. "Honestly, it just makes me more curious. What's the deal between you and Anya, anyway?"
"What deal?"
"Come on, you know what I mean. She called you her paramour, but you're clearly not that."
"Aww, she called me that? Really? Hold on, paramour implies... don't tell me she's got someone she's engaged or married to."
Maiq ignored that. "I'm no fool. You're not just some fling to her, or she wouldn't go to these lengths for someone she considers disposable.
Someone like that wouldn't be reckless enough to flirt with one of the guards escorting you either.
And that's not even counting her," he added, nodding toward Chaska.
"There's clearly something about you that makes her care about your safety and comfort.
Some kind of deal, and knowing her, one that involves a lot of money. "
Shiro neither confirmed nor denied it.
"Is it gun related?" Maiq guessed, correctly. "With her, it's always gun related. Am I right?"
Shiro stayed silent.
"Come on, tell me. Aren't we friends, sharing this parasol? What's it about? I'll make it worth your while."
"Aren't you a fruit seller? Why would you care about a gun deal?"
"I am a fruit seller, yes, but I don't see the harm in expanding my activities a bit."
Those sounded like the words of a very untrustworthy friend, Shiro thought. Then again, Anya had never once called the man a friend, only a fellow merchant. Fortunately, before Maiq could press further, Franka rode up on her vaulter.
"Franka," Maiq called. "What's going on? Why the hell isn't this line moving?"
"The guards are actually following protocol at the gate for once, which they're clearly not used to, that's what's holding things up," she reported. "You've got your paperwork, boss?"
"Of course."
"Good, because that's the other reason for the holdup. Someone didn't have theirs."
"Who?"
"Diarmuid."
"Heh. Serves the fat bastard right."
"That's very mean, boss."
"I told him time and again not to mess around with his paperwork. But no. Kids these days." He sighed. "His father's going to kill him for this."
"Diarmuid's your brother?" Shiro asked.
"Nephew," Maiq corrected. "We rode together until he and his independent group pushed ahead of us. So much for being more efficient." He turned back to Franka. "Speaking of which, why the sudden zeal from the guards?"
"Orders from up top, enforced by their noble superiors. No bribing your way through this one. Not at the guard level, anyway."
"I figured as much," he said, glancing ahead. "But why the sudden change? We came through without any trouble a week ago. I'd guess it has something to do with the dying lord, so what's the development? Is he dead? Did one of his sons take over?"
"That's what I assumed too," Franka said, chuckling, "but from what I've heard, no. Apparently this whole mess is because the city's expecting a guest soon."
"A guest? Who?"
"Nobody seems to know. Not even the guards, and apparently not even the knights serving the noble in charge. So you can imagine it's a pretty big deal."
"Yeah," he nodded. "I can see that, but I wish it didn't mean us baking out here." Maiq thought it over for a moment, then stepped off the wagon, taking his parasol with him and leaving Shiro to taste the full, merciless force of the sun.
"Where are you going?"
"My father will blame me if he finds out I was around and didn't step in when his first grandson got tossed in jail.
So I'll do the bare minimum." He gave a few quick orders to his people before heading off ahead, leaving Shiro exposed under open sky, not for minutes, but for hours.
Hours during which the line barely crawled forward, though at least by the end of it they'd inched close enough that the shadow of the massive wall finally fell over them.
Not that it did much to spare him and Chaska from the sun that had been slowly cooking them both. "That's one giant wall," he marveled, staring up at the thing looming less than a hundred meters from the archway. "A little much for my taste, though, don't you think?"
"Maybe now," she said, "but not back then. I heard the city's history when I was asking around about Nazim's shop. When these walls were built, they were essential, keeping monsters from spilling down off the mountain into the region."
"I see." He nodded, then added, as their carriage lurched back into motion, "Still doesn't make it any less of an eyesore. Though I'll give it credit for the shade."
She was still agreeing with him on that point, the carriage just beginning to move again with the rest of the line, when it happened, in the space between one breath and the next.
His body moved on instinct, drawing the Vanguard toward something he hadn't even had time to locate, only that it had come from somewhere atop the wall.
In that same instant, a wall of displaced air swept the full length of the queue stacked up behind them, as if some wind god had just dragged a giant hand through it.
Chaska's headscarf tore off and flew toward him, and he barely managed to snatch it out of the air.
Hats and papers went the same way, gone in an instant, along with loose weeds and anything else light enough for the wind to carry.
Leaves and scraps of fabric flew past in heaps.
The canvas covers on the wagons behind them cracked like whips and tore clean off their frames, tumbling end over end into the carriages ahead, which suffered the same fate in turn.
After that initial three seconds of wind-driven chaos, more chaos followed.
Vaulters and ramblers, giant three-horned quadrupedal reptiles usually calm and placid when well fed, bolted in panic.
Horses screamed and surged forward, several nearly colliding with the carriages ahead of them as the reins stopped meaning anything to the animals at all.
"What was that?" Chaska said, panicked, standing up and mirroring him, reaching for the gun she'd complained about carrying the day before.
"Not sure, but I wouldn't stand up just yet," he said, reaching over to guide her back down.
She complied. His eyes stayed locked on where he'd first drawn his weapon, though he noted, "It came from back there.
" The chaos itself had come from the opposite direction of where he'd aimed.
"Then moved ahead," he added, looking forward down the line, where amid the panic, a scream rose louder than the ambient noise of frightened people and animals.
"What now?"
Less dramatic than the first wave of chaos, it took them a moment to work out the source of the scream. A few meters up, on the archway, maybe half a dozen meters above them, something was plastered against the wall like a smudge. A big, red smudge.