Chapter 28: Old Friends at the Gates
Personal System Calendar: Year 00012, Day 1-14, Month V: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6857, 1st to 14th day of the 5th Month
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The Road That Wasn't There Before
A few days before the storm arrived, something else came out of the forest.
They had been traveling for some time before the road appeared beneath their feet. One moment the group was moving through the outer parts of the Great Forest the way anyone moved through it who did not know better: carefully, with eyes on the canopy and hands near weapons and at least some awareness that the undergrowth on either side of the path was not empty. The next moment the dirt track beneath their feet widened, leveled, and became something more deliberate. Cobbled in some sections. While some were cambered at the edges. Marked with the kind of care that said people who built roads for heavy wagons had passed this way.
Princess Mee-rka stopped walking and looked down at it.
"Cousin," she said, addressing Baliti, who was leading the column, "are you certain this is the correct way? You told us you had been here before. You said you knew the forest. But there is a road here now. There was not a road here before, was there?"
Baliti, eldest son of Chief Madok and a man of considerable physical presence who generally carried himself with the confidence appropriate to that, opened his mouth, closed it again, and reached up to scratch the side of his head in a way that communicated rather clearly that he had not expected this particular development.
Before he could produce an answer, his younger brother Marakan spoke from beside their cousin. "Sister. It has been some years since Baliti was last here. Would it not follow that things have changed in that time?"
Baliti pointed at Marakan with an expression of profound relief. "Exactly. That is exactly what I was about to say. Thank you, brother (cousin)."
"Hmmmpf…You were going to say nothing," Mee-rka said.
"I was still organizing my thoughts."
Marakan allowed himself a small smile and said nothing further. He had learned, over the years, when it was worth pressing and when it was not. His sister and his cousin could argue the point to the satisfaction of no one for considerably longer than any of them had time for, and the road was there regardless of whose fault it was.
Mee-rka looked along the road in the direction they had been traveling, then back toward the section behind them, where the cobbling gave way again to forest track. Merchant traffic had worn the softer sections down in ways that were recognizable if you knew what to look for. She had not been through this part of the forest ever since, but she knew a well-used route when she saw one.
"There seems to be more foot traffic here than I would have expected," she said, shifting from annoyed to observational with the ease of someone who had learned to channel irritation into usefulness. "This road leads somewhere worth coming to. I expect our destination the village has changed too."
"Everything has changed," Baliti agreed, though he could not have said specifically how he knew this, it was as good as any guesses he could get. He gestured forward and the column began moving again.
Their party numbered thirty-five in total. Mee-rka and Marakan at the center, flanked by Kira and Senna, the two wolf-lineage warriors who had been with them since before the Gremory years and who had seen enough of the outside world by now to be suspicious of almost all of it. Thirty additional warriors behind them, all women, all trained to standards that most settlements would have been glad to claim for their standing forces. They had left the Northern Beastman Tribes expecting to fight their way through a significant stretch of old-growth forest. They had brought the numbers appropriate to that expectation, it was small to avoid significant logistical delays but enough that they could fight back against the expected beasts of the great forests, one could never be too careful even if you have the strength to do so.
The road made most of those numbers unnecessary, which Mee-rka noted aloud with a tone that suggested she found this mildly embarrassing on everyone's behalf. Marakan observed that they could not have known, which was reasonable, and that the warriors would find other things to be useful for, which was optimistic, and that they were here now either way, which was simply true.
They kept walking.
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Banog
They had been on the long stretch of the forest road approximately five days when the patrol found them, or rather when one member of the patrol found them before the patrol itself had time to react.
The unit came from the southeasr (direction of one of the military camps) along a branching track: a mixed group of the recently formed Grimfang Cavalry riders and imperial soldiers on horseback, their regular rotation covering the full stretch of the road networks that kept the settlement's approaches clear of anything that should not be there. Torin Ned, the Grimfang Cavalry unit's acting commander in Erik's absence, had been preparing to bring the column to a halt and issue a formal challenge to the approaching party when the third rider on the left suddenly broke formation.
Banog, son of Chief Madok and member of Team Mandibles, had smelled something.
He got off from the back of the Six-Legged Horse and was running toward the approaching column before Torin could say anything useful, which was a fairly accurate summary of how Banog operated in general. He covered the distance between the patrol and the approaching group at a speed that made several of Mee-rka's bodyguards reach for their weapons before they identified what was coming at them. Banog did not slow down.
"Baliti!" he shouted. "You bastard!"
What followed was, by the standards of most reunions, somewhat alarming. The two brothers collided at a velocity that would have knocked a normal person flat and exchanged several blows in the fashion of people who had agreed long ago that this was simply how affection between them worked. Mee-rka watched with the expression of someone who had seen this many times and had stopped finding it surprising without ever quite finding it dignified. Marakan watched with quiet amusement.
The brawl settled after a minute or two. Banog stepped back, breathing slightly harder than before, and turned to the rest of the group.
"Cousins," he said, with considerably more decorum than he had shown thirty seconds earlier. He glanced at Kira and Senna. "Good to see you made it here in one piece." He looked at the thirty warriors behind them and reconsidered something. "All of you."
The patrol regrouped. Introductions were made between those who did not already know each other, which included most of the new imperial rotation members who had just been stationed here recently and had no particular context for who the Northern Beastman royalty were. Torin handled this with the competence of someone who had learned to stay calm when situations developed faster than briefings could cover them.
The bulk of the patrol continued their rotation. Banog came with the royal party.
"How bad is it going to be for you when Torin reports you abandoned your post?" Baliti asked, falling into step beside his brother.
"I didn't abandon anything. I redirected my patrol priorities in response to an unscheduled arrival of potentially significant individuals." Banog glanced sideways. "Also Torin will cover for me."
"Will he?"
"He will, he already knows who you are don't you remember?"
On the other side of him, Baliti asked what else had changed since his departure, and Banog considered this for a moment before answering in the way he had clearly been considering for some time.
"Brother," he said, "I am going to do something the humans here taught me to do when someone asks that question. I am going to tell you to see for yourself."
Baliti accepted this with the resigned patience of a man who had learned that his youngest brothers had been changed by their time in the village and that the most efficient response to this was to wait and find out what they meant.
Mee-rka, walking slightly ahead of both of them, called back over her shoulder: "Banog. I am a warrior princess. I do not require warnings."
Banog and Baliti exchanged a look.
"Cousin," Banog said, "I wasn't even going to warn you. I was going to say welcome to Maya village."
She made a sound that was not quite a response and kept walking.
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The Village
They came through the gates in the late afternoon.
The checkpoint at the main entrance was brief but thorough. The guards were professional, neither impressed by the size of the arriving party nor unsettled by it. Names, affiliations, purpose of visit, confirmation of escort. Mee-rka's name produced a flicker of recognition from one of the older guards who had been with the village long enough to have heard the stories from those who had been on the Gremory journey. He said nothing about it and cleared them through.
Inside was different from what Baliti had carried in memory.
Baliti said nothing for a long moment. He simply walked and looked. The streets were wider than anything he had imagined when Banog and Tamba had described the village in the letters they had managed to send back through the trade caravans that went to the old routes where Northern Beastman Tribes lived. The buildings were now sturdier, still with the same design as he saw it before and even the unique architectural houses of their own tribe and that of the Lokoroko tribe of course it was mixed with human designs (Zone 2). The roads were clean, and the drainage systems along them were functioning as evidenced by the shallow channels still carrying residual water from the earlier rains. People of different races moved with the particular ease of those who are going somewhere they know, doing something they understand, within a place that belongs to them. Some were new as it was apparent on their movement, mostly merchants, visitors and travelers who stopped by.
He had come expecting a larger village than what he had left. What he found felt more like a town that had decided not to call itself one yet.
The news of the party's arrival moved faster than they did. They had not gone far down the main thoroughfare when a familiar voice cut across the ambient noise of the market district.
"Mee-rka! Marakan! How did you get here?"
Anguy Archer was coming toward them from the direction of one of the market stalls, his wife Bella beside him, both of them with the unhurried expressions of people who had been having a relaxed afternoon until something interesting appeared. He waved with the enthusiasm of someone who had not seen old friends in years and was pleased about the timing.
Mee-rka's ears shifted. Not flattened, as they did when she was caught out, but angled forward in the way that meant she was genuinely glad. She did not make any particular effort to hold the expression back.
"Anguy," she said. "It has been a while."
He looked past her at the column of warriors, then at Baliti, then back at Mee-rka. "You even have Baliti with you. That only means our friends from the Kotoko clan made it back towards your home. Congratulations. How is Chief Madok?"
The answers were given and the queries resolved. Anguy and Bella excused themselves back to the market after a few minutes, carrying the small pleasures of a piece of news well received. Mee-rka watched them go with the expression of someone who appreciated, without being entirely able to articulate it, a place where people talked to someone close to what humans considered a royalty the way Anguy talked to everyone.
---
Later Afternoon
August arrived after training.
He had been working with Master Miles, Master Ben and Benethar through the afternoon and had not been reachable for the earlier part of the day. By the time the message reached him via one of the guardsmen, the royal party had already been welcomed into the Finn household, settled in with the particular efficiency that Angeline managed these things, and were in the process of being visited by what seemed like half the village.
He walked in to find the main room considerably fuller than it usually was. Griz and Hela, the Finn household's two young children, were doing their absolute best to climb Marakan, which he was tolerating with the patience of someone who had been around children before and found them considerably less threatening than most things he had encountered. Angeline was sitting with Mee-rka across the room and appeared to be having a genuine conversation, which meant Mee-rka had decided she liked her, which was not a decision Mee-rka made quickly, even though they have met before as Angeline and the rest of Talon one had helped in escorting the Gremory migrants back then, but that was sometime ago and it was only in that brief period that they have met. Kira and Senna were near the door, relaxed but present, positioned out of habit rather than actual concern.
August upon arrival took all of this in and addressed the room in the appropriate order of importance.
"It has been a while, Princess Mee-rka. Prince Marakan."
Mee-rka's ear twitched. "Stop calling me that," she said. "We are friends, aren't we?"
"Some things don't change," August said.
She made the sound she made when she was deciding whether something was worth arguing about and concluded that it wasn't. Marakan, extracting himself gently from Hela's grip, caught August's eye and offered a nod that carried considerably more in it than a nod usually did. He looked better than the last time August had seen him. Not entirely well, perhaps not entirely himself, but better in the ways that mattered.
The afternoon became an evening without anyone planning it. People who were members of that Gremory expedititon to get to Maya village had finished their work and heard that the Finn household had familiar faces they haven't seen in a while, so they found reasons to come by. The agricultural families, the hunting families, the construction crews whose heads of household had been on that long journey out of the forest years ago — all of them filtered through in ones and twos and small family groups, bringing food that got set down on any available surface and picking up conversations that had been sitting unfinished for years, after their party split from Mee-rka, Marakan, Senna and Kira.
Space ran short inside. The crowd spilled through the doors and settled around the outside of the house, where someone had the presence of mind to get a fire going and several people had the presence of mind to bring more food. The mezzanine filled up. The hearth became the center of a ring of people sitting on whatever was available, talking at a volume that suggested nobody was in any hurry to go home.
Baliti found his way to (Zone 3) Tamba and Rakatan sometime during the middle of it. Whatever that conversation was, it was theirs.
Mee-rka sat with her back against the wall near the fire and watched the room with the expression she wore when she was paying more attention than she let on. She had been to Gremory. She had seen the Fernando estate and the city beyond it. She had seen enough of the outside world by now to have a frame of reference.
This was something different from any of that.
She would be staying for a while. She and Marakan both were in a vacation, she had said, when Banog asked them earlier, in the tone of someone who had made up their mind and did not particularly invite the question to be pressed further. It was a reasonable thing to call it. Whether it was entirely accurate was a different matter, and not one that needed resolving tonight.
The fire burned. The food was eaten. People talked until the hour got late enough that the night's obligations reasserted themselves, and then they said their goodbyes and went home, carrying the warmth of it with them through streets still damp from the storm that had just passed a few days earlier.