Valkyrie's Shadow

Empire in Chains: Act 3, Chapter 1

Empire in Chains: Act 3, Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A shim’ring crest of glaciers fair,

A band of moor and meadow green,

A gown of verdant forest where

Lush bounty thrives, by sight unseen…

A caravan of four wagons slowly made their way north along the imperial highway. To the west, looming over the forested expanse of the Empire’s western frontier, the icy peaks of the Azerlisia Mountains dominated the horizon. The brisk winter wind blew over them, but its chill was warded off by Nemel’s equipment. She smiled as they strolled along, basking in the strains of the beautiful melody.

“He’s singing it wrong,” Dame Verilyn muttered.

Nemel blinked at the statement from the Frost-Dragon-turned-Elf beside her. Then she looked over her shoulder towards the Bard performing the piece two wagons behind them.

Proper songs required tremendous skill to perform; many argued it was far harder to learn than magic, which Nemel did not disagree with. Beyond songs for entertainment, Spellsongs were in a realm of their own and Nemel was not aware of any Bard who could perform them in such a way that they conveyed recognisable music.

“It doesn’t sound too off to me,” Nemel said. “He’s good enough to earn his keep in the second-class districts of Arwintar.”

Dame Verilyn made a disgruntled face. If it was anyone else, Nemel would have thought them filled with empty conceit. Everyone knew how difficult real music was to perform: those who were critical of a few errors were considered boorish and unappreciative. The woman–no, Dragon…did female Dragons refer to themselves as ‘women’? At any rate, she was undoubtedly skilled enough to dominate the entertainment scene in the imperial capital.

“That’s the worst part,” Dame Verilyn grumbled. “He’s getting paid to perform a cheap knockoff.”

“A cheap knockoff…have you heard the original?”

The song was not one that Nemel had known of before setting off north out of Engelfurt with Dame Verilyn. According to the Bard currently performing the song, it was something that had emerged over the summer from some unknown source. Saying so was nothing new; common Bards seldom claimed to have composed any song.

This was not out of any form of humility. It was said that for a piece to be rendered perfectly, one would have to be the composer as only they understood the very essence of the music they had created. Even if a conventional song could be understood by its listeners and even if a Spellsong’s magic took effect, they were merely imitations that would invariably have flaws because a ‘piece’ of the music was missing.

“There are two versions,” Dame Verilyn told her. “One was composed for conventional performance. The other is the true song – what you call a Spellsong.”

“Wow,” Nemel looked up at her, “I can’t believe you’ve heard a song from its original composer before. I wonder what it was like.”

“Would you like to hear it?” Dame Verilyn asked.

“Zu Chiru thinks this is a bad idea.”

Nemel and Dame Verilyn looked towards the ratman waddling in front of them.

“Why do you say that?” Nemel frowned.

“Zu Chiru has heard this song before. Zu Chiru went to a cold and bright place with big sky and many trees. When Zu Chiru returned to Zu Chiru, our wagon had gone from one town to the next.”

“…what?”

“Must hear to understand. Zu Chiru does not recommend.”

“You must be my only critic,” Dame Verilyn huffed.

Zu Chiru shook his head and his bluish fur fluffed out as he shuddered. Nemel looked down at the back of his head. Only the wealthy could afford to attend original performances in Arwintar. Even one song cost enough to make a year of her salary vanish, so he should be grateful that…

“Wait a minute…does that mean you composed this song, Dame Verilyn?”

“Yes? And I don’t get a single copper coin from all of these people reproducing my work – poorly, might I add.”

“Aren’t you happy that your music is spreading?”

“Of course I am,” Dame Verilyn replied, “but this and that are two entirely separate things.”

A gust of wind filled the air with the rustling of branches and the rasp of dead leaves. Nemel eyed a nearby copse of trees suspiciously.

Not only had she experienced what a ground patrol was like during her promotional examination, but members of each part of the highway patrol trained together to familiarise themselves with each other’s operating procedures. That being said, she was hardly an expert at identifying potential problems along the highway. Each ground patrol had two scouts – either Rogues or Rangers, depending on the circumstances – who usually identified and located potential threats well in advance.

No local patrols had attached themselves to their small caravan and it didn’t appear that they had hired any merchant guards. This was nice since it meant there was no chance that they had picked up any agents sent by other factions for Dame Verilyn. As a mage, however, the apparent ease by which an attack might reach her made her feel exposed and vulnerable.

“Dame Verilyn,” she said, “is there anything in those trees over there?”

“There are plenty of ‘things’ in those trees over there.”

“I-I mean things that might jump out and attack us.”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Dame Verilyn replied. “Have there been attacks along this highway recently?”

Nemel thought back over the past few weeks of highway patrols. The most ‘exciting’ event that she could recall was responding to the sightings of a pack of Sabrewolves, which they never found. According to the other members of her unit, threats from the forests to the west of the highway were once fairly frequent. After the Sorcerous Kingdom appeared out of nowhere, however, Demihuman raids and monster attacks dropped to nothing.

“Hungry animals come out sometimes,” Nemel said. “Or ones that wandered out of their territory. Magical Beasts appear very rarely.”

“Oh, that sounds promising,” Dame Verilyn brightened.

“How does that sound promising?”

“They can all be processed for materials, yes? A pack of ravenous animals coming after us would be like gold coins conveniently flinging themselves in our direction. I hope some Winter Wolves come after us: the last one I sold was worth a pretty sum.”

A pack of Winter Wolves could overwhelm an entire veteran Knight patrol in seconds. They were Magical Beasts that could give parties of Gold-ranked Adventurers problems. She glanced around at the members of the caravan nearby, but they seemed unperturbed by Dame Verilyn’s hopeful words. Did they all know what she was?

Nemel turned to address Kurtis, the lead wagon’s driver.

“Do you usually travel without an escort?” She asked.

“We usually have two merchant guards for each wagon,” Kurtis answered. “The people in charge said that we didn’t need them this time around since we have Dame Verilyn with us.”

“I see…you were already acquainted with Dame Verilyn before this trip, then?”

“Nope. We were told someone was coming, but she only appeared just before we left. Before she showed up, we were pretty dubious about having a single escort, but, well, company orders.”

She was loosely aware that this was how merchant companies worked. Every leg of a caravan’s journey was carefully calculated by an office to maximise profit, and security arrangements were similarly calculated according to the risks. Adventurer commissions worked in much the same way: the local administration had a budget to allocate to threats that the Imperial Army couldn’t handle, and rewards were effectively a percentage of the economic damage prevented by eliminating them.

This made Adventurers an extremely efficient way to provide security against powerful threats, but unreliable when it came to weak ones. An Orichalcum-rank Adventurer was as strong as a small army and cost the nation less to deploy. Having one maintain security like a small army could, however, was impossible since they were only one person. Constant vigilance against the commonly found weak threats from untamed lands was required, and the Imperial Army was the most reliable way to secure the lands against them.

The effectiveness of large numbers also applied with escort work. Dame Verilyn was a Frost Dragon and Nemel did not doubt that she could prevail against almost anything, but there was a world of difference between being able to win a fight and being able to ensure that a caravan survived with its members unharmed and goods intact. It usually required coverage from multiple individuals and a wide range of expertise in an escort’s members.

“You’re not worried anymore?”

“Not really,” Kurtis shifted in his seat. “She’s a Knight of House Zahradnik, and that’s about as good as it gets without bringing Death Knights and Soul Eaters along. I guess there are some things that can happen, but it’s nothing that a regular escort would be able to stop anyway.”

“Such as…?”

“Old Blister coming out and turning us into a snack,” Kurtis said. “But that’s not likely to happen. Aside from that, there are Manticores in the foothills.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Manticores,” Dame Verilyn said. “As for anything else along those lines, I noticed some Hill Giants.”

Nemel whipped her head back around to stare wide-eyed at Dame Verilyn.

“W-why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Was I required to say something?”

“It’s a Hill Giant!”

“Hill Giants. Plural.”

As far as Nemel could see, there were no Hill Giants in the rolling fields along the highway.

“You’re looking in the wrong direction,” Dame Verilyn said. “I scented them two days ago, but that horrible odour of theirs is no longer on the wind. We’ve been going northwest, so that should mean that they’re in or around that forest to the east of us.”

They had already left the jurisdiction of Engelfurt’s patrols, so Nemel wasn’t familiar with the surroundings. She knew that the forest existed, as one could see it from the air, but policing threats in that part of the Empire was the Second Legion’s responsibility.

“Maybe I should contact the Second Legion about this…”

“Why?” Dame Verilyn asked.

“Because they’re Hill Giants.”

“Repeating the same words does not make them any more or less meaningful to me,” Dame Verilyn frowned down at her. “Or are Hill Giants simply not permitted to exist?”

Kurtis cleared his throat.

“No offence to Officer Gran here,” he said. “But people from the Empire tend to think like that. Bring her to Karnassus and she’ll be jumping left and right at everything. Baharuth is a Human country and their views are, well, Human.”

“You’re Human, too,” Nemel muttered.

“Sure am,” Kurtis said. “But I’ve been around. Every race can see every other race as dangerous if they want. Way out on the other side of the Great Steppe, they consider Humans dangerous.”

“What!” Nemel exclaimed, “How are Humans dangerous? We don’t have big teeth or sharp claws or weird abilities.”

“Because Humans are ‘weak and cause problems easily’,” Kurtis replied. “The citizens of the Empire are a prime example of that. Being weak means you’re unreliable and prone to seeing everything as a threat. Since you think that way, the first thing that always comes to mind is fighting, running or figuring out how to ‘win’.”

That wasn’t fair. Humans were weak compared to other races. What else were they supposed to think?

“Master Chiru,” Kurtis said.

“Hm?”

“Think you can win in a fight against Officer Gran here?”

“Yes.”

There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation. Though Zu Chiru and his apprentices often bumbled around in their quaint little way, she had seen them foraging around the one time they had to camp outside. After a while, they came back to eat with everyone, except they were eating rocks. Rocks. They could probably bite off her arm in a single chomp or shred her to pieces with their wicked claws.

“Well then,” Kurtis said, “since you can beat her up, maybe you should.”

Nemel stepped closer to Dame Verilyn. Zu Chiru looked up at the driver, nose twitching in his direction.

“But why?”

“See?” Kurtis gestured towards Zu Chiru with his chin, “That’s the normal response. Most Demihumans don’t walk around looking at every Human thinking ‘mmm what a tasty morsel she seems’.”

“Our citizens are threatened by Demihumans all the time,” Nemel noted. “Not a day goes by where imperial patrols aren’t fighting tribes somewhere.”

“My caravans’ve been attacked by Demihumans once or twice, too,” Kurtis said, “but never in a city or a market. Hmm…how should I put it…the world works different. Human nations make rules for Humans and the world out there has rules just the same. Everyone wants to live; most people need to eat to live. But, just like us, they’ll usually do it in the ways that cost ‘em the least. Even the tribes in these parts follow those basic rules. If they attack, it’s because they think it’s worth it or they think they can’t afford not to.”

Kicking a pebble down the road, Nemel watched it bounce off into the ditch. Was it because they were from the Sorcerous Kingdom? No – they were subjects of Re-Estize less than a year ago. People didn’t change so easily. How could he think the way he did even after being attacked?

“It’s not just food,” Dame Verilyn said, “Humans are not the only species that places value on various things.”

“Yup, that’s true,” Kurtis nodded. “The more civilised a place gets, the more likely you’ll run into people that’ll come after you for your stuff. That’s what we got attacked by. Bandits. Not Human bandits, but bandits nonetheless. Still the same idea, though. If it’s worth doing, then some people will try.”

“And we’re just supposed to accept that?” Nemel said, “It’s fine because they want to eat us or rob us?”

“I didn’t say it’s fine,” Kurtis replied. “Just sayin’ that’s how the world works. If you need to fight, you fight. If you don’t, you don’t. Most races get that, but Humans…nope. Humans are seen as trouble because most think they need to fight everything they can’t control, and everything they do feels like it has to do with it. Re-Estize is even worse than the Empire, though – they think the same way and they act like they’re the centre of the world.”

Nemel shook her head. The way he spoke made it sound like Humans were the bad guys; that being weak was their problem and trying to do something about it was also a problem.

“Perhaps you need to experience it yourself,” Dame Verilyn said. “It’s much easier for me to learn things that way, at any rate. More to the point, I do not think your current views will get you very far in the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“What do you mean?” Nemel asked, “You just want me to grow potatoes, right? Potatoes don’t hurt anyone. They aren’t like tomatoes.”

“But you’ll not grow potatoes on your own, yes? It requires Farmers or some such.”

“Sure,” Nemel replied, “but that only means I have to sign up some Farmers.”

“Ah, but therein lies the problem,” Dame Verilyn told her. “Humans are rather scarce around my territory. Your most likely candidates for tenancy are Goblins.”