Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 6, Chapter 4

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 6, Chapter 4

Chapter 4

24th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE

Studying was hard when one was cold, wet, and miserable. Additionally, it was not so much studying as it was trying to figure out what Fendros, Elise and Ida’s capabilities were. Nemel hadn’t really thought about that while she discussed her plans for Dame Verliyn’s demesne – she had simply assumed that, since they were all Noble scions who had gone through two years of the Imperial Magic Academy as she had, they would be in a similar situation in terms of management and administration.

It didn’t really help that they had gone along with everything she had spoken about without revealing any of the major flaws in their upbringing. Having Dame Verilyn around – who needed to have everything thoroughly explained to her – probably made it easier for them to play along. In the end, however, Nemel was angry with herself for failing to properly scrutinise them when she had months to do so.

Lady Zahradnik said that there are some issues with them…

Back when she had first introduced Nemel to Lady Shalltear, Dame Verilyn had said that of Fendros, Elise and Ida. Nemel hadn’t given the statement much thought after that. The fact that Lady Zahradnik had caught on to their charade not long after they had been introduced was awe-inspiring. Maybe it was the difference between a Noble who ruled in her own right and a Noble scion barely out of the academy.

Nemel didn’t know what they were thinking for all those months. Did they believe that they would be able to get away with it? Would they have continued to pretend that they knew what they were doing, praying that they would just be able to just fake their way through life? Right up until the point that they drove Dame Verilyn’s territorial operations off of a cliff? Nemel couldn’t wrap her head around how people could live like that.

…but it shouldn’t be anything that can’t be fixed.

Lady Zahradnik had said that as well. At least Dame Verilyn said that she had.

She still wanted to believe that her three former classmates were products of their terrible upbringing. They were all terrified of what the future held when she encountered them in Oestestadt – maybe that terror still gripped them even after being shown so much kindness. Maybe that kindness crushed them with guilt and the hole just got deeper and deeper, their mounting shame preventing them from confessing their situation.

Then again, they did seem to remember a lot of what they learned at the Imperial Magic Academy. They were all good students. It was possible that they honestly didn’t think they were that far off from Nemel. Ultimately, however, it was Nemel’s screwup and it was her responsibility to fix it.

They were strong in certain aspects of their Noble upbringing and their shortfalls weren’t irredeemable. The fact that they were practising Wizards wasn’t something that could be faked. All Nemel had to do was get them up to the same standard that House Gran demanded of its sons and daughters.

After she was done being mad at them, she started to formulate a training plan. They had a lot of work to do with their new land, so Nemel couldn’t afford to figure out what was necessary right away or stand around and lecture them on everything they needed to learn. For the time being, she had them organise the camp’s inventories – which was similar to helping organise Zu Chiru’s caravan inventories – and continue their respective magic studies.

The Rangers returned around noon and gathered around the fire to deliver their reports. Over half of them identified a rocky escarpment less than a hundred metres deeper into the brush.

“What we’re standing on right now is actually wetland,” one of them said. “There are bodies of water all along the valley floor. A few weeks ago, this entire place was probably underwater from the spring melt. If all this snow above us is going to melt away now, we’ll probably see another flood.”

“How high is the escarpment?”

“Three to six metres, depending on how far the river’s cut into the slope. The top ain’t flat, either – it gradually gets steeper.”

It sounded like they had come ashore in a bad location. Nemel scratched her temple, trying to figure out whether it was a good idea to set up their base camp yet.

“Let’s try this a different way,” Nemel beckoned to Joel Baumer. “I’m going to send you up, Mister Baumer.”

“U-up, Mistress Nemel?”

“I’ll enchant you with a Fly spell. Then you can fly up and down the river and survey things from above.”

Nemel cast the spell on the nervous Ranger. His feet lifted off the ground uncertainly.

“I can maintain this spell for six hours with a full mana reserve, so don’t worry about dropping out of the sky. The spell has a set acceleration, so make sure you don’t come down too quickly.”

Joel Baumer gingerly tested the enchantment for a few minutes before flying off to the east. Nemel returned her attention to the other Rangers.

“What’s the land like here?” She asked.

“It’s nothing like the copses back in Gran Barony, that’s for sure,” one of them chuckled. “Everything’s wild. Rangers and similar types will be able to get around, but this brush along the river is almost impassable to anyone else without using animal trails.”

“Did you see anything dangerous?”

“Not yet. There are those animal trails I mentioned, but we haven’t seen tracks from any big predators yet.”

“What about food and such? Can we survive here or will we need to keep resupplying from Warden’s Vale?”

“We can survive no problem out here. There’s plenty of wildlife and there’ll be plenty to forage once spring comes to the mountain. We just need a place where the river won’t wash us away.”

“That’s great,” Nemel beamed. “In that case, we can dedicate most of our revenues to development.”

“How will our taxes work, Mistress Nemel?”

“I’ll be assuming full control of the settlement’s resources for now,” Nemel told them. “We need to focus everything on getting our base camp up and running before winter arrives. I don’t think anyone wants to be sleeping in a tent during winter here if spring can be like this.”

Technically, that meant she had set the tax rate to one hundred per cent. With as little as they had, however, dividing their resources and labour in thirty-four different directions would get them nowhere quickly.

“When will things become more normal-like?” Someone asked.

“Once we stabilise,” Nemel answered. “This land is completely undeveloped, so even if I wanted to set up a normal tax scheme, I have no way to figure out what demesne revenues will be like until we’ve sent goods to market for a season or two.”

She pulled out the notebook tucked under her arm, flipping it open to the fourth page.

“Now that we have our land under our feet,” Nemel said, “I’ll go over our migration plan again. We have three waves coming in before winter. The first wave is, well, us. In addition to establishing a base camp, we’ll be surveying the territory to figure out the optimal location for our main settlement. Once we’ve done that, the second group will come in, which will include the people needed to build the settlement and our farmers.”

Nemel hoped it wouldn’t take long to reach that stage. She wanted some fields to test how various crops would do. Potatoes would be nice, but one never knew whether a land was suitable for growing any given thing. They also couldn’t delay long if they wanted dry and warm homes to shelter in before winter.

“What’s the third wave?”

“More farmers,” Nemel said. “But, more importantly…women.”

“Women?”

“Yes, women! There are thirty of you right now and only four of us! That number will become even more lopsided when we bring in the next wave!”

The few spare women she found unmarried in the city didn’t want to migrate. There were too many risks and unknowns. They all believed that the Empire was the best place in the world to live, despite the fact that they were struggling to make ends meet in the cities. Not only that, they were brought up in a culture where men took risks and women were usually seen as something to be protected. Even the women in question saw themselves that way.

Nemel could empathise with certain aspects of their position, as it was grounded in the realities that came with Human existence. All else being equal, the average man was bigger and stronger than the average woman. A man could have children with many women at the same time, but not the other way around. If a Human settlement lost many of its members, it would repopulate faster if it lost men rather than women.

Thus, men were expected to face danger. The vast majority of the Imperial Army was made up of men. When new lands were claimed, the first settlers were always men. Taking risks and seizing success was one of the foremost measures of a man’s worth in the eyes of society.

Women, on the other hand, were kept ‘safe’. Preferably out of reach of everything that saw Humans as food or competition. This idea dictated what women were expected to do, neatly packaged in their cultural norms. Generally speaking, jobs that kept women out of danger were seen as proper. One could be a Tailor, clerk, Chef or some kind of entertainer. Blacksmiths, Carpenters, and Engineers were also fine so long as they worked in settlements. Magical researchers, temple staff and arcane artisans were in high demand.

Unlike men, women weren’t pushed into taking bold action to validate their existence. For those possessed of rare talent and ambition, the attitudes that evolved from such a culture were often chafing. For the vast majority, however, it was a highly favourable situation. If one could pursue a reasonably prosperous life in peace and safety, why do anything else? Before coming to Warden’s Vale, Nemel herself had chosen a career that offered a degree of freedom in relative safety while also offering all sorts of cushy benefits. She couldn’t expect others to not do the same.

The few women who strayed from the beaten path and achieved spectacular success were not seen as role models for everyone else. They weren’t even seen as women: they were icons far beyond the reach of regular people; celebrities so long as they did not otherwise act beyond the boundaries laid by societal norms. If they did, they became a threat and their influence was suppressed whenever possible.

It was far easier to aspire to mediocrity than it was to greatness, so that suppression usually worked. The average person could not become a powerful Adventurer or Fourth-tier caster just by wishing so, after all. Going off of the beaten path would get one beaten into submission by the world itself.

To get women to migrate, she had to make her territory seem close enough to the ‘beaten path’ that the image of her territory would start to attract them. This was more difficult than it should have been, as the Sorcerous Kingdom was seen as a dangerous place filled with the Undead. Nemel’s neighbours were Demihumans and an ‘evil Dragon’ would be their liege.

Fortunately, the expectations that society placed on men worked in Nemel’s favour. So long as she kept them focused on their goals and they saw themselves making tangible progress, her band of intrepid pioneers would cooperate. For her men to attract wives and start families, they had to be seen as successful. Not only did they need titles and licences, but they also needed decent homes in settlements with everything an imperial citizen was accustomed to having.

Additionally, her father always said that men needed many things that would only be considered ‘nice to have’ as a woman. They needed a sense of pride and accomplishment in something real, they needed something to protect, and they needed someone to love. Without those things, men were merely caricatures filled with shallow values and empty lives.

When looking at things from that perspective, what had to be done became remarkably clear. She would create a place where people did not merely exist from day to day, but one where her people and the generations that came after them could truly live.

The Imperial Magic Academy didn’t teach anything like that. To the Empire, being a Noble was a purely administrative role, revolving around numbers and models for what the central bureaucracy considered a functional territory. Even things like ‘public sentiment’ and ‘satisfaction’ became numbers plugged into sterile formulas dictated by a faceless body of ‘experts’ in the ministries.

Nemel didn’t like that at all. Since it was entirely up to her, she would run Dame Verilyn’s territory according to the values of House Gran.

Joel Baumer returned from his flight, landing far more slowly than he had to. Nemel dispelled the Fly spell.

“Report,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress Nemel,” the Ranger bobbed his head. “There’s a great spot about four kilometres upriver. It’s just above where the other river joins this one. The escarpment there is only a half dozen metres or so from the shore.”

“That sounds great, Mister Baumer,” Nemel smiled. “Can the boat go up that other river?”

“A little. The other river falls over the escarpment about a kilometre from the site I mentioned.”

That was more than good enough. Since the territory was on a major waterway, building a pier for the village was a given. She informed the Death Warrior captain of the new location and instructed her people to head over and begin clearing the site. As for Fendros and the others…

“We’re going to Warden’s Vale,” Nemel told them.

“We are?” Fendros blinked.

“If we fly straight over this ridge,” Nemel said, “it should only take about thirty minutes to get there. It’ll take these guys two hours to muck their way over to the new site. We’ll take a look around while they do that.”

Nemel cast Fly on Ida and herself. Fendros cast the spell on herself and Elise. They went straight north over the ridge that the Katze River flowed around. Near the top of that ridge, a voice popped up in Nemel’s head.

?Unidentified flyer, this is Royal Army Air Patrol 56. You are ordered to halt and submit yourselves for inspection.?

A pair of Elder Liches descended upon them. Fendros and the others floated closer to Nemel as one of the Undead mages produced a black clipboard. The sound of its pen scratching over paper carried over the cold winds.

“Identify yourself,” it said.

“Nemel Gran,” she replied. “I’m Dame Verilyn’s new seneschal.”

“What is your destination?”

“Warden’s Vale.”

The scratching of the pen resumed. After a moment, the Elder Lich looked up again.

“Do you have proof of your identity?”

“I, uh…no?”

“?Summon Undead V?.”

A startled cry rose from Ida as the two Elder Liches summoned eight Wraiths, which immediately surrounded them. One of the Elder Liches flew behind.

“You will come with us,” the one in front of them said.

A member of the Imperial Air Patrol being taken in by the Royal Army Air Patrol…

The grim procession descended northwards, skimming low over the Katze River. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the army base. Two Death Knights came to stand on either side of them. They were brought to a grey granite office with severe-looking furniture.

“You will wait here,” one of the Elder Liches said.

The Undead left the room. Nemel seated herself on a plain wooden chair.

“A-are we in trouble?” Fendros asked.

“But we didn’t do anything wrong!” Ida wrung her hands nervously.

“Maybe we need permission to fly around in the Sorcerous Kingdom,” Fendros said.

“But Dame Verilyn was flying around…”

“Dame Verilyn is a Knight. We’re pretty much commoners. There’s a huge difference.”

Several minutes later, an Elder Lich appeared in the company of two other Elder Liches. The newcomer looked a bit familiar. Its crimson gaze moved back and forth before settling on Nemel.

“Visually, they appear to be who they say they are,” it said.

“Is there any possibility of deception?” One of the other Elder Liches asked.

“It is not impossible.”

The first Elder Lich pointed a bony finger at Nemel.

“You will be subjected to mind control magic,” it said. “Do not resist.”

“Eh? What?! Mind con–”

“?Charm Person?.”

Nemel squeaked and shielded herself with her arms as the spell washed over her.

“The subject has resisted the spell. Escalation is advised.”

Two Death Knights stomped into the room. Wicked blades brandished.

“W-wait! Do it again! You did it so suddenly that I just reacted…”

The Death Knights looked at the Elder Lich. A dry sigh issued from the Undead caster’s throat, and it pointed its finger at her again.

“?Charm Person?.”

Nemel blinked and looked over at the Elder Lich. She rose from her seat and threw her arms around its bony frame.

“I’m so sorry!” She said, “I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble.”

The sound of a scratching pen rose to her side. Nemel released the Elder Lich, looking at the other with a frown.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? Why are you writing up my friend? What did she do to you, hah?”

“What is your name?”

“Look here, you–”

“Answer the question,” her friend said.

“Nemel Gran.”

“What is your quest?”

Nemel narrowed her eyes. She looked at her friend, who nodded slightly.

“A trip to Warden’s Vale,” Nemel answered.

“What is your favourite colour?”

“Lavender.”

The Elder Lich’s pen stopped. It turned its head to nod at her friend.

“You are free to go about your business,” it said. “Have a pleasant day.”

The army Liches and their Death Knights left the room. Nemel turned to smile at her friend.

“Say,” she said, “I’m new here. Since we’re friends now, would you like to go out with me and–”

Nemel froze as the Charm Person spell was dispelled. She tried to see what Fendros and the others’ faces looked like out of the corner of her eye.

“I think we saw a side of Nemel that we weren’t supposed to see,” Elise said.

“Nemel Gran,” the Elder Lich said. “You and your aides will come with me.”

Nemel resisted the urge to cover her face in her hands as they filed out of the building after the Elder Lich. She picked up her steps to walk alongside it, trying to ignore the gazes of the other women.

“You’re the one Lady Zahradnik introduced to us at the harbour,” she said. “Nonna, right?”

“Correct.”

“Why did they ask me for my favourite colour?”

“That is confidential.”

“…about what I was going to ask–”

“No.”

She sighed and fell back to walk with the others. They boarded a wagon parked not far from the office. When they reached the intersection leading to the harbour, the wagon turned left towards a cluster of stone buildings arranged around a bare stone plaza.

“Are these all houses?” Elise gaped.

“They’re huge!” Ida stared.

Nemel nodded in silent agreement. They were huge. Even the smallest one was about as large as a minor Noble’s provincial manor. The shophouses were three or four times as large. Furthermore, they were all fashioned from granite.

A few men and women moved around the plaza. Most of the residents were probably working. A bell tolled from the spire of a long structure at the northern end of the plaza. Its door opened and disgorged dozens of children.

“A school?” Fendros murmured, “I wonder if all the kids here attend…”

“Truancy is prohibited,” Nonna said. “Violators are returned to the institute by army patrols.”

Is it a school, or a prison?

The wagon stopped at a house with a small jungle inside. Nonna led them into a small office to the side of a hall filled with plants.

“What is this place?” Nemel asked.

“The temporary office of Baroness Zahradnik,” Nonna answered. “I assume that you have arrived for orientation?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Nonna went over to a shelf, pulling out several volumes. The Elder Lich placed it on a nearby desk.

“The first red tome contains a summary of the public laws of the Sorcerous Kingdom as of the first of spring. A summary of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s civil laws is contained in the second red tome. The green tome contains the bylaws of the territories under House Zahradnik’s management, including those of the special administrative zone. The black tome contains the military regulations of the Royal Army. As administrative aides, it is your duty to familiarise yourselves with all of them.”

“…do you have a crate for those?”

The Elder Lich produced a map of Lady Zahradnik’s territory, as well as a directory for local industries. A Death Knight appeared with a crate and packed their things away. On their way out, they ran into a walking plant.

“The other kids want to do weapons testing again…um, hello?”

Nemel stared at the humanoid figure. She was actually quite beautiful. Almost any noblewoman would be put to shame by comparison.

“Are you a Dryad?” Ida asked.

“Yeah,” the Dryad answered. “Oh.”

The Dryad dipped into a curtsey. It was rough and awkward-looking, as if she were unaccustomed to the movement.

“Dame Glasir Gel Gronvidr,” the Dryad said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

First a Dragon Knight, now a Dryad Knight…I guess the latter shouldn’t be as shocking as the former.

Contrary to their attractive appearance, Nemel was taught that Dryads were extremely dangerous. Any reports delivered to the Imperial Army concerning them had to do with attacks against frontiersmen and even army patrols. As Heteromorphs, they were far stronger than most Demihumans. They also had an array of powerful Spell-like Abilities and the strongest ones were often Druids.

They took turns introducing themselves to the Dryad Knight. Dame Gronvidr put her things away somewhere in the tangle of plants in the hall before returning to them.

“So you work for Dame Verilyn, huh.”

“Yes, that’s right. We just dropped off our people in her territory and we came by to look around Warden’s Vale…actually, if you’re not busy, we would love it if you could show us around.”

“I guess I have a few hours,” Dame Gronvidr said. “Just a minute…”

The Dryad went past the hall and up a flight of stairs. After a few minutes, she came back down and led them back outside. On the street, there was a gaggle of kids waiting with expectant looks.

“They said to meet outside the forge again,” Dame Gronvidr told them.

Nemel watched the children disperse around the plaza. Having so many gathered like that was fairly rare in the Empire. Past the age of six or seven, most would be apprenticing under their parents and busy with work.

“Did you say something about ‘weapons testing’ just now?” Nemel asked.

“Hm? Yeah. With the league battles postponed, most of my classmates are trying to improve the stuff that they craft for matches. Anyway, where do you want to go first?”

“Could you introduce us to all of the businesses here?”

“Sure.”

Dame Gronvidr made her way across the plaza, her golden red leaves rustling in the wind. Despite looking like an Elf or a Human, she didn’t walk like one. It almost seemed like she was attached to the ground as she stepped forward.

The familiar tread of a Death Knight sounded from behind them. Nemel looked over her shoulder to find one of the powerful Undead warriors following them with a potted tree in its arms.

“…is that your tree?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know Dryads could pot their trees,” Nemel said.

“Me neither,” Dame Gronvidr replied. “It was already like that when I was born.”

Like Dragons, Dryads appeared to be a race born knowing things.

“Are you going to plant your tree someday?” Nemel asked.

“Not for a while,” Dame Gronvidr answered. “Dryads can’t go very far from their trees. I have to finish school and all of my other studies first.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, Dame Gronvidr, how old are you?”

“Uh…six months or so.”

“…”

Hetermorphs were unfair. In the time when Nemel would still be unable to talk or walk properly, Dame Gronvidr was going to school, had been granted a knighthood, was probably much stronger than Nemel was now, and had an amazing figure that Nemel could only wish for.

They went along a row of shops, stopping to introduce themselves to each of the proprietors. Everyone was polite and friendly, answering their questions in good humour. Along the way, however, they discovered several alarming things.

The first was that the prices quoted for timber were extraordinarily low. Since they were in a heavily-forested frontier region, she did expect depressed prices relative to what one might find in the cities, but what she found in Warden’s Vale was beyond that.

Secondly was that everything generally felt ‘off’. At least compared to the Empire. Essentials were cheap and plentiful. What a frontier territory would consider luxury items were also readily available. The problem was that they were items that not only shouldn’t have been there, but should have been expensive enough for no one to be able to afford.

Yet, people came and bought them. It was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping open when a lone little girl came by on an ‘errand’, casually placing enough gold on the counter to support a common household for two years. She knew exactly what the magic item was and how to use it, too.

Nemel was thoroughly confused by the time they started heading over to the wagon lot to go home. They could save on mana by riding over to where their new camp lay across.

“Dame Gronvidr,” she said. “Do you know how much the average tenant household here makes?”

“No,” the Dryad shook her head.

“Do you have any tenants or incomes?”

“Unless you count worms and insects, I don’t have any tenants in my pot. I do make some money as a Druid, though.”

“How much does it cost for divine magic here?”

“Two copper coins for an Orison or First-tier spell. I can make a few silver coins a day, but that depends on what’s going on.”

Druids weren’t like Priests and Clerics, who worked for Temples that had various operational expenses to take care of. Dame Gronvidr was probably the highest-earning six-month-old in the entire world. That people could afford double the rate of divine magic in more developed lands meant that they were relatively affluent as well.

“Are the taxes really low here?” Nemel asked.

“Uh…I’m not sure if it’s low or not, but I think there’s a ninety per cent tax rate here.”

Nemel’s mouth fell open. Warden’s Vale was well past the point where anyone should expect to give up ninety per cent of their production.

“H-how does anyone pay for anything here? They’d have to produce an awful lot to afford ninety per cent tax!”

“I haven’t heard anyone complain about it. Everyone looks happy here.”

That much was true. Baroness Zahradnik’s subjects all looked motivated and generally content with their lives. If it was the Empire, a ninety per cent tax rate would starve everyone to death.

They parted ways with Dame Gronvidr, directing the wagon south out of the city. What they discovered in Warden’s Vale and the implications that it carried were not lost on Fendros, Elise and Ida.

“Um…what are we going to do?” Ida asked, “Timber is crazy cheap here!”

“The price of meat is high, though,” Elise noted. “Our Rangers should be able to bring in decent revenues.”

“Is it really that bad?” Fendros mused, “The Rangers said we should be able to easily sustain ourselves. Essential goods are cheap, so our exports should manage well enough.”

She had a point. They wouldn’t be able to afford any luxuries, but their basic needs were covered. Achieving the same quality of life as the residents of Warden’s Vale, however, felt like an insurmountable wall.

Nemel dug through the crate of administrative materials provided by Nonna, looking for clues as to how they could match whatever the other people in the territory were doing. In addition to the legal references, the Elder Lich had included almanacs and manuals. It didn’t take long to figure out what they were missing.

“It’s the Undead,” she said. “They’re using Undead labour.”

As silly as it seemed, she had forgotten all about it. The Sorcerous Kingdom was well-known in the Empire for its utilisation of Undead labour. They even made efforts to market it abroad. Despite this, Nemel never assumed that Undead labour would be used in her new territory for some reason.

“Are we really going to use it?” Ida asked.

“I don’t know…”

Up to this point, the fact that the Sorcerous Kingdom used Undead security and labour was seen as something that couldn’t be helped. This, however, did not mean that her people would so readily embrace it.