Sirin instructed Liam on the Khereshi dialect over the next year and six months, teaching Tufan BiLiam Alhusam the ways of Kheresh, even going so far as to allow him outside, but only under the cover of night. Though that last condition was more often fulfilled than denied, due to the floating island circling overhead, blotting out the sun and stars. ‘Call it a lesson in seizing the moment.” Said Sirin, allowing Liam into the walled yard surrounding their home.
Where the air tasted like sand, and barking dogs could be heard over the adobe walls. Pitiful as it was, this was his first contact with Khereshetal. Men shouted, their voices carrying, and Liam smiled at the obscenities they shouted.
Jenkins, would put them all to shame. These guys aren’t funny or clever, just gross.
He eavesdropped on passersby, listening as men came and went, conspiring against their friend and kin. Which is when his stomach turned against the people. This land was desperate, once it had been a trade empire, but after the cataclysm fewer and fewer merchants bothered to brave the white sands to deliver their wares. Besides, triangular sails and other nautical advancements meant that sailing around the Kheresh wastes and back was fiscally rational. Firmly positioning the lid to Kheresh’s coffin. Once wealthy Kheresh was now impoverished, and the people knew it. Only the Duke’s water magi kept the city alive. Their magic maintaining subsistence farming.
Liam learned this and more via his peeping portals. Foggy disks that showed him whispers of the town. From the nobles’ quarter situated nearest the Duke’s palace to the walled compounds of merchants and retired soldiers, all the way down the economic ladder to the squat houses of working families who crammed twelve siblings into single room apartments. Before finally wandering near the slave pens. For even in distant Kheresh, felinids were slaves. Though there were fewer here than he might have expected for a duchy, their pens were open aired cells, with bars for doors and windows; and chains to keep the slaves in servitude. Despite his relative autonomy, Sirin was always there to pull him back into the shadows, never allowing him to venture beyond their walled home. Not even on the rarest of occasions, when Sirin allowed Liam to join her midnight escapades, did she permit him to see the slaves. Though the lash scars could be seen from a block away, proof enough of their mistreatment.
—And of King Aldric’s deceptive promise.
Slavery had not ended. Or if it had, then Aldric was dragging his feet. When the king had said all would be freed, he had only meant all eclipsiarchs would be freed. Which raised a question in Liam’s mind, could he leave Kheresh without the slaves? If an eclipsiarch was among them, he would be honour-bound to free them. More than that, the eclipsiarchs had been hunted to extinction, with the few left almost guaranteed to be Nyota’s kin.
His family-in-law.
That’s a lot of mouths to feed. If I could get them all to Greenhaven then we would be fine, but can the slaves be our ticket north? They have the numbers to protect and carry us north in relative safety. But no money means they would have to sell themselves to pay our way or go full bandit. We could raid towns across the continent for food…
Liam shook his head, harming others to build yourself up was the shittiest sin of all.
Morals aside, they have no weapons, meaning they would only be meatshields. I can use lightning, but what happens if someone gets dragged off the road by hellhounds or sand lions?
They’d die. As would anyone who followed and tried to help them. Ah, no, slaves won’t work at all! They have no resources, no money, no food, no weapons. Bah, Champion Arlet only got Blackwood’s slaves into fighting shape because the Former Viscount was already training them to fight, and he stockpiled enough weapons to overthrow the king. He had resources to give. Which I do not. No, I can’t return to Nyota with the slaves… I’ll need to free them and find another way north. ShitPhuck!
Liam opened another peeping portal, this time scouting the road north. A dozen wagons were headed home, far more than normal. He opened a second portal, moving closer to the wagons. After hundreds of portals, this spell had become second nature. These wagons were wooden walled and canvas covered, apparently this style was required in Khereshetal. Else the glass sands would ruin whatever wares came to the city. Duke Kheresh’s crest was emblazoned on both sides of the wagons, marking this as another caravan of returning soldiers.
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Sand shifted along the caravan’s edge, something moving as the horses and camels trundled forward.
“Another monster? How do people live here?” Liam grumbled.
He aimed a finger at the moving dune, waiting until the insectoid mandible appeared. Which is also when the soldiers noticed it, shouts rang out as the sand lion lunged. Mandibles aimed at a horse’s legs. Powerful muscles rippled, propelling the half insect half feline monstrosity out of the sand. It ran on four legs like a lion, with thick limbs, but its head was a nightmare. Oddly elongated like a crocodile’s yet its skull was wide enough to house two-foot-long ant mandibles.
“Boom bitch.” Said Liam, hitting the antlion with a three quarters strength lightning bolt.
The head exploded from the concentrated electricity interacting with its gray matter, instantly frying the creature’s brain. Cerebrospinal fluid went from a liquid to a gas in an instant, creating enough pressure to pop the occipital lobe of the skull off and cause jets of steam to burst from the eyes. Messy, but easily ignored.
“You’re welcome.” Said Liam, scanning the caravan one last time.
The soldiers reacted well, quickly swarming the antlion, beheading it, and cutting out its heart. Liam smiled at their efficiency, relieved that his toddler ass didn’t have to baby them home. Then they sang a battle hymn, one that thanked Taloc for his guidance and asked for his protection as they went to war.
“At least this caravan has the sense not to kneel down and pray.” Muttered Liam, wondering if the war was finally over.
He needed to tell Mom, warn her again. But she was already out. This many soldiers meant patrols would be doubled. Liam put it aside, Mom would be fine. She was always a step ahead, today was no different.
He continued scouting the town, seeking a mercenary band or similar force to escort him and the slaves northward. A task he consistently failed in. It seemed as though everyone with the wherewithal to pickup and leave had already abandoned the city. Sure, there were merchants and farmers, but little else. Emir Efendi’s complex was the only real outlier. Liam would have called it a palace, but it was made of stone, quartz and marble, with outdoor pools that flowed in and out of stone cisterns. Underground tanks of water. It was clear that the Emir was a family of magi, most likely water and earth, the classical human affinities, but that much stone was impressive. And tacky. The whole complex looked like two earth magi, one of quartz, and one of marble, took turns remodeling the castle. Like twin brothers always trying to one-up the other and be more impressive, despite being identical. An absolutely terrible way to live your life. Although it was hard to argue with the results of competition, the Emir’s complex was next to the Duke’s and most of the complex grew crops under a sort of stone awning. It looked vaguely like shutters and blocked half the sun’s light, a fascinating way to reduce the amount of light in a garden. But it wasn’t effective enough to keep people from leaving. The gardens were tended by too few workers, and fruit often went to waste.
I wonder, how long has Kheresh been losing people? If the two richest men in the city are hemorrhaging wealth, then what’ll be left in a century?
Liam shook his head, King Aldric promised to send reinforcements to Greenwood, but sending the duke of the desert wastes to fight within a forest? Twas strange indeed. The march was long, and the warriors would be on unfamiliar terrain, a one-two combo that meant sending the duke was a foolish move. Kheresh would take unusually large casualties and the duke’s coffers would be drained an unwarranted amount. Obviously malicious decisions from a king that was known for his cunning. Liam’s spine went rigid. King Aldric was an asshole, not an idiot. He meant to wound Duke Kheresh, and exhausting his armies in distant Greenwood was the answer. But slighting a Duke so obviously would turn a majority of the nobles against him. “What are you up to Aldric?” Liam wondered aloud.
What his aim might be was unscryable through the fog of war. That thought would have to wait until he reached Greenhaven.
While Liam contemplated their future, Quetz protected their squatted home, growing to be four feet long on a steady diet of desert mice and the occasional Sabertoothed Serval. His lightning abilities were now in full swing, and if necessary Quetz could smite like a strangely long and bleached eyelash of Taloc. Although he wasn’t quite rideable yet, despite Liam’s best attempts. He was more in the swiffer picker-upper-wet-wipe category than in the witches’ broomstick arena; underpowered but technically capable of the job. If you invested far too much effort.