Ferene woke up to the feeling of a warm weight beside her, and reached out, wrapped her arms around it and pulled it towards her. The other person moved far too easily to be Rilya, and she suddenly remembered it was Velan. Blushing, Ferene pushed herself away, out of the bed. “We should get going as soon as we can.” She quickly said. Velan responded with a yawn, slowly pushing himself upwards.
Ferene dressed, finishing donning all her armor before the man was fully out of the bed, staring at her and rubbing his eyes.
She carried a stack of his books down to the wagon and then stood next to it, waiting. Eventually Velan showed up with the rest of the luggage, collected the donkey, and they set off in silence, hearing someone calling out behind them that breakfast was ready. Part of Ferene wanted a hot meal, but also wanted to get to the capital and part ways with Velan as soon as she could.
In the past she easily pushed people away. She wanted to push him away, to not feel the desire to look back at him as she walked ahead of the wagon. Ferene did feel that, and rather than push him away she just wanted to get away from him faster. While traveling south, alone, she didn’t notice it, but now, here, talking and traveling with Velan, she felt a sense of loneliness. Ferene missed her family. She missed eating with the group, watching them as they talked without her understanding, she missed gathering laundry and feeding the chickens, she missed Rilya.
So she wanted to use Velan to deal with that, even though she didn’t really know him, or even trust him. It felt wrong. She couldn’t go back to how she was before, pushing away Tullund when he tried to help her. Never before did she want to be around others, but a taste of it left her unwilling to go back.
As they traveled, the road widened, becoming more crowded. The fields on either side grew tamer, with the occasional farmstead consisting of larger and larger houses, or even multiple buildings. A group of soldiers on horseback overtook them from behind, not even stopping to look at the pair. A caravan of wagons slowly passed going the opposite direction, the train seeming to last forever, until eventually the final wagon was behind them. In the distance to the west, the walls of the capital rose upwards.
The capital dominated a wide hill, just a bit higher than the other rolling hills surrounding it. At the very top, the castle itself sat, looking small and frail at this distance, but standing tall above the city wall surrounding it. Outside the city, houses crowded the land, thinning out as they spread away from the walls, like swirling tendrils bending downward.
“Look over there.” Velan said, and Ferene turned around to see him pointing off to the side. Following his hand, she looked down into the valley north of the city. Countless tents and banners stood. Suddenly Ferene felt overwhelmed. How many tents were there? How many people? An army of a nation couldn’t be more than the people of the nation, could it? How many lived in the city, then? Marching with the Hatharen was nothing compared to the gathering of humans in those tents, and even her memory of Cefgras was dwarfed by the size of the capital city.
Before her stood the true nature of the human lands.
The stone road twisted up the side of the hill towards the city. Small wooden houses lined the sides of the road, the inhabitants stepping out to watch as the travelers made the slow approach to the city gate. Ferene and Velan found themselves in a cluster of other wagons, carts, and people on horseback or just on foot. As they drew closer to the wall, the observers became fewer in number but better off. The gaunt, skinny individuals peering out every door and window replaced with just a few decently dressed men and women standing in the open, watching directly.
The group came to a near complete stop just outside the gate, as a cluster of guards inspected each person before allowing them through. Ferene saw a few people and even a wagon pulled off to the side to make room for those following. Looking to Velan, she met his eye and he nodded at her, but said nothing else.
“Visit or stay?” The guard asked when the two of them finally reached the front of the line. He looked at Ferene, tilting his head upwards slightly to be able to meet her eyes under the rim of his metal helmet.
“Staying.” Velan said, drawing the guard’s attention even further upwards. “I am here for the University. I have letters of recommendation from-“
“Just show me one, so I can verify and send you on your way. What about her?”
“She is my bodyguard.” Velan said, pulling a paper out from between the pages of one of his books and handing it to the guard, who gave it a quick glance before returning it.
“Will she be staying here, or just visiting?”
Ferene frowned, unsure of what to say, but Velan answered for her. “She will be staying through my admissions process, in the unfortunate and unlikely event that I fail and have to return home.”
The guard turned to face her. “You may keep your weapons, as you will be a temporary resident and not a visitor. If you use them for any violent acts inside the city they will be forfeit. Do you understand?”
After Ferene nodded, the guard waved them through the gate.
Inside the city revealed a different world.
The stone road spread out, becoming the very ground Ferene walked on. Rather than stones being set into the dirt, patches of dirt, with plants or ponds, were placed in the gaps in the stone. A few trees here, some bushes there, but the rest of the ground was made of cut stones. Ferene wondered if there used to be more mountains like those in the north, before they were reduced to fist-sized blocks to make this city.
Unlike Cefgras, the houses rose upwards, two, three, and sometimes even four stories, made of varying combinations of brick, stone, and wood. Narrow streets, some so cramped that not even Velan’s cart could fit, ran between the buildings. In the sky above it all, the castle loomed, another construction of yet more stone.
Then there were the people, and the noise that came with them. Ferene had never seen so many people before. Everywhere she looked, her eyes were filled with people. They walked and ran down the streets, some stopping to approach her. Shouting, waving things in her face, begging. She glared at them, and they backed off, only to turn and approach Velan behind her, crowding around him to the point where Ferene was amazed the donkey didn’t panic. She stepped closer to keep them away.
The market they passed through was the worst. Her skin tingled as she found herself assaulted from all sides by noises. People shouting from stalls about their goods. The small town she met Velan in could not compare to the sheer chaos of Etsgras.
She walked beside his cart, letting him guide her through the mess, across the market and through the streets, following a path that slowly brought them closer and closer to the castle, until veering off to the side when the walls of it rose above the houses in front of them.
The University turned out to be a massive building, nearly as tall as the walls of the castle and wider than multiple city blocks, but lacked any form of distinction. The unadorned red brick wall stretched along the side of the street, and the two of them followed it until they found an entrance. The wall suddenly gave way to an intricate receded entryway, the brick fading into gray stone, thin, spindly pillars supporting the roof above the massive double doors made of wood and braced with gold straps.
Two guards stood at this gate, dressed in long robes, with thin dueling swords at their waists. Ferene felt they looked ridiculous, but they both turned to look at her, then at Velan, as he hopped off the cart and presented them with a piece of paper.
“Prospect Velan.” The guard who took the paper said after staring at it. “Your arrival is timely. There will be an examination period next week. Will you be participating?”
“Yes.” Ferene frowned at his stiff reply. She couldn’t see his expression.
“You and your servant can find lodgings at number of inns nearby. Come back here in nine days, with all your materials and references.”
“Certainly.” He replied, turning and mounting the cart again. Ferene saw his face, his jaw clenched, his lips pressed together in a tight line. She waited until they started down the street.
“Are you alright?” She asked.
“I was hoping to get inside. If you are a student, or a promising candidate, you are given a free room and free meals. My recommendations should have gotten me inside, but they aren’t even letting me inside. I have to wait for the examination.”
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“Is that a problem?”
He pulled on the reins, causing the donkey to stop. “I don’t like waiting.”
Velan took her to an inn nearby, a tall building with a fancy exterior and even fancier interior. The single room he reserved for them held beautiful, but impractical, furnishings, aside from the bed. Just looking at the wide frame and thick, stuffed mattress made Ferene remember her inability to sleep on the bed back in Cefgras.
The two went back downstairs to the common area, where they found a wide range of dishes prepared for dinner. Ferene picked out several rolls and fruit spreads for herself.
“Those aren’t supposed to be the main course.” Velan commented as the two of them sat down at a table to eat.
Ferene shrugged.
After the meal, she once again found herself laying next to Velan, again refusing anything more intimate than their proximity. He fell asleep, but Ferene found herself still bothered by the softness of the mattress. Pushing herself out of bed, she pulled her clothes on before stopping to look at the pile of her weapons. The guard warned her about violence, but she didn’t want to be completely unarmed in a human city. Picking up the dagger Rilya gave her, she slid it into the inner pocket of her jacket. It was big enough to be slightly awkward with the jacket closed, so Ferene left it open.
The city was bright, even at night. Light showed through a few windows, but most of the illumination came from the intersections of the streets, where large braziers sat. Ferene walked from one lighted crossing to the next, ignoring those she walked past. While the streets were nowhere near as crowded as they had been during the day, Ferene still felt there were just too many people outside. As she strayed further from the center of the city, the numbers thinned out, until she could relax more, no longer needing to constantly weave around others on the narrow streets.
At a larger intersection, voices drew her to a large gathering. Men stood in a circle, watching something and shouting. Ferene moved closer, pushing through the crowd to get a look. At the center, two men, bare chested, grappled each other in the dirt. As she watched, one fighter slammed the other down, pinning his opponent as the noise from the crowd grew louder. After struggling for several moments, the pinned man slapped the ground three times, and someone from the side stepped into the right, pulling the top man off. Some of the crowd broke out into cheers while others booed. Ferene turned and left, remembering the last time she had fought someone bare-handed.
Ferene continued to wander, and found the lights growing dimmer, the braziers at the intersections being unlit or absent entirely, giving way to wider streets and buildings with torch-lit entrances. From one of these entrances a man stumbled into the street, clearly drunk. Ferene stepped around him and kept walking. She didn’t know what she was looking for.
A voice from the darkness drew her attention, leading her down an alley until she stepped out into a small lit square. The lights surrounding an open door illuminated the entire space, revealing the backs of other buildings and another exit leading to the street on the other side of the block. Four men stood facing the entryway, looking up at a man and a woman standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the steps, staring back at them.
“I could have forgiven you for a few coins, but when you bring your friends, it starts to be too much.” One of the four men said, pointing at the woman. The two in the doorway wore the same plain clothes, while the ones arrayed against them were dressed in a variety of flashy tunics.
“I thought business was business.” Ferene noticed the man tensing up as he spoke, the woman next to him doing the same. She immediately felt that these two were trained and experienced.
“Business is business, and math is math. If you drive away other patrons, it’s not profitable to have you around. Too many factors adding up against you. Soldiers put people on edge, and they came here to relax. Then you have a woman participating.” The first man spoke harshly, as the other three stepped to the side, blocking the soldiers from leaving.
“What’s wrong with that?” The woman asked. “I paid the same as anyone else.”
“I don’t have any objections, but it makes some people uncomfortable. This is a place for men to be men. You ruin the atmosphere.”
“If a single female customer ruins the atmosphere of your brothel, it can’t have been good to begin with.” The male soldier said. “We’ll find somewhere else to spend our money.”
The first man chuckled. “You can do that, but only after you make up for all the money you cost us by driving away the other guests.”
Ferene saw one of the others pull a knife, keeping it hidden behind his back. “Having easily offended customers isn’t our problem.” The woman said, stepping forward. She was only looking at the man in front of her, and so when the one with the knife lunged she was slow to react, bringing her arm up to shove the blade aside. She cried out as it cut into her skin. The noise sent everyone into motion.
The other soldier immediately shoved her behind him, bringing his other hand up just in time to harmlessly slap another knife away. The man that spoke earlier stepped back and drew a knife from a belt pouch as the last attacker moved in, also brandishing a knife. Ferene stepped forward as he stepped back, grabbing him from behind. Shouting in surprise, he tried to turn towards Ferene, but she pried the knife out of his grip, far too easily, and buried the blade all the way to the hilt in the side of his neck. He fell to the ground.
All five of the others stopped, staring at her. The three thugs broke and ran, going for the two alley entrances. Ferene moved to intercept one, but the male soldier stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulder. She glared at him as the sound of footsteps faded. His companion, still bleeding from her arm, moved to the other alley and slowly walked down, sharing a look and a nod with her partner.
“Why?” Ferene asked.
“That’s what I want to ask you! You just killed-“
“He was trying to rob you, and his men attacked you, when you did nothing wrong.”
The soldier stared at her, eyes wide. “You- You can’t do that! We could have handled it. He was a landowner. Now he’s dead. We’ll have to report this, and…” He trailed off, his eyes going to her ears.
“And what?” Ferene pressed when he didn’t continue.
Five guards entered the square from the alley, wearing armor and wielding spears. Four of them immediately surrounded Ferene, pointing their weapons at her. The last one looked at the dead body.
“This is an army incident.” The soldier suddenly spoke, not stepping away from Ferene, even putting himself between her and one of the guards. All five of them suddenly looked at him in confusion.
“Excuse me?” The fifth man said, standing over the dead man. “We get told there was a death, weapons involved, and now it’s an army incident? I hope you aren’t serious.”
“I am. This girl is the killer, but I’m taking her to the camp. We will deal with her.”
“Her weapon-“
“It’s not hers.” The soldier immediately said. “It belongs to the dead man. She disarmed him. She did not draw a weapon and commit a violent act. Put that in your report.”
The guardsman stared at the soldier, his jaw clenched. “Fine. Get her out of here.” He spat, making a hand gesture. The other four lowered their weapons, looking uncertainly between their leader and the soldier.
“Come with me.” He said to Ferene, before leaning in closer. “I just saved you a lot of trouble.” Whatever was happening was beyond Ferene, so she nodded and let him pull her by the arm through the alley. His companion was waiting there, a cloth pressed against her arm.
“What’s with her?” She asked immediately.
“Hatharen. I have to take her to the general. You should go get that properly attended to.”
“I should go with you.”
“Taya, just go get your arm stitched up.”
Sighing, the woman nodded before leaving the two of them. The soldier turned to Ferene once more. “Come on.”
Thankfully, he did not drag her by the arm all the way to the camp outside the city, instead allowing her to walk in front of him as he directed her which way to go. They made their way through a gate, this one watched by plated-mail wearing men with swords strapped to their belts, rather than the city guardsmen in chainmail with spears. They followed the road down the side of the hill towards the mass of tents and banners lit by campfires.
Ferene found herself in a second city, this one made of cloth and wooden poles. The tents were arranged in neat lines, forming blocks and intersections just like those in the city. She once again was led towards the center, where a notably larger tent stood. A large number of soldiers were still awake, sitting at campfires while they tended gear or talked to each other. Ferene and her escort drew many looks as he guided her through the maze.
The two of them were stopped quite a distance from the large tent, a man in plain clothes but with a sheathed sword in his hand intercepting them. Ferene’s escort stepped in front of her, snapping to attention.
“Soldier, explain the situation.”
“Complicated, Captain. Bad interaction with the locals, bystander became involved, local dead, soldier wounded. I claimed an army incident to get her out. She’s a Hatharen, sir. I thought I’d take her to the General.”
The Captain brought his free hand to his chin, scratching at the thin beard there for a moment before waving the soldier off. “I’ll take it from here. Find a clerk to deal with the rest of the problem.”
Bowing, the soldier ran off, leaving Ferene alone with the Captain. He looked up at her, the top of his head only coming up to her nose. “What’s your name?”
“Ferene.”
Wordlessly, he turned and walked deeper into the heart of the camp. Ferene followed. Unlike the near endless neat rows of tents she had passed to get here, the center of the camp looked more natural in its arrangement. Groups of three or four tents clustered together, with large open spaces in between. A few large tables dominated some of these, while others lay empty. Rather than campfires, tall torches provided light, rising above her head. Soldiers did not loiter here, but stood stiffly at attention, waiting. Ferene felt a tension in the air as she followed the Captain towards the large tent at the center.
Turning to her, he frowned. “Alright. If I tell you to wait here, you won’t run off, will you?”
Looking around, Ferene saw nothing but tents, torches, and soldiers. “No.” She answered.
“Stay there.” He said. Many of the nearby soldiers stared at her as she stood and waited.
Ferene did not have to wait long before the front flap of the tent was pushed aside, and the tallest person Ferene had ever seen stepped out and marched over to her. She found herself looking upwards at the person who could only be the General, standing a full hand’s width taller than Sathar. Not just the height, but everything else about this individual set them apart. Ferene looked up into pale red eyes set staring back from under gray, almost white bangs, the rest of her hair falling in curls around the sides of her face. Dark gray skin, close to ash, looked pale in the harsh light of the surrounding torches.
Of course, the General was Hatharen, long ears poking through the curls of hair.