It took the best part of a day for them to leave the Alaram Principality behind them, stopping periodically to cast nets and pose as fishermen, and reach the much shorter stretch of shore belonging to the Narathin Principality. Of course, as brother nations ruled by brothers, they could have hardly missed the border. A fresh skirmish had just taken place, and ragged Alaram and Narathin villagers sorted through the dead side by side.
They moored up as agreed upon – beside a jetty sporting the umbrella-like crimson Narathin standard. A nobleman sat in a chair in its shade, sipping from a glass, sunlight glinting from the facets of his scale coat. He did not stand when they approached, but motioned to his bare-chested aides to help.
‘You have the egg, I trust?’ he called down as the last rope was being tied.
Janu rested a hand on top of the barrel. ‘It’s safe in here, sir.’
‘Bring it to shore, then.’
Galnai had abandoned the rope bag and spare barrel during her chase, so they had to take care when passing it up to the aides on the jetty, and even then they almost dropped it. Only then did the noble stand, his face dark. He escorted it off the jetty himself, the thieves following behind like a gaggle of wet ducklings. The moment it touched the floor, he pulled an axe from his belt, wedged its blade beneath the lid and levered it open.
‘It...’ Janu bit his lip to refrain from laughing at the way the noble’s nose wrinkled. ‘It’s under the fish, sir. To get past the Alaram guards.’
The noble said nothing, just gestured to his aides again and waited for them to clear the top layer of fish while he wiped his axe blade clean.
‘It’s in good condition,’ Janu explained when the noble was finally able to examine it. ‘We had no trouble getting it away. No harm done to it. They didn’t notice it was gone for quite a while.’
Satisfied, the noble nodded. ‘Good work. And my congratulations on stirring up such a fuss – the prince must be beside himself, and my prince will only be too pleased to imagine the look on his face. What a blow this will deal him!’ He let out a breath and gave the egg a wistful look. ‘I may only hope to be so lucky as to see it hatch. Another dragon born outside the empire’s talons, and our prince at last able to match his brothers’ companions.’ Then he smiled and made a quick gesture with his free hand. ‘Your payment.’
The two aides hurried to a small ox cart and Janu refrained from mentioning how long it would take this dragon to reach a useful size once hatched. He was being paid for acquisition, not advice. And paid generously – he smiled at the size of the chest they took off the cart. The noble’s horse snorted beside it, its white hide and mane decorated with red paint in the Narathin fashion. A few hundred yards distant, a large group of brightly clothed soldiers made preparations to leave and another group of aides chivvied along a larger ox cart, fully enclosed and decorated with bright reds and yellows. Even the oxen wore silk coats and tassels on their horns. Their egg would be meeting the prince in style.
‘Where would you say the nearest town with a good inn is?’ Janu asked. The noble’s aides started back from the chest with a satisfyingly large and bulging collection of coin pouches.
The noble pointed his axe east and nodded along its path. ‘Tanaff is only an hour’s walk in that direction. Follow the stream and you should reach it before nightfall.’
‘Thank you.’ He hefted the pouches the aides had just handed to him. ‘And thank your prince.’
----------------------------------------
Having attached the coin pouches to their belts in tight bundles that would jangle as little as possible, they set off east. The noble’s train, bedecked in all its finery with the two ox carts ensconced between the most elite troops, angled away from them south-east, towards the capital Naratha. They soon vanished beyond the horizon, a last glittering speck of armour and spearheads beneath the setting sun.
Vivid red bands of cloud hung over Tanaff when at last they reached it, reflecting in scattered patches in the rushing stream. Painted wooden and clay houses jostled for space around the minaret of the local temple.
Janu breathed a sigh of relief. His feet ached like they wanted to split in the middle, his legs felt ten times their normal weight and his hips burned with the weight of the coins he carried. Not that he was complaining, of course, only he wished the prince had included the small cart as part of their payment. Their jobs didn’t ordinarily involve boats, or he would have brought a mule or two. With any luck, Tanaff would have some for sale. He could resell them upon their return to Athon.
As they trudged up to the town’s outskirts, shouting and screams drew their attention. Fraidun became so alert his ears almost quivered, and he stalked off towards the noise before anyone could react.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
After a moment’s hesitation, Janu followed.
‘Let’s not get involved in something we can’t handle,’ he said, noting that Fraidun had begun to finger the beads of the prayer necklace he always wore.
Fraidun scoffed. ‘Can’t tell if we can handle it until we see it.’
Behind him, Galnai muttered, ‘And it can’t see us,’ but Fraidun either didn’t hear or didn’t care to respond.
They entered into a small village that was only separated from the town proper by a thin stretch of farmland. Fraidun had picked up his pace – as had the shouting – and it was all Janu could do to keep up with him. The houses they passed had their doors and windows shuttered and barred. From time to time a nervous face peeked out from behind a curtain at them, but for the most part they passed with no sign of other humans. At this hour, Janu would expect the streets to be full of people wandering home for the night.
The shouting grew louder as they neared the town square – townspeople raising their voices in anger, a soldier or perhaps two barking orders. Somewhere, a child wailed.
‘Fraidun, wait!’ Damn, but that man never listened. This wasn’t their country, these weren’t their laws, this wasn’t the comfortable bed waiting for them in a cosy inn.
Rounding the corner revealed the full scene. Market stalls lined the square, but they were all abandoned, some of their produce scattered over the floor. A palanquin emblazoned with the imperial dragon rested by the well in the centre of the square. Janu’s blood ran cold. He grabbed hold of Fraidun’s arm. A robed imperial official stood before the palanquin, flanked by two spear-wielding guards in silk and close-fitting maille. He held his crozier of office in one hand and a gilded scroll case in the other.
So these were their laws – the same laws that applied to every country on these godsforsaken islands since the empire’s foundation. And that made it the last thing they wanted to stumble into.
The crying child struggled in the arms of a soldier to the left of the square, reaching out for their parents somewhere in the thick press of townsfolk on the right. One man with rolling eyes and a fresh head wound sat propped against the far wall, a cluster of people tending to him as they cast nervous glances the soldiers’ way. The crowd seethed with barely supressed violence, even with a recent example of what noncompliance meant sat right beside them.
‘There is no need for all this fuss,’ the official said. His voice cut through the murmur of the crowd, clear and resonant like a trained actor. ‘Your children are in safe hands and will be given the utmost care and attention, the finest food, new clothes and shoes. This is neither punishment nor imposition. This is simply a matter of education. Good education. The best in the empire. We have made this mandatory for your children's’ benefit. There is nothing to be feared in schooling.’
As he had been speaking, the voices in the crowd had grown louder and more indignant.
‘You gonna teach him to make nails?’ someone shouted. ‘He was going to be my bloody apprentice. Who’s going to help around the forge now?’
A woman said, ‘He only has six years on him. Six! You can’t be taking him from us now.’
The other townsfolk chimed in.
‘Shouldn’t be taking them from us at all!’
‘What’ll you be teaching ‘em, anyway? And you’ll be sending ‘em back all high and mighty and forgetting their roots, I’ll bet.’
‘We’ve our own schools. We don’t need your dirty imperial ones!’
On the other side of the square, the child had been reduced to quiet sobbing, his whole weight leaning limply against the arm of the soldier who held him. About half a dozen other children were being held by the guards, and Janu scanned the square to see if he was missing any more. He could just make out some between the skirts and trousers of the crowd, in a tight, protective huddle. And now he looked, he realised the guards had blocked off the streets behind them. They couldn’t escape.
Fraidun tried to shake off Janu’s arm, his face dark.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Janu hissed. Were there guards at the entrance to their street, too? He hadn’t seen any.
‘That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.’
‘You’d be mad to go in there.’ A creeping horror put all Janu’s senses on alert. His grip on Fraidun’s arm was so tight that he could feel the strain in his finger bones. ‘You see how many guards there are. And what do you have? A dagger, no more. Or perhaps you would like to take some bread from the floor and throw it at them, hmm?’
‘Then I’ll go without you.’
Galnai piped up from behind them. ‘I’ll have your money first. There’ll be a nice chunk left even after paying for your funeral.’
A hiss of breath slipped from Fraidun’s lips. He kept his gaze fixed on the square, on the children, on the soldiers making their way towards the crowd.
Then he turned to look at them over his shoulder. ‘Have you ever seen them capture a hatchling?’ Fraidun asked, his teeth bared. ‘A wild one, not bonded.’ He continued without waiting for a reply, without even drawing breath. His gaze drifted into the distance. ‘Because I have. When a hatchling calls out for freedom, all dragons fly to aid it, kin or no, no matter the number of arrows nor spears levelled against them. That is the natural way. The noble way.’
Janu stood with his mouth agape for several seconds before saying, ‘Then let the nobles handle it.’ The words came tumbling out of his mouth. ‘Or the town guards. We’re on our way there anyway. We’ll let the authorities know. They’ll sort it out.’
‘Really? You think they’d do anything at all?’
Not likely, but there was a limited pool of people Janu could save right now. The townsfolk and their children weren’t in that pool. Fraidun and his pigheaded morality was its sole occupant.
‘I think it’s our best bet,’ Janu said. ‘Besides, the only reason the princes aren’t still fighting the empire is because they hate each other more.’ That, and their lack of dragons. ‘Chances are they don’t agree with whatever this new law is. They might put up more resistance than you think.’
A woman’s wail cut across the square and Fraidun twitched, but his shoulders sagged and the fight went out of his eyes.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Fine. We’ll have it your way.’ And with the shouts and sobs of the townsfolk still ringing out behind them, they turned to resume their journey into town.