A rock hurtles through the air, causing Jadoe to sidestep to the left and onto the bend of the trail that would take her out of range of her master's head of servants throwing radius. Mergo hated Jadoe. Hated that, in true Azgeda fashion, Jadoe hadn't been cast out when her eyes had lost their dark brown coloring and had gone silver. Mergo had assumed that Landi, Jadoe's mother, would lose favor with Gergoi for producing an inferior child and Mergo would step up as his favored, dropping Landi to head of servants. Or head of slaves, Jadoe thought with an inelegant snort, but only the slaves felt that way.
Jadoe rolled her eyes; Mergo was wildly favored for her prowess as a sexual partner but she had no "higher" training in skills Gergoi favored and she produced lumbering children with minimal intelligence. And females. Most were females and while many didn't care about gender, Gergoi did. Jadoe was Landi's only female child. She had three brothers before her and five after. Most likely another on the way. Life hadn't been so bad before she'd begun losing her eyesight, despite her being a female. Her father would occasionally dote on her and had been an active part of her education. That stopped when she'd started having vision problems when she was eight. Landi was a brilliant doctor and scientist, she'd slowed then stopped the loss but the treatment had discolored the iris's of her daughters eyes.
Some within their compound had been unsatisfied and had wanted Jadoe taken out of the gene pool; by that time, many had picked up the general thinking of those that lived topside. Gergoi hadn't wanted to upset his favorite mate and overruled their objections. Since he kept them living in comfort and maintained the peace his great, great grandfather had brokered with Azgeda years prior, they overlooked his particular quirk. Those that still had issues shut up quick when the generals came around. Much like Mergo, she was sought after in the bedroom.
Jadoe rolled her shoulders, settling the Azgeda clothes more comfortably and mentally shrugging off the past and things she could not change. Despite being a servant, she normally wore the pristine clothes her father preferred from the early 2000's and were deemed feminine. Jadoe was expected to wear a blouse, skirt, and loafers while she worked alongside her mother, on projects she was assigned by other scientists/doctors, or during her shifts at the clinic. When she was sent to scavenge or trade, she pulled on the leather pants and vest, heavy cloak, and knee high, soft soled boots favored by Ice Nation. She enjoyed working with her mother, but she loved being dressed as Ice Nation and savored her trips to the outside world. Her arm lifted to run her fingers across the tight braids along the side of her head and down, toying with the beads and feathers tucked within. They were pretty but they often caused her mild discomfort. Worth it though.
She glanced at the sky, noting the clouds, and silently cursed her luck. Weather wasn't something most of the compound cared about. Roughly half didn't bother to leave their underground home; scientists had long ago managed to cultivate an extensive network of forest in large, connected caves. If her people craved "nature" they simply had to walk for a bit to get to the safety of a cultivated forest. It teemed with animals that were harvested for their meat and wouldn't harm humans. Those that did leave the compound were predominantly servants taught to forage and slip the detection of the Azgeda. The last small group in their people were the traders like herself that would interact within the nations of the survivors topside to get supplies her people either couldn't make or simply could not reach reasonably.
Silver eyes scan the relatively quiet forest. She would need to make good time to the stables to pick up a horse and cart so that she could get to Polis and make her trades before dawn the following day. It was a tight run, but she was widely known for her shrewd bargaining and unwillingness to budge on price, shaving valuable time off her overall trip. Most no longer bothered trying to drive the price of their goods up unreasonably to begin with. Taking a deep breath, Jadoe picked up her pace, breaking into a long strided jog that would keep her energy levels up while still allowing her to make good time.
For the past few years, the Azgeda generals in conjunction with their queen had cleared out a radius around their compound, keeping both warriors and their people back, claiming it to be haunted by the ghosts of dead kings past. Though Geroi scoffed at the notion of such nonsense keeping the people back, Jadoe appreciated the relative freedom it had ultimately allowed them. Her pet project had been taking living samples of plants, a time consuming and tedious task, and transplanting them into their underground forest to cultivate diversity. At one time, certain herbs had been exceedingly hard to come by and claimed a bulk of the time designated to the foragers to find. Now those plants flourished and their stockpile of natural but effective medicines were higher than they'd ever been. More importantly to the scientist in Jadoe, it was sustainable.
Jadoe leapt over a log that must have fallen since the last time she'd come through and slowed to scan her surroundings more fully; she listened, reassured by the sound of animals making their typical noises, scanned the ground for any disturbance that indicated the possibility of a trap, and crouched down a bit as she ran. It was uncomfortable but she'd be a harder target to hit and the position protected major organs, giving her a chance to flee if need be if she did happen to receive a wound.
After about ten minutes, she straightened out. She'd be running in a small stream for another half an hour to help cover her tracks. There was a pact with Azgeda but the people were historically fickle and had an unfortunate need to conquer all in their direct vicinity. If the Ice Nation knew that there were horses in a bunker that was secure from radiation and was connected by a tunnel to the main compound, they'd take it in a heartbeat. Full lips turn down into a frown as the young woman's thoughts turn back to their tentative ally.
Her trip into Polis was meant to have happened last week, but Gergoi had been hesitant to send her out. News of the fall of the Ice Nation queen some months before had rapidly made its way to the compound right after it happened along with the information that her son, Roan, had succeeded her. After that, despite the regular visits of the men and women who trained and manipulated Azgeda's army, not other information was coming in from the outside world. There was a tension in the hardened men and women that had increased in the last few months, along with their visits. They were staying longer, brought their favored mates, offspring, and servants with them when they did.
From Jadoe's trips out, they knew that the Ice Nation commander had been challenged and doubted, had lashed out without any kind of control, and had ultimately died, leaving no Nightblood left to take on "the spirit" of other commanders. More foolish drivel, according to Gergoi, but it had left the humans of the various nations in an uproar. Jadoe splashed into the stream and felt her mouth draw down tighter. The water level was low for the time of year. She'd make a note in the logs about it.
And before the seizure by Ice Nation of control, there had been the odd killings that had happened without seeming reason between friends and family they hadn't been able to figure out. Then there were the people of the Ark that had fallen from the sky and tried to carve a living out within the forest between the nation peoples of the surface and the survivors in Mount Weather in the earth. Now Jadoe sneered. The "mountain men" Had sat, safe in their mountain for years, assuming they'd walk out one day and inherit all. Stupid bastards. Gergoi's father's father father had known the world would be radically different when they could finally leave their underground home and had developed a way of introducing higher, but still safe, levels of radiation into the lighting, giving their offspring a chance at being able to handle the ground when they eventually exited relative safety some fifty years later.
Jadoe sighed heavily. There was so much more that had happened recently that had thrown everything off balance. But still in favor of Gergoi. He preferred that his people remain predominantly in the same place, with the same allies, and out of the political shit storm that was plaguing our unwitting neighbors. Recent events had given those in favor of expanding out onto the surface some serious doubts, leaving political favor firmly in Gergoi's court. Adam as well. Her eyes rolled involuntarily. As the first born of her father's male children, he was being groomed to take over; Jax and Thom as well though they knew they were farther down the list.
Unlike their father, they were learning to run things jointly and they were doing well; mostly because they were more scientist like their mother than politician. Frederi, the fifth child, loved to play political games and often boasted about how invaluable he was as support staff to his brothers. Her only problem with the older trio was their often overbearing attitude toward women. Granted, now that Adam and Thom had mates that were much like their mother, they'd toned it down, they often reverted back to their stuck up ways with her. They never once tried to physically harm her, but they could be overbearing and their tongues were sharp; their offhand comments were bad. While in a temper, their insults left smarting mental wounds that lasted for a while.
She loved the damned bastards, but sometimes she wished she was mated to someone and had a household of her own to run. Though a few had tried to offer for her, and generously if she did think so herself, her father always turned the young men and women away. The one general who'd made a similar offer had also been denied, but though Gergoi had spent several days thinking the proposal over, he'd ultimately said no. Jadoe knew Landi had been aware of how badly Jadoe hadn't wanted that union. The younger woman strongly suspected that her mother had intervened, and heavily, on her behalf.
Jadoe surged up, out of the water and over the steep bank a few feet from the bunker housing the horses. No matter how hard she tried to focus on the future, the past kept seeming to drag her back. She'd mull over everything while she rode for a bit, most likely feel better for having done so, then pull herself together in time to do what little haggling was necessary before heading home.