The air was comfortable and the breeze was high without the walls in the way when the long march of thousands upon thousands of orc tribals and Komestran slave warriors, servants, slave tradesmen, slave craftsmen, and their families, snaked their way along the road. As days went, one couldn't have asked for better to travel on, the dirt road was hard packed and it was as comfortable as it could be for anyone. Warriors marched in full kit, but it was more for pride than security.
More importantly, spirits were high among those who understood what was happening. The pregnant, those with very young children, and the aged were in carts and large wagons while the rest walked. Singing Komestran songs was common. Voices, some better fitted for singing than others, belted out tunes, and nervous, anxious, eager feet tapped impatiently, ready for the trip to be over as soon as it had begun.
Nua looked over her shoulder as the Northern Gate of Pas'en got smaller at her back. "Nostalgic?" Her husband asked with a whimsical grin from atop his horse at her side.
"No… I was just thinking, the last time I left out of that gate, I was with Sobella… I have a large debt to repay the Tlalmok Empire and I will not forget it." Nua responded with a voice dead of emotion.
"That is true for all of Mict'aratz. Some of the city-states are profoundly hostile to one another, but when it comes to that… everyone sympathizes, even the most bitter of enemies." Prince Rasgen replied with a weighty glance to the distant west where their worst enemies lie. "The only ones who don't, are the more southern city-states that send tribute to the Tlachopan. Regardless, the Triumvirate has a great deal to answer for."
"I agree, husband. But I won't be punishing them, nor will the Dark Savior." Nua replied, and his brow went up. She smirked, "Punishment, when you think about it, is for 'correction'. You want someone to learn a lesson and change their behavior, so you create punishments to deter them and others from whatever it is you don't want them to do. This is different. This is vengancerevenge. I don't care what lessons they learn, I plan on doing my part to erase them from this world." Nua's grip tightened on the reins of her horse, and Rasgen took that absurd ambition in silent stride as the distance from his city increased, and from her city, decreased.
While most of the wagons were filled with goods or people, there was one wagon with very few occupants. Four little girls, and one unconscious man. The Pain Children wore black and green clothing, fitting for a more 'outdoor' experience, practical pants, and carried both their practice knives and their real ones at their sides. Excitement was the order of the day for the killing quartet, but most of all, or so it seemed, for the blue haired newest of their number.
"Still can't believe it." Shi said breathlessly as she stared through eyes wide as the sky she marveled at and green as the grass and the leaves of the trees.
"What's that?" Veema asked, seated beside her on the wagon, with Lenah and Straen cocking their heads in opposite directions in like curiosity.
Shi's arms shot out from her body and opened wide with excitement, her feet pounded with excitement over and over on the wood, "How big this world is! It's so huge it's like, scary but not scary because everything is so… just amazing!"
Her blue hair bounced around behind her from where it hung over the side of the wagon, and her nestmates couldn't help but share the infectious energy she gave off. Lenah was quick to chime in, "I know… when we lived in the village before… before Bracer. I thought that was all there really was. I'd never seen a city, never… never seen anything like what we have."
"Village… that's like a pen without walls, right? Not like city pen things, everybody has their own small pen?" Shi asked innocently and scratched her cheek.
"They're called 'houses' Shi. Houses." Veema corrected her innocent sister and dragged a hand down her own face with some dramatized exasperation.
Shi's lips pursed and she tapped her pointer fingers together, looking down at her shuffling feet she muttered, "Hey… I'm getting it… didn't have all this stuff back… back where…" She looked to the west and her excitement vanished when her body tensed.
"I'm sorry." Veema said instantly and her arm went around the girl and tugged her in close. "At least you're safe, she got you out."
Shi nodded, "Crawlmakers can do whatever they want… I guess I'm lucky she chose to take me for this…"
"Would some knife time make you feel better?" Straen asked as comfortingly as she could, putting a hand on Shi's knee.
Shi's eyes lit up again, "Yes. Knife time is happy time. Oh, and I'm almost done!"
"Done?" The trio of her sisters asked.
She reached into the pouch that she wore at her side and withdrew an object, her sisters leaned over to look. There in Shi's hand, was a bundled collection of hair. On one end many strands had been folded over and then secured to the base, and then the bulbous bend had been tightened with another set of strands that wrapped around, and secured to itself at the right. A matching set to the left, and then down at the bottom, two more sets were bound hanging down and ran through the knot that secured the base.
After a moment, Veema realized what Shi was holding out so very proudly.
The blue haired girl beamed with joy, set the hair in her lap, took out her knife, and cut a long strip of blue from off of her head. She brought it around to look it over in the palm of her hand, it hung down and she nodded to herself in approval. Then under the fascinated eyes of her sisters, she took the doll and ran the blue strips through the strands at the bulbous 'head' and tied it tight, giving it an almost 'ponytail like' appearance.
She gave it a quick tug, and grinned with satisfaction, her broad smile and wide eyes wild with happiness. "There! Now she's done! My first doll since coming to my new crawlmaker! Isn't it wonderful?!" She giggled and held up the multicolored doll that was made from the hair of each of their victims.
Veema looked it over, the bulbous fold was the 'head', the blue strands were the ponytail of the doll made of hair, the blonde and black strands tied just below the 'head' were arms, and those red and brown strips down at the bottom knot were the legs. Quite unexpectedly, a chill ran up and down her spine, and a glance at both Lenah and Straen, and their staring, uncertain gaze said they felt the same chill.
Shi however, didn't notice, she was holding her prize out like it was a great treasure, "Back at my old nest, I used to make dolls like this, see the eatmen always cut off the hair before taking my talkmates and nestmothers away. And one of the older girls who lived there long enough to become a mated one taught me how. I got real good at making these, even gave them to some of the other nestmates to play games with since once she got to the grownup things, she couldn't anymore. But that was before she couldn't make meat anymore and went away too…"
Shi's horrific casual description of how she'd learned to make hair dolls wiped away her excitement in an instant. In the eyes of her sisters, she suddenly ceased to be some mysterious monster, and was again their sister and they engulfed her in hugs while she chattered on. "Twenty-two… fourteen… seven… nineteen…"
The recitation of numbers might have been meaningless to any listener, but by now they knew. Those were not numbers, they were names, of the ones she'd lost. The doll dropped out of her hand and fell onto the blood soaked bandages of the unconscious Sado, and it wasn't until blood had dried into the hair that Shi ran out of numbers to remember.
Tir was alone in the office of her mistress, her pulse raced while she looked down at the little hand scrawled note, one shaking hand of hers rested on the paper, one finger tracing over the looping, flowing letters to confirm that they said what she thought they said.
"My very life may rest in your hands, protect it. I have faith in you."
~Prince Nua Calen Aiwenor
Two simple sentences laid atop a stack of documents in the top drawer of the desk, and yet it was enough to make her weep. Her bright eyes clouded over and little tears dropped down. "You failed me far too often for me to consider you to have any worth."
"The one thing you had to do was breed to give us those lands, and you couldn't even do that. Screwing is the only thing you were ever any good at, and you still failed."
"It doesn't matter that you didn't do it, it matters only what people believe. And nobody… nobody believes you!"
The memory of her father's words stood in stark contrast to the single pair of sentences left on a piece of paper, scrawled in her mistress's own hand. It meant the world, even more than… she drew back a shaking finger and touched the purple tag that was the physical manifestation of her status and her place in the House of Aiwenor. Such a totality of trust was scarce. Yet it was hers.
Resolve crystallized like ice in the deepest of dark cold winters and cracked her hardened heart. She wiped her nose and face crudely on her sleeve, clenched her jaw, and taking up the note, she kissed the tear stained and blurred black ink with trembling lips before laying it aside.
"Now to prove it." She snapped and yanked the first paper up from the stack. 'Starwatchers.' She read the top line, and then went over the intended plans of her mistress.
"So that's why she left her copies… which reminds me, I need to make more of them…" Tir murmured and reached over to a large brass bell, she shook it hard enough to make a loud ringing sound, and a moment later a sharply dressed man in a black and white butler outfit entered the office.
"My lady?" He asked. He was a perfect human specimen, broad shoulders with a 'vee' shape to the waist and firm muscles without appearing intimidating, his hair was dark and was bound so that it hung close to the head then draped loosely down to his shoulders, and bright green eyes promised ample mischief. One of her starlings, he preferred men, and had perfect 'noble quality' manners. Perfect for seducing men of the upper class of Pas'en.
She reached into the lower drawer and took out two pouches. The coins clinked audibly when they hit the wooden surface. "Make sure another set of sacred texts are delivered here soon, and quietly." She counted out a handful of gold and silver coins. "That should cover it." Tir then slid the stack to the end of the desk.
"Then this…" Tir reached in, and counted out silver and gold again, then split it into two stacks. "Have several copies hidden in the houses of each of the three former executives of the Lur'gin company, and in the house of Malefacorum, and several other Questioners. Not many, but we want them to feel worried about heresy among their own. Pay the burglars in gold with the condition that they only drop things off, not take anything out."
"Yes, my lady… and what about that?" He pointed to the stack of silver, which she broke into two sets again.
"Half to follow the burglars to their home, and when they're identified… use the other half to have them killed. No witnesses. We can't risk information getting out, that might hurt my mistress..." Tir said in a frosty voice while mentally adding, 'She's all I've got…'
He cleared his throat and took each respective sum and set them into different pockets. "At once, is there anything more, my lady?"
"Just one more small thing," she took out a handful of silver coins and stacked them up, "I need a minor magical item made, a ring, enchant it so that it changes my face when worn. I'd rather not be widely recognized… you understand." Tir explained and held his gaze.
The young spy recalled the way Solution had dissolved a victim before their eyes, and gave a slow and somber nod of acknowledgement as an answer. "At once, my lady." He scooped up the last of the coins and made a swift exit.
Tir flopped back in her mistress's chair and looked out of the large window, "I'm coming for you… Anton. Everybody, some of you get to kneel, but some of you… you can just die. My goddess will give me justice."