Hoard

The kingdoms of the Evervales were small, disorganized, and generally not well-respected. They were mostly cut off from the other landlocked civilizations that neighbored them, having only maritime trade and travel as, for whatever reason, Atraximos the Dread had preferred to keep his depredations inland and very rarely bothered ships. His shadow lay heavy over this whole region, however, this chain of fertile valleys separated by soaring peaks which covered the entire northern third of the continent. No single kingdom grew to great power for the same reason that the Evervales lacked any impressive adventurer guilds or resident wizards: Atraximos would suffer no threat to his dominion. Thus, borders shifted like piles of autumn leaves, and about as often; governments were established and overthrown nearly as quickly in an incessant sequence of usurpation, uprisings, and sometimes more peaceful transfers intended to avoid the other kind.

Where power was not allowed to congregate as was its wont, it sloshed about like the contents of a jostled bowl.

Kaln was accustomed to thinking of the nations of the Evervales as unimpressive, unimportant, and often not worth learning the names of as a given name might be different by the time word of it migrated south to Rhivkabat, where true civilization dwelt. It seemed fittingly ironic, then, that his first impression of the Kingdom of Boisverd from the air was that it was incredibly beautiful.

Not that Rhivaak wasn’t lovely or lacked scenery, but its domain was mostly flat, with only one small mountain range, and that in the middle of an inhospitable desert. The Empire had a relatively small population for the amount of territory it claimed, much of it being arid and all but useless; cities were clustered along the coasts and agriculture along the floodplains of its three great rivers.

Boisverd appeared to have a similar arrangement; Kaln could see two sizable rivers and two smaller ones snaking through the huge valley over which they now soared, all with cultivated fields laid out along them. Rather than scrubland or desert between, however, the valley was filled with dense forests, pines all along its outer slopes and more rounded deciduous trees predominating near the center, where the entire valley sloped down toward an almost perfectly circular lake. The rivers drained into this as well, and appeared to originate from numerous stunning waterfalls around the rocky perimeter. The huge vale rose to foothills which were carved into terrace farms wherever water flowed close enough, rising further into the surrounding peaks. These mountains were jagged and fierce-looking, younger than the weathered old geography that existed farther south. To the north and west, they rose even higher than those surrounding the lair, most covered in snow.

The smallest mountain in sight rose incongruously from the middle of the valley, perched alongside one edge of the lake. Between lake and mountain stood a city that, while of course smaller than Rhivkabat, was much larger than Kaln’s preconceptions would have suggested. It had higher walls than any Rhiva city he knew, and in fact multiple rings of them, arranged in segments bracketed by even higher watchtowers. Nor, from this distance, did the place look impoverished as he had half expected. The architectural style on display in the great city and the few smaller towns dotted along the rivers was much more vertical than what he was used to, built of gray stone and dark slate roofs rather than the red and golden sandstone of home. Those roofs were not only high but steep, which he knew to be a measure to protect them from the weight of snow, a problem most places in the Empire didn’t suffer. Also, he could tell even from so high up and far away that the Verdi liked ornamentation. Gables, buttresses, and spires positively bristled from their structures.

He suddenly felt a surge of magic; Izayaroa was doing something. Kaln observed it, careful not to interact and thus disrupt her efforts, and with just a little concentration he honed in and discerned its function. This was a scrying spell, she was scanning for something. Looking for…life. No, he realized, focusing closer, sapient life. She was finding the concentrations of people.

With another slight nudge of effort, he slipped into the stream of data her magic was feeding her, able to gather a mirror of the same information without interrupting her efforts. It was astonishing how easily it came to him, especially given how all the priests back home had gone on and on about the difficulty of magic and what tampering with it could do to an uninitiated mind. Now, the valley positively lit up all around them as he beheld the concentrations of humanity within, blazing like the sun from its central city and to a lesser extent from the towns and villages—the latter of which he only became aware of now, as these smaller clusters of habitation had been hidden beneath tree cover.

There was undoubtedly a reason for that.

Izayaroa banked and descended, swooping down in a wide arc toward a section of thick forest in which there were no people. No witnesses.

She dipped low enough to almost graze the highest crowns, tacking back and forth as if searching for something, though she did no additional magic. Though invisible, Kaln saw several flocks of disturbed birds shoot aloft in their wake, as the huge dragon was sailing close enough that the wind of her passage rustled those upper branches good and hard. Izayaroa soared in a wide, irregular loop, hugging the canopy and constantly drifting this way and that.

“What are we looking for?” he called out after several minutes of this.

“A point of entry,” she replied. “If need be I can penetrate the canopy using magic, but your presence complicates all the spells I would normally employ. No doubt we can compensate, but there’s no need to reach for exotic solutions if there exists anything as prosaic as a sufficient gap—ah, and to speak of the demon!”

Kaln couldn’t see what she did; this was not his first evidence that dragons had exceptional vision, but in his defense she had no sooner spoken than arched up again, soaring in a complete loop that brought her back down at a shadow amid the towering branches in a dive.

It was all he could do to repress another whoop of exhilaration as Izayaroa folded her wings, plummeting straight into what looked to him like a wall of leaves and needles. Another experience that ought to have been terrifying, but apparently he was more of a daredevil at heart than his staid existence back in the Archives had led him to believe.

Well, that helped explain Haktria, anyhow.

Izayaroa arched her neck, and several branches snapped against her scales rather than smacking Kaln behind them; he was grazed anyway, good and hard in fact, but the impacts proved harmless against him, partly because of the godling thing but definitely because the clothes he was wearing were layered with defensive enchantments. And then they had shot out through the haze of foliage into a dimmer and surprisingly open space. She snapped her wings wide again, arresting her descent, and they fell the remainder of the way to the ground at a much gentler pace. The impact of her claws upon the forest floor was still hard enough to shake the trees, dislodging a veritable rain of falling nuts and needles, and sending yet more birds fleeing in every direction.

“Masterful!” Kaln exclaimed, applauding. Izayaroa dropped their invisibility spell, turning her head to smile smugly at him. Funny how the expression was so charming on her; when Pheneraxa or Vadaralshi did that he mostly wanted to smack them.

“Hardly my first dive, husband. Still, one likes to be appreciated. By all means, keep that up.”

“I would only have to stop if you ceased finding ways to impress me, which I can’t imagine happening.”

She grinned, nodding her head, and Kaln carefully released the concentration of magic keeping him affixed to her back. Invoking his teleportation, he shifted instantly to a spot on the ground in front of her, and in the next moment, Izayaroa herself shifted, landing beside him on two legs.

Their surroundings were…incredible. The trees were absolutely colossal; it was one thing to have read of such, but quite another to have these majestic titans in front of him as a contrast to the tropical trees with which he was more familiar. The very fact that there was an open space down here sufficient for a dragon to land and yet almost completely covered from above really emphasized the incredible size of these ancient sentinels. A perpetual soft whisper of their foliage in the wind made a permanent music in the dimness beneath them, which itself was pierced here and there by sunbeams which scintillated with the same shifting of the branches. In the aftermath of the dragon’s landing, sounds gradually began to reappear; Kaln recognized birds, though their specific calls were unfamiliar, as well as frogs and what were probably insects, but there were other noises that made less sense to his ears, blending together into a constant background of forest life.

“Hmm…” At her soft voice, he turned back to his wife, finding her examining her own clawed hands. “Ah, I am only just realizing how long it has been since I found reason to do this… Well, not that long, I suppose, I believe my last visit here was less than a decade ago. It is still not a habit, but one never truly forgets.”

He felt power surge as she called up another spell, and then she shifted again. In seconds, after a single flare of light that once again briefly silenced the surrounding animals, Kaln found himself standing before an apparently human woman.

Interestingly, she had chosen not to modify her appearance beyond removing the extra draconic features: her eyes had changed from gold to black, and the golden threads had vanished from her curly hair. She had no scales or spines, her tail was not in evidence, and on normal feet instead of those powerful talons it turned out she wasn’t quite as tall as he. Otherwise, though, he could never fail to recognize that face. Izayaroa’s mahogany-dark skin, full lips, and tightly curled hair belonged to a human phenotype who weren’t native to this continent. Kaln had of course met quite a few over the years, living and working as he did in a major center of commerce, politics, and culture, but he suspected she was going to stand out among the northern people of the Evervales.

Then again, so would he, if not as much; he doubted many Rhiva visited here, either.

Izayaroa smiled at him, tilting her head expectantly.

“Have I complained recently that you’re unfair?” he asked. “You have got to stop finding new ways to be beautiful, or I’m going to run out of ways to tell you that you are. And then how am I supposed to lavish you with the happiness you deserve?”

She grinned broadly, in sheer unguarded delight, and slid into his arms as smoothly as if she belonged there. “On that point, husband, I have the utmost faith in your skills.”

Izayaroa lifted her chin, cuddling against him, and it was an interesting change of pace to have to bend down to kiss her. But then he was kissing her, and the entire rest of the universe fell from relevance. This was both familiar and new; she was warm and so deliciously soft, a delight for all of his senses even without those hard and sharp edges that had made embracing her so intriguing.

She pulled back after a span of time he didn’t bother trying to count, smiling warmly up at him. Slightly out of breath, but fortunately not much disheveled. Kaln keenly remembered Haktria’s displeasure when he inadvertently mussed her…

And wasn’t that a bucket of cold water.

“I am pleased that you approve, husband,” Izayaroa said, her voice husky with promise. “Perhaps you prefer this form, then?”

Oh, that was a trap. Fortunately he wasn’t born yesterday.

“Mmm…” Kaln caressed her cheek, making a show of studying her face; she obligingly let him take her by the chin and turn her head gently this way and that, smirking up at him in enjoyment of the game. “It’s a pleasing novelty, once in a while. But it lacks a certain…you. Please never change any further than this, my love. I prefer the maximum amount of Izayaroa in my Izayaroa.”

Her grin was delighted and she stood up on her tiptoes to nuzzle at him, rubbing her forehead against his in the way she did when too impassioned to remember how humans kissed.

“Ah, husband, I do so appreciate your ability to give the right answer to questions that shouldn’t have one. And to think, a talent like yours was languishing away in the Archives! I shall have to review my hiring and promotional practices when next I visit home.”

Kaln hoped more than a little that they were about to resume, but Izayaroa gently pulled back, twining her warm, human fingers with his as she shifted into place alongside him. Right, they were here for a purpose beyond making love in the woods.

Next trip, maybe.

“I wonder,” he said as they strolled across the carpet of moss and fallen pine needles, “how necessary this change is? I’ve only met two dragonborn in my life, but I recall that they resemble full dragons in humanoid form so closely that I might not be able to tell the difference. Well, I suspect I could now, but…most people probably wouldn’t.”

“It’s true,” she agreed, “but a dragonborn in the Evervales is destined for a great deal of unwelcome attention. Even could I pass myself off as one, it would make it prohibitively difficult for us to conduct commerce in peace. They are uncommon anywhere, husband, only slightly less so than dragons, but particularly in these lands. They don’t come here.”

“I see,” he said carefully. “Then…are they often…born in this area?”

Her expression soured. “Not to my knowledge, and if I hear of any I am going to have words with Vanimax. But no…that was not among Atraximos’s vices. His contempt and loathing toward mortals precluded any interest he might have taken in mortal women. He liked inflicting destruction and stealing valuables, not…dallying with his victims.”

Kaln nodded and deliberately steered the conversation elsewhere. “That just leaves our appearances, then. Forgive me if I’m pestering you with questions, but I’m quite unfamiliar with the culture we’re about to visit. Is Boisverd enough of a backwater that a pair of foreigners will draw unwelcome attention?”

“Some little on the road, perhaps, but the city itself is large enough that, no matter how isolated the surrounding kingdom, there will inevitably be more than a handful of exotic travelers. Enough that we will at most be interesting to the locals, not shocking. I suspect from your choice of attire that you have inferred this to a point, Kaln: it is unwise to attempt to pass ourselves off as natives through magical or other subterfuge, when neither of us possess the intimate familiarity with this culture necessary to pull that off.”

“That was exactly my reasoning,” he admitted. “I’ve met enough rich Rhiva that I can pretend to be one, at least.”

“You are a rich Rhiva,” she said, smirking up at him. “Surely the richest alive, in fact. The coin in that bag of holding, as well as all the other wealth in your hoard, are yours by right of conquest, as per the customs so zealously upheld by he from whom you took it. But yes, husband, you chose well—if you have not been trained in such subterfuge, you must possess some natural knack for it. To attempt a charade we are unable to successfully carry out would only draw exactly the suspicion we must avoid. Better to be something slightly memorable, but still within the realm of understanding for those we must fool. They will see a wealthy Imperial and his exotic trophy bride and think of little beyond how to extract money from us.”

“Politely, I hope.”

“In most cases,” she said with a mysterious little smile.

“It’s not that I’m worried about the other cases. It’s hard to imagine that I could be in danger, in your company. But speaking of drawing attention…”

“Worry not, husband,” she said lightly, leaning her shoulder against his for a moment as they walked. “There are uncountable ways to dispose of brigands and the like without making a mess.”

Kaln nodded, keeping his face pleasantly blank and his thoughts behind his teeth. This was an important trait of all three of his wives, as well as their offspring, that he needed to keep in mind. As much as they could also be charming, or sexy, or petulant, smug, fascinating, and any of the other very interesting traits by which he could so easily become distracted, he must never let himself forget that they were every one of them absolutely ruthless, and had oceans of blood on their hands.

“By the way, I’m assuming that you do know where we are and where we’re going.”

She laughed and squeezed his hand. Gently.

Naturally, she did know both where they were and where they were going. The need to land undetected had put them an uncomfortable distance into the forest; it took an hour and a half of walking to reach the nearest road. That wasn’t such a terrible experience, though. This environment was beautiful in a way that was unlike anything in Kaln’s experience, and he certainly couldn’t fault the company. His attention for the duration was happily divided between savoring the scenery and discussing politics with his wife.

Or rather, asking questions and listening avidly to her answers. He had, of course, read the Empress’s Treatises, the dissertations on her political philosophy upon which all governance in Rhivaak was based, but he wasn’t a politician by vocation. To hear her expound in endless detail upon even the most minor points was as fascinating as it was enlightening.

Not to mention that when she talked of matters that were so important to her interests, the animation of her features was so lovely it made his chest ache just to watch.

Eventually, though, they did reach what must have been a major road. Unsurprisingly, it compared poorly to the meticulously engineered roads of the Empire, being little but a wide strip of flat, hard-packed dirt. He could tell it was engineered to at least some extent, though, not just the well-worn track where travelers happened to tread. Engraved stone mile markers had been erected at regular intervals, and branching paths had wooden signposts that were, if somewhat rustic in design, clearly maintained.

Quite apart from the quality of the road itself, though, it went through the forest, so closely that he hadn’t even been able to see it from above. This seemed particularly inept to Kaln; Rhiva highways were required by law to have well-tended areas of flat ground at least seven times the width of the road in question on each side. Not even bushes or boulders were permitted within that range, much less full-sized trees. Here, the trees grew right up to its edges, some straddling the ditches which flanked it—in fact, the highway itself swerved slightly around some of the largest pines.

“What’s the point of that?” he asked aloud. “Look, they took the time to carve through that hill and keep the road itself level, so the builders definitely have the engineering capability to cut down trees! The lack of clear space on both sides is just asking for bandits to set up ambushes, not to mention what would happen if a storm knocked one down across the road. It just seems…negligent.”

“It does cause all those problems and more,” Izayaroa agreed quietly, her eyes ahead and face oddly neutral. “Governance is often a game of tradeoffs, of costs measured against one another as much as against benefits. The Verdi judge these problems acceptable costs for the benefit of keeping their roads hidden from the sky.”

Kaln opened his mouth, and then shut it again.

Oh.

“We are only seeing this because we are so close to the capital,” she continued. “In the outer foothills of the valley, wherever possible, the highways are tunnels; that is impractical on this terrain. Their preference for placing their structures and whole settlements against hills is for the same reason, and even where settlements exist upon flat land, they have deep roots; fully half of any major construction in Boisverd is underground. This is a civilization shaped by fear of the sky, and what might descend from it at a moment’s notice.”

He walked in silence for a few paces, glancing at her sidelong to take in her expression. She betrayed little, but the very fact that her features were so still told him this was a somewhat sensitive topic.

“I guess,” Kaln said quietly after a few seconds, “that will soon change.”

He paused, glancing at her again as they walked on quietly, then gathered his courage.

“Won’t it?”

Her lips bent in a slight smile and she squeezed his hand. “Oh, I very much think so. Plunder is not a habit of mine; I prefer to take my trophies from foes who presume to assail me first. Despite our many, deep differences, that is a sensibility I happen to share with Tiavathyris and even Emeralaphine. I suspect the kids make a game of grabbing the odd ox or sheep or such, but they hunt by far the majority of our game from the wild fauna of the high mountains, if only because smaller domestic beasts are scarcely worth the effort for us. It was only Atraximos who ravaged these lands. The rest of us have been so comparatively reclusive that I don’t believe any of the local mortals even know our names. Very few, if any. Everything is soon to change.”

She paused, raising her face to study the waving branches above them, patterns of sunlight playing across her features.

“That concerns us directly, Kaln. Even if we do everything absolutely perfectly… His absence is going to be noticed, and soon. We have little time in which to position ourselves as best we can to face whatever comes next. The only certainty is that the political upset on this continent will be utterly beyond any precedent since the Lost Century.”

He squeezed her hand back. “Then this is a good start. The chance to poke around the closest city for a few days should provide us a glimpse of the situation on the ground, at least.”

She smiled up at him, but remained quiet, as the sounds of a cart approaching from behind had grown close enough that they risked being overheard, and this was not a topic for any prying ears.

Kaln had been surprised at the amount of traffic; they had not yet passed any other travelers on foot, but several mounts and carriages had passed them since they stepped onto the highway. The Verdi were more friendly with strangers than he was accustomed to in the Empire, waving and calling out greetings, but that was it; while some had given the two of them speculative looks, nobody had seemed interested in engaging beyond that.

Now, their luck changed, as midway through the process of passing them, the donkey-pulled cart piled with burlap sacks came to a halt as its driver pulled his reins.

“Good afternoon, travelers! Can I offer you a lift?”