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Chapter Type: Social

Narrator: Wa Fenya

“Oh!” I said, “Who has informed Gun Nong of our relocation?”

“Are we relocating?” Hoo Long asked.

Lady Kismet said, “Look at the sun, factor in travel time.”

“You! Urchins!” hollered Lord Xho. “Who among you knows where the Blue Boar Inn is?”

The first to raise their hand had a coin flung at it, and Lord Xho provided meager instructions. “Remember.” he said. “Gun Nong, no other soldier.”

The child bowed and took off the direction we had come at an impressive rate.

.....

We need not have hurried; the gates were practicing the new security protocols, which included a line that stretched from the gates to the foundations of the medical tents being moved that day. Soldiers being who they are, we needed to explain our reasons for priority every two or so squads.

Some were happy to let us pass, others angry, but most were simply resigned to waiting.

Lord Xho, for his part, became increasingly frustrated, eventually handing off point duty to Lady Kismet. She had not only the skills, but the raw Charisma score that Xho himself lacked. He may have been a noble, born and raised in our culture, but the short feline carried herself like one. She had some manner of intuitive ability, to approach one sergeant as a friend, but another as an authority. To some she apologized, with others she commiserated, and with none was she flippant or abrupt, or needlessly wordy.

It was as though the soldiers wanted to let her pass, and the rest of us followed in her wake.

As a chi specialist, I do many things that others mistake for magic; I cannot swear that Kismet did not use such forces, but if she did, it was seamlessly worked into her otherwise natural behavior.

Sadly, Lord Xho took point without asking when we neared the gate.

“We demand immediate passage.” he said.

“I must inspect your passes.” one of the gate sergeants said.

“Here, gold on black. Now let us pass.”

“Hold on, we’ve been warned of counterfeit passes. Let me check with our books.”

“But, but you don’t need to check your books!” he insisted.

And the more he insisted, the more suspicious the gate guards became. Especially when they learned that only Lady Kismet had a similar pass.

At this point, they needed our identity paperwork as well as our passes. They even checked name and rank for myself and Hoo Long, and asked us questions that only soldiers of our backgrounds would know the answers to.

“Enough!” Lord Xho exclaimed. “We’ve proven we are who we say, and have the priority we claim. Let us pass!”

“These demands are highly irregular. We will need to inspect all of your paperwork thoroughly.” Sergeant Wong said.

“Of course.” said Lady Kismet.

“No, this is outrageous! We are the reason these safeguards are in place!” Lord Xho exclaimed.

“Oh, good.” said Sergeant Wong, “Then you, more than any other, understand that we absolutely MUST enforce and obey the new process.”

For the next quarter candle or so, Lord Xho understood no such thing, urging speed, wheedling every perceived inefficiency, and generally acting the very worst caricature of his actual self. Even I barely realized what he was doing until we were clear of the gate, when he said:

“Ah-ah, I am made happy by the fact they take their duties so seriously, and made not one exception. If the Nine face that every time they cross one of our walls, it will severely hamper their mobility.”

“With your permission, Lord Xho,” Lady Kismet said, “I should like to reserve our quarters for the night.”

“No need.” Lord Xho said. “Hoo Long, go see if that inn right there has space.”

“The one with the one wall blackened, that looks abandoned?”

“The same.” he confirmed.

With a shrug, Hoo Long altered his course, running across blackened fields.

“From the reports, I thought the fires started deeper in the middle section than this.” Lady Kismet said.

“This is why we must trust but verify, even the well meaning reports.” Lord Xho said. “Who knows what detail will lead us to the knowledge of one of the Nine?”

“On that topic,” I asked, “I thought we were certain the actions of the Nine in the outer zone were definitely a cover for actions closer to the citadel?”

“They absolutely are.” Lord Xho said. “But let us not discuss this where others might hear. We must give the appearance of being unalerted to their true cause, lest we drive them to more caution.”

“Thus allowing them to make more easily detected actions that we can use to help us investigate them?” asked Pharmacist Hwa.

“Exactly!” said Lord Xho.

Hoo Long huffed back to us. “That inn is actually abandoned.”

“Wonderful! We shall spend the night there, unless we find better while investigating these banal merchants.

“And eat what?” Kismet asked. “These half rations leave me with a gnawing hunger, and so sorry, I will eat you if forced to give them up for too long.”

“You are not capable of any such thing.” Lord Xho reprimanded her, “Otherwise, you would have snacked on one of the many corpses we have passed this day.”

We all reacted with the required outrage, but my stomach betrayed me by grumbling.

“Seriously?” Hoo Long asked. “It is only... never mind, it is past time for the mid-day meal.”

Finding civilians willing to accept military vouchers for food was hard enough in the outer zone. Here, where most people hadn’t seen them as often, it became a discussion rather than a grudging acceptance.

“I find it unlikely they are as ignorant as they claim.” Lord Xho muttered.

Lady Kismet beamed at him. “They think they can get better rates. Watch this. Chi Specialist Wa, First Archer Hoo, arrest this butcher for failing to adhere to military standards during a siege!”

Hoo and I shared a shrug before the merchant suddenly realized exactly what the vouchers were worth, and properly accepted our numbers and signatures in his “misplaced” book for such records. He proved resistant to Lady Kismet’s glares though, apologizing that he could only issue us food in amounts that met the standards.

Honestly, I was just happy to have meat in my meal again; even if it was ground and mixed into a hand-loaf of bread, it was still meat, and I rolled it around my tongue just enjoying the rarity of it. But in too short a time, all our food was gone, and we were back on the chase, if at a walking pace rather than slow jog.

Personnel, Payment, and Records was in a freshly painted orange building, wooden veneer that showed the stone between the cracks. It was massive, though not a rival for a true warehouse, and four stories tall. Nobody attacked us when we entered and Lord Xho announced that evidence led us to suspect that some of the staff were disloyal.

In fact, even before Colonel Geng appeared, they were eagerly reporting on their fellows and especially their superiors.

“Enough of this!” Colonel Geng ordered, “Back to work, all of you! The inspectors will call upon you when they call, and not before!”

There was an instant of hesitation, just an instant, before they moved to comply.

“Lord Xho.” he said, with a deep bow, “I was expecting Lord Bien, but given what I have heard of events in the outermost zone, I knew it was only a matter of time. Please, come. My office is this way. I can offer you tea, but alas, nothing that qualifies as a snack.”

“Of course.” Lady Kismet said, “Please do lead the way.”

“Hoo Long,” I whispered, once we were on the stairs. “I notice you are leaning heavily on that handrail. Is everything all right?”

He smiled over clenched teeth. “I am not yet accustomed to all the running again.”

“Oh. So sorry.” I said. It was, after all, not any of my business.

His office was on the fourth floor, and had its own ladder to the roof, to which the Colonel led us.

“I do like this view more, for the privacy it allows.” he said.

“So,” said Pharmacist Hwa, “What is your evaluation of the loyalty of your employees?”

“Oh, I can point out an office of three traitors.” he said. “People providing identity papers for money, but I cannot prove that in a court of law.”

“How do you know of this, and not report it?” Lord Xho asked.

“As I said, I have no proof, only missing supplies that I can trace to their office. And, such supplies have been missing for more than a season.”

“Ah.” said Lord Xho. “You are concerned that you have filed an... inaccurate report... regarding the supplies?”

Colonel Geng nodded vigorously. “And thus, I am complicit in covering up the matter, even though I swear to you that I am innocent of such malice.”

Lord Xho stared at the floor. “I don’t think we can spare your life, but if you cooperate, this shame need not fall on your family.”

Since it matters, the Rice Road was a bit of an anomaly, having fires both near the central crops and the wall-side domestic zone, in that order.