Valkyrie's Shadow - 7The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 2, Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“His favourite colour?” Neia blinked.

“That’s right,” Saye nodded as she leaned forward with quill and paper in hand. “What is the Sorcerer King’s favourite colour?”

“It’s…”

It should be black, right? He has a black robe and summoned black furniture…no, he wore more colourful things, too…

The gears in Neia’s head ground away as she tried to come up with an answer to Saye’s question.

I don’t know.

How could she not know? She had been His Majesty’s Squire for weeks, yet she didn’t know what his favourite colour was. How was that possible?

Across the table, Saye frowned slightly.

“Then…when is the Sorcerer King’s birthday?”

The second question plunged into Neia’s heart like a cruelly-barbed arrow.

“…I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.

“Okay…then what about his wife?”

His wife? Did the Undead–no, surely someone as great as His Majesty the Sorcerer King had a wife. At least one wife. Neia wouldn’t be surprised at all if His Majesty had an entire harem of wives.

But who? Neia thought back to her time in the Sorcerous Kingdom, trying to recall anyone that might qualify as the Sorcerer King’s wife. The only person that might have counted, however, was the dark-winged beauty that he had first appeared with. That was impossible, though. She was the Prime Minister and Kings didn’t marry their Prime Ministers. Since His Majesty was Undead, he probably had an amazing and beautiful Undead wife.

Saye’s expectant gaze slid away from Neia.

“Maybe these questions were harder than I thought they were…”

“Wh-why are you asking stuff like this, anyway?” Neia said, “I thought your questions would be about His Majesty’s mighty feats or words of wisdom.”

“That is more exciting and all, but don’t you think it’s strange? All of the stories about legends and heroes never have the details that I’m asking for. Except when they kidnap the wife or kill her off because the hero needs a reason to go do something. It makes it feel as if the one who originally recounted the tale didn’t know the person at all.”

Neia sagged over her table as another arrow – no, a spear – plunged into her breast. The girl was brutally butchering her with a handful of words. She reached for her dagger and took a slice of cheese as if to beg for a reprieve.

I already forgot what I wanted to share with her.

It was more that the shock created by the questions had knocked what she wanted to share out of her head. Who knew that someone so young could be so dangerous?

“How old are you, Saye?” Neia asked, “I’ve been curious about your age since I first saw you.”

“Eleven.”

Heh…she’s four years younger than me. She seems a lot more mature than that.

“It’s amazing that you’re travelling at that age,” Neia said. “Have you been alone all this time?”

“I had a brother,” Saye looked down at the table, “but a woman came out of the forest and took him away.”

“Oh. Um, I’m sorry.”

A woman came out of the forest? She wasn’t aware of any places where Humans were raided by Human tribes – she didn’t even know that there were Human tribes – so Saye must have been from very far away.

“It’s alright,” Saye told her. “He didn’t even fight back. Boys are awful.”

Neia wasn’t sure how to respond to that. That seemed to be more and more the case these days.

“A-Anyway,” Neia said, “is there something else you’d like to ask? Maybe about the Holy Kingdom or the war…”

“There are a lot of things, but…hmm, how about we start from the beginning? Where did Jaldabaoth come from?”

“We could never figure that out,” Neia replied. “All we know is that the Abelion Hills was conquered by him before he came to the Holy Kingdom. Before that, he raided the capital of Re-Estize. No one that we asked about Jaldabaoth in Re-Estize knew anything about his origins.”

It was a mystery that left a few people wondering if Fiends would suddenly pop up again. The Temples had no answers. Most, however, only saw it as a periodic calamity – one that only happened once in several lifetimes like the legends so often told.

“How about another question?” Neia asked, “That answer probably wasn’t very satisfactory…”

Thankfully, Saye stuck to topics about the war. After two hours, she ran out of paper so they decided to call it a night there. The following morning, they encountered one another again while Neia was organising supplies for her men.

“Whatcha doing?” Saye asked.

“Making sure my men have supplies for our next shift,” Neia answered.

“Didn’t you say you just started? You look like you’re used to it.”

“It’s the duty of a Squire to manage things for their Paladins,” Neia said. “And, during the war, I ended up in command of a regiment of archers. By the end of the war, I think I got pretty good at doing this kind of thing. I was never an excellent warrior like my father or mother, so I’m glad that I have at least some skills that I can be confident in.”

“Hmm…so you’re something like a Captain or Commander?”

“C-Commander?” Neia’s eyes went wide, “I would never presume to be someone so important! I’d be like a Sergeant, at best.”

“…but you commanded an archer regiment.”

Neia laughed nervously as she waved away the notion.

“We were just desperately short of people. Plus, I think most of the reason why I was put in command of that regiment was to appease His Majesty the Sorcerer King.”

“Huh?”

“You know how it goes,” Neia sighed. “Everyone is associated with someone. People are in the positions that they’re in because of who they know more often than because of their personal capabilities. Connections matter, and you risk angering groups of people because their associates aren’t given important jobs.”

“Is that how it works here?” Saye frowned.

“Pretty much. Back before the war, you had people that bribed their way into choice assignments away from danger or scions who were made officers during their time in the army. My father had a lot of stories about those guys.”

“And I was there for many of them,” a voice came from behind.

They turned to find Mister Lousa waving a hand with a smile on his face.

“M-Mister Lousa,” Neia said. “I’m sorry, I–”

“I only came because I heard something interesting,” Mister Lousa told her. “If anything, you should be commended for ensuring your supplies are sorted out on a day off. And I see that you’re keeping our esteemed visitor company.”

“Ah…I guess we got to know one another a little bit since yesterday,” Neia said. “She asked what I was doing and it just went from there.”

“So I heard,” Mister Lousa said. “Back when I served in Pavel’s platoon, he wasn’t so renowned but his attitude toward those Nobles was unchanged. Sometimes we would play pranks on them.”

“Pranks?” Saye tilted her head curiously.

“Pranks,” the short man nodded. “The regulars in the army never had any respect for the Nobles who bought their ranks, but some of them were in particular need of…humbling.”

“What did you do?”

“There were many things but…ah, this one was my favourite. About a decade ago, we had a truly obnoxious man placed over us. One day, our squad intercepted a Demihuman raiding party. Pavel had us cut off their heads, skin them, and clean everything up before bringing it all back to the wall.”

Neia leaned forward. She hadn’t heard this story before.

“That same night, we ‘raided’ the man’s quarters wearing those same heads and hides. He screamed and cried as we carried him off, but his unit was too terrified to do anything and they weren’t fast enough to catch us besides. We kept going with our little prank until the Holy Order sent a squad to investigate.”

“What happened then?” Neia asked.

“Eh…it got weird. The leader of the Paladin squad was your mother, you see, and she found us roasting the nobleman on a spit.”

“What?!”

“We weren’t really cooking him. It was just a tiny fire, but it was enough to make the man soil himself and plead to the gods for mercy. Your mother took one look at us and charged with her sword held high. She chased us into the nearby bush and we had to hide from her for the next few hours. The next time Pavel went home to see you and your mother, we thought we would never see him again. Demihumans don’t cook their food, you see, so we thought he was cooked for sure.”

No wonder her father hadn’t shared the story with her. It seemed that he had taken that particular secret with him to the grave.

“That’s hilarious,” Saye grinned. “Did anyone get in trouble for that?”

“I don’t think so,” Mister Lousa said. “The punishment would have been quite severe. But Pavel’s disdain for people like that nobleman was probably a large part of why he was never promoted to Captain. I guess the fact that his eyes made him look like he wanted nothing more than to butcher those men on the spot didn’t help. Ah – when I see yours, however, I am only reminded of the good times I had in his platoon.”

She appreciated the man’s sentiment, but she knew it wouldn’t change the opinion of strangers who saw her. She was just thankful that the ranchers hadn’t shunned her over them.

Once she completed her task, Neia went over to see her men encamped on the northern side of the hill. Being free until the evening’s banquet, Saye accompanied her.

“The camp around the villa looks a lot like the labour camps around the cities,” she said.

“Is that so?” Neia glanced at her.

“You haven’t been to them?”

Neia shook her head. The Holy Order and the Royal Army were already busy enough, so any groups that could police themselves were left alone so limited resources and manpower could go to where they were needed.

“What are they like?” Neia asked.

“They’re interesting,” the Bard answered. “It’s like they’re little fiefs run by the Nobles.”

“That makes sense,” Neia said. “It’s how they’re used to doing things, after all.”

“Mister Lousa isn’t a Noble, is he?”

Neia pondered her implication.

“I guess it’s the way that people are familiar with. Everyone’s served in the army and everyone’s used to how Nobles run things.”

“Hasn’t anyone ever considered doing anything differently?” Saye asked.

“Well, there are the city folk,” Neia answered, “but they answer to the Crown and the Guilds. It feels like it ends up being the same.”

They stopped and waited for a small mob of boys chasing each other with sticks to go by. The ‘camp’ was essentially a town made up of tents, so Neia wondered if an actual town would appear around the villa at some point. All of the families and businesses that had set up shop probably preferred proper buildings to live and work in.

“Oh, Baraja,” a rancher approached them, scratching his belly with a yawn. “You come down for somethin’?”

“Sorry for bothering you on your day off,” Neia replied. “I just came to see how the men were doing.”

“Well, that’s kind of you to do so,” the rancher said. “The men that aren’t sleepin’ in are mostly honin’ their rodeo skills.”

“Thanks. How is everything in the camp? Do the people need anything?”

The man crossed his arms and slowly scanned the tents around them.

“Can’t say we’re in need of anythin’,” he said. “Well, anythin’ reasonable. But if you just so happened to have a pile of gold to hand out, I don’t think anyone would complain.”

“How do you feel about the way this hacienda is being run?” Saye asked.

“Whaddya mean by that, miss?”

“Things now are different from the way they were before, aren’t they?”

“They are,” the rancher admitted, “but I don’t think things are bad because of it. The old way wasn’t workin’, so why would anyone stick with it if they had a choice?”

“But that’s because of the war, isn’t it?” Neia said, “It basically put us in a giant hole. No one’s stupid enough to think that things would just go back to the way they were before…at least not right away.”

As far as she knew, that was the consensus. The cause for their woes was Jaldabaoth, but Jaldabaoth had been defeated. Everything that the war had taken away wouldn’t just magically come back, and, by the same token, there was no point in getting angry over it because the one who had caused it all was gone. They just had to work hard and rebuild for the sake of future generations.

If anything, the future looked bright. The war left them with many problems, but the Demihuman menace that had plagued them for their entire existence was now out of the picture. The Abelion Hills was under the Sorcerous Kingdom now and the Sorcerous Kingdom was friendly with the Holy Kingdom. Everyone understood that the new normal would be much better than the old one – one where people no longer had to sacrifice their sons and daughters to the wall and live in constant fear of the Demihuman raids that could strike even the capital.

“The cities and towns seem like they’re having a hard time,” Saye noted. “Shouldn’t there be a limit to how much they have to sacrifice?”

“They’re an odd bunch,” the rancher said. “It used to be that spares and such went to the towns and cities because there was no way for them to survive in the country, but now it’s the other way around. At least it should be, but they insist on stayin’ where they are. Makes no sense to me. We even have artisans from the towns and cities workin’ for Mister Lousa here, so that makes it even more confusin’.”

“Foolish, stubborn pride, I say,” a woman folding laundry nearby said. “The city folk always looked down on us. They think we live in mud huts, eat dirt, and fuck our cousins, if not the livestock.”

Several men and women working around them sighed and shook their heads. Personally, Neia didn’t believe that as a city dweller, but she was more than aware of the attitudes of her fellow urbanites.

“Well, that’s their problem,” the rancher said. “Things aren’t so different for us anyway. We’re eatin’ about the same as before and our lives as ranchers aren’t very different. If anything, our lives are better now. The only thing we’re missin’ are our houses and Mister Lousa’s about to do somethin’ about that.”

“He is?”

“Yup. Rumour’s goin’ around that he got permission from the Royal Court to repurpose all those abandoned villages in his territory. The camp artisans look like they’re doing some extra work for somethin’, so it’s probably true.”

Official figures from Hoburns claimed that the Northern Holy Kingdom had 3.5 million remaining citizens, but Neia was pretty sure that wasn’t true. Between the predations of Jaldabaoth’s army, the battles of the war, death from starvation, exposure, disease over the winter, and the demonic reign of terror that saw countless people butchered for no good reason, a lot of empty land had been left behind. This, of course, was made most apparent by all of the empty villages dotting the countryside. The sheer number of them suggested that the north had lost at least half of its people.

Early post-war measures included consolidating the rural population into functional villages. Those villages, in turn, salvaged materials from the abandoned ones to rebuild. The fact that Mister Lousa had been granted permission to tear down what was left was basically an admission by the Royal Court that the north had lost more people than they had estimated.

“So are the people in the camp moving to the villages,” Neia asked, “or is something else happening?”

“I’m not sure,” the rancher said. “A lot of the womenfolk’ve grown to appreciate the conveniences of the camp, though. Some people figure it’d be best to build posts along the grazing routes. Doing things that way would keep more land free for the herds, too.”

“So…ranching forts?”

“Ranching towns, maybe. They’ll be all about our business and what supports it. We can import things we don’t produce from elsewhere.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Saye said. “You can just focus on becoming stronger and better at what you’re good at.”

“Mmh…I don’t know about that,” the rancher replied, “but it’ll be nice to have a community where everyone knows what we’re all about. Before, we were just all over the place on whatever land we had. Disputes and other problems with farmin’ types were common.”

They parted ways with the rancher, heading to the rodeo grounds where most of her men were practising. Along the way, Neia’s thoughts wandered as she watched the people go about their daily tasks.

Stronger and better…

The Bard’s statement struck a chord within Neia. She was from somewhere outside of the Holy Kingdom, so maybe she didn’t see things the way that Neia’s people did.

“Do you think they can become stronger by doing that?” Neia asked.

“Doing what?”

“By sticking together as a community of ranchers,” Neia said.

“It depends on what you mean by ‘stronger’,” Saye said. “What Mister Lousa has here does have a certain sort of strength – the same kind of strength that craft guilds have. They represent the goods and labour that they have control over, and that control is power when it comes to negotiating with other parties. It’s not easy to bully them like one might be able to bully an individual.”

Was that the ‘strength’ that the Sorcerer King’s wisdom promoted? She didn’t think so. It wasn’t as if the Guilds could do anything to stand against Jaldabaoth.

“What about other kinds of strength? Like the strength to fight against physical threats like raiders?”

“No.”

“No?” Neia frowned at the Bard’s immediate response.

“Just doing what they’re doing won’t make them stronger,” Saye said. “I mean, it won’t make them stronger than they are right now. They can do the same thing for their entire lives and it won’t change anything.”

They stopped at the edge of the rodeo grounds, watching the ranchers practise their skills. To Neia, at least, it seemed like their practice would help them become better.

“Why do you say that?” Neia asked.

“Because it’s the truth?” Saye answered with a frown, “There are over twenty million Humans from the Holy Kingdom to the Empire, and nearly all of them are like this. They do what they do for their entire lives, but a Farmer reaching the end of his life isn’t much stronger than a Farmer helping out their family as a kid.”

“That’s true, but…”

But that would mean most people are born weak and will die weak.That there’s no way to become stronger.

It meant all those people who believed that being strong was something for geniuses and renowned bloodlines were right. That the Temples’ teachings about freedom of choice were wrong. Well, one could still choose, but the choice was basically between something they were good at and something they had no talent in.

Just like me…

She had inherited her father’s strengths, yet she had insisted on becoming a Paladin. At the end of all her years of squiring, she was still far better with the bow than she was with a sword with only a fraction of the effort.

Neia shook her head free of depressing thoughts.

No, the Sorcerer King’s wisdom can’t be wrong.

“Then, is there any way for normal people to become stronger?” Neia asked.

“Sure,” Saye answered.

“Really? But–”

“I said that what they’re doing right now won’t make them any stronger,” Saye told her. “It doesn’t mean that they can’t get stronger.”

“Oh. Would you happen to know of a way how?”

“You could import Aurochs,” Saye said. “They’re a lot harder to herd. You’d have to get good fast, though – Aurochs are Magical Beasts and just one of them can flatten a village. I think some of them breathe fire…?”

That sounded like a catastrophe, but it also meant that there were people strong enough to herd fire-breathing Magical Beasts that could flatten villages.

“Um, what about something less extreme?” Neia asked, “We can’t afford a bunch of burning, flattened villages right now.”

“Just challenge yourselves, I guess,” Saye answered. “Do ranching things that you’d normally consider ‘hard’.”

“That sounds reckless,” Neia said. “People would normally tell you not to push yourself.”

“Yeah, and people are normally weak,” Saye looked up at her. “You’re a lot stronger than these ranchers. Did you get that strong by doing normal things and taking it easy?”

“No, but I had to fight in a war and go through all sorts of craziness. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through the same experience.”

There were other problems with using herself as an example. Foremost among them was the fact that her parents were both very strong. People would just assume she was strong because her parents were strong, and that it was easy to preach strength when one was strong themselves.

Saye seems to know a lot, so you’d figure she’d know that, too. Wait a minute…

Neia resisted the urge to rub her eyes as she looked at the Bard.

“Saye…”

“Hm?”

“You’re strong!”

“Not really…”

“Yes, really! The only people stronger than you in this camp are Mister Lousa and me!”

“Yeah, and that’s not really strong.”

“But it’s stronger than most people in the Holy Kingdom,” Neia said. “And all those people served in the army. What did you do to get that strong? Did you fight in a war, too?”

Neia imagined Saye on a savage battlefront. She’d have to be younger than she was, too. A nine-year-old slaying Demihumans five times her size with her lute.

“I travelled and learned stuff and trained,” Saye said. “Why do you think Travellers are always stronger than usual?”

“What’s a Traveller?”

“Um…you know, like warriors that go on journeys to improve themselves? Or artisans that visit other countries to learn from famous grandmasters. Or Bards like me that collect stories from around the world. You don’t have to be a Traveller to get strong, though. Travellers just happen to broaden their horizons and grow with their experiences. People can do that without going anywhere at all so long as they have the means to.”

“I see…”

She watched as her men practised lassoing posts and riding in makeshift corralling formations. Some rode up to targets and planted their arrows and bolts into them while others raced their mounts through obstacle courses.

If this is normal, then what is ‘challenging’? Will it really make them stronger?

All she needed was to have a few of them show a little bit of improvement. She knew from her time as a Squire that most men would grow competitive between themselves so long as their goal wasn’t deemed impossible to achieve.

The problem was the stakes. During the war, they were clear. After the war, priorities shifted and so did what mattered to her people.

No, since this is kind of like a game, then I could just challenge the men through it. The ‘means’ are already within my grasp.

She didn’t have to provide for anyone, so she could probably come up with some sort of prize with her allotted portion as a ‘captain’. Once they displayed measurable gains, she could show Mister Lousa, who was already worried about security. He would be more than happy to invest in his people’s strength.

Just speaking of the Sorcerer King’s wisdom and greatness wasn’t enough. Not in their current situation. In fact, carrying on as she had was surely a disservice to His Majesty. She had to produce results that were relevant to people no matter the situation they found themselves in.