Children of the Lake 7
A great defensive wall stretched from horizon to horizon.
They had been expecting to arrive somewhere between today and tomorrow, depending on eventualities. Rosen had even sent a letter ahead of time, but through the very tense week where the Oke was forced to run at the highest speeds it could muster nearly every hour of the day, no response arrived.
Ever since Holly had told them what happened that day at the hillside, rest no longer came easy to the group. They took to the countryside, the notion of a slow trip through Galehold forgotten as they avoided settlements and insulted all of existence under their breath when spotted and forced to stop on the road. Small talk had mostly died down, weapons were pulled from hidden corners and always kept within hand's reach, and when the time to sleep came they no longer wagered for comfortable bedding; the consensus wordlessly reached was that Aleh and Almalilly took the seats.
Each of them suffered the rush and cramped living space their own way. Aleh spent entire days meditating with his head covered in red wrappings, Furfu had been taken by a strange fit of composure, and Agare... remained Agare.
Holly couldn't say she didn't share their fears. Really, she had been very anxious! But Marquise was going to send her a letter! And she was going to see her first fortress today! How could she not be at least a little perky? What a week!
But the four of them weren't the only ones coping.
"H-Holly! How many?!"
"T-ten more! Y-you're nearly t-there!"
She had to admit, she was struggling to pay attention.
The three more normal members of the group were used to taking care of their necessities and training while Agare took her out exploring, but the situation didn't allow them much opportunity for either. It started with Blades, technically, who driven to boredom, or madness, decided to keep herself in shape right there in the heat, and didn't want to bother with boiling alive in the hot transport.
Turns out, the people of the Remnants had very different ideas about propriety than the Lesser. It's how Holly ended up watching a nude Almalilly doing pushups in the tight space between velvet seats.
When she had first thought of her as stout, she had never imagined how much of it was muscle. There was no other way to put it, Almalilly looked strong, evident by the ease of her "sets", by the fine tapestry of scars on her skin, from clear lines of cuts to old bruises crossing her well defined back, down her thickset thighs, and in front of her soft belly, her heavy breasts—
She shook her head and looked away, finding Rosen.
He had finished the quickest, but the effects of his session were still evident in his body, beads of sweat slowly trailing down his hair covered chest, dried away by the gentle strokes of a towel over his only now underwear clad body, from the nook of his broad shoulders to his large yet elegant arms, his shapely stomach, the tuft trailing from his crotch—
Their eyes met. A confident, amused grin tugged his lip, followed by a chuckle and a slow shake of head. Head about to explode, warmth pooling on every corner of her body, she looked away again, to the only safe sight inside the Oke, the thankfully robed Aleh in garish reds.
"Done!" Almalilly sat up with a jump, slapping Aleh on the knee. "Couldn't you have picked something a little bigger? Doing anything in this cramped little box is a nightmare!"
Head slumped, back straight, hands loosely open over his lap in the likeness of dying bugs, Aleh didn't twitch so much as muscle.
"Witches are so creepy..." Almalilly said.
"In defense of the young sir," Rosen said, idly fiddling with a few latched belts she now knew he wore under his tunics, "he is not the type to make choices on a whim."
"I know, I'm just being a— grump," Almalilly's chest heaved with panting breaths. "He told me this was the closest thing he could find to what he needed, don't ask me why. Oh, and can't forget the, 'as if better craft would be so available in these forsaken boonies!' Bah! Oh, could you be a sweet and pass me a towel?"
"Of course. Good work, by the way."
"Thanks!"
It didn't bother her, not in a conventional way. Two thirds of them had even asked for permission before stripping down and giving fifty in nothing but their sword belts. If anything, after who knew how long naked when her body no longer agreed with clothing, she felt a strange sense of kinship with this suddenly very open minded group of friends.
If only she could reach for it. There was another feeling there, deep down, like shamelessness but not half as unpleasant, something nameless but familiar that made her want it so, so bad. If only she hadn't been told she couldn't have it, implicitly by Marquise's people, explicitly by Elder Seneschal, who said to bury it away and forget it existed.
She tried. Circumstances made it difficult, not just thanks to awkward needs but because it was becoming increasingly hard to ignore how gross the situation under her robes was getting. The slightest squish of her sleeves led to loud squelching, and while it didn't stink to her nose she didn't believe the others shared that opinion.
"Help me out with my back, Holly?"
"W-whu?"
"My back. Before I get a lake in the crack of my bum. Please?"
If she asked so politely, who was Holly to complain?
Swallowing down jealousy and other odd sensations, Holly dried her down. Any way of reaching back was good by her account, and some might just be better than others.
Even clothed, Almalilly still proved distracting to talk to. Thankfully, she had known just the right thing to take Holly's mind from the morning's events.
"That, below, burning." She pointed to a distant gathering of men around a pile of cut down shrubbery. The trail of smoke above attracted a swam of four winged creatures that glided after one another.
"M-miuna, right?" Bonfire. "Above that, skinbirds!"
"What a name for the poor things! But yup, congratulations!" Almalilly smiled. She moved the cylindrical device in her hands, a tube of brass sealed on both ends, a transparent window on the Oke's wall following close behind, "Diido. Much cutter! Now, that over there, above, red."
The crenelated wall that quickly approached was interspersed with tall towers bearing little in way of flourish, the only colors beyond tones of brown and greenish stone coming from sun bleached flags and red clay roof tiles. That had to be it.
"Dovi!" Roof.
"Close! Wovi!" Tile? Roof tile, specifically? "Now the big things creeping under those Wovis?"
She looked slightly below. The walls were abuzz with life, human and otherwise, adorned in metal and leather, their long polearms and enormous bows becoming clearer with every second passed. Almalilly might have asked for something a little more complicated, but her gut went with the simplest answer she had: warrior. "Gulshe?"
"Soldier too. And no, I meant ulan, or uwlan, beast."
" I-I knew that one too!"
Almalilly frowned. "I bet you did! Honestly, you don't sound like someone who just picked up a language."
"Hehe, t-thanks? It comes easy to me."
"Glad for you!" She sat down with a sigh, the window quickly disappearing as the small device Aleh had given her fell to the side. "Took me a whole year before I could construct sentences, outside the basic stuff. Don't know what Marquise was thinkin— I-I mean, I'm sure Marquise had her reasons for choosing me to teach you Awinian!"
Furfu, standing like a lad guarding the house of an Elder, still watched her for a few more moments, before turning back to look out the Oke's cabin.
"...I just think I'm far from the best tutor you could have gotten," she whispered.
"I-I'm glad to have you as my teacher, Almalilly! Y-you're really cool!"
"Oh please, flattery will get you nowhere!" She giggled. "And really, just Lilly is perfectly fine! If I can trust you to watch over my back, literally, I can trust you enough to call me pet names."
"I-if you say so, L-Lilly," Holly said, blushing. "I think I trust you a lot too."
"Happy to hear! Just don't trust me in a fight, I stay fit but that's really not what I'm built for."
Blades, legs crossed and sitting opposite them, coughed. "That's what I'm here for."
Holly unconsciously pushed herself back against the wall, then fidgeted uncomfortably as she realized what she was very obviously doing. Ever since that night with Aleh, she couldn't help but think Blades looked a little sharper.
"Hey, speaking of, don't think I haven't noticed you aren't keeping up with your training!"
"Somebody told me not to," Blades said, nudging Aleh's shoulder. "Might nick his baby."
Aleh, his breathing so faint he was practically asleep, didn't move a finger.
"Y-you both are really close, aren't you?" Holly ventured, a little anxious about their reaction.
"Close, you think?" Almalilly, or Lilly said. She crossed her arms, her brow creasing as she exchanged a look with Blades. "I mean, closer than with any of the others, but not that much closer than coworkers, maybe?"
Blades gasped, eyes going wide, "Lilly! You wound me."
"I mean, look at this slouch, how do you get close to that?! She looks well behaved now, but if you knew the kinds of horrors she put me through when I was younger, you would never look her in the eyes again! I swear, there wasn't one of our superiors she didn't pick a fight with, and this dumbass right here always got dragged down along!"
"You're the one who insisted in standing up for me."
"Of course I did! Do you think I wanted to see a comrade get— hmm, harshly punished for her transgressions? And you never even thanked me, did you?" Lilly shrugged with a sigh, turning to Holly again. "I'm not sure I believe in fate, but the Remnants sure insisted in putting us together as often as they could! And when you work so frequently with someone else, it's hard not to get to know them at least a bit."
"That sounds cool!" Holly said. "Did you know the others too?"
"We knew Rosen," Blades said.
"Relatively speaking." Lilly threw a furtive glance towards the cabin, where Rosen and Agare were leading the party, "I'm not sure how well you know about the Remnants, but we are quite numerous and spread apart, so you don't often get to know many people from outside your class well."
"We knew of the Boss. And our little boss here too, maybe."
"Who didn't?"
"I didn't know Aleh, or this Furfu."
"I heard of their—" Furfu whipped her head so fast Lilly was sent into a fit of coughs. She took a while to recover. "T-they had some fame to their name, so I heard of them before Marquise, yes, just never met them. You were one nasty boy, weren't you Aleh?"
Aleh didn't so much as sniff.
"I didn't know what an Oke was," Blades said.
"I didn't either! I imagined something completely different, more exotic I guess. Less cumbersome, too, but I'm willing to leave that be, considering the benefits."
Blades chuckled, with such an ease Holly would think she was half asleep if she couldn't see the keen interest underneath her lids. Lilly huffed, glaring her down with flushed indignity, only to be met with a smirk and a lazy shrug. Finally, she relented, sighing.
Now that flew right over Holly's head. At least the part that they knew Marquise before, and so maybe also more than she had let on. Part of her felt wrong breaching her history like this, but she was still a little flighty from earlier and dying of curiosity besides. "S-so, do—"
"Well, enough about us, I want to know about you Holly!" Lilly said. "How have you been? How are you enjoying the trip so far?"
"W-what?"
"I mean, last week you were, how can I say this... down in the dumps?"
"Homicidally furious," Blades whispered.
"M-me?!"
"B-Blades! Don't listen to her Holly, I know you were just a little peeved at Aleh, that's what the guy does to others, and sometimes these others lose control! It's normal! Thought I do have to admit that you scared me a bit, I hadn't imagine you could be so..."
Holly nodded. "I-I don't really have an excuse, s-sorry, I'm not sure what happened either."
"No?" Blades said with a quirk of the brow that sent her hairs lashing.
"A-anyway! I just wanted to check out on you, but considering the situation I guess I kept postponing it? M-my bad! Well, better late then never in my opinion. So, have you been enjoying your time so far?"
"Y-yes! Of course! T-there were a few uncomfortable moments, but I'm so happy to be away from the Lesser, I had never imagined the world could be so big! And you all are so kind to me, and the Marquise is going to send us a letter soon, and, and—!" She took a deep, slow breath. "I-I guess if there was something I wanted to do different, I wish Agare would let me take this thing off, like all of you can."
"N-no Holly, don't do things just because we do it! W-we're, hmm, abnormal! A really bad example! Swear on my names we'll stop as soon as we're safe, but this isn't the kind of thing you should be doing in front of others!"
Holly rolled her eyes. "Y-you don't need to stop, I don't mind! I want—"
"Wait, did I hear that right, you lived in Lesser Hollow?!"
"... Did Marquise not tell you?"
"It completely slipped my mind! Goodness Holly, how must that have been! You have to tell me all about it!"
"U-uhm, sure? But shouldn't we—"
"You know, I have friends who would sell an arm to meet you! The lost town of Lesser Hollow, as seen by one of its very own inhabitants! There are some aficionados who to this day still search for proof it ever existed at all. And when most finally reach the boiling point they have to go rooting for themselves and never come back, it becomes a joke: 'what were those idiots thinking, strolling down the Hollows like it was a flower field?'!."
"T-that's so cruel! Though they probably wouldn't be well received, since the Lesser was never fond of outsiders."
"Small towns never are, are they?"
"It wasn't even a town anymore! Elder Seneschal told me that when he was a kid—"
Telling Almalilly about Lesser Hollow and the many miseries she and her sister lived through there was, surprisingly, quite fun. For every story she wasn't willing to poke, there was another small, bizarre occurrence she had only ever told her family she just needed to tell, and Almalilly drank all of it, never letting her focus waver from her as she scooted closer and closer.
Their arms were nearly touching now, She wasn't grossed out, was she? It was hard not to feel overjoyed. If only she leaned a little further into the seats...
But she noticed Blades. Languid, carefree, razor sharp Blades, nested on her cushions and watching both of them like a falcon watching mice.
Holly wouldn't let it spoil the moment. However, listening to the phantom goosebumps, she would be very careful.
The signal came from the front, a quick and sharp "Aleh!" that echoed all the way back.
His head snapped up as if broken from a spell, his hand crashing against the wall behind loud enough to make her flinch before he began to chant. Muffled by his wrappings, the low and raspy sound of his voice haunting the Oke as the air around them darkened, turning the entrance to the cabin into a scrambled curtain of indiscernible blurs.
She heard a disgusting wet slurp coming from the front, and then voices, distorted and incomprehensible, like shouts bubbling from deep underwater.
"Aaaaaah, buddy! How long... came by? Your... looks like...!" She tried to pick meaning from the slurry the barrier allowed past, but it only got harder. "How... good misses... mill?"
"Good man Bel-" Belzare? Belzake? Belzale? "Oh... know... she wants... the boy will...!"
As if to make up for the assault on their senses, everything behind Aleh's seat disappeared, affording the women a clear glance out into the castle's entrance, a dim tunnel of stone illuminated by a couple evenly placed torches and meager sunlight.
They weren't the only people here. Gorgeous wagons of varnished wood and embossed reliefs decorating all sides, beautiful horses with pristine groomed furs, driven by men donning exquisitely embroidered capes and shirts; other transports had no animals, metallic and large but polished and extravagant in color and polish, unlike their Oke's rather dull looks; and needless to say, the soldiers with their gruesome weapons, spiked maces and heavy polearms and robust axes, officers mounted on armored warmares with necks as thick as tree trunks, one swerving a single eye from side to side until it fixated on—
"Shit!" Lilly spat, turning away and covering her face. "Oh, Sorry Holly."
"I-I said I didn't mind..."
"B-but look at all that! I heard from acquaintance of mine that on the other side of the Hollows there is a popular saying that goes 'a coin is to a merchant what a caterpillar is to a fish.'"
"Not funny," Blades said, giving the officer a dismissive glance.
"It's kind of morbid, yeah, but not unwarranted," Lilly said, gesturing to all the transports clogging up the tunnel. "Well, if the border is in this state, then at least things on Bellfort's side shouldn't be too bad."
"I-I still don't understand that place. Nobody wants to talk about it," Holly said.
"Oh, it's a long and sordid affair, the history of how Bellfort came to be and why most Yinians or the Faceless don't really like them."
"They are revolutionaries, they bed Tales, they claim to be the true Yinians and that Galehold was built by usurpers, they bark and roll if Awin tells them to..." Blades counted on her fingers, then scowled. "They kick us out and kept all the good swords."
"I guess that's as good a summary as any. They used to be part of the empire, but seceded at a pretty sensitive point in time."
"Perineum stabbing cowards. Bad doggies."
"I-I gathered as much." Holly watched as one of the classy fellows' gestures grew agitated and panicked, while the closest guards became stiff and tense, "Marquise used to talk about it like a tragedy. She told me she wished Galehold still had the lake."
"Oh, Bell Lake! I hear its so beautiful this time of the year!" Lilly sighed, "I always wanted to see it at least once. It's such a shame Marquise didn't accept my proposal! Alas, she was right to in the end. Perhaps in another life?"
"Can't you do it after the mission? I'll come with you!"
Lilly smiled. "That's kind of you to offer, but remember what I said? They don't like the Faceless around these parts, and Faces aren't too different in their eyes. Nevermind that though, we're moving."
Indeed, while those who had come before them still endured the scrutiny of the guards, they rolled forward into the bright, wide courtyard of the fortress.
Armored men marched in several lines, shoulder to shoulder. Armored men ran in heavy plates with bloated bags slung over their shoulders, in and out of the bastion's many tunnels and doors. Armored men sparred with one another under the scorching sun, the glint of their arms blinding. One man in particular stood out to Holly: overlooking half the procedures, the sheer bulk of his shining armor, the visage of a lion's mane built onto a heavy helmet, only matched by the enormous fat beast he sat on, easily taller than a warmare and at least twice as broad, wide paws bearing claws like daggers, yawning mouth large enough to gobble Holly down without chewing.
Fortress Aaltor rose around them as tall as trees of the Hollows. Weather worn bricks surrounded them at all sides, protecting those on the other of its many slit-like windows from those below, the unfortunate creatures pushing themselves and others into the moss encrusted, dirt and hay littered, feces ridden floor of the courtyard. Plants had started to grow from cracks, verdant and tall as they became horse feed for one awfully mangy thing.
On one hand, she was impressed. She didn't know human hands could built places this massive. On the other: "W-what a mess!"
"Sure is!" Lilly frowned with a reproving frown, "How can these people be ready for an invasion if they can't even clean their own floors?! This is shameful!"
Blades chuckled. "Nostalgic."
"... I can't believe you." Lilly said.
Holly pointed the way they came. "S-say, how come we are moving so much faster then the other people?"
"We have privilege! If the faceless are moving out, who are these slobs to get in the way?"
"E-easy like that?"
"If they don't want the ugliest part of our business to become theirs, it has to be. Though..." Lilly pushed her spectacles back in place, "My work was flawless. And Rosen's contacts do make the effort a little smother too I guess."
The metallic man above the huge beast gestured in their direction, short and curt, before resuming his one sided conversation with his companion, a plated and plumed captain gently steering a buckling warmare who desperately wanted to be anywhere else.
"Your work?"
"Told you, somebody has to handle the boring bureaucracy!"
As the Oke curved down a designated road, nothing but a shallow concavity cutting through the corners of the fortress where the filth and grime had been allowed to build until it felt as if they were drifting over wet mud, another sight caught her eyes, taking her breath away.
In the dead center of the courtyard, a great statue stood dominant, clean and cared for in a way nothing else here was, so masterfully sculped she could tell the bleeding wounds and scars of its main figures' skins even from a distance.
Below, a pile of cowering and dying warriors crawled, tried to flee, pleaded with empty hands raised, crude weapons and shields cast down over their fellows, chest pieces of what she had to assume was bark and leather torn apart. Soft serpentine folds emerged and submerged in between their limbs with enough frequency they almost looked like chains keeping those unfortunate to be at the bottom of the human pile in place.
The three grandiose heroes above, each at the very least over thrice as large as those crushed underfoot, seemed to have no mercy to spare. One, highest among them, stood over the battle atop a monster not too dissimilar to the metallic man's own, chest plates embossed with interweaving shapes, left arm carrying a longsword impaling five dead men at once, the right lifting an immense cloth flag bearing the image of a bear over a lion, Galehold's coat of arms blowing for the entire world to see. He was stern, face heavy with beard and mustache, no helmet but an ugly crown over his head, thin and asymmetric, full of spikes piercing deep into his scalp.
However, he wasn't the focus. At the center of the piece stood two other figures. The first, held in the arms of the second, was a woman, large breasts revealed to all in some kind of cut dress or figure hugging sheet or something that flowed down from her shoulders to under her heels, one hand firmly gripping her flimsy covers while the other stood over her forehead, expression shocked and vacant, surprisingly untouched.
It was that second one who immediately tickled her memories, but why? He was youthful yet bearing the hint of a beard, hair falling over his nape in gorgeously maintained curls, countenance both adamant and wrathful. Naked as the day he was born, his parts dangling in between his spread legs, holding the lady back with protective zeal with one arm while the other struck down to the ground with a weapon she didn't recognize.
Or she did, actually, from the first days of their journey, though she could see it in much better detail now. Like a sun or a flower, an orb as large as his fist at the end of a long handle holding a perfect circle of broad blades, or so she had to guess considering half of it was hidden under a trail of lovingly recreated carnage, viscera molded with such accuracy she could tell intestines from stomachs, broken ribs from freed humerus.
"W-what is—" She swallowed down bile, looking away, "What is that?"
She venture a careful look around, covering the image of bloodshed with a hand. She expected some horror from her companions, and while neither looked pleased they seemed closer to unamused than disturbed.
"Shal to the Conquerors," Almalilly said. "You know what that word means?"
"N-no?"
"Suppose not. It's Lesan, and means something like spoils, or treasures, or something of that nture." She crossed her arms. "By Titan Marches, also know as the most tasteless man ever born. Heard about this statue before, and I should have believed it's reputation. How did the guy who created Glories of the Princess actually get more work?!"
"G-Glories of the Princess?"
"Oh that one is even worse, it was—"
"Lilly," Blades said, "she meant the Five Figures."
"But I'm counting just three?" Holly said.
"I assumed she already knew them?" Lilly said, turning to Holly with an inquisitive quirk of brow. "Didn't Marquise make you read the Codex of the Lion?"
"She didn't make me read anything. M-mostly. I did bring that one with me though!"
"I guess you wouldn't know then. Well, the Codex of the Lion, is, how should I put it..."
"Trash."
Furfu's neck snapped in the blink of an eye, but Blades met the shadow of her cowl with lazy disinterest worthy of a jungle feline. Furfu was eventually forced to give up, returning to her still awkwardly rigid posture.
"U-uncultured bitch, no n-nuance..." Furfu rambled beyond even Holly's ability to keep up.
"A-an important cultural artifact regardless of the quality or controversies it has caused since the Lion Dynasty times, is how I was going to put it. It's quite a strange book, a mixture between a philosophical treaty and an anthology written by a monk turned knight, and it would go on to inspire the first Yinian Emperor in pretty much all aspects of his reign."
"It's a book about how you should be, depending how you were born," Blades shrugged.
"Pretty much? It depicts how people should strive to be for the healthy functioning of an empire, at least the way the author sees it, represented by five symbolic characters called the Five Esteemed Figures."
Blades face twisted with a distaste that bordered on revulsion. "The girl is the Household Princess. The big guy is the Lion."
"And the boy waging war is the Intrepid Youth, who represents what every young man ought to become."
"Killers."
"As well."
"T-thanks, that's interesting to hear, but..." But that wasn't it, not at all. When her eyes were driven back to that scene of slaughter, it was not the youth they seeked but the gore soaked sun, casting death down on the broken army, "What is that? In the Youth's hand?"
Both Blades and Lilly leaned closer, maybe trying to discern what anything from that pile of remains. However, when they leaned back, both looked blank. They exchanged a long glance as Holly waited for an answer.
"I-if you don't know, it's okay!" she said. "I was just cu—"
"That," Blades said, "is the Peaceful Night."
Lilly didn't expound. Holly didn't ask her to.
It wouldn't be long before the window to the outside closed, though Aleh's hand remained in place. With nothing better to do, she threw small talk away with Blades and Almalilly, occasionally straining her hearing to catch bits and pieces of the conversation happening by the cabin. They took longer leaving the Fortress than entering, but suddenly a second call came, and Aleh slumped back into meditation.
Soon, they had crossed the brick and mortar barrier into murky waters, as Lilly had put it.
Bellfort welcomed them.