The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (112 page)

“All of life is falling. You
fall in love, you fall out of love. You fall out of grace, you fall into luck,
you fall out of favour. You fall out of one life and into another. You fall on
your knees, you fall on your face and when you hit the ground, all your bones
shatter and you wish you didn’t have to get up again. Yes, I am very afraid of
falling.”

“Hm,” said Kerris. “Do you drink
much?”

The jaguar smiled.

A sound on the stairs brought
him back years in his memory, the sound of sharp angry clacking and Kerris smiled.
A woman was leading her horse down the steps to the stables, clad in a uniform
of thickest leather, dyed to match the silver of her pelt. Pewter shoulder
plates stamped with the visage of a snarling lion, arm vambraces studded with
steel and a multiple of straps along one thigh, holding her daggers and
throwing stars in place. And of course, her boots, high, laced and white, with
heels that looked like they alone could kill.

Ursa Laenskaya scowled at them
as she led her horse into the stall, began removing its tack.

“Is the insignificant excuse for
a lion going to teach the little chicken how to clean dung?”

“As sweet as a summer rainfall,”
said Kerris. “I’ve missed you, my love.”

“Pah. I thought you drowned in
the ocean.”

“If wishes were horses…”

Yahn Nevye glanced from grey
coat to silver, eyes wide in disbelief. Kerris went on, unmindful.

“Nice uniform. Is it new?”

She snorted, pulled the saddle
from the blue roan’s back. “Your brother promised to send me a new one but he
did not.”

“Ah, the life of a
Shogun-General.”

With the saddle in her arms, she
swung around to the jaguar.

“Him
I understand. But
you? What are you doing with the horses?”

Nevye’s mouth hung open a
moment.

“Are you deserting?”

“I…”

“You are! I will kill you
now—” And she moved a hand to the hilt of her sword.

“He’s helping me, Ursa,” said
Kerris. “With the horses.”

“Helping you.”

“Yes. He’s a very friendly,
talkative fellow and I’m grateful for his company.”

She scowled at the jaguar now.

“Yes,” Nevye swallowed. “He’s
teaching me where things go and, and about the earth.”

There was silence in the stable
for a very long moment until she shoved the saddle into Yahn Nevye’s arms.

“Good. The Captain—” She
cursed in Hanyin, stamped her foot. “The Shogun-General wants us upstairs by
dusk. He has a plan to get the army over the Wall.”

“Actually, my wife has a plan,”
said Kerris. “Kirin has asked her to share.”

“Then don’t be late.”

She snorted and left the stables
echoing with the sounds of sharp, angry clacking.

Yahn Nevye released his breath
and sagged against the stable wall.

“Falling…and her. I’m terrified
of her.”

“Me too. But you get used to
it.” The grey lion grinned and pushed himself upright. “Look. You have a saddle
now. Still want to leave?”

Nevye sighed, shook his head.

“Good choice. She’d kill you
before you left the Wall.” Kerris took the saddle from the man’s arms. “Well,
let’s head up for more fun with lions.”

The jaguar laughed, something he
hadn’t done in years, and followed the lion out of the stall.

***

It was late now and lanterns
cast light around the office of the Captain. Across his desk, the Scholar in
the Court of the Empress had rolled out her parchments for all to see.

“Now, our main problem right
here, right now, is how to get 3,946 troops over the Wall and into the Lower
Kingdom.”

Kirin looked at her. “3,946?”

“Actually,” said Captain
Oldsmith-Pak. “It’s closer to 4500 now. Enlistment is doubling almost every
hour. We are taking only those who come with horses.”

Standing behind her husband,
Ursa Laenskaya snorted.

“Well, well,” said Kerris and he
looked up from the cushions. “I told you I couldn’t count the rear joiners.
Bo?”

The ambassador puffed a few good
puffs on his pipe. “Feline soldiers have more than doubled
Chi’Chen
ones.
I am impressed, Shogun-sama. Truly impressed.”

Kirin nodded. “Go on,
sidala.”

“Anyway, we need a way to bring
our troops over the Wall that doesn’t involve lowering everyone in baskets,
which would take half a year or more and if there is indeed a Legion still
waiting on the other side—

“There is,” said Oldsmith-Pak.

“Then they could make short work
out of us with their arrows. So this plan can’t involve doing that, nor can it
involve riding north to
Roar’pundih
. That would be a very long way and
with our numbers increasing daily, we simply couldn’t manage it. We couldn’t
stop to eat, to sleep, to have a leisurely scrub. Nothing. And at no point in
our history has a force such as this carried on along the Wall for such a
stretch. We are, in fact, making history.”

She looked up at them, her
emerald eyes serious.

“So I asked the Captain to fetch
the Mayor of
Shen’foxhindi
and to get some parchments of their digs.
Everyone, say hi to Musaf Summerdale, Mayor of
Shen’foxhindi.”

Musaf Summerdale was a tiger,
round of face and soft of middle. But his eyes were sharp and he bowed in
almost perfect fashion.

“What I learned here…” And the
tigress bent low to move some papers over others. “Was that the mines go deep
into the Great Mountains here…” She moved them again. “And here…”

“Which is why they are angry,”
said Kerris.

“But it serves us well.” She
straightened. “Why go over the Mountains when we can go through them?”

There was silence in the
Captain’s office.

“Go through them?” said Kirin.

“Yes,” she said and she nodded.
“Setse says--”

“Setse?” said Kirin. “Setse the
dog, Setse?”

“Um, yes?”

More silence.

“You are consulting a dog on the
movement of Imperial troops?”

“Uh…well, actually…”

“That is treason,
sidala.”

“Kirin,”
Kerris growled a
warning.

“Sister,” she corrected. “Or
Fallon. I’m not fussy. And no, I asked Setse because she’s been there and I
couldn’t find Sherah.”

The cheetah raised her tea to
her lips.

Sireth cleared his throat. “What
did you ask Setse,
Khalilah?”

She beamed at him. “I asked her
about the terrain on the other side of the Wall. If it was all sheer and steep
and cliffy like here and she remembered there was a plateau and valley about a
day’s journey north.”

“Where we were hurt. Arrows,”
added Setse. She was looking around with quick, eager eyes. Her brother, on the
other hand, was leaning against a window, arms folded across his chest. “Rah
heal us.”

Fallon bent back over her
parchments. “I studied the maps of all the mine shafts in
Shen’foxhindi
.
Oh mother, are there mine shafts! Like a regular rabbit warren! But I found
something very interesting. There is an old shaft also about one day’s journey
north from here that seems to bore right through the mountainside. Almost. They
stopped because to continue would open a tunnel to the Lower Kingdom and that,”
she looked up again. “That would be bad.”

There was the sound of people
shuffling as they processed her words.

“Are you suggesting,
sidal
…sister,”
Kirin said, frowning. “That we finish what they started, bore through the
mountain and open a doorway to our Enemies?”

“Yep,” she said and she smiled.

Oldsmith-Pak shook his head. “Do
you have any idea how dangerous that is? What a weakness we would be
presenting?”

“And how would we do this?”
asked Musaf Summerdale. “I mean, we could open it surely, but close it? It
would be impossible to perfect a seal from the outside that the dogs could not
breach.”

“Kerris could.”

And she looked at her husband.

In fact, all eyes looked to her
husband now, the grey lion laying on his stomach, a flask of sakeh in his hand.

“Ah, I see now,” he said, blue
eyes gleaming.
 
“You clever girl,
you.”

She smiled.

“Could you?” asked the Seer. He
was smiling almost as much as the tigress. “It would require a complete and
profound control of the elements. Something I am sure you are able to do, if
only you were willing.”

“Ah, well, I can move rocks…” he
rolled to sitting. “Quite big rocks, actually. But this…”

“We would have you too, wouldn’t
we, Sireth?” and Fallon gazed at him, biting her bottom lip and holding her
breath. “You are still the most powerful Seer in the land, right?”

The Seer nodded, thinking.

“And
sidalord
jaguar over
there,” added the Scholar. “I saw him practically fling a dozen guards out the
door with a wave of his hands.”

Oldsmith-Pak growled.

Seated on a cushion, happy to be
a spectator, Yahn Nevye swallowed.

“And not to mention Sherah.”

“Ah yes, the Alchemist,” said
Sireth and he turned to her. “A woman whose powers have no equal in all the
Kingdoms.”

All eyes fell on her. She was
sitting, dangling a long black braid for her infant to swat, humming in
strange, exotic keys.

Kirin put his hands on his hips,
the armour creaking with the movement.

“So, sister, you are suggesting
we take almost five thousand soldiers and horses into an old tunnel, have these
four civilians move the mountain, let the soldiers and horses out onto some
proposed plateau, a plateau that is known by the Enemy, and then have that
tunnel blocked up as new by those same four civilians before the Legion
stationed there has a chance to attack? That is what you are proposing,
sister?”

She thought a moment, her mouth
twisting into many different shapes.

“Yep,” she said finally. “That’s
about right.”

“Kerris? What do you say to
this?”

The grey lion shrugged. “I can
try, Kirin. That’s all I can say.”

“Sidalord
Seer?”

“I would love the challenge,
Captain—forgive me. Shogun-sama.”

“Sidalord
jaguar?”

“Uh, yes. Fine. I think.”

“Sidalady
cheetah?”

And he held his breath, waiting
for it.

“Of course.”

He released it and glanced up at
both Oldsmith-Pak and Musaf Summerdale. They looked at each other, shrugged,
nodded.

“Well then,” he said. “We will
bed down for the night. In the morning, we will take a small party and ride
north. There we will commence our tunnel to the Wrong Side of the Wall.”

There was little more to say
after that.

The Magic and the Mine

It was a thing unseen in the
history of the Khans—ten thousand soldiers moving as one, running across
foothill and plain, through forest and frozen tundra, churning up everything
under their boots and turning snowfields black as they moved toward the Wall of
the Enemy. From
Ulaan Baator
they ran, rising from their blankets before
the sun and bedding down again with the singing of the stars. It was the time
of the
Saran’temur
, the Iron Moon and the days were very short. They
lost men in the crevices of the mountains of KhunLun. They lost men in the thin
ice along the rivers and lakes. They lost men in the avalanches caused by the
pounding of their feet on the earth. They lost none to sickness, none to
fatigue, none to temperatures of extreme cold. These were the Legions of the
Khan. Nothing in all the known world could stop them.

It was dawning as Irh-khan Swift
Sumalbayar yawned and stretched his arms to the skies. While he was lean, he
was very strong and the days already spent running only made him sharp, not
weary. They had khava. They had wotchka. They ran down and caught reindeer and
antelope and partridge and hare, which they ate while on the move. Even through
the bleak wasteland of Gobay, where the steel frames of Ancestral towers stood
like fists of bone, they had all they needed.

It was almost dawn now and he
cast his eyes across the vista of bodies. They spanned from one horizon to the
other, as far as he could see. Some were still sleeping, others sitting around
small fires, talking or drinking or both, and he could see the breath from
their mouths frosting above them in the cold night air. The smoke from the
fires caused silver to dance against the stars and he wondered how long it
would take to make the village of Lon’Gaar. They were moving well but Lon’Gaar
seemed a world away.

There was a wail from the
Khargan’s tent. It was the
only
tent actually and it was silhouetted
against the purple sky by torchlight. He took a deep breath. Another Oracle.
The Khargan was desperate for visions and was convinced he could beat them out
of an Oracle if necessary. Pain was a useful tool but with Oracles, Long-Swift
was not sure of anything. Oracles were chosen by the Moon—their eyes
proved it. They were sacred in their giftings. It was a foolish thing, he
thought, to harm the Oracles. A very foolish thing. Naturally, the Bear had
thought otherwise.

And to believe there was still
one who had outrun them. A girl. A little girl. It was a miracle.

He grinned to himself.

He hoped she lived long enough
for him to meet her.

He wondered if she knew what the
Khargan was doing to the Oracles.

He wondered why she was moving
towards the Wall of the Enemy.

He wondered if in fact, there
would be any war with the Cats that they could ever win because such a thing
had never happened.

He wondered why there were still
songs in his head, songs in a language not his own and he wondered why he was
dreaming of the Enemy or if anything had ever come from such fantastical
dreaming.

He wondered a great many things.
He was such a man. But soon he would be called in to clean up the bones of this
last Oracle before the men had a chance to see. It would not serve his Khan
well to have the men see the desecration of Oracles.

And so he set out for another
mug of khava. It would steady his nerve until the job was done.

***

It looked like a great wide
mouth, frowning and ready to swallow them all in one go. Kerris shivered and
looked around. There were at least twenty of them here, and as many horses, so
one gulp might not be possible. But with the anger he was feeling from these
rocks, the Great Mountains might indeed take a nip or two out of them before
the day was done.

“It looks big enough,” said
Kirin as he stood in the snow, hands on hips, surveying the opening to the
mine. “Does it continue this wide all the way through?”

Fallon looked down at the
parchments. “Yep. Pretty much. It’s more like a cave, really, rather than a
mine…”

“Oh it’s a mine to be sure,”
said Musaf Summerdale. “Quite profitable in its day.”

“And why did you close it?”

“The overhead strata became
unstable. We lost two dozen men during the fall.”

“And look,” said Kerris. “We
have almost two dozen now.”

“Kerris,”
said Fallon,
emerald eyes flashing. “It won’t happen. You and Sireth will make sure, won’t
you, Sireth?”

The Seer smiled. “We will do our
best,
Khalilah
.”

Fallon looked at Nevye, standing
next to his horse, stroking its long nose. “And you too,
sidi?
You don’t
like people to think you’re powerful but you are. I know you are.”

The jaguar looked at her,
swallowed.

“Shar Ma’uul powerful,” said
Setse and she leaned down to hug the neck of her horse. “Horse beautiful. I
love Horse.”

Kerris grunted. Dogs
ate
horses, not rode them and it was a testament to the will of Imperial stallions
for the creature to have allowed the girl on its back. She had laughed and sang
most of the day as their small team rode out along the Wall to the mine but her
brother had refused a mount and had run at her side. Kerris was impressed. The
fellow didn’t look remotely winded and he stood now, angry and guarded. Dogs
were formidable enemies.

“What
about
the horses?”
asked Kirin. “Will we need to walk them in? That would be problematic,
sidi.”

“Not at all, Shogun-sama,” said
Summerdale. “The mine is as high as it is wide for the most part, and well
braced. Except, of course, at the end.”

“Where the earth fell in,” said
Kerris.

“Exactly. Horses and riders
should fit very well, perhaps six abreast. For the most part.” The tiger turned
to the tigress. “Will we need yaks,
sidala?
Or diggers or carts? There
will be much stone to move if we wish five thousand horses to go through.”

“Nah,” said Fallon. “Our people
can handle it.”

Kerris laughed nervously.

“And what about light?” asked
Kirin. “That mine will become very dark very quickly.”

“There are oil lamps,” said
Summerdale. “And torches, although we will need to light them as we go.”

“Not a problem,” said Sireth and
he turned his brown eyes to the mouth of the mine. One by one, the torches
along the walls began whoosh into life and glow, causing shadow to retreat
farther and farther down the throat of the cavern.

He smiled proudly and his wife
swatted him from behind.

A sound began to echo, growing
louder and louder and a mass of blackness rushed toward them like a fist. The
cavern roared with the thunder of wings and suddenly, an entire host of bats
was upon them, spooking the horses and forcing them all to duck to avoid being
struck but even so, the beating of their wings and the screeching of their
voices left them as bruised as a night in a hailstorm.

After a long moment, they were
left with only the stomping of the horses and the sound of their own breathing
and the wind.

Mi-Hahn swept into the cavern,
settled on the Seer’s shoulder, the remains of a bat in her talons.

“That was disgusting,” moaned Bo
Fujihara.

“Idiot,” growled Ursa.

“Sorry,” said Sireth.

“I told you the earth was sick,”
muttered Kerris. “It just vomited bats.”

“Well,” said Fallon. “At least,
they’re all gone.”

“If there is nothing else, shall
we go?” said Kirin. “Now, Kerris, please?”

For some reason, all eyes fell
onto the grey lion.

He swallowed, cast his eyes
around the dark, grinning mouth.

The earth was laughing.

“Right,” he said, springing onto
Quiz’s back like a hare. “Let’s go.”

***

Kerris Wynegarde-Grey woke to
find himself once again in a jail cell.

It was not altogether an
uncommon sensation, for it was not altogether an uncommon occurrence. He had
often found himself waking in various locations, from
Chi’Chen
palaces
to watery ocean caverns. And yes, on the odd occasion, jail cells. It always
involved tigers, these penitentiary occasions, and this time, he could
distinctly remember stripes. A woman’s stripes to be honest. At least he was
waking. The how’s and why’s of it were never particularly important to him.
With a deep breath, he pushed himself up to his elbows to look for the stripes.

He was naked.

He blinked slowly, then
grinned. A woman, most definitely. He tried to remember but every hair on his
body was tingling and he wondered if his lover, the lightning, had paid a visit
last night. Lightning was a jealous mistress. There had only been one woman who
had survived the lightning and that had been the skinny little tigress he
called his wife.

His wife.

He bolted to his feet,
staggered as they failed to hold him, flung a hand to the wall for support.

Metal metal earth
and
metal

He snatched his hand away and
dropped to his knees, feeling the wrath come in waves from the surface of the
walls. Underground. Under the ground. He fought for control as the fear sent
his heart racing but he needed his wife, he needed his wife and the thought of
her became an anchor against the waves. The floor was filthy sand and it smelled
of oil but he could feel it sharp and cold under his fingers so he stayed down
for a long moment, simply breathing and trying to negotiate with the earth. It
wouldn’t hear him over the roar of the metal and at some point, he realized he
was not alone in the cell.

He looked up.

The center of it was bright
as if from skylight but around the edges the ceilings were low and rusted and
cast shadows as black as night. He could see yellow and green pinpricks of
light moving through the shadows in pairs. Eyes, he knew, and he took another
deep breath. Prisoners were generally the same, all hardened but all wronged.
All easily bent to a friendly smile and listening ear. That knowledge had saved
him on more occasions than he could remember, so he breathed again and again,
then smiled like the sun.

“Hello,” he said. “My name’s
Kerris. Anyone seen my wife?”

A hiss ran through the
shadows and he watched the eyes bob and dart.

“So,” he said. “What are we
here for? Did we all get drunk or something?”

A rock sailed at his head and
he managed to duck in time to avoid being hit.

There was laughter from above
and he looked up, shading his eyes against the light. Sunshine, and he realized
that the cell was open to a grimy sky. They were underground however, and the
walls here were metal and went very high up and he could see shapes peering
down on him, silhouetted in the sun.

“Hello!” he called. “Do you
think someone could find me my clothes? And my sword? Oh yes, and my wife?”

There was a scrabbling sound
from the left and a shape barreled toward him from the shadows, leaping into
the air and taking him down onto the sand. Kerris rolled out from underneath,
surprised to find a bright red line spring up across his chest, a perfect
counterpoint to the long white scar given him by his brother. Cheers echoed
down from the silhouettes. High up, a plate slid aside and something pink and
gelatinous dropped out, hitting the sand with a thump.

His attacker glared at him,
and Kerris realized it was a monkey, but not like any Chi’Chen he had ever
seen. Its eyes were wild, its face disfigured and it grabbed the little missile
and bit into it, sand and all, before slinking off into the shadows. Shiny eyes
closed upon the attacker and the snarls rose as prisoners fought over the scrap
of food. A second figure rushed him, but he was ready and this one was met with
grey claws and a spray of blood across the sand.

More cheering from above and
another gelatinous blob, but this time, his attacker was dragged off and
finished by the eyes in the shadows.

Kerris looked up, shielded
his gaze once again and willing his pupils to become slits as they focused on
the silhouettes high above.

The figures stayed for only a
moment longer before disappearing into the sunshine and Kerris knew that he was
not in a prison because of any crime he had committed. He was here deep in the
belly of the earth because the Ancestors had put him here.

***

They had ridden for almost five
hours before the mountain blocked their way. The end was not smooth like the
floor nor braced like the walls. Rather it looked as if the mountain had merely
fallen in on itself, with rocks of many sizes piled up for a long way until
they were met with utter blackness.

“Okay, Kerris-your-name-was,”
said Fallon. “Get to work.”

He glanced at her before sliding
from the back of his pony.

He studied the rocks and beams
of the ceiling, black and flickering in the torch light. Ran his fingertips
along the rocky barrier, their cold hard faces, the sheer weight of the stones.
They were rough and heavy and smelled of bat droppings.

“Pah,” grunted Ursa. “He’s a
kitten. He can’t move a thing.”

“Hush,” said her husband and he
dismounted his horse. “May I help?”

“Well, it’s not a matter of
helping, really,” said Kerris. “It’s a lot of rock. I have to ask it to move.”

The Seer cocked his head,
fascinated.

“It may take some time.” He
turned to his young wife. “Is there tea, luv? I would dearly love a cup of
tea.”