The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (113 page)

“There’s always tea.” She smiled
and slid from the back of her horse. “Sireth, you can still light the fire just
by thinking, right?”

“As long as we have wood,
Khalilah
,”
the Seer said. “We will have fire.”

“I have fire powder,
sidi,”
breathed Rah, slipping off her dark horse like a shadow in the night. “Do you
need firepowder?”

He stared at her for a long
moment, before releasing a long cleansing breath.

“Yes,” he said. “We can use
firepowder.”

She smiled and set to work
pouring circles on the ground.

“This is ridiculous,” grumbled
Ursa. “There is no battle. There is no war. We are camping in a cave.”

Kerris merely stood, arms folded
over his chest, eyes fixed on the wall of rock and Kirin turned to the twenty
behind him on horseback.

“We will break for now,” he
called out, his voice echoing through the dark depths of the mine. “Tea for
cats, water for the horses.”

“And for the monkeys?” grinned
Bo Fujihara as he slid off his mount.

Kirin did not stop the smile. In
the twenty that rode out that morning, there was only one monkey.

“For the monkeys, anything at
all.”

Fujihara reached into his pocket
and pulled out a sticky pink lump. He broke it in two.

“Marzipan,” he said and he
popped one half in his wide mouth. The other he held up to his horse, who
eagerly accepted. “And then maybe a pipe or two.”

“And for dogs?” laughed Setse
and she too slid from the back of her horse. She gave it a big hug and kissed
its flat cheek. “Tea for dogs, please Fa-
llon?”

“Yep,” sang the tigress. “Tea
for dogs.”

Kirin glanced at the male,
standing near his sister, tense and wary. He wondered if they could drink tea
with their strange faces. Cats had flatter faces, very much like Ancestors that
way. No, dogs had faces like horses, bears or other animals. They were barely
even people. The brother he understood. He would fight and kill in a heartbeat
but the girl, she confounded him.

“Shar Ma’uul drink tea?” she
sang as she danced over to where the jaguar was slowly sliding from his saddle.
“Shar Ma’uul sit with Setse. We drink tea together, like always.”

The jaguar threw a look at
Naranbataar, who laid back his ears and growled. He swallowed.

The Oracle took his hand and
dragged him over to the circles.

The Alchemist looked up.

“It is ready,” she purred.

The Seer smiled and immediately,
the circles of firepowder burst into flame, casting golden light up the sides
and curved roof of the mine.

Setse clapped her hands and
laughed as Fallon dropped a handful of leaves into the pot for tea.

***

This was madness,
thought
Naranbataar. He was sitting with cats deep in the belly of a mountain. The
Magic was around the circles of flame, the yellow cat with hands of bark and
the tall cat with the eyes of a dog, the grey cat and the witch. And of course,
Setse, as though she belonged with this party, as if she had been with them for
her entire life. He didn’t trust any of them, not even the striped woman who
babbled in their strange tongue and offered him tea, or the monkey with his
pipe of foul odors and his strange hairless face, but here he was, in their
company deep inside a mountain, holding a baby.

The witch had given him the baby
without even asking. She assumed, this woman. Assumed that he would carry it,
protect it, tend it and not tear its tiny arms from its tiny body or eat it
whole. That’s what he should have done. Still, he found he was growing
accustomed to the weight of it in his arms, feeling its tiny claws batting at
his hair or it’s teeth gnawing on the pads of his fingers, feeling the rumble
of its purring against his chest. It was a better weight than many arrows.

These horses smelled terrible.
He knew he should eat them too. The little one at the front kept trying to bite
him and he wondered if it was true that horses could kill a dog with one stomp
of their iron feet. He would never get on one. His sister was foolish for doing
so. She would be the death of him.

They were deep inside the
mountain and it looked very old. The floor was smooth, the walls braced with
teak and reeking of bats. The ceiling was braced as well but he could see it
buckling as the wood strained to hold back the weight of the stone. He hoped
they wouldn’t all be crushed. That would be worse than slipping off the side of
the mountain. Inglorious death was just death. It changed nothing.

The big lion wanted to kill him.
It was obvious, even without a common language. He didn’t care. His life had
been dedicated to preserving the life of his sister and he had managed to be
successful for sixteen winters. He wondered if he killed the lion, could he be
made a Khan and thus protect her all the more? Not while they were in Enemy
lands, of course, but if what Setse was saying was true, they were headed back
into the Land of the People. He would wait for his opportunity and then, put an
arrow into his throat.

The baby was cooing in his ear
now and he could not help but smile. It was experimenting with its voice.
Little laughs, little grunts. No words, not for a long time he knew but still,
the cooing was sweet. Setse had cooed and sung as a baby. It had been his
music, along with his grandmother’s lullabies. It had been a good childhood,
all things considered.

No, he would wait, kill the
lion, take his sister and run all the way back to Karan Uurt where he would eat
stew and yak and live in the gar of his father’s father for the rest of his
life. It was a good plan. There was only one problem.

He’d never actually killed
anyone before. He knew it was likely harder than he thought, so he stayed deep
into the belly of the mountain, listening to the strange language of the cats
and holding a baby in his lap.

***

It was an amazing sight, one
I would never for the rest of my life forget. We had been sitting for over two
hours, me on my knees in the Learning Pose. It was easy to sit this way, less
strain on the one knee that had been wounded almost a year ago in
Roar’pundih
.
The yori itself was bulky and getting up from sitting frequently proved
difficult. The Learning Pose was efficient, graceful and allowed me to keep
both dignity and a watchful eye on the twenty waiting by the fires.

From this angle, I could see
my son.

The dog had it, a thought
that should have boiled my very blood. The child batted and swatted and the dog
was surprisingly gentle with such a youngling. In fact, he seemed to be playing
with it and it set my teeth on edge. I would just as soon see the Blood Fang
take off the creature’s head but there it sat, playing with my son.

My son.

I did not know what to think
anymore.

Despite the fires, the air
was cold and smelled of horses, pipe smoke and alchemy. I watched Bo Fujihara
play dice with the Seer. Physically, the two were as different as night from
day but they had struck up an easy friendship and I knew it was the matter of
Race. Fujihara would never care that the Seer was a mongrel, not the way a cat
would, and it seemed that once again, the way of things was set upon its ear in
favour of a new and different way.

A stranger sight was that of
the Oracle and the jaguar. She sat facing him, trying to learn the language and
she was still holding one of his hands in both of hers. It was clear she was
taken with him but for what reason, I could only guess. He was both Seer and
Alchemist, but seemed to exhibit the traits of neither. While he was
undoubtedly powerful, he seemed driven along the lines of fear rather than
aggression or pride. It was a mystery and Alchemists were fond of their
mysteries. I wondered if the man had ever known Jet barraDunne. Something in my
memory made me think that he did and I made a note to ask at some later date.

Along the walls of the mine,
two tigers were examining veins of ore running through the rock. Fallon
Waterford-Grey could befriend a bear if she had the opportunity, and she was an
eager learner. For his part, Musaf Summerdale seemed keen to share his
knowledge of ores, minerals and the business of rocks with such a pupil. My new
sister had a large collection in her many pockets and it was causing her
trousers to sag at the waist. A strong wind could still blow her over.

Ursa stood along the wall as
well, watching everyone and everything with her ice blue eyes.

For his part, Kerris merely
sat, legs crossed, staring at the pile of rocks.

At one point, a feathered
shaped swept in from the throat of the mine and I thought it looked rather like
an owl. Soon, the cave echoed with the shrill sharp cries and young Mi-Hahn
streaked in after it, beating it with her wings and chasing it around above our
heads until finally, she chased it back out the way they had come. Feathers
rained down on us like snow.

“Idiots,” grunted the Major.

“What?” moaned Nevye. “It’s
not my owl.”

Time was creeping by and
people were growing weary and I was beginning to despair of this plan when
suddenly Kerris rose to his feet and began to walk toward the crumbled end of
the mine.

Just walk.

It started like a low rumble
and all the horses began to snort. The sound grew quickly into a roar, the
sound of grinding gears and falling trees and the very ground beneath our feet began
to tremble. It looked as though Kerris would walk right into the rock wall but
the stones moved out of his way.

Pulled themselves up, around,
away from him as he walked deeper and deeper into the mine, arms spread out at
his sides as if pushing with his palms. Soon he disappeared entirely as the
mountain opened its mouth wider to suit him and all the horses that would be
coming after him, wider even than the rest of the mine that lay behind us.
Dumbfounded, I watched as they continued to move, climbing onto each other like
brick and mortar, crushing some under the weight, forming dust and sand and
fine, fine powder. The thunder of the rocks was deafening and I realized that
everyone had clapped hands over their ears and the horses were dancing nervously
in the darkness until finally, after what seemed like ages, there were beams of
light slicing through the choking dust and then silence.

We were all on our feet now,
coughing and gagging and watching the ceiling, waiting for the first of the
rocks to slide back down to kill us all. There was nothing but pebbles settling
to the floor and soon not even that.

The high pitch of a whistle
pierced the silence and the mountain pony bolted down the long black corridor,
his hoofs staccato and fading on the bedrock of the mine.

My brother was an Elemental.
I couldn’t believe it. The Seer had said it, so long ago, my sister had
repeated it on so many occasions. I must have known it, growing up the way we
did but had never truly believed it.

Fallon stretched her arms
over her head and yawned so that her tongue curled inside her mouth.

“See?” she said sleepily. “He
makes great pancakes too.”

And she bent to pack up the
tea and the pot. I shook my head and moved toward my horse.

      
- an
excerpt from the journal of Kirin Wynegarde-Grey

***

The snow beneath their feet
trembled and as one, the 110
^th
Legion looked to the mountain and the
Wall towering above them like an overlord. Black clouds billowed up and into
the late afternoon sky and as one, they rose to their feet.

The beta, a stocky black and tan
mastiff, turned to the alpha.

“Lord,” he said. “Is it their
cannons?”

“No, not cannons.” The alpha
shook his head, his breath like smoke. “But it is an act of war, do not doubt.
Take a third of the men, fully armed with stealth and arrows. Go.”

The beta nodded and barked a
command. Twenty men fell in at his heels.

The alpha motioned to a footman,
who dropped to one knee, head down.

“Take a third of the men, go to
the village of Lon’Gaar. Tell them to prepare for the slaughter of their
Enemies. Bring weapons and any man with the heart of a wolf.”

“Lord,” said the footman.

“Tell the women to prepare food
and drink and blades for killing the wounded. As for the children…” He looked
up at the mountainside, still billowing dust into the thick cold sky. “Tell the
children to watch and learn. We will show them how to skin a cat.”

“Lord,” said the footman,
smiling.

***

“Three days,” said Kerris as
they stood, looking out over the sweeping landscape that was the Lower Kingdom.
“That’s all we were given. The rocks will fall back and close off the pass in
three days. Your army had better hurry.”

Kirin shook his head.

“It’s not enough time,” he
grumbled. “Not nearly enough.”

“It’s all I could get.”

“Do you think you and the Seer
could hold it if it chooses to fall?”

“And make the mountain angrier?”
Kerris shrugged. “It’s a fair bit bigger than us, Kirin. It will do what it
will do. I’m surprised it gave me anything.”

Kirin sighed. The falcon had
been sent back to the battle tower of
Shen’foxhindi
to set the army into
motion but still, there was no way they could be guaranteed of getting all
their troops through the crossing in time. It would take a day to make
preparations, then another day for the almost five thousand troops to ride to the
mouth of the mine. A third day to allow for them to move through the new tunnel
and exit out on the other side, the Wrong Side of the Wall.