Empire of Ashes

Chapter XXXVII - I Told You So

Mwhahaha... Let the end game begin.

"So who are we?" I asked.

Tem finished strapping his sword onto his back and covered it with a cloak. Around us, the other men were doing the same. It would draw too much attention — a dozen armed Cambrians near the Pass. So they were stripping off armour and disguising their weapons, aiming to look like a band of ragged travellers.

"Traders," Anlai snarled. "But you don't need to know that, because you'll be keeping your gods-dammed mouth shut."

He was being pissy this morning for reasons I had yet to discover. I suspected it might be related to the smug, satisfied smile Melia had been wearing all morning, so I opened my 'gods-dammed mouth' again just to see the look on his face. "Are all the women in Anglia mute?"

"Of course not," he said shortly.

"Then there's no reason I can't speak, is there?"

Anlai's hand brushed his concealed knife, and I raised my eyebrows. Our exchange had finally caught Tem's attention. He pushed between us impatiently. "Lyra, you can speak. Anlai, you can't. Does that settle it?"

"Yes," I said happily even as Anlai insisted the opposite.

"What kind of sense does that make?" he was demanding. "Anglian customs are different. They'll get suspicious if she's mouthy in front of them."

"In my experience, peasants don't really give a shit. You forget how little they care what we do. So — yes, a talking woman might confuse them, but at least that will distract them from our accents. Give them too much to think about: that's my strategy."

Anlai bristled. "That's bloody ridiculous, and you know it."

Tem stopped moving to fix a predatory stare on his cousin. "We'll do it my way, Anlai. If we get caught, you can have the pleasure of saying 'I told you so.' Will that suffice?"

His lips stretched and curled. "Oh, yes, I should think so."

Anlai may not have been concerned, but I had never seen Tem lose his temper so quickly. He was stressed or preoccupied or something, and that couldn't bode well for the rest of us. The rain eased a bit, taunting me with the prospect of a break before returning in full force. I could feel water soaking through my collar, trickling down the column of my spine.

"Which day are the horses supposed to arrive, Ragnyr?" That was Fendur's polite, distracting question. Perhaps I wasn't the only one to notice him fraying.

"This evening," Tem said. "We have other things to attend to while we wait."

By the time we left the mountain slopes, I was in a foul mood. We were all in foul moods — exhausted, soaked to the skin and impatient. I had got my first glimpse of Anglia before mid-afternoon. Rich pasture stretched out for leagues and leagues, as far as the eye could see, dotted with the occasional village or town. There weren't many trees: Anglia's forests had been harvested centuries ago. It was partly why they had invaded, looking to appropriate our timber. Or so Tem told me. I knew little and less about Herox's motives.

Close to the horizon was a dark stain, a seething mass of buildings covering a dozen hillsides. That was where Tem pointed and said, "There, Lyra. Canton. We'll be there in four days."

I stared, trying to make sense of the muddle of colours. It was unlike anything I'd seen before, and it certainly wasn't how I'd pictured the labour camp. "What is it, exactly?"

His blue eyes settled on mine. Wary. Watchful. "The biggest iron mine in Aenmia. They've recently acquired two thousand Cambrian slaves. I'm told their life expectancies are measured in moons, if not weeks. Lives are cheap here."