Chapter 107: The Anomalies

The industrial haze that settled over Coriba City every night had not yet burned off by mid-morning, and what light made it through fell pale and diffuse across the floor-to-ceiling windows of the hotel's VIP suite. The room had been built for function rather than comfort, but it was large enough, all the same, to seat a private council with room to spare.

Around a long table of polished mahogany sat the people shaping the empire's future: Emperor Regis, Prime Minister Takuya Kazuha, Viscount Inori Kazuha, Princess Seraphina, and the Interim Fleet Admiral, Count Aldric Sterling. Silver pots of dark, imported coffee steamed quietly at the centre of the table, though only the Emperor seemed inclined to drink any of it.

Takuya stood at the head of the table and tapped a bound ledger against the wood to settle the room.

'Before we leave for the capital, there are a few structural updates we should get through,' he said, in the crisp, unhurried tone of a man opening a board meeting. 'The Coriba shipyard is paying for itself faster than we projected. Last month we launched our first two fully operational iron-hulled vessels.'

Count Sterling leaned forward. 'The first generation of iron, Your Majesty. One is a heavy-duty commercial fishing vessel, built to change the coastal food supply on its own. The other is our first modern Littoral Combat Ship, the LCS. Small, very fast, and built purely for shallow-water defence and rapid interception. Nothing else on the water can catch it.'

'Are they replacing the retrofitted fleet?' the Emperor asked, setting down his cup.

'Not yet,' Takuya said. 'The retrofitted battleships still do most of the heavy lifting. They remain the backbone of our naval defence, patrolling the coast and running deep-water search and rescue. But the LCS proves we can now build a hull entirely from Bergran super-steel, with no timber core at all. The transition has properly begun.'

The Emperor nodded slowly, turning that over, then moved to the matter that had occupied him since the day before. 'The ships secure our borders. What of the telecommunication project, Takuya? When will the policy behind it be finished?'

Takuya opened a second folder and slid a blueprint of the empire's proposed communications network across the table.

'We roll it out in five strict phases, so the federal government keeps full control of the information flow at every stage,' he said. 'Phase One begins at once — the Homeland Security Department, the Central Intelligence Department, and every Cynthia Naval and Land Army base are equipped first. Phase Two connects the domestic emergency services: regional police stations, fire stations, the border patrol outposts. Phase Three wires every federal building and every territorial administration hall. Phase Four moves into the private sector, the major companies and the hotels. And Phase Five, last of all, brings the network into private homes, beginning with the noble estates.'

Inori, who had already mastered voice transmission through his telephone and telegraph work, could not resist a grin. 'And here's the best part, Your Majesty. It isn't only the talking. It's the listening. We tested the listening devices yesterday and they work beautifully. The HSD and the CID will have full authority to use them whenever they like — no court order required.'

Seraphina's attention sharpened at once, and she turned the conversation towards the Ministry of Justice. 'When will the courts actually be ready to handle any of this?'

Takuya explained that the Ministry was still finalising the laws themselves, but that the judicial structure had already been settled into three tiers.

'The lowest is the Cynthia District Court,' he said. 'One in every district and state, handling divorces, summonses, minor disputes — the everyday business of the law. Above that sits the Cynthia Territory Court, one each for the North, West, East and South Cynthia Territories. They all operate under the same federal law, and they hear appeals. They don't hold fresh trials. Their job is only to decide whether a lower court made an error, or whether new evidence has come to light since sentencing.'

'And above that?' the Emperor asked.

'Normally there would be one Supreme Court,' Takuya said. 'But the Principality of Lyros and the Grand Duchies of Bergran and Poremania each have their own laws, their own traditions, and in some cases their own peoples, and none of that folds neatly into federal law. So we will build four Supreme Courts in total — one here in the royal capital, and one each in Lyros, Bergran and Poremania, with a District Court beneath each of the three. I have already spoken with all three Grand Dukes, and we've agreed the jurisdictions so that none of it overlaps with federal law.'

'What would the Supreme Court actually hear?' Seraphina asked.

'The large cases. Corruption, domestic terrorism, corporate mismanagement, noble misconduct, anything touching a senior government official, money laundering, and the final stage of any appeal.'

The Emperor nodded, plainly satisfied with how tightly the whole system had been fitted together, and moved on to the transport policy that had crossed his desk a fortnight before.

Takuya explained that the public would shortly have access to motorised transport, and that this could not simply be allowed to happen without a policy to govern it.

'I want to introduce the bicycle first,' he said. 'It gets people used to travelling by something other than a horse, and it needs neither a licence nor a road tax. Phase Two brings in the motorcycle. That does need a licence and an active road tax, and the licence can only come from a Driving School Institute — a private business, but one that has to be certified by the government before it's allowed to operate at all. Once an applicant passes the test, the government issues the licence, and the driver has to carry it on them at all times.'

He carried straight on. 'Phase Three brings in the car, which also needs a licence and its own road tax. The motorcycle licence and the car licence are different coloured cards, and a citizen is allowed to hold both. If they do, we print the two onto a single card with its own code and colour, purely so the paperwork stays manageable. The last phase covers trucks and buses, and that one's considerably harder. It needs a law of its own.'

Count Sterling and the Emperor exchanged a faintly bewildered look. Between the phases, the licences, and the unfamiliar machines, the whole scheme had begun to blur together.

'It's simpler than it sounds, Father,' Seraphina said smoothly, straightening in her seat. 'I still remember the car and the little trucks Inori showed us in Dian City. Takuya is only sorting them by weight and by how many people or how much cargo they carry — two wheels for the ordinary worker, four for the wealthier families, and the big haulers for commercial freight. And by forcing everyone through the Driving Institutes, the government builds an entirely new industry out of nothing, while taxing people simply for the privilege of using the roads we built for them.'

Inori and Takuya shared a quiet laugh, watching her strip the scheme down to its bones without any apparent effort at all.

A sharp knock came at the door. A Vanguard officer stepped in and gave a crisp salute. 'Prime Minister, Your Majesty. The train is under pressure and ready to depart from the Coriba Coastal Terminal.'

Takuya, Inori, Seraphina and the Emperor rose, gathering their papers, and took their leave of Count Sterling, who had business elsewhere overseeing the recruitment of new cadets and the running of the naval grounds.

✽✽✽✽✽✽

'Would you look at that.'

Arenia Gilmort, once Count of Tizzania, stood at the edge of the tree line with his eyes wide and unguarded. Ahead of them a waterfall came crashing down a sheer rock face into a churning plunge pool that fed a wide, winding river, and the mist thrown up by the impact caught the broken sunlight and hung faint rainbows in the humid air.

'It still looks exactly as it did the day I first found it, thirty years ago,' Arenia murmured, hitching the straps of his rucksack higher on his shoulders.

Theron and Corvinus Hale stood on either side of him, smiling at the sight of their old friend drinking in air he had not breathed in decades, lost for a moment in the better parts of his youth.

'The falls are beautiful enough,' Theron agreed, leaning his weight onto his walking stick. 'But keep your eyes on the shallows. That river's crawling with Gatorix.'

Corvinus gasped and pointed towards a muddy bank near the churning foam. 'There — I can see one clearly.'

What lay on the rocks looked, at first glance, like a rotting log with a crocodile's jaw grafted onto it. It was not, in fact, a reptile of any ordinary kind. Six thick, muscular legs carried its bulk, and the scales running down its heavy tail carried a sheen that was faintly, dangerously iridescent — a warning, if anyone needed one, of the poison beneath them.

'Vile things,' Theron muttered. 'They can sink to the riverbed and sleep there a full day without drawing breath. Even the largest predator in the Great Jungle won't risk drinking from that water.'

Arenia tore his eyes from the Gatorix and turned towards the denser foliage beyond. 'Theron — what about the Yackalopie? You said their numbers had spiked in this sector.'

'The fluffy things with the deer antlers and the grasshopper legs?' Corvinus asked, with a small shudder. 'I always thought those were desert vermin.'

'They are,' Theron said, his eyes already moving through the underbrush out of long habit. 'The rangers say they've migrated in and started nesting near the Blue Alopex breeding grounds. They're an invasive species — most likely turned loose on purpose, by Imamah settlers or their army, just to see what it would do to our ecosystem. Because they're built for the desert, they can shrug off almost any temperature. Freezing winters, boiling summers, it makes no difference to them. And they breed at a frightening rate.'

He pushed a low fern aside with the tip of his stick. 'Their favourite food is Blue Alopex eggs, though they'll take any eggs they can find. And here's the ugly part — nothing in this forest will hunt them back. Their blood is toxic, and acidic with it. Any predator foolish enough to bite one gets its throat swollen shut within seconds. We have to destroy the nests by hand, or they'll bring the whole local food chain down with them.'

'Then we'll need to be careful near those nests,' Corvinus added, tightening his grip on his pack. 'The Blue Alopex turn vicious in the breeding season, and to make it worse, they live off the blue honey from the Craciant Tree — that great folding fan of a plant.'

Arenia swallowed. 'If they're drinking from the Craciant Trees, then they're stealing from the Unicorn Bears.'

'Exactly,' Corvinus said grimly.

The Unicorn Bear was the undisputed master of the region, an animal that could stand over thirty feet at the shoulder, its bulk longer than three large carriages set end to end.

'Built like a moving mountain,' Arenia said quietly, dredging the fact up from old ranger reports. 'And for all that size, it can run. Not a sprinter — nothing that big could be — but its stamina shouldn't be possible. A Unicorn Bear can keep up a heavy, relentless chase for a full day without once stopping to rest. Its only real weakness is a hopeless sense of direction. It makes up for that with a nose sharp enough to catch matured blue honey from miles off.'

Theron raised a hand, and the talk stopped. He waved them forward into a slow, careful crouch, mindful of every twig underfoot, and led them on through a landscape that seemed to be listening back.

Ten minutes of tense walking brought them to a small rocky rise. Near its crown sat a huge, sprawling nest woven from thick branches and dried vine.

'An Anzu bird,' Corvinus breathed, something close to reverence in his voice.

The Anzu was a biological curiosity in its own right — an enormous bird that came in only one sex, all of them female. Its wings, broad and leathery, could keep it aloft for weeks at a stretch without its talons ever touching soil.

'They only lay one egg in an entire lifetime,' Corvinus murmured. 'That's why they're so rare. The old texts claim they can breathe raw fire, and boiling steam from their gullets, though I've never once seen it done myself. The moment the chick hatches, it can fly. And the mother leaves that same day, never comes back to the nest, and builds a new one wherever she happens to land next.'

Theron signalled them onward with a flick of two fingers. The nest above them was empty, but lingering near the territory of an apex flier was not something any sensible person did twice.

They pushed on for another gruelling forty minutes, their tunics soaked through with humidity, until Theron raised a fist and they stopped. Ahead of them, sheltered inside a bower of interlocking tree roots, was a Blue Alopex nest. The adult foxes — known for their heavy, bushy tails and their soft, cold-resistant blue coats — were nowhere to be seen, but three large speckled eggs sat undisturbed at the centre of the hollow.

The three of them dropped into a dense patch of broad-leafed bush downwind and went still. They were watching the nest, and waiting.

Five minutes later the brush rustled, and a Yackalopie hopped into the clearing, moving in the sickening, jerky bursts its grasshopper legs allowed. Its small antlers scraped against the exposed roots as it drew close. It sniffed at the eggs, its nose twitching rapidly — and then, rather than cracking them, it turned and bolted back into the trees.

A scout, Theron mouthed, without a sound. It's gone to fetch the swarm.

He signalled them to follow, and they trailed the creature through the ferns until they saw it dive into a wide, dark burrow dug into a muddy bank.

Theron drew them into a tight huddle and laid out the plan in a whisper. Corvinus would take the dried Wolfsbane flowers from his pack. Arenia would strike the fire. Theron would find a stone heavy enough to seal the entrance. Between the three of them, they would smoke the colony out and let the toxic fumes finish the rest underground.

They worked with the easy coordination of men who had done this sort of thing together before, tying wet cloths over their noses and mouths. Corvinus packed the dried flowers into the mouth of the burrow. Theron dragged a broad, flat slab of slate over to the bank. Arenia struck flint against steel, and the spark caught at once — the dried Wolfsbane went up in an instant, sending a thick, acrid grey smoke pouring down into the tunnel.

'Now!' Arenia hissed.

Theron slammed the slab over the hole, and Corvinus packed wet mud round the edges to seal it airtight. Then they backed away, putting thirty yards between themselves and the trap before anyone allowed a proper breath.

'Looks like a clean job,' Corvinus whispered, pulling the cloth down from his face and wiping the sweat from his brow.

Theron and Arenia nodded, still catching their wind — and it was in that unguarded moment that a sound reached them which turned the blood in their veins to ice.

A low, wet, rumbling growl rolled up through the soles of their boots. It was deep enough to rattle their teeth.

The three of them turned, slowly.

Less than twenty feet away, blocking the whole path back to the river, stood an adult Unicorn Bear — a wall of coarse brown muscle thirty feet high, its ivory horn catching what little light made it through the canopy. And rising from the brush beside it was a second one.

They had walked straight into a hunting pair.

For a moment nobody breathed. The bears looked down at them with the flat, calculating hunger of predators who had already done the arithmetic. Then the larger of the two snapped its jaws through a nearby tree trunk as though it were kindling, and lunged.

'RUN!' Theron screamed.

They scrambled backwards and bolted, choosing without thinking the densest, most treacherous stretch of forest they could see, thick with young saplings and hanging aerial roots, in the desperate hope that it might slow the bears down.

It did nothing of the sort.

Arenia risked a look over his shoulder and saw that the bears were not weaving through the trees at all — they were simply walking through them. Whole trunks snapped like dry twigs and burst into splinters as the animals ploughed forward, closing the gap with strides that shook the ground.

'What do we do?!' Corvinus shouted, his lungs on fire, his pack snagging on every thorn bush they passed.

'Keep running!' Theron roared, cutting them into a frantic zigzag.

Arenia's legs were burning. He was an old man, and his heart was hammering against his ribs like something trying to get out. As the shadow of the nearer bear fell across him, one memory surfaced through the panic with startling clarity: his wife, Sonya, standing in their dining hall, telling him in that flat, dangerous voice of hers that if a dire bear ate him before he met his grandchild, she would march into the afterlife and finish the job herself.

'Not today,' Arenia grunted, and found something left in his legs after all.

'Clear ground ahead!' Theron shouted, pointing at a gap in the trees. 'We can move faster in the open!'

They burst through the last of the foliage, gasping, desperate for flat land, and the lucky break turned out to be a death sentence. The trees gave way to a sheer drop. They had run clean out of forest. They were standing on the lip of a jagged, high cliff, with nowhere left to go.

Theron skidded to a stop at the edge, looked down at the drop, then back at the tree line. The ground-shaking footsteps were seconds away.

'This is it,' Theron said, and his voice had gone quiet and strangely calm. He gripped his walking stick and turned to face the two men who had shared most of his life with him. 'I've been proud to call you my friends, right to the end.'

Corvinus looked between their faces, his hands shaking as he drew a hunting knife. He nodded, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. 'Friends to the end, boys.'

'See you both on the other side,' Arenia said, raising his folding recurve bow, fully intending to loose one last arrow before it was over.

The trees exploded outward. The two Unicorn Bears burst into the clearing and rose onto their hind legs, blotting out the sky as they came down to crush the three men into the dirt.

Arenia shut his eyes.

A battle cry tore through the clearing, deafening and perfectly timed.

His eyes snapped open. Warriors were dropping out of the upper canopy and pouring down from the surrounding rocks — seven of them, dressed in rough, expertly stitched leathers and woven fibre dyed deep crimson and earthy green. They did not run in fear of what stood before them. They attacked with the coordinated precision of a wolf pack that had hunted together for years.

'Take the tendons!' a huge warrior with a braided beard bellowed, swinging a beautifully forged steel machete.

The warriors closed on the bears from every side. Two of them slid beneath the sweeping claws of the smaller animal and drove iron-spiked clubs into its kneecaps with a sickening, bone-deep crunch. The bear roared in pain, its leg buckling under it.

Theron's instincts came roaring back to life. 'Bows! Cover their flanks!'

Arenia and Corvinus did not hesitate. They snapped their recurve bows open and put heavy, armour-piercing arrows into the sensitive snouts and eyes of the distracted animals, drawing their fury away from the men on the ground.

The clearing became chaos, blood and splintered wood flying in every direction. The larger bear swung a paw that would have taken a man's head clean off, but its target ducked and rolled clear at the last instant.

'Now!' the bearded leader bellowed.

From high in a nearby oak, a lean, powerfully built warrior launched himself into open air. He was not aiming for the ground. He came down instead directly onto the back of the larger bear, and used the full force of his own falling weight to drive a steel-tipped spear straight through the base of its skull, severing the spine in a single, catastrophic blow.

A geyser of dark blood erupted skyward. The thirty-foot colossus went rigid, then crashed to the earth with a thud that shook the ground beneath everyone's feet — dead before it landed.

Watching its mate cut down in a matter of seconds, the second bear panicked. It tore the arrow from its snout, turned, and crashed blindly back into the deep forest, fleeing for its life.

The warriors raised their bloodied machetes and let out a triumphant roar that echoed off the cliff face.

Arenia, Theron and Corvinus simply folded to the ground. Whatever had been holding them upright drained out all at once, and they knelt in the dirt, gasping.

The bearded leader wiped the dark blood from his machete on the grass and walked over, a warm, rough-edged grin spreading across his face. 'Are you three in one piece?' he asked, in flawless common tongue.

Arenia had no breath left to answer. He simply nodded and offered a weak, trembling thumbs-up. Theron and Corvinus looked at each other — mud-caked, soaked in sweat, half-dead with exhaustion — and burst into a fit of helpless, breathless laughter.

The warrior laughed too, a deep sound that seemed to come from somewhere in his chest. 'I'll take that as a yes.'

✽✽✽✽✽✽

By the time the sun had fully set, staining the sky in bruised shades of purple, the clearing had become a butcher's yard. The seven warriors worked over the fallen bear with practised efficiency — the dense meat salted and packed away for food, the thick hide carefully peeled for winter clothing, the great bones set aside to be carved into new weapons. Nothing was wasted; nothing was left to rot.

The three friends sat near a roaring bonfire, slowly finding their strength again.

Arenia took a wooden cup of water from the warrior leader's hand. 'I can't thank you enough,' he said, and the gratitude in his voice was entirely genuine. 'You saved our lives today. Name a favour, any favour, and I'll see it done.'

The leader waved a huge, calloused hand as if brushing the offer aside. 'No favour needed. We're hunting to feed our people. You three just happened to make excellent bait.'

Theron laughed. 'Are you stationed in a village nearby? I don't know your colours.'

The warrior shook his head. 'We're a nomadic community. We move from place to place, set up temporary camps near the forests to hunt and gather, and move on again. We only arrived in this region a week ago.'

Corvinus, chewing on a piece of roasted meat, perked up. 'Hold on, I've heard talk in the taverns of a band of steel-wielding nomads. You're the hunters out of the Zephyr Forest, near Dian City, aren't you?'

The leader looked surprised for a moment, then laughed loudly. 'News travels faster than we do. Yes, that's more or less the shape of it. We came up from the Zephyr border looking for new hunting ground. We're setting up camp in the valley below, though truth be told, we haven't yet had permission from the local Lord to use the land. We've been keeping our heads down until we can put in a request properly.'

Corvinus and Theron exchanged a knowing look and turned it, together, on Arenia.

Arenia took a sip of his water and smiled. 'Consider it done.'

The warrior frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'I am Arenia Gilmort,' he said, extending a hand. 'Former Count of this territory. My son, Mason Gilmort, holds the title now. When I get back, I'll see to it personally that your people have full permission to settle and hunt in this region, provided the old forest itself is left untouched.'

The warrior's eyes went wide. He clasped Arenia's hand in both of his, and something visibly loosened in his shoulders. 'By the Gods, you have no idea what that means for my people. Thank you, Lord Arenia.'

'This forest is something special,' Arenia said, looking out into the dark trees with quiet pride. 'What lives in it is rare, untamed, and older than anything else we have. It's the true wealth of Tizzania.'

The leader laughed, a rich, knowing sound. 'I won't argue with that. Though it isn't only the animals that make it strange. There are... other things out here.'

'Other things?' Corvinus raised an eyebrow.

'Aye.' The leader pointed his knife towards the deep south of the woods. 'Five days back, my scouts found something entirely unnatural. A great steel carriage, four thick black wheels on it, hanging clean upside down in the branches of a giant tree, right in the deepest part of the jungle.'

Corvinus burst out laughing and slapped his knee. 'A steel carriage, hanging in a tree? My friend, you've been at the fermented berries. There isn't a road in this deep forest out here. It's physically impossible for a carriage to end up in the canopy.'

He waved it off as a hunter's tall tale, but the leader shook his head, entirely serious.

'I'm not joking,' he said. 'It's made of some strange black metal, and the windows are glass that doesn't shatter the way ours does. I can take you to see it in the morning, if your legs have another deep hike left in them.'

Arenia's curiosity caught alight instantly. A carriage of black steel? 'I'd like to see that,' he said.

Theron nodded. 'As would I.'

Corvinus, realising by now that the man was in earnest, leaned forward. 'All right. I'll admit my curiosity's got the better of me too. We'll follow you.'

The leader stood and brushed the dirt from his leather tunic, smiling. 'Excellent. I need to help my men finish packing the meat. Get some sleep, gentlemen. We leave at first light.'

Theron rose slightly and offered a small, respectful nod before they parted. 'We never did ask your name, my friend.'

The big warrior paused and turned back, a familiar, easy grin on his face — the same grin, though none of them could have known it, that had once greeted three lost brothers deep in the Zephyr woods.

'Ah, yes,' he said. 'My name is Lacy. See you again tomorrow, gentlemen.'

✽✽✽✽✽✽

The sky over Tizzania had not yet broken past its bruised purple and cold grey when Count Mason Gilmort came out onto the front steps of the Gilmort family mansion, already looking remarkably fresh for the hour. He wore the sharp administrative suit he had grown used to in the royal capital, an odd sight against the heavy furs more typical of his territory, and the cold morning air bit at his cheeks without once making him flinch. Tizzania remained the wild edge of the Cynthia Empire, tucked into the far north where it bordered the volatile deserts of the Imamah Empire, and Mason had learned to stand still in weather that would have sent most administrators indoors.

The rhythmic, synchronised beat of galloping horses broke the morning quiet, and a convoy of nine heavily armoured carriages rolled into the courtyard, their iron-rimmed wheels grinding to a stop on the packed earth.

The door of the lead carriage swung open, and Duke Balmarrat Matthew stepped down. The huge, broad-shouldered man drew in a long breath of the cold air, and his scarred face broke into a wide, genuine grin.

'Tizzania,' the Duke announced to the morning mist, as if greeting an old friend. 'Land of greenery. Still smells exactly the way it did five years ago — crisp pine and nothing else. And Mason, my boy!'

He took two long strides towards the young lord, then stopped himself with a look of mock horror. 'Ah, yes. Forgive me. I forgot myself. Count Mason Gilmort.'

Mason laughed and came down to shake the veteran commander's hand. 'I'm still the same boy, Uncle Balmarrat. A title changes nothing between us.'

'Hah! That's my lad!' Balmarrat roared, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to rattle his teeth. He looked around the quiet courtyard, scanning the shadows. 'Now, where's your old man got to? It's been far too long since I had a proper talk with him.'

Mason gave a wry, faintly helpless smile. 'Well. About that. He's currently deep in the forest, off adventuring with his old friends.'

The Duke blinked, and for a moment looked entirely lost for words.

'I'll tell you the rest inside,' Mason said, gesturing towards the warm light spilling from the mansion's open doors. 'Come in, out of the cold.'

Once they were settled in the Count's private office, the hearth fire chased off the last of the morning chill quickly enough. Balmarrat lowered himself onto the leather sofa while a maid poured them both steaming cups of dark herbal tea.

'Where's your mother? Didn't see her about,' Balmarrat asked, accepting the warm cup. 'Still asleep, is she? If so, by the Gods, don't you dare wake her on my account.'

'She's staying with my sister at the moment,' Mason said, taking the seat across from him. 'Misya's due to deliver soon, so Mother's with her until the baby comes.'

'Misya, due soon, now that's good news.' The Duke grinned and took a slow sip of tea, and then his eyes glinted with sudden mischief. 'Speaking of babies, though, why in the world are you still not betrothed? I believe you're the only male head of a noble house in this entire empire who isn't even engaged. Want my help with that? I know several exceptional women, all from perfectly respectable families. And don't forget, you're twenty-seven already. You ought to have a few little ones of your own running about the halls by now.'

Mason sighed and rubbed his temples, as if warding off a headache he could already feel coming. 'I was busy before, and I'm busier now. I barely have time to find a candidate, let alone court one properly. My parents bring it up every single time we meet, always with some new name to suggest. But honestly, I'm just not interested in marriage right now.'

'That's because you haven't met your equal yet,' Balmarrat said, and something wiser crept into his teasing tone. 'The day you meet a woman who matches your own mind, you'll be the one setting the wedding date, mark my words. Hah! Well. Enough of that.'

The Duke's easy grumble stopped as though a door had shut somewhere behind his eyes. The warmth drained from his scarred face, replaced by the cold, deliberate mask of the empire's Secretary of Defence.

'Let's talk about the Prime Minister's request,' he said, his voice dropping into a far more dangerous register. 'And the military base zoning you wanted to put to me.'

Mason leaned forward, sliding effortlessly into the sharp administrator Takuya Kazuha had spent so long training him to be.

'The Prime Minister's request concerns the fresh bodies of refugees who have died on Imamah territory,' Mason said, lowering his voice out of old habit, though there was no one else to hear. 'I've already found a handful of former adventurers and merchants willing to handle that side of the work. It's classified as a secret operation run jointly by the Border Agency and the CID, in cooperation with the HSD, and a few shadow agents from those departments will be relocated to this town to oversee the whole transfer.'

He opened a secure ledger and traced a finger down the logistics column. 'The former adventurers and merchants will cross into Imamah territory to locate and secure the corpses. The CID will guard the transport back to the border. Once the cargo reaches Cynthia soil, the Border Agency and the HSD take official custody and move it directly to Dian City General Hospital.'

Duke Balmarrat nodded grimly, well aware of Takuya's desperate need for cadavers to advance Kaguya's anatomical research. 'Understood. This has to stay buried. We can't afford to have any neighbouring country find out we're harvesting their dead.' He set down his cup. 'Now, the military base zoning. What have you got for me?'

Mason unrolled a large, detailed topographical map of the northern territory across the low table between them.

'It's more complicated than it looks,' he said, tapping the jagged northern edge. 'You can see here, there are stretches along the border where the Great Jungle runs straight across into Imamah and Frisian territory. It's next to impossible to build a continuous security wall through unbroken ancient woodland like that.'

He pointed to a line of red dots charted through the deep green ink. 'The Prime Minister suggests hiring veteran adventuring parties to escort ground surveyors deep into the woods. They'd map the border with precise geometric lines, and set permanent markers into the ground to warn anyone crossing into Cynthia territory. The markers themselves would be heavy metal discs, forged from Bergran super-steel, anchored straight into the bedrock as fixed reference points for any future survey.'

'A metal disc in the ground,' the Duke said, unimpressed. 'An invading army would walk right past it without a second glance.'

'Which is why the Prime Minister also wants a crushed-gravel road carved straight along the border line,' Mason said. 'It's a plain, unmistakable line cut through the wilderness, cheaper than steel wire fencing, and it doesn't need the constant upkeep a fence would. I haven't raised the idea of cutting a road through his beloved woods with Father yet, but I don't see another way round it.'

He tapped the markers again. 'Beyond that, the Prime Minister wants a concrete watch post built every ten kilometres along the road. They'll need to stand tall and be sunk deep enough into the earth that even a fully grown Unicorn Bear couldn't shake one down by walking into it. Who actually mans them is still under discussion, not many border agents are eager to sit alone in a tower surrounded by apex predators.'

'So where does the main garrison go?' the Duke asked, studying the terrain.

'My suggestion is to keep it outside the deep forest entirely,' Mason said, pointing to a wide clearing at the treeline. 'Right here, at the spot where adventurers traditionally make camp before heading into the wilds. It's flat enough for a proper base, and it sits beside a major river. Even with Gatorix in the shallows, the river itself gives us an endless supply of clean water. There are a few abandoned wooden houses we'd need to clear before laying the concrete, but nothing that presents a real problem.'

The Duke studied the map in silence for a long moment. His eyes drifted past Mason's proposed site, tracking further east along the forest's edge, and he tapped a thick finger against an empty stretch of plain.

'What about this land? Is anyone using it?'

Mason frowned at the coordinate. 'It's flat, yes, but it isn't ideal, tactically. It's too far from the river, too far from the town, and too far from the border itself to be much use. And, I've heard talk from the adventurers at the local taverns. A band of armed nomads has been settling in that exact area.'

'Nomads?' The Duke raised an eyebrow. 'Where from?'

'They migrate with the seasons, and they tend to settle near the treeline for easy hunting,' Mason explained. 'Before this they were camped around the Zephyr Forest, near Dian City. My guess is that the industrialisation and the resource extraction pushed the wildlife out of Zephyr and forced them north to find fresh ground.'

A slow smile spread across the Duke's scarred face as his strategic mind quietly turned the nomads into something useful. 'If that's the case, why not let them settle there for good?' he said. 'Give them the land outright. They watch the deep forest for us. Better still, they watch the eastern border and report back the moment they spot any foreign army trying to slip through the trees.'

Mason blinked, and then a slow smile of his own crept across his face as the sense of it settled in. 'That does make a great deal of sense. It would cut our costs enormously, not having to post any agents to watch the forest ourselves, and it hands us an elite, localised monitoring force, essentially for free.'

'Let's meet them, then,' the Duke said, tapping the map decisively. 'We'll put together some kind of formal arrangement. We'll still need the Prime Minister's final sign-off, of course, but let's talk to them first. How do we even reach this land from here? I don't see a road on this map that could carry my carriages.'

Mason traced the route with a finger. 'The short way cuts straight through the forest, but we'd need a large armed escort against the wildlife. The safer way is by boat, up this river, disembarking near the gorge, then following the old animal trails the rest of the way. That land sits not far off those paths. Given the trouble of moving your whole convoy, I'd suggest we ask their leader to come to us, rather than the other way round.'

'Fine by me,' the Duke agreed easily. 'Ask them to meet us here tomorrow evening. Send your best rangers to find their camp, deliver the summons, and bring their leader back with them.'

'I'll speak to the Adventurers' Guild directly, and have the royal letters ready for the rangers to carry,' Mason said, closing the ledger. He stood and gestured towards the hall. 'Now, please, get some rest, Uncle Balmarrat. You've been on the road for days. We'll go over the military zoning land this afternoon.'

✽✽✽✽✽✽

'What in the Gods' names is this thing?' Corvinus muttered, his neck craned so far back that his hood slid off his shoulders. 'I don't think that's a carriage at all.'

Wedged twenty feet up between the moss-covered branches of an ancient oak hung a hulking box of blackened steel. Four impossibly thick black wheels, deeply grooved, jutted from its underside — but there were no wooden spokes, and certainly no harness fittings for horses of any kind.

Theron narrowed his eyes at the strange, sloped shape of the metal. 'Arenia, do you know anything about this? Is it part of the new production lines out of the capital?'

Arenia shook his head, looking every bit as baffled as the other two. He studied the sheer weight of the thing hanging above them and turned to Lacy. 'Can you help us bring this down from the tree? I'd like to see inside it.'

Lacy grinned and cracked his knuckles. 'Course. Though it'll weigh more than a dead bull.' He turned to three of his lightest, most agile hunters. 'Vross, Krael, up you go. Don't try shoving the thing, you'll break bones for nothing. Take the heavy axes and cut through the branch holding its belly. Let it drop.'

The hunters swarmed up the oak with an ease that put the older men's climbing days to shame, shimmied out along the branch bearing the vehicle's weight, and raised their axes.

'Clear the drop!' Lacy warned, waving the trio well back.

The axes swung in unison, the heavy thwack of steel into old wood echoing through the quiet forest. After a dozen brutal strikes the branch let out a violent, splintering groan and gave way.

The steel carriage plummeted and slammed into the forest floor with a crash that shook the ground and sent a cloud of dead leaves and dirt boiling into the air.

Arenia, Theron and Corvinus coughed their way through the settling dust and stepped forward to look over the fallen machine.

It had landed upright, resting on its thick black wheels, though the fall had crumpled both flanks inward in deep, jagged dents. Corvinus stepped up and rapped his knuckles against the black frame.

'Solid steel,' he confirmed, wincing at how hard it was.

'But look at the shape of it,' Arenia murmured, walking around to the front. 'It's nothing like a carriage. No flat panels anywhere. Everything's curved and sloped, almost like a river stone. And it's been up there for months at least, there's moss grown right into the seams.'

Theron ran a hand along one of the side windows. The glass had shattered entirely on impact and lay scattered in the dirt. 'There's no lead framing round it. It's one single sheet of glass. And how do you even get in? There isn't a handle anywhere I can see.'

Corvinus, whose curiosity had never once in his life known when to stop, went straight to the mangled door. He found a slight, flush groove in the metal, worked his fingers into it, and pulled. With a heavy mechanical click, the door swung open.

'Ha! Found it!' Corvinus crowed, showing Theron the trick of the hidden lever, and within a few minutes the two of them had wrenched all four doors open.

Theron leaned his head into the cabin and frowned. 'Looks enormous from outside, but it's cramped as anything in here. The doors and walls are far thicker than they need to be.'

'And what's this?' Corvinus asked, pointing at the front seat, where a small, leather-wrapped wheel jutted out from the slanted front wall. 'Why put a wheel in here? It doesn't even reach the ground.'

'Don't touch anything,' Arenia said sharply, pulling his friends back a step. 'This is well beyond anything we understand. I'll ask my son, Mason works directly with the Prime Minister's inventors in the capital. If anyone knows what this steel beast is, it'll be him. For now, we leave it exactly as it is.'

He leaned in for one last look before stepping back. Resting on the rear cushion was a strange, flat, rectangular object, and he reached in and lifted it carefully. It was heavier than its size suggested — a smooth board of polished black glass on one face and cold metal on the other. Digging a little further into the cushions, he found a second, identical object, smaller, that fitted neatly into his palm.

'What are they? Slate boards, for writing?' Theron asked, peering over his shoulder.

'I don't know,' Arenia murmured. 'There's no chalk. Just the glass.'

'Leave them where they are,' Theron said, with a rare edge of unease in his voice. 'We've no idea what manner of poison or mechanism might be hidden inside.'

Arenia nodded and set the black glass rectangles gently back on the seat before easing the heavy door shut.

He turned to Lacy and gave a deep, respectful bow of the head. 'Thank you for showing us this. I'll speak to the Lord of this town about your request to settle here, I don't expect there'll be any trouble.'

Lacy returned the bow warmly. 'May the forest treat you well, Arenia. We ought to be getting back to camp.'

He and his warriors slipped back into the tree line with the same silent, easy grace they had used to arrive, leaving the three friends alone with the wreck.

Corvinus lingered by the open front door, sticking his head inside one last time. 'The seats in here are unbelievably smooth, like polished hide. But by the Gods, the smell. Stale air and burnt oil, like nothing I've smelled before.'

'Then let it keep,' Arenia said, adjusting his pack. 'We're heading back to the cabin.'

✽✽✽✽✽✽

That afternoon the sun began to slip behind the towering canopy of the Great Jungle, laying long shadows across the wooden ranger cabin. It was a sturdy, heavily fortified structure, built from thick iron-wood logs, large enough to shelter ten adventurers from the worst of the northern rains, and solid enough to hold against anything the forest might send against its walls.

Arenia, Theron and Corvinus had only just got a pot of river water on to boil when the sound of boots on the porch reached them.

Two rangers sent by the guild, in the dark green and brown cloaks of their office, pushed the heavy door open.

'Count Arenia,' the lead ranger said, snapping off a crisp salute.

Arenia smiled and offered them each a cup of hot water. 'Just Arenia now, lads. Come in. What news from the town?'

'Important news, sir,' the ranger said, stepping in and warming his hands at the hearth. 'Duke Balmarrat Matthew has arrived in Tizzania. He's at the estate with Lord Mason now, and they mean to invite the leader of the nomad community in to discuss a permanent land agreement. We've been sent to find their camp and deliver the summons.'

Arenia laughed and pulled a scrap of parchment from his pack. 'You won't have far to look. I know their leader, his name's Lacy. He's camped in the centre valley, on the flat ground near the old path. Tell him Arenia sent you, and he'll come without any fuss.'

The rangers looked visibly relieved, spared what might otherwise have cost them days of tracking. 'Thank you, sir.'

'And while you're heading back,' Arenia added, his tone shifting suddenly to something far more serious. He crossed to a small table by the window and returned with an envelope already sealed in wax.

'Take this straight to my son, Mason,' he said, pressing the letter into the ranger's hand. 'Tell him we found something strange in the forest. He'll know what to do once he's read it.'