Lovu

  As they neared the northern edges of the Yufe foothills, the terrain faded from imposing mountains into gentle rolling hills. Unlike when they entered the foothills, there was no forest to offer cover. They were left to wander out under the scorching summer sun in plain view of their surroundings. Staying hidden in the valleys helped ease Lovu’s nerves, but he still felt unpleasantly exposed.

  “How likely are we to run into other Scars out here?” he asked nervously as they sat down to rest.

  “Not very,” Topal said, rinsing her face in the cool stream. “At least for now. This is still wildlands and there aren’t any notable spots for foraging near here as far as I know of.”

  “The way you say ‘for now’ doesn’t exactly comfort me. Will something happen soon?”

  “We either just crossed the border between Vor and Lelpi or are about to. That means that in the next day or two, we should cross the Lelpi Highway. We’ll have to be careful, but after that it’ll be clear wildlands for a while.”

  Generally, smaller Highways in Hangkiti were named after someone important to the two cities they connected. The big exception were those that connected Lavote to the capitals of the nearest fiefdoms. Historically, the Highway names varied by fiefdom and changed every few decades whenever a new Lord rose to power. They would rename the Highways in their territory after themselves or their family members. After a while it became troublesome, so Lovu’s great great great grandfather – Voice Wekta Yelma – issued a decree to standardize them. Smaller highways were still able to be named after important figures in their fiefdom’s history, but there were limits to how often they could change.

  Because the Highways directly connected to Lavote were some of the most travelled in the southern peninsula, they needed something simpler and more intuitive. The decree named them after the ruling family of the territory and only allowed them to change in the case of a new family taking possession of that land. For instance, the Vor Highway connected Lavote to Kamvor and the Lelpi Highway connected Lavote to Lekopi – the ancestral seat of Lord Lelpi.

  Lovu had been heavily educated on Hangkiti’s geography, particularly the location of every fief, each Lords’ ancestral seat, and the major Highways connecting them. Without ever having left the Residence himself, it had always been fairly abstract to him. Pulling up his mental map of where they were, he was simultaneously impressed and disheartened by how far they had travelled.

  After nearly two weeks of straight walking, they had covered surprisingly little ground. Part of it was because they doubled back on themselves after leaving Kamvor, but even if they had continued in a straight line, they would still barely be in the next fiefdom over.

  Hangkiti is far larger than I realized… and so much of it is empty.

  Now that they were in more open space, the wildlife also changed. While there was still a decent amount of overlap with the small rodents and reptiles he had seen in the mountains, everything got bigger.

  First they found a herd of about a dozen Epu – huge mammals with shaggy wool, curved horns, and clawed paws. The horns were thicker than Lovu’s torso that stuck out from their bodies far enough that he wondered how they stayed balanced. Despite their imposing image, Topal assured him that they were herbivores and largely harmless so long as you gave them a wide berth.

  On the other hand, they also ran into several Lufwi – birds just as large as the Epu, but with round and fuzzy feathers that made them look quite charming. Before he could ask about them, Topal pulled him to the ground and told him to hush. A few minutes later, a herd of Epu came grazing over a nearby hill and the instant the Lufwi saw them, it transformed. Its feathers flattened, pulling back to form its body into a sleek arrow as it blasted across the ground. It covered hundreds of feet in just a few seconds.

  Lovu quietly prayed for some of the Epu escape, but after the bloodbath started, he had to avert his eyes. He had no clue if Fam’e answered. Even if he had gotten a specific count of how many had been in the herd before looking away, he doubted he’d be able to actually identify how many corpses were in the mess of viscera left behind.

  According to Topal, humans were too small prey for Lufwi to bother with. So as long as they didn’t go out of their way to piss it off, they should be fine. Despite her nonchalance, there was no amount of space that would make him feel safe.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The wildlife was only one concern.

  “So… should I be on the lookout for any new vit?” Lovu asked shortly after the terrain started to change.

  “Yup,” Topal said. “First, don’t spend time thinking about what could be over the hills around us. Best case, it’ll take us way longer to make progress. Worst case, we’ll run into something, one way or another.”

  Lovu had already been worried about running into another Lufwi, but he quickly put that thought out of mind. “Noted. Anything else?”

  “Keep an eye on the sky when we’re more in the open and when we’re closed in by taller hills, don’t look up. In either case, if you think you see something on the edges of your vision, get low and stay quiet until it goes away.” As always, her warnings were cryptic and unsettling, but he followed them nonetheless.

  Just as Topal predicted, they reached the Lelpi Highway shortly after sunrise the next day. As they got closer, she took the lead, carefully peeking over each hill before signaling him to follow. It slowed them down, but their caution paid off when they started to hear the sounds of marching in the distance.

  The instant it became audible, she dropped to the ground and found an outcropping of rocks for him to hide in while she snuck ahead, disappearing completely over the crest and leaving him to wait in silence. About fifteen minutes passed before she returned, the footfalls never going silent.

  “There’s a fuck ton of soldiers on the Highway,” she whispered as she slipped down into the rocks beside him. “We need to either wait here for them to pass or start working our way in the opposite direction so we can cross over behind them.”

  “I’m sorry, are you saying there’s an army there?” he asked in disbelief. Despite knowing that it was a possibility, Hangkiti hadn’t raised an active army since it banded together to subdue Phakfi. The Honors were the closest thing they had, but they were more of a militia. Even though he didn’t study much of Hangkiti’s military history, he had read the accounts of the early Advocates who marched alongside their forces to provide support, First Advocate Hikim included. It had always seemed like an antiquated piece of history lost to their more civilized age.

  “I dunno if it’s an army or what, but there’re a few thousand at least,” she said, her voice giving away that she was almost as surprised as he was.

  “Are they… Honors?”

  “Dunno,” Topal said with a shrug. “There were a handful wearing heavier armor, but they don’t really look like Honors as far as I can tell. Most of them look on the poorer side. I didn’t get close enough to see if they were wearing Embers.”

  Which means they’re most likely Phakfi’s soldiers. But in that case…

  “W-which way are they going?”

  “Looks like they’re headed toward Lekopi. My bet is that they’re that Emperor’s folks trying to subdue the Lords closest to Lavote,” she said, completing his line of thought for him.

  “How is this possible?” he asked, even if he didn’t actually expect her to have an answer. “Even if they took over Lavote, it hasn’t even been two weeks yet. How do they have an army that large?”

  “Most of them are probably Scars. They probably brought the rest into Lavote by boat once they secured everything.”

  Lovu wanted to deny that possibility outright. The Bay of Lifwuk – the coast that Lavote rested on was – was huge and heavily patrolled. Not only was the mouth of the bay itself controlled by Lord Morhu, but eight other Lords all had territory bordering it with their own ships. Getting the soldiers they used for the insurrection into the capital was already unbelievable. Bringing even more in meant that their attack must have been more widespread and successful than he ever thought possible.

  “Well… hopefully Lord Lelpi is prepared,” he said, struggling to hide the waver in his voice as he said a quiet prayer for his wellbeing.

  “Save some of that hope for yourself,” Topal said, rising to her feet and starting to walk east. “We’re gonna need it.”

  Staying low, quiet, and keeping a lot of space between themselves and the Highway, the pair slowly started to move in the opposite direction of the army . After about thirty minutes, the sound began to fade. They kept going for another fifteen just to be safe before gradually moving back toward the Highway, Topal taking the lead again.

  On the closest hill to the Highway, Topal pulled out one of the Kumam coins and performed the ritual to cover their tracks again. They both pulled up their cloaks to cover their faces just in case. Under Kumam’s shroud, they snuck up and peered over the hill, giving Lovu his first real look at the Highway.

  He wasn’t sure what to expect but was still disappointed by the road before them. Among the craggy hills and rocky outcroppings, a plain dirt path barely twenty feet wide was tucked into a jagged crevice, trod bare. There was no stone paving like on Lavote’s streets or any markings of note. If he hadn’t known it was a Highway, he would have had no clue.

  Despite his thoughts on its quality, he was happy to see that there was nobody in sight in either direction. On Topal’s signal, they quickly dashed across, clearing it in barely any time at all and disappearing into the hills on the opposite side.

  Lovu stopped before taking the last few steps that would hide the Highway from view once again. Looking off at the western horizon where the army was headed, he couldn’t help but feel as if he was watching the sun set. It wasn’t even noon and the sky was still bright and blue, but just staring in that direction was enough to fill his stomach with a similar awe, tainted by dread. Instead of the last hints of light radiating from the horizon, it was the embers of evil.

  Bowing his head, he reached out to Fam’e. If she could offer asylum to even a single innocent soul in Lekopi, he hoped that would ease the weight in his heart.

  No answer came, but the thought that she had heard him was comforting on its own.