Traveler of the Blue Road - Part 4 Chapter 2 - A Grim Journey

 Traveler of the Blue Road

(Book 7 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)

Author: Uehashi Nahoko

Translator: Ainikki the Archivist

 

 Part 4 - Confrontation

Chapter 2 - A Grim Journey

    Chagum’s journey with the Talsh soldiers was far different from his sunny sea voyage with Senna and the Sangalese pirates. When the new ship stopped in Manon again, Hugo brought Chagum a face covering that he’d bought in the harbor. When Chagum received the face covering, he stared at Hugo in stony silence. It seemed that Hugo was intending to treat him as a Crown Prince from here on out, with all the standards of propriety that came along with that title. It was almost like they’d never talked to one another about Yogo and war on Senna’s ship in the middle of the night.

    Chagum’s Talsh escort treated him with the utmost respect, but he found their appearance somewhat jarring. They were tall, very tall, with copper-brown skin and eyes like gold coins. They looked utterly alien to him; even several days into their shared journey, he wasn’t entirely comfortable looking at them.

    Chagum knew a bit about Talsh because of his education; he remembered reading about the general appearance and characteristics of the Talsh people in his history books. Seeing them in person was different. It was hard to believe that they were actually real. Talsh had been a distant threat for so long that the soldiers’ sudden appearance at the harbor and strange physical characteristics hit him like a bolt of lightning.

    He remembered the first time one of the soldiers had addressed him in Yogoese. He’d felt a chill go through his entire body. None of New Yogo’s soldiers could speak the Talsh language; he was fairly certain of that. Chagum knew Rotan, Kanbalese, and Sangalese as well as his native Yogoese, but he didn’t understand the Talsh language at all.

    The soldiers’ weapons, the metal fittings and tack on their horses, and even the way they moved was completely different from what Chagum was used to. He was accustomed to riding in a cart when he traveled, but the shaking and unsteadiness of the cart’s wheels was new; he spent most of his time vaguely nauseated.

    Chagum felt his impatience mounting with every day that passed. He wondered how far they were from the Talsh capital. Ten days, twelve? Prince Raul was waiting for him there. He wanted to learn as much as he could about Talsh before their meeting so that he would be prepared. There were only a few days left before the end of the journey; Chagum would make copious use of them all.

 

 

    Sodok’s presence on this journey troubled Chagum deeply. He’d known before the Talsh escort appeared that Sodok was a magic weaver and Rasugu’s brother, but these facts suddenly became much more urgent to him. He’d fought Rasugu in Sangal; the man’s terrifying face would be burned into the back of his mind forever. Chagum kept expecting Rasugu to reappear, if only to mock him, but he never did.

    Late one night, Chagum and his escort entered the territory of Orm, which bordered Yogo. The inn they stopped at was very high-class and clearly expensive. Before Chagum could go to sleep, Sodok called on him in his room. He looked quite a bit like Rasugu; Chagum couldn’t help but frown at him.

    Sodok turned toward Chagum and said, “My brother tends to lose interest in the prey once it’s been caught. He’ll soon be amply rewarded by Prince Raul. The social status of our family may also change, so I may soon be employed elsewhere.” 

    Sodok had always called Chagum “the prey” or “the merchandise” when speaking in front of him, probably so that he wouldn’t accidentally betray Chagum’s true identity to outsiders. Chagum suspected that Sodok also called him that to aggravate him, but Chagum didn’t mind for some reason.

    I know why I don’t mind. He’s rude, just like Torogai is.

    Chagum could almost picture Torogai’s wrinkled, wizened face. He smiled; he’d always liked magic weavers. He’d never met a single one who was afraid of him, or afraid of offending him.

    “I’m sure you’ll get your reward as well,” Sodok said mockingly to Hugo. He returned his gaze to Chagum and shrugged.

    Chagum heard voices in the hall; someone was talking to his guards. A moment later, the door to Chagum’s room opened, revealing a few kitchen workers carrying trays of food. One woman laid out dishes on the room’s low table. Another set out a large serving dishes full of cuts of roasted fatty beef and vegetables that had been breaded and fried. It was a simple meal of traditional Orm foods, but the portions were large enough to feed the entire escort party and then some.

    The savory salt smell of the meat wafted through the air. Tiny winged insects landed on the clean plates and the roast beef; they were clearly attracted by the smell. Hugo shut the room’s window firmly to prevent any more bugs from getting in.

    The woman who had laid out the plates poured Chagum a glass of fruit juice. She poured a little too much; some spilled on the table below his glass. She paid the mess no mind and kept setting out dishes.

    Chagum had to eat first; Hugo and Sodok could only eat their meal after he was finished. Chagum selected a little of everything from the serving dishes, said a prayer to the gods and tried to eat quickly.

    Hugo stared intently at the table. A number of those strange insects that had flown into the room had dropped dead. Some still flew around the meat, but every insect that had landed in the spilled fruit juice on the table was dead. The spilled juice was mostly hidden under Chagum’s plate, so it was harder for Chagum to notice this than Hugo.

    When Chagum finished eating, he reached for the fruit juice.

    “Your Majesty,” Hugo said. He stood up and pushed down Chagum’s extended hand. He frowned down at the dead insects and pointed.

    Chagum was briefly stunned, but then he took in what Hugo was pointing at. His face had no expression as he asked, “Poison?”

    “Probably.”

    Sodok stood up, came to Hugo’s side and looked over his shoulder. He nodded to Hugo.

    Hugo drew his sword from his belt, crossed the room and opened the door. He whispered something to Chagum’s guards, then stalked down the hallway toward the kitchen.

    When he opened the kitchen door, the workers looked up at him in alarm. “Who were the last people to send food from this place?” he asked. “Tell me their names.”

    Everyone looked toward a man who was standing near the roast in the center of the kitchen.

    When the man saw Hugo, he picked up a butcher knife and hurled it directly at him. Hugo avoided the knife, but the kitchen devolved into chaos; many of the staff fled through the open door behind Hugo.

    The man who had thrown the knife watched Hugo approach, then shrank back from him and darted through the workers’ exit along the kitchen’s back wall. Hugo followed him, but he was surprisingly fast; by the time Hugo made it outside, the man had vanished into the darkness.

    Hugo didn’t see much point in chasing him. The poisoning attempt had failed; that was sufficient for now. He already knew who had given the man his orders.

    When Hugo returned to Chagum’s room, the soldiers, Sodok, and Chagum himself all appeared incredibly nervous.

    “There was a spy mixed in with the kitchen staff,” Hugo said.

    The guards gripped their drawn swords tighter. “Should we give chase?” one guard asked.

    Hugo shook his head. “He probably had a horse waiting. We’ll have to do poison taste-testing from now on. And we should probably send some men ahead to scout the inns we’ll be stopping at to make sure they’re safe.”

    The guards nodded.

    Hugo approached Chagum and bowed deeply. “I wasn’t careful enough. Please forgive me, Your Majesty.”

    “It’s all right. I should have been more on my guard, too,” Chagum said. He hadn’t considered the possibility that his life would be targeted during the journey, but he should have remembered from his old life that assassination was always a possibility. “Who tried to kill me? Do you know?”

    Hugo took a seat near him and said, “The Nanyoku. That’s the southern army of Talsh. It was probably them who sent the poisoner.”

    Chagum pictured a map of Talsh in his mind. Prince Raul was the Emperor’s second son. His older brother, Hazar, must command the southern army. Chagum’s pale lips twitched upward in a slight smile.

    “So the older brother wanted to take the prize away from his little brother? I guess that should tell me what I’m worth to them.”

    When Hugo didn’t say anything, Sodok ventured, “We’re not operating secretly anymore. Maybe they were waiting for us to come out in the open to make a move.”

    Chagum nodded. He was an important bargaining chip that the Talsh intended to use to conquer New Yogo. If Prince Raul allowed Chagum to be killed, he would certainly earn the Emperor’s ire. On the flip side, Prince Raul would be greatly rewarded for bringing Chagum in safely. It was in Prince Hazar’s best interests to kill Chagum, either through poison or some kind of accident.

    Do Talsh’s princes always fight among themselves like this? Chagum wondered. It seemed that the princes weren’t cooperating on the invasion of the northern continent. In fact, they seemed to be at odds. Could Chagum use that somehow? Chagum sighed and smoothed his expression so that he wouldn’t betray his thoughts.

    “It’s a shame,” Chagum said with a little sigh. “I’m so thirsty.”

    Sodok grinned, then gave the guards a signal. They went to the kitchen and retrieved a glass of water for Chagum to drink. Chagum lifted his face covering slightly and took slow sips of the water until he could convince himself that it wasn’t poisoned, too.

 

 

    Some days later, Chagum’s cart reached the Arou mountain range. The road that cut through the mountains was well-maintained and easy to traverse. Perhaps Chagum should have been impressed, but all he could think of was what Hugo had told him about Talsh’s slow method of taking over nations by making them crumble away, bit by slow bit.

    Chagum expected it to get warmer as they traveled south, but the cold air blowing over the mountains only got stronger. At an inn in the mountains, every room had its own separate fireplace, but Chagum’s feet and hands tingled with the cold even when he stretched out right next to the fire. Had he gotten used to the heat of Sangal and the tropical countries? He didn’t ever remember being so cold before. He spent his nights wrapped in thick blankets while shivering from head to toe.

    One night, Hugo knocked on his door. “Excuse me. May I come in?”

    When Chagum nodded, the guard standing at the end of his bed opened the door and let Hugo in. Hugo was carrying a thick quilted blanket stuffed with cotton. He spread it over Chagum and tucked in the edges.

    “I hope this will help you sleep, Your Majesty,” he said. “The inn’s workers looked all over for an extra blanket and gave us this one.”

    After a few moments spent under the thick blanket, Chagum felt himself warming up.

    Hugo bowed and excused himself. “Sleep well, Your Majesty.” He left the room.

    Chagum closed his eyes, feeling much more comfortable than he had a few minutes before.

 

 

 

    Chagum sat on his leather-covered seat in the horse-drawn cart watching speckled sunlight dance through the leaves overhead. As always, he took in this view alone.

    Chagum found the journey by cart to be very lonely, especially compared to his sea voyage. Hugo, Sodok and his guards usually rode outside the cart, so he didn’t have many opportunities to talk to people. Chagum mostly just looked out of his window and watched the scenery, which changed slowly as the days passed.

    Whenever he waved or smiled at Hugo, all he did was look down. As Chagum watched Hugo maneuver his horse under the bright light of the sun, he found himself wondering which road Hugo was following. He had begged Chagum to save his people. Those words had almost sounded like a prayer. Hugo had watched his own city burn. Chagum thought about how difficult it must have been to survive in a country that had been destroyed by war.

    He also wondered what Hugo thought of him. Did Hugo see him as New Yogo’s Crown Prince, an inexperienced boy, or a little of both? Or did he see something else entirely? Chagum still didn’t know exactly what Hugo was expecting of him. He certainly wanted Chagum to save New Yogo’s people, but Chagum would never be able to kill his father and becoming a Talsh puppet would be worse than dishonorable. Still, Hugo seemed to think there was a way.

    Chagum felt like a tiny tributary feeding into an enormous river. He was getting sucked into other people’s plans and intentions like water into a raging stream. He still didn’t have a complete picture of what might happen in the future.

    Chagum thought about the people in his life that had put him on his current path. He shifted in his seat and felt it skid a little on the floor of the cart as his memory wandered in the direction of his distant homeland and all the people he’d left behind. He’d been taken such a long time ago. He hoped his mother was all right; he also hoped that the ships of New Yogo’s navy had made it home safely and that the flagship’s prisoners were safe. Shuga was probably in a terribly vulnerable position at court with Chagum gone. Shuga never thought of himself first, so Chagum prayed, though without much hope, that Shuga was working for himself for a change.

    I wonder what my father is thinking now.

    When the Mikado heard what had happened in Sangal, what would he do? He couldn’t make Tugum the Crown Prince without confirmation that Chagum was dead. The uncertainty of the current situation probably vexed him. Maybe he was praying for news of Chagum’s death even now.

    Thinking of such things made Chagum’s heart hurt. He felt like he was wandering in darkness with his feet stuck in the mud. No way out and no way through.

    His father felt nothing but hatred for him. The Mikado’s prayers might soon be answered: Chagum might die. His father had given explicit orders to assassinate him before, not once but twice: Jin and Yun had been sent to kill him on his sea voyage.

    Chagum’s heart felt like it was being skewered with countless tiny needles. His face contorted in pain. Why does it hurt so much?

    His father was heartless enough to order the assassination of his own child. Such heartlessness did not augur well for the people of New Yogo in the coming war. Chagum was motivated to do whatever he could to save his people, but he wasn’t his father; there were some lines that he couldn’t cross.

    Chagum surrendered himself to the rocking of the cart, looked out at the trees and tried to overcome the pain in his heart.

    I don’t want to kill my father.

    Not just that: Chagum didn’t want to kill anyone, period. He never wanted to be responsible for another person losing their life.

    But he might not have a choice. A future without bloodshed was probably just a dream. No matter what he did, Talsh would come to devour New Yogo with their greed and insatiable desire for conquest. His people would suffer because of the Talsh: there was no way around that. But Chagum refused to accept that he was helpless. There had to be something that he could do.

    Maybe he’d think of something when he finally met Prince Raul. He was eager to understand why someone would order the destruction of a nation and the deaths of countless people. Prince Raul must have his reasons; Chagum wanted to hear them.

 

 

    The cart suddenly slowed down. Chagum pitched forward and was shaken from his thoughts. The cart crossed a rough patch of road and turned onto a different path. He heard voices crying out ahead of the cart.

    The cart kept jerking forward by fits and starts until it finally stopped completely. Chagum leaned out of his window to take a better look at what was happening.

    “Please stay inside and don’t look,” one of the Talsh soldiers said. He tried to close Chagum’s window from the outside, but Chagum held it open with both hands.

    A huge crowd of people from Orm were gathered on the side of the road. A procession of Talsh cavalrymen were riding by. Wagons were interspersed sporadically through the procession. Chagum noticed that most of the people gathered on the roadside were weeping.

    Is that a coffin in that wagon? Is this a funeral?

    There was a flag flying from the nearest wagon. Chagum didn’t recognize it, but he guessed that it was the flag of Orm.

    “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I must close the window,” the Talsh soldier said. Another soldier dismounted and helped close the cart’s window by force. Chagum clearly wasn’t supposed to see this. He guessed that it was a funeral procession for soldiers returning home from war. If that was the case, then Talsh was currently at war with someone.

    The voices Chagum was hearing were probably those of friends and relatives calling out the names of the dead. The weeping had definitely gotten louder as Chagum and his escort had approached. The cart he was in flew the flag of the northern army. Seeing that flag had provoked an immediate reaction from all those people. Chagum could easily understand why they hated the Talsh army.

    The inside of the cart was much darker with the window closed. Chagum listened to the voices of the mourners and the labored turning of the cart’s wheels. The voices washed over the cart like a torrent, no way out and no way through.

    Chagum understood, now, what being conquered by the Talsh actually meant. The Talsh sacrificed thousands of lives in war, then recruited thousands more soldiers in the lands they conquered. It was an endless cycle of violence and killing.

    If New Yogo didn’t surrender, its people would be slaughtered. But if they did surrender, the people would still be slaughtered in wars against other nations. This was another effect of Talsh’s slow method of assimilating conquered nations.

    The shadow of the soldiers’ funeral procession fell across Chagum’s heart. He’d only glimpsed it briefly, but he was certain he would never forget it.

 

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