Those Who Walk the Flame Road
Carts clattered up Blue Street, passing Hugo by as he walked up a steep hill. The street was wide and even, making it easy for merchant traffic to travel back and forth. There was a crude gate up ahead that the locals named, uncreatively to Hugo’s thinking, the Blue Gate.
Beyond the gate, there were no more shops and stores, only estates ringed by hedges and surrounded by high walls. Men and women who looked like messengers darted to and fro on the wide stone street, moving from estate to estate. Their clothes were so colorful and they spoke so quickly that Hugo was reminded of a flock of fluttering birds preening in the midday sun.
After passing through the Blue Gate, Hugo shuffled off to the side of the road and stared at the manicured hedges that marked the boundary line of one of the noble estates. Now that he was inside the nobles’ quarter, he wasn’t completely sure where he should go.
For all that, the place felt familiar. Hugo resumed walking down the street, passing under the cool shadow of some trees, and felt somehow like he’d never left: like part of him had always been here, in some form or another.
If Hugo kept walking just a little way, he would turn off the street and go through the Green Gate, toward his childhood home. For the briefest of moments, Hugo was struck by the idea that if he went home now he’d find his parents and little sister Nahso there alive, as if nothing terrible had ever happened.
Hugo’s heart rose to his throat as he walked. He looked at the placards on each of the noble estates that he passed, searching for the Kamuran estate. He recognized a few surnames, but there were even more that he didn’t know. He wasn’t used to reading anymore. Some of the unique characters used mainly for names were wholly unfamiliar to him.
Feeling cold through and very lonely, Hugo passed under the Green Gate, which was less crudely built than the Blue Gate and more consistently cared for. The Blue Gate was only called that because it was on the Blue Road; the Green Gate was called such because it was actually painted a uniform green.
Thick clouds partially blotted out the sun. Sunlight pierced the clouds ahead of Hugo, illuminating the noble estates that had once belonged to high-ranking warrior families within Yogo in white light.
Hugo forgot to breathe. He started running toward his house as fast as he could, passing familiar hedges and gates until he reached the gate that marked the entrance to the Arayutan estate.
Hugo stopped in front of the gate, out of breath and practically sobbing. Everything looked the same to him: the gate, the tall hedges, his first glimpse of the garden. Even the house was still standing…
The nameplate on the gate didn’t say ‘Arayutan.’ It said ‘Okunal Ota.’ Hugo had no idea who that was; he’d never heard the name before. Okunal certainly wasn’t a warrior family, but they were Yogoese; the ‘Ota’ designation indicated that Okunal was a branch family from a larger house. Maybe they were part of the lesser nobility and used to live in a different part of the city. Hugo thought that he’d seen the family’s name on buildings in the southern part of the lower city before.
Hugo stared slack-jawed at the house and the nameplate and couldn’t bring himself to move. A guard emerged from the attached guardhouse near the estate’s gate and posed threateningly.
“You there, kid! What business do you have in this place?”
Hugo wanted to say that he was the last surviving heir of the Arayutan family and that this estate belonged to him, but the words stuck in his throat. He bowed his head, muttered a vague apology and turned away from the gate.
Retracing his steps to Blue Street made Hugo feel calm again. He wasn’t here to find his own house, after all; he’d expected it to be destroyed. The fact that it wasn’t was confusing to him, but that didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t reclaim it.
Tears swam in Hugo’s eyes unrestrained and unbidden; they clouded his vision, but he made no move to wipe them away. He walked slowly around the neighborhood, reading every nameplate on every gate and door that he could see. All of the estates belonging to the Mikado’s Shields were still intact, but they were all owned by different families now. Hugo didn’t recognize any of their names. It seemed like a lot of people who’d formerly lived in the southern part of Hoshiro lived here now.
Hugo walked faster so that the gate guards wouldn’t give him a hard time, gritting his teeth. I’m an idiot. What am I doing here?
He should have let the past stay in the past. The moment his mother and sister died, Hugo had lost any semblance of a home. There could be no going back now. Even if he could live in his old house, his life would never be the same. He knew that all of Yogo’s high-ranking nobility had been killed to a man, but he hadn’t considered the fate of the medium-ranked and lower-ranked warriors until now.
Some of them had risen through the ranks and were promoted socially--Hugo saw that now as he walked among the houses and estates. But there were more foreigners in Yogoese homes than he’d ever seen before, indicating that not every lower-ranked military family was so fortunate. The conquerors had given land and estates to their friends.
Hugo couldn’t help but think that his own estate had been stolen by greedy, grasping interlopers. But he wasn’t predisposed to like them very much, anyway. He used his fists to wipe the tears off his face and kept walking. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself.
When he opened his eyes, Hugo realized he’d backtracked so far that he was close to the lower city again. The Blue Gate was in front of him; a small house that had seen better days was on the side of the street.
I can’t make out much from here. The house didn’t belong to a merchant or a warrior family. It was just inside the gate, so it didn’t belong to a commoner family, either. The house was out of place. Hugo didn’t know what kind of accommodations lower-ranked military families used; maybe this house belonged to one of those families? He moved closer to take a better look.
The house was rundown and abandoned. What had happened to the people who’d lived here? Had they moved up into the estates vacated by the battle with Talsh and the massacre that followed, or had they been killed by Talsh themselves?
Why had the Mikado allowed all of this to happen? Where was he now? Where were the other families that had been deposed like the Arayutans? Were they all dead, too?
Hugo suddenly remembered his conversation with Oru Zan.
“I had no use to Talsh. That’s what I thought, anyway. I was certain they’d let me starve. But if, for whatever reason, they decided to let a young, low-ranking warrior live… well. I decided that I would try to make myself seem useful.”
Oru Zan looked Hugo in the eyes. “Tell me: do you hate Talsh? Of course you do; it’s only natural. What do you plan to do with your hatred, then? Or your warrior’s training? There’s no other place for you to use that except for the Talsh army.”
“The Mikado isn’t dead,” Hugo said. “Not yet. Yogo’s not conquered. Why did Talsh take him instead of executing him if they really want Yogo to be destroyed? The princes might still be alive; no one knows where they are. Even the Star Readers might manage to do something.”
There was no sign of the Mikado, or the princes, or the Star Readers. The people of Yogo needed their help and their guidance, but they were nowhere to be seen. If more nobles were spared during the attack--it seemed like many had been--then they hadn’t done anything noteworthy in the past four years, either, aside from survival. The middle and lower-ranked warrior families that had been spared were rising in the world, filling the void left by their slaughtered neighbors.
Hugo didn’t think he’d be able to do the same thing in their place. Knowing that he was stepping into a wrongfully murdered man’s shoes would make him refuse any offers of advancement. Even thinking about doing something like that made his head hurt. He was adrift in a sea of doubts and questions. There was only so much he could see with his own eyes; the state of the city now didn’t tell the whole story of what had happened to it on its face.
He couldn’t even see inside his own estate from here. He saw the hedges, lush and green, and the garden and house beyond them, but there was no one outside. I don’t know who’s in the palace, either. I don’t know if the Mikado is even there anymore.
Hugo put his back to the noble estates and started drifting back toward the lower city. He didn’t want to go back; there were no answers for him there, either. He’d already learned everything he’d wanted to know about it and then some.
He was eager for new information, new perspectives. As things were, he had nowhere to go and nowhere to run. Returning to the lower city was a death sentence for him if he was caught again, and there was no place for him among the nobles any longer.
Suddenly, Hugo remembered what Oru Zan had told him. I’ll give you ten days. I’m staying at the eastern gate for the next few weeks, so meet me there. I can’t guarantee your safety during that time, but if you come to me on or before that day, I’ll make sure you see a brighter future for your homeland.
Hugo bit his lip. Following Oru Zan into the wide world would certainly expand his horizons. He might even get some of the answers to his most urgent questions... but he had to swear loyalty to Talsh first.
The problem was that Hugo wasn’t sure he could do it. Even the sight of a Talsh person, any Talsh person, made him feel sick to his soul. He hated them all and wanted to consume them in fire, as his family had been consumed. He carried the image of his father in his shining white armor close to his heart. His father had lived and died in service to the Mikado. His loyalty had never wavered--had never even been called into question.
Hugo’s breaths came out as shallow pants. I wanted to be like him. I wanted a life like his. All he’d ever wanted was to grow up to be strong and brave like his father, and to follow in his footsteps so that he could protect the Mikado, his family and his friends. Even now, when that life was far out of reach, he still wanted it.
He’d once believed that Ten no Kami was guiding his path so that he could save his people. He knew now that he’d been wrong, but he didn’t want to be wrong. His dreams and expectations for his own life had been stolen from him as neatly as his family’s estate.
There was a cart behind him; Hugo heard the wheels turning. He walked closer to the side of the road so that he’d be out of the way. He kept walking downhill, toward the lower city. By the time he passed through the gate to his old stomping grounds, he felt angry and eager to fight, though he didn’t know where to direct his aggression.
Before he fought anyone, he had to get his strength back. He ducked down a side-street that had four or five restaurants on the same block and noticed one where a bunch of women were out doing washing near the back entrance. Some had noisy children with them, complaining about hunger or the lateness of the hour. Hugo took advantage of their distraction to do a little digging in the restaurant’s trash.
Most restaurants were like Tomuran’s: any leftovers were collected and disposed of. Some restaurants composted leftovers; others simply threw them out. Hugo had managed to feed himself pretty well by gorging on leftovers before they were discarded when he’d worked at Tomuran’s restaurant.
Hugo guessed that the women were war widows. They had the look. Most women didn’t work this late in the evenings, and certainly not with their children in tow, unless they had no other choice. The lower city was full of such shattered families, but they weren’t always so visible. If their husbands were alive, they’d be back from working, drinking or gambling by now.
A sour smell stung Hugo’s nose. If was coming from one of the little boys. He was obviously starving; he was struggling to breathe, hugging himself with his back to a wall. His mother tried to comfort him, but she was just as gaunt as he was.
Hugo looked away. He wasn’t the only victim of the war, though there were times when he forgot that.
Yogo had changed. Most of those changes weren’t obvious, which was why he rarely saw them, but he knew too much to deny the changes. Conscriptions were common, taxes were up, and the city was full of orphans. Hugo didn’t know what would happen if those changes continued unchecked--both the taxes and conscriptions seemed ruinous. War-hungry Talsh would certainly produce a lot more orphans and widows as well. An image flashed in Hugo’s mind of more children like that little boy starving while their mothers slaved away to feed them and starved themselves.
Rage welled up in Hugo uncontrolled. He turned around, looking for the Green Gate where the nobles lived in luxury and ignorance, and was almost glad when he couldn’t identify it; the gate was lost in a mish-mash of other buildings.
The nobles won’t do anything, Hugo thought. Not a godsdamn thing. They had time to advocate for themselves and advance their own positions in the world, evidently, but they showed no sign of doing anything for anyone but themselves.
The Mikado’s Shields were supposed to fight for the people as well as the Mikado. Warriors of every rank were expected to make sacrifices for the good of everyone. Was all of that lip service?
Hugo could see the Green Gate now; he’d stared long enough for it to make itself apparent amid all the nobles’ green hedges and white mansions. Being able to see it clearly forced Hugo to take a closer look at himself... and he didn’t like what he saw.
After all... I’m not doing anything for anyone else, either. He was just as culpable as the nobles high up on that hill for the plight of Yogo’s common people. Well, maybe not just as culpable, but he did bear some responsibility for it, and he’d done nothing to shoulder that responsibility.
What should I do?
Hugo stood still, looking up at the Green Gate as the evening shadows deepened. It was a hot, sticky night and the streets were packed with traffic, but Hugo barely noticed his surroundings. He had a lot to consider.
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