Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

“There’s a lot of Palo,” she commented to Taniel, watching a woman pass by with a yoke over her shoulders, suspending two pails of water.

“They’re good labor.”

“I thought you said the Kressian settlers don’t like Palo.”

“They don’t like sharing an address or a drink with them. They do like how hard they work.”

“How the pit are those guards back there supposed to tell the difference between a good Palo and a bad Palo?”

“The way they’re dressed,” Taniel said. He tugged at the front of his buckskin jacket. “If they’re dressed like me, they’re bad.” He pointed to her jacket and tricorn hat. “If they’re dressed like you, they’re good.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Like I said, no time for critical thinking on the frontier.”

They finally reached the outskirts of town – a muddy track that suddenly turned muddier and led under an enormous wooden sign that said WELCOME TO YELLOW CREEK. The canyon opened up into a large valley a couple of miles across, clear-cut and organized, and filled with wooden buildings of all sorts – hardware stores, whorehouses, banks, letter-writing services, cobblers, and everything in between.

The town itself was dense and claustrophobic, trash and shit trod underfoot and filling Vlora’s nostrils with a vile stench. The scenery around them, however, was gorgeous. Mountains rose in every direction, shooting up from the pine-forested foothills to bare rock that towered impossibly high into a ribbon of clouds.

“I miss Adro,” Taniel said quietly.

Vlora turned toward him sharply, but his face was impassive. “So do I,” she said.

They rode deeper into the town in companionable silence, and Vlora realized that she would be shocked if the town housed fewer than ten thousand people. Not a proper city, certainly, but a veritable metropolis this far out on the frontier. “This is much bigger than I expected,” she said over the din of the traffic.

Taniel’s eyebrows rose. “I’ll admit, I’m a little surprised. I’ve never been in a gold-rush town bigger than a few hundred people. There must be a damn huge amount of gold in these mountains.” He raised his hand. “This’ll do.”

Vlora followed him across the street to a large building on the corner of an intersection. Large letters over the roof proclaimed HOTEL while a sign beside the door said VACANCIES. NO PALO. NO GURLISH. Vlora nearly objected, before realizing that every proper-looking building on the street had a similar sign. Some rejected Kez. Others rejected Stren or Rosveleans. There was even one that said in bold letters ADRANS NOT ADMITTED.

“I see this is a happy, inclusive place,” she commented, tying her horse to a hitching post. “I thought you said the Kressians stick together.”

Taniel looked uncertain for the first time since the Dynize had arrived. “It’s been a while since I’ve been up this direction. It seems old hatreds are cropping back up.”

Vlora bit back a comment about Taniel not knowing as much as he thought he knew. She was still uncertain about his ulterior motives in this whole endeavor, but she did trust him. There was no reason to upset him if she didn’t have to.

The hotel great room was two stories, highlighting a winding staircase and a row of rooms that looked down from the balcony above them with hallways going off to the side. Most of the main area was taken up with a bar and tables. At this hour they were empty but for a pair of drunks bemoaning some awful fate over in the corner.

Vlora and Taniel were greeted by a wormy little man in a faded purple jacket and flatcap. He called to them from behind a podium that said in block letters HOTEL MANAGER. He said something quickly in Brudanian.

“We need two rooms,” Vlora told him.

The manager switched to Adran. “Two rooms will be tight, I’m afraid. The city is very crowded right now and most of the guests are doubling or even quadrupling up!” He followed the sentence with a simpering laugh.

Vlora looked at Taniel, who just shrugged at her, and decided she had no interest in sharing a bed – no matter how platonic – with an ex-lover. “How much?” she asked.

“Forty for the week. Sixty includes lunch and dinner. Drinks are extra.”

Vlora plunked a handful of large coins on the podium, sorting through them carelessly and then sliding two across to the manager. “Two rooms.” She slid another two across to him.

The manager licked his lips. “I think we’ve just had a vacancy.”

“Good.”

The manager hurried away, and Vlora turned to look across the great room. It wasn’t much, but it would be home for the next couple of weeks. Taniel slid up next to her, leaning in so that only she could hear him.

“You haven’t really learned subtlety, have you?” he asked.

She felt her already dubious mood sour. “I’m a goddamn Adran general. I don’t do subtlety.”

“You’re not an Adran general here ,” Taniel said. “We’ve got to stay low until we find this thing. You saw those postal relays on the highway. Word could reach Lindet about our presence within a week. The notes I found in her personal library indicated she was already snooping around in this neck of the woods, so she doubtlessly has spies in the city. The Dynize might, too.”

Vlora grunted. As much as she hated to admit it, Taniel was right. Their whole purpose here – coming without her army – was to get in and get out without being detected by enemy agents. Handing the manager enough money to buy a horse just to get an extra hotel room was probably ill-advised.

The manager returned with their keys and a pallid smile. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know.” His eyes ran across Vlora and Taniel’s weapons; then he leaned across the podium conspiratorially. “You’ll do well here, I think.”

Vlora, whose attention had wandered from the dislikable man, turned to him sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

The manager recoiled. “I mean, with the troubles brewing. You’re soldiers of fortune, aren’t you? Mercenaries?”

Taniel didn’t look any happier than Vlora. “What kind of trouble?” he asked.

“The Picks and the Shovels,” the manager explained. “I assumed you came because of the newspaper advertisements.”

“Happenstance, actually,” Vlora assured him. She looked at Taniel, then continued on cautiously. “We just thought we’d find work guarding some caravans or mines.”

“A happy coincidence, in your line of work,” the manager said with the tone of voice that implied he expected a large tip. “Trouble’s been heating up the last few months. There’s two groups in town that own most of the big mines around here, and they’ve been trying to buy each other out. The Picks own most of the eastern side of the valley.” He waved vaguely over his shoulder. “And the Shovels own the west side. Their big bosses have been bringing in more and more muscle to try and make a point. If one of them doesn’t agree to sell, it’ll be bloodshed by the end of the month.”

Vlora prayed they’d be gone by then. The last thing she needed was their presence being complicated with a war over prospecting rights. She thought back to the Palo in the Tristan Basin and then in Greenfire Depths, and realized local politics had been plaguing her entire time in Fatrasta.

She plastered a thankful smile on her face and palmed a five-krana coin, shaking the manager’s hand. “Have those rooms cleaned out by supper. Fresh linen, and flip the mattresses.” She retreated to the front stoop of the hotel, feeling suddenly claustrophobic. The pungent smell of the mining town didn’t help, but turning her face to the sun allowed her to breathe more easily. A few minutes passed before Taniel joined her.