cracked and a man was injured, the shipyards bubbled with quiet rebellion. Tools were downed and shifts sent home while tempers eased.
It was even stranger given the placid reputation of Maasrites across the empire. They were known for the most part as peaceful people. A little more than one hundred years ago, the Maasrite tribes had joined Greater Askhor without a fight; famously, their six chieftains cut out their tongues so that they could offer no word of protest and keep their honour. This became the Vow of Service that a proportion of Maasrites still followed. Jutaar had always been uncomfortable with voluntary self-mutilation, but being in Askhira had taught him that the practice was far less common than he had thought. Most of those that took the Vow of Service were servants across the rest of the empire, who had followed their forefathers' act of sacrifice so that they could not dispute the wishes of foreign masters.
Jutaar wondered if the influx of foreigners into Maasra had upset the locals, but there was little evidence. The docile, workmanlike Maasrites had been agitated by far more than the arrival of belligerent, loud Okharans and Nalanorians. Like the other workers, they were fearful of some undisclosed fate and complained of nightmares of the town being swallowed by the sea.
All of this disruption had put Jutaar far behind schedule. Ullsaard was coming to the province to see the delays first-hand and to resolve them quickly.
So it was that Jutaar waited at the gate of Askhira's wall in the summer afternoon heat, feeling downcast that he had failed his father, and fearful of the meeting about to take place. The coming of Ullsaard was heralded by a dust cloud on the horizon, and it was quickly evident that the general had come with a large body of men. As the bells sounded the arrival of High Watch, the marching column of the Thirteenth could be seen in the haze, their golden standards and black shields snaking along the road from the Greenwater.
Jutaar and Rondin had arranged a guard of honour by the Tenth, who lined the road outside and inside the gate, spears raised in salute as General Ullsaard rode into Askhira, while the Thirteenth stopped half a mile outside of the town to make camp. The general had Urikh and Noran with him, both also on ailurs, though Urikh looked far from comfortable on his beast. Jutaar hurried down the steps from the gate tower to greet his father in the square just inside the wall.
Dismounting, Ullsaard clasped his son's hand and clapped him on the shoulder.
'Don't look so worried, son,' said the general. 'I'm not here to give you a hard time.'
'That's good to hear,' replied Jutaar with a smile of relief. He turned to his brother. 'Urikh. Good to see you.'
'Brother,' Urikh replied tersely, half-falling from the back of his ailur.
'How are you doing, Jutaar?' asked Noran as he let himself out of the saddle with far more grace, tossing the reins to a waiting legionnaire. 'You have been kept busy, I hear.'
'Very,' said Jutaar.
The group walked down the main street of Askhira, heading towards the docks. The town was quiet, a few women and children around to watch the new arrivals, the bulk of the inhabitants at work. Even from this distance the noise of labour was audible. As they crested a rise, Ullsaard stopped and the others gathered around him. The harbour was laid out before them, the town sloping gently towards the sea.
Set on an inlet of the Nemurian Strait, Askhira followed the shallow coast around the bay, a thin crescent of red-roofed homes and wooden-beamed warehouses. Warmed by the hotward winds blowing up the Maasran Gulf, Askhira was hot and humid, prone to summer storms that were violent but brief. Even in winter the coast was pleasantly mild and two rearing headlands provided natural shelter for ships. To coldwards the land rose swiftly into the foothills of the Askhinia Mountains, the hotwards range bordering the home of the empire. The hills had once been solid with forests, but centuries of shipbuilding and timber export had cut a large swathe through the trees, visible as a pale scar amongst the dark green, stretching out of sight into the distance.
The sky was clear and Jutaar could see out across the straits, to a dark blotch where sea met sky. That way lay the islands of Nemuria, a chain of active volcanoes that smudged the air with their fumes. When he had first arrived, Jutaar had taken a ship out into the straits to see the islands. By old agreement, no ship approached within a mile of those islands without permission, so Jutaar had tried his best to peer through the smog and gloom to see the lands of the Nemurians. They reared out of the water with high cliffs and steep, ash-wreathed shores. Through breaks in the cloud he had seen huge edifices of black granite standing high above yellow-leafed trees, and thought he glimpsed flashes of red and orange at the tips of the peaks.
The wind, treacherous around Nemuria, had turned foul and forced the ship's captain to tack back lest he break the one-mile limit. Nobody was sure what the penalty would be for breaking the convention, but Jutaar would be the first to admit he did not want to find out the hard way. Little was known of the Nemurians, least of all their numbers, and it was regarded by all to be a good thing that they seemed content to remain on their islands and only came to the mainland to work as mercenaries. Nothing had been seen of them since Nemtun had dismissed his corps of five thousand — even Maasra, their home away from home, was empty of the non-humans. The prevailing wisdom was that the Nemurians were waiting to see who ended up running the empire before they got involved again.
That had been Jutaar's first and last sight of Nemuria, but each time he gazed across the strait, he wondered what else might be seen in that patch of grey.
'You said you had trouble elsewhere?' Jutaar said, tearing his eyes away from the mysterious islands.
'In Parmia and Narun, mostly,' replied Noran. Ullsaard was still staring across the sea at the pall of smoke. 'A bit of trouble in Geria, but that's to be expected as Nemtun's old capital. Even had a riot in Duuris.'
'What did you do to stop it?' Jutaar asked.
'That, my son,' said Ullsaard, breaking from his entranced state, 'you will see tomorrow.'
Wondering what this might mean, Jutaar led his visitors down into Askhira, to the houses he had occupied on the dockside.
II
It was the fourth hour of Gravewatch and Ullsaard was already awake and eating his breakfast. No doubt roused by the commotion of the servants preparing the meal, Jutaar wandered into the small dining room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, clad in a robe hastily belted.
'You should have warned me it would be an early start,' said Jutaar, sitting to his father's left and reaching for a jug of fruit juice. 'I would have had the servants wake me properly.'
'Early start?' Ullsaard laughed. 'You should feel lucky that you're not Anasind. He's been working all night. If you're quick, you can come with me when I join him at Dawnwatch.'
'Working all night? Doing what?'
'Come and have a look,' said Ullsaard.
He led Jutaar to the wide doors leading out onto a veranda overlooking the harbour. Throwing open the doors, the general stepped outside, his son just behind. The air was cool but not cold, dawn struggling to break through the clouds of Nemuria. Ullsaard waved a hand towards the town below. Bearing lanterns and torches, legionnaires were moving through Askhira from its hotwards tip along the harbour, spreading through the city like runnels of flickering light. There was a greater glow around the three-tiered ziggurat of Askhira's precinct building.
Despite this nocturnal activity, the town was quiet, a sea breeze sighing over the rooftops.
'What are they doing?' asked Jutaar.
'Looking for the Brotherhood, of course,' replied Ullsaard. 'We did the same in Parmia, Narun, Lepriin, and half a dozen other places. You'd be surprised by the number of them that kept their robes in a chest or under the bed. We've found silver masks on mantels and Brotherhood scrolls in drawers.'
'You're searching the whole town?' Jutaar leaned over the rail of the veranda and peered into the streets below. 'That's why you brought the Thirteenth?'
'I've got legions spread across all of Greater Askhor keeping a watch for trouble. Donar has the Fifth in Narun, Jutiil's in Parmia, Luamid had the Sixteenth in Geria, plus the two new Magilnadan legions are keeping an eye on things in Ersua and Okhar. Just a precaution.'
