The Blood of Ancestors

[StaolDerg]

From the day that he had been born, he had been third. Third in line for the attention of his friends, family, and peers, so he was always left out, and third to inherit the belongings of his favored siblings, so the clothes he wore were always too big and filled with holes. He’d had to hack and fight his way to the top, dropping out from school to take over his father’s small toothpick distribution business. But opportunity had really come when he bought the failed farms of neighbors when a rival tribe had burned down their fields. With a clever nicking of the money his father had set aside for his siblings, he’d bought out the debts of those farmers, and brought before-then unimaginable wealth to himself as the money of those farmers began to trickle into his pocket.

And oh, how clever he was, setting up that brewery and tavern nearby. Those peasants would stagger in after a day of work, and blow a day’s earnings in a rowdy party at the bar that would last until the morning. When they woke up in the morning, it was straight back to the fields to make up the night before, and they would stagger once more to the tavern at the end of it once more. Each harvest season brought him so much money, but he was different from his siblings! He could resist greed, unlike them, and he was careful, hiring thugs to make sure those suckers always paid up on time, stoking ethnic relations so they could never organize against him, and favoring just a couple few over others.

Bit by bit, stone by stone, he’d made himself the baron of Pozhal province. He’d moved out of the small Pozhal house he’d grown up in to a nicer estate far from Pozhal itself, and his own siblings had come to grovel at his feet in the marble floors of his new Governor’s Manor, themselves destitute and begging for help from him. It was only fitting that he could look up now and see them in the hallways now and then, mopping his floors.

Revenge was so, so sweet.

It had only taken a few purses of Rand in the right hands, a few bullets in the right people, and he now sat here as Pozhal’s governor of now eighteen years. The local Sanshan ethnicity- supposedly descendants of the strange lizard people up north- had been less than welcoming to his tenure, but he’d answered the first angry mobs with a little sprinkling of gunpowder, and then some. It had only cost a few thousand Rand in order to convince an army colonel to station their troops in his province, after all.

He really didn’t understand them. If anything, they seemed strange and craven: they didn’t stick to race or ethnicity. Instead there was some bizarre system of tattoos on their bodies that denoted them as part of one communal group or another, and the moment someone changed their tattoo to another group’s, they were shunned by most of their former peers. It had taken much getting used to, but there was a sense of pride within him that he’d still managed to pacify them, despite tearing off the strange old privileges they’d been granted under the last Governor.

As Governor Umaru leaned back in his seat, his mind wandered to the political situation. To him, the war with the Tafatu had little concern, at least for the moment. The UST Army was mighty by its size alone, and he had little doubt that the rebellion would soon be quelled. If anything, it was good business- he could mass-export the goods produced in his province out to the ailing provinces at a significant markup, receiving a wonderful fifty percent cut of the profit.

He reached for his cup, and upon finding that his wine was already gone, he leaned over to a bell pull and rang it.

It was hardly a moment before a servant quickly arrived, and seeing the Governor expectantly raising the glass at them, quickly bowed and hurried off.

His mind was still wandering when he heard footsteps quickly return towards his office less than a minute later.

“Finally,” he began dismissively, turning back towards the door. “Took you long-”

An officer in the uniform of the UST had marched in with a sealed dispatch, and as they approached the mahogany desk, they reached their arm out, offering the letter to the Governor.

“News for you, sir.”

Umaru guffawed at the paper and slightly recoiled, as if it were some kind of repulsive bug. “What- do I look like a general to you? Does this place look like the north? Take this to your officer- no, give me your name! I will speak to your superior concerning your unannounced intrusion into my residence and office, and-!”

The officer was unfazed. “No, Governor Umaru. If anything, I am surprised by your attitude towards the situation, given the information I have concerns the activities of a revolt in Pozhal.”

“Just the city? I assigned a colonel to watch over that, there’s no reason-”

“If you mean the city’s guard, they were routed eight days ago by rebels. It falls to you as Governor of Pozhal to take action and reassume order in the face of the Tafatu situation up north. This letter has the details, delegated by the government.”

Umaru snatched the letter and tore it open, reading furiously.

“Assistance from the central army is limited?!” He cried. “It’s their job! Are a couple of rebels so hard to defeat?”

The officer shook his head. “The situation is complicated, sir-”

“My arse it is!” The governor jabbed a finger at the door. “Get out! Guards!”

As his absent guards suddenly hurried over to escort the officer out, visibly inebriated, the Governor turned back to his desk and began reaching for his pen and stationery.

“I have to do everything around here,” he growled. “Buffoons. So be it. I’ll show them how to deal with a bunch of lousy rebels!”

[StaolDerg]

The Tafatu war had been excellent for business. It was amazing how much starving people would pay for an ounce of grain, and how willing to beg an army quartermaster would be if you presented a crate of bullets to them- even if the contents were mostly just sand.

Ousta’s gang for one had made good money this season. The Bianjing people were wonderfully cooperative once more this year, and it was truly amazing how a completely unrelated baker would run out and hurl their life’s savings into his gang’s bags just to spare an indebted farmer a beating. A steady supply of good wine to the district tax collector supervisor had also done a great deed in giving them a bigger cut of the money, even if the whole arrangement was simply draining the pockets of the locals a dozen times more. As his bandits cleaned their weapons and dined on fine meals sourced from the local restaurants, Ousta himself smiled at the narrow streets below, watching the people stroll by the tax collection office- his headquarters.

The attention of the gang was diverted by the gong of the settlement’s clock, signaling the midday.

He hoisted himself up from the window and stretched. “Look alive, everyone!” He called out. “It’s time to go to work!”

With a clamor of excitement, Ousta's gang fixed the bronze badges affixed to their unkempt uniforms, and rose up from their seats. First was the batons that they slipped onto belts, followed by various handguns that they stuffed into holsters, and bandoliers that hung from their shoulders in long belts of individual cartridges barely held by tight fabric loops. Rifles were last, but there was no frog for the bayonet- instead, they stuck them upon the lugs, and held them at a ready position, eagerly gathering at the door.

Outside, their commotion had been noticed before they had moved. The streets rapidly cleared in the echo of the gong, dispersing into the alleys, vanishing into buildings. As the posse of tax collectors stepped out with the flashing smile of a piranha, window shutters slammed shut and all but the bold- or foolhardy- remained on the streets.

---

Istal was the name that the UST had given the town when it became part of the Union all those years ago, and indeed, many Bianjingren had taken to calling it that.

An Yu was an exception. He had been born here to a family of eighteen, to a family that owned the restaurant on the floor below him. His hardmark was the same as that of his community- a doe rearing on its hind legs, painted stylistically by his grand-aunt across half of his face with a pigment that had felt like it was burning into his skin.

His community had enjoyed quite generous privileges under the Union for a long time: they were not required to make their children attend Union schools, and so the communities of the region taught their children old Elenrian Tanhua with stories of a vast ancient empires whose roads they still maintained, and whose graves they still cleaned and prayed to. Mathematics were introduced through legends of ancient travelers who were everything from scholars to soldiers, and how their travels gave rise to a mathematical system that was still used to the modern day.

But in the latter years of the nine nineteenth century, The Union began demanding their children attend Union schools, pay higher taxes, and each new governor became worse than the last. To the Union, there was no Bianjing ethnicity- the schools told them they were citizens of the Union, and never once were the legends of the old empire they had been taught mentioned in the sterile language of the lesson instructors.

Worse was the corruption and abject bandity employed by the Governors to line their own pockets: gangs, made up of the greedy and dishonored, and led by little more than crooks armed with a badge and gun had made a lucrative occupation terrorizing Pozhal. Farmers and business owners were presented with an ultimatum: sell their land, with themselves on it, to the Governor at a laughable pittance, or have their business destroyed and burned under the justification that the thugs were searching for anything from contraband to disease. The resisting persons themselves would either die by hanging, or worse- be beaten and tortured before their family to be made an example of.

And so the Bianjingren had become the property of an oligarchy that had not once stepped foot in their lands, but nevertheless delighted themselves on the blood-watered fruits of Pozhal.

Their choke on the region had been contested- almost every single time a new governor took power, in fact. But no matter how many times they threw out the tax collecting bandits and expelled the Union-appointed sheriffs, it seemed to end the same: their blood smeared on the ground of their ancestors, and the boot of Noscovo on their lifeless bodies. And so they had become complacent, defeatist, and many simply gave up on the idea of change.

Not Elenrian.

Not Sanshan.

Not Bianjingren.

Only Citizens of the Union.

[StaolDerg]

An Yu dusted the extra rice flour off his hands and reached back to the blob of dough on the counter before him, kneading and pinching it into long strands, only to fold the noodles back on themselves and do it again.

Around him, oil hissed in the woks, suspended on brick stoves. Flames danced heartily as the cooks smoothly flipped over the food, stirring with an incredibly long pair of chopsticks before finally sliding the meal upon a plate in a single smooth motion.

“An Yu!” He heard one of his young sisters call from the door of the kitchen. “[The Fa’s are over again.]”

He nodded briskly, reaching for more dough. “[I’ll prepare another batch of noodles. Yue- Hey, Yue! Make another pot of the hot and sour soup. Are the guys from the back from the market yet? No? Ok, younger sister! Tell the Fa’s we’re sorry- no bamboo in the sauce at this time, unless they’re willing to wait.]”

Someone shouted from the back of the kitchen, barely over the cacophony of the hissing oil and the metal reports of pans against stove.

“[We will not replace bamboo with carrots. Everyone is sick of carrots. No carrots!]”

He waved to the sister. “[Think that’s all for now. Let me know if they need anything later.]”

He stretched out the noodles a final time and packed it into a bowl, which he passed to another cook- the dough would be pressed into a loom that spread out the dough into even noodle strands in a bowl to be cooked. The Crown washed his hands at the kitchen’s water pump, splashing a bit of water onto his sweating face, and cupped his hands, taking a quick drink of water as the flow ebbed to a stop.

His composure regained, he got up and headed to the storeroom to retrieve some more dried mushrooms. The Fa’s did love their hot and sour soup in the middle of spring, and he wasn’t about to stop them: after all, they were the community’s primary steelmakers, and he’d gotten a wonderful deal for almost thirty brand new pots and pans for the kitchen for the comparatively meager price of letting their household eat at a discount that season. If they wanted their soup, well, they’d get their soup.

He’d hardly delivered the mushrooms to one of the cooks making the soup when he heard a great crash from the direction of the dining area.

For a brief moment, it seemed like the kitchen was unfazed, but then one person froze and looked towards the doorway of the dining room.

The curiosity was infectious. The room followed, and the sizzle of the oil seemed to quiet as motion slowed to a crawl.

Another crash.

An Yu wiped the sweat from his brow. That didn’t sound like a crash. It sounded like…

“[Right, you know what we’re here for! Come one now, don’t be shy!]”

The tax collectors. Restaurant staff looked at one another- why were they here? Usually the deliveries of food and services of their community were enough to placate them from surprise visits- why were they here?

He could hear his sister’s voice pleading with them- they had already done what they were demanded, she didn’t know what they were on about-

An Yu’s brows narrowed, and he stepped forwards towards the doorway.

“[Did you know,]” the tax collector announced in a mocking matter-of–fact voice, “[That there’s a war going on in the North! No, of course you already know. You’ve all been contributing, and we the government appreciate your patriotism! That’s why we’re launching a bond campaign! The army is asking the public to donate for the nation’s cause, to crush those rebels in the north, and to repel those foreign dogs from Franerre and Ashinara!]”

He paused, as if expecting applause or an onrush of eager patriots. When none manifested, he sighed with false disappointment. “[Come on now, don’t be shy.]”

He heard his sister speak up again, this time more clearly, and to his horror, indignantly. “[We’ve already paid our taxes. We make dozens of meals for the army garrison outside the city, and we feed you lot a bunch every single day. Leave us alone.]”

“[Oh…. Oh, I don’t like your attitude, young lady!]”

A crack, a shout of pain, a raucous laughter from the cruel audience that accompanied the collector.

Blood rushed to An Yu’s face. He stepped forwards, but just as he reached the doorway, he felt a tug at his back. He nearly shook off the hand, but as he turned, he saw the flash of a metal blade.

He looked up. One of the cooks, offering him the handle of a paring knife that was still stained with the blood of a pig.

The Crown hesitated, and then took it, slipping it into the back of his robes.

He found his sister on the floor, clutching her cheek, recoiling against the wall in pain- blood dripped from her hands, and as he looked up towards the hand of the man who had done it, he saw blood too dripping from the butt of a handgun.

His clenched his hands.

“[Well! Are you the owner of this fine establishment?]”

“[...I am.]”

“[Then I will kindly extend to you the privilege of setting an example for others. Please, donate.]”

He paused, and he thought of the money they stripped every single month. He thought of the locked doors and closed shutters of the streets whenever the tax collectors came through, and he thought about the soldiers who marched through their city every time they raised so much as a finger towards the treatment of their people, leaving it all aflame and in ruins.

He glanced towards the small puddle of blood on the floor, his sister’s blood, and in that moment, he made up his mind.

“[No.]”

The edge of the tax collector’s smiling mouth twitched, and he stepped forward, and as he did, raising the gun, An Yu’s right hand drifted to his waist.

In an instant, the paring knife was gone from his dress, and instead slashed the neck of the tax collector, drawing a clean slit right across. Both men seemed to stare at the blood as it immediately began to pour, soaking the tax collector’s uniform as he raised his hands to his neck.

The gun loudly clattered to the floor, and his eye twitched.

Someone screamed, and he did not know who. Someone shot, but he did not see who.

And as he raised the knife again, wide-eyed, something in his heart died.

And he no longer felt fear.

[StaolDerg]

Istal’s city court of law was bustling, and not in a good way.

A cordon of deputized citizens, led by the city’s sheriff and aided by a number of Union soldiers had formed around the perimeter of the courthouse, protecting it from the growing mob outside. They were armed with rifles and pistols to homemade spears and knives, trying to ward off the angry crowd with threats that were drowned out in jeers, and found themselves ducking as rotten produce and stones were thrown at them.

Inside was much quieter. The audience was predominantly the tax collector’s surviving posse, whose usual smirks were gone, exchanged for grim, even angry faces. To their opposition on the right side of the room were the defense: a comparatively sparse number of regular citizens- a handful of aldermen and family of the accused, who sat with a seething anger that was thinly veiled behind unsettled looks at the other members of the room.

The bailiff was a Union sergeant of the army, who eyed the defense with a drawn gun at his side as he strolled before the bench, where behind the judge sat- or more accurately, hid from the glares of the seething assembly before him.

“The court is in session,” the judge declared, watching the faces of the gathered before him. He tore his gaze from their eyes to turn to the booth of the accused, where a bloodied human man sat restrained, staring directly at the floor, silent. Fresh blood still stained his clothes, and several untreated wounds- lacerations where he’d been cut, and messy purple splotches where he’d been beaten- were visible on practically any exposed skin. He looked exhausted, quieted.

“Prosecution, state your case.”

Ousta rose to his feet, his face a cold mask. “This man assaulted and murdered one of my deputies in cold blood. I am witness myself, as well as several of my deputies, and I am sure no one in this room will dare to say that we did not see the act.”

“Very well, Officer Ousta. Defense?”

An alderman rose to speak, but a young woman was faster, jabbing a finger towards Ousta . “Your honor, the assault was aggravated. We’ve paid as usual- the fifteenth of Stay- yet they’ve not stopped from showing up in our business, demanding payments for war bonds. And we’ve paid those since the start of the war!” She turned her face, revealing a dark splotch across her face that was only barely covered by the black print of her hardmark.

“When we told them so, that very officer nearly broke my jaw!”

“Rubbish! This was a planned attack- he was hiding a knife behind him and drew it out to stab my subordinate at the first opportunity!”

“He’s the head cook! You thugs kick the door down to the restaurant and are surprised that we use knives to chop food?!”

The alderman who had risen earlier finally pulled the young woman away. “The officers have no right to barge into our establishments without proper notification, nor make sudden changes to the tax code on a whim without so much as prior announcement. This was a right established for the Bianjingren people since the nineteenth-”

“Not relevant to the case!” The Judge boomed, slamming his gavel. “The murder of a government official or deputy is a crime regardless of reason.”

The defense furiously began shouting and made to approach the bench, only to be stopped as the bailiff drew his weapon and pointed it at them.

“I demand order in this court,” the judge shouted, but before he could finish his sentence, one of the windows shattered in a terrific burst of glass shards, showering the carpet in glittering debris and causing the whole room to duck. The jagged breach was like a portal to hell itself outside- the blood-red sunset was penetrated by plumes of smoke rising from behind the roofs of the city.

The judge glanced at the window. He could hear the increasingly furious roar of protestors outside. The edge of his mouth twitched and sweat beaded on his forehead as the voices grew louder, more frenzied- he could see the robes of the populace pushing against the cordon, throwing rocks, their eyes wide like wild animals frothing at the mouth for blood-

“Chai An Yu, you stand accused of murdering an officer of the government and law, Corporal Estria Oloma, a district tax collector, and by doing so, inciting a viollent mob.”

The judge’s voice shook, but whether it was from fear or anger was unclear.

“In the name of public order, and for the good of the Union… I surpass the jury, and sentence you to death.”

“No!”

The cry was furious, pained, coming from the mouth of the accused to those of the defense. They rose once more, but this time the tax collectors of the prosecution stormed forwards and forced them back, wrestling them back as the bailiff swung his aim from person to person.

The judge’s mouth hung slightly agape as he beheld the chaos, and his eyes drifted the struggling man in the box of the accused. In a split second, his mouth contorted into a cruel growl and he raised his gavel.

“Balliff!”

The dull metal of the gun seemed the catch the gas-light of the room as the sergeant turned.

“Give me your weapon!”

There was hardly hesitation in the soldier’s movement as the smooth lacquered wood of the gun’s handle slipped into the shaking hands of the judge.

The soldier turned back to the scuffle between the prosecution and the defense. Perhaps in some recess of his mind he thought the judge meant to fire a warning shot.

Perhaps he already knew what the judge meant to do. It would not matter.

And An Yu, the eldest son born to his family, a man of thirty-four, never saw the hammer of the gun bound forwards into the cylinder.

---

For a brief moment after the gunshot, time seemed to hold still.
The protestors stared at the building, and the cordon of soldiers and police did too.

The sherriff turned towards the crowd. They knew not who had fired, but the dark symbols on the faces of the creatures before them seemed to curl in the light of torches and lamps, like snakes.

Another shot echoed across the square, and someone in his peripheral fell. Was it their own? It did not matter.

“Fire! Return fire!”

Another shot. And another. Something in the sherriff’s mind screamed to hold their hands up and scream at everyone to stop, but as their arm rose, they only beheld the rights of their revolver.

In a terrific fusillade of gunfire, screams echoed gunshots as people fell to the floor. Like a tide, the crowd fled back, back to the alleys, back to the smaller streets, and the bullets of the horrible guns followed them.

But like the tide, the wave of the people slowed and reversed, and with a dreadful clamor, the waves rushed back towards the shore.