FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Posted to a colonial outpost, far from home, Jonham Hærex-Sutheray ("Viscount Gyldrane, Heir to the Marquess of Dalchauser") finds himself chained to the duties of his office, when adventures await on the frontier. But the jungle has some rewards for a young noble willing to take them as he desires...

Here's another story set in the same fantasy steampunk universe as "Neither Border, nor Breed, nor Birth," "Storm Warnings" and "All the Happy Saints." It's something like my stab at epic fantasy, with shades of China Miéville because why not. The main character is a young, rash noble in over his head in a foreign country which makes demands of him, and leads him to make demands in turn (alt desc "You got epic fantasy in my D/S!" "You got D/S in my epic fantasy!"). This is the first chapter of a series, presuming you guys bite. Thanks to Spudz as always for beating this one into shape.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

The Road to Mandalay, by Rob Baird -- Chapter 1, "Fortune, turn thy wheel"

---

From the shadow of my gleaming prison, I watched the caravan lurching off down the gritty road with something close to heartbreak. It was a regular visit, and unremarkable. The mule-driver was a low-class bear, well below my station and breeding, and I have never felt as powerless as in those moments when I watched him depart to freedom.

"Kajja Jonham?"

I sighed, and turned to the speaker. My Jaikotan counterpart wore his uniform with somewhat more gravity than I did, and therefore seemed far more presentable. He was a funny looking thing, neither canine nor feline nor anything else that I could tell. 'Mongoose,' my departing predecessor had called him. That was the first problem with the damned shishis. The mule-driver was a bear. My king was a stag. I was a Border collie, of impeccable lineage. By the gods, what was a mongoose? "Yes?"

"You are ready to continue, kajja?"

I grimaced. "What pressing matter requires my attention? Refresh my memory, Mr. Raiza."

The mongoose flicked short ears, and glanced down at the stack of papers at his desk. "The merchant's guild would like to install a new weighing station. To finance it, they propose to increase the toll on the road to Fort Shandur from three and one half percent to three and three quarters percent for six months, inclusive of the current month, with..."

My mind wandered over the remainder of the explanation, and I finally waved a paw to cut Raiza Serapuri off. "Why do they want the new station?"

"Upgrading the station at the serai will allow them to process more of the cotton from the plantations to the east, I believe. They claim that we are overloaded, that the waiting time is too long, and that much of the plantations' wealth goes south, to Barasit-Rai or Khiyura."

"Khiyura is a slum, and their serai is a hovel," I grumbled.

Raiza smiled a tranquil smile. "Then perhaps they do not have such long waiting times, kajja."

If I squinted, I figured I could still make out the dust cloud of the departing caravan, my last link to home for gods only knew how long. The afternoon heat stabbed into my temples, and I finally shut my eyes against both sun and road. "The drivers will hate any increase in the toll, no matter how temporary. The guild has been able to make do with the current scales. They may as well continue."

"Reth Kanda is a powerful man, kajja Jonham, of a good caste. His shekh ruled in Barasit-Rai for six generations before your rifles deposed them. And the Rethaya have the ear of the Atta-Farashi and the Mazareenhalaya. Through them the founder's guild, and --"

"Raiza," I pleaded. "It's too damned hot to think about this."

"Shall I have the attendant bring you some tea, kajja?"

I gritted my teeth. "Hot, Raiza. It's too. Bloody. Hot. What the hell would tea help?"

"It is how we deal with the heat, _kajja_Jonham, those of us who choose to live here..."

I was biting my tongue against what I wanted to say. I wanted to say: I am not Kajja Jonham_, you impudent fool. I am Jonham Becynari Hærex-Sutheray, Viscount Gyldrane, heir to the Marquess of Dalchauser, and I did not_ choose to be here. So fuck your miserable climate, fuck your miserable town, fuck your tea, and fuck you, you smirking shishi bastard. But this would not have helped matters, and most of it was the heat talking. Raiza Serapuri was not a bad man.

So instead, taking a deep breath, I forced myself to the composure we of noble standing must retain at such times. "Mr. Raiza, I am done for the day. We can reconvene tomorrow."

"Of course."

My house stood at the opposite end of a verdant park from the colonial administration building. The park was shaded by tall, ancient trees, and flanked by stone canals that would've seemed quaint if not for the reek of excrement. Few in Jaikot had plumbing, but it was the peasant castes who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in forcing their betters to confront the consequences.

I did not want to walk the length of the park. But nor did I want to wait in the broiling, humid sun for a rickshaw, and the stroll was the lesser of the possible offenses to my body. At least it was a few degrees cooler, in the shade.

The shishis were, to my way of thinking, slow to civilization. Once upon a time, when we all lived in mud huts, the huts of the Dhamishaya Bhiranate were the grandest of all on this continent. The difference was that in my hometown of Chauserlin, we had since discovered the joys of gas lighting, and paved streets, and the steam engine. And they had not. And then there had come the war, and this had done them no favors.

Officially the war had begun not because we Aernians craved the cotton and mineral wealth of the Ajirandigarh river valley, but because the Dhamishaya Bhiranate had moved to attack our trading outposts on the coast. Officially it had ended not because every battle turned into a massacre but because of a popular revolt demanding that the realm be taken under the protective wing of the Iron Kingdom. Officially we were not occupiers, but merely stewards. Officially I was there to help. And sometimes I wondered if the last bhiran had really believed that the conquest of her people would enlighten them.

No, I rather thought not. The shishis were primitive, but not stupid.

I was a quarter of the way through the park when it began. A short-muzzled woman, clad in robes that hid her figure, slunk up to me and inclined her head. "Kajja Jonum," she mangled my name. "Please, kajja."

I turned to look at her, although I didn't stop walking. "Yes?"

"My son... very ill..."

There it was. These conversations were never ones of pleasantry and smalltalk. I looked at the woman again. Her clothes were worn, and even when new they had been the mark of low caste. "I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not a healer. Take him to the doctor."

"Yes, but... the doctor... he not treat him. I have no money... but..."

But, she was saying, if the Colonial Governor intervened, oh great kajjajonum_, they would have no choice_... "The office is closed today. Come by tomorrow and speak to me or Native Liaison Raiza."

"But --"

"Come by tomorrow," I repeated sharply, "and speak to us then. The office is closed."

Raising my voice had alerted the others to my presence, and now they appeared in great quantity. Someone was sick. Someone's fields had failed, or burned. Someone had been robbed. Someone wanted to go school in the next town over. Someone's business license was being held up in the bureaucracy. Someone was dying.

Someone was always dying. Dying and shitting in the canals, that was what the shishis were good at.

I pushed through the crowd, and slipped between the bronze gates of my residential compound. Krad Galit, an ancient tiger with clouded eyes, closed it behind me. "Welcome back, kajja."

"Thank you, Galit."

"Kajja, do you desire something to drink?"

I was already unbuttoning my shirt -- a rather fetching garment, I suppose, but too heavy for the tropics. Nobody but Galit would have to look at me, anyway. "A glass of alat, cold, and a cup of water."

"Shishi, kajja," he bowed, and made himself scarce. The word meant something like 'very well' with a side of 'thine honored command is heard and obeyed,' and whether an Aernian had first demanded it or a Dhamishi had first offered, it was the most common thing one heard around the province.

I tossed the shirt onto the coatrack, and made my way into the den, dropping heavily into an overstuffed chair. The chair was from Inverbar, and had come down from Aernia by way of steamer, and caravan, and finally no doubt a team of panting Jaikotan roustabouts. It had belonged to my predecessor, but I kept it because it reminded me of home. Home, where my family and future lay, and where it was twenty degrees colder. We of the border highlands, with our thick fur coats and penchant for heavy clothes, were never meant to venture this far south.

Of course, governorship of Nishran Province, with its capital at Jaikot, had not been my idea, and was not intended as an honorific assignment. It was the kind of assignment one acquires when one's family has fallen out of favor in the courts of Tabisthalia. The kind of assignment where one is expected to languish, and to suffer, and at length to beg simpering forgiveness from the Lodestone Sovereign, that blithering idiot Chatherral the Fourth. My father had yet to do that on my behalf.

The details of the politics escaped me. It was not anything that I had done, nor anything my father had done. The best explanation I had heard was that my sister had rejected the advances of someone with their fingers on the reins of power. Perhaps even Ithil Carregan, next in line to take over as head of the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad. They said that Tokeli Carregan shared more than the king's friendship, and if Anira had spurned her son...

Well. If that had happened, then good for my sister. She was not raised to be a commoner's bitch, even a wealthy one. Pfah. Carregans. Glorified engineers and merchants, the lot of them, with no nobility in their bloodline. I'd seen Tokeli's eldest daughter, and a whore of her countenance would go to bed hungry.

"Kajja Jonham," Galit said. I looked up to find the tiger bearing a silver platter; catching my gaze, he leaned down so that I could take the two glasses. Alat was a Jaikotan delicacy, a chilled drink of coconut milk and what, when made for the Colonial Governor, was very fine rum.

Water was even more precious, in those dreadful afternoons, and I promptly dumped the glass all over myself. "Galit?" I asked, with my fuzzy ears plastered to my head.

He remained perfectly impassive. "Yes, kajja?"

"Kindly inform all visitors that I am indisposed and not accepting company."

He inclined his aged head. "Shishi, kajja."

"If they persist, tell them I'll have them thrown in prison."

"Shishi, kajja."

The water dribbled into my eyes, and gave me a good excuse to close them. "I shall have dinner brought to me between seven and eight this evening. That is all, Galit."

"Shishi, kajja," he intoned again, and disappeared once more.

Eyes still closed, I brought the glass of alat to my muzzle and took a drink. It was sweet, and wonderfully chilling. Galit was good to me -- he had come with the residence, and in the event that I was finally transferred away, he would be one of the few things I missed about it.

Maybe the alat, too. I hated to think that I was going native, but you can trust just about any old shishi to make a good one -- though Galit's was better than most -- and I preferred it to Aernian whiskey. Another sip, and I was beginning to feel more charitable about things.

There were, after all, certain upsides to consider. Nishran, which encompassed the source of the river Ajirandigarh and the surrounding farms and jungles, was a frontier province. Frontier provinces meant fighting, and fighting meant a house that knew how to spill blood. My homeland faced the forest savages to the south, and the wasteland riders to the east -- those same riders whose scalps the railroad now offered blood money for. But Hærexes had held the Dalchauser Pale against them since before the first Lodestone Sovereign ever came to power -- none of the petty thanes that squabbled over Carregan's scraps could claim that.

And before my mother was Marchioness of Dalchauser, Lady Corys Sutheray had led a troop of royal lancers. The story, which she would not confirm to me except by way of a wry smile, went that it was my mother who first sought my father -- and that she killed another woman in a duel over the chance to woo him. Not the sort of demure courtship that plays well in the salons and quiet gardens of Tabisthalia, I suppose -- but so it always is with people of the Marches.

And so it always is that, look down on them or not, the people of the Marches can be counted upon to hold the border-line. The Nishran pickets had not been challenged for six months, but raiders would appear. They always did. In the heyday of the Bhiranate, the Dhamishi had kept a dozen minor kingdoms at heel. Now they were a slowly dying people, and their former subjects had become scavengers -- gathering close, licking their chops and picking hungrily at the corpse of an empire.

It was not exactly the role of the Colonial Governor to keep the shishis safe. It was, however, his responsibility to keep the supplies of cotton and rice flowing, and that meant leaving enough people to tend the fields. I had two companies of men at my command -- at least in theory. In practice there were only a dozen Aernians between them, with the balance made of native auxiliaries. Unless my tactics relied heavily on incompetency and retreating, I could not count on them for much.

But it was a command, and when I returned to Aernia I could at least say that I had been a leader of men.

I was not, unlike Raiza Serapuri, a bureaucrat. He was dedicated to this function; he arrived at the office before I did, and left after. It was therefore no surprise that, one morning a week later, I entered to find him already hard at what passed for work: he had a heavy book open, and his sharp-clawed fingers traced over the script within. He looked up, and nodded respectfully. "Good morning, kajja."

"Good morning. What's on the agenda?"

"The town guards have petitioned that they each be provided with a weapon. I've been going over the books, and we can spare the money, of course -- it's probably a wise investment, kajja Jonham."

I took the seat behind my desk, and rummaged around for my pen to take some notes. The desk, like the chair in my den, was ornate and hailed from the Iron Kingdom -- lending a touch of wholly unwarranted class to the office. "How much?" I asked, distracted by the search.

"Ten aram a head."

"Ten aram? Sruvari hisha bashrat," I grunted. It was some of the only Dhamishi I knew, and described an obscene act of low anatomical probability. "Tell Captain Vanao I could buy weapons off the next Ellagdran caravan for half an aram a head, and still -- damn it, have you seen my pen? -- still have change for an hour with his daughter."

"It may have rolled from your desk, kajja Jonham."

I glanced underneath the thick teak desk, rolled my eyes, and leaned down to retrieve the wayward pen. "Thank you."

"Of course, kajja. Kajja, I believe they desired muskets, not used pikes from an Ellagdran boot camp."

Tapping the pen against my finger to get the ink flowing, I looked over to Raiza with a raised eyebrow. "What for?"

"There are rumors that the mountain dwellers grow restless. The last Ellagdran caravan was guarded by thirty riflemen, and they bore the markings of the Tausrun royal house."

Beyond the jungles, the sharp mountains that arced southwards from the Spine of the World rose to shield us from the desert wastes beyond. The passes were notoriously rough -- they were also sixty leagues away. "Fort Shandur watches the mountains, Mr. Raiza, not us." That picket was my responsibility also, and I was not particularly worried about these new rumors. For months the guns at Shandur had been blissfully idle.

"Fort Shandur is four days' ride at least for the dragoons," Raiza countered. "And that presumes they could move from the fort immediately."

True enough. But still: "Mr. Raiza, if the mountain folk move on Jaikot and the men of Fort Shandur cannot stop them, the town guard here will be too busy shitting their pants to raise a musket in our defense. They're entertaining fantasies if they think themselves soldiers."

"Well..."

"Let me guess, Mr. Raiza. Captain Vanao has the ear of important men. Shekh Vanao is allying with the warrior castes of shekh Akal, and the Vanaori and Akalaya plan to challenge the dominance of shekh Who-gives-a-toss." I had heard some variant of this so often it was impossible to keep the sarcasm from dripping thickly off each word. "The Colonial Governor must be ready to take sides in this thrilling and important power struggle, for Jaikot hangs in the balance."

The mongoose shifted uncomfortably, and looked down at the book he had been reviewing. "May I speak freely, kajja gavanar kuluniyan Jonham?"

I twirled the pen between my white fingers, narrowing eyes at him. "Out with it."

"The harvest this year was... meager, and the expectations of your government were not. And you asked us to plant many of the fields in cotton instead of food crops."

"You're saying the people are hungry?"

"There was very nearly a riot at the granary last week. There will be more. The peasants know hunger -- they can smell their starvation coming, kajja. Unless we buy food to make up the difference, or cut the exports, the markets will be empty before winter is half gone."

I was mostly ambivalent to the plight of the shishis, but I didn't have any particular desire to see them suffer. Nor did I have any desire to have to put down riots, which would reflect poorly on my stewardship. "And we have the money?"

"Yes."

I sighed. Well, what else was I going to do with it? "Tell Captain Vanao he can have his muskets, and order him to put another fifty men under arms. Officially for defense against the mountain folk, of course."

"Of course," Raiza said, and scratched something in his native script into the book. "Fifty more guards?"

"Fifty more muskets to face down a crowd of starving people, yes," I said. "And fifty more men drawing a salary."

All I had to do was to keep the peace, and maintain something like the status quo. There was no great reward in doing well. If riots broke out, and the town guard suppressed them with gunfire, then I would be the Butcher of Jaikot, and castigated by the busybodies in the Aernian press. If I purchased more grain, or cut the quotas, well, nobody would cheerily remark: "Hey, it's the man who ensured that slightly fewer peasants starved than the statistical average."

A knock at the door, several hours later, provided a welcome interruption from reviewing the laws to which I was supposed to grant the provisional assent of King Chatherral. When opened, the door admitted a lean feline with glinting eyes and dark spots marking his golden coat. I was getting better at recognizing men of high caste. "Kajja Jonham; kajja Raiza. Sahasnam." He nodded once to each of us in turn.

"Sahasnam. What brings shekh Rethaya to the office of the colonial government?" Raiza Serapuri asked -- in Aernian, for my benefit.

"I... desire to follow a line of inquiry raised to the office," the leopard said. "Which the office seems to have seen fit to ignore." He was not nearly as obsequious as most of the shishi beggars who came by. I liked him.

"You're Reth Kanda," I suggested.

"I am."

"How may I be of service to you?"

"I would not know," Reth Kanda said, "for you never have been before. My shekh maintains the operation of the serai and all caravan traffic in the city. We have done so for many years. My caste is now the elected head of the Jaikot merchant's guild -- when we prosper, kajja Jonham, all prosper. So why would you deny us our prosperity?"

I shook my head. "The proposal that came to my desk was an increase in the fare from here to Shandur. The drivers complain they're paying too much already. I'll try to budget for a new station in next year's expenses -- but you can't really expect the tolls to cover an expansion of your depots and weigh stations. You're suggesting that the drivers subsidize their competition. You can't ask that."

"I can ask whatever I like."

"Watch yourself," Raiza cautioned him. "You're speaking to your betters."

"You would have experience in that, wouldn't you?" Kanda asked, acidly. "Unlike the Raizari, shekh Rethaya do not play as housepets to anyone." The leopard looked back to me. "The guild and the serai have paid more than their share in taxes, kajja, and seen precious little for their money. Where does it go?"

"Our budgets are not for your review, Kanda. I said I'll try to make room for it next year. We have too many other things on our plate now. I understand your concerns, and I share them, but --"

"Your concerns will not lay a single brick," he hissed.

Raiza drew himself up, and raised his voice. "You're speaking to the Royal Governor, Reth Kanda. Show some --"

"Respect? Careful, gunda shali, mention 'respect' again and you might start to remember that we were great, once. I don't have time for your sniveling."

I liked him, yes. I liked his boldness -- but boldness has limits, and it wouldn't do to let him get away with that. I stood, and thumped my paws heavily on the desk to draw the leopard's attention. "Then ignore him, and listen to me instead," I said, curling my lip to hint at a snarl. "I don't care about your past, Kanda. You lost. This city belongs to me. Your serai belongs to me. The Guard belongs to me. You belong to me, and if you think you do not, your head is not so big Captain Vanao cannot find a rope to fit around it. Now. Begin this conversation again, in a way appropriate to your station, Dhamishi -- or I will begin it in a way appropriate to mine." The ceremonial saber that marked my office lay propped against the side of the desk, and I rested my paw on its hilt for emphasis.

His golden eyes met my own, glanced to the weapon, and then returned to me. My mother taught her children how to hold an unflinching glare not long after she taught them how to hold a sword. I did not waver, and after a minute Reth Kanda took a deep breath, and looked downwards. "Kajja Jonham, I wished to inquire about the future of the improvements to the town's serai. If I could trouble you for that information."

"It's important, of course. Unfortunately, Kanda, we don't have money in the budget at present, and your proposal requires time for study -- which I do not have."

He looked up again, discovered that I was still glaring, and flattened his ears. "You're a busy man, I'm sure, kajja. And troubled. Perhaps shekh Rethaya could... alleviate some of this." He reached into his robes, and produced a cloth pouch. It jingled in his grasp, and settled with satisfying weight when he set it upon the desk. "To pay the salary of an assistant, or... to soothe other concerns in your life..."

I allowed the glare to ease, and sat back down in my chair, nodding thoughtfully. "Perhaps. I think this should be sufficient to enable me to give your proposal the consideration it most assuredly deserves. Was that so difficult? I believe not..." I smiled the sort of smile one can manage, from a position of power -- the kind of smile a recipient bears through gritted teeth, and knows they have no choice but to pretend is genuine. "Please give my regards to the guild, Kanda."

"Of course. Thank you for your time, kajja Jonham; Raiza."

"Kajja Raiza," I corrected.

He gritted his teeth, and bowed a fraction of a degree. "Kajja Raiza," he could not help growling a bitter emphasis on the first word. Then he turned on his heel, and strode from the office.

The pouch was heavy with the bronze coins of the province. I counted out enough of them to guess the value, and snorted my laughter. Raiza Serapuri raised his head. "He'll remember that, you know..."

"As if I care? He came with the money, Mr. Raiza; he knew what was expected of him. What does gunda shali mean?"

Raiza's ears twitched. "It's an epithet. A reference to our supposed dwelling-place -- one of the words is a euphemism for, ah... waste."

"I see."

The mongoose wore his ordinary, unshakeable smile. "Raizari belonged mostly to the lowest castes when you conquered us, kajja. You realized early the value in making an ally of downtrodden families. We owe you now -- if you were to leave, we would be... set upon."

"Politics," I sneered. "I could never play that game."

"You bluffed well enough with the sword."

I leaned over to take the saber, feeling its comforting weight in my grasp. The hilt was carved ornately, with the emblem of the royal family on one side and my own coat of arms on the other. The blade, though... some, in the King's Own Service, had decorated blades, as well -- intricately detailed works of art. I had seen swords that told the entire history of a house; swords whose carvings could've hung in any museum.

This was not one of those. I drew it from the scabbard far enough to reveal the metal for Raiza's benefit. Steel worked by the finest smiths in Inverbar greeted me with a dull, slate gleam. From across the room he could not see the subtle, liquid ripples that ran down its sides; he could not see how it came to an edge of infinitesimal thinness. And he could not see the tiny marks where it had been sharpened -- for it had needed sharpening, once before.

"I was not bluffing," I said, and replaced the saber before cracking my knuckles. The sound caught Raiza's attention, and I carefully tossed him the heavy bag of coins. "Tally these and have them added to the royal account for the city."

"Very well. What's your cut?"

I folded my paws together, and relaxed into my chair, staring at the door through which Reth Kanda had passed. "I don't have one. You should know that by now."

The mongoose dumped the coins onto his desk, and shook his head at the glittering metal. "You must take something out of this. Amra is expected -- it's why Kanda gave it to you. A personal gift from the Rethaya. Why else would anyone go into civil service? What do you get from it?"

Amra was something close to an institution among the shishis. Raiza Serapuri had said it meant 'extra'; Galit told me something closer to 'help.' Nothing happened in the province -- nothing happened in all of Dhamishaya -- without a few coins attached to the forms. This was amra juna. There was also amra hagha, which meant the exchange of favors, and amra pura, which was tied to family in some fashion, and probably dozens of others.

All of them, really, meant the same thing, which grated somewhat on my sensibilities. "It's not about me. I didn't ask to be posted to your miserable little city, Mr. Raiza. It's about my house, and the Iron Kingdom, at whose pleasure I serve. For now."

Raiza nodded, although I noticed that he pocketed a few of the coins as he tallied them. "Still, kajja, you're entitled to it. You should make better use of your position. Your kingdom doesn't care about you. All this gold that filters through your office..." He smiled again. "You should borrow some of its energy, like a river spins a waterwheel. It's good for the wheel, and easy for the river..."

"Just tally the money, Raiza."

"Shishi, kajja."

I respected Raiza's talents as an administrator, and from his perspective he was right enough. They were all corrupt, the shishis, and all seemed to adopt corruption as a matter of course. For me, it was not that I had no use for money -- but there was little to be gained from skimming off the local industries. I took their bribes, of course; they expected me to do so, and it was good to preserve the expectation that I could simply take what I desired -- but it went into an account in the governorship's name, and I used it to cover expenses I had not planned for. Like firearms for the town guard.

At least the day had felt productive enough. Three laws approved, the business with the town guard, making Reth Kanda happy, and a dozen business licenses. The days came in ups and downs; tomorrow, it was possible I would accomplish absolutely nothing. Such was the life of a colonial governor.

That was how I explained it to Krad Galit that night at dinner. He had prepared one of my favorite meals, a beef dish that was not as painfully spicy as much of what the shishi ate. Savoring a bite, I swallowed and finally responded to the question he had asked. "It was alright. We got a lot done. With... few issues."

"You enjoyed your job today, then, kajja?"

I furrowed my brow. "I'm not certain I'd go that far. It was less frustrating than usual. Yesterday we did nothing at all. Normally we process business licenses, or civil matters. Yesterday nobody's paperwork was in order when they came to see us."

The old tiger nodded his big head slowly. The cup of water looked tiny in his paw, and he sipped at it as delicately as an Aernian princess. "I thought that in such cases, it was customary to provide some money to smooth the process."

Almost nothing in Jaikot could not be solved without a bribe of some fashion or another. "What do you think I meant when I said their paperwork was not in order?"

"I see." Galit spooned some more rice onto his plate, deep in thought. "Kajja Jonham, what would make your job more suitable for you? What do you want?"

"Galit," I sighed heavily. "I want to go home. I'm tired of this country."

"You want to be holding that sword of yours again. Riding into battle, with the sound of cannon fire..."

This was, after all, what my people did best. We're too rough-edged for polite company, we of the Marches. "Yes."

"The heat of the jungle does no favors to the hot-blooded, kajja."

Snorting, I cocked an eyebrow at the impudence of the suggestion. "You're calling me hot-blooded?"

His look was grandfatherly; his eyes soft. "I'm calling you young, kajja Jonham. How old were you when they gave you this posting? Eighteen? Nineteen?"

"Twenty-three." And a bit of change, but not enough to matter.

"Too young for a wild pup like you to be chained here."

I had already eaten my fill, but I picked at some of the beef to avoid answering. My heavy sigh probably said enough, for, his point made, he took another bite of his own dinner. "I feel sometimes as though I am drowning, in a river unfamiliar to me. Too deep, too fast; too unknown. This place... the corruption, the heat, the endless stream of problems. I'm not making it any better -- the only thing I've done is I haven't made it any worse. I don't care about Nishran. I don't care about amra. I'm a soldier, Galit, like you said; I'm not cut out for this."

"You're doing the best you can, surely, kajja."

"I like to think that, but I also... I sometimes..." I trailed off. But Galit was the only person around to here, and Galit was not the type to tell others. "I feel sometimes that the people here deserve someone better than a... a wild pup. Instead they have me, and I don't even want to be here."

"Perhaps you should leave, then."

"If only it were that simple..."

The tiger smiled his understanding. "Then perhaps," he said, "you should have some more alat instead."

Although Raiza was my official partner, Galit was the closest thing I had to a confidant. So it was that, some weeks later, I felt a little sorry for the burden I was always laying on him when his morning greeting was a muted. "I am not... feeling as I should today, kajja Jonham. My apologies."

"It's fine," I waved my paw. It was, of course; Galit deserved any sympathies or assistance I could offer him. "Do you need to see a doctor?"

"No, kajja," he said -- but I could see that he was leaning on the wall for support, which I'd never seen him do before. He worked quite hard, and I figured that I could do without him for a day.

"Go see one. And if they ask for payment, tell them to bill me -- or consider that you are my trusted servant and advisor, and they would do well to recall that." That was a bit of amra, perhaps, but I was using it for a good cause.

Galit smiled softly, and dipped his massive head. "Shishi, kajja."

I was feeling rather good about myself and this little bit of charity, which meant, of course, that my mood needed to be spoiled. It was, indeed, spoiled as soon as I walked through the door and into the office. Raiza Serapuri didn't speak -- just gestured with his paw towards the private meeting room.

In it I found a stout badger, who was wearing the cloak of a royal messenger. He did not seem particularly dirtied, so I gathered he had been conveyed in some fashion from the coast, probably as a passenger in a stagecoach. So many of my countrymen are rather soft.

When I entered, he turned to greet me, and then stood, bowing in deference. "Lord Gyldrane, Royal Governor of the Nishran Frontier Province?"

"Yes." My voice was flat; visits from the king's messengers were rarely positive.

"Arlen Couthraghn -- I was sent on the order of Lord Rudkirk. A friend of your father, I believe."

That much was true; the Duke of Rudkirk was, among his many foibles, certainly at least a friend of my father's. A little skeptically, I took a seat, and indicated that he should do the same. "News from Tabisthalia?"

"Yes," Arlen nodded. "Though I can't guarantee its currency. I left a fortnight ago, and under cover of darkness. Lord Rudkirk, and I presume Lord Dalchauser as well, felt you should be forewarned. There are new announcements for the governance of the province."

"I'm being recalled?"

"No. They're happy with the job you've done, in the court -- cotton exports are up twenty percent in the last three years, and the tax revenues are making King Chattheral quite pleased. They say your name is on his tongue, Lord Gyldrane; that's a rare honor, particularly for one so young -- and from such a family."

I let the slight go past in favor of directness. "Then what?"

"The civil government is to remain unchanged; nor will your duties be amended. But it seems that the Carregan Transcontinental Railroad has been granted a royal mandate to serve the Dhamishi provinces. One of their number will be dispatched presently -- they may already be on the way. In all matters pertaining to the railroad, their authority is sovereign, and has implied royal assent."

I had no love for the railroadmen, but if they wanted to waste the iron on the province then who was I to complain? "I appreciate the message, but it's the railroad -- that's to be expected. It's their business, not mine. I don't know anything about the iron lines."

Arlen pressed his stubby fingers together. "Perhaps I was not clear. In all matters, Lord Gyldrane. If they need to raise taxes to fund it, if they need men to protect it; if they need to clear room for the tracks, or a station, or a coaling depot..."

Catching the full import of his words, I narrowed my eyes at the badger. "That's absurd."

"I can scarcely argue, sir."

"I refuse to bow to a railroadman. Nor will I bow to a butcher, or a blacksmith, or a driver of mules, or any other commoner -- no matter how wealthy."

"A worthy sentiment, sir."

He was not telling me anything useful. "Either I am Royal Governor, or I am not."

"Indeed, sir."

"Well, damn it, which one is it?"

He shifted in his chair, and looked somewhat chagrinned. "I believe they mean for you to yield authority."

"To a whelp of the Carregans?"

"Indeed."

My right paw bunched momentarily into a fist, and I had to force myself to relax. "My father won't stand for this. Nor will the great council."

"I wish I could share your optimism. The Gelandermote is... conflicted. They fear the rising power of the railroad, but to date they've not agreed for action. Your father will propose a measure at his earliest convenience, and they all wish to check Tokeli's authority... but she has the king's ear, my lord, and they do not wish to be forced into conflict. Not before they're ready."

"The king's ear?" I snorted. "The bitch's muzzle is aimed rather lower, I believe. Did Lord Rudkirk have any suggestions?"

"To keep yourself alert. This is a long way from Tabisthalia, after all. All compasses may point to the Lodestone Sovereign, but out here his pull is... greatly diminished. And if things were to go poorly, it could be weeks before any relief arrived. And there's no guarantee who would gain the support of the king. He likes you, but... your administration of this region has been... unorthodox. You're an unusual governor -- you've kept the province growing, rather than bleeding it dry for his coffers."

I clicked my claws together distractedly, thinking over the budgets that Raiza kept. "The best shepherds shear their flocks, Arlen -- they don't skin them."

"But they're here to serve us, are they not?"

"Of course," I grunted. "Don't take me for a soft heart, Arlen. I have no love of the shishis. They're backwards, just like their city. But they still know how to wield a gun, and if you push them too hard... well, how many good Aernians died in the rising down south last year?"

"Then think of it pragmatically. How judicious would a Carregan be, in office?"

I didn't have to guess, really. There were more than enough rumors about the Railroad. When their trains were preyed upon by raiders in the desert, they responded with overwhelming force -- dynamiting oases, and poisoning wells, and setting fire to the camps. They had a royal mandate to establish mines in the islands to the north of the Kingdom, and if one believed the stories they had worked the natives so harshly as to lead to their extinction. Now the mines were crewed by slaves from the continent; I had no idea where Tokeli Carregan got the slaves from, nor how she justified such a violation of the Kingdom's laws.

Actually, that part I did know. She justified it because the Railroad was immensely powerful, and immensely wealthy. The King's Own Iron Line was the only reliable connection between Aernia and the empires of the interior -- the squabbling thanes of the Ellagdran Confederacy, and the gleaming cities of the Dominion of Tiurishk, and the rich mines of the Ishonko Mountains far beyond my knowledge and travels. Carregan could make her own laws. And she did.

I dismissed Arlen, and sat in reflective contemplation for nearly an hour. When I left the room, Raiza Serapuri looked expectantly at me, and I shook my head. "Nothing. Internal politics of the empire."

"And you can't play that game," he recalled.

No, not as such. But I was going to have to. I rang the bell to call up our assistant, a young, slender otter whose fawning bows saw him bend at a forty-five degree angle or more. At times, this flexibility amused me. But now I lacked the time for it: "Summon Captain Vanao here at once. And bring us some alat."

"Shishi, kajja gavanar."

"A little early, kajja?" Raiza asked.

"This is unpleasant work," I growled, and paced until Vanao arrived.

Like my kin, the Vanaori were warriors. Vanao Barut looked as Galit might've in his prime -- a towering, muscular tiger with keen eyes and stripes so crisply delineated they looked to have been cut into him with a knife. "Kajja Gyldran," he said with a bow.

The mispronunciation aside, I was more than a little surprised that he had used the appellation at all -- for it was not common knowledge. Setting my alat down, I nodded my muzzle to one of the office's chairs. Our assistant dutifully pulled it out for the captain to sit, and then made himself scarce when I gestured at the door.

For my part, I remained standing. "Jonham is fine; there's no need to buck tradition. Captain Vanao, how does the town guard fare? You've received your weapons now?"

"Yes. They don't work as well as proper needleguns, but they'll serve."

"Good. And your men." The oppressive heat, which the alat had not abated as strongly as I'd liked, made it hard to think in politically correct terms. "They're trustworthy?"

Vanao stiffened, and without moving his head glanced sidelong towards Raiza, as if trying to make certain that he understood my meaning. "Y... yes, kajja. Of course."

"They haven't been blooded. And I've seen them -- boys, many of them." It was a privilege of my rank that I could go where I pleased, and I made a point of visiting, on occasion, the training ground. "Not as capable as the Frontiersmen. But closer." The company of the Royal Frontier Corps at Fort Shandur was too far away to be relied upon in an emergency.

"They'll do, for keeping order..." He looked at Raiza again, just barely refraining from fidgeting. "May I ask what this is about? The quarterly review is not for another month, still -- was this merely to test my readiness, kajja?"

"Needleguns are expensive, Captain Vanao. Jaikot cannot afford them"

"I didn't mean to be impudent. I understand that, I just..."

He trailed off, watching me as I reached into the drawer of my desk, and pulled out a small wooden box. It was one of the few charmed items I owned. As a good Aernian, I was no great fan of thaumaturgy -- but I am also, as Arlen might've suggested, a pragmatist. It was bound to my touch, and clicked open when my fingers brushed the lock. From it I withdrew five coins, handing them to the tiger. "This, therefore, is not from Jaikot's treasury, but from mine. Five Standards, proofs from the mint at Arrengate."

"I don't..."

The coins were not for common use; their depictions of King Chatherral's banner were finely detailed, and the soft metal would not have held the image long in circulation. "They're solid gold. If your merchant contacts don't take the face value of a Royal Standard, they'll take the weight. Consider it a deposit. You're to raise another company of the Guard. Outfit them with swords, or muskets, or whatever's available. Then choose your most loyal men, and find them proper arms and armor. Let me know the cost -- tell no-one but myself or Liaison Raiza. Do you understand?"

He took the gold cautiously, and nodded. "Yes, kajja. But you said... the town's budget is not funding the company? That... that you are?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "And I trust that you understand what that means, as well."

Vanao Barut was an honorable man, as shishis go. He took a deep breath, lips pursed with the sigh, and finally nodded. "I do."

"Good. You're dismissed, captain."

I locked my coinbox again, and slipped it back into my desk. With Vanao gone, the heat became an unchecked antagonist, wrapping smoldering fingers around my throat and clinging to my body. "Fuck," I hissed.

"You know," he said. "Being nobility and all, kajja... you might consider watching your, ah... your more colorful expressions."

"No. Everything, Mr. Raiza. Fuck everything."

"What did that striped-faced gentleman say to you?" When I didn't answer, at first, he pressed on: "It must've been troubling -- you seem uneasy."

I looked at the mug of alat, and downed the rest in one long swallow. "It was nothing."

"You said it was political?"

"Yes. It..." It doesn't concern you, I began to say. But that wasn't necessarily true. "You're familiar with the railroad?"

Raiza shook his head. "I've read about it, but never seen one. A way of moving quickly -- faster than horses or junks. Your people make them, and the Ellagdranaya, I believe..."

"They want to build one here. For what bizarre purpose, I have no idea -- there's not much that moves in bulk, except the cotton. And that can be floated down the river nearly for free." From there, to one of the coast cities, and then on steamships or clippers back north to the Kingdom. There was no need to run iron rails out to Nishran.

"Is that a problem?"

"You know, Mr. Raiza -- I am a servant of the king, Chatherral the Fourth."

The mongoose nodded. "Yes, of course. The Royal Governor."

"The king does not own the railroad. It's a private company. A..." I tried to think of how this could possibly be explained to Raiza Serapuri, for the Dhamishi did not have a capitalist tradition.

Nor did the Iron Kingdom, of course, and therein lay the problem. The Carregans were from the east -- miners and fishermen, by lineage. There was no nobility in their bloodline, and the power that they wielded was both unchecked and uncouth. A feudal lord, in theory at least, owed protection and concern to their subjects. A corporate president...

"Why are you telling me all this, kajja?" I guess the politics of Aernia were as inscrutable and boring to him as the politics of his people were to me.

"They're sending a company representative here. Based on the mandate that was revealed to me, that person will have a great deal of power. The king has granted them the right to take whatever measures are necessary to get the railroad built." As Raiza knew all too well, my authority was more limited: officially, I was required to secure the king's assent for all legislation in the province, and anything the legislature proposed was only provisionally approved until such assent was obtained.

But the corporation manufactured its own assent, if what Arlen had said was true. The same as they had manufactured the assent for their massacres in the desert, or, when they desired a new depot, their demolition of the Old Quarter in Stanlira -- a city nominally under the protection of the king. Or their intervention in the worker's rebellion in Tinenfirth, which saw the fall of the city-state's government. Or their joining the Battle of Wogotan on the side of Ülen Kara. The Iron Corps, I had heard it said, was more powerful than the Royal Army.

"I don't know what that will mean for me, yet. Or for you."

"Why would the king delegate so much outside his control?"

Because he was weak of mind, in my opinion. At the very least, he was weak of will. And simpler still: "Because Tokeli Carregan shares a bed with him. It's an open secret in the court. The queen knows. The council knows."

"If they know, and do not intervene, they are giving their tacit approval, I suppose?"

Or the council was weak as well. "It is," I grumbled bitterly, "the king's prerogative. Nobody dares to criticize what he does with the, ah... the royal scepter. As it were."

"Even if it means undermining your authority," Raiza Serapuri mused. "All your long months of service, and here you are -- paying for the town guard from your own purse. A town of great profit to your king, no less..."

I growled, my lip curled. "Don't imagine I hadn't noticed that myself, Mr. Raiza."

"What did I tell you, kajja Jonham? You have to take your reward from this job -- it will not fall into your lap, or be given as charity..."

"Somehow I don't think pocketing bribes would've fixed this."

"But at least you would have something to show for it."

"I'll try to take better advantage of your people next time," I muttered. The day had started out so well, and now it was proving to be the worst since my arrival. "Of course, with my luck..."

The mongoose grinned -- I think, since he didn't really see the impact on him as yet, he was enjoying seeing an Aernian squirm. "There's no such thing as luck, kajja, only the fortune one makes for one's self."

"Good, good," I waved my paw, and then dropped my head onto the desk. "I must be more industrious, then. I can't imagine this day getting worse." This was the cue for someone to knock on the door. I groaned, and shut my eyes tightly. "Come in..."

The figure who entered was a stranger to me, but he wore the sash of a learned man. He spoke in quick Dhamishi, and when Raiza interrupted him to order him to proceed in Aernian, he shook his head and kept going. My partner blinked at what had been said, and then gritted his teeth. His ears went back. "Kajja," he said, with a curious tone in his voice.

"What is it?"

He pointed to our visitor, a distinguished looking feline of sage countenance. "This man is a doctor, from the university's hospital. He said he was sent here." The doctor gave another burst of chattering Dhamishi. "The servant of your house, Krad Galit, was brought to him..."

This caught my attention, and I finally lifted my muzzle. "Yes? Galit. What of him?"

"He's dead."

My heart sunk, and for a few seconds my voice escaped me, coming in wordless mutters. "That -- that can't be. He was fine this morning. A little ill, perhaps, but not... but not so..."

I couldn't understand what Raiza said next. Translating for me; opening his own line of inquiry. "It was his heart, the doctor says. He arrived, and then..." the mongoose paused while the other man spoke again. "An hour later, he suddenly collapsed. He says there was no pain. He says... Krad Galit was very old."

That was true. And Galit had been putting up with me since my arrival, which had to take a toll on a man. I did not know why a shishi's death should bother me so, but it was hard to think of returning to my residence without the old tiger being there. Perhaps I felt responsible for him; that I had let him down, somehow. "No pain," I echoed.

"No," Raiza confirmed. "He was gone before the doctor had reached his side. There was nothing that could be done."

Raiza carried on the conversation without me. Tedious formalities of some nature; I didn't know. He gave the doctor a coin when he left, and when I asked for an explanation only shrugged, and told me that it was for the man's trouble in coming to speak to us.

"I asked him to find me the owner of your house, as well."

"Why?"

"You need a new servant."

Such a notion, before Galit's corpse was even cold. I frowned. "I can make my own alat."

"You cannot, as it happens," the mongoose said. Which was true, if not the point. He continued, teasing gently: "I'm not certain you can even make your own bed, kajja. But even so, you should not have to trouble yourself with such things. You have more important matters to conclude. The people of Jaikot can't have you distracted..."

I'd met the owner of the property once or twice before. A short, fat muntjac whose tusks were yellow and stained, he gave the impression of one who avoided predation through the suggestion that their meat would be too oily and disgusting to consume. He spoke no Aernian, but he bowed, and I caught a perfunctory kajja gavanar kuluniyan directed at me.

"You have any requirements?" Raiza asked.

"He must know the Iron Tongue."

"And how to make alat?"

I shrugged; I still could not believe Galit was dead. "And to make alat," I echoed quietly. "He must be discreet, as well. I might have to use him as a courier, or a confidant."

Raiza explained, and the deer nodded studiously, over and over again. Then he said something in reply, and Raiza grinned uncharacteristically, before saying something that made the deer snicker, his rolls of fat heaving obscenely.

"What did you say?" I asked sharply.

Raiza shook his head, still grinning. "Nothing, kajja. A private joke. Mr. Urja says he has someone for you, maybe. But they are not old, as Krad Galit was. They are younger than you, even -- but well trained."

"I don't care," I sighed. The heat was starting to get to me again. "If he can be trusted, and if he can make my dinner, I couldn't give a damn what training he has. Gods, Serapuri," I snapped, using his given name. A breach of decorum, but what the hell; I was tired of being laughed at. "It's just a fucking servant."

Raiza, whose chiding had not sunk in, rolled his eyes at the language. Then, with a sly grin, he nodded to the deer, who laughed once more, bowed to me, and oozed from the office. "It's done, then. You don't have to worry about it."

"Thanks," I muttered, drily. "Really."

"Ah, I've done you a favor," the mongoose shrugged. "You couldn't have found a new Galit on your own, kajja Jonham."

I didn't know that I wanted one.

It was not proving to be a good day. Lunch, when procured -- by the gods, how is it only half past two? -- arrived burnt, and I nearly tossed the rice into our assistant's face when he came to discard it. By five, when the heat seemed to be reaching its worst, Raiza at least knew to no longer bother me. For once, he left before I did, and I sat in an empty office, cursing darkly at the walls.

Sunset came very swiftly in Dhamishaya -- nothing like the lingering, golden summer evenings of my homeland. At seven or so, sensing the day fading, I locked the office and stepped out into the muggy twilight.

There were lights on in my compound; I furrowed my brow, and unlocked the bronze gate, pulling it shut behind me with a soft metal clang. The door was slightly opened, and permitted the scent of baking bread to spill forth. Bread, and the sound of someone singing to themselves. With a frown, I pushed it the rest of the way. "Hello?"

At first, nobody answered me, although the noise stopped. A minute later, the source of bread and song both revealed themselves, first with a head poking around the corner and then with the rest of the head's owner.

My replacement for Krad Galit... was as far from him as could be imagined. Before me stood a curious creature, more than a head shorter than I, with rusty fur and long, cinnabar-colored hair that tumbled forward when she greeted me in a deep bow. "Good evening, kajja."

"Good evening," I said, carefully. "Who are you?"

"Kasharman Kajrazi, kajja. I am asked to be your servant by my owner, who is the owner of your estate also." She spoke a little haltingly, but her accent gave the impression that her teacher had been Aernian -- a refreshing change from what I normally heard. Most of the shishis learned from Issenrikers or Ellagdrans, and their accents were painful.

"Very well. I am Jonham Hærex-Sutheray. Jonham is my given name, but none of you seem to care about that so I expect you'll wind up calling me kajja Jonham."

"What do you wish to be called, kajja?"

It was too much to ask to be called Lord Gyldrane, and even I had to admit Hærex-Sutheray was a bit of a mouthful. Trying to be a bit less sharp, I told her what I had told the captain of the guard: "Well, it's worked so far. Jonham is fine."

When she nodded, and the light shifted, white badges on her face called attention to bright eyes. "I have baked fresh bread, but... kajja Urja did not tell me what you preferred for food, so I did not prepare anything..."

"I'll think on it later," I said, and made my way past her to the den. "For now, a glass of alat and... some dates, I guess, if we have them." Light fare. I wasn't particularly hungry. Kajrazi called a muted shishi, kajja after my departing back.

I was left in peace for a few minutes only before she knocked lightly, balancing the silver try in her other charcoal paw, and then slid into the room. An old desk sat a few feet from the armchair; glancing around, and not seeing any better place for the tray, she placed it carefully on the desk's edge. This, with the girl in profile, revealed what I had not seen before -- a thick, bottlebrush tail ringed with bronze stripes. It was solid and heavy, and when she bent over it seemed to lend balance to her form -- countering the curve of her breasts, which were just barely contained by the dress she wore.

Kajrazi turned to leave, and I raised my paw to halt her. "Hold up." She deserved a closer investigation. The tail intrigued me. I hadn't seen one like it before. Actually, on reflection, I hadn't seen anything like her in general. Part genet, part fox -- a mongrel, perhaps, but she was very easy on the eyes.

She stopped obligingly, and turned back to me. "Kajja?"

The pale blue dress, fringed in copper-colored silk, clung tightly to her stocky frame, and was cut low enough that I could see it was not just her paws that were black -- so were her arms, and legs, and the whole of her front. More than that, her fur was thick, as dense as my own if not more so. Not local. "Where are you from? Not Dhamishaya, I imagine."

"I was raised here, kajja, since my capture at eleven years."

"That was..."

"Eight years ago, very nearly."

"And before that?" Kajrazi didn't answer at first, and I rolled my eyes. Not a good start, this hesitancy. I put some edge on my voice, to remind her of our relative stations: "I asked you a question."

"Ah... the frontier, kajja," she offered meekly, paws clasped together and eyes averted. "My clan is from the Fayara mountains."

I raised an eyebrow, and pondered. That wasn't its local name; the Dhamishi referred to the range as Vigarhka, and it was the source of many of the predations on the caravans that passed through them on their way to Nishran. "So you must've been captured in a punitive raid."

Kajrazi shifted uncomfortably. "Not me. My brothers were taken prisoner. After they beheaded the older one, my father... offered me in trade for the younger. That was eight years ago, kajja. It is... it's in the past. I am Dhamishi now."

"Don't apologize for where you're from." I'd never spent more than a day or two in the Vigarhkaya Mountains -- on horseback, with the Royal Frontier Corps. But gods, nearly anything would be better than Jaikot. "Maybe I requested a mountain dweller."

She had short, round ears, densely furred as the rest of her, and these now swiveled back. It gave her a vulnerable look that was girlish, and tantalizing. "But you did not, kajja. Otherwise you would not've asked where I come from."

"Smart," I snorted. "But you're right, I was just curious. You don't have the fur for this country. Neither do I. We're kindred spirits." My laughter was not especially genuine. "Outsiders in this wonderful little empire..."

"I see that, kajja."

Curiosity sated, I gestured towards the door. "Alright, you're dismissed."

Kajrazi bowed once more, turned, and padded from the room. I watched her go; watched her tail twitch and curl with the movements of her body. The mountain folk had a certain exotic charm to them... but it would not do to dwell long on her allure.

I had more important matters, after all. Alone with my thoughts, I grasped for the mug of alat, and took a careful sip. It was not as good as Galit's -- a little too sweet, a little too strong -- but still cold enough to take some of the edge off the day.

And what a day it had been. Raiza Serapuri was more insightful than a shishi had any right to be: two and a half years of service as the Royal Governor, and I was being usurped to serve the cause of King Chatherral's revolting affair. What a gods-damned mess it all was. With no-one to hear, I laughed bitterly. The gods -- even if you, like me, didn't believe in them, my life had certainly been damned by somebody.

Two and a half years, and what did I have to show for it? Not a thing. Not one blessed thing. I had kept Nishran from rioting, which was more than some of the other governors could say. I had mostly kept them from starving, too, and the cotton crop had set records at each harvest. But what did I have to show for it? Had the begging abated? Were the savages of Jaikot any more grateful?

Not likely. "Damn it," I grunted, and stretched out to set the alat down heavily on the desk. I repeated the oath, not that it would be heard by any Aernian gods. I doubted that they ventured so far from their homeland.

Either at the cursing, or the sound of the mug landing, my servant poked her head into the den. "Kajja?"

"Nothing. I was talking to myself."

"Can I help, kajja?"

"Reform the bloody bureaucracy," I growled. "Or get me out of this place. Why the hell am I supposed to care if the railroad tears it down? I don't own Nishran. I'm just a glorified chaperone -- hell, a wet nurse. The shishis have no fucking gratitude, the king has no fucking gratitude, and I've wasted two and a half years in the prime of my life rotting in these gods-damned jungles."

Kajrazi's ears laid back, and her short little muzzle opened, but she couldn't find anything to say.

"I should be back in the Iron Kingdom. I should be taking a mate; learning how to grasp the reins of power in the March. I should be riding at my father's side. Hell, I should be carrying a rifle as a guard at Tabisthalia -- anything but this."

"I... I see, kajja."

Did she? My muzzle dropped, and I closed my eyes, trying to calm my anger. "Make yourself useful and get me some water." When she returned, carrying a big wooden cup of it, I shook my head. "This place will be the death of me. How do you deal with it?"

"I have no choice," she pointed out, her voice soft. "My owner keeps me here."

"How does he manage?"

Kajrazi fidgeted, and shrugged her shoulders. She halfheartedly held the cup out, but I had yet to take it. "He has... made something for himself here, I guess. Jaikot does not reward nobility, only... power. And you must have some of that."

No. And I did not need the reminder of that fact. Silently, I took the water from her. When I did not say anything else, she turned to leave. Power. What kind of meaningful power can you have over savages that aren't worthy of it? Mindless, animal brutality, that's all. I laughed -- a coarse-edged growl -- and at the outburst Kajrazi twisted about once again.

"Oh!" I heard this a split-second before the sound of the mug of alat tipping over, where her thick tail had struck it. Fortunately there was nothing on the desk but a stack of my papers and a few old ledgers, and the spreading alcohol seemed set to spare them. "Kajja, I'm sorry!"

"And?" I snapped. It was not the mess I minded, but the carelessness. "What good does your apology do me?"

Again her ears splayed; again that fetching vulnerability in her young face. Her heavy tail twitched in agitation. "I -- I'll clean it up, kajja," she managed, and turned to leave. The urgency put a hopping spring in her step, and I watched it with rapt enough attention that she was nearly to the door before I decided the desk could wait.

"Stop. Get back over here. I didn't dismiss you." I kept my voice curt and, shrinking from the threshold, she padded back over to me.

"Kajja?" she asked, a little nervously.

"You need to make that up to me."

Kajrazi nodded her understanding, though she looked a little flustered. "How?"

"Get on your knees," I ordered. She looked down at the floor before the armchair, unmoving, and I growled low in my throat. "Get. On your fucking. Knees."

Hesitantly, watching my face for any sign of further disapproval, she did so. "Y-yes?"

"Give me a good reason not to send you back to your master and bill him for the desk," I told her. "It's worth more than you are." In truth I didn't know the provenance of the desk, which was made of good wood poorly hewn. Probably some shishi 'artisan' had hacked it into shape. Not that it changed anything in the calculus: life, particularly a mountain dweller's, was very cheap.

"I didn't mean to," Kajrazi offered. "It happened accidentally. I'll --"

I grasped her muzzle roughly, and she froze. "Why are you still talking?" When she stayed frozen, I tilted it down a few degrees -- then her eyes flicked from my face to my khaki trousers, and she got what I meant. "There you go," I said gruffly, and released her muzzle.

Quietly, she brought her black paws up, and I felt her search the front of the khakis carefully -- like she was trying not to disturb anything. In the interests of hurrying things along, I unfastened the heavy leather belt myself. From there, she undid the trousers one button at a time, pulling them open cautiously.

The barrier of my underpants presented itself, and she tugged at it with one finger, tentatively. "Kajja, I --" I gave her a rumbling, warning growl, and this shut her up once more. Swallowing, she carefully pulled the Nishrani cotton down, revealing the snowy white fur of my sheath -- whiter than the cotton had been, and softer.

Kajrazi had paused, and I bared my teeth, growling again to get her attention. "Don't act like you don't know what to do," I told her. Her paw carefully felt over my sheath, stroking the silky fur with timid lightness. Her fingers had the uncalloused touch of someone unaccustomed to manual labor -- soft, warm; searching. A few seconds of this and I was starting to stiffen and swell, an inch or so of slick pink flesh already greeting her. She bent forward, warm breath flooding my crotch, and her velvety tongue gave me a cautious lap. I took my breath in with a pleased hiss, groaning the exhalation: "Better. Good girl..."

She seemed to take this as a good sign -- or perhaps it was that I was no longer growling at her. Curling her paw around my sheath, kneading her fingers gently into it, she lapped again, and again, wetting my stiffening cock with slick, warm saliva. The licking grew a bit more sure of itself as my shaft grew to its full length, until she was kissing at it, her eyes cast upwards to watch my reaction.

"Keep going..." My voice was rough-edged and husky. Kajrazi was taking things slowly; I didn't know if she had never actually done it before, or if it was all an act. Either way, the shy hesitation that had been frustrating earlier now seemed enticing -- an alluring, erotic innocence. She drew her tongue gingerly from the first bit of my exposed cock all the way up to the pointed tip, and when the precum beading there spilled onto her tongue the girl gave a curious little chirp, licking her lips and the roof of her mouth a few times to clean it off.

I shut my eyes, trying to keep my breathing regular. When I was satisfied I was back in control of my desires I opened them, looking down to find those coal-black paws wrapped around my cock, holding it in place for the servant-girl's tongue to work over me. Her ears perked up when I groaned, and she tilted her head into my paw obligingly when I grasped for her cheek, kneading into it with my fingers.

"Open your mouth," I ordered, and after a second or two she obeyed, her cute little tongue still hanging out from where she'd been sampling my shaft. I guided the tip between her lips with my other paw, lifting my hips to push an inch or so into her parted muzzle. I thought I was going to have to tell her what to do next, but she closed her lips readily, suckling me in deeper. I closed my eyes again, stroking the ruddy fur of her cheeks. "That's a good little mountain slut..."

She said something in reply, I think -- muffled as it was by my shaft buried a few inches in the slick heat of her mouth I couldn't really tell. When I rocked up to force myself deeper inside, though, she grunted in shock, a gasp of heated breath washing me. I groaned headily at the sensation, grasping tighter at her cheek.

Kajrazi worked her muzzle haltingly over as much of my cock as she could manage without gagging. At the deepest point of one of these bobbing strokes I looked down to find her lips wrapped about it at the halfway point, her cheeks drawn in and her ears back, pinning with concentration.

My breath rumbled in pleased growls and my claws dug into her, guiding her bobbing muzzle to meet my shallow thrusts -- my hips starting to tremble and my balls drawing up tight beneath my shaft, the canine knot swelling futilely before my bunched sheath. "Harder," I grunted to her, and she blinked, her head tilting a fraction of a degree questioningly, dragging her tongue all over my length with the movement. The words took more effort, strained with the climax I was losing the fight to stave off: "Suck harder, bitch."

She did, but not before pulling back to the tip, her tongue slurping noisily over my tensing cock. Then I felt her warm paw fold around my knot -- her eyes widened, and she gave a curious squeeze. The pleasure seized me in a warm, pulsing grip, spreading in throbbing waves from my groin. I stiffened, and arched my back, biting back a growl as the long spurts of my pent-up seed jetted into the girl's muzzle.

Kajrazi gasped, and gave a choking little gurgle of surprise. But my lifted hips held me deep in her maw, until she had to swallow a few times; then, when I bucked reflexively, riding out my ebbing orgasm, she managed to pull herself away. The last few spurts caught her cheek and her long, straight whiskers, painting the red fur a glistening, pearly white.

"Kajja..." she murmured. Then she swallowed again, making a curious face, her tongue working over her muzzle to try to clean it off. "I did not expect..."

But that was her problem, not mine. "Next time, you swallow it all," I said; I was panting, my chest heaving with the waning energy of sexual release.

"But --"

"No," I growled to her. "Every fucking drop."

She flattened her ears. "Shishi, kajja."

"Good. You were a good girl, Kajrazi." I squeezed her cheek again, and then let her go. "Probably worth keeping."

Her ears stayed back, although I caught a little waving of her tail. "Thank you, kajja."

"Now there's just the matter of the desk." I looked past her at it; the alat had, at least, stopped spreading.

"Of course, kajja. I will attend to it."

"Good," I said again. "Clean it up, and then perhaps I'll dismiss you." Kajrazi got back to her feet, somewhat unsteadily, and turned around. She'd taken a few steps towards the door when I cleared my throat and she froze. "No."

"Kajja?"

"Your Aernian isn't that poor, mountain girl. You heard me: Clean it up, and then I'll dismiss you."

My servant looked from me to the door, and then to the desk. Hesitantly, she padded over to it on silent charcoal feet. Her back was to me; she looked over her shoulder, with her mouth opened to ask me a question, and I shot her a look so stern she nearly jumped as she turned back to face the desk. Then she reached out a paw, brushing at the puddle of liquid.

I clicked my teeth to stop her. "You're just smearing it around. Don't play foolish, Kajrazi, not after I said you were worth keeping." Her ringed tail flicked like a nervous cat's. Then, swallowing, she bent over the desk, and when I didn't say anything she lapped at the spilled alat a few times. "There. There you go."

She sighed in relief, and her breath sent ripples through the white drink. She licked at it faster, lowering her muzzle so that the coconut milk beaded on her whiskers, and the velvety fur of her short snout. The sound of her tongue was the only thing disturbing the silence in the room; there was nothing to distract me from watching her.

Bent over the desk as she was, I had a good view of her. Her thick tail was curled up at the tip, and the whole thing swayed like seaweed, the rings calling attention to the slow waving. She had a nice, solid body; her round rump filled out the tight dress well. Her legs were jet black all the way until they disappeared beneath the coppery edges of the garment, and I found myself wondering just how far the dark fur went. All the way? Her back, at least, was red.

Kajrazi tensed when she heard me getting up, but seemed to understand that she had not been asked to stop in her duties. Instead, with her cute little ears pricked, she carried right on, dragging her tongue over the wood of the desk to catch as much of the alat as she could. On heavy feet, I walked slowly behind her, examining every curve and swell of my new servant's body.

I gave her rump a squeeze, and was pleased to find it as firm as I'd expected. At the touch of my fingers, Kajrazi shivered, and her breath caught, disturbing the shrinking puddle before her. I grunted, and pulled her dress up until it bunched around her waist. Now I could see that the black fur went as far as her dark grey underpants, and I chuckled a little before tugging them down unceremoniously.

I heard her swallow; she was no longer cleaning up her mess. "Keep going," I reminded her, and pushed her knickers down until they fell the remaining distance to the carpeted floor. Her tail swished, but when I pushed it to the side and out of the way it stayed there.

More black. Black until just above the curve of her hips; her sides and back were a lovely red against the rumpled fabric of the dress. I nudged her legs apart with my foot, and discovered a flash of darker pink between them -- so she was not all pumpkin and coal, after all.

A little gasp escaped her when my paw slipped between her thighs, and I slid my finger between those smooth lips. It happened again when I repeated the movement, curling my finger up so that the fuzzy velvet fur stroked with the grain. I clucked my tongue, and she lowered her head once more, but her cleaning job was becoming increasingly erratic.

Shoving her legs wider apart, I settled in behind her. My cock was still hard, straining between my fingers when I guided it down, nudging forward until I found smooth warmth. I pushed into her slowly, and was rewarded with the feeling of slippery, wet heat squeezing around my shaft. At first, between her diminutive size and my own, I thought the fit would be almost impossible -- she was achingly tight, and I felt her tense and grit her teeth as I sunk in deeper, parting her snug folds around me.

When I pulled back, her rippling walls seemed to suckle at my cock, and I groaned as I worked my way back into her, burying myself to the hilt. I took a few more deep thrusts, enjoying every slow second of it as the electric warmth of growing pleasure spread through my body.

Then, the next time I withdrew, I bucked forward sharply, and Kajrazi gasped and arched her back. Her arms shot forward to grab at the far end of the desk, and she held onto it with what, I saw, were very sharp claws.

With the servant-girl suitably braced, I began to thrust faster, until I was pounding roughly into her, the desk jolting beneath my every quick stroke. The little shishi bitch was whimpering and moaning in pleasure as I took her, and her muzzle hung open as she panted shallowly.

Grunting with exertion, I leaned forward to pin her between the desk and my bucking hips, keeping her in place so that she had nowhere to go when my growing knot sunk into her, though she shuddered every time it jerked free with a wet, lewd slurp. I bucked with growing urgency against her fuzzy rear, nipping and biting at her neck and ears, hearing her gasp as my teeth scored her scruff.

Even as drained as I thought I'd been, there was no way I could keep it up. Every thrust exacted a growing toll on my ability to hold out. As I rutted her, driving myself into her with powerful thrusts, I felt the tension growing, spreading through every muscle. I was well beyond savoring the pleasure of her body, sinking into that gnawing, primal need to fill her with my seed.

I straightened up, seeking the leverage of my paws. Grasping at her hips, I bucked a few more times. Hard thrusts, forcing my knot into her, right where it belonged. Groaning out -- feeling her clenching around that thick bulb -- pressing snug, hot wetness at every inch and veined ridge of my shaft -- holding her with trembling claws --

For the second time that evening I let release take me, and this time I did growl, my eyes closed to slits and my muzzle baring the sharp teeth of a predator. My seed spurted into her in thin, hot pulses, and when she squirmed at the feeling I tugged at her hips hard with my paws, pulling her back and into me to hold her in place while I pumped her full of my cum.

My teeth were clenched, and my breath came in grunting gasps as my shallow bucks worked the last few spurts of my load deeply into her tight little cunny. The gasps became deeper as the pleasure slowly faded, and at length I let her waist go, supporting myself on the edge of the desk with a groaning sigh.

Probably, in the interests of decorum, I should've been the first to speak. But I was exhausted -- it can be so hard, this exercise of power that the shishi claim to respect. Perhaps Raiza was right; perhaps it was what I should've done all along. But then...

"Do you feel better, kajja?"

"Yes," I managed. Then, thinking better of it: "No. Well -- yes. Physically." And in the moment, that had been all that mattered. But it had done nothing to fix my problem with the Carregans, nor to secure the next year's harvest, nor to find a way back to Aernia. Just a temporary, hedonistic escape. A very, very good one, but --

I was brought back by my servant, shifting her hips thoughtfully in a way that teased my trapped knot. "You're... stuck."

I grunted. "Yes, Kajrazi. Believe me. I know."