Shahla had never seen a Nikan city. Even with Xinhou in rebellion, the grandeur of the Empire was still on full display.
The morning they arrived, a fog had mixed with the morning sun in such a way that the city's
massive walls and towers looked like the gates to a Nikan-flavored heaven.
The architects had made the walls of solid white stone and reached thrice as high as the walls around the greatest Qahtanad cities. Two giant towers with multiple pagoda roofs guarded the gate.
How anyone planned to siege this place was beyond her. No ladder could handle the height of these walls. No battering ram could break open these solid iron gates.
Shahla's allies, Kameko, and her scouts were allowed into the city. As the slow-moving gate closed behind them, Shahla was overwhelmed by sights, smells and sounds.
Kameko led them through the city's cobblestone roads, more tightly fit together and flat than any road Shahla had seen.
The major attraction, however, were the massive spires of white stone that looked as though buildings had been stacked on top of each other before being encased in brick and connected by wide staircases.
At the top of the pillars were arcing bridges that connected them together. They almost seemed to defy the laws of physics.
Everything was clean, but certain areas still maintained the charm of a dirty Qahtanad bazaar.
Despite being a warmongering empire, Shahla couldn't help but be impressed by what the Nikan had accomplished with architecture and engineering.
She would've expected the capital to look like this, sure. But not a city amid a rebellion.
The only way she actually remembered the state of the city was the gold and red Nikan banners that had been torn up or covered up by white banners with some character of their language on it.
But aside from that, people simply went about their business.
Kamakeo's scouts had left them before she stepped up to a wooden platform bordered by rails and a gate, with ropes attached to the top of a spire. She tossed a coin to a man sitting nearby, told him something in her language and beckoned Shahla and her allies to get on the platform.
The man elbowed a lever once they were all aboard, causing the platform to rise into the air.
"What is this?" Najeem asked.
"A lift system. Costs a bit, but it makes it easier on old folks and frankly anyone who has to go up those godsforsaken stairs." Kameko explained.
As they climbed higher, Shahla could see the city in all its glory.
"Damn. If only I could paint this view..." Shakti murmured, thinking the same thing Shahla was, "Ugh. The place with the best cities in the world just had to be ruled by a conquest-hungry tyrant, didn't it?"
The lift stopped at a platform atop the spire.
"Alright, everyone off." Kameko opened a gate on the other side of the lift. They disembarked from the lift.
A small collection of buildings surrounded the platform on top of the spire, with a beautiful garden and patio in the middle.
On the patio, five men drank tea and talked with each other around a circular wooden table.
Kameko approached them and clasped her left hand over her right fist and bowed, shouting something sharp in Nikan.
They exchanged a few lines before switching to...so-so Qahtanad. It was a miracle they knew her language at all.
YOU ARE READING
The Call of Crows
FantasyBjorn Stormtamer's world has been turned upside down in more ways than one. His shipmates have left him for dead on an island for quarantining victims of a disease that he now has. His partner in battle despises him, his family thinks he's dead and...
