Foreword

A minor noble from a minor kingdom, Bandele the First took kin, scatterlings, exiles, the landless and those in bondage, those desperate for food and those desperate for station and the men and women of any land that look for an anointed leader to follow and he founded an Empire. He gathered up realms and peoples by means of his sword and his vision and made them speak to each other in a common tongue and adhere to common laws that reached across most of the continent, living long enough to make firm the grasp of his heirs who have reigned for over three hundred years.

Before the city that bears his name had its first stone set in the ground, Bandele stood on a tree stump and addressed the army arrayed before him. He promised justice for them and all they would conquer or embrace and he held up an emblem of an eye fashioned from blue glass and brass. By name he called out for twenty of his soldiers to come forward. None knew the other, they were young and of different origins, and as they knelt before him, Bandele gave each of them a title and a charge. Thus the Inspectorate came into being.

This is the account of one of those descendants through this lineage of duty, a young man from a distant province who was taken in hand by one of the Emperor’s traveling bards and sent at the age of twelve to the Capital to begin his education at the Inspectorate. Now, at twenty one, he is on his first mission, to a far corner of the Empire, there to install a veteran as the first Magistrate for this man’s native hills. He also travels with an Inspector’s obligation and authority to observe and correct what he will encounter. We will read of his path as he makes his way through the strange and unfamiliar world, both strong and unsettled in turn, and, in alternating chapters, read of his passage from childhood and his training to come to wear the ring of an Inspector.

Bandele Three Hundred Fifty Seven, Brotta’s Moon, Day Sixteen

One-The Wezza Lesson

I watch my cat, as she hunts

for the sun-warmed spots that creep across my courtyard.

I watch my horse, as she bows

to eat the longest grass that waves in my fields.

I watch my hound, as he sniffs

scents I cannot know, of hares in their holes.

Each has its path, each has its desire.

But I must follow duty

And find my pleasures there.

- Alkesh the Elder

"Brass n' glass, Inspector?"

 Pennoch did not turn in his saddle with the question. It sounded as though he expected an answer but also confirming that he already knew the correct one. The years of looking up at young officers from the end of his Rank and waiting for them to arrive at the inevitable and obvious conclusion had earned him this habit. Perhaps it was better said as a privilege. I allowed an unseen wisp of a smile to cross my face and responded with an indecisive, but attentive, sound. I had grown used to his manner by now in our journey and Pennoch was possibly becoming accustomed to my hesitations. We had descended the grassy slopes all morning, weaving through the sharp stones strewn about, in a rain that had started soft and now gusted sharper. I had let the reins go slack so my sure-footed Butter could follow my companion’s mount. Pennoch was uneasily muscling the chestnut gelding along, leaning over to one side and then the other, apparently unwilling to trust the horse’s eyesight.

As we arrived at the mottled green forest wall before us, the only recognizable thing in the trees was the upright slab of stone, some eight or nine feet high and settled in a slight sideways lean. It served as boundary or warning or entrance. The sovereignty of this immense woodland was still indeterminate, despite Bandele’s claim which rested more in word than by grasp. The side of the stone facing us was pitted and the carved eye was scarred with deliberate insult, as if to blind it, with the offending rocks scattered around its base. It still stood though, whether this was due to grudging and surly concession or to the lack of rope and willing backs I could not know. Pennoch slid heavily from his horse like the foot soldier he was and walked up to the largest rock, lying against the marker under the scrape it had inflicted. 

"Strong man,” I offered.

"Fearful man,” he instructed, looking down at it and then walking around to the obverse. He let out an amused bark and returned to report.

“They left the forest side as a full bed of moss. Looked soft, too.”

A sheet of colder rain came at us and Butter shifted under me, with one of her shivers that rippled up from tail to nose. I leaned over to stroke her neck and settle her and started to ask what my companion thought best for our progress. I caught myself and straightened to speak,  remembering a firm jab in my ribs from a Master the first time I spoke to a proud veteran while thoughtlessly leaning against a rail. The poke had been followed by a hissed reminder that I was no longer talking to the rear end of my ox while plowing. Pennoch’s answer would not be a short one for I had quickly learned that he spared no particulars in his responses to certain questions though he would occasionally slip from clear Imperial and use an improper order of march in his words.

"I once had a Mounted Rankleader, brave, young, from the East, decided he that entering a Wezza village at daybreak himself, no flag, no whistle, would be the same as knocking lightly on a sleeping door at some peaceful farm.” 

Pennoch’s stories were all from campaigns and battles that took place either before I was born or was still a small boy chasing the ducks at our farm. They also had been well-practiced around hundreds of campfires and they all started with a deep and outwardly respectful bow to whatever foolishness he would end up warning against. 

“My rank was the van and we were expecting to be a mere passing show, these lands had been well-tamed for a hundred years, you know.”

 Well-ignored, I remarked silently. 

“We had all stacked our spears for him just two moons before, my twenty had earned the right long before I came out of the tyro barracks to join them. He did appear to be more worthy than the limping graybeard our Captain had offered to us before the column started out.”

The weight of this memory, and perhaps the few other times in nearly thirty years at arms he had missed the menacing fire behind the smoke was faint but plain in his voice. On this last slog through dangerous lands, Pennoch was tasked with delivering whole the most important baggage he had ever been charged with: An Imperial Inspector so new his saddle bags were still shiny. He also carried his future, his investiture as Magistrate in the wild and obscure hills of his people. I, as an Inspector, would forever be regarded as passing through, tethered only to the capital.

“Our Rankie trusted that the promise of oblivion for any person, village, city, land or race that harmed man wearing the Blue had been heard in every small smudged dot they draw on the maps while sitting in council rooms-”

"I am here to true those maps, Rankleader Pennoch,” I interrupted, "but please continue.”

"Yes, Inspector,” he answered, and after a thoughtful pause, "I see that.”  I nodded to him at the rare display of confidence.

“The village dogs knew nothing of these laws, set upon him soon as he trotted out of the dawn haze. Man stumbling out the nearest pile of mud they called a house saw a rearing horse, horse was carrying a ghost in a blue cloak who was slashing at the dogs while shouting wildly in neither Imperial nor Wez. All the barking, whinnying and his cries had us up on the balls of our feet, ready to rush forward but my Rankie seemed to have forgotten the commands that we were listening for while hidden two hundred paces away. Wez probably threw his spear from as close as he dared, who knows, maybe he just wanted to scare the ghost away but he had the bad luck of being a good hunter and hit Four Bears, that was his name, his people all had names like that. Odd practice to me. The spear hit centered and deep; we heard him fall. The noise had that old Rankie, who was leading the twenty right behind ours, snap out the order for us to charge and we went running in, banner in front. Too late to pull our man out of the hole he had blindly tripped into though. We squared around him but the wound man could not even remove the spear before he died so we just watched as the entire village gathered. They started out loud and then they were frightened…quiet, shoving their young behind them as they saw the column start to surround them.”

"The Wez who felled our Rankie was now standing still, halfway between us and his people, all huddled there. He was shorter than me, Wez are a short race in the main, you know. Legs like tree trunks and holding up a barrel for a middle. Every one of them have eyes so black that they bore into you and with hair just as black and the men having beards down to their chests. Anyway, by the time we had set our shields his fate and his debt to the Empire must have been revealed to him by his Wezza gods. They have very many, you read of them, Inspector, perhaps?”

I thought Pennoch was just being polite with these asides and questions though he didn’t wait for any response from me before continuing. I did not know anything about the Wezza, after all.

“Some men I seen Inspector, they fall to the dust after being struck with this weight of a reckoning. But this man, this one stood upright, walked slowly to his people and beckoned his woman and children forward. They all pressed forehead to forehead in turn, gentle, and then his woman led the children away. I didn't hear a word pass between them. An old man, the Headman, must have remembered the law from some long ago traveling herald, went to him and handed him a knife. He then turned his palms up then made some signs about the man’s shoulders. The spear-thrower just stared at the moon still up in the morning sky. Then he turned and crossed back halfway to us with his face up to the sky and plunged the knife into his heart...and made not a sound as he fell. I could hear our officers' horses coming up just as the villagers dropped to their knees and began chanting, not loud, not soft, but all as one voice, as tight as any shout on drill I ever heard.

The Column First trotted in by himself, he had halted the other officers, and rode by us, waving away enough of our square to view our man wrapped that blue cloak. He stared at him lying in his blood and then looked to the Wez staining the dirt with his. Got down and dropped his reins and walked over to the Headman, waving at him to approach. As soon as the old man shuffled forward with his staff, the chanting stopped and all I could hear was panting dogs and banners flapping.”

Pennoch had started this tale as an answer to a narrow concern for my, and his, chances when we pressed on. Now he had me seeing further and wider as well as any Master or poet lecturing at school.

"Neither one bowed to the other, I was too new to see that they had some understanding of the other. Might call it respect. Anyway, this was hidden from just a single shield in the wall as I was. They spoke for a while and then the Leader raised his glove to summon his officers in. The two Horse Leaders came at a gallop, the others not, which was wise seeing the glare those first two received from the Commander. Typical bit of needless show from that sort.” 

I had already learned most infantrymen have a clouded view of calvary. Useful though horsemen might be in battle walking to the ends of the Empire and back was felt to be inherently more of an honest labor than doing it above the dust and mud. The rain had been lessening and Pennoch had stopped to wipe his face before he took up this history again.

“He gestured to these bowlegs to dismount and array themselves in front of our square and our side men come out and took the horses to the back. Four of the women got off their knees and with staves and a water bucket went to their sacrifice and knelt around him, each one at a quarter, and began their rituals. They were stripping the man and washing him but they left the knife in. Our Surgeon come up and into our square to inspect and claim our fallen. The Column Second ordered spears up and our square into a line and because I was in the center I could hear the First when he spoke to his lowers. Still clear in my head to this day”

‘This battle is finished,’ “he said, and mind you he was staring down any sideways looks between the other officers that might be thinking it was not.” 'The death of brave Rankleader Four Bears of the Hallatti will be recounted in my dispatch and after you read it I will sign it alone and accept what the Empire sees as right.' "His Second, they had been riding together for many years, dropped his head, he knew that his friend had just opened his armor to a possible, methinks likely, arrow shot from those high walls of Bandele to be carried by a chain of message riders into his neck...and I spoke to my ancestors to tell them that on this day, at least, I would not have to stain my line with blood I had no right to put on my spearpoint."

I was humbled with his recounting, I could not have done better. Any questioning I might have had lurking in my mind as to his fitness for his new office was done with. I knew now that his people looked over their shoulders at their ancestors just as mine did so I waited for a few breaths to show that his words were settling inside me and then twisted back to unbuckle the bag carrying the Imperial insignia. Pennoch reached up to take out the breastplate and walked in front of Butter to fasten it to her chest, passing the straps back to me to tie to my saddle. The big blue glass eye on the brass plate had been polished recently enough but once in the gloom of the woods there would barely be enough sun making its way through the cover to make it flash. That made it an uncertain beacon fire warning off those strong and fearful stone throwers at a distance. I still didn’t see any path into the trees until my escort led his horse past the scarred stone and tugged at some branches and hacked with his sword at some others and thus the way forward was gradually revealed. I dismounted, wrapped my blue cloak around me tightly to keep away the cold and wet and whatever else might come and followed Rank Leader Pennoch into the green.

© Copyright 2025 Inspector. All rights reserved.