Maksimîan was not a happy man. Especially not now. Definitely not now.
As he tugged at a sleeve of his elaborate brown and green patterned cloak, he couldn't help but sigh. In his hands, a parchment containing a list of villages stared back at Maksimîan as its ends fluttered in the breeze, emitting a favorite sound of his.
Not like it helped much. How was he supposed to find these backwater hamlets, anyway? He sure as hell didn't see any signs. In fact, he was waiting now for his only guide to the area - a military escort. To a man born and raised in the Capital, all of this was a tad bit uncomfortable. He certainly didn't need to worry about the military while he was doing collection duties in the city. Yet here he was. Wondering when the military would show up. This was the place he was told to wait, right? Mentally, he double checked his memories. This should be the place.
Maksimîan grumbled to himself. It was just one standard fight over a rigged betting game. Just one. Unfortunately, Maksimîan had picked to fight the wrong person. Not in terms of strength, of course - he knew better than to brawl with a man twice his size, no matter the circumstance. However, what he didn't know at the time was that the sniveling little bastard was the son of a particularly influential minister. So what happened then? He was put on trial for "endangering the security of the Republic."
The tax collector vigorously thanked whichever deity was watching over him when he was in the courtroom. That day, the judge was either sympathetic or he wasn't paid off; Maksimîan didn't know nor care which possibility it was, but point is, the punishment he got wasn't that bad. He was sentenced to exile from the Capital for about a year, but remarkably his kept his position. His assignment was to relocate to the Fânâ Region to do tax collecting there until he was able to come back. This was much, much better than the death penalty, which was certainly on the table for an accusation like the one he was hit with.
The collector looked around him again. Behind him, the gridiron gates to the town of Nû Fren stayed open. Beyond them, the citizenry went about their day. Children laughed as they played with their friends in the street, men carried supplies around the town and the women gossiped amongst themselves. It was a rustic little place, and for now, it was Maksimîan's new home.
In front of him, the frontier held its arms open to anyone who ventured into it. A singular road was the only thing which cut into the middle of it, its paved stone being the only real way to reach Nû Fren. But in the rest of Maksimîan's vision, nature ran wild and free, the grasslands covering the earth as they always had. He could even see various animals frolicking through it, none doing so with any care in the world. The tax collector envied them.
At last, he heard some noises he was waiting to hear: the clopping and clacking of hooves from afar. Soon enough, they appeared. A group of ten men wearing mostly brown standard leather coats rode horses which rapidly approached Maksimîan, their bows, javelins and sabres clearly visible to anyone and everyone to see. The man in front of the pack was the officer; he wore a more elaborate set of light armor, topped with a helmet decorated with two brown feathers in a way resembling a pair of horns. With a shout of "reduce speed", the other nine followed his command, and eventually they came to a stop right in front of Maksimîan.
The officer looked Maksimîan up and down, leering at the fancy uniform of the tax collector from the Capital.
"So you're the big-shot tax guy that we've been ordered to escort, huh?" Maksimîan could already tell he wasn't gonna like this man one bit, but he cleared his throat and stood straight as he went through the formal chivalry. "Maksimîan Mumæ Geroue, collection agent of the Department of the Treasury at your service, sir."
The expression on the officer's face didn't change. "Geroue. A nice name, that's what I think. How's your time in Fânâ? Lovely so far?" Maksimîan replied sharply. "It's good here."
"To the point as always, your type." From his horse, the officer shot a glance at a pin on Maksimîan's cloak bearing the ancient coat of arms. "My turn to introduce myself. Officially, I am Bernar Hakutsima, Riding Master of the 2nd Light Cavalry, 4th Legion. You, however, are free to call me Bera."
The officer's leer turned into a frown with no feelings behind it. "Where's your horse, Mister Geroue?" The tax collector continued to answer formally, despite really not wanting to. "I did not come here with a horse, sir. I was forced to walk."
"You poor thing! Such a gallant outfit, and no stallion to go with it?"
It took a lot of effort to stay polite with this officer. "Due to circumstances, I didn't have one. I've bought one here, sir." Bera nodded his head. "Good to hear, good to hear. Have you ever ridden one?"
Maksimîan stopped speaking for a moment. "I've had equestrian training before, but it's been a while, sir." Bera broke out into laughter. "Mister Geroue, you'll relearn in no time, I'm sure! 'Equestrian training' doesn't go away!"
Maksimîan frowned a genuine frown, though with no sadness. This guy was really insufferable, wasn't he?
"Go get your horse, Mister Geroue, and meet us back here at the gates. We will ride to camp together."
The tax collector nodded, saluted half-heartedly, and went back to the town and to its stables. It took a few tries and a few falls to mount his new caramel-brown horse, but Maksimîan's learned instincts eventually took over the conscious act of thinking about everything he was doing, refamiliarizing him with how to ride his steed.
Bera expressed no joy upon seeing Maksimîan exit the gates of Nû Fren atop his equine. "Good. Follow us, and don't fall off. We're not stopping." The officer's patience was wearing quite thin, and his politeness even thinner. With no response, Maksimîan took off with the rest of the cavalry on the road ahead.
It was a rather short ride to the 2nd Light Cavalry's camp, shorter than Maksimîan expected. The tax collector had seen over the years some military parades and off-duty soldiers within the Capital, but this was his first time he had ever been in such direct proximity to any sort of base or barracks.
Maybe Maksimîan was just used to the carefully and rigorously rehearsed fluid movements of the units garrisoned in the Capital, but the 2nd Light Cavalry seemed just a bit... off in their discipline. Though Bera's soldiers saluted him when they rode into camp, they did not do so with precision; some moved a second after their companions did, others did so weakly. The camp itself, while serviceable, didn't seem very well built. Stray logs, horse shit, and various unnotable trinkets littered the ground, with none of the soldiers apparently minding this. Maksimîan shrugged this off, however. The military was probably always like this outside the Capital.
After Maksimîan and his accompaniment dismounted their horses and returned them to the stables, Bera left the tax collector be. It was mid-afternoon now, and although Maksimîan was due to set off soon, the officer gave him time to "explore and get acquainted with the lads".
For his part, Maksimîan didn't see much of a point to exploring the place or socializing with Bera's crew. He already saw everything he needed to know about this camp and the people within it when he rode in, and he wasn't enthusiastic about finding out more. Instead, he took to a rather large log sprawled out on the ground and sat upon it, turning inwards to himself. There were a lot of things to calculate: what's being taxed, who's giving what, the percentage of the national tax (10% of crop yield, 15% of physical currency), the estimated value of the total collection, and many more boring things.
Maksimîan had no more than fifteen minutes to crunch numbers and think to himself before a soldier walked up to his log, kicking it to get his attention. "The Rider Master wants you to be in his room. Now. Come along."
The collector got off the log with a somewhat slow movement, causing the soldier to mutter something. Regardless, the soldier guided Maksimîan to the Riding Master's temporary abode, a relatively large shack in the center of the camp, and knocked on the door three times, a second's pause in between them.
Sure enough, Bera answered the door. Though he was still in his formal uniform, he had taken off his helmet, revealing his short matte black hair. "Thank you, soldier. You may go. And you may come in, Maksimîan."
Both did as they were told, and Bera closed the door. Now that Maksimîan got a close, face-to-face look at the officer, it only reaffirmed his dislike for the man. He radiated arrogance from every pore of his body, grinning as he lightly twirled and flipped a dagger in his left hand. "If you wanna get back here before nightfall, you're gonna have to go now. I'll get four of my men to come with you. They'll show you where everything is, and you'll also get yourself some protection. This place isn't heaven, you understand."
"Understood, sir." Maksimîan nodded and shifted his eyes towards the still twirling dagger. "Is that all?"
Bera's smile grew just a bit wider, transforming into a sneer. "It isn't all, Geroue." He was silent for a moment, leading Maksimîan to break the ice. "...so what else do you need, sir?"
"Well... I don't know what you're planning to take from the poor ol' villagers here in Fânâ. But I have a certain request to make."
Maksimîan raised one of his eyebrows. "What would that be, sir?" Bera darkly chuckled. "I'll get to the point. I want a third of whatever you take."
The tax collector's eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat. "Are you nuts?!"
The officer's eyes narrowed in return. "You oughta keep your voice down, Geroue. Wouldn't want to be annoying me or my crew." Sliding past the obvious verbal threat, Maksimîan continued on. "I apologize sir, but that's not happening. This stuff goes to the Capital and the Capital only. You already get your food here directly, and now you want to take more money from them than you're paid?"
Bera snarled back his answer as Maksimîan noticed his hand was now gripping the dagger a lot more firmly. "You're really gonna stick up for your rich friends in the city, city slicker? You're not gonna even thank us for keeping you safe while you're here for Fânâ knows how long? That's really rude, Geroue. I thought a man of manners was considerate of other people."
"And you haven't considered what would happen to me, if Minister Derkisun found out I was skimming off the nation's bottom just to get you rich? They'll read the damn tax forms. I'd be lucky if I'll ever get to see the Capital ever again, and that's at best."
Rider Master Bera walked closer to the tax collector, his dagger at his side but clearly pointed at Maksimîan's body. "You still think we're in the Capital, pretty boy? That I care about what happens to you in the Capital?"
Maksimîan kept his death glare towards the officer, but didn't answer his question. "You're not a quick learner. Let me spell it out for you. You have two choices right now."
Bera flipped the dagger onto his other hand and back, still pointing its tip towards Maksimîan's heart, ready to be pierced with one full reach of the arm.
"Your first choice is the one I like. You go to those villages, collect whatever you need to collect, and then give a nice third of it to me, so I can pay myself and my men what we deserve. I'm not gonna tolerate this small wage bullshit you think is enough for us. In return, we make sure you have no problems doing what you're doing."
The sneer returned to the Rider Master's face, ever darker than before. Maksimîan wanted to punch it, but knew better than to essentially commit suicide.
"Or, you can stick to your Capital morals and rules. I suppose you don't have to give us the money. But then, I suppose we don't have to escort you and help you navigate around the place where every bit of forest and grass looks the same. You seem to have some politeness in you, at least. Maybe you can politely ask the packs of barbarians that roam around here where the villages are before they rip your insides out from your body."
Maksimîan's eyes twitched with rage. "Geroue, I'm tired of being goody-goody towards you. I hope you know that if you decide to go get yourself killed, it would be very easy to reply to anyone asking that you died of disease, or natural causes. That last reason wouldn't even be wrong. Nobody would bother to make sure that I'm right. Nobody would go out to find your body. Nobody would come to help you."
The officer at last relaxed his stance and stepped back. "The choice is yours, Geroue. What will it be?"
Maksimîan, his four guards and a supply wagon managed to reach the first village with no issues. Although he hated every second of this, there really wasn't that much of a choice, was there? At any rate, he managed to swindle its mayor that the taxes needed to increase; there was another Reclaimation going on in the East, a big one this time, and the Republic needed every bit of support their village could give.
Most of the settlements handed over their tributes, some with no complaints, others with many. However, no one dared to refuse Maksimîan, not while the four soldiers stood in a square around him. This continued on and on until just before sunset, when Maksimîan and company went onto a dirt pathway slicing through a forest, eventually reaching the final place on his list: the small, northern village of Ûû. It was a bit of a weird name, but whatever. Just get it over with.
Ûû really was tiny. Maksimîan counted eleven houses total, all connected to the dirt road which led into the village. Though Ûû was surrounded by forest, the collector noticed the woods to its north being much more dense and dark. Maksimîan could note plenty of tree stumps in the other three directions, but the larger trees of the darker forest were untouched; he could see no stumps there.
The meager populace met Maksimîan right then and there on the dirt path. While the soldiers were greeted with mere glances, the tax collector himself was the center of attention. Everyone came out of their house to look at him, talking amongst themselves and pointing at his fancy cloak with the coat of arms pinned upon it.
From the crowd, an elderly woman stepped forward. Turning her back to Maksimîan, she addressed and calmed down the villagers, telling them to go back home, for she would talk to the new visitors herself. It became obvious, then, that this was the mayor of the village, if one could even say a hamlet this small had a mayor.
Maksimîan put on a fake smile and began with the same routine he always did. "Greetings, ma'am. My name is Maksimîan Mumæ Geroue, and I am a collection agent of the Department of the Treasury. I've arrived here because you've been marked as a settlement on our map, and we require every village to pay a triannual tribute for the sake of the Republic."
The elderly woman smiled a genuine smile at Maksimîan. "Dear, I'm afraid we have no money here." Maksimîan's expression faded. "And what about a crop yield?"
"We don't grow crops here either, sir. We forage for food ourselves, and there's no storage. There's nothing here we can give you." Maksimîan was stumped at this. A quick look around at this village confirmed everything she said. Except...
"We do need something from this village, ma'am. Maybe wood? I see that there's some deeper woods behind you. You don't have any of that?"
The elderly woman's smile changed. Though she kept her truthfulness behind it, there was a lot more sadness to it now. "That will not work, sir. We don't go near the inner forest. The grounds there are special. Special to us, and even more special for them." With that, she stared into the deep woods at something Maksimîan could not see before turning her head back towards him.
"You're very new to Fânâ. I can see it, young one. Where are you from?"
"The Capital, ma'am."
"The Capital!" The woman's hands clapped together, her eyes taking on a new dimension of curiosity. "How long it's been since someone from the Capital found their way here."
He would've loved to chat from this woman, but he had to get something from this place, and preferably, would like to get something before nightfall came.
"Are you sure you can't at least give something? Some food? Anything?" At that question, the old woman motioned for Maksimîan to come with her. "We will get some food together. Leave your soldiers behind. It is safe here, dear. I promise you this."
With reluctance, Maksimîan ordered his guards to stay at the village, and to come if he shouted for help. Together, he and the old woman began wandering into the woods, the tax collector following the elder's every move.
"Come. We will get some berries here. The bushes have plenty, and none of them are dangerous." As the two walked to a bush, Maksimîan caught the sight of some bright blue, red, yellow and green berries, their diameter the width of his thumb.
"May I refer to you as Maksimîan?"
"It is fine to me, ma'am."
As Maksimîan picked out berries from the bush and put them into a bag, the elderly woman looked at the deeper forest, which was a respectful distance away. "Do you know why we call our home 'Ûû', Maksimîan?"
"I do not, ma'am."
The old woman picked a flower from the ground, twirling it and flipping it in her right hand. "It is the sound of the inner forest here. Every night."
Maksimîan finished plucking the berries from the bush and tied the bag with string. That's enough of a tax. There really wasn't a need for any more.
"The forest there says 'ûû' every night?"
"Yes. It's a quiet sound, but it's one with soul. It makes people cry. Only Fânâ, whereever she may be, can tell me how many times I have cried for the forest."
It was Maksimîan's turn to look at the deep dark woods. For a split second, he thought he could see a tree move within it, but dismissed it. Maybe an animal or something. Or he was tired. He did cover a lot of ground today, after all.
"You aren't seeing things, dear. The trees in that forest live. They feel things, like you and I. And the trees there cry out. Every night."
Maksimîan took his eyes off the treeline. "That's impossible. Trees can't move or feel. They're trees. How could they cry?"
The elderly woman smiled with sadness again. "There's legends about them. I'm the only one who remembers them now, besides my children who I've passed them down to."
"Legends?"
"Long ago, before you and I were ever born, the goddess Fânâ lived right here on this planet, alongside the mortals."
Maksimîan paused for a bit. "I remember reading about religions," he said slowly, "that believed things like that. That deities lived among humans. You say the same thing?"
"I believe it was that way. Her presence brought magic with her. Anyone who wandered these woods, the ones we're standing in right now, would eventually turn into a tree."
Maksimîan scoffed. "How would that even happen?"
"It did happen. Then, one day, Fânâ left the forest. No one knows why. But her children in the inner forest cried for her that day. And every night since, you can hear them weep. In fact..."
The woman cupped a hand to her ear and turned it towards the forest.
"You're a very lucky man. Not many people stay to hear the forest cry. But you... you have become one of those people."
As Maksimîan noticed the sky had turned near-black, he heard it.
It was a gradual experience. The first voice was quiet, gentle. It kept its volume to a minimum, but didn't once stop. Uuuuu...
Then the next voices joined in. They were louder now, clearly audible to Maksimîan, the elderly woman, and no doubt to the residents and soldiers in Ûû as well. Soon, the entire forest was a cascade of wailing, of "uuuu"s. It was not uncontrolled, but almost as if it were a release, a mourning song of an indescribable tune, one which awaited a day that might never come, but would always be hoped for. Maksimîan could see now why people would cry. In fact, he felt like crying too.
It was natural to cry. Anyone would cry, when they heard the pain of the forest, the forest weeping by the village of Ûû.