The encampment had swollen to over eight thousand strong, with still more arriving. The small towns on Euman Island were deluged. Hilo had heard that hotels were fully occupied and stores were running out of basic necessities such as toilet paper, bottled water, and rain ponchos.
Lott stopped the car when it was obvious they couldn’t go any farther. The arrival of the Duchesse was causing an enormous stir. People were running over and jostling each other to get closer, shouting that the Pillar of No Peak was here. Hilo got out of the car along with his Horn and two other Green Bones—Vin Solu, the First Fist of Janloon, and Hami Yasu, son of the clan’s former Rainmaker.
“Kaul-jen! Pillar!” Shouts came from the crowd. Others started to chant, “No Peak! No Peak!” Many of the people here were not clan members, and some were surely loyal to the Mountain, but there were enough voices that the noise grew and followed the Green Bones as they made their way through the encampment.
Lott and his well-trained Fists ignored the attention, their jade auras humming with alertness, their formidable demeanors serving to keep anyone from approaching too closely. Hilo envied them. It’s been a while. A long while since he’d stepped out of the Duchesse with a pack of his warriors, laden with jade and weaponry, prepared to face any enemy. As a young man, he’d lived for the proud adrenaline of those moments. The feeling was still sharp, but bittersweet nostalgia tinted its edges.
One figure broke out from the rest of the crowd and approached the Pillar directly. Jirhuya looked less well put together than he normally did. Instead of his usual custom-fitted shirt and pressed slacks, he was in jeans, boots, and a black track jacket. He wore a colorfully woven traditional Abukei sash around his waist and several days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. He saluted Hilo respectfully. “Kaul-jen.”
Hilo said, “You’ve had dinner in my house, don’t act as if you barely know me.”
Jirhu’s tawny skin flushed to a russet color. “Sorry, Hilo-jen, it’s only that we don’t usually see each other in public and without . . . more of the family around.” Without Anden around.
Hilo put a hand on Jirhu’s shoulder and smiled to show that he was not really annoyed. The man’s awkward reticence was understandable, since the social division between him and his partner’s family could not be helped. To be honest, Hilo was surprised Anden and Jirhuya’s relationship had lasted for so long, although he supposed they were a good match in other ways. “Show us what’s happening here,” Hilo said.
Jirhuya led the Pillar and his men up a gradual slope at the farthest edge of the encampment. Roughly six hundred meters away stood a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire, surrounding a compound of three buildings and a helicopter landing pad. Armed men in fatigues guarded the gates and were spaced at regular intervals all around the fence, holding rifles and eyeing the protestors suspiciously. “GSI soldiers,” Lott said.
“Yesterday, there were ten of them. This morning that number doubled,” Jirhuya explained. “If anyone gets within a couple hundred meters of the fence, they fire at our feet. We’re pretty sure it’s because there’s a shipment coming in this afternoon.”
Several people who’d followed behind the Green Bones muttered angrily and spat on the ground. Anorco’s specialized mining vessels collected jade off the seafloor, then sorted the gems on board before transporting them by helicopter to the processing center where they were packed for distribution. One of those final destinations was less than two kilometers away. Shielding his eyes with his hand, Hilo could make out the outline of Euman Naval Base in the distance, its flags flapping in the stiff wind.
Over the course of the standoff, protestors had thrown bricks, paint, and cheap homemade explosives onto Anorco’s property, hurled verbal abuse at the guards, and tried to disrupt deliveries of jade into and out of the facility. The company had responded by increasing security, so GSI soldiers now stood watch day and night.
The occasionally violent demonstrations were not openly condoned by either the Kekonese government or the Green Bone clans, but they weren’t being reined in either. Several members of the Royal Council had expressed sympathy and solidarity with the protestors, and more than a few Green Bones from multiple clans had joined in the demonstration with the tacit permission of their Pillars. Kaul Hiloshudon showing up on Euman Island in person, however—that was new. It was the most dramatic sign of clan support for the standoff to date. A wave of shifting, murmuring, restless energy was sweeping over the crowd. Thousands of people were gathering on the ridge where Hilo and his men stood. News reporters emerged from trucks along the camp’s sidelines, cameras ready, eagerly waiting for something to happen.