The northernmost city of Saval is Juranda. The distance between here and the southernmost city of Lathojowich is close to 340 nura, making this one of the largest kingdoms in the world. I do realize there are many other places that are larger, but most of them are broken into smaller, semi-autonomous provinces. Even though we’ve traveled this great distance through the kingdom, we believe there are still another 200 nura or more between here and the passage through the mountains. We’ll probably find it in another month and a half.
Since it is our last evening in Saval, Morlo and another Guard Exemplar held a feast in our honor. Quite a few people from Juranda attended, bringing with them many fine dishes of the local cuisine. Most memorable was what I believe were boiled slugs in hot horttet juice. I tasted the strange dish, but it certainly wasn’t among my favorites. I’m not sure why anyone would eat slugs, even if boiled, free of slime, and well marinated in sweet juices. Without the hot horttet juice, they would be bland and chewy. This must be an odd tradition like eating the fish eyes at Roba.
It was amusing to watch Boktoseethet talking with some of the local girls. I made sure to remind him he wouldn’t be coming back here, so it wasn’t a good idea to get very attached to any of them. The girls appeared or at least pretended to be less interested in him after I pointed out his sister. I guess Niahla’Sen intimidates them. Dawn jokingly reprimanded me, however, and told me not to spoil anyone’s fun. At least I wasn’t stuck dancing with anyone in a way that would leave someone else angry with me.
We are now at an inn. Tomorrow we leave this city and probably travel beyond the border of this kingdom. I’m wondering if we’ll find another execution tree at the end of the road like we found at the southern end of Saval. It would seem logical to have one, since taking a criminal 340 nura just for an execution seems a bit excessive. They probably have execution trees near the ends of all the major roads. Fortunately, I doubt they get much use.