IM 1008 Pt 1 ~ Plague

[Sire Halfblack]

Plague IM 1008

Forgetown
Hunched low on the wagon his scarf was wrapped close about his mouth and nose against the interminable dust that whipped about him like a child demanding attention. It cried too. A long, high wail that came and went with the wind so that for long minutes he would be buffeted by the clouds of dust, flint dust, dead earth and soot only to suddenly find himself in the clear for shorter moments and under an empty sky. The land was dry even if the rivers were swollen, even if in many places they had broken their banks when the bodies of the dead clogged the bends so that he had heard there were shallow lakes of the bloated and the murdered. But still beyond that and the thaw had left the dusty land dry, the moisture sucked below perhaps for there was none to be seen above. Indeed, the only cloud he spied at all smudged the distant horizon and that was no cloud at all but the poison smog of the still faraway city of Deci.

“Gah!” He cried and shook the reins once more so that the dozen donkeys forged onwards once again. Oxen might have been better but people asked questions about decent cart beasts. They assumed them stolen if one such as he was seen on the tiller board of a wagon. And his carried no cargo over than the bandy topped awning that made of the cart a home large enough for his needs.

The dusty storm plucked at him again and this time when it cleared he knew that the trouble of the journey to Deci simply was not worth the benefit. Not when he spied a sign. A sign of painted iron on which stood the words, cast in bronze.

“Forge Town,” he read aloud. “Population, Eight hundred and twelve.” It would do. In a bundle in the rear were his ivory sword, the accoutrements of his position, his fine garb and his magic. There they would stay.

A mile on and the dust storm just died. One moment it was there, the next it was gone and running away to the north and west. The River Spittle was not so far away and down the trail he saw a raised earth wall, a good many of what looked like wood but mostly, iron buildings and all arranged down a long drag in the centre that ended in a fine, burnished temple. He saw dozens of wagons, scores of carts.

Twelve paces from his cart was a cemetery. It was empty but for a single open grave and a lanky fellow in frayed britches and a lop-crowned hat. Seeing the traveller the gravedigger danced about his spade. Clearly he had not had much business. Looking at the traveller he thought that might change.

“Come ter settle a score, stranger?” The wretched fellow laughed around three good teeth.

“I’m not here for trouble.” Answered Vincenzo and urged his donkey team onwards. For the mile that remained he thought he could hear the laughter follow him all the way.

The Invisible Quarter
“Boss!”

Damn bloody straight ‘boss’. The Baron Throttle tugged off his gloves, tucking the kid leather under his belt so that the cuffs hung loose. It was no great secret he was back in Deci, nor that the Sleek’s men were hunkered about Hightown in case of trouble. Most of the thugs and the more dangerous killers that passed for a militia here were in the Invisible Quarter in case of attack. They were all primarily Throttle’s followers as he stood on the city council, even if they attacked invaders much as they perceived them. It seemed that as the division of the city went they had not entirely unexpectedly come down on the side of King Majius. Or more correctly, the King’s kinsman Talath. “What happened?”

“The theft…”

“Yes, ‘the theft’.” The nearest shied back. Talath could turns a man’s mind inside out, could pluck thoughts from his head. If he raised a hand and pinched his fingers then an enemy’s throat might close. There was not one city structure that Talath oversaw that was not completed on time and ahead of schedule.

The rising tide of theft had been supernaturally inspired. The influence of the Mouse Lord, who Talath thanked whatever god that might have been listening had not been in the city over the Final Dawn. Still, as if by coincidence crime had died down just before Talath had returned. As if it knew what was good for it. He listened, nodded and turned to go. He paused in the doorway and without looking back raised a hand. The thief takers winced.

“They say in Halgar that there is no law and order in Deci.”

The Sleek shook their heads hastily. There was. It was called ‘Talath’. It might have been a rather Deci sort of law, and a very forceful sort of order. But it was still there. “Boss, we’ve got these refugee gangs from Cheapside. Bunch brought out by adventurers. They say they’ll fight with you. Boss?”

The Badlands
If they were well off their patch then still they were Road Wardens.

They might not pass muster in the 101st but then they did not claim to be able to do so. Unshaven for the most part and with their coats open they had kept the peace along the roads for a good week now. The dust storms had swept further north but still black grime dusted them in the creases of their clothing and about their collars. Their spears however were clean and if Stovepipe now resembled some sort of beanpole sweep still his methods were effective.

“Who was their leader?” He asked his Reeve and the man with the large hands used a swollen thumb to indicate where three men and a woman were sat against an old iron tree. Their hands were bound to the exposed roots so that their legs sprawled out in the gully of a dried up stream. Despite the melt it had not reached this place and the Road Wardens took every opportunity to keep their wine skins topped up.

Not so far away a couple of hundred tattered figures watched sullenly and all under the eyes of the Wardens. Stovepipe banged his gloved hands together. “You are brigands and robbers and this has to stop. ” One had he raised to forestall the usual protestations. “Now, now, you’ve been bad lads but, I accept, simple ones. The rogues that poisoned your doubtless good hearts will be executed. Hung I think..?”

“Hung, aye.” The Reeve agreed.

“See? Hung. Excellent. As an example. You however will not be punished but neither can you be trusted. You will be taken to the city to learn of the benefits of good, hard work!”

Stovepipe watched as rope was fetched and the four bound captives freed from the roots and straightened beneath the sturdiest branch. He had heard of brigands hereabouts and the worthy Lord Vrere had offered him a place to base himself, much to the suspicion but grudging acceptance, of the Master of his Guard. A one eyed fellow called Wither.

One of the sentenced raised a voice in protest. “There are laws!”

“Which you broke. String them up my fine fellows!” Four men on each rope hauled and walked and hoisted each above the ground so that they kicked and soiled themselves, jerked and slowly died. Above and Stovepipe saw the tentacles of clouds reaching from the west. There had not been a cloud in the sky for weeks but the far horizon was hidden under those that came, it seemed, from the distant sea.

“Dead, Master.” One of the spears finally called out.

“I should bloody hope so. Off we go then. Spit spot.”

The Invisible Quarter
They rode through the Slurry gates, slowing to let the horses pick their way more easily through the mostly empty streets. Not a one of them could fail to be shocked at the dead lanes, the quiet alleys and the winding thoroughfares that were littered with the still thawing bodies of the dead. They walked their mounts passed foundries and smelteries whose towering chimneys gushed the poison clouds that formed a black smog over the rooftops and in which danced sparks that lifted and fell before being swallowed by the greater haze above. In places a hat, a boot or even a blade was left seemingly discarded. The hammering of the city industry rang only dully about them as their horses snorted and faltered at times and had to be calmed.

A tall man with the ridged and pitted dry skin of an unwrapped mummy that rode a snorting roan. A dark, staring man hooded and unarmed that rode a black mare. A grinning figure of darkness, twigs and winter heat that rode a horned, stripe flanked stallion. A taller man whose white skin seemed so translucent as to almost show the skull beneath. And that man, J, rode a pale horse.

They stopped here and there allowing the first of them to inspect a certain doorway or blank wall. Each peered about the slanting rooftops where holes could be spied in the eves and slates. They walked their horses on to skirt Cheapside and saw not one alley or lane that led inwards. The buildings they went beside were high and windowless and there stood a gap between those there and those without. A fortress made of the old city that had endured for centuries and whose stone was no less sturdy than the rock of a determined cliff.

They came to the Mercantile and here they suddenly came to people. People hurrying about their business. People that stopped to stare. People that made the twisted ‘s’ across their chest of the local version of the Black Dragon. People that looked away or muttered to themselves. Some stared harder but not long enough to maintain any gaze that was returned. Only a small band of men and women in black cloaks approached and these offered a short bow, whether respectful or mocking it was hard to say.

“Lords.” The foremost called. “Are you lost?”

“We are all lost in our own way, Goodman.” Natal answered. From his black horse Tashnali lifted one leg to slide easily to the good stone cobbles of the Mercantile. He said nothing. He walked to stand beside the black cloaks. Head bowed in his hood. Hands crossed across his belly.

“True enough.” The spokesman for the black cloaks agreed. “I suppose it would do no good to ask your business here?”

“Our business is our own.” J said coldly. “You stand to bar our way?”

The black cloaks stood aside quickly. “Nay Lords. Only to see what threat you bring.”

Aerlisseroth laughed and not pleasantly. “Are we not threat enough?”

The black cloaks seemed to think that a good enough answer and in twos and threes drifted away. The people had flowed away now too so that when the horses moved on once more they did so through streets emptied in the sort of quiet order that only people brought up in Deci could manage so smoothly.

Forgetown
Big Anath Halfblack did not gamble. Gambling was about the furthest thing from what it was to be an ‘Anath’ but he liked to watch others do it. This was his place so no one minded and since the Poison Club had been lost the more serious of the Deci gamblers had come here. One had admitted privately to Big Anath that it was actually quite nice to stick to treasure wagers, showing his missing three fingers as he did so. There came a point when one had so many grulls that putting your life on the line was not always necessary. The Poison had begged to differ. But if here they had a table, bone dice and a tin cup then still the stakes seemed rather high. Fiscally speaking. It fascinated Anath only in the same way a good bread roll intrigued a fat man with a big cake.

Big Anath Halfblack was not alone. Stood beside him, bound up under a rectangle of sailcloth was a statue. Only its feet could be seen but still everyone just knew that it was some sort of golem. The Cart and Hammer was the kind of Inn that catered to a wild sort of traveller. Traders, peddlers, adventurers even gamblers and of course smiths, craftsmen and others who in rural Deci were just as tough. They all had been on, or knew those had, the adventurers trail and so knew that for every statue that just stood there looking nice there were four that tried to take your head off. Big Anath did not disabuse them of this opinion.

Not that the threat of the golem stopped the fighting. It took less than two words to start a fight in the Cart and Hammer. Fights that flared like a fire but died like a three grull zombie on the Michaelian Highday. Punches and kicks and broken bottles. Considering some of the fighting it was almost surprising that no one had been killed. Yet no one had. And grudges never seemed to stick. A man that fought another would be seen ten minutes later feeling his teeth with his tongue whilst sharing a cup with his former enemy.

They paid with nuggets of gold and scrolls, precious old plate from the catacombs and worn old notes. There were pelts and bits of armour and Big Anath was already working in his mind on the idea of a proper trading post to more effectively turn it all into hard grull. Most people were transients. The sort who returned time and time again. More than a few bowed their head to the Temple. ‘Praise the Forge and pass the crossbow bolt’ as the traders said nowadays.

Big Anath only looked up when the thin man entered. A thin moustache fell about a thin chin. Narrow cheeks framed narrow eyes. Faded black cloak, swirl bladed sword. Widows peak brow and straight hair pulled at the neck by a black iron ring. Halfblack nodded to the barkeeper who fetched a thin bottle and a thin glass. The only one in the Bell and Hammer where a cup was often a weapon. “Master Bone.” Big Anath Halfblack sat back in his chair and hooked his thumbs in the lapels of his cloak. “We should talk.”

Standing, he patted the covered statue and adjusted his hat. Anath had come here after his business with the Hundred. They had carried out their threat. Nothing went up in Cheapside. No Guildsman would enter the most westerly of the city’s Quarters. They were pledged now to King Majius and Governor Drake and saw no conflict in this avowed stance. They did not fear King Blackjack, for they doubted he would come out of Fortress Cheapside and if he did, then, well…

“Master Halfblack! If I can just have one moment of your time?”

Big Anath looked down at where his sleeve had been plucked by the ugly little man that had been trying to get his attention for three days now. Shorter than Anath by a good foot, the fellow had been kicked out of the Toymakers months ago. Too much dwarf blood, even if that was only his grandmother, Tooly Thumb had something of the madness about him that took some craftsmen. Under his arms were rolls of Diviner plans that were by reputation alarmingly new and inventive. Ideas that were only half formed for things and people and places that would never have worked in Deci.

But here? In the seat of the Forge? Run by Anath?

Anath twitched his arm free. “Later, Thumb.” Ignoring the fellow Halfblack instead handed the glass to Master Bone and took him to where one of his retainers waited with scrolls and quills and tallys. A chair broke somewhere behind them and a wizard rabbit-punched a half orc in the kidneys.

And dammit, they still had no music.

The Invisible Quarter
It was a bright morning. Birds were dancing over the bridge and already statues were being raised to the smells of baking bread and last nights kill.

Gadden Spy, Kallah of the Invisible woke with a start and immediately ran away from the dream. If he ran far enough then with any luck he would not have it again.

*

Ishial was not a young man. His legs were a little too long for his frame and the wolf furs he wore about his shoulders matched the long scar that had turned one eye milky. Unshaven, stinking of rude health and armed in the manner of the city but with the addition of a good sword and several pitch-streaked mantraps he rarely came into Deci itself. Once he had hunted the wilds free of Brigands with Siren. He still did much the same, but now for no master. There were many like him if one knew where to look. The territory might be hard but the people were better off now. They worked their own mines or the city’s. They hunted high and low for wood to turn to charcoal. And they had a bit of treasure. People like Ishial did well enough. Arrogant, hateful of being told what to do and distrusting the Nobility no one was more surprised than Ishial by the way he skipped about the taller man, tugging his sparse hair and eager to please.

“Wolves, eh?”

“Aye, your Grace.”

“Just m’lord’ll do, chappy. Eh?”

As if granted a generous boon Ishial bobbed and scraped and smoothed down hair that was only in disarray due to all the tugging he gave it. “Local kind. Scum from outside were in the, ah, now destroyed Citadel. Left that old skull. Ones that did the killing were locals. Deci Wolves they call them. Old. Been here a long time. Argoth and his scum, Nobles too, they hunted them down and killed all their young. Used to be the Straw Dogs.”

“Hidden, eh?” Dirk instantly disliked what he heard. Damn skulking villains, doubtless. Knives in teeth and dirty nails. It was fortunate that he had at his call a fine body of rogues who cheekily moved in the shadows, honest peasant blades to hand and with good serfish grime upon their fingertips. Many carried drums and trumpets.

“Me or others can find em, m’lord.”

Dirk beamed and patted the fellow on the head. He smacked his lips. The doin’s were doin’ well. It was a fine night and when the wind stirred one might even see a star or two. He called for his horse and rode to seek the Governor. Good news liked companionship. The streets were somewhat empty but where he went the people waved and bowed. The Nobles protected them from the Pretender Blackjack. And none was nobler than Dirk.

“Nuh, nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh-nuh Dirky!” He sang to himself.

The Slurries
It had once been so much fun!

Unfettered by rules, here had been the land-of-do-as-you-please. And they had. Their nanny had come sometimes but never to scold. And the games they played had been funny. Led by the bravest and most daring of them all, the pouty Childe Murder. They had tripped a funny man hurrying down their lane and bashed him with rocks until he stopped jumping. They had jabbed Mrs. thingylesweet with sticks and stabby knives until she stopped telling them to find a temple to take them in. They had played such games.

But that had ended, and suddenly. There was no fun anymore. It was hungry times and her friends fended for themselves and nasty men from elsewhere came to try and snatch her up for their own dribbling purposes. But she had hid and she had run and no one was quick enough to catch her. For she had Mrs. Upsidedown, the rag head that spoke to her and told what to say to win games and being -nasty.

Then she had turned the wrong corner and strong hands had snatched at her pointy rags and in horror Mrs. Upsidedown had been knocked from her grasp. Stuffed in a bag she struggled but was beaten and that was the last she remembered, when there had fun and fingers and walls were solid.

And Mrs. Upsidedown stared blankly at the alley wall with a button eye and said nothing until much later her friend would return all white and misty and hard to hear at all.

Forgetown
If it were possible his fists had grown a little and even now Gideon was working his fingers with audible cracks to make sure the hardened knuckles would not impede his spell working. His staff stood close to hand, now with several eight inch nails hammered through the head with their nasty points outward. Someone had knocked his arm only an hour before and almost to his own surprise Gideon’s short little punch to the side had seen the half orc drop like the price of foreign ore on mining day.

Missy Sicks had been impressed. It was no secret that Gideon had some sort of magic but that upset no one. Forge Town had more people passing through than were really settled and not a few of them had some spells to hand, or a magic ring or three. That Gideon had won a fight without even the words ‘by all the power of’ had gained him quite a bit of respect.

“You make potions?”

“Going to be. Lots of strange ingredients hereabouts.” That was true enough. The years of poison cloud and sickly air even out here had seen strange new breeds of plant grow and even thrive if one knew where to look. “Of course, the more time I spend looking for them the less time I have to tinker with them.”

That made sense and Missy Sicks nodded at the wisdom of the words. She was quite a pretty girl, if dirty and smelly and with a propensity for an immense fur coat with more pockets than clasps. She had been brought up right out in some lonely part of the Bildteve territory whereupon escaping to the big city six or seven years ago she had been surprised to find out about the Empire at all. She wandered at whim and in the wilder places. Gideon knew all this, which was why he was standing her a jug of the rather nasty local brew. Good for getting drunk and cleaning the rust from tin, if bad for the eyesight.

Only the week before he had tracked down Hiven Bell as the fellow had passed through. Unlike Missy with her donkey and dogs, Bell had a fine wagon and team and dressed rather better than most people hereabouts. If Missy stumbled on interesting places then Bell already knew where they were. His brothers were mercenaries but Bell preferred the roaming life. Having avoided Deci for some time he was like other traders taking the chance on Forge Town. They had spoken for most of an afternoon and suggested ways in which they might help one another. Bell knew where even the oddest potions and other brews could get a very good price, even if he did not volunteer where that might be. Missy on the other hand was more likely to use them herself.

Either way, both agreed to bring to Gideon what they found and indeed as a sign of good faith had agreed to return in just a week or four with something to show as an example.

Gideon had been in the Cart and Hammer every day for a few weeks now. He had spoken to people and become something of a fixture at the wobbly table at the end of the serving planks. To his mind what the place needed was an immense mirror on the far wall so that people spent less time watching their backs and more time drinking. He had joked about that with a recent arrival from the city, a slight little man that might as well have had ‘thief’ writ clear on his forehead but seemed to go by the name of Strawberry. Why, he had not said. Still the pair had met a few times and it never hurt to have friends locally. No matter if Gideon had kept his purse well in hand the whole time.

Cheapside
They had been attacked and still the bodies lay on the barricades. King Blackjack came to see them in his bear fur cloak and with his ceremonial axe held in the crook of one hand. His iron boots struck sparks from the cobbles and the armour that had been presented him bulged from the muscles beneath. All thieved or found from the undercity, emptied homes or old Guilds it was a mixture of the old and the new but each piece chosen formed the image of the beasts or monsters that every item was formed to represent. Blackjack looked a fearsome sight and the crowd that went with him were suitably awed.

“G’wan…”

Marmalade shrugged. He had been expecting it sooner. “Adventurers. Mostly dressed as drow.”

“Oo?”

“Tricky,” he admitted. They had crossed the barricades and gone into the undercity where they had found some of the old gangs hiding out down there. Some of whom it seemed had filtered through to the Mercantile now where some sort of council was being held. Traitors all of course, which Marmalade declared swiftly enough. He had himself only just returned from the raid whereupon some of the tougher of the fighters in Cheapside had come on the Songbirds, and though a few had died most were senseless and in big nets hanging from the beams of the King’s deepest chambers. “They went out again but had to fight, killed some of the lads and even some Kallah…”

“Yah?” That actually seemed to please Blackjack. He had been hunting the little sods down that remained and most were at a loss since the Mocker King had seemingly vanished. They had not been about to side with him, well, they had agreed but Blackjack had not believed them. This was just the sort of thing to change that.

“Aye, Great King. Anyway, the brats of Fingers Lane followed them well enough. Names like ‘Radient’ or ‘Effix’ mean anything to you?” If Marmalade was waiting for an answer he did not get one. He coughed to clear his throat before continuing. “Though dressed as drow there was some sort of blue angel with them, and a tubby Elysian with a smug look on his face. People still got murdered, mind.”

Blackjack looked thoughtful. “Never mind, dat.” He spared a glance at his people. Castle Cheapside was never going to be secure against people like that. Still, the Kingdom was ready for an attack. Even taking aside his own tough pack several hundred were nasty street militia and the rest a fierce sort of levy. And that was taking aside all the old killers and nasties that had come over since Argoth had buggered off. “Best they can do, issit?” He laughed. The people laughed with him.

This was both a revolt and the defence of Old Deci. It was a bit of a bugger that the Guilds were not entering Cheapside but they would manage. For as all here knew, and quite a few without, Maji-arse was the lapdog of the Empire and would by now either have seen them all dead or given to the hag pregnant dog watsername. Toowick. Whatever. The time would come the King had told his people, when the Empress would be bent back over her throne and shown what a proper King ‘ad in is britches’. He ran his tongue over his nose at the thought.

It was a shame about the treasury. They had made a grab for it, as had others doubtless but someone in the city had got there first. Quite impressive as the Kingdom of Cheapside had been no slouch off the mark. Each day people came to the Cheapside Gates, rural folk that hated the Empire, brigands and other scum. The place was still a bit empty but every week it grew in number as the angry rabble from across the north came to where King Blackjack was making a stand against the Empire. He might need some taxes. Which meant setting his people to rob the rest of the city. He could live with that.

“We’ve just got word that a visitor is coming in a few weeks.” Marmalade added, concerned that the King seemed to be thinking and worried where that sometimes led.

“Yuh?”

Marmalade had no idea who. Someone bad, someone old, some enemy of the Empire that had returned and was going to aid King Blackjack. Someone that the Marcher Lord of the North and ‘King Majius’ had quailed before and so unfettered his power, power that had been completed as the year had last turned. Marmalade shaded his eyes from the thin, unpleasant sun. Hung, gutted and displayed on a frame over their heads someone had just lowered the thoroughly dead body of The Fifth. Marmalade thought better of saying anything. Let someone else point it out and get killed in the rage that would doubtless follow.

The Thorn Estate
It was easier going now that the hard ground had soaked up the winter in the lowlands and even here on the hills where the spruce and pines were thick the snow only clung to dips and hollows. Ahead and high and the mountains were still white but Re’Ac and Tam were able to pick their way onwards easily enough.

They had left the limits of the Empire behind them and if only by a mile or two then still they were in the foothills of the Braekens. The air smelled different for some reason, a little bleaker perhaps. They moved beside jutting rocks and moss hung little cliffs until they came by mid morning to where a tree’s budding branches, a stark change compared to the rest of the evergreen forestland) was hung with strings of holed stones and polished little rocks. This it seemed was the mark of the witch. Here they stopped to eat from Tam’s pack and stare back the way they had come.

Re’Ac had not really noticed how high they had come. From where they sat the estate could be seen below them and the land for perhaps three leagues either side. Not as stark as much of the city territory it was already turning green with tough local grasses and without the snow even the streamers of thorn bushes were flowering. The traveller shaded his eyes until he thought he saw where the sun caught something in a gully to the south and east.

“Is that it? The temple?”

Tam finished what he was eating before answering, shading his eyes in the same manner as Re’Ac before nodding. “Looks like it. The dome’s quite shiny, aye. You’d pass it by quite close but not see it in that gully. Empty, bit crumbly but there’s that big old frieze on the back wall I told you about.”

It was well out of the estate and really close to nowhere at all. Even from here they could not see the nearest villages or settlings. Even Tanistock to the south could only be picked out by the thin smoke from its fires and that village had a couple of hundred souls living there. The village had barely heard of Deci, let alone the Empire and already where they now sat was further than anyone there had travelled. Tam went there at times as they always needed needles, pins and other little metal trinkets as they were terrible at metal-working. Surprising in a territory where metal could be had with little more than a good walk with a wheelbarrow. Not especially nice people they worshipped some horrid little devil in the shape of a snake, and feared the coming of a great mouse that would steal their spirits away. For such an insular, rather stupid place, Tam had professed that nearly everyone there possessed rather startling beauty but died young die to ague and disease. A result, he had professed, of their habit of scraping their skins and hair clean on at least a weekly basis.

Both men started when the trees were buffeted and a thick shadow passed over them. They stared in surprise as rushing overhead and then swiftly across the land they saw what could only be a dragon. A large, heavy looking beast studded with gemstones that caught the light and from whom trailed smoke and sparks. It beat its wings only twice that they saw before it vanished into the distance, south, and was gone.

“Don’t see that every day,” Tam coughed.

Re’Ac agreed. “Best that way I find.” He scratched his nose and the pair stood together and moved off ignoring what they had seen. If they did not think on it too hard then hopefully it would not come back.

Hightown
Hightown sat upon and about the edge of the city’s abyss. A single rock it was said, none of which could be seen for the Quarter rose upon itself, layer upon layer from the drow slums deep in the dark to the rising and impressive spire that seemed to pierce the heavens above – or at least the low, sickly clouds of the city industry. Bridges and walkways crossed the abyss here and there. Streets wove upwards so that at times they were entirely covered and at others hung dangerously over the drop. As they led their horses upwards the streets grew wider as the rock beneath tapered and the buildings larger but sparser in consequence. Hightown was like no other place in the Empire. It was all up and near to the top stood the house of Duff. Great gates stood open and two fountains rose from exquisite statues before an old house half cut from the rock. Not that it showed for so well worked was it. Those that came here might despise Deci, but only a fool would have disregarded the quality of its Guilds and craftsmen.

A servant emerged to take the four horses. Another bowed and escorted them through the gilded main doors. They shut softly, leaving the world outside entirely that.

Forgetown
He had tried to help the Guilds that had seen to the building of the tavern and for an afternoon had cheerily got under foot whilst waiting for the chance to set a smashed thumb to right. He knew Deci and if Tirack had managed to get out, to turn his back on his murderous family and to set his path towards the light then still the old habits were hard to shake. You could take the boy running with relief from Deci but you could not take the Deci kicking and screaming from the boy.

And here in Forge Town there was quite a lot of that. The locals were for the most part Decites, and if they spoke proudly of their city then Tirack could hardly fail to notice that they did not make much of a move to return. Deci was somewhere to have come from, not to be in.

For a town, Forge was pretty much a central drag where everything stable was being built with tents, pavilions, carts and shacks behind each row. There were no alleys as such, not longer than the gap between a given building anyway, and if he were a thief, which he was not, he would tell anyone, then the quickest escape route would at this stage be anywhere at all and in a straight line. He had healed a few people and a trader had given him a decent tent in return, and similarly he was fed and watered for doing much the same. It was a shame there was no shrine to Shaehan here for then like so many priests in the wilds the altar would also be his bed.

No one had tried to rob him. The biggest crime was fighting, and that rather good-natured. There was no law in Forge Town that Tirack could see. Which might have meant elsewhere that crime was rife. Conversely, and still with Deci’s shadow figuratively stretching over the place, it meant that anyone caught up to no good would probably be hung.

The Invisible Quarter
They actually cheered him!

Outsiders called it the East Quarter. Closer to home it was the Mercantile or, more recently, the Invisible Quarter. Quite why the latter Drake did not know. Certainly it seemed to be rather obvious to him with its lanes and streets and funny little squares with its shops and Guilds. Guilds that he might have sworn were in some cases elsewhere scant months ago now all seemed to have grown here. Some had just plain moved, some had appeared, some had, it seemed, always been there. Whatever the reason they were here now and the Quarter was thick with people. Hard working people. People who did not want to murder each other, or rebel much, and who though did not see anything especially wrong with robbing folk they did not for the most part do it. Not now, not in recent weeks. As far as could be said for Deci these were upright and honest. Deci honest but honest nonetheless.

Still a bit swollen about the cheek and still possessed of something of a limp Drake had walked the streets and been clapped on the shoulder. Gifts of food and wine had been forced on him. And they cheered. This was the Invisible Quarter and they were the people of King Troy. Which did not mean that Drake was not their Governor. They saw the two things as being entirely independent of one another.

Not so far away Drake spied Dirk on his big horse. He raised a hand and climbed atop a nearby cart and there waved his arms for silence.

“Don’t think a thumping puts me down, people.” To which the slowing crowd scratched their heads. They were not really used to speeches. They were in truth a bit suspicious of any that did not come from their King. “This? I got worse shaving. Once,” he said with complete truthfulness, “I got worse from having a nuts. And I tell you, I’ve shat bigger than Blackjack.”

They laughed at that. Laughed. With him. Not at him.

“So I’m callin’ him out. Governor to Orc. If he wants a fight, manno-a-monstero he should find me. Down in the Slurries if he wants. Neutral ground. Forgetown p’raps? But he won’t show. Blackjack’s a coward. Blackjack fights in a pack, with his slaves. He don’t take no risks.”

There was a bit of muttering at that. It was what the crowd would do. Still…

Over their heads Dirk’s eyes were glazed. He had distinctly heard the Governor say ‘a fine and noble duel’. Doubtless with streamers and fair maids or… Dirk shook his head. Not the last. Poor man, to have lost his wife. For a moment the knight wondered where his own was but images of duels and honour and the defeated Monster Of Cheapside soon crowded such thoughts aside. “Bravo for Governor Drake!” He called out. “A brave and noble man!”

Which made two of them in Deci, even Dirk knew.

“Governor!” A voice called as Drake went through the crowd. “Governor!” Dirk urged his horse forward to part the people a little, sliding to the cobbles as Drake approached. They nodded to one another but still the voice persisted and they turned to see a fellow of about thirty in yellow britches and a heavy shirt. Both were stained and filthy from the soot and smog of the city. There was a reason people wore black here and it was not as they themselves often claimed so as to be unseen at night. “Governor Drake!”

“Son?”

The younger man bowed. He declared himself Christopher Flashblade. “I am here to offer my services against the evil orc that claims kingship here!”

Dirk beamed. Drake raised an eyebrow and dug a cheap sword iron case from inside his tunic from which he selected the longest of his cigar stubs. Before answering he settled the butt in one corner of his mouth. Noteworthily he did not light it. “Good to have you on board. Nice britches.”

Flattered, Christopher plucked each hem so that they flared a little more. “You really think so?”

Drake patted the newcomer on the cheek with a rough hand. “I don’t lie, son.“ Though when he said ‘nice’ he meant on Christopher, as opposed perhaps to more generally.

Across the square a clutter of rats and rogues pulled and pushed at a cart in which were laden several barrels bearing the Tar Boilers mark. Seated squarely on top a goblin in a very big hat trimmed his toenails with a knife no larger than his little finger. Behind came a pack of street toughs, weapons in hands.

No one paid them much attention. Not with Sire Berry to nod and wave at anyone that paused as they went by.

The Majius Estates
The serfs were lined up, eyes down and a little nervous. It was not often that the great Lord himself came amongst them and it was an honour not to be ignored. Their villages positively thrived of course and even as it came to dark the dull smoke of the estates many charcoal heaps rose in the evening air. The Majius Estates smelt of wood smoke any time day or night, a smell that for most of the House could now bring a tear for home wherever they went in the land. It was not an unpleasant smell and the estate in fairness was not an unpleasant place to live. The river along one side, the woodland made for a steady living and peddlers and traders had been coming to the crossroads for months now, a mile or two outside the nearest village but convenient for each.

The men were in next day’s aprons, their britches still tied and stained from the days work. The women had on their faded festival bonnets. The children stared from eves and doorways. Troy was not merely the King of Deci but more pertinently their Lord of House. And without the usual madness that attended the line memories of being chased over hill and stony field were already fading. No longer were their daughters sent to the manor. The Lord was even married. They paid their tithes, their lives were untroubled but they certainly knew their place. Deci Nobles had old Blood and they lived by the old ways. With the old respects.

Troy walked along their line, pausing here and there to pass a word or two with those he recognised. Fumble tongued as they were each was a very stilted conversation. They were almost relieved when he passed on to speak to the outsiders and warn them against trouble. The Lord was back on his estate. The problems of Deci would doubtless be seen to. What else was a Governor for after all?

Forgetown
“Two days.”

They were sat on the steps of the temple to the Forge from which they could stare down the main, or indeed, really, only, street. Dust had chased them all the way east from the city so that had they not had the River Spittle to guide them they might have missed the town entirely. Even now the handcart that held all their belongings remained packed, shrouded and sagging with the black dust and grit of their journey. The wind had died here so that Forge Town seemed dreadfully still and if the skies were clear then they were pregnant with the promise of rain.

Emily Plombe shivered. She just wanted to get the shelter up but after days of pushing the cart Jerold seemed happier to sit with others and share the jug they were passing between them. Somewhere behind she could hear the sounds of hammer and tongs and occasionally see a spearman emerge to stretch, admire his new armour or just vanish to the rear for a crafty piss. The spearmen were an impressive bunch, from Keys she had heard and dressed in proper tunics, plumed helmets and rich cloaks that although stained with travel were considerably more glorious that her husband’s cracked apron and the britches that had been the sum of his inheritance from his sot of a father. If she had not been so scarred from the smelter accident in Eartholme then she might have crept off to flirt with one of the manly spearmen. But now that would never be. Still, at least they had left that more southerly city with its unhappy memories. She hoped those here would be better. She hoped further that they would not be returning to Deci in order to gather those memories for it had been an awful place.

Her mother’s family had come from Deci, moving to Eartholme when first it had been established. Lumber Jackers indeed, and they had gone to the Guild only to discover that it had been burned to the rocky ground some months back. The area had been cleared but they could not tell if it had been rebuilt elsewhere. She had asked someone but they had said no, the Guild was gone.

“Two days we lasted! Cheap housing mind.” Jerold shared. Which was true enough given that the city was about a tenth as populace as it had been a few years before, so finding a home involved no more than picking one of the many empty to be had. “But everyone’s so hard hearted. It took me an hour to find anything to eat. There’s not much in the markets and frankly it seems that most people have their own sources. Even then the bread I got was black, the carrots too. From some trader that just walked down the road knocking on doors. Smuggling we called that back in Eartholme. No order. No law at all from what I could see. Not like here.”

Lilly sighed. She had heard from four of the five people she had actually spoken to that Governor Drake had been here just the other day and he was a man she had heard with a history of keeping the peace. Not one of those that had told her this had admitted to actually having seen the man. But a friend of a cousin of a woman that worked at this, that or other had been pretty sure that Drake had been here.

Or Jander.

One of the two anyway.

“So why is it,” she heard her husband ask one of his new cup buddies, “that it rained Blackstone?”

“Fire at Forgotten Pass.”

“Where’s that?”

South somewhere, the man opined. Perhaps north of that pass that divided the Deci hills from those of Eartholme? There were tales that some sort of fire or explosion had occurred there and that still blackstone was being pulled into the wind. A sack of the stuff could be gathered with a sheet and a good hill it seemed.

“I’m going to get a pitch.” Lilly stood. Jarold ignored her other than to wave a meaty hand as she left. Seeing that he was wrapped up in his new drinking circle she skirted the first of the buildings to cut back to the rear of the temple. Her face she twitched her scarf over. Some of the spearmen were very handsome after all. Maybe she could try her hand anyway. Spearmen were not said to be picky.

The Slurries
“We are sinners that we might rise and cast off the shackles given us by the Nobles!” Ram Pesh declared. He stared at his attentive audience. They were always attentive of course, for he was Ram Pesh and his cult told them to cut and prick and drink and commit foulness in the dirty deeps of the city. The cult was rising a little, even a man of power had come amongst them and if Ram Pesh was suspicious he did not show it. He had power himself, power from old angels that he would join when all that could be done had been. When he had seen and soiled himself in every evil, then he would be free of all stain to his soul. He was Ram Pesh and he had murdered and violated, assassinated and robbed, smuggled and desecrated. There was not much left on the list.

The big man with the lightning eyes had quizzed him at first but Ram Pesh had sneered that the newcomer was too soiled by his own evil. That to be born anew he must dip himself further so as to remove that evil. The flesh was false!

*

It lapped at the Slurries, a lean dog against a shallow pool. There had been tendrils and puddles of murderous power there still and these it had supped at with an almost delicate reserve. Easy victuals in a Quarter that was for the most part seemingly deserted. Oh there were people here still but they had lost their way without Childe Murder, just as they had lost their protection. They had thrived in their own little way in what had been the Poison Quarter and now the beast could taste their fear of what would become of them now that their Master had left, been banished, no one was too sure which.

There was power here but not perhaps the ritual that it craved. It’s children might have fed on petty magic before they had fled to Ishma bit it’s tastes had ever been as exquisite as its hunger remained nearly constant. It had for so long been kept from the city.

No more.

The temple had been plain fare indeed. The idiocy of the Michaelians made for bland fare. It ate the dark and evil out of preference. It had a sweet tooth. Even now there was a priest or two stumbling about far distant hills, drooling and shaking and but a scrap of what they had been. It lifted its head. It sensed someone eminently delightful. Someone that might have fed him sated for a month or more. He twitched. He licked thin lips. But there was something Glorianave about it. He hissed. He retreated to the shadows. Then was gone. The beast was only where it wished to be in this place. He wondered for a moment about what might have occurred had the Magiarch he sensed come but a month or three earlier. When the Silvered Fury had remained. That would have been a sight to see.

*

It was time to move. The tunnels had been scoured of evil by the evil done there and with the sun now high in the sky they could move without too much notice. Whether in rags or fine noble cloth the cultists emerged to blink in the thin sun that barely penetrated the smog above at all – emerging from the darkness to the light. They paused to turn their heads to the smog, to see the sun as a sign. Most were unsteady, drunk still from the bounty given them by the gods. Not a few leant against the nearest wall to empty their stomachs or void their bowels.

Between them stood Ram Pesh. His ale brown skin a leathery hide from which peered two eyes of beetle blackness. Skinny as a spear his bare limbs were knotted and scarred. He tugged at his beard and thought of the woman they had killed and the depths to which they had sunk. Soon, soon he would lead them into the light to sail on wings of fire! So it had been told to him in the first of the visions deep in the high hills scant months before. He had survived much, had taken on the three wounds and was but one step from ascending. Ram Pesh was also a survivor and some instinct made him turn as the last of his cult emerged from the tunnels.

A clutter of figures had dropped to bar the way. Hunched they did not so much seek to hide in the shadows as to wear them. Strips were tied over hands and snouts. There were rats and others there that might have been goblins, men or stranger things. He saw the edges of blades in both hands. Ram Pesh caught up the nearest of his disciples and dragged her unresistingly close as a narrow axe flickered from a rooftop to bury itself in her chest.

The cult froze and a good many went down screaming as blades and darts and more axes scythed into them. With a howl that cut across the wounded the cult surged forward into the square only for those closest to the alleys to actually be dragged within. Blades rose and fell there so that the closer staggered back. The cult whipped out its own weapons for they were Deci folk too and those not too befuddled by the drink sought for ways out. Some went up the walls only to be snapped up by ropes that jerked them free, up and then to fall back upon their companions minus a head.

In less than thirty seconds half the cult was down and the rest were screaming in rage, fear and confusion.

“That way!” Pesh ordered them and his sheer presence drove them to the second of the lanes that led out. As a mob they surged forward only for the first twenty to be cut off from the others as an old gate clanged shut between them. The mob tried to back away even as ropes fell amongst them and silent little killers slid down to fall light in their ranks. One lad cut low with his knife at the nearest only to have it knocked down and a blade punched up and into the roof of his mouth. The lane seemed to boil as more attackers flowed down the walls.

Beyond the old gate the leading, separated elements backed off as the daylight was shadowed by more strip bandaged and hooded figures. The attackers seemed to wait, even to back away as with a cheer the leading cultists dashed forward and into the wider street beyond. The visible attackers backed away even as more flowed in behind the cultists. Then without a word the noose was drawn and the rat, goblins, men, whatever they were, jumped at the cult. Red rain flickered through the air as the cult vanguard was separated and cut, butchered and killed.

In the lane one young girl managed to climb the gate only to see the last of the leading mob get hacked brutally down by a savage overhand cut. She paused as the attackers ahead stood slowly to stare at her. Behind and her companions fared no better as the noise died. The cult made noise, the attackers did not and so the balance went swiftly towards the latter.

Ram Pesh himself tore an old iron spar from one wall and struck at the nearest attacker – but he and others slipped back. The girl watched as Ram Pesh climbed his dead cult to roar at the killers even as those in the lane grabbed their ropes and were yanked swiftly back up the wall and away. She saw as from the square a little figure in a very big hat skipped quickly in the steps of Ram Pesh.

“Maste-!” She called, but a rock crushed her skull and she fell lifelessly to the wet cobbles.

Ram Pesh snarled. An arm circled his neck, a knife stabbed into one ear and twisted. Ram Pesh shuddered, opened his mouth but slumped. His body was laid carefully on the pile of his cultish dead. His killer looked up, behind and then down the alley – each time touching a finger to his forehead and away.

Then he was gone and indeed was the last to go.

Cheapside
“I ain’t not done notthink!” The wretched child protested. This was not true. All over the city were the spawn of Fingers Lane. Urchins were survivors in Cheapside by dint of the fact that they had survived at all. They had family all over the city for most were, or had been, born in the western quarter before moving out when they ‘done good’. There were Cheapside snipes everywhere and they saw pretty much everything. They were quick as whiskers and sharp as knives. Only rivalled in the Slurries by the pale children of Murder and the red cheeked woman that had nurtured them even there they had returned for their once scary rivals had vanished.

Like so many now this one had no parents. He had even pointed out where his mother had been hiding during one of his King’s purges. They were the brats of Fingers Lane and only Josh had been too slow to avoid the sudden rush of the masked and hooded figure that had fallen amongst them. Even the thug that had lurked nearby had gone down faster than a goblin on Molly night. The thug still twitched, a curved lump of wood having raised a goose egg on his forehead.

“You ain’t gonna kill me…” Josh sneered. The silent figure that held him clear of the ground one handed said nothing. He might get beaten but that was nothing new to Josh. Not hardly. He blinked. “…not this time. ” In a smaller voice. He was tossed aside and limping ran away as quick as he could. Back to Fingers Lane with the rest of his pack.

*

King Blackjack was going to spread the old Treasury amongst the people, it was known. He was going to bring down the Nobility and give their lands and fine houses to the people, which was all gravy to the people of Cheapside who over recent weeks had been taught to despise the old order. Each man was as good as another they knew, and each man would live in riches when the traitors elsewhere in the city were disposed of. Traitors whom everyone knew followed the despoiler King Majius, he that wished to tear down old Deci and salt the ground.

Master Tully had heard this and with no other information to go on had brought the refugees rounded up outside the city to the Cheapside gate. It was firmly barricaded and thickly manned now for only recently it had been attacked and any number of upright citizens had been brutally slain by murderous adventurers. Adventurers doing their usual duty of acting as the assassins of an Empire whose only purpose was to keep the people in their place. Well, not here.

“Bugger off.” One of the bravos on the gate called out.

Tully took off his hat and banged it free of the soil of travel. He replaced it before replying. “Look mate, I just need to get this lot returned to their homes. Can’t I just come through to the Citadel?”

They laughed at that. It seemed there was no longer any such thing. They had stolen it. Tully was impressed. A whole citadel? He let his eye roam about the walls and it seemed that much of that building had been used to reinforce Cheapside. He knew it was the old city and with so many of the old buildings torn down, alleys filled and roofs opened the Quarter had actually been turned into a fortress itself. A good one at that. Certainly any fool that thought to get him to attack it could bugger right off. Speaking of which. “Look mate, I’m just delivering people back to their homes. You weren’t told?”

A rock bounced off his shoulder. Behind him the refugees shuffled nervously. Tully rubbed where the stone had hit him. He nodded. “You want to come out here and try that again?”

“No!” Another rock flew out and Tully jumped back much to the amusement of those within. He looked about until he saw the most expendable of his follows and waved for him to come forward. Hunched, lean and hungry the fellow was told to go inside and find someone with at least a scrap of wits about him.

“Me?”

Tully cuffed him about the back of the head and booted him up the britches to get the idiot moving. “We’re sending in an envoy to whatever your leader calls himself!”

“King!” The barricade roared. But they snatched at the messenger and dragged him inside with much searching, robbing and the taking of certain liberties.

Bloody city, Tully thought.

Forgetown
The gypsies were such a diverse bunch. There were many that either claimed to be or were said to be that by others, that only one who knew the signs or spoke the words could filter the People from the merely derided. There were a fair few bands in the Empire even if they kept themselves to themselves. A great many were either tribal that had adopted some of the traits of the civilised, or were the civilised that had taken to the trails almost in the manner of the nomadic tribes. Quite a few of the newer breed had been on the road out of necessity since the dying days of the Magiarchal Wars when people had to move, or die and had done so ever since, either ignorant or uncaring of what the cities called themselves now, Empire or otherwise. There were a number in the Heartlands that associated with faeries, quite a few in Alguz who most certainly did not. West of Sellaville were the more formal clans of the Three Families: Carabray, Taler and Llano and Vinny knew them all. Hereabouts they tended to travel often singly as tinkers and peddlers. Indeed, most of the peddlers nowadays either had the gypsy blood, had been born to travelling families or knew the ways of the gypsy so well they might have been part of them.

The tarry ale was pretty bad, but the Inn was warm and sheltered and the very nature of Forgetown meant that no one looked at him twice. So sharing a jug with the peddler drew little attention. Vinny had met the man before on at least three occasions. Just on road or trail, nothing that either would call friendship, but enough to share a table and the jar and a little gossip.

“You know Aranan’s lost another husband?”

Vinny had not. The woman was something of a Queen amongst their kind and he was not surprised to hear she was in Alguz still. Not in the city, but well along the river where she and hers lived in barges. Brunt of Cham was in the Heartlands, on some estate of the Flashblades. That man was almost a legend. Old blood, centuries at least and all in his own veins. He claimed no status but there were legends about Brunt of Cham. With his light fingered entertainers, his freaks and his wonders. Brunt of Cham used old magic and wandered far, and if was back in this land now then that meant something.

Both men looked up when the roof began to tremble. There was a low, rolling boom and then through the window they saw the rain fall. One moment all was dry, dusty and dead. Of a sudden they could see no further than two paces beyond the thick, green glass. The rain hit and voices started to be raised above its din.

“Shaehan’s tits!” The peddler swore at the sight.

Tits indeed, thought Vinny.

By Alan Morgan (CI10V3)