IM 1008 Pt 2 ~ Sunner

[Sire Halfblack]

Sunner IM 1008

It was hot enough to melt the heart of a frost giant and so high north was the city in the Empire that even had the poison smog over Deci not hidden the sky then still the stars above would not have been clearly seen till nigh on midnight. Darkness indeed barely lasted four hours and even then the sun’s fierce attention remained trapped under the layer so that the city rivalled that of Brass for its fiery air. Short nights and unremitting heat made this the worst time of the year for Deci. People already on edge argued over the smallest thing. They lurked in their Guilds and gathers. The streets already emptied by the murder that had robbed perhaps four in five of their lives took on a ghostly appearance. If it were not perhaps that so many of the people worked in foundry or near to one then there would have been riots. Rebellion without reason other than the need to strike back. To swear and fight for curses and violence’s own sake.

Braugen may have been a dragon but that did not mean he liked the heat. His temper, already ever close to the surface of every action, rose and fell in sharp bites that had already seen a dozen people mangled, half eaten and tossed to the cobbles. This had once been his city where he had then, as he did now, walked as a man. He had been awoken and robbed by the King of this city. He had learned of the Empire, but had been bowed to by its North Warden. That was a very special sort of obeisance to one that knew of oaths and titles and purpose. Something he had eaten slowly and woven as he slept again. But only so that his power might grow anew. Yet though they had run away they had not returned. He could smell neither man here, not present at least.

That did not matter.

It seemed that this was a place for Dragons. There were two more at least. One with its own Cathedral and one that slithered below. Neither concerned him. Such matters as did were for the King alone. And if the one had fled him then there was another it seemed.

So he would speak with the Orc. Braugen had never liked orcs much. Not without a decent sauce. His sensitive nose twitching he went to where chattels of the Orc King were carrying sacks from the city’s storehouses.

Wouldn’t have happened in his day.

*

It was as clear to Kuhal as it had ever been that the purity of the elves was the single most important aspiration to be found in this miserable Empire of men. Never one to sway from trouble he had returned to Deci after his years of absence and for some time had thought it the scene of some great ritual that had wiped out perhaps four fifths of its people. Given that most of them had ever been drow and men that was of course no bad thing. He had passed through a good dozen lanes before he saw more than one or two people and followed them to where in the easterly part of the city he had almost stumbled into crowds. Crowds made up of men and goblins. The goblins dressing like men and seemingly possessed of large hats to bring their height up a bit. What he did not see were any elves.

Any.

At all.

Not a single one. It was said that the city, he managed to ask after a great deal of self control, was run by Anath, who was at least a bit of an elf. Even if only half. Which was good news. But bad also. For this ‘Anath’ was clearly by his very nature not pure. All in all Kuhal was probably the only person in a weeks travel in any direction that deserved to live.

“Where has everyone gone?” He muttered.

Mistaking the rhetorical nature of the statement for a question the wretched fellow who had told him of Anath informed the traveller that most of the city had died by the hand and command of Argoth. A murderous thing. A demi-god of murder indeed. And once upon a time a drow such as lived in the utter slums beneath the city.

“He killed most of the city?”

“Pretty much before he was chased away by our great King, Troy Majius.” The man swept off his hat. “Dragon and Forge bless ‘im.”

“Most?”

“Most, aye.”

Kuhal shook his head. What was the point in only ‘most’? Scowling, the elf stalked off to find out if anyone in this city knew anything worthwhile.

Most?

Pah!


Forgetown
Off the drag and many of the wagons were pitched with the oxen chewing on otherwise unpalatable thorn bushes. Bundle tarps were stretched between the larger of the wagons to form a shady spread that made its own little hamlet within the limits of Forgetown. Here under the canvass sky traders paused, but for the most part carters waited for a load or spoke together away from the sly eyed rogues of the town itself. Smoke drifted upwards to purposeful gaps from the smouldering fires that heated water or made embers in which to cook. Since most wagons were at least twice the height of a grown man it was pleasant enough and about one such little gathering Jim Blatt sat cross-legged and shared in the contents of a blackened pot.

The conversation drifted here and there but mostly it was of Merchants and their control of much of the load not derived from the city. Most here would haul goods for themselves but they were not traders. Traders were independent and by their very nature did as they wished, and often alone or in very small groups. The carters did it as that was what they always had done, and mostly because their fathers or mothers had, typically in the very same cart and even with the ancestors of the same oxen. They were tough enough but a lot more so when they were together and those to whom Jim had been talking were they who were terribly frustrated from just running away from their wagons when brigands attacked. They might have fought, but not when everyone else legged it. Most had fought in the old Legions, if only for a single scrap or when raised hastily against the Baronies a decade ago. Most would fight again if they knew others would do so beside them.

“It’s not that we’d be a Guild or anything,” Yellen pointed out. All those nearby shivered at the very thought. All those rules and funny traditions. The hats, the sashes, the… Besides, they liked to roam the roads of the Empire. They just did not want to do it just because some wretched Merchant told them to. But what could they do?

Jim scraped the last of the food from his tin plate and set it to one side. “I might have a plan.” And then went on to suggest that if they were to combine under him, he would find them cargo’s. Even pay them when there were none. “And together we make sure that no one amongst us hasn’t got the balls to stand and fight when needed.” He blinked when Yellen raised an eyebrow. “’Balls’ in an entirely figurative sense of course.” He beamed to show he meant well towards the woman.

They spoke for a while and as it grew towards the few hours of darkness the night presently boasted others gathered until there was quite a crowd about the embers, of which the camp kettles covered every inch. It looked to be a long debate and that sort of thing needed oiling with mugs of gritty tea. It surprised Jim how little they knew about market prices, most did not trade for themselves after all but just shifted the goods. Anath would know, Jim was sure and so when morning came about again he left them talking, yawning and in only a few cases seeking their hammocks.


Hightown
The long roads were at least cooler than the city now high above. They were a good hundred yards below Hightown now but three miles as it the road travelled. Above and they had entered Deci not so much without trouble as without anything much at all. The southern most gate had stood open and empty and judging by the state of it that was common enough. Martin had doubted if it could have been shut at all and for the first five minutes they had seen hardly anyone at all. The city was not quiet. It sang and growled to a sound like fifty-foot hammers and angry rivers of boiling fire. Considering the heat and dankness of the city was so different from their own it had smelled not of the decay that might have been expected, but of hot tin. They had seen bones but no bodies.

Hightown had been considerably different. Rising to be crested by a thick, dark stone and metal spire that was lost in the low clouds that shrouded the city in their poison fog the Quarter was still populous. Grand houses indeed all atop one another and surrounded on nearly all sides by an abyss crossed with a dozen bridges and walkways so in places whole streets covered it so that it could not be seen at all. Those above clearly did not go much below. The dust and crusted filth made tracking no more difficult than just the occasional glance. And so they navigated a road along which none had passed for weeks at least.

Yet here there were no homes. Here there was only rock. Already the heat and the weak attentions of the sun were a recent memory. The stone was damp to the touch but hard as a paladin’s promise. Moss streaked ancient cracks. The road went ever round the abyss and still they walked on until one had to conjure a little magic else risk tumbling free in the dark for the road was not wide, nor was it even and certainly it boasted nothing resembling a rail.

“This is the way?”

Everdawn nodded. He hated the heat more than any man and if the darkness was certainly no friend then at least he could think down here. A creature of ice he might not have made it to the blessed relief of the drow road had he come alone. He knew the way just as he knew many things. He had to struggle not to in more common matters. When he had a drink inside him he had seen men and woman as caterpillars stretching out in both directions from baby to venerable old age. “We won’t be welcome.”

“In Deci? You think so?” Martin chuckled. He loved the greenwood but like most adventurers he had learned his trade in the catacombs and the gloom of the numberless caverns and caves of the Empire. Any moment now he half expected a ghoul to jump out on them. At least so far there had been no backbreaking tunnel. It was no wonder that so many old warriors ached about the kidneys and shoulders of a morning.

“Drow…”

“Oh them.”

“I don’t think they’re quite what we’re used to here.”

Martin did not fear dark drow lords of the underdeep, nor matriarchal spider queens with their silver hair and corsetry and said as much. Everdawn shook his head. It would be a lot easier to show his friend than try to explain what he had seen. Was seeing. Would see more precisely. He massaged his forehead. His eyes hurt.


Forgetown
“Sir, is you’m priest?”

Sitting on a row of rocks Tirack looked up from the under the hat he, like nearly everyone, had been forced to wear under the unpleasant sun. Without even the cover of the Deci smog Forgetown was blistering during the day but at least here the nights and early mornings were cool. He tossed a small nugget from one hand to the other before standing. Noticing the troubled face worn by the tiny woman he pushed back the brim of his prospector’s slouch hat. “Ma’am?”

“Sir, is you’m priest?”

He agreed that for all intents and purposes hereabouts he was that. The woman explained that she needed ‘marryin’ and when all was said and done the temple to the Forge did not suit. It elevated metals and Jander and forging, it was not really a place for the spirit. Not that she was not a worshipper, she added hastily. Nearly everyone round here was, and even many in the city. But Jander wasn’t a ‘proper fearin’ god’. Sometimes it just did not seem right to pray to someone who might be working on the alter wheel. Or would answer written messages. If she could write. Which she could not, being a decent woman.

Tirack had noticed this when he managed an evening away from the Cart and Hammer. Traders were often loners but sometimes picked up a spouse. Those drawn to the Forge were starting to come in dribbles from elsewhere, families, furniture and all in bandy wagons or handcarts. Smiths were mostly male. Their womenfolk tended to demonstrate rather more propriety than others locally. Quite Eartholme in that, he thought.

“Ma’am, Shaehan will see you bound, fear not.” He promised and Alidan Tonk bobbed and bowed and handed Tirack a fine berry pie for his trouble. He touched the brim of his slouch hat once more and settled down on the stones that fronted the bare rock he had chosen to host his shrine to eat. That morning he had prospected the River Spittle with a number of others before it grew too warm. The river was good for gold dust and even the odd nugget. The first of which he threw in the air and caught time and again. Of course, gold was pound for pound worth less than wood here. The city refined and stamped that from the mines so that common stuff cost less than bread or knives. Still there was something about gold and so most mornings Tirack and others went to pan the half dry river in exactly the same way and with the same consequence as those in the Heartlands might go fishing.

“Sir – Missy Tonk says a how you’n be a preacher man?”

This one was taller but plumper. Others were drifting over. It seemed Tirack did not have to worry about the price of his victuals as judging by the knotted hankies and the hot handled crocks coming his way Shaehan was already providing. “Bless you all, good sisters. I see here a place where I can raise high a holy place to the Lady – the Lady I say!” He added.

It just seemed the thing to do.


Fingers Lane
The silk rope slipped down the blackened stone of the rows of crowded little dens and along it slid the round shape of The Silence. With his eyes covered by the stiff little mask and his form shrouded in the grey cloak what there was about him to suggest identity was all chin and down-turned mouth. Upside down he slowly looked first one way and then the other. The city sounds were distant and all over the walls made from the Quarter’s outermost buildings. Cheapside was silent. Not empty, but silent nonetheless and in the silence moved The Silence. If there was anyone to be found in Fingers Lane then he did not see them. If anyone lurked here he did not hear them and so with barely a movement of one arm he swivelled about to touch the cracked cobbles with light feet.

The urchins of Fingers Lane were said to be found everywhere in the city. It was difficult indeed to tell one wretched child from another but here it was said they had been born. A gang conquered or sponsored by Blackjack. And as yet The Silence was not about to round up every child in Deci and hang the lot. Not yet.

From within his cloak he twitched out a length of oiled ox gut. Softly it coiled behind him as he walked the still smoke-flavoured air of the lanes. When at length the cable ran out he knelt to pinch one end, to reveal the silvery cord at its tip and swiftly he struck a spark to light just one of the many toys he had fetched from far, far away.

The cable flared. In a matter of seconds fierce fire shot up it’s thirty pace length to catch at anything that was flammable. To spread its fire and destroy. The Silence was forced back in the sudden flare of light and smiled as it died to leave…

…a few more blackened stains. It was as if someone had already burned down Cheapside in some enormous and foolhardy attempt to reveal the Deci beneath. There was nothing left to burn. Only stone and slate and soot cracked cobbles that had lasted centuries.

The Silence slipped away and did not speak. He did not curse and say ‘goblin thingys!’ but he might have thought it.


The North Quarter
The Cathedral was far from full but the snake shaped candles were lit to form a processional from the great doors down the long aisle to where a woman in robes and a serpent mask waited. In her hand was a knife whose wavy blade resembled the animal whose form so dominated the impressive structure, albeit a structure that was for the most part hidden in the darkness of the city’s brief night. Close to hand and seated in a rising series of semi-circular pews were notables of the city but for most part members of the Nobility. House Hail for the most part, but also selected others and both Marston and Claugh were represented by their House Lords. Or more precisely Lady in the case of the latter.

If they were impatient then they did not show it. Their faces indeed were cast with a pallor of indifference. They were Deci born, or Deci raised or learned and none would show emotion that might be used as a weapon against them. In the centre and as the patron of this wedding sat Lord Abbaj Hail in his bejewelled robes and with his horned monkey silently lurking on his shoulder. They awaited the bride and the groom, both of that House if somewhat removed. A marriage that would unite the House against the little, seeping schism that had divided it since the days of Amora.

There came then a slight shifting in the light. A subtle change in the highlighted gloom before the wizard-priestess that House Hail had brought with them. For a second or two the shadow that materialised seemed to thicken before a plump man was left as that magical darkness subsided. He was greying and if not as fat as his House Lord then still Athnas Hail was still a man who clearly did not walk anywhere very often. His beard was neat, his lips fleshy and his fat fingers were thick with rings. He smiled at what was to come.


Forgetown
The fight had been shorter than the music that had sprung up because of it. For such a rough sort of place the Cart and Hammer boasted an awful lot of people that played an awful lot of instruments, awfully. Even now as the defeated smith was heaved to his feet by the ogre that had lamped him on the crown of his balding head goblin pipes and whistles, small drums and even rattles were still dying away. Conversation returned and Gideon waited for Tirack to put away his tin whistle before doing the duty with the jug. After the rainstorms of previous weeks the town had dried out under the sun so that even now a lazy fly caused a stir of dust. The Cart and Hammer was doing well but at least with Deci down river the Spittle could actually be drunk from and if those from the city were still suspicious of water that was neither brown nor cloudy then at least they were learning.

“Join you?” A newcomer asked. Gideon kicked out a stool from under the table with a nod. Adventurers had to stick together after all and the fellow had the look. “Siddown stranger and sit a spell.”

“Blatt. Jim Blatt.”

“Name’s Gideon, this here sallow looking feller is Tirack. The thief is Strawberry.” Everyone nodded and Blatt caught up a passing jug as a means to complete his welcome. The locals quickly sank what remained of their first and held out their tin cups for the new. The Bell and Hammer did not supply glass or even bowls now. Too many got broke and Big Anath did not like to pour good treasure after bad. It was a Deci habit anyway to keep your own sthingy, plate and mug with you. Harder to poison after all.

“Thief?” Jim asked.

“S’right.” Admitted Strawberry. He and Tirack had been talking for the last hour. Enough to know each other well enough but not so much to know each other. Strawberry had left Deci, Gideon now knew, about a skinny minute after Drake had turned up. Strawberry did not mind Drake so much but seemed to think that the Governor had some beanpole fiend hidden somewhere and that one he said was bad news. Still, if Strawberry had stolen a few things since arriving here he had also begun to return a few more. He found lost things for a small fee. Enough to keep him in tent and ale at any rate.

“As you like.” Jim Blatt shook his head. Back in the ‘Rest that sort of confession was apt to have you spoken to very firmly. Forgetown seemed to be honest at least, even if it was an odd sort of honesty. No assassins though and when Jim had commented on such only that morning the carters had just laughed. Not enough grandeur, not enough work. There was very little in the way of competitive status here and besides which people here solved their disputes with their fists. “So what do you boys do when you aren’t saving Primus from the Devils of the Further Exostance?”

“He’s the local ‘Pothecary.”

Gideon nodded at Tirack’s introduction. He was just starting after all but already Missy Sicks had brought him enough Trollbulb to make some hardy brew and just enough Dognuts to keep a man from meddling ritual. They were set aside waiting for his attention but he had picked up a lot from just having his shop to know what to do with them he thought. Likewise Hiven Bell had returned with some Bridgefluer preserved as it needed to be in honey. That was worth good grull as just rubbed on it kept midges, fleas and stingwings away. It was probably good for more specific potions too but Gideon had not looked into them yet.

He leaned forward. “You boys heard about the local doings?”

They shook their heads. Gideon had the sort of shop that people came to lurk about whilst still no outfitters had been raised beyond the odd wagon or carter market. He blew out his cheeks before helping himself to more of the local brew.

“Badness?” Tirack asked. They all laughed. It was Deci out there.

“Some. Seems some traders went missing down the Spittle aways. Not killed, but missing. Carts left. Loads untouched. Pretty tough boys too. Folk’re sayin’ as how it were goblins but way I hear it each of ‘em got approached by a wizard few weeks back but they refused him his work. ” He added that the wizard in question was not him. “Tall man, all in red. Not around now, I checked. No one knows what he asked ‘em but still best to keep an eye out.” But that was only the news that most appealed to their adventurers spirit. Some Nobleman was restoring an estate four hours hard walk to the north. Also, Gideon had heard tell that some strange brigands, each with a branded forehead and ‘bad eyes and black fingers’ were haunting the southlands. That they had some problem with Big Anath and Forgetown might be Jander’s, but everyone knew who called the shots here really. “Just sayin’ is all. ” Gideon nodded at his own words.


Fortress Cheapside
The gate in the western wall had been opened and throughout the month people had been drifting in. Some came with just themselves and the tools of their nefarious trade. Some wheeled handcarts. Some actually pitched up close by the now closed Braided Fox as a form of barter market broke out. Several hundred at least had come to where an orc had drawn a line in the dirt and told the Empire to feck off.

Not that there seemed to be anything approaching a siege. It was as if those within had turned up for a fight and no one had answered. So knots of people went out, even to the markets, and larger numbers whistled as they headed into the noisy Slurries and helped themselves from the storehouses still there. Whenever they met outsider Citizens they told them to run and if such had not already then certainly they did so then. These little bands did not approach Hightown and they did not go to the Invisible Quarter and so for the most part there was no one to oppose them. They snaked their way back to the open gates of Cheapside as such faced the city.

And each morning and each evening Blackjack came to a seemingly random place of the walls and hurled abuse at Drake, at the Empire, the Empress and all the rest of the cowardly scum who would not come to fight him. And there would be cheers from all over Cheapside. Cheers that seemed just that little louder each day.

It was not that the area was particularly gang ridden. The King had killed most of those or swallowed them up at least. His own was by far the strongest and hundreds wore the colours just to be associated. People wore the patch of the dirty upraised finger as they began to go back about their daily lives. There were still the Hang Dogs and the Angels, and some had even begun to emerge as Snakes and Two Meanies once more but they all did what Blackjack said. For he was the King of Old Deci. True Deci. And since no one outside Cheapside had even seen King Majius much in the last few weeks those that had gone out and returned reported that some of their former fellows in other Quarters had been asking about Blackjack. After all, their loyalty as the scribes saw it was to the City, not the Empire. And as word said as it was spread through other parts of Deci, Cheapside after all was Deci. For months, longer even the people had been waiting for someone to make the stand against and Empire that thought them its slaves. And certainly that seemed to be Blackjack…

…Even in the Invisible Quarter there had been fights over such discussions.


The Spittle
The Spittle was perhaps half the size it had been and it ran between high banks made by its absence. Tough thorns lurked on one bank thick enough to cover a cattle field and with their roots hanging over empty space brown and dry in the fierce sun. The punt had been the best choice and this one was as long as a sloop and covered against the sun by sheets of black spider silk. Beneath the awning two Nobles hid from the more immediate heat though in their traditional garb they sweltered so that the taller swabbed the forehead of the shorter as she held tight to her heavy, distended belly.

For a time they drifted up stream before King Majius paid off the boatman when they came to an old pier whose stumps suggested it had once been a bridge. This was far enough. From hereon after they would have to walk.

*

The Silence turned the corner into the alley where darkness was his friend and without a noise found himself hanging by his ankle from the nearest roof. Of a sudden there were a dozen men or women about him, black cloaks fluttering still from their sudden jump from hiding place and shelter. Some sort of badge or clasp held their cloaks. Knives made a collar about his neck. One bent and sniffed the captive’s gloves.

“Fire maker sure enough.”

The Silence was silent.

“Name?”

The Silence stared back with dull eyes. This it seemed was the ‘law’ but he was no enemy of the Watch. Though what sort of Watch this was it was difficult to tell.

“Funny man, eh?” The darkly shrouded Watchman stepped back. “Thing is funny man there’s fire’s going up all over the place and Lord Throttle and Mr. Drake have put a right old snake up our arses about it. So funny man, guilty or innocent?”

The Silence was silent.

The first captor sighed. He clicked his fingers and from a doorway two more carried a small brazier between them with a pair of iron struts. The coals were cherry hot but the branding iron glowed whitely. The chief captor picked up the iron and spat on it to test the heat. Mr. Drake wanted fire starters branded.

The Silence clicked his heels and with a jerk rolled up the rope used to snare him before dropping the two on the roof with quick jabs of lead cushioned gloves. Then he left hastily not wanting to interfere in the orderly procession of Deci law further.


The North Quarter
Tall Prinny Street stood on the northern edge of the city and in places merged with the uneven wall so that the gap between the arse of the long row had either become stony yards or just a place where rooms had extended. In two places the buildings overhung the walls but the only thing that lived there now were pigs and snakes.

People with a scrap of space had ever kept an animal or two. A chicken or, here, a pig. It kept them out of trouble and of course reared on what even the Deci would not eat provided food at need or festival. Tall Prinny Street had not so much been a rich area, but it had hardly been a slum. The buildings weren’t garrets and if three or four families had lived in each then often they had a floor to themselves. But they were gone now as Tall Prinny Street had seen some fighting from the tribal raid and thereafter as the population dwindled yet further had become cut off, removed even, from the rest of the city. People tended to cluster together after all and empty streets between Guild, Gather or market just made a pot from which thieves and gangs could snack or feast.

So the pigs had taken over. The snakes picked at their refuse and neither bothered the other. At first the pigs had been few, most having been taken away when owners shifted further afield but some had belonged to the dead. They had broken their stalls, they had even foraged. They had eaten rat when there had still been rat. Then the dead when there had been dead. Now they ate anything and everything and even roamed like stiff furred and slower wolves about the streets. Those that had lived were big, lean and dark furred.

Sire Berry rather respected them. Certainly he was not about to go to street level in the rows of jumbled old houses, for most of the lower levels were nests now. Sows hid their young for pig ate pig without much in the way of regret. And pigs would eat goblin and rat just as happily. Sire Berry had not brought his fierce Stepsons to this place to have them fight tusked old porkers. He touched a green vine as he watched them below. There was mould inside the walls and new shoots and growths outside. There was even a tree growing from inside the outer wall of the city.

“Funny things is pigs, eh Mr. Pesh?”

The figure groaned but did not otherwise answer. His wounds had been stitched with elegant neatness and though dead that was not just cause to evade the wiley Sire’s orders.

A rat ducked into the dusty room. “Father, is here’m rest went from, eh?” Custard was one of the younger rats, Deci born and Stab Street raised. Like most his head was wrapped in rag bandages and his little paws likewise but with the rags fat-glued and hardened so that the jagged blades along each forearm could be used whilst leaving clever fingers free.

They had killed a goodly number but ‘Storm’ and his closest three or four had left the city. Indeed, had probably gone not long after Berry’s hunt had taken to the streets. What lay out there? Berry mused. Mountains eventually of course and to the east the Shedeff. His Stepsons liked alleyways and rooftops. They did not even like to look at what lay beyond the leavening stink of glorious old Deci. In truth if this Storm had been in Deci they would have found him. He was not though and since Sire Berry suspected his given prey to be of adventurous stock he well knew there was no guarantee for him to be in one city of another month on month.

“Pigs’re nice.”

Custard seemed to be trying to fill the silence. A habit of the young. And rats started their adult lives very young indeed. Sire Berry ruffled one ear of the wee scamp. “Bit dangerous if’n yer ask me, sonny.”

“Good eatin’…”

“S’pose, yus.” Sire Berry had an inkling that such would be a waste. He admired the way the pigs were surviving. On the other hand how long would it be before they started to spread their hunger and begun to take people?

He watched what seemed to be the leader. Black mottled with white and as large as a stumpy pony. It’s tusks curled back so that it looked to have horns and there was real intelligence in the eyes. It even looked up at where the Stepsons crouched from time to time.


Hightown
It was a slum. Cheapside might have been famously just that but there people had grown and thrived and, yes, fought, but it had been at least full of life and bustle and every emotion that could be bottled, bought or experienced. Here and despair was not some godly force to be fought but the starch on the soul of everyone they saw. They walked with their hands on the hilts of their weapons without thinking about it. Their eyes went back and forth but no one attacked them and few even stared.

The abyss had ended in a rounded cavern the size of a cathedral from which had woven a hundred smaller passageways. There they had stared at the remnants of wooden scaffold or walkway, had passed by a long cast down statue, had avoided dank pools that had plopped or bubbled softly as they passed. They had picked their way through fungi the colour of old flour and as high as a man. They had passed the empty chitin shells of spiders topped with their own lingering darkness. Shades had scattered from them like mice. Blind snakes slipped over their boots.

Those eyes that looked at them, just as those that did not, peered from within deep hoods that robbed even the faintly luminous lumps of rocks and the gently glowing worms in the walls of what light they offered. Dark hands hugged crusted cloaks close about themselves. The ceilings were thick with dusty webs in which jewel like spider bodies hung as the only sign of who had lost in the cycle of prey and hunter.

They had almost to step over five drow that sat close together about a little fire that smelt sickly, spicy and whose fumes the huddled creatures sucked at softly. No one barred their transit. Until the girl caught at Everdawn’s arm no one even spoke to them.

“You come for a little..?” The girl’s voice whispered. Compared to the last hour or two it was a shout and the tunnels amplified it even more than that. She pulled open a robe to show a body bow-stave thin with a breast flaccid like an old woman’s that she lifted for their inspection. Her teeth were pearls, incongruous in a face so drawn that the purplish eyes were large as a doe’s. Everdawn twitched his sleeve away with more effort than he meant and she stumbled. She laughed, a young woman’s sound in the body of a hag and Martin forced his half drawn sword back in its scabbard. He looked away, disgusted. There was no pity in his expression.

Everdawn though seemed to recognise her. Certainly he took her face in his hand and turned it to one side to reveal a long scar where an ear had once been. She tried to twitch free but weakened as she was remained tightly held. Everdawn was reminded of a sparrow caught in a net. “I have been looking for you. He that did this. You will show us where he can be found.” It was not a question.

They were without doubt in the right tunnel amongst the hundred possible, Martin had the senses for that. Everdawn though had seen how they had found the way to where their prey could be found. By this very woman. There were people who would fall on them. There were diversions and deep darknesses and little fears that might have led them a merry chase for days before losing where they were at all. Worse, their target would have heard. But the girl had showed, would show, them the way. “Husk did this. Where might he be found?” Everdawn continued.

Someone twitched at that. Something moved. There was the faintest rustle and Martin caught a raised arm before casting the attacker back to the floor. Sword up, sword down. A screech and the body fell away to join the shadows. Clothes tumbling. Poison dagger clattering to the uneven stone of the ground. “I don’t care if a man had a hard life.” The ranger said so that all those nearby could hear. “I don’t care if has to steal to feed his pet goat. I don’t care if his Lord beat him and his dark spirit was torn to evil. He I would kill that stood in my way. And that man would be a man. And you are dark little shades mocking men by your form. And your kind killed friends of mine when you attacked my city. I will kill you all without a second thought. So whatever you are thinking. Whatever your reward. However horrid your deserved little lives are – it may be all you have and I will take that from you with no more concern and less effort that having a good dump on a frosty morning. I do not give warnings to your sort. None of this is a warning. This is only conversation. Be – bloody - told.”

“Husk?”

“I… know, yes.”

Everdawn patted her cheek. “After you then. ”


The Invisible Quarter
Shutters had been tightly closed over the windows and dusty velvet forced into any gaps. An hour before noon and Anath worked by candlelight. It was more fitting to do so and besides which the smog looked sickly when tinted by the sun.

There came a knock. Anath commanded that the person beyond should wait. He was expecting Baralan Arch but the matter would need to come after he had completed the latest list of figures set by the reports of what had burned down. When the door opened anyway he looked up with a sharp retort instantly ready. Quickly he smothered every word. He rose, bowed, and then bowed again. Unwillingly he swallowed.

His unexpected guest did not seat herself for Anath had not ordered a chair to be brought. He needed only one to work and two would have been an indulgence. He bowed again. Her narrow eyes stared at him. Her severe features displayed no discernable expression. Stiff and stately she resembled nothing so much as the sort of doll one might give to a naughty child in order that they might learn to be good.

“Countess!” Anath managed. “I am honoured.”

“You have been concerning yourself with my affairs?” She drew the last word out so that the last syllable snapped from her lips with all the finality of a dying man’s last breath. An association Anath did not like as it occurred to him. It was too poetic. Also, perhaps, entirely apt.

“I… no – well yes, but no… you see…”

“I see a very great deal, Halfblack. One hopes we understand one another?”

Long learned kicked in and smoothly he rubbed his hands together and bobbed his head as one talking to a superior. His smile light, yet respectful. Anath had a list carried close to his heart on which he had written a small number of names regarding people whom he did not cross. “Countess, let me assure you that any error perceived in the understanding in question can be quietly done away with. You found my humble home without any problem?”

Clearly.

Oh, arseflakes and pinpricks!

*

He sat under a spire of smooth and panelled silver so that when he looked up he saw himself five times returning that gaze. Rumpled and tired the traveller nonetheless was happy. Twins. Twins!

“Yes..?” Distracted he had not seen the thin man enter. Under a thick robe jointed metal fingers taped the air. He stood, waited until he received a short bow and explained the reason for his visit.

The Slurries
It would have been difficult to say who was the more terrible to look at. The great, lean beast that unfolded itself from the shadows to loom and stalk the small creature. Or the prey itself, twisted twilight thing, whose rag garments seemed themselves to breath, whose dark eyes peered from the light shadows of hood and wrap even as it’s withered hand pulled at it’s garments. From barred and battened windows eyes stared frozen by what they saw. The smaller beast flowed back along the alley to where others joined and where it went it left a light cloud of rotten cloth and the stink of fear.

The larger came on and if it appeared to move more slowly then still it covered more ground. The prey hissed and flexed fingers whose flesh was hard drawn to near crippled bone. Snakes fled from the stink and the spirit of both. Where it set foot even the once-new cobbles of the city cracked gently like complaining ice.

“I cannot do what you have asked…”

But the larger beast did not recall asking anything and said as much in its ugly voice, adding. “I told you. We had compact. Agreement. Have I not taught you what you wished..? And now it is too difficult?”

“People know…”

“What should I care for such, little twisted thing?”

“I gave you access to this city!”

“And so I shall feed on it, but first… I shall feed on you. ”

The smaller caught up a ball of magic but hesitated before taking that last rebellious step. The larger beast was not so concerned with such petty fears and so twitched its twelve-inch fingers with their too many knuckles and grey tendrils flickered to the smaller. The prey turned about within itself as ritual touched and seemed to shrink, knowledge and power teetered and then the victim was gone. The larger flowed forward to sniff and to pluck a scrap of tattered burlap that had once been the hem of a cloak. A long tongue uncurled to touch the scrap with just the very tip of its dry, grey tongue.

The spell broken those that had watched the conflict hurried away. They left possessions and treasures and plucked up their children to scramble from the houses and garrets. They would not return and Deci had a plenitude of empty rooms where still in some old plates and even meals still gathered the dirt of time.


Hightown
Calistan preened himself as he exited the doorway of the little palace. The cavern was made up nearly entirely of the confection of silver lattice and hardened webs, so old that they were hard as forged iron yet delicate enough to display a cruel sort of beauty once so beloved here. He was tall even for a drow and it pleased him to scatter a handful of grulls to the heaps of crawling beggars that ever clustered in the passageway nearest to his Master’s demesne. He had people to meet, traders less picky about their markets. Dressed in velvets without a single stitch or buckle he jingled lightly from the silver clasps that ratted against his sword, knives and the clawed ropes he preferred. He did not pause when he went by the alcove for there were many like it and who after all would touch one of the Husk’s?


Star Set Square
The people about Star Set Square revelled when elsewhere others stared balefully at the clogged sky and the cursed sun behind it. Still here the fog sat at the very tips of the tallest chimneys so that the sky was rarely, if ever seen at all. But the people most specifically under Moregil’s protection tugged ropes and chased one another with games of catch the hoop and for a while at least they were happy.

Star Set Square was like a village within a city. Certainly for several streets all about there were few people at all and though the city had invested the Quarter with its own structures those that attended to those rarely came anywhere near the separate little square. Certainly no one within stole or murdered, by the very nature of the people that had gathered here they were those least likely ever to have done so. Moregil and Gatherad had patrolled further afield and had even encountered some members of what claimed to be the local Watch or the Death Watch as they referred to themselves as. Strictly speaking they came under Moregil’s command but they had chuckled at that and told him flatly that they followed what the Baron Throttle said. The confrontation had not exactly come to blows but had parted somewhat sourly nonetheless. Gathered had continued with the patrol but of course the spearmen made enough noise to warn anyone of their approach, not that many lived in the North Quarter anyway. Which was a shame as Moregil had been intending to listen to cases and judge them accordingly, something the Death Watch again had scoffed at. The Watch caught people. It was the Magistrate that judged them. If judgement was needed. Mostly the Watch just beat up offenders, killed them even, depending on how hard the Sleek and the Magistrate were setting things. Presently for example fire starters were being branded. And then most often crippled. It was not like there were gaols in Deci after all.

Now though Moregil sat on the edge of the old fountain and grinned as he saw the people at play. It was good to hear laughter in the city that did not resemble a cackle nor signify that someone had fallen off something very high.

Being a law maker or thief taker in Deci was of course not so much an uphill struggle as a hill that could not even be seen. Here at least he could make a little island of what he perceived to be the law. Moregil had even ventured out of the northern gate to stare at the grey, dusty and rocky soil of the territory. The land had long been poisoned by centuries of mining, foundry and worse. Even out there the sky had been smothered by the poison smog of Deci. It was worse the closer the land was to Deci itself but Moregil had discovered that it was not so much better elsewhere. What land there was in Deci that could support crops, even trees, for the city needed trees, mostly to turn into charcoal, was jealously guarded by the Nobility that owned it and was by far the most expensive land in the expansive Deci wilds. Even if they would sell it. Which for the most part they would not. So he had gone to the Guilds, all now found in the eastern Mercantile, or ‘Invisible’ as it was termed in local slang, to tempt skilled fellows to settle in the Quarter. They had suggested that he set up his own gathers, smitheys and foundries and by doing so would attract such to his demesne from across Deci.

Room, he had. For the most part his plans for barracks, or courthouses or similar he just had to plain order built and the Guilds would happily see to his and the city’s needs. They did point out that the Quarter already had a very fine little Courthouse and that it had even been used in the last few days, for about the first time since they could readily remember. Just order the things built, he had been reassured once again.

So all might have been as fine as he could have expected. Gathered had suggested when shared with further ideas that no one really needed to pay rents to the city since for the most part the city was empty. Moregil had even sought to send word to the Towers of High Magery in Halgar, learning that those that remained were either in the hands of certain adventurers like himself, or otherwise entirely in the keeping of the Inquisition. Mostly, Trundle.

Things then were both easier and harder than he had wished. First though he would stamp his mark on the square. Close a few alleys. Encourage people to move under his protection. It would doubtless happen when Star Set Square was heard of more – as he built on it and expanded it’s good, lawful ways across this foul and depraved settlement…


The Invisible Quarter
The King’s Wizard no longer strode down the wider streets of the Invisible Quarter with staff in hand and nose imperiously high. Now the King’s Wizard flowed across roof and Guild bell tower to pause at one or the other. At each of the City Guilds it touched a hand flat to the bell that each had grown over recent weeks. Bells that never sounded even had they been rung and so far that had only been once. Some of these Guilds had previously enjoyed their Halls to be found elsewhere in the city. But a combination of certain bricks and certain points had been transferred and then all unseen and over the course of a single day from break to fall the Guilds had moved. Come the Final Dawn it would be as if they had ever been here.

Such art was doubtless some measure of the further secrecy of the Hundred. Guilds perhaps more united than those in other cities and which shared observances and traditions in common amongst their hierarchs. But such a great art could not be worked entirely without complication and certainly the Guilds… move… had not gone unnoticed. A work of such power had certainly caused great entropy to hang about Deci and to the King’s Wizard Entropy was something of which he knew much. No rite could make of Entropy something useful but the King’s Wizard knew better than many the signs of its presence.

Already it was growing light and so even as the further smog became a little more orange from something other than the sparks of the foundries the King’s Wizard fled.


The First Mine
It looked pleasant enough and perhaps for a moment Jander could forget he was within the Deci territories at all for the ground here was thickly knotted with bladegrass that whilst suitable only for the stomachs of oxen nonetheless grew deep. It’s roots he had heard might spread for a bowshot in any direction and those roots had held true to the earth that elsewhere in the territories had for the most part sickened and been blown away. A few trees stood tangled and lonely nearby and they like the grass were hardy species. Not that Jander knew much about wood but the fact they were here at all and still leafy suggested that even the heat of this afternoon seemed to worry them not all. There was enough of a wind to rob the sun of the tip of its attention if not to entirely bring relief and so as Jander knelt by the mine entrance and felt for the ore within he allowed himself a small smile. A smile that lasted until he remembered what he had found at Milkwood Hill and the Forgotten Pass. The former had suffered from a detonation of the dragon ore and the latter from a fire that still burned within. In both places the miners were doing what they could but they needed Guild aid at Milkwood, no one was sure what in the Pass. Weeks before and the Blackstone Mine had sent a sooty cloud across the territory. It was better now but still the miners were unable to safely enter. Yet alone work the faces.

“Old.”

“Aye, it would be.” Isaya agreed in a sulky sort of voice. Her House, such as it was which right now was little enough, had been stripped of its power though she had been promised that would soon change. Viadel had sided against Amora and in the early days of the Empire worse had been done to less deserving cases than theirs. Still though they suffered from the loss of most things even if certain forces within the city had revived their fortunes. “You see a lot of mines?”

“Indeed.” Jander stood. He did not bang the spoil from the knees of his britches. He had been to the little River Nack where gold was washed down and gathered there from the mountains. More curiously he had to Tather Down before heading in this direction. As a mine it made a very good dump. At some point a crater had been filled with the weapons and armour of a small army. Tribal work from what remained though for the most part it was good only for melting down and using anew. Covered up it had been mined before and if not for ore then metal was metal and this one arguably more efficient for already being what it was. “I can begin this one. Clear the first passage and chamber, there’s still a seam that can be worked but it’s badly blocked further on. Something else too…

“Azenrae. I believe I mentioned him?”

“Ah, yes. You might have done.” There was a silence then and one made somewhat awkward by a blunder Jander was not sure he had made. People were not as straight forward as good, gleaming iron. When the moment had stretched far enough that the Forge had to fetch his water skin he offered it to the woman first before taking a swill for himself. “Old, uh, Viadel. This was his mine?”

“Aye.”

“Good man?”

“Ask him yourself.”

Jander nodded, assuming that all in all perhaps Isaya was not quite as recovered from her ordeal as he had hoped. “Well, obviously, if he were here. Is, ah, he..?”

She speared him with her eyes. “Don’t talk like a fool, Sunstar.”

“Well I’m sure I’m very sorry!” Frankly she was taking it a bit too far, Jander thought.

“He died in the city I think. I mean, you have noticed that at the moment those whom one kills now haunt their murderers?”

He had not, having not strictly speaking murdered anyone there. “Is his murderer still in the city?”

“I don’t know. Unless Amora’s little killer lives there now? Short man, funny smile. Like a fox eating nuts through a comb. Madrak said that first you know. Mostly people say ‘offal’ and ‘brush’ when they quoted him. But that’s not how it was first said.”


Forgetown
Eyes shadowed, the newcomer’s stubbled chin chewed on the two-inch stub of his cigar as he rode into town. Though hot he had a blanket over his broad torso. The cracked leather of the saddle creaked but covered in dust as the donkey may have been it was in proportion to the rider so that from afar he seemed to ride a sturdy stallion. Dust still rose behind them and following close nearby was a statue of worn old stone.

They passed the gravedigger who turned aside. They entered the drag to see people emerge from the tavern and the apothecary, the tents and the temple. Few spoke and those in whispers. Only when Drake had ridden the length of the drag did he slip off the donkey. He twitched back the blanket to show an old broadsword. He waited.

Close enough to accompany but not near enough to make the calling out of the fiend of Cheapside anything but a duel or drave’o-a-orco the statue stared slowly about those that watched. There were many in Forgetown and it stank of lawlessness. But he had better eyes for this sort of thing than many and having walked slowly about Cheapside looking for the Governor he had soaked up the local attitudes and culture to the law. And here it was not so prevalent, not so hardy or willing. It was lawless here for there was no law other than that made by the hand of man. He saw bruises but he had noted that the gravedigger had not exactly been overly cursed with work. The people here reminded him of those he had once known back in Halgar. A little proud, a little determined. Perhaps half were transients, a little more were local. Rural folk and city folk that had followed the Forge or just plain escaped from what would doubtless happen in Deci. They wanted no part of war. And war would come to Deci, of that there was no doubt. There could not be two Kings. In truth there should not have been one but Khopesh was still discerning local ways and local law and he of all people knew that Imperial law was what the Magistrate and Watch Captain made it.

It was nigh to high noon.

Khopesh let his stone eyes follow the actions of the crowd, hundreds deep it was now as people lined the drag or hung out of windows. It was hard to see more than a dozen yards without the heat haze rippling the air but still Khopesh picked out those that had come to watch Drake and those outsiders, both local and coming from afar, that had come to see Blackjack. Neither side were about to fight. They did not have that about them as yet but there had been arguments and perhaps fifty were here for the orc.

“But there is no orc.” Khopesh’s words sounded louder than they were in the silence of Forgetown. The sun reached its apex. Drake remained still and so Khopesh did the Governor the honour of speaking for him. “Where is Blackjack?” He demanded.

But Blackjack had not come. He had been called out but he had not come. The locals chuckled and as one breathed out so that the town began to buzz. But Khopesh saw one filthy half orc step forward. The crowd hushed once more.

“I am Blackjack!”

Then another. “I am Blackjack!”

Then three, four and then ten. At length there twenty bravos, travel stained and clearly on their way to join the fight against the Empire. “I am Blackjack!” They shouted together. Drake peered at them. Khopesh stared at them and quietly they returned to the crowd.

It was too bloody hot.

By Alan Mprgan (CI10V4)