IM 1008 Pt 6 ~ Deathly: The Final Dawn

[Sire Halfblack]

Deathly IM 1008: The Final Dawn

Forgetown
There had been no snow, nor even rain but still it was cold enough to freeze the grulls from an Anath’s mitt, as the prospector had described it when he had wandered into town with the traveller. Used to the greenwoods of Gothiel Barak had not appreciated the ‘stark grandeur’ of Deci at all. Used to never being more than spitting distance from a tree he had enjoyed the sight of seven spread across the last three leagues. Seven trees, he had counted them. Not proper trees either. Tangled, bare things whose twigs alone had needed an axe to cut free for their rude fire that morning and even then the blaze had been a pitiful thing. Rolling hills and a wind that seemed intent on shifting to ever allow his bare face the full force of its chill, dirt devils that had blazed about the land and which he had endured with irritable determination as the passing clouds of earth and stones had battered him but a mile out.

The river was wide enough to pass up and hide half the surrounding mound and wall of Forgetown on one side. Frozen for perhaps half its width either side the prospector had muttered about the floods. This was the hard freeze, the water was meant to be low and if it hardly flowed at all it bespoke of some dam however distant and down river. They passed through wagons and rows of simple shacks and there too people were up early. No washing was hung out. It was too cold and besides which if people here had more than one suit of clothing then they were wearing both. The thin, musty smoke from two hundred fires coiled above the town, dank stuff made from poor blackstone in part but mostly from dips dug in the ground filled with charcoal.

Artisans were already hammering sheets of metal either side of the main drag. Back home and Barak could have lived well for a month on what he walked over in just two minutes. But this was Deci and if they had anything, it was metal. Most of the buildings he saw now were made of sheets of the stuff. Riveted sides and corrugated roofs. The air smelt of tin, oxen and more thankfully again, breakfast.

Early enough to simply be late in the Cart and Hammer the hardier patrons were ordering an early pint of something black and oily. Dented plates of more tin were serving up beans and the ubiquitous Imperial sausage. No matter where you went in the Empire, there was always sausage. What it contained varied widely but sausage was sausage and Barak nodded to sample the best they had.

“Mornin’ stranger.”

Barak turned only to be smacked in the mouth! A hoary hand glanced off the side of his head and Barak staggered back, managing to catch an iron tipped boot before it caught his chin and returning with the pommel of his sword right in the jolly sacks. He and his assailant grappled one another until breakfast arrived whereupon to Barak’s astonishment the fight abruptly ended. His surprising enemy spat out a tooth and limped to a table. Plate of sausages in hand Barak followed. He began to realise that what had basically happened was that the fellow had been saying hello.

“Barak.”

“Mad, bad, Rex.” The other man worked his cods, counting them three times to make sure he was not a testicle down on the deal.

“Warlock and Battlefield Ritualist of Elbereth.” He sat down.

Rex blinked. He shrugged. He took out a small scroll and made a notation. He seemed enormously pleased to be able to cross a faith off his list. “Smiting evil? Bit of a job ‘round here, pard.”

“Actually,” Barak leant forward, “I’m looking for someone.”

Rex nodded in a manner meant to indicate that he was the very person to talk to. He stole a sausage. “Gotta name, pard?”

“Missy Sicks.”

Rex looked first one way, then the next. He bent even closer. He nodded. “Cost you a hundred grulls, up front.” The notes were pushed over. Conspiratorially their heads came closer. “Wait here.” Rex slowly stood. He nodded to Barak, winked. He cupped his hands about his mouth. “Anyone know where I can find Missy Sicks?”

“I’m over here!” A pretty young woman jerked awake. Several dogs covering the floor about her feet jumped up and barked ferociously until she could kick them quiet. “Who? What?” Her eyes were wide, red and alert despite most of the rest of her body still struggling to wake up.

“There you go, pard.”

Barak chewed on his words for a moment. “Oh, such street lore...” His words ate through the table where they fell.

Rex seeming immune to the sarcasm nodded as if in receipt of the greatest of compliments. “Wanna buy a,” he looked around quickly, “...dog, pard?” He winked. “Hundred grulls.”

Cheapside
Boards and benches had grown in a matter of weeks to bridges. Widened and reinforced by crates and now the iron hard beams of the Quarter, it was as if Cheapside had straightened from a crouch. Still flooded and showing little sign of retreating the water was rank. The detritus of the city bobbed by or clogged itself about the buildings. Great rafts of effluence crusted up a lane here. Sweeps of furniture, sacking and more crap could be walked across there. Nearly everywhere people had just moved up a level. It was not like there was not the room. Sire Berry was surprised how proud he felt about that. Cheapsiders were many things and admittedly too few of them fine, but give them adversity and they hardly batted the proverbial eyelid. They survived. It was not so much that they endured, that they lifted their chin bravely against turmoil, rather, they just got on with things. So now they walked new lanes and streets made a little higher than the old and windows became doors. In places a veneer of ice covered the more sheltered places, but it had not snowed and if cold it was not as cold as it had been other years. The stink however even considering how high a city Quarter like this could be, was terrible. Sire Berry watched as a goblin and an orphan paddled by where he stood on a small raft made of bodies. It was bloody lucky the people were bloody filthy else plague would be rampant. As indeed come the season’s passing it probably might.

“Porridge?”

“Nah.” The good Sire turned so that his hat shadowed the table set up on what had once been a miller’s balcony from the watery sun that briefly peeped through the poison smog above. There and one who had gotten out whilst the getting out had been good was tucking into a blackened pot of breakfast. It was poor stuff. Oat scrapings and flour bought from a trader with an enterprising boat, mixed with pig milk and boiled till it could be sliced but Sire Berry’s guest treated it for all the world as if a feast set fair for a king.

No one bothered Sire Berry. There were whole streets between those settled and held by the gangs. Gangs that were of course just mutual protection and survival bands of otherwise perfectly normal people, and many of whom still sloped off to the Slurries of a night for some hard work. Cheapside was an archipelago of civilised (hah!) islands. No one was fighting. What would they fight over, space they did not need? As a purely defensive measure Sire Berry had made the mark of the black hat over all those closest to Stab Street but being the closest thing to a businessman that had gone almost entirely without notice.

“S’boss.” It was a quiet voice and came from a quiet sort of face. Kallah by the look of it judging by the bowl Sire Berry dusted with grulls. The Kallah were still divided and ruled by their Quarter Lords and utterly not at war with one another. The why of doing so escaped them though the Lord of Stars, northerly quarter, was said to be poaching membership from his peers the Lords of Coin, Cheap, Toil and Crown.

“Wotcha.” Sire Berry crouched on his haunches. He listened to the news. He nodded. The local ‘proper’ beggars were doing very nicely indeed thank you given that were probably about two dozen in number and with fifty thousand between them from the largesse of the, now, much loved Sire of Stab. Beat working. Beat being thingyted about the goolies by an orc for a day by far.

Somewhere a wolf howled.

That was alright. Live and let live, Sire Berry would announce if asked and if sometimes not true then it made him sound more statesmanlike. Which was nice. The Wolves of Deci did not trouble him. Even when it had been known that a few silver knives had found themselves out of the shop. From what Berry had heard they would rather be stabbed with cutlery than good iron. Berek had been seen going about asking people’s opinions of the way forward to Cheapside, a dangerous precedent the Sire thought. If once you asked for a consensus, some sort of, ah, vote, it never stopped.

No. Cheapside was Cheapside and it was a game with certain rules.

And Sire Berry liked games.

It meant that there had to be a winner.

Geld’s Claim
“Um.”

Everywhere he looked were great stacks of ore. He could smell it so strongly that he was rather dizzy from it all. They had even built a new wall out of the stuff and if Geld’s Claim was almost entirely mine and mountain then despite its rebellious stance work had not for the most part slowed down. They stared at him proudly and it did not escape him that every one of them was armed rather better, in quantity if not quality, than his own brave spearmen. They had crossbows and spears, swords, shields and armour that at least looked to have his mark on it. On the widest point of their relatively new wall they even had a rather shaky looking catapult of some kind.

They were also thin and very hungry.

“I...”

They fell, face down on the rocky floor of their village.

“Well, well, well...” Jander shifted from one foot to the other. There was a tickle in his throat. He breathed out. Clapped his hands together. Coughed a little. “Yes, you’ve all done a very good job. Obviously hard at work. Wonderful.” Not a one of them looked up from where they lay, arms spread before them. “So time to get up now, eh?”

They had not believed messengers sent from the city. The rumours of peddlers were not proof enough. Here and over the last year they had decided that if Eartholme wanted them it would have to take them. Cut off from what Troy would probably refer to as all good sense, places in the rural lands tended to concentrate what they knew. All but a bare handful had visited or certainly remembered much about the city itself. But Deci was where the Forge made his home and fought against the Anti-Forge, a devil of an orc.

“Up you get.” Jander urged them. One nervously lifted his face from the ground but squealed in horror when Jander’s gaze alighted on them. The Forge walked away until they began to stand up in his absence. He looked at the heaps of ore. They really needed to get some wagons out here. He nodded. A lot of wagons.

Cheapside
They walked towards the gate, pausing to finish what they had started ever since Berek had buttonholed Drake a half hour before. The Governor had a sturdy pack on his back, well broken in boots and a staff. He was off, he explained, to speak to certain of the lawless in the rural lands. Because, as he pointed out wryly, it was better that he did it in order that having done so they might be able to reply.

“Look son, um, old man. It ain’t that easy.”

Berek was to be put off. He had no great beef with Drake who after all did not live in an enormous and towering Spire over the city and had never been heard to cackle. Rather the heavy set Drave lived on a boat where most evenings the old men of the city gathered to moan about the young, smoke pipes and drink horrid homebrew. Which sounded like good, solid Governing to Berek. “Yeah, it is.”

“People don’t get elected. There’s some of that in the Guilds but the Guild’s ain’t the city. Ask the Cheapsiders to elect their leader and we’ll get fifty people, one will win, it will be rigged anyway, and that leaves forty nine sets of followers who won’t have it.”

“And they’d probably elect Billy, He won’t want it, but there you are.”

“You think so?” Drake breathed in deep lungfulls of the promising, cold air outside the open and unguarded gate.

“’Course. E’s popular, ‘inne?”

Popular, Drake thought. That was a bloody funny idea in Deci. Still at was at least peaceful for the moment. He could spare a few weeks of hiking and dealing sternly with rural folk. What could go wrong in his absence? “I’ll think about, old man. But people with votes? I have to tell you, the idea is madness...”

Forgetown
“What the feck?” Boswell leant out of the window with a loaded crossbow. Mostly hidden within layers of blanket stitched up tight about him for the Season he wore a night cap of donkey hide tied up tight under his chin. The farm was not one that might have been recognised as such outside of Deci but it did boast a small herd of cows whose hairy hides were so long and tangled only the horns gave any indication of which was the front, and which the back. Each was secured by a long length of chain, Boswell was not rich enough for rope, and even now one was being dragged in by just that to the barn that made up the lower part of the house. There his youngest had the onerous job of the deathly milking.

“Are you well, Master Boswell?”

“I was a’feckin’ sleep before you came by!”

“The Lady is with you, Master Boswell!”

“Feck‘s sake, don’t tell the wife.”

“You watch your tongue, Ben Boswell!” A thin voice called up from the crowd. The farmer blinked. He had wondered where she had gone. Just off to change the flowers in the temple my feckin’ arse, Boswell thought. There she was, Bet Boswell. Her and about sixty other women. Their festival best taut over more sensible winter garb. Despite their obvious lack of real affluence each of them was scrubbed till they shone.

“Da?” One of his boys kicked a cow back into the frosty yard. Young Tip Boswell was astonished to see the crowd of women staring back at him. Remote as they were, the big city of Forgetown was at least the vast distance of six miles away and a lad of tender years this sort of thing had flittered through his mind from time to time. Though then they had been sultry-demon-princess-temptresses. Not his Ma. And his Ma’s mates.

Tirack had been touring the outlying farms and settlings of Forgetown. His gaggle of terrifying wives readily equipped with pan and rolling pin. Great beefy arms ready to put any miscreants to flight. He had it in mind to raise a warband, though less of the ‘war’, a force for propriety and clean living. Anywhere else and such a levy might have drawn comment. Not in Forgetown however. Nothing surprised Forgetown. As Seasons went it was about the worst time to be outdoors but the God’s would protect them he was sure and already the yard was being swept. There was indeed a trail now formed showing their winding progress and entirely forged by broom and holy stone.

No one messed with the procession. Deep down even the most villainous rogue either loved or feared their Ma. Their menfolk far from being annoyed that Tirack dragged their wives here and there seemed relieved to be able to gamble, fight and drink. They had not come to Forgetown to wear a clean shirt every month.

“Nice cow.” Wild Rex Randall commented from where he had been pissing against the barn. Boswell jerked his crossbow about. Young Boswell went to check the chains.

Tirack continued to ask about Master Boswell’s health. Further if he knew the way to the town of Don’t Go There. He had been hearing of the place for some weeks now. Somewhere north and east of the city and well off road and river. A town of lepers, and worse. The very idea that there was a town where the diseased were forced to live offended his deep down feelings that he ought to be healing folk. Only the week before Tirack had managed to collar Big Anath regarding the place. Big Anath had professed that it could not possibly exist. Big Anath though could walk through a cloud of stampeding Momroth without noticing them if there was not someone, somewhere, that might perhaps buy them.

“Don’t Go There?” Rex sidled up to Tirack.

“Aye?”

“Hundred grulls.”

Treasure passed hands much to the hostile glares of the Forgetown wives. Rex nodded, winked, cupped his hands and...

Hightown
“Tea?”

King Troy accepted the cup, his great rough hands dwarfing the fine, translucent crockery that despite its obvious luxury was nonetheless stained deeply within. It was close, cold and gloomy in the house. He smelt lavender and cats. The overstuffed chair in which he sat was damp. The room was so crowded with diverse furniture and so crowded with knickknack curiosities that the space within was perhaps a third of what it might be without so much clutter. Only a single tallow candle burnt in its bowl. Troy did not mind, he preferred the darkness. He raised one hand to touch his face but stopped before his gloved hands made contact.

“So.” Aunty seated herself across for him. Her ball gown rustled. “What happened?”

The words hurt him as physically as they did mentally. “We began our surprise hit on our enemies by giving them no warning; indeed, I gave them no warning some weeks before when by Art and the power of the Hundred I struck at them most viciously.” He hissed. “Admittedly and in hindsight they might have thought themselves under my attention.”

“But they did not know it was you?”

“Of course not.” Troy rallied. “I am sure that the manner by which a small portion of that assail was returned gave them no clue at all.”

“I see. Cake?”

“No, thank you. But we did get silver knives and the Poisoner’s were just ‘triffic about wolvesbane so the moment they adopted the form of a wolf, we could have had ‘em!” He chuckled at the thought. They had assembled the beaters and the Sleek and acting on information secured in Cheapside then proceeded, as he described it, to scour the Slurries where the best of their information suggested the enemy were to be found.

Forgetown
“Gypsies?” The rough looking man shouted out after having offered to track just that sort of person down. In answer to the question a gaily dressed young man eyed the pair up with a bold eye. One just the sort of ruffian that abounded here (when their wives let them), the other a taller man in rainbow hued armour, his noble brow topped with a bandana bearing the Drakken crest. This second traveller sat astride a fine, prancing horse that seemed as inured to the living cold as it was content not to be galloping across the far and ever greener – figuratively – hills.

“Aye?”

Dirk dropped to the hard frozen rippled mud. Buried beneath sacks of socks, shirts and several hundredweight of urgently needing to be laundered clothing that all, even the laces, bore just the same crest as the scarf about the knight’s head. Scally The Younger tottered first one way then the next.

“Hurrah! Colourful wanderin’ folk! A toon, a dance, tales and’a the’a noble a’heritage of’a gaily garbed and’a a’worthy ‘eritage.”

The gypsy leant a little backwards. “Have you met any gypsies?”

“Me washin’...” The noble Dirk waggled his eyebrows in a manner he had practised long into the night as a method of conveying a sneaky heart. “...needs a’hangin’ up.”

“Hundred grulls, pard.” Rex coughed. Dirk paid him and the local hurried away.

The gypsy saw this. He saw the small chest from which the notes had come. Each smooth from the touch of a flat iron. Nonetheless. “Are you saying that you want to buy pegs? Typical. Have you any idea how insulting that is?”

Dirk was astonished. He was trying to be friendly and the brightly striped poltroon was offering him out? He was indeed willing to buy pegs, admittedly and cunningly for G100 a pop. He said as much. Bad Rex Randall returned at a run, offering to find pegs for Dirk but the moment had been lost and the pair were already departing.

The Slurries
He stood on the causeway that led between the foundry buildings. Not so far away and people walked within the great wheel that provided motion for the belt that carried ore from one to the other, crushed a little but waiting for the smelter. Or so he supposed. A cloak ran from his shoulders to blow in the wind whilst below him people in the stiff livery surcoats of the Drakken’s ran here and there. They made quite the very commotion even above the hammer and boom of the Slurries but the Sleek was not convinced. Stepping from the metal concourse he fell three storeys, cloak billowing like wings to land in a crouch on the street below. He looked up slowly, face within his Hunt mask angular, eyes set within the blackened skin that made them like those of a skull. He rose slowly once his cloak had settled so that it seemed he created himself from a reducing pool of darkness.

“No sign yet.” His Lord opined.

The Sleek grunted. A violent flare of dirty fire roared from some valve in the foundry by which they stood. The light of it turned his mask to reflected flame. “He is here?” It seemed a strange place for a wolf to be. But then they were strange wolves. “This Billy? This King Iyanel?”

“Lyanel.” Corrected the King.

“No...”

“Lyanel. Definitely. A king knows these things.” Troy silenced the younger man with his sharp, regal tones. “And I have people that know people, that know others people. Here is where they said.” He tapped one side of his own silver and porcelain mask.

“Only I believe he is in Cheapside.”

King Majius scoffed at the very idea.

Forgetown
“Mountains.”

Sicks and Bell nodded, Gideon was probably right. In their coats, eggy fur, studded or just rough wool they were warm enough when one took into account mittens and hats but if it was cold enough to suck the breath from a drunkard, Gideon pulled the fellow who provided the metaphor up and pushed him into the temple he had almost made it to, then it was compared to previous years relatively mild. The sky was clear from horizon to likewise apart from the occasional cloud of dirt, dust and gravel whipped up by the wind. The clouds they saw were all caught on the hills and mountains of the Forgotten Hills easterly, they could see them from the main drag and there the sky was just thick with them. Beyond and the weather must be as foul as it was normally here but if snow was a finite resource then in the north it had been squandered elsewhere.

Forgetown was never exactly quiet but in the depths of the Deathly people did not pause on the drag, nor in the lanes made by the rows of rude housing, wagon or cart. The only things not affected by the cold were the oxen penned within and without the walls, mostly outside now since the jumbled dwellings had gone up. Oxen simply ignored nigh on any season.

“Who was that big feller you were talking to?” Gideon asked.

“Barab, or Berek, something like that.” Missy’s red nose trembled with each word where it protruded from her scarves. “Wanted to know stuff.” She might have shrugged inside her layers but it was hard to tell.

“Barak.” The warlock corrected her as he walked the other way, sniffing the wind and finding the magic.

“Aye, him.”

Gideon watched the warlock before he vanished, frowning as he tried to see how it could be done. Or rather, bottled. His two trader friends were seeing out a few weeks here before heading off at the first sign of the season’s turning. Bell was going over Alguz way as he had some goods likely to turn a profit whilst Missy Sicks had been drawn into a party intending to pick through Centaris.

“Art’noon, Mayor Borealis.” A man with something of the orc about him strode past and touched a badly gloved finger to his fur hat. No one cared what anyone looked like hereabouts. Man, Orc or even Rat walked tall in Forgetown. Gideon had been made the mayor by Jander, or Anath most like, as it was Big Anath that had the best seat in the town. No one had expected to vote on the matter. They were not Nobles with influence and expecting people’s opinions to matter was a sign of weakness in these parts. As Mayor, Gideon had been there to see off Tirack with his harridan horde. More of the same could be seen over at the curious hospice cum shrine cum enormous collecting plate, scrubbing the ice from the step.

Gideon knew the town and knew the people so when the three came upon the wretched looking peasants staring in wonder at what they considered the big city he stalked over before some local sold them Jander’s temple. He checked them for green serpent tattoos as well he could beneath the goat pelts they wore near whole. They were local, Deci at least rurally speaking, with the ingrained charcoal lined skin and narrow furtive eyes. Each wore the sort of big hat good for snow, rain and flying pebbled alike. Seeing Gideon they bobbed a bow.

Taking them to where they could speak in the warm but away from where Neve was looking after his wife, the mayor insisted they accept his offer of hot tarry ale.

They had come seeking help. They had given a hundred precious grulls to one rough looking man who had cupped his hands and gone shouting for it. They had never seen him again though judging from his retreating calls Forgetown was still Deci enough not to answer such a call.

Cheapside
Padfoot talented Berek had no difficulty in navigating Cheapside. It may well be flooded and made up of the improvised bridges and new growing shaky lanes but he preferred it like that anyway. Certainly when he had ducked through the roof of a drinking den in the aptly named Waterwell Street the locals only eyed him with faint suspicion. There were not so much taverns in the Quarter as dives like this one. Drinking holes for people that lived hereabouts in their little groups and separated from others. They were like tribes, he thought. Rather, they were like a hundred different tribes in that they sat in their little territories and protected what was theirs, did a little raiding and defended themselves rigorously. Albeit tribes that had curtains and in many cases went looking for work of a night.

The local booze was like that he had suffered elsewhere. A spirit distilled from chips of ancient wood, fungi and anything that came to hand. Socks by the taste of it. He spoke quietly to them as he had with others and despite their avowed differences (‘You can’t trust them as what live in Drum Street, they’re funny folk what live twenty yards away...’) the opinions were close enough that the differences were irrelevant. They had opinions. Strong opinions. And they were not only surprised that Berek seemed to want to act on them but were terrified that he might manage to do just that!

They did not expect things to get better. They did not trust the Guilds. They did not trust Anath. They had it right to their Granny’s back teeth with Churches that thought knocking off the congregation was a spiffing idea. They did not trust King Troy but conversely thought it was about time he started a bit more kingly but not with them. They had a pretty good idea what the Empire was and apparently they were a part of it. And come the Pestilence they were resigned to quite the most alarming dose of plague since Spotty Clara had got drunk and made it three for one on Starsday.

They wanted to be left to get on with own lives without the rest of the city interfering with ‘Old Deci’ and at the same time were well put out that they were being ignored whilst all the wealth and the best wigs were in the Mercantile. Admittedly only Grummit (a bald half orc) was that concerned about the wigs and wasn’t it funny how they were all in a Quarter owned by Anath, a fellow noticeably deficient in the hair department.

Berek nodded encouragingly. Cheapside was still a tinder box with no easy answers. Life, Liberty, No Nobles. More Nobles. No King. A More Kingly King. Left Alone. More Work. Wigs. That all seemed to be battle cry of people who were in no way revolutionary but liked to express opinions.

And didn’t everybody?

~

“What’cha doin’?”

He looked up. Their legs swinging along the uneven guttering a half-dozen urchins stared down at him. Not a one wore boots and despite the fact that Cheapside was a stinking lake he suspected that every toe remaining was as filthy as the feet attendant to them. Certainly their toerags and clogs were black with soot and stained with the city. “Go away.” He warned them.

“You’a wizard?”

He frowned. “Why?”

“’Cause you’n shiftin’ that body like’a molly-boy. ”

He zapped the nearest so that with a bang of small lightning the urchin jumped to his feet, hair scorched with what remained on end. People got really worried about lightning in Cheapside of late. The urchins vanished. He looked down at the drooling body he and Toad were trying to move. At first he had thought to use the sewers but in the rest of the city that meant the bits at the side of the street, or the abyss of Hightown. He had heard that under Deci, here certainly, there lay another older Deci. That was quite probably true but if so it was flooded. So they had to carry the poisoned oaf between them and in the open and...

...no one cared. If they attracted notice for anything it was that the body was not dead. Even in fairer times no one was about to meddle with someone who by the very nature of what they were doing was clearly happy to turn a live person to a dead person, but with hundreds floating about the Quarter most people just supposed the wizard was some sort of do-gooder doing a little housework. So, on they went and mostly along the new, internal roads and lanes in rows of houses and other buildings, holes bashed through walls or which had always been there. Even when they crossed by a fire or other gathering, people stared but said nothing. This was Deci.

Rockmud
The statue stood twice the height of the visitor. Cold cast in some alloy that hardened the gold still it shone and there, legs set well apart, hands on hips the image of a beautiful and powerful man of perfect physique looked out across the land. This it seemed was the Young God of Iron. And they loved metal here because people of many lands journeyed with delicacies other than turnips to exchange for the lumps of ore that the village farmed from the ground. Between the feet of the admittedly well made statue was a ball of clay with little stones for eyes and a twig for a nose.

Jander and... “Son, this had better not be me.” The traveller peered hard at the smaller icon made of probably-clay.

Rockmud was for the territory a thriving little town. Tough purple grass grew on the spread heaps of dung they collected and on many of the rooftops too. These Drake had learned were the turnips that proliferated here. Mining and looking at turnip on the plate again were the common pursuits. He had approached the town after something of a walk only to be met by a hastily assembled militia whose armour on close inspection had transpired to be made in the manner of their God.

Far from being openly rebellious the people, of which there were a couple of hundred, had presented him with the turnip of welcome and been quite eager that he eat as many of the bloody things as he could. They had for some months now been praying that the Young God of Iron would send a sign, a messenger indeed, and finding out that this was indeed his primary disciple they had thereafter been unable to do enough for him. Clay Drake. Faiths rose quickly in the boonies and given that even their stone chipped mud huts were mostly made from... mostly... mud... they were in awe of the man who had proclaimed on many an occasion that he was too old for just what they provided them with their prime building material.

Horned pigs rooted in the hard effluence. Spotted rats ran about the low rooftops. One side of the town’s palisade was a ramp made up of more dung almost entirely covered with more purple grass. Since the roots grew so well in the stuff it was actually shipped here. Carted indeed from the city of Deci.

Drake did not mind the smell. Fifty tons of dung that steamed softly were nothing compared to Cheapside.

Wary in case he should blow the town up Drake teased a flame from his tinder box after fetching out a stub of cigar. People watched him warmly. They nodded when he spoke. It was quite unnerving. “Kids, it’s about you not being part of the city.”

They nodded again. In truth they had no idea who actually owned them. They did pay their taxes though. Teben Hump collected them each month and took them to the travelling tax collectors as they passed on by. Hump was their Reeve, their sort-of leader. He ran the Inn and the outfitters, which shared the same round building. Hump was rather unceremoniously pushed forward. His big, honest face stood a yard from Drake’s.

It was quite the change from the night before he had left the city. Then the Governor had met with the Hundred in the Guild Chambers. They had listened to his news, that the Empire was going to pay them and suggested instead that really there was no need. Given the state of the city and the very spirit of sufficiency and enterprise that Anath had typified they no longer wanted to be a drain on the city. The Guilds would in essence see to their own upkeep from tithes they would make on their members. That had sounded all very well until the moment Drake had drawn breath Anath had appeared in a puff of hasty darkness and insisted on having a word with the Governor right now. The Governor had too much heart to understand half of what Anath had hissed and clucked about, something to do with having to bargain for each build, having to go to the Guilds to use their little abilities rather than just see it almost noted.

No, Drake actually preferred it here.

“Drake Who Is Too Old For This nuts?”

“If you say so, son.”

“Are you going to blow our heads up?” Word had spread regarding Deci’s preferred attention getter and how such outright murder was condoned in silence by even The Young God and his faithful attendant, that was Drake of course.

“Don’t talk daft, son.” He ground the last half inch of cigar under his boot. “But you have to start bein’ Deci again.”

“No Majius?”

“Hell no!”

“...Promise?”

The North Quarter
By the time they had cut their way through much of the North Quarter the wizard was expecting trouble. No one had even tried to rob them of their... body, though a few suspicious looking groups had asked a few questions just out of interest. Now in a handcart their friends farted, groaned and occasionally twitched. Toad pushed whilst his Master led and even when they were stopped at the actual gate the Guard looked more amused than annoyed. It was the first time either could remember seeing anyone actually man a Deci gate. Most of them to Toad’s knowledge could not even be shut.

“Off out are we?”

“Indeed.” The wizard stepped smoothly between the cart and one of the three custodians of the city’s deep and many spikey defences. They were bundled up and two had the sniffles, not wanting to get up from about the brazier. The youngest and keenest however felt his duty more closely and even levelled his crossbow at the three men, one in a small cart.

“Not thinking of burning the city down are you?”

“No. Why, are we meant to?”

“Just make sure you don’t is all.” The young man answered sternly.

“Right. No problem. Can we go now?”

The young Guard looked out at the hard frozen land. He looked at the cart, Toad and the wizard. He tried hard to think of some good reason why they could not but the conundrum defeated him. “Just... don’t burn anything down.” People were being very careless about keeping warm, he well knew. “And, keep your noses clean.”

The wizard’s face was screwed up at the idiocy of it all. So easy had it been he half wanted to dance about and declare what he intended but even then he doubted whether anyone would actually care. He was not even sticking about in the territory. What did he have to do in this bloody city? Conquer a few Quarters and declare himself King? Ah, aye, probably. “We’ll be off then.”

“Go carefully.”

“Um. We, ah, will...” The wizard promised and followed Toad who was already heaving the cart across the trail that led ever northwards.

Cheapside
They were the Deci Hunt and they did not spend time scouting out an enemy or seeking information regarding his possible defences. That was the sort of thing commoners did. Oiks that did not have balls to go to. They sat along the line of a slanting rooftop and congratulated themselves on not having been so nervous as to lure the enemy to a place of their choosing, nor accepted any hint of failure by establishing what they could do in the event of that failure. This was their city and they roamed along it with all the ownership, concern and selectivity as they might the fine buffet already being laid in the Spire high above and some small distance away.

“That is King Iyanel.” The Sleek said simply and without any hint of their previous conversation in the Slurries.

“Lyanel.”

“As you say.”

Of Charmin’ Billy they had seen no sign, which seemed dreadfully unfair as they had crept all this way unseen so he being presumably in the company of a loud band of wolves should have been easy to spot. Nonetheless they were in Cheapside where their power was slight, where they were not liked at all and not at all anywhere else in the city where they were paramount. The enemy would never expect that.

Below and closing in were members of the Sleek and the beaters, armed with silver weapons and the condensed tincture of wolvesbane. In the event of trouble with creatures in the form of wolves the metal would prove of more worth than mere iron. Anath had kept the prices up on local ore, though that was a figurative idea as he had explained more than once, representing industry as a whole and blah, blah, blah. But now small groups of outsiders would be coming into position in case Billy escaped with their highly valuable Jander made weapons. The very thought spurred on the King. That would show all the damned, poor, rebellious, fighting commoners round here. Valuable knives. Ha, that would scare off the robbers.

“Remember the plan.” The King whispered. “We sneak up and kill him.”

The Sleek waited for his King to expand on it a little. “And then?”

Troy thought it over, inspecting every part in infinite detail. No, that was it. “First, we sneak up.”

“Right.”

“Then, we kill him.”

“Got it.”

Good and simple. No room for mistakes or any of that cunning that often made things go far too swimmingly. For some reason the image of Dirk came into Troy’s mind. He shook his head, failing to see the relevance. Talath made to slip away but Troy restrained him with a hand. “One last time. We don’t want to forget any of the points of the plan.”

“Either of them.” The Sleek used a voice so plain it could have been used to write a will on.

“Both,” Troy whispered in reply, “aye...”

Forgetown
It was warm in the shop and Neve had been enjoying the ale once she had swapped the horrid stuff they served hereabouts for a bottle or three that Tirack had cluttering up his shrine for no good reason. Cold as it was the alfar woman she was keeping company fidgeted at being kept in such close confines. It seemed like every time she wanted to actually leave and have a look around some dreadful assassin was waiting around the corner for her. Not that she had seen anything to suggest that but Gideon had been entirely convinced of the matter. She kicked her legs on the chair sulkily.

“So, marriage, well...” Neve was making a brave effort of keeping Minnow occupied but the alfar was clearly unimpressed with the sheer grandeur of civilisation as typified by Forgetown. She wanted to go to Deci or, at the very least, go troll hunting. Raid the nearest city perhaps. Laugh in the face of danger. That sort of thing. In fact the nearest she had come to excitement in recent weeks was the demon that crept into the bed chamber when Gideon was snoring under the stacked blankets in his socks.

Neve commiserated. Then. “When the what creeps where now?”

“Is Imp I think? ‘Bout so big?” She held a hand perhaps a yard from the floor. “Is bit wicked. It creep about. I would ‘it with axe but is I being told to be careful in case stuff that ‘appen is stuff what is happen in civilised places.”

“Right. I see. No. Imp is not normal. Does he make suggestions?”

“Is yes I think. Imp he say there need be more beggar? Oh,” Minnow changed the subject completely, “what is it I giving for more good time!” She sighed.

There was a knock at the front door. Neve answered it to find no one there and returned in time to see Rex Randall trying to get through the window. She smashed a potion flask in his face, gave him a jab behind the ear, pulled his coat over his head and kicked him back out into the street.

“Ow...”

Cheapside
He sat, head down on a small mound of dark old earth that had been carried into the city for his benefit. Old, he stank of the grave. He moved jerkily as if afflicted and about him were scattered trinkets of ancient gold. He could not feel the moon but he felt the city. Deep within the husk that was all that remained of his body he sensed much. He raised his head in time to feel a goblin made knife bang through the top of his skull.

“Ha! Got you!” Troy announced. It was vital to his plan that this would not cause some war with the Wolves of Deci and so with this in mind he had crept up on their revered ancestor and stuck eighteen inches of Sire Berry’s best into the top of his holy head. “We win!” He did a little dance.

The Sleek waited, half prone on the edge of the dirt mound so that when the walking ancestor turned his dead head about with the creek of splintering bone he decided that the neuronic method was probably not the best choice and instead threw six pounds of sharpened silver into the beast’s chest. Troy looked more than a little annoyed that his younger sibling had seen fit to try and steal his moment of glory. He looked considerably more annoyed when the King caught him by the chest and slammed him down into the heavily scented earth. His legs kicked and he would have cheated outrageously with more than a little magic had not the wolf King’s face distended alarmingly to clamp on his own. Shadows roared as they closed in on they struggled only to met by the quicksilver spirits there attendant to this barrow thing.

Talath leapt on the beast’s back, stabbing fast enough so that his arm was a blur, tearing off great chunk of the old flesh as he did so, making a dank rain across the rooftop. With a heave on the much weakened barrow thing Troy rolled free only to have one boot grabbed. He screamed at the horror, the half man, dead, half wolf thing that clawed itself up his leg and to his chest.

“Mummy!”

The pain in his head was intense from where he had been bitten but he found another knife and stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed frantically about the shoulders of the fiend as it pinned him down. “Begone King Lyanel! I order you! The plan! The plan! Why won’t you follow the plan?”

The Sleek tore free great lumps of meat and bone, stopped briefly to catch his breath, then tore back in once again. Soon there was but the head remaining and that the Sleek cracked with a sharp stamp. Troy, shaking, rose. Still hurting badly he grappled about the rooftop until he found his bent mask. There was a face inside it. Nervously and with the utmost care he lifted a hand to touch his own. Muscle. Bone. No skin. “He bit my bloody face off!”

The Sleek did not answer. He wanted to be gone from this place.

Fother
It had taken no end of persuasion to convince the traders out of Forgetown. Five of them and their wagons had agreed after a long night in a warm Inn and most were regretting it by the time their carts came to a halt not so far from the closed palisade of Fother. A squared ditch ran about the entirety of the village save where it crossed the river. It was within inches of being full and even the high wheels of the trader’s carts were a foot under more of the river that had clearly broken its banks some months before. Ducks swam between the legs of oxen and wheel alike. Reluctantly Anath climbed down to sink to the knee in the freezing water. His lip curled. He would have liked to arrive after the traders had been here but time was wearing towards the ‘Dawn and this was not a place he wished to be then. Without his presence the traders would have sloped off long since, back to Forgetown as like. Anyone else might have got only Hector, and Hector was to put it politely mad as a Dirk during the festival of madness when the God of Madness roamed up and down Mad Street offering free rides to Bildteve.

“I will return anon, Hector.” Anath promised. The other traders nodded but stayed where they were. He could hardly blame them. At the ditch the traveller noticed the iron bandings on the palisade, rusted brittle so close to the water. “Let me in!” He demanded.

There was for quite the most annoying length of time no answer. Anath remember now why he preferred being a Merchant. The romance of the open road was considerably lessened in the Deathly. He had long known that traders were basically just adventurers with carts. And adventurers stayed underground at this time of year.

“Aye?”

Anath pursed his lips. A single man had arrived on the wall to answer his call. “Let me in. I have just discovered what a temper is!”

“I can send a punt round?”

“Oh, for... I’ll buy the bloody punt! Here.” Anath waved so many grulls the wind caught a few hundred and blew them into the river. Many leagues away and days over the horizon Rex Randall woke with a start. “Have an enormous amount of treasure,” Anath scolded the village, “now let. Me. In!”

It was some time later that saw Anath sat in a roundhouse picking at what turned out to be a very fine dish of duck and peas. One Dog Dying, or to use his correct title Theign Dog, watched their visitor eagerly. At this time of the year the village mostly slept and the snores of the people in the roundhouse were irritating. But it was warm and the food, again, very good.

“You want a daughter?”

“No thank’ee.”

“A son?”

“No. Listen. I have come to show you the wonders and delights of civilisation. I have wagon loads of presents for you and yours. Even some soap. And,” Anath found he was licking his bowl, “this is really rather good.”

“We pride ourselves on our seasoning.” Theign Dog looked pleased with the compliment. There was something very tribal about Fother. Which reminded Anath that Sneertwice was at this moment probably dealing with Edman Doom on a related matter. In the next few weeks the Kallah Lords were to hold a Council, Slice in attendance and already that fell Merchant was seeing to the transport of certain woods from the baronies. It would be at least two trips.

“I’m sorry? I was unforgivably elsewhere?”

“Seasoning.”

“No, you have me there?”

“And herbs.”

“Ah, potions.” Anath willingly and to his usually sparse surprise accepted another bowl. He had not eaten so well since Gressen. He patted his belly. He would need to be careful else risk developing a touch of the Marius tummy. “You make potions here. Interesting?” He had finished the bowl. “I have petticoats, nails, good coats, boots and fine cutlery. Also, spools of wire, goblets and for some reason a stuffed moose. All yours. So. Deci. Time to come home.”

“Ahhhhhhhh. Well, we’re all sleeping at the moment. Does Young Iron Balls know of this?”

“Your totem?”

“More a mascot.”

“He does.”

“Well, alrighty then...”

The Deci Deadlands
The old temple was dark even in the daylight, the dead fog reluctant to admit the day and heavy with the scents of ripe meat so that it was soup and bread both for the ghouls. It was still therein and if the sky in the promised night would be touched by stars then none of that would be perceived here. Though the temple should have echoed to his passing it did not. His footsteps sounded almost soggy on the stone.

“Ahhhhhh.” He took up a knife made of the same stone as that which made the temple. He ran a tongue along it, feeling the cold and jagged edges.

Cheapside
Bloody Billy hadn’t been seen for a week now. Berek was used to that. First sniff of danger and the young’un ran for it and hid. The irony was that in a fight his little friend was a dirty little bastard with plenty of notches in his fightin’ belt. But if he was good at anything it was not being caught. He’d not been caught for years now and it would take a pretty good plan to get close to the little fool.

“Bugger ‘im. ” Berek opined to no one in particular. It was close to the ‘Dawn and King Iyanel was set to converse with spirits and see strange things, generally tending to the wotnots of that realm between this one and that. Berek had no real interest in any of that of course but he wanted to check in on the imposing presence of the old King.

Here was the earth. Here was the roof. Here was the King in little bits spread all over the area. Berek tossed his roll-up away and bent for a good sniff. “’Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello...”

Summat wasn’t right.

The Invisible Quarter
The hall was sheathed in bronze and studded with iron pillars that rose to a ceiling whose dome was decorated with curving blades, scores of them. The most important hundred of the Guild were seated in the centre of the chamber on cold, steel benches arranged in an octagon. The light all came from several fierce flames that roared blue as in a much less seemly chamber below each wastrel workers worked the immense bellows that fed the flames whilst more shovelled charcoal.

The great clock that stood above the guild hammered out the hour, its pendulum a three ton mace. In their ceremonial mail robes the Masters of the Warsmiths rose, a ceremonial hammer in one hand and silvered tongs in the other. They closed upon one another and in perfect time rang out their tradition. Already and in the round room more wastrel were setting out a feast roasted within the furnaces.

The three Masters struck the last note. Then together intoned. “Witness you the Ancient and Well Forged Brotherhood of the Hammer for War. Is it well made?”

“It is sharp and will do well in battle.” The Guildsmen answered in deep voices, even the women.

“Has the Majesty of Iron been drawn through the die of Empire? Is it bent and riveted with the pins of the Empress? Is it set to harden in the blood of Deci?”

“It is hard done and rightly so, and for a fair price.” Again, the Guildsmen.

“So here we stand, we who forge Primus anew. That the tang of the blade shall be well wrapped and the pommel of balance stand over those powers beneath and above. This the most ancient and well regarded Guild of Warsmiths who have ever forged anew the year in ancient times and for mumble mumble years!”

“Ever have we worked the bellows of Empire, since the first dawn or at least for mumble mumble years.”

The Masters turned to face outward. As it had ever been written in the still suspiciously fresh scroll of their heritage would the great and strong force of Primus come upon them and choose once more who would be their Sire for another year.

The great doors banged open. Jander ran to join them, skidding to a halt over the last six paces. “Phew, sorry, business at Geld’s Claim. What’ve I missed?”

A great sigh ran over the chamber. Jander quickly ran over what had been done so far with the aid of the metal on the walls. He nodded. “I reckon it’s me again, eh?” He suggested. The Warsmith’s muttered their agreement. The Forge beamed, apologised, and dashed off. He had a Dawn Blade to make.

Busy, busy, busy...

Deci
Above the city music was being played by a blind orchestra. The symphony of the city touched the nearest streets as women in sweeping gowns and men in tights and bulky tunics danced amongst others, masked like they. The year turned quietly so that but for a moment only all sound ceased. All save for a hurried yet ever precise hammering.

Died and was born anew.

By Alan Morgan (CI11V2)