Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 4, 2014 19:30:31 GMT
Januar IM 1003
The streets were slick with the dirty slurry that was the sign of a Deci winter and the leather of the Smiling Man’s boots was sodden with the gathered damp of the filthy slush that he had walked through. The wind that blew down the chimneys formed by street and alley made it yet colder and the stocky figure had dressed well against the cold. It was already three hours past dawn and the streets were hardly full. The Smiling Man passed small knots of people as they walked to and from their work places, or gathered about the stalls that clustered about the better protected shops of the city. He saw nothing that he would have regarded as crime of any note, no murders or brutal beatings for nearly everyone in the city at this time of the year was either a confirmed local or a mercenary who well knew the nature of the settlement. The Smiling Man had been up all night gathering information and what he had heard still hovered before his mind as he walked, and thought, and considered.
He had been concerned that another crime gang had taken over where the absent Don had left off but he had not found any evidence of such a big, centralised enemy. The city had a natural proclivity for crime and rather than any big takeover the more normal thieves and other reprobates had simply found it easier to operate and thus had risen to fill the gap. It was true that some were said to be richer but there had been little attempt in the city proper to become the big cheese. There was no such thing as a Thieves Guild in Deci, nothing apart from the occasional gathering of mercenaries say, since the brighter of criminals did not advertise their presence and would stay well clear of anything where their names and deeds could be easily accessed by the Sunstar or the Watch. Besides, if such a gathering had been formed the Don or one of his many lieutenants would only have taken it over. No, it was more the case that people had begun once again to operate on their own. It was, contrary to popular reputation, surprisingly dangerous to be a thief in Deci. The citizens knew the city they lived in and took care to make things difficult for possible robbery. Muggers and thugs tended to pry on outsiders and the Central Quarter had its own, privately paid Guard to watch their homes. Those Nobles who made their home in the city were also aware of their location and so took steps. It was also, surprisingly again, not the best city to find work as an assassin. There were hundreds of people who claimed such a profession and with such a glut prices were driven down. Besides, the best paid jobs were generally amongst the rich and powerful and these were not commonly found in the settlement. The Smiling Man had learnt that some of the more successful assassins had already moved to Halgar and even to the City of Keys.
Entering Gregoh’s Cup, The Smiling Man paid for a mug of hot, extremely sweet tea and stood to one side of the almost crowded room as he sipped at the chipped mug and thought on what else he had found. For the nearest that had come to real organisation had been the Straw Dogs in Cheapside. The gang had been around for years and had risen to the top many times only to sink back amongst the riff-raff thereafter. Generally, it attracted a lot of promised young pikeroons who, when they ‘made it’ tended to find well paid employment elsewhere. Vern’s lieutenant Charmin Billy, for instance, had once been in the ‘Dogs. But it seemed they had done it again. They were the scariest gang in Cheapside and as a result gang war was virtually down to zero. It was not as if they even fought very often. It was enough that the ‘Dogs were strong again. But with so little seen of the Don it was humanity who had taken over. Most of the city’s Drow had scuttled back below and no longer swaggered about the streets. Most of the city was, of course, human and they had simply been able to continue with what they did without fear of some sort of Azzizzi reprisal. Finishing his drink, the Smiling Man walked back into the street and turned for home. The city was in an unpredictable state, becoming more lawless by the day. Taxation, he had heard, was suffering badly. The city had grown over the last year but the taxes coming in were somehow half what they had once been.
*
The Braided Fox was a popular tavern for mercenaries in the city. Located near to the East Gate it was much larger than the buildings that abutted it in the crowded street and the fact that it employed several large, otherwise retired warriors only added to the security that many felt within. Outwardly, the ‘Fox was almost too good for the riff-raff that made their living as adventurers but the clientele was so greatly consisted of their number that the locals tended to avoid the place altogether. It was not that work could be found here, often it was that the work that could be found, and there was normally plenty of that, did not always rely on Hiring Licences and the direct approval of the Empire. Fights rarely broke out in the wide taproom and the food was plentiful and so good that it formed a welcome change from the rough tack and stringy meat that was the norm in the more wild places of the land.
The Drow had their own place, Argoth’s ‘Poison Club’ but what news could be found there was carefully controlled by Don Argoth and sometimes there were those Drow that wanted their own way…
*
Anath tapped his fingers on the table in front of him. He was taking his lunch at the Poison Club and had been expecting to have to pull some social rank to get into the place but had found the club to be all but empty. Plainly it had fallen on hard times. It had been around for a few years now and so was hardly fashionable. Few heroes came into its rather gaudy interior and when he asked a serving maid if he could see whoever was in charge, Anath was told that Mr. Wyvern had not been seen for some weeks. The place was just getting by as best it could and without effective management, Anath saw as he picked at rather plain meal that had just arrived, the whole place was going to the dogs.
*
It had not been easy. Ease was not a thing that the Seething had been looking for, it was not in his desire that ease should come readily to his actions for his task had been both demanding and testing upon his abilities. It might have proven yet more difficult still had he not learnt so much about the city in recent months until he moved like the youngest of natives amongst the rooftops of thee many-tiered city. He grinned now. For a month he had worked on the rite, following precisely the instructions that he had uncovered after much hunting in the darker places of Deci. No one knew the entirety of his desire, a fragment from one source, a snip from another. It pleased him that his aim was hidden even if much of what he had done could hardly have been more noticeable. Five weeks, five deaths. The last lay sprawled upon the sloping roof of one of the few towers of the Governor’s Citadel. This was perhaps the most dangerous of all for Governor Sunstar had a fearsome reputation, one that would make the Seething inclined to flight if he caught even the first sniff of vengeful golden power. But luck, the fates, the gods, whoever it was that ruled such a lofty perch, well, they seemed to smile on him now.
“Wake up.” He whispered in his captive’s ear. The man was bound tightly with a series of ropes that The Seething Man had discovered in the basement of a curio seller. Made from trollskin the bindings had been burnt into shape and once that was done they had set harder than iron about the captive and the stone perch he now occupied. Wakening, he tried to speak.
“You will notice that you have no tongue.” The captor explained in almost bored voice. “You cannot feel this for your body is deadened by a potion that I fed to you a short time ago.” Even beneath the scorched ropes, the captive’s clothes seemed fine indeed. Not grandiose or showy like a merchants but tastefully cut to the captives wide belly. The man struggled, or at least tried to.
“Hush now.” Said the Seething. “You are honoured to be part of this great art that I forge. You are the last for now and the greatest of that which I needed. First there was the slattern then there was the thief. He made a good chase but assumed I did not know the roofing ways. Silly boy. The third was a soldier and the fourth a man of means. But you my friend, are a Nobleman and your blood is fine and rich.” Admiring the view, the Seething Man leant almost nonchalantly against a stone balustrade. The night seemed to promise a day both fine and clear and he tilted his head to one side as he sniffed the air. “Ahhhhh, Deci.” He smacked his lips as if savouring the headiest of wines. Then his eye was drawn to the distant horizon. The first smudge of red could be seen there, the vanguard of the new day. The Seething Man took out the knife that he had bought from a dead mercenary and brought it about to a point left free from bindings and there let it slide slowly through the flesh, to tickle the innards. Three inches more would have granted death but this forging needed to be slow.
“I’m a child of the city now, friend.” He chuckled. “Your blood will ensure that I am within and of through every level. Is it not a grand thing that I have wrought?” Then he was gone, taken into the womb of the city and beyond the sight of those who would see. Alone on the Governor’s Citadel, Earl Coursan dribbled his life and blood to the stone but not a drop touched it solidity that did not turn to smoke and drift away on the freshening wind of a new day.
*
Some miles beyond Deci a single figure stopped when he came to a crossroads. The sign was old, the wood weathered by the elements until the parts that made it had become a single lump that in the evening shadow looked almost threateningly at the man who made out the words written upon its arms.
“Deci that way,” he nodded, “Coley’s Farm to the left and Fryer’s Held straight on.” It was rare to find such signs and this rarity, more than any desire for any information it might have held, was the reason the scout had stopped at all. At least it seemed he was going in the right direction. He shifted his pack more comfortably upon his shoulders and was grateful that the journey was a short one for he disliked being weighed down at the best of times. He walked the hundred paces that took him to a bend in the worn path and through the dark trees that fringed him on either side. Stopping when he saw the village that became clear to his eyes as he turned the corner. There was nothing overly remarkable about the village, it being typical of its kind. There were ten large huts and twenty smaller, single roomed hovels that clustered about the stubby ruins of what must have once been a tower or similar structure at some time. Pigs rooted in the earth and a number of people drifted from hut to hut in a slovenly, perhaps weary fashion. His experienced eye told him they were simple peasants and none of them seemed to possess the skills or strength that would have signified a threat to someone of his ability or training. Nonetheless, he had not lived as long as he had by abandoning caution. For an hour he waited but still no one else showed themselves and so, carefully, the scout roamed a little closer. He stopped when he found a pole planted to one side of the path and this he inspected more closely. That of it that was above the ground stood to his shoulder and was surmounted by the old, yellow skull of a goat. Tattered streamers hung limply about it for there was not sufficient wind to stir them from where they rested. As his eyes swept the darkness he could see another further on, and more to the other side. His outstretched hand felt the faint tingle of spiritual power, but it was a subtle thing and promised him no direct harm. But…
There was still purpose to their being placed. For a moment the traveller thought to tear one of the poles from where it stood but then, even if this did disrupt the power as he wished it would be noticed. So he settled down again in a place of better concealment to wait for the night to leave and thus see who stirred in the morning. It was along night and the scout’s sense of time eventually told him that even if he was a little befuddled by lack of sleep the sun should still have risen. Frowning he tried to decide what to do next. He was concerned about the spiritual line and had half made up his mind to cross when people began to stir. Amongst the villagers were others now. They were garbed in thick pelts of fur and their faces were tattooed with blue and brown stripes that bent about the long lines of their mostly bearded faces. Of the twelve that he saw, ten were warriors of some skill. They moved well, like the warriors he had encountered when on hire to the Empire. The last two he could learn little from. The way they moved and the way their furs and leathers were arranged defeated his experience but just from the way they were dressed it looked as if one were a priest, the other a warrior like the rest. Stretching themselves they began to herd the peasants towards the stump in the centre of the village and then, for as long as the scout watched, he saw signs of digging taking place within the walls. He could not see what it was that they directly excavated but the mounds of earth and piles of rock outside grew slowly with each passing hour. He pondered his options. To get closer he would have to cross the line of poles, for he could now see, just about, that they surrounded the village. He was not at all sure he wanted to do that…
By Alan Morgan (CI5V1)