Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 5, 2014 16:49:39 GMT
Aiprus IM 1006
Deci was dreadfully quiet. At least for Deci it was quiet. Cheapside still boiled happily along because Cheapside cared not at all who was in charge of the city. Grand political maneuvers and the hostile assumption of mythical power were things of story and in Cheapside if you couldn’t stab it, rob it, sell it, hump it or share a tankard with it then it was probably not worth worrying about. Indeed, the tales that a new force had risen, that a Prince of Murder had come to rule and to govern worried them not at all. Cheapside was the oldest part of the city. Indeed, it was built up upon that land which had once been the entirety of Deci in the hardly-halcyon days of the settlements murky past. Some of the sturdier structure from that time still made up the Quarter, though their use and possession had long since changed a dozen times. In Cheapside people still understood the idea of Mocker Kings and Robber Barons. Well, inasmuch as they were ruled by them.
Conflicting stories were tossed about the streets of Cheapside like ash upon the wind. Most assumed that the Don had taken over. Some suggested that Anath was behind it all. Everyone pretty much went with the idea that Blackjack had nothing to do with it but was of more immediate need for a tugged forelock or a quick exit. Most people pestered Master Berry for news. He’d know after all.
But given the fact that the Murderous Prince now ruled, actual, murder dropped alarmingly! The weather, for the north, was rather mild and it hardly rained at all. People went about their lives cautiously, fighting seemed less and though robbery was rife actually killing anybody was of a lower agenda. The city was quiet, it waited, it watched, just in case. Many people thought it better to be ruled by a walking Prince Murder than some distant god of the same. Thingy. You know. Bhaal? That was it, Bhaal.
The sooty smog that hung over the city was undisturbed by the light winds. Surrounded by forest and mountain the winds were never great in Deci in any case. Now they seemed positively feeble, and the smoke from the city’s foundries and furnaces coughed and choked its way to the low lying clouds. That sunlight which reached the city at all was a feeble thing and though spores and fungi sprouted in alley and square people actually spent more time out. They’d never liked the daylight in any case. The odd wag amongst the traders suggested that the city was farming itself, speaking of Eartholme’s palatable sunless herds and mushroom steaks.
Indeed, in the lower levels of Hightown trees were said to be poking their way through cracked stone and filthy wood. Such only made the Noble Guildsmen of the Lumber Jackers shudder as they had been chased from the Shedeff scant days before. They spoke of horror and a walking doom. They were hardy Deci souls though and with quota’s to fill ensured they got what they needed from those woods already felled, stacked and put aside. Ownership in Deci came at the point of a knife after all and a willingness to not care about enemies made. Or rather, to pick and choose such enemies carefully. Be mean. Be sly. But be clever.
The Dough Hut stood at the top end of Further Row. It sat comfortably on the corner with its wares displaced so that the bowed windows crossed the two streets. Behind old green glass a hundred pies stood in plentiful, neatly arranged piles. Their crusts were golden, their sides bulging with the thick contents within. There were a lot, an awful lot of people sat about on the streets and each was either face deep in one of the hearty pies or burping in satisfaction at the conclusion of their repast. It was food the like of which many of them had not seen before and at a grull a pie readily affordable to nearly everyone. The glass of the shop had the same sheen that Fade knew from Ulis’ shop, clearly rubbed in the same compound that protected it from idle lumps of brick or the scrawls of the itinerant malcontent.
He was filthy. One of the city’s many beggars, and as unlike the Kallah and Hanot, who were more splendidly dressed, as piss to pearls. People scarce looked at him at all as he pushed his way into the shop. He saw Crowbar and hastily scrubbed away the caked muck on his face to reveal to him at least whom it was that had come to call. Inside the innermost of his cloaks he carried a pair of bundles made up of old grulls notes, delivered to him by the Poisoners and so for the moment at least Fade was satisfied. Then he remembered what was happening to his city, remembered what Argoth had done and his long blackened heart grew heavy once more.
*
Blackjack was having a bath. Not with anything so miserable as water, or even ale, no, Blackjack was having a treasure bath. Some of his lads had dragged into the gang hall a heavy tin tub and as each of the gangers brought in another pot of filthy grulls, hoarded broach or filthy old coin he had ordered them to fill the vessel about him. He wallowed in it, he scrubbed his pits with it, he wiped his arse on it. There was nothing like sending a gang out to demand a little respect, respect in Cheapside often being expressed in terms of grulls, to cheer up an orc. So it was that when Marmalade arrived the dreaded Foul Orc of Cheapside Town was in fine mood indeed.
“’Undred grulls dat smells of nuts, Marmalade?”
“Ta boss, but I got enough already.” The lean figure replied politely. It was probably true enough. The thief had gained his name from his habit of pocketing anything small that wasn’t forcibly hammered down. He just seemed to acquire things without thinking about it. He was sticky. Things stuck to him. Small, sometimes costly thing. In his youth he’d used tribal dyes on his hair. He had been sticky and orange. He was Marmalade. Now his hair was green and he killed more than he stole, but in Cheapside names often stuck. “Good week?”
“Feckin’ marvellous. What with me new shop I’m thinkin’ I might ‘ave ter get meself a big ‘at.”
“Good idea, boss. I’ve sorted out the meeting.”
That got Blackjack’s attention. He sat up and grulls fluttered into the air like some eminently pleasing snow. Not a few of them stuck to Marmalade. “G’wan, son.”
“They don’t trust you, boss.”
“’Course not, Marmalade. I is a bastard.”
“That’s right, boss. You’ve not got a good reputation for meetings. The Sunk Street Skinners though do have, so they’ve agreed to host it. Sunk Street are new and all, not as much as us but new nonetheless. The Oxen want the meeting and convinced the Rooftails. It’s good for everyone.” He shrugged.
Blackjack sighed. He knew the theory as it came from cunning rather than some sort of high-faluting intelligence. No one gang could actually rule Cheapside. It was a place that took its strength from the different gangs and to rule it a gang would need to have a pack on every street corner. The Great Gangs ruled their turfs and got their respect because most of the people that lived in their areas got protection from their ruling gang… protection from other gangs. They paid for that of course. It was the old ‘always-enemy-other-there’ ploy that orcs had lived by since… well, ever really. If one gang took Cheapside then it would do nothing, nothing else at all but fight new comers and those would unite and… besides it was Cheapside and gangs liked to fight. There had to be an enemy.
Blackjack had renown but in truth his gang was hardly an army. To be recognised as one of the great gangs… well… that would make all his plans easier. Fighters would flock to him, all his territorial building would be both a fraction of the price and doubly as good. “What yer tell ‘em?”
“That I’d pass on the message, boss. You’re the boss after all. Oh, and I had to kill the Rubble Tin Hammers. Four kids, tinkers, that called you a ‘soft nutse’. Passed the time coming back here.”
It seemed that Blackjack and one other were to come to Ulis Tamary’s old shop on a month’s time and there talk would go on. Marmalade added that everyone was expecting a trick and so if they attacked… it would probably go badly.
Blackjack waved off the news. He couldn’t give two goblins who Marmalade killed. The door to Blackjack’s bathhouse flew open and one of the filthy thugs who fought for him came in with an even dirtier brat held under his arm. The orc stood up and brushed grulls off his ratty old leathers before demanding to know what was going on?
“That’s Nice Petty, boss.” Marmalade pointed at the kid. Blackjack knew the name, the child being one of the nimblest thieves in Fingers Lane. He was a thingyy little sod if truth be told but he got the job done. In a coat four sizes too large and an immense cap of worn felt Nice Petty was hard to actually see in the swathing clothes. The thug set the child down, then caught him up once again when he attempted to escape.
“This little rat been nicking again, boss.” The thug explained.
“I ain’t not done nothin’!” Protested Petty.
“I ‘ope dat ain’t da case, you is meant ter be nicking stuff fer me!”
Marmalade took a flat parcel of rags from the thug and opened it out to show a gold torc, a fine example of exquisite craftsmanship ad clearly tribal in nature. “I know this, this is from those settled tribesmen in the city? There old shaman, or witch doctor, he used to where it. But rich for you isn’t is, Nice?”
“I ain’t done nothing’!” Blackjack took the heavy neck ornament and tossed it into his bath. He had much to think about and already his head hurt.
By Alan Morgan (CI8V3)