Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 9, 2014 12:03:56 GMT
Harvest IM 1007
Back home and Sorley had seen a swaggering adventurer or two pass his little stall. Half the people he knew personally had killed, or at least claimed to have killed, in battle. He had gone to his adopted city years before when it had been but a town and been there when it had risen to city status. He had drunk his fill with friends made in that city. He had told the same jokes and enjoyed the same tales of glory and even of the harsher realities of war. Old Malrose two stalls down still had some of his fortune remaining from when he had killed and looted his way across what was now the Empire. The good old days, of course. When the nation was young and the turmoil fine for spearmen forged in the dying days of the Magiarchs. Forgiven by Amora and set on conquering to make that Empire at all.
So Sorley though it bloody unfair that he was an outlaw. A wolfshead even. One that had been on the move for a year, two, three even, he had lost track. He had killed it was true. But people did that all the time. But he was an outlaw and he had, at length, come to Deci.
It was not that he wanted forgiveness. He had been drunk for months and in Bildteve had heard the preacher. Redemption it seemed, lay for one who died well and fighting evil. Sorley did not for a moment believe he could actually kill any of the devilish fiends that ruled Deci. In truth he did not even want to try. He would fail and then his life would be measured in inches. Long inches over a year or more. No, Sorley wanted a clean death. Fighting evil.
Redemption.
He could not have named near any of the devils of this city. But he would know them when he saw them. He had the sense for it. He knew the type.
Besides which the clatter of the horse’s hoofs was a bit of a giveaway. In a city where the richest were carried about on thrones the mere possession of a horse clearly denoted that the rider was one of absolute power. And therefore evil.
Sorely took out the knife. Blunted with age and still brown and rusted from the killing. A killing now so long ago. He prayed in the hope that his soul would be taken by a kinder god. He listened and the hoofs came closer. They were trotting now, though the sound was strange. He waited until he could smell the sweat of the beast even over the stink and poison of the city and leapt into the alleyway…
…only for the horse to sail over his head, clear by a good twenty foot. Sorley’s mouth hung open as he saw its hind legs scrabble for purchase on slick slates - and then it was gone.
“Come back you stupid bastard!” He shouted but already the hoofs were retreating. What sort of moron rode a horse over the rooftops?
*
It had been damn important that the Nobility had turned out to support Deci in its hour of need and Dirk had been just the man to see it done. It never occurred to him to wonder quite why he had become so popular amongst the Lords and Ladies of the city, because it never entered his thoughts that he would not. And Dirk liked them. He really did. They were about as proper a bunch of titled fellers as he had ever met. Oh, they were clever and they were arrogant and they wore their fragile pride like a cloak about their thin shoulders. But they were damn Noble about it all. They carried their born superiority about with them like a trumpet. They knew their place in the city better than any others he had encountered. And the city knew its place regarding them in turn. They were cruel as cats, but they knew responsibility. They ruled without preference or petty sway and their Blood was fine and pure and…
…they hunted!
Over the month Dirk had visited with most of the many Houses here. In truth they all rather blurred in his mind but that he knew was his own frailty of thinking. Dirk was not cruel or clever. He distrusted such normally in any man. But they were so damned Noble about it he had bowed and taken wine and proclaimed himself unworthy of their gifts. A simple, bluff fellow he was still learning the local ways. For example, it seemed to be the very thing that most of the women and some of the men had offered him a bed for the night. Nice and all that, but Dirk would never have gotten the immense pieces of furniture out of the door.
And then he heard that they hunted. A lot. Hunted! And Dirky loved to hunt. He loved the outdoors and the estates of Bartholomaw. His good lady wife was of that House and if she had left Deci in horror of the place for Thimon then still he bade her good night each evening to the tiny portrait he wore about his neck. He had hunted in the caverns outside Eartholme but he had never, hardly ever, hunted inside a city.
Told to turn up at a certain place it had been the very bugger to get Fine Canterin’ III up on the roof suggested. Still, he had managed when an immense band of several hundred stout fellows with torches had found him. They had demanded the rights of the common man, that all men be equal, with equal stabs at the pie. They had demanded the end to the Nobility and Lords, and Masters and for Dirk to proclaim himself for King Blackjack.
Dirk of course had been mightily impressed. A King? Egad! That had sounded pretty bloody important. So he had slapped a few backs and told them all that they were fine chaps, with decent hearts, and forgot instantly about what they had said about the Nobles once he had cut the head from the man that had shouted that. The mob had conferred for a while, Dirk happy to wait patiently, and they had agreed that they had only been joking about the Nobles.
Dirk had beamed at them again and once more congratulated them all on doing a damn good job of whatever it was that they were doing and then had the hundreds form a pyramid up which he had been able to walk his hoss. They had cheered him when he got to the roof and all to the distress of the rest of the Hunt who had been hiding behind the chimneystacks all the time.
Then the mob had carried on towards the Citadel, where they intended to tear it down stone by stone.
Then Dirk joined in the hunt. There were, it seemed, evil hearted men in the city and the Nobles were going to give them a damn good thrashing. Dirk liked that. It was a shame he was the only one mounted but then he supposed that being local the Nobles were giving the blaggards they hunted a fair chance.
Which was damn sportin’, Dirk thought.
He was having a fine old time of it when at length the inevitable happened and he and Canterin’ III fell through a roof. All a bit embarrassing of course. His horse had thrown a shoe also so it was probably the very luck of the Drakken’s that the roof he had buggered up proved to be Jander’s.
“The’a very man!” Dirk called out.
The Forge smiled faintly. He looked up slowly to where the last of the tiles swung by bent nails. Apprentices were already reaching for their wire-brush brooms. It was, Jander admitted, quite an entrance. Good evening. He said.
“Egad! Not messin’ about with silver weapons is you?”
The Forge shook his head and held up the iron bar he was folding into three others. No, sir. I am not.
Dirk grunted. He blew out his moustaches. “Dammit all man, why ever not?”
The Badlands
It had been a long journey, doubly so for a wizard wary about using his magic. When you got used to appearing where you wished in the blink of an eye blisters were something that happened to other people. Carrying the sack had not helped either and he had almost been robbed as he left Deci. Naturally he would have burned the thieves to blistered ashes rather than accept a playful rap on the head but he had opened the sack anyway and, disgusted, the thieves had sloped off for better pickings.
A bundle of city silver was pricey, actual silver really was not. The scribes only saw the sum total of all that was raised. The work it made, the effect it had on the city’s treasury. Silver and gold were valuable to the city as a whole and to the eyes of the scribes. Silver as in candlesticks and cups were worth less than nearly anything. The city was awash with metal. If the Silversmiths had remained they might have worked out how to burn the stuff, an Alchemists Guild still might he supposed. He did not care. All that mattered was that he had a sack full of the stuff and the cost in grulls bothered him not at all, or the lack of it indeed. It was of desperate worth to him.
He could, even here, feel the Entropy attendant to the city. Scribes might chatter on about the effects of culture and perception but the wizard was of the opinion that though it might not have made the problems currently picking at the trembling body of his city, it was certainly making them the more so. He had a better sense for these things than most. If the Entropy grew much larger then the city would… he did not really know, nothing good though. Right now the wizard was pretty certain that enacting rites in the city was a pretty bad idea. If he had possessed a ritual chamber then certainly it would have been nailed shut for the moment. Or at least banded with iron. Iron was a lot cheaper than wood right now. On the ground, in the actual markets at least…
He loved Deci. But he was wary of it. He had even been chased down the street by some bloody outsider with a rusty knife. The wizard knew many things and one of those was that strange men throwing themselves at the noteworthy were up to something. So he had snapped him in a cage of his magic and buggered off.
“How much further?” He asked, bringing himself out of his reverie.
“Soon, soon.” His guide promised.
The Slurries
The procession had wound its way through the city for perhaps an hour before grinding to a slow halt. Somehow the streets wide enough for a wagon had seemingly narrowed over the last year. That or the wagons had got bigger. The first snarl up came outside the newly enlarged Warsmith’s Guild, where the old road was just large enough to reach from it to the gate but with the spreading of the edifice it was no longer possible to squeeze the carts further.
Jander had been tossing tokens into the crowds, metal discs stamped with the sign of one tool or another. One hundred thousand grulls worth of picks and shovels, hammers and tongs, needles, buckle stamps and rivet blanks were promised. Free was free and the tokens had been snatched at. Doubtless he would have bundles of manufactured to such value at his forge in the coming weeks. He had better, anyway.
Behind him the long, long procession began to disintegrate. The Hundred Guilds, marqued or otherwise, scuffled for a while but ultimately decided to lead the procession elsewhere. So it was that by the time the Warsmith’s had broken their own brass and iron wagon down into its components parts all the other Guilds were leading a hundred or more processions in different directions. Jander watched them after climbing to the third floor of the Guild where the dank smog of the city was not too thick. It was perhaps the only day of the year when the Guild did not ring with the sound of a battle of dull bells.
Below and the Forge saw the city. So many people here were Guilded, even if they did not have a Guildhall. He had even seen a pennant banner for the ‘Got Street Guild’, which rather summed the situation up. People wove in every direction. Dented horns hooted and saggy drums banged. What the city was badly missing was…
“Leadership.” Anath whispered.
Jander did not jump at the unexpected intrusion though the hair on the back of his neck stood up at the sound. He tapped his fingers on the window frame, the curling metal there chiming to the beat. Most of the Guildhall was made of metal. The craft Guilds were using ore increasingly where once they had used wood to upkeep and build the city. Wood was not for building now. Wood was for burning, for making charcoal and the other needs of the foundries. Jander hoped the city wouldn’t rust come the seasonal rains. "Come in, Halfblack."
“I… am.” The words came from a foot behind and one to the left of Jander’s ear.
"I know. I was being polite."
“Ha ha.” The words were said, precisely and without emotional inflection. Anath understood a joke. He had read a fascinating treatise on the matter by the Skinner Princess Flicker. She had actually managed to dissect enough fools to find what the old tome had described as the actual funny bone. It had described laughter and being a man ever keen to put another at his ease. Anath had practised laughter. In the world beyond Deci, that which was considered funny here often differed alarmingly. “Leadership.”
"Our people are not ones that like to be told what to do, Halfblack." Jander pointed out, still not turning around.
“Indeed. And they like a leader not to like when he tells them what to do. So they can grumble and hiss and shake their fists behind his back and then do what he tells them anyway. They are used to not liking things. They don’t expect to get what they want. Not on the level we are talking about.”
It all rather went over Jander’s head. He said as much. Anath offered to fetch a stool. Jander nodded at the idea. Anath, so challenged, went to one by a cushioned chair otherwise made of beaten copper. The stool, being made of twelve pounds of finest lead, was not given to moving. Jander beamed, still looking out of the window. Anath coughed, disintegrated the stool and with a brush he took from one sleeve swept it towards the Forge. Satisfied, he reformed it. Jander did then look about and at Anath’s offering. "You illustrate your point well." He nodded.
Anath blinked. He was not aware he had been making one. Peering about the room for where the metaphor was hiding he nonetheless maintained a stern mien. “Leadership.”
"I understand." Jander nodded at the stool. "You illustrated your point well."
Neither man said a word for five minutes. Neither man fidgeted. At last, Anath said “Have you been attacked..?”
"Have you?"
“A man might have banged on my door and tried to stab me with a rusty knife.”
"You did not kill him?"
“He clearly did not have the wherewithal to afford it. You?”
Jander scratched his head where the hair was still growing back after a nasty burn. "He was hiding in the Number Three Bin this morning. He revealed himself when Bull lit it up. One of the few days the man gets to scourge them, see? Unfortunate."
“Dead?”
"I don’t believe so. He was smoking when he ran away though."
Cheapside
Thumbs tucked behind his broad leather braces, the Sire of Cheapside walked with a jaunty gait. His hat was high and mightily impressive. He whistled. Knives lined his belt. Behind him, and for the moment almost the only able bodied men and women in Cheapside, scuttled the gang of thieves that had tried to make it in the Big City. They had failed, badly. Nonetheless they had talent and Sire Berry always had an eye for that.
Babies cried in the cluttered garrets and people shrieked and argued. He stepped over a drunk already stripped to his toe rags and thingyed an ear to the flute that played soulfully not so far away. A lump of wire wool the size of a small sheep rolled by in a wind amplified by the chimney formed by the streets. Cheapside was, if not deserted, then about as empty as he had ever seen it. It might have been noon on mid-sunner eve for all the people he could see. He kicked a three legged dog as it stumbled by, mouth full of snakes. He paused when he felt eyes on him, turning to see a hundred or so tiny mice crowded along a wide crack that ran along the base of an old wall.
It had surprised even he how quickly Cheapside had healed. There was no wood of course. That had all gone up in ‘Da Grate Fire Of Blackjack, Innit’. As it was now being called. The core of the old city had been nigh on immune of course. Ancient stone as hard as iron and as permanent as a rich man’s greed. The people had returned and the Quarter had regrown and if there was an awful lot of scrap metal now coating buildings and streets then at least the area had healed. It did not even look that different to how it had been, not really. nuts looked like nuts no matter how much you turned it.
Pausing when he came to Stout Street and the clearing made there with the burning of one city structure or another, Sire Berry sat down on the cracked remnants of a fountain now once again alive with green moss and mould. From his hat he took out a black bottle of wine and three meaty snakes-on-a-stick.
It was a cold day but he did not mind that. It sharpened the mind and Sire Berry had a lot to think about.
Sorley reared up from the fountain scum. He yelled his defiance. Sire Berry frowned and pushed him back under until his struggling ceased. Ignoring the attack he went back to his thoughts, only half aware a few minutes later of damp feet dragging themselves away in the wake of violent coughing.
The Mercantile Quarter
The corpse was so stiff that in another month it would flap in a strong wind like a Kesselharn standard. The unique combination of the air in the Slurries, the cold of the northern Empire and the often fierce, dry heat of all the industry, had led to the body drying as quickly as it rotted. Even the fur scraps that dusted the remnants of its clothing was brittle to the touch. Hung from the post of a lost tavern it shone lightly from where passers by had hawked and spat on the remains.
Druids, barbarians and indeed anyone ‘furry’ were hated in the city. They had raided and then left before all good sense dictated that they should have conquered the city and then died in droves in the months that followed. Whether it had been specifically just a raid, or if they had enjoyed wisdom from those that knew the city it was hard to say. Calmer heads would guess at a lot of the former and a little of the latter.
It did not bother the priest either way. He looked over his shoulder to see if he was being observed. He was. Children stood but yards behind him. One in particular smiled, an eerie looking scamp with empty black eyes, cheeks smeared with dried blood from the sockets. The children did not jeer or play. The traveller suspected they would be happy to if he would make one of many possible moves that would lead to his becoming the heart of such games.
He turned back and sloped away. From a window without glass a woman called down to him, her breast pox scarred and offered up for sale. The streets were alternately cluttered and empty as bits and pieces of the Guild procession caught him up and deposited him elsewhere in the city.
Screaming, a man in the rags of garments that looked to be from the ‘Rest ran by. He waved a rusty knife and every inch of him was covered with slick pond scum. The traveller watched him carefully until he vanished from view.
By the time the traveller came to the more mercantile Quarter he was still being watched. Not through any real intent, just that there always seemed to be someone wherever you went in the city. He did not have the knack of passing unseen, and was not of such note in the city that people went out of their way to ignore him. He scowled. He walked to a street where its curving lines were filled with shops and many of which bore the names of adventurers. As he looked down the row, for as far as such was possible in the winding road, he saw every second building was mounted with a pair of black iron balls. Doubtless the mark of some local merchant.
He fell sharply when a rope was jerked. The sack went over his head. He cursed as much as he sought for his power and then the boots went in and something hard cracked over his head. The bag was jerked into an alley and the thieves vanished after it. A moment later and there was no sign of the traveller at all.
Welcome to feckin’ Deci.
The Braided Fox
They had met where her father would not find them. Abbaj Hail had many talents but he was locked into thoughts that required little in the way of imagination. So whilst he sought for his daughter in the sort of places where the Nobles were apt to frequent she instead had come to the Braided Fox.
The Inn had been something of a fixture in Deci for years now. Sat by one of the gates it was a place where traders had once come, when traders had done that with any regularity from without. Adventurers with some hard grull frequented the place and all in all it was an establishment that was outwardly not very Deci at all. For a start it was not in a state of Deci rot, a malaise most of the buildings sat within whereby they stank of damp and mould, looked about to fall over but never, ever, actually did. It was quite jolly indeed. People laughed and some danced a jig. The food actually tasted of something other than being boiled or poisoned. The ale was not watered. The wine was imported. Smuggled, doubtless. In a corner and at a table all to himself in an otherwise crowded taproom a fellow called Catskinner quite openly traded information. He had been killed for that three times, but since he was one of those rare and vitae filled men he had taken such as a mere hazard of his occupation.
So, whilst they were hardly being secret about their meeting, they were as far as the Nobility were concerned. Word would filter back and doubtless the Lord of his own House would be full of advice for Talath, but here at least they could be for the moment undisturbed.
“Die!” A wretch shouted at Talath and leapt at him with a rusty knife. Given they were meant to be keeping a low profile Talath smacked him about the brain with a back handed cuff of his power. And all with only a raised eyebrow. Sorely slumped to the floor as if hit by a club. Talath thereafter ignored him.
Both he and his companion were dressed in such a way as to announce to one and all that they were not Nobles. Or rather, Talath knew, that they were precisely that but that everyone should pretend otherwise.
Ellei Hail was typical in her appearance for her breed. She was thin, her face was pointed and her hair was as black as a crow’s wing. It was shorter than was fashionable and tied in little clumps with scraps of ribbon, leather cord and rusty wire. She also smoked a long stemmed pipe, which was also fashionable amongst her peers. Unlike they however she seemed more relaxed and when she laughed it was actually that, not a weapon used to belittle another.
She had been tutored, and well, but had never run with the Hunt. Her own father had only come to the Lordship of the House recently after the death of the former Lord at the hands of wolves. Suddenly plunged into threat Ellei had adopted the normal attitude to such from amongst her class and culture. She had seemingly ignored it, only taking pains to make sure she was always armed, and effectively sneered at any hint of threat from pretenders to the rulership of the House. There were many faults with the Deci Nobility, but lack of style was not one of them.
Hightown
“I thought it went very well.” Berina Majius patted the hand of her husband. He nodded, but did not otherwise immediately answer. He had been ensconced within the Spire for the whole of the night where he had been talking to his fellow Nobles. They were in the main as unhappy about the situation described and all agreed that this month at least they would leave Isaac to bring it to their Hall and all of them were in Scrolls. But such as went on behind the doors of the Spire remained in the Spire.
It had been the Countess Claugh, in the city once again, that had brought up the matter of the state of Deci. And why, as King, Troy was allowing it to continue? Another had asked her quite what she thought could be done about it? To which the Countess had rather snippily answered that she was not the King.
Troy had maintained his calm in the face of the pointed question. In truth the Festival of the Hundred had buoyed up the city considerably for the month. People were not fighting as much as they had and he had seen from the rooftops that Cheapside itself, as was expected, had mostly turned out for the Festival too. Even now he could see thousands of people arriving in the lopsided and crooked square before the Citadel. There was room there, he supposed. And it was not like anyone actually used the draughty old place. He personally would rather have sat in court in Trundelberry’s suspiciously popular shop. The Citadel was a ramshackle collection of the madness and hubris of the ages. As diverse in design and appearance, if not a fraction of the size, as the Inner City it had more secret tunnels than it had rooms. More rulers of the city had died there than everywhere else combined. He looked up, the Spire was much more suitable.
“Foul evil Lord of darkness!” A voice shouted up at them from the street below. They peered over together. A man was there, a man that was capering. Half slick with pond scum and with blood still wet about his ears. He waved a rusty knife.
Troy kicked a gargoyle and with a crack the little statue fell to the cobbles below once it had bounced off the malcontent. He turned back to Berina who was asking him a question.
“How do you think little Talath is doing?”
Cheapside
It had been quite some party to be sure. Somehow just about everyone with at least one hand had been rounded up in Cheapside, and though so many of them had been enjoying their own processions still they had ended up about the Citadel. Once the edifice had stood over Cheapside, or rather over Deci, because then Cheapside had been Deci before the growth of relatively recent times. It had been the fortress that had dominated the land, and in its case Deci. It was hard to know how many Robber Barons, Thief Princes, Mouse Lords, and a hundred other titles, had ruled over the city then. Solitary monarchs, cruel overlords, laughing patricians, dark queens, partnerships, and triumvirates and even, but not often, Guild or Council. All had added to the Citadel in their own way so that it was now a confection of rotten wings and little towers. It seemed that as if every ten paces one walked about it another mad mind had demanded something added.
Unlike the Citadels in other cities its walls were not plastered, limewashed or even very well pointed. Inside and it was a maze of empty galleries and dripping puddles. In the higher points the poison fog of the city actually lay within the rooms. Half the roofs were missing. Its dome was cracked like an overdone egg. Only a few years before the then Governor had used it but he had gone on to other things. The last to leave had been the scribes, and of course now there were no scribes in Deci anyway. The cellars and dungeons went down a long way. Most of the structures, the empty treasury and the hidden Nagrech chamber, were below ground. Most of the catacombs there were not even linked, but entered by different portals entirely. Most of these had doors, lintels and locks. But not all.
It was still a looming presence, though the not-quite-a-ruin had long since been overshadowed by the Spire and even many of the Guilds, Chambers and even foundries of the city. It seemed diminished in their wake. Silent. Or normally silent. Because at the night of the festival half of Cheapside had come to the Citadel that had loomed over one edge of their Quarter for as long as anyone could remember.
A sticky man scratched his head. He could not quite believe what he was watching. King Blackjack had made a few announcements of late, the least likely being that the gangs should stop fighting. Which was just lovely of the King, Marmalade thought, but it was never going to happen.
On the other hand, the King’s next commandment looked like it would. Hundreds of picks, shovels, crowbars, mallets, hammers, chisels, knives and just plain big lumps of metal hacked at the Citadel. The sounds from within were terrible. Floors were being torn up. Blocks were being knocked out. Thousands of people had drunk the rough hooch most homes made over the year and here they all were, attending the Empire’s largest ever wrecking party.
“Ere, me Da said ter make sure stuff goes well.” A hand tugged at Marmalade’s sleeve. The henchman looked down and round. There lurked an orc. Half-orc, he corrected. A half orc with mean little eyes and big, pointy hat on his head. A big, pointy that Marmalade knew the King had told somebody to make.
“Piss off, son.”
“Me Da’ll know yer said that!”
Marmalade nodded. Then he slapped the half orc about the back of the head. “Know your place.”
*
King Blackjack sat on a throne they had swiped from the Citadel. It was a big old affair with a skull on top that looked more recent. The Citadel itself no longer loomed over Cheapside. It had been torn down brick by rotten brick, stone by crumbling stone and carried a few streets over where even now it was being made to make walls about ‘Castle’ Cheapside. Blackjack looked on happily. “Dat’s just top sausage, dat is.” He announced.
Even Marmalade was impressed. Blackjack had stolen the Deci Citadel. In truth there was about a third of it left. Staggered lumps and sturdy foundations, and a single shaky tower that people had discovered was occupied by Dirk Drakken. Though the Cheapsiders had railed against the Nobles for two days, had proclaimed themselves free, still they thought Dirk was ‘a proper nob’ and so thought it wrong to mess. Their views on the Nobles stopped sort of short on the actual Lords and Ladies of the city. Dirk too, who as a figure that rode about in gleaming armour and on an immense charger looked pretty Kingly himself. They all knew that someone had tried to nobble or steal that horse only a few nights ago, poor old Sprot, now not so much a thief and a killer as nine stone of still wet jam. The Nobles here were protected by ritual, ghosts and really mean people with really sharp knives. The people hated that, just as they thought it very Noble and therefore right.
Darkness bless ‘em, every one.
Blackjack was big on their freedom. That they should rise up and overthrow the Lords of the city. As long as they did what they were told of course. The Cheapsiders agreed but also did not. Such was Cheapside. Marmalade did not for a moment think Blackjack really cared. He had the closest thing to a standing army in Deci and even now was…
“…King?”
The orc grinned. Creeping along in his shadow was one of his many brats, the newly emerged Robin. The King had all sorts of drinking holes and breeding dens, doubtless this example of his brood would find a niche somewhere.
“King!” Marmalade hurried to catch up. One of the few things the Cheapsiders had stolen intact was a narrow tower. It tottered alarmingly, the top swaying to and fro, always right on but never over the point of falling down. Most of the steps were broken and half were exposed to the air, and by the time Marmalade caught up with his King the orc was tugging down his britches.
With a grin at both end King Blackjack pushed his arse in the direction of the Spire. He waved it to and fro. He slapped it. Then, and with obvious satisfaction, he let go with a rolling boom of arse-thunder. “Oy, Ma-jay-arse!” He shouted between his ankles. He looked to catch his henchman’s eye. “Yer think ‘e can see me?”
“My Lord King.” Marmalade opined with a straight face. “I would be surprised if any fecker missed that one.”
“Dats gravy, den.” He sniffed. “Some’un give us a wipe’ ay? Think I bust me arse strings with dat one.”
Blackjack was happy when he returned to the street. He swung an axe in an easy circle. When Sorley burst through the crowd demanding death the orc cut him in two without actually breaking stride. “’Oo was dat den, Marmalade?”
But no one knew. Less, no one really cared.
Hightown
It had become rather lonely in Deci, and Anath (though a fellow ever happy in his own company – it being often the only way he could be assured of intelligent conversation) had suffered a ringing in his ears as a result of the silence engendered by no one complaining at him. Quite how he had ever gotten anything done more normally he was beginning to wonder. But with everyone else not in the city, Anath had managed to work for a week solid without interruption. It was, frankly, a right royal bastard trying to assemble information with a quill and the paid for information that the scribes used to get with a dance, a song and a sacrificial cat. Or whatever it was that they did. Their mysteries were precisely that and probably nowhere near as interesting as Anath had described them. Even to himself.
So having run through a small barrel of ink and tossed the cat out of his window for the honey wagons, he hung up his dancing shoes and drank spiced wine to sooth his throat. It seemed that for the most part anyone likely to be killed by the city’s murderous nature already had been. There were rumblings from Cheapside, but since so many of the people there could not be seen by scribes anyway it was hard to tell. Harder still for Anath who been forced to basically count them. Not physically, but by extrapolation of market and need and…
…bugger it.
“Sneetwise!” The Merchant snapped. “Sneetwise? Where are you, dammit!” A short cough caused Anath to turn to where the tall man stood like some raven over a battlefield. It disturbed Anath a little for another to do the sort of thing he prided himself on being the very master of. “Were you there all the time or did you…” He frowned, shook his head. “I don’t care. Sneetwise. Have the grooms see to my coach. I am going out for a while. ”
“Of… the city?”
“Of… as you say… the city, Sneetwise. I have earned a break. A day or two in the country. A breath of fresh air. A ride across our rolling hills!”
“Our countryside, sir?”
“Indeed, Sneetwise. Indeed! Where else?” He smiled. “The rolling pastures. The mountain view. Jolly taverns with cheeky bar wenches. ”
“Our countryside, sir?”
“Dammit all, Sneetwise! Yes, our countryside. Outside the walls. Lowing cattle. Fields. Have the carriage fetched.”
Sneetwise bowed and went to see it done. Master Halfblack had been working very hard of late and clearly needed to get out more. Which in truth, Sneetwise submitted, he seemed about so to do. He went to ensure therefore that Master Brourd went with Halfblack. It might need a miner to put a decent spin on the blackened and stony wastelands.
Cheapside
He set aside the heavy file so that it lay with several others and took up a greasy rag. Rubbing much of the rusty grime from his hands he leant over the bow of the boat to reply to the voice that had called up to him.
“Nice… boat?” The goblin said. The speaker was nearly all hat from what Drake could see, the crown tipped so far back as the funny looking fellow looked up that it might have touched the broken cobbles behind him. For a goblin he was dressed remarkably well. For a Nobleman, to be fair, he would have been well dressed but for a goblin the effect was all the greater. A thick gold chain hung about his neck, heavy tunic in the puffed and baggy local style, knives and daggers and boots you could have shaved in. And the goblin might well have done for Drake could not remember having ever met anyone over the age of twelve that had such a smooth cheek. The goblin made elves look hairy.
For his part Sire Berry, civic leader and citizen of means, had sort of been aware of the boat but like so much in this deliciously jumbled city had never paid it much attention. The craft was about the size of a fishing sloop, made of wood as hard as iron and iron as hard as… there the analogy failed him. He was a goblin of status, not a poet. It was set on sturdy bronze beams and it seemed to lie on the winding street as if on the ocean broad. Sire Berry knew people, who knew people, and those people reckoned the boat had been here ever since some nine or so years ago Vinnie Vincent and his Guild had decided to raid the Deci docks to stamp down on crime. There hadn’t been any such thing of course (docks, of crime there had been a plenitude) so someone had made a boat here just in case he wanted to do it again.
“Son, you just here to admire the view or you want to say something to me?” Drake leant on the gunnels. It was a cold day, which kept the brown bottles in the bucket near to had at a reasonable temperature.
“Sorta just came ter say wotcha. ” He waved a hand and what looked like a rat ran forward with a basket made from wire wool. Nestled within was a shiny knife. “’Ouse… boat… warming pressie. So yer the Governor?”
Drake shrugged and tossed down one of his bottles. The goblin caught it, flicking the metal cap from its end with a craftsman’s thumb, red and about the size of a chicken drumstick. “Sorta, kinda. Mostly I’m working on the boat.”
“Only… no one sorta saw yer enter? Weren’t no trumpets, or… stuff. People’re sorta wonderin’ when yer gonna start acting Prince Biscuit with laws and stuff. Yer know, when the crushin’ is gonna ‘appen?” Sire Berry beamed. The beer was local and tasted of tar. The glass bottle had probably been a window, a cup and even another bottle in its long life. The metal cap had given the game away. Cork was scarcer in the city than a blind man with riches.
“Son, I’m too old for that nuts. Seems to me you’ve had a Drave as Governor before. Don’t mean nothing. Now I’m sure I’ll get to see the Nobles fine Spire.” He pointed with the neck of his own bottle to where Hightown stood proud over the city, all topped with the hugely ornate black tower that vanished into the foul smog that covered Deci. “And I’ll take a saunter into Cheapside to meet with Blackjack and this Sire Berry.“
“Dat’s me.” The goblin touched the rim of his hat. Drake just looked back. Feeling like the onus was definitely on him to continue, Trundelberry added. “Wotcha. ” Again.
“Piss off Empire!” A gangly youth shouted from the nearest alley. That was the third time it had happened in the last week. Drake had even caught two girls scrawling such, badly, on his boat the last night. They had only just finished cleaning if off before Sire Berry had turned up.
“Excuse me, son.” The Governor said to Trundelberry. The goblin waved off the apology grandly. Then to the reprobate in the alley. “You talking to me, boy?”
“I’m looking at you, Empire!” The words cracked a little but clearly watched by his peers the young man had to answer.
“And I’m looking at you, citizen.” Drake answered easily. “Hello there. Mr..?”
“Dark and Deadly Nightshade.” Sire Berry supplied helpfully after a quick look of his own.
“Really?”
“He’s bin an adventurer for two weeks. ‘Is given name is Wurtle.”
“You want to come here and say your piece, Wurtle?” Then to Trundelberry. “’Dark and Deadly Nightshade’. Really?”
“’Shadow’ ‘as been taken. About thirty times last count.” The good Sire turned to the alley but the youth had already run away. For some reason the locals were not doing their normal on Drake. They were a bit scared of him, in truth. Not of him killing them, since a fear of that was part and parcel of living in Deci. But even hardened members of the darker Guilds in Deci had become wary of being told off. Drake had a certain presence, and one quite unlike anyone had encountered before. Mostly he worked on the boat. It was proving hard to rise up against a man that worked on his boat.
“Must make the scribes job hard, what with taxes and names?”
“Scribes, yeah…” Sire Berry scratched his nose, not sure when he had last seen any such thing. The best the city had was Anath, who from what people said was pretty much working his quill to the nub trying to do something approaching their job. And the Merchant did not have the observation and tradition advantages of the Imperial scriveners. He said as much to Drake. Taxes were collected of course. Mostly by the Kallah since the Mocker King had taken over the Treasury so that no one else would. The Mocker wanted the city to function, and the Treasury was just too tempting for some, it seemed. “So, if yer need any ‘elp… just sorta whistle. Gotta shop down on Stab Street. If yer wanna chat or a cake, Sire Berry’s yer man!”
Drake nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s you, son?”
“I’m dat biscuit, yeah.”
“Thanks for the knife, kid.”
“Ta fer da beer.”
The Slurries
It was dangerous being a drunk, but then the malady was not always one found by choice. Children watched the wretch as he picked his way through the Slurries, children that did not laugh and amongst them always one that would stare blankly, often with hair of pure white and eyes of a dull black. They watched the drunk and once they had even brought a gaily-dressed young woman in Mummers make up to see him. Red spots on her cheeks. Frizzy hair of wool and wire. Eyes like blackstone chips. She stared at the drunk for long moments before turning sharply on one pointed heel to leave the drunk suddenly alone.
For perhaps a minute.
“What have we here, Parlo?” The drunk heard the words and tried to rise but a foot pushed him down again. He saw two shapes but even without the gloom of the Slurries they would have been just lumps in the darkness.
“Hardly worth rolling?”
“Best just give him a good poke and leave him to be eaten then, Parlo?”
The drunk was lifted bodily and heaved down the lane and into a square no larger than a wagon across. The buildings here leant together so that an irregular patch of smoggy sky no wider than the drunk’s outstretched arms broke the sense of even the city leaning in close to watch. He was turned over.
Cheapside
It was, all in all a very good throne. It had seen the lower britches of some of the most alarming people ever to rule the city and until scant weeks ago it had graced the chequer-patched floor of the Citadel’s great hall. The previous occupant, a skull, had been propped up on a small table to one side because Blackjack was an orc, and orcs liked skulls. And for all he knew it might be a rock powerful skull that did the cursing, so as long as it was happy to sit on the table then Blackjack was happy to otherwise ignore it.
He clapped his hands together noisily from within the depths of Cheapside. “Prince Marmalade!” He called and the green haired man ghosted into the chamber where already perhaps a hundred men and women lounged about drinking, eating, fighting and generally keeping the hubbub loud and constant.
“My Lord King?”
“’Ave the gangs what are great fought? Only dey seem ter be a bit quiet if they are?”
“My Lord King, in Deci fighting is cunning and rarely makes much noise.”
“Dat is true!” The King beamed. Marmalade snapped a command at the doorway and a dozen wretches scurried in bearing chests laden with shiny gold plate, crowns, bottles of rough red wine and even in two a pair of hastily scrubbed people. “Is dis offerings?”
“The people love you, Sire. They wish only to make sure you know this.”
“Dat is just gravy. ” King Blackjack was happy. He had slaughtered his rival gangs on the way up and he was pretty sure therefore that having killed everyone of like power that others would doubtless spring from the scummy streets of similar power to replace them. For the most part, a little voice kept on trying to tell him, the gangs in Cheapside were back to being those in a given street, lane or square. An awful lot of them were back to living, breeding, filtering out into the rest of the city to their Guilds and in the last few weeks back to doing whatever they could for a grull. Cheapside was Cheapside and it would always endure in some manner or other. Blackjack told his little voice to go away or he’d eat it. “So, ‘oo won den?”
“You champion remains, my Lord King. Under you and ever ready to swear allegiance are the greatest of your gangs.”
“And dey is der most powerful dere is, like wot used ter fight me?”
“They are certainly the most powerful now to be found, my Lord King.”
“Bring ‘em in den, chop chop.” The King lounged back in his throne and leered at the pair in the chests left before him. It was good to be the King.
Hightown
No matter where he went he was being watched. He stared about himself, trying to catch the eyes of the people he passed but for the most part they were from the city and so knew well enough not to draw attention to themselves. He hurried down lanes and alleys, ducked under lower walkways and through eating haunts and flophouses. For a time he felt a little better and would slow but then he would catch from the corner of his eyes just the impression of something lean and hungry.
Three times he passed King Majius kicking the city up the theoretical backside – berating it for what it had become and frankly telling it that it needed to get back to the Guilds.
When he came to the next curiosity shop he nearly kicked the door in, in his haste to enter. There were people inside but these he threw out, knocking over a stacked pile of trolls feet and bundles of cracked leather fans as he did so. The door he slammed and he was breathing hard by the time he came to the counter. There an astonished man stared back at him, one hand out of view.
“Ritual!” Twirl bellowed.
“Aye, well… what sort?”
Twirl added what primarily he wished, but added that he needed pretty much anything else that was to be had. Scriven scrolls, objects, artefacts no matter their use. He was told to browse. Twirl slammed his hand down on the wooden boards between them and snapped that he did not have the time to do that. The man was just to stack it all up high and he would take what he had. The shopkeeper shook his head. They had nothing like that. Or rather they probably did, but that he for a start had never dug through the mounds that stood and teetered all about them. You had to have a look for yourself, it seemed.
“Right, fine; because I have nothing better to do before I get eaten!”
“Eaten, look Master Twirl, we don’t want no trouble here. Be a good lad and sod off, aye?”
“In trouble, I said in trouble. With… everyone. Argoth, Anath, Blackjack, all the Nobles and their sleepers, me, Sire Berry; they all want to find this stuff. Take it up with them.”
The man held up both hands in mute surrender, but still his visitor would have to dig. He offered to help so long as Twirl promised to stop foaming at the mouth and blinked once in a while.
Hours later and they had a small pile set between them.
By Alan Morgan (CI9V5)