Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 9, 2014 12:17:36 GMT
Deathly IM 1007: The Final Dawn
Cheapside
The streets seemed to be deserted.
The snow that fell did so as long streaks already half melted before it hit the cobblestones to slap the dirty ground and stain the city the colour of a drunkards piss. The foundries had reopened but three days before and the poisonous smog that had almost thinned over Deci were once more being thickened. The only sounds he heard were the distant thump and creak of the city’s industry as reluctant treadmills turned and immense hammers, great furnaces and crusted chains protested their resurrection. It was cold, but less so than he had expected for the Deathly Season now was rather mild. Mild of course being a phrase only applicable to other years for still the weather might freeze the unsheltered and kill in a night.
But no one slept on the streets. No one remaining had to. Over the course of just five years the populace as the scribes might have seen it, had there been any scribes, had either died or fled to the extent that the city was perhaps a tenth of what it had once been. The slum landlords had been beggared and crime was so rife as to be a commonality. No one owned anything. Boots, cloaks and even knives might change hands three times in a day. Even the most prosperous of people would have their chattels rob another in the streets and had he been a lesser man he would have been tripped and sack stuffed eight times in as many minutes. There were perhaps two hundred people within the old city walls that were not willing to kill a man for six inches of blood sausage.
For the first time since Deci had first been founded Cheapside was no longer the most populace of Quarters. What had once been the basket of life to the city, the place where most grew and aspired to move out, was now home to but several hundred souls and about as many again that were not counted as citizens at all. It was the Deathly, but the Governor could not believe that the city was so dead just because of that. He stepped over two bodies frozen to the soul without much of a glance. Once this great city had at least hopped with life, cruel it might have been. But like a rabid dog left to starve in a cellar it was eating itself.
The Murder had murdered, the influence of the Majius had been denied by those outside and Cheapside was a fortress that might have been what Deci had, indeed, once been but it was no longer birthing each new generation. Blackjack had killed all those that stood against him. That horrid pack that followed him had killed those that they thought ‘not Blackjack enough’. Which was many. Now the Mercantile was the home of the Guilded and those that worked for the Guilded. And even they robbed and took what they wanted for each other. There was precisely no law in Deci.
Except perhaps for him.
Envious eyes watched but there was something about Drake. Some world-weary step to his stride. He was the stern father coming amongst naughty children. People looked away. No one approached him. Sometimes shutters were clapped into place when he came near. Even the snakes that picked the city clean slithered away. When he stopped to light the stub of a cigar at the now gated entrance to Cheapside the evil hearted scum that moved to jeer and prod at him paused.
“You want a password, son?” Drake asked, his face lit by the dirty light from a stinking match.
“King Blackjack says…”
“Son, I can’t remember it. Does it matter?”
“Aye, old man.” The youngest of them snapped, made strong by numbers. “Right lads?” But he was alone, suddenly and without warning. His smile slipped. He muttered and looked down. Drake was too old for this nuts, yet too pissed off to die. He walked by the young man with the scars and the bandolier of stolen silver sthingys and the youth scowled, kicked his feet but did not lift his knife.
“Thought not.”
The North Quarter
He had always known Deci had a bad reputation but he been resident here for some time when not engaging with the activities of his worthy Volksraad Guild. It was a reputation that had normally always been exaggerated of course but in the last few months Deci had begun to live up and even to exceed what had always been said about it. There were Kings here now: Mocker, Majius and Blackjack and they had competed to some degree though none to the extent of the latter who had effectively gutted and hung Cheapside up to die. In all the sprawling old north quarter there were perhaps a few hundred souls and these were those that were keeping themselves apart from the rising horror witnessed in the rest of the city. They were for the most part not members of the city Guilds, not stalkers, nor even traders but as close as Deci came to normal people. With their dirty children and their suspicious eyes they clustered together in but a few streets, lanes and alleys and mostly about Star Set Square with its broken statues and the fountain now so clogged with fallen soot and grime that a man in mail could walk across it without cracking the crust. The square though had a good well and in the dark old garrets the people lived in wary truce. For the best part of a mile in any direction the buildings were unoccupied. Thousands had lived here once, but over only the most recent years that had changed.
It was not therefore entirely unexpected that it was to here that Moragil came. He stood there until the first light of day managed to penetrate the thickening clouds of poison that were once again covering the city from its restored industry. Deci lived nocturnally and people were coming to the well before turning in for bed. For such wretched folk they were very well dressed, he noticed. Their homes had beds and rugs and pretty much anything they could strip from the homes of the dead. The clothing looked oddly out of place, some of it quite grand on wretches that at first looked at Moragil with caution. It was of course possible that he had claimed the well and now demanded some sort of price for its use, something of which he hastily disabused them even as the dim sun caught the streaks of greenish snow that increased in their fall about them.
One by one they came forward. One by one they heaved up the bucket and scuttled back with their pails and pitchers full and now covered against the snow and soot. He shook his head and offered a brief word to his Dragon but that power had no presence in this city. Indeed, the whole quarter was dominated by a great and slick looking cathedral that rose beyond these houses and several streets over, a cathedral to the black dragon, or the serpent, as they called it here.
The minutes passed and people went away only to return with clubs, knives and even a few swords. Before the night had entirely passed Moragil found himself facing a small mob. They might be poor, they might not favour any of the evil factions in this city but at need they did band together. They were a town within a city and though there were better houses and homes lying empty still they stayed here. Safety in numbers, and all about the well.
“I am not here to fight you,” he raised an empty hand. “Indeed, to help you.” A few scoffed at that and Moragil rolled his eyes. Deci folk were cynical. They had been made to be so. Here most of all.
“We don’t want your gods!”
Moragil turned to look in the direction of the girl who had spoken. “Not for gods. Look, where is the Watch?”
“Ain’t no Watch that don’t creep and kill, mister. Got tax collectors though.” There were a few laughs at that. A few coughs, too.
“You’ve clearly banded together. That is good. I can help. I intend to make this quarter a place of law and order.”
There was a lot of laughter at that. Law here meant only that which some dark prince or plotting councillor decided. And then rarely even that. Moragil told them he would help, that it could be done. A young man chuckled and told him that they had seen any number of well meaning people come, but mostly go. They never stuck around once they saw it might actually involve some sort of effort.
“Let me know if anyone breaks Imperial law and I will deal with it.”
People were actually enjoying themselves now. They no longer feared or hated Moragil and the crowds was thickening so that three or four hundred must now have gathered or hung from the open shutters of empty windows. They were not bad people but they were not of the Empire and they told him as much. The Empire was just a place that tried to tell them what to do, took their treasure. They were Deci, and no matter what those in Halgar thought Deci was not a part of their funny Empire.
And these, Moragil thought, were those that were apart from the politics and plotting of the rest of the city. These were they that did not actually prey too much on one another. This was about as good as it got nowadays in Deci.
He cursed.
The Badlands
Well to the north of the city by several leagues and the ground was as inhospitable as anywhere in that dead territory. There were no settlings within two miles of where he stood and even that was a closeted affair where two interbred families lurked amongst a ruin and lived by taking black hided hares to market. He had found only the rubble of a village long since half mouldered into the bleak ground and that perhaps a century or more in age. From where he stood on the sudden, sharply rising hill he could see both for the rock with its three trees rose a good forty foot straight up even it was only the same about the base.
In Deci he had sniffed out no places of power to his kind. Blackjack had become something of the city indeed, and the tribals that had once settled in the northerly quarter had similarly rejected their roots even before they had been killed by the attack that had come the previous year by the raiding reivers and their wolf allies. This was not entirely surprising. One who sought to call to spirits and feed off the brutality of battle was unlikely to find such in a conurbation like Deci. For that you needed the wilds and so to here he had come, following his nose and the scrappy imp gifted him by a goblin in a very large hat by the name of Sire Berry. The goblin that is, not the Imp.
Orcs rarely settled in one place. They ran and they raided and even in the Broken Lands where territory was more important to the local tribes than elsewhere the orcs tended to move about a lot. In the Far North they rarely stopped as they fell upon village and tribe, eating their fill and burning what remained. But some place had at least some significance to them, even if none were particularly holy or even known to the living.
But here on this rock certain brutal spirits lurked still. Travellers never stopped here and the snow did not settle. Indeed, though Robin could see the empty village and the settling distantly from his now lofty perch he realised that this was because the snow did not fall between he and they. The ground was hard but clear and though he could see the world cut off in the distance by the sleeting snow, such did not fall here.
It was cold, chill as a damp barrow and the trees that grew here were tough, twisted thorny varieties of their kind. He huddled his knees close to his body for warmth and in his ears Robin heard the whispers of the dead.
Hightown
The horse picked its way through the streets of Deci and when it came across fighting or lurking little bands of street robbers it actually slowed to allow the rider to glare at them sternly. No one approached the man, plainly dressed though he was in his dun coloured cloak and faded black tricorn. That he rode through the streets at all spoke either of deadly hubris or an arrogant disregard for the threats imposed by the promise of what the horse might be worth.
He did not hate Deci as others had. He even knew it passing well though much had changed in the ten years since he had lived here. So he picked his way by wider routes, comparatively speaking and kept away from where once he knew the thief dens and killer courts had sparkled. He had only been attacked once and then by long darts bearing a sleeping venom that he had pointedly ignored for Lord Vanastay was the very expert on what could be made from herbs and plant, from beast and worse. He was here to meet with Earl Duff on business of his own.
On the approach to Hightown he was able to kick his boots free from the old iron stirrups before his horse collapsed to the ground. His sword was in his hand even as those same boots slapped the cobbles. His cloak was already free of his shoulders as he spun it about to half wrap one forearm. The blade he held low and in the dull morning light it shone wetly.
“Good morning, Stale.”
“It is, your Lordship.” Agreed the plain little man that stepped from the shadows, of which of course there was a plenitude. “I regret to inform you that there is a price upon your head. You are invited it seems to a little gathering. I am very sorry about all this.”
“That’s quite all right, Stale. Your employer?”
“Sadly has not quite the skill to do this alone. You will note I had to take a hand myself? The Guild you see knows of your abilities. We carried out a certain plan but I confess that at this time we are most in need of funds.”
“I confess I am flattered by your attention.”
“It seemed only fitting for an Old Boy such as you, your Lordship.”
“Before you all took up with religion?”
“As you say. Now might it be too much to ask for you to lower the blade yet further?”
But the Lord Vanastay declined. He had noticed that Stale had a net of iron links over his shoulder and that the blade he carried was cut to catch rather than kill. That gave him something of an advantage. He knew there were many hereabouts ready to fall upon him. “A favour, Stale?”
“If I can, your lordship?”
“Make them pay through the nose would you? And my sister..?”
“Is not part of this, I assure you.” The snow struck again like spears of sluggish rain and the best of the Guild swept forward with their employer amongst them. There was death and some of it would be lingering but mere minutes later and a band of butcher boys coming across the dead horse clapped their hands together at the feast they would soon enjoy. The youngest picked up a battered old hat and posed in it for the laughter of his companions. An old fashioned thing with three corners all turned up from the brim.
Forge Town
It did not take long to walk the length of the town and indeed from where he stood upon the steps of the blocky temple to the Forge he might readily have seen the simple gate at the other end of what the buildings here made a street. It had taken him five minutes to get this far and he had not been walking very fast. He might then have seen the gate had not the town been lightly obscured by a low mist that his experience in potions suggested was in fact steam. The whole town so steamed like a wet cloak set before a fire for this was the place of the forge and the wretched snow that fell here took only seconds to become such a mist. It made the air clammy, his clothes a little damp but after the relatively long journey from the city it was marvellous to feel what in comparison to the stark snow and chill of the wilds could actually be considered warmth.
Forge Town was pretty much just the street down which he had walked. There were buildings here, the temple and others and also a lot of tents in a bewildering array of styles and sizes. Oxen lowed inside the simple earth and palisade wall. Carts were drawn up so that many made up one side of the tents. Where buildings ran down the street they were joined together by wooden boards to make a walkway. The street, such as it was, was churned mud that unlike the frozen land beyond was thick and sticky, turned by hoof and wheel, moistened by the steamy fog. And Forge Town even bustled a little. Traders, carters and travellers generally were here. Some were passing through, some were seeing out the Deathly season, some were trading but many were here to serve or pay their worship to Jander at this turning of the year.
It was frankly a great deal nicer than Deci, thought Gideon. That dank and evil city was not one that liked artisans for the Guilds were strong. They liked less alchemists and even potion makers, for the Poisoners Guild amongst others was jealous of its power and status. Not so here, Gideon saw. Not the case here at all.
The town was frankly excellent for his needs. His wares, especially when he saw to the various tincture mills, brewing chambers and drip wells that could take a common potion maker to the heights where their wares rivalled ritual and were far more fiscally rewarding and portable than such mystical weavings, would do well. He did not doubt that Anath would allow him a pitch on the street. Such a transient populace was ideal for his beginnings, for such people had both the ability and the need for even common potions. A far better crowd with whom to trade than the occupants of a few streets.
For his apothecary, he had learned the name in the city.
Alchemists were those that transmuted one thing to another and were, to say the least, a bit mystical about their business. They had status and back in the early days of the Empire they had themselves made potions and poisons, thus the name that adventurers used. But those that made the real potions, those whose batches numbered enough to tempt a whole Guild or a spearman’s Held, or just to cure a malady or grant a man strength or skill, these were in truth apothecaries.
There was no competition for him here, and little in the city at this level. Though again actually in the city the Guilds would make trouble for him.
At this time of year it was hard to gather any materials, the land being so cold and covered as it was. The wilds hereabouts had all anyone could ever really want to make poisons and were not that bad for the more general potions. But this was Forge Town and already it was clear to Gideon that trade was its primary focus, the name and temple aside. He did not need, though he still could, to crawl about the wilds. He could exchange and barter for what he wanted or needed.
Traders such as Hiyen Bell and Missy Sicks could get him the materials in exchange for a portion of what he made from them. Indeed, since it was the advantage of being here, of all places in Deci and its territories, he would be foolish not to build up relationships with traders for general bulk and peddlers for particular ingredients. Even use them to take such when he had great bundles of the things for his customers about the Empire.
Which was all very well. But what this place needed was a half decent tavern. Failing that, a rough drinking den. Gideon walked to a muddy patch near to the temple and imagined how much better it would have been to step into such a place right, about… now.
He would speak of such to Anath.
The Majius Estate
If the common folk in the Empire were free to pick and choose the land they worked and the Lord they served then such ridiculous notions had never come to Deci. The estates were often islands in the wilds where wood prospered and where grazing could be had, close to river and where the rural folk paid their fielty to Lord and House and did as they were damn well told. If there had ever been a peasant revolt here then the Baron Scathe had never heard of it, and indeed the last time a self-proclaimed hooded man had preyed on the rich to perhaps give to the poor he had been turned in by his newest followers for a reward and a pat on the head. In the Deci territories peasants were peasants and they knew their place.
Which was considerably different to his own lands. But then his own lands had oddities like grass and decent tracks and the chance of cattle that could be eaten. The Majius Estate had been gloriously restored and was one of the three best in the territory with its loyal peasants, villages and finely remade manor house. With Troy in the city and Talath gone to Halgar to fight his duel, Isaac nearly had the place to himself. So as ranking Nobleman he allowed the stern old servant to pour his wine and the thin maids to remove and clean his boots. On this land House Majius ruled with all the power of any Prince and had Isaac the will he could have fulfilled nearly his every lust and desire. That he did not said something for his character, and of course he was courting a woman of finer Blood.
It was toasty warm by the big fire and comfortable in the big chair. He had suffered three chill mornings being shown a hole in the ground that he was assured was a silver mine but not wanting to remain outside in the utter freeze and sleeting snow he had not gone inside. It was dangerous anyway, no doubt – and what would he have known about rock and ore in any case?
“My Lord Baron?”
It was one of the better maids, more normally used in Berina’s chamber but until she arrived served to convey messages between the lower orders and their betters.
“Yes?”
“I need your approval for the feast.”
Isaac sighed. It was to be a family gathering and so the food would be very plain, if plentiful. One did not trust to spices in Noble Houses in this land. He rose and was interrupted once again by a ferocious clattering from the courtyard. Quite an alarming number of wagons had forged their way through the snow with the aid of double teamed oxen. It seemed Master Mole had arrived. The Baron Scathe ordered more wine to be mulled and quickly.
Hightown
Very few fat men came to the sturdy building, and few of the women bore weight upon bones long made hard by the exigencies of their rising almost universally from the gutters of Cheapside. To drag themselves into Guild and other and then to rise amongst peers who were as adept with a knife as they were with their wits. Curiously, it was the latter that predominated amongst them in Deci, for having grown up with the knife and accepting of its power they were as adept as many demons to the far, far south in knowing also its limitations. One did not rise high in Deci by being readily reachable by an assassin’s touch.
Of them all hardly any had bodyguards. It was after all a sign of weakness and an advertisement of a deplorable lack of skill both. They came then alone and entered one of many buildings throughout the city and there vanished.
For such was their way.
The Badlands
He hated the Deathly. He hated the snow, he hated the cold and he hated the fact that even in a land as blighted and bloody awful as this there was a means to make it worse. If he had the sense his Ma had given him then he would be tucked up in some bright tavern singing songs and juggling teets but given that there was none of that in the city he would have to make do here. Have to because simply if he and his gruff guards had to travel much further they would die.
The manor was not as grand as some but it was steps upward from what passed hereabouts as a village. He hoped for hospitality but would be more forceful if he had to be. The local trader, reeve, whatever he was might have guards but it would help neither of them to fight. He was hoping that it was a trader - for then they could trade. Frankly he was quite worryingly surfing on the sea of hope right now, but that did not mean he was going to pray for it. Praying to a god of hope nowadays mostly seemed to make one’s swords glow and fill one with a lust to behead demons.
He and his were still twenty paces from the manor itself and had been watched since passing the long, wide bulk of the barge drawn ashore and covered in old sailcloth. A few of the guard stood there well wrapped in cloak and hood onto which tall helmets had been crammed. They did not look happy to have been turned out of their doubtless warm barracks or hall.
“Business?”
“Traders!”
“Your henchmen can join the fire yonder,” one of the guard pointed with a mittened thumb further in. “If you wish to speak with the Lord then doubtless he will be willing to hear news.”
The tall traveller waved agreement. Stomping across harder ground and by the bearded guard he grunted at them but did not stop until he had hammered a fist on a door therein and been admitted by a servant barely out of youth.
*
With his wild beard and wilder eyes Ram Pesh might have been a figure of fun had he not been a man whose very presence could wilt roses. Not that there were any roses here, the season aside. He was not overly tall and he certainly had no muscle to him and his filthy old garments flaked when he moved. But people followed him as people followed any cult and in these days of death he once more waited for the world to end about him!
They were living in a hell of their own making, he had told those that would listen and as the year drew towards it own failing some three score did just that. They lived in hell, they had been born to hell, therefore they could sink no lower and matters of the flesh were of no consequence. Indeed, the debasement of that flesh would only purify the spirit. For the greater the abuses of the body the further removed such were from spirits that would thereafter have a greater chance of rising from these hells to the true purity that lay ever thereafter.
Some of his followers were mad. Some were just evil. Some took part because debasing the flesh just really appealed to them and all in all those that had gathered to Ram Pesh were often still short of their twentieth year. In a city where food was always worth fighting for Ram Pesh had an abundance it seemed. Where it was cold then certain old tunnels that had once themselves been a building were warm. Warm doubtless with the fires of hell itself. Of which they along with everything else was a part. In their filth, their cutting and their rutting then the followers of Ram Pesh had hope. Hope for better things after death. They cursed and marked their skin, they pierced fat and muscle and they screwed for hope. They hoped the land would end, that the year would not be reborn. That they would ascend and everyone else would not. To leave this hell behind and find instead their bright and shining future. Pure and elevated above all others.
The Thorn Estate
Mountains rose a close mile to the north yet here the foothills were relatively gentle so that beyond the thick forestland those peaks rose sharply, capped with snow and more of which fell to clot the trees with drifts. Compared to the city the snow was almost pleasant. Thick lumps that drifted gently and undisturbed by more than a breeze that was all that was remained of a stronger wind broken by the Braekens.
It had taken some time to find the estate and only the now ten yard wide spread of what had once been hedgerow really marked it at all. Clearly it had once been worked but not for a very long time. Heath was buried by the white blanket of the season but most of the land within the spreading thorn hedgerows was dense with tall trees. Pines and spruces for the most part.
Fire wood had been little more effort than an easy walk along a winding path he found between a collapsed log hall and an open sided mine. There was a tree growing in that hall, but the walls had remained intact and hard as old brass. The stone chimney stood still, its stack rising parallel to the tree nearby and there he had made a fire that warmed him even within the tortuous layers he had wisely insisted to himself to wear.
In all the estate sat within a loop of the hills several leagues across. The outermost ends to that wide loop was less than a half mile across and able now to take account of the land with more familiar eyes Re’Ac wondered how it had been so hard to find in the first place. The hedgerows across the entrance had drawn him, true but the old Thorn estate was the sort of place that one did not simply stumble upon. But once one knew it was there then things were entirely different.
There was no game to be found. He found no tracks in the snow other than his own but had he been forced to winter somewhere then even he with the natural hesitancy of his race to wide open spaces and sunlight knew he could choose much worse. Though it snowed the greater problems of the season were kept outside by the hills and trees. The estate was however a long way from Deci, right up in the Braekens and within no easy walk of road or river. There was a good stream and that half frozen, but only pine cones for food and unless Re’Ac cared to become some sort of primal squirrel he would have to keep to the supplies he had brought with him. Supplies that grew thin and after a week beyond the city even he was growing bored of the taste of his dark and flaky lembas.
Cheapside
The hall was hung with those most recently found to be traitors to Cheapside. Squatting in their own filth, drinking heavily, jeering, coughing or pushing some unfortunate between them for games and dark jollity the henchmen that followed the King were very brave indeed when it came to the weak. They were strong and there were any number of starved families that would agree with them.
On his throne the King sprawled, one leg hooked over an arm of the chair and his expanding gut hung open through a mail shirt that had recently been adapted with iron buttons to let it hang open where needed. All cities stank, but nowhere as bad as this. The bloated bodies of the dead had been left in their captivity on wall and from beam. What passed for food was ground into old stone. Suppurating wounds leaked their poison into air thick with smoke and the haze of evil.
The pack were Lords of Cheapside, and Cheapside was Deci. And anyone that did not fit in had been killed or chased away. The pack were running out of people to bully and so when the doors crashed open they looked up eagerly. They knew what was going to happen. They sblack personed. They did not fear attack for they had rats and other lesser hirelings guarding them on this night. And when the entertainment provided by the King was done with then doubtless there would be more.
Drake looked about the hall and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. A very big hat bowed. The very big hat rubbed its hands together. Sire Berry was doing a little moonlighting for the end of the year, watching Blackjack. “Good evening, Governor.”
“Sire Berry. You part of this filth?”
“I’s an honest citizen.” The goblin protested. As far as Deci was concerned nowadays this was pretty much true. He did not look pleased to see Drake, he even shook his head a little as if warning off the bigger man. “Ain’t yer got somewhere else ter be, Governor?”
“Come on son, let’s get this over with.”
The goblin sighed. He shook his head again. But what could he do? He was but one goblin in a den of orcs. Still though he waved a hand subtly to urge Drake to find someone else to pester. Drake ignored it, walking in until he stopped in front of the proclaimed King of Deci. He took the stub of the cigar from his mouth. He dropped it on the flagstones.
Blackjack smiled like a shark. “’Ere ter bow down?” He chuckled. Then frowned. His followers were silent. Most were looking at their boots. He had made a joke. He said it again and this time they nodded and clapped, but they did not jeer. That was not right so Blackjack decided they were instead doing what they were told - and in his head they were.
“Let’s hear your piece,” Drake suggested. He scratched his nose as if he could scrape away the stink of this place. They said Deci was a pit of hell, a cloud of evil. Here they were right. This was the canker that cursed the city. Not Majius, probably not even Argoth. The King rose, pausing only to break wind loudly. He stepped down until he stood directly before Drake and then caught him a tremendous blow about the jaw.
The Governor swayed, felt his mouth and spat a tooth and a gobbit of blood-like essence to the floor. “Nice start, son.” Blackjack hit him again but this time Drake caught the orc’s fist in one hand. “You want to know the problem with you people?”
If anyone did then they never got to find out what it was for a heavy beam was cracked over Drake’s shoulders, then again, then once more until it was but splinters and nails. A lumpen figure grunted from where it had stepped with surprising lightness up behind the Governor.
“I is da King!” Blackjack yelled at the sprawling body on the floor. “I! An’ Argoth is yer god! Dis is my city, ‘ow dares yer come ‘ere offerin’ me up ter be some lickspittle.” He kicked Drake in the ribs with a size sixteen lead boot. Drake rolled over and got to one knee, much it had to be said to everyone’s surprise.
“That it?”
The rabble in the hall had been creeping forward to join in. They drew back a step at that. There were an awful lot of them and numbers just about told over individual fears. The circle tightened once again.
“You is in my city! Yer does what I says!”
Drake rose slowly, wincing a little as he felt his side. He shook his head. “You know what…” he coughed up a little more essence. “I’ve shat bigger than you, son.”
Together the mass of men, women and other things fell on the Governor with boots and sticks and fists and lumps of rock. Blackjack returned to his throne to the trumpeting of another mighty fart. He sat and watched for a while. At length he banged the arm of the chair with the butt of a mace. His filthy wretches stepped back so that the bigger of them could lift Drake to his feet. A mass of swelling the Governor managed to get his feet under himself.
“I is da king, not youse. Two choice Gabby Broken. Feck off back ter yer Empress and tells ‘er yer failed. Or yer can works fer me. I ‘ears yer likes bein’ Watch Captain.” He laughed. “Toss ‘im out!”
Drake felt himself propelled towards the door but half way there had the men that carried him step back. When he glared at them they let go of his arms as if slapped. Sire Berry hurried forward to try and get a shoulder under his arm, but Drake shook his head. On his own feet he limped away to the rising sounds of hearty laughter behind him. The goblin continued to pursue the Governor, dry washing his hands once again and desperate to do what he could to smooth over ‘any little misunderstandings’.
“Do something for me, Trundleberry.”
The goblin winced. “If I’s can,” he answered slowly.
Digging into his tunic the Governor painfully retrieved a now badly dented tin. He dug inside with two broken fingers to produce the least crushed of his cigars. “Find us a light, son.”
“But, but… ain’t yer… a bit, well, pissed?”
“You married, son?”
“I y’am as it ‘appens, yus.” The goblin answered.
“Ever had to save some distant world on her birthday?”
“Ah.” Sire Berry nodded sagely. Pissy snow washed Drake pissy clean. A band of youths going by had their torch swiped and in its flame a cigar was lit and puffed on with hardly a groan. “Where yer goin’ lads?” The goblin asked the little band.
“We’re going to burn a boat!” They declared.
Drake coughed. “Go home, kids.”
They conferred only briefly, then. “Alright…”
*
The little shop in Cheapside had escaped much of the damage and desecration, the murder and pillage of Cheapside and if it had evaded the notice of King Blackjack then perhaps that too was something to do with its magic. It had once been where the little alchemist Tamary had worked his will on the city, protected not just by his art or reputation but by half the noted bastards of the city.
For the last few days it had been open for business and the stocky figure with the broad shoulders and the small hands that served there had seemed content to listen to the news. Of how Blackjack now ruled here, if not in the rest of the city. How local wolves had attacked and killed a number of the Nobles and amongst them Lord Claugh. The new Lord of the House, his daughter, was presently in Halgar but having known the Lord the man had presented himself at the townhouse he knew to in the keeping of the family. He had been surprised to be directed to Cat Skinner in the Braided Fox.
Now he walked the mostly quiet, seemingly deserted city with an oilskin packet under his arm and grateful that the Lady Claugh had seen fit to discharge the promises of her father. She was said to be a little scarier than her now dead pater, but one given to very strict observation of the old Lord’s promises. A woman therefore of some honour, even if it were Deci honour. Even if, he also learned, she rarely came to the city as she served on the Sellaville council, a city it was said she now mostly owned.
The key turned smoothly in the lock but the sign he left marking the enterprise to be closed once again. He had learned a few things and had a parcel to investigate.
*
Forge Town
Still the snow did not settle and though such streaks still fell upon Forge Town still they hissed and jumped and turned to rusty water even before they hit the reluctant mud. Under the open side of the forge, Jander did not pause and with the little settlement thick with its steaming air he felt somewhat removed from the land about him.
He had gone to the city only long enough to see to the deportment of his needs for the work he needed to complete and to similarly speak briefly amongst the War Smiths. In the coming days he would be declared their Guild Master for the coming year and though the Hundred were meeting he left his soon-to-be predecessor to deal with such politics. Whether his position in what came next would be active or symbolic he had not yet decided. It depended of course on what else came to his attention. They were discussing matters of concern to Guilds and Jander had at least urged the man he would replace to encourage the Foundation in their loyalty to the city. The War Smiths of course maintained no buildings in Deci and would not have been able to help such if it were to be the way of tradition and observance that they continued to follow. And it would be of course, else a single Guildhall might take months to raise and not be in crowded company when it was.
Besides, he had work of his own.
Laid about the forge were pieces of work that still glowed cherry red though long set aside from the white heat of the inner coals. He knew it would have been better to have such quenched in the blood or essence for he whom this shield was named. It would be the only such example he would produce in such a way, for the tradition of the Dawn Blade was a long one, and for the most part it would be blades. He might make a suit of armour and a shield in the stead of such a sword or spear but only one of each.
The seasoned wood had been easy to fashion, though it was not the metal he would have preferred and in truth he wished he had found some of that still living example of the kind that was generally termed ‘Trollsville’. He had made an alloy of gressen ore, dragon ore and new moon silver. Crooning and speaking gently to each, that of the dragon especially, else see the forge at which he worked spread over a larger and then smoking area, he had spoken to them of their purpose even as he had worked them with hammer and tongs. The metals were not perfectly combined as he did not wish to subsume the properties of one to the other and so the metal would be polished to a sheen wherein wavy lines, oil on water almost, would add to the ornamentation.
Jander was taking but the briefest respite now. Deci ore was heating and soon he would take the ingots and with his hardened hands draw it through increasingly smaller dies until he could set some aside to bind the glasp, weave the strap and the rest to swift cool and to tap into nails. It would be a fine piece of work and one that his compatriot in status had better, he harrumphed, appreciate.
“Dawn cake?” Mrs. Crow came through the steaming fog of the town. She was a widow, now being courted by his Reeve. On a tin plate she carried the concoction of dried fruits and the last of the flour that was baked beside the forges up here in the northern territories. Jander smiled and accepted the hard, blackened slab. Curtsying, she backed away to leave him to his work.
In a week certain Guildsmen from the carters and others would be arriving to speak with him. The Guilds were horribly concerned with what was happening in the city and the less esoteric were looking to Jander for his leadership. The city was dying and the rural lands shuddered in their squalor. The former had all the buildings, the shelter, work and guilds. The latter were somewhat backward, thin and hungry still locked into the idea of their former serf status. Without pasture land or any real fields they had not enjoyed the effective emancipation the commoners elsewhere had come to in the wake of the Magiarchal Wars. Jander had seen that as he had travelled to many of the mines that now worked once more but which could not bring their produce to the city. Not that the city would pay them for it, Deci was the city of take-what-you-can.
They had listened to the news, gruffly agreeing to wait for the results of the tithes. But Jander knew that if the decision were not overturned then many of the miners would go into open revolt.
The plate he put to one side and picked up the yellow heated ingot of ore in one hand. He spat on it to test the heat. Wire then and perhaps later a tankard of something with his peers in this little sanctuary away from the misery of Deci.
The Slurries
Quite how this was any sort of city as he understood it the visitor could not say. It frustrated him that the shifting tides, the ebb of power and even the impressions that set the quills bobbing near to his ear were so indistinct. He had of course been to Deci before but still he was shocked by what he found now. But a street up and two men had beaten a third to a bloody mush and even now had turned on one another for what seemed to be a scrap of stiff, red fish. If Deci was a city then it was a city right on the edge of collapse. It was as if he stood with toes over a great and chaotic maw.
He looked at his boots now, half expecting to see the ground opening at his feet. He scratched his head. He saw another pair of boots come into his vision. These were half the size of his and pointed. He looked up slowly to take in the gaudy finery of a flaring ball gown, embroidered bustle and bare shoulders and arms that were as white as a winter elf’s nose. The face was perfectly symmetrical. Round budding lips of blood red and round blank eyes of the same. Coils of hair were gathered high. Where the hands ended there were shears and scissors, long blades and needles.
She turned with such grace that it left that face looking at him with the same blank disregard. It flowed away with but the softest of ticks and the smoothest of tocks. He had come to the remnants of the old bridge that had once reached across to Hightown but three arches that had but recently been a drinking den, a shove hole and some sort of carters. Now all empty.
“You want me to follow..?” He was a little nervous of all this being a trap. In answer she beckoned him onwards. The blades made not a sound as she did so. It still felt like a trap but cats had nothing on scribes when it came to curiosity.
The Shedeff Forest
The tree was strong now and it leached from the Shedeff to twist and turn what was one nature to become another. Here certain people gathered and looked to their mysterious leader even as their skin turned blue. They shivered and at times went beyond shivering because the three times they had started fires had seen two men and one woman vanish in the night that followed. The fires had given off little heat in any case, however high they had burned as if the warmth had been sucked into the snow falling from above.
Such mattered little to their master. Their master cared only for the tree. The tree was all, the tree promised so much and he stared at it now no less attentively than an ugly man without riches did at the temple dancers on feast day. He had been here for days, weeks even and felt the polluting touch as it both fed from and became part of the Forest. Taking its protection, hiding but leaching, bloated fungus on an old oak.
He had heard the brigands approach. He had been aware of them but had ignored such in order that he might keep his thoughts of more worthy, mystical matters. He hardly spared a glance as his followers were rounded up by what could have been men, women or orcs so heavily swathed were they in poorly cured pelts and dirty wool.
Not that they troubled him.
There was a reason mad, bad hermits could live in the wilderness. They had nothing worth taking and there was a fair chance that they could curse a meddler, strip his soul or have something even worse do it for him. So the master grinned and felt the tree shudder in its own dark pleasure. He felt not the cold, he noticed not when his followers were herded away and a day or two later when his Reeve returned he ignored the odd worried question about where everyone else had gone?
The tree ignored the newcomer too and became something greater even as it fed and tainted the very thing it joined.
The Invisible Quarter
Never had so many of the city come to dwell in what was often called the Mercantile Quarter. Numbers as such had not changed but rather that less people had died here, but still there seemed to be hundreds, a thousand or more that clustered about the square that even from where King Majius stood seemed to posses an awful lots of marks over doorways he associated with Anath. They had come both to hear what Troy had to say and, to his consternation, to rob one another.
“People of Deci,” the Lord Majius’s voice penetrated the downpour, “we shall never bow to those who would seek to cower us. We stood against the Wolven Hordehost, the Imperial Usurpers who we drove from this place for you are strong and proud.” Quite a few nodded at this and then there was an uproar as someone was stabbed and Troy snapped his fingers irritably until the fight that was gathering momentum drained away. “You.” He pointed at a fellow not more than twelve paces away, kneeling on another and with a bloody knife held upmost.
The fellow looked about. He saw only others that shuffled away. “Me, yer majesty?”
“Yes - you. Name?”
“Yan, Lord. Yan, uh, Trotter.” He looked guiltily at his victim. Troy asked him what he had been saying to the fellow on which he now knelt. “Nothing much, yer majesty.” He mumbled.
“Say again, Master Trotter.” Said Troy. “Loud enough for the whole crowd to hear.”
“Nothing!”
“Then next time you have nothing to say, Trotter, pray say it more quietly.” The crowd laughed. “And stop murdering, ah..?”
“Bil Worthy, Lord King!” The victim coughed a little blood.
“Yes indeed, stop murdering Master Worthy. Good Ulis above! What is wrong with you people? Master Trotter I would consider it a personal favour if you could just pop along somewhere and give yourself a good hanging. Murder indeed – I am trying to speak.” Bloody knife still in hand Trotter jumped up, tugged his forelock and pushed his way back through the crowd. “Now where was I? Oh yes, we shall observe the ancient traditions and ways of this great place. Let The Hundred rise once more and show their strength. Let the Gangs of Deci defend her place on Primus and let the Dawn be a time of renewal for this great city.”
“The gangs as all been killed by that fecker Blackjack, yer Majesty!” A few voices called out. The city was frankly poised right on the edge of dissolving into chaos where scribe and council had little say in anything. They all knew it, and most of them there wanted Blackjack dealt with because of it. The problem was, with no actual leaders behind what was pretty much a natural civic wave no one wanted to actually tell Troy this.
It took quite a lot to make Deci feel naughty. Troy was managing to do just that.
Near to the fringes of the gathering the crowd turned to watch as Yan Trotter jerked on a rope he had tied about his neck and a beam of Master Halfblack’s residence both. They clapped and were inspired by such loyalty. Lord Majius was certainly being very Kingly. They liked that. Most of them were either Guilded or got regular wastrel tasks from the Guilds. And the Guilds were definitely on his side rather than Blackjack’s.
A hand rose nervously. Troy nodded when he saw it. “Yes, ah..?”
“Marsha Hop, yer Majesty.”
“Mistress Hop. Jolly nice to meet you. What do you want?”
“I been bad, yer Majesty. I stole stuff. I did it just now.”
“Not quite the thing to do really now, is it Mistress Hop?”
The crowd were not really sure about that. But then that was the point of having a King. He did the thinking for you. A good quarter of the city took a bit of a step back from open revolt from pretty much everything. Far enough that they might not trip, not so far that a good jump would not have taken them to such a place.
“Only…” even the woman’s voice seemed to shuffle in embarrassment. “Only, I ain’t got no rope. I could use a bit of help ter hang meself?”
People nearby nodded and offered such help but Troy shook his head. “I’ll let you off this time, Mistress Hop but I want you to think very hard about what you’ve done and as a punishment I command you to pay your taxes.”
There was a mass drawing in of breath at that. King Majius was a hard bastard it seemed. That was cruel punishment indeed. Very Kingly though. Troy scanned the crowd, nodded once more and walked away with his cloak twitched over one shoulder.
The crowd opened and closed behind him. Most bowed.
The Majius Estates
They gathered in the hall and raised a glass to one another. Troy with Berina on his arm and still musing over recent events. Isaac waved them to where dinner was already being laid out for they and the Masters of Mole’s gathering of eminently skilled artisans.
“Lord Majius?” A servant coughed. “You have a visitor, m’lud.”
The Slurries
Little doors were barred. Ladders were broken. Levered flagstones were covered. Grey little assassins did not walk the streets. Kallah hunkered down in hiding and covered their faces. In the Slurries a child walked from pillar to post, from door to portal and in its hand the child carried a bunch of keys on a ring twelve inches round. Children watched that child but did not interfere. A young woman in violent red and dead cream grinned so that yellow teeth touched cheeks dabbed with crimson rouge.
Slowly the child sealed and settled. Keys of wood and keys of bone, one of iron and three of bronze. Silver, gold and tin. A key of blood and one of sin. Many keys, many locks, many doors to stop and seal.
The city was possessed by thieves. But he had very good locks and very specific keys.
*
It lay in a heap in the alley. It twitched at times but even now that small motion was failing it. It needed to feed if it were to see out the ‘Dawn. There was nothing here on which it might so feast. There had been others like it and there would probably be more to come, but this example time was almost gone. Still though it fought against that which had made it, that which it had bound it and that which had given it such specific orders. Orders had never been very well regarded by its kind. Orders indeed had only ever been ignored. But he that had made the beast was considerably more than a simple ritualist, he had been the City itself and in that City even such as this had been unable to resist the restrictions placed upon it.
It could taste the Forge and the Murder. It was unable to act upon that. It had been told no, and that to which might have passed within it’s lumpen round head as thought knew that had been an end to it. It had stalked the Slurries like a rejected lover seeking some glimpse, some taste but for the most part that had been denied. It had been given just a sip of something headier, and only that flavour had been allowed to it thereafter. Had such as they come here, at this time, which they had not.
Long limbs curled smoothly up so that another creature could come to rest near to the stronger, or what at least had been the stronger. It could only stand now the newcomer knew if it sensed what it was allowed to feast upon. Dry skin on long fingers reached out to touch the horror. As if pricked the chest deflated a little, silvery air escaping through the wound.
“I did not expect you to take me to it…” The wizard pointed out. He had kept further back. “Or that you even could. I fulfilled our compact.”
Aye well, I do not come to hunt you. I came to see this. I came because, it seems now, I could. Such a sweet sickness this city has become.
“If you say so.” The wizard shivered in his cloak. He had watched in surprise as the beast, that which still moved and spoke, had taken him to a place in Hightown. There it had feasted on ritual and tasted magic. There it had taken down a chest, the contents of which they had divided between them. It was lose now and he hoped at least to keep it an ally. He felt like he was on the back of a hungry troll that whilst he remained there it could not reach him, but if he dismounted it would. He dared not end the ride.
“I can still be of use to you.”
You can?
“Most definitely.” The wizard nodded quickly. “The place we spoke off for example.”
Has become the demesne of another. Protected. Useful doubtless. We can sweep it away with spear and sword. Are there such warriors here? Helds, Hirds even?
“I can find some. Doubtless there are, yes.”
But for now there is so much to feed on. So much Blood too. Ah, but what it will be to have children once again. Does the thought delight you?
The wizard lowered his head. “It does if you think it should.” He looked up sharply when two children burst from where they had hidden, unable any longer to suffer what they saw. They did not scream as they ran, they were Deci brats and to do so would have been to call lesser hunters to them.
Let them run, let them see. Word will come soon enough that you have brought me here.
“I…” That was not true of course. But he did not want to speak out against this creature. He knew only too well how vulnerable he was to its art and its hunger.
*
There was not one star in the sky. Of a sudden there was not one light, lantern or candle in all Deci. Death was done in darkness and it was very dark and the year very dead. Soon it would cough and retch, spitting and clawing its way back to life here. Soon enough.
By Alan Morgan (CI10V2)