Post by Sire Halfblack on Nov 23, 2014 18:34:58 GMT
Mid Sunner IM 1011
The dry river bed offered some shelter. The sky obscured here by the flat, sullen city clouds still it was felt. Even in the shadow offered by the bank it stung. The land was nearly flat. Dozens, scores of the beasts shook in what shelter they found and whimpered at the hunger that ate at them. A lizard raising tiny puffs of iron dust was snatched and broken, sucked inside out and the hide dropped to be fought over below. His self irritable in the long day Master Bile was in as foul a mood as ever he had felt. His anger had already cracked a rock, or maybe that had been the sun - but his chattels more scared of him even than that assumed the first. He squinted but the land crossed by dust and heat was not cooperating. Not so far away and a group of one hundred with hand carts and packs crossed a trail, making for where it found one of the gleaming city roads a mile further on. They were (Bile could smell) from a dozen different places united in their nasty rural Deci spirits. Yet he spied good boots there, new harness chains on a donkey.
“My life for you, Master!”
“What Claw?”
Claw recoiled at the tone. He hugged his cruel knife close to his chest. He waited for the night for he had dark deeds to bring about. But the night was a long time coming and they were not even sure if this was the direction in which their prey were coming...
... “Is that them?” said Bile. His tone suggested it had better be else he would be holding Claw responsible.
Eagerly Claw looked up. He jerked when the heat and light ran new blisters up one hand so that he huddled again. The air was too still. They were in the only real shelter for miles. Like the bones of some animal then a half mile away the ribs of a ship, not large but no odder because of it could be seen in the badlands. And there despite the heat, the haze and the dust he saw them.
The scouts came first. They sauntered and joked. Stripped to the waist they loped and stopped, loped and stopped. They shared another joke, they laughed again. Twenty, forty, then more as between two groups a third joined the horns. It seemed that the whole Hird were scouts and so therefore...
... “Which one iss he? They all look like bloody warriorsss to me. There’ss a Hird and...”
.... “There’s another, my life for you! And a third? Is that a third?”
It seemed that the enemy had been busy, and for quite some time. Master Bile had chosen the right gate away from which to hide. He had considered that there might be two Hirds. But the enemy had spent months travelling the Empire, venturing to the Far North and probably stranger places. Hirds with wolf blood, most not showing any of it, and who was to say these were the only ones? And if Master Bile had been doing it then how many were already in the city. This lot were a might obvious.
They came closer but swept after the refugees. The scouting Hird played out so that a short bow shot away it paced the river bed. It was where they would have hidden. It was the only place to hide. A few of them stopped, to sniff the air and then what to anyone else might have looked odd – some bent to taste the ground. That made sense to Master Bile.
“Master, my life for you! Shall we attack, the children are hungry, I fear that they will...”
Master Bile cuffed Claw about the head then slid amongst the worst of his chattels. Already and some were scrambling up the slope, smoking as they did so and Bile landed amongst them to crack heads and kick the worst back into the streambed.
The plan had never been to ambush them at first. Never had. Never, never, never. It would be dark soon or if it not then privately Master Bile thought for the first time that that might not be such a bad thing either. He glared at one of his children that dared to return the stare red and horrid. In a rush that uppity fiend was caught and blooded and tossed to his brothers and sisters to distract and occupy both.
Yes, yes, yes, it was all going completely according to plan.
*
For weeks now and in a steady drip, drop and splash of people settlings, villages and even towns had been entering the city. Even had there been guards, or even gates they would not have stood to or shut for word had gone far that the land was being abandoned, that it had been taken and the people should come to the city to be protected by the King. What crops there were no longer were gathered. The herds outside the city went that little bit wild. Still and another good hundred filed through the northerly gate and watched by Tirack who stood and chatted amiably enough with the city’s latest conqueror. Or liberator, or more importantly local boy and he asked only half hoping if really now – did there have to be bloodshed?
“It doesn’t seem likely,” said Charmin’ Billy. Sat on a dry fountain quite a lot of those nearby chuckled at the words. “Less, who was it?”
“Ghouls, Bill.”
“Ghouls, Master Tirack. Lurking out there, seeking to ambush us. Anything to do with you and Forgetown?”
Tirack was not sure, and so said as much. Billy had been gone a long while or so it had been said. He had told the tribes in many places, those with kin to the wolves and gathered champions. Other tribes too, from forest and further afield. They had not so much attacked the city as walked through the gate. They could hardly hide their presence but that was alright because they had a lot of very sharp noses amongst them. It was too bloody hot too. So some had nosed about and others had just been told and quite a lot of people had come to the otherwise mostly empty quarter to cheer and hover nervously, to greet Billy. Because he was so jolly charming, local hero, local boy. If there was anything good at all in Deci then if it was not Billy then it was ever happy to come out to visit where he went. Tirack said, “But a vast and terrible battle, we’ve been warned.”
“There’re some rural spears just managed to dash away from the real threat to the city, fast – good lads by what I hear and they’ve pitched up in the Mercantile. There’s a whole world of dark battling intended about the Spire so that’s... anyone?”
“The Knight of Deci, Bill.”
“Dirk. Jander’s doubtless locked down the Slurries and indeed I know he has. But Jander’s not here. And where’s Anath? Where is the Governor?”
“On very important...”
“...Not here, Tirack old chum. King Troy has raised the militia but hidden out in the Spire. All the heroes of Deci are frightfully, frightfully busy. You going to fight me, Scoff?”
Scoff would have done, for Scoff took what passed for the Militia here very seriously. In truth he would have rather liked a spear and a tin hat, but that was not the way of things here. Besides, this wasn’t an invader. This was Billy! With lots of tribes. Lots. And growing in number the more word spread it seemed. Scoff would have fought still if lead, but the militia weren’t going to die fighting Billy. Not for that bastard Sleek anyway. He looked about in case the Sleek was listening. But there was no sign of him or his. He pulled out a rag to mop his head, “No, Billy.”
“There you go Master Tirack. The city doesn’t have the chuffs to fight even if we care to. Which we might still, care to take a walk with me?”
“Certainly, to where?”
“Oh, whichever quarter most appeals. No one’s tried anything yet. All these rough boys will loot for a bit, drink and then we’ll see.”
Tirack nodded. He was no fool however and the spell Billy had over everyone made for a world where what he saw through his eyes was just that. Not so far away and three fellows with different marks and each more wild than the last watched him without expression. Yes, the tribes were doing just as Billy said. Whilst Billy said it. “I confess...”
“You thought otherwise? Maybe you will be right, who knows? We’ve all spoken to Ulis I’m sure.”
“But the Nobles?”
“How many are in town – and in any case, it’s Taleth that’s the one we want,” the handsome face hardened. “The Majius murdered our folk, women, children. Not warriors, just people. Deci people. Cheapside people. They’re a filthy, evil brood.”
*
Nothing had grown where he had walked for a day now. The land was cracked, baked clay or as now where he looked back to where the hills began a league behind him a sandbox of rust, soot and what he supposed the land became when finally it was dead. Davian could just about make out a town by the light of the moon to the south. The last of the territory for here in the foothills of the Braekens he was no longer even in the Empire, and certainly not Deci. As such, for now, the borders were fluid in hill and fell. He jumped over a dry streambed. The hills here were rock, sharp and in places made walls. Ahead and he could spy the only easy way on, the gap he had been told to expect a good half mile wide. Beyond and the mountains were stark and bald where to east and west they were thickened by trees. There was not a sound, not a bird nor even the buzz of an insect. Nothing grew, nothing lived. Yet and ahead Davian spied something, a man?
*
His fingertips almost touched the bonfire’s grave. Here at least there were thorn bushes, broad leafed grasses and scrubland that the dung of several hundred had not spoiled. Yet there was no one here now. It was a bright night and the badlands gave up their heat so that the land not far away and further thereafter shimmered, blurred. He stood to feel the land, the world about him. He wanted to be sure, but certainty was a luxury he did not have. This... was too instant, too reliant on luck. He did not even know where his prey was. He had come here immediately, and hated to rush.
The enemy had been planning something for months, longer and no one had particularly interfered. He firmly believed in catching a problem whilst it was a little problem. He should then he felt have been here a year ago at least, when as now by ‘catch’ he meant kill and by ‘problem’ he meant the mark. He had all the ability, all the instinct and all the raw power but he wanted time, and time it seemed he did not have. Not from what he had been told. Not as others had wittered on at him about.
Not so far away and he could feel the Shedeff. He could feel the wolf hereabouts. He did not like it out here. He was a city thing. He longed for that city too, could feel it though distant and well over many horizons. He loved his city though it seemed his city no longer loved him.
Probably wise, he killed the things he loved.
*
Even for them it had been a hard journey catching sleep by surprise and always running across a hard land. There had been little water and in the city no one drank from the river so that now even as Alendari snapped at his spears to break into their sticks they were snatching at what food and drink there was to be had. Here and the market was busy and empty both. Alendari could not remember so many people in such an area, formerly big but now where he had to elbow aside ruffians and refugees to try and see the lay of the tumbled, confusing Quarter. They had made damn good time here, wary at first and then more confident as they had left the new forest. They had seen no people of the pine, they had felt not the presence of their giants, hounds or worse. They had hit the badlands at a half sprint. Red-faced and wide-eyed they tried to force their way through the crowds even now.
“The dragons might know wolf from man, tribe from incomer but I don’t!” said Werys, one of Alendari’s spears.
Alendari agreed with a curse. The land was abandoned, the King had spoken and people already long speaking of the worst had fled here the moment word had come. They were everywhere now and worse many were of the same ragamuffin sort that most would have pegged as tribes in any case. They sat and they traded, the city it seemed was finding food and there were rows, blocks, empty for their housing but people were scared and clustered together here in this market. Caravans had not arrived or feared to depart. The Mercantile Quarter affectionately known as the Invisible was without a leader, without its personable whisper that said all was well, for all was as it had been.
“We have to find room, where’s thinnest? Where’s best? Where’s the fecking militia?”
Scouts ran off and used to street fighting as they were word came back quickly. Alendari who was long enough at this to know that the worst decision was always no decision clapped his hands at the first pinch point suggested and with shouts and spear butts the travel stained and frightful jaeger followed their own.
*
They were clearly startled to see him. He was the Mayor after all and here they were with a cooking pot bubbling over the elemental as if in Forgetown, albeit and most certainly they were not. The streets here were narrow, they bent in on one another and the dark, empty windows looked at them without welcome. A good hundred of them just here in a square with a statue of a fat man with a very small head and about which now they all started in a wave until the last of them lent back from the furthest alley to shout, “Gideon?”
“Yes?”
“Arse!”
“We got the message,” said Payter Stone who swept the temple twice weekly and broke snakes for the self-proclaimed Ishmaic’s since the better roads had robbed him of his cartwheel business. He explained the message, from the King.
“Not sure that meant us,” said Gideon. He held up a hand before some wag pointed out his own presence. There were hundreds more within the half-mile and all from his town. He looked around and in order to change the subject said, “No... war around here then? Great big battle between the wolves and the city’s army?”
“War? We came here to avoid that!”
Troy had definitely said there was to be a war. Gideon had handed over potions to help with it. Gideon has seen none of it though here just as with most places there seemed to be a lot more people and few of them yet to acquire the narrow eyes and sarcasm of a true man of the city. Gideon who very much wanted a big war did not want it with a city crowded full of people. That sounded more like a sacrifice. But he was the Mayor and he knew Forgetown better than most because a place was its people, and almost all of them were hereabouts. They would not have hurried here just because Troy had sent out word. They were scared. Troy was the King and if that gave some people problems, the people so troubled were not those that lived in Deci or its territory!
No, for Forgetown it had been permission rather than a command. Gideon asked around and learning that there were indeed lots of wolves, or rather shaggy people that were hairy at least – pertinent to here, and he unearthed something else. Everyone was pretty sure that the Empire, the city or the gods themselves were going to go and attack the invaders that everyone had at least heard of in Forgetown. The invader then would doubtless start on the land, and Forgetown, “We just sort of assumed that no one had both hands on the arse of it,” said Tully Boo, goodwife.
“Come, come now,” said Gideon with a chortle. Two hundred eyebrows went up a little. He shrugged, “Aye, well, fair enough...”
So then just about everyone was in the city? Were they now, and doubtless plying trades and looking for treasure and so? Gideon excused himself. He had to see a man about a potion. Actually, everyone - but that was alright because everyone was here.
*
Maybe it was all the fur, it just didn’t mix with the heat and so many of them had shaved clumps out of their heads whilst they panted. Whenever he was not there they lay down for a snooze. They were grumpy and lazy and it was Sunner – and bloody Methdadg was chasing flies again. Silly bastard. They had crossed in recent days, a week, a little more perhaps – a lot of ground. That bothered none of them. They liked to run. They had been running when Nichal had tracked them down robbing a village and moaning even then to find it empty. No one caring what they did to a pig meant that was a pig they did not want. They were a war Hird and left with neither war nor raid to occupy them then it was fair odds they would (as they had) go and find either for themselves. It would always be thus frankly so now Nichal took them to war. Just not the war everyone else was having. In Deci.
“It’s a silly war anyway,” Nichal said for the tenth time that day. “You wait and see.”
They grumbled and kicked the odd rock. For a noble Hird deep dipped in glory and renown they could be remarkably childish. They knew also because it was a couple of them that had done it that Nichal had sent filings from the Ial Dror’Bael to Jander! Or at least would have done as he was out, apparently. Nichal knew the Hird were wondering about him again. If he had not been their chieftain (and for so long) there would have been mutterings. So he had run them hard and now here they were at least amongst trees again, though a bloody long way from where they had started.
At first going north Nichal had whilst keeping the Shedeff in view found signs, but not the Gathen or Myronese he had been told to expect. Knowing his people were restless he had taken them along the foothills and at length and two days later to the pass that well worn lead to the dwarfen Silver Mountain well inside the Braekens.
From there to here, and...
*
“Thousands, your Higness.”
“Bit early to say how many exactly?”
“Bit too far away in Halgar, your Highness.”
“Ah,” said King Troy the Faceless. It was dark in the Spire, the elementals burned low. He had worked efficiently, swiftly and with such planning through the city and what he had long established that it looked very much like nearly anyone that mattered out in the rural lands, were now in the city. Good. Anath would probably know more precisely, but Anath was in Halgar attending some extremely important meeting amongst the Merchants there (most of whom Troy had learned were actually dead). Jander would be here but he had been urgently needed in Alguz. Selgard had most suspiciously managed to arrange being dead at this time. His loyal council!
As if sensing the King’s move Sneertwice delivered the news that all the Nobles had been rounded up and placed in the safety of the Spire. They were all here, in this room, right now. All of them, that is – Troy. Everyone else was in Eartholme, at a gathering hosted by Duke Tallfellow.
Troy said, “So there’s Alendari and Dirk? One that doesn’t know me very well, and one that’s Dirk?”
“Astute as ever, your highness.”
“Just wait till the enemy enters Cheapside. I hope they’re ready for the younger brother of all battles!”
“Remember all the new citizens you have, your majesty. Remember all your good work. The taxes!”
But Troy was already far away and in his thoughts, in Cheapside. Oh yes, for there was the Black Hat.
“Why does not one think of the poor taxes?” said Sneertwice quietly.
*
“You want to meet our King, friend.”
“You’re on my land, friend.”
The first that had answered Davian smirked at the second who seeing the warlock tense held up a finger for a pause. That finger and another went to his mouth where they blew. From the edge of the rocks above several men and a woman stood. From over the lip of the higher valley opening others came too. If they were brigands they were better armed than most though in the heat even of the new day no one wore much more armour than a big shirt. There were bows and swords, a spear or two, and each held casually enough if still firmly. Davian smiled, shrugged and offered a nod. He had not expected to find anyone on his land. He had not seen anyone at all for three days, taking his shelter in abandoned villages. Three days before the furthest out of those going towards the city had steered clear of him. Not these though. He walked quickly so that they had to hustle to catch up. He walked with confidence so that even catching him they had to walk as if with him, not escorting and certainly not bulling him along.
And here on the Thorn Estate things had changed since the last agent cousin Troy had sent out. Davian knew that some years before Troy and his companions had set themselves against a gathen – though that just meant giant. One of wood and pine and since then and right up the mountains in sight of the estate the trees had died perhaps because of it. The fallen trunks had been set to make hall and roundhouse. He counted a hundred people but with homes for four times that and those here weaving, carding or cleaning. Some cooked or ground mountain wheat. He spied crates and sacks stacked with firewood, tin crates and leather sacks such as one saw in the city. There was a decent pond, children that had been playing stopped when he swept by. Out of sight within a much larger hall and against the cliff face might have been the entrance to a mine. Every building was thatched, unusual for Deci, and in that thatch grew vegetables. Pigs rooted in pens thick with dark mud perhaps brought up from the same mine. “Very nice,” he said. “You’ve all done very well. Why, the rest of the territory is an awful place, a tragedy really. But you mentioned you had a king?”
He had quite a crowd now and all of whom at his words looked from Davian to a little above him.
Quite how the king had snuck up on the warlock he could not later have said. So close now he saw that the scales were not actually black, but browns and blues so very dark as to seem so. The neck long and of a piece with the body, serpentine and with a tail as long again the king was lean, graceful and whose head was as long as Davian was tall. For a dragon there was a lot of intelligence in those eyes, eyes which peered over what looked to be scribe lenses on the end of the snout. It wore a gold chain as thick as his forearm. Black magic fire crackled from its narrow nostrils. It said, “King Grudamagh. And you are Dirk the Murderer?”
For a moment Davian blinked. His hand already on his sword hilt stayed where it was. The dragon’s voice had been sweet, deep, but rich. It watched him now without fear. The scales about one eye rose as if an eyebrow raised. Straightening himself Davian who believed in House, city and Empire lifted his chin. He said, “You have me mistaken, sir.”
“Mistaken, sir?”
“Mistaken, sir. You speak of Sir Dirk, I am Davian of the House Majius and cousin to the King. I was given to understand this was my land?”
“Then it seems we have both been mistaken today, Davian Majius,” said Grudamagh. “So allow me at least to offer you hospitality? Perhaps also breakfast?”
Davian pondered the offer.
*
The water was a half floor lower. There were places where the old streets rose that they could be walked on and rumour had it that there were parts of the old city below not now completely submerged. Trapped under the poison fog of Deci Cheapside could bake bread on its doorsteps. How many thousand had entered through the westerly gate no one could reliably say and for Sire Berry a bloody lot more’n’that had seen him rally the gangs (that were just street concerns anyway for the most part) and seek out relatives. Already long snakes of people were being ushered up to the Northern Quarter where all the room was. The Stepsons were out in force and sharpened to such a point that they parted the ripe air of the Quarter a foot before and three yards after everywhere they went.
“Make ‘em comfortable, we wants ‘em safe, fed and ‘appy,” said Sire Berry, the Black Hat. This was no time for mucking about. He remembered throwing his ratfink winnings to the crowd. He recalled the cheers like a good meal. Then here and not much ahead of many of those he had treated. Half Forgetown at least must have arrived in the Invisible or the Northern by now. He realised the Totter Man and others here gathered had not yet reacted. He shook his head. He said, “Look, yer wanna sort it out. Or I’ll kill yer, no messing.”
They hurried on with the urgency of the situation now sat noisily on their shoulders. Slat Henry had a big, rat-eating grin on his face. Sire Berry had rarely seen him happier. Funny time for it, he thought. Some of the gangs were arriving. They eyed one another with concern but nothing like how they looked at the Black Hat. War was coming, everyone knew it, the mayor of Forgetown was outside the Ulis-shop chuckling at the very idea. But Billy was...
...and Berry was...
... “Look, see...” said one of the oldest of the bravos.
But Sire Berry surprised them all when with a few brief words he let them know where he stood. He could smell something here, and it wasn’t his feet.
*
Ghost town?
Rust devils twisted across the drag but far down the straight row to blow themselves out before the Forge’s temple. The great wagon parks were nearly empty. Not so far away a tin sheet making a walkway popped from the burning sun. There was a boot abandoned in the dusty street. Shop fronts were shut. A filthy harpy sat atop a small chapel shouted abuse, but with only half a heart and not coming out from what shade a simple bell tower afforded. A man as battered and windblown blended into the faint shade until he laughed, toothless and sun maddened. Orion spat and his spit sizzled, bubbled and was gone before his long strides had left it behind. He stopped outside the Cart & Hammer. Upstairs and a woman in old finery at least ten years too small caught his eye. A brief spell of negotiable affection but hot he would have to do most of the work.
Inside and four men and three women, a goblin and a pair of orcs sat in a taproom fit for many more. There were instruments in a heap. A tapman buffed tin cups. He said, “Drink?”
“Whatever’s wet.”
“Best as can be said, stranger. You looking to kill or cure?”
Orion took the cup of black ale and tipped it back, warm and welcome. He did not return the tapman’s stare. Back now to the bar he eyed the room and the ratfink played at one table. He said, “Neither, lost a team. Heat and raiders.”
“Lotta that about, stranger.”
Orion grunted. He had walked the last two days. Out south and east to the mountains there were trees, he had heard. He had seen dust and rust and mad faeries the colour of both. Mostly there had been cloud, here and not and the heat had followed him the whole way ready to bleach his bones. He watched for another two drinks paying from a roll of grulls that saw him invited to the table and a jack of stronger spirit that came with a lead foil cap. Corks and screws suggested the drinker intended the drink to last more than one sitting so there were none of those here.
They were all carters. The Merchants might have bonded the Empire and still to this day filled the markets and saw to all manner of trade in a thousand small ways. Traders were generally next in the line of social importance, owner-drovers of their own carts, skiffs, wagons and sloops but those were closer to adventurers than the Merchants. There were peddlers who were the lowest of the got-it-sell-it estate. But then there were also the carters. They typically had Guild Houses rather than Guild Halls for carters weren’t tied to a given city. One might in Deci sign up for a load, to man a city or Merchant wagon and then at Halgar go to another. Nowadays and practically speaking a wagon and team arriving in a city might then go on to work for that city, those arriving back ‘home’ then being taken in and formed up into a caravan to the best of the scribes and wagoneers ability. All a craftenguilder needed to know was that they ordered goods moved somewhere and knew the limits. The Guild House did the rest. Guildhall’s then were tied to the city, Guild Houses less so, more tied to the Empire. Like the Honey Workers perhaps, they had no observances or tradition tied to city and Empire. They were not like the craft guilds. Wagoneers tended to work with their hands. Most had the skills and the reputation, the Guild mark or the friends to find carting work in any city. Some few even had their own team and wagon, but they weren’t traders – they were paid to carry other’s loads. They did not look with wonder at the next horizon, they worked, were paid and at length made their way home. If brigands came on them they did not fight, they ran from the worst. They did not own the loads after all.
These were no different. They were part of a caravan that had come so far and for the moment would go no further. King Faceless had ordered people into the city, the lands were dangerous – hell, even Forgetown had emptied. There were loads waiting to be shipped, prices were low with few people to buy them. Better for carters then the wage was up to shift what there was, but most would see things out. They were carters, they were not about to risk their lives for someone else’s profit. They didn’t buy and sell, they weren’t traders that enjoyed a good fight.
And they gambled badly which was just as well for Orion because he gambled worse. He was twenty grulls down by the time night crept upon them. He banged the table and stood up to fetch another jack. With little custom that too was cheap. Fortunately.
*
“Are we gonna ‘ave a problem?”
“I couldn’t really say, Trundleberry. I live here too yer know.”
The black hat nodded. It wasn’t that he knew for a fact that Billy had come to Cheapside with more than a hundred stout boys and girls spread about and half seen about him. It was that there had been at least twice that number waiting for him.
There were Stepsons in hiding, in windows and ready on ropes in chimneys. Some were in the water and others waited in a horseshoe about this end of Stab Street. There were others, many indeed locals and incomers and people were armed. Alliances were faint. This was not like with Blackjack. This was the Black Hat and this was Good Ol’ Billy-Boy. Sire Berry who knew more than everyone – and a little more than anyone else – would fight if he had to but even he could not tell who would with whom. He had fed (and still did) the incomers, the refugees. The local militia were skulking about but Sire Berry knew they would not attack the pup. He was Deci to the bone.
The truth was that Billy and Troy were two sides of the same city. That did not stop Billy from having Hirds and heroes, tribal champions and worse come into Deci. And mostly they waited. Berry had heard in the north quarter of people walking by little knots of them. A nod, an exchanged word. This was Deci where people still fought and stabbings were not uncommon. Crime was the culture. And there was probably less of it right now. The tribes invading was one thing, but they’d come with a figurative bottle and a ‘Billy said we’d be right’.
One foot on the lip of the roof Sire Berry said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with you, Billy. But see, I ain’t going to betray me mates neither. You come ‘ere ter fight, we got a fight.”
A change came to Billy’s face. A tight shadow that fell over the eyes. He said, “You looking for a fight, Hat?”
Sire Berry sighed. They could be here all day, so he laughed. “If this goblin was, e’d know where ter look. Meant wot’ah said.”
With which Sire Berry left everyone to it. He had a lot of being nice to do and in such a manner as people would be bloody grateful for it too.
*
They walked quickly, the one rubbing one hand to the next so that ritual sparked to crack noisily on the walls and to scorch and blacken each pot and portrait they passed. The second uncomfortable on his own good two feet scored great wounds in the metal parquet of the floor as they crossed a hall of dark silk and precious wooden birds to the courtyard. There and the second mounted smoothly, his black armour a hundred wet mirrors that caught the masked face of his King.
By the screaming mouth of the Spire’s gate the Guard stood. Stiff, faces lost to their helms and in armour scrubbed to a shine nearly that of the Black Knight’s by a hundred iron-shorted boys they waited for battle. The knight turned about on his mighty charger, eager for the fray yet keeping his mount on a short rein just as Dirk had done for the Guard now days before, and now Dirk as absent as any Councillor.
“My ritual shall slay the enemy, Black Knight.”
“AYE.”
Not so far away and a frightful band of men, women and perhaps others things waited with silvery iron-link nets, goats and throat catchers heavily sprung and horrid, rusty and worrying to look at. Each wore silver at their throat. Feeling the King’s eyes on them each hurried to bow and curtsey most dramatically. One giggled. One cursed repetitively. A third licked his fingers. The remainder just panted, prepared or pissed themselves as was the way of each.
The Black Knight scarce noticed them. From the gate the Spire went into Hightown, the road curling about a column of rock into and onto which the houses of the best stood from the narrow mansions opposite and down. The road was long, it certainly was not straight. The Guard were formed up and defensively, ready to fight shoulder to shoulder and in the gate five deep. No one suggested closing the gates and seeing what the wolves do about that. They were the Spire Guard and they served by sword and life, their King. The Black Knight hefted a lance suitable for skinning a monster inside-out. It was all in the wrist.
King Troy the Faceless called for wine and drank the goblet handed him before the words had faded. Servants waited too with snacks, a chair and a small pavilion in case the sun miraculously broke through the filth above. It was (he saw with a start) Mr Smiles that had served him. Troy said, “What are you doing here?”
Smiles bowed but did not answer. His presence it seemed was enough of an explanation.
*
He did not like it here. There was no sense of his being in the right world, whether literally or figuratively. Where he commonly now made his home did feel right – this? No. Like so many in what others regarded as his pantheon he was a city sort of fellow. He had traipsed the wilds like many but never for long. And in Deci at least the wilds had the good grace to be dead, empty and quiet in his presence. Here and the trees were too close. There was blood in the brook. This was the Shedeff that had no paths and which was dark even in the daylight. He was a half mile inside and if he was not lost because he stalked a trail, that did not mean he knew where he was. Not precisely. His senses were blunted. That which remained sharp was that which suggested astonishingly... danger. In the short distance he had travelled he had made more noise than in the last two lifetimes.
Yet still he stepped carefully, trying hard not to make the thistles and wild roses die in his presence. He hunted a wolf, so because he was better at this than many he waited. He listened, he turned slowly about, he was already armed with this two favourite knives. He had it in mind and wisely to wear another’s skin and as by the bonfire would have liked to have done so before now. Because he could stumble about here all day and still when he opened his eyes in a crouch, he was facing he thought – the city. He lifted first one leg then the next. He tried to make no sound and held tight to his magic. He swore upon his own name because as he, the dragon and the spider pregnant dog all knew – he hated the country.
He moved back in what he thought was the direction he had come. It was hot and dry, he hated it. He stalked and being quiet disliked feeling like the prey. He trusted to his instincts. Screw you wood, he thought – and vanished.
*
Too astonished to move he stared as approaching Ulis’ shop came Charmin’ Billy. There were a number of others about him, two at least quite the most unsavoury pair Gideon had seen in some time. Both answered a description he had received in the North Quarter and one, the largest came to snarl now only for Billy to smack him violently on the nose. In surprise he jerked back before cowed he hurried away. Some of the others there, tribesmen and armed were speaking quietly to some rats no less so. People were sat on their belongings or being urged on by Cheapsiders wearing black hats for down the row and beyond the ‘Fox the gate was open and still people were arriving.
Gideon had names and places, he was tracking down more and inviting others. He already had the makings of quite a meeting and probably enough of one to take over a hall or Gather for the evening. And nowhere so far had he seen anything approaching what he would have called a war. In the bowed windows of the shop Billy saw Gideon.
“Why aren’t you bloody fighting!” said the mayor in a sudden shout. He had intended to see such a scrap but stay out of trouble. His big mouth had not listened. Still at least everyone was looking at him now. Quite against his wishes.
“That’s not the plan now is it?” said Billy with a flash of his cheeky smile. Then, “Do I know you?”
“You bloody killed me!”
“Did I, sorry. You look familiar, but... Look, if you’re not dead still then you’re an adventurer. What makes you so special? We kill people for a living. Life is cheap in the Empire, based on killing, employs killers, to kill.”
“You just... did it!”
“Doesn’t sound much like me, still never mind I’ll stand you a drink sometime?”
Gideon turned about and stalked away before he started hissing like some devil. Everyone was still watching him as he vanished at the next of many bends. He was special, Gideon muttered, because he was the only person in a mile that did not like Billy. Especially here, and especially Cheapside.
*
Not far from the gate the Braided Fox was perhaps the oldest tavern in Deci – though some might find dispute with that. Not long repaired from flood, fire and war it was a favourite with traders, with outsiders entering with grulls to spend, or just those that wanted a drink not made from tar or fermented poison. Inside and on several shallow levels people spoke amongst themselves whilst being served in an atmosphere unlike anywhere else in the city.
No one looked twice at his house mark and heraldry. This was Cheapside but right on the edge and on the row where oddly better shops were found. The Braided Fox stood apart even from these. Isstvan saw almost no one here that was local. Even where a table saw spearman sat and by their faces probably born hereabouts then they did not dress Deci. Of course it seemed that sometimes half of all adventurers had been born and raised in Deci, it was just that sort of the place. Isstvan went up and calling for more jugs of Gothiel ale sat his self amongst them.
Deci was not where most recruited for their Helds, not Wall certainly and even those that might be taken with such an idea typically had gone elsewhere. The city just did not have the culture for it. The city Isstvan had heard from Troy was under attack now and the militia alone in all the Empire did not go to the walls. Of course in Deci a straight-up fight was when a sword was put straight-up someone else’s arse, in the dark, from surprise and preferably when they were already pretty much nearly dead anyway. In the face of invasion the city did not even close the gates, and rumour said they weren’t actually hinged or even capable of movement anyway. So where there were those that tired of the city, wanted to fight and actually liked the idea of the Wall, well then they went elsewhere.
“You look to have done well by your selves?” said Isstvan. It was true enough. Their shirts were not stained or crumpled by armour rust so were new, whilst their shoulders strongly suggested this was not commonly the case. The men were part of a somewhat larger group that had been paid off and had come home. Three days here and they were already looking to leave. Isstvan nodded, he explained his reasons for talking to them and they admitted that they were interested. They were not the least interested in easy work, in garrisoning anywhere. They had for the last year been paid up by Lord Marston down in the Sellaville wilds, split amongst a number of stout, simple towers. There had been fighting, and the purse had been good – but they had not taken a town or city, they had taken no loot and enjoyed no booty.
They had made their oath for a year and served that, wintered in Bildteve then made it to Eartholme for the Pestilence where they had heard Duke Tallfellow had been hiring – only no longer. The leader-they-did-not-have (a man called Iyld) said, “The Duke’s got quite the army up there in the hills we heard, and we met up with some of his lads and lasses in the city enjoying their purse in the Highing. But no, his barracks are full.”
“If you’re looking for work?”
“Will there be fighting?”
“Not much point in paying you otherwise.”
Which was true enough. Iyld’s face grew sly, “And loot?”
There was little point pretending that spearmen were saints. They fought and if they died, then they stayed dead. They fought for pay or to escape something, or for the life which could be good – or in the field filthy, pestilential and with never more than one firm stool in three. But they all longed for a city or at worse a big town, one that did not surrender. So that once inside they robbed, and roamed and made themselves rich. Take a city and only a fool tried to rule his spears for a day or three thereafter. Common practise was to sweep them up when too drunk to say otherwise. Such times spears lived for, dreamed off, and that was why they threw themselves at city walls or a breach where many would die ‘feeding the beast’ but those that endured and survived would be first in...
“This a Bastion thing?”
“No, Household.”
“Splendid,” said Iyld. He did not suggest then that it would be wise to always pay them promptly. If they went outside house lands then Isstvan had better carry a very secure chest. A Household Held, very nice – and one therefore that reflected on the House. The very best of everything and notoriously with a lot of fun thrown in. The table were all looking at Isstvan now, measuring him. They were none of them especially nice people. Honour was for immortals and tribesmen.
*
The scream seemed to slip across the land. Mean and taunting, the mating call of a particularly vile fox. Dark and the streamers of refugees already thinning out in sympathy to the day had gone. The city was a dark line on the close horizon. The ground was giving up its heat. On a rock stood a man (or something that mocked men) and it was that which screamed, arms spread wide. From rocks and little caves they came. From the city they came. From further yet they came all tugged and teased, bony fish on a bad line. They came and already screaming too the hard, horrid ghouls smelled their meaner cousins and lusted to crack and suck their bones free. And worse, amongst them, one stood taller and amongst the spots that were all that remained of several more lesser unlike it. That one stood tall and the ghouls already there quietened as they cowered from it, and still that dreadful scream. And still the snuffling in the night, so dark beneath the flat city clouds without star or moon to light them.
Skin tore, hides cracked and that cold hunger ate at the ghouls inside so that they twisted in their fear of those above them but barely held and on a rope made of will that was fraying badly.
*
He wanted clear streets, rubble to run through and alleys to stalk. Alendari swore, a habit that seemed to have bloomed in recent weeks. The arch of the old gate (that might once have been one of the many staggering limits to the city in its blistered past) was part of an old building. Or had been swallowed by one and that taken over by the city and turned into what seemed to be storehouses. That was not particularly surprising as like many cities (and leading them some might say) Deci had made itself into a stuffed and groaning treasure chest. It was not surprising that they were being raided. It was more surprising perhaps that they were not more often. Hell, if things went bad Alendari already knew where to go how to get hold of a cheap crowbar at an unlikely hour.
“They have to come through here,” he said. Further up the wriggling road he explained to the leaders of his sticks. That was not exactly true but this was the best they could do. Still and deep inside Alendari was still having a little trouble with the whole not manning-the-walls thing. Nice of the Empire to be here, too. “Fight, but you’re street fighters so you know what to do. Back off if you have to, keep moving.”
They nodded. They had been drilled up for this, everyone quietly determined. Ready to fall back, ready to hold, defensive in the streets then where they were not attacking they had a good hold of their own jaeger given initiative. Alendari hurried back to the arch where of course there was no gate. He had managed to lock the street off. This was the best way to the Spire from this Quarter at least. Beyond the arch and Hightown rose with its bridges and streets mostly covering the crack, its abyss and perched atop and well above the Spire that vanished rapidly into the thick and Deci-made cloud. He turned back to a wave from Lotraman, one of his spears. He hurried back to where they had barricaded the row. There and two tall men with a crowd of stronger looking ones waited and all unamused.
“Hello, yes?” said Alendari.
“Kindly move... this,” what was probably a scribe insisted of the barricade.
“I’m afraid we’re at war.”
“I’ m sure you are. But we have a tally for the sacks of beans in the victual store yonder.”
“Get some different fecking beans!” said Lotraman angrily.
The probably-scribe inspected the spearmen before inviting him to do likewise to a small notched stick. He said, “But we have come for these beans?” he looked around, sheltering his eyes for a moment. “Perhaps we might compromise? If you could go back to...”
“Where hundreds, thousands are jostling sat about – probably waiting for beans? Yes, if I had no experience with street fighting then I’d agree with you. We are few, we have to pick our place and then...” but he saw he had lost the probably-scribe. As a nod at least towards the suggested compromise Alendari did send out a stick as scouts.
*
The new forest (the Lay as some of the wiser wolves amongst them called it) ran far and like a boat’s wake it followed that because of whom it was made. Here now and the pines were fresher. Here now and the villages, hamlets and settlings swallowed by it had been abandoned ahead of the enemy. The wolves ran, but softly and far from their own lands. They ran spread out and here at night where at last the moon was strong, full and the scents those of trees untapped to make more of the enemy. The city had ordered its people inside and perhaps unknowing then had stopped the enemy increasing its number.
With a sharp bark Nichal brought his long line to a halt. They slowed to a walk and then walked to a halt, amidst the trees. He went on with but his best, behind him the Pack made a crescent a mile across and in the same shape then as the moon, their beloved, above.
*
The Slurries rang to industry, as such still toiled with the rural lands abandoned for the now, the further mines empty and the carts even here in rows chocked and chained. The honey workers dug at the spoil of one foundry and stacked bones in a cart to be sent for glue and bread to another. Where there was honey, there was grulls. An eye amongst them noted that the carts so innocently arranged blocked certain ways and the courtyards of others. Women and men in apron and cloak stood about, not speaking and with weapons close to hand. Guild patches on each crossed with the mark of the Forge.
So too did the honey see the ruffians that had taken a Gather and broken it seemed into storehouse or home. But only able to carry so much there were lanes littered with little treasures. The ruffians were arguing, drinking, and being served by locals. Others like them sat about a square in better humour. If they even understood what it was the Quarter did they saw no profit in storming stone foundries and smelting halls. No glory in fighting Guildsmen no matter that some wore armour. The honey spied then that many of them, tribal though they were, knew Deci. Perhaps well, and that made stark in that perhaps where others who did not were already making ready to leave.
The honey man cursed and shouldering his shovel hurried on. He was not his usual city self but alone few noticed and he needed to know, needed to see and smell and find out what then was happening?
And who then was he to eat? He turned and ran and just ahead of those that here had decided then to leave.
*
“There is no moon, the water is foul and the women,” said Bedret A’Low a short while later, “light tinder with their tongues. I, I am a hero!” he was too. He must be as certainly he told everyone just that. To be fair and it was true albeit he was not hero-enough for the shaman. Not hero enough to die and die well against the Gathen. The Gathen seen so far, in the land of sky and the land of... “...and I won’t be tricked.”
His followers grumbled their assent. They had been brought here with gifts and stories of Cavrin. Of a city to plunder and one where they had gathered beyond impatiently and then entered and all to no fighting at all. Awful they might have looked but the Two Beans fought only warriors and no amount of shouting ‘come on’ and insulting anyone with a spear or sword had made them do much other than look back at them blankly. The Two Beans were a young tribe and so actually had a lot more reverence for glory and honour than others much older than they. They did not use old names, they were primarily mountain men, and for two beans they would charge any enemy as long as he was bigger, better armed and more dangerous than they. But not more drunk because right now that was quite probably impossible. They were not alone in much of this. Indeed just about all those that had followed Wolf The Younger here were alike in that. Young tribes, hardened but gathered as Hird rather owe their names to some long line of forebears. Honourable and with more than a touch of the wolf about them – to one degree or another. But even the worst of them, even the most ferocious had not fought, had scarce found anyone to fight. Wolf The Younger had oathed them to that, for the moment at least and the oath all to him. So even the Dying Moon for now ate pigs they found in the top bit of the city. So now Nichal’s pack were elsewhere entirely, probably not much for Wolf The Younger’s oaths.
“I need to worship the earth,” said Bedret. The Hird agreed and so staggering and digging at pegs and laces they heaved out their members or squatted along the bank of a dried riverbed. Bedret sighed, wrinkled his nose and said, “Mother, what the feck is that smell?”
“That’s you, chief,” the Hird laughed.
“No,” said Bile, “it’s me.”
The ground heaved as from the riverbank blew out ghouls, dozens, scores – more and tall and strongly muscled with claws like talons. Horribly fast and with doglike smaller, rural and more desperate examples amongst them. The Hird staggered back under the assault and some even got their swords free. A few with a yell and their mighty tribal tackle swinging fought back, and even well so that for a moment they landed blow after blow on ghouls that recoiled even as the swords glanced from hides tougher than a ogre’s arse. Bedret with one broken arm fought the fiercest and though still pissed and in some cases still pissing the tribe stomped a step forward. In places some of the ghouls were forced back into the riverbed. But it was but an indrawn breath before and with a terrible roar the ghouls (and driven on by things worse than ghouls) swallowed the tribe. No sign within the heaving, desperate scrums as the tribe were killed and torn, eaten and fought over.
One with the softest parts clutched to his chest went to where another waited aside from the scrum and there the pair unevenly shared livers and tongues, kidneys and eyes. Their children had had to be fed, one way or the other.
*
It was warm enough not to need tents and the market here now a camp little moved but for the honey workers and the snakes. Children cried and were comforted by their mothers. Some men sang and surprisingly well, but softly. Deci had and especially in Sunner ever been a night time city but there were thousands here and form the territory they worked to the song of the land. Alendari actually had to pick his way carefully and in places could not at all. His scouts had returned to say they had met other scouts, avoided one another and oddly as if in an Inn and only half cut had proceeded not to catch one another’s eyes. There had been no fighting, or rather there had but actually less than usual. Theft too was less, most things were one Watchmen had answered on being quizzed by Alendari. Most of what passed here for the Watch were in hiding. There was a strong rumour that they were who the tribes were looking for. There was some evidence too that quite a lot people were pointing them out. Fear was not in the same room as respect, and not even in the same street as popularity.
The Jaeger still waited, watched but hardly poised. Rightly there were ready and defensive. All for the best here, fighting amongst so many? It frightened Alendari to think of it. Not for he or his, but the stampede, the panic, the ruin and the riot. In some other Deci this Quarter was burning and more were dead from trampling and looting than from the sword - and the sword was very bloody indeed.
“So we’ll fight them when they attack, and so will they?”
It seemed that way. After you, no after you, no after you, no after...
*
Gates had been locked and chained. In courtyards often overhung by those above a small number of Household Guard (or ruffians paid to serve much the same function) lurked and quietly to protect the property of the absent. If there was one Quarter only that had not been swamped by the rural swarm, then it was Hightown. Before the early dawn that would be sounded by Guild bells and Cathedral screams below then normally here and servants would be scuttling the streets, not looking purposefully at gentlemen and ladies flitting from address to the next. Even the snakes normally so prevalent as to be ignored, even the honey workers clattering from alley to lane with big brooms for the gaps to the abyss, even the better class of thieves and assassins – even they were absent.
The Spire Guard had not moved for a day and now a night. They had not moved. They waited. The Black Knight who cared nothing for his own petty discomfort had nonetheless had a dozen grooms employed by the Spire and normally with very little to do, see to his ‘oss. Even now it was being rubbed down with velvet and fed on the best oaty cake. There were no sounds of battle. They were the lopsided centre of the city and an enemy did not need to come through Alendari or The Black Hat to get here, “Good thing for him, eh?” said King Troy the Faceless. He fingered the silver mask cast to show his features, those of a beautiful youth. And no sblack personing now. “Berry’ll see him off, eh?”
The Black Knight said nothing. He leant now on a sword as tall as he with a blade black and wavy. His armour was so dark that whilst it reflected the oil lanterns set about the gate it actually made them produce less light. The Black Knight knew the silence of the pre-dawn. He and quite unlike so many in the city that thought it a jungle literally, knew the rural lands. He knew the hunt. He smelled it now. He felt it, that terrible and nine-month pregnant silence. Small sounds were sucked into the colouring dawn just like light to his armour. There were hunters, hunting hunters, hunting hunters here. And one was making himself...
... “BAIT!”
Troy jumped and made ready to kill absolutely anything or anybody. “I bloody knew it! You’ve set me up, you’re all plotting...”
But he did not finish for the Black Knight pointed with his sword to where in the gloom and the dreadful dark of the city shapes were being revealed. Like the Spire Guard they similarly did not move. The light changed subtly as the sun touched the dank smog so close above them, revealing them.
Mayor Gideon dashed to the Spire. He tried to pass the wall of the Spire Guard only for them to stay firm until the King ordered them to let the Mayor enter. Gideon panted, forcing a potion into the gauntlet of the Black Knight.
Seeing that Troy would probably have him peeled if he did not explain himself Gideon said, “That bloody murdering bastard is here, that bloody murdering bastard is here!”
Somewhere a falling pin was caught, filched and sold to a peddler. The King looked at Gideon. Gideon looked back at Troy. Troy said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to narrow it down for me a bit more there, Gidders?”
*
“There must be a peaceful way,” said Tirack. For no good reason that he could determine the women here in Deci had decided he was a coward and emptied upon him great tubs of offal, night dirt and worse. Conversely he had been with Billy for long enough now to worry at the problem of his not running about burning the city down. He rather lived here too.
“I don’t understand?”
“There’s a pack here, giggling - don’t think I haven’t noticed. There’re others, what five, six – more broken up? Hirds or Champion’s Branch or similar spread about the city and there’s been no fighting, or less than normal. You’ve been looking for The Sleek. I hear there’ve been some hangings. You’ve not hunted Dirk I noted?”
“It was a fight. That was different” said Billy. They stood in the city and the city hid them. They were being revealed because the city wanted them to be. Billy and his pack were city wolves that had embraced the wild. This was their city too. Bill wanted vengeance for the dead, for the children and the women and the men that had hardly known their heritage at all. But he had been told that the Deci Blood and the Wolves of Deci were both important. And here they were then and the city liable to be extinguished by Myron in wave after wave of ritual horror, just to act as an example. Or more likely fed to the Gathen and what it made of men, and what fought the Pine better than the Hirds? But the eyes of Myron were everywhere it seemed and an army arriving in the city would be seen as a... provocation.
But Deci had not army, so Billy had found one. Not his, but enough for him to direct. And hey you tribes told you weren’t good enough to fight the Gathen and the Pine, let’s prove Ikhala and the others wrong. And Billy liked that, it appealed to his sense of humour. Ferocious bastards they all were, but he had their measure and he could keep them in the right direction.
So he said much of this as he stepped forward, to Tirack assuring him that Troy had been told much the same, and there he saw... Billy could not remember his name, potion feller, hopping up and down and pointing.
*
The Black Knight made ready, the Guard so still moved and nearly at once into the defensive stance, weapons ready and firm. The Black Knight waited for a beast to appear. A great big werewolf as big as a dragon ideally. He saw only Tirack and that nice young man from Cheapside.
“It’s a trick!” said Gideon.
Troy cursed the air and the blades of the Guard immediately smoked violently, the stink cutting through that of the city. Drips of that smoke dropped to hiss on the cobbles of the Quarter. He rubbed his hands together recalling the rite so recently hung so that lightning ran from fingers to forearms ready to leap to weapon point and thence to the enemy. That done and when battle was joined then he would bring on the fire. He had not truly thought it likely that his hirelings would have bettered the foul and traitorous enemy – but he was prepared and he would damn well show the city what happened when the King made a command!
“I’m here!” said the Wolf The Younger.
“Fool!” said Troy from behind the Guard, “Fool of a fool – you walk into my trap!”
Billy nodded slowly and clapped at about the same speed. Tirack only a short distance back smiled gently. They had both been told it seemed not to attack the other, not really. The Blood and the Wolves of Deci, both needed. It was like in Keys over the whole Armastas thing. Honour had to be satisfied through cunning where after everyone could get on with stuffing the really bad things.
*
The Young Wolf watched as a horse as big as two horses was brought for the Black Knight. He crossed his arms to wait, having worked out the plan. They all ultimately did what the city said when all this, this - was stripped away. He was relaxed and rather looking forward to a proper little war against a proper enemy, when his head was cut from his body so smoothly that it remained on the shoulders all the way down.
Stood over him a child looked without seeming interest at the body. Already and city-made Billy’s Pack were slipping away, surprised but sharp as the silver that had taken their chief. This was Deci and revenge was best served from behind. Already word was spreading.
As the sun smothered by the poison fog rose to lighten the air so the city saw Charmin’ Billy dead. And the city was not the only one...
By Alan Morgan