Post by Sire Halfblack on Nov 23, 2014 18:41:20 GMT
Plague IM 1012
A fair number had already left, disgruntled but laden down with freshly thieved loot and a number of which she had spied leaving as she had returned through the northerly gate. A handful of hunters amongst them had simply vanished after a brief visit from Berek. By the time Zen had followed the scent and the filth of those that yet waited for the call to destroy Deci, it was to find a slum, and this in a city that prided itself on the sheer awfulness of its slums. There were few great and shining buildings raised that within a week were not clogged with soot or leaking, even when it was not raining but here and it was without much pride that she found that anything that men could do, wolves could do better. In places the effluence was knee deep. In the alleys and lanes she spied one blocked entirely. Where they gathered they coughed, the poison filth of the city so much greater than what little of nature there was – and that distant and firmly caught, netted and enslaved by Deci.
It worried her that some here had gone... well, not native, so much as civilised. Picking her way through tenements knocked through to make caves she avoided the growling, slovenly heaps. When she found someone with a little spirit it was in an attic and that one peered out into the street. There Zen too saw how falling from the low smog that covered the city was rain; silver rain.
He said, “Everyone’s a funny man these days...”
*
“They certainly left no stone...” Jander pointed to the wall of a hovel, “...untouched.”
Here at least. Much of the territory had not been troubled. It was a big place and with the stragglers making the long lines as slow as the most crippled it had taken weeks to even get this far. What food they had brought was nearly gone and illness was rampant. If crossing streams and even rivers had been easier than feared that was because so many were lower than he would have expected, or entirely dry. It was if the rivers and rainfall, the great melt – had been gathered up and thrown elsewhere by some giant hand.
Here some hours later and still the line showed no sign of ending. Those that had left the city were the goats sent out by others to see if they died. Twice Jander had seen a handful of those that followed Alendari far away, and three times he had spoken with pairs or once a stick about what lay ahead. There was evidence of dead brigands, and sign of many that had scampered away. On what they preyed it was difficult to say.
Some villages and places of note had not seemingly been discovered at all. Others like this one abandoned had suffered the wrath of beasts unable to topple or burn stone and caves that had simply resorted to unloading stinking piles of effluence nigh on everywhere.
Where there had been wells they had been the first fouled but Jander’s followers had easily cleaned out, stopped and repaired each in less than a morning. Here and at Dead Aratel the miners that had returned had already pitched in to clear the muck and foulness from their little rural ‘guild’. Jander had himself kicked down the rotten, crappy idol that had been found in the mine’s entrance. The mine towns he had himself located and established knew no one of note but himself and were by far the best served by this past, and now present. These were men and women that hating their time in the city had been the first to return. In more rural pitches and settlings many were loather to return. They would doubtless when word spread back.
For today they stayed here whilst the work continued. That night Jander had thought to be alone but with so many pitched up in the dusty rock of the territory that was a lost cause. So making the best of it he waved for Kandle to join him where she brought wood to his fire. That at least they had. Jander’s Lumber Jackers had scoured the land they had crossed and felled the lone pine or spruce that had appeared here, there – and soon now probably nowhere. Jander waited for the young woman to light a thin cigar with a spill before he said, “What will they all eat?”
“Eat?” a rural lass none of this was strange to Kandle Wax.
“What crops have we seen? What good land or soil that we have not trapped in our own good town?”
Kandle shrugged, but not unkindly. She said, “Tinkers and traders will go about and sell food since there’ll be a market. It’s not like the city is about to go and hang ‘em for smuggling is it?”
No, thought Jander. That was a scribe-perceived crime that they would have to leave well alone for a bit. It just meant stopping folk who would take food out for profit, leaving the city to do it instead. And after Anath had looked long and hard at how to do that probably making a complexity from a simplicity whose making they were opposing. He started when Kandle added, “Or there’ll starve, or die, or leave for elsewhere.”
“I don’t like that...”
“Oh, don’t be so silly,” said Kandle prickling her Sire’s pride. She winked to lessen the tease. “It’s the world. The land hereabout is awful, that won’t change and why should it? We love that you and yours think it a failure that everywhere isn’t some green land of dancing milkmaids and rosy-cheeked yeomen, where everyone lives off endless stew and roasted chops. But people live, or die, or scratch a living. Jander’s balls, lord!” she swore, “Deci people are clever. They’re not sheep. That’s why half of ‘em out here are really still back there,” she meant the city. “So they’ll steal before they starve, and the ore that’s always a bit short anyway is sold on the sly for food or nails. Heartlands daisies might wither out here waiting for heroes but Deci folk’ll live on. Or if some die, or are too weak, or get sick too often, well you didn’t do it.”
Jander rubbed his face, “Have I been such an arse?”
“A bit, lord. Look, people are out here and protected. They’ll return when word gets out that we’re not all gnoll-food. You’ve been boring out the wells and given the state of the rivers it’s bloody good that there are wells already. The city gathered ‘em in and most are still alive. Look at what might have been, right now us out would have been finding only villages and towns full of the stinking dead, and because there was a fight worse than the destruction we see about us here. Bloody gnolls aren’t even bright enough to set fire to most things and we left them lots of good tinder in the beacons. Jander’s balls, lord – we actually left the raiders stacks of stuff to set this town to fire.”
“They probably thought it was a grave site,” Jander looked at the beacon and laughed, “Their piney masters killed and stacked as a warning,” words-said-in-jest...
“You’re doing this in months that which might have otherwise have taken years. And those left now will either follow, or settle, or scratch their new knife wounds. We can’t ensure they have food enough unless with carting it’s a bundle for every hundred, every month or season. People will survive, or not, and that’s the way of the world lord,” she stood to leave him to think better thoughts, Jander knowing then she had been sent by the others to say what they had been thinking. He vowed to stop brooding, to stop worrying, what was done was done and almost entirely for the best.
*
“Drewin’s Vale, baron?”
“Yes...” said Selgard, “And you are again?”
“Ruensson, baron.”
Selgard nodded slowly. He was pretty sure that the name sounded familiar. He supposed it was with the all the being dead that he felt so fuddled, not a good state to be for one whose mind was so precious. It seemed like a very long time since he had been able to spend any time in his barony, longer still since he had first come here more than a decade ago, and really started to do anything about it something like three years thereafter.
Still it was forested. The northern and easterly edge ran into the Forgotten Hills yet still within easy sight of the mountains that once edged the world and now only the Empire - it was home. It was scarce possible to remember how wild it had once been. A privy for brigands yet now tamed and tended, yet though close to a bend of the Spittle it was remote enough that regular traders and tinkers aside, few came here. In a pouch he had a quite insufficient amount of trinkets to reward the tribe that had settled here, and which he had decided once home to not for the moment mention. Selgard was a figure much used to the adventuring trail but he had no idea of the prize he might have offered to a Hird for months, years even of service. Probably more than a hundred centuries (or ten times that) of nice gold rings though. Probably enough to need a wagon or two, probably really worth getting the goldsmiths to knock up some especially decent torcs and ornamental bracelets set with image of the barony. Probably worth emptying his purse all told.
“I knew a man called Ruen once?”
“My father, baron.”
“That would be it,” said Selgard with a winning smile. They were walking the Barony. Here and there were still marks of the great bonfires that had been raised to burn the dead. Along and now within the border with the hills the land groaned to tall and nearly branchless pines and spruce. Until Jander had made a net to take nature captive it had been one of those places in Deci to possess good earth and deep roots – and all of those it seemed about the edges. Seeing the new trees earlier Selgard had wondered if he had rather gotten away rather lightly during recent troubles. He had to suppose that there had been easier pickings after the first scuffle that had been seen here in his absence.
For an hour they walked and Selgard greeted people he had to cheat a little to learn the names of. Many hundred had come here over the years and were hardly centralised about his home. Hamlets had grown without his noticing and now here by the river the largest of them fished with the water still clear, before well down the flow it became the city’s whorish privy. Traps were set out in the water to catch the tremendous eels that fed on the rainbow backed fish, the river itself edged on each side by higher banks suggesting that normally it would have been twice as broad. “And that is?” he pointed.
“Still the River Spittle, baron - Spittle’s actually three rivers that sort of join further down, but they’re all the Spittle if you ask the folk that live on them.”
“People sound?”
“Pretty sickly, but that’s to be expected. No one’s carried a baby to the world living in recent months, but that’s the sickness for you. Worse than usual, but we’re better here than...” Ruensson jerked a thumb in the general direction of the rest of the territory.”
“Very...” he sought for something to say regarding the commoners, “...hairy, ain’t they?”
“Tribes baron, or were, still are I think. But settled and without any blasted shaman capering about to fill their heads with being dead. You’ve got quite the reputation hereabouts, further too. That lot,” he nodded at the river and the long hamlet that wove along the stony bank, “came from what I suppose you’d call Alguz. Saw how things were going, got made into some of army that never had to fight. Saw good sense a week later and never stopped walking till they reached here. When you look at what lies without, well... you would really wouldn’t you? They couldn’t give two harsh words for glory, or for renown. They just want to live. Tribes aren’t all drunk with myth and story. Some like here are just...”
“People, yes I see.” The baron looked but did not see anything that resembled a totem. If he had not known he wouldn’t have thought them a tribe at all, but he supposed that to the north and over the mountains people there lived in places much like this one. There were still hill forts across the Empire to show how they had once lived. And neither did he see a weapon amongst them, nor any painted faces. Indeed if they were sickly then having come here from Deci he began to see why the rest of the Empire thought Deci to be the horrid, mean kid with one shoe that killed the pretty girl’s cat. He knew that Troy had some plan involving the silver smiths, and Selgard hoped it was a good one.
Here they knew of the city but so very few had visited it they paid their tithes and worked for a baron that took care of all that going-to-the-hellish-place for them. Selgard had caught a few thoughts on his wanderings and some of them with more of the brigand than the tribe about them, though there were certainly similarities. He frowned, “The..?”
“Spittle, baron.”
“Yes, yes of course.”
*
The Duchess Calugh-Bartholomaw had not enjoyed the journey and King Troy wondered why she had considered a carriage to have been the best way to have made it at all. Ignoring the townhouse she had instead come directly to the Spire where now she stood inspecting the bladed crown that adorned one wall.
“A pleasure,” Troy said.
“You have simply no idea how little that word can be applied to this awful place,” she said without turning. “Honestly, I am at least as unhappy to be here as you are doubtless to receive me. Don’t you ever think that the fire in Cheapside the other year might not have gone far enough? I know we like to live in the past here, Earl – but one can take a thing too literally?”
“Things don’t change easily,” said Troy. “You for one. Still the little charmer I note? And your husband, the good Duke?”
She turned at that and without expression said, “He is presently dealing with some unpleasantness. Normally we would have employed a Held to see to such things but the last we enjoyed is engaged in the Icewater and if there is a Mercenary Held not swept up by the Bastion then we do not know of it. But such things change. Still, there was the Household Guard.”
“Oh dear,” said Troy. He understood the difficulty. A man who faced with conquest had left the gates open in the rewarded hope that they would not make too much of a mess, he commiserated with the Duchess. Wealth was all very well, but if the shelves were empty? “Had you thought to pay tribute to such difficulties?” Meaning bribe it to go away, but of course he saw that was almost certainly what was being done. It was difficult to call upon the Bastion what with the need being so great elsewhere. Influence could be brought but the benefit would be found wanting compared to the ill-feeling it would fertilise. He clapped his hands together, “Many of our subjects are gathering in a few days, you are of course invited – indeed, I would consider you the guest of honour?”
“You are very kind.”
“We are such considerate people, you and I.”
*
There had been murders in the night, the bodies hardly hidden and whilst that was as things ever were then here no effort had been made to hide the dead. Nor had there been any evidence of arguments gone wrong, of drunken brawling or... it was the old days all over again.
Bucket of pitch by her feet Zen made the last stroke of the brush upon the wall. Daubing slogans was all very well but most people scarce read at all then most noticeably here a simple smile topped with pointy ears was doing the job well enough. What had perhaps surprised her most of all was that as word spread about the new desecration a lot of people agreed. Her Billy had been about as popular as a man could be in the city. The King had had Billy killed, which had probably been to be expected, and after a little idle conquest life had returned pretty much to normal. Albeit without the laughter and already a little less of the new drive amongst the people – they had forgotten that Deci was where you died. For a while it had been a little less dark. For a year or three it might have been something different. And people weren’t fools any longer, Zen had heard. And perhaps after all the Empire was not trying to crush them, where there were trees and wealth and a man wasn’t killed just... because.
“Naughty that, missy,” she heard. Zen turned with her hands all tarry to spy that across the square had approached a number of fellows. The Watch was being restored, a lot of the older sort kicked out to make way for some real thugs. “Naughtiness is punished, you should know that.”
“Like you punished Billy?”
“Dunno,” said one of the ruffians at the leaders shoulder. “We don’t ask names,” this to much laughter.
The banter was stilled by the man who had first spoken. He offered a very short and entirely sarcastic bow. “This is my Quarter now, girl. My name is Andre, and you are?”
“A wolf.”
“Well now, think we’ve done with wolves,” he looked about the little square, at the puddles that sparkled silver and oily. At the walls all alike clogged with soot and spackled poison. At the ten foot tall image of the smile with the pointed ears plastered over the cathedral. He nodded, “You should understand, no one cares. Or they do, but caring is worth less than a cough, and that’s a currency we’re rich in at the moment. The law has been left to dangle for so very long, and you have to have law. Else how do you know who to hang?” Andre waved of her protest. “But no, I jest. I don’t believe in killing citizens for having a brain between their ears. The law is the law but it doesn’t begin and end with hanging the people.”
“She was called Muffet,” said Zen. Seeing the raised Majius brow she explained. “She’d always lived hereabouts. Her Da was a murder cultist ‘cause that was the city then. Had to be in a cult or be fed on by a cult you see, until the cults killed each other or started to be all Guildy and went in more for tradition and pretence.”
Andre yawned, “Is this a very long tale?”
“Not really. She was lost for quite a while. But then there were babies and there was the hag, and you’d never have thought she was only a little more than a girl ‘cause she looked like your nan. She got killed last night.”
Andre shrugged. He said, “That was not us. You might not believe it, but that is the truth. There is though a fellow called the Seething Man I am told. He does that sort of thing. We’re looking for him, and especially here because the Northerly Quarter, mine, is being cleared up.”
Looking down Zen said, “We call it dog town now.”
“We like dogs in Deci. We use them for plague and horror and send them on their way,” he changed the subject, “Now, are you armed?”
“Sort of... I’ve got a pack.”
“We’ll be sure to rifle it in a moment. Now much as we’d love to take you to the Magistrate and then put you in a gaol, we don’t have either. And this is Imperial Law, which is what we make it. How can it be other with our bold new land so dominated by adventurers? Now then if you would be so good as to come with me...”
“No, I have a pack...” said Zen looking up once more. She tipped back her head, and howled. And before the nearest ruffian could take a step there came an answer, then another. Then more, and others – until shortly there were a hundred and coming closer. From the wolves that had been expecting the city to give them a good fight for a very long time - and here it was.
Andre hearing this surprised her with a laugh. He nodded. He understood perfectly. It was entirely within the way of Deci to have a gang, to have mates, might made right, especially the sneaky kind. Raising his hand he clapped very quietly. There were plenty of people more easily dealt with, for now. And he had his eye on worse people than a girl with a sticky brush. He smiled almost warmly, “Oh very good, oh very nice. I see that you and I are going to have an absolute pickle of a time,” then, “Boys, come along now...”
And with which Andre and the few ruffians mooched away even as the first of the burly wolves arrived, stinking of drink but with swords in hands. Oafs that fought fair, as much as that meant outnumbering the thugs with warriors – which was the sort of fair he had to respect. Passing by the first he said, “Shouldn’t you be off fighting our battles for us?”
Badth Snarl, confused, said, “Wossat?”
“There’s a good doggy...”
Snarl spat at the last of the thugs, “Fight us, fight me, fight – now!”
But the thugs only waved their fingers and with many an ‘oooooohhh’ followed Andre who whistling (without any sign of being the least put out) was already half the lane away.
*
The features were concealed behind a mess of boils. Even the quill hovering close to the face twitched, ink dripping and smearing every third letter. In his chair Sneertwice had hidden himself from the sight of others but his employer was not any other. The rain had passed and the Guild asked to employ it had the moment the foundation Guilds left, sealed itself within. It seemed that Sneertwice knew exactly how they felt.
It took a moment to make out the note so very different from his factors normally precise letters. “Cursed?” said Anath, “By whom?”
But for that there was no answer. Anath had come here only because his man had not been creepily at his elbow the moment he had been needed. “I am not happy, Sneertwice. This had better be a passing thing. It smacks dangerously of inefficiency. Rather like Master Frog?”
This took somewhat longer. Only after a trying amount of translation did Anath purse his lips and let the scroll combust softly between them. “Very well then, but don’t let me see any more of this... cursing. It speaks badly of us that we might be cursed. People are already talking, and people should only talk when we have decided what it is that they are supposed to say. Good day to you.”
*
The first had been standing outside the Spire, entirely ignored by those few that had any business there at all. The second and third had been in a doorway and watched him go by, and none of the three did he recognise. So many dead and by right and title, action and deed the blood too of many more that he had not, as it were, personally sent to the grave. They had watched him with their dull eyes and he had hurried by because more real than he had suspected still his spirit had grown chill at the very sight of them. For now no one else saw them, just as perhaps no one saw him either. He passed amongst them anyway with few so much as hearing the faintest step and those with better eyes choosing anyway to pretend they did not.
So that when he closed the door he did so carefully, firmly, and with a turn of the key that he had long ago had made. It was warm, the air close, fragrant with some scent he did not recognise, a musk made by some dead alchemist looking to earn the big treasure from Nobles like him. Or rather not like him at all - but Nobles nonetheless.
He said, “Hello aunty.”
*
Close to the Spire and not even two turns about the winding street of the Quarter the house from without was no less grand than those about it. It was indeed somewhat more tasteful than many. Extending into the rock only the lack of windows – it had curtains that covered those that faked the appearance – set it apart from one in another city (for it was a fine place, if subdued). In the study a large man waved away a small one in ill-disguised irritation.
“Best you remember, Sire,” said the visitor with less respect that the words warranted.
“I rarely forget,” said the larger man. “And I never forgive. My answer has not changed. Go away. You shall not be received again.”
Somewhere a bell chimed joined as it died by two others. The larger of the two men grunted as he put aside the tallies and scrolls to which he had barely returned. He said without looking up, “I have a visitor, and you foul the air. I will not repeat myself.”
*
Wood smoke curled about the knees of the pines and spruce that crowded the steep hill. Their needles softened Fetch’s step, his hands tight about the shaft of the warspear, his eyes twitching to-and-fro. There was a stillness to the young day, the light reluctant between the higher branches so that it cut in soft bands across old air dusty with pollen and the speckles of musk that dirtied it. It was an unnerving way to make war. The hills too steep, the trees too close. He had not known how much the rolling land of his home had comforted him where here an enemy might be a short bow shot away and unseen. Yet he seemed the only one for where he saw his companions cross the ground they revelled in it, faces excited, eager - hungry even.
They were hunters and this was a hunter’s dawn. These hunters at least moved quietly. A snarl, a hiss and only at times a broken twig for this forest forgave every footfall. They might have come here in greater force. They might have flooded the hills with iron and upright chins but Fetch understood why it was as it must be. What glory was there to an enemy swarmed and swamped? What battle was there where an enemy fled or filtered away hours ahead of the clumsy? What greater glory than to fight an enemy greater or more numerous? Only victory perhaps and the common wolves that moved about him thought not even that far. They wanted to fight. What was made by that was... irrelevant.
“Yer thinking too loud,” Berek whispered in Fetch’s ear.
“Sorry...”
*
It was as crowded as it was orderly. Tiny drawers ran along one curved wall only broken by the bowed and draped windows that pushed out into the street. There was a table and several chairs all covered in dust rags, a door to a room where once by the spots and still lingering smell once alchemy had been worked; but that room was empty. A further door most likely leading to stairs was determinedly locked. He rubbed his hands together, eyes closed as he struggled to master his mentor. He only opened them when the savage urge within him had been for now been put somewhere dark and distant.
It did not take long to find the box.
Small and sealed with lead the rosewood had seen better days. The varnish had grown dusty and in places was sticky to the touch. Not trusting to pouch or purse in Deci he kept it in one hand that he then covered with the other. He then looked about himself but saw nothing different. It was a homely, warm room. Somewhere a well-to-do aunt might listen to the poverty of a nephew perhaps. He peered at the box through a tiny crack he made of his fingers and decided that he had been right after all not to open it. He had learned something of this sort of thing and was pretty sure that what the box did was something dreadful if opened. Knowing that and his hands went to break the lead so that with a curse he managed to make one hand keep it closed whilst the other tried to rip at the lid!
With a jerk his maverick hand smashed into the nearest of the drawers with a bang, freeing itself momentarily so that he had to be quick to catch a new hold, down and under one knee as he forced his naughty hand to the floor. Still it struggled and still it had the box and with a thumb had already picked at an inch of the lead seal.
“Bastard...” he hissed. He used both knees to crush his hand down and the box closed. On the floor now he looked desperately about and caught something under the table. Inching his captive hand about he was able to reach out with his good hand to touch and draw closer what he found to be a long, only slightly bent nail. “Right you,” he said, “let go... I’m warning you.”
But the bad hand would not. He tried once again but only to distract it so as to raise the nail and jab it hard into the bad hand that surprised let go with such force that he was spilled backwards. Both hands reacted at once so that he was spun about as the one hand seemed to run across the floor only to be stopped short by his arm. He managed to stand and with only a little manoeuvring was able to reach for the box. When the naughty hand made a break for it he stamped down hard with the heel of one boot, smashing a few fingers – which would bloody show it...
It did too, feeling and control returning and with it the pain. Not trusting himself that pained hand he quickly stuck down his front and with only a little fumbling pulled his belt painfully tight.
Which is when someone said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
*
The ground gave six inches as he landed halfway down the slope. Another and this time a tree caught one arm. Then he was down, and with the howling about him ran on. The ground mist was tangled about the trees with the ground between clear, churned to fresh mud by scores of feet both bare and booted. Stirge saw a cloak, a coat and here and there packs and sacks dropped, torn free or simply cast off in the morning. He ran with the pack even as here and there several dropped to all fours. There were wolves, there were men, there were a dozen stages between the two but all ran and all howled, or screamed or bellowed at the sheer joy of it.
The approach had been steady into the hills through the night until excitement had gotten the better of them. Then as the first ran the rest followed and even Nichal still a short distance in the lead was waving his sword in great circles about his head. There were guides who having to run as if pursued were screaming too. Though whether in the frenzy of it all or because of the frenzy that chased them it was impossible to say!
If there had been scouts out Stirge hadn’t seen them. In places they had passed the occasional platform in the trees. To the south he could see the branches high above clotted with filth and now as they ran along the track there were bodies, old and fetid. There were piles of dung and their passing lifted clouds of flies about them. Aggressive and frenzied, subtlety was a bed fellow kicked out nights ago for farting too softly.
Stirge cared for nothing as he too was caught up in the delight, the roaring pleasure of a pack as it swept over the uneven land. He jumped with the others to spill over a sudden little cliff. To land and run without pause as ahead there came horns and roars.
He did not know if it was a good day to die, but it was damn well a fine day to kill!
*
“If they wish to give up,” said Alendari, “Then we let them.”
There were murmurs of assent to that but from what he picked out amongst the hubbub it was pretty clear than any giving up had better be pretty sharp about it. If any of them died or lost anything important doing it then the first thing likely to suffer from those injuries would be their hearing. The spears were not nervous as much as damn wary. Everything to the west was forest. A long broken line that did not so much fade together as rear up, this poisonous land ending abruptly where the trees began as far any could see roughly north-east to south.
It was not too quiet. It could never be too quiet. Quiet was good. There were howls coming on the wind, wolves and worse (because the wolves were just dogs that had gotten religion). The jaeger tried not to look across the mile or so to the forest so much as at the hill they moved up now. And the hill, well that was quiet...
Alendari had hurried here once he had received word that one of his sticks had found the hill. For a month now his followers had been split widely about the territory. They didn’t miss much and when a land absolutely, positively had to be patrolled then there were none like his jaeger to do it. They moved well now, only a little dispersed by the rocks that made up the hill, any topsoil long since torn free to ride the cloudy winds that passed here and there across the land. It was an hour till dawn here to well to the west of Deci and they went carefully, letting the night cover their approach but wary of the chaos that came with fighting in it. The hill not especially high was steep. About it and for a hundred yards it sat in a depression as if from, and probably was, the barren body of some forgotten lake. This conspired to make the hill relatively hidden despite its rise and on the top of it now he could spy the smudge of the night’s idle fires. He waited until by close hand signals the Held drew together again. Along the line spears quietly ate what they had, stashed haversacks and pack, pissed, tested the seating of spear head and shield grip and then waited without a single word said.
*
Berek could have tracked them drunk and some of his followers had, and were. First to return and ahead of Nichal that gap was closing fast. He knew the ground but not perhaps as well as the enemy, but topping the sharp rise of the nasty little hill with only moments to spare for dashing up in the other direction had come the enemy.
In a range of mountains this was nothing worth a name. Its lowest reaches still stood high above the distant badlands of Deci. It looped about the gnoll moot though, it bristled with trees and his folk at least reacted fast to snag arrows and tug at bow and fire with scant yards between they and the enemy. The slowest were the new boys he had brought from Deci who stood and gaped. Berek dropped his bow for a sword and with a howl jumped down the slope to skittle four of the beasts that had almost beaten them there. He gutted one so that maggots fell from a bloated stomach and tripped over a second so that they tumbled a little, Berek on top even as across the hilltop his archers, bows forgotten, were thrusting, hacking and screaming at an enemy that did the same. Berek butted the one under him three times in a second until the skull went soft. He snatched at the tail of another, one thin as sticks that yanked from its feet he caught and savaged. The enemy were archers too but they relied more on their bows than did Berek’s pack.
The soft ground almost spilled Berek again as with sword in hand he scrambled back up the rise, blocking the thrust of a shorter sword, beating it down and splitting the yipping dog that held it about the ears. The fighting was brutal, and Berek swore as he made the crest to spit another and sword lost as it twisted about and down he seized on a fat ball of a gnoll with skinny shanks, yanking it back and over his head to throw it back down the rise.
The enemy fell away. Fleeing of a sudden and their blood up Berek tried, and failed to hold them in check. There was nothing like the tribes for bloody-minded aggression and the wolves were worst of all. Two score of the enemy jumped in great bounds away, the slowest caught by more of his own though there were scents he smelled above, dead or dying, or holding their guts as the smallest wound festered.
“My ‘ill,” shouted Berek after the enemy, “Bugger off!”
*
“Go away,” he said.
But the newcomer showed no sign of doing that. Indeed only looking away for the merest moment to quickly make sure there was no one else here Gideon remained resolutely between him and the door.
“I was invited here, and now I have to leave...”
“I hope you haven’t stolen anything?” said Gideon.
“In Deci? Aye well, that would be something to worry about,” inside and he felt it rising now. The lose cloak and robe rode a little up his legs. Inside his hood everything already looked that little bit distant, the newcomer a picture on a wall.
The door once more opened and this time to admit a very big black hat with a cake tin under its arm. The street was blocked beyond by a mess of rag-wrapped and pointy noses that jostled and jumped to see what happening inside. The closest managed to push by to stand squashed just behind the hat that wore he saw now, a goblin underneath. The goblin was in gold, and in an outfit that whilst still being very much in keeping with goblins was actually remarkably well tailored. The furs were expensive. The leather had pin-stripes running its length.
Through the hat the goblin said, “Wossallthisthen?”
“An intruder,” said Gideon, “In my shop.”
“In Ulis’ shop,” corrected Sire Berry.
Gideon winced, “Well yes, but...”
The hat was not interested. To the first there in his rippling robes, eyes burning, he said, “You... sod off, sharpish.”
The intruder did not wait to hear any complaints from Gideon, hurrying by the rats outside that parted to a curt word from the hat. A moment later he heard the hat say, ‘And you, milky, six sugars...’
*
Still short of the gnoll moot they stormed the uneven ground. Trees whipped by, needles blew in the air from their charge. Nichal ran hard and laughing as the pack driven to frenzy and the lust for blood and glory almost outpaced him. He jumped a dry stream, darting between the pines and well below any branches. He heard only the howls as they crossed over and through rising rocks towards the horns. The gnolls had not waited, not sat in lines of defence and he saw them now running just as hard in spits and horrid clutches so that sword now raised over his head Nichal screamed a challenge.
The enemy were horned. Gnolls with the heads and bowed legs of dogs, of jackals their flesh cut with lesions, their weapons flint studded clubs, chert axes, and weapons stolen from across the land. They roared and yipped, the eyes blazed. They stank of the should-be-dead and in twenty, ten, five yards they came at him.
Nichal jumped, twisted in the air and carved down with his sword to take a horned head and onwards once more to hack bloody ruin through the following of the hated enemy. The sound of wolves and gnolls meeting was terrible. Metal on metal, tooth, claw and the shouts of fury as bodies were tossed into the air and Nichal breaking through had to turn about and run back. The gnolls were pushed together and the wolves dragged at them even as heads were caved in, as jaw met jaw and blood hung in the air. But the gnolls so eager - suddenly broke! The fear had swept over them - the horror had caught up their diseased souls.
The fight only seconds old was over as the horned gnolls now yipping and squealing fled and the pack followed them to tear each to shredded tatters. Some of the enemy on dying fell like emptied bags. The dead looked to be long dead and if any lived Nichal did not see them. His pack danced and screamed and held heads and trophies to the sky, to the moon that in the morning light still stood bright in the sky and between the still canopy of the trees.
*
The sun behind them they covered the last rise and were over the tumbledown wall before anyone saw them. No one had been watching and still only a single voice cried out at their appearance. More answered and Alendari saw first one and then a dozen, a score, jump to their feet but this was not the time for a wild charge. Without the need for silence he shouted at the Held to dress, the sound of shields touching dreadfully loud in the still moment of the very earliest morning. The miscreants were doing all the shouting now and still silent he led his spears forwards. He might have liked to have put a stick on the reverse side to catch stragglers but it would have been a great foolishness to have split his Held and their approach had anyway been the easiest route.
Swiftly he had a line about the fires and in the moment between desperation, fear and commitment he shouted again, “Swords down, on your knees!” he saw most faltering, “Do it, do it now, or I’ll damn well water this ground with your blood!”
Caught between relief and fear by the time any real resistance could be made the jaeger had made a crescent about them. It only took one to scowl and drop his sword for the others to follow. Alendari stormed forward to kick weapons away whilst certain of his followers took dry roots from their belts to invoke simple cuffs about wrists then bent painfully backwards on bodies face down.
Alendari nodded. He pointed to the stick that had found the hill, “Search for skulkers,” and because a Held was still a Held, “Bring any plunder here, we’ll divide it later.” To the grins of his spears he bent to the nearest man to yank his head back by the hair. He did the same until he found the most belligerent of his captives. The jaeger expected that man to hang but Alendari wanted to see justice done for once in Deci, not considering it his duty to worry at what that might be.
Mostly a rabble, local commoners run from one estate or another, perhaps a dozen were better armed and six of them from somewhere else in the Empire. Brigands come to Deci having heard news of a territory locked up inside its own city, one of whom he was surprised to see with a Talthari amulet about his neck (doubtless stolen and kept as a lucky charm - it hadn’t worked, Alendari thought with a grunt).
The fires were stirred once more to life from the dried dung piled nearby. There were empty jacks of city liquor and a broached barrel of something more rural. Food too, a half full sack of good Heartlands grain.
He crossed to the lip of the hill and the sun still low in the sky Alendari stared out across the land.
*
He could hear a drum. With the crow in his hands Fetch calmed it with lying words and pretty flattery, wings pressed against its side and his face well outside the reach of its beak. Berek stood nearby, facing the drum. Chastened, his pack sat on their haunches, bows retrieved. From here they could make out the moot and just about the cave. The dead stained the earth, the fallen needles blackening. Flies clustered about the living and the dead alike. Men and women drank and pissed, sucked at scratches but spared no thought for the dead.
“King Gror,” said Fetch.
“Thought I heard tell ‘ed been snuffed?”
“There is always a Gror,” said Fetch. It wasn’t even a spirit, it was the most primitive of gods. It was made of gnolls who never thought for a moment it was not the same Gror.
With a grunt Berek turned about slowly, smelling Nichal’s pack and the brief if furious scrap there. Not so far away he smelled something far worse. Here and there he could smell also those tattered little droplets of the survivors fleeing further into the mountains and he thought to pursue.
“If I might suggest, chieftain,” said Fetch carefully. “The fight will be...”
But Berek was already pointing. “’Ands off thingys and ‘eads on blocks,” he said sternly. His pack looked up, eyes hard. “C’mon...”
*
Difficult to tell the time of day at the best of times in Cheapside Gideon took his lead from a small clock he discovered under the dust rags over the table. With only what he habitually carried did he manage the tea, of which on inspection the drawers held a treasury. Seated he picked at the sticky bun that Sire Berry had dug from a number in the tin that now sat by the tea. Between them lay the ring of keys. He said, “Was it really wise to let that monster go?”
“Jamjar said so,” nearby a rat looked shifty, which gave nothing away as Gideon had not met a rat that didn’t. “Of which ‘im and me’ll talk later...”
“I was sort of given the shop.”
“Nice for yer. Sort’ve a loan,” it wasn’t phrased as a question.
“Right, yes,” Gideon picked up the keys. The shop was empty of anything that would make potions though a lot of extremely interesting ingredients all powdered and listed neatly in their own little drawer. “It’s not like I can actually blow this place up.”
“Better not, son,” said Sire Berry, “Long way from Forgetown. And look, I like it there, lovely to visit, but round ‘ere, dis is mine. So much as a funny smell comes out and... I fink we understand one another?”
“It’s only a brief visit, I’ve got to get back as you say to Forgetown.”
“Did dis goblin say dat?”
“I thought I’d save you the effort.”
Sire Berry beamed unpleasantly, “Dat’s a good boy.”
*
A statue draped in dripping ichors, bits of fur clung to the stone-wolf that was Stirge. Flies moved over him seeking the already long rotten meat. The wolves were still crying aloud, celebrating, delighting in their easy victory but Stirge heard the drum and turned about to the sound. He stomped over to Nichal. “It’s not over,” he said.
“If this is the best they have...”
“It is not over. Be ready.”
The drum was loud now. Though the trees could be seen more gnolls. These were hunched, but were big, the muscles on their arms crude, lumpen, but impressive. Most were draped in wired mail. They wore hides and carried weapons of iron and bronze. There were two banners made of poles and to which two shamen had been bound, nailed and slit open. They came on and their stench even quicker. They came on and from snouts and maws came the same deep note, the same guttural word.
Gror, Gror, Gror, Gror, Gror!
Amongst them a beast beneath the standards, two headed and taller than any other, drooling like an idiot child and with drums about its shoulder beat by a rider. To the fore walked another gnoll, this one dressed in gold and iron and with an axe in each hand. Its eyes were tiny. Its jaws wide and from what little flesh remained exposed jutted spikes and spines of bone. It shone wetly.
Gror, Gror, Gror, Gror, Gror!
“Up, up, up!” Nichal yelled. His sword bloody he pointed at the new enemy. “Now... kill!”
*
Once upon a time two rivers had made a loop here, whether by nature, design, or accident to leave an island several miles wide. Those rivers lost or killed by the city were now but wide, deep and rocky cracks that nowhere ran shallow and across at only two points enjoyed bridges. His team plodding onwards Orion crossed the first, that which joined a good track that eventually joined one of Jander’s silvery roads that crossed the territory. The bridge was certainly not new, but built when things were done entirely by hand would have taken a war engine to drop – and quite a big one at that. He was not the only one for a man with a cart in Deci that wanted reliable work outside of the orders of the city, then that man would soon hear about Sire Slice.
Said to be a man born on the wrong side of some Lord’s blanket the island he rumbled onto now was actually owned by Slice, just as were the two guard that ran a practised hand and eye over his cart now. Another ten sat nearby seemed idle as they played ratfink, but without the real tension that the game normally incited.
“Name?” he was asked by the guard, this guard a woman whose accent was closer to Sellaville than Deci. Neither she nor any of the others wore Held patches of any sort, nor either those of a Guild or even the heraldry appropriated by some Merchant Sires. If anything they looked like adventurers, their posture too. Orion in his travels knew there was any number like them that had once trod the trail before being retired to some figurative shelf never to be heard of again. He gave it, explained who had told him about the place, and from where. It did not take long thereafter to leave his wagon amongst others all as diverse as his own.
He stopped to see the stone storehouses ringing a square tower, noticed the octagonal structure that topped it and the strangely terraced houses that ran closest to the wagon park, so out of place here in the back of beyond. There was no tavern but a gather, and a large one, and to which he took himself.
Most within were itinerant carters like Orion. Chalked on a board were loads and prices, sat underneath it a squalid little man that answered much the same for those that could not pick out their numbers and the words that were for most the extent of their literacy. Slice made up caravans of individuals, forming them at times into caravans and here the man was his factor. There was plain food to be had, drink too, but none of it cheap and most would eat at their wagons. Like he the majority had no business further into what was a decent sized town. There were coughs and runny noses, a lot of banter and not so far away two men were rolling about the boards punching each other without noticing (or seemingly being noticed) by anyone else there.
“You,” said squalid-man pointing at Orion.
“Master?”
He seemed to like that, “Come here. I’ve not seen you before?”
“Up from Forgetown, master.”
Two of the carters formed up as if in line behind Orion, he made sure not to do anything silly – he was here for work after all. Squalid-man said, “Work can be had in Forgetown surely? Better paid too I hear...”
“Not so protected, master,” said Orion. People were only now moving about the territory. Brigands were scampering here and there though the last Orion had seen had been left at the roadside as if from some distant battle. “Folk don’t trouble Sire Slice,” which was true enough. No other Merchant Sire had either the whim or the ability to place what he heard were ‘curse markers’ over the loads. That and the fact that whilst Sire Slice did not employ caravan guards he did employ some sort of group that hunted down anyone who took that for a sign of weakness. There were also meant to be a lot of drow hereabouts, but Orion had so far seen none of them.
“You look a bit big for a carter?” said squalid-man.
“I didn’t always drive a cart, master. I’m just for an easy life now, or easier anyway. It serves for now, a year or so and I’m aiming to have the knack of it. Then...” he shrugged.
“Trader?”
“I can fight better than most, but I don’t know the roads or the life so well yet. And I’m not that particular about what I take, and where.”
Squalid-man’s face showed nothing as he used a stick to tap a mark for luxuries on the board. “We need that in the city inside the week,” he said.
Orion nodded and taking the little tin chitty offered tugged his forelock. He was directed to where another man waited to show him his load.
*
Running they easily crossed the distance. Berek snapped at his followers to keep up as they hurried down the slope to jump to the next and over a crack half covered in a fallen tree, its roots making a fan of earth high into the air. The canopy open momentarily because of it they dashed through blue wildflowers, a nest of snakes slipping away underfoot. Berek led them to the crest from where the ground dropped and flattened more gradually and across which the enemy stepped forward at an angle to them.
From the west the howls had picked up again. In a scramble Nichal’s Pack threw aside their grisly trophies, weapons and arms fetid to the elbow as with Nichal already running with Stirge stomping in longer strides to keep up they hurried to catch their chieftain.
“Draw!” said Berek. Bows were brought round. “Shoot,” he said and released so that nearly flat his arrow slapped through the air. Others joined it, shafts sprouted from the gnolls but few fell. “Again, again!” now Berek stepped forward, his people jogging with him, breathing hard to pull and shoot so that the end of the irregular warband ahead twitched and some fell. An owl flew forward to catch at fingers, at exposed eyes. Berek was running now, pausing only briefly to shoot, not aiming at anything more particular than the mass so that a few turned before being cracked about head and back to remain in their messy mob.
The gnolls half-dead standards cried, laughed. One screamed as an arrow took it in the leg and now Berek was urging his followers to shoot at only twenty paces so that they could hardly miss – the arrows glancing away, or sticking in armour or burly meat, waved off like another might the flies that were thick and ignored about them.
With a roar from their centre the gnolls went from the advance into a screaming challenge as elsewhere from Berek Nichal and Stirge hit only slightly off centre.
*
“Hush now,” said the Seething Man. On a belt he ran a curling blade to and fro, adding to an already fine edge. Hunted for years now he had returned still pursued by his old nemesis but here and in Catspit Row no one would disturb him.
*
Nichal’s Pack were driven back so that their very momentum saw them bounce awkwardly like a cracked wooden ball. Some had grabbed the gnolls or caught a sword between the armour so that they were dragged into the mob. The gnolls of the broken skull honked in triumph and Nichal cast into the air landed badly amongst them to be instantly surrounded and clubbed down, a blade smashing down on his back only to be turned by his wiry hide. He burst free bowling the nearest over even as Stirge surged into the line. Stirge with magic and his stone fists fought so that momentarily the mob parted behind them but still with blows cracked about each, and even cracking a livid line down his chest so that he staggered.
The pack, incensed, turned about and leapt at the enemy so that this time the broken skull was halted as the front lines descended into chaos. Those further back driven on by the drum rolled over the sudden melee and in places the eerie and unlikely order of the gnolls saw wolves snatched away to be killed in ones and twos.
“Kill them!” screamed Nichal, his wounds knitted as he shook off the blow that had nearly broken his back. He snarled, furious, and slammed into the nearest with his moon-bright blade flashing up and down, Stirge pushing after to smash down those that sought the chieftain.
Unable to shoot into the boiling melee Berek dragged at his sword, his followers seeing the need and casting aside their own bows. Fetch tore apart the crow he carried so that its blood speckled the closest. With a roar Berek hacked at those so touched, his own pack colder than Nichal’s, fighting in darts and snaps, dogs to a bear.
But both packs caught up in the fight and Nichal’s blurring into the enemy - gnoll and wolf died. Both died hard, both of whose broken bones tried to heal or rents to close. The enemy were more organised and hatefully set about the more individual wolves, rolling over them so that Berek fought to move about their rear, snapping and cutting them as he went.
When Gror turned about it was swing a tree-felling blow at Nichal. Nichal ducked and dropped to ram his sword into the brutal hams of the beast, the other leg suddenly slamming the ground where he was as he tumbled aside. Wolf howl rose in timbre even as it dwindled. Gnoll yip and grunts were shriller as it too rose above the screams and muted shudders of the injured and the dying. Gror stomped again and backhanded Nichal with one axe so that he crashed into Stirge, who unmoved caught the chieftain and thrust him back at the enemy.
Where the enemy hird had frayed at the rear Berek drove in, losing an ear and almost a hand as he did so. Fetch wailing at the mess jumped from one foot to the other as he thrust with his primitive looking spear. His eyes wide he tried to keep from the deeper melee that showed now no sense of neat lines, no feeling of champions and heroes so much as a butchery. Furious and terrible where he spied wolves cut near in half and gnolls torn to scraps. With a curse Fetch saw Gror and spying a gap slipped in, a thief in a battlefield. He ducked and even scrambled between the legs of one great brute to see where Berek had jumped on Gror’s back and where Stirge beat the beast about the head and shoulders. Gror swung about, cracking Stirge’s leg with an axe blow and making another to the neck before Fetch thrust his spear to tangle the enemy. Gror almost went down but reached up for Berek and slammed him to the ground. Stirge grasped the beast about the chest, Berek kicked round to snatch at a discarded sword to club at Gror’s legs when Nichal screaming jumped to catch at the beast’s shoulders.
Gror went down like a tree. Slowly and struggling and fighting all the way but held and tripped, forced down by Nichal and Berek, weighed down by Stirge – the three so tangled now none wanting to let go, fighting and biting, punching and butting and bones breaking as they did so.
Panicking, Fetch saw how the wider fight and those few remaining had drawn back. He caught up his firepike and kicking it until it blazed, then ran at the little fight yelling. It glanced off Stirge to catch under Gror’s chin. Stirge reached to hold it, Berek let go so that he and Nichal taking hold of the shaft could drive it deep into the beast.
Who slumped, shuddering, and fell away to a pool of filth and gore within its armour.
Wolves howled, gnolls honked, the fight fell back and into smaller knots as Nichal’s pack exhausted and bloody staggered and fell. Berek’s in better condition hurried for their bows, to pursue that enemy remaining – or certainly to keep them running.
“Had to... do it,” said Fetch. “Before it came into... its power, again.”
Nichal just lay on his back, breathing hard. Stirge rose frowning. Berek one handed patted himself down for a smoke. He said, “Nice to get ‘im when ‘e was all puny then, eh?”
“Ow...” said Nichal.
*
Without any great delight the five dwarves, already dead, had been nailed to one of the larger trees that stood over the pass into The Thorns. They had come some days before either seeking to steal the King’s gold or to make a name, or just because - to kill the dragon. Davian heard how they had arrived expecting to free people kept in thrall to a cruel black dragon, only for those very people to hiss and throw stones. The dwarves had been driven out only to return more stealthily, to penetrate to the King, and there to die (resistant or not) to his magic and his ritual. And very rightly done too had been the commoner’s opinion, that had left the dwarves now where others might see what happened to miscreants.
“I suppose it is to be expected,” said Davian. He had returned from discussions with the Earl to agree to Grudamagh’s wishes, as no one of any wit had doubted would be the case.
“It’s because we’re evil,” said Saw Tully. He like all those there were waiting for the formal declaration of the changes before using the title Lord – because now it was Lord Thorns or nothing.
“Are you?”
“I don’t know, it’s what priests say and we’ve no proper priests here, thank the King!”
If they were then Davian saw only people, no matter their histories where here a man’s past was of no consequence. They certainly did no evil, unless by accepting a dragons protection that made them evil. They were practical folk, widely travelled and now settled and somewhat like the best of the Heartlands they had skills and talents, and from whom he could call a tally to build this, that, or the other rather than ask the Guilds to come so far. They were not artisans so much as what commoners might have been when they had been peasants.
The night has threatened a storm from the mountains that had blown out to leave the morning bright, clear and with the scent of the pines that ran up the hills on the estates northern edge that had been here before other Pines had walked, and were here still. There were pigs here now too. Brought by a fellow that had fled through the river pass from the Alguz lands and which could be bought and even farmed had Davian the wish for it. It was a muddy place and not only would the pigs live better here than other herds, but Liar Liar had also suggested that they might do well set to ‘truffling’ on the slopes – whatever that meant. A pig farm, and trufflers, and some sort of gate for the pass entrance had occurred to him, somewhere to attract traders too where they could buy the mined ore and not trouble him with storing or shipping the stuff as it was dug up. There was gold and silver in the old mines, nothing Deci was short of but a means to make the estate pay its own way. Indeed, a better use than bundling it himself and seeking out carters for a market already glutted by better Jander ore.
The Dragon Ore on the other hand was more valuable and that was not for traders – that he had been approached about, a Sire Brass of Deci that dealt in such things. Brass would take whatever The Thorns could dig out, pay a fair price, and collect it. That sort of arrangement was not one a man mucked about with, but unless Davian wished to store the dangerous stuff or anyone else would guarantee such stable, regular income..?
Tully still with him Davian once more came to where he could see the nailed up bodies.
*
Custard leaning against the gate raised a hand in recognition of the Black Hat, he and a few others sat about the entrance where once the Watch might have done the same. Most of the pack were on the roofs and in the pits where the Windly divided Cheapside from Dogtown.
Sire Berry feeling a thirst upon him pushed open the door to the Braided Fox and seeing a similarly respectable member of local society clicked his fingers for service.
*
His face encased in the mask Gideon might have been taken for some spirit of the battlefield, something crow faced, something to pick at the dead. Seeing the effect it had on the old man he unlaced one side to show himself.
That old man spat into the pit he had been making with a pick and mattock. Heaps of clay and flinty chalk were piled atop hard baked spoil. A yard from the top bodies were laid head-to-toe, already bloated so that at times the man had to nick a belly with the pick and to a cloud of stinking gas from which lesser men might have recoiled. “Nice day forrit, mayor.”
It was too. Mask still free he nodded. “Need a hand?”
There was more to do but the old man had the dead in hand, and it was the living that needed attending to now. Not so far away three crows too fat to walk stood on a stone and close enough to the pit to look down, beaks open. They were just too full to caw.
*
The street nearly perfectly preserved had opened suddenly as once more he picked at what lay beneath the scab of the city above. It was wet, and now moss had come to cover the stone, the now-low buildings here each a pillar supporting that above. He was some distance from the temple, and having a little difficulty decided where he would have been, had he been above. Somewhere northerly, but somewhere perhaps not quite in that quarter, close though if not.
For a time he traced the street, sealed at one end and by his reckoning purposefully so. No collapse, no fall had made the barrier – but good work, stone laid and banded with what was now only a twisted wire of rust that might once have been a much sturdier band.
*
Forgetown was not as empty as Gideon had feared. If the caravans were not in evidence then carts and wagons still made their camps on the hard ground that made up much of the town. It was odd to even seen the ground, so used was he to this being the ever-changing but ever-crowded park for those coming and going from the city. No Merchant trains, no city caravans, he passed by traders and travellers, a few nomadic families and even a tribe whose donkeys were eating the tough scrub normally set by for oxen.
One donkey in particular could hardly be missed, for perched atop it and in a big, brass hat was Tirack. Gideon could see where armed with broom and buckets of foamy water a large number of beefy ladies and an equal number of wiry girls were giving the main drag a very good clean with vinegar-water. Further out of town and a fire must have been burning for the smoke drifting straight up was unmissable.
“What’s with the mask?” asked Tirack.
It was expected, a present from Sire Berry. The nose was meant to hold protective herbs and enable the healer to pass amongst the diseased. Originally. Years had gone by and as ever was typical folklore had decided reason to be too dull and had decided that it worked because the plague imps thought the healer one of their own. It comforted people for some reason. Gideon unhitched it, pointing out Tirack’s hat, which in turn was just very, very nice. “It suits you,” said Gideon.
“Does it really?”
“No, you look like some priest of the Forge.”
“Ah,” said Tirack, deciding that made sense but leaving it where it was, because despite Gideon he thought it looked rather spiffy.
Together they travelled the length of the drag. It was a town that whilst enjoying a more than decent population rarely had the same decent population month-on-month. Some had dug in, most had fled to Deci. Some few as had remained had been attacked by gnolls. It was difficult to say then who was yet to come back and who had been dragged off for the pot. For the first few days here the good wives (fortified by the garrulous purge supplied by Gideon) had entered the few dark places, hunted through the storehouses and temples and found bloated, sickening men and women. Each should have by all good reason been dead, leaking, splitting bodies ripe with pestilence and disease and left to infect others. With the traders that had arrived and with a stick of Jander’s that had escorted the first of the returnees they had put them out of their terrible misery, the only thing keeping them alive anyway (by some curious corruption) having been the plague itself. “That’s why the fire,” said Tirack with a jerk of his thumb.
There had been no gnollish bodies though there had been fighting here. For a short time the gnolls had run riot here, but they had been not been great in number. With easier pickings they had ignored the likes of the Cart & Hammer and the Temples where there people had barred the doors and windows.
“Anath’s sent salt,” said Gideon. Or rather had released the salt, it had been Gideon that had had to find the carters to shift the stuff.
“Good, good,” Tirack was confident that they would soon have the place hale once again. The raiders had been wanderers though he was grateful that Forgetown had been so well emptied by the city and the King. He shuddered to think what would have happened otherwise with so many in one place, when those raiders had hurried back or by whatever means drawn more here. The town would have ended up being a fortified den of them now otherwise, with plenty to eat and play with and the city left to take it back doubtless at yet more dreadful cost.
People were still sick however. The seasonal sniffs and vomiting were worse than he could remember and he had moved swiftly to make people comfortable, to rally everyone round and to secure most of the founding-fathers buildings and demesne as somewhere to keep them away from others where it got really bad. Every day fewer died, and for most it would just leave the usual aches and agonies – or at least when he his hands on all the precious salt they had been promised. He could have done with running a few plague hounds through the place, but that would probably have only caused trouble with all the wolves Tirack had heard had taken over the north quarter.
Turning aside at the Cart & Hammer, Tirack dismounted. “You might want to see one or two things though...” he said more quietly, and with a nod of the head took Gideon away from the work already done.
*
“I was sorry to hear about your uncle,” said King Troy. The party was as ever in the Spire a pointed affair. Every word measured, every opinion balanced. The Deci Nobles were through culture, history and experience a body not given to trust. Though the great game of Deci had dwindled in the years of Empire still it was ingrained in them all to reach the top, to be the ruler, and if Troy enjoyed the support of his council and confederates then that was why he had not been toppled, not an example of how things were. In the Empire then amongst the Nobility the consensus was to the benefits of a lasting Empire. In Deci it was that the Empire was a pretty enough sort of thing, but that really it would pass, or did not touch on them here. Unity under the King was a dance, a song to which they sometimes mouthed the words.
Fat as buttered pudding Earl Athnas Hail was a man considerably older than his wife, Ellei. Berina had suggested to Troy that there had once been something between she and Talath – that it might have been Talath now standing here as Earl Hail instead of Athnas. This man had come to the lordship of his House after the slow death of Abbaj, and the accidental riding accident incurred by the only other pretender to the title Jarakel. That the Majius had not had a hand in all this in hindsight rather surprised Troy. Hail as a House had suffered the most through the border disputes with Eartholme, but word was that Athnas had increased, improved and restored their lands in much the same way as Troy had done with those of his own House. With House Claugh and House Marston no longer concerned with Deci then Hail stood only a little less powerful than the Majius. “He was a worthy man, a great man,” lied Athnas. “We all miss him terribly and revere his name yearly when I, unlike he, marry the land.”
“That’s a bit of a Heartlands tradition isn’t it?”
“Yet, aren’t we all a part of the Empire now?”
Of course they were.
*
“The place would have been festering,” said Tirack as they walked away from the street long taken over by the Ishmaics. There where for some time now several families had served food and dealt with some of the stranger trades they were still barricaded up and not allowing even the mayor to enter. He spoke quietly, not wanting to trouble the people returning. “Give it another month or three and there would have been fetid dead things in every room, the buildings tarnished and flies the size of birds thick in the air,” but not now he thought. He did not think the gnolls had made a trap, but it might have been something. But something now that would soon be forgotten, a something that had never come to pass.
“What is it with them?” Gideon asked about the Ishmaics.
“They don’t trust us not to be stinking with disease. I believe they’ve got some of it already, but they’re not taking chances.”
“There’s more to it than that,” said Gideon with a sniff.
“Yes, but short of attacking them I’m rather at a loss. They’re armed and determined, hopefully when the town is clean again they’ll see sense but we haven’t been able to search their little lanes,” he shrugged. By cutting themselves off whatever was in there would likewise remain. But at least he and Gideon knew about it, whatever ‘it’ was.
They had walked across the town before Tirack spoke again. He ducked his head into one of the storehouses, broken into, fouled and cleared but by the light admitted from the door he pointed to where thick in the eves were dusty webs.
“Spiders?”
“Looks like it. And they’re everywhere, the quieter the better. Some of these stores don’t get opened for months. There were a lot of them in the rooms above the Cart & Hammer. There was a lane off the drag half thick with them. But whilst I’ve seen a lot of webs, I’ve not seen any spiders,” said Tirack, “Or anything else to make them. Some we cleared off had half returned the next day.”
“Odd.”
“And when it’s dark,” he pulled shut the door.
Gideon wrinkled his nose at the smell of musky piss that fought the more recent scent of fatty ash and vinegar they used hereabouts for soap, although never on the person. The webs now sparkled, specks of light like faint stars caught in the clotting cover above their heads.
By Alan Morgan