by Andrew Lynch
Scraggy was on the branch above Khleb, sticking his head out above the tree to see if he could spot anything. Khleb knew all he could see was the forest canopy, but it was a good excuse to stretch his legs.
Fibrosis Fred began backing up towards the tree with his hands up. Khleb yanked his dagger out of the tree, and prepared himself. Normally they heard the strike teams before they got this close - or spotted their bright blue cloaks swishing through the undergrowth - but Khleb gave Scraggy the signal to come down - a swift yank on his belt.
The team was ready to jump. Fibrosis Fred had backed up to the tree just as he’d done dozens of times before, when the tip of a sword came into view through the leaves.
It didn’t come any further. Fred glanced up at them quickly.
‘Bowman,’ Khleb whispered.
Deadly Ted knew his job. He scurried to the end of his branch. He’d handle the ranged threat.
Khleb preferred it when the strike team was stupid enough to walk right beneath them. Much quicker. Much less dangerous.
He heard the rustling of Deadly Ted jumping off a branch, and then landing on an unfortunate bowman. A very unique sound. Khleb was glad to get to work, because his leg was just about to cramp up again.
He leapt out of the tree.
* * * *
Garadan walked back from the market. He’d done his shopping late, as usual. He’d started avoiding crowds as much as possible since the Rebel Alliance started their raids on the inner city. Monarch district was the safest place to be, because burning it down would be an improvement. Gods, leaving it standing was the worst thing the rebels could do.
As the diversity of the rebel forces became common knowledge, Empire citizens had become more hostile towards foreigners. As if the rebels would have chosen a two metre tall person with a different skin colour to everyone else as their spy. Then again, maybe they would - Garadan didn’t know, and planned to stay out of it.
Every morning he went to the steps of the guild of medicine and offered his services, for free, if the number of wounded became too much. Every time he was ignored. He’d then rush to get home before the crowds became too dense. The last thing he wanted was a mob chasing him.
Because of this he hadn’t managed to visit any of his friends, holing himself away. He was going stir crazy, and in these times found himself longing for home. But he knew he couldn’t return to Karakgar. Yet.
He rounded the corner, expecting to see his dilapidated old shack, but instead saw a man run face first into his chest. He didn’t really feel it. The man had wild eyes, barely visible as a hood covered his face. He rebounded off Garadan’s chest and fell to the floor. It was a city guard, so his running made sense. No sane guardsman would be in the Monarch district for any longer than he absolutely had to. Garadan moved to help the guard up, but he was too slow. The guard jumped back to his feet and ran off. Garadan thought nothing of it.
Dilapidated was definitely the correct word for his shack. He couldn’t pronounce it, but he knew it. He had the money to fix it up, but a fixed house in this district was a beacon. As it was, it only had a high chance of being broken into - not a guaranteed chance. Usually, the perpetrators would sneak in through a loose panel, see that he was the occupant, and quickly decide they'd come to the wrong house, being very apologetic on the way out. Well, everyone had to make a living, Garadan supposed.
And it was this thought that brought him back to his shack. Everyone has to make a living. He wondered how the two people at his door made a living. Maybe they were common thieves. Certainly if you found yourself in the Monarch district, you weren’t a noble. Everything you could find here you could find somewhere much safer at a much higher price.
The light was just leaving the city, but their clothing caught the last few rays. Rebels. One was banging on the door so hard, it was unclear if he wanted it opened or if he’d just break it off its hinges himself.
The other was hunched over, being held up by the first.
There was no need for caution. No need to introduce himself. They were here for help. How they'd known about him, Garadan didn’t know, but he hurried towards them.
‘Move,’ Garadan said, pushing past the men and unlocking his door. Of course the lock didn’t protect his shack, but the people of the Monarch district were very particular about home safety. Too much, and you were clearly protecting something worth stealing. Too little, and you were clearly trying to seem like you didn’t have anything worth stealing, and so were clearly hiding something worth stealing.
Garadan chucked his food on the floor in a corner, and helped the hunched man inside.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Guards got him. You have to help!’ the worried one said.
Garadan picked the wounded man up without effort and placed him on the table in the centre of the room.
‘No come here,’ Garadan said. He didn’t want to get involved with the rebels, but he enjoyed the chance to flex his medical muscles. He’d only treated a few cuts and bruises from the locals since he’d returned.
The other man began to make excuses but Garadan ignored them.
He ran his eyes over the wounded man. Brown boots seemed intact, no issue there. Dark leggings with no signs of damage. Head was fine - a cut on his left cheek was healing, probably a few days old. Sleeves of his shirt were tatty but without blood stains, so it was safe to assume that wasn’t the issue. Minor cuts and grazes on his hands, nothing someone wouldn’t expect from his line of work.
Garadan was satisfied that he could focus on the obvious injury. The man had been disemboweled. Live or die, he was going to be in a lot of pain, and that alone could kill him. Garadan couldn’t keep anything of value in the Monarch district, and that included vials of liquid - medicines that he’d need to save this man’s life.
‘Money?’ Garadan asked.
‘What? Oh, yes. Of course.’ The man took a pouch from his waist and handed it over to Garadan.
‘Two streets. Corner.’ Garadan pointed out the door. ‘Blindweed.’
The man stood and didn’t seem to comprehend the instructions.
Garadan asked for his name. ‘Rambles,’ the man stuttered out. Clearly his plans hadn’t gone beyond getting his friend here. He’d mentally checked out, probably in shock. He was still holding out the pouch of coins.
‘Rambles. Your friend in pain.’ Garadan spoke slowly and clearly, his voice deep and calming. ‘Blindweed stop pain. You want your friend in pain?’
‘Uhh, no. No, I don’t.’ Rambles' brain kicked into gear, and he clutched the pouch to his chest instead of holding it out dumbly. ‘Blindweed. Got it.’ He turned and sprinted out the door.
It would have been safer to have his sword in his hand, not the money pouch, but that was up to him now.
Garadan spoke to the man on the table. ‘Hello? You hear?’
The man lay still, gasping for breath. The effort of getting to Garadan’s house had exhausted him.
‘Your name?’ Garadan always liked to talk to his patients as he worked. Back in Karakgar it was common practice, but in the Empire medicine was considered more of a dark art and still shrouded in secrecy.
Garadan decided he couldn’t wait for the blindweed, and started work.
‘I pull off cloth. See wound.’
He did as he said. The man had been holding his guts in since the wound was inflicted. Garadan was amazed by the human body sometimes. The pain it could tolerate, the damage it could sustain. As he thought this the ache in his own joints flared up - to remind him of the meaning of irony, presumably.
He poked around. ‘Hey. You lucky,’ he said, with a genuine smile.
He didn’t care for the political wars between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, but it had been a long time since he’d had a critically ill patient. The adrenaline of knowing that life and death was in his hands washed through him. The knowledge that he would do all he could to make the outcome be life, satisfied a part of him he had tried to quash since
he came to the Empire.
‘I know you hurt. Rambles be back soon. Stitch you up. Let you rest. You be fine.’ Once the blindweed had knocked the man out, the conscious mind would stop complicating the issue, and he’d heal up. His innards were unscathed - just severe blood loss to tackle. He’d live thanks to Garadan.
The uneven sound of feet slapping on cobbles, like a child that hadn’t mastered running yet, echoed from outside and shortly turned into an out of breath Rambles piling into the shack, slamming the door behind him, and panting. He held his money pouch to his chest still.
‘No blindweed,’ Rambles panted. ‘Didn’t know what to get. Emperor’s light. Sand thorn. Farmer’s tickle. Got as much as I could.’
‘Things people do to escape guard,’ Garadan said to the wounded man, who simply groaned.
Rambles poured the contents of his pouch on to the table. He’d spent everything on these drugs. Either he had more somewhere else, or he was a very dedicated friend. Garadan pushed around the small wax paper packets and picked the Emperor’s light. A fine powder, usually mixed into a liquid. A drug for the nobles of the city, named to appease them. It was made by crushing the seeds of a plant - the plant was called stink vine. A fact no one told the nobles who abused it, because that way they could keep making money off them. It suited everyone.
Garadan had no time to start a fire and boil water to dissolve the powders. ‘Hold mouth open.’
For a second, Garadan thought Rambles was actually going to just open his own mouth. Luckily for everyone, Rambles realised that Gar meant his friend. As he held it, Garadan ripped the package open over his mouth. It would taste terrible and stay that way for days, but the pain would be dulled within a minute.
‘I stitch.’ Garadan was still talking to the patient, but naturally Rambles assumed it was directed at him. ‘I sorry about place. Not clean. Unsafe.’
‘It’s better than dying on the streets,’ Rambles said, flopping into a Garadan sized chair in the corner. Sleep found him almost immediately.
The wounded man joined his friend in sleep, his breathing rhythmic. Garadan could begin. He took a leather case from his waist and unfolded it on the table next to the bleeding man. He’d stitched his friends up plenty of times on the road, so he’d stayed in practice, but this was butcher’s work. No finery needed. Just needed to clean the wound and sew it up.
He realised that he had been caught up in the thrill of healing someone, and hadn’t asked basic questions. Had they been followed by the guard? Was he about to have his shack burned down, or were the guards killing everyone they found aiding the rebels? It wouldn’t have changed anything. He’d help anyone. For his friends that went without saying, but he was addicted enough to the gamble of holding a life in his hands that rebels, Imperials - it was all the same to him. He had even helped Malum survive. Someone who had enslaved a God. It wasn’t that he had a desire for equality and felt that everyone deserved to live. He just loved healing people.
As he was musing over his abuse of power, heating a needle over a candle, his front door opened. He spun round, expecting the guard to barge in and start killing. It was equally bad, but on a different scale.
‘All right, mate?’ Khleb asked.
Khleb seemed to accept the scene before him without question. He took it in for a moment, his eyes lingering on the wounded man, Garadan’s tools, and the sleeping man in the chair.
‘Bad time?’
If it had been anyone else, Garadan would have asked for an assistant, but hygiene was already an issue. ‘Come back later.’
Khleb did a double take on spying the man in the chair. ‘Rambles! How’s it going? Bit of trouble, eh?’
And that explained how they had known to come to Garadan.
Rambles startled, and woke. ‘Oh. Khleb? Why are you here?’
‘Good question,’ Garadan said pointedly. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Khleb, he just didn’t like him enough to want to spend his time off around him.
Khleb chuckled. ‘What can I say, the rebels have good scandal girls, and I may have dipped my wick in an orcish—'
Garadan mentally blocked the rest of that analogy. That was the only reason Khleb came here. He was tired of seeing Khleb’s genitals. Garadan never even asked to, Khleb just did it.
‘I would offer to come back another time, mate, but it’s a bit difficult to get out now,’ Khleb said to Garadan.
‘Why?’
‘Weren’t easy getting here. Bloody crawling with guards out there. Whatever you did, Rambles, you boys pissed 'em off.’
Rambles jumped out of the chair, hand straight to the hilt of his sword. ‘Gods, they know we're here.’
‘Hah, yeah! They definitely followed you. Sucks a bit. Anyway, about my issue...’ Garadan could see the cogs in Khleb’s brain turn as his words trailed off. ‘You know what? I just got myself trapped, didn’t I?’ Khleb drew his daggers.
‘No fight. Fight, he die,’ Garadan said, motioning to the man he was poking with a needle. Bumping into the guard running away from his shack made sense now.
‘They'll kill us here and now for what we just did. No trial, nothing!’ Rambles said.
‘Don’t care. No fight.’
Khleb sheathed his daggers and cautioned Rambles. ‘Honestly, mate, don’t try it when he gives you that face. He'll get you before the guards do.’
Rambles sheathed his sword cautiously. ‘Well, what shall we do?’
At that very second, a man in a pristine uniform barged through the front door, weapon held ready.
‘Hide!’ Darrius said.
Garadan had a lot of questions. First among them was why Darrius wasn’t still on bed rest - but this was the kind of situation where if you didn’t follow unexpected orders, from unexpected people, you wouldn’t live long enough to ask said questions.
Khleb took care of himself, his natural state of hiding from things shining through. He found a loose wooden board that Garadan hadn’t known about and slid in. Khleb’s hiding place was perfect, but there was no way Garadan would fit.
He grabbed Rambles by the collar, dragging him over to the privy door. Garadan might live in the Monarch district, but he allowed himself the extravagance of a separate room to get some really good thinking done. Still, it was a small room, and the two of them only just fit. As a good host, he stood on the seat, allowing Rambles to stay on the floor.
There was a gap between the top of the door and the frame. He always claimed it was for ventilation and definitely wasn’t just shoddy craftsmanship. Now, it allowed him to see out. Darrius stood in the doorway, his bright blue cloak and oversized cloth pauldrons identifying his silhouette as a guard, even before the details of the large crest on his tunic came into focus. His small, cloth cap signalled he was on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder. Darrius waved to someone from outside.
Another guard entered, no-one Garadan recognised, and took up position on the opposite side of the door to Darrius. They looked almost identical. In what they wore at least. That was one thing the guard got right - uniforms. No quicker way of making everyone look generic and faceless than military uniforms. Maybe it made it easier for the generals to send them to their deaths, Garadan mused.
A third guard stepped into the room, which was now seeming rather cramped, and made Garadan feel a brief pang of loss over his spacious chambers in Karakgar. This one wore the same as the others, but his hat was more structured, as opposed to the limp cloth lying on Darrius’ head. It was still cloth, but had a brim. As Garadan tended to have trouble with the guards, he had learned that marked him as being a rank above the guards on door duty. First the cap upgraded to a hat, then the pauldrons became leather, then the hat did, then everything became leather, and finally metal. Eight ranks for the normal guard. That made Darrius and his colleague raw recruits, and the newcomer a rank above them.
Also, this rank two guard was Lucian.
Garadan had more questions.
Darrius mumbled something into Lu
cian’s ear, causing Lucian’s face to go completely neutral, giving nothing away. He must have just been told whose house this was.
Lucian looked around the room, and went over to inspect the wounded rebel. He turned so Darrius could see his face without the other guard seeing, and mouthed a question. Darrius shrugged. A silly move that made his pauldrons hit the sides of his head.
Lucian checked to see if the man on the table was still breathing. He took much longer than Garadan would have, but eventually stood up and left the room.
Darrius and the other guard sheathed their swords and saluted as yet another guard entered. This one had metal pauldrons and a metal skullcap. By Garadan’s logic that made him a seventh rank guard.
Lucian was right behind this seventh rank. ‘It seems they entered here, Lieutenant. The room is ready for your inspection.’
‘Mhhm. This is your show, corporal. I’m just making sure you’re competent. We'll leave the corpse for the denizens of this district. Probably be stripped to the bone by morning.’ The Lieutenant, like most guards, didn’t think much of the Monarch district. To be fair, no one did. ‘What do you make of it?’
Lucian stepped to the middle of the room, next to the makeshift operating table, and stood to attention.
‘Clearly, at least one of them entered here. Presumably he was aided by the other two—'
‘Don’t assume anything with the rebels. Traitorous scum.’ The Lieutenant spat on the floor.
‘Yes, sir. It’s possible he got here on his own. There’s no sign of anyone else now, and the footsteps in the blood could easily be his. The slash one of our men managed to inflict on him seems to have done the job.’ Garadan let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. He hadn’t had time to clean the wound or sew it, but that shouldn’t have killed him this quickly. Maybe he gave too much Emperor’s light? No, not enough to kill someone.
‘And that’s it. No sign of the other two entering or leaving the premises, so either this was just a quiet hole this one found to die in, or our presence scared them off. They could be in the area, so we should head back out. Now.’ Lucian finished giving his assessment. Garadan couldn’t tell if he was showing off his usual lack of observational skill, or if he was concealing information from the Lieutenant. The last month of travel hadn’t helped him figure out when Lucian was hiding what he knew. Garadan just knew he was definitely hiding something from the group. But they all had their secrets. Apart from Khleb, who simply refused to feel shame.
