by Daniel Casey
When they had closed the door, the lord’s demeanor changed, becoming more confident and his eyes narrowed, “I am Kyrio Tobin, Master Rainway.”
Rainway tilted his head, blinked, and leaned against the wall crossing his arms, “Declan is fine. I’ve been in a good while, ya know.”
“Yes, well, if you had somewhere better to be you’d be there wouldn’t you, hireling?” Tobin said dismissively. He went over to one of the tables, pulled a chair out for himself, and sat, without ever breaking eye contact.
“Doesn’t make it right. Plenty of inconvenience for me being here.” Declan pushed off from the wall and walked slowly towards Tobin.
“Your compensation will be enough.” Tobin seemed to relax as he crossed his legs and folded his hands on his lap.
“For what work, exactly?”
Tobin smiles, “Soon there will be two Cassubians traveling on the highroad from Sulecin to Anhra on their way to Lappala.”
Declan broke in, “That’s a bit of a trek. Just the two?”
Tobin continued ignoring the question, “One will be an alm and the other a paladin. They’ll…”
“And I’m supposed to what? Kill them?” Declan interrupted turning away from Tobin and again toward the window.
“That wouldn’t be difficult for a man like you,” Tobin scoffed, “Nor would it be difficult for us to do ourselves.”
“So then?” Declan unfolded his arms and held is hand up waiting for Tobin to get to the point.
Tobin pulled a purse from a pocket in his sleeve, “This is a hundred and fifty aurei.” He held it up and as he shook it, Declan’s eyes went right to it.
“That’s not enough to kill a Cathedral crusader.” He shook his head but never took his eyes off the purse.
Tobin sighed, “We don’t want you to kill anyone.” He tossed the purse to Declan hard but he caught it firmly, “And we’ll pay you twice that once we know that the two are safe. Here.”
Declan held the purse, judged its weight, then tossed it up and down, “That makes a wholotta no sense.”
“Let me be clear, we don’t want you to kill anybody. We just want you to keep an eye on the two. Monitor their progress and perhaps…” Tobin smiled as he continued to give instructions. “Guide them to us.”
“Guide them?” Declan looked doubtful, “You mean you want me to change their route from Lappala to Ardavass without them knowing? That won’t happen.”
“They don’t need to not know they are being diverted. In fact, making it clear that coming to us is a necessary detour will most likely help.” Tobin seemed indifferent but then leaned forward, “There will be others looking to harm them.”
Declan smirked, “So I need ta shadow ‘em an’ dispose of these others.”
Tobin shook his head, “You don’t need to stop anyone that might cross their path but if the two do have their mission terminated, you need to acquire proof of their demise.”
Declan listened, but his mind began to wander as he tried to figure out what the Spires wanted with embroiling themselves with the Cathedral. It was quickly becoming clear that this wasn’t above board with the Spires and the idea of being mired in the politics of the Cathedral was not appealing. However, the purse’s weight in his hand felt right and he couldn’t help but fantasize about how good twice the amount would feel, “So, go on then. Tell us some more…”
Rikonen, Lammas Day
The morning blue was cold, the air thin carrying sharp echoes from distant alleys. In the background, the white noise of the bay mixed with the hum of the scattered fires sending up black columns from throughout the city. Fery opened her eyes and immediately shot up; there was a moment of shock and disorientation. Every morning started this way. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to fight to wake herself, the last time she fought to stay in a warm slumber from a deep safe sleep. She couldn’t remember when the sound of birds in the morning had stopped. These days Rikonen never fell asleep nor ever woke up. It was bleeding into Fery, getting to the point where she was merely abiding not surviving.
She looked around the room and realized where she was. The night before had been moonless, she had made her way through the alleys of the third ward trying to stay ahead of the cannibal gangs that had flushed her out of her last hiding spot. The third ward had been the distillery district, small but distinctive with its tall and narrow stone buildings whose cream color bricks stood out from the rest of the city’s white plaster. For hundreds of years the district had taken a portion of the grain and seed harvest from the plains outside the city creating one of the most popular and strong spirit the world had seen. But it’d been one of the first wards shutdown because of The Blockade, then the first to be abandoned. Fery had hoped she could steal away for at least the night here and, if things went well, perhaps longer.
The morning became brighter as she remembered where she was. It was a storehouse, cold, hard, and vacant. Fery threw off the tarp she’d been using as a blanket and looked around to absorb more details of the place now there was light. Most of the level was open with pillars roughly every twenty feet and huge arched open-air windows lined the three walls. She had climbed up four floors, the wind whipped through leaving Fery unable to stop trembling. She stood and began folding up the canvas. Kneeling as she stuffed it away, her stomach lurched and she felt a rumble go through her entire torso. She needed to eat, but her food was nearly gone—small pouch of goosefoot, a heel of heavy bread, and the brick of cheese she had stolen.
“No,” she whispered to herself as she looked at the cheese, “I didn’t steal it. She was dead, I was alive.”
Still, she hadn’t taken a bite of the cheese since she had pried it from the dead woman’s hands. Every time she raised the cheese to her mouth, she saw the corpse’s face, the woman’s last living look. Resignation. How had she died? Fery didn’t know. Most likely exposure. A hunk of cheese, a treasure. The woman had not marks on her, no blood. Perhaps she had frozen to death or her heart just gave out. She’d seen it before on the streets, people who had just given up. Some had taken their own life—many hung themselves, more than she would have thought had the will to impale themselves with makeshift stakes. A good number had stabbed themselves in the neck and bled out; it had gotten so common before the flesh-eaters that folk called it Parmentier’s Way. It made little sense to Fery, dying by your own hand. She couldn’t imagine not living, but every day that she saw more corpses she felt herself spinning away from sanity.
Every morning it was more and more difficult to not eat the cheese. Holding it in her hands now, feeling her gut twist in a pain that wasn’t going to go away. Her mind raced. What if she didn’t eat it? What if she just kept on not eating and wasted away? How was that any different from the Parmentier Way? What if she lost it? Or if it was stolen? Then, all her noble hesitancy would have been for no one’s benefit—a complete waste of food, of effort. She had to eat. Gripping the brick with both hands, she broke off a piece. Holding it between her thumb and two fingers, she brought it to her mouth and slowly pressed it past her lips. It was dry and hard, but as it sat on her tongue, she could feel a thick creaminess flood her palate. She fought the urge to devour the whole brick and began to chew slowly. Fery felt her body relax.
Sitting with her legs beneath her, she let her hands drop to her knees. She swallowed and took another piece, for an instant it there was a flood of normalcy in her heart. Wrapping up the rest of the cheese, she stowed her food away and tied her pack up. Standing, she threw her pack over her shoulder and walked the length of the floor looking for anything she could use. As she walked she pulled the pack’s straps tight to her body—shoulder, chest, and waist—and looked around. The likelihood of there being any food in the building was slim but even if she only got a handful of seed, it would increase her chances. There was nothing here for her. But that meant there was nothing here for anyone else. Fery smirked and kept tightening her straps, she wasn’t going to have another satchel stolen from her by other
desperates or the city’s own obstacles. This floor was empty but there looked to be at least two more above her. She paused at the stairway and listened hard. There was the flutter of birds.
“Pigeons, maybe even gulls.” She whispered, “One of those could make a meal. And the roof might have some pools of rainwater.”
Reaching down along her thigh, she unsnapped a leather flap revealing a blade pocket and pulled out two small makeshift knives. Little more than pieces of twisted scrap metal, but a day of shaving against stone had given each enough of an edge to serve a purpose. She held them tightly in each hand and began to make her way up. She moved deliberately, straining to hear any movement from above or below, her guard rising as the brightness of the day grew.
Stepping onto the roof, she spied her prey—four pigeons perched on the edge of the building. She froze and thought for a moment calculating just how she should move. One good throw could get her what she needed, except she was usually a terrible shot. Moving even slower than before, she tried to get into a position where she could throw both blades. Sudden motion would send these birds flying off, but if she could simply stand and throw, she might be able to catch one. She doubted her skill. Ribbon dancing had never taught her how to throw, if only the birds would just sit still while she tumbled and pirouetted towards them. Fery let out a long sigh, her muscles tensed, and she focused on the birds; she was stone for minutes it seemed. Then she spun throwing both her knives one after the other, the birds soared in a flutter of coos and down. She came to a standstill and glared. Over the edge and into the empty air her first knife disappeared. Her second, though, had found its mark. At least, after a fashion.
The pigeon wasn’t dead and was spinning erratic, unable to fly. Fery bolted and pounced on the bird griping it with both hands. Its beak tore into her hand’s flesh between her thumb and index finger and she felt its feet scratching her wrist. She held the bird tighter than she had ever held anything and began twisting its neck. It took all of a few seconds before she felt the weight of the dead creature. She smiled.
Then she heard it. Voices coming from the streets below. Fery froze.
“It just came flying down from there.” A boy’s voice.
“Did you see anything else?” A man’s voice.
“Just few birds.”
“It’s probably nothing, let’s move on.” A different man said.
“That’s not just a piece of debris, someone made that.” The first man coolly replied.
“Can’t we just…” The boy whined.
“Shut up!” The first man barked. There was stillness, and then he spoke with certainty, “We’re checking it out.”
Fery heard them speaking as they entered the building but couldn’t make anything out. She felt panic rising from her gut. Quickly, she loosened some of her pack’s straps, spun it around to her chest, stuffed the dead pigeon inside, and then pulled the straps tighter than they had been. There was only one-way onto the roof, Fery bolted along the perimeter frantically looking for an escape—a ladder down or a nearby roof to jump to. There was nothing. She came back around to where she started and looked over. There were five cords about a foot apart from each other coming from the story below running across the alley to the next stone building. She couldn’t tell if the lines were wire or rope. Maybe twenty feet to the cords, maybe fifty to the ground, she estimated.
The voices of the men echoed up the stairway as they drew closer. They were still bickering and it didn’t sound like they cared too much who or what heard them. These weren’t flesh-eaters, but Fery didn’t want to discover just who they were. The last time she had given the benefit of the doubt she’d been beaten to a pulp and nearly raped. Only the sound of a surging gang of flesh-eaters had scared off her attackers. She barely had time to crawl through a shop basement window before the flesh-eaters came through. Fery felt the scab of the jagged cut she suffered from that encounter that ran along her shoulder begin to burn. She was getting flush; she was panicking.
Jumping was becoming the option that kept flashing through her mind. Heart racing she tried to think. Leaping for the cords and missing would send her to the ground. That’d crush her, if not dead then just as well. She had to grab the cords, shimmy or swing across on them. How could she make sure she caught them though? Her hands were shaking, her head kept jerking back and forth between the roof entrance and the cords below. Finally, she balled her fists up, clenched her jaw, and closed her eyes.
“Just act, trust your body.” Fery said aloud the mantra her ribbon dancing tutor had drubbed into her.
Keeping her pack on, she yanked her buff coat off through the straps. She twisted the some of its corners and tied them to her pack straps, then took the sleeves and tied them around her hands. Taking a few steps back she winced, ran toward the edge, and leapt. Fery turned her body so she saw the street coming towards her but she spread her arms out, her coat puffed up a bit—a poor man’s parachute. It didn’t feel like it slowed her, though she guess it maybe gave her just a few seconds of control. She hit the cords—the hard, tight rope felt like boards hitting her chest. Instantly she wrapped her arm around one of the cords and tried to get her feet around one. She could hear her coat rip as she reached out frantically to grab another cord. The line she held cut into her palm but she didn’t let go. Just as her fingertips pulled her close enough to grab another line, she spun upside down. Her arm went out dangling, and then she heard the scrap and creak of the moorings loosen. She looked back at her building in time to see the mooring shoot out because of her weight on the line; she went flying toward the opposite building.
She hit the wall hard, heard a pop, and felt a pull if not a tear in her shoulder. A blinding pain swept over her. Her grip loosened and she slide down the cord. Fery had the presence of mind to guide herself into the window below her. She slide into the window arch opening and caught the sill with her heel pulling herself inside. It was the least graceful entrance that Fery could have ever imagined. She lurched forward, her feet on the sill her body hanging out into the room with her arms caught back in the lines. Yanking on the cords, she fell forward. Her legs hit the floor; she stood for a mere moment and then crumpled into a ball. Her shoulder was dislocated and her other hand still tangled in the cord and her coat. She laid in a heap, one-half of her collapsed and the other jetting out taut. Fery gave a few hard pulls and finally fell down completely. She laid there for what seemed like an eternity, her vision blurred and filled with white stars.
When she finally stood up, she felt the burn of the cuts the pigeon had left in her hand and those left by the cords. Her vision blurred, she blinked a few times then pressed her good hand to her eyes and pressed the tears out. Letting out a long sigh, she looked around the room. It was a mirror image of where she had spent the night. Standing she stumbled to the wall, sucked in her breath, and threw her shoulder against it. She didn’t cry out but rather gave a weak yelp; tears streamed downed making clean channels down her grim covered face. Everything hurt, but she realized that she was only one building over from the men who might mean her harm. Fery found the stairs and made her way down.
Finally, she made it to the ground floor; she moved slowly trying to hear any voices or movement. She turned away from doorways opening to the street and walked through to the back of the building. There were no windows; she dragged herself through the dark using the walls to keep herself upright. Finally, she came to a door where light peaked through the cracks. Fery tried to open it. The hinges were stiff and the metal door had been warped just enough to make opening it difficult. She pushed and tried to kick it open, but she only succeeded in making a noise. Stepping back, Fery let out a long breath and focused then turned toward the door and with her good shoulder slammed into the door. Wincing, she saw the crack of light had widened just so. She did it again and then again, each time opening the door a little more.
“Almost there,” she mumbled as she felt her injured shoulder throb, “Just one more and I can slip throug
h.”
Pain swam all through her body. Yet she summoned one last push, hit the door, and felt it give way. Hard glaring light poured over her, it was blinding. Her momentum took her forward into the alley. Without knowing it at first, she crashed into a body. Terror seized her and she was about to kick out when the arms of the body she had ran into wrapped around her. She tried to spin around. She thrashed pushing back terrified.
“What the?” A man’s voice, the voice of the body holding her.
“Get off me!” Fery lashed out. She kicked the man holding her in the shin, and then shoved her palm up into his nose. He released her, swearing as he fell back.
“Calm down.” Another man spoke. Fery spun around to face him, her hands held up in tiny fists. She was disgusted with herself; she felt the blood rush to her face.
“You can’t, you…don’t hurt me, I have…nothing.” Fery could barely get out a thought; she was choking on her rage, a mix of shame and anger.
“We’re not going to hurt you.” The second man said, he held out his hands and took a step back.
“We’re civics,” the man Fery had struck was slightly bent over but looking at her intensely. He wasn’t angry, he straighten himself and reached out to her, “Civics, do you hear? We won’t hurt you.”
Fery took a moment, looked at the men. They weren’t dressed like the mobs or haphazardly like herself; they wore bright red wool tunics under grey quilted jerkins. Their buttons were a polished silver and each had a well-made falchion at their hip. Fery looked from one man to the other and back again, their expressions were of a mixture of surprise and concern.
“Civics…” She croaked and lowered her fists slightly.
“Yes, civics.” The man she had hit stood up to his full height. “I’m Soren,” he leaned back stretching while making a dismissive gesture to the other man, “And that’s Calum.”
Fery’s eyes went wide, and she couldn’t help but start shaking. Suddenly, exhaustion hit her and she found it hard to stand. She faltered nearly collapsing. Soren sprung to catch her.
