Fox's Novel: A QUEEN'S LEGACY

*Valeriya* · 07-06-2014, 01:09 PM

Chapter three: the world beyond

Willem grunted and frowned. "Right. We've work to do, and it's high time we were off." He straightened and turned to face the onlookers. "And what exactly do you lot think yer doing? Better have a bloody good reason to be peeping in on Lord Arin's business!"

They scattered. Arin's name was usually good for that, if little else.

As Cale lifted his foot from Cedany and began to follow his team mate, I watched her gaze move to Hiram once more. I moved to offer her an arm, and as I pulled her to her feet I muttered, "Down, sister. Loriah is right, not matter how much I wish she wasn't. Whether he's a saint or an ass, he's our teammate now."

Hiram did not seem to be listening to any of us, but stared out across the crowd. He hadn't even picked himself up off the ground yet. Cedany pushed away from me and crossed her arms, but did not yell as I thought she might. A look of irritation came into her eyes. "He'll make an issue of it again, anyone with two wits can see that. Don't think I'm done with it.”

I nodded slowly and looked outward, trying to follow Willem and Cale's retreating backs so as not to lose them amongst the crowd. "I know."

I led my sister along their trail, leaving the Hiram to make his own way in his own time. By the glow above the wall I doubted we had any more than another dozen minutes before they cast us out. It wasn't long before a rather unusual sight appeared between the writhing mass of the crowd. Large carts, larger than I'd ever seen and far too wide for most roads, lined up near the wall. Hooked up to the fronts were small horses, lazy and a lackluster grey color. Donkeys, maybe, but I'd never seen one myself. I'd heard they pulled plows and whatnot on farms, though. I saw the citizens eyeing the men with wary distrust, and as I caught my first glance of the merchants themselves I found I recognized none of them. They stood in the open space that others left obviously void.

Several seemed to be young men, likely picked off the streets by the patches and grime on their clothes. They fidgeted, obviously ill at ease. A few among them wore clothing of a finer quality, neat and new and well dyed. They laughed amongst one another, chatting and smiling. One man, large and in worn traveling clothes, stood with arms crossed in conversation with our own leader. Loriah seemed dwarfed by him as she often did. Curious as to what they were discussing, I moved in to listen.

“Don' you worry yerself 'bout food. Been taken care of by your Lordly Lord it has. 'Ent a one of us need worry 'bout starvin.”

“We hear that a lot in the poorer parts of the city, pardon me if I don't take you at your word.” Despite her dry, unimpressed retort the larger man laughed. He had barely any belly on him but it still seemed to shake in his merriment.

“Fiesty, eh? You'll do well on the road.” He turned and began to address one of his men instead.

I eyed one of the donkey's from afar and frowned. It was a bit smaller than a horse, so perhaps it wouldn't be so unnerving as it's larger brethren. When I was very young, even before Nan, I'd been tasked with herding small animals from market to market. Hogs, goats, geese, anything that my birth parents would set me to. I grew to love the little creatures, especially watching their ways and mannerisms. It was a quirk that never left me even as I aged, and Cedany says I have a way with them.

A pigeon's coo sounded across the plaza, louder than you'd think, and fairly easy to recognize. I turned with a smile to see another three person team walking up, laden with packs and ringmail that glinted in the sunlight. They were young, fresh, all smiles, and I knew they carried not a piece of their own gear. The coo came from the only girl among them, short and thin and red of hair, nicknamed Pigeon in her first week as a rusher. Like so many others in the guard, she grew up in the alley ways. On her first day of training she'd made a boast about having to eat the birds to get by, and about how she had learned how to call them in. Loriah claimed the girl had been asked more times than were worth counting to show off the call, and the poor thing had never even recognized the mockery in the seniors interest. She'd been stuck with the nickname Pigeon ever since. It had never seemed to bother her though, and as time passed she'd made it her own, as a sort of trademark.

Of the boys walking behind her, one had a short and squat build, like the mastiffs kept to guard the shops in the upper quarters. His face may have been wide and flat, but his eyes danced with a familiar ease. The second had mousey hair and a lean frame accompanied by more scars that I'd ever be able to count, all over his body. Like Cedany and I Lej had grown up in the slave pens but instead of being sold to a brothel he had been selled to the fighting pits. All three were older than Cedany and I, but not by much.

Loriah called out to them. "Pigeon, Jahkob, Lej. Nice to see you made it."

Willem growled out, "You're late."

Pigeon laughed it off, and shrugged under a pack near as large as she was. A short sword swung at her hip. "You try waking these louts up."

Loriah smiled. She glanced at Willem and Cale over her shoulder. "Tell me about it. Did you see Mavin's bunch on your way in? Or the Eboneye?"

Pigeon frowned, eyes widening in surprise. "No. Are they finishing our happy little gathering?"

Loriah nodded, and looked back to the gate.

"An Eboneye?" Hiram mused coming to stand by us again, ignorant of or ignoring his swelling cheek. Our three newcomers made no mention of it, but I saw Lej eyeing the dark boy with curiosity. "Odd that a Clan would send one of their children on job like this."

"Probably a fifth son, or lesser," Cedany said with a scoff.

"I would wonder more at a Corrinth, or a Whittery," I mused.

The sun's brillance crested the wall. It illuminated the plaza with a dull gold, and the crowd surrounding us stilled and fell quiet. It's roar became a plaintive whisper and a chill traveled down my spine. Loriah quietly cursed the absence of our last team, craning her neck and raising herself up onto her toes, trying to scan the crowd. Just as the guards called for the gate to open, they pushed and shoved their way to our side. Two women, tall Hallis and dark, sharp Mavin, and a mousey man of middling age named Natyre. All looked shaken and tousled. The gate's chains made a terrible screeching noise, and groaned under the forces exerted on it's hinges. With a slow crank, crank, crank the portcullis began to lift.

“You're late,” Willem growled. The twins, being the most senior among us all, looked unimpressed.

While no team had an official leader, a certain hierarchy was noted in every pair or trio set to a shift. It was more or less common knowledge that Mavin gave the orders and the other two heeded her. My encounters with her had been scarce, but from what I've heard her temper was almost as formidable as her love for mead. “We're here, aren't we?” They moved in among us, murmuring to Lej's team and giving their own interrogation to the merchant crew.

The clansman arrived separately, mounted, with three body servants accompanying him to the gate. His horse was a stocky, thick necked thing with a long mane and tail, with extra fur adorned around it's hooves as well. It snorted and tossed it's head, nervous at the crowd pressed so close. I had only ever seen a horse a handful of times, and tried not to stare. They were an expensive luxury, when their feed had to be carted in from the outside. His rider was clad in full plate, which had to be rather heavy, never mind the weight of his body. It all looked finely crafted, from the steel of his armor to the leather of his saddle and riggings. The Eboneye colors, black and purple, glinted on its every ornament. A great-sword was strapped over his back, and a quiver hung at his side, though I saw no bow. The guards around me shifted with displeasure, though Loriah in particular was dominated by a smoldering glare.

I hissed at her and she flinched, snapping back into reality. He glare turned on me for an instant before she quelled the storm.

Willem sighed and cleared his throat, tipping his head towards the gate. The portcullis had reached it's apex, and the thick wooden outer doors began to move as well. The earth rumbled beneath our feet, and a tight feeling gripped my intestines. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, and as the blood rushed from my cheeks I felt the nature of the crowd shift. Unease and discomfort shifted to a resolute resignation, and we all turned as one to watch the gate's slow progress. The clansmen had arrived just in time.

There was no grand fanfare, no trumpets or flower petals, only a grinding noise and the clanking of chains. Once it had spread the width of several men abrest, ratty street urchins ran forward, trying to catch a glimpse outwards and smell the strange, sweet air. They did not make it far before guards moved to chase them back with the butts of their pikes. The passing cityfolk took a few careful steps away. Even those no where near the men themselves, but the farm hands just hunched their shoulders and waited for the clear.

The Eboneye cracked some kind of joke with his servants, and their laughter broke the tense silence. I noticed a group of men flinch and turn on him, only to see the horse and glinting steel, and slink further back into the crowd. From within the cluster I heard a child began to wail. I'm with you, little one, I thought dryly, despairing.

“First call, out! First call, in!” The guard wore a blue and grey cape over his dull mail, and his eyes looked warily over his shoulder.

You could only go in or out of the city when the gates opened, no exceptions. In theory, if someone missed the evening call they could wait until morning, but there was never anyone incoming. To be honest, the half of the call meant to beckon them inwards seemed somewhat futile, but they never failed to hail the world awaiting us. Our band moved together into one central clump, aside from the mounted man. Loriah, Mavin, and Lej went to share quick words with the caravan leader, and in an instant we were moving. Cedany, the twins and I we cast to the left side of the band, and Lej's to the right. Mavin took up the rear. The grinning merchant man locked eyes with the Clansman and beckoned him to the front. He scowled under his half helm but clucked to his horse, heeding his direction. From the corner of my eye I watched his body servants retreat back into the city, pale and frightened.

Settling, I turned to watch the faces around us. What did they think of our leaving? Many appeared awed and confused, and some knuckled and some warded themselves against ill luck, but none offered what I thirsted for: some hint of what to expect over the next month. Even the farm hands would not have pressed more than ten or fifteen miles away from the city walls. How long had it been since any human strayed so far away? I knew little and less of the merchants, only that they seemed strange and unknown, and of a queer humor compared to the city folk I was used to. It seemed almost like they were excited to leave.

With a shudder the gates ground to a halt, wide open, like the mouth of the world waiting to swallow us whole. The farm hands walked outwards without hesitation, braver than most of us in many ways. They were used to it, I supposed. Maybe that was all it was, when you got down to the heart of it, being so worn down that danger and grief and peril was just a part of who you were. Likely they fear the beasts abroad no more than they feared their arms or legs. They could not do their work without either, it was just a fact of life. The caravan master let out a short, sharp whistle and the donkeys haw'ed in response, straining against their riggings. The wagon train began to creak. If the men were smiling and laughing, clapping one another on the shoulder, they were alone in doing so. Loriah took a deep breath and stepped forward, and just like that we too were part of the small crowd streaming out of Callais and into the world.

Callais sat atop a low rise, and overlooked plainsland. The road outwards was crude and without cobble, more a gash of earth than anything that might pass for safe means of transportation, and yet it appeared well trodden. Grasses of varying hight swayed in the morning light, and seemed to whisper to one another on either side of us. It was warm for autumn, early as the season was, and the sunlight felt strong. The farmers grumbled to one another, cursed in low voices, but it was washed over by the thudding of our footsteps. No one seemed to want to venture far from their comrades sides. If a gust of wind blew the grasses towards them, they flinched away.

Cedany was close to my side, elbow brushing mine. Her plaited hair was already somehow askew from it's braid, and her wide eyes did not seem to like what they saw.

She was the first among us to speak, and it was barely more than a whisper. “It's so open,” she murmured.

I couldn't help but agree. Looking over my shoulder, the monolith that was Callais was all that broke the skyline. In all other directions there was only the swaying of grass and the rolling of hills. Cloud cover was sparse, and the blue dome above us felt as oppressive as the walls. It was a painted in the pallet of an early, cloudless sunrise, infinitely vast without rooftops or edges to limit it's expanse. I squeezed the straps of my pack tighter yet, feeling my mind start to slip away from me once more. My eyes returned to the path below us.

It was entirely foreign compared to the cobbled streets I was used to. Even the back alleyways that lacked stones, or those who's stones had been buried under years of muck and were close enough to dirt anyways, we a far cry from this. It was trodden but still bore rivets and cracks within it. Stones, jagged and sharp, seemed randomly littered about. There was not one flat sort of earth either, but instead strands and streams and swirls of different material. If there were not perhaps a dozen people walking behind me, I may have stooped to examine it.

The road did not deviate left or right for quite some time. We all walked together like so many goats, herded by duty and fear. When the first group of farmers turned for a path cut into the grass I felt the strong urge to bleat out and beg them to stay. My heart pounded in my throat, but I did nothing at all but watch them go. Certainly they would be in peril away from us, and certainly we were weaker without them. No one said anything, and before long they had disappeared over a ridge, swallowed by the grass.

We walked on.

I could not shake the tension from my limbs. Every gust of the wind set me to flinching, even the buzzing of flies in my ears seemed queer and unlike those I had always known. Cedany seemed no better. Her hand rarely left the hilt of her sword and her eyes constantly roamed the world around us. I knew her senses to be keener than mine, and I couldn't help but wonder what she saw that I missed. It did little to curb my paranoia. I was so tightly wound that I nearly screamed at the voice in my ear. I stifled it into a gasp, but could not keep the blood from running from my face.

Upon whirling, I saw it was only Loriah, fallen back to check in. The twins walked some paces behind us, while Hiram strode along near the front of the first of our three wagons. The shorter woman eyed me with great concern. “Are you alright, Aranya?” Her voice was a low murmur, and familiar.

I let out a shaky breath and nodded, offering her a weak smile. “I'm okay. Just tense.”

She let out a dry laugh. “It's not even been three hours since you woke today, yet you've made trouble for yourself. Are you going to your actions back in the city?”

I opened my mouth to brush her off, but she interjected.

“It wasn't nothing. Your eyes glint before you lie.”

I snapped my mouth shut and looked away. I felt Cedany's keen awareness at my side, and knew she listened closely. “You know as well as anyone,” I said quietly, the notes of my voice nearly lost within the grasses song.

“And that is reason to kill your teammate?” The woman scoffed, her face becoming a mask of interrogation and intense disapproval. “Let's not even consider the fact that his being alive and learning will feed me in the winter to come. Let's ignore that. Instead you two were met with the slightest bit of pressure on this glass castle you and Cedany have built, and you shattered.”

My stomach rose into my throat.

Our mentor went on. “Your past is your past. I doubt Lej enjoys the thought of forced combat any more than you enjoy the idea of whores or dirty, slathering men doing all manner of horrible things. And I'd wager either one of you would deal harsher than necessary should a slaver fall into your grip. Do you know what the difference between you and Lej is?”

I could not answer her. The images her words had dredged up circulated behind my eyes had brought bile into the back of my mouth and I was attempting not to vomit.

“Loriah, stop it!” Cedany's voice might have been iron clad and fierce, but she looked as shaken as I. Her face was pale, and a sheen of sweat glinted on her brow.

“The difference is that Lej moved past it.” She would show no mercy, pressing the issue farther than she ever had before. “The boys and I pampered you, mincing around the matter as we have. The three of us think of you two as children, and damn me for admitting it out loud. But now I see we did so foolishly, and it brought about what could have easily been a hanging offense. Consider our kindhearted folly at an end, as of now.”

Cedany let out a shaky breath and I saw tears glinting in the corner of her eyes. My gaze locked onto Loriah with a sort of anger I couldn't remember having ever directed at the woman before. It washed away in an instant. Loriah's eyes shone as well, and the stern disciplinary had become our mentor once more. As she pushed ahead once more, she left us each with a clasped shoulder. I watched as she walked double time to the front of the line, pulling Hiram in as well. Even if Cedany smirked, I could take no joy in his equal treatment. I knew Loriah to be right, and my pride would not heal so easily.

We lost three more groups of farmers by noon, and our number had dwindled from over sixty to half of that, with a fair portion of that number being our own party. We crested a ridge and looked down into a valley that looked noting like the grassy hills we'd traversed thus far. The land dropped away below us, sloping into a basin, turning from golden green grassland to harvest-ready fields. The plants had grown in organized rows, and seemed all too uniform. Far in the distance I could see shapes milling about in an enclosure of sorts, but it wasn't until Cedany gasped and whispered that I knew what they were.

“Aranya look, those are all horses!”

One of the caravan guards not hired on by Lord Arin chuckled. “Look like dots to me.”

“They're horses,” Cedany said with confidence.

The man just shrugged, grinning, walking along like it was nothing at all. I spared him a glance, picking out that his eyes were a bright blue, and seemed an odd addition to his tanned skin and dark hair. By then my glance was done and, not wanting to draw undue attention, I turned to squint at the 'dots' below.

I watched them for a long while, but I soon realized there was more to the scenery than the fields and their contents. As we approached I realized that buildings had been wedged between the fields, growing closer and closer together until they all mashed up in an epicenter of sorts. I saw no trace of grey, no hint that stone or brick made up their composition, and wondered how they were supporting themselves without it. There were no trees here in the plains, and either way wood rotted and burned and was easily broken. It hadn't been used in Callais's construction as anything other than ornament on most houses, sparing the gates of course, but those were ancient and magicked and in a class of their own. Yet here this town of sorts sat, with dull brown walls and straw for rooftops and naught but a thin wall that couldn't have been more than fifteen feet tall surrounding them. Where had the wood come from? And how did this little settlement survive?

It took us the better part of the afternoon to descend the slope and return to level footing. Cedany and I took special joy in the Eboneye's trouble and his curses, as his horse slipped and balked at the loose soil. After a bit of a fight, the man dismounted and descend on foot, laden with armor and leading his spirited mount the whole of the way.

Cedany leaned in to whisper, “Mayhaps if he'd been polite enough to introduce himself, you might have lent him a hand.”

I scrunched up my face in distaste, and snickered. Cedany swore I must have a gift for creatures, never mind my distaste for the larger ones, but she also thought a full tankard had mystical properties so she was disregarded. In all, the Eboneye's horse did not seem ill-tempered, but instead only as frightened as the rest of us. The man's ire was not warranted in any case.

We spent the better part of the rest of the day descending into the valley. If it was hard on the horses it was harder yet on the donkeys, hauling the wagons as they were. We cut back and forth across the face of the hill in wide, sweeping lines, so that the slope affected them as little as possible. Natyre called out to the caravan master in irritation, claiming that surely there was a better way than this endless trek.

The man only smiled and called back, “I've been at this business near a decade now. Trust me on this, city lad.”

Natyre fell quiet, perhaps turning that over in his mind as I was.

It was much cooler on the valley floor. By the time we were on level ground once more, half of our day had passed. Men in their fields stopped to watch us as we passed, propping themselves up on their tools and wiping the sweat out of their eyes to better observe us. Occasionally the wagon master would call out to them, ask how their work faired. One man out of a dozen called back, while the others said nothing at all. We rumbled into the town amongst a cloud of dust. Men in the town pushed their way out of buildings to stand in the doorways, and women paused in their washing or spinning or whatever task they'd put themselves to. I wondered what each building's purpose was. They were mostly the same size, though each seemed unique in some small way. Some had flower boxes sitting under windows, others had clothing hanging from lines, waving in the wind.

When a young woman walked out holding a toddler on her hip, the reality of it all hit me like a piece of hot iron flush against an anvil. The buildings were houses, and people lived there. There were men and woman who did not spend their nights within the walls, without the safety they provided. I looked to Cedany, eyes wide, and she met mine with confusion. She searched my gaze and I nodded towards the child. I waited impatiently for her to come to the same conclusion I had, not wanting to break the fragile silence that had overcome the gathering.

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Fox's Novel: A QUEEN'S LEGACY

Valeriya