Castrum Cerasus – Housekeeping
With a direct lineage predating the establishment of the Grove Protectorate by almost one thousand years, the Onari Clans represent a unique challenge to the Protector’s mandate of stabilizing the southern provinces of the Grove and regaining momentum in their fight against the growing incursions by Anticlean insurrectionists in the north. The reasons for this are numerable and complex, underlining deep-rooted divisions that stretch far into the annals of the Grove’s history.
They have made their mark on the continent’s history in more ways than most, manipulating politics and hoarding influence with essentially every powerful family, regime, and organization in the Aurum region for half-a-hundred generations. They have many friends to be found both within the thick forests that protect their mountain villages and far beyond due to generations of clever maneuvering, marrying, and trading across the entirety of the Grove.
Primarily, since the Onari Rangers seized control of many of the gem and precious metal mines within the Aurums, the Clans have seen their influence - as well as their coffers - grow at an astonishing rate. It seems that despite the severe punishments guaranteed for any who aid, trade with, or otherwise assist the banished factions, there are many for which the allure of diamonds, silver, and sapphires pulls stronger.
Indeed, despite the sanctions, they grow stronger by the day, with some more conservative clans forgoing their ancient rites and allowing their young to marry outside of clan-blood for the first time since the days of the Blómit Empire; others have rebuilt their ancestral long houses, thereby revitalizing their economies and pushing their peoples to thirst for a revenge almost forgotten amongst petty clan squabbles and material privation.
It is rumored that new leadership in a majority of the Onari holdings have insisted on an end to the quarrel among the family clans and have fostered rekindled familial and trade agreements en masse between the many villages, keeps, and holdfasts. The result is clear: a better armed and more resilient population which we fear will soon begin to position itself to retake old Onari settlements dotted throughout the foothills and now holding names such as Laurifol, Tremula, Primula, and Cerasus.
-Missive to Maester’s Economic Council
(date, signature illegible)
‘Mornin’ Troopers! Hope we all had a restful night!’ Tacca appeared through the front door just as things began to feel normal enough to start the day, entering through the door with crashing boots and greeting them as if they were stood across a field rather than scattered across a cramped room.
Groans resounded throughout the farmhouse, her arrival sealing the reality for all that another frosty morning awaited them impatiently. The less enthusiastic sergeants of the platoon, recognizing that they were already behind the driven Tacca, quickly joined the growing clamor and soon all were rousing beneath a cloud of curses as any chance of sleep fled with the sergeants’ cries.
‘Today,’ she grinned to herself at the despondent mass of her soldiers and launched into morning promulgations flawlessly, ‘Fourth and Third Platoons will be beginning the preliminary reinforcement of Castrum Cerasus. As the Lieutenant mentioned yesterday, we will also be establishing a regional command center within the town itself in anticipation of standard army posting and re-population efforts next season.’
Simen rolled his eyes at mention of imperial foot soldiers, the thought of the dirty irregulars holding the town against anything more dangerous than a crew of blackguard youths providing the humorous start to the day he needed. Trading nods with Rusa and Alces briefly, he began patting himself down in search of matches.
‘As for us,’ the sergeant looked around to confirm that all her squad was present and continued in a quieter tone, ‘we are on collection duty and will be doing a secondary sweep of our path yesterday in search of anything a careless auditor may have missed.’ The odds of that were slim-to-none, but she grinned as the Triplets and Simen all looked at one another with the anticipation of an easy day bright in their eyes. How had they lucked out enough to get loot duty?
‘Fantastic! Simen, Alces, Rusa,’ the sergeant pointed to each in turn, ‘you all are assigned to HQ duty. Head to the northern market to find out what they need for their work there. LT is already expecting you and, knowing him, you’re already late.’
Pellia laughed as they groaned in unison. Simen cast a sour glance at Sily who, still hopeful, was endeavoring not to look smug lest she incur an even more onerous task.
‘Don’t be so transparent and maybe you won’t out yourselves as lazers quite so fast,’ Tacca admonished before turning to the yet-hopeful and unassigned troopers. ‘You three head into Cerasus proper and get a look at the stores at the west gate there. We are expecting an initial supply run from Avium this evening to begin recovery efforts and to hold us over until the Captain arrives with the rest of our supplies. Get there and see if you can get your hands on a couple of the fresh squad rations before they get to the quartermaster.’ Looking around to assure they were all still paying attention, she finished the brief by addressing them all. ‘This afternoon, we will begin locking down any site that has been deemed ‘of interest’ by command now that the black-cloaks have finished their… duties.’
‘Sola bless them,’ Pellia intoned absentmindedly from where she was digging through her pack.
‘Ehrm, indeed.’ Tacca was still getting used to the young northerner’s oddly ironic way of speaking. ‘Now that they are finishing up whatever it is they do, we will need to resecure the whole area.
‘Some of our own Third Squad will be helping, and Heteractis will be allotting two of her own squads as well for the task, so we need not worry about covering things too quickly.’ She paused to assess the words’ effectiveness against the troopers’ morning brain fog and was satisfied with the general lack of confusion she found there. ‘Alright, any questions? No? Perfect. Sily, Scribe will have the patrol route for you, Pica, and Pell. Catch him in the market as well and proceed to the west gate.’
She watched them off and once satisfied that they had gained a little purpose to their movements, the sergeant left, making a point to stomp a bit too loudly and leave the front door open to the brisk morning air in a rebuke to the other squads stubbornly taking their time in dressing against the cold.
The volatile frost on the grass crackled and vaporized in the shifting temperatures of the morning, creating a thick mist that greeted the squad on the way into the town. It roiled about Pica, Sily, and Pellia, reaching out hesitantly and recoiling as if burned by the trudging figures passing through it. Soon it would retreat toward the forests above, and in the fifteen minutes they would allot themselves to march to the motionless flag at the northern gate, it would be all but gone. But they enjoyed its cool touch against the flush of their skin after a night crammed in the baking heat of the house, Pellia in particular taking the opportunity to twirl in the silver air.
Now was a time of emptiness, a blank canvas the day had yet to dirty. One could almost imagine the approaching town as unsullied by the marks of insurrection and consequence, a place still free of the political pressures threatening to split the empire like a runaway boiler.
‘What are we doing?’ Pica voiced his thoughts aloud for the women, ignoring the ethereal opportunity of forced revision promised within the fog.
‘What?’ Pellia stopped hard at the sudden sound in the muffled landscape.
All was still as the three Badgers took in the work of Heteractis’ troopers throughout the evening. It was the norm for Mellivora to work throughout the night when in the field, the platoons and their squads trading eight-hour shifts to ensure tight timetables were met, and since Fourth had led and borne the brunt of the assault during the day, Third got the cleanup duties afterwards; their practiced efforts were evident as the sunlight began to finally disperse the chill of the morning.
‘Our jobs.’ Sily’s answer sounded abrupt, artificially cut short, but whether that was true or another fabrication of the lifting vapors was anyone’s guess. She propelled her smaller companion gently as she abruptly caught her up just down the hill from the now-repaired gate into town.
Where yesterday there had been a few dozen dead scattered across the wide cobbled area of the market, only the dark, sand-dusted areas where blood had pooled and the conspicuous ashen spots where stalls had been burned or torn down in the chaos of the raid. It was an uncomfortable, if familiar, site for troopers who had spent the prior few years ranging across the sacked villages and homesteads of the frontier lands, reminding them of the scale of the conflict around them as well as it’s growing presence within the very heart of the Grove. It nagged at Pica as they shuffled across the hauntingly empty space.
‘This isn’t some northern frontier village, you know.’ He stated the words as fact. Where they had spent their careers policing populations they could reasonably argue as being outside the domesticity of the Grove, Cerasus was different. ‘We raided and killed citizens of Prunus Province itself, our home.’
‘Our jobs.’ Sily repeated the phrase she had grown increasingly tired of uttering. ‘and your home,’ she added more quietly.
Pica was instantly incensed. ‘This is Mellivora, Sily, Prunus is home. Avium and Keeptown are home.’
‘How many Populan towns have we seen raided by blue devils from across the border?’ Sily retorted easily. ‘How many times have we promised those people that Avium was sending aid as we left? How many of those towns did we later find abandoned, the people we saved forced to leave or starve when no help ever arrived.’
Pica had no answer to that and had to accept her words as true to both of their experiences during their early years on the eastern frontier. He looked to Pellia who stared between them, an uncertain expression marring her generally stubborn expression.
‘You’re right,’ he granted his comrade, ‘there is no denying that is what we saw. And worse besides. But now we are here, deep in the heart of the Grove, and we aren’t facing foreign raiders on mountain rams.’
‘And?’
‘And we are killing our own here.’
‘Rebels, raiders, no difference where they come from, just that they are here. They are not our own kind once they raise blades against us or the Grove, you know that as well as I. Both morally and by law, we have a responsibility.’
Once again, she was right and her grasp of the legal complexities that underpinned the symbiotic relationship between the Protectorate and the Unitary Armies was not something he was prepared to question her on. Her upbringing alone put her leagues ahead of him in that regard, and her time with Scribe in the libraries of Keeptown had only furthered her knowledge of obscure laws, traditions, and precedents in Unitarian law.
‘I’m just asking what it means that we are now here,’ Pica was placative, ‘where do we go from here?’
‘Avium. Keeptown. You know the schedule; campaign is up and it is time to head back for contract negotiations. Were it not for the interruption that brought us here, we would be almost there now.’ She was unyielding, and it was clear to Pica that he had touched a nerve with his questions.
‘Did we kill civilians?’ Pellia’s voice was small. ‘Normal people?’
‘No.’ Pica spoke quickly, attempting to reel back the insinuation. ‘Of course no-’
‘There are no civilians in this town!’ the loud, cheery voice of Lieutenant Heteractis pierced their unwisely public conversation. She smiled gaily at them as they jumped to attention before her, behind her a grim looking officer-attendant peered at them over her shoulder a scowl.
‘Nae worry,’ she assured the stricken troops in her seaborne accent, ‘I heard nothing worth noting.’ She added the customary wink of secrecy assured just to be safe, her attendant managed to scowl harder. ‘No, y’all here to help us with repairs and retrofittings?’
‘Uh, no ma’am.’ Sily, as always, was starstruck by the officer and leaned toward her unwittingly as she spoke, ‘they are still on the way. We are assigned to meet the supply wagons at the west gate.’
‘Late sleepers or slow walkers?’
‘What?’ Pica looked from the officer to Sily who said nothing. She was right, where were they if not here already? Probably goofing off as the three were wont to do when together.
‘The late ones. They slow walkers or late sleepers?’
‘There are no late sleepers in Sergeant Tacca’s Fourth Squad!’ Pellia piped Tacca’s own words verbatim to Heteractis without hesitation.
In her usual way and as if seeing her for the first time, the lieutenant’s eyes alit as they were drawn down to the slight northerner. ‘Indeed, there are not,’ she affirmed, ‘and therefore they must be slow walkers! Come along,’ she looked to her attendant, ‘we have errant cubs to fetch! You all carry on now, pigeons say the carts are making good time today and may even get here early. You’ll want to be too.’ She winked knowingly at the young troopers and spun away to head down the hill toward the quickly growing fort below.
‘One more thing,’ she yelled over her shoulder as she crossed the gate’s threshold, ‘practice a little more discretion in your morning discussions, eh?’ She didn’t look or wait for a response, but Officer Scowly nodded meaningfully before he too marched away.
They watched in slack-jawed horror as she cheerily skipped away, carefree in her duties and simply enjoying a beautiful autumn day. What would have happened if someone less flexible about fledgling anti-Protectorate sentiments had instead stumbled upon their talk? What if the auditors had? They glanced about instinctively and seeing nothing, exchanged looks between themselves.
Despite the update on the supply train, they decided tensions merited a more leisurely stroll to their destination and seeing no Scribe about to give them updated orders or their route, they elected to meander westward on their own instead. Ultimately, they would surely find themselves at the gate where they had first entered Cerasus the day before, but for now they had no hurry to get anywhere and tensions were already running high enough to warrant a little leeway.
Pica eyed an upcoming curve in the road dully, expecting at any moment to see yesterday’s woman, dead in the smoking remains of her home and family, and somehow more terrifying than even in his nightmares the night before. He fought the molasses that seemed to be collecting in his boots, slowing his steps to his friends' annoyance as his thoughts spiraled once more. His worries were gratefully disappointed as the alleyway dependably dumped them back on the central road through Cerasus and the source of his dread came into view a few buildings down.
There was as little remarkable about the smithy and stable as had been of the marketplace, all having been picked at and moved away by either the black cloaks and their parade of adherents or Third Platoon in their long cleanup following the final blows of the fight the morning before. He wondered how long it had taken, digging through abandoned houses and smoldering shops, efficiently shuttling away bodies to be sorted, leaving only the charred framing of the structures and the depersonalized lives of the fallen behind.
Pica released a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding and glanced about morosely. ‘Not how I remember it.’ His eyes darted as he immediately doubted his own words, taking only the briefest look at a claustrophobic alley before tracing the road westward until it curved sharply out of view on its way to the far gate and the old market-turned-lumberyard on that side of town. White smoke rose gently and hung over the area from ember piles cooling in the fields outside the town.
‘Never is,’ Sily answered resignedly. ‘I’m sorry Pica. I didn’t mean to snap at you or put you in that position with Heteractis.’
‘I know you didn’t.’
They left it at that as they always did.
‘Look at that!’ Pellia’s bright voice cracked the tension with practiced efficiency. ‘What is it?’
Pica’s eyes followed her guiding finger to the door before him, ending on something just visible past the sagging, splintered frame. Whatever it was glinted in the early-morning sun, dimmed by tarnish or smoke but still able to catch the morning’s wary light.
‘Is that gold?’ Sily leaned forward past Pica’s left shoulder, sudden interest lifting her voice pleasantly. ‘If that’s gold, we’re taking it.’ She moved forward slowly, eyes locked on the sooty gilt before her.
It flitted away from her questing hand, the heavy door meeting her face instead as it slammed shut against her head and shoulder. She was cast into the street with a howl and clutched at her bleeding nose in outraged shock. Without hesitation, she charged through the door even as it ricocheted off the broken frame and floated back open under its own rebounding energy.
‘Spy!’ Sily shouted, disappearing into the dark innards of the structure. ‘Rebel bastard!’
Pellia, clearly appreciative of some excitement, matched her elder’s energy and was accelerating away before Sily even finished calling out, shooting to the side and down an alley to head them off as she bounded from Pica’s view.
‘Guys!’ He called after them both to no effect, looking nervously about in expectation of some sort of ambush. A crash issued from above, then another one.
‘Pica, go around the back! Head us off!’ Sily’s voice shouted over the cacophony, the distinctive sound of metal-studded field boots skidding across wooden floors and kicking aside furniture.
He hastened to comply but slowed as he pushed the door cautiously open. Expecting booby traps, he peered around the edge and was surprised to find not a waiting crossbow, but the thing that had initially grabbed their attention. It was still there, peeking from where it was wedged into the gap under the sagging door. Whoever had tried to grab it first had been unable to do so before Sily must have thrown them back into the depths of the dark building, he bent down and picked it up gingerly, pulling it from the crack with a tug.
What they had thought was gold was, technically, that. But where they had expected jewelry or maybe a few clips left of a gold tablette they could have divided for spending back in Keeptown, he found instead fine paper and gold ink. It captivated him as he straightened and held it to the bright sunlight streaming through the doorway, the auriferous quillwork trending intricately in thin bands from the corners before overlapping one another in the center to form an impossibly detailed wreath, complete with tiny, gilt thorns and veins along the leaves. It seemed a thing which could not exist, the detail being so fine. He wondered what Scribe would make of the object, if even he had such fine skills in printing.
His eyes were drawn to the center of the wreath, the light soaking into an ink of an ivory color, almost matching the linen parchment itself, but enriched with an opalescence like that found in certain types of clams and other shelled sea creatures in the North. It appeared to be a small, six-petaled flower nestled tightly within the ringing gold foliage, but the faintness of the drawing obscured detail no matter how he twisted and flexed the slip in the day’s light. Gold on the back caught his eye and he flipped the paper in pursuit of the second glint.
It was a note of some sort, a letter or list he thought, but written in script that he could not recall having seen before which, while not that unusual abroad, smacked of strangeness in this interior township. He wondered what the importance of it was. Was it some message? A poem perhaps based on the structuring of the lines? The fineness of the thing reminded him of the Fourth Night cards one could buy in the Grand Market during the vibrant winter holidays surrounding the coming solstice in the Grove. Perhaps it wasn’t important at all, just a shiny thing belonging to a dead rebel.
He resolved to show it to Scribe and pushed it into a pocket just as a renewed crashing somewhere above snapped his attention back to the moment. Where had that come from? Next door? He took a step back into the building and froze, a prickling of warning on his neck giving him pause as he looked first up the stairs to his left, then down the skinny hallway ahead. He thought better of it, choosing instead to follow Pellia rather than risk getting turned around, ambushed, or boobytrapped inside. Sily was a wildcat-fighter, and Pica reckoned she could hold her own for the time being. He needed to catch the small northerner and he cursed himself for failing to foresee her sprinting away like she always did at the first sign of excitement or intrigue.
He stepped back and turned into the dazzling sunlight, hand reflexively shielding his eyes as he sought to acclimate in his indecisiveness.
There was a boy there, his heart stalled as the small figure came into sharp relief before him. He was a dirty lad, hair greasy and hanging in rough-chopped, flaxen clumps about a coal-dusted face. Grey eyes flared past the filth as he glared from the mouth of an alley further down the street. Pica felt the hate there, the desire to kill the Grove soldier hanging in the air before them.
‘Uh… hello?’ Pica defused with a small shuffle forward.
He got a better view and realized that the boy was likely of mid-adolescent years and not so much a ‘boy’ as he had initially assumed based on his still soft face. He held something carefully out of view and pressed tight against his hip, he turned away reflexively as Pica tried to get a bit closer. It was clear that he hadn’t expected the soldier when he emerged from the thin alley and he glanced at the open doorway behind Pica as the tall man inched forward once more.
‘Did you make all that noise?’ Pica gestured upwards toward the upper floors where Sily had gone, ‘trying to lure us to something? Away?’ He took another step forward and caught the quick look the young man made at the pocket where the small paper had disappeared. ‘Ah.’
Then the young man was gone, bolting back the way he had come and Pica leaping to where he had been just the moment before. The soldier cursed, regained his footing, and hounded after.
He cast about as he emerged from the end of alleyway, once more blind in the bouncing light reflecting through a colorful old washing yard and losing his quarry in the spectacle it created around him. A few twists in the alley had disorientated him, and Pica realized he was unsure of which of the multistoried structures ringing the compact space either his friends or the young man had ended up in in their chase. He hoped Pellia had been successful in her attempts to head them off and had found Sily.
From this perspective, he could see that while the explosion and resultant blaze of the smithy next door may have eviscerated the front of the structure, it had done remarkably little in this protected alcove immediately to its rear. If not for the crooked shutters and poorly attached doors, he might not have thought anything had gone amiss here at all, the drying cables still holding the week’s laundry and a scummy water present in one of the wide, wooden tubs.
There must have been a dozen families squeezed into the complex, yet not a soul was seen, nor a voice heard from where he stood in the small hub of a courtyard. It was hard for him to imagine the place had been abandoned in such a state, that they would have left so many of the little personal items that people hoard and carry with them throughout their lives still hanging from eaves or arranged on thin balconies above. Even if they had fled from the fighting and flames, some things are too precious to just leave behind; there were small sentimental things: toys, small and cheap but clearly precious to some young child; a picture of a man painted in beautiful, rich colors and still affixed next to a clothesline where someone could look at it while they worked; a pair of boots in condition good enough to walk all the way to Avium.
With a flair of anxiety, Pica felt himself being watched as he studied the space, his brain screaming all was wrong and demanding a retreat to the safety of the main thoroughfare. It was deeply unsettling, setting his skin atingle and hair on-end as he pivoted on his heel to observe as many of the doorways, windows, and balconies at once as possible. He saw nobody, not a flash of motion or an oddly face-like shape in a shadow, yet the feeling remained, pressing against him. He moved slowly back toward the tight alley before realizing he was doing it, submitting to the demand subconsciously and impulsively without a questioning thought toward his comrades somewhere in the mass of buildings suddenly looming all about him.
The clamor of shattered glass broke the impulse driving his limbs, Pica turned just as a small figure emerged through a broken window and dropped expertly onto a balcony a floor below. It was the boy-man once again, maybe thirteen summers but small for his age. His hair was a sandy blonde where it poked from a hat he had shoved over it, it fell roughly over a pale face half-cleaned with a rag and some spit. He froze as his eyes met Pica’s below him, bristling down at him as, once again, a slate-and-rose draped soldier sought to prevent his escape.
The package he had been hiding, a tight bundle of crimson-and-gold fabric, was obvious and intriguing from this perspective; the boy clutched it to his breast protectively and it radiated magnificence, turning the colors of forgotten life around them to the greys of stone and ash. It was probably a large scarf or some ornamental dressing based on the many delicate folds spilling from fine silver braid sinching it together and while it was clearly of significant value by itself, a rattling sound from within and the definitely misshapen core straining at the silken fabric made apparent that it was moonlighting as an impromptu sack to carry something, presumably, more valuable.
The soldier’s attentions were drawn back to the lad’s face, the surprise and dismay therein quickly distracted by the unmistakable sound of a door under the assault of a heavy, hobnailed boot behind him. The boy was caught, tracked by the tall Populan woman he thought he had slipped. And he was dead.
For a moment, resignation to his fate glanced across his chubby face and he turned back into the darkness to his rear, bravely facing the wrath of the Grove as she battered through the door. He took a last look at the grime-covered face peering anxiously back up at him and found resolution beating at his heart, the grey-eyes thinning to slits of fury and clear determination setting across his brow. A thousand scenarios flashed across youthful imagination, the final blinking moment before a potential action turns kinetic, and then irreversible.
‘Pillagers.’ he hissed, ‘Rapers and thieves.’ Feet shifted slightly, finding a better grip on the gritty wood and rough stone. ‘Coming in the night to kill us and destroy our homes. You take our food, the sweat of our brows.’ Knuckles whitened as they better gripped the silk tight. ‘Now you take our homes and children? My friends and cousins? My broth-’ his young voice cracked as he forced the words past an increasingly constricted throat. ‘…my brother.’
Pica tensed as the words were spat down upon him, looking around briefly as if confused as to whom they had been intended. He had not killed anyone who had not attacked him first, and he had certainly never been a plunderer of body or home. Lieutenant Strozzi was not the type to allow such things or to see such actions go unpunished, Pica knew that for experienced fact. Even in the borderlands to the east and in the northern forests, the Badgers were not a force of oppression, but one of defense and purpose, sent only where they were needed most and always too soon on to the next crisis at hand.
An utterance Pica either couldn’t hear correctly or which was offered in a language he wasn’t familiar with pierced his thoughts. Then the boy-turned-insurgent was upon him, casting himself from the high balcony and onto the stunned man in the washyard below.
He fell with a precision that hinted at many years of play-fighting among tall trees or across tilted rooftops, releasing a feral yowl and aiming to strike down the soldier below. A dagger flashed in his small hand from within a loose sleeve, a scorpion’s stinger catching a blistering sun. It caught Pica’s practiced eye and he threw up a defensive arm, drawing his own short blade in a smooth motion honed to perfection and planting himself firmly with a quick half-step back.
The boy landed with more weight than might have been expected for one of his size, dropping his center of gravity with the expertise of a seaborne wrestler and attempting to drag the larger man down as he latched on with the knife. His success was mixed, the blade striking but skipping harmlessly off Pica’s armored shoulder, and the soldier reflexively bending beneath the impact with the smooth mindlessness of the well-drilled. He cast the would-be attacker aside with a shout, throwing him in a haphazard tumble in the center of the yard alongside a barrage of curses.
The packed ground was hard and the rebel-boy hit it harder, landing badly on a shoulder and yelping as he skidded to a halt. Pica was upon him in moments, knife fully extended and his other hand grasping the head of the battlepick on his hip. ‘What in the name of all hell…’ he began.
‘Pica! Don’t kill him!’ a small, terrified voice echoed into the yard, breaking his thoughts.
‘Kill him?’ Pica was confused, ‘it’s just a kid!’ he turned his head back to where the lad had leapt upon him to find the two women standing there instead. They looked down on him in a way that made him feel dirty, as if they had just caught him kicking a dog instead of protecting himself from a half-assed rebel.
Sily shrugged and shook her head slowly as her eyes met Pica’s, as unsure as to what to do as her comrade below; she clearly hadn’t been expecting a wayward youth to be the source of the commotion. ‘Wait for me,’ she sighed, ‘I’ll be right down.’
Turning to Pellia, she added, ‘keep an arrow on him, don’t let him get a stick in Pica.’ The young woman nodded seriously and positioned herself for the task. Sily disappeared back through the shattered doorway, leaving them waiting in silence.
The rebel groaned gently, rocking slowly on his side yet continuing to clutch his luxurious bundle to his chest despite all else. The soldier inched closer.
‘What’s in the cloth there, lad?’ He was mindful of the small rebel’s potential to have a second blade somewhere and he eyed the first where it had come to rest against a square basin across the yard. ‘Can you hear me? Did you hit your head or something?’
There was no acknowledgement at all beyond the addition of a small whimper in his monotonous moaning and a tightening of his eyelids, both of which could have been a result of other stimuli. Pica wondered if he had thrown him too hard, then we considered why that was his fault or why he should care at all. It wasn’t he who had dropped on the boy from some ten feet above, slashing at him for no reason.
‘Boy… I need to see what you have in the bundle. I don’t care if you’ve stolen some food, or medicine, or whatever you need to take care of yourself or your family, but it is my duty to search for and seize anything which we believe to be of interest to the Protector or of potential use by our enemies.’ He recited the words blandly, repeating his version of the boilerplate caution used for such situations and hoping to gain custody of the bundle from the prone figure before Sily arrived with her own methods.
There was still no response, though Pica thought he saw the young man’s body tense into a tighter ball upon himself, deftly maneuvering the package to the safety of his protected belly. The soldier halted his slow advance, hovering just beyond where he figured was safe in the event of another surprise dagger appearing.
Pica lowered his voice further. ‘Look, just tell me what it is at least, and we can take things from there. Maybe it’s nothing important enough for us to concern ourselves over at all and we don’t need to see it.’ He knew that was a lie, they needed to look at the bundle no matter what it held; those were the rules in these situations and gods help them if they were caught letting a rebel escape with valuable property, intel, or armaments.
The fabric was eye-catching, and although there was nothing inherently unusual about the colors themselves, the obvious luxury of the materials suggested it a rare thing indeed. The many folds in the bundle poured over each other fluidly, and the way it caught the sunlight showing it to be of a paradoxically heavy velveteen material that was sure to please the inquisitive fingertip. The red of it recalled the breasts of those flitting dragonbirds or a season’s first run of frothing beet juice escaping the press, while the gold threads were woven tightly together to border and elevate the bold contrast with intricate patterns of twisting vines and bashful, budding flowers.
Although they hadn’t officially seen an Onari in proper uniform until yesterday, it could not have been clearer that it was of their vintage, and of a fineness intended for a higher-class of society. Pica imagined it would not be out of place among the civilian-wear of a Captain Haidarum or some other highborn officer on the hill, perhaps even the Protector themselves would appreciate such a fine bit of cloth. His eyes shot to the sound of shrieking hinges just as Sily emerged from the protesting doorway, eyes alight with the sudden excitement of noon and Pellia hot on her tail looking concerned.
‘Boy!’ the Populan woman laughed, looking at the captured youth and his package appreciatively, ‘I thought the little welp had you beat, can’t lie!’ She jostled Pica roughly as he rolled his eyes, ‘he could’ve gutted you clean with that knife! Did you take a look at the thing?’
‘Of course I did,’ he hissed in annoyance, ‘look at what the little shit did to my armo-’
He glanced at the thick gouge that coursed across his pauldron for emphasis and froze as his eyes took the mark in fully. Anywhere the knife had touched was now dissolving, a thick, black goo slowly starting to replace where metal had been. He ripped the shoulder plate from him and flung it away in a single clean motion in horror, sending it skidding across the cobbles until it cracked solidly in half against a wall. All three looked from the embrittled armor to the knife that had slid into the shadow of a window’s ledge near a shallow stone water trough. Even shaded it grabbed the light greedily unto itself, casting it back in gilt-ruby hues across the chipped white plaster of the building behind it.
‘What sort of witchcr-’ Pellia began from her perch above.
‘Not ‘witchcraft’ Pell, alchemy!’ Sily interrupted the superstitious young northerner fluidly. ‘Acid or some compound, I’m sure of it, but damned if I know what!’ Her sudden excitement verged on the inappropriate and Pica shifted awkwardly beside her as he returned his look to the curled ball of assassin still at his feet.
‘Go grab it, and watch the blade!’ she implored him, ‘Strozzi is going to want that, if not the Captain himself. I’ll watch the boy here.’ she placed her boot firmly onto the figure at their feet for emphasis; the hobnails dug into the soft flesh between hips and ribs, forcing him to groan and shallowing his breath sharply as she found a broken one.
Pica nodded sullenly and trotted to grab the fine instrument, stopping just as he began to reach for the thing. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t touch it? Going to get the sergeant or Scribe might be a better plan than risking a visit with an auditor or Captain Haidarum.’
Sily paled at the wisdom of his words but found her eyes promptly drawn to the boy under her boot who, upon hearing the captain’s name, had begun to kick savagely despite the obvious pain he was causing himself in doing so. She released some pressure but kept him pinned.
‘Whoa, little man, don’t hurt yourself now! Knock it off!’ She kicked him in the back hard and he did. With a sniff, she leaned forward over him. ‘Now, I’m going to be needing whatever it is you’ve got there.’ She increased the pressure once more, ‘as I’m sure you’ve already been asked by my friend at least once.’
Slowly, the Populan woman reached for the rich fabric, her eye sharp for flashing blades or gnashing teeth, treating the young rebel as if he were rabid rather than scared and ashamed. Pica looked at the knife again and wondered how he would have acted had this been reversed.
Like a springing rabbit, the boy lashed out with a feinted kick at his looming captor. He had waited for his moment well, watching both soldiers through squinted eyes and positioning himself little by little with every shake and cry under the steel-bottomed boot. Sily leapt back with a surprised yelp and managed to snag the fabric he held as he shot to his feet limberly. Grey eyes flaring, he executed his escape perfectly and leapt over the soldier's flailing boot, searching about furiously and tightened his grip on the package as he locked eyes on a slack-jawed Pica.
Whether he started across the yard before or after the glass and Pellia’s roar echoed off the walls was anybody’s guess. The northern warrior’s arrow skipped just under the fleeing rebel’s foot as he fell upon the man ahead, skipping off a cobblestone pathway and ricocheting through a window instead. Sily shouted as she ripped hard on the bundle and found herself stumbling back a step as the boy abandoned it for his greater goal.
‘The dagger!’
Pica barely had time to react as the adolescent rebel was upon him, both of them reaching for the golden blade simultaneously in a tangle and collapsing into the dust together once more. The boy was faster, perhaps still benefiting from surprise, and read the Badger better, ducking low and scuttling beneath him to deftly snatch the knife from the packed earth. He struck with it, aiming for Pica’s exposed side as the soldier lunged after his nimbler foe.
Pica’s fresh stitches, already slowing him and causing him much discomfort in all the activity, finally gave way and tore from the skin as they strained, shortening his recovery but saving his life as the sharp blade skidded past the tough brigandine protecting his back rather than into the suddenly exposed meat at the nape of his neck. Despite missing, the attack had the desired effect as the soldier shouted in dismay and rolled clumsily out of range of the thrusting knife.
The boy spat and hissed. Sensing his window of opportunity closing before the tall blonde soldier or the small one nocking another arrow could close the noose completely, in three bounds he was gone, charging into an alley that was hardly more than a crack between two of the old buildings and disappearing in an instant.
Sily was torn between looking disappointed at the loss and laughing at the almost comical position of her gasping friend as she abandoned the chase immediately mid-stride. They stared at one another in silence for a moment before Pica sighed.
‘Shit-’
‘You got that right,’ Sily shook her head and turned to the torn fabric to see what the fuss had been all about as Pellia cursed herself and dashed inside to find a way down to them, Pica struggled to his feet. They gathered around the package, hopeful of something to make the trouble worth it; they were disappointed as Sily kicked the bundle open with a few pokes of her boot.
‘What?’ the blonde woman looked to Pica confused, ‘it’s just junk.’
While ‘junk’ was one word for the mismatched and seemingly random assortment of items displayed on the ground before them, Pica could see the underlying meaning even if his comrade couldn’t. Some items were sentimental, a small, lovingly painted wooden doll and a set of dice in a square, leather pouch. A book was sprawled open and upside-down, displaying a well creased spine with faded lettering and torn cloth binding exposing the thin wood cover beneath. Ribbon and thread spilled from an overturned sewing box that had cracked as it struck hard ground, a tin of buttons exploding within and peppering the scene in a variety of chipped ivory and tarnished clasps. A spice bag containing small vials of various red, brown, and yellow powders alongside green herbs and various grades of salt.
Sily’s disappointment was clear, Pellia simply looking at the assorted oddments with a growing look of confusion.
‘Was he looting?’ the thought didn’t make sense to the young northern woman, yet she uttered it anyway as she sought a better explanation. Pica supplied one dryly.
‘Not looting, he was trying to leave. These are personal items, likely belonging to himself and his family. We took the last things he probably had in this world.’
‘Don’t be dramatic,’ Sily scoffed, ‘we haven’t ‘taken’ anything, nothing here worth taking anyway.’ She looked again at the pitiable pile at their feet. ‘And we wouldn’t have bothered him much at all if he hadn’t bolted the way he did.’ She pointed to her swollen, bloodied nose in a gesture that suggested she wasn't going to discuss further.
Pellia nodded to that, adding, ‘plus, where’d he get the cloak and dagger? Those alone were unusual enough to warrant a check without considering him attacking you.’
‘The law.’ Sily sealed.
Pica wanted to argue but knew that the women were correct, at least as far as procedure was concerned. When and if they relayed this later, the perceived value of the items would be a key factor in explaining the event to the officers. The damage to his armor and the fresh-flowing wound in his thigh would require explanation enough without saying it largely happened over some toys.
‘Look, he’s lucky he isn’t dead. Most anyone else would be.’ The blonde woman was matter-of-fact. ‘If we had captured him, we can all guess what would have become of him after he attacked unitarian soldiers.
‘Here.’ she bent down and quickly bundled the fabric back together with a swipe, ‘we’ll just leave it all over there, behind the basin. If he comes back, he can take his stuff and leave. No harm, no foul.’
She walked swiftly across the yard to the dry water basin and dumped the package unceremoniously inside. Pica flinched instinctively as the items within crashed against one another in defiance of her conciliatory tone.
‘So, we aren’t chasing him?’ Pellia looked expectantly toward the small crack that the lad had disappeared into, considering whether her own lithe frame would be able to follow him.
Sily shook her head, ‘He’s gone. Best thing is probably to just carry on to the west gate and finish out our day’s duties. Doubt this is worth even reporting unless we want to detail how three of us were outmaneuvered by a boy of thirteen. Better we see if we can tend to that leg and regroup, probably a spare pauldron we can steal from resupply too if we hurry.’
Pica yielded as he looked at the crimson seeping through his leggings and limped back across the yard to sit himself atop a wide barrel. Sily nodded her approval and walked hastily to his side as he stretched his leg tenderly for her. She knelt smoothly and deftly loosened his chausses to expose the spoiled bandage beneath. A curse escaped her in her mother-tongue, and she whistled as she unwrapped the cotton, releasing a fresh flow of blood through the cracked scab and past the fragmented stitches.
‘So much for that, no hiding that mess unless you want to try your hand with my stitching. Doc is going to be so mad when he sees this.’ Sily tutted and wrinkled her face to mirror the old surgeon’s oft dour appearance. ‘You gods-damned infants!’ She affected his voice flawlessly, her thick accent evaporating entirely as she adopted that of the caustic campaigner, ‘can’t even go to town for chicken feed without trying to end up a stunningly dissatisfactory meal for some beast that was otherwise minding its own business!’
‘Shut up and help me tie it back up, I can wait for his derision fine without you adding your own twist.’ Pica was annoyed but couldn’t help smiling to himself.
She beamed. ‘Just wait till I tell him it was just some stripling of a boy that laid you out, that’s what I’m looking forward to most.’
‘Me too!’ Pellia chirped, appearing from behind Sily with a wide grin and the rubied cheeks of exertion on a chill day. ‘And Simen is going to die when he hears.’ She laughed to herself in anticipation of the story later and took a moment to revere in the pre-dramatics of it all.
‘So much for not mentioning it,’ Pica sighed in agreement. He resigned himself to the compulsory ribbing, elevating his leaking leg slightly and keeping to himself as she efficiently bound the wound in fresh cotton. It was the way of things he reflected, of soldiers and others so bonded. Now that the threat was over, all was fun, games, jokes, and jabs. They squirreled away any anxiety and would return to the bliss of projected ignorance until next they were mortally threatened. It seemed a natural way to cope and after so many years, it would be just as strange to not jest at a death-defying escape as to miss the opportunity at a quick joke about a peer's particularly personal injuries.
Sily tightened the fresh binding with a small grunt and stood to pull Pica to his feet, he limped only a little and winced once as he took a few tender steps. He shook her offered shoulder away after a few tender steps. ‘Shall we?’
He moved forward with slow purpose, eyeing a dark alleyway warily before aiming for a door on the northern edge of the washing yard. He pushed through with ease and fell back instantly, crashing into the two behind as vomit began forcing its way from his suddenly straining guts.
They dove out of his way, leaving their friend to scrabble crablike back into the yard, an accusatory finger pointed into the depths of the doorway.
‘Don’t. Go. In there.’ He coughed and gagged vilely, rewarding himself only with bitter bile which he resignedly spit into the dust.
Sily’s greaves came sharply into view as she stood over him in panic. ‘Pica! What now? Are you ok?’
In answer, retching arose from her rear. ‘Shit. Oh shit.’ Pellia held a hand over her mouth and fished wildly about her neck for her kerchief. ‘Oooooh shit.’
‘What!?’ Sily stood and spun to the woman, confused and frightened to anger by the antics of her comrades. ‘What the fuck is going o-’
The smell reached her in oily, crushing tendrils that clung to the ground with the gravity of their putrid source; she could feel its warmth somehow against the persistent chill of the day, separate and immune to the petty breeze that found its way into the confinement of the washing yard. Unholy sweetness ebbed and surged as it crept from the open door, riding aboard something else that was acrid and chemical, burning the nose and stinging the eyes of the troopers.
Sily’s stomach churned and she stifled a retch as she pulled Pica a few feet further from the creeping gas. ‘What the fuck is that? What is that?’ She mirrored Pellia and covered her face from the smell with cloth before kneeling to help the stunned Pica do the same. He was struggling to catch his breath and she pulled him to rest against the stone basin across the yard before joining Pellia where she was still poking around the doorway, apparently impervious to the smell already and reminiscent of a cat as she slowly pushed further into the unfamiliar space.
‘The people… they’re in here…’ she informed.
Sily took a breath and leaned to look through the door for herself. ‘Guess we know where the people ended up.’ She turned to the other woman. ‘Ready?’ Pellia nodded and they crept into the grim chamber.
The dead were strewn across a large, modestly appointed, common area; they were many, huddled in groups and in every posture and position of rigor, rotting in various piles across tables and chairs. Green and bloated, skin waxy and taut as their internals dissolved, they had been crammed together in the still air of the space for days. They numbered maybe two dozen in all and, as they would if having been placed here, didn’t appear to have been piled upon one another. Nor were there obvious wounds or signs of a struggle. Rather, it looked as if they had simply fallen together in a single moment. Pellia shivered as she took in the scene, Sily placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.
‘What… what happened to them?’ Pellia was shocked by the sight, her eyes watering as she looked between the many malformed faces. ‘We didn’t do this, did we?’
‘No.’
‘This doesn’t look like a fight to me,’ Sily then added quietly, ‘these people look like they’d been here a few days before we even caught word of Cerasus.
‘Some of them were sick, they were caring for them all together here.’ She looked around a bit more slowly, ‘but I don’t know whether that is what killed them.’
A closer look at those who were lined up near a wall and removed from the scant light lent her words credence. Some of the corpses, mostly the young and oldest, had cloths plastered to their foreheads, having not had them removed from their fevered brows as their caretakers passed beside them.
‘Look at those ones,’ she pointed to a group of five who were all seated together at a round table near the cold hearth, ‘they just keeled over mid-meal.’
Pellia was horrified. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know. If this is a sickness of some kind, it’s one I’ve never seen.’
‘Aye,’ Pica agreed solemnly, poking his head gingerly in from outside, ‘we’ve certainly seen ones that kill fast, and we’ve seen those that don’t cause boils, cysts, or rashes of some sort, but I can’t think of a natural sickness that kills like this.
‘And if it was poison,’ he gestured to the table and the dinnerware and cups laying strewn about it, ‘then it wasn’t in the food.’
Sily confirmed his observations with a quick glance over the surface. The plates, bowls, and cups had all been knocked over, either by the dying men or the rats who had clearly been to visit shortly thereafter, and all were spotlessly clean. The scavengers had been thorough, even scraping away the wood that had touched the last stripes of dried porridge from the bowl and the pot’s edge after the fire had died away.
But they hadn’t touched the bodies themselves. No matter where she looked, Sily could find no sign of even a test-bite on one of the corpses and she quickly moved to inspect a couple who had died, apparently, while reading a book together on a bench near the hearth. Pellia followed suit, and soon so did Pica who reluctantly pushed into the room as well.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at the same conclusion, not a single body had been touched by a scavenger and tracks in the dust showed that the creatures had been to visit often in the last few days. Following one rat trail, they found the cracks through which they made their way into the room and were puzzled to find two dead rats that had clearly been pushed free of the opening as well as a third who had died while halfway through the gap. The other rodents had been unable to move their dead comrade and had covered it in wood shavings as they chewed through the wall to widen the entrance above its obstructive corpse.
‘Whatever killed these people did it fast.’ He confirmed their suspicions with a frown, ‘too fast. Even the rats couldn’t escape quick enough.’
He bent down, grabbing one of the bloated little things by the tail and attempting to lift it for a better view. It came apart at his touch, the tail detaching with a trail of yellow slime and the body splatting flat as it fell back to the rough timber floor. A strong odor of acrid urine exploded from the mess at his feet, and he retreated toward the door as his eyes instantly became enflamed and his breath constricted painfully.
‘Good gods,’ he wheezed, suppressing a gag, ‘we need to go now. Something is too wrong here-’
‘Look at this.’ Pellia’s light voice cut across the grim room. ‘What do you think it could be?’
Pica and Sily froze in horrific fascination as they turned to her. In her hand was a small vial-like object with a dusting of yellow-orange powder inside. She was curiously holding it up in a dismal attempt at better illuminating the object and its contents.
Sily took a step forward, ‘Pell, I thi-’
‘PUT THAT DOWN SOLDIER!’ A roar flooded the room from the doorway to their rear and the three soldiers spun on their heels, eyes wide in shock.
Lieutenant Strozzi himself stood before them, his hands rested on his hips and his impressive form blocking the light from the doorframe almost completely. ‘Put. It. Down.’ He repeated slowly, taking a single step into the room.
The officer’s eyes flared as he took in the scene, seeing only his three young soldiers and the glass vial one was holding close to her face. He stepped again, an almost mechanical movement that made them all the more uneasy. The stern affability under every circumstance which they were used to in their lieutenant was conspicuously absent as they watched him moving slowly across the room toward a frozen Pellia.
‘Have you touched anything? Other than that?’ His voice was suddenly soft, almost a gruff whisper, as if he feared disturbing the very air in which they stood.
Before Pica could respond the doorway was darkened once more, this time by the lanky form of an auditor, a black hole in light-absorbent linens. At each of the figure’s elbows, two of the Order’s scribes waited expectantly with tomes and pens in hand. The figure stood there a moment, the entire ensemble framed as if in some perverse and horrific painting before it stooped awkwardly to enter the room before unfolding once more to an intimidating height that met floor and ceiling easily. They looked first at the soldiers, and then at each of the dead in turn. The eyes behind the mask sparked and flashed, surely perceiving all in a moment despite the dimness of the room.
The proximity of the investigator was terrifying for the young troopers who, despite their time in the Company, had never been close enough to properly see the fine details that composed the rat insignia. They looked now at the intricate bone fractures elaborating the central figure of the patch and which demarcated each from the uniform masses of their peers. This one, Pica noted, had three distinct cracks spreading across the crown of the small skull. He wondered what it meant.
‘Pell,’ Strozzi’s grumble broke the silence once more, ‘place that on the table and step away toward Sily. Do it now, and don’t drop it.’
She complied immediately, gingerly relinquishing the damaged vessel to precisely where she had found it before nimbly hopping to join her comrades standing beside a shuttered window to the side. The young woman looked around sheepishly, confused shame flushing her already reddened face as she attempted to understand where she had erred. Sily placed a comforting hand on her shoulder but didn’t say anything, holding herself stiffly in a situation suddenly much more complex and dangerous. What had appeared to be a morbid curiosity at first had suddenly taken on new meaning with the arrival of their lieutenant and what, for all they knew, appeared to be quite a senior auditor, or perhaps even an Inquisitor proper. The collective pit in their stomachs told them they had stumbled upon something truly dreadful.
The phantom cloaked in absence strode forward to stand over the small vial of powder, moving in their typical silence of voice and step to lean over and peer closely at the yellow residue visible within.
‘Out.’ The snide voices of one of the scribes ordered through the doorway. Neither had entered to follow their master, one now poking at the bundle in the basin outside while the one who spoke peered into the dimness from a respectful distance. He was staring at Lieutenant Strozzi expectantly. Nobody moved for a tense moment before a near-silent sigh escaped the greyed officer.
‘Out.’ He repeated.
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