Avium Citadel – Stargazing
Having long outlived their menfolk for generations, women of the Northern Clans have ascended overall to head their clans as warrior-matriarchs. In all matters of community, trade, or war, the Northern Mothers have the final say and although there are men in commanding and powerful positions, that power is relatively soft by the iron laws of these peoples.
Although technically a part of Picea province, the Ice Fields and its peoples are largely let alone by the Protectorate and the Governor of Glauca so long as they submit to regular tributes. One policy of exceptional effect in keeping these warlike and fearsome people at bay is the decennial conscription of their children for service in the Northern Armies of the Protectorate.
The peoples of Northern Mothers’ clans, therefore, paid a heavy-toll when the white-painted savages of Vladi Battalion blew into their lands to the sound of apocalyptic horns and bells at the behest of Diaemus. Moving from the Grey Sea coast and across the flat tundra from village to village, the long-dishonored unit raped, tortured, and murdered a bloody path of vengeance though the lands of the ice peoples.
In fact, it can be argued that Diaemus would have been much more successful in his march south to Avium during the Summer Uprising had the northern warriors not delayed his advance into Fraxinus. And were it not for the resolute sacrifice of the cold people, the Usurper would have surely moved through the Fanged Pass long before Company Mellivora would have had time to arrive, let alone build their eponymous defense, in the craggy heart of the Hematis.
The price extracted from the Clans was such that after six months of bloody battles on the ice and entire villages erased under Vladi steel, only one-in-ten of the Mother Clan holdings remained. All-in-all, a few thousand Northerners were all that remained of the once grand peoples by the time the rampaging Diaemus found he could not ignore the growing threat to his rear.
A great many clansfolk managed to flee or hide, returning to their destroyed homes when the last horn had faded from the wind, the scars they bore are severe and generational. Any trust that was once to be found between the Mother Clans and the Protectorate was decisively cut when Northern Expeditionary Forces put swords to their elders and boots to their children’s skulls.
Some trade still survives, the best oils come from the whales that mate and winter in the crystalline bays of the Ice Fields, but it is risky and cumbersome to manage, process, and ship to the open markets of the south. Many clans disagree on having any relationships with the Grove and her provinces, and while the Mothers have not issued judgement firmly one way or the other on the matter, there are elders who turn a blind eye to the raids that happen on traders within their lands.
-On the Northern Mother Clans of Northern Picea
Maester Alba of the Twelfth Tower of Avium
Pellia was bored, and furious. She sat on her bunk, legs waving back-and-forth anxiously over the mattress’ edge as Tacca explained once again that she would have to stay in Avium for assessment when Mellivora moved out next month.
‘Why can’t I stay with Fourth Squad!?’ the young soldier asked for the hundredth time.
‘Because, you don’t get to choose where you serve.’ Tacca answered wearily, an exasperated palm pressed to her forehead. ‘You have shown yourself well over the last two years and have proven yourself more than capable in a fight many times since we found you. but that isn’t enough. And while me and the lieutenant can pass our preferences upward, the enlistment you have chosen is to Mellivora, not Fourth Squad.’
She paused, hoping it would sink into the stubborn woman’s head better this time.
‘If you succeed the examination, you will be taken into the ranks as any other recruit would and all four of the LTs will have a fair chance at your service. For the first three years at least, that is.’ This last the sergeant added with the hopeful intonation of one implying something terrible is actually a good thing.
‘THREE years?!’ the northern woman shouted as if hearing it for the first time, jumping from her bunk in a cloud of sooty hair that pooled over her face as she landed. ‘You said two! I won’t be leaving Pica or Simen or ANY of you for three years just so I can learn to do things I already know!’ She flipped her hair for equal parts emphasis and basic vision.
Liking the way Sily managed to somewhat tame her hair in an environment not suited for flowing locks, Pellia had taken to imitating the easterner in the management of her hair and had found a similar riding cap to the one that the Populan woman often wore. She looked about for it exasperatedly, clearly planning to flee the fruitless conversation once more.
Tacca continued, ‘I’m truly sorry, Pell, you know that I am. I wish I could just take you into the squad, but the law says I can’t and even if I said yes, Strozzi wouldn’t allow it for a moment.’
Pellia huffed loudly, crossing her arms defiantly. ‘Then what is the point in staying here at all? If I am to end up serving that racist snake Naja, I might as well just leave altogether.’
‘Silence!’ Tacca hissed, eyes turning flat and grey at the traitorous words of her errant trooper. ‘Not another word of that.’
All was silent, the rugged leader and her hotheaded charge staring at one another.
‘Little Dove,’ the sergeant began once more, attempting to calm the situation, ‘do you remember the day we found you near Glauca? How you tried to skewer me with that dagger you made in the hospital tent?’
Silence.
‘That second, I knew what you were, saw your value… knew that you were one of us. You fill a hole in our squad… our family… that had been vacant for years when you allowed us to care for and know you. You became one of us over eighteen long months by our side, through every little problem and across every frothing river. You know we love you so much. We aren’t abandoning you!’
Tacca looked at Pellia, exuding heartbreak before continuing, ‘you can’t just leave, Pell, you know that if you dug up the bylaws on enlistment for provs. And think what that would do to the boys; they love and protect you; you’re part of their pack. Plus, you know it would destroy them if you attempted to desert, or what they might do if you were caught in the attempt.
‘We all love you, but to the boys, you are one of their own in their hearts, an outcast, and you know what they would do if they knew you wouldn’t ever be able to come back at all.’
‘What? And they’ll be happier knowing I’m off poisoning some village somewhere?’
Silence descended once more. It was heavier this time, Tacca breathed shallowly, and she glanced about to assure their privacy.
Pellia spit, a pathetic gob issuing forth from her lips and falling pitifully between her feet.
Hours later, the young northerner perched on the roof of an old, biased building in the southeastern sector of the city. It overlooked a particularly colorful and busy neighborhood along the Merchant’s Road and from where she sat, she could almost see where the broad street terminated in the mass of fishmonger stalls, courts for weaving and the spinning of rope, and warehouses at the wharf. Above her and pocked about her in this section of the city, varicolored windows and swinging paper lanterns adorned tall stone structures of ancient origin standing proud from the primarily timber districts surrounding them. They were the remains of whatever people had lived in the walls of Avium before it even carried that name, now turned to every purpose and enterprise by the industrious new society of the Grove, yet still beautiful in design and coveted by the peoples. They appeared as luminescent mushrooms, hordes of lanterns capping odd towers and drifting like spores in all directions along wires running down to the vibrant city below.
The air thrummed with the life of revelers ambling about on the wide street beneath her dangling feet, the smells and sounds of humanity pursuing simple joys mixing into an aura of warm comfort. She particularly loved the scents of spiced meats and leavened bread that wafted to her lofty outlook; her mouth moistened as she recalled the great, fatty beasts they had roasted for the solstice ceremonies on the frozen coasts of the Northern Grey Sea, a sea that was nowhere near grey in color and which had a name all its own to her. She hoped to one day go back to her home, to the peoples she remembered so fondly and those glacial lands so different to these warm, southern climes. But she knew that time wasn’t now. And as she sat and contemplated the changes that had threatened to overwhelm her since arriving in the cursed city, she feared that time may never come, that already they had forgotten the small girl who wandered out into the blistering winds alone.
Pellia was always surprised by these lively quarters in the great cities of the empire, the energy and emotion captured in a snapshot of time when daily burdens were exchanged alongside clippings of copper, silver, and gold in favor of simpler enjoyments. The citadel of Oxycarpa had had a wonderous market district full of all manner of potions and caustic powders, she recalled, and she had enjoyed spending many nights with Pica and Simen as they explored it during her recovery there. That all dimmed in comparison to what she saw before her, here in the Grand Citadel of Avium and the center of the Grove Protectorate.
She listened attentively to a band of admittedly inexperienced minstrels that had set up an as-yet unattended showcase of their immelodious wares on a nearby corner. They sang a song that reminded her of a home she was realizing had already begun disappearing from her daytime dreams and midnight contemplations, provoking a scene of loving family and warm hearths that unfolded before her as she watched the strolling figures.
Her mother had been a wonderful songstress, always the first to liven an occasion with a merry tune. She loved flutes, Pellia remembered, and was skilled at carving the instruments from the delicate, hollow bones of sea birds that flocked north in the brief summer months. She’d had one of her own, a true masterpiece that produced a sound quite unlike any other, but Pellia had lost it in Ochre Bay; it still pained her as her stomach knotted tightly at the thought of the loss.
She frowned at the rooftops as another thought disturbed her attention. Had it already been three years? She considered for a moment before realizing that yes, just a few months shy since she last saw her home and family. Her mood plummeted as she thought of the days to come, saddened that she likely wouldn’t see her second anniversary with the soldiers.
Pica would surely make a deal of it, Sily too; they were suckers for celebrations and never seemed to forget one between them. Simen would act like he didn’t notice a thing different in the world, aloof as ever, the big teddy bear. Rusa and Alces, she would miss them immensely when she was gone, they knew what it meant to really only need a pot of stew and something to wipe the bowl with to be happy on a winter’s night. She would miss their stupid card and dice games.
She wasn’t sure about Scribe; he was a weird one and she figured she should just get in line as far as trying to understand him was concerned. Not even Sily had cracked him and she disregarded every commonsense indicator that it was probably best to just avoid the lanky man entirely. She suspected he had a warm, caring heart under all that ink, but whatever had happened to make him the way he was terrified something deep within her.
And Sergeant Tacca, the mother who had taken Pellia into her pack without a question from anyone, who had pulled her from the icy, iron-red waters and nursed her back to life with her own rough hands. She would truly miss her. She felt ashamed of herself for her actions toward Tacca earlier, her harsh words caroused across her memory and etched themselves repetitiously in their passing. She would apologize to the sergeant, she always did when they got into an argument or Tacca tried to make her do something she didn’t want to, but something about this time felt worse, hurt more.
In a few days, Tacca, Simen and Pica, the Triplets, Scribe… they would all be gone, them moving on to whatever duty demanded and her being removed to the isolation of the exam. Where would she end up? Brewing poisons and setting about assassinations with Naja? She hoped that if not Strozzi, Lieutenant Heteractis would win her service, perhaps gaining the opportunity to set sail on a grand ship for the adventure of a lifetime with the ex-pirate. Maybe they would skirt the southern coast, traveling to Pyrus and fighting the many privateers that hunted the waters near Alba’s southern coast. Maybe she would go to the lands of the Taher’I to the far south like that doctor Zingi who always hung around Doc Pan. There had been much talk of that place lately, mentions of the desert nations heard late at night around card games or the odd nightcap when nobody was paying much attention. Would she be going there? Heteractis and her mercenary band were natural choices for such a mission and there was no guarantee that any of the Mellivora platoons would stay together. The Captain, she knew from experience, had a habit of sending them off on their own missions after all, each an individual piece of grand plans that none but he could fathom in their entirety.
She would lose her family, one she had found and made for herself, and she had no say in it. She was powerless.
Her stomach interrupted her leapfrogging thoughts insistently, she was hungry; reminiscing always made her stomach a demanding creature, and with a self-pitying sigh and a renewed resolution to make amends with Tacca, she deftly scaled the walls down into the alleyway below.
The lights were much more concentrated on the street itself; Pellia was accosted by the sheer variance and vibrance of colors in which she was suddenly immersed. Paper lamps of every color mirrored those strung high above and lit the pathway before her, casting purples, greens, blues, yellows, and reds anywhere the light could find a way to intrude. Revelers and night-haunters walked past her without a care in the world, dressed in bright colors and an overabundance of lace and buttons. They laughed loudly, walking with arms across shoulders or leaning upon one another companionably, the sight made her stomach twinge in a way that had nothing to do with her hunger.
‘Hey little dove,’ a young woman’s voice intruded her thoughts. It was low and sultry beside her, ‘you lost? you need something?’
Pellia recoiled instinctively and turned, meeting the gaze of the brown-haired young woman who could have hardly been much older than she was herself.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Just enjoying the sights, a bit.’
The woman shifted the translucent gold stola higher onto her shoulder, better displaying her lithesome figure for a passerby that had caught her eye before giving Pellia a small smile and a nod toward the shadows of the alley.
‘Don’t let a pretty thing like you get caught too late out here, it isn’t all colors and music in the Milkmaid’s Quarter.’ She glanced up and down the wide street before continuing, ‘you don’t want to get caught by the gangs or the guards in this district, Love.’ She turned slowly, letting the light slip gently down her back and exposing the deep, long-healed scar running from her left shoulder and to the dimples of her slender back.
‘Trust me.’
Pellia said nothing as the woman turned back toward her, looking into the brown eyes of the young woman and clearly expecting some acknowledgement of her cautionary advice. After a final elongated moment, the alabaster woman in gold nodded slowly, apparently satisfied with the girl’s unflinching stare as a recognition of her words. She stood straight, shifting to allow the light to filter past and better illuminate the small soldier standing in the darkness before her.
‘Mellivora?’ she looked mildly surprised, ‘a lot of you about lately, but you… you look a bit young for the Unitary, I’d reckon.’
Pellia looked her up and down, a raised eyebrow indicating the irony she found in the statement.
‘Not a particularly talkative one, are you? Here…hold on…’
She spun away suddenly, seeming to forget Pellia entirely and turning her attention to a particularly dandy-looking young man whose clips jangled a bit too loudly in his purse for her liking. She disappeared with him in a flurry of gold fabric into the veil-lined building.
The young soldier sniffed, confused by the strange encounter, and, deciding she’d had enough, began to climb back to the safety of her perch, hunger not forgotten, but already unwilling to interact with the denizens of the vibrant district anymore. A sound over her shoulder made her turn back.
‘I said wait,’ the woman in gold whispered. ‘Here, take this!’
Pellia returned to her gesturing silhouette, a small package was shoved into her hands.
‘Now get back to wherever you came from up there,’ she gestured to the rooftops with a nod, ‘say ‘hi’ to Young Lewis for me, and don’t come back down here if you can help it.’
She was gone, floating away to her awaiting client while a well-wishing kiss flew back toward the distrustful young woman hiding in the alley. Pellia eyed the package curiously and tucked it away into her coat pocket.
Returning to her rooftop via a decaying trellis, Pellia decided to try her hands at a nearby stone outcropping stretching another sixty feet above; she had been eyeballing it all night and she couldn’t think of better place she could sit in peace free of unwanted conversation and well-wished warnings. She had some leftovers from the day’s patrols and, with a great sigh to everything in general, resigned herself to the crumpled wax paper sleeve of smoked fish and a few malformed chunks of butterscotch she still had stuffed in her grubby pockets. She was pretty sure there was a hardtack travel biscuit stuffed in her pack somewhere as well.
The climb was surprisingly easy once she made it past the smooth lower-half with the assistance of some thick vines gone dry for the winter. The upper-section was ornamented with protruding bricks positioned at forty-five-degree angles and spiraling densely up to the overhanging tile rooftop. It made a great climbing surface and she relished the exercise as she scaled it in a dash, legs almost never touching the wall as she vaulted upward, strong arms and back flexing with trained efficiency.
As she climbed over a decrepit iron railing and onto a projecting balcony, she was pleased to find that nobody awaited her in the topmost rooms. The view from here was beyond even her wildest imaginings, an array of life in vibrant light and color stretching for miles in every direction and terminating sharply against the towering roseate walls on every side. To the west, the Grey Sea stretched interminably into the distance, a pathway to faraway places she couldn’t even begin to conceive.
She was soon derailed from her verging slide into depressive pondering by a prior unseen companion she had intruded upon in her ascent to the top of the old structure. It arrived from a decaying four-poster bedstand hidden in the dark recesses of the room, rustling the rotted silk canopy before appearing from behind an identically dilapidated privacy screen that leaned after long ago losing a foot to termites. The creature yelled ferociously as it locked eyes on her, charging from the darkness in a flurry of hissing spit and inflating itself ridiculously to intimidate the trespasser. Pellia jumped before collapsing and laughing at the sight.
The cat continued in its bizarre proprietorship, arching its thin back and planing ears back menacingly as it demanded payment from the aspiring tenant. She patted her pockets in supplication and with deferentially downcast eyes, offering forward the crumpled wax paper containing the, now surely shredded, remains of the dried pollack from her day’s lunch. The beast ceased its yowling instantly and snatched the packet from her with sharp teeth, smacking it about with a curled paw until the fishy bits scattered all about.
‘Nice, you must be ‘Young’ Lewis.’ Pellia arced an eyebrow at the rugged, clearly ancient cat munching noisily on a piece of the jerky. He ignored her entirely; she pulled a soft butterscotch from her pocket and popped it disconsolately into her mouth.
‘Tonight didn’t go as planned.’ She leaned on the stone banister and peered down at the streets meandering about far below. From above, the colors were less bright and the sounds more muted; she felt much more alone than ever before from her perch as she watched the small lives flitting about.
Young Lewis intruded himself upon her thoughts once again with a firm, fuzzy bump of his head against her calf, finishing her initial tithe and inviting her an opportunity to scratch his bony, coarse head as well. He jumped onto the wide railing and sniffed absentmindedly, pointing a small nose in the air lazily before stretching ponderously, tail high in the air and back arched ridiculously. He sat down directly before her, claiming the space between her outflung legs, and staring at the melancholic young woman who had chosen to visit him this evening.
What a strange little beast, Pellia thought, looking with interest at the light-grey patterning obscured by the soot and general filth that otherwise covered the, she assumed, white cat. He seemed to appreciate the attention, giving her two slow blinks before climbing up her front, standing on two feet and sniffing at her face and chest inquisitively. He stopped and began to root around at a pocket in her jacket as she attempted to push him away between increasingly hysterical laughs, pawing at and trying to open the heavy, material of her dyed jacket with apparent urgency. With sudden realization, Pellia exclaimed as she remembered the package she had been given by the woman in the alleyway. She produced it for ‘Young’ Lewis, opening it before him as he sat back down expectantly before her.
Her stomach rumbled audibly as she untied the twine and the smell escaped the tightly-wrapped bundle. Before her, and exceeding all expectations, lay a meal that would have satisfied her in any inn. A loaf of dense, black bauernbrot, full of seeds and still warm from where it had lived on the hearth prior to packing, sat in her palm invitingly. A few thick slices of blood sausage accompanied the bread and glistened in the solitary lantern that ended the cabled row to the roof above her head, her mouth watered as she appreciated the thick chunks of white fat and coarse spices speckled throughout.
‘Just like back home,’ she said aloud to the cat still watching her intently. She offered him one of the slices of sausage and smiled as he chirped at her, standing on his hindlegs once more to receive the generous portion before placing it gingerly on the stone before him for dismemberment. He purred contentedly.
A piece of sharp white cheddar awaited her under the slices of meat, and she felt her spirits lifting as she tucked into the rather more substantial meal than she had anticipated for herself that evening. She thanked whatever gods for her scruffy new friend and the odd young woman below.
Pellia didn’t notice Lewis’ silent exit until a clink from behind made her spin about defensively; she laughed as he pawed ineffectively at a ceramic bottle stored in a cubby hole above the slanting desk and moved into the room proper to retrieve the vessel for the demanding creature.
It contained an apricot brandy of divine quality that went entirely overlooked by the young soldier who was admittedly less-than experienced in such things; her comrade was disinterested from the moment she touched it, sitting down to throw a leg in the air for grooming. She poured a small amount in a chipped bowl for him regardless and brought it with her back to the railing. He followed promptly, tail’s end twitching as he trotted on her heels and settling himself in a deceptively thick loaf-shape beside the her.
Pellia drank deeply from the bottle, unappreciative of the quality beyond the thick, peppery sweetness of the liquor and the warmth that it flooded into her veins as the chill of the long night finally began to set in about her in Young Lewis’ tower top home. She had always had an affinity for cats, having many that had run playfully through her campsites and joining the migration across the northern lands after the herds of reindeer and shabby snow bison; she couldn’t help but see the great white cats of the steppe in the feral beast as well, the complete ownership of his home and the feigned disregard with which he oversaw his territory and the intruder therein.
Time faded and stretched before the pair, temporarily sharing the grand city at their feet and feeling above the petty squabbles and artificial distinctions which mar the everyday world.
She looked to Clifftop where it tucked against the Grey Sea on the grand upswell of rock to her northwest, glinting and shining in the latest part of night while all but the “worst” parts of the city were long abed. Perhaps that said something about them, Pellia considered, that even now they surely partook of the same debaucheries as those in the streets below while tomorrow they would profess the needs for austerity and modesty amongst the population. Indeed, the activities of the most powerful members of society were one of the things she had been expressly warned of prior to arrival, their legendary charity runs wherein they paraded the worst streets of town, demanding confessions of moral debauchery and hedonism from the poorest and most needy in exchange for some pittance. It didn’t matter whether the things said were true, they would admit to them on command and roll in the street filth in the hopes of a few clips landing in the muck beside them.
Pellia hoped that had been a tall tale, that such a degrading thing couldn’t happen, not really. Simen had said the practice had fallen out of fashion and that he had only seen it once when he was very small; Pica had not confirmed that story either way and had simply rolled his eyes, so she had figured it another of his and the brother’s stupid games. But what if it wasn’t?
She turned to look at Keeptown, noticing that from her high angle, she could almost see over the wall that surrounded the robust barracks complex. It seemed smaller than she thought it felt from inside, the thick shell housing enough space for more than 15000 soldiers and their attendants. Looking at how condensed the tall garrison blocks were clarified where such a force could be stored, Pellia wondered how she had never been there before, a place so tall it likely saw over the gatekeep walls and into the city. It looked remarkably different from the housing she had been provided with Mellivora, and she suspected they didn’t have things like company chefs or private libraries.
Which of the Armies lived in those? Hystrix and Dorylus maybe? Had she read about others? Were Hystrix even garrisoned within Keeptown proper? Had she seen one of the purple-and-cream troopers since she had been allowed out of the Mellivora grounds proper?
For the first time, she noticed the great balloon drifting silently against a near-moonless sky. It was certainly an airship, she could see the mighty wings beating slowly as what she assumed were rowers of some sort worked themselves within, but she knew not which of the buoyant vessels it might be. It was far and although she was one of the rare few who had ever gotten a proper profile view of one of the things thanks to Scribe, there was no way she could confidently distinguish between them in the dark.
Where was it going? Crossing the walls of Keeptown, it was now moving at a solid pace across the long avenue of the Forest of Heroes to her direct north. It was growing larger, cutting toward the sea at an oblique angle that was bringing it closer to her as well. It was gargantuan, a great black-and-blue beast that crept along impossibly silent above the sleeping city. And then it was upon her, passing the balcony, and then it was gone.
She craned her head to find it, looking to see where it had disappeared to after passing near the tower and exceeding the vantage of her small balcony. She ran inside, eliciting an angry bark from the bed’s snapping legs as she vaulted over it to the opposite window. She leaned into the night. It was nowhere, absolutely and conspicuously absent.
‘Impossible.’ She turned to Lewis, but it seemed he hadn’t noticed anything unusual at all.
The night grew long enough to become morning and the cat stood, stretching slowly across the stones and beginning a precarious descent to the shingled rooftops below. The little beast meandered contentedly onto its lands, soot-darkened fur glinting grey in inconsistent light thrown uncertainly from swaying lanterns. Pellia watched it with an interest born of the ennui that accompanies a night that hasn’t gone quite as planned; she had stormed away from the gatekeep intent on enjoying the evening and spending the last few copper clips shaking about in her pouch, it had soon become her sulking alone, watching the happy people and sulking in self-pity at her circumstances alongside an equally sullen street cat.
The little stray turned his small, sticky-looking head to face her, staring with green-glinting eyes; it sat down promptly to give the sullen girl a silent invitation off of and away from his lofty home. He was swift to grow frustrated with the woman who didn’t move and just stared back; he began to yowl, maintaining an incessant holler without once taking eyes off the interloper, sitting calmly but otherwise screaming directly at Pellia. She climbed the stone banister with ease and slipped down onto the protruding brickwork below smoothly, moving toward the loud little tramp with a sigh and a small smile. She wasn’t alone up here after all, she considered, perhaps she the feisty little trumpet had something to show her.
The agile young woman was forced to leap, slide, and tumble her way across the rooftops to get at the cantankerous monster as he fled, following Young Lewis as he guided her across the district and maintained a solid, teasing lead on her steady pursuit. Eventually he stopped, flying up a final steep line of tiles and turning to unleash a renewed salvo of unintelligible taunts from a high roost that looked largely inaccessible for the pursuing biped.
Pellia was energized and enervated by the chase, her blood flowing like liquid iron and her breaths deep and calm despite the exertions of the spontaneous game of chase. She stopped below the evasive feline and looked up at him stretching on a hoist beam from the thin gable; he looked completely disinterested in her and watched an errant moth that was bashing itself into a streetlamp nearby.
With a quick stretch and a hopping start, Pellia resolved herself, launching across a final small gap and scrabbling sideways up the slippery roof tiles with the skill of a mountain goat. She conquered the final steep leg of her journey in a sprawling bound and collapsed on the thin flat landing that capped the roof, the cat looked at her huffing before him before staring pointedly at the pocket where she had stored the remains of her dinner.
Exactly like a snow cat, she thought with a warm heart and a creeping sense of hope about life generally; she held out the last of the sausage for inspection by the insistent tyrant. He stood slowly, deigning to allow her the privilege of his attention and leaping up from his over-street roost to casually inspect the porcine tithe the odd youth offered forward. The roof-master appreciated her bowed head and averted eyes, he would accept a second helping of delicious sausage.
He leaned forward, deftly snatching a small corner of cheese and shredding it noisily with razorlike molars; he stopped for a moment to inspect the girl again before taking another serving and shuffling slightly closer on his rump as he dined. Lewis then pawed the packet from her hand with a self-assured swipe, claiming the remains and sliding it over the rooftop and away from Pellia; he sniffed the packet with satisfaction, pushing it exactly where he wanted it with tiny swats before resuming his default loafing and peering down at the street below.
Relieved of the last of her victuals, the now-exhausted trooper pulled herself into a more comfortable position with her back propped against a chimney and her legs sprawled wide before her; she watched her new friend contentedly, maybe she wasn’t so afraid to be alone. With care not to scare the temperamental cat, she scooted silently across the roof ridge and settled a respectful distance away with legs hanging freely over the edge.
Pellia enjoyed a serene hour with the territorial beast, occasionally making small clicking noises in the hopes of convincing him to finally come over for a cuddle; the feline was ok with the current arrangement and sat grooming itself meticulously and with admirable devotion to not noticing the equally committed young woman. Scribe would like this, she thought, picturing him behind his notebook with his innumerable pens and inks, hard at work to capture the fundamental essence of the feral creature as it chewed gracelessly at a mat in the fur of its stubby tail.
She wasn’t familiar with this side of Avium, and it looked more rundown and less traveled than what she had seen in the few weeks since she had arrived, she wondered where exactly ‘Young’ Lewis had taken her in their late-night parkour across progressively aged rooftops. It was much darker in this part of the city, quieter, she noted as she observed the street twisting below her; the bright lanterns, pungent smokes, and raucous crowds seemed muted and distant here, Pellia felt a world away in this sleepy neighborhood somewhere beyond the activity of the Quarter.
Remembering the advice on navigating the massive sprawl of the Rose City, Pellia stood and stretched as high as her limited stature allowed, searching the darkness for the tall silhouette of the Twelfth Tower near the northern gate and the Mellivora barracks. She found its faltering tower lanterns after much squinting and an almost complete loss of orientation.
‘Hmmm…’
She was further to the west than she expected she possibly could be, somewhere near the fisherman’s wharf on the southern coast.
‘Where have you taken me Sir Lewis?’
He did not seem to find her question worth answering and continued watching a moth fluttering about in the street before him.
It struck her suddenly, a thousand tales from Pica and Simen, the ridiculous stories shared by street callers and market people and drunken guardsmen: ‘Is this Heartw-’
The sound of a crash below stole her attention and her words, she flattened herself against the rooftop in smooth drop and slowly leaned out to see the source of the commotion in the murky darkness below.
She watched as two large men led their party down the thin alley to her left that met the broader one directly below her; one carried a large package balanced on a broad shoulder while the other marched alongside with an ease seen in veteran soldiers always expecting the possibility of ambush. They escorted a thin woman holding onto the stiff arm of a tall man and were followed by two more tall men talking closely together. Their voices floated up to the rooftops, annoying the old stray who released a tentative growl in warning at those who would interrupt his peaceful exhibition with the strange outsider who had brought fish and sausage.
‘…that’s what I’m saying. If we are supposed to sail…’ a deep, accented voice echoed upward before being lost in overhanging alley eaves, he sounded concerned.
‘...what if Tacca doesn’t believe us?’ a question drifted upward.
Pellia found herself balancing precariously on the precipitous edge of the roof and leaning out to try to catch the words coming from below. Damned alleys, she thought as she leaned back to the stability of the flat roof cap and scrabbled silently down the rooftop to a lower vantage.
‘Stop worrying about it.’ the woman ordered. ‘There is no sense whatsoever in wondering about…’
Sily! Pellia recognized the voice with joy. And the boys!
Her heart melted at the sight of them and for a moment all thoughts of her own misery were lost as she recognized the family that had adopted her when she had nothing else. She started clambering down, intent on joining them before a bittersweet thought stopped her cold. Why not follow for a bit, she thought, her mood becoming volatile once more, see what she could find out about her potential future.
She trailed them from above for a few streets, catching bits of conversation that wafted up to her.
‘No, we can’t trust Strozzi, he was with the seers.’
Seers? Strozzi? Pellia picked up speed, slipping ghostlike across the tiled roofs and spotting a perfectly overhanging flat roof with fat eaves where she could listen free of the muffling gables surrounding her. She had wondered if Sily and Pica had spoken of that day in Cerasus.
‘Just stop.’ Sily snapped, ‘you know the rules as well as any of us.’
‘But…’
‘But nothing. What could we do other than take this to Tacca?’ Sily was adamant, apparently this conversation had gone much too long for her liking.
‘She’s right and you know it Simen.’ A voice that could only be Pica entered the conversation.
Pellia shrank away from the ledge, receding even further into the shadows, her breath suddenly frozen in her throat. They were up to something, there was tension. Did this have to do with her Mellivora examination after the holiday?
The voices stopped altogether suddenly, a sharp silence flooding the night oppressively; Pellia paused in her escape sure she had betrayed her presence to her squad below. All was silent as seven people held their breaths apprehensively.
Then she heard it, somewhere in the dark neighborhoods to their south, a sound simultaneously undefinable and eerie and desperate. It intruded on the mind; Pellia realized it had been going on for a while, being too focused on eavesdropping to pay it any mind.
‘Go!’ Pica’s shout exploded authoritatively, scattering the searching silence in a flurry of echoes. Hobnails on cobblestone retreated at speed as the group, moving ever as one, flooded down the alleyway and away from the despairing spy on the rooftops.
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