Groundborn

by Scott Moore

  “Because what?” Nov asked.

  Something in Alti changed. Her shoulders slumped for a moment and then straightened, but something about her looked harder.

  “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is they are here now. Clustering around the city’s wall, and eventually it won’t hold them back. I don’t know how many it would take to create another slaughter, but believe me there are enough.”

  Nov let the question drop. She was right about the defenses. Without soldiers to maintain or even care, they would eventually crumble.

  “How many are there?”

  Alti turned away from the trees and toward him.

  “Too many for us to stop alone,” Alti said. “So many that Sera would be swarmed three times over if we allowed it to continue unchecked.”

  Nov swallowed the lump forming in his throat. He had known. He had been out there with Earl and the other members of their patrol. Now he was the only one left. Nov closed his eyes. The teeth, claws, and yellow eyes bore into him. Everyone in Sera would die if he didn’t save them.

  “What can we do?”

  ***

  Alti had almost slipped up. Emotions were clouding her judgement. She had almost told Nov more than she intended to tell him. Drawing a breath, she had regained some composure. She let Nov lead the conversation to where she needed it to go. They would all need for Nov to want this and understand.

  “What can we do?”

  Alti thought about telling him everything. She thought about telling him about her family and the threat that they posed. Brothers and sisters that would force them to hurry. She opted to stay quiet about them. Nov couldn’t fight them and there would be no use scaring him into a useless spiral. Nov knew the Groundborn, they were an enemy he could wrap his mind around.

  “It all relies on you, Nov,” Alti said. “What are you willing to do?”

  She saw the constricting way Nov swallowed his fear.

  “Whatever it takes,” he said.

  Alti could see the doubt in his eyes, but he tried to mask it.

  “Then what we have to do is make your city understand. If everyone, and I mean everyone, bands together with weapons drawn then Sera may have a fighting chance. Even then it isn’t a good one.”

  “What do we do?” he asked again.

  Alti drew in a deep breath. Her plan had been constructed long ago, during her mother’s dying whispers.

  “We can save the city from itself. All we have to do is let them see that the threat is real.”

  Be as it may, life isn’t always as one perceives it to be. Sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re terribly wrong. A good lesson is to tread lightly unless you be immortal.

  12

  Miles had left him alone inside the downstairs area of the building. He had left him alone with the men at the bar. The men who continued to prattle him with words he didn’t understand.

  “Come on you imbecile,” they touted.

  Even the barkeep started in on Sammy.

  “Wasting a damn seat,” he said. “Keeping paying customers out.”

  Sammy wasn’t sure what he had meant by that either. It seemed to him there wasn’t a line forming for the man’s amber drink. There hadn’t been a single person come in after Miles and Sammy entered. So maybe Sammy was just confused on the concept of customers, but if he had meant people with that coin, then no one else seemed to be emptying their pockets for him.

  “Do you even realize how stupid you are?” asked the man behind Sammy.

  Sammy again chose not to entice them. Instead, he continued to stare out the window toward the dirt road. He wasn’t sure what these men wanted from him, or why they bothered to be so forward, but he knew it made him feel uncomfortable.

  Sammy continued to focus on the people outside. He noticed men and women walking together holding hands. They seemed to be happy. Then there were those who yelled and tried to hit one another. Why would people do that? Sammy saw kids as well taking the fruit and running away as the fatter men behind the table yelled for them to return. Sammy thought it must have been a game that they were playing with one another.

  He heard the barstool scoot backwards behind him. He thought maybe the men had grown bored with him and were returning to their corner, but then he felt the wetness of liquid on his shoulder. He tilted his head, not enough to look at the men, but enough to see a mug tilted pouring the smell bad onto his shoulder. Sammy supposed the man had slipped and accidently spilled the liquid on his shoulder. He couldn’t imagine why else the stuff would be there.

  “Wasted a damn good beer,” the man said.

  Sammy still decided against conversing with him. The man behind the bar, however, chimed in, “He should pay for the next round.”

  The others whooped and hollered. Sammy thought the man must have forgotten he didn’t have any of the substance they called coin. He doubted Miles would give him any of his to pay for this liquid, not if it was as important as the man behind him had made it seem. They would have to use their own coin to get beer, but Sammy continued to sit silently instead of informing them so.

  The man behind Sammy slammed his mug on the counter.

  “Can you not hear either you little dipshit?” he yelled into Sammy’s ear.

  Sammy tried to refocus on the window. Anything but focusing on the men behind him.

  “He can’t fucking hear,” the man said to his group of friends. They laughed, which came to be expected of them. “Guess I will inform him another way,”

  Sammy felt the man’s hand on his shoulder, and he flinched from the pressure. Odd Sammy thought, but it felt like a natural thing to do. It also seemed to be the wrong reaction as the men all pushed their bar stools back and stood to their feet.

  “Guess he wants to fight.”

  Sammy didn’t know what fighting meant, but he doubted he wanted to do it.

  Sammy felt the room go silent, as if the air sucked from the crevices of the walls. Something odd happened he could feel it, but he didn’t know what. He looked at the table where Miles had been sitting with his female friend, but Miles had yet to return. Sammy could feel something above him, something in the direction that Miles had gone. The feeling left his stomach feeling empty.

  Sammy stood, pushing the stool back with his hands. He heard the others coming toward him, but he didn’t turn around. He had to get upstairs. Miles may need his help.

  Sammy felt the meaty fingers wrap around his shoulder as he took a step forward toward the old creaking stairs.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Sammy didn’t have time to continue dealing with these men. Did they not feel the strangeness of the room? They seemed too occupied with their words and not occupied enough with what happened right above them.

  The man’s fingers dug into Sammy’s bone and started to pull him around. The strength behind the force caused Sammy to lose control, and he stumbled. Sammy looked into the eyes of the man who had been hounding him for the better part of the afternoon. The man’s jaw dropped in what looked like surprise.

  “What’s the matter with your eyes freak?” he stuttered.

  Sammy had no clue what the man mumbled about, but he didn’t care either. It could wait until later, until he knew Miles was safe. Sammy raised his hand in front of him, but only to swipe the other man’s hand from his shoulder. The man let out a squeak and jumped backwards. The other men, those who had been all laughs before, jumped backwards too, stumbling over the bar stools they had sat upon moments before.

  “Don’t hurt us,” the barkeep said. He held up his hands in front of his face. “I don’t care what the ransom is on your friend, the king can rot, just don’t hurt me!” The barkeep made a beeline for the door behind the bar. The others followed suit running toward the front doors. Sammy didn’t stick around to find out why, he had other business to attend to. He turned and started at a run toward the old stairs.

  13

  It couldn’t be the only solution cou
ld it? He pushed the thoughts from his mind again. He had been debating the words of the woman for two days now. Alone in his small shack, set to the side of the barracks, he felt entrapped by his thoughts.

  Nothing in his small home took his mind away from those entangling words. He tried to sleep, but sleep eluded him. Tried to read, but the histories of the Groundborn wars seemed even more boring than usual.

  Thoughts swirled around him and made his tiny home even smaller. Nov finally swung his feet out of bed. He had tried to avoid leaving his shack. If he didn’t leave, then he wouldn’t have to deal with the problems of the outside world. If he stayed inside, then maybe everything out there would just cease to exist. A childish way to cope, but dammit sometimes he missed being a child.

  Nov laced his boots. They still smelled of earth and blood. Then, he pulled a clean shirt over his head. Nothing fancy, but it beat being covered in filth. After strapping on his sword, Nov pressed out into the world.

  He hadn’t a clue what he should do. Earl had always been there to guide him; that extra push in the right direction. Nov didn’t fancy himself an unintelligent man, just not much for making important decisions. That must have been a side effect of following Earl for so long.

  Nov pressed toward the barracks. Men and swords may be a good way to distract his mind.

  It turned out that only a handful of men even showed up to train. Nov couldn’t blame them, without Earl, he had neglected to show as well. He had neglected it the past two days. Sitting in his shack and moping about the decisions being forced on him.

  Nov’s fingers curled hard around the railing of the training grounds. Not a single combatant swung their swords with any vigor. If they practiced that way, then it would follow them into combat, and those city walls would fall even faster than Nov predicted.

  He turned away from them, trying to keep the disappointment from adding to his soup of thoughts.

  What would Earl do? A simple question. A question that Nov had asked a thousand times the past two days. Yet the answer fluttered just out of reach for him. Would Earl force his men into the field with swords drawn? Would that even help? Did it matter if a hundred soldiers died? The death of five patrol men had not swayed the council.

  The thought of five men dying bit at Nov, not because of their death, but because he didn’t know them. If their deaths meant nothing to him, then how would they mean anything to anyone else?

  Nov looked up at the barracks wall. Short and stubby, only meant to keep the clanging of swords out of the city quarters, but it provided a decent vantage point over a single market square. Nov moved toward the stairs, thinking maybe the noise of the city would help alleviate some stress.

  The old wall needed repairs. Stairs were cracked and patched over in many areas. The wall itself leaned slightly back in toward the main barracks. Earl had always said it had no reason to be made pretty; it was made to be efficient. Nov questioned if it would even be that for much longer.

  On top of the wall, the sound of the swords blending into the commotion of the city. Or maybe the soldiers down below had just stopped the charade of swinging the hunks of metal. Nov didn’t bother to turn and figure it out.

  Instead, he looked out over the small portion of the world he could make out. Women, men, and children all frolicked together. Yet, mostly, not a single person noticed the other. One of the main reasons the rate of soldiers dropped; people noticed themselves and not the world around them. In the end, that made it easier to leave everything behind and cut off everyone. People didn’t love one another anymore; they loved power, titles, and coin.

  Out there, in the small portion of the city, were people working their lives away for a single copper. There were woman degrading themselves for the pleasure of men. There were sure to be a few boys doing the same. Pickpockets stole in secret and merchants did so right in front of their victim’s eyes.

  It was a crazy mess of emotions, ideals, and displays down on those cobbled paths.

  Sure, some people seemed to believe they were happy with their lot. They were mostly the drunkards, or speed addicts, easy to forget troubles that way.

  Nov couldn’t help but feel disgusted by the thoughts of what occurred below him. It was still moving and churning, but they didn’t even bother to grease the wheels. It would all come to a sudden halt soon enough, and not one of them cared to help.

  Nov thought maybe he shouldn’t be mad. Maybe he envied those poor souls. He envied the fact that none of them had to live with his worry. None of them had to decide and live with it for the rest of their lives. They could wake up and continue the way they always had.

  Those damn nobles in their fancy towers were to blame anyhow, not the poor.

  Nov looked upward toward the skyline. Here, in the city's heart, it was mostly blocked by the towers to the east; huge fingers reaching up to caress the clouds; which just so happened to be where the nobles lived. They were the ones who cared so much for their image, their titles, and their coin, that they failed to care about keeping it all protected.

  What would Earl do? It came back to the question again. The barracks hadn’t helped; the wall hadn’t helped, and nothing would help. The thoughts swirled and ate at his sanity; what little he had left. No use trying to push it to the back of his mind. It would be impossible to forget. Always right there in front of him. Every time he saw a soldier, a whore, a child, he would have to think on the decision.

  What had Alti said? Something to the tune that he may not like what she proposed. He may feel uncomfortable in laying out the plan. She had been right about that. Did that mean she could be right about it all? Did it matter? At least she tried to save this city. At least she seemed to care.

  That brought the question of why though. Why did this unknown entity give two shits about a broken city? Where had she come from anyhow? She could have been a lesser noble. Maybe a child out of wedlock. There were so many people Nov didn’t know inside the city walls, but something told him she represented none of them.

  That light she had shot at the Groundborn made her different. He couldn’t be sure what it had been, but he knew he had noticed something. That something had saved him. Her poise on the battlefield made him sure that no noble blood ran through her. Much too cool headed to be anyone walking the city streets. Which meant she came from somewhere else, but where?

  The histories told of only one surviving city after the Groundborn Wars. Sera, the place humans retreated to make one last stand. Where they had built their walls and fended off the Groundborn. They had not won, but they had built enough to slow the deaths. Then, a hundred years ago the Groundborn just stopped coming. The city blew up and expanded.

  People forget a lot of things in a hundred years. They forget fear, destruction, and the reason why they are here.

  Nov drummed his fingers along the banister of the wall. The woman had given him a solution. She had provided him with an answer. It may not be the right answer, but who could he ask? Earl wasn’t getting up today or tomorrow, or possibly ever. Nov felt even worse because no matter how much he thought of Earl, he refused to go to his side. He refused to know if Earl died already.

  His fingers curled hard around the railing. He could feel the pressure building in his wrist and saw his knuckles turning white. Finally, he let out a deep breath he hadn’t noticed he held.

  He took a few more breaths and watched two men stumble out from the tavern. They walked about fifteen paces and fell over one another. Was that what he saved? Two children ran by and took advantage of the fallen men. Quick and small hands, hands that had to provide for themselves; the men didn’t even bother to protest. Was that the notion he was trying to preserve? Was he trying to save the hunger of children? The ability for grown men to fall over themselves drunk?

  Was he saving the towers that crowded the sky? The whores who opened their thighs for coin?

  Nov scanned the city again. He saw men and women laughing. He saw honest men doing labor under the hot sun; sword maker
s, tailors, florists, and other hardworking citizens. He remembered something Earl had told him once when he was growing up: “All people are bad sometimes, but it is the other times, when they are good, that we fight for.”

  Nov let go of the rail. He had one more shot at not going through with this plan. Nov swallowed his resentment of leadership and decided to embrace it.

  Even those blessed with intelligence can be confused by the simplest things in life.

  14

  Miles lay panting on the floor. His body refused to work. His mind, however, raced like a horse on the tracks in Rosin—the king’s city. The door to the old cramped room flew open and Miles’ body involuntarily jumped and scurried backwards toward the bed frame. His sword clattered to the ground, it would do him no good anyhow, his arms were shaking like leaves in the wind.

  In the doorway stood Sammy, staring at Miles as if he had already sensed something going wrong.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Sammy hadn’t even seen the body yet. How had he known to come running?

  Miles tried to answer, but the same restricting pressure that had forbidden him to scream as the beast attacked, now would not let him speak. His eyes, however, darted toward the flayed corpse. She lay mutilated and dead in the middle of the room.

  Sammy followed Miles’ eyes to her corpse. His expression didn’t change. He stood stark still in the doorway and looked puzzled at what the woman did. Miles felt the sweat dripping down into his eyes, but his arms wouldn’t obey to wipe it away. His heart still hammered in his chest. How had those fuckers found him here? How had they come up from the floor without being seen? Where the hell did it disappear too?

  Sammy didn’t accuse Miles when he asked, “Is she dead?”