The Blighted City (The Fractured Tapestry)

by Scott Kaelen

  “It’s the sun,” she said. “Water heals. Heat weakens. Same for anyone, I suppose, only more so for us.”

  “Much more so,” Gorven said. “You know, some would say that the gods have a sick sense of humour.”

  Oriken scratched his stubble. “Why’s that?”

  “If we’d had weather like this the whole day, the denizens would’ve stayed in their shelters,” Gorven said. “They only come out at night or when it’s heavily overcast, especially when it rains. What Krea said about fire and water is also true, or was true, for the denizens, though the majority only operated on instinct, much like a turkey lifting its face to the rain. Except, of course, we blighted folk do not drown out of stupidity.” Gorven flicked a hand dismissively. “But I ramble. Krea, you and your blades played a vicious and vital role today; why don’t you escort our guest back to the mansion and get some rest? There will be plenty of work in the coming weeks, what with all the repairs the Mother’s ire has made necessary.”

  The lead litchwagon rumbled slowly past. The two men pulling it trudged up the shallow incline like tireless mules. The second wagon rolled to a stop beside the group, and its pullers lowered the handles to rest. One of them walked to the rear of the cart. He reached in and snatched hold of a protesting, round-bellied and hard-faced man, dragged him from the cart and forced him to stand upright. The man’s arms were tied behind his back. His captor gave him a rough prod to edge him forwards. The man’s face was bruised, his nose swollen, his mouth caked with dried blood

  The captive bowwoman sat forwards. “Onwin, where—”

  A Lachylan man beside her nudged a boot into her shin. “Quiet, you!”

  Gorven approached the newly-arrived prisoner and addressed the man holding him. “Amaran, you kept this one quiet. What have we here?”

  Amaran tugged hard at Onwin’s ropes. “My brother and I returned home after the fighting. Alamar heard a noise and went upstairs to investigate, thinking one of the denizens had entered the place in our absence. He didn’t come back down. I followed him and found the loft hatch was open. I called for him but he didn’t answer, so I climbed the ladder and promptly received an arrow to the gut.” He gave another hard tug on the prisoner’s bonds, and Onwin gave a snarl. “This craven was hiding in our loft. Got in through the roof shutters. Bastard shot Alamar right in the eye and sliced his throat wide open. Finished him off with a stab to the heart, or so he thought. Alamar will live, of course, but no thanks to this one’s intent.”

  “I thought your brother was the Orc King!” Onwin protested.

  Oriken growled under his breath. “Excuse me.” He stepped around Gorven and snapped a thunderous punch into Onwin’s jaw.

  Onwin’s head sank to his chest and he slumped within his captor’s grasp. Amaran heaved him across to the other prisoners and cast him to the ground.

  “That’s right.” Oriken raised his eyebrows and glanced around at the onlookers. “Did you see that? Out like a lamp.” Flat expressions regarded him. “An oil lamp. No? Ah, forget it.” He turned to Gorven and hitched a thumb at the captives. “What are you gonna do with them?”

  “The one named Lingrey will stay with us,” Gorven said, watching as the angular old man was escorted away from the group. “He knows it must be so, and we welcome him. After all, he did no harm to you and yours, nor to us, and his heart is good. As for those three, the consensus is verging on them being given two options: stay and adhere to our code of decency, or return to their home… and die.”

  Oriken puffed his cheeks. “It’s your call, boss. Me, I’d be dragging their arses out of here, hobbling their ankles and leaving them to burn on the heath. Call me vindictive, but that’s how I roll.”

  Gorven smiled wryly. “There is balance in all things.”

  With a bored sigh, Krea spun on her heel to walk away, then glanced back at Oriken. “Well? Are you coming, or will you just stand there like a spare part?”

  “One moment.” He walked over to the three villagers and squatted to his haunches before them. “Yeah, you,” he said, ignoring the one he’d knocked unconscious and fixing the remaining two with a hard stare. “Do I have your attention? You came here to murder me and my friends, for your own misguided reasons. If you ask me, you deserve what became of you. And I’ll say this: That which is dead, can indeed die again. I should know, I fought against the best of them. So believe me when I tell you that if you’d like to continue this fight, I’ll be ready, waiting, and eager to tear you limb from rutting limb.”

  The woman blinked, her expression impassive. The man called Wayland pressed his lips together and gave a weak nod.

  “That’s all.” Oriken slapped his hands onto his thighs and sprang to his feet, turning his back on the villagers and striding to catch up to Krea.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said as he reached her, “but the first thing I intend to do is get out of these clothes and climb into a hot bath.” She wrinkled her nose “I would suggest you join me.”

  Oriken burst into laughter, then quickly quelled it. “You sounded a lot like Jalis then.”

  “Please.” Krea rolled her eyes.

  “In truth, I’m hot, wet and stinking,” he admitted. “Plus I’m aching all over and I could probably sleep for a week. Not to mention I’m also starving and parched. I might just take you up on the bath, but don’t be surprised if I drink half the tub water and fall asleep in the other half.”

  Krea smiled. “You can bath first and rest later, but between those there is a meal being organised for you and your friends. Some of us will join you.”

  “I appreciate that. But, for the love of any good that’s left in this world, please – no jerky, and no damned bogberries.”

  Oriken slumped back in the armchair, steepled his fingers and regarded Dagra. Their bearded friend hadn’t yet moved from the sofa. Oriken had tried coaxing him to talk, but whatever Dagra was chewing on, he wasn’t giving it up. Not yet, anyway.

  “So,” Oriken said. “Tomorrow, huh?”

  Dagra peered at him, looking thoroughly miserable. “I don’t know. And stop asking me.” With a sigh, he added, “What would you do?”

  I honestly have no clue, he thought. And then Gorven’s comment about the villagers came back to him: Go home, and die. “Dag,” Oriken said, “as far as prisons go, this one has to be the biggest and most open in the world. The alternative—”

  “Just drop it. Please.”

  “Okay. Fine.” He pushed himself to his feet. “You sure you won’t go freshen up? I can take you to Jalis.”

  Dagra shook his head. “Soon. Gorven can run me a fresh tub before we head to this debacle of a meal. Let me snooze now for a while.”

  Dagra closed his eyes, and Oriken watched him for a full minute before slipping quietly from the room and into the entranceway.

  He wandered to the back of the grand staircase and pushed a drape aside to reveal a secreted alcove. The shadowed corridor beyond stretched towards the outer edge of the building, then arced around to continue along a windowed wall. His muscles fatigued, he strolled the corridor’s length, glancing only briefly through a window at the evening that descended over the mansion’s lawn.

  At the far end of the corridor a simple door stood ajar, a torch flickering behind it, casting an amber glow onto stone steps. He stepped through and pushed the door closed. The soft echo of rippling water drifted from the room below. His footfalls scuffed the worn stone as he descended to a heavy, velvet curtain. He eased it aside. The sweet scent of lavender filled his senses as he entered an expansive cellar.

  Lit torches lined each wall, reminding him of Mallak’s throne room; they illuminated a water-well in one corner and an iron cauldron in another, cradled above the ashes of a fire. A deep, circular bath was the only furnishing in the centre of the room, filled inches from the brim, a pile of folded towels upon the floor beside it.

  Krea’s head emerged from the water and she swept her hair back, the steam drifting around her.

>   “You’re still bathing,” Oriken said.

  Torchlight caught her serene gaze, which he avoided as he unbuckled his swordbelt and quickly undressed. He climbed the steps beside the tub and stepped over into the hot water, then lowered himself to the submerged seat.

  “Ah, that feels good.” He dipped his head and stayed under, running his fingers through his hair. When he surfaced, Krea’s eyes were on him, seeming to acknowledge that he’d positioned himself as far from her as the tub allowed.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing. Everything.”

  “I never dreamed I’d share my hot-tub with a world-class philosopher. It’s almost enough to make a lady swoon.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing, dear Oriken. My wit is too far beneath one of such esteemed free-thinking calibre.”

  “Freeblade calibre,” he corrected.

  “Huh?”

  He frowned, and Krea laughed. It was a good sound, with little mockery in it. In truth, the crackling, gurgling undertones in Krea’s and everyone else’s voices in the city no longer seemed so… wrong as they had at first. He was beginning to understand that the only thing these people had tried to do was to make the best of what cards they’d been dealt. He wondered if he’d have the fortitude to adapt as well as Krea had. He doubted it.

  “What are you thinking now?”

  “Just how I actually admire you,” he admitted.

  Her smile grew. “Ah, he admires me.” She took a soap bar from the rim of the tub and stood, the water lapping at the tops of her thighs. An involuntary sound issued from Oriken’s lips. He averted his eyes, pressing his back against the tub. Krea laughed lightly. “Admiration and restraint are such an attractive combination in a man.”

  “Really?”

  “No, you dolt, not really. Life’s too short for pretence.”

  “After you with the soap,” he said, forcing his eyes to not slip from her face as she lathered the suds into her skin.

  “You still see me as a girl, don’t you?”

  “How can I not?”

  Krea sighed. “I’ll forgive your ignorance, and your bull-headed disinclination to open your mind to reason. What you see before you is what your eyes tell you to be a 13 year old girl, yes?”

  He shrugged, nodded.

  “And what does your brain tell you?”

  He barked a laugh. “My brain doesn’t even know what it’s telling itself, let alone what it’s telling me.”

  “Hm. A self-explanatory statement if ever there was one. Well then, would it make your thought processes any easier if I reiterated that I’m approximately twelve times your age? What you consider to be an older woman would be someone twice your age, no?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Which ought to make me more of a crone in your eyes than a naive child.”

  “Yeah…”

  Krea sighed again. “Never mind. Here’s the soap.” She leaned forward and held the bar out for him to take. When his hand clasped around it, his eyes slipped to her chest. The puncture wound from the arrow was scabbed over, already peeling away to reveal pink skin beneath. She’s healing well, he thought, his gaze straying from the scar. Sighing inwardly, he allowed himself to acknowledge that although Krea’s was undoubtedly the figure of a girl – arguably a young woman – it was also more than that. Her muscles, though slight, were toned, and her face, though child-like, exuded an understanding of the world and of herself which no girl of her physical age could have amassed.

  “That’s better,” she said, noticing his lingering gaze as she leaned back in the tub. “But let me tell you”—she flashed him a sweet smile—“next time you insinuate that I’m nothing more than a girl, I will show you how much of a boy you are. Understand?”

  He nodded.

  She sidled along the edge of the tub to scrutinise the wound on his shoulder. “You’ve torn some stitches.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’ll hold. Stings like a bitch and the muscle’s tight as fuck, but—”

  “Are you aware that you have a penchant for cursing like a sailor? I thought you were trying to affect a penchant for decency?”

  “Ah. Sorry.”

  “How did you get those red marks on your abdomen?”

  “Hm?” He glanced down. “These? Some creature attacked me in my sleep, according to Dagra. Looks like they’re starting to fade.”

  “You were lucky. The pygmy couldn’t have been attached for long, otherwise it would have burrowed into your guts.”

  “The… what?”

  “They’re called blind pygmies. Curious little creatures. Innocuous-looking, but deadly if they catch you at slumber. Gorven has one in a cage. It’s turned, of course, so can’t die, but it’s a poor vessel. Plus it’s gone mad. He lets it feed on him occasionally to stop it from drying up.”

  “Close call. If Dag hadn’t seen it, I would have missed all this fun.”

  Krea gave him a flat look and shifted away, but only slightly. “Well? Are you going to wash, or not?”

  Oriken turned his back to her and stood, acutely aware of her scrutiny, and equally aware of his own body responding to it. He willed himself to think of the corpses being slung into a heap in preparation for the pyre. It helped, a little. Krea shifted further around the tub until she was side-on from him. He drew a breath and glanced at her. She said nothing, allowing him to wash himself in silence. When he was finished he placed the soap beside him and sank into the tub, splashing water over his head. Krea drifted across and rose before him, her legs sliding between his. She placed her hands on his shoulders, tracing one up behind his neck and the other down over his chest, inching herself closer.

  “Gah,” he muttered, flinching as her hand dipped lower.

  “Mmm.” There was no smile on her face now. “Such strength for a mere human.”

  “Krea—”

  “Shush.” She swung a leg over his, then the other. “No one will know.”. Her blue irises sparkled with intent as she leaned in. Her wet lips brushed against the side of his mouth. “And I promise I’ll be quiet…”

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  LAST SUPPER

  Trickles of subdued conversation ran the length of the narrow table. Almost forty were in attendance in what Gorven informed them had been a dining hall for the nobility, now rarely used. The tremors from the monstrosity beneath the castle had reached the building, and some quick repairs were in evidence. A couple of the windows were without glass, and one outer door sported a new upper hinge attached to a fresh square of stone in the adjoining wall.

  Oriken fiddled with the puffy-sleeved shirt and plucked at the stretchy fabric of the black-cotton breeches Gorven had gifted him. To his left, Dagra was dressed in similar attire, but without Oriken’s needlessly flamboyant collar and cuffs. To Oriken’s right, Jalis wore a low-neck, white-cotton blouse with billowed arms that pinched above her elbows, covered by a coarse, embroidered thing that laced across her midriff and pushed her breasts up, which were half-covered by the soft undergarment. The numerous scratches criss-crossing her skin were the only signs of the harrowing events they’d endured; that, and the haunted look in her eyes.

  “The fish is delicious,” she remarked, slicing into the creamy-white meat on her plate, though to Oriken her tone sounded understandably less enthusiastic than her words. She glanced to Gorven opposite her. “What is it?”

  “Kingfish,” he replied, then forked a sliver of fish into his mouth. “Oh, my! I’d forgotten how good this tastes! It was Ellidar’s choice, to which we all agreed. Mostly.” A murmur of solemn approval cascaded along the narrow table, though some looked less than interested in the meals before them.

  “How did you catch them?” Oriken asked. “I thought the animals gave this place a wide berth?”

  Across from Oriken, Krea spooned some vegetables from a silver bowl and deposited them onto her plate. “Patience,” she said. “Patience, a net, and the ability to breathe underwater. You s
hould try it some time.”

  “Ah, I’ll pass on that.” He shifted his gaze to Sabrian, who sat between Krea and the toddler in the religious garb. Oriken shook his head at the sight of the child-monk in a highchair. Everything about the boy made him cringe, but, despite that, he made a mental note to add the oddity to his growing list of prospective reassessments of the world.

  “The Mother has never reacted so strongly,” a woman along from Dagra was saying. “Such bloodshed. We must not allow the likes of it to occur again.”

  Sabrian nodded and looked pointedly to Dagra. “Even the Battle God showed up, drawn by the extent of the violence.”

  “Hmph,” Oriken said, glancing sidelong to Dagra whose eyes were on his barely touched food.

  The tiny monk leaned forward. “You disagree, friend?” he piped at Oriken.

  “Damn right I do. That thing in the sky was just sunlight glancing through stormclouds. Why is every unusual sight always labelled as god-sent?”

  The boy inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Perhaps it was merely sun and clouds – a warning formed by the goddess. As for the Mother, she is god-sent, and undeniable. After all, Valsana is the goddess of undeath as much as that of fertility, birth, life and death. We”—his eyes beamed, agleam with the fever of worship—“are her special chosen, granted the highest of her accolades.”

  “Right,” Oriken said. “And by ‘her’, I’m guessing you mean both Valsana and the creature beneath the castle.” He took some satisfaction in watching the boy quietly bristle.

  Before the monk could reply, Jalis cleared her throat and said, “What of the sphere of light, Lewin – the one which melted the head of the king’s statue and could have killed Oriken had he been much closer? Was that also god-sent? And, if so, by which god?”

  “A good question,” Lewin replied tightly. “This ball of white fire appeared as our liege was passing to Valsana. Although it struck his statue, it could instead have been aimed at your friend here”—he nodded to Oriken—“since it was he who brought our sovereign to his knees.”