“ They’re in the library I believe sire. You had them with you when you were entertaining that rather plump gentleman from the trader’s guild.” Granny said being rather diplomatic for her. She was a woman who spoke her mind. So much so that Darcy always felt that if his parents had spent more time in the household they would have sacked Granny years ago for her impudence, but he was personally quite fond of her eccentric little ways. She was old fashioned, and spoke her mind to the point of being rude.
“ Ah yes I remember now. That’s just one other thing to sort out isn’t it.” Darcy sighed. It seemed like he was always trying to balance spinning plates in a field of fat angry traders, metaphorically of course. “Granny, if the worst happens today and I don’t return the key for the safe is under the cushion of the elder chair in the study.” Darcy said as he slid on his chamber wear. A white silken shirt, red checked waist coat and blacken linen trousers. Darcy pulled the shirt tight up to his throat and suddenly felt considerably uncomfortable as his imagination saw the hangman’s mask grinning down on him. He shook the idea away as he slipped his feet into his sheepskin slippers. He had to remain confident. The king might not even have realized Darcy was giving away ten percent of the cargo to the White Flags.
“ Don’t be silly sire. You’re coming home soon enough and I moved that key a few weeks ago. I was fed up of every time I sat there to darn your socks the damn thing dug me in the arse. It’s under your mattress.” Granny said with a sneaky smile showing her gapping teeth. Granny knew that the Dean family barely knew what happened inside their own home and it had been the same for years. She was glad of how things worked around the estate. It often allowed her to buy the best pork from the markets rather than the cheap trotters or loin and more than was needed at that. It allowed her to take some home and some extra for the orphanage to. The city was full of parentless children, casualties of war and the sad irony of it was that the children themselves would be conscripted into the army as soon as they came of age. The men that is, the women, much like Granny would end up servants.
“ Do remember your place Granny.” Darcy said but he knew his warning held about as much weight as a starving field mouse. When his words were met with a raised extensively bushy and white eyebrow Darcy felt ill at ease, suddenly feeling like he was seven years old again “Right yes, good to know the key is still safe I suppose. Anyway I’m not so sure Granny. I’ve just got a bad feeling about today.” Darcy said as he took a brush to his long brown hair and tried to tame it. It had started to become a trend to keep ones hair cut short but Darcy refused. He could barely remember the face of his father but he could remember his hair. They both shared long thick drapes of it and Darcy grew his to keep a little of his father with him. Not that he would ever admit that even to himself.
“ You’ve always got a bad feeling about it.” Granny said shrugging her shoulders in a blasé manner. “So you’re paying those pirates a few gold a ship at least it’s getting out the bloody harbor. Better that than it adding to the reef. If his majesty is that worried about people paying the White Flag why doesn’t he leave the poor Elves alone and send those men to get some order back in the White Isle.” Granny said as she pulled up the sheets in a huff making the bed behind Darcy. She was one of the many people who disagreed with the war over the Alienage Isle. During the blight, the time the Dragons ruled Neeska, a fleet of Elves had docked on the Alienage Isle and colonized it. They had helped heal and nurse many of the sick and wounded people during the later years of the war but within one year of the end of the Great War King Harvey Handson the 2nd, the current kings’ father grew envious of the Elves magic and mystical forest and the resources that it held and declared war on the Elves. The war had been a slow battle and most of the soldiers that the king had sent did not really want to fight the people that had saved their parents a few years before. This made for a slow and diplomatic stalemate that was still ongoing almost a century later. If you could say nothing else about the people of the Handson kingdom they knew how to be persistent when it came to stupid grievances’.
“I wish he’d call my father back from the front line and send them against the White Isle. At least he would be closer to home.” Darcy said staring into the oval mirror above his dresser table. Although he couldn’t remember his father’s face he was almost his double. He shared the same slim yet square jaw that did not grow facial hair well, the same flat forehead and equally horizontal hairline. Darcy was well groomed and did find time in his busy schedule to pluck his eyebrows into shape and oil his skin. He was after all a noble and did have to look the part. He was as far away from rugged as you can get without wearing lipstick.
“Your father was never one for diplomacy Sire and I don’t think even he can single handily kill every pirate that sails the White Sea.” Granny said and Darcy suspected that she was right. The war with the White Flags would need to be settled with words not swords. If the Handson kingdom openly attacked them they could disperse and once again sail under a hundred or more different flags. At least while they were under the banner of the White Flag some lives were being saved. The White Sea was a harsh mistress as it was.
“Don’t forget to take a coat sire. The gods are trying to clear the sky of smoke and the streets of drunkards with that downpour.” Granny flicked a scrawny finger towards the windows which were as black outside as if the sun itself had been dowsed with the rain. The view from the Dean Estate was not the best in the city but they could at least normally over look the street below. With the rain now falling hard and the sky so dark, the light creeping in from the corridor outside Darcy’s room hit the window and turned the glass into a shifting mirror of wetness.
“ You’re probably right at that.” Darcy said with a smile. Some of the sadness from the night before had faded from him and he felt a little more lighthearted but he could not remember when he was last completely happy, if he ever had been but it was the hardest for him during times of celebration. Darcy wanted for nothing, his home was lavishly decorated and large and he had servants for almost any eventuality but he was still miserable most of the waking day. As already mentioned the task of managing the fleet and estate meant he did not often get to leave the family home and his mother came and went from one baroness’ to another and was often away for months at a time doing the diplomatic work that his father should have done in a time of peace but was unable to with the never ending battle against the Poles. Darcy’s father had been gone so long that if it wasn’t for the fact that Darcy was an almost exact copy of him he would not have remembered what his father had looked like, but as it was he was told almost daily by someone how similar he looked. The only portrait of Sir Dean in the estate had been painted before Darcy was even born and hung in the main chamber. Visiting guests to the estate often mistook it for Darcy and he had grown so accustomed to it that he did not even bothering correcting them on their mistake. Somehow Granny’s rather unique view of the kingdom made things seem a little easier. He loved her visits and would employ her just to sit and chat with him when he finally took over the estate for himself. He would sell off some of the ships, sell the townhouse and buy something smaller and more relaxed and actually have time to make friends. At least that was his dream for when the day came it would be his home and not his fathers. That day was not today though and Darcy braced himself to face the king.
The streets of Neeskmouth were filled with the litter of the night’s celebrations. Ribbons and confetti clogged the drainage ditches and the Dunny Men had not yet cleared the sewerage that floated on the many canals that intersected the main roads. The severe rain that had been pouring down for the last few hours had quickly begun to flood the streets and made the silvery-stone cobbles treacherously slippery, more so than normal. Darcy almost tripped as an empty bottle sailed under his feet on a torrent of water before it bounced off of his shoe and down towards the harbor with a satisfying splash as it leapt of the brink of a stairwell sailing on the makeshift waterfall. Neeskmouth was the
largest city in Northern Neeska, the next closest in size was Raidaridin but even that was a mile or so smaller. Neeskmouth was a trade hub and had been even in the time of the blights. It had been built on a very distinctive line which ran almost directly downhill towards the harbor, only jutting out to scoop past one of the many canals or carved natural rock formations. The many canals and sloping hills allowed it to be an unusually clean city. All the waste was washed down hill and out to sea. It was often jested between the sailors that the White Sea should be renamed though because of the sewage that filled the ocean path. It and was probably the reason the nobles had placed themselves at the far western edge and the top of the hill. The city of Neeskmouth was made up of very distinct districts. The first of which was the castle at the top of the hill, it was surrounded by raised mounds of earth and a natural pool that came up from underground and fed the canals. Along the main road running north-east from the castle gate down to the sea were the other districts, at its upper end the homes of the nobles and rich traders. These were large stone buildings made of brilliant white slabs of rock. They had once been extensively decorated and sculpted. Many of them actually outshone the grandeur of the castle, but they showed heavy wear and tiredness. Just a gnat’s breath further towards the harbor was the markets and celebration square. It was a hub of eastern architecture, domes, statues, and waterfalls, which had sprung up towards the end of the Dragons reign. Further north was the common homes, simple wooden houses, some multi story, some flats. All of them held together with shoe string and prayers. The city as it was today seemed to have been built almost in two. The parts south of the market were all stone and tall and had been there since before the end of the Blight. Most of them had once held gargoyles of Dragons and other statues honoring the humans masters - the great black Dragons but these had mostly been hacked off at the end of the war, giving the nobles homes an almost weathered look that seemed to please the pigeon population that had colonized the area. The width of the street showed the heritage of the Dragons in the city as even at its thinnest it was still several meters between the two curbs. The road was far wider than it needed to be just to allow carts to rattle on by. The wide roads had allowed the huge beasts to easily walk or even take off without trouble. The common and most northern parts of the city were built after the blight and did not have need to be made of stone. Instead hundreds of little wooden houses had popped up. The wide street had been broken into tiny side alleys and was often changing as the harbor dictated. In as long as Darcy could remember barely a month had past in which a hovel wasn’t left empty and its family moving to another part of the town as wax was shipped out or spices shipped in. One week a smithy would be on the eastern road the next the building would be filled with apple cider being stored on its transit across Valadfar. At the cities furthest point, the harbor itself empty buildings were torn down and put back up in some obscure position to assist with a trader, the effect was like picking up a forest of trees and dropping them randomly into shadow. The area was dark, damp and desolate. It was home to the unfortunates of the city. It was commonly said that all shit was swept towards the harbor and that did not just mean sewage. Celebration square sat at the heart of the city and was a stark contrast to the degenerate parts of the city, it had once been the site of the sacrifice temple were the first born of the Dragons chosen were offered up to feed the Dragons. It is a rumor in the city that a huge labyrinth was built below it to entertain the Dragons and house their gold and slaves but no sign of this had been found since the end of the eight hundred year war and only rumor and unspecific books hinted at a lost entrance, though it is said some of the cellars of the nobles homes had breached parts of the maze and hundreds of would be adventurers had gone missing in the darkness hunting for the lost treasure. Celebration square as it ended up being known had been used as a hospital during the 800 year war and had seen thousands of dead and dying. When the Great War ended the crypts were closed and the temple was torn down and in its place were erected statues of the hero’s from the war. It was a place of worship and remembrance to the people. The gleaming green marble looked black in the rain and already people were out clearing the trash from the statues. Darcy left his estate at the very edge of the noble district. The hill that climbed up from his home to the castle was awash with water and forced Darcy to shield his face from the splatter. It was only a matter of passing three other estates and a small alleyway before Darcy reached the palace walls. But with the steep slope and heavy rain it made it a hard slug that left him soaked. Darcy reached the palaces wall and looked back across the city while catching his breath and turning away from the rain. His hair was stuck to his head in heavy locks. His white shirt was almost transparent and he felt like someone somewhere, one of the many gods, were having a laugh at his expense. Looking back over the city he could just make out the mast of Cassandra his father’s flagship at the dock. It had been due to leave a week before with supplies to be taken to Port Lust but the king had requested it halted in docks for repair and improvements. Which Darcy knew meant he would be losing it from his fleet in the battle against the Poles. It had become common practice for the king to claim ships from nobles to send to war, very few ever returned and even fewer nobles were compensated for the loss. Most of the battle was fought at the two forts on the Briers Hills but after fifty years of stalemate king Harvey Handson and taken to using ships to blast Raidaridin from the ocean directly. A tactic that was as pointless as it was costly but Darcy knew the king had to be seen to be doing something to reclaim Raidaridin or loose what little respect he still had with the people of Neeskmouth. King Harvey was not a loved figurehead and lead by luck of birth rather than any mans choice. He couldn’t afford to give the White Flags any more ammunition to use against him in their propaganda campaign or it would surely lead to civil war. A small glimmer of hope passed through Darcy’s mind. It might just be that today was just the king actually announcing that Darcy would be down to five ships now and would be losing Cassandra. It was a long shot but it was better than thinking of the alternative, if anything it would be easier for Darcy if the king reclaimed all six ships he had given the Dean family, hell he might even suggest it.
Darcy passed through the pitted walls of the outer keep, the walls had once been filled with precious gems and stones but King Harvey had issued the command that they were all be removed to inflate the treasury and fund the battle against the Poles, a decision that had outraged the city. The huge stone walls blocked a lot of the rain and let Darcy raise his head for the first time since stepping out his front door. The guards inside the courtyard looked a little worse for wear and Darcy could tell even they had enjoyed a few strong ale’s during the night’s celebration. Darcy had to fight the urge to smirk at the sight of rain dripping off of the noses poking out from below the steel helmets. The wobbly guards made Darcy wonder to himself as he passed through the large garden courtyard if he really was the only person who did not feel up to celebrating. It seemed that way as a guard who was patrolling the perimeter had to grab the wall to find balance, unsuccessfully, before he fell over with a splat into what Darcy presumed was a cold puddle by the way he leapt back up with a curse and shot a look that could kill to Darcy. Fighting even harder not to laugh Darcy busied his mind. He’d been the castle a few times in recent months and one thing he had noticed was that the castle was built poorly in the traditional sense. The walls were weak and the gateway would take only a few men to breach. The inner courtyard was huge and seemed a massive waste of space. There was no internal well, no storehouses per say. The actual tower keep proper poked up and had few windows but its roof was raised almost a floor higher than the walls and showed signs of who it had really been built for. It did not need to be massively strong or defendable. It would have been home to a Dragon lord. It needed only have a large courtyard to stock livestock or slaves, or both and the large raised roof to let the beast easily fly into its throne room.
Once inside the keep and after an annoyi
ngly long wait in a small and dusty private room Darcy was summoned to the throne room. It was far less impressive than he had expected. The room was huge but very bare. It was another sign that at one time this would have been the lair of a Dragon lord. The entrance corridor opened up into the throne room, which was a vast rectangle easily the width of a large galleon and as about the same height. The roof was high above supported by the massive beams that ran between the window frames. The craftsmanship and style almost looked Dwarfish even after years of neglect. The pillars holding up the roof would have been decorated with Dragon propaganda once but they had been chiseled down within an inch of their life. Darcy wondered for a moment where all the mounds of destroyed Dragon sculpting had been piled up. Was there a hill somewhere outside town full of Dragon heads and broken wings, or where they all kept down in the dungeon? The throne was not stone or precious metal as you might expect but plain and wooden. It was yet another remark at the unstable economy of Neeskmouth. It was not the grand or comfortable throne you would assume from royalty. It looked like it didn’t get all that much use. It had obviously been brought in after the collapse of the Dragon Empire and had started to show signs of aging. It oddly reminded Darcy of the chairs from the class he had attended as a boy. Behind the pitiful throne was fresh brickwork, it was obvious that the wall was a recent addition. You could still see the remains of the arch that had been there. Darcy wondered if it was behind that wall the Dragon rubble was amassed or if it had just been another easy access point for the Dragon lord to fly in that the Handson family had sealed off when they moved in. Maybe it was both. The huge gaping windows that ran above holding up the roof had been filled in with glass but at one time would have been open allowing the Dragons to come and go easily. Now the only access point to the roof top ramparts was a small trap door in the roof and a sturdy metal ladder. The only real object of note apart from the throne was a table that was set in the middle of the room. This in contrast to the abandoned feel of the rest of the space showed signs of excessive ware and the aged wood seemed to creak and moaned as if it held a life of its own. The legs of the table didn’t match, two seemed to be pine, and one some dark wood that remained a mystery, the last looked to be cedar. You could tell at a glance that this table had taken a few beatings over the years. Its top had been painted to be an exact replica of Northern Neeska and tiny – almost child toy looking – toy soldiers were scattered across its top. The paint towards the now Scorched Lands had flaked and peeled off in places. It did not take a detectives mind to fall upon the realization that this table had been used for at least some of the Great War to plan the humans’ campaign against the Dragons. It was by the table that King Harvey was stood with a stern and worn-out face which strangely seemed to match the tired and aged wood around him. His skin was dry and flaked just like the paint. It was deep red and almost purple, a sign of a heavy drinker. However he seemed strong on his feet for an older man and through the layers of quilted clothing and fat could hide a strong man. Harvey barely looked up as Darcy approached timidly. He had a lot on his mind and was distracted looking over the table in front of him, his leather like hand hovering above different playing pieces on the miniature Neeska. Darcy tried to calm himself by making Harvey seem less scary, which with Harvey was fairly easy as he looked strangely like a fruit in his orange and red fleece and the deep red tights poking out the bottom. His rotund build only added to the fruity mirage. It gave him the appearance of an old and oddly angry, if somewhat squashed, tangerine. Darcy had to bite his lip not to chuckle to himself once again, with the falling guard and the fruity thoughts maybe today wouldn’t be as bad as he thought. If nothing else it gave him something to talk to Granny about that evening. When a minute had passed and Harvey still had not even acknowledged Darcy’s entrance, Darcy became more and more uncomfortable. The fruit like intrusion would only go so far to calming his mind. He nervously looked down towards his feet and could actually see the fading in the floor at the base of the table. The dark wood had been worn almost white with the current and no doubt previous kings almost constant wandering around. Darcy had only had a few meetings with the king in all his time as steward for the Dean Estate but he had got the impression the constant threat of war had left Harvey more than a little unhinged. The King was a man obsessed. Since being a child Harvey had to deal with the previous King trying to reclaim Raidaridin and his obsession had engulfed his child Harvey. It was the reason the city was in such a poor state as it was. Any profit made from the rich trade routes were piled into the soldiers and wasted bloodshed that Darcy’s father sat in the middle of. Darcy was one of the few people in the city that actually believed that the King did mean well for his people, in his own way.
Dragons Blight (Valadfar Book 1) Page 2