by Philip Smith
“That road looks new,” Duelmaster said, pointing to the northbound road.
“They must have cut a new one north to Franghal,” Woodcarver muttered. “Poor miners. No wonder the Shahir found your village, princess. With an operation like this and the Wild at the back door, it was only a matter of time.”
“We should try to circle about and go in from different directions if we can,” Dinendale said. “Jesnake, you and I should come from the north, the rest can come from the south.”
Duelmaster and Woodcarver left first into the city, the magician sitting nobly atop one of the horses while the dryad marched smartly along beside. Despite the fact that the uniforms they wore were of their enemies, they wore them with a sense of honor and dignity you would expect from a soldier of any country. About half an hour later, Dinendale went in, dressed as a peasant with an old sack of rags slung over his shoulder. Paige was impressed with his ability to act the part. Luckily he still had the bruising from his bout with a river serpent to pass as a beaten servant. Paige wasn’t sure he needed to do that, but Robert had been more than willing to oblige. Jesnake left an hour after Dinendale, dressed in the imposing Raider’s garb. He wore the sword on his belt, and carried the imposing staff in his hand as he mounted the second horse and circled about to make an entrance from the northbound road.
“Be sure you do the same. Wouldn’t do for a bunch of people to see you just pop out of the bushes,” advised the elf before spurring the horse into a trot away from the grove of trees and towards the northern edge of the valley. Robert and Paige waited another three quarters of an hour before heading off through the thin trees towards the south to meet up at the road and begin their journey into the city.
“It’s no wonder men think women need saving every minute of every day,” Paige pulled her skirts free of a felled pine log she’d attempted to jump over as they made their way east to the road.
“Well as I recall, you have needed saving on more than one occasion,” Robert teased. “And you managed that while in pants, sweetheart!”
Paige shot him a nasty look. He smiled an impish grin as he offered a hand for her to jump over another felled log. She begrudgingly obliged him, not wanting to risk falling face-first in the rocky soil and giving him an excuse to plaster on that smug look he reserved for such occasions.
“So maybe we should get our backstory straight,” Robert offered as she hopped over the log. “Might help us keep our characters believable, in case we get questioned.”
“Makes sense.”
“Alright. There’s a small province in the Shahir’s kingdom to the southeast called Behlore. We live there on a small plantation.”
“Alright. Why are we in Aschin?”
“We’re meeting some business contacts to discuss a contract for a caravan coming from Franghal.”
“Fine. How did we meet?”
“We’ve been married for...oh, say four years? Arranged of course, by my parents.”
“That would explain why we aren't a very happy couple,” she chuckled mirthlessly, tearing her petticoat away from a snagging branch that lay prostrate on the ground.
“Are we not, dearie? And here I thought we were doing so splendidly,” Robert said, feigning hurt. They both laughed as they stumbled out of the trees and onto the side of the road. Luckily, there were no people on this bend in the road, so it was easy to turn north and double back towards the city. Paige felt relieved that they wouldn’t have to explain to any curious onlookers or suspicious guards that two decently well-off Shauds were suddenly appearing out of the woods.
“So how many kids do you want?” Robert asked as they walked towards the city.
“One, a lovely little boy we will spoil to death and shall grow up to be an absolute brat,” Paige laughed.
“Best to hope he doesn’t get his mother’s temperament,” Robert quipped.
She slugged him playfully on the shoulder. “Hey, I can be a dear when I want to be. I just don’t see the point with you,” she laughed.
“I rest my case,” Robert said, rubbing his arm but smiling. “Though I would have expected better of a chieftain's daughter. And after all the trouble I went through saving your hide!”
They walked in silence for a few moments, every step bringing Paige closer and closer to Aschin. Her hands felt clammy and her heartbeat rose; it felt like a colony of bats was thrashing about in the pit of her stomach.
This was it.
This was the moment she’d been looking forward to for weeks now, and now that it was here, she was having a hard time keeping her hands from shaking.
“So, what’s next?” Robert asked.
Robert stooped to pick up a stone, skipping it along the roadway as they rounded a bend in the path. The road was curvier and more winding here than it was close to the city, and though Paige could see the smoke, she could not actually see Aschin through the sparse, tall pines.
“How do you mean?” Paige turned to look Robert in the eyes.
“I’m mean after all this. After we save Olivian. What’s next? For you, that is.”
Paige pondered the question a moment. She would be lying if she’d said she hadn’t spent a great deal of time thinking about that question. She honestly hadn’t come up with a good answer to it. The Wild had been all she’d ever known, and Kapernaum the only place she’d ever truly called home. But going back was no longer an option. Her village lay in ashes, and what was left of her friends and tribe had scattered to the wind or had been sold off like cattle.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “Obviously I’d want to eventually settle down, though I’ve no idea where or if that would ever happen.”
“You really think you could go back to living a quiet life after all this?” he laughed, gesturing around them. “You don’t want to sleep out on the cold ground in the harsh elements for the rest of your life?”
Paige laughed. “As much fun as freezing my toes off every night has been, I would love to live in a house again.”
“A three-story treehouse, I imagine?”
“Actually, I’ve always fancied living in a home build on solid ground. Seems like it could be fun.”
“Haha, better atop the ground than under it. My croft does its job well, but I hear there are some underground homes that are more like nasty, dirty, wet, holes filled with worms and an oozy smell.”
“Well, I havn’t had much experience with them aside from my brief stay at your home, but I’m sure I’d be much happier above the ground.”
“Well, for what it’s worth,” Robert kicked another stone as they rounded another bend in the road, “I would love it if you all stayed with us. You are as much part of the Brotherhood as anyone. And we’d love it if you stuck around.”
“Thanks, Robert. That means a lot.”
“Don’t mention it. I just thought I’d tell y-” He was cut short as they rounded the last bend in the road. Paige felt her heart stop as she found herself standing face to face with the great fortress of Aschin.
The giant stone city was even more imposing up close. Paige could see the thick outer stone wall fronted by a deep, black chasm acting as a dry moat. How deep it was, Paige had no way of knowing, but judging by the inky blackness, she was willing to wager a fall into it would be deadly. The outer wall rose three stories high with a space wide enough for two soldiers to walk abreast on the top. Turrets for archers were placed one hundred feet apart, each crowned with the banner of the royal family. The gates of the city stood at least twenty feet tall and were made with thick, pinewood boards. Each board was bound with solid, wrought-iron bands and studded nails.
The two walked boldly, hand in hand, towards the gates to the fortress. Its single entrance on the outer wall was a hulking mass of carved stone with a thick, wide drawbridge crossing the deeply-chasmed gouge in the earth. Paige would never admit it to him, but the feeling of Robert’s warm, strong, hand helped settle her nerves.
Several guards dressed in full armor stood at
the gate, and Paige tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat. The sight of the same soldiers that had massacred her people filled her with rage and fear. A few of them eyed her with piercing gazes under their turbaned helmets. She squeezed Robert’s hand reassuringly, and he leaned over to whisper in her ear.
“Don’t worry. I will protect you.”
“Likewise,” she said, taking a deep breath.
They passed through the gates with no incident, and she sighed in relief. Robert smiled at her. She tried to give half a smile back, but it came out like more of a grimace with her stomach still doing somersaults. The view before her beyond the first wall did nothing to abate her body’s internal acrobatics.
Before her stretched out a city with streets lined by countless stone and brick structures. Men and a surprising number of women walked to and from these buildings like termites in a rotting oak log. Tents and booths clogged the streets and alleyways, their owners hawking wares and goods in an accent that was thick and unrecognizable to her ear. She gazed around at the bustling city with wide eyes, never having seen so many people in one place before. She felt frightened and lost in the confines of this city; growing up free in the Wild had made her enjoy the wide open spaces. Now she felt trapped, cramped, and confined.
“I’ve never,” she started to say, but was jostled in the arm by a man with a donkey muttering under his breath as he passed.
“Don’t look too shocked, remember you’re supposed to have grown up around these kinds of sights. I’d heard stories about the mott and bailey at Aschin from traders, but I always assumed they had to be exaggerating,” Robert whispered. “And that keep! This prince Feridar may be relatively young, but you have to hand it to the man. He is impressively cunning.”
“What is a mott?”
“It’s the courtyard and village surrounding the castle,” Robert interrupted her question, his gaze sweeping the battlements.
The keep could more accurately have been called a palace. Raised on a small hill overlooking the mott and bailey, the keep had been built into the mountainside itself, protecting it from behind with the deep mountains of the east. The palace itself was hewn out of solid granite, the rock color varying from charcoal black to the cold grey of wet ash in a fire pit. It was at least four stories high with its massive grey onion dome glaring down on them imposingly.
Protecting the keep, within the city’s main wall and dry moat, were two smaller walls separating them from the palace, each having its own set of guard towers and gates. The towers were all connected by a series of stone archways and bridges, reminding her of a colder version of Kapernaum’s bridged system. On the north end of the city, to their left, she could see the giant aqueduct pouring a waterfall down into the city. Between themselves and that aqueduct sat a smaller, shorter, wall with a tiny gatehouse big enough to hold four or five soldiers.
Robert whistled.
“This place is designed beautifully. They could shut the outer gates and be on lockdown for months if they had an enemy brave enough to lay siege. That aqueduct is a feat in and of itself!”
“Let’s hope they focused so much on keeping out armies that they won’t be looking for a couple misfits,” she breathed, trying to calm her nerves.
“Looks like they’ve done their best to section off the city within the walls. I’ll bet that gatehouse is to keep just anyone from accessing the cistern. Markets must all be separated from high-risk areas.”
“To think, pumping all that water in and then keeping people from it,” she muttered.
“Well, best crack on then,” Robert said, squeezing her hand in reassurance. They turned to the right and walked away from the inner wall and gatehouse into the busy marketplace with quick steps. Paige tried to ignore the filth and mud that they sloshed through to get to the vendors.
The marketplace was more to the left than in the city plan. It reminded her of a dirtier, less colorful version of Kapernaum’s market. Tattered banners of shops and the occasional hitching post lined the streets and byways. Troughs with brackish liquid sloshing out gave a rank stench to the air. There were a few buildings that seemed to be dedicated shops, most notably a tavern and what appeared to be a gambling establishment crowded with lewd, loitering drunkards seeking female companionship. The scent was enough to make Paige’s meager meal of dried Impasca strips crawl up the sides of her stomach. At least if she hurled, it wouldn’t diminish the property appraisal for any of these establishments.
The first vendor they passed sat under a homespun tent, selling what looked to be baskets made of weeds. He was a short, round man with a wart placed on the end of a crooked, broken, nose. He boasted squinty, piggish eyes that were constantly darting down to Paige and Robert’s money satchels, like a dog awaiting a scrap of fat from the table.
“Ah, my lord,” he said in an accent as thick as fresh cream. “You seek a basket to please the beautiful mistress, yes? I have the finest baskets in Aschin, made of the bulrushes that grow along the Great River, yes I do. What can I interest you with?”
“Good merchant,” Robert said, mimicking the accent by rolling his r’s like the basket weaver. “What a stock you have. Tell me, of what use would one of your baskets be to me?”
“Ah, my lord has a keen buyer’s eye, yes you do. May I say that these baskets are fine for carrying goods and keeping household items in order, yes they are. What seek you, my lord?”
“A small basket, for my lovely wife to place her toiletries,” Robert said, winking at Paige. “She must keep all those pretty paints in order you know! She does tend to love the rouge a little too much.”
She definitely needed no rouge at that moment to make her cheeks red. He would pay. Oh, how he would pay, when they were done.
“Ah, I have just the thing, yes I do,” the merchant babbled, pulling out a small woven box that looked about as dry and cracked as his parched lips. Paige looked at it in disgust. What a worthless piece of junk.
“Hmm,” Robert mumbled with a little disapproval. “Maybe something else.”
“Oh, I see. Not quite right. Let me find the perfect one, yes?” He dug under the table through more baskets.
“Business must be booming with all the soldiers,” Robert looked out at the street. “Seem to be a great deal more of them here now than last time I took a trip here. Is there an enemy of the Empire about?”
“Actually,” the merchant slurred, “there was a revolt, yes there was. In the forest to the west. Our soldiers came out, they did, and quelled the bloody rebellion, yes.”
“Bloody revolt, indeed!” said a merchant who sold fishing hooks and trinkets at the booth next door. “I heard they slaughtered many of our men, and had an army of wild savages from the forests ready to attack our helpless settlements!”
“But, it’s all better now. Prince Feridar, may he rule long and happily, returned two weeks ago with the prisoners, he did. Slaves they are now, yes. Sent them all up to Franghal to work as punishment for their insurrection!”
The man popped his head up from under the table and produced another basket that looked no different from the one he’d just shown them.
“Never mind,” Robert said with an airy wave of his hand. Paige thought he played the belligerent, wealthy, dorbel quite well. It took all her control not to lash out at the news. Insurrection? Murdering villages? She hadn’t even known this world existed when the Shauds attacked, and this man seemed to think Prince Feridar’s massacres had saved them all from death at the hands of bloodthirsty savages. If only they knew. Robert took one look at her face before grabbing her arm and steering her away.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, Paige,” he cautioned, his voice stern in her ear. “You look like you want to jump across the table and choke that man out.”
“But he said…”
“I know what he said,” Robert cut her off. “But if you want to get your sister out of enemy hands you are going to have to start thinking like them. That man believes what he is t
old because that is all he is told. Propaganda and fear-mongering are tools those with dark intentions use to blind otherwise decent people.”
“Fine,” she said, trying to compose herself. “I’ll try better.”
“That’s my girl,” Robert said, patting her cheek. She smiled forcefully and firmly removed his hand from her face.
“You touch me like that one more time, and I don’t care who’s watching. I will drop you like a sack of grain. Do you understand?” Paige hissed through her teeth.
“Noted,” Robert laughed, clearly unperturbed.
They spent the rest of the afternoon stopping by countless shops, asking about the recent affairs, and gathering information about the palace and city itself. Paige was impressed with how well Robert asked innocent questions that led to such detailed and useful information.
The late afternoon sky grew darker as the sun began to dip beyond the western mountains they had crossed in past days. The smoky haze that lingered all day began to descend upon the valley like a demonic spirit creeping out of the darkness. Paige felt fatigue pulling at her as the light faded. Her muscles were cramped, and her waist ached from wearing the stays. This bloody contraption lifted her chest and made breathing a chore of short breaths.