Adversaries Together (9 page)

The other civic stepped up to him, “Anders.”
Wynne shook his hand, and then Anders turned to Soren, “We should
get moving. We have to cross the city.”

Soren nodded. As they began to walk, Wynne
asked, “Where are we heading? I remember the Union being burnt out
around the same time my ward was.”

“
New Union.” Anders said as
he moved to be on point.

“
New?”

“
On the western edge, in
the Kairn Hills.” Garner added pointing across the bay to the grey
brown hills that rose up slightly above the city line.

“
There was never anything
in those hills.” Wynne was a bit confused as they walked along the
jetty to the shoreline.

Garner chuckled a bit, Soren shook his head,
“There is now. The new Union is literally in the hills.”

Wynne raised an eyebrow, “In the hills?”

“
Ward nine’s central hall
wasn’t just built against a cliff face, it was built into it.
Nearly half a league into the hills they say.” Garner
said.

“
How many are
there?”

“
Nearly five hundred, space
for maybe another five.” Soren said.

“
Just waiting it
out?”

“
Most of the Alders are
resigned to doing just that. Trying to bring in stragglers and the
civics’ families.” Anders said from the back.

“
So that’s what you’ve been
combing through the city for?”

“
Not just, but essentially,
yeah.” Soren nodded.

“
And you just made it out
here finally.”

Soren shook his head but it was Garner who
spoke, “Top priority was finding you, this was just the last place
to look.”

Wynne grinned, “Why me?”

“
That’s a good question.”
Garner replied.

“
You designed the civics;
you brought a new order to the city.” Soren said.

Strands of dark smoke rose from several
points in the city, when they got to the shore a hot wind blew the
city’s stench toward them; Wynne winced, “And look at it all
now.”

Anders and Garner laughed as they pulled the
bandanas around their necks up over their faces. Soren ignored the
smell, “The Alders need you for something, and I’m supposed to
fulfill that need.”

“
You’re a good soldier,
Redding.” Wynne said off-handedly.

“
Not a soldier.” Soren
replied in a near whisper.

The four of them made their way along the
eastern shore of the bay. It was mostly fishing shacks but soon
they entered the city proper. Their progress slowed as they moved
through narrow back alleys. The main streets of Rikonen were wide
and flat but littered with debris—overturned carts, mounds made of
looted remains, animal corpses, and dark bloodstains now browned.
Their plaster cracked and crumbling, the once glare white buildings
of Rikonen with their tiny square windows were now scarred and
blackened. Through the alleys, they could only move single-file.
Wynne’s eyes kept darting around, but he kept getting distracted by
the lines hanging overhead used for airing out clothes and passing
things between homes. Garbage hung from them now and not a few
charred bodies grotesquely entangled.

Wynne didn’t know this ward. They moved
throughout the morning and afternoon. They encountered no one,
heard no sound, the ward felt empty. The sun was lowing and the sky
turning a brilliant red-orange because of the haze that hung over
the city. All day they had been carving a circuitous path following
Soren’s directions. Finally, the alley opened up into a
thoroughfare that was remarkably clear, there were stalls with
tattered blue tarps; this had been a bazaar.

Garner gestured with his head, “This would
work for the night.” They looked at a large booth that had its
counters shattered but had a high eave.

“
Sure thing,” Soren nodded
and turned to Anders, “Make a fire from what you can find, small
though.”

“
Just out here in the
open?” Wynne looked around skeptically.

“
This was one of the first
places sacked by the mobs; they’ve not been back in ages.” Garner
said as he tossed their gear down and began to move some of the
tables to create a kind of u-shaped shield.

“
We’ll be able to see
anyone coming for us well ahead of any danger.” Soren
said.

“
Better than being pinned
up in one of these homes, eh?” Wynne said and Soren
nodded.

Garner looked Wynne up and down, “You need to
eat.”

Once Anders got the fire going, he began to
cook. It was simple fare—some well spiced dhal, a couple of simits
for each of them, and some sharp yellowish cheese. Soren said he’d
take the first watch and disappeared into the twilight on patrol.
Wynne ate slowly, chewing each bite thoroughly, but his appetite
wasn’t sated as the other two civics watched him not with awe,
contempt, or concern but with a juvenile curiosity.

“
If I was you, I’d be
devouring that,” Garner laughed good-naturedly, “wolfing it down,
ya know?”

“
Yeah, I didn’t realize how
thin you were up in that lighthouse.” Anders spoke plainly, “but
when I saw you come out of that door, you looked like a walking
skeleton.”

Wynne nodded, scooped up another dollop dhal
with his bread, raised it to his mouth and let out a weary sigh. It
seemed to the guardsmen that he was eating out of obligation, as
though the food had defeated him.

“
All you had was rice and
rock leeches?” Garner asked and Wynne nodded.

“
Damn.” Anders
said.

“
For what? A year, maybe
more?” Garner asked.

Wynne paused for a moment, “Thereabouts.”

“
I couldn’t have done it.”
Anders shook his head, a look on his face of refusal as though he
was saying no to a bet. Wynne smirked, nodded again, and
swallowed.

“
But why aren’t you eating
more?” Anders asked.

“
He is eating more,” Garner
laughed, “he hasn’t stopped eating since we met him.” And, it was
true, to a certain degree. They had given him some amber ale as
they left the lighthouse behind, and on the road, he was eating
jerky and green nuts nearly the whole time.

Staring into the fire, he spoke to the
guardsmen and they listened intently, “It wasn’t a choice, it was
what was available. It was either eat the sea snails or not eat.
Cooking rice in seawater, so you don’t waste your true water.
Shooting down and eating gulls. It was what was available.”

“
That why you had a
spearbow? For hunting birds?” Garner said confused.

Wynne shook his head, “No. The spearbow was
more for salvage.” He paused, “Grabbing bodies, pulling them ashore
to be buried.”

“
You harpooned
corpses?”

“
Those that tried to break
The Blockade. They deserved a burial.”

“
I’ve never even seen a
weapon like that.”

“
Not meant to be a weapon.
It’s used by whalers out of Paraonen. They used to throw the
harpoons, used to have to drive them into the whales with their
bare hands.” The civics were attentive, “I guess having to stare a
whale in its eye finally got to them. So they made this, merging a
crossbow with their smaller harpoons.”

“
And you would fish out
bodies with it?” Anders said.

Wynne pointed to a small metal loop at the
tip of one of the spears, “You tie a rope here and then to the
spearbow hilt, so when it shoots the rope follows with it.”

“
Then you’d pull the people
in.”

“
The bodies,
yes.”

“
Don’t suppose too many
would be comfortable with the idea of their loved ones being
harpooned like whales.” Garner shook his head.

Wynne shrugged, “Comfort tends to leave
consideration once a body has been burnt to meat and bone by flame
tar, bloated three times its normal size and been fed on by crabs
and sea worms, and when limbs and heads drift to shore along with
the shards of the ships.” Neither of the civics spoke staring into
the fire or off into the darkness.

“
Behind the keepers’ den, I
buried them. I buried probably…” he paused and looked off doing
what appeared to be a casual mental arithmetic, “…a hundred or so.
At least, one a week.”

“
Damn.”

He wiped his bread around his plate getting
the last of the lentils, then stared hard directly at the two
guardsmen, “Less than half of that were whole or had a recognizable
face.”

The Highroad,
30
^th
of Lammas

The hinterlands hadn’t been a problem. The
highroad rose up a good twenty feet above the surrounding land and
was built in such a way as to wind between woodlands in open space
while also through what few hills there were—literally through the
hills, it was always astounding to gaze down the road to see it
seemingly slice through hills like a knife. All possible cover was
cut back a good hundred yards from the highroad. Raised and cleared
as it was, every traveler could see anyone coming at them well
ahead of time; you were not ambushed on the highroad, which was not
to say highwaymen didn’t try. To further deter bandits and increase
the speed of commerce, the Spires had established the Far Watch.
Moving in groups of four over the highroad, you were guaranteed to
run into the watchmen every three or four hours, staggered as they
were to cross each other’s path going opposite directions.

It was often just too much of a hassle for
criminals to deal with the highroad. Still, since the rise of the
Spires the highroads had gotten more and more lucrative. Some
organized gangs worked a handful of stretches but most highwaymen
were solo or pairings neither was much of a threat to the escorts
and watchmen from The Cathedral and Spires. It often took dimwitted
or youthful thieves an experience of terror a time or two to learn
this. However, not all guards were Cassubian or Silvincian. A good
number of the guards from more remote towns were dodgy, the
likeliness of their aid at about fifty/fifty.

Staying just inside the tree line, Declan had
no difficulty maintaining pace with the paladin and alm while
staying hidden. The hinterlands were rivaled only by the Essian
plains to the west, which seemed to go on interminably until
draining away to a cold, gravelly shore. He had a special affection
for the hinterlands, a perfect mix of forest, hill, and plain, so
much so he found himself having to snap his attention back to his
charges. Their meandering pace gave far too much leeway to
daydreaming, and Declan had seen better men lose their life for
doing as much. He needed to focus.

Declan knew the paladin’s reputation. Goshen
came from an honored family and had put in an impressive career of
service to the Cathedral. He’d fought in relatively small
skirmishes as the Cassubia helped establish mark states around
itself and had gone on more than a few attrition campaigns to the
south. But, it seemed as though this paladin was taking a rather
lax approach to his ward’s care. It took the pair nearly two weeks
to reach Havan, a journey that would have taken others half the
time if they had dawdled. Declan felt he was going mad. The boredom
seemed interminable, and he found it difficult to understand how
the two were managing not to go mad as well.

Nights spent on the highroad were unpleasant,
there wasn’t really the option of settling in comfortably for it
was meant for travel, not camping. The Cathedral had forbade the
establishment of inns believing that doing so would create waysides
that would exploit pilgrims. The law infuriated more than a few
trade guilds, but the alternative was exactly what the Cathedral
had feared. Travelers typically wanted to spend as few nights on
the highroad as possible, but it seemed as though the paladin and
the alm didn’t mind.

The two would rise obscenely early to engage
in some kind of ritual and then ramble until the light died. Declan
couldn’t complain really, the job was appearing to be far too easy.
But it was beginning to annoy him—he wasn’t a simple tail and if
this task turned out to be such, he’d seriously have to reconsider
working for the Kyria again. Impatience killed, it had become his
mantra. Declan knew he needed to settle himself, take the task at
hand for what it was and meet its needs. As the highroad rose up
over the foothills hemming the Siracene Highlands, the Anhrathid
lowlands open up.

The descent into the lowlands running between
the small cities of Rautia and Anhra had been a passage though
mists trapped by the Glen Mark hills to the east and the Siracene
to the west. The air was rich with the scent of sea kill and salt;
it curled its way into your nostrils as the air thickened. Below
the cloudbank, the highroad revealed its true worth, all around it
the marshes and moors seemingly stood still. The trapped clouds
made rains a constant.

The ever-present hum of insects and the churn
of smaller creatures slithering through wet earth took center stage
as visibility fell away. You only knew the road in front of you.
Unlike the hinterlands, the lowlands proved to be difficult for
Declan. He shadowed the pair closer than he would have liked and
highwaymen were now an actual threat. The wetlands were far enough
away from the larger cities that the Far Watch couldn’t be relied
upon since Anhra was lax, to say the least, believing too much
policing was bad for business.

The second day in the lowlands, Declan
realized the pair were being stalked. It was clear these new
shadows had been waiting for them, biding their time until the two
appeared on the road. Declan stood over the remnants of the third
camp he found of theirs—not more than seven men, no horses, but
they were well armed as their tracks sunk deep into the soft peat.
The camp space all looked the same, a small fire pit surrounded by
the pressed ground of four small tents. This group wasn’t from the
region, Declan figured, since they’d started a fire using tinder
and wood. It must have driven them crazy trying to get a flint to
spark with how damp it was. Most Anhrathids used the deep black
peat for fire as it burned continuously giving off the necessary
heat but without a revealing and easily doused flame. Their weapons
weren’t too heavy, but they certainly weren’t lightly armed. Yet
the tracks revealed soles more suited to sailing. Declan guessed it
had been at least two days, if not more, that they had been here
waiting, probably came up from the harbor.