A First Step in the City

Compared to the cities of his home, the sprawl of Larkhen’s Hold hardly lived up to expectations.

He had anticipated walls more imposing, and taller, manned by battalions: a great show of force for would-be subjugators. Weapon emplacements loaded for bear. Great iron portcullis with heavy doors that would crush invaders to paste when a general gave the decisive order for it to close. Colorful banners and marvelous fanfare. A sense of security, perhaps.

But the city’s farms were outside the walls. So were its tanners and blacksmiths, dye workers and potters. Pens for livestock. The road leading to the gate was mud and bits of stone, the stone displaced by storms when the waters rose. Faced with siege the city would be slowly choked of its wealth, and all the weapons in the world would be worth pennies compared to plowshares then.

But there were banners, though only astride the gate; their sigil the same triad of towers inside the open jaws of a bear.

“It’s inefficient,” Ol-Lozen said, watching a gaggle of children pursue an escapee chicken who’d flown the coop on stubby, mud-drenched legs, laughing in good fun all the while as their meal clucked tauntingly away. “A capable general would take this city and its people within a week. This lord flaunts his rear in the breeze.” Daigay shot him a hard look and jerked an elbow at the roadside.

“Keep your words to yourself if you wish us no harm.” Her hushed words were in the Orkan tongue. “They watch us, even now.”

It was true. Heads were turning at the not-man’s arrival. Peasants lifted their faces from field work and paused. Whispers of “demon” spread through those mingled closer together, baskets of eggs or sheaves of harvested wheat in their arms, either returning from or prepared for a market visit.

Mouse poked her head around Daigay. “But Grandmama, how will they hear him?”

Daigay turned to the girl. “With their ears,” she started in their shared language, her mouth open to continue. Then she thought better of it, and returned her eyes to Ol-Lozen, and used his words “And they will bring what they hear to someone who can make sense of what they perceive. There are magi here. Of that, we can be certain. Once our business with lord Larkhen is concluded, it will be imperative to locate safe quarters in which to speak privately.” She pointed her hand at Mouse in a manner that spoke “repeat that for her.”

He did so. “Perhaps we can also rest before our business.”

“Did you not find the road a comfortable enough bed?”

Reaching Larkhen’s Hold had cost over a day in time. Merciful to her steed, Daigay suggested the party settle for the night so he could recover, during which Mouse had ordered night’s second watch be Ol-Lozen’s in addition to the third, allowing Daigay relief after the first. He had taken to it well, the night was a fine drinking buddy returned from university seeking company and laughs. Only this time the drinks were flat and his company snored, and there were no odd jobs to keep his mind alert, no promise of pay to sweeten his drudgery under the stars. Once their allure wore off he’d be in real trouble.

Or so he’d thought. His body felt strangely chipper despite a greater part of the day walking through forests, up and down hills, nature’s vistas, chopping firewood to strip into kindling, lessons about cooking over campfires, loading and unloading the cart, and lore of his people enduring dissection. Orkan stamina held no equal but none among them were untiring, Ol-Lozen least of all, the bare training he had received touched never on endurance.

By all accounts he should have been two blinks from unconsciousness. But he wasn’t, and he’d opted for an attractive option – patrolling – and passed the night one tight circle around camp to the next on guard for threats. Two hundred revolutions proved the field peaceful territory. Three hundred more doubly ensured that. Two hundred additional laps warned his stamina had potentially become bottomless, and Ol-Lozen took it in stride to another hundred more. His feet strode on air, his legs yearned for harsher conditions.

Then Daigay awoke accompanied by a sound like a chain being cut, and exertion from remaining wakeful crashed down upon him. When he came to face-first in the dirt the old woman had already drawn up a steaming kettle, a cup half supped in her covered right hand, the crackle of hot fat and meat on the fire, her smirk visible over the tea.

Now he strode through the city in a deep haze. Sleep pawed at his eyes. His yawns had formed an orderly queue in his throat, rolling out his mouth one after the other, flashing citizens a show of teeth and tusk glinting in the afternoon sun. Combined with Daigay’s forceful urges, the guards allowed them entry deprived of harassment.

Inside the walls, a new sight awaited them. Mouse leaned off the saddle to get a better look. “Those people have made camps,” she announced. “Why are they making camps inside the city?”

Daigay barely spared them a glance. Ol-Lozen kept his head forward, pretending they weren’t there. He brushed their speech from his skin before the words dug too deep, but his heart ached all the same.

“Grandmama,” she prodded.

“Because the walls offer more safety within than without.” She tapped a finger against Jackbee’s reins. “Our lord fool is not without heart, it seems. Conflict has made him more amicable. Their numbers have swelled since last I recall.”

“Who wages war here?” Ol-Lozen asked.

Daigay shrugged. “Simpler to list off who doesn’t. Larkhen’s Hold is further away from conflict than most, making succor here easier to come by.”

Ol-Lozen risked a glance towards the mass displaced. Camps with hastily built structures of carts, overturned wagons, banners, and blankets populated the inner edge of the wall, their occupants spilling out into the organization of the Larkhen’s Hold. The displaced were mired in grime and sour odor, their meager possessions, had they any, peppered with holes or deep gouges, or broken further to build the impression of a wall or piece of furniture. Children were crying. Beaten figures stumbled about. An underlying sickly sweet smell of rot knifed through the crowd from injuries bereft of proper care. Little joy was to be found, but it was still there in specks if one searched hard enough, though neither Ol-Lozen nor Daigay dared look too closely.

Mouse glued to her eyes to the despair, horror in her eyes as an argument over dregs of roasted chicken devolved into brawling. Flesh slapped against flesh until others pulled the combatants apart.

“Grandmama, we have food.”

“Not enough to feed hundreds. You’ll only spark useless infighting.”

“We can still aid who we can.”

“And by doing so relieve ourselves of everything we carry. Keep your senses, daffodil, lest your charity malign you, but see this moment as a lesson.” The girl gazed up at Daigay. “Let it strengthen your resolve and burn a fire under you. We can provide little in terms of nourishment; however, think of what we can offer them as magi. Warmth without fire, patches for their clothes, shielding from rain and snow…”

She continued on listing methods, but Mouse’s expression remained gloomy, and her small arms tightened around the old woman. Sighing, Daigay pulled on Jackbee’s reins to make the animal turn from the city road towards a stone-and-mortar structure. The chimney rising from its angular roof puffed thin, black smoke. Birds flitted along the roof’s edge, drawn by the scent of hot bread.

Daigay slid from the saddle. “Hold these, will you,” she said to Ol-Lozen, handing him the donkey’s reins. From her cloak she withdrew a drawstring pouch that jingled cheerful notes, and counted out into her hand coins of silver and copper. Some minutes later she returned from the bakehouse with four breads: a golden braided one the length of her forearm, a blackened rock of grain that could have seen use as a bludgeon, a red-dusted roll, and a crisp loaf Ol-Lozen thought similar in size and shape to those from his world.

“Now,” she smiled, “We gather information.” Her arms full, Daigay accepted his lifting her back into the saddle this time.

“How?” Ol-Lozen asked, eyeing the new food with suspicion.

“From the birds.” The Orkan stared blankly at Mouse as though she’d tried to tell him two plus two was equal to five.

Making preparatory tears in the breads, the old magus guffawed. “Precisely.” Pursing her lips together she whistled high into the air, a shimmer like summer heat following the sound. Within moments a murder of black-feathered crows from the bakehouse roof had descended around the party, two finding perches on the ground, Jackbee – to whom this was nothing unusual, loosing no bray nor shaking the bird from atop his head – and one of Daigay’s shoulders.

“She cannot be serious.” Ol-Lozen murmured.

To the one on her shoulder she extended a chunk of the black bread. It cawed, as crows are wont to do, Daigay nodded, and she held out a piece of the roll instead which was quickly gobbled up.

“By the gods, she’s serious.”

“Of course she is,” said Mouse. “Birds see more than we ever could, and have much to talk about.”

So it appeared. The crows would caw or warble, occasionally bob their head or scratch with their claws, and Daigay would return a whistle and a piece from one of her breads, and the longer the show dragged on the clearer it became the birds had preferences. Daigay often pulled from the inside of the bread leaving the crust to dry. On occasion she pulled the bread away when one tried to peck at the food before she replied, and she would waggle a disciplinary finger at the offender, chastising it like a mannerless child.

A thought occurred to Ol-Lozen. “Are all animals capable of speech?”

Mouse nodded. “Even the smallest creatures. After feeding it a rabbit, I made friends with one of the grey spiders in our home. He was quite lazy, you see.

“So long as he ate his fill of the insects.” There had been a pile of cobwebbed bones in the home’s corner, now that he thought it. Mouse snaring a tiny creature only to offer it up squirming for its life sat poorly with him.

Daigay widened her eyes at the crow on her shoulder. She looked from Ol-Lozen, back to crow, back to the not-man, and the bird again. She shrugged and made a curious face. “Ol-Lozen!” she called. “These lovelies have a wager for us. For you.”

“Dare I ask the ante?”

“Only your sword.”

“Tell your lovelies to get stuffed.”

“I daresay they’d take suitable offense to that. I will not. But as the wager has already been arranged, you will either lay sword and sheathe upon the ground of your own accord or by another’s.” She pointed with the remainder of one loaf at the child behind her. The Orkan’s glare could have melted steel as he begrudgingly removed his weapon.

“And what could these winged rats want with it?” he growled. All three hopped down ono the sheath, pecking at its channels and maneuvering their claws for purchase.

“Nothing that matters, but they wield swinging braggadocios and carry words necessary for our summons. I refuse to attend underprepared.”

“You’ve risked my weapon for the opinions of birds?” His temper grew darker with each word.

“Not opinions; but facts. Lying does not come naturally to crows, nor do locations, names, or any identifier we commonly use. And they are slow to learn new tricks.” Two of the crows settled on the sword’s handle, the sheath’s far edge for the others. “But their brains are swollen with cursory details to be snapped together for a full picture. All they need is the right motivation to spill forth.”

As a murder, the crows began to rapidly beat their wings, otherworldly prize in claw.

“But, they won’t…” Ol-Lozen stared in disbelief.

“Oh, but they will try.”

A hearty laugh came from the direction of the bakehouse. It might have been the baker himself come to air his head after so many hours before a sweltering oven, and found a sight worth delaying work. Ol-Lozen could not have been more flabbergasted if the crows donned top hats and shiny canes and begun performing barbershop quartet. They flapped like their lives depended on hefting the blade. They may as well have tried to scarf down Ol-Lozen himself.

Mouse’s flat gaze slid from the struggling crows to Daigay. “Grandmama, that was a cruel trick,” she said, her words dripping in disdain.

“It was their own fault for taking me up this ridiculous wager. I said they could have take the sword if they could lift it.”

“But you knew they couldn’t.”

“Nonsense. They just need to try harder.” Out of the corner of her eye came a group of small, dirt speckled children, drawn by the baker’s laughter; more of the displaced. She quickly handed what remained of the loaves to Mouse and pointed them out. The girl’s eyes lit up. She leapt from the saddle, stumbled down almost mashing her food with her face, and sprinted off to offer the displaced still warm and mostly untouched bread.

A slow smile spread across Ol-Lozen’s face. It pushed warmly at his cheeks until his eyes crinkled. When he saw Daigay watching, he coughed to dislodge it. “That was a kind thing you did.” At the joyous noises made by the children he had to fight to maintain his mien. At sudden pressure on his shoulder he whirled his head in surprise, unbound hair nearly whipping the crow that found roost there, clearly having given up its efforts in making off with the sword. One eye, one black glass marble, focused on the Orkan. “I have no bread, creature,” he said, “Be off.”

“Ol-Lozen! Ol-Lozen! Fool!” It cried again, “Fool!”

He froze. Caught off-guard by the crow’s speech – Orkan speech, Orkan language, Orkan words – any chance of response was dead in its crib. He could only open and close his mouth silently, without a stutter of a word or syllable. Daigay smirked weakly, as if humoring him.

“I’m casting a stone, nothing more. In the grand scheme of this conflict my kindness will mean little.” She gazed to the horizon past her granddaughter, past the walls of the city, where stormy clouds had gathered to pour their cold contents. Her hand drifted to Jackbee’s ear, drawn by magnetic force, and stroked the donkey along the fragile skin.

“We must be off. Lord Larkhen awaits, and he have held him up long enough.”