I will hate Alicia and Mirra until my dying day for vetoing my suggestion to just pass out on the floor. We had travelled all the way from Braxus. Braxus, by Anvil! I don’t know how far that is, but I can tell you it felt flipping far. Yet the supposedly sensible adults amongst us were still insisting we clean up a bit and have a proper meal before bed. Back in my day, I tell you, weary travellers would just lay down right there on the shards of glass for a couple of hours of shut eye, and they’d be grateful for it!

Alright, fine, maybe I was being a bit dramatic. Geez, it was hard to coax anything more from my log-like limbs… Actually, I really should think of another analogy. I think I’ve had my fill of plant-based references.

Alicia was still a little worse for wear, so we plonked her down on the one chair and made sure she had water to hand. I didn’t begrudge her the rest — she looked the colour of over-brewed tea — but that did mean it was down to me and Mirra to tackle the chores.

I started by sweeping the hallway, so we at least weren’t trapsing soil all over the shop every time we needed to use the loo. Mirra set about the rooms, trying to make them somewhat liveable before bedtime. I wasn’t expecting top-end tavern service, but there were only two beds and next to no linen, so I wondered what kind of magic she hoped to employ. Still, when I pointed this out, I was met with the classic response of, “S’not so bad.” Well, that answers that? Best to leave her to it.

With the sweeping passably done, I chucked the worst of broken timber and cracked glass into a pile in the garden. Arguably this was just postponing the problem, rather than dealing with it, but after days on the road I was pretty impressed I managed even that much.

We got a lot done in a short time — it’s incredible how tenacious you can be when something is between you and a pillow — but my most daunting task still remained. Alicia was adamant that I should take our paltry funds over to the market and get something semi-substantial for dinner. Granted, I was pretty bored of stale bread and dried meat as well, but, given the choice, I would have eaten Clive rather than brave big, bustling Magalat right now. Hang on. That’s not a bad idea.

“It’ll be fine, Mel,” Alicia said. “They’re just people.”

“People who throw their stool in the streets,” I countered.

“And I’m sure if you’d grown up here then you’d be doing the same.” She handed me a purse with enough money for a week’s worth of provisions.

“And then I wouldn’t blame a nice country girl for not wanting to buy her veggies from me.”

“Go on, scoot, you drama queen. The quicker you get going the quicker you get back. That means a full belly and a night in a bed,” she reminded me.

I couldn’t help but groan. “For two of us.” I couldn’t help but notice I was the youngest and technically the fittest. That meant I was destined for the floor.

Alicia swept me out the door like spilt soil and closed the door behind me. The lock didn’t work, of course, but she turned the key for dramatic effect.

“Alright, fine!” I called through the off-green door.

Despite rustling around in my pack for every last crumb of resolve, I still stood there stupidly on the doorstep. I looked up and down the street and felt lost before I’d even taken my first step. There was hardly anyone about, but the city still thrummed with noise like a beehive. It made me feel like I was stuffed in the back of a cart, shoulder to shoulder with faceless, nameless strangers, rattling along a blind path to nowhere.

“Noisy, isn’t it?”

“Ah!” I replied.

“What’s the matter with you?” Clive said.

“Glade, I’d forgotten you existed. What are you doing here?”

I swear the chicken shrugged. “I wasn’t much use at cleaning.”

“Well I doubt you’re going to be any better at shopping. Would you get lost?”

“And miss you getting dragged off to the gallows? I think not.” He harrumphed.

I regretted going into detail about the manner and grandeur of my potential execution; Clive really did get a kick out of bringing it up. “I’m not going to get hanged today.”

“You are if you carry on talking to me.”

I gave him the old side-eye. “You really are a piece of work.”

“Thank you.”

I followed Alicia’s instructions to get to the local market. She promised me it was a small affair, nothing like the famous butchers’ market, fish market, or trinket markets, that supposedly drew half of Magalat to their stalls. I hoped it was as unassuming as she claimed. The path to the market took me through more jaunty little streets, much like the one we would be calling our own. I half expected the hubbub of the market to act as a beacon, guiding me in like the candle on the windowsill draws the midnight hunters. Fat chance. If I closed my eyes, it sounded like I was in the market already.

I stopped on the corner at an alcove, similar to the shrine I’d seen earlier. Something had drawn my eye. It had been chiselled from proper stone, I noted, and there were faded decorative geometric patterns around the edges. If I ran my hand over the backwall I could feel the ruts and channels of a carver’s painstaking work. It was difficult to pick out under a hastily gouged Anvil, but I fancied they might be vines and leaves. I noted as well that the offering ledge had been clumsily attached by a far lessor mason. I guess the Forge didn’t hadn’t always reigned supreme in Magalat. Well, that’s what years of drought will get you, false gods. I turned my back on it and the rest of the bad memories our street held.

This immigrant district was pretty large. I must have twisted and tangled my way through a dozen narrow roads without really getting anywhere. Like Iffan’s shop, the buildings were painted in tasteless pastels in every colour you couldn’t possibly want. Like Iffan’s shop, the paint was cracked and peeling, the houses sagging. The place looked like it’d drowned, and washed up on shore.

We were in Osston. I’d pored over a map a decent amount before I left — Carrie said it was too cumbersome for me to take with, but I know she couldn’t stand the gap in her collection — so I knew we were south-east and central in relation to the rest of Magalat. That whole area, Osston and the surrounding neighbourhoods included, was known as Lesser Old Town. I know. It’s not enough that it should be old; it has to be the lesser version of old.

Okay, time to revise my history lessons. I went to all the trouble of looking it up, so I’m sure as Glade going to make sure I remember it.

Cities aren’t exactly spontaneously occurring. Sure, they grow out of control without much warning, but there will always be a reason why they are where they are. People being people, this normally comes down to one of two motivating factors: trade and war. Trade, because the continent is apparently obsessed with shiny things. War, because apparently folk can’t get enough of stabbing people. For those wondering why nobody founds a city with the production of food in mind, I can only assume it’s because the marauding sorts are content to get their three square meals a day from the likes of us Braxus suckers.

Most of the time, a city founded by someone with a military head on their shoulders will be found hemmed in by mountains, built atop a hill, or inaccessible on one side due to a chasm, a forest, a roving band of jyskertrolls with a strong appreciation for boundaries; I didn’t go too deep into the specifics. The point is that it’s ostensibly defensible — in reality, these guys always seem to be the ones leading that whole stabbing foray.

A city founded with trade in mind will usually be built along a river, or next to the coast. The idea being that ships are better at carrying a ton of stuff than even Mirra. I know there are trading posts in the desert regions that thrive pretty decently, but, in my neck of the woods, this rule holds.

Magalat straddles a river — the river Oud, if memory serves — so the immediate reaction is to go, “Aha! There be a trading town.” Unfortunately, you would not be winning the quiz at the Rut with that one. No, some clever general back in the day managed to find a way to weaponise said river. It truly is amazing how clever people can be when it comes to dreaming up ways to kill one another.

Way back when, Tythia was divided into scores of little kingdoms. These kingdoms did what kingdoms do best, and waged war on one another. They were all in on it, but, for the purposes of this story, we’re going to focus on two. Here’s where I must hang my head in shame. I must have read the names thirty or forty times, but they are forever cemented in my memory as King Westy and King Southy. That will just have to do.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Let me get out my lyre and see if I can’t strum a little bard’s tale.

King Westy was a proud man, bold, old and strong,

He wanted to be remembered, for many years long,

So he hatched a plan to expand,

And stretch his kingdom across the land.

In the south there was king, measly, weak and wan,

Westy thought, “Can I beat him? Surely, yes, I can,”

He marched his men, with great speed,

His cause? Nothing more than simple greed.

But in Southy’s lands our King did find,

A castle! So large it blew his little mind,

Southy held behind his walls,

For year upon year they would not… falls?

Damn it. I was on a roll. Oh well, at least that killed some time. Alicia drastically downplayed the distance of this market. That, or I am totally lost.

Anyway, Magalat was established upriver of Southy’s fortress city, plonked across a fork, with a natural island in the middle. This spot was picked because it was where the nearby forest — that same forest we trekked through to get here: the Houmach — came almost to the river. Its purpose? Wood. Wood for siege engines. All the wood.

Before Magalat was even Magalat, it was cranking out timber like nowhere else on the continent. Workers would hack, cut, and sand, day in and day out. Then, the lumber was chucked onto barges, and sent downstream to fulfil its lifelong dream of becoming a siege tower, catapult or trebuchet.

Now the question is how a camp became a city. I would like to suggest that the answer is snootiness.

The soldiers had been sent here to gather wood, sure, but that was obviously beneath them. A division of Westy’s army set up over on the West bank, but the commander had no intention of raising an axe. They were here so they could keep tabs on the operation, without having to get their hands dirty.

The commander— it would be a generous point at the Rut quiz if someone correctly guessed Magalat — brought in a whole swarm of folk from back home to come do the actual chopping and, you know, working. That wasn’t enough, though, so he enticed immigrants to the area as well. That still wasn’t enough, though. Next, he brought in prisoners. Still not hitting the king’s impossible quotas, he marauded across the bulk of future Tythia, collecting slaves to work his lumberyards.

Magalat started to swell and like a sow’s stomach in farrowing season. By the time Westy had won his war and taken Southy’s castle — now just a glorious pile of rubble — disgruntled workers in Magalat outnumbered the soldiers by a hundred to one. Our commander turned governor tried to turn a profit off the post-war lumber trade, but that when down precisely as well as you might imagine.

Showing more wisdom than valour, Commander Magalat handed over control of the city to a well-respected local foreman, and got the Glade out of there. Somehow the place kept his name, which was a good bargain for him. I reckon this had less to do with his benevolent rule than it did with the extreme period of unrest that followed — our much loved foreman made it not even a year before someone had him murdered in his sleep, a fate which his next eight successors shared.

What does this mean for modern day Magalat? Well, Magalat kept the quirks of its creation. On the west bank, the streets are organised into neat grids, where permanent structures slowly but surely replaced the tents and temporary structures of the camp that was situated there so many years ago. The east bank, that had been home to the mish-mash of workers, slaves and prisoners who either flocked here for worked or were dumped here by the local warlord, had grown organically. I understand now that when a person says that a city grew organically, they mean it’s an illogical maze of alleys and streets, with no rhyme or reason, no signage, and no sense whatsoever! Seriously! I feel like an ant navigating a bowl of noodles.

I spied three boys playing with a ball that looked as deflated as I did. I gauged two of them to be quite young, but the oldest was only a couple of years shy of adulthood. Maybe sixteen or so years in this miserable cesspool was enough to figure your way around.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I’m sorry to bother you but I’m really, really lost. Can you tell me how to get to Crannoc Market?” I felt obliged to lay on some decent country manners; I’m a representative now.

The boy stopped the ball beneath his foot and sized me up. I felt immediately uncomfortable.

“I’ll do it for a kiss,” he said, stuffing his hands in his ratty jacket pocket.

Unbelievable! What a rude little urchin. “And here I thought the people of Magalat were decent folk. I guess I was wrong.”

This obviously didn’t sting like it would have back home; the boys started laughing at me.

Despite everything, I still felt myself coulour. That hardly seemed fair. They were the scumbags here; why should I feel embarrassed?

“If not for a kiss, then I’ll show you the way for mere shiny silver coin.”

I instinctively turned to shield the purse at my waist from his grubby little eyes. “Not a chance.”

He carried on laughing. “Better hurry, missy. It’s a limited time offer. The price goes up to two silvers if you don’t jump soon.”

“I’m not paying you a penny.”

“Oh, but it’s a once in a lifetime bargain. Besides, you are lost, missy. Ain’t you lost? Wouldn’t you feel better with a strapping lad to walk you home through these sketchy li’l alleys? I’d be happy to oblige, of course. Only, I reckon it’s fair I get a fair wage for fair work, no?”

There’s no real protocol for this in Braxus. It’s easy enough to get locked into a conversation you’d rather not be in, but propriety dictates that you wait it out. That’s the only explanation I can give for why I was still standing there. The only reason why I hadn’t backed away or run, even though I was feeling well and truly uncomfortable. I just stood there. And why? Because manners. That’s why.

Of course, that’s when one of the other boys snatched my purse.

“Hey!” I shouted after the freckled kid, who might have been a brunette but might just have been dirty. “Give that back!”

He did not give it back, of course. What he did was disappear down a tight passageway to who knows where, laughing all the way.

Luckily, there was protocol in Braxus for this: hunting.

I found my feet quickly enough, bounding after the youngster at a solid jog. I suspect he had pulled this trick a few times, but not normally on one so skinny; when he saw me sidling down the passage after him he choked on his own guffaws.

He made the other end of the gantry-wide gap and bolted, but he didn’t have a chance in the Forge. Even with a head start, there was no way he was going to out pace me on those little legs. I felt the heat rise in me. I was galloping, not running.

The kid panicked, and hooked a turn back onto the street where he’d mugged me. He probably hoped the older kid would protect him, but I had siblings, I knew how to scrap. Still, three against one would be a challenge, even if I was a head taller than two of them. Luckily, it didn’t come to that.

Before the little vagrant reached his pals, he was knocked clean off his feet and sent sprawling. My saviour? A surly rooster.

Clive had aimed one of his famous talon cartwheels at the child — which, I can attest, hurt like hell. He never made contact, though. The boy was so startled that he tripped on his own feet and skipped along the street like a stone on a pond. He dropped the purse, and earned himself a nice pattern of scrapes instead of a handful of coppers.

“You’re welcome,” Clive said, as I scooped the purse up.

“He only ran into you because you barely moved. I did all the chasing.”

“And led him right into my cunningly prepared trap.”

The kid started crying then, and I can’t deny I found it pretty satisfying. “You know what? A good result’s a good result. Let’s call it a team effort.”

“I couldn’t have you losing the money for my dinner,” Clive grumbled.

“You just had to go and ruin it, didn’t you?”

The lead boy — the disgusting one who had propositioned me — was levelling a shaky finger in my direction. “Did you just talk to that chicken?”

“… No.”

“You did. You did, I heard you.”

Heard words, heard clucks? I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be denying here. “I was just breathy from the run, is all.” I was starting to feel goosebumps rise on my flesh.

“And, and you were running pretty damn fast there, missy. Very fast, in fact.”

“That’s how we get around in the country. It keeps us fit.” This time I was backing away.

“No, no, I think you’re a”—he licked his lips—“that’s what you are. You’re a thrice-damned dr—"

“In Anvil’s name, what is the commotion here?” a soldier said. An actual soldier.

It felt like hot ice had been poured through my veins. It was as warm as one could want, and still I was trembling. There was pain behind my eyes, and my togue was swollen in my throat.

There were four of them. Three wore padded coats down to their knees, diamonds of white and green marking them as the baron’s men. The fourth was a captain, or sergeant or something. He wore tight-linked chainmail beneath a breastplate, bedecked with a white and green sash. He was somewhere in his thirties, but it was hard to gauge where, given his perfectly shaven face. His hair was so precisely cropped that it looked painted on.

“That woman,” the boy said, “she ordered that chicken to attack my friend.”

“Liar!” I shouted. “These little thieves stole my purse! They’re making up lies to hide the fact they’re rotten, snivelling criminals.”

The three footmen in the back were exchanging looks. They stood up a little straighter, ready for one or more of us to bolt.

The senior officer kept his composure. “Big accusations.” He paced between us. “An accusation like that could see you swing from a rope,” he said as he strolled past me. “Probably a dozen years of hard labour for you,” he said to the youngest boy — who looked guilty as all Glade. “No doubt double that for you,” he said the older boy. “Plus it’ll cost you a hand to boot. The baron has little sympathy for thieves.”

My spine stayed iron-rod stiff, while my body recoiled. It felt like skin was being shrugged to my ankles like a nightshirt. I eyed the boy across from me. In that moment I hated him more than I have ever hated anyone. Gracie McGail was a tender of the Forge by comparison to this yellow-bellied piece of work. It sickened me to know he would be the last person I thought of as the breath eked from my body.

Judging by the look on his face, he was also ruing the day he met me.

“Of course, if this were all a big misunderstanding, we wouldn’t have any such unpleasantness,” the officer said.

It was like my innards had been swaddled in silk. Was he giving us an out?

“If, say,” he continued, “you dropped your purse, and that young lad — good Samaritan that one, I reckon — was just trying to hand it back to you?”

I gulped, and nodded quickly.

“And I think, probably, the young lady was just venting some frustration at her little pet there?” he prompted the boy.

The boy and I spoke over one another.

“That’s exactly what happened.”

“Just as you said.”

“All a big misunderstanding.”

“So sorry to have wasted your time!”

The officer nodded sagely. “I thought that might be the case.” He issued us each with a final, withering warning. “Best be careful about what you almost say. Not every captain is as patient as I am.”

Then he rounded up his troops, and left.

Clive stared after them. “Wait, where are you going?” he clucked. “You’re supposed to arrest her! You forgot to hang her, morons.”

One of the soldiers looked back at the furiously bawking chicken and arched an eyebrow, but mercifully didn’t break step. They were out of sight soon afterwards.

Despite having survived the day with all of his limbs intact, the boy still had the slapped-face of someone who’d lost. “Welcome to Magalat,” he said, and spat at my feet.

I hate this city.