The first time I saw Mildor, I couldn’t take my eyes away. It was a sprawling mass of land riddled with tents and squat buildings, spires and thick walls, trees, and parks, and it seemed to go on forever. “How big is it?” I asked.
Theodmon looked down at the city from where we stood on the cliff. The huge city sat nestled in the vast valley surrounded by mountain cliffs and tall trees. “Well, it’s a large city by human standards. But compared to Kel’Ednas?” He seemed to think for a moment, carefully considering the city before us, area by area.
“I would say six Mildors could fit into our city.” He gestured at it. “But I have never been here before. I have seen it through the eyes of others and lingered above it through the eyes of a bird—but I’ve never been here.”
“You can be a bird?”
Theodmon chuckled. “Not quite, my child, but when you live with my power for a thousand years, you can learn a trick or two.” He winked.
For a long moment, I wondered what it would be like to be a bird, to be able to fly and see the world from the sky. And then, looking down on Mildor, I couldn’t imagine why we were there in the first place.
“How are we going to get into the Chantry?” I remembered the mischievous look in the green-eyed Whisper Eye. I knew we couldn’t trust the man. “We don’t even have a plan.”
“Quite right, my boy. But sometimes it's enough to know that a plan is folly and to wait for a better one to be made.” And with that, he put his arm around my shoulders and led me away from the cliff’s edge.
Under the cover of night, we moved out from the forest. The moon was high and bright, and it shone down on the pale dirt road leading into Mildor. Even from a distance, we could see the walls of the city, and then a breeze stirred, carrying its scent as well. It was a rank smell, unlike anything I had smelled before.
I noticed a few of the men had also smelled it. Cleaver wrinkled his nose. “Ah, the smell of Mildor. Smells like shit, as usual.”
Theodmon nodded. “It must be the sewers. The city’s construction and growth have long outlived its foundation.” Theodmon stared in the direction of the city and took a deep sniff of the air. He paused a moment as if he was digesting the scent, then turned back to us quickly with a triumphant smile on his face. Then he smiled. “That’s our way in.”
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We rode briskly for a few minutes and then came upon the walls of the city. They were tall walls made of sturdy gray stone. It looked as if we had come to a good part of the wall, as it was unattended—and crumbly in some sections, with some parts of the wall grown over with moss.
Naro pointed under the wall where a huge metal pipe jutted out of a mound of hardened dirt. It was here that a viscous liquid slowly poured out of the pipe into a small stream. The stream carried away the foul liquid, but the smell was much worse now that we were up close.
The liquid sludge was black and the foulness that permeated the air made me want to gag. Several of the men held rags to their mouths. I understood why Theodmon had picked this spot and why there were no guards patrolling the border of the city. The smell was simply too terrible.
Cleaver looked at Theodmon. “If that fucker hadn’t stolen my coin purse, I wouldn’t be doing this.” He turned to his men--some thirty odd men, each man armored and armed for battle. “I know you don’t want to go into that.” He paused for a moment, holding a hand to his mouth, and then he burped. “But I never said this would be easy, did I?”
The men stared at Cleaver, and a few men laughed. “Alright, you fuckers. First one into the pipe gets an extra share.”
The men didn’t move. He sighed. “Three extra shares.”
For a moment, I thought the men would stand still with their leader and refuse to be the first one to brave the sewer pipe. But then Grinning Man grinned, and he leaped into the tunnel. Metal Arm followed soon after, and then the rest of the men piled in, as if gold had started pouring out of the pipe itself. “Greedy bastards,” Cleaver chuckled.
The sewers were hard going, but the men were trained well. Once they took it upon themselves to follow the plan, there was no dissent. They were quiet, and confused, and we sludged through the remains of the city quickly. The exit was a small metal grate with a single metal ladder, and the company could only go one by one. We all stank like the worst kind of dregs, and every man was covered head to toe in black slime. The smell of shit, sweat, and vomit hung around us like a dank cloud, and more than one man had thrown up during the journey. Every few moments, I myself fought the urge to gag.
Once we were out, Metal Arm waved us toward a building. It was a massive structure, filled with horses of every variety. A few men guarded each entrance, and the horses neighed, unsettled by the unfamiliar scents and faces.
We lingered in the barn for some time. It could have been an hour, or perhaps just half of one, but it was hard to tell. Most of the men attempted to clean themselves by wiping their clothes on the barn walls or using hay as a makeshift scrub. However, there was an underlying tension in the air, and I could sense the men growing increasingly anxious by the minute.
"He'll be back soon, Your Highness," Cleaver whispered into Tuale's dirty ear, causing the boy to flinch. Shivering and frail, he had grown thin and weak over the past few days. It seemed they hadn't been feeding him much, if at all.