20 - Sunless Dawn

When Cass was a young girl she had played alone in the woods that ran along the borders of Bryngarten Farm. One day she had overturned a large rock there on the damp forest floor to find a colony of centipedes living beneath it; lighting-fast, their many legs working to propel their writhing forms away at her intrusion. Surprised and scared, she’d let the rock fall back and ran away in blind fear, branches whipping her face as she’d made a beeline toward the farmhouse. Halfway back to the old, two-story home with its cluster of outbuildings, it had occurred to her that she wasn’t being entirely rational. She’d stopped, breathing hard, and laughed at herself. Had she thought that they were chasing her?

What she experienced hours ago atop the hill in Hundred Trees had been the opposite of that feeling- the rain wyrm had seemed to her banal and harmless before suddenly becoming the obvious threat which it had been all along. Before Alma Bryde had slain it. Enveloped by the weird serenity of the magic in the air, Cass had been almost oblivious to the concept of harm.

She hadn’t realized what had happened until afterward, when Syatt told her that a man fell from one of the rising tables and landed on her. All she remembered was the sudden blow to the head, being thrown violently back, and the hands of people trying to help her up, getting halfway there before true panic took the crowd. She’d fallen a few times but always managed to get back up despite her loss of equilibrium. It had been the magic that saved her, she believed. Something had taken control of and guided her. She remembered standing one final time in the tiny space afforded only to be instantly compressed to the crowd, wrenched and pulled until finally her battered body found itself at its fringes where she fell to her knees. The survivors sped past her and down the hill as the unlucky wailed in agony or took their last breaths. She’d seen some others stand gawking like she had, looks of strange wonder imprinted on their faces, but far fewer than those caught in throes of terror or disbelief.

She’d lay back watching until the top of the hill was virtually empty and she could see the creature again. The worm had erupted from the old man’s body. She’d made it to her feet and stood there looking at the scene with a hand above her eyes, viewing it not unlike one would watch a sunset or some other common natural phenomenon, even as the worm began to spit its acidic bursts of saliva, to gorge on the bodies of the dead.

Standing and turning in something like mere curiosity she had seen Syatt laying there in the ruin when the inherent danger in the situation had finally registered. She hadn’t panicked and went to him. He was injured, but like her he had seemed not altogether frightened. She hadn’t felt a sense of flight until after they’d watched the warrior woman Alma dispatch the creature with her sword, a lightning fast succession of maneuvers. If it hadn’t been for her, they both would have likely died gawking at it in appreciation of the rain wyrm’s… beauty? Cass didn’t know anymore.

Alma’s swordplay was in stark contrast with the slow and lumbering gait she had seen the woman carry herself with afterward. At the bottom of the hill, she had still thought that it may have all been a nightmare, and for a while as they’d left the parkland still thought it a possibility that she was actually safe and asleep in her room at The River Sister, that she and her aunt had never been woken by the sounds of the cult in the street, but her head pounded and her face throbbed, her body sharp with pain, and there was a vividness in the sensation of cool rain against her scratched and sweating skin. The cuff of one leg of her breeches had been torn loose and she saw and felt the skin there red and broken.

She’d parted company with them at the gates to Hundred Trees and set out alone toward West Current Street and the Slybos, where she was turned away at Velias Bridge, unable to return to Tabby Square or The River Sister. There’d been a halt to all travel across the Slybos that morning. The gates along the stone walls exiting the inner city had remained closed, as well. There was to be no leaving or traveling in the city except by Tower officials and the guard. Everywhere troops combed the streets for the rebels and those in charge of or complicit with the uprisings. It was said that the Yarthanguard would not open the bridges or gates until the leaders of the Riverborn had been found and brought to justice.

Cass found out only at the fringes of an agitated crowd that passage across Velias Bridge was impossible, and went dashing back through the yards and markets to East Current Street where she’d left Syatt and the others. The people she passed in hurried blurs were hysterical and unpredictable in their manner. She’d never seen folks in such mass distress, and was thankful her legs had not been injured in the stampede as she retread the unworked fish markets along East Current Street. Thunder sounded and lightning flashed, and the rain began to come down harder as she went.

Citizens were being ordered to clear the streets. Groups of haggard guards, up all night, prowled in the gloom of the strange new day. She hurried through avenues quickly emptying of pedestrians, becoming desperate now, thinking she had taken the wrong street and had lost them. Guards turned to look at her as she passed but none said anything to her or pursued, then she rounded a corner and relief washed over her. In the past twenty-four hours, the City of Yartha had become to her a frightening place, and if she could not be with her aunt, she at least did not want to be alone. Finally slowing her pace, she strode toward them, feet splashing in the dirty street.

There on the street Alma talked with a Yarthanguard with a stubbled jaw and tired eyes. Behind her was Syatt standing with his hands in his pockets. Alma’s friend Varnabas stood some feet away from them, gazing up at the sky as the rain came down. He was an old man, and not very long ago he had been naked before Alma had pilfered a cloak from a dead man in the park and covered him. If Cass understood correctly, the old man had been inside the monstrous worm, born from it, and he was somehow also the same dying person who’d eaten her hair in the shrine. She’d seen his face and knew it to be true, though he looked much healthier now. His name was Varnabas. The sun had barely risen, and already it was the strangest day of her life.

“We just come from Hundred Trees,” Alma said to the guard. “A hell of a thing happened there and we’re just trying to get home. Headed to Ironworks.”

“What’s that on his neck?” The guard nodded at Syatt’s red bandanna with its charcoal X. Alma saw the boy's eyes widen as he searched for words.

Alma cut in. “Ain’t nothin,” she said. “He's just a kid who don’t know what he’s wearin’. Take that shit off, Sy,” she told him, and he did, stuffing the rag into his back pocket.

The guard looked at Syatt with disapproval, then up at Alma. “Go on, then,” he said to her, a dour look on his face. “Be quick about it. Martial law is still in effect.” He turned to go, stopped and glared at Cass as she approached.

“She’s with us,” Alma said, and the guard gave her a tired grumble in return before moving on. Alma looked at Cass and smiled. “Hey, darlin.’ Everything all right?”

Cass looked at Alma and Syatt’s concerned faces. Varnabas stared off, confused, of which no one could blame him. Cass certainly couldn’t. She felt tears welling up, yearning to be back with Millie, but held them back and kept her voice steady when she spoke. “They won’t let anyone cross the bridges,” she said.

Alma looked unsurprised. She put a gentle hand on Cass’ shoulder and gave her a wan smile. “Come with us,” she said. “We’ll get it figured out, and fix you up, too. Can’t send you back to your aunt all busted up. It ain’t far to Crow’s.”

Cass Bryngarten nodded, feeling better, though she had little choice in the matter. She was ashamed for putting Millie through the worry she’d undoubtedly experienced since last night, and regretted ever leaving the inn as she touched a gentle finger to her painful brow and her fingers came away with a smudge of congealed blood. She was right. She was banged up. Her forehead bruised and swollen, a tearing ache in her shoulder. She knew that it was a miracle that they’d survived the stampede with such minor wounds, that both of them had, but those pains were settling in. She saw Syatt wince with a hand on the back of his neck and knew he felt the same.

He walked up to her and they followed Alma and Varnabas who went slow. “Hey,” he said.

She smiled. “Well, I suppose you can show me around Yartha, now.”

Syatt grinned. “Here I was worried that the city would seem boring,” he said, and they shared laughter.

In the silence that followed Cass turned to him as they walked. “I’ve got to get back to Aunt Millie,” she said. “As soon as possible. I feel bad for pressuring her into letting me go.”

“I’ll go with you once they open up the bridges,” Syatt said, nodding. “I bet Pox will be there at Alma’s place. He’ll want to get back, too.”

“We’ll help one another, then,” Cass said. “How long do you think before they open the bridges back up? What if they can’t find who they’re looking for?”

Syatt couldn’t answer. They walked on, following Alma and Varnabas ahead of them as they skirted around a large mud puddle that had formed in the street. “Do you think they will?” she asked him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What’s that?” he asked. He put one tentative foot in front of the other.

“Open the bridges.”

“They got to,” he said, and stood waiting for her on the other side of the puddle, examining his wounded leg. "I mean, eventually.”

“Have they ever done anything like this before?”

“Not that I know of,” he said.

The street became residential, and she looked around at all the people sitting and standing on their porches, covered or otherwise. Some wore bits and pieces of armor. Many had weapons. The lowborn district was called Ironworks, and naturally they were ironworkers. Regular folks, Cass hoped. They didn’t look all that different from the people of the borderlands. As she walked on with her group, a cool wind swept down the street, blowing rain and debris past them. Yesterday had been dry and blazing hot but the weather that morning didn’t even feel like summer to her. She thought of the sight of them soaked from head to toe, all of them but the old man with their matching sheared hair- survivors of a strange disaster.

A low rumble of thunder went on and on and threatened to break but finally sighed away in the dark clouds above them. The buildings became taller the further they walked. She thought about her life on the farm and in doing so knew right away she was no longer the same person.

She watched the woman in front of her who’d slain the monster on the hill with such skilled finesse- for a moment it had seemed to Cass as if she’d been dancing. Alma had one arm around the old man and would from time to time give his shoulder a squeeze as she talked to him unheard.

Cass watched her in silent admiration. She was aware that there were women fighters all across Damursyn, and although she came from a matriarchal family and had known all manner of women who deviated from the traditional paths, she’d never known any who’d taken up the sword. They seemed rare to her even in the free city, outside of the few young ones she’d seen in the uniform of the Yarthanguard. Cass had never possessed any desire for fighting, herself, but there was something about Alma, both her skill and demeanor, that fascinated her.

They passed a half burned building with the remnants of a crowd staggered around it. Smoke billowed from its smoldering ruin as children poked through the rubble with sticks and adults covered in wet ash scavenged through the ruin. Ahead of them a row of armed citizens blocked off the street. Mongrel dogs on chains barked, held back by their masters.

Alma stopped there in the street a few yards from them, and so too did the others. “Alma Bryde of Ironworks,” she announced herself, and there was a grumbling from the crowd.

“They’re cultists!” an unseen woman shouted, and while there were a few curses, there was more laughter.

“We ain’t no damn cultists!” Alma roared to more laughter, then leveled out her voice. “We're just tired.”

After a short standoff the sentiment seemed to resonate with them, their tired eyes betraying their guise of alertness and militance. Their group parted in the middle. A short man wearing chain mail and a spiked helmet with a nose guard stepped forward, on his belt hung a battered steel machete.

“Alma Bryde,” the fellow greeted her, and revealed a gold-toothed smile. “All’s good!” he called to the row of citizens behind him with a wave of his hand. “All is well,” he said, and the people turned to conversation. He held out a gloved hand and Alma shook it, somewhat reluctant, Cass thought.

“Trystan,” she said. “What in the blazes are you up to?”

“Ain’t it obvious,” he said, and then in a lower voice. “Stop by the fighting den on Drifter’s Row around dusk and I’ll catch you up on it.”

She cocked an eye at him. “How about you just tell me now and save me a walk? She looked at the crowd. “You and the Raiders get along now, I see,” she said.

“There’s a truce. There’s been a truce,” he said, and nodded over his shoulder. “Dusk.”

“Alright, then,” she said, and sighed.

“I’m serious. I got something you’re going to want to know.”

“I said alright, dammit.”

Trystan nodded, and looking past her he finally recognised Varnabas. His already expressive eyes became saucers. “Good gods… how is he?” he said, and moved forward to touch him.

Alma put her hands up and pushed him gently away. “Nope. None of that. Peace and quiet is what he wants. You shut up about this. We don’t need any loons following him around.”

Trystan nodded guiltily, still staring at him. “Of course,” he said, and he addressed the revenant he saw before him with a simple nod. “Varn.”

Varnabas gave him an unsure nod back and looked away. Alma put a hand on the old man’s back and they kept moving, on now through the indifferent crowd of Locust Street. Cass looked back and the man Trystan was still there in the street, shaking his head.

“Who was that?” Syatt asked Alma once they were on their way again.

“That’s Trystan Winters. He’s the leader of the Ironsmiths. They call themselves a trade guild but they’re a gang, same as any of them. Looks like they’re planning on keeping the Yarthanguard out of Ironworks. This ain’t particularly good news. It means last night probably ain’t never gonna fuckin’ end. Come on. We’re almost there.”

***

They stepped inside, dripping on the dirt floor of the cool cellar.

“Alma?” came a voice from up the stairs.

“Yessir, Crow,” Alma hollered up the steps, then closed and locked the iron banded door behind them. Already water had risen in the outside stairwell and puddled in the entryway. That’s going to be a problem if this rain keeps up, she thought idly. Her cellar home was prone to flooding, though it hadn’t occurred in years. “Go on upstairs and see if Crow’s got somethin’ for you to wear, Varn,” she said quietly.

Varnabas ascended the wooden steps, and moments later a startled exclamation from Crow. “Varn?”

Alma laughed, craning her neck to call up the steps. “I told you!”

Truthfully, she could hardly believe the turn of events herself. She still had many, many questions, but they would have to wait. Syatt and Cass stood next to the wood stove. Both of them looked worried, exhausted. Alma saw Syatt’s pained face. The boy had already checked the tiny cellar, and now listened with intent for a sign of Pox upstairs. Alma would not tell him of the blood she’d found in the street, or the bandanna, until she found out for herself the truth of the boy’s fate.

She called up again from her spot inside the cellar door. “Hey Crow, any news of the boy I was askin’ about. He happen to stop by?”

Upstairs there was a pause in his one-sided conversation with Varnabas. “No. I’m afraid not,” he called down.

Syatt winced. He looked at Alma, helpless. “He’s not here,” he said. “What should I do?”

He and the girl stood there in the cluttered cellar before Alma, pitiful looking. They needed rest, she thought. “Yartha’s a big place,” she said. “It’s possible he made it back across the bridge before it was closed, ain’t it? Can you think of anywhere he may have took himself?”

“Not on this side,” Syatt said. “We don’t know our way around over here very well.” He scratched at his neck. “Maybe under Harpy Bridge where we saw you,” he said with some hope, then shook his head, doubting himself. “No. That ain’t far from here. He would have come here.” He put his hand over his eyes.

“Go on up them steps and talk to Crow,” Alma said, seeing the emotion he tried to hide from the girl. “He’ll fix you up,” she said, but he didn’t budge, and neither did Cass. “Go on, now. After that you’ll need to rest. I got to go back out but I’ll be back,” Alma said.

“Where are you going?” Syatt asked with his back still turned. He made a final wipe at his face and turned around in the dim light.

Alma ran her hands through her wet hair. “To find him, naturally,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” Syatt said immediately.

“No you won't,” She’d seen it coming. “No offense, but you’ll slow me down. You need to have yourself a sit. Both of you have been through a night for the history books, and you need to let that settle a moment. Get some sleep if you can.”

“You’ve been through it too,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “But you’re alright.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Quiet Syatt, about what I’ve been through. It helps if you’re half drunk to deal with this sort of thing. Now go up there and let Crow fix you up.”

Alma didn’t give him a chance to argue more. She went to an old oak dresser and began to pull out dry clothes and toss them onto the bed. From the corner of her eye she saw Cass help Syatt up the creaking stairs.

She took off her chain mail and sword belt and laid them on the table, sat down on the bed and began to take off her boots. Gus, the fluffy orange and white tavern cat who’d taken a liking to Alma- and she to him, though she had always preferred dogs before- sauntered over from a napping spot in the cluttered corner of the room. His feather-duster of a tail brushed up and curled against the table legs.

“Hey, pal,” Alma said, and reached down to pet him. “You holdin’ down the fort? Pretty nice having jack shit to worry about all day, huh? How do these humans keep getting themselves into it so bad, you must be askin’ yourself at this point.”

She changed into the dry padded shirt and breeches set on the bed, then took her wet clothing and laid the articles across an iron tray atop the woodstove, its fire reduced to embers. She put the chainmail over the shirt, fastened the sword belt around her hips and walked over to the door where hung a gray hooded cloak. She took it down and pulled the hood over her head. At the last moment she retrieved her wide-brimmed hat from the bedpost to top off the ensemble. Finally, she stood before the table looking straight ahead, her hands restless on its surface. She looked unwavering at the stove’s crooked pipe. With her hand she found a couple of copper bits, and put them in a pocket of her breeches, and her calloused palm returned to the table and was still for a moment before it began to tremble ever slightly.

She closed her eyes. After what felt like a long while she exhaled a sigh and saw her right hand go to the handle of the ceramic jug in its reach. With her left hand she removed its cork, then lifted the jug to her mouth and turned back her head, the tendons in her neck working as she swallowed long. She put it back down on the table and looked at it, breathing hard with her hands on her arms crossed. Her red eyes watered and she wiped at them with a hand, then she sat in the chair. She stared down at her boots and focused on them for a long time before finally she began to clumsily lace them. She raised up when she was done, coughed, sat with her hands on her knees for a moment and abruptly stood and went to the door.