Arc 23: Road's End/Beginning

“The road is endless. Those who walk it are not.”

- - -

Killing Merigold opened up a place in the structure that she'd built from blood, fear, and coin. It was a place sized for one, a place that every man marching under her banner thought that they and they alone could fill. Those ambitions would break what fragile bonds of fellowship their collective greed and cruelty had created. They turned against each other, Guardsman against Watchman against Windrunner, and tore down the entire monument to avarice in their efforts to possess it for themselves.

I was there for the beginning, stood before the same raised platform that she'd given her last speech from. Standing with me was a growing crowd of passers-by, drawn by the sight of someone besides their beloved Madam Mayor up there.

Vance looked different from the last time I'd seen him: less bruised, for one. For another, he'd grown a beard, perhaps under the impression it gave him an air of dignity. It did not. Backed by the same men I'd seen laughing at and mocking the prisoners they were no better than, he declared himself Interim Mayor and promised a proper election as soon as possible. Familiar words. Her words, almost exactly.

Words most poorly received; not by the citizens, who were barely listening, but by those who were the reason for their inattention: a loud and angry group of Watchmen, entering the square with tabards on proud display and thundering a short, stupid chant.

Choose the Watch! Choose the Watch! Choose the Watch! Choose the Watch!

Vance had tried to continue channeling Merigold's mixture of insincere promises and outright lies, raising his voice until he was shouting, but he could not overpower them, not without help. Help he had; and together, they came up with their own short, stupid chant.

Choose the Guard! Choose the Guard! Choose the Guard! Choose the Guard!

They volleyed back and forth, passing outrage and anger between them until it filled the air and infected those caught in the middle. With sides to choose from, people chose. More voices took up the chants. Some tried to hide, I among them; crawling under the raised platform and watching as shouting turned to shoving. Others tried to leave, inviting scorn from both sides of a conflict that had not existed five minutes past.

More outrage, more anger; fuel, for a fire yet to be lit. We who hid, hid further, moving deeper into our shelter beneath the platform. There was a sick kind of breathless anticipation among us. We all knew what was coming. We were only waiting for the spark.

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A man crossed the divide. He pulled a woman from the vanguard of his newfound enemy; first by the arm, then by the hair. She clawed at him, kicked and struck out at him. Enraged, he threw her to the ground and began to kick her. Her side defended her, his defended him, and it was all the spark they needed.

I ran like hell from that fire. I already had one memory of what a mob of scared, angry people could do to each other; I was in no want of another.

If not for Peanut's size, I wouldn't have gotten through the northern gate. The Watchmen had taken it from the Guard, or perhaps the Guardsmen had taken it from the Watch. Either way; there were bodies on the ground, blood on the snow, and a closing gate. At the sight of it, I heeled Peanut first into a canter, then into a loping, long-stride run. His massive hooves broke ice and snow beneath them as we charged the gate, shouted orders to stop gone ignored.

My great, beautiful beast is faster than he seems. We were upon them before they could finish closing the gate and trap us in. Instead, they thought to bar the way with their bodies. Perhaps they were under the impression that Peanut would stop out of instinct, or that I would stop him out of fear. More fool they.

We did not stop, did not so much as slow, and they dove from our path. I looked over my shoulder at them as we ran through, grinning at the sight of their folly and the exhilaration of speed. I bent low over Peanut's neck and whispered praise into his tufted ear. He tossed his huge head as he ran, carrying me north along the lake-shore road.

I reined him in a few miles later, with the Port still clear in view. Night was in the offing; I wasn't about to risk a rutted, icy road in the dark. I dismounted and led him through knee-deep drifts up to the treeline, where I found shelter beneath the laden boughs of towering evergreens. Digging out a camp occupied the last hours of the afternoon. When I was done, the winter sunset was turning the still, slate-gray surface of the lake to a palette of warm, pale colors. I draped Peanut's blanket over him and pet his broad neck while watching smoke rise from behind the city's walls.

- - -

It was just one column at first, thin and crooked. I'd thought it was from a chimney, from the fire in its hearth, until it was joined by a second. Three more swiftly followed, five curled fingers of smoke. I watched them climb higher and higher and wondered what the people gathered before them were thinking about, what they were talking about. Had they chosen sides? Had they run, had they hid, had they been there at all?

Then there was more: a clenched fist to the curled fingers of before; a thick, misshapen lump of black smoke and smoldering ash. It climbed high and was caught by far-above winds, which spread it across the darkening sky. No chimney-spout, that, nor hearth-fire inside. That was a building, its walls or roof eaten away. The inferno at Valdenwood came to mind, ash's acrid sting to my tongue. What burned, I wonder? Who had set it? Who would fight it?

Would anyone, or would it be allowed to spread and spread until it had consumed the entire city? I imagined Guardsmen fighting Watchmen while their prize burned to the ground around them, while the people they meant to rule choked and died around them, until they, too, were eaten alive.

I found myself with a question, then; one that I had no audience for but the horse nosing at me for food. “I know she wouldn't approve,” I was hesitant, “and – I know she wouldn't have wanted it, but...do you think she'd understand?”

Peanut twitched a tufted ear, giving up to crop the yellowed, snow-sodden grass my shelter digging had revealed. I dragged my fingers through his mane, pulling tangles loose and playing with the coarse strands.

“I think she would,” I told a horse and the now-set sun. “I think – she'd have to, wouldn't she? She was a knight, wasn't she? Didn't they fight the Windrunners, the last time?”

Agnes had said as much, hadn't she, those many days and miles past? I couldn't remember.

Clarke would, if she were here. Milo would too, probably. They would remember. They'd know.

“It's done now, anyway,” I breathed mist into the night, the cold biting with ever sharper teeth. I settled down into my dug-out shelter and wrapped myself in my thick winter cloak. “It's over.” Tilted my head back to watch the silver-soft stars come out. “I'm done.”

Even with the smoke and the glow of distant burning, they really were beautiful.