Burgen had always been known for its putrid stench and its chunky, brown waters. When Cartegan had grown up on the farmstead a day’s pace away from the wall- surrounded by the trees and fragrances of nature, he had struggled to imagine that a body of water as toxically repulsive as Burgen could exist. Its source ran through their lands- carrying with it the excess manure and their own sewage, but little of their wastes could be seen in the relatively clear waters that ran from their farm- over towards the next. In fact, the water had been so seemingly clean that he had seen it fit to use its streams in an attempt to court the next-door-farmer's daughter- sending her bottled messages whenever she washed their clothing in the stream. As miserably as he had failed in his attempts to court her, it had not all been for naught.
Whether he simply had a talent for it or whether it was due to his fascination with watching the bottles bob up and down as they carried their vital payload, he had become enraptured by the process of transport. More specifically; transportation by water. When the day had come that he had been allowed to leave his Father’s farm, he hadn’t hesitated, as he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life and, more importantly, where he needed to go.
Everyone out in the farmlands knew of the boats traversing the water between Capita- the great golden city and their peripheral district, but few dared dream of seeing it for themselves. Most- if not all his neighbors would never stray much further than to Pilta, but Cartegan... Cartegan was no usual farmhand- not like his strong, simple-minded brethren. He had set his sights on Pilta on the morrow of his fifteenth birthday and taken with him naught but a dream and his calloused hands and by nightfall... he had arrived at the Garrison.
The training regimen had been difficult- especially for one as young as He... but he had weathered through and kept his eyes on his prize- the river Gauja’s many, wide cargo-ships. For countless hours, he had been stared out the barrack’s windows and watched as they shuttled grain to feed the fine folk of Capita. As he shed blood, sweat and tears, he had reminded himself of the lively sails, the bright, polychromatic reflections on the still, warm days- the prideful smiles of the captains as they docked and sounded their arrival.
For six years, he had struggled and toiled, until finally, he would have his chance. Cartegan’s chest had swelled with pride as Titus had clapped his shoulder and handed him his promotion. The dream that had once seemed so distant was now closer than ever- his apprenticeship had begun. But to his dismay... his duties were nothing alike what he had imagined as he had stared out the barrack windows.
He had been dismayed to be led towards the west- towards Burgen. He had thought it a crude jest, at first, when his seniors had led him up the wall and ordered him to rappel down the tall, granite barrier and report for duty at an abandoned, repurposed farmstead with a hastily construed, pathetic excuse for a dock... a floating dock- built atop a pair of barrels and secured by ropes and a narrow walkway. He had stood there, on the dirt, as his comrades had thrown all his belongings down from atop the wall in hoarse laughter and mocked his duty, but he hadn’t been capable of mustering the strength to as much as yell back. Instead, he had remained frozen- devastated by the sight of the dock and... The boat, herself.
‘Gilda’ had stood there- a long, wide rowboat ready to accept their cargo of bread, wine, ale and whatever the Hells Titus and his comrades had requested. Only the same morning, he had imagined he would be meeting up at the north, where he would hurriedly make his way up one of the tall masts to breathe in the fresh, cool breeze that- come morning, would carry him to Capita...
Instead... this was his punishment.
He had been saddled with likeminded, blue-eyed apprentices- all of whom seemed as dejected as he was, where they sat on the benches and gripped their own oars. In between the rotten, wooden platforms barely holding their weight, the Inquisition’s goods were packed in tall stacks- all carefully accounted for so that none of he nor his miserable brethren would be tempted to steal from their overseers.
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Night after night, Cartegan and his dejected brethren sat in silence as they journeyed down the reeking sewer that many might once have called a river. Minute adjustments were needed to keep their beloved Captain satisfied- adjustments he would call out in the form of “Starbord, row 2! Hard hold!” At his behest, they would strike the sewage and decelerate the boat on the appropriate side- correcting its course until finally, they arrived by the gate. Cartegan had learned to hate that sound- the hissing of the metal against metal as the tall grate before the wall rose to allow them passage under a rain of piss and shit. As was procedure, this was but the first of four splashes of the sickly liquids they would receive for the duration of their journey. Once the boat had slid through the gate, the inevitable drop of the heavy metal grate would inevitably splash them and their wares with what would hopefully be only liquids, but sometimes, a misfortunate soul might find some crusted leftovers of a once-eaten meal as they combed their hair at the end of their shift.
Cartegan despised his life and his disdain for the river only ever stilled as they arrived through the gate and he took in that stillness- that profound, deafening quiet, void of all life. It reminded him of his home- a home he might never have abandoned, had he only known that this was what awaited him in the City... what was left of the city.
Journeying down the river, he would see the distant, abandoned houses beyond the riverbanks- their scorched ceilings and boarded-up windows were but footprints of lives once lived- ghosts of what had been Pilta. The only life worth living now lay up ahead- beneath the thick, brick-and-mortar bridge connecting the Garrison to the rest of the city. There, they would come to a halt by the docking station in the shadow of the bridge and the snickering guardsfolk would watch as they toiled for about an hour in offloading their wares, all the while “guarding” their backs- as if any starved, depraved lunatic would think to swim across the river and attack them.
They had made it about half-way, when a splash of something disgusting struck Cartegan’s face. He had thought, at first, that his rowing-partner had decided to play a cruel trick by splashing him with the brown, heterogenous, sticky river, only to see that his fellow guardsman’s eyes were locked to something between Cartegan’s boots. Curious as to what his partner’s pallor meant, the apprentice followed his stare to see something-… protruding... from the floor. It was something metallic- a tip of some unknown make.
A curious thrumb sounded through the frame- as if a shower of hail had broken out, but no... this was not the season for it. It was only as the Captain fell to the woodwork in a loud, ear-piercing shriek that Cartegan realized something was truly amiss. He was grabbing his foot- his profusely bleeding foot while screaming: “We’re under attack! Grab your blades, men!” Cartegan had never seen battle, nor had he ever cared to... but the Inquisition’s training regimen had prepared him for it and as much as he hoped he would never come to rely on it, he knew how to handle the constant companion at his hip- his one-handed blade.
Most had expected it- sooner, rather than later. After all, whereas the general populace was starving, they were shuttling expensive, exquisite foods down the river- separated from them only by a wide strip of sewage. Curiously, this was the first time someone had tried their hand at the Burgen cargo-runners- Cartegan froze as something shifted inside his boot. Looking down, he could see a similar metallic glint as before, only this time, it stuck out not from the wood, but from the dorsum of his foot. He opened his mouth to scream as he finally registered the agony, but before he could, his breath froze in his lungs.
All over the boat’s floor, metal glinted in the rising moon. A hundred blades’ tips protruded from the wood. Cartegan was paralyzed. The hundreds of narrow slits in the wooden flooring spewed forth the toxic sludge that had carried them up and down the river for the last month- seeping into their wounds and, by long, they would be completely submerged in the sewage. Cartegan hurriedly stepped backwards to set himself a measure above the reach of the blades, before gripping his foot in an agonized screech. Already, nearly half the men had stripped off their plates- some had leapt over the rim, but not a one of them seemed to resurface.
“What the fuck is going on!?” The words roared back and forth in a thirty difference voices, but not-a-one could answer. All they knew was that something had struck them from beneath... As Cartegan’s partner leapt over the rim, the rocking of the boat offered the should-have-been farmhand a sight he wished he had never seen. Down there- in the reflection of the rising moon, he could swear he had seen dozens of green eyes stare up at him.