1) Under the light of a sullen moon

The pounding at the front door woke me up.

My half awake look at the crack between the shutters of the single window of my room behind the kitchen showed a glimmer of red light from the Sullen moon shining down on the patch of scruby dirt I had tried to make into a garden, so it had to be a few hours before dawn.

Too late for the child touchers ‘Lord’ Ramond’ used to bring over to take their pick from the discarded children that had been given into our care. I have made it clear, with the point of a knife to his throat, that I would not tolerate that sort of thing anymore, but some of his regulars needed the same treatment before word got around.

“Must be a drunk…” I said to myself as I flipped my bed covers back with my stump and sat up. The thumping came again by the time I had slipped my feet into the worn slippers left by the old drunken priest that had been the church’s representative before me.

Minister Abelsol hadn't ever done anything to the children himself, but he had gladly taken the offered bottle of something to cover his ears and look the other way each time Ramond let one in.

The number of empties behind the house had made me weep for the first time in years, they had also been enough for me to threaten to cut a noble’s throat.

Ramond knew I would do it too.

I already had once.

Fumbling the knot shut on my quilted robe one handed, I slipped my short sharpened knife into the sleeve of my hand less arm that I held over the front of the robe to clutch it tight as if for warmth, the hilt was in place to pull out with my one remaining hand.

Mard looked down at me from the top of the stair to the second floor. The burly little goblin boy looked demonic as the sullen’s moon’s red light shined on the deep purple birth mark covering half of his face as he stood there with a fire place poker in his hand.

The other children slept better with him at the top of the stairs, he had stopped the child toucher who had came here while after I had gone to sleep that first night. Still unaware of everything that had been going on from before I took over.

The boy had cracked the fat bastard that came that night in the shin hard enough to break bone with that very same poker and chased ‘Lord’ Ramond out as well.

Kelson Ramond was the owner of Garrick house, and a nobleman despite only having this the house to his name, but it still earned him a monthly payment from Crown and Church for providing it’s use to the church. But after that night, and our ‘pointed’ conversation he started sleeping elsewhere.

The pure blooded boy was unusual for Garrick house since most of the rest of the discards were unwanted half breeds, despised by all for their curse from the Caregiver. But goblins had a horror of misborns and in their normal nomadic lives they would have left a child like Mard exposed in the wilderness. The refugees living in the city would just smothered them instead as a newborn instead, but Abelsol note’s said the boy had been left by an old goblin woman who said he was unwanted for being marred.

The boy had embraced the name since no one had ever called him anything else, the best I could do was get him to change the spelling, which wasn’t hard since teaching the children had been yet another failure of the old priest.

Yes I have my letters. Despite being born to the streets before the Cult of the Mother because the state church I still took full advantage of the assignment of one of her Ministers as our attendant.

Especially after she ended the pit fights which had left me little else to do.

Minister Abby had taken took her duties in Bleakhouse prison seriously. She taught me my letters, my numbers, and got me this job after I had finally been released after forty years.

Twenty for murder, doubled for it being a noble.

Cutting off my right hand as a thief for taking his dagger in the first place had just been his family being spiteful. If you don’t want your rapist son getting his throat cut by his victim, teach him not to rape people.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Or at least no to turn his back on them as he pulled up his pants.

As the two of us, me and Mard locked eyes, I was surprised that the knocking at the door had not sounded a third time. Maybe the drunk had wandered off, or passed out.

Beginning to turn around and go back to bed, I came to a stop as a voice called from the other side of the old but still strong oak door.

“I have an official permissionary note to take in a few children as my wards. But I need to be on the road by sunrise. There will be a silver coin in it for you to allow me to take care of the matter now, none if you make me wait.”

Well, a coin would be nice. I could buy some things for the children, and maybe enough left for a some real seeds rather then trying to plant dried beans.

A coin would go even further if some of the children left, but left for what?

I tapped a swollen knuckle against the inner plate of the narrow pass trough next to the door. “Show me the note.”

There was some grumbling from the other side before a hastily flattened scroll of fine paper was pushed through the slot.

It looked a bit too fancy for a Crown note. Pulling it free I reached up to the cheap tallow candle stuck in one of Absalom’s leftover bottles and whispered “Embari” to ignite the wick.

Yes, I can channel magic, it’s in my blood, but my talent was too weak for a free admittance to the academy, let along a penal contacted scholarship. But Minister Abby has taught me some, and I had the twenty two years since she came to Bleakhouse to practice.

I’m not going to throw around any War Spells, or anything of that sort, ever. But simple Cantrips? I got those. I gots lots of those.

By the smoky light of the cheap candle I could see the seal of the Bishop, the same as the one on my commission as Matron Lay Minister of the Garrick Home for Unwanted Children. But this one wasn’t signed by some random clerk, but with the signature of Bishop Desmit.

Or someone who could spell his name, it’s not like I had seen anything personalty signed by the old bastard before.

There was a the sound of someone clearing their throat outside.

I called out, “Yes. Just a moment…”

The boy came down the steps to help me with the bar with a whisper of “Grandgran, I help.” after setting his poker beside the door frame in a spot that would leave it handy, but out of sight.

Some of the children had started to call me that, since I hadn’t bothered to tell them my name. It was probably due to my height, my gray hair, and the wrinkles. I didn’t bother to tell them my hair had always been that color from my mother’s race.

The gray skin had come from her as well, but that had only come with age.

The heavy bar was awkward to lift with one hand, and at the age of nine the pure blood was near full grown and more then able to help me. Short like all of his kind, but heavy boned and dense of muscle. Or at least he would be if he ate better better then donated tavern slops and expired siege rations.

He gave me a questioning look at we lifted the bar, so I whispered to him. “I think it’s for real, probably someone involved in the troubles uphill and running for the country side. Wards are cheaper then servants for scut work.”

Scut work wouldn't be a bad jog for Mard himself, although he would be stuck as near a slave for another six years as fifteen was the age of maturity for humans but well pass that for a shorter lived goblin. But steady work out in the country would at least give him a chance to forage for wild plants and small game to add to whatever he was given to eat.

Pulling the door open revealed a man in a worn nondescript hooded cloak, his breath fogging the air in the late moonlight, and the clothes he wore underneath were simple but fine. Like that of a minor nobleman or a servant to a higher born.

The town sword on his hip was short and slung for real use, not a noble brat’s fancy rapier, but the type of weapon any citizen in good standing was allowed to bear with a blade no longer then from their elbow to fingertip.

A flick of his eyes took in the end of my sleeve hanging over my stump, but he seemed to ignore my height or my graying skin. Instead he gave the goblin boy standing behind me in the shadow cast by the candle a steady look.

Behind him a covered wagon stood with two older draft horses at the front. A young girl peeked from the canvas hanging over the back until the man flicked his fingers at her without looking behind him and she vanished with a ‘eep’ sound.

“Matron. My niece has recently been given into my care, and I have decided to raise her in the countryside on some remote property which belongs to my family. As it is an isolated location far from the nearest village, I wish to take some children her own age to give her someone to learn and play with as they grown up.”

He waved his hands around a bit, “I’m thinking a few girls around ten or so, maybe a few older boys to help me take care of the grounds”.

I stepped aside and beckoned him inside, but he shook his head, “I would rather not leave her alone outside.”

Mard surprised me when he spoke up. The boy normally didn’t say much to anyone he didn’t know. “I guard. She pick girls.”

With that he snatched up his poker and walked out as if it was done deal.

The man raised his bushy brows. “Well, I do like his confidence.”

“Avi, come inside.”

The girl slipped clumsily out of the back of the wagon and came face to face with Mard who said something to her, she blinked then gave the boy a shy nod before she dashed inside with the man following her in and pulling the door shut behind him.

Both of them had the greenest eyes I had ever seen, which gave some credit to his story of her being his niece, but the man’s hair was a russet brown while the girls was a deep black.

With a pointed ear sticking out as she tucked her hair back behind it. The man reached forward to brush her hair loose again with a murmured “We talked about that.”

She blushed, then went pale with a scared look on her face.

A half breed. Most likely kept as an indulgence by one parent who now had a wife or husband of their own race who wanted the reminder of their new partner’s perversion gone.

Half breed can’t have children, and the Caregiver worshiping humans see them as cursed for it.

Other races are no better, they just hate humans for what the Children of War had done.

At least someone in the girl’s family cared enough not to discard her completely to someplace like Garrick house. And in the country side the Church of the Caregiver held little sway.

The Spinner of Fate welcomed all children, along with everyone else.

I looked up from the girl to the man who had claimed her as kin. “Very well them sir, let up go up and see the children.”