Fourstaile waited for the dust to settle before marching off, stepping daintily yet purposefully through the layer of dust to avoid stirring it up. “You should not have used your mana on that barrier, Gottfred,” she complained out loud as she stomped away, “we still have a dracolisk to kill.”
“We may not have to kill him.” Lyskilde corrected. Fourstaile gave the tall woman a sideways glance but offered no response.
Lander appeared from wherever he had been hiding and extended his hand to help her up. She turned her nose to the blood on it. Lander shrugged and walked off towards the Dust Arch, looking silly stepping like a child to avoid getting dust in his joints.
It was Athen who helped her to her feet. Her whole body screamed with a dull pain that sapped her strength. She took a few shaky breaths before facing the dusty road ahead. It looked nearly like fresh snow only… dry. It did not sparkle like snow. Some of it even clung to the walls. It was not as deep as she expected it would be. The poor in the Dust Quarter saw the worst of it. Every morning.
Spellwards were plodding through the dust, making their way back to the Dust Arch. With over forty of them, it was inevitable that a cloud of dust would rise around their feet. She could only hope it stayed low. Athen was keeping pace with her, and Ove followed close behind, rummaging through the shadows in her cloak for something.
The ravenfolk pulled out a fat, stubby bolt of brown linen, measured a length a pace long by eye and snipped it off with tiny scissors. She kept the cut cloth draped over her arm, and kept snipping lengths of cloth until she had cut the whole bolt into perfectly equal lengths. Lyrua could not even guess what she was doing. Athen watched her with unblinking curiously.
When they reached the Dust Arch once again, Lander was carefully picking his blades out of the dust, and twelve fresh Spellwards were waiting for them. They were wakeful and clean. The crisp whiteness of their tunics contrasted against the torn, burnt or soiled tunics of the rest. Fourstaile looked satisfied, nodding her head at nothing, which meant she had already given her orders. Lyrua understood what the Wards would be doing, at least when it came to the dracolisk, but what about her and Athen?
“Lyrua!” Fourstaile shouted at her. Lyrua winced. That was the sort of shout she heard as a child, caught in the pantry past bedtime. “What in the world took you so long? You realise we can’t do anything without you here. I told you those tarts you’re always eating would slow you down.” She beckoned aggressively for Lyrua to join her under the Arch.
“You would not be so critical of my eating habits if you could gain weight, I’ve seen how you eat.” Lyrua retorted. “Besides, I am quite sure the tarts have less to do with it than my being awake since dawn yesterday.”Now that she thought of it, she was beginning to crave one of those tarts. She would have to remember to ask Ove soon, if she had the chance. She looked at Ove, and the little corvid stared back knowingly.
Fourstaile shook her head and scratched at her shoulder. “Just listen well so we can get you out of here, and hopefully make it to our beds in one piece before the sun sets again. Stay with Captain Torfinn.” She turned to leave.
Her head rattled, taken aback. “... Is that all? Just stay with Torfinn?” All that just to tell her nothing of what was going on. Just like Fourstaile; she was serene as a secluded meadow when things were calm but when it came to giving orders she was impatient to see them carried out.
Fourstaile did not answer Lyrua, nor did she stop until Ove chirped up. “Wait. Four-staile. Wait a minute.” She hopped through the dust to catch up with the stout florafolk.
“What is it?” She tapped her foot impatiently, kicking up dust that stuck to Ove’s legs. Ove held out one of her lengths of cloth. Fourstaile looked at it, then back to Ove.
“Ah, that’s right,” Ove said, cocking her head. “Your arm came off.” She thrust the cloth at Toldremand instead. “Common in the Dust to wear things like that. Don’t want to get dust lung do you?”
“They wear linen?” Toldremand said, holding the cloth in front of his face.
“It… Tie it around your mouth and nose, you empty walnut!” She handed the rest to Torfinn as her feathers settled, and he began giving them out. Ove waddled back to Lyrua to give her one. The last length of cloth was for Athen, but she draped it across the back of his neck. Then she was back in her cloak.
It took her too long to find what she was looking for. Had she used up all her mana? Having to gather mana to access her pocket was the only thing Lyrua could think of that should make it take so long, when usually her cloak always seemed to produce what she needed with only a touch. After a minute of Fourstaile grumbling behind her, Ove produced a wooden stool.
“A seat? That’s what we’re waiting for? By the Goddess, I sw--”
“Shut up, grump.” Ove stared over her shoulder at Fourstaile as she pulled a large bowl out of her cloak and set it on the stool. Fourstaile stared wide-eyed at her, perhaps trying to figure out how to get away with spanking Lyrua’s handmaiden.
The bowl had carvings across the rim, and was embedded with twelve tiny sapphires. These allowed the bowl to hold mana, better than carvings alone would. Lyrua already knew what spell it was enchanted with, so she touched the bowl and her attunement to Water triggered the spell, causing it to fill with clear water.
Then Ove produced a sack of cloths, and had all the Spellwards, nearly sixty of them, wipe their hands clean. Lyrua did Athen’s. They were not as dirty as those who had been fighting, but he had touched the street earlier.
Ove gave Athen a small breakfast of bacon and cheese, stuffed alongside slices of tomato into a soft sourdough bun. It had already been prepared, and again Lyrua found herself questioning how Ove did it. She questioned it again when Ove handed her an apple tart, the same as before, but not quite as hot. Then she began giving out fat blueberry scones drizzled with honey to each Spellward as they finished wiping their hands. Fourstaile was suddenly quiet, eager to get her hand clean. As she ran out of blueberry scones, Ove found a batch of cranberry ones, and then apple. The Wards accepted the scones gladly—except Toldremand who demanded two—and fell into formation as they ate them.
It only took Ove a few minutes, and the Spellwards were in much better spirits for having eaten. Ove poured the spoiled water into the street and made the bowl disappear into her cloak with the stool.
Fourstaile turned and hurried away, leaving long tracks in the dust, and mumbling about killing a dracolisk. The Wards followed her with Toldremand in the front, and the team with Lyskilde and Gottfred behind him. All wore the linen cloths. Ove had had to cut a few more, but now they all had at least some meagre protection against the dust. If not for all the fighting, they could have made it out of the city long before dawn as she had intended.
She and Athen were kept in the centre as they marched. Lander chose to walk closer to the front, no doubt impatient for another fight in spite of his fatigue. The Spellwards had to step wide of him to keep clear of his ridiculous blades. In his current state, she was worried he was more likely to be killed than find more glory. At least Ove had the sense to stay with her. She was showing as much fatigue as the rest of them, despite being out of most of the battles. What had she done?
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The plaza at the entrance to the Dust Quarter was much like the others. It was circular and dominated by a large fountain at the centre. Unlike the rest of the fountain, the statue that stood upon it was folk-made, and depicted the imposing figure of the district’s architect: Saarch, the Guardian of Stalespire. He was thin, with six curling arms, and a bulging hump on his back with two rods of metal protruding from it like antennae. His wings were stubby, too short to fly with, surely.
Unlike the smaller homes in the Residential Quarter, the Dust Quarter was nearly entirely towers, straight and square and varied in height like a thousand fingers. Most were not overly tall, but some had stone or wood levels added on the tops, or rickety hovels crammed in the alleys between. The denizens of the Dust decorated their homes as well, but their tapestries and coloured flags were made of poorer material and most of them were frayed or torn.
Lyrua had been through the Dust before, even with Athen, but this was the first time she saw them leaning out of their homes to beat the dust out of their tapestries, wearing thick cloths that obscured their faces.
Folk, mostly quite young, dipped wide brushes into the fountain and scrubbed the dust into grates in the street. The grates were for draining rain and dirt; the city had a filtration system to clean it out, and provide fresh water back through the fountains. Thank the Archangels for that. She wondered if they had anticipated mortals sharing the city with them, or if the water had served a different purpose for them.
She was amazed to see children of Athen's age gripping the large brush handles above their heads and running with them to clear the street, as if it was a game. They worked so quickly that the entire Dust might be cleaned, at least relatively, within the hour.
The children turned their heads as they spied the Spellwards entering the plaza. Their playful giggling turned to curious chittering. Heads all around the plaza turned to watch the company of Spellwards march through. The folk were quietly chattering, sharing ideas and guesses with each other about what they were seeing.
Lyrua felt a bubble in the mana ahead of them, where someone was wreathed in a veil of Light that her eyes could not see. Only her attunement to Light revealed the man to her before he emerged with a shimmer before them.
“Highwards,” he said with a firm salute. His white tunic was unbloodied, but sweat drenched his skin and stuck dust to his face.
“Report,” the florafolk commanded.
“I come from Isadora’s company. A dracolisk has been brought into the Dust Quarter, and tethered under Daughter’s Arch.”
Fourstaile waved her hand, and Captain Gottfred’s team ran off to the south.
“Why hasn’t it been killed, or freed back to the Desert?” Toldremand asked, fidgeting with the shaft of his spear.
“Well it was brought in while the King’s Army was marching through,” he shrugged. “Isadora did not want to contend with that. A dozen of us caught them in the back, but we don’t have the strength left to fight a dracolisk with confidence.”
Toldremand gestured at Fourstaile to move on, but he held the Spellward back. He rumbled with a low growl. The company resumed its march and Lyrua was dragged along in the middle. She caught a few final words from Toldremand before the stomping of the march overpowered his voice. “You mean to say the dracolisk has been in the city three hours, and I’m only…”
“Poor lad,” Fourstaile said to herself with a quiet shake of her head. “Hopefully Told saves some of that ire for Isadora.” The verdant Highward stepped heavily, as though eager to beat Toldremand to the flighty Captain.
The district was so overcrowded that the people overflowed into the street, making the streets of the Dust Quarter feel narrow compared to even the cluttered Residential roads. Shacks of repurposed wood jutted out beyond the building walls, occupied by folks too poor even for the towers. At least no one lived right out in the dust, unlike the homeless in Tolik and Geodome. They would not allow each other to suffer that.
Stalls packed the streets on corners and between doorways, and where the dust had been swept away, folk were already prepping things to sell and trade, from cloth to tools. It was chaotic compared to the structured and heavily regulated markets in the Guild District.
Some of the alleys had been converted into long enclosed vegetable gardens, full of peppers, tomatoes and beans, with their own lamps to bathe them in warm light when the sun was not out. For sunny days, polished metal hung high on the walls to reflect light into them once the enclosures were removed. She could even hear chickens clucking somewhere.
Lyrua had only come through the Dust under the shelter of a carriage. She had never taken the time to look. They did so much work. No one in the Dust could afford a Goodsrunner; if they wanted goods from the Guild District they had to cross the city on foot.
Lyrua calculated the time, using her experience tonight for reference. She counted three districts in the Residential, Night, and Church, as well as half the Dust and half the Guild. She came to eight long hours on foot to reach the markets from here. She should not have been surprised; that was exactly why the Goodsrunners existed, and why they made so much gold from the Night and Residential Quarters.
Yet, she was surprised. She realised she had never spared a thought or what it was actually like to live in Manataklos. It was not a city built for folk, it was built for angels. She knew that. She had thought about it tonight. But not truly thought about it… not to understand. She had never seen one, but if they were really like miniature Archangels, then they would just soar through the air on shimmering white wings. And like Lander they would not even eat, so they would not need to go buy clothes or food. They could live in a city that had only one entrance to the Citadel grounds, and only two roads into any of the districts.
She stopped walking, and stared sullenly at the streaks of dust remaining on the black metal street. What a horrible city. The rest of the company ground to an ungraceful halt after her, and she realised she was distracted. Commoners were peeking at them from windows and alleys. The Spellwards warned them to stay indoors until later on.
One of the Spellwards, taking advantage of the delay, offered to help an old man lift a basket overflowing with turnips, so he need not bend his back. “Work doesn’t do itself just because a dracolisk is in town.” The old man said, brushing the Ward’s hand away and hefting his burden. “If you want to help, why don’t you ask it to come around and fix my windows?” He shuffled off, the Spellwards parting to let him through.
Toldremand returned, muscling past the milling folk unlucky enough to miss his approach. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes!” She planted a fist on her hip, pointing around at all the makeshift gardens and hovels. “There is no farmland on this side of the city, because all the southern land belongs to Kraken’s Boundary, or is too rocky. The Gods only know where they got their soil from. They have to grow their own food, because shopping in the Guild District would take all day if they even had the coin for it.”
“It has always been that way. Should we really be discussing this now?” Toldremand grumbled.
“Of course not,” she said, lowering her finger, “but I will not be around to talk about it later, so I am telling you now while I still remember. When I am gone, if it is the last thing you do for me as Queen, see it changed. Establish new markets, or carve new gates through the Citadel grounds if you must.” A group of children hiding behind a trellis in an alley were watching her with wide eyes, whispering to each other, and Lyrua realised she was speaking in her commanding voice.
“The Queen is going to open the Dust Quarter to the Citadel?”
“Is she going to fight the dracolisk?”
“It will take more than that if you wish to improve the Dust Quarter,” Toldremand said. “You might even want to listen to Sorenrov. But I will discuss what we can do with Fourstaile when we have the opportunity.”
Mention of Sorenrov suddenly made her regret the conversation. It took her back to her parents’ deaths at the hands of Sorenrov assassins. Her voice became low, and her fists shook at her sides. “Herluf Sorenrov’s democracy is not what Nythyemere needs. The nobility can continue to press us, but I will not award power to pigs who cannot be trusted with it.”
“Yes,” Toldremand shook his head. “That is what your mother always said.”