Chapter Four

You’d Save My Life

The following days in Avengard were rife with uncertainty; doubly so for Isidora and myself, who had to navigate those winds without the guidance of our mother. It was a twin tragedy for me. I mourned the loss of my mother, but at the same time, I was wracked with constant anxiety and shared grief with my sister. I found myself worrying for her at every hour, wondering if she would ever again be able to see life through the lens of anything but pain.

Sometime over that fateful night, the red dragon Ignisclaw had pulled back from the skies over the city. It was awaited that a main occupying force of Seviskian men and cavalry would arrive at the walls unhindered, perhaps more of the men that I had seen in the Black Forest, but none arrived. They must have been scouts and not warriors. Not fighting men. And so with Ignisclaw out of the city, the survivors had nothing else to do but to regroup and to gather the dead.

Perhaps it was the uncertainty, or the trauma, or the anxiety, or a boiling stew of emotions and feelings to be processed between the three, but strangely, I began experiencing night terrors in the middle of the night. I would be sound asleep, but then I'd wake up screaming, and sweating, and at one point, even having walked away from our tent in my sleep.

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Not many words were shared during those days. There simply was not much to be said. Everybody in Avengard had lost something of precious value to them. Homes, loved ones, entire families. There was no use attempting to explain the pain felt by all. The words were simply not there.

Men, women, and children shuffled throughout the streets blank-faced. For some, I imagine it must have been an exercise in stoicism, in suppressing the waves of emotion from reality as a mean to trudge on and rebuild. For others, it was clear that Ignisclaw had devastated more than just brick and mortar that night. He had broken their minds.

One side-effect of the invasion had been that the lines between citizen and refugee had been dessicated to nothingness. With all that burned, the Avengardians no longer cared about men’s papers or skin color. There was no more space for that level of cruelty to fester.

Instead, minds were set on the frontline, and on Sevisk. The people questioned how the war effort must have been developing on the front if a dragon such as Ignisclaw had slipped past them and made their way past different city-states all the way to Avengard. They questioned if the men at the front were equipped with everything that they needed to win, or at the very least, to survive.

On the fifth day after the attack, the Laurelsmeister saw it fit to call the survivors to the town square. He did not dare to pack the plaza with that many people in one space before then, but at that point, he had no other option but to address his constituents. Up to that point, the people were mostly docile, stewing in their own seas of grief and anguish. But there was only so much bread to go around, and not much separates a group of hungry from a raging mob.

Isidora was hesitant to go, at first. She had been like many of the other people I had seen on the ruined streets of Avengard, silent on the outside and broken on the inside. She had run out of tears by that point, but I knew that this was only a physical limitation for her. Emotionally, she had much more grief to pour out from within herself and onto the world.

When I explained that they would be giving out rations and wheatmeal at the square however, she finally agreed and chose to follow. I would have asked Javis as well, but I couldn’t quite trust him the same way after I found him alone without any other survivors to shelter down in the shrine of the Lady of Loss.

The Exiled Ones, of course, had always given me that shaky feeling of unease and uncertainty. Anxiety. Seeing the shrine to Lady of Loss and of Avenor kneeling to her all that time ago with Javis didn’t do much to assuage the years of doctrine and culture that had been ingrained into me that not all gods were meant to be worshiped. Not all gods were meant to be trusted.

Now, of course, Javis like myself had simply fled to that shrine out of desperation and fear. Isidora and I didn’t bring any survivors with us down there either. But was it the same? We were carrying out mother at the time, for example. We had some sort of reasoning on some level. Why hadn’t Javis brought anyone down there? Just having seen him bathed in the purple light of the Lady of Loss was unnerving.

Almost unnerving as the sulphur that I noticed everywhere on that night. I noticed it in the forest, by the tents, and especially when I had brought out the nightshade. It didn’t make any sense. I had asked Isidora many times over since that night over the following days, and still, she swears that she didn’t smell the sulphur that I had been noticing. She ventured that it may have been from the flames engulfing the city, but that wouldn’t have explained how I noticed it in the forest, nor all the way underground by the shrine.

I had many questions, and not many answers.

I hoped to find some at the town square. Or, at the very least, some bread. Isidora and I took our place in the ration line, and behind us, a boy who seemed to be about my age took his place. His father who had been accompanying bid him farewell, and said, “…and after, I’ll see you back at home. Stay safe now, son. Be strong, for your mother’s soul.”

“I will.”

I recognized the greeting as one from this region specifically. It meant that his mother had passed, or was at the very least lost. Everyone had lost something, but the look on his face cut deep into my heart and echoed my own pain. I chose to speak, and I said, “They’re both watching us over from the Aether now.”

“What was that?” he asked.

“Our mothers. We had lost ours as well. Sorry, I couldn’t help but to overhear. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“I see,” he said, considering what to say, before choosing, “Be strong then, for your mother’s soul.”

“I will,” I answered. “My name is Scipio Kalataunus, by the way. And this is my sister, Isidora.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” my sister chimed in, though her voice expressed no pleasure nor sign of any other emotion other than apathy.

“And you as well. I’m Delmar,” he introduced himself.

Delmar.

“His name is Delmar, only a few years younger than yourself. He lives in a shack with others in the Schwarzahn. You need to find him,” the lady in the forest had said, before I fled. Before I left her to die.

There were two mothers I let pass that night.

The smell of sulphur…

I didn’t say anything. The act of recognition took any words from my mouth. Hadn’t that lady said that Delmar was sick? Yet here he stood, looking no worse off for wear than I.

I pondered telling him about what happened to his mother last night, and how she had been caught off in the Black Forest while searching for herbs for him. But then I thought better for it, thinking of the guilt it would cause him…but in some way, instead, I bore the weight of the guilt. It was heavy and lingering, like a breath that my chest could not bear to exhale. It was a difficult situation; in another life, perhaps, one without war and without dragons, we could have been drells together. We could have been good friends.

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“They say that the Laurelsmeister will be moving the whole city away,” Delmar said, making conversation as we moved forward in line at a snowsnail’s space. “Like a caravan, bringing us all further and deeper west, away from the war, and away from Sevisk.”

“Is that what they’ve been saying?” I asked.

“Yes. Just yesterday, the Laurel was seen outside the walls, and whole columns of wagons and carts had come. Pulled by real horses too, not donkeys or anything like that. He must be expecting to be bringing us all somewhere safe, then, bringing in that kind of labor.”

“I haven’t seen horses in years,” I pondered. “They’ve all been whisked off to the lines, haven’t they?”

“They have,” Delmar confirmed. “Which shows that the Laurel must be getting real serious about the rebuilding effort. Avenor’s grounds aren’t as safe as they should be anymore.”

“But Avenor himself protects this soil,” Scipio brought up the teachings that the clergy had repeated from the parapets time and time again. This was doctrine that was drilled into everyone, whether Avengardian or visitor or refugee.

“I don’t see his home standing watch, nor his mace over the square,” he murmured, referring to the cathedral and to his fountain respectively. I instinctively looked towards the center of the square. Indeed, his fountain and the sculpture of him with his mace were no longer there. In its place, a bronze ruin that looked of a consumed wax candle stood as a reminder of just how hot Seviskian dragonflames could burn.

Eventually, we received the bread that was promised. It was stale, and cold, and had no cheese nor salt, but my sister, my newfound friend, and myself enjoyed it as any Laurelsman might enjoy a banquet. As we ate, we talked, and I saw more of myself in Delmar beyond our similar recent unfortunate losses. He spoke it with candor and wasn’t afraid to speak the words that come to his tongue the same very second they arrived, and that was something I appreciated. Most Avengardians weren’t that way with myself, or with my sister, or with Javis and the other refugees, but perhaps those imagined lines of difference had melted away along with the city.

The Laurelsmeister then stepped to the makeshift platform of rubble and old wood that his men had built for today. He was accompanied by his Court Mage, an old, bearded man with a pointed hat, along with his Laurelsguard suited in heavy armour. Waves of hushes rippled throughout the crowd, and the Laurelmeister began orating. He spoke, first, of the brave men who had stood on the walls on the night that the dragon of Sevisk had attacked. He spoke of how Avenor Himself must have been guiding them and filling their hearts with bravery and courage as they fought, seemingly deliberately choosing not to mention word of the elven figure who I had seen fight off Ignisclaw.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the Lady of Loss guided Avenor as He saw to it that all those souls be returned to Her in death.

Then, he spoke of all the Laurel was doing to aid the people in these “difficult” times. He gestured towards the bread and rations, and the wells that he assigned men to guard and distribute equitably, and to the bolts of linens and fabric that he had sourced from neighboring city-states to act as makeshift roofs and tents to ensure that no Avengardian went nights without shelter.

At that, small, scattered pockets of applause let themselves be heard gently, but not enthusiastically. This was a battered people. A broken people. But still, Delmar offered slow claps to my side, and so I followed suit.

“And now,” the Laurelmeister continued, “I would like to make known an official proclamation of the Laurel. This is a royal decree, to be taken as if it came from the mouth of Avenor Himself.” As if on cue, Laurelsguard, dressed in shining plate armour and with wreaths of silver and gold intertwined resting on their ears, stood by the Laurelsmeister, facing the crowd, as if to protect him from them. They were imposing, tall figures, and most likely the only Avengardian men of fighting age still left in the city.

To his side, the Court Mage cast an Incantation, and the men on the platform were surrounded by a translucent dome, bathed in a cerulean hue. He concentrated on the Incantation, and the Laurelmeister spoke on, this time, his voice amplified threefold and made all the clearer, “It has now been made clear to us that the Empire of Sevisk is willing to fight an unjust war, one with unjust consequences. Our enemy is willing to forsake the lives of innocents. Of women and children. Of those who have done no wrong. And to prevent more lives from being taken by this regrettable reality, we, too, will have to stoop to measures that give me no pleasure so as to enact.”

At this, the crowd grew visibly more agitated. Those that had lost so much over the past week seemed to regain some level of vigor, some level of indignation. What more did they have that could be taken? What more did they have that could be lost? What were the limits of human loss?

Sulphur…

“It is a regrettable reality, but the reality nonetheless. Starting from today, it shall be an official proclamation of the Laurel that the call for war shall expand to include tributes from each family. Each tribute, including those families who had sent their own in the past, will put forth at least one young man or woman of Avengard from their fourteenth year and beyond. This proclamation includes as well all residents of the city, regardless of where they have been born.”

We were going to war.

The crowd erupted into a collective rampage and panic. Some chose to flee the town square, as if doing so would strike their obligation to the Laurel, while many chose to stay and make their voices be heard. The screaming and protesting drowned out what the Laurelmeister had to say, despite his Incantation-amplified voice, and many threw stones and pebbles towards the platforms, with each projectile deflected by the Court Mage’s magicks. He looked to be straining himself now, and clutching a string of glowing beads for power. When that too faltered, he seemed to draw on energy from his surroundings for a moment, but then the protective dome lapsed, and the Laurelsguard themselves formed around the Meister in a circle, swatting away stone and pebble with their tower shields and protective plate.

When the crowd grew more and more resolute in their determination to make their displeasure be heard, I chose to flee, urging Isidora and Delmar to follow me, which they did. We hurried along with many others, and over our shoulders, we could hear screams and the clang of stone on steel.

We chose to stay together at the slums of the Schwarzahn. Isidora and I had no assurances of safety finding our way back to the refuge tents with the city the way that it was.

“And if we were to leave?” Dekmar suggested. “What if we all simply left Avengard on foot tonight?”

“Impossible,” I disagreed. “All of the talks of Laurelsmen strengthening the walls the past few days, increasing the watch and the lanterns. I don’t think that was to dissuade another dragon. It was to keep the people in and watch those who left.”

“Besides, where else would there be to leave to?” Isidora argued. “How many cities are left until we’re being attacked by another Seviskian with nothing but the Eastern Sea to our back? Scipio and I, we’ve spent our whole lives fleeing.”

“You talk as if you were going to be out there fighting yourself, drell,” Delmar said pointedly.

“I can contribute to Avengard with a mortar and pestle and a set of herbs better than you could with a spear,” Isidora practically spat at Delmar with an ounce of venom. At this, Delmar’s eyes widened and he moved his shoulder by but an inch, and for a moment, I thought he would come to blows with her, but then he stood down. My sister smirked.

“So what are you going two going to do when the Laurelsmen come looking for us tomorrow, then? Choose to work with the Healers and Sicksisters at the front?” Delmar asked.

“No,” I said and placed my hand on my sister’s shoulder. “If you leave, then I will be of little use here in Avengard. But you…you could still do some good here. Heal the wounded and tend to the sick. There are so, so many who could use your help, even today.”

“I won’t let you go off to the front so you can run and impale yourself onto the first Seviskian saif you meet.”

“No, I wouldn’t want that either,” I clarified. “I read the books, the one Javis had lent me about the history of masonry and engineering. Avengard has sappers. War engineers, constructing barricades, and forts, and machines of war. It’s safer, and for the first year, I wouldn’t even be on the lines. I would be in Avengard’s War College. They share it with the Ironhold of Kreuzhain.”

“Is that an option?” Delmar asked. “Can we do that?”

“Yes, but only for those with some experience in masonry,” I answered. “Have you any?”

“Not a lick,” he replied, his gaze falling to the floor, forlorn. After a moment, he asked, “Can you teach me?”

“Teach you masonry?”

“Yes,” he said. “Just enough to lie and say that I served as an apprentice to Baldric Rockwell for some months before he passed away. He was a local mason here in Schwarzahn. They wouldn’t know. I just need some small ideas and fancy words for nail and hammer, wouldn’t that do?”

That got a fair chuckle out of me.

Delmar continued on, “Please. You’d save my life, drell.”

And in saving his life, perhaps I would fulfill a promise that I thought I had broken to a dying woman.

“Of course,” I answered. “I’ll teach you all you need to know.”

“You can’t leave me, Scip,” my sister interjected. “If you leave me, I’ll have nobody else.”

“This is the best way,” I explained. “The best way to have both of us see to the end of this war alive. It’s what Ma would have wanted. And you know what? At the end of it, perhaps I’ll be a Master Mason, and you’ll be a full Sicksister. And we’ll both have our own place in the world. Something permanent, something real. Not a refuge tent or on the run.”

Isidora considered my words, then nodded, and turned to Delmar and said, “You learn those fancy words, Delmar, and you head to that College and keep my brother alive. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”