43

A Peaceful Demonstration

Ludgar had often told Caspar of what it was like being on the front lines of a battle. He told him of the intense, encroaching fear that seeps into every fold that the brain can manage. He told him how unreasonably calm everything feels, right before a hellish descent into absolute chaos. He told him how much fun it can be if you put yourself in the right mindset and disassociate yourself from everything. Caspar didn’t know what Ludgar meant by that and assumed it was a kind of spell and asked Sethel, who got excited at the idea and promised he would help the first moment he got his hands on a sigil stone.

Whatever he signed up for, he wasn’t looking forward to it, just like now, among the masked faces of the revolutionaries.

It never seems to be real when you’re stuck right in the middle of it.

He wasn’t in the frontline of a battle. It sure felt like he was, though.

There was screaming, both in fear and rage, some banged drums and sang songs of peace and reform, others rattled blades and yelled a fearsome war cry; or as fearsome as some of them could get.

‘This is it! This is where it all begins!’ one with multicoloured dreadlocks yelled to his brothers and sisters. ‘I feel like Kacedous Faye reading his blade against the evil might of the Xendorian Legions!’

‘You like that crap? No way, this is more like when Derox fought his brother Xored for control of the Eternal Kingdom.’

These arguments continued.

There sure were a lot of plays about revolutions. There also seemed to be quite a few playwrights among the revolutionaries. Another signal went off in Caspar’s head. He didn’t have time to think about what it meant before rocks started flying, smashing into the glass of the shop windows that the owners had yet to board up, giving other individuals the chance to scramble in and take what wasn’t nailed down.

Is this what they meant by redistribution? The despondent owner standing by the side, unsure of what to do or where to go or how to stop this redistribution, didn’t seem to be part of the upper class.

Overall, it was a good show of force. One that would really frighten the establishment and maybe push aside the mercs that protected them.

The only issue was they were marching through the slums. Everyone who was the target of their ire was everywhere but the slums.

‘Why are we in the slums?’ he asked another revolutionary at his side.

‘To revolt!’

‘Why here, though? Why not where the nobles are?’

‘Because they have mercs, and they’re scary. So, we do it here, where people can’t afford them.’

‘Doesn’t that defeat the point?’

‘Not at all!’

‘How doesn’t it?’

‘Because I say so.’

The main body of the demonstration eased through the streets, the yells, songs, drums, and chaos following close.

A smash was heard from somewhere to his right. Someone was running, followed by several revolutionaries.

No one knew how it started, but it stopped mattering at that point. All he knew was that someone was running, and quite a few people were going after them.

A glass bottle flew through the air, striking the runner in the back of the head. They fell.

Caspar had one heard that when their hive is threatened by a hornet, bees will gather together to smother their intruder, swarming the insect and vibrating with enough intensity that it would raise the hornet’s core body temperature and cook it from the inside.

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They may not be all that strong on their own, but with enough numbers, anyone would succumb to them.

This felt similar, especially the way they swarmed on him.

‘Stop resisting us! We’re here to help you!’ one yelled, now kicking the fallen man.

The revolutionary yelled it, so it must be true. Right?

‘Kill the statist!’ another screamed somewhere behind. Caspar had no idea what a statistician was or what he did to incur their wrath.

They fought against evil and corruption, so they must be good and pure. Right?

No one helped the fallen man. Those who did see pretended not to, provided they weren’t egging the revolutionaries on.

The man would be dead, and everyone would have felt they did something good. Doesn’t matter if he was innocent or not. Whether he was good or evil. Whether he was with or against them.

‘Stop!’

Caspar wished he thought a little harder about this. As it stands, he didn’t think about it at all. Before he even knew what he did, he was between a valiant revolutionary and the evil aggressor who was busy trying not to bleed out. The others stood back, unsure of what to do when met with any form of resistance.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he yelled, as though some grievous, unthinkable crime had been committed against him. There were many gulls in Savanti, and this one made himself stand out with a pink row of spiked feathers running down his head. Anywhere else, and he would look ridiculous.

‘Not like this!’ he said. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it. It’s just that he felt something was wrong. Something deep within him.

‘Are you siding with him, traitor? Fuck you!’ He went to push Caspar down. There was an attempt, but he may as well have been trying to push a brick wall. In another circumstance, it may have looked somewhat funny, given that the gull was around two heads taller. Caspar pushed back, and the gull fell like a sack of potatoes. He didn’t even push very hard.

The others ran to help up their fallen brother, who looked at Caspar with eyes of abject rage, searing pain, seething frustration, and a mild portion of confusion.

‘I’ll fucking kill you,’ he hissed through clenched teeth while fighting back tears, as his brothers and sisters dragged him back to some nearby alley.

Caspar knelt down by the man and held out a hand. ‘Are you okay?’

The man took it, and Caspar steadily helped him to his feet. ‘A little battered, but I’m okay.’ He expected to find a merc or a nobleman. Instead, he found an older canid, with an impressive white moustache below his nose.

‘What happened?’

‘I-I don’t know. I was just walking home from the factory. Tried to stay out of the way, but they didn’t let me.’

‘Why? Did you do something?’

‘Don’t think so. I guess some people either think if you’re not with ‘em you’re against ‘em.’

‘Maybe so.’ It gave Caspar something to think about, provided he was in a less tumultuous situation. ‘You’d better get home before they come round again. Good luck with your statistics and stuff!’

The canine looked back in utter confusion, wondered if he should say something, decided not to, and hurried off away from the demonstration.

This wasn’t right. None of this was.

Justice is a good thing to fight for, yet you shouldn’t need to be unjust to fight for it.

Had he made a mistake? He’d have to talk to Sister Esria about this. She’d understand. She must. It’s easy to get so swept up in the battle that you forget what the war is about.

If anyone would understand and do something, it would be her. She built the whole thing, so she’d be able to fix it.

What the fuck has he gotten himself into? He needed to get away. Get back to Ludgar. He needed Kathiya. Where the hell was she? Was he on his own now?

He didn’t know what to do.

Why couldn’t this shit be simple? The stories made it all seem simple. The knights were the heroes and would vanquish all evil. They’d never attack anyone who wasn’t evil.

Ludgar always made it seem simple.

A hand gripped his shoulder.

He turned with enough time to see a glint of steel no bigger than his forearm. The gull stared at him with eyes of fire.

‘I told you I’d kill you.’ He brought the blade forward, aiming at Caspar’s gut.

Blood. On Caspar.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t where he was stabbed, instead being splashed along his face.

In fact, he felt no pain, either. Sometimes, it takes a moment for it to hit you. For the shock to wear off.

Although, he did wonder why the gull was screaming. Then he saw the wooden stick poking through his shoulder.

Then there were more screams coming from the crowd.

‘Archer!’ one screamed, and they began scurrying every which way they could.

Caspar looked up at the rooftops, finding no sign of an archer anywhere among the rooftops darkened by the fading evening light.

The crowd dispersed, and the gull ran off, bleeding arm hanging limp.

Caspar was left alone, still processing what just happened.

He did the right thing, didn’t he? So why was that gull so angry?

It took a while for Caspar to rationalize that someone wanted to kill him because he stopped them from kicking someone to death. And they were supposed to be on the same side.

He barely even knew what good and evil was anymore.

If anything, this whole ordeal did come with at least one consolation: there may still be someone out there looking over him.

Maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought he was.