5

Oldtown

There are many things that could be said about the city of Oldtown. First, they got the name wrong; given its size, it was up for debate whether it actually was a city. Second, few of what could be said was anything positive. People lived there; that showed either something was going right, or they were just resilient, the same way a cockroach can survive a boot.

Some places got hit harder by war. Some places could never fully recover. Even if war was a long time ago, some places just got used to the damage and stayed that way.

Perhaps it was because there were few significant roads that led there. Maybe it was indifferent lords who saw it as a burden instead of responsibility.

Caspar didn’t know much about Oldtown, but Ludgar assured him that it was simply the place you stop at before you get to Mismiyer. At least, the cheap place you stop at, anyway.

Perhaps he was being too harsh. Maybe the nobles were trying to make it better. Maybe they just got used to it. Maybe some things just refuse to change.

The caravan trudged along the muddy road and stopped at the gates; old, heavy, made for sieges and clearly had seen many. The guards at either side stood, arms folded. More like bouncers than actual guards. They remained immobile and probably would have continued that way, till the merchant produced a coin pouch. One guard approached and checked the purse’s contents. Clearly satisfied, he nodded to someone above the gatehouse and the gate opened.

The outside of the city didn’t look nice. Neither did the inside. What buildings were there had mostly been rundown. Few appeared to be properly functioning. What places that couldn’t afford iron bars over their windows had been boarded up.

The locals, looking as weathered as the homes around them, looked at the passing caravan with some mixture of jealousy, contempt, and hunger. Caspar kept his axe close.

Ludgar jumped from the wagon, and the merchant tossed him a small coin pouch.

‘Thanks! Good luck with the smuggling!’

The merchant had a moment of minor panic, till he remembered where he was. There were guards nearby. They did not look concerned.

The rest of the team followed Ludgar’s lead and descended from the wagon; Ves’sa effortlessly jumping from the roof as though gravity was a concern for other people.

‘Where to next, my captain?’ Setel asked in a way where no one was sure if he was sarcastic or not.

‘A drink, I feel,’ Ludgar said without skipping a beat.

‘In a town like this, you’re spoiled for choice,’ Kathiya added. ‘Booze runs better than water and is more valuable than gold.’

‘Then how about the place where the rulers drink?’ Ludgar heavily emphasised that word.

Caspar looked up at the place he guessed they were talking about. There it sat, just above the rest of Oldtown, contrasting against the rotting woodwork and broken cobbles. Pristine as far as the rest of the city is concerned. Once the city's stronghold in times long gone, now it just keeps the upper class away from the rest. Probably for the best. In a town like this, the rich won’t stay rich for long. ‘Upper Oldtown? They’d never let us in!’

‘Of course they wouldn’t, but I’m talking about the real rulers.’

‘You mean The Hidden Razor, don’t you?’ Kathiya said. ‘Ha. They’d never let you in either.’

‘Oh yeah. They absolutely wouldn’t let someone like me in. But you…’

‘Me? I only left them a few weeks ago. You can’t expect me to ask for help now!’

‘I’m not asking you to ask for help. I’m asking you to get us in. I’ll handle the rest.’

‘Fine, but if you fuck this up, I’m outta there.’

‘What the hell are you two talking about?’ interjected a confused Caspar.

Kathiya looked at him as though he just came in from another world. ‘You’ve never heard of the Moonlight Serpents? Seriously?’

‘Go easy on him, he’s just a baby,’ Ludgar added.

‘The Biggest gang in all the kingdom?’

‘Well, they would say that now, wouldn’t they,’ Ludgar continued to add.

‘Huska smuggling? Arms dealing? Slave trafficking?’

Each question thrown at Caspar was met with a shrug in return. If he didn’t know the answer to the first, he definitely wouldn’t know the answer to the ones that followed. He wasn’t completely oblivious to the darker side of the Kingdom, just mostly since his grandparents raised him away from the gritty city centre. He knew crime happened, but didn’t know who did it, where they did it, how they did it, and why the nobility let it happen. Beyond that, he was completely aware.

Ludgar and Kathiya were eager enough to fill him in on the blanks, Ves’sa was silent as normal and Sethel was off in his own world. They made him aware that at least three major underground organisations were operating throughout the Kingdom: The Moonlight Serpents; run by the elusive White Cobra, Kraster Boys; run by the aptly named Papa Kraster, and Hands; they didn’t really have a leader. Kathiya was technically part of the Serpents, only because they had a fence and she had a lot of goods to be fenced. Typically, they would smuggle in illicit goods through Mismiyer and it would filter through to the rest of the land. How the nobility hadn’t clamped down on this was anyone’s guess, but he supposed they had their reasons.

They followed the streets, surface slimy with the sheen of a light drizzle, to further within the city where the buildings looked less broken and grew much taller.

It looked as Caspar expected it to, damaged sign hanging limply off a single chain. The Broken Razor was hidden away in a misty alley, entered only through a cellar door.

The roof hung low, annoying everyone except Caspar, and the air was heavy with the red burning smoke of huska. At least, that’s what he assumed it was. He never touched the stuff. They passed the crates acting as tables, and barrels acting as stools, till Kathiya brought them to some distant corner of this makeshift tavern where a heavy, iron door shrouded itself in the dark.

Three solid knocks from Kathiya and a small slit of a hatch slid open. Two beady eyes peered at them.

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‘The fuck do you… Kathiya?’

‘Yeah, It’s me. Hey Goss.’

‘Thought you went for something better at the big city.’

‘Things didn’t turn out that well.’

‘You back then?’

‘Not completely. Just me and my crew looking for a way into Mismiyer. Can we speak to the Lady?’

‘Alright, just don’t expect much. She’s not in a good mood right now.’

‘Why?’ Ludgar asked. ‘She mad that Kathiya left?’

‘No, she’s just normally like that.’

The heavy door strained against its own hinges, revealing a much larger and much busier room beyond. Brutish people moving crates of whatever anywhere they could. Many shrouded themselves under heavy cloaks and hoods, while others chose to be shirtless, showing the intricate patterns of their stained skin or fur.

Passing through, they saw the contents of some being unloaded. Weapons, alcohol, huska, jewelry, everything and anything that could be potentially seen as valuable, procured in a way that was less than legal.

Kathiya led them further in, trying her best to seem as inconspicuous as she could. Caspar and Sethel took particular interest in the contents of some crates, a box containing a single empty sigil stone which left Sethel utterly transfixed, before Ves’sa dragged them back to the group.

Kathiya spied a box of jewelry left completely unprotected. The light glinting off the precious metal, so clean, shiny and utterly inviting. She felt her arm naturally gravitate towards it, before someone grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

‘Not now,’ Ludgar muttered in her ear, ‘we have company.’

Some great boar stood in his way with the arrogant smirk of someone who thinks they’re tougher than they really are.

‘Entry fee.’ He held out his hand, fingers making a beckoning motion.

Ludgar examined the man up and down. He was big. Bigger than Ludgar. A small payment would be a safe and easy decision.

‘Alright.’ Ludgar’s forehead slammed into the boar’s nose, making a sickening crunch noise. The nose exploded in a fountain of blood covering Ludgar’s face. The boar reeled back, screaming, trying to stem the flowing blood. ‘That enough for ya?’

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, rose from their seats, dropping their mugs, drew their weapons, pointing them straight at the group. They were completely surrounded.

‘What in the hells is going on here?’ A hardened voice shouted from beyond the door. Out stormed a woman whose life had clearly been far from easy. Her fur appeared matted in some spots and ragged in others. Deep scar lines visible across the face and along one eye. Rats normally had two large incisors, but she only bared one, with the other significantly shorter and significantly more jagged.

‘So you must be Lady Wretch,’ Ludgar greeted, even with at least five blades pointed at his throat. She must be one of those people doomed with an appropriate name.

The Lady looked down at the boar, trying to hold his own blood in. ‘Drunn you idiot, what the fuck are you doing?’

‘He brog my fuging nose!’

‘You got your shit kicked in, that’s what you’re doing. Let that be a lesson to ya. Get out.’

The boar left, holding in what was left of his nose, blood, and pride.

‘And who do you think you are, comin’ into my business an—’ She stopped, suddenly distracted by something. Her eye caught Kathiya trying to slink away behind Sethel. ‘Well. Look who's come crawling back to us.’ She stormed straight up to Sethel, who simply moved aside the way a door would.

Lady Wretch was not especially tall and Kathiya was not short by any stretch, but somehow the Lady made Kathiya look tiny.

‘We’re…’ She swallowed, trying to get rid of the rapidly accumulating saliva. ‘We’re just looking for a way to Mismiyer.’

She felt the scrawny arm of the Lady close around her neck. The other hand slapped her on the shoulder. ‘Relax girl, I’m just fucking with ya. Hell, I wouldn’t have even recognised ya if ya didn’t try to slink away like that.’

She was relieved, but far from relaxed. The arm around her shoulder was about as comforting as a python’s embrace.

‘So, what are ya anyway? Don’t look much like a buncha thieves.’

‘Sellswords. We’re going west.’

‘Mercs? Hah! Well, there’s plenty of work for ya out that way. Ya know what? I think I may actually have something for ya.’

She beckoned them back through the door she came from, deeper into the musty innards. It smelled as it looked; like a sewer.

She made herself her own private office, built from odds and ends and whatever had filtered down into the bowels of Oldtown. Caspar wasn’t sure why. She didn’t look the type to sign documents. Why would she need such a grand bookshelf or a desk? Then she opened up one of the drawers and pulled out a smoking pipe and a heap of huska and he knew exactly why. They each sat on the mismatched chairs, aside from Ves’sa, who opted to stand.

She offered the huska pipe to Caspar. ‘Want a hit?’

He wasn’t sure. He went to take it when another hand came out from behind him and gripped his wrist. He looked back to see Ves’sa staring as intently as ever at Lady Wretch.

‘Uh. Guess not then,’ Caspar said.

‘Fine. Suit yourself.’ Lady Wretch took another drag from the pipe.

‘So, mercs, right? Not sure what you’re doin’ this side of the Broken Sea, but that’s your business. Yeah, I got a job for ya.’

Ludgar was starting to feel pretty pleased with himself when a slap to the back of his head brought him right back.

‘You moron!’ Kathiya yelled.

‘Woah, woah hey,’ he said, recoiling from the impact. ‘What did I do?’

‘Drunn! Why did you headbutt him! You could have gotten us killed!’

‘Did I?’

‘... Did you what?’

‘Get you killed?’

‘No, but-’

‘Then everything’s fine then.’

‘But you could have!’

‘Eh, anything could happen. I just care about what did happen. Thugs like that only acknowledge strength. You show it, they back down. You give ‘em what they want and they walk over you forever.’

Finding the point hard to argue with, Kathiya just left it there, assuming that Ludgar knew what he was doing. He didn’t mention his currently aching forehead, which the musky Oldtown air was helping with very little.

‘So what’s next for us, anyway?’ Kathiya asked. She was meaning to ask for a while now, but she was having fun just going along with it.

‘I told you. Get passage to Mismiyer one way or another.’

‘No, I mean afterwards. When we’re across the sea and go into Versia.’

Ludgar took a moment to consider. ‘Fight and get paid. It’s pretty simple, really.’

‘So that’s it then? You haven’t thought this fully through, have you?’

‘I’ve thought it through perfectly. I just keep my goals simple. That way less shit goes wrong.’

Reasonable, but that kind of philosophy is open to questions of which Kathiya had many. ‘So which lord would be the best to work for?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Who's the most powerful?’

‘No idea.’

‘Who even are the lords?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘Have you even been past the sea?’

‘Of course I have. A while ago. When I was young. And I can’t really remember. That’s a good thing, right? No bias! We just go with whoever pays best and leave the thinking for more important people.’

‘So what,’ Caspar questioned, barging his way into the conversation, ‘no matter how good or evil? Just go with whoever?’ That was the kind of philosophy that didn’t mesh well with Caspar.

‘What if they turn every city into one like this?’ He held his arm out to the streets of Oldtown, pointing out the caved in roofs, the overgrown gardens, the junk lining the streets.

‘What are you talking about? This town’s great!’

‘It’s old and rotted.’

‘It’s character.’

‘Everyones poor, sick and miserable.’

‘They’re rugged and hardened.’

‘They’re all criminals.’

‘They’re enterprising. If this is the worst you’ve seen, then I can tell you’ve never really been out of Orrick.’

That stung a little, but still didn’t answer any questions. ‘So… why Mismiyer?’

‘Oh, Mismiyer’s wonderful,’ Kathiya chimed in. ‘You can find anything there. Everything comes out of Mismiyer. Nothing really goes in.’

‘But that makes no sense. How can one city be that self sufficient? I mean, you have to have imports, otherwise the whole thing would collapse.’

‘... It’s just a saying. Don’t take it so literally.’