" The Autumn Winds blow, a silent rain falls, as Death makes Her call "
- Elias Verrier, The Lord's Year 21
The Vertram Kingdom was located in the center of the Eastern Continent. Established by Solizur Vertram, who later styled himself as the “Immortal Ruler” (and shortly met his end after that), the kingdom had a storied history. It was peppered with betrayals, wars, rebellions and more betrayal. Yet somehow the kingdom had managed to survive even to the present day. However, it was but a pale shadow of what it once was. The ruling faction had degenerated into a group that was hell-bent on retaining its own power and the entire kingdom now resembled a police state. Secret executions, excessive taxation and poverty could be termed as the identifying marks of this kingdom. It was clearly on its last breath, yet had somehow managed to tenuously cling onto life.
Sernas was the capital of the Vertram Kingdom and it was still a bustling city, despite the grim atmosphere that seemed to pervade the entire land. In fact, the contrast between the city and farmlands of the kingdom was that of the Heavens and Earth. The reason why the city still flourished was because one of the portals that allowed transit to the Western Continent was located within the city. To be precise, the portal was within an extremely defended cliff that was within the city. Thus, a constant influx of trade and the levies imposed on the caravans that passed through the city kept the entire kingdom afloat, however barely. This had also caused the neighboring kingdoms to mount several attacks over the course of the years, but all of them were repulsed due to the way the city was constructed. Solizur Vertram, despite all his faults, had possessed enough foresight to design the entire city itself as a fortress to protect the portal. Later rulers, upon recognizing its importance to the stability of their rule had improved upon this and extended the fortress, turning it into a near impenetrable city.
It was a fine summer day in the city and the traders were hawking their wares with loud voices in the city square. There was a squadron of soldiers wearing blood red armor with a single silver dagger emblazoned upon their helmets that were marching along the edges of the square, with a sinister look on their faces.
“Those new ones give me the creeps”, remarked a hawker who was selling fruits and snacks in one corner. This was immediately met with glares and angry snarls from the other vendors, and one of them angrily whispered back, with a few muted words. Upon hearing this, the fruit seller blanched, as if he had just seen a ghost. He now fearfully glanced at the soldiers, thanking his lucky stars that he was not foolish enough to have voiced his previous thoughts any louder. Just as he decided to keep his mouth shut and ducked his head, he saw a tiny hand withdrawing from his cart. Dumbfounded, he looked around for a while before realizing what had transpired, then yelling at the top of his voice “Thief! Thief! Stop that brat”.
This obviously attracted the attention of the other hawkers and some of the other passerby joined the chase. This caused the city guard to pay attention and soon a two man team was dispatched to settle the situation. The guards were originally there to prevent any riots and breakup suspicious gatherings. When they figured it was just a petty thief stealing some fruits, they ordered the crowd and were just about to return to their posts when things suddenly took a turn for the worse.
One soldier broke off from the red armored soldiers and came to the place of the disturbance. He looked around curiously, as if seeing a grand spectacle and finally asked the city guards in an almost guttural voice about the situation. The guards, who weren’t paying any attention to the newcomer, upon hearing this voice turned to look at the man, and almost went pale with fear. Their knees started shaking and their faces went through an entire spectrum of emotions. This only served to further anger the red armored guard.
As if he was dealing with some pests, the man ordered in a commanding turn. “Speak”, he uttered, in a tone of utter contempt.
The guards on hearing this came to their senses and hurriedly narrated their version of events, of how they came across a petty thief and decided not to pursue the matter. On hearing this, a malicious smile flashed across the man’s face for a brief second and he drawled, “Oh? A thief and you let him go? Isn’t that interesting?”
“Haha, I found a rat to hunt. What a pleasant day it has been”, he remarked, with a vicious grin on his face
The soldiers were nearly on the verge of passing out from the sheer malice the man emitted. The fearsome reputation of these men was no secret. More than their power, their cruelty was unparalleled. Just as the soldiers were rejoicing at a narrow escape, the man waved his hands in a slicing motion and walked away. The hawkers surrounding the pair of guards were puzzled about the man’s actions, but knew better than to ask. But they didn’t have to stay in the dark for long, for suddenly they heard a plopping sound, as if a rotten melon had just broken apart on the ground. On searching for the sound, they discovered to their horror the two guards were sliced cleanly across their backs and were now on the ground, bleeding profusely and staining the ground. Horrified, they immediately went away with shocked faces. Only after a long time did the city guards come by to collect the bodies. As the mess was being cleaned up, the captain of the city guard looked on the whole scene with a complicated expression on his face. In a gruff voice, he ordered the guardsmen to send the families of the slain guards some silver and not to talk about the incident again.
Meanwhile, in another part of the town, a girl was running, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, hiding in alleyways and avoiding others in general, with a gleeful smile on her face. Her slight, almost emaciated frame was already difficult to see on a good day, and with her attempts to keep out of sight it would take a trained eye to spot her amidst all the disorder that the city was. She couldn’t be older than ten, yet the thoughts running through her head were definitely not that of a ten year old. She was constantly thinking about the next meal and where she could hide for the night.
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“Well, I could always go back to brother, but he is always looking out for me. Humph, I’m his elder sister and he still treats me like a kid”.
Despite this, she was happy that her little brother treated her like a kid. He seemed wise beyond his years and she had just given up understanding the enigma he was. As she thought of her brother, she broke into a happy smile. Yes, she will go see how he was doing. With this thought, she swiftly changed her direction and ran towards the city walls. This was a risky move, for it was more heavily patrolled closer to the city walls, but was also the quickest way to get to where she wanted to go. After all, she had discovered a section of the city wall where the stones had degraded into natural handholds and made vaulting across the wall ridiculously easy. With this in mind, she sped up, passing between carts and jumping over walls. Finally, after a few minutes of breathless sprinting, the wall was in sight.
The walls loomed up, seeming like a gargantuan edifice to contain the chaos of the city. And with adroit steps, the girl leapt up towards the wall, surefooted as a mountain goat on a cliff. With practiced ease, she quickly climbed up the wall, constantly aware of where the nearest guards were supposed to be. There was a guard post right next to this section of the wall, but it was never manned. Well, there was this one time when it was manned, but the guard there was sleeping (or drunk, she couldn’t tell then). With a few labored jumps between the handholds, including one harrowing moment when the food she had “borrowed” from the hawker nearly fell out, she clambered onto the top of the city wall.
Here she paused for a moment, looking at the city. She always liked to look at the mess the city was. Others might say how this was a beautiful city, how well planned it was but she always found it a jumbled mess of pointlessly big buildings and really tiny streets. The city was constructed around the portal and the portal could be seen from miles around, a shining vortex of swirling energy that could be seen for miles around, like a beacon in the dark. But apart from the portal, the rest of the city consisted of the occasional battlement interspersed with ramshackle buildings that sprung in the middle of nowhere. Carts could be seen weaving around, as people hurried about the cramped streets. Further inside, the royal palace stood imposingly, as if lording over the other buildings. As she looked at the palace, a brief, almost imperceptible flash of hate clouded her eyes before she quickly turned away to look elsewhere. To the west of the palace, the slums sprawled, occupying a large part of the city. The merchants only stayed in the commercial district and the foreign quarter separated the slums and the merchants. She was intimately familiar with the slums, often being forced to hide in the sewers or stay hidden in the shadows of the foreign quarter after a successful hunt. The smell from the slums wafted across the city, a mix of stale urine, blood and rotting meat. Most people found it disgusting, but to her it was a reassuring smell, as most of her usual pursuers would be reluctant to give chase amidst such smells.
With a final look, she jumped down, leaping from stone to stone before landing on the somewhat wet ground. With a quick jump, she dashed off into the underbrush surrounding the wall, angling away from the gate. After one last look to make sure there were no pursuers, she slowed her pace and after a few minutes of walking reached a place where the bushes grew wildly. Looking around, she found a small polished rock on the ground, which she picked up and inserted it a seemingly innocuous dried stem that was casually lying on the wet earth. If one looked at the stem, one might notice that it was actually partially buried under the ground. After this, she leaned against a nearby tree, as if waiting for something. Sure enough, in a couple of minutes, there was a loud grating sound and a rock wall that was previously hidden by a shocking mass of vines was slowly pushed open. She immediately leapt inside the opening and then the wall closed.
“Vina, you’re back!” exclaimed a little boy who could hardly reach up to the shoulders of the girl.
“Yes brother, I’m back” replied the girl. “Wait what did you just call me? I’m your elder you cheeky brat” the girl yelled, pinching the boy’s ears.
“Sorry sorry won’t do it again” the boy cried with a painful grimace on his face. Vina let him go after she deemed a suitable punishment had been dealt.
“Were you followed?” the boy asked, rubbing his still painful ears.
“Of course not silly~” Vina trilled, glad to be with the boy.
“Here I got you food. Eat up” she said with a gentle voice that belied her previously violent attitude towards the boy.
The boy immediately saw that she had some fruits and candies and started eating them. After a moment, he looked at here with a guilty look on his face.
“Did you eat anything sister?” he asked, with a sorry look on his face. When she looked away without replying, he immediately felt as if his heart was crushed. He had just greedily eaten almost everything, without even bothering to see if his sister had anything to eat.
“Come here sister, I trapped a hare today”, he called her, while trying to force her to eat the remaining sweets. As they made their way to the deeper parts of the cave, they came to a small pot containing some kind of unidentifiable stew. After a moment, they both started to eat the contents of the pot, while Vina started narrating the events of the day and how she had evaded the guards. After talking for a while, they both fell down on what passed for their beds, exhausted from the day. As they laid down, Vina sang a soft lullaby to ease the cold night, a lullaby that sang of autumn rain and winter winds, of the cold moonlight and a warm embrace. Finally, as the moon reached its zenith, the two were sound asleep.
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Author's Note: There were a few info dumps in this chapter. Sorry if they were irksome, but this is just to establish the setting for the upcoming chapters. Thank you for reading! Please feel free to give me feedback on my writing. This is a way for me to entertain you and better my writing and I appreciate feedback of any kind. Cheers!