Heck! Cruica?

[Deleted]

He had let himself feel at home--almost more at home than he'd felt in Cahalia City. He had a love which he was passionate about. Beyond that, he'd found a community which accepted him as a unique contribution to their skilled number. It was as if a forest of apple trees bearing fruit had sprung up around him--even though he'd been planted in unfamiliar soil, a branch broken off a much larger tree.

There was a pretty large city only a day or so from the forest's edge, where the hills took over the horizon and trees were few. They'd come upon it from behind a hill, but for some reason had allowed him to ride a horse, his Kell holding onto him from behind. She peered over his shoulder when they reached the hill's crest to see a sight familiar to her.

It was a magnificent city, and strange. It was built straddling a creek that ran between two large hills. The creek meandered down to where, in the distance, was the river they'd crossed a few days before. He didn't know its name, nor did anyone else. And no one seemed to care. But he'd decided to call it Wallton.

The city was surrounded by a wall which, from where the caravan stood, in front of a gate, was no taller than two men stacked. But as the gate opened, Rigel could see far, farther than he could ever see in Cahalia City; He realized quite quickly that no house was taller than the wall itself, and that they were all arranged in a grid pattern--or perhaps a series of circles within circles. He could see the opposite wall, through the cast-iron bars of some sort of gated garden.

He would come to find that it was some sort of mandated law--the wall was to be built to a specified level, two men's height above its highest point, and no building's chimney should exceed that height, but should instead attempt to meet it. Thus, in the center where the creek middled, an enormous tower had been built, with tiers separating floor-heights, and the entire city had been laid according to this plan.

No one seemed to mind much, but he found it the oddest spectacle he'd ever seen. His inquiring mind would immediately begin questioning how such an undertaking had gone about--how they had maintained the level so perfectly for the wall, how they could ensure such perfection in architecture. His mind took in the city, trying to understand the complexities of how such a marvel could have been made.

--OOC: Roll for learning "Architecture" which I guess means some applicable secret knowledge, or Masonry.--


--IC:

He followed the group until they reached where, no doubt, the creek was its lowest, as it was the edge of the wall nearest the direction they'd come.

"The market," Kell told him. It was plain to see--the crowds funneled in and out of staircases and shops, their keepers leaning out the small windows in the stone, showing the wares behind them.

"WELL," some bearded boulder of a man bustled out of his shop-hole, his voice as rough as his face, "IF IT ISN'T JEAN GOLDSADDLE AND THE CAHALIAN TRADERS!"

"Yes," said the soft-spoken leader, "More or less. Have any deals, Stonebrow?"

Never had Rigel heard a more appropriate name. "PLENTY FOR AN OLD FRIEND!" He had no concept of the word 'subtlety' nor any idea how he would pronounce it, if he ever learned to read. Rigel knew from a glance he'd been born to trade in less honest work, working the undercurrents and third parties, the in-between places and whispers at night, none of the open-air sales in broad day.

He wondered if the Hood had been right, after all.

"I have a stowaway," Goldsaddles said.

Those words spelled more than trouble for Rigel. They meant the severing of a family--a fire setting ablaze the orchard into which his lonely tree had been replanted.

"STOWAWAY?" Kell hadn't been paying attention, but the harsh voice alarmed her and the entire caravan. She clenched his abdomen and shoved her face into his neck. She felt like mother nature, wrapping her healthy vines around him, begging him to stay with the other trees.

"Oh, gosh," she said, "I knew it, I knew it."

"Knew... Kell, you couldn't have known."

"This is dad's horse," she said through sobs, "He must have said something to Jean. Like, that he wanted you out, couldn't bear to look at your face, something like that." 

Henri thought upon it and decided that was very likely the case. He hadn't seen Dale since they'd left the forest. And since the night after Green Hood, she'd spent every night in Rigel's tent--though they did nothing but talk til morn and sleep all day.

Whatever was said between Goldsaddle and Stonebrow, he couldn't hear, but he could see. Stonebrow and two men were coming right towards him. He couldn't help but feel the branches snapping around him, smell the smoke of burning apples in the air. There was no time to protest about how he'd damn-near saved the ungrateful man's life; it wasn't as important. He would use all his breaths on someone he cared about, not a petty decision made without his consent.

He'd planted a seed of love somewhere in the girl's heart, and the only noble thing he could do was to slow its withering. "Kell," he whispered, "I'm sorry." She was crying into his shoulder. "I'll always love you, and keep you in my heart. I felt a home here." The men were close now and drawing closer. "But you're strong, and you'll be strong without me, So--"

With strong, practiced hands, they grabbed him from the horse, and punched his face... Dizzy... "Rigel!" the voice was swimming, but swimming... closer. She jumped off the horse and tried pushing away one of the men. "Rigel!" But they pushed her down, into the dirt.

He struggled, though his body seemed to struggle back. He'd always taken the hit and defended the weaker. But his vision went in and out, in and out. "Kell!" He screamed with a voice that seemed to come from another time, another place, as if he was only remembering all this in a dream.

In the dream, they were not in front of a market in Wallton. In the dream, they were in an orchard. The apple trees were black, barren stalks, turned away from the two. She was a goddess in a pool of moonwater, and he was... a tree? He could not move, only sway in the breeze. He couldn't hear much, couldn't see much, only struggle to grasp at the dirt.

But he'd felt the vertigo as they tossed him up, and the gravity as they brought him hard to the ground. His ears rang, his breaths were gone. A bag over the head gave him black he'd known at night, and a sudden sharp pain on the side of his head gave him a black he'd only known in sleep.

The orchard was ashes.

[Deleted]

1 AM, FLORAS 9TH

He awoke in a space with a short roof. Inside was mostly dark, but for an angle of the moon shining on one slate wall.

It smelled like hay and horse, and all that came with both.  He stood to reach for the light. His head was still pounding. He could feel chains around his ankles. They jingled as he moved. A black shape, like a dog, rose from an unnoticed corner, walking into the light.

He gasped in fear, his throat dry. He hadn't eaten or drank in... His head was light as it floated up to the moonlight. The night came rushing in.

6 AM

It was morning, and he could now clearly see the horses for their stables. An orange light filtered through dust--a great amount of dust. There was no dog, only a saddle hooked on the wall.

Something had awoken him. Footsteps came from the rear, behind the old wooden door. It slammed open, and the Stonebrow came out. He was an enormous man, nearly as wide as he was tall. Almost egg-shaped. He grabbed the half-elf boy by the neck and shouted at him, but it just blended with the ringing. Rigel was used to bullies, anyway. "Let them yell," his mother would always say, "And give them silence in return. You let me know which is stronger." So he waited, until the ugly round man stopped his noise.

"I don't trust you here," he said, "An' I don't want to wait for the Guard's Law to deal with you none, neither. They won't do right by Goldsaddles' band, and hell... you'll rot in here before they see you. If'n I don't feed you, which is my plan... So I'll take care of ya myself. Finish it easy." And he dragged Rigel outside the stables, raked him over the cobbled streets.

6:30 AM

The thief was running through the streets. "GIVE ME BACK THOSE KEYS" Stonebrow ran after the urchin, his feet shaking the stones around them. Rigel was struggling to keep up; if he couldn't run as fast as Stonebrow, he'd be dragged along behind him. The man had a strong grip, and a strong gait. Nothing would stop him, not even a grown man attached to his arm.

The boy had run up the stairs ahead, onto the town-surrounding wall. "Wallton," Rigel repeated to himself.

The great brute shot up the wall just as fast behind the boy, but Rigel stumbled to keep from diving face-first into the stairs. It slowed them both down only slightly. Stonebrow cursed to the air. "You're more trouble than you're worth!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Well, if you let me go, you could probably catch up to the thief," Rigel said. The thief in question was gaining ground now, on the thin wall. There was no way the fat man would catch up without losing the stumbling deadweight.

"Why, that's a great suggestion." Stonebrow loosened the chain from his grasp, and started sprinting down the battlement. He moved strangely fast, but there was something tired in it.

Rigel went after him. After all, he would be found eventually, in this huge city... and the thief had something Rigel wanted. A horse. Well, not the horse, per se, but a key to one. It had hit him in the stable--metaphorically--that a horse was his only way out of this damned city.

"CATCH THAT BOY!" The rotund merchant screamed, sweat dripping from his stoney brow, "Guards!" There weren't any guards. It was as if the city had either no budget or no use for guards--or they'd all abandoned their post for some reason. Yet still, the big man shouted. At long last, the thief tripped on an errant brick. In seconds, Stonebrow was upon him. "I've got you now," he said. "You know what happens to thieves, boy?"

The boy mumbled. "M' hand..."

"No, boy. The King's Guard is away on a hunting trip!" The man guffawed. "All his horses and men, gone to the forest..." he swiveled in place, "And they leave me to do this town's justice the way I want... You... You'll..."

By that time, Rigel had caught up. They were all short of breath. The thief's ankle looked sprained; he wasn't moving. Stonebrow bent over, panting. He was covered in sweat. "You look like you're about to die of tiring," Rigel said, "Perhaps you should--"

"Rest! Yes," The man shouted. "I just need a moment's rest... Then I'm gonna throw this... little bastard off the..." He sat upon the wall.

Years later, Rigel would not be able to recall who had pushed the egg-shaped man over the edge--or if the man had simply wobbled and fallen his death due to the pain of running so hard. He would remember, though, that the thief had given Rigel the only key he really wanted from the bunch--the one to the stables.

Perhaps, some day, legends would tell of what had transpired that day--maybe leaving out the thief and the stowaway, and accenting the more amusing characteristics of the egg-man's fall; perhaps stressing the lack of ability on the part of all the King's horses and men to help Stonebrow catch the criminals. But the details of the story were not Rigel's concern. All that mattered now was that he would have a horse, and he would ride.

What more would he need than the road guiding his way north?