Wychling

Chapter 30

Watchmen were swarming the walls of the Old City everywhere they had tried to escape. Tal didn't think it was right to kill a man just because they were trying to protect their homes.

She had had quite the time persuading Suma that she was right on that point. She wasn't convinced that his decision to turn back was because she had convinced him, and not because he was tired, and still injured. She looked at his nicked ear and felt her stomach twist.

Suma turned his head suddenly, a deep rumble of irritation escaping him.

~Stop your whining, Little Mouse! It is how it must be: a lesson. The pain and scars are there to make us wiser not weaker. So, stop projecting your childish empathy at me like a little girl with her kitten. I am NOT your pet~

Tal cringed from the anger in his words, instinctively curling up, but he had already turned back to consider the town sprawled below them.

Torches streamed everywhere, a river of fire lighting the main streets, as bells rang out throughout the sprawling metropolis clinging to the water's edge. There were large patches of shadow where people hid in their homes, erstwhile friendly streets deserted in this night of terrors. The unrest had sparked looting and fighting in some small sections of the city, but the Watch could be seen closing in, and these areas were soon settled by the noisy fracas of batons meeting flesh.

In the crossroads and squares though, something much darker was happening. Acolytes of The Great God in brown robes shouted at the seething crush of panicked people and focussed their fear, turned it to rage. Tal didn't need three guesses to see where that was going to land. She hugged Suma fiercely as he prowled through alleyways and occasionally over rooftops in the dark, abandoned places. Seeking, moving, always moving.

A few times they were nearly discovered. There were just so many people out that it was nearly impossible to move around in the streets at all. The Watchmen were swarming the walls protecting the Old City as they were bound to do in an emergency; small squads ran from trouble to trouble, trying to quell the rioting and panic, and the fearful, opportunistic and ambitious were lurking at every corner. Soon enough they were forced onto the rooftops again. Suma crouched so low Tal was certain her toes would scrape the floor.

Everything ached. After her frantic flight from the Fat Monk she had thought that there were no muscles left to strain. She had been wrong. This clinging on for dear life had found and punished a whole new muscle group or three, and now they were forced to the rooftops, they were making regular leaps across wide streets filled with the mob of terrified, angry citizens. She was holding on for dear life as Suma bunched his muscles and sprang, over and over again. They surged silently above the chaos below, always landing silently, undetected.

It became such a repetitive motion that she lost herself in thought, her body going through the necessary motions without need for mental prompting from Suma. She was fascinated by the amount of things she could experience just by listening to Suma's thoughts. So it took Tal a while before she realised that they had stopped. She dropped to the floor, grateful for the chance to rest creaking muscles. Suma was looking out over the city again, or rather, one square, that they sat above.

A compound wall rose uniformly square, ten feet high, wrapping a small cluster of buildings that had the squat and stout look of those that were constructed for defence, not comfort. Thin-slitted windows gave good lines of sight from the second and third floors of the largest building to the gates at the front, and the open ground of the square beyond them.

There was no market here. No bustling shops, or lively merchant's stalls to create the noise that came with hundreds of people rubbing elbows all day long. There was just an open space, suspiciously empty. Ominous, even when the gibbet wasn't raised for a sizable crowd to see.

Even in this chaos and confusion, nobody wanted to approach the Old Barracks. In most places the local policemen were a civil force, but the creation of the Republic had been bloody and against the odds. Fighting not only the Old Baron but other powerful nobles of the Old Empire too; no ruler likes seeing his neighbour thrown down by his people, for it might well be his head on the chopping block next.

The Watchmen of Darkport had originally been a civil police force, paid by the Merchant's Guild to keep order in the markets and docks, and they had taken great pride in protecting the people they served.

When the corrupt Old Baron had declared martial law under false pretences; in an effort to squeeze the port of all wealth and take it under his ownership at a cut-throat price, some had resisted and rebelled. The army had been sent in to put down the uprising.

The Old Baron's army were a hundred years removed from war. Undisciplined, corrupt and fit only for putting down peasant rebellions, harshly. The Watchmen had stood by for a few minutes as the slaughter unfolded, before facing spears and shields with iron banded clubs and righteous fury.

It was said that many good men fell that day, but many and more bad men besides. The Watchmen had broken the lines of the Baron's Army and the mob had spilled in behind, tearing apart the cruel men that had gone from a unified force to fleeing, beaten cowards in the course of a few bloody minutes.

Decades later the Watchmen were considered an integral part of the Republican Militia, the professional core of the conscripted army. Highly trained and always outnumbered; they were the forefront of the defence of Darkport.

The esteem, and fear they were held in, showed in the respectful distance the mob kept from the Old Barracks, and the silent streets Tal and Suma were crouched above; watching, waiting.

Tal couldn't see any movement in the barracks but, like Suma, she kept completely still, watching intently. Her eyes slowly adjusted. After a few moments she thought she saw some flicker of movement at one window on the second floor of the main building.

She instinctively nudged at Suma with her mind, trying to draw his attention to the guard. He didn't move, but suddenly she was reaching up to touch his neck. She didn't remember wanting to do it, but the act seemed so natural that, without really thinking about the reason for it, she carefully brushed his shoulder.

A gasp escaped her. As soon as she touched him, the night came alive. She heard the two guards on the inside of the large gate talking; worrying about extended family, and exchanging the usual barbed comments that only true friends share. She saw the small blur of heat coming from the Watchman, leaning bored against the second-floor window, and the cold wooden haft of a crossbow rested on his leg. Suma then drew her attention to the roof, a door, and his plan.