The Chronicle of the Worthy Son

Broken Barriers

The barricade looked no worse than it had yesterday, surrounded by torches and armed enforcers in the lethargic gloom. Able lingered at the street corner, but perhaps he should be ducking back into a side street. Even if he thought up an alternative reason to be here this late, his presence alone could spur the enforcers into hunting around for Resistance activity, and someone might get hurt. Then again, someone might get hurt anyway.

Able had just turned to walk back up the street and consider his options out of view when the horn sounded. He whirled and raced back to the square to see that the line of guards was also racing away towards the east end of the blockade. He stilled in his tracks when they lined up with their long-guns aimed at the end. Were those gray-clad fighters rushing out of the line of fire, or was he imagining what he expected to see? His heart shot into his throat and he braced himself.

But the first volley did not come, only shouts and another resounding horn. An enforcer rushed out of the inn, skidded to a halt, then raced back inside shouting at the others to get on their feet. The eastern end was too far away to see, and the inn too near to being seen. And in Kettlebrook, Able had been too damn close. Not doing that again.

He scanned the houses lining the street parallel to the blockade. Several had third stories and one of them a balcony overlooking the whole scene. Perfect. He sprinted to it but not to knock at the door as he could just imagine how the inhabitants might feel about a Larbant asking to use their balcony while this was going on. Instead he stalked around the side yard and, in luck, found a fire-escape ladder.

It creaked and groaned under his weight as he ascended, and once he was halfway up, a nail popped loose. Surely it only sounded loud because he was holding onto it. Surely no one would notice over the shouts out front. They would have doused their lamps and be huddling around the windows in front, surely.

At least, the window he'd arrived at was shuttered. He felt along the top of the frame until he found purchase enough to hold on while he got his feet onto the sill. He could see over the edge of the roof now, but could he actually get up? ...at least it wasn't moving like a horse.

Blocking out the noise from the street so he wouldn't rush himself, he felt along the shingles for purchase again. Why were they so steep? Because they were rough wood? Well, at least they weren't smooth. He spread his arms wide to brace himself on the roof, then got one toe onto the top of the frame where his hand had been. Then, pretending it was a stirrup, he hauled himself up. He didn't slip.

He still paused to regather his nerves before he scrambled onto the roof and shimmied along the steep incline of it until he reached the front of the house. He lowered himself onto the balcony with considerably more ease, then hunkered down behind the rail while he caught his breath and rubbed at the scrapes the shingles had given his hands.

His perch gave him roughly the same view of both ends. While the east end of it was now a mass of enforcers struggling to ring in the invading Resistance with swords and torches, the west end had opened up and the Aimsby residents within were stealing away into the dark streets. Able peered through the smoke on one side and the dimness on the other and counted how many escaped. The ruse lasted ninety-six seconds, at least since Able had started watching, before more enforcers came out of the inn, saw the runners, and began grabbing and attempting to subdue the people that didn't run fast enough.

The eastern end even messier, and it looked like many of the Resistance fighters had ducked inside the Barricade to get away from the guns—which still had not been fired—unaware that the escape on the other side was now cut off. A piece of the barricade on this end was burning too, the wet wood unlikely to catch further but still obscuring the situation in more smoke. Still, the push to exit the western end stalled.

Tanner stomped onto the street with a platoon, armed to the man with maces. They advanced on the center of the structure and began rhythmically smashing it in. Able had already been tense from the onslaught of shouts and screams, and these fresh ones were even nearer, but he grit his teeth and refused to look away as the structure broke apart as easily as Green had predicted it would. As their shelter was shredded away, the people inside scrambled into a press to the west, but they had nowhere to flee the encroaching maces and several of them crumpled beneath cruel blows.

A piece of fence broke off the other rubbish and bounced into Tanner's face, forcing him back, and then swung about to knock three of his men back through the hole—no, the fence was being wielded like a shield and weapon both by a man in black. The Shadow charged them again to push them back even further. He then retreated to kick an enforcer he'd missed out of the hole in the barricade and filled it in with himself.

Able glanced west to see the frantic press in the center had led to a desperate push and the people in the barricade were ignoring the threat of the swords to break free and run. Soon, every enforcer had their hands full and the rest of the Borealunders were streaming away into the dark. Able glanced east to see the guns still aimed at the exit, flickering with a slowly spreading fire.

The Shadow fended off several blows from Tanner with his makeshift shield but it shattered more with each blow until he was left with two pieces. Tanner's men had set about widening the hole while the Shadow was occupied with him, so now he was having to lash out at them too, else be surrounded. Able couldn't be certain at this distance, but the Shadow did not seem to have the same unconcerned air as that other night. He seemed...ill at ease trying to protect the mass of unarmed people running past his back. He was failing, losing ground, and the wood in his hands had been reduced to useless shards.

So now the Shadow threw himself into Tanner's next swing, blocking it with his body. He staggered back but kept his feet long enough to vanish into the thinning rush of people fleeing the incursion of maces. Tanner's group continued to break down the refuge as they followed along behind the fleeing Resistance. Able forced himself to breathe again as he peered at the west end to see if the Shadow exited. But he couldn't make out many individuals in the crush of gray-clad fighters attempting to pull the rioters free of the enforcers trying to arrest them. They could not all escape, and some had to be abandoned as Tanner's mace-wielders closed in and more enforcers from the east side came to help.

The remaining lawmen at the east side began dismantling the blockade as well, which a half dozen gray-clad fighters cleverly took as a cue to race out the center hole and vanish into the streets south. Able might have been the only one who saw them. The captured rioters or Resistance fighters had been subdued, so the enforcers on the west side regrouped and began sifting through and dismantling the remains of the barricade for casualties. No shots had been fired, but certainly people had died all the same.

Able settled into his perch and pulled out his notebook. As best he could in the dark, he made a sketch of the barricade and noted down as many details as he could remember under it. He was double-checking it for errors in the dawn light before he realized his hand hadn't shaken. He held on to this newfound confidence as he shimmied back across the roof to the ladder and down.