City of Flames

I Am Nobody

*** Weekend Write-In for Jul 17 2020 ***

"straight": In 500 plus words, tell what happens when it is straight

ESCAPE

'What can I do?'

The noble knight looked at me askance. 'Start a fire, boy.'

'No fires!' called out the mage.

'The princess is cold.,' objected the noble knight.

'She'll be hotter than she wishes if the fire daemons scent heat,' interjected the courtier.

'Best we huddle for warmth,' the physician said, but his glance at us common folk indicated we were not included.

It had been five rotations now since our six had joined their fourteen, and of course we were all refugees now, though those born in the castle didn't see it that way.

Four were dead, snatched in the darkness by cackling demi-things. I had asked my grandfather why and he had informed me they ate souls.

The well-washer lady, the cripple, the man who farmed next to my departed father in the fields - and one of the men at arms. The creatures had taken indiscriminately, regardless of position, though Zaggar the sober (formerly a soldier, formerly the hamlet drunk) had pointed out that half of us were gone, while only one man at arms had been taken.

Grandfather called Zaggar a fool and said pay no heed. The dark ones wanted to kill us all and we were all that lived from our small principality.

Zaggar had grunted and reminded us that all we peasants had done was fall in behind the fleeing retinue of the princess. We were there simply because we tagged along. But he had appropriated the fallen man at arms sword and was happy to swing it, hopefully in our defense and not just his own.

A few nights later we shivered and were frozen in the mists, but still no fire and a noblewoman had died without heat. I worried for my grandfather who was weakening, but Zaggar said he would support the old man, just as long as there were no attacks.

'This is foolishness,' the noble knight was saying. 'We should head west to the cloud people. The Nimbii have no love for the Daemon Lord. They will shelter us.'

The mage scoffed. 'We go straight. Towards the crack in the sky.'

'That's just a legend,' cried the courtier.

The princess stood. 'If we stay here we will die. The Daemon-kind scour the lands for a thousand gi-strides in every direction.'

'Further into the mists, my Lady?' asked her maid, fearfully.

'Yes, Letty. Our fears tell us the mists are unknown and danger lurks. But where else is safe?'

I asked my grandfather what this legend was, for he was wise and had once travelled as far as Skulltown, some dozen gi-strides away.

But it was Zaggar that answered. 'They say the crack at the edge of the world can be forced open by magics. Then we may pass through.'

'To where?'

'Nobody knows, boy. We may die. Or...'

'Yes?'

'We may arrive somewhere else. Somewhere not of this place. Somewhere safe.'

I nodded and asked no further questions. For I was nobody. I merely followed along.

***

The courtier moaned in terror. 'Hurry. HURRY!'