... Lady Red Tavern, Baedorn
"So you all pack in here at night?"
"Anywhere there's a heavy door and we can barricade the windows, really." The man beside Akkali scratched at his hairless chin. "It's getting pretty bad. The only one's that got any business these days are the coffinmakers and the undertakers-they're pleased as pigs in shit."
Grinning, Akkali swirled what was left of her drink in her mug, then made it disappear down her throat. She had been chatting with the tavern's barback Imarin for the last half hour, ever since she had come upon him unloading the last of that day's bread from a cart in the side alleyway. Giving the Enkiri a hand, she found he was actually very good company with a glib sense of humor that would have gotten him flogged to death were he born in the Empire. He had a wife who worked as a seamstress and a daughter who was fond of keeping pigeons in a coop at the back of their tiny home near Cheapside. Like most others she had crossed paths with since arriving, he was wary about the things going on at night in the city but unlike the rest of the gibbering fools he actually had a rational take on the entire thing. It was the only reason she had stuck around for so long speaking with the man.
The dozens of people packed into the tavern on the other side of the wall barely made enough noise to pass through the crack beneath the door of the dim storage room where they sat atop kegs of unopened lager. The mood was grim and penitent, as if everyone felt they had done something wrong and were now getting their comeuppance. There were terse, short conversations and a lot of drinking judging by the clanking mugs and tankards, but not much else. Even the minstrels refrained from playing anything too upbeat lest they be accused of trying to make light of the situation. With the depressing conversations and lack of frivolity she was surprised no one was belting out funeral dirges and carving their wills into the bar tables in preparation for their impending demise.
"So they roam about the streets and snatch people up?"
Imarin gave her a shrug. "Nobody's claimed any any of the bodies, and some were on display for a few days before they were burned. But they have to come from somewhere, don't they?" He topped off her glass from one of the half-full pitchers he had been wiping down to keep his hands busy. "You see any raiders outside the city?"
"Not a damn one," replied the Enkiri with a frown. "I was hoping they were taking an autumn holiday."
Stuffing his polishing cloth in the pocket of his apron he chuckled and scratched at the bridge of his nose. "I don't know much else than the fact that they aren't raiding. I'm just the barback after all-haven't actually been outside the city in years. But if I had any coin I'd put it on them's being the stock for all the corpses. Wouldn't be such a bad thing if people'd just keep their bloody shops open. It's been a generation since anything came through the Grand Gate without having paid the raider's tariff."
Thinking quietly for a bit, she upended her mug and drained what was left. She set it aside and considered what she had gathered so far from the four taverns where she had found people willing to talk while Imarin turned his attention back to tallying the barrels of alcohol left in the tavern's stores. She noticed he couldn't write, as was the case with most of the poor in the Oribian, but he kept track of everything with hatch marks and symbols that looked almost exactly like the stamps the breweries burned into their kegs. The man could have lead a profitable life as a forger judging by the details he drew on his small sheets of paper.
City-wide the story went that a little over a month ago dead people began popping up in the streets overnight. Dead, disfigured people, in twos and threes all in places that one wouldn't normally use to dump a body. And while the city coroner had confirmed that they were human-apparently there had been a mob that had demanded a public autopsy, of all things, where all the internal organs had been removed and matched up to a recently and naturally deceased fool murdered in a bar fight-the bodies on the surface resembled twisted monsters. Every one of them was misshapen and gnarled as though they had been charred by "flames of the Inferno."
She didn't know what the exact difference between actual flames and the flames from the human's mythical hell was, but obviously they were special enough that they contorted the people burned by them into grotesque and unnatural shapes instead of just blackening them to charred lumps of meat. Within a day or so someone had spoken the word "demon" aloud and common superstition along with the gossip-mongers had exaggerated reality from that point on. It never ceased to amaze her how easy it was to sew panic through a population with just a few words whispered into the ears of the local knitting circles. It also didn't help matters that the Ovan himself ruled the place like an utter moron, dumping his revenue in matching gear for his guardsmen or fancy feasts for himself and his chosen few instead of hiring town criers who could have at least mitigated the fear festering in his streets.
Now no one opened their doors at night for fear something would come in and take them away. As soon as the sun sunk low enough to allow the twilight stars to appear everyone was indoors tentatively awaiting first light. The only people on the city streets at night were the guardsmen and the soldiers manning the walls. And since the guardsmen stuck to the Noble Quarter and the soldiers never left the gates, it left whatever was depositing the dead in the streets free to run amok in every part of the city in between. But despite all this no one had actually seen or heard anyone going through the streets dropping off bodies. Akkali knew just how much trouble hauling around dead weight actually was, and there was no way to cart a body from one place to another in absolute silence unless one was a seven-foot giant who also had footfalls as quiet as a mouse's sneeze.
So, as was the case with most unexplained and gruesome incidents that happened among the human population, a demon had done it. Intimately familiar with the subjects of both demons and the Unholy magics, Akkali knew better. In all likelihood it was some demented human mage experimenting with espiri magic and doing a very bad job of conjuring life back into the dead. But blaming it on demons was far easier for the rank and file idiots to stomach-it also gave the Inquisition leeway to walk around and interrogate people on a whim while letting everyone go on believing that there was no way their very own neighbors could be the ones responsible for such heinous acts.
Now that she thought about it, that was probably another reason people were keeping off the streets. Inquisitors tended to be very intimidating in their shiny metal suits, and their interrogation methods were nothing short of legendary. She couldn't think of anyone who would willingly submit themselves to their so-called Trials of Truthsaying simply to prove their innocence. Being burned at the stake was less painful, not to mention a much quicker way to die.
"Humans and their stupid superstitions."
"Superstition or not, the corpses keep coming up from the ground like weeds," muttered the man with a shake of his head. "Anyway, best get back to it. It was nice speaking to one of us from the outside." He hesitated for a moment. "You said you were meeting your Inferi friend at Fiddler's Pipe?"
She glanced over at him and nodded. "In a bit. I think I might lurk in a few more taverns if I've the time."
Imarin glanced at the doorway, then looked back to her. "The very first I heard about things like this, I heard it from my cousin. He works the mines up north and they found three bodies like the ones here about two months back. Reported it to the Ovan, but of course nothing happened."
"Point tunnelers?"
The barback tapped the tip of his nose, then shrugged. "The foreman of the mine keeps a room at Fiddler's, and I heard he was back in town to settle up with the seneschal now that the mine's closed."
Akkali hopped to her feet and pulled the hood of her coat back over her head to obscure her face. She tossed the man two silver pieces and grinned at his utterly confused expression at suddenly receiving more money than he was likely to make for his week's worth of work. "One for your pocket, the other if the tavern master asks where his ale went. Otherwise buy your little girl and her mother a pretty dress."
He smiled and nodded. "Thank you."
"No, thank you. I have been wanting a good drink in good company for weeks." Waving over her shoulder, she let herself out the back door of the tavern and slipped the door shut silently.
Looking up and down the back alley and seeing no one except the mongrel dog that had started shadowing her for some fool reason. She had no idea what kind of dog it was, but it was long-legged, sickly thin, and apparently very fond of her. Knowing that trying to shoo it away yet again was a waste of effort, she ignored it and set out to wander the shadows to search for another tavern with an Enkiri barback or maid to have a conversation with.
The alleys in Baedorn were cramped and filthy, but no moreso than in any other city with its population. There was less laundry hanging overhead, but that was probably because nothing would dry outside in the fog anyway. She had also come across fewer rats.
Gendelheim had been positively brimming with rats, and they were all fat and vicious little things that challenged the curs in the alleyways for territory. With the complete lack of trade in the markets it was very likely that the rats were being eaten. She made a mental note to avoid consuming meat while in the city. While she wasn't above eating rodent, she definitely wasn't about to do it willingly if she wasn't starving. Animals tasted like what they ate, and no matter how many times people told her it tasted like chicken or pig or goat, rat really tasted like stringy, mealy meat boiled in rancid bilge water. Cave lichen was more appetizing, really.
The mutt nipped at the back of her leg and Akkali resisted the urge to kick it for being annoying. Even the lightest of impacts would have probably broken its leg. If it weren't so filthy and skinny it would have been a good pet, but she didn't have the kind of life that lent itself well to keeping a pet. Sighing, she stopped to see what it wanted, knowing that it wouldn't stop trying to get her attention until she heard it out.
It was staring intently down a side alley she had intended to avoid because it was a dead end. Generally she didn't go anywhere she couldn't climb her way out of, but at the far end she could just make out what the dog found so interesting.
Curled up into a pile of twisted limbs was a dead body. Or at least what smelled like a dead body from where she was standing. It was barely recognizable as anything more than a heap of flesh with some spare bones sticking out here and there. She would know the stink of human decay anywhere, though. It was an unfortunate skill she had picked up over the years wandering around in the places most people dare not cast their eyes.
"I guess this means I owe you a dinner," said Akkali reluctantly, looking down at the dog. The mutt seemed to grin up at her and its pointed ears rotated forward, obviously pleased with the praise. It gave a pitiful but happy yip at the mention of food. "Yes, yes, you are a good dog. Don't suppose I could ask you to be lookout here, could I?"
The dog compliantly sat down on the ground and assumed a watchful stance, casting its bright blue eyes up and down the alley for intruders. Its change in demeanor made her laugh. "All right then, you watch for bad people and I'll get you something at the next tavern I stop in. It will probably be rat, though, so hold off on the thanks until you're certain it's really chicken."