CHAPTER 19 - GARROW'S CLAIM

  Levan picked up his pace as the sun overhead began to set.

  The forest had grown dense, dense enough that Levan had to squeeze between trees to keep moving forward.

  More than once he thought he was lost, or his going impossibly slow—then he would see a large tree stump scoured with a lightning scar, or a small bed of river stones, or some other description fitting the exact landmark Bill Weathering had described, and he kept on.

  The rings were beautiful, at least.

  Even through the overlapping oak leaves and pine thistles that reached high overhead, the spaces between kept the sky, and the icy rings that surrounded the planet.

  As the setting sun split into a glorious spectrum, the millions of ice crystals that made up the planetary rings adopted a bit of that color, a tiny piece of spectrum they could hold all their own.

  Running out of time.

  Old Bill had suggested he arrive well before sunset.

  Well, it was sunset—had he meant before sunset was over, or before it started?

  It didn’t matter. He had to hurry.

  He had to—

  Levan stopped. To his right was an oak that stretched taller than the pines. Another landmark.

  He was close.

  He picked up speed as the density of the forest, at long last, began to give way, the trees, roots, and shrubs beginning to spread out once more.

  Over the hill, over the second hill, and—

  There it was.

  A steep drop off in a ring around the forest as a new hill, this one larger than the rest he’d seen, rose into the distance.

  Sheesh, Levan thought, taking in the town. Not just the town, in truth. The entire area.

  The path leading down to the base of the hill, the hill itself, and the village itself, were all crowned with phalanx after phalanx of wooden stakes.

  The village could barely even be seen, so numerous the sharpened stakes on the hill, and so tall was the wooden palisade that formed a wall around it.

  Other natural and man-made features were just as eye-catching, and just as obscured by defenses: Off to the northeast of the hill was what looked like a pit or mine entrance, fortified, but not as much as the city. A lumber yard far to the north was visible by the trees stacked lengthwise on a platform of dense blonde wood. They looked like gigantic, full-oak and full-pine versions of his waist-high log bundles.

  There was the remnants of an large pen, maybe for animals or horses—but the defenses here had fallen away, the palisades broken through and splintered, nature already starting to cover them in vines and moss.

  “Aetherize,” Levan whispered.

  [ Shortsword has been added to Aetherial Stores ]

  He then began his descent.

  Carefully—incredibly carefully, Levan avoided impalement time after time, often clinging to the wooden stakes themselves for balance, moving from stake to stake, carefully navigating the wooden defenses like a spider along a web, until he finally reached the base of the hill.

  From the base of the steep hill, the palisades above seemed to almost rain down on him, at least those angled down.

  Now there were barriers, too, wooden gates and fences he had to climb over or around.

  The defenses for Garrow’s Claim would have been almost comical, seeming unnecessary, if it weren’t for the stains of blood on the wood. Nearly every wooden stake he avoided had claimed someone, or something, at some time.

  He gazed up, the clouds now more dark and only tinged with orange.

  Got here before sunset, he thought. Sort of.

  He reached the top of the hill, a gatehouse of wood bound and reinforced with iron and the blonde iron wood. Above was a gate surrounded by two short towers, and a gate house.

  “Who goes?” a voice called from the gate house.

  “…I…do,” Levan called back to the gate watcher.

  Stupid idiot, he berated himself.

  He couldn’t make out the person’s details, even their rough shape.

  He did see them turn their head to someone else.

  “…Alright,” the guy said, “Starting gate open!” he called.

  “Starting gate open!” someone said in the distance.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Starting gate open!” someone else said even farther away.

  “Opening!” the first figure called, and the iron latches of the gate turned and fell away, and the gate creaked open.

  “Open!” he called a moment later, and like the gate watcher’s earlier call, this too was echoed from other voices beyond the village.

  It was barely open.

  Open enough that if Levan turned to his side and shimmied through, he could make it.

  I really hope all this is paranoia, Levan thought, as he sucked in his breath and squeezed through the open gate, which promptly closed behind him, the iron latches shut.

  And not rationality.

  ****

  About thirteen people swarmed Levan the moment he passed through the gate to Garrow’s Claim.

  Men and women, children, across all ages, in all manner of garb. No soldiers, as far as he could tell. No uniformed ones, at least, certainly none of the red-armor wearing ones who’d sacked the city.

  The city—which was apparently top priority.

  “What news from Sandesar? Has it been sacked? What of Britebridge?” A man a bit older than Levan asked.

  “Have you heard from my cousin, stranger—” a woman slightly younger than him began at the same time.

  “Are you a merchant?” a boy asked, “D’you have any toys?”

  “N—no toys,” Levan stammered, turning in what felt like three directions at once.

  “What kind of toys?” a little blonde girl asked.

  “Boy—Sandesar—has it been sacked?” the first man asked urgently.

  “Yes,” he said, clumsily shoving as much sympathy into his expression as he could.

  He felt hands on his shoulders.

  “Hey—“ Levan began to protest, before he felt hands grope at his ankles, up his thighs—

  “No weapons,” a woman said, flashing him an apologetic smile.

  “Hey!”

  “She don’t mean no insult by it, boy,” an older man said, and a group of three older people let out small chuckles.

  “Hang—hang on,” Levan said.

  His face was beginning to sweat.

  “I don’t—”

  “Clear!” someone shouted. A woman’s voice.

  Please, no one else.

  “What of Britebridge? Has Britebridge been sacked?”

  “Is he a merchant?” Someone asked.

  “You’ve got choys on yer khart though, shore-leh,” a little boy said in a rough accent Levan could almost place.

  “Choys?”

  “Choys, ya know, ya pley with choys,” the boy said in an almost Liverpudlian accent, jamming his hands together as if playing with dolls.

  “No, no Toys. No cart.”

  “Y’v’ain’t got a khart?” the boy frowned. “What chinda mare-chant are you?”

  “I’m not a merchant.”

  “Nota mere-chant?!” the little boy said in a strong accent.

  “Funny looken merchant,” another little boy said, and the other two jabbed him with their elbows. Then the accent hit him. At least an approximation.

  More people were crowding him.

  The kids kept arguing,

  “Hey—Lennon, McCartney,” Levan grumbled, pointing at the two kids. “Sorry—not a merchant.”

  “Told yeh,” the third boy said.

  “I guess you’re Ringo,” Levan said to the third boy.

  “Wot?”

  “That means you’re George. Sorry,” Levan said to a little blonde girl who was tugging on his pant leg.

  The girl frowned.

  “I am George?” she half asked, confused.

  “I like George,” Levan said exasperated. “I thought he was the most experimental, I just meant sorry because George is a boy’s name. There’s just four of you and you sort of sound like—”

  “George is…boy’s name?” the little girl asked in horror.

  Tears welled up and her face began to turn red.

  She spun. “Ma!” she cried out, covering her crying face with her hands and disappearing into the crowd.

  “The toye meerchant, ‘e says ah’ve got a boys nahme, can’t be troo cannet?”

  “Wait, I—”

  “Loochatche, yeh mede George cry,” Lennon said, shaking his head.

  “Why’d you do that?” Ringo said, frowning. “Adults aren’t s’posed to be mean to kids, not like that.”

  “I—” Levan stammered.

  “Don’t thenk a’ve ever seen George cry,” McCartney said, shaking his head. “D’ya at least have a toy for ‘er, perhaps in yer khart?” he asked, his expression one of innocent curiosity only truly a little shit can pull off.

  “No,” Levan said flatly, though his voice was shaking.

  “And no cart I’m not a merchant—”

  “Clear the way!” the voice came again.

  “Oy!” someone said charging at him. “What’s this about you making my little Georgie cry?”

  Too many people, all crowding him.

  “Can I get some space please,” he said in a small voice.

  “Britebridge,” the younger man said again. “Ignore the kids. Britebridge, mate. Has Britebridge been sacked? Seized?”

  “I—I don’t know, I’m sorry, I’m—”

  “CLEAR THE WAY.”

  “I DON’T KNOW!” Levan screamed, just a split second after the rest of the crowd went silent, and for that brief moment, his was the loudest sound in the village by far.

  “I don’t know,” he said, turning to each of them, all of them. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

  Murmuring their disappointment, the crowd parted way.

  “Can you fight, at least,” the young man who’d asked about Britebridge asked. “Can you help?”

  There was desperation in his expression.

  “I…”

  “He’ll help,” someone said.

  She strode through a gap in the crowd, which parted before her like the sea.

  The words seemed to put the crowd slightly at ease.

  “But you’re crowding him, people,” the woman said, in the same accent the children and other villagers had, though not quite as thick. “He’s been through it, I’d wager,” she said. “Come now, you see a man, no possessions, robes a’bloody and you swarm him? Man’s got to breathe.”

  “Thank you,” Levan said, tired. “I’m Levan. A guy named Bill Weathering sent me.”

  Assuming I didn’t hallucinate him.

  The woman gave him a blank stare. “I have no idea who that is.”

  Great.

  “Thanks again, it’s been—” he began.

  “Don’t be thanking me yet,” the woman said, glancing up at the sky.

  “Rose,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “Levan,” he said, and shook it.

  “You don’t sound from here’sabouts, Levan,” she said. “You can disperse, now,” she said, putting on the accent once more and making a shuffling motion with her hands. “Go’on, disperse.”

  Dis-pear-se.

  Most of the crowd faded, and the ones left over—all of them at least teenagers or older, waited patiently. Only the nervous guy asking about Britebridge tapped his foot restlessly, muttering to another villager, who didn’t react, only looked at Levan.

  “I’m not from here’sabouts,” Levan said. “I’m from very far away.”

  An idea came.

  “And I remember very little,” he said, as if a confession. “I awoke in Sandesar,” he said, looking towards the nervous man. “But everything was chaos, and—I don’t remember much from before.”

  Rose nodded. “Were you a soldier?” she asked in a clear voice.

  “No,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You sure?”

  “Do I look like a soldier?”

  “You look like a priest,” Rose said, with a smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes. “But my priest says you aren’t.”

  Only when one of the older men tapped himself on the chest could Levan see the outline of faded robes beneath the layers of leather and hide armor.

  “I’m not a priest,” he agreed. “I don’t know what I was. A student, I think.”

  “A student?”

  This raised eyebrows.

  Oh, right. Could be half these people can’t even read.

  “What Monastery?” Rose asked.

  Levan shrugged.

  “So you remember very little,” Rose tested. “Perhaps you remember more than you say?”

  “If I did, it wouldn’t be for malicious purposes.”

  Rose’s jaw clenched.

  She looked up at the setting sun.

  “Start preparations,” she said, and one of the villagers left, taking the nervous Britebridge asker with them.

  “Preparations for what?”

  One or two villagers chuckled humorlessly, but most either didn’t react or closed their eyes sadly.

  “It’s the First Sliver Moon,” Rose said, gazing up at the sky where, sure enough, a scythe-like sliver of moon could be seen beyond the planetary rings. "They'll come from the forest."

  She frowned, gazing out beyond the gate, seeing further in thought than in reality.

  Then she seemed to snap back to herself.

  “It’s the palisades, you see,” she said to Levan, shifting emotions again, and favoring him with a smile. “They need a fresh coat of red paint.”