I also need to introduce our some of our other characters, like the bladedancer Araviss and the necromancer Talisa and her goblin priest Vilavarex. And I don't want to spend 10,000 words introducing shit. So... your thoughts here? Is this a first chapter, a first scene, or do I need to finish through and develop the rest of this idea?
***
“Let me get this straight,” Gaibel said, “you want to go to Caer Lucan? On purpose?”
“Yeah,” Kel replied. “And so do you.” He held out the Commission Sheet he’d taken off the bulletin board back at the Guild Hall. “Look. Fifty golden eagles. Fifty! And that’s just for making the meeting.”
Out in the street a crier called to the passersby. “Hear me! Hear me! Men of the Free Cities, the Lord Commander calls all true patriots to arms. The Legions of the Shellantyr Empire are marching, and only the men of the Free Cities can—“
Kel and Gaibel both stood, trying not to listen. Behind them, old Bruno laughed. His fat belly jiggled, and the brandy in his bottle sloshed in time. “You think you can just walk into Caer Lucan? Fifty eagles ain’t no bargain for a suicide mission, pup. Should’a saved yer coin like old Bruno ‘stead’a spendin’ it on them fancy knives. Then you could’a spent the winter sittin’ on yer fat arse and drinkin’ like I plan to. Now look at ye. Scramblin’ around like a rat in an empty larder.” Bruno shook his head. “Guild’s goin’ to the Hells these days. Guess they’ll just take any old fool anymore, right Gaibel?”
“Shut yer hole, Bruno,” Gaibel snapped. He turned to Kel. “Fat bastard’s got a point though, kid. Caer Lucan ain’t no vacation spot. And fifty eagles ain’t exactly a fortune.” He pointed at the crier. “Ain’t’cha gonna sign up with the Lord Commander? ‘Men of the free Cities’ and all that? ”
“—nly the courage of the Men of the Free Cities can stop the invasion,” the crier called. “Hear me! Hear me! Men of the Free Cities—“
“’Men of the Free Cities’ my arse,” Kel said. “You think just goin’ to Caer Lucan is a suicide mission? Going up against Imperial Legions is suicide, Gaibel. Everyone knows that. That’s why no one wants to join up.”
Kel sighed. Gaibel was a dwarf. Four feet tall, maybe sixteen stone. Stout even by dwarven standards. Round belly—Hells, his belly was almost as big around as Bruno’s—and nigh-on perpetually drunk. But strong as any pair of oxen, and a berserker in a fight. Kel looked down at his friend. What did Gaibel care about the odds of surviving the war? Long as there was a bit a brandy and a few poxy whores following the camp, Gaibel’d be happy as he could be. Still, Kel had to try. Gaibel was practically Kel’s only friend in the Warmaster’s Guild, and Kel didn’t want to head to Caer Lucan with just himself and Modor. That was like to be as suicidal as taking on the Imperial Legions.
“Look,” Kel said, “it ain’t that I’m not a patriot, but seriously? The Lord Commander’s got no chance. He’s gonna raise what? A few thousand men? Modor says it’ll be five at most, and they’ll be militia, maybe leavened by a couple companies of mercenaries. Yeah, he’ll take the Warmasters and a few others. So what? It ain’t gonna matter when the Imperials show up with twelve full legions of professional soldiers. And you know it.
“Truth?” Kel said. “The fifty eagles is just a bonus. Right now I’m figuring that Caer Lucan’s where we go to lay low while the Shellantyr are busy burnin’ the Free Cities down to the ground. Least that’s what Modor says.” Kel shrugged. “After that we can come back and maybe make some money. Who knows? I’m sure there’ll be plenty of work for a couple sellswords after the city’s been burnt down.”
“So yer crazy and a coward?” Bruno asked, laughing. The laugh was ugly, and his breath smelled like stale whiskey. “Kid, you are one strange puppy. No wonder yer momma put you out when you was a babe. She pro’ly dropped you on yer stupid head one too many times and decided to give it up as a bad job. Can’t say I blame ‘er, though. Ugly git like you? Hell, I’d’a sold yer arse to the Shellantyr and been done with it, myself. But hey, a gutter whore ain’t always got that kind’a options, ye know what I’m sayin’?”
Suddenly Kel’s knife was in his hand, the tip of the blade resting lightly against the corner of Bruno’s right eye. Kel didn’t remember drawing it, didn’t remember deciding to draw it. Bruno blinked, clearly caught off guard—Hells, Kel was caught off guard—but this time it was Kel who laughed. “Say it again, fat man, and I’ll feed one’a yer peepers to Gaibel’s dog. What? Can’t find yer tongue now? And you were so funny just a second ago. What do you think, Gaibel? Vixen wanna eat this bastard’s eyeball?”
“Ah, put the knife away, kid,” Gaibel said. “Bruno might be an arse, but this ain’t the time nor the place, and you know it.”
Bruno took a judicious step back, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “Listen to yer friend, kid. You might be fast with them blades, but there’s more to it than just slicin’ up the other guy. You live long enough, might be you’ll learn that.”
“What’d’you know about it?” Kel snapped. “You’re just some shambling old has-been Bruno, and everybody in the Guild knows it. What d’you care if I go to Caer Lucan or not?”
“Care?” Bruno laughed. “Listen puppy, the beautiful thing about bein’ a ‘shamblin’ old has-been’ is that I don’t have to care. Hells, kid, I made my rep ten years before you even heard o’ the Warmasters’ Guild. I been livin’ on a pension practically longer than you been alive.” Bruno stepped out into the street, got ready to walk away. “Look. You wanna go to Caer Lucan, I say ‘Salut!’ The Lord Commander could use you, but what do I care? Like you said, it’s probably a lost cause anyway. But if you think Caer Lucan is gonna be better, then kid, you really are out of your mind. Least the Lord Commander’s goin’ in for a straight-up fight. I mean, they call Caer Lucan ‘The Damned City’ fer a reason. Ain’t nobody hardly never come back from that place, and that was even before the fire and the damned plague.” Bruno shrugged and started to walk away. “But hey, maybe you’ll make it back and prove me wrong. What do I know? In the meantime, enjoy those fifty eagles, kid. Yer gonna earn ‘em, trust me.”
Kel watched him walk away, feeling more than a little helpless. What did Bruno know? The guy was a certified horse’s arse, and everyone knew it. Eventually Kel slid his knife back into its sheath. “Bastard.”
“Eh. You got that right, kid.”
A beat passed, and Kel watched the people. With the invasion, there was a fear, a tension in the air. On the streets. Even in the streets of Jakara, the greatest city in the world, you could feel it. You could see it in the way the men carried themselves, the way the women bargained at the marketplaces. It was a bad scene, and they all knew it. Folks were scared, and they had reason to be. Personally, Kel didn’t want to be in town when the Imperials came and burned it all down. And the Plague had been ten years ago. Surely things must have gotten better since then.
Hells, Kel thought, somebody must’ve survived. Else, how’d they post that commission sheet in the Guild Hall? At length, he said, “Come on, Gaibel, what d’you say? Fifty golds, and we ride out the invasion in some hole up north. That’s not too crazy. Is it?”
“And you say this was Modor’s idea?” Gaibel asked.
“Yeah.”
Gaibel shook his head. “Kid, I think I’m too sober to be havin’ this conversation. Come on. Buy me a drink, and then let’s find us some whores. This’ll make more sense once I’m half off my rocker.”
Kel laughed. “Bel’s tits, Gaibel. Always you and the whores. What is that?”
“Yer talkin’ about headin to Caer Lucan and don’t even wanna get yer ashes hauled first? Hells, I don’t think I’m the one what’s got the problem here, kid.”
“Whatever you say, old man,” Kel said. He smiled. Gaibel was going to say yes. “I’m s’pposed to meet Modor at the Bloody Mermaid at sundown anyway. Knowin’ him, he’ll already have a bottle of the good stuff open on the table.”
“Should’a opened with that, kid. Could’a saved us some time and heartache.”
“Just wanted to be honest with you, Gaibel.”
“Shite. Honesty’s overrated. Like, you’ll learn that in Caer Lucan, though.”
“Long as you’re there to teach me,” Kel replied.
At that, Gaibel stopped dead in his tracks. The street was crowded, and passersby jostled both he and Kel relentlessly as they passed. More than a few stared. Kel stared back. Gaibel ignored them, staring instead at Kel.
“What?” Kel said. “I thought you wanted a drink.”
Gaibel shook his head. “What’ve I gotten myself into with you?”
“Nothing you’ll regret, I expect,” Kel said. “Unless you’d rather fight the Imperial Legions in some hopeless battle out in the Borderlands.”
“Nah. I expect you’re right about that.”
“Then come on,” Kel said. “Modor’s waiting.”
Kel and Gaibel walked down towards the docks district and the Bloody Mermaid. It wasn’t a long walk, but the streets were crowded with wagons. Looking around, it seemed to Kel like every farmer on the Great Southern Plain had decided to harvest early and bring whatever he could sell into the city while some sense of normalcy remained. Most of the wagons were one-horse affairs piled high with half-ripe produce or other goods, and the air itself was thick with the squawks of chickens and the squeal of pigs. As he passed, Kel saw everything from old furniture to ornate, doubtless handmade quilts piled high in the various carts that trundled down the city’s roughly cobbled streets. The farmers themselves were uniformly dirty, rural-looking clods who either stared openly at Kel and Gaibel or else pointedly ignored them. Well, Kel supposed, a hick farmer from the middle of nowhere probably didn’t see regular soldiers every day, much less freeman sellswords.
That’d likely change, though.
Eventually, they came to a wagon with not only a farmer, but also a couple of maybe ten-year-old boys and a beautiful blonde-headed girl of perhaps fourteen winters. The farmer wasn’t old, but he looked tired, beaten down from years of laboring in the fields. Like the rest, his wagon was piled high with grain stocks and corn, but under that was a layer of hard-used furniture, and a pair of large wooden trunks. Behind the wagon, the farmer had tied a skinny-looking cow, and each of the boys held a pig in his arms. The girl rode behind the boys and their father ostensibly darning a shirt, but where the farmer and the boys looked at everything suspiciously, the girl stared in wonder at the great city around her, her work practically ignored. When she looked at Kel, she smiled.
Kel smiled back, touching the brim of his slouch hat and dipping his head in a parody of a bow. “M’lady.”
The girl giggled, but up at the front of the wagon, her father scowled.
Kel ignored the farmer, sliding up to the wagon and leaning in close to the girl. “New to the city, yeah?” he said. “Might be, you’d like a friend? Someone what knew his way around a bit?”
At that, the girl’s eyes grew wide as saucers. She pulled away a bit from Kel, but she kept looking at him, obviously curious. Up front, her father was more direct. He put his hand to a nearby pitchfork. “Ain’t nothin’ fer you here, son. Best ye be on yer way.”
Kel lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Was merely admiring your wares, good sir. Tryin’ to be friendly. No offense was meant.”
“I know what was meant,” the old man said. “We don’t want none. Go on with ye now, and leave my girl alone.”
“But papa—“ the girl began.
Her father cut her off. “Shut yer mouth, girl. That shirt best be finished by the time we get to the inn.”
The girl lowered her eyes. “Yes papa.”
Kel laughed. “I bow to your ferocity, sir.” He looked at the girl. “Perhaps another time, m’lady.”
Kel had to hurry to catch up with Gaibel.
“Pretty girl,” Gaibel said. “But I guess her da’s got too much sense to let her be talkin’ to the likes of you.”
“Eh. He can try, but this ain’t the farmstead. Pretty girl like that? Like to be somebody’ll turn her out. Might as well be me.”
“Refugees, kid. They ain’t here ‘cause they want to be.” Gaibel shrugged. “That old man’s got everything he owns piled up in that wagon, girl included. It’s bad enough he’s got to leave his home and come hide in this no-good, stinkin’ Hell of a city, but then, first thing, some dandy starts chattin’ up his girl. How you s’ppose he ought to react to that?”
“Shite. He don’t let he off the chain a little, she’s like to run away. An then where will she be? There’s worse than me around here, and you know it. All I’m sayin’, he ought to let her make up her own mind while he’s still got some influence.”
“Hells, kid. Your armor’s probably worth more than that wagon. You said it was alligator hide? Dumbass girl like that’ll call it dragonscale. And you want her to choose? She’ll think you’re some lord who’s gonna make her a lady in a castle.” Gaibel shook his head. “That ain’t no basis for choice. We probably made more on our last job than that poor farmer made in the last full year.”
Kel sighed. Gaibel was right, of course. His armor really was alligator hide, reinforced with a layer of ringmail over the chest piece. If Kel had had to buy it, he doubted seriously that he could’ve afforded it, even after having spent three full years as a guild jouneyman. Fortunately, Kel hadn’t needed to buy it. At least, not with gold. He’d taken it off a slaver who hadn’t needed it—on account of his being dead from where Kel’s knife was stuck through his throat.
Still, the armor wouldn’t have fetched what Kel’s short swords would fetch. Each sword was a standard-issue Shellantyr gladius, but both had been edged in silver, and the one on Kel’s right hip bore an elven sigil that Kel had had etched right after their last job. He wasn’t sure that the sigil worked, but it had seemed a bargain at the time he’d had the work done—back when Kel had been flush with coin. Since then, well… coin was a hard thing for Kel to hold. They were talking about going to Caer Lucan, after all. That wasn’t necessarily desperation, but Kel knew it wasn’t the first option of a rich man, either.
At length, Kel and Gaibel turned off the main road towards the docks district. To Kel’s right, he could see the Green and what looked like a company or more of raw recruits drilling with spears and small wooden shields. A handful of experienced City Guardsmen barked instructions at the recruits, but the scene was still a disorganized mess that left Kel feeling worse than ever about the coming war. City Guardsmen were not the same as trained soldiers, and even if they were, the militia’s arms and armor just weren’t equal to the task required. Even experienced pikemen would struggle mightily against the sheer strength and discipline of the Shellantyr shield wall. In the hands of half-trained militia, those spears and shields would be little better than rocks and bare fists.
Kel was relieved when they finally turned the corner, and the Green faded from view. Ahead, the bloody Mermaid rose on a bluff above the docks. Below, the docks themselves spread out for nearly a mile in either direction. The place was thick with a forest of masts and furled sails, and a thousand, thousand voices rose out as teamsters, dock masters, ship’s captains, and trading factors all fought to make space, make way, or just make a living out of the chaos of the late afternoon. It seemed as though five hundred ships had made their way to Jakara for the trading season—likely the last normal such season for quite some time. As such, the snarl of loading and unloading freight had almost completely overwhelmed even Jakara’s massive capacity for trade.
Above the docks and beside the district’s main access road, the Bloody Mermaid was a massive two-story timber structure with a wide porch, great swinging double doors, and huge, inviting windows made from finely blown glass plate. Normally open and inviting, today the Mermaid was thronged with people—mostly roughly-looking sailors or off-duty guardsmen or militia recruits, along with a generous handful of sharp featured whores in low cut, threadbare evening ware. Evenings in late summer Jakara tended to be at least warm, and this one was no exception. In deference to the heat, and perhaps the atmosphere in general, the Mermaid had its doors open. Even from the street, Kel could hear the lilting notes of a well-played harp, accompanied by the voice of what he thought must be an angel.
“You hear that?” Kel said.
“Aye,” Gaibel replied. “Tavern singer. Well, don’t just stand there gapin’. Let’s get inside and see what’s what.”
***
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