It was odd to, very suddenly, see how the other half lived.
Here we were, myself and my two closest friends, surprisingly dropped into the lives of fugitives. Less than a day after we had first uncovered signs of… something… going on within the hierarchy of the church of Morta, and we were now needing to hide from them. Especially when you consider that, prior to this, we had been some of their most capable agents within the city… it was beyond frustrating. “So, Sarge…” started Annette. “Don’t finish that question,” I responded. “I don’t know yet.” It was the morning after our battle to escape from the barracks and Scar’s death. At that moment, we were taking shelter under a bridge. Around us were the lowest of the city’s population – the infirm. Those whose body wouldn’t be worth anything when they died, because it wouldn’t be in good enough condition. They only survived as long as they did by begging, stealing, and know what to avoid and when not to ask questions. As soon as we’d arrived, they’d recognised that we were very much amongst those to avoid. “Sarge will sort it,” said Blade. “Sarge always does.” Somehow, their confidence in my abilities, whilst normally comforting, was anything but. I simply didn’t know how to sort the problem out. However, it did highlight that the two of them needed leadership and, like it or not, that was what I got paid for. Well – probably not anymore, but the principle didn’t change. “First things first,” I said, stalling for time. “We have limited resources now – really, just what we were carrying with us – and any movement in the city will be a risk. If we’re careful, we can afford to eat for a few weeks, but we’ll be living and sleeping in places like this. There are probably places in the city where it would be an acceptable risk to be more a part of society, but we obviously don’t know where those places are. “We know there is some kind of conspiracy within the priesthood – but we have no idea how far it goes, or what it is trying to achieve. Similarly, we don’t know whether we were targeted because we uncovered the conspiracy, or because the church thinks we are a part of it…” “Or simply because the church don’t want to us to know they are having problems.” Annette interrupted, but I didn’t mind. We’d known each other long enough that she knew that she could feel free to make her points without waiting for me to finish. “Right,” I agreed. “We need support from somewhere if we are going to make any headway there. For today, let’s split up and meet back here tonight. Keep a low profile, don’t draw attention to yourselves, and let’s try to find somewhere more comfortable than here that is still secure. Ideally somewhere we can also make some more money.” Annette and Blade both nodded and headed out into the city. For a moment, I wondered if I’d given the right order – it would be dangerous for us to be alone. Then again, we’d be more obvious as a group. I was completely out of my depth, but I couldn’t let them see that. They’d both been calling me ‘Sarge’ for so long, it had become more my identify than my actual name, and that title brought responsibility with it. They expected me to lead them, and so I had to. A few minutes after they left, I did the same and started to wander the streets. I decided to head towards the walls – the centre of the city was the busiest area and had the most churches and, therefore, a far heavier priest presence. Out by the walls there would still be shrines, but they’d each only have a couple of priests at most, and many of them not even that. If there was anywhere in the city where we could hide from Morta’s servants, closer to the edge would be it. It was, of course, easy enough to keep to shadows – the constant cloud cover let only a little sunlight into the city, and it was always dark to one degree or another. People gave me a wide berth, which I didn’t notice immediately, as it was quite normal. Only after I’d been walking for several minutes did I realise that this wasn’t a good way to blend in. However, there was little I could do – no matter how much I tried to change my stance and appear non-threatening, I was still wearing weapons, which would give anybody pause, as only somebody that could use them would carry them. I moved from street to street, always trying to choose the quieter options whilst still making my way outwards. It seemed bizarre that life, for most of the population, was still going on. None of these other people knew about what had happened, and I wondered for a moment what they would make of it if they found out. News would eventually get out – the church couldn’t hide the burning down of a barracks, or the use of the dead in the city, could they? As I moved, I lingered near taverns and listened to conversations. People going about their business and little of interest. Nothing about the events of the previous night, and if people did know how to avoid the priests, they were cautious enough not to discuss it in the open. There must be ways – the cremations didn’t keep organising themselves, and so there must be ways for those who didn’t agree with Morta’s doctrine to make contact with each other. Why had we never asked about anything like this before? We’d concerned ourselves with the incident before us, but never worked to stop them from taking place. We’d trusted that side of things to the priests. As I walked, my mind started to wander back to Annette’s theory of the day before. If the priesthood had wanted to find out about anything of that sort, they could easily do so – they could speak to the dead. The only thing that might stop them would be if the body belonged to an apostate from the faith. Could Annette have been right? Could there be a cult following of the Lords of Light somewhere in the city who could, through their own perversion of faith, hide their final thoughts from Morta? Was the alternative less likely? That the priests simply didn’t care to stop them at the source? As long as myself and other enforcers were always on hand to save the bodies, it was an excellent show of force, and nothing was lost. In fact, more bodies were gained as the penalty for organising an unlicensed cremation was death. It was an easy way to root out non-believers, or those who felt their own grief was more important than the war. As I moved further to the edge of the city, the crowds became sparser and the individuals rougher. More and more weapons could be seen, and the moving space around me that people didn’t want to enter started to disappear. I walked past several of Morta’s shrines, seeing them deserted. I walked for several hours in the north-east edge district and didn’t see a single priest in all that time. Perhaps we could be safe here, for a time. I heard sounds of fighting and turned to investigate. I entered a tavern, and the combat seemed to be below me, and so moved to the stairs. In an underground level, there was a fighting ring, where two men were locked in combat with each other. They held no weapons, relying instead on their fists, feet, heads and most other parts of their bodies. The battle was brutal, and desperate, and I found myself fascinated by it. After a couple of minutes, the contest came to an end – one of the men was on the floor, bleeding, and the second had raised his hands whilst the crowd cheered. Once the noise died down, he walked from the ring, was handed some money, and others moved to drag the bleeding man out. I glanced at him as he was moved past me – he would live, but it might be some days before he was comfortable again. This could be a way to make some money. I looked over at the winner and thought back over what I had seen of the duel. I was not confident that I could beat him – my training was mostly in the use of weapons, and without them I would be at a severe disadvantage. Blade might be good enough – they were excellent with their armaments, and I’d also seen them fight bare-knuckle when it was appropriate. I turned back to the ring and saw to more enter it – this time a man and a woman. They both brought in knives, which surprised me but the noises from the crowd indicated that this wasn’t only expected but anticipated. I watched again, eagerly. They both fought carefully – a knife is a terrible weapon to fight with unless you are significantly more skilled, or have some other advantage, over your opponent – feinting and dodging. The crowd cheered when blood flew – the man had not dodged swiftly enough and had taken a cut above his left eye. This was dangerous – there was far more chance of taking a permanent injury, possibly even one that would make the body nonviable for re-use. I wondered suddenly, and for the first time, if that was part of the point. The payment for fighting would presumably be higher, but perhaps these people were perfectly prepared to die in such a way that the corpse wouldn’t be sent to the war. If anything, it would make them fight all the harder because if they were permanently injured but survived, they might well be left destitute, like the unfortunates that we had spent the night with. The man’s attacks were getting clumsier now – the blood was flowing into one eye, and he clearly wasn’t seeing well. The woman was mostly able to dance around him, but his swings and stabs became wilder and wilder, and he managed to rake his blade along her ribs, bringing more blood and more cheers from the crowds. I found myself cheering along with them – their enthusiasm for the violence and the bloodshed was infectious. The two fighters moved together with a flurry of blows – the woman was now rushing her attacks, wanting to end the battle before she was injured again. Her knife moved quickly, and the man was dodging frantically, desperately trying to stay out of her reach, but it wasn’t working. She cut at him again and again, with each spurt of blood bringing with it a cheer. He clearly recognised that acting defensively was not going to win this fight for him, and so he also went on the attack, but the loss of blood had slowed him down. It was over swiftly, with the woman plunging her knife into the man’s chest and he fell with a quiet sigh, a thud, and the loudest cheer yet from the crowd. The victorious woman raised her arms, grimacing at the clear pain from her ribs, but elated that she would live to fight another day, and her wound should heal easily. Again, once the cheers died down, she left the ring and was given money. As others moved in to take the dying man away, I moved to follow them. “What happens to him,” I asked. “Somebody takes him to the priests once he dies?” One of the men leading the way laughed. “Hardly – what a waste that would be.” I looked down at the man who I was sure would soon be a corpse. He had dozens of scars on his chest and several of them looked like they would have been as severe as the one that was currently killing him. “You have a skilled physician?” I asked. The man looked to me again. “Look, friend,” he said as they continued to walk. “I don’t know you, so maybe ask less questions.” I looked around but quietened. They hadn’t yet told me leave them, and so I continued to follow. We reached a door at the end of a corridor, that had taken us, I estimated, beyond the edges of the tavern. The door opened as we approached, and the man that had silenced me looked to me again. “Time to go, friend. Our neighbour doesn’t like unexpected visitors.” I turned to leave. As much as I wanted to know what was through that door, I couldn’t afford to antagonise these people. Perhaps if I spent more time at the fighting ring – perhaps even entered it myself – they might start to trust me and to let me see what was going on. “It’s well, Dieter,” came a voice from the other side of the door. “I can see that this one is on the verge of seeing the Light. He will not betray us.” The man that had been speaking to me, Dieter, grunted and led me in. They placed the fallen man onto a table, and another man, this one in robes of white that seemed wrong in how clean they were, approached. I wondered how he was able to keep himself so clean given the work he was going to undertake. He looked directly at me, rather than his patient. “Watch, and learn,” he said, simply. He raised his hands and called out to a god – but not Morta. I didn’t recognise the names, and they passed so swiftly that I couldn’t remember them once he had spoken. As he chanted, his hands started to glow and, once they were brighter than any other light I had ever seen, he lowered them down to the patient, and I watched the wound close. I had seen magic before, and the effects of it. I had worked closely with Morta’s priests and had a rough idea of what they could do. As far as I was aware, they could not heal – as a god of death, it was a blessing that was beyond Morta. My eyes widened in surprise and my mouth dropped open. I looked up at the man in white. It seemed Annette had been right.
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October 2021
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