There is finally a Madeline City excerpt available for your reading pleasure! Chapter 1 is just below, so get ready for the impending release of the epic by getting a head start here! Below that are the excerpts from Branchwater; Chapter 1 as well as the series of excerpts that detail the battle scene in Chapter 8. Coming soon: more Madeline City!
Chapter One - Hidden
Aside from the large three story structure in the center of Cramburg there was only one other building from which light emitted. It was a two story home on the west side of the village that had once belonged to Lennerd and Martha. After the bloody end of those two adults the children had moved in and converted the house into a collection of living quarters and playing areas in which they could hide from their parents.
On the first floor there were a handful of smaller rooms that had been claimed by individual children from around the village. There was a dirty kitchen in which Mary often cooked food for the younger ones, and there was a dining room that housed a large wooden table – long, rectangular, and able to seat fifteen children, give or take, depending on the age of the children present; though there were hardly ever so many children present at any one time. Sheds and attics all across the village crawled with the shadows of children as they hid from their parents.
The bones of the building itself – the wooden slats that made up the walls, the window frames and spokes, the cabinets, the long table and its ancient chairs, the stairs leading up to the second floor, and everything on the second floor – were decrepit, cracked, warped, dried out and sagging, and covered with dust and mold. The second floor was made up of small rooms much like those on the first floor, and one very different, very important room.
Lennerd’s study. It was where Martin went when he needed time to think, and where he went to shoulder his responsibility. In addition to a large desk that was leaning to one side, and a large wool-stuffed chair that was little by little losing its insides to the mice and other pests that infested the house, the walls were covered with bookshelves that were full up with volume upon volume of… no one knew anymore.
Not all of it anyway…
Martin usually spent his days practicing his reading. Most of the books were faded or torn beyond recognition. Many had been chewed to dust by the mice in the walls, and others on the upper shelves had been ruined by the rain that leaked in through the roof.
But those that were out of the reach of the mice, and that remained protected beneath the impenetrable mush of soggy, rain-soaked volumes that had solidified long before, made up a layer of knowledge that had been at eye-level of a curious fourteen-year-old Martin when he had first called Lennerd’s study his own.
Now, at fifteen, he had taken what little knowledge of letters the older children had taught him years before and applied himself to the art of reading. Among the liberal amounts of stories that he had found – stories that he assumed were of the world abroad – he had found only a small portion of stories pertaining to what he was looking for. Ever since he had first sat in Lennerd’s chair he had made a point of trying to retrace the history of those who had first built Cramburg. It was his hope that by learning of his ancestors he might discover a way out of the nightmares that he and the other children suffered everyday.
With a lantern burning low off to one side, he sat hunched over the desk, straining to see in the dim light. His eyes slowly moved from one word to the next, deciphering the meaning of each with painstaking effort. Not only were the letters difficult to learn in the first place, many different hands had written the volumes that he took down from the shelves, and so just when he was used to one style of script, he would come to the end of that particular volume and be forced to practically relearn the letters all over again when he picked up a new one.
He read slowly about a village somewhere in a mountain range. The mountains were cold all year round, and it seemed that the people of this village had been cursed by an evil man. The man caused a great boulder to rise out of the ground just uphill from the village, and then made the snow on the peaks melt continually, so that an icy torrent came racing towards the village, only to separate at the boulder and flow past on the east and the west, trapping the villagers between its shores.
At one point he had read the stories in their entirety. The year before, when he was still mesmerized by the lines of words and their tricky meanings, he read all that he could. Now, however, time was running out. He knew it, and the other children knew it. Now there was only time to read the ends of the stories, and to try and figure out if the words told the tale of his ancestors.
Among other stories of tragedies befalling whole tribes and peoples, there were stories of animals, birds, and fish that were said to no longer exist. Histories of how men had hunted some creatures to the death of the race, histories of wars, of cities and bridges being built, of storms, and of crops failing and succeeding were only some of the topics that Martin had seen scrawled on the spines of the volumes. Considering that the books that were still in usable condition made up only about a third of those that filled the shelves, he marveled at just how much knowledge there must have been in the world.
Before they came here.
There was a chance years before when Lennerd had first built the house that he had stored a record of their ancestors. If it was there, and if it was between the mice fodder and the rain sponges, then Martin hoped to find it; and quickly.
* * * *
There was only a single street that ran through Cramburg. Not that it wasn’t a large enough village for multiple lanes; rather, it seemed that the builders had begun construction in the middle of a large field of short grass, and then endeavored to settle all future structures as close together as possible. The paths through the buildings were winding and led to nowhere in particular, and really didn’t seem to be true paths at all, but rather small open spaces that had happened to be left clear by mere chance. The only true road ran east and west, and there was a random, poorly organized mass of about thirty shacks on each side. As Fost entered from the east, he noted with no surprise that on this night – as it was on most nights – all activity was centered on the largest building in the village.
It was near the center of Cramburg, a little to the west, situated on the north side of the road. The three story structure had originally been intended for use as a barn, and while it once had been used to house animals and foods, that hadn’t been case for quite some time.
Then again, animals are all one will find inside.
There were torches hanging off the walls all around the three story barn, and as he neared he could see adults sitting under the lights, jugs near at hand, laughing raucously. There were windows dotting the side of the building, flickering torch-light streaming out from all of those on the first floor, most on the second, and only one on the third. Staying in the shadows, he breathed in short, measured gasps, watching (and making sure that no one else was doing the same) and then dashing across the street. On this night, as on most, any sound his leather shoes made on the hard-packed dirt of the road was easily masked by the commotion coming from those within the building, and he reached the shadows opposite the barn with no trouble.
He passed close to Sorna’s house as he headed west. He almost stopped and went around to the backside of the house to tap at the boy’s window, but then decided against it. Continuing on, he froze, his heart suddenly raging fearfully in his chest as he sank into the shadows and watched a man and woman pass by on the street, both with a jug in hand, both stumbling and cursing and laughing. The man tripped and went down on all fours. The woman doubled back, grinning wide, and landed a foot on the man’s backside, sending his face into the dirt.
“Jeezum Crow!” the man cursed, and he rolled over onto his back, throwing his jug at the woman. The clay vessel hit the woman on the forehead, and as she crumpled to the ground, Fost could see the blood trickling into the dust.
The man pulled himself off the ground with some effort, and then picked up the woman’s jug. Licking the dirt off of the rim, he spat it out and then started off north, disappearing into the shadows between buildings, singing a verse about crops. Fost waited until the sound of the drunken voice had faded, and then he continued his cautious trek west, never giving the bleeding woman a second glance.
* * * *
Opening the door to the hideaway that he shared with all the children of Cramburg, Fost gave a tired sigh and peered about in the darkness. After giving his eyes a chance to adjust, he saw Lucy sleeping in a chair by the table, but no one else. Mounting the stairs, he headed for the study.
“Hello, Fost,” Martin greeted him with tired eyes, looking up from a book – one taken from countless others.
“I saw the light in the window,” Fost gestured lamely.
“Of course,” Martin nodded agreeably, and then waited.
Fost sat down on a three-legged stool and crossed his arms on the desk, resting his head on them. “Barn’s full.”
“I heard,” Martin replied.
“Mrs. Lawson passed out,” Fost went on, his eyes wandering over the bookshelves. “Mr. Lawson threw a jug at her head; it might kill her if no one finds her.”
Martin sat forward and closed his book. “Did they see you?”
Fost shook his head, his eyes still empty.
“You don’t need to be going around at night,” Martin said, speaking with emphasis. “What do you hope to do by watching them? It’s best for all of us if we stay indoors. You know that.”
The younger boy nodded. “Sometimes I think… I hope that maybe I’ll go down to the barn and see that they aren’t like that; that we’ve been mistaking it, or imagining it. And maybe when I get there I won’t feel scared, and someone will invite me to join in, and –”
“Fost,” and Martin held up a hand. “The day that you can join them is the day that we lose you. Don’t forget that, or it will only help to shorten your time.”
Fost nodded glumly.
Martin sat back and looked at him carefully. “Let me tell you what I’ve found.” He leaned over to one side of the desk and pulled a stack of three books closer. “I found these near the floor today, just above the mice’s reach. This one on the top is “Journeys West.” The middle one is called “The Journey West,” and the bottom is too faded to read, though it looks like a lot of pictures.”
“Just pictures?” Fost asked, only slightly interested. “Why was it with those others?”
Martin shook his head. “I can’t say.”
“Have you read the first two yet?”
“Not yet. This one here was the last of those that I found on the east wall. But this one isn’t about our people.” Martin motioned to the book in front of him. “These people stayed where they were and slowly died. Or are still dying. I was just about to start in on these next three.”
Fost met the older boy’s gaze. “And these three are from the south wall?”
Martin nodded. “The last wall.”
* * * *
Dirty and sweat-smeared, Fost wandered aimlessly through the mass of shacks and lean-tos that made up Cramburg. The summer sun beat down from above, noontime at its best, and the village was quiet. Normally on a morning like this he might have been at the river with Sorna, but he had already been to Sorna’s house, and the Sorna’s father had locked him in the shed again. The man did that sometimes, especially after loud nights like the one before, when all the adults gathered in the barn and shut the doors and windows. Even then, the noise of their group mating carried through the wooden walls and could be heard from the forest to the north, to the knoll in the east, and even down the river a ways to the east.
Nearly every adult in the village had been a party to the commotion the night before, as was usually the case; it was the way of those their age. Fost, Sorna, and the other children in the village stayed away from their homes on those nights, because when their parents came home they were in the mood to fight. Even when they chose to lie down together, it was a form of fighting, and whoever won would turn their sights on the next closest victim. It was for this reason that many of the children stayed away from home.
He stooped to pick up a few stones that caught his eye. Picking up four of them – all relatively the same size – he weighed them in his hands. After considering them for a moment, he pocketed three of them, dropped the fourth back to the ground, and continued walking. He came out from between Percy’s house and the fish-gear shed and turned towards the street. Once he was out on the only road through Cramburg, the barn was to his left as he headed east. He briefly thought about stopping at Percy’s house, peaking in one of the windows and seeing if he was around, but then decided not to. All of the children of Cramburg got along, even if it was only out of necessity in order to survive, but he had been counting on spending the day with Sorna, and now that that was out of the question, he didn’t feel like doing much else.
Stopping in the middle of the deserted road, he stooped down and picked up another stone. He weighed it absentmindedly, gazing east towards the river. Maybe he would head over there and practice anyway….
He dropped the stone without bothering to come to a complete decision. Continuing on westward, he stopped when Dolly quietly emerged from her house. She looked both ways and shrank back inside the door for a moment when she saw movement, but then emerged fully once she recognized him. She carried with her a doll made out of rags and thin slats of wood that her older sister had made for her years before. Her parents, like all the adults in Cramburg, had been hopelessly lost in the jug almost their entire lives, and if it hadn’t been for her sister looking after her, she would have died soon after birth.
Along with never caring for her, her parents had never named her; and after the doll was given to her, she took to carrying it everywhere, and it became her namesake. She was called Dolly, her doll was called Dolly, and when the six-year-old spoke, sometimes it wasn’t quite clear whether she was referring to herself or to her prized (indeed, her only) possession, save her simple white dress that had turned brown with filth years before.
“Hi, Fost,” she greeted him timidly. She was a quiet and peaceful companion, and in the wake of having been denied Sorna’s company, he found himself welcoming Dolly’s.
“Hi, Dolly. How are you?”
She shrugged and looked away. “Where’re you going?”
“To the river.”
She glanced back to her house. “Can I come?”
“Of course.”
Her left hand released the doll, letting the right clutch it tightly, and she eagerly took his right.
“Where’s Sorna?”
“His father locked him up again.”
She said nothing, only gripped his hand tighter.
* * * *
On the shore of the river, Fost found his fourth stone. Despite her age, Dolly was skilled in a way that none of the older children were. She had helped Fost practice many times before, and was always eager to do so again. Not that he needed the help, but when she stood on the shore all alone, holding her doll at her side and gazing steadily across it to the east, he couldn’t help but invite her to join in.
He started with two stones, one in each hand, and he tossed the right one straight up into the air. Passing the left stone into his right hand, he tossed that one up into the air and it passed the first one. Catching the first one in his left hand, he passed it to his right, and continued the cycle, over and over, while Dolly stood silently by, waiting, holding the second two stones in her little fingers.
“Okay… now.”
She tossed him the third stone and he caught it in his right hand, immediately sending it up into the air and making it a part of the cycle without ever taking his eyes off of the air above him. She grinned as he sent the stones higher and higher, catching them over and over again.
“And… now.”
She tossed him the fourth, and he caught it just as easily as the one before it, making it a part of the cycle. Now he began tapping his feet, left then right then left then right, and the stones made a smacking noise as they landed in his left palm.
“One, and two, and three, and four, dear Madeline, my hands are sore. Stones that fly and stones that land, all are taken from the land.”
Little Dolly began clapping along to the simple rhyme as well as she could without letting go of her doll, smiling and watching the stones circle in the air.
“Five, and six, and seven, eight, I’ll do this until daybreak. Stones that fly and stones that land, all are taken from the land.”
Now he slowed down, sending the stones higher into the air and giving himself more time between words.
“Nine and ten, eleven twelve, into the river we should delve. Stones that fly and stones that land, all will return to the land!”
At this point he threw the stones to Dolly, one by one, and she gleefully threw them backwards over her head, sending them tumbling along the shore until they came to rest in the soft dirt along the river bank. She caught them all with her left hand and sent them into the air, never once letting go of Dolly. As the last one left her hand, she began jumping up and down, clapping her hands and laughing.
Fost smiled at her and laughed a little himself. “This is practice for me and for you,” he said. “You catch good.”
She blushed, and clutched Dolly with both hands. “It’s easy.”
“Come on; let’s find some more for me to throw.”
They started down the shore, and he began scanning the shore for larger stones; ones that would fly far.
“I wish I could jugwul,” Dolly said from beside him.
He grinned. “It’s juggle, but that’s what they used to call it, a long time ago. Now we just call it tossing. You wish you could toss.”
She nodded. “I wish I could jugwul,” and she smiled mischievously up at him.
He laughed and shook his head. “Shouldn’t you be looking for stones?”
She giggled and ran ahead a little, picking up practically every stone she came upon and bringing it back to him.
“This one?”
“Too small.”
“This one?”
“That’s still too small.”
“This one?”
“They need to be bigger.”
“This is big…” she pouted.
“It’s big in your hand, not in mine.”
“This one!”
“Yes, that’ll do.”
In the end, what he carried in his pockets were eight stones that he had found himself, supplemented with four of Dolly’s. He had actually taken ten from her, six of which were far too small, and when she turned to pick up more he had dropped them to the shore and replaced it with one of his own finding.
He stood on a small rise in the grassy field within throwing distance of the northern forest, and she sat on the ground beside him. In front of her was the pile of stones, and she was taking her time, picking through them.
“Come on, Dolly.”
“I’m looking.”
The forest was a half-mile north of Cramburg, and Fost had played in the trees many times before, sometimes with a companion, and sometimes alone, though never going deeper than the initial tree line. The ground rose as one got nearer to the trees, and from the hill they were standing on now, he could see the roofs of all the buildings, even the three story barn. It was three hours past noon, and the bright sun danced lightly off of Dolly’s long brown curls, while it seemed to vanish into Fost’s short black rag of hair.
“Dolly, I want to throw.”
“I can’t find it.”
“What?”
“The egg rock that I found.”
“Well, just gimme another one.”
“I want the egg one!”
“You’ll find it, just gimme another one for now.”
She frowned, and continued pawing through the pile in front of her.
“Here,” she said finally.
He took it in his right hand as she stood up.
“Hit… that one,” and she pointed.
He sighed, but smiled a little as knelt down beside her. “What one?”
“The one that looks like Mr. Lawson,” she pointed.
“Which one is that?”
“It’s got the branches going straight up and down like his hair.”
He laughed out loud. “Okay,” and he straightened up, cocked back his right arm, and loosed the stone through the air. It flew over some twenty yards of grass and collided with the trunk of the Mr. Lawson tree.
“Yay!” Dolly clapped quickly a few times before dropping back down to the ground and picking out another stone. “Now hit the one that looks like you!”
“What one is that?”
“It’s got that long branch coming out the right side. It’s strong like your arm!”
He laughed again, took the stone from her, and sent it soaring across the twenty yard gap and into the tree with the long right arm.
“Hooray!”
Another session of stone searching followed, and then she was up at his side again. “Now hit the one that looks like Missy!”
He stopped, his hand reaching for the stone in hers. “How do you know what Missy looks like?” he asked quietly.
“She has the long hair,” she said, shoving the stone towards him.
He took it, still looking carefully at her. “Which one is it?”
“The one with the lots of long branches hanging down, like her hair!”
He looked. “You mean the willow tree?”
She grinned, still unaware of his unease. “It’s a Missy tree.”
He shook off the feeling – not wanting to upset her – and nodded. Taking aim, he sent the stone sailing through the swaying willow branches and into the trunk.
“Yay!” and she clapped her hands.
* * * *
They continued on with the picking and throwing for another half-hour, until Dolly began to complain of the sun. Fost pocketed the remaining stones, and they headed for the shade of the forest. Something about the quiet of the trees and the gentility of the swaying branches and the rustling leaves was so appealing; especially after nightfall when the adults would gather at the barn and cause such disquiet on what was otherwise a peaceful green pasture.
As they sat beneath the Missy tree, Fost thought what he had thought many times before; how out of place the village of Cramburg looked. It was a conglomeration of shacks, huts, tents, and one large barn, all just thrown together on a bed of once green grass; though now that bed was long gone under drunken feet and wooden cart wheels. The surroundings of the dirty little town were the greenest of green pastures, a peaceful eastern river flowing down from the north, and the lush northern forest that seemed to be constantly in bloom.
The forest is what amazed Fost most. Not only did it grow and bloom every year, all year round, brighter and healthier than before, but there never seemed to be any lack of wildlife. As he sat staring down at the dismal Cramburg, Dolly was chasing butterflies around the Missy tree, only to be distracted by a dragonfly, and then a squirrel, which were her favorite. All of the animals were pleasant enough, though they never did let the little girl with the doll too close.
Fost looked up and considered the willow tree – the Missy tree, as Dolly had called it. The little girl had quite the imagination sometimes, that was for sure, but every now and then it worried him. Missy had been Dolly’s older sister; the one that had taken care of her in her early years. When Dolly was only two, however, Missy had died. Some sort of sickness brought on by the cold, the adults had said. Not many of the children really remembered much about her, not what she looked like, and not even if Missy was her real name. Fost suspected if Missy was perhaps only a name that Dolly had imagined; Missy, because she was missed.
He looked over to where the girl was dancing, just a short distance away, still under the Missy tree. The hanging curtains of the willow made a kind of clearing, and as he watched her outstretched fingers try and reach the butterflies his eyes strayed for a moment into the forest growth beyond.
Yellow eyes stared back.
He flinched, his blood turning cold for a moment, and when he blinked, the eyes were gone.
Move, Fost. Come on. Move.
Slowly, he rose to his feet.
“Dolly, come on.”
“I’m not done talking to Mr. Furry yet.”
“You – who?” he asked, taking his gaze from the dense forest.
“My friend,” and she pointed to the squirrel above her, who still sat above her, calmly watching her while eating a walnut.
He swallowed. “Well, come on. There’s no time now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dolly, just come on!”
She looked at him, frustrated at first, but then coming over to him she saw that he was serious. “What’s wrong, Fost?”
“Shh,” he said, “its okay. Let’s just go.”
She looked over her shoulder as he led her away, clutching her left hand tightly. The squirrel clutched the walnut between its tiny paws and chittered loudly after them as they headed away. She smiled and waved.
Tydus Garth sat in a booth in the rear of the restaurant. It was a small booth in a small restaurant named Maggie’s in the northern most area of the city; the Bater District, and he noticed just then that there was a rat lying dead under the table next to his foot.
He sighed and shifted in his seat, looking around for the hundredth time, trying to spot anyone who looked like they were trying to spot him, but all he saw were either patrons eating off the dirty tables, or the hired boy with red hair behind the counter who was ignoring the rat under his table and sneaking swigs of the sweet ale when Maggie wasn’t looking.
He leaned back onto the hard wooden surface of the booth, trying to look calm. He had no idea what this man looked like, and normally he would have never agreed to a meeting with so few details, but business had been bad the last few months, and though he had yet to admit it to Pennington, he was getting desperate.
Tydus was a smuggler, first and foremost. Anytime that anyone needed something moved across the city without anyone else knowing, he was the man to go to. If there was one thing that he was good at, it was smuggling. Well, smuggling and shooting. He moved stolen goods, illegal goods, and sometimes even illegal goods that he had stolen, and vice versa; whatever was paying highest at the time. Though he might not have looked it, Tydus was also a businessman.
Not a very good one, not as good as Pennington was, that was sure, but a businessman nonetheless. He enjoyed setting up his own jobs, negotiating the price, delivering the goods, picking up payment; he liked the entire process of his business. Usually he would play one angle for a while – smuggling the goods. When the Laykens started paying attention to his corner of the city, he would lay low and switch to stealing, and he would continue in that work until he started attracting too much attention. In this way, he had, so far, avoided the Laykens. He shifted in his seat again, sipping only slightly on the sour ale in front of him, aware that the thought of the Laykens made him even more uncomfortable.
The Laykens were the muscle sect of the church – the law of the streets. They ran the jails, policed the citizens, and guarded the sanctuaries where the citizens came to pay tribute to the
Just then Maggie caught sight of the red-haired boy putting back the jar of sweet ale after snitching a good swallow.
“How dare you, boy!” the landlady’s eyes burned into the young man’s leering face.
“Get out of my place before I tan your backside redder than your hair!”
The boy made a scoffing noise and reached for the jar, ready to take another drink just to spite his boss.
Tydus knew what was coming next. From under her apron, Maggie pulled out a revolver, a six-shooter, long and heavy, like the one on Tydus’ own hip. The boy froze, his eyes fixed on the weapon.
“Get out of my place!” Maggie repeated, raising her voice and advancing on her former help.
The young man stumbled backwards, almost tripping, before turning around and fleeing through the batwing doors of the restaurant.
A few nearby patrons laughed. Maggie watched the boy run off down the street and turn the corner before returning her pistol to under her apron.
Tydus smiled to himself. He liked Maggie’s. It was close to his home, it was cheap, and the barwoman carried his favorite kind of weapon.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a man plopped down into the bench across from him.
Tydus started, almost drawing his gun before he noticed that the man wasn’t paying him any attention, but was instead looking over his shoulder at the batwing doors of Maggie’s.
Leaving a hand on the hilt of his pistol, he addressed the man quietly.
“You Quentin?”
The man jerked around to face Tydus, and regarded him with an uncertainty. He had a baldhead and Tydus could see that he wore a necklace of some kind under his tattered shirt.
“Yes, I am Quentin. Quentin Marks. Are you Tydus Garth?”
The smuggler nodded, glancing around quickly, before settling back in his seat. “You being followed?”
“I was. I believe I lost them though…” The man called Quentin began to calm down. “I am sorry; my nerves are not what they used to be. You are the smuggler, correct?”
“That’s right. I hear you got a job for me?”
“Perhaps.” He was still stealing glances at the doors over his shoulder every few seconds. It made Tydus angry that the man was risking drawing attention to them.
“I’m afraid though,” Quentin continued, “that it doesn’t involve smuggling.”
Tydus narrowed his eyes and frowned at the well-spoken man. “Then what makes you think that I’d be interested?”
“I’ve looked all around Bater, and I haven’t been able to find one single soul that is willing to help me,” Quentin explained. “So I’ve began looking not only for those who do what I need done, but also to anyone I can find whose business is illegal. I understand that it has been hard to find work in your field recently?”
“A bit more difficult than usual, yes,” Tydus reluctantly confirmed. “I’m guessing that since no one wants to work with you that either you’re not paying enough or it’s too dangerous.”
“The second guess is correct.”
“I see.”
Tydus fell silent, going over what he had heard so far, while Quentin continued wringing his hands, eyes flying to the doors of the restaurant every time he heard it open.
“What kind of work are we talking about here?” Tydus finally asked.
The response was straightforward and prompt, so much so as to send slight shiver down Tydus’ spine, which rarely happened.
“Kidnapping.”
Before the smuggler could say another word, the doors of the restaurant flew open and someone shouted, “There he is!”
Quentin Marks was immediately gone, up and running for the rear of the restaurant, and Tydus was left to marvel at just how fast the man managed to move about.
He saw six men entering the restaurant, all clad in the worn, faded blue uniform of the Layken sect. Black boots pounded on the wooden floor as the churchmen hurried towards Tydus’ table, pointing long, bolt-action rifles directly at him.
The smuggler rolled out of his booth, plugging two of the Laykens in their stomachs on his way to the floor. The patrons sitting nearby screamed as the guns began going off. Tydus dove across the walkway to hide behind another booth as each of the Laykens fired a round at him.
He heard Maggie scream and fired her own gun, cursing at the Laykens for attacking her paying guests.
He jumped up from behind the booth and picked off a third and a fourth as they were reloading, noting that a fifth already lay dead, apparently victim to Maggie’s revolver. The sixth took aim at him and let off a shot as he dropped back behind the booth for a second, only to rise a moment later, his last bullet resting in the highest chamber of the cylinder.
When the man raised his revolver, the Layken knew that he didn’t have much time. He dropped his rifle and started yelling at the man, about how he would be arrested and taken away for killing Laykens, how he would be locked away for the rest of his life, how he would be punished for his crimes against the church.
None of this deterred the man with the revolver, who put a bullet into the Layken’s brain from two feet away.
Tydus Garth then flipped out the cylinder and shook the gun that had once been his father’s, letting the spent casing fall to the floor, some of them bouncing off of the nearby bodies of Laykens. The churchmen’s long-barreled weapons lay not far from their limp hands.
“Those damn filthy churchmen!” Maggie poked her head up from behind the bar. “Coming into my place like that! You better get yourself gone, sir. They’ll be more coming.”
Tydus nodded absently as he reloaded his weapon. He took his time, waiting to see if Quentin would reappear now that the danger had momentarily passed. He noticed that the Layken Chief wore a medallion around his neck. The Layken symbol was carved on the face of it; a large L surrounded by a circular wall on the otherwise smooth bronze surface of the medallion.
After a few minutes, he decided that the bald man wasn’t going to show, and that Maggie had been deprived of enough business for one day. Giving the body of the Chief a kick for good measure (and noticing that the man was dressed rather fancifully, as far as Layken Chiefs went), he turned and walked out the doors.
* * * *
He hurried down the street, putting some distance between himself and the floorboards that were stained with the blood of churchmen. The people on the street were keeping away from the recently set upon Maggie’s, and were trying to avoid the situation. After all, it was none of their business.
The citizens of
Tydus kept glancing over his shoulder occasionally as he turned off of
As he walked, he considered the appearance of the Laykens at Maggie’s. Most of the time in the poorer districts, the sect acted as a policing force, investigating, arresting, and interrogating suspicious people. Other times, when the Magmen Rebellion provoked them, they were the army of the
Centered mainly in the eastern districts, they operated out of their network of secret bases. It was rumored that these bases were scattered all around the outskirts of the city, and that they were disguised as stores or saloons that had been closed down and boarded up. The entrances (also hidden) were supposedly always located at least a block or two away. The entrances led into underground tunnels that emerged inside the bases.
That’s what Tydus had heard. It was a rare occurrence when a prisoner was actually released from a Layken base, and all prisoners were unconscious upon arrival and departure.
It was
As Tydus crossed
* * * *
As Tydus entered Snow’s Market, an old dented bell gave a pitiful clunk.
“Penn! You here?”
There was a shuffle in the back room, behind the counter. A short man emerged, wearing a badly weathered top hat, an old suit coat, and a pair of once-fine trousers that were full of holes.
“Yes, I’m here. Did you meet with this man Quentin?”
Snow’s Market was Tydus and Pennington’s hideaway. They had both become clerks under the former owner Snow, and he had trained them in the business of shop keeping as if it were a sacred art. Tydus had never became more than someone who lifted the heavy crates in back. Pennington however, was quite gifted at the work; enough so to turn a small profit in Snow’s absence, keep the books in order, and placate the church whenever it came around for its ‘donation.’
“Well, yes and no.” Tydus made his way through the maze of tables and shelves that held only barely presentable merchandise to the counter. Hopping over it, he stood facing Pennington.
The clerk was a foot or so shorter than the smuggler and had none of the muscle of his taller companion, nor could he navigate the streets or pull the jobs like Tydus could.
“What does that mean?” he asked as he returned to the back room to finish whatever he’d been doing.
“It means before I could do any good solid business with the man, six Laykens showed up looking for him.”
“Laykens, you say?” Pennington looked at Tydus, slightly startled. “You weren’t followed back, were you?” He began walking around the counter, intending to look out the front windows. “You slipped them, right?”
“No, they didn’t follow.”
“You’re sure?”
“I killed them.”
Pennington froze halfway to the windows. “You killed them?” He spun around so fast that his top hat fell off his head.
“All six of them. Well, Maggie actually killed one of them too – ”
“Six!” The clerk picked his hat off the floor and stuffed it back on his head. “Did you forget how close you were to the shop? What if the church finds out who you are?”
Tydus held up his hands in defense. “They rushed into Maggie’s obviously meaning business, and not the kind I’m looking for. They were looking for this man Quentin who was sitting across from me. It was kill them or get hauled away.”
Pennington calmed down considerably at that. “Okay, this is okay… This only means… I mean, we just need to…”
He trailed off and finally looked to Tydus.
“What does this mean?”
Tydus looked around the shop and sighed. “It means grab the most valuable stuff and let’s go.”
“Does it really? We couldn’t just lay low for a while?”
Tydus shook his head. “The Laykens will be questioning everyone they can find, including Maggie and her lot. We can’t expect them to protect us. When the Layken patrol doesn’t return to its base, they’ll send a follow-up, and once they start asking questions it’ll be the end of Snow’s Market.”
Pennington looked aghast at this, but he nodded hurriedly. “You’re right, you’re right.” He straightened the top hat on his head. “I’ll get a sack.”
They packed up all of their food first, and then all the money they had. This was the most important of their bags; a large burlap sack stuffed with small slips of paper that bore drawings of the church headquarter buildings in the center, and small numbers in the corners. Last packed was their valuable merchandise: jewelry, finer foods and clothes. Hardly anything in the Bater District could be called ‘fine,’ bit it was the best that they had, and in their neighborhood, it wasn’t too bad.
As Pennington looked around the store once more for anything of use, Tydus walked to the front windows and surveyed the street. It was a sparsely populated road,
“I sure hope that you’re wrong about this situation,” Pennington called from behind the counter where he was tying the bags closed. “I was just thinking to myself the other day about how far I’ve brought this place along since Snow died, and how many times you’ve saved us with the merchandise you’ve acquired during the course of your own ventures. We run quite a tight shop, you and I.”
“I wish I was wrong too,” Tydus agreed. “I hate to think of leaving here; this is home. But I do believe that this Quentin business is going to be the end of Snow’s Market.”
“I got it all together here.” Pennington straightened up from behind the counter. “You’ll have to carry more than me, naturally, because you’re stronger…”
“Yes, yes, I know.” Tydus was about to come away from the windows to join his friend when he caught a glimpse of blue out of the corner of his eye.
Coming down the street were Laykens. Ten, Tydus guessed at a glance.
“Penn, we’d better leave that stuff. Just grab the money.” He went to the door and locked it.
“What? Why?” Then Pennington saw Tydus starring out the front windows, and he understood. “They’re here already?”
Tydus nodded, backing away from the windows. “The money. Do you have it?”
“I, uh…” Pennington stammered as he tore apart the pile of bags on the floor, frantically looking for the bag in question. “Here! I have it!”
Tydus trotted back across the store, coming around behind the counter and drawing his father’s revolver. “Back door, let’s go.”
“Oh, dear,” Pennington hoisted the heavy bag of cash over one shoulder and followed the man with the gun.
As Tydus twisted the knob and open the back door, he heard the front door being pounded on.
Following the smuggler out into the alley, Pennington breathed in short, quiet gasps. “Cutting this a little close, aren’t we?”
Once they were in the alley behind the market, Tydus bent down to the sewer grate at the base of the wall and lifted it out of place. Beneath it there was ten feet of ladder that led into the gunk below. He motioned to Pennington, and the clerk held his breath as he started down into the darkness.
From the front of the store there came the noise of the door being broke down, and he slid through the hole onto the ladder, using one hand to replace the grate once he was below ground. There were shouts and cries from inside the shop, orders to search the living quarters above the store, and to double check everywhere.
He gripped the ladder, tried to ignore the scents that were quickly engulfing him, and descended to join Pennington in the sludge below.
Branch was inside the siege tower, at the top of the highest stair, trying his best to stem the flow of enemy troops that were pouring onto the wall. A group of about forty sentries were swarming the tower as well, some of them protecting him as he defended the stair, others trying to break the bridge free of the tower so that no more of the enemy could cross. The tower was built like a scaffold, and while Branch forbade access by way of its stairs, members of the First Army started climbing up its walls. The sentries were fighting as best they could, but were slowly becoming out numbered.
This was the group of sentries who were defending that specific part of the wall that the tower had so unabashedly decided to impose itself upon. Everyone else who was on the wall was having ladders shoved up in front of them almost constantly and so it was everybody for themselves.
Arrows whizzed by Branch’s head, barely missing him but catching a few of the sentries. Cries faded away as men fell from the tower.
“Everybody stay low!” Branch shouted over the clang of weapons and armor, even though it was impossible to crouch down and stay there while in the middle of a swordfight. “How’s that bridge coming?”
“It’s sturdily built, we’re not able to simply rip it apart!” A soldier shouted back. “We’ve sent a few men for torches. We’ll just set this whole tower ablaze!”
“Sounds like fun!” Branch shouted back as he clubbed another man with his tracma.
“Let me know when to jump off!”
* * * *
He knew he shouldn’t have done it. But he had. Branch was one floor lower than everybody else. Everybody else, that is, except for scads of First soldiers. He realized now that it must have been a trap, how the stairs had cleared up for a moment or two and there hadn’t seemed to be any more of them below. He had been stupid enough to descend and now he was cut off from the remaining sentries up top. He could hear them yelling his name, calling to him. There were even more of the enemy scaling the walls by now, and his comrades had their hands full.
He was moving faster than he had ever thought possible. He maimed here, so he could kill there, so that he could decapitate this guy and then slice open the one behind him. As he fought, he remarkably had time to wonder at how easily he went through the motions, as though he had been fighting his whole life. Then he smelt smoke.
Branch glanced up just long enough for the flicker of flame to catch his eye, looking back down just in time to block a blow that would have taken off his head.
“Oh, not good.” He said to himself, burying the spike of his tracma in the kneecap of the man who would have cut his head off. “This is not good, hey!” He tried to call out to anyone who might have been above, but no one could hear him over the increasing crackling of the flames and the sounds of battle.
He tried to make his way back to the stairs but there seemed to be one foe after another blocking his way. The supports holding up the roof of the tower weakened and crashed down onto the floor, setting aflame what was the ceiling for Branch. He could no longer tell if there were any friendly soldiers above him, but he didn’t expect there to be.
Idiots! How could they forget about me? They probably just thought that I’d been killed.
* * * *
Branch tripped and fell backward over one of the numerous dead bodies littering the floor. He had only about three seconds to save himself from the blow that would kill him. The first two seconds he was stunned, exhaustion suddenly hitting him. It took him the third second to locate the screaming man with the short sword who would kill him, who was too close to stop now. It was most fortunate that Hugo appeared out of nowhere and cut off the attacker’s arm just as the fourth second was about to begin.
“Hugo!”
“Come on, Branch! Get up!”
All of the surrounding First soldiers had paused as the second mantlik made his appearance. Now they closed in again as Branch jumped to his feet. With a yell, both mantliks charged for the stairs, cutting down blue-clad enemies as they went. Hugo swung with all his might, cutting a path towards their escape while Branch fended off all who chased after them.
“We’re through!” Hugo yelled, as the last enemy soldier between him and the stairs fell dead. He leaped up the bottom three steps and turned to wait for Branch. Flaming beams began to crack and hang down from the ceiling, reaching for the floor. Their escape route was burning up fast.
“Branch, come on!”
The older mantlik sunk the hook end of his tracma into the foot of the closest foe. Pulling back sharply he yanked the man’s foot out from under him. With a scream the man went down and the ones behind him stumbled and fell. Branch sped up the stairs.
As the two companions reached the top of the steps they saw three things all at once. First, the ceiling was developing holes due to the flames, and the pieces of wood that had previously occupied those holes were now raining down, flaming obstacles to be dodged. Second, the floor was also developing similar holes, which seriously compromised the structural integrity of said floor. And third, the bridge leading back to safety was suffering from much the same condition as the floor.
They ran.
Avoiding holes and weaving around flames, they raced towards the crumbling wooden bridge. If they had listened, they would have heard screams from below, of anger, terror and pain. The First Army was abandoning the tower and there was a mad dash to get off.
Branch and Hugo ran over the burning embers, their shoes catching fire. One wrong step and their feet would punch through the wood, sending them to their deaths.
Metal was being twisted, making a horrible screeching sound as the top half of the tower began to weaken, swaying and pulling against the metal braces. The top floor had almost collapsed when the floor right beneath it did. Launching off of the bridge, Branch landed on the wall with a thud. As the tower began to fall, the wooden walkway was pulled from the wall and Hugo found the edge of the crushed battlement with his fingers just in time. The sentries that were watching in amazement grabbed him by the arms, pulling him to safety. Both mantliks just lay there as the sentries put out their flaming shoes. They listened as the top half of that once formidable siege tower crashed to the ground, killing any that were still inside, and more still that were running for their lives.
There were people cheering, coming out of their seats in excitement. This kind of thing happened only once a year and nobody was inclined to miss it. Vendors walked up and down the aisles, selling hand carved miniatures of every fighter that had been seen in the arena that day. The crowds expected this next fight to live up to its hype, and the contestants weren’t about to let them down.
One of them was a male human, tall and tan-skinned. He had long matted brown hair that was in desperate need of a wash, and he was dressed in a cloak that almost matched his skin color. The six-foot staff in his hand was made from pine and as he displayed it before the crowd they gasped, amazed by the speed at which he spun it. They clapped and stood, staring down into the bottom of the arena from their seats above. Surely this man must stand at least some chance against the champion. The muscles in his arms pulsed violently as he flexed in anticipation. The man sweat, the late summer afternoon air still plenty hot.
He lowered his staff as the gate across from him opened and his competition emerged. Anyone who had still been sitting immediately shot to their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs for the sheer pleasure of seeing this competitor.
She stood six feet tall and carried with her a pine staff the same as the man’s. Her garb was much like a traveler’s cloak, baggy for comfort while still thick and protective, colored black to match her hair. Her skin was pale, almost white in stark contrast to her hair, and her name was Greta. She was a mantlik, a creature created long ago to aid in the protection of the humans of Branchwater, and presently in the entertainment of humans and mantliks alike.
The ticket holders couldn’t help but shake the very foundation of the great arena they sat in when she entered their presence. She was considered by many to be the most beautiful of all the mantliks. Not only that but she had not lost a duel at the tournament for over one hundred years.
“Well, Greta, are you nervous?”
She eyed him as she walked steadily towards him. She stopped ten feet from him, weapon hanging loosely in her hand.
“No.” She finally replied. She cast a glance at the people cheering them on. The rows of wooden benches rose high all around them in a lopsided circular shape. “Are they yelling for me or for you?” As she spoke he could see her green tongue flash back and forth.
“Me, if they have any sense.” The man stuck out his chest.
“Oh come, Tage, you weren’t any better than any of your opponents. Your size just scared them, that’s all.”
“As it will you.”
Greta smiled and nodded. “We’ll see.”
All of the sudden the mass of spectators went silent as the two combatants charged at each other. Tage swung his staff with the most speed that had been seen in the arena so far that day, and Greta brought hers around to block with even more. Tage was shocked for only a moment, and then he quickly spun away. She took a step or two back, watching him carefully.
Now he came at her again, but not as ferociously as before. High and low and to the sides, over and over. She blocked it all easily.
Greta clucked her tongue, color vaguely showing. “Tage, everyone can see that you’ve underestimated me. Now they see you second guessing yourself, which makes them second guess in you.”
Her comments weren’t supposed to mean anything; just meant to make him mad.
“I didn’t come here to be taught by a female!” He yelled at her.
His attacks came faster now and with more power, but were exaggerated for show. There wasn’t any way the man was going to best her fighting like that, and the crowd knew it.
To win, you had to obtain your opponent’s weapon and then use the two staffs to put him/her in an inescapable position. Inescapable that is, if the staffs had been real blades. Once you had put your opponent in that position, you had triumphed.
Tage went back and forth from different foot movements to switching hands to using both hands, trying to catch her off guard so as to grab her weapon. Speed was a serious element of the arena fights because when it came to capturing your enemy’s weapon, there was no single way to do it. If you had to jump on their back and bite their wrist then so be it. This was never done however since that would require getting close to your opponent which would require you either spend all your time blocking or all your time getting hit.
Tage started to move slower, feet slightly dragging. Greta made a show of glancing at his feet and then looking to him in mock confusion.
“What’s wrong with your feet, Tage?” She asked. “It looks like you’re leaving them behind.”
“You just better be glad these aren’t real blades, mantlik!” He careened towards her, preparing to thrust at her. She stood as still as she could manage until his staff had almost reached her. Just before his thrust connected with her, she stepped to her left side and grabbed his weapon with her right hand. When Tage tried to yank it out of her hand she held on as it pulled her off the ground. She flew through the air towards him and her left foot landed in the middle of his face.
His grip on his staff loosened as he fell to the ground and she wrenched it from his grasp. She landed just above his head and planted both staffs in the ground, one on either side of his neck.
“No, I’m just glad that it is we who protect you. Not the other way around.” She gave him an evil smile as the victory bell tolled.
* * * *
“Mother, you were magnificent!”
“Thank you, Hugo.” Greta smiled at her son. “It wasn’t much.”
“It didn’t look like much that’s for sure,” said Branch. A longtime friend of the family, Branch had basically become part of it. “Though I saw you talking more than you usually do during a match. Starting to use a few dirty tactics, are you?”
“You don’t know that.” She said coyly. “But thank you again, both of you. Dueling is not really that difficult. You just need patience.”
Hugo chuckled. “So you say mother, but Tage didn’t have patience and he got through all of those others, all the way up to you.” He whipped his head around to look at Greta, brown curly hair falling in his face.
“That’s because nobody else had any patience either. Tage was just the biggest out of all of the rest. Among humans, that’s usually enough.”
Branch nodded. “I especially enjoyed when King Dragu was conducting the champion ceremony and Tage kept trying to yell out obscene things about you.”
Hugo burst out laughing. “And then the castle guards snuck up on him and hit him over the head to shut him up!”
Greta simply smiled again. “Yes, he probably should have just accepted defeat at that point.”
They were exiting the arena, a giant circular building made of stone. It had been completed a few hundred years before, and every year since, mantliks and humans came together to pit themselves against one another in matches that tested strength, speed, and endurance.
As they walked along the grass in the shadow of the arena, Greta took the lead with Branch trailing behind while Hugo walked along between them. Branch was the same height as Greta, give or take a few inches, as were most mantliks. Hugo however was a good six inches above either of their heads.
The Mithildrin Forest could be seen a ways to the northwest and as soon as they reached where they had tied their horses, that would be their destination. Mantlik Town was a mile or two inside the forest, at least from where they would be entering it.
“I hope that Gwenith made those rotlund reindeer legs this year.” Hugo spoke to no one in particular.
“Its expensive to ship reindeer legs up here from that far down south.” Greta commented as they reached their horses and started untying them.
“Even so,” Branch said, “I wouldn’t mind if she asked us all to help her buy them, just so long as she makes them every year.”
“Uh-huh.” Hugo agreed. “I’d donate a few coins.”
“Wait a minute.” Greta stopped them in the middle of their mounting. “How come I never hear you talk about my cooking with that much affection?”
“Mother-” Hugo began, and Branch rolled his eyes.
“Ha!” Greta jabbed them both hard in the stomachs and jumped on her horse, laughing as she rode away.
“She didn’t just do that!” Hugo half chuckled, half choked. His mother wasn’t usually given to horseplay.
“She did.” Branch said as he caught his breath. “And I’m not going to come in third!” He reached out and struck Hugo just as Greta had done, and the younger mantlik fell to the ground as Branch almost fell out of his stirrup laughing, struggling to mount his horse.
“Come on! Don’t want to be late, now do we?” And Branch rode off.
Hugo struggled to his feet, still chuckling to himself. It was a good thing he hadn’t gorged himself at the feast already because he was starting to feel nauseous.
* * * *
As Greta rode into the immense clearing that housed Mantlik Town, a cheer went up from all those around. Although she was over six hundred years old, she immediately blushed as if she was a twelve-year-old human girl. She did enjoy being the most celebrated and popular mantlik of the age (and the most beautiful according to many), but she had never really gotten used to it. But as it was now, so it had been for several hundred years before, and after all it was home and family.
The hard packed dirt provided little dust as she rode her horse Rifton into the center circle of the little forest community and raised an arm to wave, smiling wide.
“Hooray for Greta!” Came the shouts. “The best duelist in all of Esrael!”
She rode into the middle of the crowd and dismounted, handing off Rifton to an eager mantlik (a male, one of the many crowding around) who would lead the horse away for food and rest.
A hand landed soundly on her back and she stumbled forward. Once she regained her balance she turned and saw Carmine, who was a large mantlik with a full beard as well as a very good friend.
“Well done out there, Greta!” He laughed loudly. “Way to show that bloated, pompous son of a hillrat!”
“Thank you, Carmine.” She smiled graciously, giving him a hug. Then turning to all those around her she said, “You really needn’t cause this big a fuss every year. I haven’t lost that tournament in over a hundred years. Is this commotion really merited?”
“Yes it most certainly is!” Shouted Branch as he entered the center circle, and everybody started cheering again.
Color rushed into Greta’s face again and she grinned, shaking her head.
Hugo ran up to her, panting.
“Well, hi Hugo,” She greeted him as she saw him. “What kept you?”
Her son just shook his head and threw her a questioning eye. “Mother, how is it that you fight nine different opponents, then defeat the human’s champion, and still have enough energy to punch me in the stomach and gallop off on Rifton like that?”
Greta got defensive. “I didn’t punch you. I jabbed you.” She smiled at him.
Those around them burst out laughing once again, and Hugo had to join them in spite of himself.
“Now, everybody quiet down please!” Called a voice.
Everyone looked to the southern edge of the center circle, where stood the great hall. A large wooden building with tall windows in the front and side walls, the great hall was a meeting place for heads of family to gather and discuss issues, for holding marriage ceremonies and the like. It also housed the office of the lord mantlik and that’s who was standing on the front steps of the building, calling to them.
“Everybody quiet, if you would please!”
The crowd became silent and attentive as the lord mantlik began to speak.
“Now as you all know, this gathering, this celebration is in honor of the victor of the annual tournament, which is given every year by our good King of Branchwater.”
“You mean it honors Greta?” Somebody yelled.
“I mean that it honors whomever happens to win.” The lord smiled. “Granted, it’s true that Greta hasn’t lost in over a century. And it’s also true that the tournament has yet to be won by a human period-”
Smirks and chuckles ran through the assembled mantliks.
“But!” The lord called the crowd’s attention back to him. “I know that when a mantlik other than Greta eventually wins, or even if the victor is a human, we will all still meet here to honor that victor.”
“Here, here!” Shouted the crowd, and Greta raised her voice along with the others.
“Besides,” The lord continued with a twinkle in his eye. “I think half the reason we all gather together every year has little to do with tournaments and lots to do with wine.”
Yet another cheer went up from the crowd and this time the lord mantlik didn’t try to restrain them. He raised his hands in blessing and they all proceeded to the western edge of the circle where there were many long rectangle tables set up, each flanked with a set of benches and laden with copious amounts of food and drink. It was a good time for the kingdom of Branchwater and the evidence was on the table and in the air: an abundance of the necessities of life and an aura of friendship and joy.
As Greta sat down between Hugo and Branch, her niece came bounding up.
“Aunt Greta, I saw you fight and you were magnificent!” The girl, only fifty-one years old, leapt into Greta’s arms.
“Thank you, Desirae!”
Desirae was an oddity among mantliks, owing to the fact that she was only four foot tall whereas most of her kind averaged six.
She jumped out of her aunt’s lap and pretended to grasp a staff in her hands. “First you went like this! And then like this! And then…”
Greta laughed out loud as her beloved niece imitated her recent match. She watched as the girl’s long, long green hair swished the dirt as she leapt about.
“Desirae! Calm down.”
Greta looked up as her sister approached. Gwenith was quite the opposite of Greta, having a light green face, which was fuller than Greta’s pale, thin features. This stark difference probably wouldn’t have occurred if they had been conceived of the same mother, but instead both of them had been created by the human priests in the temple, deep in the Mithildrin Forest over six hundred years before.
When the priests went about creating a being, that being might look like how they planned, and it might not. The spells that were written for the creation of beings such as mantliks were intended to guide the mantlik’s personality and physical attributes. When creating siblings, the priests would use spells that were almost identical, so that the siblings would turn out similar.
However, not even the most learned priest fully understood the process of creation, and most likely never would since the temple had long since been abandoned after a terrible tragedy that had taken place there.
“Oh Gwenith, let her be.” Greta threw her younger sister a look that was part playful, but part angry as well. “Let her have her fun.”
Gwenith scrunched up her green face and scowled at her sister.
Greta had always thought of her sister as a bad mother, sticking her nose into all the wrong places at all the wrong times, but never being there when she was needed. While she had never voiced this opinion, everyone knew that was how she felt. Especially Gwenith.
“Hey, mother,” Hugo said, “Do you think that the lord realizes that he gives the exact same speech every single year?”
“Probably not,” Greta grinned, and everybody at the table laughed.