Jeff Salyards
Veil of the Deserters
While my trek to the heart of the Great Fair had been filled with wondrous aromas and sights, the same trip back to the Grieving Dog inn felt as if I were walking to the gallows. Which, all things considered, might not have been far off.
Walking to the bazaar, I’d noticed the rich smells of breads and meats and cook fires burning; returning, only the strong reek of urine emanating from alleyways, hot and rancid; before, I’d been so buoyed by my newfound sense of freedom, I failed to notice just how powerful and heinous the stench was. So, too, I’d felt a lightness in my step as I left the Syldoon behind to go exploring; heading back to the Dog, it was now mud, horse and dog feces, and other sucking sludge I couldn’t place, all trying to steal a shoe or spoil the hose. Odorous, odious quicksand.
Even the faces and voices took on a new cast. Where I’d seen and heard joy, mirth, and wonder on the streets on my way to the bazaar, I now saw irritation as someone felt at how light their purse had become, or disgust on a fiefholder’s face at having to rub shoulders with his lessers, or the dull blankness the whores wore like masks as they moved among the throng halfheartedly trying to lure patrons to one establishment or the other, or the shrill shout of a mother scolding her disobedient children.
The journey both ways was identical-surely not much could have changed in so short a time-but my mood and perceptions couldn’t have been more different. Amazing how one small thing could utterly transform one’s perception of the world. The bruised face of the young Hornman in the crowd, the mutual recognition, him darting off, and the realization that urging Braylar to spare his life in the grass might prove to be everyone’s undoing. It was enough to ruin a perfectly good day, and possibly ensure there weren’t many more to follow, good or bad.
I forced one foot in front of the other, each heavier than the last, as I was filled with dread and my stomach rolled and heaved the closer I got. I was committed to returning to the Grieving Dog and telling the captain what I’d seen. He’d spin off into a rage, no doubt. And I would bear the brunt of it. Justifiably, as it happened. But the alternatives were less pleasant. I wasn’t about to run to the baron or to try to flee Alespell. Seeing the captain wouldn’t end well, but those routes only led to worse. I briefly considered saying nothing at all, pretending I hadn’t identified the Hornman. But I knew if Braylar somehow discovered I failed to confess what I’d seen, as unlikely as that possibility might have been, that would surely only result in my body adding to the momentous stink in the alleys.
Still, as I closed in on the inn, I couldn’t make myself take the final few turns. I moved off in the other direction, hoping the pressure on my chest might lighten, that my heart might stop beating like a frenzied bird in a cage. I decided to follow the crowd, at least for a little bit, to ride the jetty and surge wherever it took me, and forget all of this for a time, no matter how short. I wasn’t ready to deliver the news of what I’d seen. Not yet. Moving, moving was the key.
After heading to the thoroughfare, it didn’t take long for me to get my wish, as I was carried along almost immediately. I should have been hungry or thirsty-I hadn’t even finished the ale and scallops I’d choked on earlier-but I couldn’t really think of eating just then-my stomach felt rebellious and angry. I was perfectly content to follow the ever-shifting currents of humanity around me, barely paying attention to landmarks or the chipped enameled bars on the walls. Even without anything stronger than water in my belly, I would probably have trouble finding my way back to the Dog, but at that moment, I just didn’t care.
I moved along like that, following the crowd, and when it threatened to thin as I reached side streets or residential neighborhoods, I turned until I found another press moving in a different direction. Even with so many having returned to their homesteads and farms, and the street stalls pulling their small leather and faded canvas awnings down, there was still an impressive number of people in attendance, so it wasn’t difficult to find new groups to carry me somewhere, anywhere.
As I entered a plaza, I heard a cacophony of sounds-squeals of delight, and possibly fear (it was difficult to determine), as well as a great deal of murmuring, the kind where people turn to the person next to them and speak with animation, but still quietly, as if they are anxious as well as excited or in awe. A single voice shouting above the din with a practiced pitch of some kind. And there was periodically something else. An alien sound, something between a piercing screech and a roar that made your stomach clench and your breath catch, forcing all the other noise to stop momentarily before it slowly built up again.
The people had formed a fairly dense circle around the center of the plaza. Driven by something I couldn’t quite name just then, I pushed my way forward in a fashion Mulldoos might have been proud of, though I lacked the bulk to separate people quickly, and earned curses and glares when people realized it was only a reedy lad trying to get closer. Though I had never heard sounds like those coming from the center of the plaza before, I somehow knew what was making them, and as I made out the top of a tall cage, I was positive I was right.
Though all the certainty in the world didn’t prepare me for what I found.
Every time I’d heard a monster story as a child, I’d tried to imagine if the beast’s eyes glowed like lanterns, if it was foul like dung or something worse, what kind of noise its claws would make scuffling across the wooden planks of the inn or in the dirt just behind me in the fields, and especially what kind of roar or outburst it made. Craning my neck to look over folks in front of me, I was about to glimpse my first monster in the flesh.
There was a large, extremely tall cage forming a rectangle, roughly sixty feet by ninety. In the far corner, an opening leading to a caged ramp up to a robust wagon, with bars for walls and a solid wooden roof, and no beasts of burden attached to pull it. There was another large, flatbed wagon a little further away, yoked to six oxen that were also decidedly nervous.
On one side of the cage, there was a gate, locked tight, and a short caged corridor leading to a smaller rectangular cage in the interior of the larger one. That’s when I saw the creature, circling that small caged area in the middle, though it was presently unoccupied.
It was a massive bird, at least eight or nine feet tall, with mottled yellow and black feathers, a thick, muscular neck, and a head nearly as large as a horse’s with that dense looking beak at the front.
Just as Lloi had described, it had no wings, but instead, thin feathered limbs ending in three talons, two very short, with a much longer curved talon between that was like a bone scythe blade. Its legs were muscular and stout as tree trunks, and led down to huge talons that kicked up dust as it paced around the cage, its small black eyes staring out at the crowd of onlookers.
The hawker was circling as well, though of course on the outside of the cage, a leather vest over his oiled chest, hair and forked beard equally oiled, nose and ears housing countless hoops and studs glinting in the setting sun, and a long goad in one hand. Two younger versions of himself, different only in that they had stubble rather than a full beard, and their pants were puffier, also moved around the edge of the crowd, one with a bucket of meat, the other with a bucket for collecting coins.
Though certainly not a Grass Dog, it appeared the hawker was trying to approximate one, and he called out, “This is a genuine ripper, my lords and ladies. The most dangerous predator on the Green Sea. I’ve witnessed it kill a horse in one blow, ripping its throat out in the entirety.”
He waited as the crowd murmured their appreciation, then continued, “And here is the chance you’ve been waiting for. For a mere pittance, you can feed the beasts from the safety of the outside of the cage. But for those more stalwart among you,” he gestured at the cage in the middle with his goad, “you can experience coming to grips with the ripper, to feel what it is to be prey in your final moments before being torn to shreds.” Several in the crowd gasped, and he smiled, showing several silver teeth. “Fear not-though beast of prodigious strength and speed, no ripper can break the bars, nor jump them. You would be safe. And yet, you would have an experience unlike any other.” He raised his voice still louder, “So, who among you will feed the beast, whose thirst for blood cannot be slaked.” He looked at the ripper and then back to the crowd. “And who among you will brave the inner cage? You?” He pointed the goad at a terrified-looking girl. “Or you?” to a man a few rows back. “Or you, young sir?” He pointed at a farmer who had his girl pulled tight to his side.