A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Tanussi. The great city of the north. The closest Free City to the Republic. Uncertain of its future at all times and prosperous because of it. A steady stream of merchants, north and south, west and, once upon a time, east too, traversed to the city on their way somewhere else. Having to stop to replenish, to sell, and for leisure, the city of Tanussi garnered a less productive ethos and more of a leisurely one. Goods came to Tanussi to be sold. People came to Tanussi to buy them. They also came for luxurious food, fine wines, and ornate performances of the theatrical, or the acquired tastes. A city built on leisure. And garnered enormous hoards of gold because of it.

Or it had before the war. 

Before the ruin.

Nemo could smell the city before he saw it. The smell stretched for dozens of miles around. The heat of the day intensifying it. He wore his sandscarf tight around his nose and mouth. It didn’t temper the smell of death. Sickeningly sweet and throat scratching in sharpness.

Vispa pressed her sleeve to her face. She gagged every few moments and buried her nose in Simbar’s mane. Horse sweat was preferable to death and decay.

The earth blackened by fire and blood stretched for almost a mile all around. Piles of rotting corpses gone unburied and unburnt. The bodies of Republic and Free Cities piled together far from the city. 

The ground still bore the scars of the army camps. The lines of fences still stood and the outline of tents, command platforms, stables, and drum stands. The Republic camp had covered the road south of Tanussi. Cutting off support and surrounding the city.

Nemo had been further south. A cruel twist of fate not to defend his home city. He had never lived in Tanussi. Only going to collect new bounties from the guards or wealthy citizens. But still it pained him to see the land so scorched by war.

Had the invading army piled the bodies to burn and then not? Had the people of the city looted what they could and lost the will to continue? Had the priests begun to perform funerals and been stopped by whoever now ruled? Too many questions arose for Nemo. He had more pressing matters than the rotting corpses of strangers. As damned as they may be for their souls locked in twisted flesh he would be thrice damned if he failed to return home.

Vispa gagged and coughed again. Her eyes streamed. ‘How much further?’ She choked.

‘Not far. Look,’ Nemo pointed ahead.

The road stretched ardent in its straight path towards the city itself. The walls rose out of the ground. Pockmarks dotted the walls, black crusts of soot and ash, of burnt wood and hay. Crenelations where missing replaced by the course edge of smashed stone. Great gouges had been bitten out of the buttresses. The wall crumbled completely in places. Hasty repairs in wood had occurred and been destroyed in turn.

Smoke still rose from a guard tower near the city gate. Roof collapsed on top of whoever had been inside. Charred, smoking, timber beams and cracked slate all that remained. No one would have survived. It was doubtful any charged with the defence of Tanussi still lived. The Republic had not been merciful elsewhere.

Flags adorned the walls of Tanussi. All along the wall the same image repeated, an owl staring out as it stood atop a mountain. There was to be no doubt who ruled now. The repetition in some way making it more true, more the way of things to come and that was. The slow beginning of making resistance and rebellion to Thesus seem quaint and out of place. It would be a long time before that would take hold but then no longer than a generation or two. Within a few decades resistance would be limited and the flames of it fanned only by the Republic’s own folly if at all. None had yet to rebel against the blue and white owl. Not one in the centuries of expansion. At least not that Nemo had heard.

Maybe this would be the first? Nemo hoped aghast at the walls of his once magnanimous, but excessive, city. One could only hope the tally of so many new cities, new peoples, new languages, and customs, would disrupt the absorption into the whole. Nemo feared the devastation wrought inside the city. And to the towns and villages surrounding it. Had the bodies of dead soldiers been left to rot in Beargarth? Or had people survived to bury their dead? Had the village been razed and everyone killed or enslaved? Nemo dreaded to imagine.

There was no line of refugees here. No farmers in the fields. There were no fields. All thoroughly cleansed. No merchants drove their carts in the well worn grooves of the cobbled road. No wealthy noblewomen arrived in ornate carriages to sample the delicacies of the market or the exquisite performances of theatre and music and art. No young men trained under the shadow of the wall in spear, bow, and sword. No children played under the watchful eye of the town guard. No one waited for Tanussi.

Instead two lone guards stood at the gates wide enough for two carriages and tall enough for three. But there were no gates. No portcullis. No carved ebony panelling, showcasing the history of Tanussi, adorned the iron barred wood gates for there were none. Only split timber and splinters remained.

‘Maybe Ramascus had the right of it,’ Vispa breathed.

‘What? Surrender? What right do they have to preserve their way of things if they surrender? Already the Chief Observer is forced to play puppet to the Thesusian Senate,’ Nemo spat.

‘I didn’t take you for being a rebel.’

‘We may have lost but I didn’t surrender,’ Nemo said.

‘So you will join the Resistance after you return home and see your family safe? You will just run off again to fight for a cause that will get you killed?’ Vispa asked, her brow furrowed.

‘I didn’t say that…’ Nemo said. ‘And why are you annoyed? It doesn’t concern you. I will do as I see fit. If that means fighting some more, then I will fight some more.’

‘Hmphh,’ Vispa pouted.

They approached the new city guard in sunken silence. Nemo already had his bounty hunter license in hand. It was not necessary to have one to be a bounty hunter, obviously, but it was if that hunter wished to accept a mark from the city guard of Tanussi and a number of other cities. It prevented questions.

The two guards rested on their halberds. Each wore chainmail with a white sleeveless shirt, emblazoned with the owl of Thesus, over the top. They muttered to themselves as Nemo and Vispa drew near. Shrugging and looking bored while they spoke.

Nemo held his papers towards the guard on his right.

The man shook his head and waved him passed.

Both entered the city bereft of questions or searches. That was it then. The city had been sacked, looted, and only the poorest remained. Nothing to steal meant nothing to guard. So why would guards bother?

A small square welcomed them. Empty. The sand stained by blood and fire. A husk of a building smouldered on the left. Joists and beams blackened with ends carved to ashen grey points. The charcoal outline of what was once a table stood in the centre of what must have been a room. A dresser to one side with its iron handles dangling from brittle charcoaled wood. The fire had spread to the support beams of the next building. That had survived with its stone brick walls preventing the fire from spreading. Above its door hung a sign that had once read ‘The City Gates’ but now whitewashed. A decent, if overly busy, tavern, Nemo remembered. Under a window were stacks of swords. Hundreds of them, hastily made and barely used, most likely never used.

That was not the only pile of remains. It was helmets next. Less of them but still a couple of hundred. How many heads that once wore those where now being picked at by vultures and feasted on by maggots? All of them? All but one? Did that matter?

Nemo pulled Atars to a halt in the middle of the square. A boy and a girl ran passed him giggling. Neither over eight summers. Each picked a sword and started swinging. Neither had balance. He watched them play fight, reenacting what fathers, brothers, sons, had done mere months before. Even the women would fight to defend their home then. Boys too young would wear helmets too big and wield swords too heavy. Is it a blessing I wasn’t here? Or a curse to live with it now? Nemo thought as he watched the boy and girl play fight.

‘We should find the, you know,’ Vispa whispered.

Her voice came to him as if through glass. Distant and distorted. He rose to the surface, reality rushing passed him.

‘Sure. How do we do that?’ He asked.

‘Well, there will be signs and symbols near to their hideouts. In the sand and on the walls and such. We just have to find them,’ Vispa explained.

‘Tour of the city then?’

‘Tour of the city it is,’ Vispa confirmed.

Nemo pulled himself away from the ruin of the square expecting the destruction to only worsen deeper into the city. The clack clack of play fighting rang out across the square. 

Vispa led the way going straight down the road from the gate.

The ruin spread. Buildings abandoned, or inhabitants slain, property looted, or secreted away. Rich and poor. The Thesusian’s cared little and merely wished to exact their “mercy” on a citizenry that refused to bend the knee.

Nemo followed Vispa around a city he knew well. He knew the side streets that cut between the thoroughfares. He knew which to avoid due to the smell and those due to unsavoury types. He knew the inns that served proper ale and wine, the ones that watered it down. The cooks that made fresh and the ones that had no qualms serving day or two old food only the patrons with a tough constitution could keep down. He knew the guard routes, which guards had maintained their positive view of people and which had been soured by dealing with countless vagabonds.

None of that mattered. As they traipsed through Tanussi it was clear finding an inn would be a stretch. Or a guard he recognised. Or an alleyway without the shrouding smell of death and burning. 

Where once a building stood now only a boulder remained. Launched over the walls by catapults and trebuchets, boulders littered the city. Smeared with blood, burned by fire, or sitting in piles of splintered wood. The siege weapons had found their marks. 

The city was as if new. The deeper Vispa and Nemo pressed the less touched by war it seemed. At least on the outside. Buildings remained standing and unburnt. Some had still been looted and the open doors and smashed windows left the rest to the imagination. People milled about, with baskets of fresh food, and pulling wheelbarrows of wares. New or looted it ceased to matter. Life resumed its regular beat. At least for commoner. The aristocracy of Tanussi, the merchant lords, the politicians, the bureaucrats, even the playwrights, actors, painters, and craftsmen, may have suffered more. Too influential, executed, wealthy enough to fund a resistance, reduced to pauper, wrote the wrong line or mocked the Republic, imprisoned, exiled, or worse. A new leadership would emerge or one would be appointed.

The guards patrolled the same patrols but in the owl of Thesus and not the bear of Tanussi. Crowds still jostled with each other moving from stall to stall. Lowly merchants still peddled their wares with grandiose claims and overly loud shouts. Children still ran and played amongst the crates around the market. Life continued.

Vispa halted and nodded to the side. Nemo followed the direction to a side alley. A regular alley it seemed. Dark, dingy, and likely used for emptying all manner of rubbish into. He rode up to her. She pointed with her eyes. He looked at the sand making up the streets of the city. He squinted. It was faint. Part of it was smudged by a trailing skirt and wayward boot. But it was there. A circle drawn into the sand many times and line diagonally cutting through it. Too deliberate to be the turning of the wind. 

‘Down there?’ Nemo whispered throatily.

Vispa nodded and steered Simbar over to the symboled alleyway.

Nemo expected the smell to hit them first. It wasn’t. The chill air did. Shielded by three storey buildings on either side left little room for sunlight. The air was cold and the walls almost damp.

A few moments later the smell hit. A warm, overbearingly sweet smell with a hint of sourness. Wind rocketed down the alley unlike that on the main street and the smell morphed into one of stale urine and festering wounds. Where is that coming from? Nemo wondered imagining a makeshift hospital in the back of someones house. Doubtful. The Thesusian’s would have taken any wounded to be either cared for or killed.

Vispa jerked her head about from the ground to the wall to any crates stacked in the alley. Piles of what could only be described as slop grew against the walls of the alley. Flies buzzed and hopped over the drying faeces, vomit, and urine. Nemo grimaced as he rode near a larger than average slop pile. In Beargarth they had a trench a short walk from the town that was filled with all of this waste. Couldn’t they do the same here? He wondered. A flash of warmth passed over him.

‘Oi,’ he heard.

He looked up to see the end of the alleyway ahead. 

‘This way,’ Vispa said waving him down a connecting path.

He pulled Atars around to join Vispa and caught sight of a small carving, no larger than his palm, in a crate at the side of the back street. A circle with a diagonal line.

‘How do you know it’s them?’ He asked. The new alleyway illuminated by the sun.

‘It’s the same shape they used in Ramascus. I presume someone here knows someone there,’ Vispa said. She held Simbar’s reins in one hand.

‘I will just be glad to get this letter delivered so I can begone. From here it’s, maybe, a day, day and a half, home.’

Vispa said nothing. He expected that. She had no where to go, no one to see, or everywhere to go, and everywhere to see. Both were terrifying. Direction was comforting.

The alleyway continued much as the last one. More or less straight as the walls allowed, with discarded crates and waste, a plenty. Some of the buildings had rear doors a step up from the ground. Unusual. More common for inns and shops than homes.

‘Here we are. I think,’ Vispa stopped in front of a door on the left. It was a simple thing. An unadorned plank of wood, black iron handle, and sitting inside a sandstone frame a single step up from the ground.

‘How do you know?’

Vispa pointed to the left of the door, then the right.

He dismounted and went up to the sandstone frame. Running his hand over the stone he felt the nicks, grooves, and marks from the chisel. All narrow lines running in the same direction, except for one. Near the top of the door was a diagonal line the length of his finger. It was not in a circle, nor was it obvious. 

He felt the right side of the door next and found all the familiar marks except near the top where he, instead, found a vague circle made from many straight chisel lines. Huh, he thought. Subtle. ‘You’re sure?’

‘What have we got to lose?’

Nemo smiled a little and thought he had a great deal to lose but as his hand rapped on the door the worry passed. The decision made. He stood a step back from the door after three hard knocks and waited.

And waited.

Vispa leaned against the opposite wall in a sliver of shade. The triangle of shadow grew with each passing minute.

‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Nemo asked.

Vispa shrugged, ‘See any other option right now?’

Nemo did not. He remained silent on the issue, however, and made a cursory scan of the few other doors nearby. Then of the walls. And finally of the ground. No more markings. This door was their best bet for the mean time.

He stepped forward with a clenched fist and moved to knock again.

‘Don’t,’ Vispa commanded.

Nemo turned with one raised eyebrow, ‘Why?’

‘They’ll never open if you keep knocking,’ she said.

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Guards knock many times. Spies knock many times. Soldiers burst down the door. Allies wait,’ Vispa said.

‘Who told you that?’

‘The Resistance in Ramascus.’

‘Well, at least they were useful for something,’ Nemo said under his breath as he looked up at the height of the building. The soft yellow of the plaster radiating light against the pale blue sky.

Atars and Simbar both nuzzled the same crate. A simple wooden cube laying in the sand and stamped with some merchants crest. Nemo wondered what had them both so interested. Any food would surely have rotted in the heat and anything else would have been taken inside.

With no warning the door swung open to reveal a black maw. A man stuck his head out, mouth covered with a scarf and eyes with sand goggles. He looked from horses, to girl, to man, and back to the horses. ‘Don’t let them get in that box. Hitch them back that way,’ he pointed back the way they had came.

Nemo watched the man notting the sword at his side, the knives across his chest, the glint of a bracer under his knee length, sand coloured, coat, and the armoured boots. Taking Atars by the reins he led him down the alley. Why be ready for a fight now? Are they expecting something?

‘Stop. Push that door open,’ the combat ready man said.

Nemo pushed a door to his right. It opened. A damp smell greeted him from the dark.

‘It’s a stable, more or less.’

‘In the middle of a city?’

‘Needs must,’ the man replied, his cheeks rounding. Nemo was sure he was smirking under the scarf.

Nemo led Atars inside and a found the nearest hitching hook in the wall. The floor squelched under foot. Light was rationed by the single square window on the far wall. Atars quickly set to eating the hay sitting in troughs along the wall.

‘Are you sure this is wise?’ Nemo asked Vispa as she came inside with Simbar.

‘Pretty sure they had one of these in Ramascus. Never saw it though. I just know when a runner was sent “to the stables” they went down a few alleys into the city, not to the gates. I thought it was code for something. Guess not,’ Vispa said looping Simbar’s reins over a hook in the wall.

Nemo smiled to the man in the doorway. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘Now I will just need your weapons,’ he began.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Then you should go.’

‘I just came to deliver a letter,’ Nemo reached inside a pouch on his belt and pulled the letter out. It was crumpled, the corner torn, but the wax seal intact.

‘Right,’ the goggled man took the letter and inspected the seal. Making a sound of satisfaction he broke the seal and the read the letter. ‘Come on in,’ he said, a second later.

He reached for Nemo’s arm and pulled him inside. Nemo was blinded by the dark. The man lead him deeper into the dark. He rounded a wall, or went through a doorway, and could see a window of light through black fabric. The man let go of his arm. Nemo rubbed his eyes and saw the walls and floor were covered in fabric. A thin dress making fabric in copious amounts rippled and gathered at all points. In the haze of the dark the only things not covered were people and a table in the centre of the room.

Five people were already present. All armed and armoured.

‘Close the door,’ a woman said pointedly.

The man who lead Nemo inside handed her the letter without a word, nodded, and turned with a soldier’s discipline. The lock clicked a moment later. 

Vispa had entered too, soundlessly, and stood behind Nemo. He could hear her shallow breaths and feel her move to steal looks round his arm at the Resistance in Tanussi.

‘Huh,’ the woman said reading the letter. She tossed it onto the table. Another read it and passed it on. 

The last to read it placed it on the table near Nemo. He picked it up. His eyes adjusting to the velvet dark he read the small sentence in the centre of the parchment.

The man you want carries this letter. Use him. Do it now.

Nemo squinted at the letter. Read it again. Frowned. Gritted his teeth and passed it to Vispa. ‘Did you know anything?’ He asked over his shoulder.

‘Not a thing,’ she said not taking the letter. Her eyes danced over its surface.

He threw it onto the table.

‘So, let’s begin,’ the woman said, ‘I am Humaya, this is Frya,’ she gestured to the man on her right. ‘You met Otanes at the door. That’s enough names for now.’

‘Nemo,’ he placed his hand on his chest, ‘and the squirrel behind me is Vispa.’

She jabbed him in the ribs and moved to stand next to him.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Humaya said.

‘I can’t say like wise,’ Nemo said. His left hand rubbed the pommel of his scimitar.

Humaya smiled tightly, ‘I assume you did not know what message you carried then?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘My allies in Ramascus were rude not to involve you but perhaps foresaw a complication.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘Unwillingness.’

‘Glad we agree on one thing. I did not agree to anything more than delivering a letter. I am going home,’ Nemo said ready to turn for the door.

‘But you have already done more than that,’ Humaya said with a smile. Her eyes didn’t change from the steeled gaze.

Nemo cocked his head to the left.

‘You have brought Vispa back to us unharmed. That is already more. You were quite slow in getting here but I am sure you have your reasons.’

Vispa. Back to them. His mind swirled. The girl from Ramascus now the Resistance fighter from Tanussi. That didn’t make any sense. Why would she be going from city to city, that would be noted by the guards. Why him? How did they know he was the one to do it? There were too many questions for his mind. All swirling around this new information.

He turned to Vispa. She was small, her shoulders curled inwards, her eyes big and wide as she stared up at him. ‘It wasn’t meant to be deceptive. I just…’

‘Just what?’ He snarled.

‘Just… I couldn’t tell you. They would have cast me out for disobeying orders,’ Vispa hung her head.

‘So what were you doing then? Some sort of manipulation? Did you know I would refuse from the moment I entered Ramascus? And how did you even know it would be me?’ Nemo pinched his temples.

‘We didn’t,’ Vispa said.

‘She was tasked with finding a fighter. A good one. Who was of the Free Cities. You were the first to make it to Ramascus, I take it?’ Frya asked Vispa.

‘Yes,’ she said sullen.

‘I was the first? No one else returned from The Plains?’ Nemo shouted. How could that be? They can’t have all perished. Not all of them. No. A weal of pain erupted within. His heart ached.

‘I don’t know. All I know is you were the first. I checked for a patch or anything that was Free Cities and lead you to the Resistance. That was my job.’

‘Evidently not your whole job,’ he quipped mind flashing through the faces of his unit. Of the young and old who had enlisted to protect their homelands. Gone. Forever.

‘No. You are here to…’ Vispa stopped and flashed a look to Humaya and Frya. 

Nemo caught the slimmest of nods from both.

‘… You are here to kill the new Thesusian Governor. He is—,’ Vispa said.

‘Excuse me? That does not sound like a calm hopeful way home. That sounds like being hunted till the end of my days by Thesusian trackers!’ Vispa cowered and stepped back from him. He turned to the Resistance leaders, ‘Use your own damn men for this,’ he spat.

‘We… cannot. They have… figured out who each of us are,’ Frya spoke without moving his lips. More a hum than a voice.

‘All of you? There can’t be too many of you then,’ he said before he could think.

‘There is a parade,’ Humaya ignored his assessment, ‘a procession, through the city in a few days. This is when you will assassinate Governor Stipi. The streets will be full of people, by choice or forced, and will provide you with plentiful cover.’

‘All ready and planned. Seems to me your own people would still be best,’ Nemo said.

‘We are known. You are not. By your gear I assume you know how to use a bow, a sword, and we can promise safe passage out of the city in the aftermath,’ Frya said in his breathless hum. His cheeks were pockmarked, his scalp bristling with the shortest hair Nemo had ever seen.

‘Is that all you are offering?’ Nemo said shaking his head.

‘Not enough?’

‘Not nearly enough. A target this big comes with a sizeable coin pouch. Probably a few years worth of dinar, at least,’ he smiled something wicked hoping to put them off.

Humaya hummed. ‘We may be able to stretch to that.’

Nemo’s brow darkened. ‘But nothing pays for the lifetime of being hunted. I decline,’ he walked to the back door.

The goggled man leapt in his way.

Nemo flicked his knife out of his belt, ‘Don’t try and stop me.’

The man flinched, his arms out wide. He looked to the two leaders.

‘Let him go,’ Humaya said and the doorman stepped aside.

Nemo sheathed his knife as he stepped into the burning sun. His eyes stung and his forehead was damp with sweat. He let out a tight breath and made for home.

He unhooked Atars from the dank, makeshift, stable. The horse carried on eating as Nemo pulled on his reins.

‘There is plenty more of that where we are going. Even better stuff, I promise,’ he said to the horse.

The horse snorted and bit into one last mouthful of hay.

Nemo turned to the door to see a silhouette in the way.

‘You can’t just leave,’ she said.

‘I can. I will,’ Nemo pushed passed her.

Vispa stepped out of the way. Her cheeks damp. ‘No. You can’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean too.’

‘To what? Lie? Deceive? That’s what you did. Your actions betray you. Your intent is meaningless when not aligned with good action,’ Nemo spouted words he had heard in temple as a child. They had seen him true, and many others beside.

Vispa swallowed her self-pity. Or tried. Nemo could see it all over her still. Her eyes forced wide and damp, her mouth downturned, her shoulders curled inwards.

‘You can’t think a Thesusian Governor is good for Tanussi. He isn’t. He has already begun taxing craftsmen harshly. There are rumblings of that being spread to the merchants, the brothels, the theatres. He has barred goods being brought in from the south. Only Thesusians are allowed weapons and anything valuable is being stolen by the army on his orders. He is crushing the city further into the dust,’ Vispa pleaded.

‘And what do you think will happen after you kill him? Another will be sent from the Senate. Even harsher with a more twisted cruelty but next time with an excuse to do what he is doing,’ Nemo said.

‘So we kill the next one too,’ Vispa said.

Nemo was taken aback. Naive doesn’t begin it, he thought. ‘The people you are fighting have razed cities for less than that. Would you like to see Tanussi as a pile of rubble? Its people enslaved and taken to the four corners?’

Vispa whispered, ‘No.’

‘Then don’t kill two governors. One is a step too far. There must be another way. It will only take the Thesusian’s a little time to round up the Resistance here if what Humaya said was true, about them knowing who they are.’

‘It’s probably true. Something has happened since I left for Ramascus. They don’t know me, that’s for sure,’ Vispa assured.

‘Then I suggest you make yourself scarce and start a nice peaceful life. Preferably not in a city. Towns will have far less worry from the invaders,’ Nemo started down the alley, Atars following.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home,’ he turned a corner and headed towards a main road.

‘Wait!’ Vispa shouted after him. She ran silently and skidded to a halt beside him. ‘I’m coming too.’

‘What so you can trick me again?’ He spat at her.

‘You said yourself I shouldn’t stay in a city and I don’t want to be Resistance. I did it because they offered me a warm meal and a bed.’

Nemo sighed. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe, ‘Fine. Beargarth will have a place for you. At least the Beargarth I know would.’

‘Wait here. I need to fetch Simbar,’ Vispa said dashing back to the stable.

Nemo waited at the end of the alleyway. The waves of people jostling through the streets moved in such a hurried and unpredictable way he wondered how no one crashed into each other.

A beggar sat in the street, his knees held up to his chin, as the bones of his arms poked through his skin. He watched as an overweight merchant in a rich shimmering purple gown strode past, with bodyguard in tow. The merchant sidestepped the beggar, walking a few steps away from him and then returning to the course before. A small thing that even the poorer did. Around the beggar was an invisible barrier that people instinctively stepped around.

The governor may have been giving these people a hard time but you couldn’t see it. Not yet. The merchants were trading. The people were buying. People had places to go and work and places to call home. The beggar was a sign of the future, though he had likely been there before the war too.

The crowd began to part. People pushed into others with nary a quiver of argument. The sound of steel pins rustling against steel plates echoed. The heavy thud of armoured boots hitting sand drowned out the padded sidesteps of people. 

Nemo found himself at the rear of the crush of Tanussians. The road cleared as a unit of Thesus’ finest marched down. Four abreast and five long. All in full armour, shined and oiled, and equipped with swords, knives, and halberds. 

One stood on his own at the head of the twenty. His helmet sprouting a plume of blue horse hair. He lacked a halberd and instead carried a round wooden shield with the owl and mountain of Thesus emblazoned. It was clean and lacked the arrow holes common in shields.

The beggar coughed. He sat not four strides from Nemo. His eyes turned to the sand around his uncovered feet. He coughed again. His bony knuckles clenched in front of his mouth. He rocked violently as he coughed.

The unit captain halted. He snapped his head, hidden by a visor, to the left. Towards Nemo. The blue plume swayed. With right hand resting on his knife hilt on the right side of his belt he marched into the wall of people. The wall broke and split as people pushed out of the way of the captain.

The beggar sat on his own staring at his dirt covered feet as the crowd parted. He coughed again. A thick, deep, cough that racked his body.

The captain stopped a step away from the beggar. ‘You. Stand.’ His voice echoed in his helmet to amplify it to a booming of orders.

The beggar said nothing. Did nothing. 

‘I said stand,’ the captain boomed and reached down to grab the beggars arm.

The beggar winced and gasped as he was pulled to his feet. His legs no thicker than his arms. His shirt hung off his shoulders like a coat peg, and his feet were too large for his legs.

Nemo saw the beggar raise his head but could not see his expression. The captain’s guarded by his visor. He saw the blood before he heard the unsheathing of the captain’s long knife. 

The beggar’s neck, a wrinkled, leathery thing, burst into gore. His mouth agape, his head thrown back. He fell to the floor, dead, instantly.

The people gasped and averted their eyes and pushed backwards into the crowd. If they were further away they didn’t see. They could forget. If they didn’t look they wouldn’t know the detail. 

Nemo focussed his sight on the beggar lying in his own blood in a heap of skin and bones on the ground. His life wasn’t worth much but it was worth more than being cut down in the street for coughing. Nemo sighed and felt pity rather than anger. It was senseless injustice. It helped no one. It hurt no one but the beggar. Only it revealed the depravity of the Republic. Of the extent of its control into people’s lives.

The merchant in purple grimaced and muttered too loud, ‘Do what I do and ignore them. No one needs die for a cough.’

The captain wiped his long knife on the white cloth in his belt, staining it with blood, before sheathing it. He turned his faceless gaze over the crowd. He passed the merchant who jerked and avoided the captain’s search. The captain halted and turned back to the merchant. 

‘You,’ he boomed and lurched into the crowd grabbing the merchant by his long, purple, sleeves.

The overweight merchant tried to resist but lacked strength and slid into the grip of the captain. His soft slippers sliding against the sand. A thin sheen of sweat gather on his upper lip.

The bodyguard drew his sword to defend his charge then instantly dropped it.

‘Arrest this man,’ the captain bellowed and two of his unit broke off and apprehended the merchant.

‘And that one,’ he pointed to the bodyguard, ‘he rose his sword against a captain of the Republic.’

Another two soldiers broke rank and restrained the bodyguard.

The captain punched him in the gut and the two peons dragged him off. The captain glanced around the crowd, ‘Go back to your business,’ he snarled and returned to lead his unit.

Nemo walked out into the street as the crowd dispersed. Spreading anyway but where they had been going. People avoided the dead beggar in the sand and a bubble of stillness generated itself around the body.

Vispa emerged after Nemo and asked what happened. Nemo recanted the details.

The girl slumped at the tale. ‘Such pointless death and treatment.’

‘I agree but for the Republic it is setting the tone of behaviour. In time it will loosen,’ Nemo said.

‘How do you know that though? I don’t see how or why it will loosen. And why should we wait for them to decide? This is our home! Why do outsiders from a thousand miles away decide what we can do here?’ Vispa pleaded, her voice rising with each word.

‘Keep your voice down. They killed someone for a cough. Questioning their right will be met with worse.’

‘And you’re happy to go along with that?’

Nemo sighed, ‘No. But I have more important things to care for before I can think about that.’

‘Right, your family. Why do you care?’ Vispa spat out, ‘Your family might end up like mine if you don’t care about the Republic’s domination.’

‘I would rather make sure they are safe and cared for before I start marking myself as the most wanted man in the world,’ Nemo said.

‘So you will help?’

‘I never said that,’ Nemo started to walk towards the main thoroughfare towards the north-eastern gate before Vispa could respond.

Vispa pulled Simbar along at a trot and caught up to the bounty hunter, ‘But it is a possibility?’

‘I am not going to talk about the distant future when the near future is so precarious.’

Vispa scrunched her face up and pouted, ‘Fine. But this conversation will happen again,’ she threatened.

Nemo groaned. One step at a time, he thought.

They had crossed near to the centre of the city. Little had changed. The buildings still stood, the inns, theatres, brothels, and galleries were open, and market stalls flourished. The changes were dramatic but subtle for the everyday. The flag of Thesus hung from buildings and the guards were foreign. That was all that had changed for the citizens that had more pressing matters than the politics of the ruling classes.

He felt something was wrong. A cloud in his mind. Something external was bothering him. He turned down a side road, an old shortcut to the north-east gate that lacked the shops and businesses of the day, and still the bother plagued him.

The side street was narrow. The buildings opening straight onto the street and each home to a number of families all living together. An inn rested on a corner, far from the hustle and bustle of the main roads, and drew a sizeable crowd of locals and quieter folk. Men and women were engaged in the work of the day. Washing clothes, plucking the feathers off chickens and other fowl, tending to young children. The more Nemo watched the more he noticed the lack of fathers, of brothers, of sons. The more the women were all older than their twenty fifth cycle. How the children were all infants or toddlers. The Republic had enacted its price for refusing to surrender. That price was a generation of children and women and many generations of men.

And yet that cloud still bothered him. He made a quick turn of the head to the left and glanced behind. People concerned with everyday problems dressed in trousers and shirt. He did the same on the right and saw the same.

Ahead was a stall operating out of a home. On it were knives, plates, vases, and a book. A boy no older than seven stood behind the stall with a little coin pouch in his hand.

Nemo moved towards the stall and idly investigated the knife.

‘Two fals,’ the boy perked rocking on his heels.

‘Why are you selling it?’ Nemo asked keeping an eye on the way he had come.

‘Got no money. Gran and I need to eat,’ the boy looked through the open door of his home and smiled.

Nemo bent over and looked inside. At the far end there was a woman who had little business doing anything besides sitting. And that was what she was doing. Her wrinkled face moved into something resembling a smile, her eyes lost behind her aged skin.

‘Right. Well, how about you keep this knife, for now,’ he placed the knife back on the table.

‘It’s a good knife,’ the boy said.

A flash of dark blue danced over the far left of Nemo’s vision. Darting from one alleyway into the next. He smiled.

‘I’m sure it is. Better for you to keep it then,’ Nemo untied the string of his coin pouch.

‘But I will offer you these two dinar,’ he pulled two gold coins out of his pouch and held them between forefinger and thumb, ‘if you would allow me to wait inside for a minute or so.’

‘Err… I’m going to ask gran,’ the boy snatched the coins from Nemo’s fingers and darted inside. He bounced in front of his grandmother who sat hunched over and covered in layers of scarves across her shoulders and legs.

‘What are you doing?’ Vispa asked him.

‘Just follow,’ Nemo said without taking his eyes off the boy.

The boy dashed out with the coins held in his fist, ‘Gran says you can come in but the horses need to go round the alley.’

‘Great, thank you,’ Nemo said and led the horses down the alleyway to his right. ‘Go inside and wait by the door,’ he told Vispa and keeping his eyes open for the dark blue.

Nemo entered the home. Its ceiling was a mere finger length above his head. The curtains where missing, probably sold, and yet it was still dim. The sun shining on the opposite side of the street. There was a chill to the air. There were no rugs and only two chairs. The marks of the tables feet were worn into the floor but the table stood outside.

The old woman sat in her chair and smiled at Nemo and Vispa. Nemo returned the smile and said his thanks to which the old woman nodded but said nothing. The boy stood by her side rubbing the two dinar over each other in his hand. His eyes shone.

Nemo crouched near the door and waited. 

Vispa opened her mouth.

Nemo shook his head and motioned for her to go by the boy and his grandmother.

He waited in silence. Eyes trained on a small patch of sand outside the door. His ears tuned to the comings and goings of people. 

He heard a crunch of sand. The tip of a boot stepped into his line of sight. A second later he lunged outside and wrestled someone inside. In one fluid motion he grabbed the colour of her coat and pulled her inside. Nemo held the woman by her neck against the inside wall and held her right wrist away from him. She was armed. The knife in her right hand.

‘Who are you?’ He asked.

The woman panted.

He loosened his grip.

‘No one. Just wanted to know where you were going?’

‘No one would want to know. So I ask again, who are you?’ Nemo snarled and twisted her wrist. The knife clattered to the floor.

‘Frya sent me,’ she peeped.

Nemo relaxed but did not let go, ‘Of course. Tell him and Humaya not to follow me again. The next one I won’t leave unharmed,’ he released her neck and wrist.

She bent double, gasping for air, before darting out of the home. Without her knife.

Nemo breathed noisily and found another dinar in his pouch. He flicked it towards the boy, ‘For the trouble,’ he said and left.

He fetched Atars and Simbar. He handed the reins of the silver colt to Vispa.

‘How did you know we were being followed?’

‘The hunter knows when he is hunted. It’s a sense you develop. I can’t explain it,’ he continued down the street, ‘Also, she was wearing blue,’ he laughed.

‘Why is that funny?’ Vispa looked puzzled.

‘Look around you. Is there anything remotely blue here.’

‘The sky.’

‘Precisely. And we aren’t up there. We are here where everything is some shade of brown, yellow, or red. Blue stands out. Noticing things in the wrong place, that I can explain. And teach,’ he said.

‘Would you teach me?’ Vispa said.

As Nemo looked to her she averted her eyes and blushed. ‘I thought you would have picked it up.’

‘Somethings, not much. More who has more coin in their purse or which secret I should be listening in on than knowing when I am being watched. So, woudl you teach me?’

Nemo raised an eyebrow, ’Sure. I need to teach my children it too. Knowing how to see is very important and could well save your life.’

Vispa smiled.

‘But first things first. I… We are leaving this damned city.’ Nemo felt she was telling the truth about not being fully with the Resistance, otherwise, why would she have left the hideout.

‘Right,’ she said and offered a nervous smile.

They continued through the streets and roads of Tanussi. Nemo kept one eye behind them and another scanning the myriad of faces that went by. The Resistance more than likely had numerous people following him and Vispa. It was pointless to try and find them all and the only thing they were going to see was him leaving the city.

At the end of the road choked with people was the north east gate. A small, lesser used, entrance that avoided the busy main road out of the city. It was also a direct road to Beargarth, joining the main road that went through his home town a few miles north. 

The usual four gatekeepers stood watch on ground level. Two more, armed with bows, stood atop the city walls. And a patrol unit would pass by every hour or so making rounds. But as he was leaving they wouldn’t bother him about papers or purpose. Once passed the gate he wasn’t the city guards concern.

The four guards roused from their dull afternoon of watching and stood shoulder to shoulder in way of the gateway. Standing in their newly stitched owl and mountain regalia. The polish on their chainmail shimmering. Their halberds uncovered and held upright.

Nemo approached, confused, and the four remained passive.

‘No one is to leave the city,’ the left most guard declared. His eyes unblinking and focussed on some long off point behind Nemo. He didn’t make eye contact.

‘I just want to go to Beargarth,’ Nemo said.

‘Sorry sir, no one is to leave the city until after the ceremony and procession in two days time,’ the guard spoke. He was young, his eyes clear and unweighed by age. His chin smooth and the skin around his eyes uncreased. From the look of him Nemo thought he could have been Tanussian. But who would wear that by choice?

‘I only arrived here a few hours ago. What ceremony?’ Nemo asked.

‘Governor Stipi is formalising Thesusian rule over the city of Tanussi and will give a speech detailing the course of events for the next year. All must attend,’ the guard regurgitated the learned lines.

‘Must attend?’

‘Yes, sir. All must attend and engage in the celebrations. After that regular travel will be allowed again.’

Nemo turned to Vispa who shrugged. They plan on killing the Governor at a procession with every eye in the city watching, Nemo thought. That’s insane.

‘People can enter but can’t leave?’

‘That is right. An announcement was sent to every village and town with Tanussi’s borders with requests for attendance weeks ago,’ the soldier informed.

Nemo flicked his eyes up to the city walls and saw the two bowmen standing on the edge, arrows nocked. ‘I suppose I should leave you to your day then. Thank you for the information,’ Nemo said as he took a few steps back.

‘That would be best. Enjoy the procession.’

He and Vispa paced away and when Nemo was sure he was out of ear shot he asked Vispa, ‘Did you know about this?’

‘No,’ Vispa answered. ‘I had no idea. I haven’t been here,’ she scowled at him.

‘There must be some way out of the city.’

Vispa said nothing.

Nemo watched her look away and bite her lip. ‘Vispa?’

‘What?’

‘Is there another way out of the city?’

She sighed, ‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘You will have the same problem.’

‘What guards stopping me because of the procession?’

‘Yes, but different guards.’

It was Nemo’s turn to sigh, ‘Resistance.’

‘Yep.’

Nemo clenched a fist around the hilt of his scimitar. Pushing it down like a lever, it twisted his belt. He let it go and it bounced back up, the leather untwisting. ‘Fine. Take me back to Humaya and Frya.’

‘They’ll have moved by now. We are better just going to one of the more… public hideouts.’

‘Do they move a lot?’

‘Few times a day. When the patrols change. Except for a few places that are, like I said, public hideouts,’ Vispa led them back down the road they came. 

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Nemo said.

‘You’ll see.’

Vispa stood outside a large, old, building. Three grey stone steps led up to double doors. Each carved with the face of some local god, or gods. The left face was laughing, a drink to his lips. The right face cried, his forehead resting on the back of his hand as he held an empty cup. The walls were made of a pale red brick, not large sandstone blocks, except for the corners which were pillars. The ground floor lacked windows on the front but the two floors above had four. Each covered with thin, wispy, cloth on the inside. The building was old. Older than all the others that surrounded it. Out of place yet it made the city, Tanussi, seem invasive.

‘Here we are.’

‘This is it?’

‘This is it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve been here before. Also,’ she pointed to the sand at the bottom of the steps.

A circle with a diagonal line had been drawn in the sand. 

‘Ah, great. Lead the way.’

Vispa jumped the steps and rapped on the door three times. Twice on the right, once on the left.

Nemo expected a pause. The long drawn out wait of a decision being made in hushed tones in a shadowy corner.

The doors burst open and a man with a huge grin looked at them both. ‘Come on in!’ He shouted. ‘You can hitch the horses on the front here,’ and he pointed to an iron bar along the front wall.

Nemo faltered, ‘Thank you,’ he managed after a long second. He tied Atars up to the hitch and went up the steps in one stride.

The barman closed the doors behind him. A satisfying click and knock of wood as he did so.

Nemo surveyed the room. There were four rooms off from the main. Two on the left and two on the right. Each had their own doors. Four round tables were in the main room, two either side of the doors, and two more closer to the bar. The bar itself stretched the full width of the room.

Despite the lack of windows the place was flooded with light. Nemo looked up and could see the sky above through a glass pane roof. The tiled roof a mere facade from the outside and the floors above had narrow walkways around the inside which gave access to the inn rooms.

The room to the right of the bar, nearest the front doors, was open. Inside was dark but Nemo could make out a shimmering candle and a square table in the middle of the room covered with a large piece of paper or cloth. Tankards weighed the edges down, along with swords and candlesticks.

Nemo had wandered deeper into the main room without realising. The round tables had four seats each and only one was occupied by an old man with his lips pressed together like a duck’s bill. Slumped in his chair eyes closed or near to it and holding a tankard in one hand. Near that were eight empties. He may have lost his teeth but not the taste for ale.

‘What can I get you?’ The barman called from behind the bar. His arms spread wide as he leaned against his side of it. His sleeves rolled up. His brown hair flopped around his ears and his smile betrayed him as younger than he acted. His forearms were muscled, and marked with ink. 

Definitely not a barman or innkeep, Nemo thought, ‘I’ll have whatever the ale is,’ he saddled up at the bar pulling a tall stool from the corner. 

The bar itself was unadorned like the rest of the furniture. Austere to the point of an oddity. Maybe some ascetic monks used to call it their home or it was gutted by fire and they lacked the money for any niceties. Or maybe it was a hideout and cheap was the way to go. Nemo glanced at the old man with many ales and few teeth. Odd choice of distraction. Expensive as well. He turned back to find a mug of frothy ale waiting for him.

‘Huh,’ he stared at the ale as he reached for his coin purse. Not watered down like Tura’s at least. Definitely not a pub. 

‘Oh no need. I heard we may have guests and was told everything has been settled already,’ the barman said.

‘Well, cheers to my patron then,’ he lifted the mug noticing the slight bulge of a weapon beneath the apron on his right thigh. The froth seemed to go on for an age. But the ale, once Nemo reached it, was exquisite. And strong.

‘I’ll have the same, please,’ Vispa hopped up onto a stool of her own. 

The barman obliged. He served Vispa her ale and smiled. He stood with his shoulders back and his legs slightly apart rolling his hands over each other. His eyes flashed to the end of the bar.

‘So. How does this work?’ Nemo asked.

‘You wait,’ Vispa answered for him with only eyes for her ale.

‘But how do they know?’

‘Trust me. They know. Stop talking or you’ll wake the old guy,’ Vispa gulped down her ale. ‘He doesn’t take kindly to that,’ she said after a rumbling burp. ‘Excuse me.’

‘We sit here and get drunk? Is that it?’ Nemo sipped his ale.

‘You don’t have to do anything. You can just sit. Or you can stand. You can drink, or not. You could eat if you wanted. The foods not the best but it’s okay,’ Vispa said in a hushed tone.

The barman eyed her.

‘No offence,’ she said.

‘None taken. Never was good behind a hot stove anyway,’ the young man said. His knuckles calloused and the backs of his hands scarred. Nemo imagined he had a similar, albeit different, life to Vispa.

‘How about going upstairs or one of these side rooms? Or leaving?’

‘None of that,’ the barman said before Vispa even opened her mouth.

‘I see. Do you trap all your customers in or just me?’

‘Just those who have a meeting to attend.’

Nemo nodded and sipped his ale. From one cage to a smaller one. Good choice, he rebuked himself.

The shadow of his stool rolled over the floorboards as he waited. Passing over two boards as wide as his foot was long. He could see the bottom of his mug even as he drank smaller amounts each mouthful.

The old man woke abruptly only to order a refill. He pushed the empty into the crowd of others. He didn’t speak as so much mumbled and groaned. Once the full tankard was in his hand he fell back into his semi-sleeping state.

‘How much longer?’ Nemo asked.

‘They’ll get here when they get here,’ the barman said pouring a third drink for Vispa.

‘Just enjoy the ale,’ she said downing the dregs of the last drink and accepting the next.

Nemo grimaced. Strong ale and meetings never seemed a good combination to him.

The man behind the bar pointed to his mug and gestured as if he was drinking.

‘No. I’m good,’ Nemo said. He finished the ale and was content to hold the mug in two hands. Rolling it side to side as the handle hit each set of knuckles in turn.

He unclenched his teeth and focussed on not grinding them. Mani always hated that. Delara laughed when Mani went wide eyed with her annoyance. Nemo smiled, and remembered he couldn’t leave.

The old man ordered a tenth tankard.

Nemo had taken to pacing between the double doors and the bar. For such expertly carved doors on the outside the inside was bare of any adornment. Just a flat plank of wood with short cut outs for hinges. 

Fire. It had to have been a fire, Nemo guessed as to the fate of the once exquisite interior. He had never seen it. Didn’t even know if it existed. But had a feeling it must have been. Who would make a building appear grand when it wasn’t?

The first time Nemo had approached the door the barman flinched for the knife under his apron. A lightning fast movement. 

Nemo reached the door and turned around and said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. Put the knife away,’ without even lifting his head. Just staring at the floorboards and charting the lines of the wood as they coursed through the wood like veins. The barman followed him around the room for a few more trips but soon lost interest.

Nemo felt cramp in his legs. In his sword arm. In his neck. He had to get out of this prison. The small, confined, three storey building with glass roof and double doors. His own home would fit inside twice over and yet it seemed smaller.

He investigated the walls next. Sand coloured from waist height up to the balconies of the upper floors. At waist height there was a wooden rail that ringed the room and under that something familiar. Sand coloured plaster walls. Unpainted, unadorned. Not even a questionable painting by some drunk, so-called, artist. The more he looked the more obvious it wasn’t a pub or inn. It lacked any of the feel but had all of the necessities. 

Sailing past the bar he counted Vispa’s empties and the old man’s. Together they would drink the place dry. He smirked hoping whoever was paying had deep pockets. The Resistance sure didn’t so someone must have been giving them bags of dinar. Much like the bandits out in Forgiskill.

Different name. Different targets. One man’s freedom fighters are another man’s bandits. But at least the Resistance had yet to steal from innocents. At least not the wrong innocents. Yet.

He passed the first closed door and peered into the open one. As he began to notice the strange stains on the cloth being weighted down by the candlestick. He knew what it was now.

The doors burst open and Humaya and Frya walked in. Alone. Unarmed. She wore a dress as many women in the city did. Covering her skin from the burn of the sun. He wore trousers and a loose fitting shirt. Only the scars on their hands and faces gave them away. That and the steeled expression with focussed eyes.

‘Come with us,’ Frya said as he followed Humaya into the open room nearest the doors.

A map. He was right. The sprawling length of thick cloth was a map, held down by weapons and candlesticks. It was roughly square and featured many straight roads running north to south and east to west. A line in chalk ran down streets and roads turning abruptly, going from one side of the map to the other then looping back. Parts had been brushed off and redrawn elsewhere.

Humaya lit more candles until the room was as bright as the main one was. The map unfurled in the light. Roads led to gaps at the hard edge of the map. But it wasn’t an edge. The hard, black, lines that ringed the roads jutted out in places and split in others, allowing roads to pass through. 

The city walls. It was a map of Tanussi. The entire city shrunk down to a table.

How did they get this? Maps of cities were rare and those that did exist a closely guarded secret. Knowing how to traverse a city became a weapon during war time. The ignorant side at a severe disadvantage if street to street fighting erupted.

‘Why have you come back?’ Humaya interrupted Nemo’s inquisitive eye with a wave of a candle.

‘I need a way out of the city and am told you have one,’ he said pulling his attention away.

‘Why not just wait for a few days until after the procession?’

‘We all know that travel will still be barred. Why else would they not tell you you can’t leave when you enter? Why else would they not care about papers and who is entering the city? It’s a trap,’ Nemo said.

‘Very true. Probably. There are rumours of granting of citizenship and collection of taxes as well as hunting of criminals and rebels. But yes. You are right. We do not expect the travel ban to be lifted,’ Humaya said. She fidgeted with her the skirts of her dress. Twisting them left and right.

‘Uncomfortable?’ Nemo asked.

‘Skirts are not for fighting in,’ she snarled.

‘You aren’t fighting.’

‘But I could be. At any time. I would rather be ready. Anyway that’s not the issue right now. Even if we did have a way out of the city. Why would we allow you through?’

Nemo expected this. ‘You wouldn’t. But I need to know if you do or not.’

Frya tilted his head from one side to the other. Nemo felt the look and put his right hand on his belt, near his knife.

‘We have a way out. Numerous in fact,’ the man said.

‘Frya?’ Humaya spat.

‘Now you know that what is it you offer?’ Frya smiled knowingly.

‘I’ll do what you asked me to. I will kill the governor,’ Nemo said, ‘In exchange for safe passage out of Tanussi.’

The two leaders stood impassive for a moment. Calculating the worth and risk that Nemo offered and presented. Either they accepted or Nemo was trapped in Tanussi for as long as Governor Stipi and Thesus decided was suitable. That was not a joyous thought. The two shared a look and nodded.

‘Deal. Kill Stipi and we will show you the way out,’ Humaya said.

The air thinned. A tension releasing for all involved. Suddenly adversaries were allies and previous distrusting could be set aside, for the time being. Nemo relaxed his hand from his belt, from his knife, and leaned on the table with his knuckles.

‘What’s the plan?’ He asked.

‘Shoot him near the end of the procession or whenever he makes his expected speech,’ Humaya said.

‘Simple enough. And is this the route?’ Nemo waved his hand over the map of Tanussi.

‘It is. We expect him to talk at one of the springs, here or here,’ Frya pointed to two points on the map. One near to the north east gate and another the palace.

‘Why don’t we know?’

‘They have constructed platforms at both with no indication of which is to be used. There are four others like them as well but we have it on good authority it is one of these two,’ Frya said.

‘Which means you will have to follow the procession through the city or at least be within running distance of these two springs,’ Humaya indicated the points on the map again.

‘I think I will just follow the procession. Shouldn’t be too difficult through the backstreets and such,’ Nemo ran his finger over the chalk line of the procession.

‘There will be far more city guards and soldiers around so be prepared for them looking for suspicious activity. Like an armed man following the procession,’ Frya said.

‘I doubt they will let people in the crowds with obvious weaponry,’ Humaya added.

‘True. You will need something concealed and leave your sword and bow behind,’ Frya said.

Nemo grunted. ‘Easy enough with this,’ he pulled back his shirt sleeve to reveal the wristbow, ‘but doesn’t leave me much chance of surviving if caught.’

‘What is that?’ Frya asked.

‘Then don’t get caught,’ Humaya spoke at the same time as Frya.

‘It’s a crossbow, but a small one. Packs a punch over a short distance,’ Nemo pulled one of his fingers forward to flip the arms of the weapon out.

‘Impressive. That will do nicely. The details we will leave to you. Just make sure you land a killing blow. We have plans resting on this. We can’t miss this opportunity,’ Humaya said, one scarred and twisted finger pointing at Nemo.

‘It will be done,’ Nemo smiled and mock bowed.