A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The city of Ramascus was once the shining Holy City of Zorinea, he who first decoded the wisdom of the stars and earth, moon and sun, sky and sea. Ruled by the Chief Observer of the Stars, a divine position granted to those whose name was seen in the stars themselves, Zorinean’s flocked to Ramascus bulging its once modest walls to breaking. In their place now stands homes and temples over three centuries old and the new walls, the white walls, are reaching their limit.

Now simply another city amongst the great wash of Thesus, the republic from the north, the Great Observer remains in power. A mere puppet of the Senate, his new stars, and the people of Thesus and beyond, his new earth, moon, sun, sky, and sea. The Diviners of the Star Temples and the lower divinations pushed to the sidelines of culture, influence, and power. 

At the base of the mountain path Nemo hears a familiar language being projected to the few travellers on the road that stretches to the Endless Sea and to The Wastes, avoiding the valley passage, and towards the city itself. In the distance people queue to await verdict on entry to the once holy city now guarded by foreigners and ruled from a thousand miles away. 

Maybe they’ll have a vote in a decade or so once resistance is effectively crushed, Nemo thought unbidden. He pulled his cloak tighter and made sure his patch was covered. 

‘The Stars have been read! The Chief Observer states the victory of the Republic of Thesus was assured from the beginning. Democracy will be granted to the people of Ramascus once they accept the Senate, the Commons, and Chancellor as the rightful rulers. You are free and equal peoples of Thesus,’ spat a young man, shrill and zealous. 

Nemo could see the Lesser Diviner’s bulging eyes as he descended the final slope of the mountain path. Does he really believe that? The Republic certainly knew what to do to pacify the populace.I wonder if it worked, he thought gazing the length of the road up to the city gates. More people waited for entry than left. Must be working. He swallowed a rage. Cowards. Nemo sat upright in his saddle as he approached the propagandist standing on a wooden box. 

People passed with disinterest. A merchant pulled his donkey and cart along, a rug covering his goods, his gaze focussed on the ground for rocks and pits. A woman ushered two knee-high children passed, speeding up and whispering down at them as the Diviner continued his traitorous speech. Others milled in the fields lacing the patches of fertile ground. Glad I’m not them, Nemo thought.

Atars strode onto the road and continued onto Ramascus. Nemo rode, head high, and glanced at the preacher of evil with unflinching eyes. The Diviner spoke more nonsense before flitting his gaze elsewhere. Nemo spat into the dirt beneath the Lesser Diviner and carried on to the road to Ramascus.

‘You’re lucky the Republic is a free society for that insult would cost you your life in other lands!’ The Lesser Diviner yelled. 

Nemo ignored him, head held high, focussed on the road ahead, and the gates of Ramascus. Every society is a free one, depending on who you insult. He ran his hand over the hilt of his scimitar, unsure if trouble would emerge from the fields, the travellers, or the preacher himself. 

He carried on. No one approached or returned the insult. Tacit approval? Or does no one care? Probably the second, Nemo thought gripping the reins in two hands. 

The silhouette of a Thesusian soldier stood in the gate. His comrade next to him facing into the city. Both checking papers and searching carts, whether the people where entering or leaving. Their conical helmets with wide neck guards and solid plate armour glistened in the early evening sun. 

Nemo scanned the city walls. Archers lined the top, arrows knocked. A retaliation was not happening. Or shouldn’t be and farmers would be unable to lay siege. Yet there stood dozens, maybe hundreds, of archers along the top of the wall. Nemo followed the white stone to the distant corner on his right. A palisade wall jutted into the fields. Inside rows and rows of tents. 

The enemy camp, Nemo tensed. His feet dug into Atars’ ribs on instinct. That patrol was fresh out of camp and that runaway would be making his way there. Good job he went the long way, Nemo hurried to the queue of merchants, orphans, and refugees leading into the once holy city of Ramascus.

He leapt off the saddle and held Atars’ reins in his hands. Always sure to keep the horse between him and any watchmen from the enemy camp. His back ran with sweat as the early evening sun roasted those waiting to enter the once great city. Let me pass through Ramascus without issue, buy supplies without issue, and carry on to the next city before home, Nemo prayed, his hand over his heart underneath his cloak. The metal plates woven together with leather chilled his fingers. He repeated his prayer.

His hand roamed to the Free Cities and Union of Free Peoples patch. Too dangerous, he pulled at the stitching holding it to the leather strips of his armour. His eyes warmed as he pulled the patch free, ripping the stitching in one motion. He blinked away his thoughts, his feelings, his error. Stowing the patch in a coin pouch on his belt he pulled his cloak down over one side. 

The queue moved with a deliberate slowness. The people crouched under the stress of having to wait. A few left and tried their luck travelling to a nearby town, or, if foolish enough, the next city. Most stayed, their hopes pinned on the Chief Observer and the Republic’s mercy. 

The last spark of light rested on the mountain top. The golden curve slid out of view and a horrid chill spread from the white walls across the empty fields as green stalks whipped in the dark breeze.

Nemo lowered his shoulders. He forced a smile onto his face and turned his scimitar behind him.

The Thesusian’s had erected a covering against the wall of Ramascus. Under it sat two men with stamps, tassels, and bags of coin. Their armour was dry, their cloaks stained brown by the sand. Their faces streaked with dirt and ink.

A sergeant stood to the side checking papers and asking for stamps, and coin it seemed. An unofficial toll? Nemo groaned at the thought. But maybe helpful this time.

The sergeant rolled his tongue over his teeth, staring, as was his wont, at the papers of the woman and child in front of Nemo. Faces dirty, hair a mess, clothing in strands, and a single sack between them. Never had refugees been so obvious. Who gave them papers then? Nemo thought. Before the Republic the Free Cities had been open to travellers, of the right looking type. Coin or wares a favourable thing. Bounty hunters, mercenaries, farmers, or peasants, not so much. Much to Nemo’s displeasure. Bribes were a routine part of entering a city. 

‘Mmm. I suppose the Republic has offered mercy and there are refugee spots inside the city. But you can’t stay,’ the sergeant waved them through, holding their papers in one lazy hand as he spoke to the soldier sitting under the cover of stretched canvas tied to four wooden legs. 

Nemo straightened his cloak and rummaged in a pouch on his belt for his old bounty hunter papers.

‘Thank you,’ the woman said again and again.

The sergeant didn’t hear. ‘Come forth,’ he gestured at Nemo.

Nemo made the two steps toward and Atars followed, head low and non-warhorse like.

‘You’re lucky I can just see the glow of the sun above that mountain. Once it goes I’m shutting the gates,’ the sergeant held his hand out. 

Nemo fiddled with a lace on a larger pouch on his left side.

‘Hurry up or you’ll be…’ he didn’t finish. His eye distracted. The sergeant’s eye settled on a glint at Nemo’s torso. He reached for Nemo’s cloak and pushed the cloth back for a better look. ‘Where did you get that armour? I killed a lot of people wearing that armour,’ he laughed.

The two under the cover laughed with him.

The lace parted and Nemo pulled a haggard bundle of papers from inside. Found it, he thought of saying. ‘Everyone in these parts uses it. You must have seen a few with it today,’ he said instead.

The sergeant snatched the papers and squinted. His chin coated in a full days stubble, his eyes sunk deep in dark circles. His finger shook as he flipped the page over. Exhausted. Good.

‘I suppose I have, I don’t remember. Bounty hunter? Not much work given the mercy issued by the Senate,’ he said. 

‘Still criminals, loan cheats, and murderers, maybe more now,’ Nemo responded.

‘Perhaps.’

The sergeant read the page hastily, and the next, and the next. The now defunct practice of city guards documenting the travels of people entering and leaving made for dull reading.

‘I suppose a bounty hunter would have to travel a lot,’ the sergeant said turning over the page. He blinked and squinted, his brow furrowed. ‘All far more north than here though.’

‘I travelled a long way to get here, bounties flow in the wake of armies,’ Nemo said, then bit his tongue.

‘Do they? Which armies would they be?’ The sergeant asked.

Oversold. ‘Both,’ he said, unable to tarnish his own.

Raised voices, carried on favourable winds, reached Nemo from down the length of the queue.

‘What did he mean he’s shutting the gates? There’s a hundred people out here,’ a man shouted.

‘That’s what he said. Sun goes, gate’s close,’ a woman supported.

‘Hey,’ another shouted. ‘I have children here, they need food and a bed.’

‘He can’t stop us all,’ some fool uttered in a whisper caught on those favourable winds.

Nemo shifted his footing, ready for a fight, ‘That sun is setting fast.’

‘It is,’ the sergeant said handing the papers back. ‘Get on in, might be a few more bounties for you after tonight,’ the sergeant laughed and signalled to his comrades to ready themselves.

So much for mercy, Nemo thought passing under the gates of Ramascus. His shoulders released as he did so. 

‘Hey’, the sergeant shouted.

Nemo turned his hand sliding to his sword.

’Stables to the east,’ the sergeant said, waving a black flag. The towering gates shuddered in response.

‘Thanks,’ Nemo remembered just in time. 

East. Right. He let go of his sword.

The smell of evening meals filled the city. The sweet smell of sugared meats and honeyed vegetables. Rich tagines of meat, fruit, and beans intermingled with the rest all fighting for attention of hungry families and weary travellers.

People milled through the main thoroughfare that ran parallel to the southern wall, linking the stables on one side to a housing quarter on the other. Horses were expressly forbidden beyond the main thoroughfares that ringed the city. A nuisance but less of one compared to fighting horses and carriages in the narrow twists and turns of Ramascus.

He led Atars through the crowds moving with and against him. The Ramascan language was all around and a complete mystery to Nemo, he had never been so far south before the war. Here and there he heard phrases in his own language, Tanussan, spoken in the city of Tanussi, far to the north, and the villages and towns nearby, like Nemo’s home, Beargarth.

Merchants probably. Ignore them, Nemo glanced up the height of the city walls. Archers overlooked the road, arrows already in hand. Ramascus is not peaceful. Nemo eyed the ground and moved at a leisured pace. His heart wanted to run, to ride through the night to Tanussi and then to Beargarth, his mind resisted. Too suspicious in a city newly conquered. Tomorrow. There is always tomorrow. 

His nostril flinched at a putrid smell. Manure,must be close, Nemo dared to raise his head and peered down the thoroughfare. At the corner of the city sat a colossal stables stretching to the wall itself and along both of the city walls that joined here. Carriages were being cleaned by stable hands, and a queue of travellers fresh off the road mingled by the stable masters office. Young stable hands, mostly boys under fifteen, dashed from one side to the other to show old customers to their horses or house new horses for the night.

Another queue. Of course, Nemo thought. He did not envy city life.

He rummaged through the saddle bags for anything valuable. Or incriminating. There wasn’t much. Everything of that sort was already on his belt. His hand ran over the wood of his bow. Pondering if it was worth taking he heard the stable master call next. He left the bow.

‘Name?’

‘Tanussan?’ Nemo said not knowing what the stable master said.

‘Name?’ He said, now in Tanussan.

The stable hand, a young boy of maybe eleven, whispered something to another boy.

He didn’t catch what was said, but both boys stared at him as they whispered back and forth.

‘Nemo,’ he answered frowning at the two boys and looking back down at the disinterested stable master.

The stable master scratched the name into the register with a well worn down stick with a nib carved into one end. 

‘Occupation?’ The stable master asked, his hand hovering on the next box to fill in.

‘Bounty hunter,’ Nemo answered scanning the stables. Less hands ran from end to end. Carriages were stowed. Torches were being lit.

‘Alright, how long you staying for?’

‘Just the night.’

‘That’ll be four dirham,’ the stable master held his hand out. His face still turned towards the register.

Nemo felt for the coins in his pouch and dropped them one by one into the open hand.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

The stable master struck out with one hand and hit the nearest boy in the stomach. The stable master pointed to Nemo and shouted, ‘Next!’

The boy pulled Atars towards a stable by the ends of the reins. Nemo let go of the reins and the boy coiled them up in his hands. The boy tied the reins on a hook in the wood by the double door. The doors led inside where eleven other horses were resting in their own paddocks. Nemo unfastened the saddle and began to lift it.

‘No, I do that,’ the boy said opening the double doors.

‘What did you say?’ Nemo said in Tanussan.

The boy pointed to himself and then to the saddle. 

Nemo hesitated, then made to let go of the horn.

He heard the scuff of sand and pebbles and felt someone brush past him at breakneck speed. Reaching for his sword he felt the other side of his belt. The coin pouch was missing, and more important the Free Cities patch with it.

The culprit ran into the thoroughfare, avoiding the torches on either side. 

‘Hey! Stop him,’ Nemo shouted. The thief bolted before anyone could do anything.

‘Stable, Atars,’ he patted the stable hand on the shoulder and dashed off into the night.

Nemo approached the eastern north-south road and saw the thief, no taller than one of the older stable hands, dart into an alley, under the light of a torch. He ran, holding the hilt of his sword in his left hand to steady it as he ran. He ducked, dove, and shoved his way down the thoroughfare still busy even in the dark of night. 

Faces danced in the light as he shot past. Torch light rippled over the clothing of people and cast peculiar shadows the faster he ran. He hit the wall of the alley and saw the pickpocket at the end of the alley watching him. Waiting. Nemo paused and turned his head to one side. Weird.

He nodded to Nemo and darted off down another alley. Nemo shook himself to sense and chased him into the warrens of the city.

Nemo darted down the same alley and saw the thief, coin pouch in hand, scale the building at the end. He hopped onto the roof and scurried over the tiles.

‘Ahh, come on,’ Nemo drank in a few breaths before chasing further.

The thief was above him, and only a few metres ahead. The thief dived into a window of a taller building. The crash of a table and slam of door echoed out of the open window. Nemo dashed down the next turn and quickly into the same building. He ran through the house and shouldered down a door into a courtyard. He skidded to a halt as four swords were pointed his way. Damn it.

He leaned on his knees. Sweat beaded on his forehead, ran down his nose, and dripped onto the sand. He stood up, stretched and made to draw his scimitar.

‘If that’s how it’s got to be,’ he said mid-draw. He paused and saw a Free Cities patch on one of his assailants.

‘How’d you get that?’ he asked, pointing with an empty sword hand.

Tiles cracked under foot and the thief dropped into the courtyard from above. The girl tossed him the coin pouch back and planted herself on a crate nearby. She leaned back on her arms, legs spread wide kicking back and forth, and her woman’s figure plain to see through thick spun men’s clothing. She breathed as if nothing had happened.

Nemo opened his pouch and pulled the Free Cities patch out and showed it to each of the sword wielders.

The four of them shared a look and whispered something in Ramascan. One lowered his blade and the others followed.

Nemo stowed the patch and tied the pouch back to his belt. Should I leave now or what? His legs remained still. Intrigued by the men’s patches and the pickpocket returning her steal. Questions bubbled in his mind Who are they? How are they here? Why are they here? Another voice spoke in his mind. All it said was leave, soft and quiet but not begging.

A door from another building burst open opposite him. His indecision had cost him. The decision made for him. Two of the four assailants moved to the alleys into the courtyard and watched passers-by. One climbed the stairs to the balcony above and clambered onto the roof, the other remained in the courtyard. Eyes trained on Nemo. 

Would be a hard bounty to complete, he thought notting the men’s positions and the area. Glad I’m not. Whoever they were was certainly clandestine and Nemo wanted to simply be home.

Four people walked out of the building. Two with an air about them. A man and a woman. Both dark haired, thin nosed, and round of face. Related, Nemo thought. The man wore the cloak of a Captain in the Free Cities army, a blue wash with silver trim and a fur collar. His sword swung from his belt, two in fact. A shorter sword with a long scimitar beneath it. His eyes were surrounded with valleys, the sign of stress, age, and too much time squinting at the sun.

As the Captain walked toward Nemo he nodded to the pickpocket and tossed a small pouch. Huh, Nemo was bemused as he watched the bag fly through the air. She caught it and tested the weight. Opening the pouch she dropped a gold Dinar inside. Nemo shot her a look. A gold coin for her troubles. She winked. 

‘You fought at the Plains?’ The man asked in clean Tanussan.

‘A bit forward in the middle of an occupied city don’t you think,’ Nemo riposted. The man was not from Ramascus, that much was clear, but he was stuck here now.

‘We don’t have time to couch the questions in plausible deniability,’ the woman thrust back. She wore a plain surcoat, with sleeves, but the rustle of chainmail was still audible as she walked. No weapons on her belt and no cloak on her back, Nemo guessed she was involved in whatever this was out of necessity. The chainmail her insurance.

‘Probably true. Yes I was at the Plains. I take it you were not?’

‘No, unfortunately, or fortunately, I was here with a reserves regiment,’ the man said. ‘Yes the cloaks mine, no I did not surrender the city before you ask.’

‘I wasn’t going to,’ Nemo lied. Resistance. ‘I am in no mind to join with a resistance, rebellion, or anything of the sort.’

‘Nor would we force you,’ the woman said. ‘But you entered the city with little issue when no other Free Citier has, you have luck on your side.’

Nemo laughed and looked down at the ground, ‘I wouldn’t call it luck. What happened to the others?’

‘Dungeons, all of them, even those who renounced and pledged allegiance to the Republic.’

‘So much for mercy,’ Nemo said under his breath.

‘Indeed, wait till you travel north and you will see how much Thesusian mercy is worth,’ the woman spat into the sand. 

The Captain touched her arm and she turned away for a moment.

‘I don’t want you to stay, I want you to leave. I think you are anyway, is that right?’ He asked.

‘I’m going home,’ Nemo admitted.

‘Does that take you near Tanussi?’ The man smirked.

No point lying when we are speaking the language, ‘Yes.’

‘Great, then you can deliver this to the Resistance leaders there,’ the man pulled a letter from his cloak, a cylindrical container bounded with unstamped wax at both ends.

‘Hold on,’ he held a palm outward, ‘just how do you expect to find them? Let alone enter the city, far deeper into new Republic lands? And why should I?’

‘All fair questions,’ the man said.

‘Entering the city is the easy part. A natural born Tanussan with the papers of a bounty hunter known in those parts,’ the woman spoke.

How did she… the pickpocket was watching me. He thought back to standing in the queue. He looked up towards the gates of the city and further into the crowded thoroughfare. On the far side, leaning against a wall, stood a young boy amongst children playing. Clever. Not the pickpocket just the best spies in the world.

‘The other problems?’ Nemo asked, the letter held in limbo by the Resistance man.

‘Finding us is not hard, if you know how. Look for the sword in hand drawn in the sand outside buildings. Failing that, they will find you, eventually,’ the woman hid her hands beneath her surcoat as she spoke. Night had fallen.

‘Why should you?’ The man paused and looked Nemo up and down. 

His armour worn and in need of a good oil, his sword plain and unadorned, his hair and beard grown wild. The grime of travel on his face and hands.

‘We can pay,’ the man settled with, ‘and offer a bed, food, and water for washing. Not here, in an inn nearer the merchant quarter.’

Nemo thought of the gold in his coin pouch. He didn’t need money for awhile. But there was no point buying what was offered for free. He worked the ground with the toe of his boot. I could say yes and just disappear, he thought. They don’t know where I live and don’t have the means to hunt me down. Well I hope not anyway.

‘I’ll do it,’ Nemo said. ‘But don’t send a pickpocket to find me again,’ he stared down the girl kicking her legs against the crate she was perched on. She held her hands up with feigned innocence. 

Nemo accepted the letter and stowed it between his belt and himself, the length of his cloak concealing it from view. The man threw another coin pouch in the air, this time to Nemo. It jingled as he caught it.

‘There’s enough for the inn I was speaking off down the road. Goes by the name of The Desert Rose, or it used to,’ the man turned as he finished and strode up to the building he came from. The woman followed. 

So much for a free bed. Nemo left via an alley onto a small quiet street somewhere deep in the city. Where the hell am I? He thought as he searched for a hanging sign saying ‘The Desert Rose.’

What am I doing? This letter is a worse indictment than the patch is. He strode along to a hanging sign up ahead. The words were blurred from so far away but the painting appeared to be a rose.

His left hand rested on the hilt of his scimitar. Fighting the urge to look back he walked faster. Doors slammed shut. Windows closed. The traffic on the street thinned as curfew approached. At least Nemo assumed their would be a curfew, all cities had one, especially those under occupation. His hand moved from scimitar to letter. Maybe it is necessary. 

The sign overhead swung and the words read something he didn’t understand. The painting, however, was of a flower an oddly coarse flower but the paint was worn. Nemo had never seen a desert rose but he had heard about them. Only appearing to those travellers blessed in some way. It was unlucky to damage a desert rose. If removed from the ground they died instantly.

He climbed the steps to an open door. Candle light flickered out against the dark of night. The light rumble of a two-way conversation echoed. He entered. He scanned the interior within a second. Two customers, one barkeep. And one large barrel of water. He swallowed and darted for the water. Reaching for a cup from the pile.

‘Er, that will be a copper,’ the barkeep said.

‘Huh?’ Nemo held the cup in his hand. The barkeep had his hand out waiting. The two customers watched him.

‘Fals,’ the barkeep said.

Realisation dawned, ‘Oh,’ he said reaching to his pouch to find a small copper coin. He tossed a silver coin into the barkeeps hand. ‘Food, drink, a room, and a bath,’ he hoped the barkeep understood Tanussan.

The barkeep looked confused, and then said, ‘Ahh, right away. Up the stairs, first on the right. Hot water coming,’ in heavily accented Tanussan.

The barkeep was a younger man, slim, twenties, lucky to not enlist in the war effort. His father likely did, or his brothers, hence…

Nemo thanked the barkeep through mouthfuls of water. He filled the cup twice, the water cool and soothing. He ignored the two customers. Slurring in a foreign language the two were old, dressed in dirt stained clothing, probably workers from the fields surrounding the city. 

He filled his cup, then a second, and a third. He pushed the three together and held them in both hands as he headed for the stairs. 

Morning poured through the east facing window of his room. Blinded he sat bolt up right and reached for his scimitar leaning against the end of the bed.

‘Breakfast is ready,’ came the call through the door. He unfurled his hand from his sword.

There had been knocking in his dream. Or maybe not. He fell back onto the bed. So much for rising at day break. He scolded himself for allowing the morning to slip away. Now the city would be alive, the markets bustling, the queues… the queues. He sighed and massaged his temples. He hated city life.

He jumped up from the bed and pulled on his trousers and undershirt. His armour felt heavier as he pulled it over his head. I need to get rid of this, he thought arranging his cloak to hide most of it from sight.

The barkeep cleared a table from a recent customer, balancing a half mug of ale on a tin plate.

‘What will you be having?’ The barkeep asked.

‘Anything I can eat while travelling,’ Nemo said. His voice hoarse from sleep. He coughed to clear his throat.

‘I’ll make you a bundle,’ the barkeep said tapping his nose and scurrying off to the kitchen.

Bundle? Sounds large. Nemo helped himself to another cup of water from the barrel at the bar. He untied the water skin from his belt loop and filled it until a raised dimple of water poked from the rim. He sucked the water from it and corked it before tying it back to his belt. 

Whistling emanated from the rear of the Desert Rose as the barkeep pulled together “a bundle.” Nemo hoped it was breads, cheeses, and olives, and maybe a sweet bread. He doubted the olives or the sweet bread. Probably flat bread and overly soft goats cheese. He sighed.

‘Here we go,’ the barkeep held a sack up to Nemo.

Nemo held the bundle in his left hand, too big for his belt, at least food for a few days. 

‘You must eat well in this city,’ Nemo lifted the bundle. 

‘You bet, difficult to stay slim here,’ the barkeep laughed.

Did he say difficult to kill here? The barkeep’s Tanussan was muffled under a thick Ramascan accent. Nemo pushed it aside. No, slim.

He threw an extra silver dirham onto the bar and bid farewell. The barkeep hurried back to the kitchen and missed the coin. Though Nemo was sure he heard it rattle on the bar.

The street was thronged with people. The long shadows suggested it was still early in the day. Only a few hours lost, Nemo regretted. As he surveyed the passerby he noticed a familiar face leaning on the building opposite. Maybe if I…

Nemo darted into the crowd. 

‘Oh no, I’ve been waiting too long for you to hide in the crowd,’ she said. Her hand was already on his arm. The one with the “bundle.”

‘Not this time,’ Nemo waved his knife in her face.

‘I’m not here to rob you. And, hey, you got most of it back didn’t you?’ The pickpocket said.

‘Yes. Most,’ he stressed sheathing the knife in his belt.

‘Finder’s fee.’

‘Yeah finding me trouble,’ Nemo made off with the throng of people holding empty baskets. 

Her hand released his arm and he made it three steps before she said, ‘I know a quicker way.’

He stopped. Looked to the sky and sighed. ‘Of course she does,’ he muttered to himself.

She tapped him on the shoulder, ‘This way,’ and cut across the lines of people into a side alley fit only for stray cats and waste. 

Nemo cut across the street. He knocked into a few and some into him. They shouted. He ignored them and carried on.

The smell hit as soon as he stepped into the alley. Rotting food and human waste. Ramascus, apparently, lacked a waste collection crew. Or the residents refused to pay. Or maybe it was just a Tanussi thing. Either way, he hated cities.

He lifted his bundle higher from the ground not wanting any potential olives to be tainted by dead cat and faeces. ‘Is this really going to be quicker?’

The thief turned, ‘Of course. Just watch your step. The names Vispa, by the way,’ she lead the way through the alley and turned onto a backstreet. 

‘Nemo,’ he said. 

He coughed through the smell, rancid and sweet, it tickled the back of his throat. The alley crossed a backstreet between rows of buildings. It was clear but the smell remained. He dared to sniff his cloak. The smell was there, deep in the fabric. Need a new cloak now too, he thought. Approaching potential clients smelling like human waste didn’t go down too well. Nor would it go down with family and friends back in Beargarth. 

‘This way,’ she pointed down the backstreet. 

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘The bazaar, of course,’ she stopped and patted her clothing, ‘Almost forgot, take this,’ she produced a coin, silver inlaid gold with a drop of copper at the centre.

‘What’s that for?’ Nemo asked taking the coin from her. He rubbed the coin, the three metals flush with each other. Letters were engraved on the out ring and some symbol on the inner with the dot of copper at the centre.

‘Discount,’ Vispa winked.

‘I presume at somewhere specific?’

‘Yes but don’t let on about anything, just hand it over when the time comes,’ Vispa continued down the back street.

He rubbed the coin with his thumb before bringing it closer to his eye. He couldn’t read the tiny letters scratched into the gold outer ring. Not going to be Tanussan anyway, he thought secreting the coin into a pouch on his belt. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries. We help our own.’

Nemo watched her as he caught up. Vispa was short, her hair tied back into a tail with straggles of hair escaping around her face. She was no more than eighteen, probably younger, her cheeks still chubby with youth. Though her eyes seemed distant. Scarred by unforgettable times. Too much too soon. 

‘So, what’s your story?’ She asked.

‘Mine? Oh I don’t know. Bounty hunter by trade. Enlisted. Left my family to fight. Lost. Now returning home. Yours?’ What else have I done? Is that really it?

‘Streets. That’s pretty much it. Occasionally had a roof over my head but never lasted long. The people you saw last night pay well but not very often and I don’t get any food from them for sure,’ she kicked the dirt. Her thumbs pushed into her hips.

‘War?’ He felt the weight of the bundle in his hand.

‘War.’

‘How long?’

‘Long enough. We should moving if you want to avoid too many crowds,’ she carried on down the back street and turned down the next alley to the right.

How many orphans has this war made? The Free Cities barely fought before the Republic came. He ground his teeth. And now more will die in Resistance… is that better than losing your way of life? Questions plagued him. Fight or run? What difference did it make. The villagers wouldn’t change. But the cities. The cities would be forced to change. Already the Chief Observer was a puppet and the faith of Zorinea twisted to the Sentate’s aims. 

Vispa stopped at the end of the alley. She pointed to a stall over the way. The stall protruded from a building. The door underneath the canopy was open and wind chimes hung from the branches holding the canopy.

‘See there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s the one you want. She’ll have everything you need and maybe more,’ Vispa flashed a weak smile to Nemo.

‘Thanks. You… look after yourself, alright,’ he handed her the bundle. Hope there aren’t olives in there.

‘Really? Just cause I said they don’t give me food?’

‘Not only,’ he thought of his own daughter, Delara, going hungry and living on the streets of Tanussi. He shook the image from his mind. It wasn’t true, was it? ‘Take it,’ he pushed the bundle into her chest.

Vispa huffed and instinctively grabbed it. ‘Thanks, I guess.’

‘Good. Now eat well and thanks for the discount,’ Nemo smiled and crossed the bazaar.

He didn’t look back. Delara clouded his mind, she would be approaching eleven now. When had Vispa first slept on the streets? He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. His head pulsed with horror at the thoughts. He knew what happened to girls, and some boys, on the streets that young. Easily bought, easier to manipulate.

The wind chimes danced in the morning breeze. A twinkle of nothingness came off them. Annoying, he thought. There was more peace found in silence or running water than those fad chimes.

He pushed aside drapes of red silk shielding the doorway from the road. The shadow of the canopy was cool on his back and chill air breathed from behind the red silk. The room was dim and lined with shelves full of odds and ends. The room was covered with numerous stretched squares of cloth going higher and higher till the open roof a storey above. In the centre a pool of water, still, beneath it a mosaic long since worn of colour.

Nemo made measured steps deeper into the shop. If it was a shop. Maybe it was someone’s collection of oddities. He picked up a metal jar. He almost dropped it from the weight. Weighing more than a brick but less than half the size. A short cylinder he prized the top off and inside was a metal tube, a key for said tube, and nothing more. What the? He returned it to the shelf, bemused.

‘Hello?’ He shouted. Peering into a jar of murky yellow fluid. He looked away for a moment. An eye flashed from inside. He snapped back to the jar. Murky fluid once more. I’m out, he turned for the doorway.

‘Oh, a customer,’ came a soothing voice. Too calm to be a natural voice. And she spoke Tanussan.

She was expecting me? He thought reaching for the token. He held it between forefinger and middle. He walked deeper into the store, ignoring the jar of yellow fluid.

‘Of course, right this way,’ she said holding back thick blue curtains that hid another doorway. The woman wore thin robes of rich azures, her hair covered with a translucent veil. Her eyes delved inside him and her lips were well rouged.

Nemo entered into the building proper. The ceiling low with a narrow staircase at the rear. Goods were arranged neat and orderly. Almost all weapons or armour of some sort. Odd contraptions lay on shelves and on the stone floor.

The merchant slid behind a cabinet near the left wall and placed her hands on the surface, ‘So what is it you want?’ She said with snake-like lilt.

Nemo searched the room for something that would fit his needs. Inconspicuous and light. ‘First, I want to sell this,’ he pulled off his cloak in a flurry and tapped his armour.

‘Hard to move, a loser’s armour,’ she chided.

‘I don’t care. I’m leaving it here whether you give me coin or not,’ Nemo said unstrapping it from his torso.

‘So be it, a small discount. A blacksmith can use the metal,’ she tapped her finger on the waist high cabinet. Her nail clicking each time.

Nemo stood in his undershirt hanging loose about him. The tiestrings open by his neck revealing his chest. He strode around the room, as dim as it was. 

‘What about this?’ He held the sleeve of a leather jacket. Wet sand brown, sturdy, with a rigid colour.

‘A bit warm perhaps? All the rage in the cooler climate in the north of the Republic,’ she said. 

Nemo lifted the sleeves up, ‘It has holes in the side and an opening down the back?’ Was it faulty?

‘For airflow,’ she saddled towards a more Ramascan item, layers of thin cloth with a padded jerkin for defence, ‘how about this?’

‘Too expensive,’ Nemo felt the gold Dinars in their pouch. Well not really but still, he thought of taking the money home. A fine returning gift for his wife, Mani.

‘I’ll go with the leather,’ with all those Thesusans on the road it should help. Hopefully. He unbuttoned the jacket and freed it from the armour stand. He tried it on. The sleeves were firm and creaked as new leather did. The tannery smell engulfed him and the jacket clung to him. His undershirt poked out from underneath. ‘Maybe new trousers and shirt as well if you have them. And a sand cloak,’ he asked.

‘Certainly,’ she offered a merchant’s smile and disappeared into a cupboard that opened into another room.

Nemo stretched his arms out and drew his scimitar. Making mock parries and slashes he heard the leather creak around his shoulders, the collar brushed against his growing beard, but the lightness made him faster. He could get used to the constricted arms and high collar. 

She revealed her leg as she stepped out of the cupboard, its surface a foot off the floor. She wore red satin pumps, leisure wear not work, and her skin glistened with oil.

Nemo swallowed, sheathed his sword and unbuttoned the jacket.

‘Here you are,’ she held out a shirt and pair of trousers in one hand. In the other hand she held a contraption of leather, wood, and string, about the width of a persons lower arm.

‘Thanks,’ he eyed the contraption and forgot about the shimmer of skin from moments before.

He waved the woman away. She abided and stepped upstairs. Her home. He undressed and redressed with haste. Nemo ached for the saddle and open road. A whole day in fresh, inconspicuous gear meant he could journey far. 

The shirt was a shorter style stopping near his hips. The trousers were heavier than the under armour he had on before. 

‘I’m done,’ he said tying the string ties of his new trousers. 

She descended, contraption in hand. She pulled her veil to hide a length of dark hair that curled over her ear. ‘The new clothes suit you,’ she said with a soft hiss. A welcoming, teasing sort of hiss. 

Nemo pulled the leather jacket on. He felt relaxed. New even. The old Free Cities solider was dead, the father, husband, village bounty hunter was reborn. He tightened his sword belt over his new trousers. 

‘What’s that?’ He asked eyeing the contraption of leather, wood, and string. There were metal coils holding slats of wood together at useless angles.

‘Oh this?’ She looked at the object as if it had appeared in her hand. ‘Just a unique… tool that may come in handy.’

He nodded and stepped towards the cabinet. ‘What does it do?’

‘Put it on,’ she said. The soft, sensual, tease gone. The confident saleswoman revealed.

‘Alright… where?’

‘On your arm, which do you aim a bow with?’ She held the leather open for him.

‘Left, I guess. Hold the arrow in my right.’

She grabbed his left wrist and placed the tool over his arm. She smiled at him and narrowed her green-grey eyes. She flipped his arm and fastened the two buckles. A strap hung from the wood, she ran it over his hand and looped it round his middle finger.

‘Right, bend that finger all the way,’ she tapped his middle finger.

He did so. The leather strap snapped tight and pulled the wood. He thought the leather would split or the wood crack but neither did. Instead the metal coils pulled at the wood and the slats clicked together to form a bow shape, each end connected with the string. The string pulled tight and a small slide ran down the middle of the bow. 

‘Is that a crossbow?’ He peered at his own arm. 

‘It is!’ Her smile beamed across the counter at him, her teeth showing as she suppressed a laugh. ‘Now I take these straps and loop them round your other fingers. One to fire,’ she held one up and hooked it onto his index finger like a ring, ‘and this to release the bow like it was before,’ she stuck that one to his thumb. ‘Spare bolts can sit in these rings along the leather. And this slide allows you to reload and tighten the string like on a regular crossbow.’ She loaded the crossbow with a wooden bolt. ‘Aim over there,’ she pointed to the dummy Nemo’s new leather jacket had hung from.

‘Alright,’ he cocked an eyebrow at her and held his left hand up to the dummy. 

Nemo held his breath in the same manner that he would with a bow shot. He stood at an angle and held the target in the centre of his left eye. His right eye balancing the shot, as he called it. He bent his thumb into his palm and felt a tight string of metal pull and click something. The bolt snapped out of the crossbow and struck the dummy where the heart would be. Impressive for such a small contraption.

Surprised he inspected the crossbow closer. Satisfied he strode to the dummy. The wooden bolt had pierced the soft wood dummy by a few centimetres. A metal tip would have killed a living man.

He thought back to the soldier who escaped the day before. Running off into the valley and him standing there without arrows. He nodded with pursed lips.

‘How much?’ He asked.

‘For you?’ She had her right hand on her hip. She pouted eyed Nemo and then looked up to the ceiling and mouthed numbers.

Nemo waited in silence. He pulled the token from a pouch and rolled it over his knuckles.

‘Ahh, yes,’ she seemed displeased. ‘Two dinar and three dirham.’

Nemo heard the numbers and repeated them to himself. That’s a lot. That’s really a lot. Two dinar and three dirham was more than he had been paid for the six months. More than some houses. Albeit in the middle of nowhere, with no land, but still a house.

‘That’s obscene,’ he managed to say without shouting.

‘Well it was going to be four dinar. That jacket is from the far reaches of the Republic, new arrival, and the wrist crossbow is one of a kind from an ingenious mind,’ she leaned against the wall, her arms folded across her chest. There was no bartering that much was plain.

‘Two di—‘

‘No. Two dinar and three dirham,’ she cut him off before he could barter. Worse than he thought.

Nemo pictured the coins he had acquired from the generals tent in camp. He had plenty, but that wasn’t the point. The pay for carrying the letter would be gone in less than a day and plenty more along with it. He felt the soft, new, trousers on his skin, the well fitting shirt, and the lightness of the jacket. Dressing in the gear was a mistake, he realised. So was firing this damn contraption, he flicked his middle finger and the wrist crossbow folded together.

He shook his head and reached for his coin pouch, ‘Fine. This thing better save my life one day for this price,’ he waved his left wrist in the air.

‘Oh, it will,’ she said eyeing the gold coins in his hand. She was practically salivating at the sight of so much money.

He placed the coins on the counter.

Wind chimes rattled. Men laughed.

‘Let’s see what they have here,’ someone said. 

Nemo turned to face the doorway and saw three Republic soldiers waltz into the building through the gap in the curtains. 

She tapped him on the arm and motioned to the stairs with her eyes. She secreted away the coins and made for the front of the store. 

Nemo dashed upstairs without a sound. Leather had other advantages over metal. The staircase turned back on itself and revealed the merchants home. Heavy pillows in rich reds and golds sat around a low table. A lounge chair caught the midday sun from a veiled window, the hanging cloth flitted in the breeze.

The room was divided by an ornate carved dark wood separator. A pattern of diamonds made from tears repeated, between every four diamonds was a flower head. The separator split in the middle into two doors. Nemo spied the merchants bed through the door left ajar. 

‘Good morning! How can I help you today?’ She announced. Her voice carried upwards at the front of the room. 

A balcony overlooked the first room of the store filled with odds and ends. Nemo approached the low wall with caution. He peered over and found two sheets of cloth shielded him from view. What am I doing? Leave. He couldn’t, something stopped him.

‘What have you got? We are used to having gifts presented to us for the liberation of your city,’ one of the soldiers sneered. 

Nemo imagined his smiling face with chipped teeth and a look of uncleanness that refuses to be washed away.

‘We have many unique items here for your perusal,’ she said. Her voice came from below, she was near the door to the rear store of weapons and armour. 

No one spoke. Thuds, scrapes, and laughter echoed up through the building as the three soldiers investigated the odds and ends she called unique items.

‘I don’t even know what half this stuff is,’ another soldier complained.

Something in common, a sense of wrongness filled Nemo for such a similarity.

‘Well there is always other types of gifts we accept,’ the soldier said with a sickening laugh. His comrades laughed along with him. 

Nemo reached over the balcony and lifted up an end of the closest sheet of fabric. He could see her by the doorway through a small gap between wall and the lower sheet of cloth. 

‘Either buy something or leave,’ she declared. Her ultimatum laid out bare.

‘What did you say?’ The first soldier spoke again. 

Nemo saw her standing strong and with a flash of a soldier’s hand she was against the wall. Her face in her hands. 

‘There is nothing worth giving away here,’ the soldier spat on her and his footsteps led out of the store. A clatter rang, water splashed, a shelf, and all its oddities, tumbled into the pool.

Nemo raced down the stairs once he was sure the Republic soldiers were gone.

The merchant had hoisted herself up. Spittle trailed on the shoulder of her dress and up her neck. She held her right cheek in her palm. 

Nemo went to move her hand. She recoiled. 

‘It’s fine. Just go. We don’t even know each others names,’ she moved towards the stairs.

‘I’m—,’ Nemo started.

‘I don’t want to know. Just go,’ she snapped and stamped up to her quarters. To her home.

Nemo was torn. His head hot and ready. Atars. Go and get Atars and leave, he thought. He pushed through the fabric divide into the courtyard room. Items were lost in the depth of the pool of water in the middle of the open ceiling room. Nemo righted the shelf and returned as many of the items as he could. In the wrong order, probably upside down, it didn’t matter. He had to do something. 

Just get on the road and forget about all of this. This is life now. The Republic won. The Free Cities lost. Get home. Make your family safe. Avoid cities. He pushed his way back out into the bazaar of Ramascus, the sun blinded him as he left. The street baked. He held his sand cloak in a bundle under one arm. He felt cooler but sweat still beaded over his body. 

He scanned the length of the road. Either side lined by stalls and stores. Men and women jostled about pulling carts loaded with produce or carrying baskets with the days food resting inside. Further up the road he spied an old man selling cured meats, oils, olives, and other ready to eat finger food. Three soldiers berated the man, picking up olives trying them, and throwing away. One poked the cured meat with a dirt laden finger. The old man tapped the soldier’s hand and received a firm push to the chest. The soldier helped himself to the leg of dried meat. 

Nemo’s fist was bunched and his other hand already on the hilt of his scimitar. The soldiers wandered into the crowd laughing and joking. A cooler head prevailed and Nemo walked the opposite way. Fetch Atars. Leave. 

The stables hummed with activity. Stable hands dashed across with hay bales, buckets of water, carrots, horseshoes. The more Nemo watched the more he saw. Was that a cart wheel? He caught the repair of a carriage in the corner of his eye as he was pushed along in the queue. 

A whole stretch of the stable along the city wall sat empty. Most had names hanging above the entrances. Owned or rented, merchants and farmers whose work required horses, stalls for single animals. Nemo squinted at the names for any he recognised. Old contacts. Old targets. Names heard in passing. None seemed familiar. He had done a poor job of “finding the lay of the land” in Ramascus. Spoken only to underground operatives who talking with could get him killed and a merchant without a name. Better just to leave. The queue lurched forward again.

Vispa formed in his mind. The girl from the streets with a bundle of food. Has she eaten it all or saved some?She is what Delara must not become. Delara needs me. His stomach grumbled. And I need to eat, he thought. Another obstacle to leaving. The line of people lurched once more towards the stable master.

Nemo had spun his belt round and his hands rested on the sword hilt. Who would teach Avaya how to fight? How to hunt? How to watch and wait for the right moment? Locusts flew through his thoughts eating away everything leaving only regret and failure to fill the void.

He neared the stable master.

‘Next,’ the ageing man called. His head never lifting from the register on a small folding desk in front of him. Ink dripped from the tip of the carved stick. ‘Oh find this man his horse will you,’ he called to a stable hand nearby. The stable hand nodded and ran off to a set of stalls on the edge of the stables. ‘That will be… five dirham for one night, seven fals for the shoe, and two fals for the meal,’ a wrinkled and calloused hand waited for the money as the other scrawled the amount next to the name “Nemo.”

‘Sure,’ Nemo counted the coins from his pouch. Cheap considering what I have spent today, he thought.

The hand grasped the coins in a firm fist and deposited the silver and copper into separate trays to his side. The stable masters eyes never left the register, filled with black scrawl of names and numbers. 

‘Sign,’ the old man held the stick for Nemo. 

Nemo made a scrawl next to his name. He didn’t see the point of it. Some city thing, he guessed. Only a few bounties had asked for such things as signatures. A problem for authorities to worry about. 

He handed the pen back and a stable hand returned with Atars. 

‘Ahh, and how is Atars today?’ Nemo asked his horse. The horse brayed and pushed his face into Nemo. ‘Oh I see,’ he stroked Atars’ muzzle and accepted the reins from the stable hand. He smiled his thanks and headed for the thoroughfare leading from the south-east corner to the north-east.

The north gate of Ramascus, the Blooming Gate, sat nearer to the east side of the city. The city had expanded west a number of times over the centuries. Millenia if myths and legends were believed. Constructed in the old style the top half of the gate was a semi circle leading to a point at the top. The lower half straight to the ground. Around the gate were semi circle cut outs in the stone leaving ridges coiled round the gate. Surrounding that were meticulous patterns of flowers carved into the city walls and painted in bright, vibrant, colours. The gate itself was in fact three gates in a row, all forged to fit the irregular shape. A hint to the cities more violent past. The gates were undamaged, much like the southern gate had been. The city had not been defeated. It had surrendered.

Nemo arrived to the Blooming Gate under the midday sun. Shaded areas had been constructed for the queue of people waiting to leave the city. The queue snaked around the nearby water square. A large pool of water sat in a mosaic dish almost ten metres across. The mosaic pattern depicting Zorineas sanctifying the city as his Holy City by blessing the ground it was built on with thirty days and thirty nights of rain. Zorineas saw it occur in visions blessed by the stars and all he had to do was find the land. Nemo sat on the ridge of the pool under the shade of canvas stretching from the stone pillars around the pool erected for the purpose of hanging sheets off. He filled his waterskins from the pool while Atars drank heartily from the glistening clear pool. 

How long do I have to wait today? He gazed down to the Blooming Gate. At least twenty people ahead of him and one gate master. Too long. Anything is too long. Oh to be on the road and riding free. He exhaled a long breath and filled another water skin.