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As with Linkton, we approached Lytton in stages. The outer rings of Lytton included some of the polluting industries which made Lytton prosperous, filthy and always in search of more laborers. The mills were bad enough, with the outflow from paper and wood processing, or the less noxious outflow from the grain mills, but the foundries were far worse. I'm glad Lytton isn't famous for tanneries. That would have been worse.
As we approached the center of the city, we passed glass makers' factories and shops, and several armorers. Unlike Linkton, in Lytton the markets and shops were open night and day, although they were less busy in the crepescular hours. Lytton is two cities in one. By day, the diurnal crowd eats, walks, shops and works: most humans, elves, dwarves and orcs. By night, the nocturnal are active: vampires, weres, the other humans, elves, dwarves and orcs, and other species with which I am not familiar. Very little closes, which is convenient, and explains part of Lytton's size. The rest, of course, is attributable to the city's government which is also two governments in one, as cooperative as the two halves of the city. Government and other office hours are eight to five, day and night, with twelve to one off for the main meal of the day.
Again, our inn was run by a familiar woman, the youngest we had seen yet, named Rachel. We got the upstairs to ourselves, and slept the day through. Vira and Astrea went to the government office responsible for procuring food for refugees, and sold most of our provisions at a price a little less than double what we had paid for them in Linkton. When I suggested we make a couple more trips, Jack and Leroy replied, in chorus, "We are not merchants." Leroy added, "By the time we got to Linkton, prices will have risen there and dropped here. We'd lose our shirts. Possibly literally."
While Vira and Astrea were dickering, Jack, Leroy and I gossipped with publicans, innkeepers and bartenders throughout the city, sifting for news from further south. We turned in again for a few hours, in order to be awake part of the next day to speak to some of the refugees in person. They are all human and most sleep at night.
While we slept, Vira and Astrea transported the provisions, and sold most of the pack animals, at about three times what we had paid for them, to a group of Lytton merchants travelling north to acquire provisions to sell at an inflated price. Leroy was right.
The refugees told us that rather than one large uncontrolled fire, many small ones had been set, destroying new crops, haystacks, houses and farm buildings. None of the humans knew whether property belonging to farmers of other races had been burned out, or whether they might be responsible for the fires, or even if any lived in their neighborhood at all. The churches and temples in their towns were human-only congregations and over time, all contact had been severed.
I convinced Jack to help me find a bookshop specializing in language texts. With his assistance, I found three shops and bought several books that looked like they might help me translate the scrolls and book we had acquired from the bandits. After spending so much money, I am now certain the book will turn out to be some horribly written chronicle, probably fictional, about a family we don't care about in a land none of us has ever visited. The scrolls will turn out to be outdated travel papers and letters of introduction to people we have no interest in and who are almost certainly dead.
We're going to sleep the rest of the day, and continue south after dark. I'm looking forward to seeing a part of the country which is so split between humans and everyone else, particularly now that the humans have left.
Andy, I know you're trying to set our expectations for those scrolls as low as possible, but let's try to stay focussed here: what do they actually say?
Of course Leroy has to get in on my journal. Everyone else has after all. Except Vira. I imagine it's just a matter of time.
When we left Lytton headed south that evening, conversation took a mundane turn. Nearly everyone complained about how expensive and bad tasting the food in Lytton was. Vira told several entertaining stories about or from new friends Astrea had introduced hir to in the city. I assumed, from this, that Astrea was from, or had lived for a time, in Lytton. She had not, she said, but had many times visited. Astrea was happy that Vira had made so many new friends. Vira expressed a wish to return to Lytton when our trip south was completed, and neither Jack nor Leroy demurred. The party has decided that I am the subject of their collective augury and Vira can safely be left behind. I can't say I'm surprised, but I don't see any reason why I should like it. During one of our naps, Rachel offered Vira a job at the inn running the night side, and e had accepted, subject to the party's agreement.
During our travels, we had encountered the assorted flora and fauna one might expect: small predators, including a few birds, mostly starlings and robins, numerous insects, several owls, a lot of rodents, mostly squirrels, a few raccoons and the odd possum family or three. They'd left us alone, and we'd left them alone, having more than enough food with us. That is, except that one time the squirrel and the owl had harassed me on the hilltop with the bandits. South of Lytton, the wildlife acted oddly. A lot of rabbits were crossing the road, which one might expect during the day or at twilight, but not throughout the night. A large puma paced us for several hours before retreating into the forest. After several minutes, it was replaced by an extremely large fox, about the size of a small wolf, which stopped in the middle of the road, blocking our way.
We stopped, and I was designated liaison to the fox. I dismounted, noting that my horse was in no way disturbed by the fox. I approached the fox, which was female, and we circled each other. After a full circle, the fox approached me, and offered me a paw. I knelt in the road, and shook.
Whatever hopes I might have had that the fox would miraculously break out in human speech were dashed when the fox started walking south on the road, pacing our group. I shrugged, got up, mounted and said, "Let's get going. She'll be joining us for at least a while, possibly longer." This was vague conjecture on my part, but at the time, confidence seemed indicated.
When we broke for food, the fox ate with us. Some few hours before dawn, a golden bear ambled up to the road, and the fox immediately walked up to the bear, which was aggressively male. The fox nuzzled the bear, which swatted the fox good-naturedly and offered me a paw to shake.
Shaking hands with a fox is like shaking paws with a dog. Shaking hands with a bear is not like anything I've ever experienced before.
We camped at a partially burned farmhouse of which one wing was left standing. it could be made dark enough for Vira and Astrea. Once they were settled, the fox, the bear, Jack, Leroy and I made a serious attempt at establishing communications. After several minutes of scratching in the dirt, we learned the fox was named Marion, and the bear was named Joe. They said they'd be able to speak the next night, the first night of the full moon.
We arranged watches amongst the five of us, and turned in for the day. When we started waking up in the afternoon, we noticed a lot more fauna had collected around the farmhouse. I asked Marion if they were all weres and she shook her head no. When I asked why they were there, Marion said wait. I supposed she meant when Marion and Joe were able to speak, they would explain.
With moon rise, Joe and Marion concealed themselves in the forest, after borrowing clothes from us. When they returned, I was surprised to see how young Joe looked -- fourteen, perhaps fifteen years old, with pimples, no less. He was not very tall, and extremely stout in a muscular way. The effect with his adolescent face was bizarre. Marion was a trim woman, and told us Joe was a witch as well as a were. She told us she was skilled in a number of martial arts. I thought it must have taken her many years to learn, if she was in human form only at full moon, but Marion laughed and said in human form she was no threat -- she was skilled only in fox form.
Marion explained that she and Joe had been asked by Juliana, a wizard in Bagton, about a day's travel further south, to watch the southbound road for any group from Lytton. No one had been seen on the road southbound for several days, since the main body of refugees had headed north. Juliana had wanted to establish contact with anyone sent by Lytton to find out what was going on between Bagton and Lytton, to offer her assistance in putting an end to the local arson wave. Neither Marion nor Joe offered any additional information about the arson, other than to repeat that Juliana was the major force of law and order in the area, the only one recognized by anyone other than the humans, and grudgingly respected by the humans as well. As we had suspected, the area was home to a large number of intelligent races, none of whom had been burned out of house and home other than the humans, but that that was not saying much as the humans had monopolized nearly all the farmland in the area, until their recent, violent departure.
The rest of the animals were hanging about for a variety of reasons. Marion said some of them were Eyes of Juliana, but that most of the rest had been sticking close to the weres as much as possible lately. The weres thought the animals were trying to avoid the fires, which had started as arson, and had never turned wild to threaten the district as a whole, but which sprang up unpredictably and spread through whatever forest and other natural cover was nearby. Joe thought they might also be attempting to communicate something about who was responsible for the fires, but neither Marion, nor Joe, nor any of the other local weres had been able to understand.
After eating, we all started south, trailing a bunch of fauna behind us. We arrived in Bagton many hours later, a tiny village dominated by a large house on a small hill. Marion and Joe led us to the house, which they said was Juliana's, and where they said Astrea and Vira could spend the daylight hours in safety. Juliana greeted us, and during our entire stay in Bagton, we never did see another human, nor, during our stay in Juliana's house, did we see any animate servant. Anyone who can spend power like that can have my attention whenever they want it.
Juliana professed ignorance of the arsonist, but believed it was someone local and probably not a human. Jack, Leroy, Marion, Joe, Juliana and I went over the local residents for several hours, looking at land plats and other maps. After poring over the sixth map to no good end, Jack seized upon the oldest of the maps, and pointed to an estate prominently marked Range, which was unmarked forest in the later maps. "Ah ha!" he said theatrically. "Which Ranges are running around this neck of the woods." Juliana had to think about that for a while, and went rummaging through a stack of genealogical books, eventually concluding that Rainier, Pilchuck, Hood, Baker, Adams and Helen were the only Ranges not counted dead. She said the records were as accurate as genealogies get, because Lytton had a standing bounty on the Ranges, so whenever one died, word usually got to her quickly. I looked at Jack, and we decided to tell Juliana that Baker, Adams and Helen were known dead. She thought we must have heard in Lytton, but I told her, no, we'd seen them die ourselves, but hadn't reported it, not knowing about the bounty. Juliana looked at us skeptically, and asked if we had proof. Jack pulled out a small pouch and dropped three seal rings on the table. He said, by way of explanation, that he'd retrieved these from the dining room floor after I'd gone up to bed. Juliana updated her books, and told us to be sure to report the deaths in Lytton upon our return.
Our next goal: locate the three remaining Ranges, find out if they had committed the arson, and kill them, not necessarily in that order. Details of how remained to be worked out, and Juliana offered whatever materials and information we might need to accomplish that goal, but declined to offer her assistance in person. She mumbled something about being a homebody, which taken with the rest of the environment, suggested something tragic, pathetic or sinister. I wasn't interested in finding out which, and left her alone.
Juliana's library, which served as the town's records as well for several centuries, included useful documents such as the locations of buildings on the Range estate, architectural drawings, and maps donated to Juliana by thieves when they were no longer needed. The nature of the donation, and the health of the thief when this occurred was not described by Juliana, and no one thought to ask until much later. Jack, Leroy and I weighed the relative merits of involving Vira and Astrea, versus going after the Ranges in daylight, and concluded that the smart money was on spending a solid day looking for them. If we couldn't find them on our own, we would include Vira and Astrea in the search. If we found the Ranges by night, we would try to schedule the fight for near dawn, and plan on having Vira and Astrea bow out early. It sounded risky to me, but Jack and Leroy knew more about Astrea's capabilities than I did. We slept that afternoon and through the night, after waking up long enough to exchange information with Vira and Astrea. They decided to do a little discreet looking around, making arrangements with Juliana to follow them with some of her Eyes.
Vira and Astrea successfully avoided tangling with any of the Ranges, but as an added bonus, located what they thought were their daytime resting places. Despite an extra generation or two to learn their way about the forest noiselessly, they had proved easy to spot and, once spotted, even easier to track. As one might expect of the kind of low-class undead the Range family was proving to be, they spent their days in the family crypt, a cubical stone-faced brick vault about as tall as three men, and of approximately equal size along the sides and front. Before bunking down for the day, they showed us on a map, and we decided to start there.
Vira and Astrea had been correct in thinking they had found the daytime resting places. Unfortunately, they had seen those resting places by night, empty and unguarded. By day, we discovered the Ranges had armed a lot of nasty surprises for anyone who might think to pick on a poor sleeping vampire, or the remains of their fully dead relations. It took five of us most of the day to find and disarm them all, and as it was, we had to rush Joe back to Juliana's late in the morning for a quick cure for poison after he accidentally triggered several darts. Jack and Leroy once again demonstrated they had the next best thing to a key, and we got into the vault without further mishap. We thought for a moment we'd made a mistake, as the floor in the vault was absolutely bare of any coffins, urns or statuary. Unlike most earth-walkers, we do remember to look up, at least part of the time, and there they were: suspended in hammocks like so many spiders, sleeping the day away. After a moment's consultation and about a half hour inspecting the vault, Jack, Leroy and I simultaneously sawed through the ropes used to elevate the hammocks and all three vamps dropped to the floor. We all jumped, but the vamps didn't react at all. We then held a hurried conference. It would be easy to kill them in their sleep, but that might or might not answer the question about the arson. We decided we didn't care, and snuffed Rainier, Pilchuck and Hood out with three more vials from Jack's basket.
After collecting the clothing and jewelry, we hustled out of the vault. The booby traps protecting the vault were the extent of their skill, after all.
We spent several more hours exploring the Range property, and found several stashes of oils, candle wax and other materials suitable for starting a fire. We decided that was good enough for us, marked their locations on our map, and went back to Juliana's house. Along the way, we speculated as to why the Ranges had just recently decided to start torching houses. Jack and Leroy thought the three Ranges we had met earlier had been a civilizing influence; with them out of the way, the rest went on a spree. I believed the local humans had probably infringed on Range property one too many times and paid an excessive price in exchange.
Juliana had had Eyes on us the whole time, and was therefore well past the jump-up-and-down-and-yell-goody phase, not too mention she was probably too old for that anyway. She was happy to have evidence that the rest of the Ranges were finally dead, and that the arsonists had been found and dealt with. We slept the rest of the afternoon, and through the early evening. When we awoke again, Marion, Joe, Vira, Astrea, Leroy, Jack and I headed north back to Lytton to spread the word.
As we traveled by moonlight, we discussed who to tell, and how much, and what could be done to prevent returning humans from engaging in the unlikable behavior that had probably caused the Ranges to think they could attack without fear of reprisal from other races. Jack said he was going to be turning in the rings for all six Ranges. He said he would be forwarding the bounty for Helen to Mauser, who was presumably staying in Laurel, recovering from the severe wounds he had received in the course of killing Helen. The bounties for Rainier, Pilchuck and Hood he proposed to split evenly among our party, including Marion and Joe.
I commented how odd it must be for Jack to be doing this sort of work, rather than more normal assignments from his guild, and Leroy about fell out of the saddle laughing at me. Jack said, and I quote, "I've completed six long-standing assignments for the guild in a little over two weeks. I've handled a public relations problem for the guild, while at the same time improving relations with one of the churches most hostile to the guild. I've investigated a traveler's hazard and eliminated it at the request of one of the wealthiest resorts in the area, well in advance of high season, and investigated and eliminated a major wave of arson, which I expect Lytton will remunerate us handsomely for. I'm not sure what you think normal might be, but this doesn't strike me as all that unusual." Jack paused, and then went on, "The only unusual aspect to all of this is how obscenely well it has gone, for which I owe you thanks."
It should have occurred to me that Jack would be getting paid for all of this activity. Why it didn't continues to escape me. I decided to change the subject, and asked if he thought it a good idea to send a letter to the cleric visiting Laurel, asking her to travel to the area between Lytton and Bagton, to do a little judicious preaching about how bigotry between the races makes it a lot easier for the Ranges to commit the kind of crimes that had driven all the humans out of the area. This generated a lot of heated discussion between the rest of the group. It was a simple idea, but everyone had objections. Vira didn't like that church. Astrea thought asking Lytton law enforcement, preferably night side, to patrol the area would be more effective. I think she described the odds of getting that cleric to preach on my proposed topic to resemble that of a "cup of recently boiled tea maintaining a temperature above lukewarm in the frozen wastes of Halle". Leroy said that particular cleric rarely traveled west of Logwood, and Laurel was about as far south as she liked to go. Marion and Joe had had it up the eyeballs with human clerics, and were in favor of banning them from the district entirely. They also think that Juliana would enforce the ban if enough of the races agreed. Jack listened to everyone and said he'd send a letter and see what sort of reply he received.
That got everyone's attention. No one wanted to stay in Lytton to receive a reply, except Vira who was planning on staying permanently. Jack pointed out that this was not a problem, as Rachel would be happy to forward the reply whenever it was received to wherever they said they would be going. Leroy said we didn't know where we were going, to which Jack responded that we had another full night to figure that out. We'd arrived at the farmhouse where we had spent the night after meeting with Marion and Joe, and settled in for the day.
I did not say "probably owe you thanks". I distinctly recall saying "I definitely owe you thanks". Andy, I can't emphasize enough how the words used to tell the tale influence the reader's opinion of our words and actions and therefore ourselves. I also notice you've left out one of the assignments I completed, which you completely left out of the narrative as well. You've made it look like we detoured to that cabin just to drop off supplies when you know perfectly well that was unrelated to our actual goal.
Jack is referring here to an irrelevant, although time consuming and exhausting incident that culminated in a funeral pyre we made haste to put behind us on the trip to rejoin the rest of our group. I'd rather not think about it, much less write about it. If Jack feels an urgent need for detailed credit for the proceedings he can hire himself a town crier or job-troubadour.
The next evening we proceeded the last leg back to Lytton, discussing where we ought to go next. When we had been trying to find out what had happened south of Lytton, we'd heard vague mentions of troubles to the southeast with some of the ape tribes which lived in the forested foothills of the southern mountains. Stories and rumors had been told for years that the apes ate humans, and when they couldn't get humans to eat (what human would want to travel in that region with that kind of story going around?), they supposedly ate each other. I tend not to believe in tales of cannibalism, as the teller of the tale all too often has an agenda of their own, the first item of which is to get the listener to hate the supposed cannibal. The most recent versions of the stories supplied names and dates on which people had been treated in Lytton hospitals for bites which didn't look like animal bites or vampire bites. We had not followed up on these stories, as the Bagton area arsonist had sounded both more plausible and much more serious.
Jack suggested that upon our return to Lytton, we try to track down any news out of or regarding Axton, and Riding Cross, the two towns due east of Lytton on the main road. If we heard anything which suggested that either the town government in Riding Cross, or any of the churches or guilds might be interested in someone heading south of the town to investigate these rumors, we could make the two day trek to Riding Cross, and direct any reply to our letters to Laurel be sent south through Middleton to Riding Cross, rather than chasing us around the other three sides of the square. I said I thought the whole thing would turn out to be some crazed hermit in the woods who wanted to be left alone. No one agreed with me, however, and something about that remark caused Jack to ask me if I'd made any progress in translating those scrolls or the book we'd gotten from the bandits. I said I had, but that possibly we should discuss it during the daytime. Vira and Astrea immediately took offense at this, as they were curious what was contained, and I compromised by saying we could discuss it during the last hour before dawn. Everyone thought I was trying to be dramatic, but me, I'd like to live through another year.
We arrived in Lytton, and settled in Rachel's inn. Rachel was happy to see Vira again, but we got everyone upstairs and seated about an hour before dawn, and I told them what I had discovered, after admonishing them not at any time to speak aloud any of the words which I did not speak aloud, but instead pointed to on the scroll. The only problem we had was when Marion got a little too excited and, in a shocked and hushed voice, started to utter one of the Names. Fortunately, Joe tackled her and prevented her from voicing the rest, but we all felt a dark ripple over our skin and breathed a sigh of relief when it was not followed by any further manifestation. Vira and Astrea went to bed with subdued expressions, while Joe repeatedly explained to Marion why what she had said was such a dangerous thing. Leroy kept muttering that we should have finished off the last female bandit, and even Jack looked overwhelmed.
I apologize for intruding; I realize I'm the last of us to add to your journal, but I just wanted to thank you for not detailing my actual reaction to that horrible event. I'm very sorry Astrea and I pressured you into a fuller explanation. I'd give just about anything to never have to experience that again. Or to never have experienced it even once.
Vira is such a sweetheart.
Jack, Leroy and I awoke in the later afternoon. We asked Marion and Joe if they wanted to accompany us on our errands, but they were concerned they might shift back today, and did not want to be caught in public while they did. Jack and Leroy first stopped at the guild, where I was ushered into a paneled office with comfortable chairs and left with a brochure about the history of the guild while they went off to talk to people. I tried the doors, but they were locked. After about an hour, Jack and Leroy picked me up and we went to the Watch headquarters. They had received directions from whoever they talked to at the guild. The Watch gave us a mild runaround, ending in the expected exchange of Range seal rings for cash. We told them we thought the arson problem had been addressed, but that a lot of bad feeling towards humans existed in the area, and some of the races were lobbying Juliana for a ban on human clerics. We explained that we were going to send a letter to Cleric Rushi, who we had seen seventeen days ago in Laurel, and request her presence in Lytton to preach to the local congregations on the subject of bigotry being a non-survival trait in humans. The Watch thought that was a funny idea, but definitely worth trying. They did not, however, have any news out of Riding Cross less than a month old, which was unusual in and of itself and offered to pay our expenses for a trip out to find out what was going on. Our last stop was the post office, where we sent letters and money to Mauser and Rushi in Laurel.
When we returned to the inn, we asked Rachel to forward any letters for us to Riding Cross. She asked us to say hello to Deborah, her sister, and inquire about the absence of letters over the last month.
Leaving Vira behind to run nightside at Rachel's inn, the rest of us proceeded east to Axton. The farms lining the road were, initially, like those we passed on the road south: human habitations visited by fire. Unlike the road south, however, the wildlife in the area behaved relatively normally. We saw bats and owls. We heard insects, and we had to wait once for a family of opossums to waddle out of our way. Marion yipped at the mother, and she hustled. Further east, the farms were a mix of human and other species of indeterminate size and stature, undamaged and inhabited. Marion ran ahead and visited one, but Joe indicated we should wait by the road. From this I concluded that Marion had friends in the neighborhood, probably werekind, who didn't take well to all strangers. A lot of werekind dislike vampires, I think. Then, a lot of werekind dislike humans. If I remembered to ask next month, maybe Marion would tell me.
Midway between Lytton and Axton, forest dominated, and we passed a few huts in clearings near the road. I conjectured they were occupied by rangers or foresters but Astrea said according to Vira, she was raised in the area by woodcutters and that most of the huts belonged to charcoal makers and the rest were tanners. My nose confirmed the latter at several huts.
We ate while riding, and Astrea rode point, watching for any activity on the sides of the path that might be focused on us, but all was quiet other than a few nocturnal predators. The woods thinned nearer to Axton, but, unlike Linkton, Axton had few market gardens, and no orchards surrounding it. Also unlike Linkton, Axton was fortified, surrounded by a wooden fence.
Deborah's inn was near the gate, and outside the fence, which was lucky as the gate, we learned, was opened after dawn and closed before dusk. The town permitted elves to stay overnight if they registered, but no other races were allowed. Even the elves had to post a bond. Few visited.
Axton is a horrible town. We spotted the first evidence of how nasty a place Axton is before we passed through the town gates. I do not mean only that it was a fortified town in an area which did not generally require fortification, or that it was run along lines offensive to all enlightened creatures. As we approached the palisade, we noticed tiny tracks running between the edges of the forest, and the fencing. These were not the paths of the usual, pleasant woodland creatures, the rabbits and hares and night-dwelling, slow-moving creatures we'd grown accustomed to seeing as we traveled. These were rat tracks. The holes in the fence were large enough to inspire fear, not of two-legged attackers, but of four-legged marauders with sharp teeth and endless appetite.
The food was bad, other than at Deborah's. Everyone ate stew, morning, noon and night, and mostly out of a common, greasy pot. The bread was dry, flat and hard, and had little benefit of salt, never mind other flavoring. The public latrines were difficult to find and unbelievably primitive. They were also overrun by the more unpleasant and unsanitary group of vermin.
The market had a sole magic practitioner on one corner, and a handful of booths and stalls scattered around the square. Every single item of cheap jewelry was ill-made from pot metals with glass or paste stones, and the vendor of each claimed some magical attribute. On a lark, we offered our blades to the magic practitioner and for a nominal fee, he declaimed that each one in turn was blessed, cursed or otherwise of benefit when fighting a particular monster. An hour of that was all any of us could stand, so we returned to Deborah's to sleep through the rest of the day.
That evening, we continued east to Riding Cross. The forest resumed, although not as deep or dark as due west of Axton, and continued about halfway to our destination. The charcoal makers' cottages were more numerous and as we neared the town, we met a few on the road, bringing their product to sell.
The watch in Riding Cross was pleased to meet emissaries from Lytton. Unlike Axton, this town welcomed all, happy to find money and wares, however they arrived. The watch said the post had gone to Lytton as usual two weeks ago, and was due to leave again tomorrow. We asked who took the post, and we were told a were-puma usually delivered it. The watch was concerned that the carrier had not returned, but she was known to visit relatives south of Lytton between deliveries. I mentioned the gate policy at Axton and the watch was shocked. The carrier ate in Axton, and with such a policy, she would be forced to forage, and subject to added peril in the woods.
A hasty summons was sent to the watch commander, and a pair of junior (human) deputies were sent to Axton to investigate. In the meantime, we asked about the rumors we had heard in Lytton. The watch had heard the old stories, but the new variation was news to them. Perhaps that, the commander said, would account for the abrupt drop off in travel through town. We asked her what she meant, and she said no one new had arrived in a month, and none who had left had returned (other than the charcoal sellers and tanners who traveled between woods and town), even those who had traveled to Middleton planning to spend a single night and return.
Jack's eyebrows rose at that piece of news. He asked the commander if she would mind if we investigated, and she was all gratitude and happiness, offering the watch and all its meager resources. Jack thanked her and we shuffled off to an inn Deborah had directed us to, run by a woman named Sarah, no relation, but reliable and an acceptable cook.
We slept the remainder of the night, and through the morning. Leaving Astrea at the inn, we collected, or attempted to collect, news and rumor, failing completely. As far as we could discern, when people left Riding Cross, they weren't heard from again.
Jack said that this was not particularly compatible with my theory about a crazed hermit in the woods putting out nasty rumors to get some time alone. I was forced to agree, but held out for a group of crazed hermits in the woods. Jack, Leroy and I spent the late afternoon arguing about what to do next. I thought we should split up into two parties, one man, one woman and one were, and watch the road north to Middleton and west to Axton. Jack and Leroy thought that splitting up was exactly the wrong thing to do. Marion and Joe were not weighing in with an opinion, choosing to nap in the sun. When Astrea woke up, she sided with the men, and all that remained was to decide which road to stake out.
Astrea had another theory: perhaps Axton was swallowing people up. It had had that sort of atmosphere to it. Leroy said that did not explain the disappearance of travelers on the road to Middleton. Astrea's response was simple: either they hadn't returned yet for innocuous reasons, or Middleton, too, was swallowing up travelers.
I reminded the group of the large cat which had paced us, prior to Marion joining our party as we traveled south of Lytton. Perhaps that had indeed been the mail carrier, and she had merely overstayed at relatives, what with all the disorder in the area. Leroy reminded me that that was over a week ago, and anything could have happened in the interim. We continued the discussion over food, but didn't reach any conclusion. Ultimately, we decided to go out and explore the woods around town to see if we could find any evidence to support one hypothesis or another. This, too, turned into an argument. Most of us did not see that well in the dark, particularly in the woods, so eventually we did split up, but not to stake out the road. Marion, Joe and Astrea were to try to find anything anomalous in the woods around town, and check in with Leroy, Jack or I, depending on who was awake. The party had decided to trust that I would not depart hastily and alone, at least not while we were staying in Riding Cross. The rest of us poor night vision folk would sleep, and continue the investigation during the day.
We rolled dice for watches. I received the first one, and was to awaken Leroy at the end of my watch. Astrea, Joe and Marion reliably checked in every half hour, and found nothing during my entire watch. I woke Leroy up and went to sleep.
When Jack woke me up a couple hours after dawn, I learned that absolutely nothing had happened or been found during the later watches, either. We ate, and made arrangements to check in with the town watch every hour. If we failed to return, the watch agreed to notify Marion or Joe. To simplify contact, Marion and Joe flopped out in watch headquarters, and made themselves available for ear scratching between check-in times.
In the mid-afternoon, when we were becoming sarcastic from frustration, having circled further and further away from town, we heard muttering a few yards away. We crept closer, and spotted a middle-aged man collecting pieces of wood in a basket, and when we listened closely, we could hear him muttering something about the oppression of the people. We backed away, held a whispered conference, and decided to approach. The man, Graham, was talkative and friendly, but not very informative on any topic other than the proper way to organize society. The phrase anarcho-syndicalist commune recurred at regular intervals. After a mistaken request for his family, and then his leader, we hit upon asking him to introduce us to his comrades, which he assented to, on condition that we help him fill his basket. We did so, hurriedly, concerned that we would be causing panic if we stayed away too long, but with four of us working, the basket was soon full and we trudged off to a bunch of shacks, huts, hovels, and lean-tos in a large clearing. Jack slipped away before we reached the clearing, to return to Riding Cross to get Marion, Joe and at least a couple members of the watch.
Leroy and I hunkered down at the central bonfire, to discuss the politics of the commune, or politics with the commune or politics and the commune or something vaguely political and involving the people around us. Jack returned, with the watch commander, Sheila. The discussion of politics continued. Fortunately, Jack had had the forethought to bring food. Eventually, Astrea joined us after nightfall, and the discussion of politics continued.
Sometime before dawn, I had a breakthrough. The commune, poor and not overly clean, was innocuous. However, they had a few evangelical methods which might be described by the unfriendly as antisocial. You see, they'd hit upon the tactic of inviting travelers to stay with them, and then talking to them continuously, so they could not sleep. Eventually, the poor victims were willing to agree with anything, as long as they could finally get some sleep, and thus the commune grew. What with the continuing political debate, it was difficult, if not impossible for anyone to return to wherever it was they came from, or to continue to wherever it was they were going, if only because they couldn't keep a thought in their head that long. And the group made sure that only dedicated members went out on solitary errands alone, like Graham. Everyone else went with a buddy they were sure of, or stayed in camp.
We convinced the commune to let us escort the less dedicated members to Riding Cross, and assured the commune that we would make absolutely certain that everyone knew how to find their way back. I pointed out, repeatedly, using analogy and strong words, how incompatible anarchy was with limitations on movements imposed by the group on the individual members. I'm not convinced they won't talk themselves out of it tomorrow, but it got us all out without any blows being exchanged, and now that the watch knows what it's dealing with, the commune is unlikely to present further difficulties.
Before departing, we asked if anyone in the commune had heard any stories about apes or ape bites, and they scoffed at the idea of an old traveler's tale like that having any truth to it. Graham did mention that a bunch of hunters had passed through about a week ago, headed southwest to hunt apes. They did not like violence, and so left obviously well-armed parties alone. We bid the commune goodbye, and took about twenty would-be converts back to Riding Cross with us. The were-puma was not among them.
Astrea and Sheila handled the return of those entangled in the commune, while Jack, Leroy and I got some sleep. We woke up long enough before dawn to get news from Astrea, who summarized our situation as understood by Sheila, Astrea and the watch. We hadn't ruled out ape-attack, although we now had reason to believe that rogue hunters had probably started the problem. Sheila had gotten enough information out of the people we'd brought back to have some ideas about who the hunters might be, and Jack and Leroy both recognized names on the list. I could almost hear thoughts of gold clinking around in their heads. Astrea was going to stay in town and cover Sheila's job, with her second in command covering day, and Sheila was going to come with us while we traveled down to visit some apes and kill a few humans.
Sheila is one of those people who does not need to sleep. She was packed and ready to go, and expected the same from us. After breakfast, we headed out. The north-south road which passes through Riding Cross becomes a path, and then a track. What would ordinarily have been an easy day's ride took a long day and part of the night. The track was regularly used by upright pedestrians, but recently before us, a group on horseback, probably with pack animals of some sort, had used it. I saw broken branches and twisted shrubbery and, in some places, hair or fur caught on thorns and twigs. We saw mule droppings, horse droppings, which the intelligent creatures with the dumb creatures had not bothered to sweep off the path, nor cover. We saw nibbled grass. We saw the remains of campfires which in one case, not fully extinguished, had burnt a swathe of forest.
If we hadn't known we were tracking the soon-to-be-dead, the evidence they left in their wake would have informed us. Biting was too good for this crew.
When we reached the most northern of the areas occupied by the ape-tribes, we were sickened by what we discovered. The campfire left to carelessly burn was a small foreshadowing of what this crowd was capable of when they put their minds to it. What they had started with crossbows, they had continued at swords' point until, no longer on the offensive, they had burned the woods behind them as they ran. As we walked through the ashy ruin of a beautiful forest, we could piece together part of what must have happened by the bones left behind. The bones of trees, of shelters, of graves, and the literal bones of humans and apes, intermingled where they must have died together when the fire overtook them.
We eventually continued further south, to find the edge of the fire. It had skipped over several small water ways, creeks dry in summer, present only because of runoff from melt in the southern mountains. A wider river, however, had stopped it, and at least some of the tribes continued to live on the other side. Boats, rafts, even logs had been used to escape the blaze, and I imagine some of the apes must have drowned attempting to swim to safety.
Leroy knew the best point for fording this river, and after a little exploration, decided we would probably make it across on the horses. Sheila led the way, and I am glad that someone else picked the horses for this particular trip, as I've never been able to figure out how to tell if a horse can swim, other than by putting it in the water and watching. These could all swim well, and I owe my life to them.
Upon reaching the other side, we dismounted, and waited to be approached. Two armed apes walked toward us, very slowly, and Jack told everyone to put their weapons down as conspicuously as they could, and we did. The apes approached, finally, and an extensive sign language conversation ensued between Leroy and one of the apes. Leroy kindly translated both what he was signing, and what the apes were signing throughout the conversation, so I will summarize that.
The apes had indeed heard the old traveler's tales about them, and had a vast disgust for the tale, except in that it caused them to be left alone. The recent attack by hunters was viewed by them as precisely why being left alone was not worth the fear and prejudice such stories elicited. They believed that if anyone had shown up in Lytton with a bite, it was almost certainly someone from that party of hunters we had tracked south, most of whom had died in the attack on the northern village. They had captured one of the hunters, and interrogated him. Leroy did not translate their methods of interrogation, but judging by the hand signs, I would say the apes tied ropes around all four limbs, and the other end of the ropes to a tree or trees, and then dropped the person they wanted to talk, and repeated the process until the desired information was forthcoming. I was unable to tell whether the intent of this process was to pull the body in multiple directions, or by careful control of the length of the rope, to frighten the person into believing their were about to be smashed on the ground or another tree or what have you. I don't see that it matters, as either of the above would serve the purpose well, I imagine. In this case, the methods were successful, and they believed they knew the names of everyone in the party. The man had not known who had survived the blaze. The ape provided the list of names to Leroy, and Jack took notes during this part of the discussion. The name of the man they had captured was noted, and after a short conversation, Jack and Leroy gave the apes the bounty money for that man, and for the two human bodies we had seen north of the river. They were initially reluctant to accept the money, but Leroy said something to convince them. I don't want to know what he said.
The apes offered us dinner and their hospitality for the night, and we accepted. The following morning, we returned to Riding Cross, and were pleased to learn that absolutely nothing new had transpired in our absence. The watch, male and female, human and otherwise, were head over heels (or other appropriate limbs) in lust with Astrea. All was right with the world.
The next morning, however, we got up for breakfast to learn that Cleric Rushi had arrived in Riding Cross. She had received the letter and, after meditating, decided that with such erratic postal service, she should join us in person. She had hired Irvish, Mervish and Dervish to guard her on her trip, and to serve as an object lesson to the congregations south of Lytton in the utility of Playing Well with Other Races. The orcs said that Mauser was recovering well, with some assistance from Rushi, which was in large part why they had agreed to travel with her. Mauser was happy to receive the bounty for Helen, and asked to join Jack and Leroy if they were interested in having a dwarf or two tag along, as of course Ivan and Mauser were inseparable, if you know what I mean.
I hadn't known. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know, but there you go. Might as well include it in the chronicle. And as long as I'm writing about everyone else's sex lives, I'd like to note that if I don't mention that so-and-so is sleeping with so-and-so, doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't include matters of that sort in the story unless they are important in order to understand other events. We had to explain to Rushi that we were traveling by night, because of Astrea. She was set back for a moment, but rallied quickly and said she'd always wanted to have more time to look at the stars. No one had the heart to point out that most of the road back to Lytton was wooded, and we wouldn't be seeing much of anything.
After an afternoon nap to revert to our traveling schedule, we headed out at dusk. The werepuma had spent too long with relatives, and was leaving with the post at the same time, so we all traveled east together. The human deputies had returned from Axton with news that the postal carrier would be allowed in for food at Axton, but we thought we'd make sure that turned out to be true in practice.
The return trip to Lytton was uneventful, unless you count Rushi deciding to try the local food in Axton, and holding us up by a full day and night to recover from the effects of eating the shit they call food in that town. She then held us up another day and a night to lecture the populace on their unfriendliness to other races, and the low standard of life they were doomed to lead until they mended their unloving ways. She allowed as how she was not hopeful this would be effective, but she needed the practice, and they deserved to sit through a long sermon after making her so ill. She hadn't been that sick in over a decade, when she'd inadvertently been stuck in a besieged town for longer than she liked to remember.
The final night's travel to Lytton was also uneventful, marked only by two side trips by Marion. The postal carrier had long since out paced us, having decided not to eat in Axton proper, but rather to arrange for provisions from Deborah outside the town. Rushi was staying at quarters arranged for by her church, and kicked up a huge fuss to make sure Irvish, Mervish and Dervish were staying near her. One could almost believe that Rushi was feeling a little bored by her life and attempting to make it a little more interesting. We stayed at Rachel's, and brought Vira up to date on our latest adventures.
Leroy had asked Sheila not to divulge anything about the names of the human hunters for at least a week, and while we told Vira about them, we were careful to make sure the news did not travel further. Jack and Leroy were hoping to convince Lytton to issue bounties on the few names on the list that did not already have bounties, and then make a clean sweep of whoever was still in Lytton before publicizing the story and the bounties to go with it. I got the feeling they were in no hurry to share the wealth, but they emphasized the increased danger that went along with the mark knowing it was a mark.
That evening, Jack and Leroy asked me to come along and assist them. Jack said that he and Leroy had concluded, after some research, that about six of the ape-hunters had returned to Lytton, and while they had not tracked them all down, they believed all were still in the city. After checking around, they'd decided it was unrealistic to believe they could cleanly collect all six, and while Lytton had issued bounties on all of them, the three who did not have existing prices had not been posted as dead-bounties. I did not understand, until Jack and Leroy explained that when a price was put on someone's head, it might be for that person dead, that person dead or alive in captivity, or that person alive. In this case, three had bounties to bring them in alive, one had a dead bounty, and the other two were dead-or-alive. This was the letter of the law, but the nuances were more complex. Lytton was big enough to have a jail, and had an employment problem. They strongly preferred to have dead-or-alive bounties brought in alive, so they could be used in work camps, and anyone who killed someone who was wanted alive tended to wind up in the work camps.
In view of this outcome, Jack and Leroy had decided to collect the single bounty no one would mind if they killed, and to do so in a sufficiently ostentatious manner that the rest of the group would turn themselves in, preferably with a jittery tale involving a description of Jack or Leroy. Leroy thought we could collect the bounties on "voluntary" entry into the work camps.
I thanked them for the full explanation, and asked why they wanted me. They looked at each other and talked around the answer for several minutes, before Leroy explained that the man they wanted to collect was wanted for a series of rape-murders. They wanted me as bait.
I said as much, and after a moment of silence, they concurred. I asked for reassurance that they'd get him before anything especially horrible had happened to me, and they were both emphatic that he wouldn't be allowed to lay a hand on me, much less any other appendage. They told me they wanted me to walk with them to another part of Lytton, a few streets away from their guild, and loiter. Astrea was to dress me, and she was told to make sure I could run in whatever I wore.
What Astrea put me into is difficult to describe. It involved a lot of black leather straps and boots, and some artistically placed weaponry that looked very decorative, but was also very sharp-edged. I knew how to use the daggers, but the star-shaped objects were another matter entirely. The boots were comfortable, and while the outfit was cinched in (I felt like I was in harness), it in no way interfered with running. I was glad it was a warm night. Astrea and I walked to the named street, and there she took my cloak and returned to Rachel's. Jack and Leroy were supposedly within a few yards, but I never did spot them.
I loitered, increasingly chilled as the spring evening deepened into full night. Several men and women, of a variety of sizes, shapes, ages and species, expressed interest, but I turned them all down. I had been told to refuse everybody, even our target. About the point where I was turning blue with cold, our target appeared, asked me how much, and I said I wasn't for sale. As he stepped closer to me, and reached out for my neck, I turned and started walking towards the guild.
Jack and Leroy had emphasized the importance of not letting this man touch me, and, if he did touch me, I was under strict orders to run, not walk, and not look back, to the guild. However, as long as he didn't touch me, I could walk, and, if I heard either Jack or Leroy speak to him, I could watch. This was a concession I'd argued for, and had been reluctantly given. Looking back now, I must have been insane to want to watch what transpired.
Leroy shouted at the man, who turned away from me. I walked another half block, and turned around to watch, with my back to the wall of a building. Jack had been very insistent that if I did stick around to watch, I was to make sure no one else grabbed me, as that would complicate matters. They hoped to torment their victim long enough to attract the attention of at least one other member of the ape-hunting party, and they did not want that to degenerate into a hostage situation.
Astrea materialized out of the shadows on the next street with my cloak, and wrapped it around me. I became aware of a number of people watching from the buildings nearby, peering around corners or watching through windows. I overheard one elderly woman mutter something about how it was high time someone started cleaning up the streets. Meanwhile, Leroy and Jack were taunting the man, circling him. He lunged at Jack. Leroy darted in behind him. I'm not sure what was in Leroy's hand, but after he drew it across the man's face, the man started screaming and covering his eye. This did not, however, stop the man, although it made his aim worse. He swung around and lunged towards Leroy, who dodged back, and to the side, dropping slightly as he did so. Possibly because the man was now working with a single eye in the dark, he didn't realize that Leroy was close to a wall. Leroy dodged sideways, Jack high-kicked the man in the small of the back, knocking him into the wall. When the man turned around, he was spitting parts of several teeth out, and blood dripped from his mouth. He was hunched over. I cannot imagine continuing to pick on Leroy or Jack, much less both together, in such a state, but this man did. He charged Jack, ignoring Leroy, which was a terribly mistake, as Leroy grabbed his hair (which was long, and straggled down his back), and yanked him up and over backwards. Jack pulled his blade as Leroy was yanking the man backwards. With a single powerful stroke, Jack decapitated the man.
Leroy did not, however, get all the hair, and when Jack pulled his blade back, it became entangled in the rest of it. With a string of curses, Jack shook the hair and head off the blade. The head fell with a thud, and rolled towards Leroy, who grabbed it by the hair again. Without sheathing blade or concealing head, Jack, Leroy and Astrea started trotting towards the guild, dragging me along with them. We were a block away before the body finished falling to the ground.
The trip to the guild was perhaps three blocks, and blood dripped from the grisly trophy the entire way. We were watched by the small crowd which became visible after the fight was over, and for the last block, we had an escort in the form of two members of the watch. Leroy turned the head over at the guild, and received the bounty in exchange. While Leroy and Jack went to clean up, Astrea and I were ushered into a different office, where one member of the watch, and one guild official asked us for our descriptions of what happened. While we were describing what we had seen, a pair showed up from the ape-hunting party, screaming at the guild to "call them off!".
The other member of the watch escorted the two to the local watch house, and we continued our description. The other member of the watch asked what kind of blade Jack carried to be able to decapitate a man in a single stroke, implying we had been mistaken or were exaggerating. I'll repeat this part of the conversation in total, as it is both entertaining, instructive, and representative of what talking to Astrea can be like at times.
"While we were in Axton, Jack's sword was identified by a magic-practitioner as a Vorpal Blade." The "sword" identified in Axton as a Vorpal Blade was actually my filet knife.
"What is a Vorpal Blade?"
"For our purposes, officer, it can be thought of as a blessed, +5 Sword of Beheading, with added bonuses against villains."
The officer, wisely enough, decided to abandon this line of questioning. As we were wrapping up, a third member of the watch arrived, and informed the officer questioning us that the remaining three members of the ape-hunting party with bounties on their heads had turned themselves in at watch headquarters. When Jack and Leroy returned, scrubbed and still a little damp, we returned to Rachel's for a late night snack. I asked Jack if his sword was a Vorpal Blade, or a blessed, +5 Sword of Beheading with added bonuses against villains, or just the mother of all sharp swords, and he choked on his food. Astrea patted him on the back and smirked.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 1999.
Created: July 8, 2012 Updated: July 8, 2012