© Antidarius 2024
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A PALADIN'S WAR
CHAPTER 16
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Cats in the Sack
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High atop the Dawnwall, Lasne yawned widely, jaw cracking as it extended to its limit. She tried not to lean on her spear too obviously; if her captain saw it, she would be strapped for laziness and put on latrine duty for a week. It was difficult, though; the night watch was always like this, quiet and boring with only the seagulls and fellow watchmen for company. At least it wasn't raining.
Still, she supposed she preferred the same old peace and quiet to the alternative. Blinking beneath the rim of her polished helmet, she peered out over the vast expanse of ocean before her, the waves crashing against the rocks two hundred feet below, sounding distant all the way up here. The moon hung fat and full in the sky, offering more than enough light for her to see any incoming danger. Not that there ever was any. Almost a thousand years this wall had stood, a monument to the stoicism and strength of the Heralds of Dawn, protecting all of Ekistair from the darkness in the north.
Beyond the wall behind Lasne was the sprawling city of Cathgard, one of the five cities that comprised the Dawnguard, and home to more than a hundred thousand souls, all of whom slept peacefully at night thanks to the Heralds' protection. A sharp gust of wind tugged her red-trimmed yellow cloak out behind her, but she didn't bother gathering it back around herself; the night was warm enough that she didn't need it.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a patrolling guard coming, looping back from his last pass of this section of the wall. "All quiet, sister," he said by rote as he passed behind Lasne.
"All quiet, brother," she replied automatically. It was always the same. Occasionally there would be some excitement when a shark or whale beached themselves in front of the wall, or a ship or boat washed ashore, wrecked by a storm or bad seas, but that was all. Still, vigilance was required, and necessary. Darkness could only truly take hold when one closed their eyes to it.
The largest concern until recently had been the storms out of the north, wild tempests appearing suddenly and against all weather prediction, wracking the cities of the Northguard as they moved south. Fortunately, they had stopped, and except for the one that had come about a week ago, there had been no more. The best cloudreaders in the whole Northguard had yet to come up with a suitable explanation.
As if the storms weren't enough, word of bad earthquakes had come up from the southlands, though thankfully nothing more than minor tremors had reached this far north. Lasne had heard from a few Heralds that Maralon had sustained some damage, and nothing had been heard from Vesovar in weeks now. She fingered the haft of her spear uncertainly, a sudden chill creeping up her spine. These were dark days. Perhaps The Culmination was near. She would consider herself both fortunate and unfortunate if it happened in her lifetime.
"I need to stop listening to the prophets," Lasne muttered to herself, shoving aside her fears. Seven years a Herald, she was happy with her lot. Good pay, city life, a roof over her head. Some people had it much worse. Yes, the Heralds required extreme dedication and loyalty to the cause, but that was fine with Lasne; she had nothing else to attach herself to. No family, no husband, no children. Without the Heralds, she would have just drifted from place to place aimlessly until the day she died.
"All quiet, sister," the guard said again in the exact same tone as he passed back. Without looking around, Lasne opened her mouth to reply, but the words caught in her throat as the wind suddenly died, cut off as if fingers had suddenly tightened around the throat of the land. Her cloak dropped to hang behind her, and the guard stopped his route and came up beside her, peering out into the night. "Never seen that before," he murmured.
Neither had Lasne. This close to the ocean, the wind was always blowing to some degree. Her skin prickled, making her want to fidget, but her training kept her in control. She couldn't stop the flinch that came when a thousand seagulls suddenly burst into the air down below, taking flight all at once. Their raucous calls echoed up and down the wall, all the louder for the lack of wind.
"Something is-" the guardsman started to say, but he never finished the sentence. The wall suddenly
heaved
, tossing him and Lasne off their feet. She fell hard into the stone parapet, winding herself, but her companion wasn't so lucky. She raised an arm to try and grab him as he slipped through a crenel, scrabbling for a handhold, but he was too far away for her to help. The look of shock on his face as he passed over the wall made her feel ill.
From there, everything happened at once. Horse-sized chunks of stone began to rain down around her. She curled up into a ball, desperately trying to pull air back into her lungs. It was the worst position to be in when winded, but if one of those huge stones hit her, she was dead. Screams filled the air just before the bells began to ring, bells that had not been rung in almost a thousand years.
The stones stopped falling. Lasne hauled herself to her feet, using the parapet to prop herself up. The blood drained from her face as she stared west, along the battlement. A hundred feet away, the wall was
gone,
as if smashed by a giant hammer. A frantic look back the other way showed no damage but for the stones and dust littering the battlement. Heralds were coming, running toward her, shouting something, but her ears were blocked.
Her fellows reached her, two of them pulling her away from the hole, dragging her when she didn't move. She
couldn't
move. Her body felt like lead. Her spear was gone. She didn't remember dropping it. Her eyes were locked on the gap in the wall as she let herself be carried off. So this was how it began. The Culmination had finally come. What else could it be?
She'd been wrong in her thinking earlier; she only felt
un
fortunate.
***
"Now this is more like it!" Smythe exclaimed with a broad grin as Aran, Elaina, Amina and himself made their way down one of Beringarde's wide, paved avenues. Aran couldn't stop his own smile as the life of the city swirled around him, an almost overwhelming assault of colours and sounds and smells. Musicians played on almost every street corner, often in bands of two or three, accompanied by storytellers or magicians or tumblers or a dozen other kinds of performing artist. Street-side carts were aplenty, many of them cooking foods from all over the land, from pies to noodles to spicy rice dishes to foods Aran had never seen before. Those that weren't cooking were selling wares, same as any other city. Knives, cloth, leather, fruits and vegetables, pots, shoes, lamps, fireworks; there were too many to count.
Brightly coloured fabrics dangled from windows in the tall buildings lining the streets, in as many colours as there were buildings. Smythe said it was a custom in Beringarde to hang coloured cloth from your window sometimes, though he hadn't been able to tell Aran what the colours meant.
The people of Beringarde were dressed in the same vibrant hues, though you could hardly call them dressed. Smythe had always said Beringarde was famous - or perhaps infamous - for its uninhibited people, and he had not been overstating the fact. Everywhere Aran looked, people strutted about proudly wearing the the most bizarre - yet often appealing - garb he had ever seen.
A tall, statuesque Human woman with glistening ebony skin swayed past, wearing what looked like tight leather breeches that had been cut off halfway down her bottom, leaving much of her ample cheeks and long legs bare. Her upper body was naked except for a thin strap of fabric that crossed her robust chest horizontally, covering only her nipples. Her face was decorated with some kind of gold paint on her lips and around her eyes, giving her an even more exotic cast. She winked at Aran when she saw him looking at her.
No sooner had the dark woman passed than another walked by, coppery-skinned and beautiful, her slender body draped in loose, filmy fabric that reminded Aran of the
vaima.
She wore a
very
short skirt that showed quite clearly that she wore nothing beneath, and a matching... something... like a long-sleeved shirt that left her midriff and the bottoms of her breasts exposed, made from the same material as her skirt. She was essentially naked out in broad daylight in the middle of a city, yet she walked straight-backed and proud, as if she wore a queen's gown and jewels to match.
That was just two people. Almost everyone on the avenue was dressed similarly, men and women alike. Aran had never seen more skin on display in his life. A
vala
-memory popped up then, a vision of an opulent marble room, littered with bathing pools and luxurious furniture, where a hundred people cavorted and played and made love, nobody wearing a stitch. Alright, so he hadn't seen more skin on display in
his
lifetime. Other Paladins' lifetimes were another matter.
"This place is amazing!" Elaina said delightedly as she stared around, her green eyes bright in her pretty face. She beamed at Aran. He had to agree; his worries seemed less, here, as if the city walls were a buffer against the outside world. He knew it was a lie; the world was waiting out there, yet still it was a nice reprieve.
Even Amina seemed more buoyant, a small smile on her lips as she took in the lively surroundings.
"How do they get away with it?" Aran asked Smythe quietly as they walked. A few people were giving the
arohim
odd glances, most probably because of their clothes, or their weapons. Aside from themselves, the only weapons in sight were carried by the occasional guard patrol, the only people Aran had seen wearing what would be considered normal attire for most of the world. The thought of guards running around in some of the styles he'd seen so far made him smirk. "This close to..." He left the sentence unfinished. Smythe would know what he meant.
"They have a very clever governor," Smythe replied as they worked their way down the busy avenue. "She keeps the uh... Northern interests at bay with her brilliant political mind, or so I hear." Something in his tone made Aran's ears prick up.
"How long since you've seen her?" he asked casually.
Smythe made no outward sign, but Aran would have bet if the man didn't have an
arohim
