Eragos Feareborne (proscribed) wrote in adusta, @ 2008-12-10 11:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | eragos feareborne, knights, vera of beit-orane |
paradise (vera)
There were always stories to go in advance of a thing, to let you know its grandeur and its status. Despite repeated descriptions from the Lady Cithia - regardless of whether he wanted them or not - Eragos found he was unprepared for the sight of it. A massive structure that rose impossibly high into the narrow throat of the valley with mists that obscured its true height swirling above them. Eragos pulled the cloak tighter around him, including the hood of grey wool that had been sewn onto it by a gracious pair of homeowners. Something about this land was strange and monstrous. There were multiple pathways around them, with wooden bridges that started on the ground and took winding labyrinthian courses for the sky. Of course, Eragos noted with dismay that the gate was not one gate but five, smaller sliding doors in the massive wall of stone and steel. Each door was at a different height. He realized abruptly that all of the pathways led to the gates themselves, which were distant to his eyes but had a stone scaffold of their own built in. This was where the soldiers perched.
Perched, and watched.
Wooden supports for the winding rising pathways made themselves evident and apparently in great numbers. Eragos had a hard time telling which supports were propping up which bridges. There were some bridges wider than others, and these bridges were lowest to the ground. Carts, his mind told him, and there were enough carts on that path to justify the opinion. So different bridges for different reasons. What were the highest meant for? Foot traffic. If you were on horseback, the mid-level gates were apparently intended for you. It made sense in the way that anything so foreign and strange made sense. He accepted it as reality and stopped asking himself how any of it was possible. Let alone real. There was a duty to perform and here, in the chaos of the gate, it was more important than ever. They were riding in one column with Eragos bringing up the rear, and the Lady Vera at the head of the file. The relative safety brought on by the formation was dulled somewhat in that they didn't know where the attack was coming from; around them there was literally a sea of people.
Every stripe, every nationality, all of them gathered in day-old or worse clothing. There was a peculiar scent among this many creatures, seizing after a day and never really leaving until the grass they'd stamped into mud grew back. Overcooked food mixed with excrement and sweat, desperation in a scent that anyone could recognize. Here and there planks had been pried up from the ground-level walkway, and those planks had been used to arrange signs advertising one service or another. Or the sale of goods that couldn't possibly exist in such conditions. Steam rose from them in waves, as they poured their body heat into the sky for no good purpose. Eragos couldn't help but pity them. And yet, there was a reserve of disdain that he felt suddenly for the king. This was still his land. These people were starving and freezing. War or not, they deserved at least not to die. That much, anyone who chose peace deserved. Keeping himself from a disgusted comment was difficult. And yet he managed it. She must have noticed, in one of the many glances that she fired over her shoulder, for the Lady Cithia spoke into the din.
"He tries his best, Master Feareborne. Not every problem has an easy solution."
"Bread and broth are simpler solutions than most, Lady Cithia," was all he said.
She lost the taste for conversation.
Swords and knives were in evidence but none of the wielders had the shoulders or hands that denoted long use. Callouses could grow chapped and dry in the winter cold, which was the reason Eragos wore gloves. Most of them didn't, and if they had callouses, those were from menial work and not from training with weapons of war. Hard sneers were received most often from spineless creatures. They were al sneering about something. At the soldiers who patrolled seemingly at random, or at the 'merchants' who were gouging on water and soup, or at each other, or at the fellow who still had a functional blanket. Eragos had never seen such a pit of human waste. It was waste, not because of the denizens - at least, not entirely - but because of the conditions here. This could have been a thriving city built around a questionable industry, and instead it was a place for the desperate to die. Eragos wondered precisely what sort of king he had sworn to protect, and what sort of land he had given his word to shield from harm, but its imperfections were glaringly evident to him because he had not lived with them day-in and day-out.
The Lady Cithia, and her father, had.
That made it easier to rationalize the suffering that occurred around them.
Or at least, that was his guess. He didn't know. And was not entirely sure that he wanted to.