1) Does the opening grab you?
2) Does the work keep your interest?
3) Does the conclusion leave you wanting more?
Thank you very much! Please enjoy!
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Welcome to Ravenridge...
Wings
beat overhead, enormous wings that sent a downdraft of wind and smoke crashing into
the poorly cobbled street, and a shadow fell over them, only to disappear back
in the direction of the fire. Furor Blackquake had arrived. They had to be gone.
If the Lords of Ravenridge had sent their pet monster to deal with
the fire, the city guard and even the Mercury Blades would soon swarm the
streets.
She
pulled Bright down a side alley and dropped down into the sewers, wincing at
the stench. Viscous liquid seeped through the holes in her boots to squish
between her toes. Bright gave a muffled protest was caught off as Hex tucked
the bag into her belt and began running again. The sewers were always
dangerous, but had become even more so lately since the kappa infestation.
Still, it was better than up above.
“Hex,”
Bright gasped. “Hex, we can’t go down this way.”
“Shut
up, we can,” she snapped, and pivoted down a side passage, splashing fouled
water over her pants as she went with the downward stream. It was dark in the tunnels but Hex had never
needed much light to see by. She
navigated the tunnels with an instinctive clarity few other thieves possessed,
something she had carefully kept secret from all but Bright.
“We’re
heading toward the ridge,” Bright said recognizing the direction they were
headed from the flow of sewage. “We can’t go there! The guards—”
“Will
be distracted by the fire! Be quiet and run!”
The wealthiest of Ravenridge’s
elite lived on the upper edge of the ridge, where they could see out over the
great canyon and watch the river below run into the ocean. It was no place for
the dregs of the city’s criminals. They would stick out there like an inkblot
on white parchment with their tattered garments and stinking of the city’s
refuse. But they didn’t need to be there long, just enough to make it to one of
the canyon stairs. The Ravenridge canyon was treacherous and the Daggertooth
River was more dangerous still, but there they could make their way to the
ports and find passage on a boat out of town, where neither of them would be
recognized. They could start over somewhere. Put all of this behind them.
She’d been an apprentice to her
father, a tanner, before the loansharks had burned down his business. A smaller
town would be glad to have her skills. And Bright knew how to improvise
poultices and remedies from just about anything. They’d do well out from under
the Rathbone’s heel. Staying simply wasn’t an option. No matter who came out on
top of the crime family’s war, they would look kindly upon any who had not
fought on their side. Those at the lowest levels would suffer the most, and Hex
had no misunderstanding about her place in the hierarchy.
“Hex,
there’s something behind us,” Bright panted.
“Kappa?”
The sewage surged around her ankles, as if being pushed ahead by something.
“I
think—I think it’s Maw.”
“Shit.” She ran faster.
The giant serpent was the reason
nobody had been sent into the sewers to deal with the kappas. Nobody cared
about a few less street urchins and homeless, especially when the problem would
eventually be devoured by Maw. Rumors about the snake’s origins were numerous,
but all agreed that he was perpetually hungry.
She yanked Bright off their
original path. There was no way they could outrun the serpent if they moved in
a straight line. Plans of making it down to the docks were abandoned in favor
of simply finding the nearest exit from the sewers.
Red
sunlight and shouting filtered from a hole ahead. Hex made to climb for it but
the shadow of a man in armor fell over it.
“Guards,” she hissed. The city
watch had moved fast. Faster than she would have thought they’d been capable
of. The sewers were a favored passageway for desperate thieves, but to be
stationed there so soon after the fire didn’t make sense. Not unless they’d
known it was going to happen.
“Shit,” she cursed again raced past
the opening.
“Hex,
what are you doing?” Bright demanded. “Better a guard than Maw.”
“Nobody’s
catching us today.” But Bright began dragging on her, slowing down. Hex had
been a runner for the Rathbones after they’d taken her and often took for
granted the speed and endurance she’d built up over time.
“Just a bit further,” she urged.
“We just have to get ahead of the next guard.”
The
flow of sewage rose higher as Maw drew closer. A hiss echoed up the tunnels.
Bright
whimpered.
“Don’t
look back,” Hex demanded. “Whatever you do, don’t look back!”
“Who’s
down there?” A voice from ahead. A guard positioned at another opening to the
sewer.
“Dammit,”
she swore, and with a final burst of speed raced to the entrance. “Help!”
The
guard, a middle aged man with a salt and pepper mustache regarded them with
only mild surprise and reached down to help them up. Hex shoved Bright ahead of
her and leapt to pull herself up after. The guard leaned down to help her next.
The sewage beneath her exploded.
Something wet and wide as a tree trunk grazed against her back, lifting up her
shirt so that sewage dragged along her skin and she could feel the press of
scales. The guard’s scream was cut off as Hex caught a glimpse of jaws large
enough to swallow a dog whole latch onto his torso, crushing his chest through
his broiled leather armor. And then he was pulled back down into the tunnels.
Bright
screamed. Hex screamed. Together they ran, no longer with a destination in mind
or with concern to their surroundings. All they wanted was to be away.
They
passed between the walled in manors of the wealthy, spurred forward by
commotion behind them. The marching of feet sounded ahead; behind, the gasps
and cries of a gathering crowd and the calls of new watchmen for order.
Hex
pressed herself against one of the walls surrounding a manor. “Come here, I’ll
boost you over.”
“Hex—”
“Will
you quit protesting and get over here.”
Hex
bent over and helped Bright onto her shoulders. With a grunt, she rose up and
waited for the weight to vanish. An instant later Bright was laying atop the
wall and offering Hex a hand up. With far more deftness than her companion, Hex
scurried over the wall and the pair dropped down into a garden on the other
side.
At least, Hex thought it was a garden. That’s
what it was called when people put a bunch of plants together, but they usually
had some sort of purpose. What these bushes with their awkward limbs and
billowing leaves were for was anyone’s guess. A musky smell emanated from them
that when combined with the stench of the sewer wafting from their skin and
clothes was enough to churn Hex’ stomach.
Whatever their purpose, they were good for
hiding, and she pulled Bright down with her beneath the foliage and out of
sight. Neither could see past the curtain of green, but sounds trickled over
the wall like coins tossed into a well—clear but still indistinct. The sun set
and the two of them waited, leaning against one another and breathing in
tandem. Neither spoke except with their eyes, which said “keep quiet” and “I’m
afraid.”
When
darkness had settled and the faint light of lamps trickled through the leaves
and the sound of people beyond the wall had long since vanished, only then did
Hex allow herself to stand and motioned for Bright to follow her. She pushed
her way out of the garden and froze.
Stretching
before the garden was a yard backing up to a manor house of carved marble. A
stone bench was positioned in the middle of the yard, positioned so as to look
upon the plants against the wall. To either side of the bench lay a brindle
mastiff the size of a colt with their heads up and forepaws crossed before
them, as if waiting for Hex and Bright to emerge. If the noblewoman sitting on
the bench with a glass of wine was any indication, they were.
The
woman was older and sat with rigid bearing. She was beautiful, as, Hex had
noted, most noblewomen were, despite her advancing years. Her simple but
elegantly coifed blonde hair was shot through with veins of silver starting at
the temples and her dark eyes were ringed with crinkled crow’s feet. Her eyes
and mouth put Hex in mind of the ornate dinner knives rich merchants liked to
eat their dinner with to display their wealth. While her clothes were ornate
the woman was not clothed in gowns or skirts, but practical men’s clothes in
the form of a navy coat with gold buttons and trousers tucked into shiny black
boots.
Beside
her the dogs shifted, as if readying to charge. The woman set her wine glass
down on the bench and held up a hand, stilling the dogs. Slowly, she rose to
her feet, picking up a straight cane as she did so. Her shapely form somehow
made the men’s clothing feminine and Hex couldn’t help but wonder at what a
beauty this woman must have been in her prime. She walked forward with a slight
limp and aided by her cane. Hex only recognized it for the concealed sword that
it was because it was the preferred weapon of the Rathbone heads. She towered
over Hex and Bright like an icy spire, the very air around her seeming more
crisp and chill by her presence as her dark eyes bore down on them, though she
could not have been more than a few inches taller.
At some unspoken signal the mastiffs
got to their feet and moved like tigers to flank her. They kept a respectable
distance between their mistress and the vagabonds in her garden but made their
presence felt, if only barely. The woman was overwhelming and her nearness made
it difficult for Hex to focus on anything else.
Hex wanted to shrink beneath this
woman’s gaze where others made her want to swell up and rise to challenge them.
Her appearance was rarely a source of pride, but less often was it a source of
shame. Covered in ash, blood, and the shit of untold number of citizens was
enough to make her feel like a worm beneath this strange noblewoman. She hid
her acid scarred hands behind her back, as much to conceal their ugliness from
the woman’s eyes as to grab the small knife sheathed at the back of her belt.
It wasn’t there. It must have come free when Maw grabbed the guardsmen.
The
woman’s expression never changed as she spoke. “It is about time you two
decided to come out.”
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Thank you for reading.
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