Page 22 of Path of the Dark
7
Into the Slums
Veldoras
The Kingdom of Thûn
“ANTHOR SCUM!”
THE shout echoed across the Spiral Way, reverberating off the surrounding stone buildings.
Gael glanced across at the crowd of locals that lined Veldoras’s main thoroughfare and searched for the agitator.
Wisely, for them, whoever it was had shut their mouth. However, none of the faces that flanked the cobbled street were friendly.
Casting a look in Saskia’s direction, Gael raised an eyebrow. “We’re popular here, I see.”
The enchanter shrugged. “Popularity doesn’t matter … they know who rules.”
Gael didn’t reply. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder to where men garbed in black and red followed them. An escort of twenty Anthor soldiers accompanied him and Saskia through the city, making their journey to the slums a parade. Gael had hoped to create less of a spectacle. Upon arriving in ‘The City of Tides’ he’d attracted very little attention before presenting himself to the king. He preferred to keep it that way.
However, Reoul had insisted they have an armed escort.
As he walked, he felt Shade shift against his chest. He carried his familiar everywhere with him these days. Ever since the rat had appeared at his side in Dûn Maras, they’d been inseparable.
It felt odd, but after a lifetime alone he found he enjoyed the rat’s companionship. It didn’t grate on his nerves the way people did.
A woman broke away from the crowd. She was around Gael’s own age and looked as if she might be attractive under all those layers of grime. Yet her face was twisted in loathing. “Pigs!” she snarled at Gael and Saskia before spitting at them.
A guard lunged at the woman, clubbing her across the face with a mailed fist. She fell back, shrieking into the crowd.
Observing the hate-filled faces and hard gazes surrounding them, Gael wondered how long Reoul would manage to control this rabble, before it turned on him. The folk of Veldoras suffered under Anthor rule. Gael had seen signs of unrest immediately upon his arrival here: there were daily hangings on the walls; and locals went hungry, while most of the food went to sustain Reoul’s army. Many of the faces in the surrounding crowd were thin and pinched.
“The king would do well to get this lot on side,” he said to Saskia, glancing her way once more. “It might serve his interests one day.”
She snorted. “Reoul has more important matters to attend to.”
They continued on in silence, while the hostile crowd grew. Larger numbers of Anthor soldiers appeared and beat some of the more aggressive bystanders back.
Gael kept one eye on the crowd as he quickened his pace. The Spiral Way hugged the lazy curl of the Brinewater Canal. It was high tide this morning, and sunlight sparkled off the water. A lad sat on the canal wall as they passed, playing a harp. A smile curved Gael’s mouth as he listened to the clumsy, though enthusiastic, playing. It had been a while since he’d picked up a harp. The lilting sound reminded him of his days in The Royal City of Rithmar. He’d enjoyed posing as a musician, although those days seemed a lifetime ago now.
A decade on, things had changed for Gael. The Shade Brotherhood had fallen,The King Breakerhad been destroyed, and Reoul of Anthor was Gael’s best chance of glory.
That’s all he’d ever wanted—ever since being cast from the House of Light and Darkness in Mirrar Rock after injuring a fellow apprentice—glory and a reputation that would live on long after he died. And now, finally, he had a chance to shine.
Gael’s smile widened. Once he was done here, The Four Kingdoms of Serran would certainly remember his name.
A short while later the procession turned away from the canal and into the tightly packed tangle of fetid streets that made up the slums of Veldoras.
Saskia led the way to the heart of the quarter. After a spell, she stopped before a large iron door with a stag’s head knocker.
“Is this it?” Gael stopped and craned his neck to survey the dilapidated building that loomed over the street.
“Aye,” Saskia replied, impatience in her voice. She hadn’t wanted to accompany Gael here, but Reoul had insisted.
Gael gave a low whistle. “How the mighty have fallen.”
Veldoras’s House of Light and Darkness had a crumbling, lichen-encrusted stone façade, a slate roof full of holes, and tiny windows that squinted down at him like blind eyes. Piles of refuse lay against the walls, and the stench of urine was strong enough to make Gael’s eyes water. He wouldn’t have believed enchanters lived here, if it wasn’t for the distinctive door knocker that glared out at him.
