Ashfall: City of Shade (UNDER EDITING)

Chapter 7 | Changing Relations

GRETA

Brommy leads me to his voltak.

"I'm really feeling fine, Greta."

Then why is he walking with a limp?

He unties our voltak from its post outside the tavern we ate breakfast at. I climb up first. As always though, I can't reach the saddle. Brommy sighs while moving on top of it and hoisting me up himself.

"I can do it myself. You are very impatient. Mirth told you to use your sword for leverage."

Brommy doesn't say anything. He does, however, yank the beast's restraints hard and with quite a vicious kick to its side too with his uninjured foot.

He knows I don't like it when he hurts the animal like that.

"Brommy!"

"Silence! How else am I to make it move?" he retorts.

His anger catches me off guard. My lip trembles as I watch pedestrians dodge out of our path for my trainer does not slow to give them time to move.

Brommy usually waits for the citizens to move so they can give us space to walk around on this creepy animal. I do pity our voltak.

We stop in the market center. The beast trots around to a couple of vending stations. Brommy normally only carries a sword, but today he has a whip.

A man stands by a group of younger men boasting of his knowledge and how it is above their own. They listen amused as he names a price for his wisdom. Enoch called them sophists. The ones who weave great tales to crowds in order to make money. He hates them and says all they care about is getting people riled up.

Disrupting order is breaking the law.

Without a word, Brommy dismounts. He lands on the ground walking away in his black shiny armor. A few people holler, but most scatter out of his path like terrified urkmink as he unwinds his whip without warning.

I watch as his whip coils around the loud man's throat. Screams erupt in the market. The whip drips with the man's blood as Brommy winds it back into a coil. The man remains slumped over like an abandoned sack of vegetables on the ground.

Brommy whistles, the voltak carries me over to him.

I stare at the ground as he mounts the animal sitting behind me once more. His large arms move around me taking the rope from my grip.

Neither of us speaks until we make it to the palace and continue our rounds there.

The day drags on. My trainer is acting quieter than usual. Perhaps he blames, if not his injury, the whole predicament on me.

He's been hurt and my limpnut...

My limpnut has been stolen from me. My precious Fluff she had grabbed by the tail and wandered off with. She wouldn't even listen to my troubled god.

It has been two days since Cephine took my pet. How long will she keep it for? Is she feeding my Fluff well? I miss it dearly. It gave me something to look forward to coming home to. Something to hold and snuggle with before I drift off into my nightmares.

Nightmares that I've been getting a lot of lately. Perhaps it is because of the worms.

***

ENOCH

The tavern is warm and reeking of ale and sweat. No, I do not find spying entertaining. Neither can I really spy on anyone as I am emperor and constantly being followed by my guards. The tavern is merry, but the ones in the dockyard are the best on evenings like these.

Adler told me Brommy was going to take her on a day trip there tomorrow. She really needs the escape. She has been pretty distraught over Cephine watching over her limpnut. She wouldn't tell me why though.

There is much gone unknown about her.

"Who are you?" I mumble watching the new wife of my father.

She seems too elegant to be born on the seadom. Adler said he found her in a slaveholding ship. I can only imagine how Greta would feel about him knowing his new wife was bought. Albeit, not outright, for the ship was ransacked.

I do believe Adler intended to take all the slaves, but whatever went down out there must have been messy since he only came back with just her. He had to have paid some price for her beauty and safety in coming to our city.

What could have gone wrong? He came back uninjured so some deal must have been made. No one died from the pillage that I know of.

When I look up from my compass, I find Greta missing from our booth. Adler hands me a mug of mead with a wide grin. His wife stands beside him eyeing the empty platter across from me.

"Did she finish her eggs?" he asks.

"'Yes," I gulp, but my thoughts are far from Greta.

His wife's sheer slip is a slim shade away from transparent. She should be dressed in a tunic like everyone else, but I suppose Adler has not made her aware of our city's standard of clothing. So long as she is comfortable I suppose it doesn't matter.

Her healthy skin draws the eye I'm sure of many young men including myself for my eyes naturally wander.

The slip may be black, however, the frilly garments below stand out against it.

Many earings of jewels and metal mark her ears as well as the flat of her belly. Her long hair covers her chest, but without it, her chest wrap would be completely on display being the ruby red it is. A small thin strap of the same color covers her lower goods leaving her full behind visible when she turns.

Women do not wear these things on the south sea. Even slaves are clothed more properly for if they did not they would die much faster on the open waters of these caverns.

She was no ordinary slave. She could have been made a whore to a wealthy merchant on the seas. Her body is fatty enough to be considered voluptuous, by no means frail or weakened by malnutrition as a true slave's would be.

I should probably stop staring.

"Enoch," she greets. A wave of her flowery perfume drifts near me for she stands too close. Adler has already left our company. His wife sits down across from me with a half-smile. "I was wondering what you think of my outfit since you have yet to look away from my body..."

"Y-you look beautiful, it's just not many women can afford such a garment. Not many men have seen such an outfit on any woman here. Sorry, I didn't mean to offend."

"You were judging me."

"No!"

"Do not worry, Enoch. I understand we are two very different people. I'd like to get to know more about you and share my upbringing. I would also like to know why they call you emperor yet treat your father as such still..."

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