Daneni stood resting against the sun-warmed walls of the great city
of Freeport and took out the note given to her by the Lady Kyrisis just
before she had unexpectedly released her and read it carefully. It
told her where to go, who to speak to.
Rolling up the note and carefully stowing it in her pack, Daneni
walked past bored Militiamen through the West Gate. This city seemed
so very different from Qeynos. It was bigger, brasher and, she noticed,
much more tolerant. Daneni was amazed to see an ogre merchant selling
jars of pickled meats (she shuddered to think of what) just yards from
the gate – and when she stopped a man to ask directions she was shocked
to see the tell-tale sigils of a follower of the god of plagues.
Even daring to speak his name could land a man in prison back in Qeynos.
Freeport was indeed an amazing city!
It did not take her long to discover the hidden passage beneath the
Seafarer’s Roost that led to her new masters. These, Kyrisis had
promised her, would provide her with everything she needed. Daneni
no longer questioned why she was so readily accepting employment from one
of the terrifying Teir’Dal. Nothing outside the walls of Qeynos made
any sense to her. Yet, she must survive in this world, her new life.
All she had encountered before Kyrisis aside from the kindly Benedict,
and, she admitted, her unfortunate – and now dead – travelling companions
out of High Keep had been bandits robbing her (twice), merchants cheating
her (four times) and men trying to take advantage of her (too many times
to count). Only Benedict and Kyrisis had truly aided her. But
she did not know where Benedict was. And, she had no money.
“What else am I to do?” she asked the sacks and barrels beneath the
Roost, “Kill rats for a living?”
Two days later, wearing a worn tunic and armed with a basic dagger,
she bitterly regretted those words.
Her bored employers had taught her a little of the basics of knife
fighting – then told her how she must earn her keep.
“Me! The daughter of Antonius Bayle, reduced to killing rats
for my supper!” A startled young wizard - also, she noted, killing
rats - stared at her, fumbling his spell in the process.
His rat, seeing its chance, leapt for his throat, digging its nasty
teeth into his neck. The wizard, startled, cried out in pain, struggling
to start his incantation again or fend off the beast with his knife.
“Oh no you don’t!” cried Daneni, well used by now to the tricks of
these suicidal rodents. Leaping forward, she fetched the beast a
nasty slash across its flanks, slaying it.
The wizard, dusting himself down haughtily, glared at her.
“That was my rat,” he said. Wizards, she’d noted, had a bit of
a problem with manners.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, curtseying, “I shall remember to let it rip
your throat out next time!”
The wizard frowned and turned away.
Sighing, Daneni knelt down and stripped the rat of its pelt – proof
of her kill. Another twenty, and, she had been promised, she would
be taught more useful skills.
Aye, Freeport was an amazing place. Here beggars huddled in every
corner, necromancers held secretive meetings in the dim corners of inns
- and a deadly dog known only as “Scraps” terrorised the townsfolk so badly
that a wise citizen seldom ventured out after dark without a choice cut
of meat to throw down at the slightest bark or snarl.
Not only that, but Freeport, she soon learnt, was a divided city.
Between North and South a troop of Militiamen in borrowed armour stood
glaring at a finely attired troop of Temple Guards who glared back.
Belonging to the Militia was a dangerous job. Not only were you
required to guard the city gates, the port in the East and the large expanse
of Commons to the West but you also had to keep a constant watch for questing
knights. These men, inflamed by the Temple of Marr, might pull down
and slay you without a moment’s warning!
The Militia, Daneni learned, were in the pay of her new employers.
And her new employers – who dominated the underworld and held a stranglehold
on trade – were themselves in the pay of the Teir’Dal. Small wonder
the Marr Temple so despised them. But there was something else to
add to the mess. The Militia were led by Sir Lucian – a fallen knight,
formerly in the service of the Temple himself.
It was all rather interesting to anyone versed in the intricacies
of politics. The daughter of Antonius Bayle was certainly one.