City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3) (3 page)

Out in the open Xan was spotted quickly by one of the men sitting at the edge of the camp.  He was a younger man, late into his teens, with a scraggly blond beard and hair that looked like it had been trimmed with a dull dinner knife.  He called back over his shoulder as he stood up from where he'd been sitting with his back against one of the nine peculiar wagons that were circled around the camp. 

They were larger than most wagons that Xandrith had seen on the road, like large wooden boxes with a bench seat attached to the front. They had a sloping panel of instruments coming up in front of the front seat.  Oddest of all though was that there were no mounting devices for any sort of animals, and there were bits and pieces of intricate metal work winding their way from the driver’s area in the front down to the underside of the carriages. The wagons weren’t pretty. They’d been designed in a functional manner, with an emphases on strength over form. They looked almost haphazard. 

"Guys, we've got a visitor!"  He shouted, and before long more men, seven in total, were walking out of the circle in Xan's direction.  They all wore weapons, though only two of them looked terribly comfortable with their chosen implements of war.  The man closest to Xan had drawn a rough looking broadsword and held it firmly in both hands, the point leveled at the assassin.  His stance was good, but not great.  He knew what to do with his sword, but he wasn't immensely skilled.  If Xan had been at the top of his game he guessed he could have easily made short work of these men. Xan knew he wasn’t well yet however, and he didn't want to get into a fight if it wasn't necessary. 

"We are well met, friends."  Xan spoke, making his voice as jovial as possible.  He raised his hands to show that they were empty, though he kept them tilted and curled so as to hide his missing fingers.  Until he knew the nature of the men he was facing, it was better to keep his secrets to himself.  There were men who would make trouble for an Eight like Xan just because they wanted to win favor with the mages. Or there had been people like that, Xan wasn’t so sure how much weight the mages carried anymore.

"Well met, maybe, but we'll have to see about 'friends.' These are not exactly times suited to meeting new people." One of the men spoke. He was shorter than his fellows, with long, straight brown hair that covered half of his face. He wore a small mace on his hip, but he hadn't yet drawn it. "Forgive our caution, but we don't know you and we have a camp to protect. Who are you stranger, and what is your business here?"

Xan held his place and nodded his head.  "These are dangerous times, and you're wise to be cautious.  My name is Trast Gleamsteal."  The assassin pulled up an old, often used identity.  He would adapt his made-up history as he saw fit, based upon his interaction with the men of the camp.  It was better that they didn't know who he really was.  "I am traveling north to find respite from the wars to the south.  I was waylaid by bandits three days ago.  They took my horse, and most of my supplies.  They stabbed me and left me for dead, but I was lucky enough that the man wielding the dagger was inexperienced and didn't drive it in deep enough." He pulled open his cloak and exposed the bloody hole in his shirt and the wound beneath. "I am looking for some place to get warm, to rest without worry of attack, and maybe for something to eat. I haven't eaten since my supplies were taken, and my water skin is empty as well."

"Waylaid by bandits, but they didn't take that knife you're wearing, eh?" One of the men asked, pointing to Haley's blade that Xan wore at his hip, suspicion evident in his voice.

Xandrith thought fast. "I'm ashamed to say I stole what little I have from corpses I found along the road a day ago. After the attack, I didn't want to travel without some kind of protection. I wouldn't know what to do with a sword, so I took this knife. I assure you, it is only a weapon of last recourse."

The seven men were closely examining Xandrith now.  He could feel their eyes ripping away at him, looking for some flaw in his demeanor that might make him a threat.  They hadn't even seen his face yet.  How was he going to smooth over that bit of strangeness?  He doubted these men would outright attack him, but with no food or water, and no clear way to obtain supplies, being sent away was not an option that Xan could survive. 

"If the knife is a problem, you could keep it until I part ways with your group.  Please, if you send me away empty handed, I'll die."  The truth was sometimes the most compelling part of any lie.  Xan didn't even have to try that hard to sound desperate. 

The men leaned in close together, whispering to one another.  Xan did his best to remain calm and appear harmless.  It wasn't exactly something he excelled at. 

One of the men, the shorter one again, stepped forward. "Take off your hood, Trast. If we're going to consider letting you into our camp we'd like to see who we're dealing with."

Xan winced inwardly.  He hesitated, his mind churning over this next move.  This was the breaking point.  What he did next would decide his fate with these people.  A part of him, the part that was all instinct and violence, told him to strike while he had the advantage.  That was, of course, a foolish thing to do.  These men were not really hostile, and they hadn't done anything to deserve Xan's wrath.  Besides, Xan wasn't sure if he could actually take them in a fight with his injuries. His ability to reason regarding this surprised him.  It occurred to Xan in this moment that he seemed remarkably level headed overall; his unnatural aggression seemed to be gone. He found that strange, considering he looked more troll than ever. Xan tucked away that realization for a more convenient time. A plan formed in his mind between stray thoughts and he immediately put it into action. 

Xan raised his hands to his hood. "I'll do this if you insist, but you won't be happy with what you see. I've made enemies amidst the mages." Xan spread his hands, showing off his missing fingers. There was at least one gasp and several exchanged glances. "They cursed me for what they considered my crimes." He pulled back his hood, revealing his altered flesh and the two small horns rising from his head. "As you might imagine it has been difficult to make friends since this happened to me."

Seven shocked faces with varying degrees of panic looked on.  Xan watched as they huddled together and discussed what to do next, not quite taking their eyes off of him. All seven of them were holding their weapons now.  Xan had to force himself not to draw the knife at his hip.  The situation could turn to violence at any moment, and without that knife in his hand the assassin didn't stand a chance. 

A shuffling of cloth at his side drew Xan's attention.  The younger, better dressed version of himself was standing next to him.  "I can't believe you haven't drawn that blade yet."  He said. 

Xan was about to speak when he recalled that the other Xan was a figment of his imagination.  He closed his mouth sharply. 

"Of course, drawing that blade would probably end in you being killed.  Besides, you need these people right now."  Young Xan added after a moment of tense silence.  He turned his nose to the air as a smile slipped onto his all too familiar face.  "Can you smell that food cooking?  That is definitely the smell of roasting meat.  I don't know what kind, but I'm game for anything right now, what about you?"  He made a show of smacking his lips and rubbing his stomach.  Xan frowned at his double. 

A voice startled him from his angry consideration of his phantom twin.  "We'll be taking your knife.  You can recover it before you leave.  Keep your hood up when in public, and keep your distance from the families.  Not to give offense, but we don't exactly trust you.  We're not going to turn you away though.  You can stay the night.  We'll see what happens in the morning."  The shorter man spoke again. 

Xan pulled his hood back over his head and offered a slight bow of appreciation. "You have my sincere thanks."

"Lottan will show you where you can get some food and make camp for the evening." He gestured towards a narrow shouldered man who was carrying a heavy metal implement in one hand. It didn't look like it was specifically designed to be a weapon, but it seemed like it would serve the purpose well enough. "I'll be telling the men to watch out for you tonight. If you stray from where we put you, you'll find yourself out on your arse long before the morning sun rises."

Xan nodded. "That seems fair enough."

Lottan stepped in the assassin's direction, holding out his hand, palm up. "Your knife?" His question was short and sharp. This man had clearly not been on the side of letting him in for the night. Xan reached for his knife scabbard and freed it with a snap of the metal pin that held it fastened to his belt. He stepped forward and laid the blade, his gift to Haley and now his last remnant of the girl, into the palm of the man with the angry eyes. It was foolish to be sentimental, but Xan promised himself he'd have that weapon back before he left. If he found Haley again, if she still lived, he would have that to give back to her. That was if she wanted anything to do with him, he and Haley hadn’t been on the best of terms when they’d last been together. She’d taken in the axe, and the bonesteel blades didn’t seem to be on Xan’s side of this little war.

The man with the unusual metal weapon tucked the blade into his belt and then nodded his head back towards the camp.  Xandrith was thankful that they hadn’t searched him for the weapon of bone he had hidden at the small of his back.  He had no intention of being separated from that. "Follow me. Stay close, and don't stray or I'll color the grass with your brains."

"I've no intention of causing trouble for anyone."  Xan said, as he fell into place behind Lottan. 

The man walked quickly, not bothering to reply to Xan as he led the way.  Xandrith was fine with the silence.  It gave him time to observe, at that was something that he liked to do.  As they passed into the camp Xandrith got his first good look at the carriages being used to carry the families and their goods.  They looked somewhat like stretched out coaches with four separate doors per side instead of two.   Each of the eight coaches had three wheels per side. The wheels were thicker than any Xan had seen before, and instead of being banded in steel they were covered in a strange, black material.  What they were comprised of was weird enough, but what they were lacking was even stranger.  None of them had any sort of rigging for harnessing to animals.  Instead, the driver's bench had a bank of strange instruments in front of it, wheels, levers, and buttons that were a confusing mess to Xan. 

Lottan led them past all of the unusual carriages, then further out until they were on the very edge of the far side of the camp where a small fire burned.  Lottan sat down in the grass on one side of the fire, and Xan took this as his cue to do the same.  There were skewers of meat resting near the fire, already cooked, being kept warm by their proximity to the low burning flame.  Xandrith couldn't help but stare. 

"Eat what you want." Lottan said. "I've finished."

Xandrith moved for the food as fast as he would move to strike a target dead in his line of work.  It was only after he'd shoved several chunks of meat into his mouth and was chewing on the grisly, delicious meat that he realized he probably looked barbaric.  He forced himself to slow down and chew more carefully.  He swallowed hard.  "I apologize."  He said quietly. 

Lottan was watching him closely.  His eyes were clouded with suspicion, even the one hidden behind a strange glass monocle that shone blue in the fire light.  Xan had seen similar glass in the eyes of the mechanna, but never a piece worn over a regular eye.  The eye on that side of Lottan's face seemed to stare directly through him.  It made the assassin uneasy, though he didn't let that stop him from eating.  He finished the rest of skewers of meat under Lottan's watchful eye.

"Now that you've eaten, why don't you tell me who and what you really are?"  Lottan said as Xan returned the skewer to a rock by the fire. 

Had Xan possessed hackles, they would have risen. "I've told you already. I'm just a man who had a bad run in with the mages. I'm not particularly interesting. What of this party? Where are your horses? How do you pull those carriages around?" He attempted to redirect the conversation.

Lottan wasn't having any of that.  He pointed to the blue glass over his eye.  "I can see the metal work that has been done in your shoulder.  That is mechanna construction, but it's not all mechanna work.  It's fused to the muscle in a way I've never seen before.  That would take some incredibly skilled technicians to replicate, and I wouldn't even want to guess at the cost of such an undertaking.  I know most of the master craftsmen who might attempt a reconstruction of that nature, and I've never heard of any of them finishing something like your shoulder. We mechanna are proud folks. News would have gotten around. So, Trast, who are you really?"

Xandrith shrugged.  "I'm a man traveling north.  I have no friends amongst the mages, and no agenda with your camp other than what I've stated.  What more do you want from me?"  None of this was a lie, even if his given name was. 

Lottan leaned back, using his arms to allow himself to recline.  "Most of those in this camp were lucky enough to evacuate before they had a chance to see any fighting.  I wasn't so lucky.  I was working in my shop on the day the trolls broke ground in the middle of the city, Guildstark. Panic spread like fire in dry grass, Trast. Those who weren't running away were running to join the fight, but those were fools. We'd heard rumors for some few days that the trolls were burrowing into cities and towns, and that the Fae were smashing down gates and killing anything that moved, human or troll. None of us wanted to believe that it was happening, but we weren't truly surprised when chaos erupted inside the city. We'd already been trying to fend off the damned plague. We had no energy left for an attack, and that was proven true enough.

"I fled the city, but not before I watched the trolls ripping through the streets, killing humans as easily as we might squash a wasp beneath our booted foot. I'd imagined they would come like a horde, all chaos. I'd imagined that we would use clever strategy and the cunning of our own creations to fend them off, but the trolls weren't just monsters. They were smart, organized, and brutally efficient. They formed squads of differing ranks, groups of ten or more that attacked our forces with unerring proficiency. They split our cavalry and ranged attackers apart and broke us as though we were children playing at strategy. On top of that, they were horrifying. I saw giants rip the heads from children, and bite the arms from armored foes. I even saw one snap the legs off a fully plated armored orc. It's not something I'll ever forget.