“Smells like I rubbed the back of my ear,” Gwenna agrees.
“That’s disgusting.” I pinch my nose shut with one hand, juggling Squeaker with the other. She’s not wrong, though. There’s a distinct, unwashed scent to everything that I’ve never experienced before. Honori Hold is austere and lightly populated and above all else, clean. Vastwarren City looked a little run-down from afar, but I had resolved to withhold judgment until I stood in its streets.
Now I’m standing there and, well…it’s bad.
It’s crowded. That’s one of the first things I notice. Gwenna wrestles with the luggage cart while people flow around us in the street, giving us dirty looks for not moving with the foot traffic. I hug Squeaker a little closer, because if she runs away, I’ll never find her again in this crowd. Not that this is a problem—the only thing Squeaker runs to is her food bowl. Vastwarren City is dirty, too. There’s a layer of grime in the cobbled streets and there are potholes everywhere. The buildings—two and three stories tall—all look as if they’re sagging and weather-beaten, and I don’t see a single bit of greenery. Everything is gray and brown and drab and dirty and crowded. Rising above the clutter of buildings is a large wall around the heart of the city. Behind it, I see spires and tall, arching roofs.
That’s where the guild will be. I just have to get through the rest of Vastwarren first.
I eye my surroundings with distaste. There are so many people—people of all kinds. There are the pale northerners from the mountains like myself, and the sun-kissed southerners from the coast. There are Taurians marching through the crowds, their sweeping horns threatening to take out the nearest awning if they walk too close to a building, and their hooves clop on the cobblestones. I even see a slitherskin darting amongst the crowd, small and quick, his portable home perched on his back. I want to stare but it doesn’t seem polite. Honori Hold is high in the mountains, isolated by the landscape and our name. Honori is the oldest of holds, and we’re expected to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the newer holds. We only consort with other families nearly as old, and even though I’ve traveled to many other holds while attending court and visiting allies, I’ve always been left with the women, supervised and stuck in a parlor somewhere, pretending to embroider. Most of the time I can’t even bring a book, because Grandmama thinks no one will wish to marry a bookish woman and that’s why I’ve remained unattached for so long despite the Honori name.
(Then again, Grandmama would have wanted me to marry Barnabus regardless of the fact that he was a title hunter. I would be fine with that if the title wasn’t bankrupt. I’m just afraid of what would happen when he found out it is, and we’ve got no artifacts to boot.)
I once read a pamphlet that compared Vastwarren to an anthill built atop a graveyard, and now I can’t unsee it. The houses perching up the slope that elevates Vastwarren City above the surrounding lands are all clustered together, sharing walls and overhanging roofs, and I get the impression that if one house were to fall, the entire city would crumble. The streets seem to wind around the city in a spiral, lined with more run-down buildings every step of the way. Everything seems to be made of wood and patchwork remnants of other old houses. Overhead, laundry lines hang between houses on opposite sides of the street, dripping water on passersby below.
Something wet drips on my face and I swipe at it in horror. I certainly hope that was from laundry.
“Where to now?” Gwenna hisses at me, her expression expectant. “Do you need to consult your pamphlets about the guild?”
No need—I have them memorized. For years, I’ve gathered every book I could find on the Royal Artifactual Guild. I have the memoirs of Sparkanos the Swan. I have three books written about Guild Master Magpie and her adventures. And every time the guild releases an informational pamphlet, I have one sent to me so I can pore over it. I know precisely the location of the guild headquarters. “The annual meeting is tomorrow. At that time, the doors will be opened for newcomers to find a master to apprentice to. Until then, I suppose we find a nearby inn for the night and bide our time.” I smile brightly at her. “All according to plan.”
“Is it?” Gwenna asks. “Is it really?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
She thinks for a moment and then sighs heavily. “I do not.”
“Me, either. So come on.” Squeaker howls at me and I adjust her on my hip once more. “Let’s find ourselves a nice clean inn and tidy up.”
“Oh, a clean inn?” she grumbles at me. “Are we leaving the city, then?”
“Very funny.”
But I suspect she’s correct, which is a little alarming. Vastwarren City is a dump.
Still, I knew that this place would be a little sketchy. No one comes to Vastwarren for the scenery. They’re here because this is where all the great risk-takers live, after all. Men daring enough to brave the deep tunnels of the ruins of the Everbelow, seeking out the artifacts of the ancients and fighting off thieves and monsters. Teams of artifact hunters delving the ruins of Old Prell and then celebrating their discoveries in the legendary guild hall. Fighters forcing back hordes of ratlings. Of course the city’s going to be a little frayed around the edges.
Quite, quite frayed, actually.
“Hey!” Gwenna’s indignant screech interrupts my thoughts. “That’s not yours!”
Turning around, I see Gwenna in a wrestling match with a strange man over one of my bags. The man snarls at my maid with a mouth full of yellowed teeth, and to my surprise, she snarls right back. He rips the case from her grip and then races away down the busy street, Gwenna chasing after him.
It’s like when Cook feeds the fish in the moat the scraps after dinner, I realize. Several others turn to look at the cart, adrift in the middle of the street.
They’re about to swarm in a feeding frenzy.
Too late I realize that the rich brocade dress I’m wearing is a terrible idea when one is trying to lie low. As another man in worn clothes surges toward the cart, I do the only thing I can think of—I fling myself on it and promptly sit on the pile.
Squeaker howls with indignation as she’s jostled about, but the moment my rump hits the stack of suitcases, the onlookers seem to pause. The newcomer heading to steal another of my bags scowls and waves me off, heading in the opposite direction. My skirts (and let’s be frank, my arse) are big enough to cover the smaller bags and I recline slightly, doing my best to cover my luggage with as much of my person as possible and snarl fiercely at anyone who comes near.
Maybe it’s the sight of the enormous orange cat on my chest or the fact that a woman is sprawling atop a mountain of luggage, but no one else tries to steal one of my bags. Gwenna returns a short time later, panting and sweaty. She puts a hand to her bodice and gasps for air. “Bastard got away with it.”
“Which bag was it?” I ask, worried. If I’m here without my sensible boots…
“Your jewelry.” Her mouth is set in an angry line.
Oh. Well, that’s all right, I suppose. Anything valuable was sold off the moment Father started to have gambling issues, and the thieves made off with a bunch of paste jewels and fakes, nothing more. Still, a well-made fake can bring in coin, and I had been hoping to sell them when we arrived. It limits what we can use for funds, but there are worse things that could have been stolen, like my books, or the outfit I’ve prepared for when I meet the Royal Artifactual Guild. Or Squeaker’s favorite kibble, because she’s a rather particular cat. “I managed to save the rest,” I offer when she continues panting. “Thank you for trying.”
She waves a hand in the air. “Didn’t realize there were that many thieves here.”
