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The Hammer of Greyhawk Part 1-5 |
Posted by: jasonzavoda
on Friday, November 03, 2006 - 07:15 AM
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Jorem Kemp started his day as an apprentice smith and ended it as a wanted man
The sun was not up but the bakers were. The smell of cooking bread filled the alleyway where Jorem crouched behind a pile of empty flour barrels. His stomach growled in answer to the call of the baking bread and he opened his eyes. He'd fallen asleep.
Food, his stomach rumbled. He needed food more than safety. Jorem ignored his stomach. When was his last meal, he thought, then scolded himself for thinking about food and about last meals and what that might portend. Yesterday morning. He was up before dawn himself, preparing the forge, dragging coal from the celler, all the heavy work now that Master Haren was ill. No more of that. No more chores, no more Master Haren, perhaps no more Joren Kemp if those damn thieves had their way.
He'd killed a man, maybe more than one, and the thieves guild wouldn't forgive him nor the smiths for breaking the truce that existed between all the guilds and kept the city running.
The smell of the bread, he let it distract him, and he decided to listen to his stomach after all.
Part II
The alleyway crossed between the Street of Baker's over to the Street of Flour where the carts were being loaded with the morning's baking. Apprentices carried boxes filled with fresh baked and steaming loaves of bread, rolls and cakes, piled them into the carts and went back for more. The laughed and joked and cursed as the went past, some sang snippets of song and others said nothing, merely counted the passing time till their next meal or the end of their day.
Jorem left his blood-stained hammer behind an empty barrel and wiped his hands on his tunic not realizing that his hands were clean but his tunic was spattered and stained black. He was a very tall man, a head above other tall men, and he was broad across the shoulders with a chest like a barrel and arms thick and corded with muscle. His hair was a fringe of black over his scalp and his face showing only a days growth of beard. For all his size he was not bound by his muscles but moved quickly and surely. But a giant of man in blood stained clothes creeping from an alleyway in the first dim purple light of dawn does not pass unnoticed.
A baker's apprentice, his arms loaded with boxes of bread and an apple in his mouth, walked into Jorem. The man choked and his eyes went wide. He backed away and into the man behind him. His training held and he did not drop his boxes but he spit out the apple and tried to shout. His first bite caught in his throat and he began to choke in earnest.
"Ulaa's tits." Jorem cursed. He hadn't seen the man or wanted the apprentice to see him.
The apprentice was turning blue.
"Hakel!" the man behind shouted. Less well trained the younger apprentice dropped his boxes and grabbed for the choking man's shoulders.
Hakel held onto his boxes with a desperate grip and folded at the knees.
"Hells!" Jorem pushed the younger apprentice aside and gave Hakel a shake, finally loosening him from his boxes of bread. "Stop choking!" Jorem shouted.
"Help!" the younger apprentice squeaked. "Help! Murder! Murder!"
Jorem was angry. He gave Hakel another shake then turned the man and slapped him on the back hard enough to loosen teeth. The bite of apple sailed out as well and Hakel gave a shuddering gasp and collapsed like a rag doll.
"Muder!" the young apprentice called and Jorem heard another shout. Someone slammed a wooden crate over his head and a shower of small hot rolls exploded around his head.
Part III
Jorem backhanded the man who'd hit him without even thinking. The blow sent the baker, a hugely fat but not overly strong man, flying off his feet and into the apprentice who still shouted murder. They both went down and the baker rolled over the apprentice and into the legs of a gaggle of others rushing from the door.
"Nine Hells!" Jorem swung his head madly about. He could see more men approaching from either side. Quickly he snatched a roll and stuffed it into his mouth, then another and grabbed a few more, crushing them in his palm, before taking off back down the alley way.
He swallowed the first roll whole and almost choked then shoved the clumped rolls in his right hand into his mouth. His hammer was where he left it and he snatched it up as he ran. The street of Baker's was empty, but behind him he could here renewed shouting. Across the street were shops and down it toward the great market he soon found another alley. This emptied onto a smaller street whose name he'd never learned, but it was much like the street of Flour only the wagons lined by the backs of shops were empty and there was no one to be seen.
Caution slowed him and he took the time to chew the bread in his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted as good as the rolls even with their dusting of grime from where they'd fallen on the cobbles.
Empty wagons, empty street, and the morning sun rising over the rooftop of the building opposite, a warehouse. There was another alley between it and a wall which surrounded the yard of a large house. Jorem ran for it. His feet pounded like drumbeats and his heart pounded in his ears even louder till he reached the protection of the alley. The thought made him laugh. He had never sought protection, never worried, never feared since he'd been a child and now he feared crossing the street.
There was a sound from the shadows of the alley and his heart leaped into his mouth. He swallowed the last mouthful of bread as he raised his hammer, prepared to strike.
"No need for that," a high pitched voice spoke out of the darkness.
"Who are you?" Jorem said in a sharp whisper.
"I'm me." said the voice. "And I can help you."
"Help?"
"You are the message in the cards." the voice told him and walked from the darkness. The voice was grey as ash, and as sure of itself as only a cat can be. "I am Estare." the cat told him. "There is a gate ahead, follow me, my mistress wishes to speak with you."
"Familiar…" Jorem took a step back. Behind him was the street and in the distance there were shouts. Estare turned her tail on him and pranced down the alley without looking back.
Part IV
"Cat," said Estare.
"What?" Jorem called after her.
Estare was disappearing back into the shadows of the alley before Jorem began running after her.
"I'm a cat," she said as Jorem came thumping toward her, "not a familiar."
There were shouts out in the street, many of them.
Estare stepped around Jorem. "This will slow them," she said and spat out a word. "Telas!" and her word grew into a grey ball, then exploded into a net of spider silk that clogged the end of the alleyway from wall to wall.
"Follow me." Estare slid around his ankles as she passed him.
The wall to the estate formed one side of the alley. It was higher than Jorem could reach and lined with broken glass and jagged splinters of metal brown and thick with rust. Estare stopped before a section where the top had been broken and a block of stone was missing. She leapt to the top, looked back at Jorem, and said, "Follow," before jumping down into the yard.
Jorem reached up, his fingers barely brushed the broken edge. He jumped and grabbed the edge and pulled. The stones shifted in his hands and made a grinding noise. He fell back with a stone in his hand and a shower of crumbling mortar raining down on him. Estare was back to the break in the wall, now half a foot lower, and hissed.
"You've broken the wall," she said with a note of surprise and accusation.
"It was already broken." Jorem tossed the stone aside and stood up, brushing off the dust from his hair. He reached up to grab the wall again and Estare slashed at his fingers with hers claws.
"You'll just break it again," she hissed at him.
"How am I supposed to get over then?" Jorem asked.
"You are making things difficult," she said more to herself than to Jorem. "If I had that spell… can't be helped." She looked back down at Jorem. "Break the wall then, if you must, but try not to!' She jumped back down into the yard.
Jorem put his hand back on the wall and pulled tentatively at the stones. He could feel them give. Pulling back with his shoulders he tore another stone free, he could hear Estare hiss from the other side of the wall. The gap was down to just above his head and the next stone down didn't budge even when Jorem pulled with all his considerable strength. He heaved his heavy frame up till his waist was even with the gap, bent and tumbled head first over to the other side.
Part V
He'd never heard a cat laugh before, but he'd never heard one talk before either. Estare put a paw to her mouth in a human gesture of amusement as Jorem shook dirt from his head. He'd plowed into the ground coming over the wall almost face first.
"Come," she ordered him, "we still have far to go and you leave a trail that a blind human could follow."
"Thanks," Jorem muttered.
Estare sauntered off then broke into a run that had Jorem racing to follow. The outer yard of the old estate was overgrown. What had once been a garden had been left to run wild. Weeds grew waist high and bushes towered over Jorem's head. A wall of thorn sealed off the narrow path that Estare had been following. She stopped and waited for Jorem to catch up.
'Where now?" he asked. "
"Through here," she raised a paw and pointed to the thorn hedge.
"I'll never make it…"
"You, are, too big," she looked him up and down. "We have need of you, or so the mistress says, but not like this, so ungainly. Take this," Estare stood on her hind legs and bent her head. A silver chain was around her neck with a small pendent holding a green stone dangling below her chin.
Carefully, Jorem reached down and touched the chain. An unseen clasp opened in his hand and he drew the pendent away from Estare.
"It is the Lord of Cat's eye," she looked up again at Jorem.
"It will never fit," Jorem held the ends of the chain in either hand. The links flowed like molten silver and the chain grew longer as he watched. He hesitated only a moment before putting joining the ends together then bowing his own head to drop the chain around his neck. The pendent rested at base of his throat.. "What now…" he began to ask, and the world went green and the thorn bushes grew tall all around him.
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