Solo At The End of Your Rope

[Elias Caldera]

21st Day of Summer, 517 AV

Zeb dazedly followed Shay, Elise, and Reek out of the darkness of their secret hovel and into the late morning sunshine. His eyes stung, and the daylight was only part of it. He and Shay had gotten into another argument that morning, and he was still trying to shake off its effect, or at the very least hide it. It was getting harder and harder to do even that much now that these 'spats' between them had so grown in number and fierceness with Summer’s arrival. They argued over everything and anything without hesitation or reason at times, just desperate to give voice to their restlessness and ever mounting agitation it seemed. It wasn't as if he could blame her. Things were not going well for the group, and it showed in every growl of their empty bellies, and in turn every growl they directed at one another.

It didn't help matters any then that someone was now hunting them.

At first they'd cried and mourned when Jaiden had gone missing, his disappearance unfortunate, but sorrowfully unavoidable considering how dangerous his means often were. A funny kid with perhaps more heart than was good for him, few among them would not feel his passing. When Kialla vanished next, and then Snuff right after her, the weeping quickly turned to whispers however. Now every time a pair of eyes fell on one of the orphans for a spell too long, some kids simply took to bolting for the nearest alley or even the canals if need be. No one was going to risk getting snatched by the Black Sun or the Stryfe for the sake of composure or pride, even Zeb himself was getting spooked these days, and it wasn't just when he went outside either.

Pondering, his thoughts wandered uneasily to his surroundings. Out here in the ever changing open there was so much to see, so much to hear. His survival instincts gradually had to take hold. The back of his mind may have been all for Shay, but he forced his eyes to the present situation.

Ravok today was bright and busy, making the most of its reprieve from the hard, gray rains that had tormented the city these past few days. Windows were thrown open for the first time in a long time, and the more prosperous crowds had molted, shedding their cloaks and cowls in favor of summery dress. The poor stayed wrapped in the same rank mess they wore in all seasons of course. Like the back in the orphanage, they had to keep their things close or risk losing them to another. He shook the comparison from his head, unwilling to remember his days back in that hell even for a passing moment.

As the four orphans crossed the canal bridge from the docks to the Merchant Ring, Zeb saw at least three Ravosalas filled with the primped and primed of the city’s elite, all of which were steadily making their way deeper into Ravok’s heart and the gallows that awaited them there. Shay led the three boys through the alleyways and backstreets like she always did, dodging up stone stairs and across rickety wooden foot bridges, avoiding the most cramped and twisted alleys where drunks, stray dogs, and less obvious dangers were sure to lurk. Elise and Zeb stayed right behind her, but Reek was constantly veering off or slowing down. By the time they left the docks and crossed over to the red bricked passages of the Merchant’s ring, Shay was dragging Reek by his collar.

“Damn it, boy!” she groaned. “Keep to my heels and quit making trouble!”

“I’m not doing anything!” Muttered Reek, angrily.

“You want to petch this up and go hungry tonight?”

“No.” Reek stretched the word out with a bored yawn, looked around as though noticing the world for the first time, then jerked free of Shay’s grip. “Zeb, tell her to stop picking on me!” he snapped, pointing at the dark haired girl snarling down at him. Zeb swallowed nervously. He’d seen Reek pitch these sudden, unreasonable calls to arms between both the ‘parents’ of their little family. He was always trying to start something in a hopes of sneaking away in the aftermath. “He won’t help you, you little piss stain,” said Shay. “Cuz' he knows, just like I do, how important today is.”

“You’re always yelling at me, calling me names! I hate it! I hate!” Reek actually stomped the ground and balled his fists. That was new, and it served as a bitter reminder of just how young some of his kids actually were under all that grime and dirt.

“You’ll behave or else!”

Reek’s response was to lunge and snatch the stained red-wool scarf from around Shay’s neck. Zeb sighed and moved to put an end to the spat before it grew any further, but the girl was even faster than Reek once her shock wore off. Before he could do anything with his prize it was back in her hands.

She slapped him viciously across the face with it.

“Ow!”

Not placated, she hit him again, and he cringed backward. Zeb frowned, assuming the patriarchal and disappointed expression he had grown accustomed to when Shay was forced the discipline the littler ones in front of him.

“Stop! Stop!” Reek sobbed.

“If you ever touch this again,” Shay hissed, shaking him by his collar, “I swear to Rhysol you'll be eating your petching teeth for supper, you stupid little ass!”

“I promise! I promise!”

She released him with a scowl, and with a few deft movements she had retied the scarf around her neck and was looking to Zeb expectantly. He grinned and shrugged coyly, eliciting a sigh of exasperation from the young girl, much to his shame.

“Enough,” Zeb finally forced himself to say, shoving Reek forward and away from anymore harm. “We don’t have time for games. Quick, now. At my heel, you two.”

Reek and Elise followed without a word, as close as nervous ducklings fixed on a mother’s tail feathers. It wasn’t long before Shay was back at the head of the pack however, the other boy happy to let her lead once more.

[Elias Caldera]

They emerged at last from the alleys into a whirl of noise and confusion.

It was indeed unseasonably fine hanging weather, and the normally dreary neighborhood bustled like a carnival. Common folk were thick on the cobblestones, while here and there the ravosalas of the wealthy lithely slipped through the mess with enviable ease. The four orphans formed a human chain to thread their way through the tumult. Zeb held fast to Elise, who clung in turn to Shay, who in turn was so unwilling to lose sight of Reek that she thrust him before them all like a battering ram. From the little one’s perspectives, Zeb imagined they glimpsed few actual adult faces; down there the world became an endless procession of belts, bellies and coattails when one was so small, and it wasn’t so long ago that Zeb had been forced to suffer the same sights himself. They made their way west by equal parts luck and perseverance, toward the ‘Adra Korad’, the canal bridge that had been used for hangings for so long people still used its ancient name in nader-canoch.

At the edge of the canal embankment a low stone wall prevented a direct plunge to the water seven or eight feet below. This barrier was crumbling but still solid enough for children to sit upon. Shay never once loosened her grip on Reek as she helped Zeb and Elise up and out of the press of the crowd. Zeb scrambled to sit next to Shay, but it was Elise that squeezed up against her, leaving Zeb no means to move the little girl without causing a scene. He'd hoped to gain a word with her, to apologize for earlier this morning, but instead he just tried to conceal his annoyance by adopting a purposeful expression and looking around.

From here, at least, Zeb had a better view of the affair. There were crowds on both sides of the canal and vendors hawking bread, meats, ale, and souvenirs from boats. They used baskets attached to poles to collect their coins and deliver goods to those standing abovein a clever and very Ravokian system of doing business. Aside from them, Zeb could also make out groups of small shapes dodging through the forest of coats and legs -his family hard at work he realized with cautious acknowledgement. He could also see the ebony cloaks of the city watch as well, moving through the crowd in squads with shields and swords slung over their backs. Disaster was inevitable if these two elements met and mixed like bad alchemy, but as yet there were no shouts, no whistles, no signs of anything amiss. He thanked Rhysol for the god’s small mercy of the day.

Traffic had been stopped over the hanging bridge. The lamps that dotted the looming stone arch were covered with the black flags of Ravok, and a small crowd of priests, prisoners, guards, and city officials stood behind the execution platform that jutted from the bridge’s side. Two boats of Ebonstryfe had anchored in the canal on either side of the bridge to keep the water beneath the dropping prisoners clear.

“Don’t we has to do our business?” asked Reek. “Don’t we has to get a purse, or a ring, or something-”

Shay, who’d taken her hands off him for all of half a minute, now seized him again and whispered harshly, “Keep your mouth shut about that while we’re in the crowd. Mouth shut! We’re going to sit here and be mindful. We’ll work after the hanging.”

Elise shuddered and looked more miserable than ever. Zeb understood the girl’s reluctance all too well, but before he could wrap his arm around the little one and give her the comfort he himself was still searching for, a steady drumbeat rose from the bridge, echoing off water and stone, gradually silencing the excited murmur of the crowds. Only divine services could make Ravokians so respectfully attentive as a public neck snapping.

Somewhere in the distance, the clocktower bell tolled twelve times.

“Loyal citizens of Ravok! Now comes noon, this twenty first day, this season of Summer in the Five Hundredth and Seventeeth year of our lord and savior.” These words were shouted from atop the bridge by a potbellied herald in black robes. “These felons have been found guilty of capital crimes against the law and customs of Ravok. By the authority of the supreme leader, Ebonlord Gru’tal, and by the will of The Voice, they are to face justice.”

There was movement beside him on the bridge. Five prisoners were hauled forward, each by a pair of dark hooded constables. Zeb saw that Elise was anxiously biting her knuckles. Shay’s arm appeared around Elise’s shoulder, and Zeb felt a pang of guilt. He’d forgotten about her, caught in his own misery “You get used to it, Elise,” Shay whispered softly.

On the bridge platform the executioners tightened nooses around the necks of the condemned. The hanging ropes were about as long as each prisoner was tall, and lashed to bolts just behind each prisoner’s feet. There were no clever mechanisms in the hanging platform, no fancy tricks. This wasn’t Syliras or Alvadas. Here in the North, prisoners were simply heaved over the edge like the trash they were.

“Jerek Candor,” shouted the herald, nonchalantly consulting a piece of parchment. “Arson, theft, assault upon a Ebonstryfe officer! Kira Nareese, counterfeiting and malicious misuse of Rhysol’s name and image. Slave Ssalandriass Tauss, third and final attempt at escape!"

So much for the adults; the herald moved on to the two children next. Elise sobbed, and Shay whispered, “Shhhh, now.” Zeb noted that Shay was coldly calm, and he tried to imitate her air of disinterest. Eyes just so, chin up, mouth just shy of a frown. He wasn’t like her though, he wasn’t always so strong, especially when the others needed him to be.

“Isabella Farnam” the herald continued. “Theft and wanton disobedience! Corrin Farnam. Theft and wanton disobedience!” The executioners were tying extra weights to the legs of this last duo of prisoners, since their own slight bodies might not provide for a swift enough conclusion at the ends of their plunges.

“Isabella was nice to me,” whispered Elise, her voice breaking.

“I know,” consoled Shay as gently as she could. “Hush now.”

“For your crimes against this fair city, you shall die,” continued the herald. “You will be suspended above canal water and hanged there by the necks until dead. May Dira receive you mercifully, for Rhysol will not.” The herald lowered his scroll and faced the prisoners. “In the Ebonlord’s name, face justice.”

Drums rolled. One of the executioners drew a sword, in case any of the prisoners fought their handlers. Zeb had seen a hanging before, and he knew the condemned only got one chance at whatever dignity was left to them. Today however, the drops ran smooth. The drumroll crashed to silence. Each pair of armored Stryfers stepped forward and shoved their prisoner off the edge of the hanging platform without word or warning. Elise flinched away, as Zeb had thought he might, but even he was unprepared for Reek’s reaction when the five ropes jerked taut with snapping noises that might have been hemp, or necks, or both.

The boy began to scream.

[Elias Caldera]

Each cry was longer and louder than the last.

Shay clamped a hand over Reek’s mouth and struggled with him. Over the water, three large bodies and two smaller ones swung like pendulums in arcs that quickly grew smaller and smaller. Zeb’s heart pounded in his chest. Isabella and Corrin… gone, just like that. He wanted to scream himself, but with Reek beating him to the punch, everyone nearby must have been staring at them. He heard chuckling and disapproving comments from every direction. The more attention they drew to themselves, the harder it would be to go about their real business later, he thought coldly.

“Shhh,” said Shay, straining to keep Reek under control. “Quiet, damn you. Quiet!”

“What’s the matter, girl?”

The question caught him off guard, and Zeb was dismayed to see that a pair of stryfers had parted the crowd just behind them. Gods, this was terrible! What if they were prowling for the orphans? What if they started asking hard questions? He curbed an impulse to leap for the water below and froze in place, eyes wide. Shay in turn kept an arm locked over Reek’s face yet managed to somehow squirm around and bow her head to the soldiers. “My little brother,” she gasped, “he’s never seen a hanging before. We don’t mean to cause a fuss. I’ve shut him up.” Reek ceased his struggles, but began to sob in its place. The Stryfer who’d spoken, an old man with a face full of white whiskers, looked down at him with distaste.

“You four come here alone?”

“Father sent us,” Zeb responded quickly. “Wanted us to see a hanging. See the rewards of idleness and bad company.”

“A wise man. Nothing like a good hanging to scare the mischief out of a brat.” The man frowned. “Why ain’t he here with you?”

“Oh, he loves a hanging, father does,” Shay quipped next, picking up on what Zeb was playing at. Then, lowering her voice to a whisper. “But, um, he’s got the squirts see. Bad. All day he’s been sitting on his-”

“Ah. Well then.” The soldier coughed. “Rhysol send him good health. You’d best not bring this one back to a hangings for a while I think.”

“I agree, sir.” Shay bowed again. “Father will tan his hide for this.”

“On your way then, girl. Don’t need no more of a scene.”

“Of course, sir.”

The guards moved away and back into the crowd, which was itself coming back to life once more. Or at least one of them did. The second black clad son of Ravok who had accompanied his older compatriot remained motionless where he stood, not caring to follow the other man, but instead fixated his eyes on the small, huddled group of children. Zeb realized then the man had never stopped his scrutiny since the two had first approached, and shivered at the thought. Eyes of icy blue encased amidst a pale face of scars and brutal mistakes stared at them for what felt like an eternity, motionless, predatory. Zeb felt his guts tangle up and his arms begin to quiver under the gaze and he had no earthly idea what he’d done to earn such wretched attention. The pale man just stood there… watching. He swallowed, and for a moment, the water was looking rather inviting once more.

Shay tugged at his arm however, breaking him from his petrification as she slid off the stone wall, rather gracelessly mind you, as Reek and Elise came with her. The former was still held tightly, and the latter refused to let go of her other arm. She hadn’t cried out like Reek, but Zeb saw that her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Come now,” Shay spoke hurriedly. “Away from here. We’ve seen all there is to see.”

[Elias Caldera]

Another passage through the forest of coats, legs, and bellies. Shay led them back into the silent shadows of an alley, where quiet solitude reigned not forty yards from a crowd of hundreds. Once they were safely ensconced in a concealed nook, she pushed Elise and Reek to the ground.

“What if we’d been caught by those bastards? Gods!”

“Sorry,” moaned Reek. “I just… They just-”

“Shay, come on, they’re just-” Zeb heard himself starting to say, but the words were hollow and all too quickly pushed aside.

“Stupid kids die when they get caught. It’s why we don’t get caught! That's why you two had to watch. It’s why we listen to me when I….” Shay wrung the front of her dirty shirt with both hands, then took a deep breath. She'd been the one to suggest this in the first place, much to Zeb's hearty objections, but now he could see the regret taking hold like a bad fever. “Get a hold of yourselves. Now. Each of you has to lift a purse, or something, before we go back. The others are counting on to do our part today.”

Reek broke into a new fit of sobs, rolled over on his side, and chewed his thumb. Elise, sounding more weary than Zeb would have imagined possible, said, “I can’t, Shay. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“You’ll go without supper tonight.”

Elise looked aghast, then looked to Zeb for some semblance of mercy. She found none in the gaze he returned her. “Fine,” the little girl moaned. “Just take me back, please.”

“Damn it.” Shay rubbed her eyes in mounting irritation. He knew he had to act.

“They can each have one of mine,” Zeb sighed.

“What?” Shay turned to him. “What are you talking about?”

From under his tunic, Zeb produced two leather purses and a fine ruby ring that somehow managed to glisten even in the dank alleyway.

“Where in all the hells did you-”

“In the crowd,” admitted Zeb. “I know you said it was best to wait till after, but you know me.” His grin was sheepish and weary, doing little to hide the sorrow he felt pounding against his chest. He was still thinking about Isabella and her brother, still thinking about how he’d failed them. Those same thoughts had been what had driven his hands to their work so deftly.

“We agreed!”

“No, you yelled and I nodded my head so you’d stop.”

“But that’s-”

“I can’t put them back,” Zeb snapped, far more petulantly than he’d intended.

“Don’t croak at me, Zachariah Kreshik!” Shay snarled, using his real name to intended affect like she always did. The young thief caught herself a moment later and sighed again, realizing what was happening between the two of them for the umpteenth time. They were always fighting it seemed, like cats and dogs, these days it never ended. Zeb opened and closed his mouth for a little while, trying desperately to imagine something he might say to charm the girl back on his side. Too late. She turned away and heaved Elise and Reek to their feet.

“You’re always babying them,” she chided, “but you two idiots owe your supper to Zeb here… again. One of these days he’s not going to save your lazy hides, and then you’ll see what real trouble looks like.”

“Come on, Shay, just for today lets-”

A familiar feeling of dread pierced his gut as he spoke, catching his breath and forcing wide his eyes for no perceivable reason save for an overwhelming sense of fright. His vision darted from left to right, desperate to find the source, but as he noticed the looks of surprise and grim terror the other three where directing to somewhere behind him, he knew it was too late to get away.

Slowly, reluctantly, Zeb turned around to face it.

At the other end of the alleyway, cloaked in shadow and ill will, a pair of icy blue eyes were staring back at him.

"Hello, children."