13. N #3
So long as I’m careful, and tend to my appearance, then no one will be the wiser.
He walked casually up the halls, and out into the morning light.
The sun was high over the estate, and roughly level with his tower.
Late morning, indeed. He smiled as he passed the gardeners harvesting the herbs that bordered the path.
Every scrap of land needed for food or medicine, but still aesthetically pleasing. He nodded to them.
Once in his office he checked the alerts to ensure no one had been here since his departure.
Triana’s casual violations of his office and tower still rankled.
Setting her down amongst the servants gave him both profit and a warm sense of payback.
He smiled, and rang the bell to summon the servant on duty.
“Yes, my lord?” the elf said.
Haldeen considered the state of his stomach, and elected to keep it easy to digest … and easy to give back, if it came to it. “Porridge. A quarter ration, with a little jellied fruit, and herbed tea.”
The servant turned to depart, then paused, his brow furrowed. Haldeen watched him for a moment. Had he forgotten the instruction?
Then he heard the soft chime of the alarm, and saw the gentle flashing of the mage-light by his desk. “Go see what that’s about.”
The servant bowed and withdrew. Haldeen listened intently.
He didn’t hear the city alarms, the sound of defenders mobilizing on the walls.
An internal alarm then. He had just risen to see for himself what had happened, when he heard the servant running towards his office.
That worried him. The servants cultivated an air of unflappability, so one breaking stride had to mean trouble.
His stomach, still delicate from the passage back, lurched. His sense of well-being evaporated. What in the name of misfortune has happened this time?
Haldeen had already crossed to the door when the servant burst through. “Fire!” he said, out of breath. “Fire down in the production area!”
“Where?” Haldeen demanded, his delicate stomach roiled, this time with real fear. A fire in the underground area could be devastating. He ran-walked out of the office and towards the underground. The servant puffed as he ran to keep up.
“Don’t know,” the servant replied, “They’re streaming up from down below, and I heard there was a fire down there. The bucket parties are assembling, and people are still streaming up. There’s panic down there.”
Haldeen came out into the central courtyard and walked into a scene of pure chaos.
People rushed about crying out and looking for loved ones, while others just shouted or cried.
Groups continued to stream up out of the main entrance to the work levels.
He found one worker and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Where’s the fire?” he demanded, shaking the fellow as he stood mute.
“Fire?” the elf replied, then groaned. “Not a fire, too!”
Haldeen pushed him away with disgust and ran towards the entrance.
A fire in the production rooms, whether in parts making or the food production could ruin him, and if it spread, it might set the main estate-house ablaze.
It might certainly gut the industries that allowed him to make his various assessments.
He looked around for his supervisors, or the Overseer, to get a better understanding of the crisis.
None were visible. He paused for a moment to gather his wits, then plunged down into the dark.
Fire had to be fought, and he couldn’t very well sit back while his … everything … burned.
People rushed past him in the hall, yelling and screaming as they fled. He plunged down two levels, pushing past the ebbing tide that sought to escape. He didn’t smell smoke and the people passing him didn’t seem burned, so perhaps this was not as bad as it first seemed.
He grabbed an elf by the shirt and held him up, then pulled him out of the hall before someone else plowed into him, and took them both down.
“What’s going on? Where’s the fire?”
The elf looked at him, fear in his eyes. “An attack in the lower level, near the food production rooms! Many dead!”
Haldeen swore. “What about the fire? Where is the Overseer? Did you see him?”
The elf shook his head silently. Haldeen looked back up the hall, where the tide appeared to be slowing.
The elf used that opportunity to pull away and flee with the rest.
Haldeen let him go, then proceeded downward.
Most of the underground staff had already fled, and moving became easier as he descended.
No one seemed to recognize him, and he received no apologies from those few who jostled him or shoved past as they fled.
He sniffed the air for smoke. None. He should have been smelling it by now.
The workers’ words jarred him to speculate through. No fire. An attack. By what?
He descended the next two levels into the ebbing chaos.
Both of the main work-floors had the look of a professional ransacking, though he suspected the damage came from panicked workers fleeing …
what exactly? Had there been an attack, somehow?
Something that had come up from underground?
But how would it have gotten past all the protections and barriers?
As far as he knew not one of the Predators out there was able to burrow.
Had they learned how to tunnel now? Fear wormed in his gut.
He descended the stairs to the food production level. The bright mage-lights spaced along the production area’s central corridor had been extinguished, except for a few that flickered and guttered, like candles in a strong breeze. That’s odd. Not seen anything like that before.
He heard a groaning in the gloom ahead as he came gingerly down the last staircase.
At the bottom, he found a moaning woman.
She lay awkwardly, cradling her arm against her side.
Another worker in a laborer’s smock knelt by her side, stroking her hair and saying soothing things … but otherwise being utterly useless.
“What happened?” he snarled at the worker.
“She fell on the steps, then got trampled in the rush,” the woman replied.
Haldeen took a deep breath. “No, you stupid … what happened?”
The woman looked past him, and back into the work areas that were usually brightly lit, but were now flickering and flashing.
“Some kind of … something. I don’t know. I was bringing fresh laundry down to the hens’ house when there was a lot of shouting, and panic. Someone said someone had let something loose, a monster maybe … or a wizard set off a spell. I saw people covered in blood, so I ran too.
Leda was right in front of me, and when she fell I saw others just trample over her …. ” She trailed off and burst into tears.
Leda moaned again. Haldeen saw a trickle of blood come from the corner of her mouth.
He shook his head, uncertain what to do.
“Next person you see, send them to get the physician.”
The words were out of his mouth before he realized their futility.
Good luck with that. He tried to think of something to say or do that would make a difference.
In the end, he simply held Leda’s hand while she died, while the worker woman held the other.
When it was done, he helped the worker move the body off the stairs.
Leda’s death had only taken a few minutes from the time he found her.
Still, it felt as though hours had passed.
Most of the mage-lights had gone dark, and the semi-darkness unnerved him.
This area had always been brightly lit, and if not exactly cheery, it had the sense of occupation from all of the people who worked here.
Now it felt haunted. He’d been in these passages hundreds of times, but never when the lights were either down or dying.
Passages he knew from many years experience suddenly seemed ominous and threatening, with shadows that grew and leapt as the mage-lights flickered.
He listened for the sounds of combat or strife.
Battle here would send him flying back up the stairs.
He heard nothing that sounded like fighting, and a whole lot that sounded like the aftermath of a fight.
Moaning came from the machining rooms up ahead, and he heard the sounds of crying from the larger of the two food production areas.
He stepped over a fallen set of shelves and bent to pick up a working mage-light.
Most here had either failed, or were failing, and as he looked for one that still worked well, another went out.
These should be working. A disruption in the ambient magic … or something that burned them out? Either way, this was bad. He found one that seemed in better shape than the others, and lifted it up to better see.
He heard voices up ahead in what sounded like the food makers’ rooms.
Male voices, one in tones of command. He couldn’t quite make out who spoke, but he was glad that someone had kept his head.
Haldeen stepped around more debris and followed the sound.
Second left and second right. The smaller of the food production rooms lay just up ahead. He felt nausea build.
He made the last turn and came face to face with the destruction.
Workstations had been overturned and scattered like jackstraws.
Tools had fallen or been thrown down and labors abandoned.
Food in various stages, from algae-sludge to finished bricks, lay splattered and scattered everywhere, smeared and crushed underfoot.
The storm seemed to worsen as he moved towards where the women made the bread … the rations that kept them all going.
He entered the smaller of the two rooms and stared at the completeness of the destruction.
Blood smeared the walls and pooled on the floors.
The tables lay scattered and strewn about, with a number broken and at least two beyond repair.
Pots of algae paste had been thrown about or cast from tables, their astringent odor adding to smells of blood, sweat, and fear that lingered in the room.
He caught a whiff of something burning, and turned to find the source.
A candle had overturned and fallen on a scarf that had been left behind in the stampede. So, there’s the fire.
He stepped on the burning candle and the smoldering scarf, snuffing the fire.
One of the guards approached, gripping a truncheon in one hand, and a flickering mage-light in the other. He approached Haldeen, raising his light to see. “What are you about? Get out of here, you old rat, before I … oh, wait, m’lord. Sorry, it’s you. Didn’t recognize you.”