The Walled City.
The ragstone wall was over nineteen feet tall, with a moat of brown, stagnant water encircling it.
We crossed a rickety drawbridge, its splintering planks connecting the city to the land.
The stench of rotting flesh was pungent, forcing me to fight the urge to heave with every step.
Vagabonds and lepers, shunned from society, huddled along the length of the bridge, their grimy palms cupped, begging for money, mercy, or a morsel to eat.
As I quickened my pace toward the reinforced gate, I noticed many of the beggars were branded—red, leathery crosses were burned into their foreheads. These were marks I’d never seen before.
I tugged on Bash’s fraying coat sleeve. “Do you know why they’re marked?” I asked quietly.
He nodded. “Anyone with magical heritage but no abilities is branded. It’s a warning to the other freemen that they might be dangerous.”
“That’s obscene,” I muttered, my stomach knotting as I tried not to stare at the mutilated.
Bash shrugged. “The Walled City’s not a kind place,” he told me, rummaging through his pockets.
He plucked out a silver coin and tossed it into the lap of a young woman.
Beneath the boils blooming across her face, her beauty might have rivaled Avice’s.
Her blackened fingers trembled as they clawed at her threadbare skirt, finally grasping the coin.
Pus seeped from her sores as she managed a feeble, grateful smile.
“Poor girl,” I murmured, covering my mouth.
Fresh air filled my lungs as we joined the back of the queue, a long line composed entirely of young men. It snaked out of the entrance but was slithering forward steadily. As we approached the gate, guards bearing the King’s crest—carved into their chest plates—patrolled the crowd.
One of them yanked the great helmet off his head, clearing his throat as he prepared to bark orders. “All conscripted soldiers, report to the registrar before entering the Walled City!” He repeated the command as he marched back and forth, his armor clinking with every step.
An elderly registrar, his face more wrinkled than a walnut, sat at a crooked wooden table balanced on uneven cobblestones. Each time he set his quill down, it rolled away, forcing him to catch it just before it toppled to the ground.
“Name?” he droned, not bothering to glance up from his inkpot.
Bash stepped forward confidently. “Sebastian Carpenter, from the Headlands.”
The registrar flicked through his heap of parchment before slipping out a sheet. He flicked the nib of his quill against the paper, then gestured toward a mound of beige packsacks.
“Take one. Inside you’ll find essentials, courtesy of King James. Then proceed to Regal Square—his Royal Highness will address the soldiers before you march to Cambas.”
Bash slung a packsack over his shoulder as Arthur cleared his throat.
“Arthur Bates, Headlands.”
“John Fletcher. Same as them.”
The old man nodded as he licked the nib of his quill. “You’re both on the list. Please, enter with haste—you’re holding up the line.”
I clung to Fletcher’s shoulder, hoping to sneak past unnoticed. But meaty hands grabbed me, thrusting me toward the registrar. I glanced behind, meeting the gaze of an unimpressed guard who loomed uncomfortably close.
The registrar exhaled. “Name?”
“I’m not joining the fight,” I said, hoping to put a swift end to the misunderstanding.
“Are you able-bodied?” he asked, tickling his palm with the quill’s feathery end.
“Yes.”
“Older than sixteen years?”
“Yes.”
He nodded sharply. “Your name, boy.”
“I haven’t been conscripted,” I insisted.
Arthur tutted, stomping back to my side of the table. “His name’s Finn Smith,” he said, whacking me on the shoulder—ever fearful of something, and this time it was getting in trouble.
“From?” The registrar didn’t bother asking me; he directed his question straight to Arthur.
Arthur shrugged, looking to me for an answer.
I hesitated, glancing back at the guard, whose cumbersome armor seemed ill-suited for catching nimble runaways. But the cluster of recruits waiting behind us was unregimented, forming a human blockade across the drawbridge. Any hope of escaping was futile.
“The Wetlands,” I muttered under my breath, silently praying that my new companions wouldn’t hear my birthplace and connect me to the wanted Black Shuck.
My guts churned as I anxiously awaited my fate. The registrar flicked through the stack of parchment before jabbing a finger into a page.
“Finn Smith, you’re a liar,” he remarked, shaking his head with contempt. “You’ve been summoned to join the fight. Do you know what happens to men who shirk their duty to Lyonesse?”
I swallowed down the lump lodged in my throat. “No,” I stuttered.
“They’re hung above the King’s palace,” he declared, motioning over his shoulder to where I imagined the traitors were rotting.
Arthur shuddered at the thought, while I lingered uncomfortably at the table, unsure if his words were an empty threat or a sinister promise.
His fists crashed against the wood. “Move, boy!”
With hesitation, I complied, snatching up the nearest packsack and rejoining my companions from the Headlands.
The Walled City was anything but grand. Its narrow streets, paved with ankle-breaking cobblestones, were flanked by looming whitewashed buildings that blocked out the sun.
“Heads!” a voice hollered from above—followed by the contents of a chamber pot splattering from a second-floor window.
Feces soiled a street seller loitering beneath the swinging shutters.
With a grimace, he shook the muck from his cloak before resuming hawking his potatoes to the unbothered passersby.
A woman carrying bunches of wildflowers swerved in front of us, dashing through an overflowing gutter.
Her hurried steps sprayed gray filth into the air, spattering the hem of her beige kirtle with brown stains.
“Watch it, mister!” called a whiny, indignant voice from behind.
I glanced back to spot a boy, barely older than Henry, maneuvering a cart precariously loaded with apples through the bustling crowd. With ease, Fletcher reached out and stole a piece of fresh fruit.
“Want some?” Fletcher asked, already sinking his teeth into the apple.
Bash nodded, taking it from him and biting into its crisp skin before handing it to me.
“Thanks,” I said, nibbling at the core. “Hungry?” I asked Arthur.
He shook his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. “That apple’s had more mouths on it than that whore’s breast,” he quipped, pointing down the slight street.
Following his finger, I spotted harlots hanging out of doorways, trying to coax soldiers in by promising a night to remember while away at war.
“That one looks like the last girl you courted,” Arthur gibed, elbowing Bash.
An elderly woman whistled from a dark archway, flashing us her best gummy smile while pushing together her deflated assets. Had she been a girl half her age, I might have understood the allure. But seeing a woman older than my mother, reduced to such desperation, filled me with dismay.
Bash shook his head. “She looks nothing like your sister,” he retorted, earning a whack around the ear from Arthur.
As we ventured deeper into the city, a faint tremor rippled beneath my feet.
Without warning, the cobbles quaked with a force that felt godlike, sending slates flying from rooftops to shatter against the ground.
Peddlers clutched their goods with practiced precision, as though well accustomed to the city’s convulsions.
Moments later, the tremors ceased, and the streets quickly returned to the bustle of before—the residents seemingly unfazed.
“What was that?” I asked, my voice trembling.
A hard-faced woman strode past, refitting the pin that secured her white bonnet. “No one knows,” she replied. “Some say King James keeps a dragon imprisoned in an underground dungeon, and when the ground shakes, it’s the beast trying to break free of its shackles.”
A tap on my shoulder drew my attention to a man beside me, dressed in a lace-trimmed frock coat.
“Don’t listen to her nonsense,” he scoffed, adjusting his grip on a handbell.
“The city shakes when the Creplegate drawbridge lowers. Bleak lands lie beyond. Mark my words, you young men will leave from there, following the trail of darkness straight to Cambas.”
He raised the handbell and shook it vigorously. “Hear ye! Hear ye!” he cried. “The King will address his subjects in Regal Square before sunset.”
My ears rang as the man trailed off down a side street, the jangle of his bell fading into the distance.
We passed countless taverns in search of the square, each door adorned with a different swinging sign.
One bore a portrait of the King; another, a knot of rope; but my favorite displayed a painting of a bunch of forget-me-nots.
As I admired the flowers, a man stumbled out of the entrance, sprawling onto the sewage-caked cobbles.
“Son of a whore,” he grumbled from the ground.
Without hesitation, Fletcher offered his arm to the drunkard, taking the weight of the paunchy man and heaving him onto his unsteady feet.
“That cunt barred me,” the drunk belched.
Once upright, Fletcher left him staggering down the street. “He stank of piss,” he sneered as he rejoined us.
I almost gagged at the thought of a stinking man hanging off me. “Why would you go near him?” I asked.
“I’m a charitable fellow,” Fletcher replied, opening his hand to reveal a palm full of silver and gold coins.
Arthur chuckled. “Thieving twit.”
Fletcher plucked out two coins and slipped them into Bash’s pocket. “For the lodgings,” he said.
As we neared Regal Square, the conscripted soldiers formed a tightly packed throng, their presence clogging the streets. Frustrated by the blockade, residents cursed and shoved their way through the human barrier. In the near distance hung an ornate balcony, supported by grand sandstone pillars.
“I never thought I’d see it, but there it is,” Arthur said. “The Royal Palace.”