WRITING DOWN THE LORE

Author: walnuts1
Open: Hangover
(1492 words)

A Marked Man

Head reeling, I scramble out of the Griffon’s back entrance with all the haste I can muster. My stomach churns as six steins of Bugman’s Best battle for space, seemingly ignorant of my terror.
The door slams shut behind me, mercifully silencing the mocking jeers of the tavern’s patrons but leaving me in near darkness as I struggle to pierce the gloom of the alleyway.

Against all odds, it seems clear, they must not yet have arrived. I suddenly realise that I have been holding my breath since the moment that I saw my death staring back at me from the palm of my own left hand.

My mind moves even faster than my feet as I scurry along the narrow passageway in the general direction of the West gate and freedom. As I near the turning that would take me towards home I hesitate. Maybe there is time? It is the first place they will look for me, but I know that the City Watch is stretched thin, preoccupied with the recent incursions.

I hesitate as I take rapid inventory of the possessions on my person. Three shillings and a penny in my coin purse, the rest spent on the celebratory ale souring my stomach. My finest set of clothes, perfect for a meeting with the deputy Bürgermeister to discuss expansion of my textiles emporium but sadly lacking for flight from the relative comforts of the City. My armament, a quill bereft of ink and certainly no match for a bandit’s rusty dagger, let alone a sword.

To stay is certain death, but to flee unprepared will end the same, albeit perhaps with slight delay. So be it then, a daring raid of my own home for supplies, like a thief in the night. My good humour returns in a haze of Bugmans as I picture securing enough of my reserves to set up elsewhere, under a new name. I hear that Osterland is relatively untouched as yet and all I will need is a cart and a good story for the gate guards. And a glove of course.

I find myself staring once more at my left fist, knuckles white as if I could squeeze away my death sentence. On I run through the dark, until the winding cobbles become familiar and my modest abode looms ahead of me. There is no sign of the Watch, but I still slip to the rear of the house, scrabbling over mossy walls to reach the loose back window that blessed laziness has prevented me from having fixed.

Mere feet away from my goal, it happens. My senses, alert as they have ever been, catch the whisper of cloth on stone behind me. My head turns even as my body continues to travel forward. The street behind me is empty, but before relief can register in my mind, stars burst across my vision as my momentum carries me into something very solid and very painful.

From the ground I try to understand what has happened. A meaty face grins down at me, all pox marks and friendly hostility. Everything seems blurry, as the Watch Captain wipes away the blemish my face has left on his breastplate next to his symbol of rank. More armoured figures appear from behind him, and I am roughly pulled to my feet.

I beg, protest and reason within my mind, avatar of eloquence that would humble the mightiest of bards. But through the fog of undigested ale and the bright flashes in my vision, all that spills from my mouth is an incoherent burble as they force open my left hand to reveal the mark burned into the skin.

The Watch Captain seems almost sympathetic to my rambling and his smile loses some of the hostility. His men mutter behind him and I catch snatches of conversation. ‘Deputy Bürghermeister’, ‘not the usual peasant type’, ‘hostile takeover’ this last one is followed by a phlegmy chuckle.

As I try to push through the fog, to form a coherent defence a sweet smelling rag is thrust across my nose and mouth and the world becomes wavy then dark. I struggle for my life, as fierce as any cornered rat but nowhere near as effective.

I hear the Watch Captain urge caution so as not to damage me and as I slowly lose consciousness the last word I hear is the very same that spells my doom, ‘Drangmark’.

I awaken to the blare of trumpets, and the snap of cloth in the wind. Without opening my eyes, I can identify the weave, shape and size of the flapping textiles and none of it makes sense. I deal in clothing, not military banners. I cautiously open an eye, and find myself not in my bed but lying on my back in a field, surrounded by men and women, most standing, many sobbing and a few in stupor as I had been until moments before.

With a rush, I remember. The meeting to expand my business, celebrating at The Griffon, the sudden appearance of the Drangmark on my hand, my frantic flight and resulting capture.

Someone has stripped me of my finery and redressed me in rough but serviceable garments identical to all of those around me. At my waist is sheathed a dagger that I have no idea how to use. I see armoured figures kicking the sleeping forms around me, raising them from their slumber and forcing us as a collective into ranks, forming a rough square. I try to squirm to a position near the back, but not too close to the menacing figures forcing us forward towards a point in the distance I cannot make out.

As we move, I can see the first few ranks are being given long weapons, metal blades on wooden shafts, although I do not know exactly what they are called. I ask the man next to me if we will be given one, and he tells me that we will take our turn when the rank in front is done with it. I ask what he means but he just looks at his left hand, then laughs and ignores me.

Whatever they drugged me with has left no residual effects and my mind is once more clear. I try to raise the attention of one of the armoured men urging us onward, to argue my position and to explain that this is a mistake - I am no mere serf, I am a merchant of some standing. My efforts are in vain, falling on ears so deaf that I begin to question whether there is in fact any living being behind the thick steel helms.

Even as my pleas yield naught, I am forced forward, an inexorable march towards a fate unknown. The front ranks in my formation have joined battle with our nameless enemy. Even this close to the fight, I can see nothing of our foe beyond the occasional flash of green light piercing the heavens above.

A hand lands on my shoulder, a strangely comforting gesture until I realise that it is bereft of an owner. Scarlet oozes onto my tunic, staining the white cloth as the hand falls limply to the floor, the Drangmark burned on to its palm identical to the one on my own.

The Drangmark, the sign of the conscript.

Ostensibly a call to arms to defend the Empire, in reality a symbolic reminder that your life was merely one more penny to be readily spent from the overflowing coffers of the Grand Duke. No-one returns from the Drangmark.

The clash of metal grows ever nearer, as I begin to curse the path that had brought me here, from disclosing too much of the potential of my business to the Deputy Bürghermeister, to the moment that I felt the burning tingle on my palm and saw the mark fade in to view, all the way to my decision to return home instead of fleeing outright.

I am shaking as I pick up the long weapon that once belonged to one of the ranks ahead of me. He won’t mind, he is done with it. It feels heavy and unfamiliar and I almost strike one of my comrades in arms - the name seems strange but I guess it is right - as I shoulder it.

I see a gap in the rank before me and before I have time so much as to think I am thrust forward from behind, into the breach. My… Pike? Halberd? My weapon lunges forward, carried by inertia from its perch on my shoulder as I stumble to a halt, flashing towards figures made indistinct by the sweat coursing from my brow.

I do not know if I strike true, nor even whom I am trying to strike. The only certainty is the mark burned on to my palm that tells me that if today is not the day that I die, then it shall inevitably be tomorrow.