The attack on the Lowpool started quietly, with the spread of 'traveling merchants' through the town. They dispersed to specific areas, specific buildings. Hours before the townspeople knew of danger on their doorstep, they had already been infiltrated.
Sorza Mareble, Esq., current mayor of the town officially named Sottolac, watched as a group of them leaned against the wall outside, not even making a façade of anything but insolent challenge.
She was too old for this, she decided.
It had been thirty years since she returned to this town with her children and was suddenly raised as mayor, a grieving widow with babies to care for. Having the granddaughter of Daren il Mareble, the slayer of lions, ennobled as an armiger for extraordinary acts in service of the old marquisate, elected to mayor was enough to calm two hostile factions who wanted their candidate on the seat.
In the small town that the Lowpool was then, the pittance the empire paid to an Imperial officer was fought over viciously. Not so much the amount but the stability of the pay. The salary of officials would be disseminated regularly unless the empire fell.
These days, there were more ways to earn money in the Lowpool. The mayorship was paid not even half what a good fisherman would gain. She was more troubled by finding someone to take over than sparking another election battle.
Her stay in office had been remarkably mundane for the last few decades. And then this.
She'd known their suspicious movements, but had only expected a raid, as bandits were wont to do now and then. She readied the town guards accordingly. She didn't expect the gently smiling man sitting opposite her desk.
He leaned back in his chair. "A fortunate arrangement for the both of us, don't you think?"
She laughed lightly in response, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes deepening, showing none of her fury. The presumptuous brat.
She'd gone soft. Thirty years in this slow-paced, peaceful town had blunted the edge she'd honed through a decade of flitting between the warring borders of various nations. There was a time when she would have seen him coming, would have been prepared more than this.
Still. Those thirty years of peace were not something she would ever regret.
"I'm afraid I have to decline."
A hardness, a darkness, entered his eyes at her answer.
It had not been so long that she had forgotten how to read people. This man, this smuggler offering a partnership to the mayor of a town – she had seen his ilk before. Manipulative, obsessed with power, inflexible, driven. Her late husband not the least of them.
The difference that had set her beloved Carac apart, was that he knew the value of the human heart. Even mired in the deep darkness that shadowed human wickedness, he somehow kept his ability to know joy and love close and protected. Long after her heart hardened and its light dimmed, he saved it and brought freshness and vitality back into her life.
This man, he had no heart to shine behind those cold eyes. No trust to give for trust, no thought not given to dominance and power.
How could she deliver her own people and her town into his hands?
Unthinkable.
"Reconsider, lady mayor. I am not a patient man, nor given to excessive negotiation. We will settle this here."
"I know. My answer will not change." She smiled slightly. "Are you certain yours should not, Derwain?"
He stayed in his seat, still smiling the smile that had not changed since the start of this unexpected meeting. A smile more unnerving than threats would've been. They would get to the overt threats, she was certain. She was also certain that the smile would not falter even then.
He laughed, a mellifluously rich sound. His eyes half-closed and he threw his head back, letting golden hair shimmer in the light. A manufactured warmth. "No one told me you had this kind of humor!"
"Why should anyone?" She said it idly, her thoughts racing in various directions.
She considered the group lounging outside, of small groups spreading around the town dressed as merchants. She had no doubt there were other people having unexpected meetings this morning as well. At least the twelve members of the town council.
The empire had centralized administration even if government posts could be inherited. No matter the force they used, an independent party could not simply push out elected officers of his Imperial Majesty. Therefore, legal procedures had to be observed. The town council had to recommend the candidates for mayor to the provincial government, and only upon approval would the names be submitted for local elections.
The smuggler Derwain was not content with hiding in the shadows. He wanted legal control of the town.
There was a reason that the phrase 'brigand towns' came into being. These things happened. The empire was large and unwieldy. The military could not be everywhere.
Sorza engraved her resolution in her heart. For her sins, she would die before the name of the Lowpool would join the ranks of those towns.
Her jaw tightened as she contemplated how they had known which houses and buildings to target. Even with her skills so diminished, she would have heard of strangers loitering about town and asking questions.
The man before her would have no compunction to torture.
Cold eyes looked her over, smile still in place. "I thought you were just an old granny that old man set up as a doll to placate the masses. You're not are you?"
She raised her brows. "Is there a reason to think that?"
"Are you saying you don't know one of your councilors is Kaska of the Bloody Barrage?"
She was silent, nonplussed. That was an appellation she had not heard applied to Kaska for a while now.
He snorted. "I was surprised when I saw him here. Rumor said he was dead. Playing lord in his old age? How luxurious for the former head of a criminal group." His fist slammed down on the table. "I can't stand it! The old coward. People like us should die in the darkness."
Sorza blinked. Was that idealism she heard? She shook the thought away. Of course she knew of Kaska. She would not have had the reputation she did in the old days if she missed who was living in her backyard. As long as the town and its people were safe, what did she care of others' pasts?
She did not expect others to know, as these were the central regions of the Imperial mainland. The reputation of the Bloody Barrage was predominantly known in the harsh mountains of the north, where the reach of the empire was weak and people turned to the underworld for succor. For Derwain to recognize him, he must have been in the underworld at a young age.
She felt a flash of pity that she quickly shook away. A life in the underworld was not the life a child should have been subject to.
He thought Kaska was ruling the town from the shadows? It wasn't that illogical of a conclusion, she thought wryly, if one hadn't taken the rest of the town into account. Kaska would get a laugh out of it, certainly.
He looked at her. "Does the man who can kill a hundred people with a single technique think he can while his years away in the light? I can't stand it. What a bonus, hm? I wanted this town because it was a natural stronghold. To take it away from that old coward will be a singular pleasure."
Sorza was silent for a moment after that, then only asked. "Tell me, have you heard the legend of how the Lowpool came to be?"
He tilted his head, the dark fury suddenly subsumed into a mask of curiosity, the smile returning to innocent proportions. A chill wended down Sorza's spine at the swift ease of the change.
"I have no time for old wives tales."
She kept her composure. If she should die here, so be it. Her children were grown and her grandchildren were happy. And the man before her had not the ability to make the Lowpool bow.
"No? A pity then, for you have never heard the words that would save your life."
Across the town, in the homes of all the people who sheltered in the embrace of the Lowpool, warning chimes sounded.
*
*
Across the town, people stopped in their work or leisure and methodically started shuffling the more vulnerable members of their households into the more protected central rooms.
Others took up weapons and headed for the docks, or dug out their sigilcards.
Others, who had suspiciously watched the so-called merchants walk the streets, bared their teeth. The chimes were tantamount to setting them loose.
The schools started barring their windows and doors with metal, confident in the knowledge that the stone walls would protect the children.
Across the town, groups of smugglers started on the next part of their orders. Still in the guise of merchants, they hid with the people, then started causing trouble.
The first fire bloomed into an inferno in the eastern side of town, aided by gleeful smugglers with stolen fish oil. Smoke curled upwards from other places – the wealthy district, the market streets, the docks – first as thin delicate tendrils, then thick columns.
The first councilor ran out of his house choking in smoke, the child in his embrace quickly placed in a neighbor's arms with a silent plea. The people who came out at the sight of smoke quickly closed ranks around the child before a smuggler came laughing out of the burning house to drag her uncle away.
The commerce ministry associate to the Lowpool was having a leisurely morning with her family when the alarms sounded. Before they could even stand, the house was invaded. The woman was taken away, face and hands bloody from where she had tried to defend her family. Only when the smugglers held the children hostage did she go quietly.
Across the town, similar scenes happened even as the warning chimes rang of monsters on the border.
In the central square, a man sat leisurely on the steps leading to the monument of a crocodile. His hair was fair as the sun, his face was handsome, and his eyes were bright.
He watched with a never ending smile as person after person was brought before him.
**
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Notes:
Armiger – the lowest rank of titled nobility in the empire. Unlike other noble titles, an armiger is not given land or military obligations, only a coat of arms and a lifetime allowance from the Imperial Throne. Moreover, the title only lasts for the lifetime of the recipient, subsequent generations losing the title and the nobiliary particle but keeping the surname and the right of having their names inscribed in the Imperial Book of Names as part of the nobility.
The nobiliary particle 'il' is used for all titled nobility ranked count and under. Under the rank of count, there are five titled ranks. From highest in status to lowest: viscount, baron, castellar, patrician, armiger.