City of Ruin

TWENTY

The Dawnir squeezed through the narrow metal door and lumbered into the cell to engage with the Okun again. The creatures scrambled away from him, thrusting their backs against the stone wall, feet skidding on the floor. Jurro motioned, in whatever forms he thought appropriate, for them to settle, but it wasn't much use. Fear had possessed them, made them nervous and volatile. He set two lanterns on the floor, as a guard slammed the door behind him, leaving him utterly alone with this new species. No chairs in the room, no tables, nothing civilized here, only bare stone surfaces and a vacant space between them and himself. But they shared a tension, something indefinable.

How could he unlock the secrets intervening between their languages?

Ceasing their twitching, their gaze – or what he took to be their gaze – settled upon him. Bulbous eyes, glossy shells, all those alien features – he was almost frightened of their otherworldly qualities, but knew better than to mistake those for inherent evilness. People were not good or evil simply because of their physiognomy.

A thousand variants in ancient languages, he sifted through all the dialects he knew, while for long, breathless minutes they did nothing but glare at him: 'Hello.' Then 'Greetings.' 'Peace.' 'Friend.'

A guard came to check on him every few minutes, but witnessed nothing of any interest. Jurro might have to accept that he could not acquire any intelligence for the pale commander, though the thought of returning empty-handed disappointed him. Eventually he tried responding to them in their own fashion, producing a series of surreal guttural clicks from the back of his throat. That finally made them sit up again, their motions coordinated. He could barely form a sentence, obviously missing key elements, but it might be enough to engage them. They stood up suddenly as the guard came to the door once more.

'Are you OK?'

'Fine,' Jurro replied, waving the intrusion away dismissively.

Further progress, then, by resorting only to further clicks. His heart thumped as the creatures began to sound off in return. He finally began to believe he could understand their reactions. There was something almost recognizable there, as if a corner of his memory had been unlocked.

Who… are you? he thought they were saying. Why you here? How?

It was impossible to answer them properly, not because of a language barrier but because he couldn't even answer those questions himself.

You shouldn't be able to come through here.

Only we know how.

Their next word struck him hard when they addressed him as: Child. How could he be a child when he was thousands of years old? Had he, too, slipped through from some other plane of existence? There were books of theory on the subject, concerning the eleven dimensions through which reality could operate.

Suddenly one of the Okun moved nearer to him, began circling him, the other eventually following. They shambled with an awkward gait, feet scraping across the stone floors, yet their movements were synchronized. Throat sounds were emitted, bass and guttural and threatening.

Jurro rotated slowly, twisting his massive torso round to observe them, all the time throwing further attempts at communication towards them.

They had become suddenly unresponsive.

Simultaneously they lunged at him, collapsing him to the ground first as, in the periphery of his vision, he saw a guard come to the cell door. A pain such as he had never felt before surged suddenly through his body. The Okun stabbed their claws into his chest and began ripping him apart, shredding skin and fur, while smashing his head against the floor. How could he have been so stupid? He saw his own blood seep across the cell floor before he faded into blackness, wondering, philosophically, if this was finally true freedom coming his way…

*

Brynd was in the midst of planning training schedules when he was called urgently to the cells, all the time the accompanying soldier muttering something about the Dawnir and two dead guards. Brynd urged him to be clearer, but it wasn't much help. They sprinted towards the cells, the other man now breathless, Brynd with his sabre in his hand. Then the soldier gestured to the grille in the door.

Brynd peeked in between the bars, then lurched back in disgust. 'Shit…'

Jurro had been slaughtered, his carcass strewn across the cell. His entrails were exposed, the slick organs scattered around the room, his hide slopped to one side like a soggy rug. Thick, dark blood flooded half the floor. It was obvious from the other remains that two of the guards had been savaged as they tried to escape towards the door, their arms left outstretched, and all that was recognizable of the rest of the corpses was their faces.

'I slammed the door so the things couldn't escape,' the soldier muttered, still in a state of shock at having witnessed such savagery. His hand was shuddering by his side. 'I didn't seal them in to die, I swear on the Emperor. They were dead men by the time I managed to get the door closed to keep those… those monsters in.'

Brynd sheathed his sword, rested his hand on the man's thick shoulder and tried to make strong eye contact. 'You did well to prevent their escape.' Soothe him, for the sake of his sanity. 'Who knows how much damage they would have done otherwise.'

A few minutes later, the guard had finally calmed, and Brynd turned his attention to the Okun, who huddled in a corner of the cell, up against the wall, almost dormant once again.

'Fetch slop buckets and bring a few other men with you,' Brynd ordered.

As the guard's footsteps echoed down the corridor, Brynd slammed his hand against the metal bars in rage. One of the Okun looked up, curious, but lowered its head once again.

He was fucking stupid to have let Jurro in alone, despite the Dawnir's insistence that he would be fine. This was no dignified way for anyone to go, was hardly a fitting death for such an exotic figure. He would have the Okun killed and their bodies given to the cultists to dissect.

*

That evening the Night Guard, along with dozens of Dragoons, lined up along the perimeter of a small quadrangle inside the Citadel, as they prepared to burn the Dawnir's body on a towering pyre.

Brynd was particularly keen on giving Jurro a respectful send-off. The creature had barely been known by most people in Villjamur, but the two of them had shared many a conversation and discussed philosophy over drinks, whenever Brynd was not away on various expeditions. It was a curious friendship, between the beast and the albino, but they shared a bond over the fact that they both felt isolated because of what they were.

A Jorsalir priest rattled out a sermon and mumbled a few prayers, then someone played a funeral hymn on an accordion. Melancholy notes wafted across the courtyard as a torch was lowered to the base of the pyre, then flames took shape and billowed upwards. Green-blue smoke sizzled free from the creature's corpse, before dissipating up into the black sky, while the remnants bubbled and spat as the fire ripped into the fat. Presently there would be nothing left of this ancient creature.

When everyone fell away to retire for the night, Nelum approached the commander as he stood on the rampart overlooking the remains of the pyre.

'Sir, did he ever obtain any information from those things?'

Brynd shook his head. 'No.'

Nelum sighed. 'For the love of Bohr, he was just about our only hope of understanding what they might be.'

'You think this is a good time, at Jurro's funeral, to get annoyed with the lack of progress on that front?'

Nelum muttered something that might or might not have been an insult.

'Did you say something?' Brynd pressed.

'Nothing, sir.'

'You'd do well to remember your position.'

'Meaning?'

'I keep the Night Guard as a close family, and I've kept you close to my side recently, but that shouldn't mean we confuse our positions in the regiment. I hope I'm clear on the matter.'

'Indeed, commander,' Nelum snapped, his lips thinned as if suppressing a biting retort. 'My apologies.'