Chapter 6 - A New Beginning

  Present Day

  “I contacted a friend of mine.” Cal told Meliana as he pulled on his coat, shifting the slit at the back so that his sword would pass through it. It was morning the following day and Cal had spent the previous twenty-four hours preparing to leave and cursing himself for failing to say ‘no’.

  With the money she’d given him he’d purchased a new leather vest to go over his shirt - he’d lost, sold or used the old one to repay a debt months earlier - and a single leather pauldron that he had clipped to his coat and chest armour on his left side. He was less able to defend that side and it would provide a small bit of extra protection.

  He’d also bought basic supplies like rations, rope, a bedroll and a simple tent, among others. Cal also knew he needed to buy a horse, but wanted to wait until they were ready to travel, rather than having to pay to care for it the night before they left.

  Meliana was wearing similar clothes to when she’d saved Cal, except that she’d swapped the waist coat for a corset belt.

  “What did they say?” Meliana asked, packing her things into her backpack and hooking her camping gear on the sides. She started to shift it onto her back, struggling a little and turned to find Cal standing there without a bag and frowned. “Where’s all of your gear. I gave you fifty Kings to prepare.”

  Cal raised a brown in confusion and pulled out his void bag. “It’s here.” He said, simply, holding up the tiny bag.

  She stared at it for a long moment then swung her bag off her back and threw it at him. “You carry this.” She demanded.

  Cal chuckled, grinning and caught the pack before pushing it into his bag. “Yes ma’am.” He said. “And Veil said he’d meet us near Silverdale.”

  “Veil? Interesting name. We can trust him?” Meliana asked.

  Cal nodded. “I trust him with my life.” He said simply, and it was true. Few people he trusted as much, none he trusted more.

  Meliana frowned a little but then nodded. “Good enough for me.” She agreed, shrugging and turning to grab her sword and belt. “Are you ready to head off?”

  Cal nodded, quickly checking himself over again, looking at his coat and flattening it down, still a little uncomfortable with the gifts. The clothes felt so nice that they had to have been expensive. “Lets go,” he agreed.

  They left their rooms and stepped out into a wide, well appointed hallway. It led them down through the hotel to the amphitheatre, which, even at seven in the morning, had a performance going. It was a drakokin singer using the amphitheatre’s almost magical acoustics to sing a beautiful yet haunting melody. It had no words, only rhythm that she was creating solely with her voice. It was quite something, but perfect for the time of day. Simple and unobtrusive so as not to disturb those sleeping, but still mesmerising. The audience was a mix of early starters and those who hadn’t yet gone to bed.

  Outside the Azure Gem, Cal could feel the sea breeze against his skin. Combined with the early autumn weather it was a comfortable temperature. Cal knew though; give it another month and it would be horrible. Over the winter it was practically impossible to be on the sea - the goddess known as the Sea Witch saw to that with her constant storms and brutal monster attacks - but for now it was pleasant.

  The weather was at least.

  Despite being in the centre of the Upper city Cal could already smell the filth of the lower city wafting over with the wind. A wonderful reminder of his childhood for him, and of the inequality of the people who lived in the city for others.

  “How far is the nearest horse merchant?” Meliana asked, steering them down the street towards the east gate of the upper city. “We should buy some horses rather than joining a caravan. I’d rather we didn’t spend too long with any one group.

  Cal nodded. “There’s one a couple minutes north of the inner gates, never dealt with them before, but they’re in the upper city so I expect the animals to be of good quality.” Cal replied. Growing up in Westridge - living in the lower city, stealing in the upper city - he knew a lot about it. That said, it had been fourteen years. “Assuming things haven’t changed, that is.” He added. “It’s about a fifteen minute walk or a ten minute carriage ride if you count the time looking for a carry.”

  Meliana nodded. “Lets take the walk.” She said, stretching and placing one hand on her sword hilt as she began marching for the gates.

  The streets were nearly empty and quite beautiful. The Azure Gem let out in front of a large park with a beautiful artificial lake. They were lined with trees and magical lanterns ran down the centre of every road, marking out the two lanes for the horses to travel down.

  At the end of the road was the mirage, a long and beautiful river that had small forests planted on the city side, while on the other side was a large picturesque park that took up half the upper city. They walked quickly along the river to the main bridge and followed the road from there straight to the inner gates, the eastern exit through the wall around the upper city. Beyond the wall the lower city had spread up and around the upper city. Some hated that the city seemed to have been surrounded, but others noted that, were the city ever to be attacked, it would be the poor who died first.

  The city planners had done their best to make it so that those of the upper or noble parts of the city didn’t have to be too exposed to the lower city and so the first layer of buildings outside the wall were still nice. Mostly they were well appointed servants houses and the guard barracks, which had been built more fashionably than most.

  From the inner gate Cal led Meliana north past the thin row of buildings that ran along the road and into the park area. There were only two buildings in the upper park area, the Caglios wizard tower, where the Magisterium held office in Westridge, and Breakers ranch. The ranch raised, broke and sold horses. There were a surprising number of wild horses in the area around Westridge for the ranch to break and train and they had access to the park area, which boasted ninety-two square kilometers of land for the horses to graze in.

  It was undoubtedly an expensive place to shop for horses, but they’d be high quality. Cal had never been there before, he’d never even owned his own horse, but if Meliana wanted to splash her money around then who was he to stop her.

  Breakers Ranch was large. It had several huge pens, a couple of stables, a big barn, a bunk house and a single large house set back from the rest. He guessed that the owners lived in the big house while the ranch hands lived in the bunk house. Idly, he wondered if there was any difference between the two stables but the thought passed quickly as he admitted that it was a beautiful ranch. One that Cal would have killed to work on when he was a child.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He squinted as they hit a bit of elevated land and were able to see into the pens. The ranch workers were already up, running the horses, setting up feed and water troughs. He could already see tens of horses, and a few foals in the pens, all beautiful animals. Cal wondered how it would work selecting animals, if he could just pick one, if they picked one for him… maybe the animal picked, who knew?

  As Cal and Meliana walked up the paved path towards the house, one of the hands noticed them and rushed off back into the main building. A few minutes later as Meliana and Cal were reaching the pen the worker reappeared with a much wealthier looking woman.

  While she made her way towards them, Cal eyed the workers. It was an odd sight in the upper city, manual labourers. This seemed like the sort of work that would happen in the lower city, not amongst the wealthy elite. Cal assumed that the workers themselves were indentured servants who happened to have the good fortune to be good at their jobs. Even so, most like them would have lived down in the lower city, or at least in the slums that were spreading north, but these ones had the ‘privilege’ to live and work here, in one of the nicest places the city had to offer. It wouldn’t have been because anyone liked them, but instead because it was more convenient for their owners- their employers.

  The woman was wearing a long beautiful night dress and gown. She looked like she’d just thrown on boots and come running at the behest of the worker’s warning. That same worker had followed behind her to help and was now carrying a rifle - it looked like a new one from Cogshollow in the south-east, single shot but powerful, so long as you didn't overheat it, you were liable to burn your hand off if you did that.

  “You got business here?” she asked, eyeing them both and turning to Cal. Presumably because she saw his outfit and general appearance as the more likely to be of influence.

  Cal looked over at Meliana, deferring to her. “We’re here to buy.” She agreed. “Two horses for riding. Carrying our equipment, travelling over a stretch of days, several weeks at least. With food, tack. Whatever else we need.”

  The woman looked them both over. “We ain’t cheap.” She said, arms folded. “You ain’t got the gold to pay you best turn yourselves around and march off right now. Breakers don’t suffer fools or thieves.”

  Meliana reached for her bag, paused remembering that Cal had it and then waved a hand at him. “Show the lady.”

  Cal reached into his void bag - making sure to reach into the bag further than was natural to point out that it was magical - and pulled out the coin purse she’d given him. When he’d returned from preparations he’d tried to give the rest of the bag - which was still very full - back, but she’d made a point to tell him that the money was all his, it was his up front payment for the job, and that he’d get more on completion.

  Even the amount he held, which he assumed was a fraction of what she had, was full of queens and kings. It was enough that he could have paid off his debts with some to spare and fled. When he’d pointed that out, Meliana had simply said, “you could, but then I’d be your debtor and I’m not nearly as patient or kind as the Circle.” And though she was his friend, he believed her.

  When he held it open for the woman to see, her eyes widened and her attitude completely change.

  “Well, now- oh of course I see your, um, skull insignia now, I missed it before I do apologise for the rudeness.” She looked over her shoulder and gave the work hand a double-take. "What on Stj?rna are you doing with that thing!” She demanded, pointing at the rifle. “How could you be so rude to our guest!”

  “But, mistress, you said-”

  “Enough! I should have you beaten!”

  “It’s fine,” Cal cut in. Having grown up in the city he knew very well how far this might go simply to appease a prospective client. “We understand our appearance isn’t that of the sort of clientele you’re used to. My Captain and I would be more than happy if we could just move on to getting the horses.”

  The woman stopped berating her servant and turned back to them, focusing more on Meliana now that she understood. “Of course,” She looked at the ranch hand who had gone white. “You may return to your duties.” He practically ran away, though when he was halfway back to the pens he seemed to notice he was still holding the rifle and turned to run back up to the main house. “Now, Captain…”

  “Roe. Meliana Roe.” The pirate replied, placing a hand on her sword and puffing up her chest.

  “Very well, Captain Roe. My name is Delia Breaker, I am the matron of this ranch.” She announced and turned, leading them back towards the nearest stable. “My husband owns it and my children administrate and work. Please follow me and allow me to get you situated while I call for my son who will be able to help you further.”

  When they reached the front of the stables she motioned for them to take seats at a table and chair set that was built out in front. It wasn’t clean but it wasn’t actively dirty. “My son will be right with you.” She promised and seemed to scuttle back up towards the main house.

  “I’ve never bought a horse before, is this normal?” Cal asked as they perched on the edge of the table.

  “No Cal, you’ve brought me to the literal fanciest ranch in the witch’s damned world.” Meliana sighed. “Probably should have just gone down to the lower city and got something there.”

  “Maybe, but anything you bought down there would probably die before we reached Silverdale. Here in Westridge you either get insanely high quality stuff like this because it’s what the noble circle and upper circle expect, or you get absolute garbage, because it’s all the lower city can afford. That’s the problem with this city. Well, that and all the slavery.”

  “I thought Westridge was known for being a place where you're able to buy anything.” Meliana frowned.

  “You can, but that middle range where it’s what a normal person can buy usually has to be shipped in, which raises the cost to the same as one of the high quality items.” Cal explained. “The saying is that you can buy anything here, not that it’s a fair price. Besides, the saying is mostly just talking about the fact that you can buy people, but you can’t anywhere else in the Alliance.”

  Meliana nodded, then sighed. “What a stupid city.” She said, shaking her head. She had never liked Westridge, it was one of the reasons Cal had first bonded with her. As a sailor and a former pirate Meliana believed very strongly in personal freedoms. This city, this whole state even, it spat in the face of all that. Their leader in the Black Blades had learned to only bring her into the city if he absolutely had to, for fear of her kicking off at some noble. “How you feeling today, by the way? Still hung over? Injuries all healed up?”

  “I haven’t drunk anything since you picked me up.” He admitted.

  “That’s good.” Meliana agreed. “A little boring in the long run, but-”

  “I’m not going sober,” he clarified. “But… well I haven’t really thought about it since I’ve had work to do.”

  “Keeping busy makes you forget way better than drink ever could.” She agreed. “It’s why I haven’t stopped moving since…” She paused and looked over at Cal, then shook her head. “Well for a long time.”

  Cal didn’t know much about Meliana’s past. He knew that she was older than one-hundred-and-fifty. One-hundred-and-sixty now that it had been over ten years since they first met. Despite the age difference Elves didn’t tend to consider themselves adults until they were about one-hundred so the discrepancy in their ages when accounting for race wasn’t so large. The equivalent age to a human was around twenty-eight. He also knew that she was a pirate before signing up with the Blades, but her life before that? Cal had no idea so to almost catch a glimpse into that and fail was disappointing.

  Meliana looked past Cal and stood up. Cal followed her gaze and found that a man who looked an awful lot like a ranch hand but with a haircut that looked like he’d actually paid for it was nearing their position. He had a wide brimmed hat on and a light shirt despite the cool morning air. The man looked like he engaged in the physical side of the ranch, but his equipment was clearly higher quality than everyone else's. He was definitely the owners son and it genuinely surprised Cal to see a member of the Upper City who worked for a living.

  “Morning, friends.” He called out in a deep affable voice that Cal was certain made most who visited warm to him. “Captain Roe and… I don’t think the lady of the house caught your name?” He pointed to Cal.

  “Cal.” He responded. “And you are?”

  “Balt Breaker.” He smiled. “Nice to meet you! Lets get you two some horses!”