Budda-ba! I finally finished it. If you're reading this it means by some weird cosmic mess-up that you're going to read a chapter from one of my stories, or as I call them "Pieces of filth which I should burn and cover in defecate and I will never amount to anything." Reader Disgressification is Adivised. You have been forwarned. And if you're still mentally retarded enough to want to, you may now (Without any more warnings about your eyes falling out with pure hatred of this) read the "POFWISBACIDAIWNATA."
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Unexpected Heroes
Chapter 4
Negotiations
The steps down to that cellar were some of the heaviest of Kel’s life, second only perhaps to when he would take the exam into The Marble University seven years later. But before then, these were the heaviest steps of his life. Rojo, however, was whistling merrily while he stepped down into the gloom, looking up at the damp and mouldy walls with mild interest. This was a rather terrifying habit of his. He would whistle in the most desperate of situations. Kel could recall one time a man had pulled out a knife on him and his friend when they were walking, and as they ran he could here Rojo
whistling as they did. It had scared him out of his skin and then some.
At the bottom of the stairs was a thin layer of silk hanging in front of a doorway into what appeared to be a cellar. Kel paused, wondering if they should ask to come in, but Rojo merely barged through like he owned the entire place. The spectacled boy waited a few second, then followed his eccentric friend through.
The first thing he noticed was how dark it was. There were no sources of light and a candle had been lit. The next thing was that it was swelteringly hot in there, and Kel found his skin sticking to his robes rather too quickly for comfort. Rojo was standing on one side of a large crate, and on the other side was Harold, glaring at the other boy with such loathing that it made the air crackle.
“Harold! Buddy! Pal!” Rojo exclaimed, grinning like they had known each other since birth and hunching over the crate to be closer to the bully.
“How did you get in here and what do you want?” Harold replied in a sulky voice.
“
Us? Want something from
you?” Rojo mocked astonishment “now why would we want anything from
you, matey?”
“Because, Beggar-boy,
everyone wants something from me…what is it, money? Because I haven’t got any at the moment and even if I did I wouldn’t give it to
your kind anyway…” Harold sneered, going instantly for the insults. Rojo’s grin flickered for a moment and then reappeared like a criminal to the scene of a crime.
“No…actually…I want to know if any people have left the city today...left
reluctantly if you know what I mean…” his eyes flashed.
The King of the Streets paused.
“I might have…depends who’s asking and what they’re giving me…” he said slowly.
“Well, you either have or you haven’t and what I’m giving you is something very hard, with four knuckles and probably breaks your nose…guess what it is?” There was no menace in the poorer boy’s voice, just mild cheerfulness and that oh-so-mischievous grin that told you he could go to your mother and tell her what you asked Sandy Jenkins to do behind the stables the other week any second.
“Alright…any specific traits?” Harold asked grudgingly, not bothering to keep the venom out of his voice.
“There we go! Dark elves, two of them, one’s got a doo-dah, one’s not, man’s got a beard, woman wears a hooded robe.”
“Anything else you scrounging little twit?”
“Umm...nope, not that I can recall…although if you don’t choose your words wisely then your mother may soon find a little piece of paper under her pillow telling her everything her little boy’s been up to…” Rojo continued to grin, whistling slightly.
Harold didn’t speak again, but went over to another pile of crates hidden in the shadows, riffled through them and pulled out a piece of paper. He returned and thrust it on the desk like a spoilt child being forced to share its sweets.
Kel moved forward and looked over. Written in scrawled hand-writing were a few words:
Two Tetri Left In A Wagon At Noon 7th Jund There was silence in the small room. Tetri was a very discriminative word used to refer to Dark Elves and was the name of a Dark Elven king who tried to commit mass genocide to all mountain races. He was stopped, of course, but the word still offends most Dark Elves deeply. Kel wasn’t that bothered though; he was looking at the date. 7th Jund…that was today! And noon was when they had been standing at the merchant’s tent. This confirmed it. His parents were gone. Kel found tears pricking at his eyes again, but he brushed them away, smearing his glasses in the process and blurring his vision as if the world’s colours had suddenly bloomed.
“Which gate?” Rojo asked quietly. There are nine gates in and out of Timetall, the city where they lived. There had originally been eight- one for each point of the compass –but then another one had been built when the Baron had expanded the city. Now each gate was named after an important figure in the history of the desert the city is built in.
Harold looked down at the paper, looking at the corner. He found what he was looking for- a little scrawl in the corner telling him which gate.
“Triem...” he said. He was so nosy about what they were up to that all the vileness in his voice had suddenly evaporated.
“Do you have any idea why they might be heading that way?”
“Well…maybe…”
“Tell me Harold, or I’ll shove this crate where the sun don’t shine…”
The Bully glared at Rojo, pouring all his despise into that one gaze.
“Vol’hussen…it’s a fortress a few miles west of here…ruled by some fat prig with tons of…” he made rubbing gestures between his fingers and thumb. “He deals in slavery…”
Rojo cast a gaze over at Kel, who had (despite all impossibilities) gone pale. Slaves…his mother and father were slaves? How could this be worse?
“How do you know all this?” Asked the poorer boy suspiciously “how do we know you’re not lying?”
At this point, Harold looked extremely proud and smug, with the air of someone who has just pulled off a bank heist without breaking a sweat.
“Well…as it is…I’m, uh, expandin’ my-“
“Waistline, porky?” Rojo cut in, inspecting a layer of dirt under his fingernail whilst grinning.
“No,” The Kingpin of The Under-thirteens glared “my ‘business,’” he chuckled darkly.
“Oh, you’re imposing your villainous rule on kids
outside the city walls now, Harold?”
“Shut your face, poor-boy!”
“Only if you shut yours first, richy!”
“Go and scrounge for money!
“At least
my mother isn’t courting my father…”
“What?!”
“STOP!” It was small, timid Kel who had interrupted “Rojo- how can we rescue...” he looked at Harold, not wishing to divulge their goal “the people we’re trying to if you and him are at each others throats?” He stared at them both plainly.
“Yeah…you’re right…let’s leave Mis-ta su-per-i-ority to his thoughts…” Rojo replied, walking through the silk curtain and starting up the steps. Kel lingered in the room, watching Harold’s faulty glare as they left before he hurried up the steps after his friend and out into sunlight.
They passed the older boys without quarrel and talked to one another as they walked.
“He said west, right?” Rojo asked, looking to Kel. At first he didn’t reply.
“Yeah…I think we should hurry…”
“Me too…”
They walked through the streets in silence for a while, the Dark elf following his friend who knew the streets better. Then Rojo heard singing from above. At first he ignored it; you heard all sorts of noises on an average day in Timetall, but then it seemed to be following them…
“
Where I go the sun cannot shine…
Where I go the shadows are mine…
No people walk…
The birds do not squawk…
And nobody dares to talk…
Of…her…”
The voice was high and crackled, as if it were spoken behind someone who was whispering loudly…it chilled Rojo to the bone, and he looked up to see who was singing, and he saw that dark figure again…standing ominously above him…then he blinked, and the figure was gone. He turned to his friend to see if he had noticed, but the dark elf was staring at the ground, thinking about other things, and appeared to have not heard…
Rojo shook his head and continued towards the west gate, staring up at it’s great wooden bulk like some monolithic structure that had been built by giants. Of course, the effect was somewhat spoiled by the small doors which had been cut at the bottom and now let in streams of traders with camels and caravans stocked with food and supplies…this brought the thought to Rojo’s head that they completely hadn’t supplied for this journey…it could take days! Where would they sleep at night? What would happen if a sandstorm occurred? But it was too late now…he and Kel stood at the edge of the road leading deeper into the city.
“You ready?” Rojo asked.
Kel nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat.
And then they stepped outside…into the desert.
