Dan Willis - The Survivors

A dozen armed guardsmen stood atop the steps leading up to the main entrance, shoulder to shoulder, with their hands on their weapons. Even from more than a block away, Bradok could feel the tension in the air. All it would take would be one spark, one ill-chosen word or deed, and violence would erupt.

Bradok took a deep breath and pressed on. To reach the council building, he would have to pass through the angry crowd. No one seemed to notice when at first he began pressing his way to the front. He had almost broken free of the mob when a big, burly dwarf with squinty eyes and a bulbous round nose stepped squarely in front of him. He wore the leathers of a blacksmith and carried a broad, heavy warhammer as if he’d held it all his life.

“You’re that new councilman, Braden something-or-other?” he said in a voice reminiscent of a stone being dragged over a sand-strewn floor.

“Uh,” Bradok said, not sure he should answer that.

“Why is the council arresting people all of a sudden?” the dwarf demanded in an uncomfortably loud voice. “Did they say ‘Reorx bless you’ when someone sneezed? Or maybe they’ve got the symbol of Paladine embroidered on their underwear?”

“I don’t know,” Bradok said, conscious of the eyes of many nearby dwarves turning to him. “I just got here.”

“It’s that new councilman,” someone in the crowd yelled.

“He’s the one behind that street-preacher law,” someone else called.

Bradok heard the stone before he saw it. Over the rumble of the mob came the whistling noise of air moving against an uneven surface. Before he could move, a stone struck him on the cheek. Bradok stifled a curse and clasped his hand to his bleeding face.

From behind him, Bradok heard the guards on the stairs come clattering down. Time seemed to freeze in that moment. But Bradok knew with exquisite clarity what was about to happen.

“Stop!” Bradok shouted commandingly, putting out a blocking hand to the oncoming guards. “If I need your help, I’ll call,” he said. “Till then, stay at your posts.”

The words seemed to hang in the air a long time, like smoke in an unvented room. Finally, all citizens and guardsmen seemed to take a breath at once. The soldiers loosened their grips on their weapons and backed up the stairs, never taking their eyes off the crowd.

Bradok looked back at the burly smith. “I don’t know what has happened here or why anyone has been arrested,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I intend to find out.”

“What good does that do us?” the smith asked.

Bradok put his hand on the man’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.

“I give you my word,” he said earnestly, “that I will find out and I will come back out here and tell you everything. Is that good enough?”

The tension still lingered in the air as Bradok’s words died away. Finally the smith spoke. “I’ll tell you what’s happened here,” he said in his gravelly voice. “The council’s arresting citizens whose only crime is trying to remind us of our values, of the old ways.”

A murmur of assent came from the crowd.

“Now I don’t know you, mister new councilman,” the smith said, “but I know that we won’t stand for this persecution.” The smith hefted his hammer off his shoulder and pointed it at city hall. “Now you go in there, and you tell them cowards that they can’t go around arresting people at their own will and pleasure. You tell them we won’t stand for it.” His coal black eyes narrowed as he leaned in so Bradok would have no trouble hearing his next words. “You tell them there’ll be blood if they keep this up.”

The smith reached out one burly hand and shoved Bradok hard. Bradok had seen it coming, but the force of the smith’s arm was not to be resisted and he staggered back.

“You tell them that, from me,” he said, pounding his chest, “Kellik Felhammer.”

Bradok recognized the name. Though he’d never met the dwarf, he bought all the brass he used for jewelry from the Felhammer Smithy.

“I’ll tell them,” he promised then turned and grimly climbed the steps up to the gates of city hall. The guards on the steps parted as he passed then closed ranks behind him.

Inside the building, scribes and clerks were running everywhere, carrying sheaves of paper and rolls of parchment. Discarded notes and what appeared to be pages torn from books littered the hallways. At every intersection, two city guardsmen stood with javelins in hand, their eyes watching for any menace.

At the corner of the main hall, Bradok turned to the back hallway reserved for councilmen.

“There you are, lad.” Much’s voice slammed into him with a near physical force. Rough hands grabbed him and pulled him along the corridor. “When I couldn’t find you at the tavern, I feared for you, boy, and that’s a fact.”

Much paused, straightening Bradok’s coat and brushing bits of dust from the rich fabric.

“Things have gone a bit ‘round the bend here,” he said with a nervous laugh. “How about that Arbuckle? He used that list of believers you made to round up what he’s calling ‘religious troublemakers.’”

“How dare he!” Bradok responded, though he was hardly shocked to have his suspicions confirmed.

“Oh, he dares, he dares,” said Much, all too lightly for Bradok’s taste.

“How does he think he’ll get away with it?” Bradok demanded.

“Well, that’s why he’s doing it all at once, tonight,” Much explained. “If they’re all in jail by morning, he can tell the people it’s all over. Only a few will protest at that point.”

Bradok thought of the mob out front. “There’s more than a few gathering outside already,” he said.

“You don’t understand the kind of power he wields,” Much said, looking around to make sure they weren’t overheard. “Most of the council is with him-”

“Are you with him?” Bradok said, seizing Much’s arm in a vicelike grip.

“Don’t be getting ideas,” Much said, a deadly serious note in his voice. “The peace of Ironroot stands on a blade’s edge, and anything could set it off. Just keep your head down in there. You can try to rein in some of the more enthusiastic members of the council, but don’t make a target out of yourself. If they think you’re against them, they’ll turn on you like a pack of wild dogs.”

Bradok wanted to protest, but something in his gut told him Much had the right of it. He’d have to just bide his time until he could figure out how to tamp it down and help Silas. Much led him around the outer walkway to where their tables stood side by side.

The council chamber was in an uproar. All around the room, councilmen were yelling to be heard while Mayor Arbuckle pounded his gavel on the lectern for order. In the galleries above, a few citizens who had political pull and others who had eluded the curfew filled the seats. They shouted to one another and to the councilmen below, some of them leaning precariously over the carved railings in an effort to have their opinions heard. In the center of the chamber, a lone dwarf stood, silent and unbent against the cacophony.

With a shock, Bradok recognized him. It was Argus Deephammer.

“Silence, I say!” Arbuckle shouted several times before, finally, the voices in the chamber died away. “You’ve been charged with disturbing the peace,” he addressed Argus Deephammer. “Your fearmongering and slander against this council are directly responsible for rioting in the streets. Do you deny it?”

“I do,” the dwarf said with stubborn fierceness. “Don’t you see what’s going on around you? You’re losing control of everything. Reorx has abandoned you and left you to your own devices. Now you see that you cannot stand without the aid of your god. You must repent for your godless ways, or we are all lost.”