Paul Kemp - Shadowbred

Sembia soon would explode as surely as a Gondsman's firebomb. Elyril chuckled when she considered how easily Sembia would descend into civil war. The tools had been in place for years. They had wanted only someone to wield them.

Daylight showed Selgaunt for the rouge-covered whore she had become. Cale was appalled by how much the city had changed over the last year.

Groups of destitute refugees crept out of the alleys and dark places of the city and sat listlessly on the walkways or streets until shopkeepers or the Scepters moved them along. Many begged alms and almost all of them looked hungry. Surreptitiously, to avoid being mobbed, Cale slipped a few silver ravens into the palms of the women and children he passed.

Selgaunt had been a wealthy city for so long that seeing so many poor on its streets shocked him. Cale guessed they must have come south from the upcountry, fleeing the drought, the Rage, the Rain of Fire, and the daemonfey.

He thought of Varras words: The world is too big to save everything. Looking into the dull eyes of the hungry, he thought she had been as much a prophet as Sephris.

The streets lacked the usual vendors hawking day old bread and browned fruit. The typical smells of breakfasts cooking did not fill the morning air. Instead, stick figures wandered the streets and the air smelled of dumped nightsoil and despair.

Shopkeepers tried to hold up the pretense that Selgaunt was still Selgaunt-sweeping their stoops, setting out their wares-but even they looked underfed. Selgaunt reminded him more of Skullport than anything else.

He made his way as best he could through the deprivation. He knew that he could pray to Mask for the power to cast spells that created food. He knew the priests of other faiths could do the same, and wondered why they had not. At least two score priests lived in the city who were capable of casting the spell.

Perhaps they were seeing only to the needs of the wealthy? Or perhaps they were casting the spells for the needy and the magic was not enough. It occurred to Cale that the famine was not simply a problem of feeding the refugee villagers. The villagers had been the ones to feed the city with their crops and livestock. The recent disasters had forced the farmers into the city, and not only did they need food, they were no longer producing food for Selgaunt. The problem would only get worse with time. It would take a small army of priests to feed a city the size of Selgaunt.

A disturbance in the street ahead drew his eye. A wave of people jumped to their feet and pushed toward the middle of the avenue, all racing away from Cale. Many shouted, raised their fists. Cale fought his way through the press to see.

A caravan of mule-drawn wagons from the outlying farms rumbled down the center of the city. Turnips, leeks, and sacks of grain lay piled in the wagon beds. Armed Scepters surrounded the caravan and held the press of people at bay with their shields. Two Scepters rode in the wagon, straddling the food as if it were gold.

"This food is going to the market!" one of the Scepters shouted. "Make your purchase there!"

"Purchase!" a man near Cale shouted. "We cannot afford to pay! A bag of turnips costs a fivestar! We are hungry here, guardsman!"

Many in the crowd shouted agreement and pressed closer.

The Scepters looked alarmed, as did the teamsters driving the wagons. Even the mules looked skittish. The Scepters pushed the press of bodies backward with their shields and brandished their blades. The people fell back and the carts moved onward toward the market, leaving crying children and despondent parents in their wake.

The crowd started to disperse, grumbling in their despair. Cale put a hand on the shoulder of the thin man who had shouted about the price of turnips.

"Did you say a fivestar for turnips?"

The man turned and regarded Cale with hollow eyes. "Aye. The price of food has left all but the rich scraping for dog scraps, unless you are willing to wait all day in a priest's food line and swear to the worship of his god. Where have you been living?"

Cale held his tongue and let the man go.

A year ago, a sack of turnips would have cost a copper, maybe two. But a fivestar! Half of Selgaunt would be unable to eat at those prices. There would be riots.

Cale immediately decided that the new Hulorn was incompetent. He picked up his pace. Perhaps Tamlin could get the Old Chauncel to act.

Halfway to the Noble District, on the sharply angled, shop-lined Adzer's Way, Cale caught sight of a mounted trio of Helms patrolling the streets. They sat atop warhorses and each wore the customary round steel cap and blue tabard emblazoned with Sembia's coat of arms, the raven and silver. Cale stared at them for a moment in disbelief. He had never before seen soldiers of the Sembian army patrolling city streets. Sembia's merchants had always shown a strong distaste for soldiers. The nation's army was small and decentralized and kept deliberately so. Sembia was positioned to conquer through the force of its trade, not through force of arms. The Helms' duties had always consisted of patrolling the trade roads and villages outside of Sembia's major cities.

Cale decided that the new Hulorn was not merely incompetent, he was an idiot. He had put soldiers on the street-not city guardsmen accustomed to peacefully resolving disputes among the citizens, but soldiers, accustomed to answering problems with steel.

Shaking his head, Cale steered wide of the Helms and hurried on. He had been isolated in his cottage for too long. He had not known things had deteriorated so far, so fast. He needed to see Tamlin; he needed to understand what had happened.

The sounds on the streets were strangely subdued, tired, pensive.

Cale moved through the street traffic, dodging thin horses, men pulling empty carts, pedestrians trying to pretend that life was normal. He followed a line of people that snaked almost an entire block until he reached a warehouse with its wagon doors thrown open. Inside, priests of Lathander and Tymora spooned porridge out of huge pots into whatever container the hungry carried. He imagined Temple Avenue must look much the same.

When he reached the Noble District he found the streets dotted with armed men. Patrols of Helms and Scepters walked the streets. The gatehouses of the Old Chauncel manses were manned, not by two or three armed house guards, but by five or six.

Cale endured the suspicious gazes of the soldiers and headed south, past the towering walls of the Old Chauncel manses, toward Stormweather Towers. A group of mail-armored Helms stood in the street before his old home, blocking the walkway that led to the gatehouse. Shields hung from their backs; crossbows dangled from shoulder slings. All bore broadswords at their belts. Cale gauged their number at about a score. The pedestrian traffic-there was little-steered clear of the soldiers. But not Cale. He walked toward them, keeping his hand clear of Weaveshear as he approached. With conscious effort, he kept shadows from sneaking free of his flesh. The Helms saw him coming and three of them detached from the rest and stepped forward to halt his advance.

"The Hulorn holds audiences only on the tenth of each month," said the oldest of the three, a thick-set warrior with a square jaw and hard eyes. "Leave your name with the clerk in the palace and you will be seen in due time."

At first Cale could not make sense of the words. "The hulorn? Why is the hulorn in Stormweather?"

The man's eyes never left Cale's face. The eyes of his two comrades never left Cale's blade hand. "Lord Uskevren resides-"

Cale took a step back, incredulous. "Tamlin Uskevren is the hulorn?"

The Helms looked agitated at his tone. "Calm down, goodsir. Of course Tamlin Uskevren is the hulorn-has been these four months past. You are new to the city?"