Aethersmith by J.S. Morin

Author:J.S. Morin [Morin, J.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press
Published: 2013-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22 - The Enemy Within

The sun rose over the city of Munne. Many of the Kadrin peasants who called it home had somehow not expected it to. Smoke drifted up from some of the buildings, but came from chimneys, not the structures themselves. All was not well, but it was far better than they had feared. Some folk went to work that morning as if nothing had happened; most did not. The streets were hardly quiet, for soldiers in unfamiliar blue uniforms patrolled them in numbers, more for something to occupy themselves than out of any need for occupying the city.

The few remaining Kadrin troops who had finally surrendered had been led from the city. No one had told the population just where those soldiers had been taken or what had been done with them.

Soldiers spent the day knocking on doors and searching homes. They took anything that seemed likely to be used as a weapon, but were surprisingly restrained. Tailors’ scissors and cooks’ knives were allowed to be kept; even butchers’ cleavers were permitted. Swords and axes were confiscated, as were any bows found among the residents’ possessions.

In the wealthy districts of the city, merchants with gold stashed in every cupboard and under every floor board fretted about their coin; most did so in vain. Those with tinges of noble blood in their lineage—something they were usually all too proud to claim—found their homes looted but their lives spared. Those merchants lucky enough to have friends in Megrenn were permitted to pack their belongings, and leave the city and seek asylum there.

The lesser nobles who engaged in no real trade, but lived on the wealth of their lands, were gone; no one knew where. Lord Grenorn had escaped, along with most of his relatives, aboard one of the Kadrin airships. Monohorn teams were busily tearing his estate to rubble, the great beasts hauling heavy chains wrapped around the support pillars or merely butting their armored heads into the walls.

The day passed peacefully, if uneasily, for the peasants in occupied Munne.

* * * * * * * *

Night fell, bringing with it a sense of normalcy, after a fashion. Common folk who would be at work all day felt trapped within the walls of their homes, with hostile troops all about outside. Those same folk felt protected when the darkness came, and those same walls surrounded them.

A curfew had been put in place, requiring all civilians to stay indoors after dark. It had been shouted at every major street corner by a strong-voiced lad who spoke Kadrin well enough, despite a strong Megrenn accent. The peasants were generally happy with the arrangement, wanting no part of the darkened streets with Megrenn all about.

The peasants were not the only ones within the city walls.

The night had deepened to its fullest as clouds suffocated the moon. That was when the fires began. The first blaze started in the Kadrin barracks, where Megrenn troops had settled, though the structure was nothing remotely adequate to house the whole of the occupation force.

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