Earth's Knot: An Epic Fantasy Novella (The Knot - Breaker Cycle Book 1) by Deann Katie

Author:Deann, Katie [Deann, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

Vala Ospur

This I swear–

“I go where needed,

I hunt what threatens,

Evil will find no harbour

As long as I draw breath.”

- Oath of the wardens of the City of Knot

If there was one thing Vala Ospur hated worse than being faced with a criminal who wouldn’t stay captured, it was questionable meat. It wasn’t that she was a connoisseur or finicky. She had just eaten so much of it down here that she had promised herself she would never willingly eat meat with shady origins if she could help it.

“Just what do you call this?” She waved the undecipherable chunk of brown meat-on-a-stick at the grey-robed seller, who stood two feet shorter than her willowy frame, grinning toothily at her.

“Ah that’s prime suckling piglet that is, braised and spiced and fried by my very own fair hands!” said Hep Throbisher. Hep was one of the more prominent street-peddlers who worked the small market section that Vala frequently patrolled; he was a regular fixture.

As the peddler made this grand pronouncement, he brought his hands out from under his robe and waved them about. The bandaged mess of filthy rags and crusted, cooking grease that covered his hands not only looked disgusting but also gave off an odd smell. Vala felt vaguely sick.

“Prime rat, more like!” she muttered darkly,

“Well, there’s a surplus of them in the city too,” Hep cackled, winking at her, before waving her on and turning to his next customer.

Vala was about to drag him aside and show him where he could keep his opinions and his meat-on-a-stick, but then sighed and stepped away. She had better things to do than give greedy, little men like Hep Throbisher a hard time, however well deserved.

The small markets were busy today, crowded with bodies and carts and the braying of animal noises. The loud noises, overpowering smells, and the vaguely rancid taste of Throbisher’s ‘pig stick,’ which she had mistakenly bitten into, made her queasy. Searching for a little space, she pushed her way to the side of the avenue, ducked into where the street joined a small terraced balcony and climbed a few winding steps up to reach it.

She leaned against the old wood and brass railing and looked down over the sea of heads shuffling and arguing with each other. Directly across her, above the level of the street-level storefronts, another balcony skirted more establishments; artisan’s shops, bakers, printers and seamstresses.

Much better, she thought as she gratefully inhaled a breath of slightly fresher air and surveyed the city spread out before her. To her, Knot seemed like a giant, tiered cake, built in layers, each section of the city sprouting new terraces, balconies, avenues and caverns. The entire city complex was an immense labyrinth–some routes circled back on each other, some lead to dead ends that people had creatively turned into stores or homes.

Streets were built atop each other, with houses squeezed in between. Whole sections of the city existed below each other, markets and housing districts, squares and temples existing in semi-permanent gloom.

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