The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath by Ian Green

Author:Ian Green [Green, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800244078
Google: w2UAEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B092MW22NK
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2021-08-04T23:00:00+00:00

~

Hours later, Yselda was worrying at a loose nail in the carriage seat when they finally reached Ossen-Tyr. It loomed from between two rounded peaks of rough rock, and Yselda found herself staring grimly at the stone watchtowers and wooden palisades. They were no help to Hookstone, she thought. What is the use in a palisade if you can simply fly over it?

The gates were open, and the coach trundled through with no remark and pulled to a stop in a market square where some traders were already set up for the day, stalls of vegetables and meat and skins and whatnot. They disembarked and Heasin drew glances immediately. Heasin with Voltos next to him was enough to make people stop what they were doing and openly watch, lowering crates of vegetables and grabbing their colleagues to point and whisper.

‘This,’ Voltos said, ‘might get tiring. My burly friend, would you consider donning your hood that we might move somewhat surreptitiously? Tullioch are not so common, this far from the sea.’

Heasin stared down at the diminutive Antian and shrugged, and then pulled the cowl of his robes up.

‘I think,’ he said sibilantly, ‘they will see me anyway. We are not common as it is dry here. Too dry, I am thinking.’

He sniffed at the air and flicked his tongue out, and Yselda shivered. The Tullioch spoke Isken well enough, but his gestures felt so foreign to her. She could never tell quite what he was thinking.

‘We need to go to the garrison to find the whitestaffs,’ the captain said. ‘Heasin, Voltos, Tomas, with me. Cuss, Yselda, Ossen-Tyr doesn’t seem to have been hit yet, so see what rumours you can find in the market: directions of the orbs, any strange activity. Meet us at the garrison at noon.’

With that, Floré shouldered her pack and went to speak a few words to the coach driver, and then the four adults departed. They were alone. Yselda looked at Cuss and blew out a breath.

‘What do you think, Cadet Grantimber?’ she asked, and Cuss grinned, eying the market stalls.

‘… breakfast, Cadet Hollow?’

They shouldered their packs and left the east gate market square where the mail coach had deposited them, heading into the town proper and the centre where there should be more fare and folk. Ossen-Tyr was an old mining town; Yselda knew the Ferron had used it as a centre for their mining operation in Undal, and from the nightmare of the Ossen-Tyr mines some of the first resistances to the occupation had sparked. There was an overseer’s building that was now the Stormguard garrison, but aside from that and the hard slave road connecting Ossen-Tyr to Undal in the south and Aber-Ouse in the far north, there wasn’t much from Ferron left, or old Undalor even. The Ferron had pulled down the castle of whatever lord or chief from Old Undalor had ruled the place, but whoever that was their name was lost now.

Tall buildings of quarried pale stone were thatched and well maintained, and the main streets were cobbled and kept clear of rubbish.

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