Story 27 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – The City of Promise

Story 27 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – The City of Promise


Halr dragged his feet over the packed dirt road to where the wagons stood ready. Here, in the muddy streets of small towns the people clustered, and the wagons. Men with dark eyes stared blindly at their passengers. Here only the richest of the rich could afford a wagon pulled by proud horses. The rich could afford a horse. For the poor there were also two choices: walk or ride on one of the ox carts. Here and there one of these stood. One by one they filled up with hopeful souls and left two ruts in the road to head north. Always north.

Halr shoved his hand in his pocket and drew out some of the coins there. He drew his head up and went to one of the men atop of a wagon whose oxen still looked healthy.

“Need a ride?” the man asked, although he did not need to. He knew the haunted look of those eyes well.

“Please, sir,” Halr said. “To Marglóthborg.” The man looked at the scanty coins and the thin young man before nodding his head. “Get up.”

Halr climbed into the back of the wagon. No one else had yet climbed aboard - most were still saying their farewells. For Halr his farewells were far behind him now.

“You’d better hide that sword when you get to Marglóthborg, boy,” the man said and twisted the reigns around his fingers. “Not many want to remember the war there, you know.” He cast his eyes to the road. “To many that were on different sides now living there, you know. Better keep it out of the way. Better not be seen.” He paused for a while. “You know the common tongue?” he asked.

“A little,” Halr answered with an accent. “I have been taught as much as my parents knew.” His accent was still unmistakable, but the vocabulary seemed to be there. The man nodded. "Good, good. May not like it, but it is what it is. You'll have a better time with the common tongue in Marglóthborg. They don’t much like the refugees of the Sundering.”

A few other travellers climbed onto the wagon. Halr realised that he was one of the eldest there at nearly seventeen summers. All kept their eyes averted from one another and kept their scanty belongings clutched close to them.

Outside the town the road to the north kept on straight while the ones that would go east to the sea and the salt mines and west to the dry lands curled away. The road was bare and ruts made the journey all the more unpleasant as they swayed from side to side or banged elbows and shoulders as the wagon dipped and danced on the well-used road.

Around them vast plains stretched as far as the eye could see with only a jutting rock or tree here and there. In the small towns shade could be sought more easily and Halr felt delight each time he could stretch his legs. In the towns he also started to see more and more of the travellers from the south. They came with their goods in the summer and then went away to their far homes near the sea in the winter before setting out as one on the road once more.

That night he slept beneath the wagon as he had not the means to buy himself a bed at any of the inns and did not wish to miss the wagon in the morning. And so the ride went on and on, each day the same with little change in scenery until the fifth day when the land started to slope steeply and then fall again. Trees grew more lush here and the hand of man could also be seen. The road got a lot better here as well, giving the travellers some good respite.

“Are we close to the city?” Halr asked the man.

“Aye, we are. A few hours yet and you’ll see the great thing sprawling on the hills.”

Stories told at home lingered in his mind and he could not help but ask the man if they were true.

“Are all the buildings built of glittering stone and gold in Marglóthborg, sir?” he asked and the man’s large belly shook as he laughed.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Not all, though some do go a bit overboard to show their wealth.” He looked back at the youth’s shocked face. “Only the rich can afford the fire-rocks, boy,” he said, though his voice were not harsh. “And the rich do deck their houses in red and gold.”

“And some in blue?"

“The very rich may use the blue, yes,” he said. “It’s the rocks that made the city possible in the first place,” he explained. “They use the poor to dig up the rocks. Many a man has made his fortune with the rocks.”

“I am sure I can be a miner,” Halr mused. “I can delve as good as anyone. I can sell my own rocks and become rich.”

The man shook his head sadly. “You’ll never get your own piece of ground. I would not see any more people go into those pits to die. Rather live in the open air and be well-off than crushed by rocks and poor.”

“But-“

“The rich own what is under the soil, boy, they will take the rocks for themselves to festoon themselves and their houses. You will not get any of the rocks to keep.”

Halr suddenly felt nauseous. “But I have to send money home,” he nearly pleaded.

“And so you shall,” the man spoke softly. “But take a half-lame man’s word for it. Don’t go into the mines to delve for riches that belong only to a few.”



The city loomed like a great animal upon the hills that stretched over the horizon. To the left larger buildings rose into the sky behind a thick wall. The right hand side of the city seemed small and insignificant where it lay dark in the shadow of the mines and the heaps of rock carted from below the soil.

“The Khallahna say the fire rocks are evil,” the man said without taking his eyes from the city. “They never come here. Never.”

“How can a rock be evil?” Halr asked.

“They change a man’s heart, you know. They change him from the inside, corrupts his heart, his mind until nothing but a shell is left. Best you leave those rocks where they are. When the scavengers don’t go near those mines and heaps you know a place is dead.”

They reached the gates of the city and Halr gawped at the magnificence of the gates. They were of thick wood and upon them were decorations in bronze depicting the army of the lands, banners unfurled to show a large red stone glittering in each of them. A fire stone. On the lower part of the gates were riveted countless spikes. Around them the street became busier as people flocked to the gate. Around him he could hear many tongues and dialects, but mostly he heard the common tongue, although even that was spoken with more accents than he could count.

They passed the magnificent doors into a tight corridor which opened to reveal a large square thronged with people. In relation to it the markets and cities of the south looked small. Here there were countless stalls selling goods from lands he had never even heard of. Near the centre of the square with its ten-foot statue of some long-gone king and its accompanying fountain, the wagon stopped. All the young men soon clambered off of it, taking with them the scant belongings that they brought to their new lives in the city.

Halr remained behind while the others scattered to inns or nearby food stalls, and looked at all the high buildings that sat with their bulk of light stone and banners watching over their master's comings and goings.

For a brief moment the wagon master peered back over his shoulder. “Don’t go to the mines,” he warned again before touching the faded cloth cap on his head and rambling off. And so Halr was left alone in the strange city of the north and already he could feel the press of the walls of the city upon him.

A loud voice pulled his feet to another cart that was set up not far from the fountain. A tall man with a wisp of a beard stood on some steps before the cart, holding in his hands a bottle filled with cloudy liquid.

“I have travelled to the far corners of the lands on this fine earth," he said, flourishing his arms to make his scarlet cloak wave about him. “I have been to the southern seas where dragons still live, and to the east where and island of the dead is in sight of the land. I have been to the west where the earth itself is black , I have been to the north where the icy breaths of the wind makes a desert out of ice. I have seen all of these things and I have brought back to you medicine that can cure all ailments!”

People started clustering around the wagon to see what the man had to sell. But Halr had no use of the man’s medicine and now he was too scared to go to the mines. But he had to earn a living. He wrapped his hands tighter around the wrapped form of his sword. He didn’t have much education, but he could fight as well as his father. But his father’s one wish was that his son would never have to take up the sword. But his family also needed the money. He hung his head and knew what the choice was that he had to make. He headed to an inn. After getting cleaned up he would go to the grand houses and hear which of them needed another guard.