Chapter 1: Lost And Found

A competitor! Bolo slunk behind a pillar. He had little reason to believe that a mendicant would prove an ally and even less, a friend. Bolo could find himself in a dangerous position if he offended the wrong street dweller. Peering out, he spied the scrawny, hooded fellow bumming down on a grimy step, greeting those known with a nod or a wave. Bolo’s rival set out two bowls; one for himself and a larger one for a grey hound who appeared in a flash with a scavenged apple in his mouth. The hound dropped the fruit loyally at his master’s feet. The scrawny fellow ruffled the dog’s mane vigorously and took a large bite from the apple. Bolo felt his mouth water. How the hunger gnaws in my belly. He watched studiously as the city folk dropped things they didn’t want or thought they didn’t need into the beggar’s lap. Was this the life that Bolo would also be forced to lead? 

        He watched with increasing envy as the fellow took his time to down a quart of donated mead, burping loudly on draining its dregs. Then the beggar got up, seemingly to empty his bladder. Taking that chance, Bolo hurried past the dog; busily scraping a bone clean and ducked into the same alley the beggar had entered. Bolo planned to introduce himself, explain that he was there for a destined reason and supplicate the fellow’s aid.

         The alley proved empty and Bolo walked past several bunkers of rotting wood. They exuded a foul and familiar smell. The sound of running water caught Bolo’s attention and he turned to see the beggar crouched on the ground, relieving himself—herself! She glared up at him as he realized all too late that the dirt-scored face was a feminine one and he, Bolo, was suddenly in a very sticky situation. 

        The lady in question pulled her hood all the way back and began cursing him more foully than the stench in the alley. He recognized a few of the words and they made him blush. To others he was new but he found himself learning fast—to back away. Bolo looked just like a regretful assailant when the beggar lady backed him out of the alley and her large grey hound picked up on this immediately. He managed to say “If you would, please allow me to explain myself,” before he realized the dog was going to tear him apart and did the wisest thing possible. 

        Unable to go forth or back he took off on a sideways run which turned into a desperate sprint as the general public began cheering the dog onwards. Unfamiliar with the streets, Bolo just ran all he could, out of range and until no one seemed to care. There, he slowed to a walk and ducked under a bridge across the River Umayo. 

        As he stood there steaming in the cold morning air he heard a slithering sound and realized with horror that he was surrounded by soggy rats in all sizes. A slick, greenish mud coated his side of the bridge and the pong of the river told him that the city’s waste was emptied therein. He caught his breath, fearing the powerful effect of the dirty water but at least he was safe from canine teeth. Despite the rats nearby, Bolo’s stomach grumbled. Might it be his body was contemplating eating the rodents before his mind could accept the idea? Bolo sure was hungry. His tiny, rationed food bundle lay back at the square he had run from. He hadn’t expected to be chased off. He would just have to find his way back and get it.

        Faces looked indifferent as he slowly retraced his steps. How different was a person’s countenance when they came seeking favor at the palace. Most of the citizens he passed seemed to be working class, but the wealthy were woven in among them. Finely dressed merchants stepped hastily out of dirty man Bolo’s path. 

        Three weeks of hiding in the mountains had reduced Bolo to a disheveled heap of mold that a bird wouldn’t nest in. The Marchers had chased off plenty of birds when they beat the bushes looking for him. Bolo was important to them. They could break morale if they broke the leader, publicly. That’s why he had fled with a handful of trusted scouts to rally reinforcements. 

        The Marchers came by night in such large numbers that the battle was won before it had ever started. No one had expected them to cross the arid plains but they were prepared. The Marcher army was a megalopolis on the move. It was city against city and they had merged to the enemy’s advantage. The Marchers occupied Aurora’s stately streets like she belonged to them, except they were cruel masters. They didn’t take care of her. They only wanted the city for what lay beneath her and they had enslaved so many of her people to dig for that prize.           

        Bolo had always been taught forbearance but it required steady discipline in this case. All the more so because the Marchers were facilitating an ancient prophecy’s fulfillment. It was built on stories of the past and he didn’t know if he quite believed them himself. Certainly he hadn’t wrecked half his city to dig up the evidence. Some things were better left buried. 

        In the end he kept himself safe by hiding in a secluded but damp cave. Rocks formed a natural alcove deep inside where he had dipped himself up to his eyes in freezing water whenever he heard voices echoing down the walls. Eventually they gave him up as dead or gone and he sneaked past the sparse forest sentries to enter the city’s outskirts. He saw many things along the way. Marchers had seized most of the good land and the crops were divided among their soldiers. Food was becoming scarce and expensive. They didn’t hesitate to use force on civilians and if the victims died the bodies were callously left in the streets. Aurorans had to take care of their own. 

        Bolo was barely a man and exposure to real life on the streets shocked him after his sheltered upbringing and closeted training to knighthood. His father had been a strong leader but he had died suddenly and Prince Bolo had to hold the realm without ever knowing if he was truly ready. Perhaps that was the reason for the timing of the Marcher arrival. They struck before he had taken a firm grasp on the scepter. 

        In his disguise as a beggar he would contend with those invaders but they were not the only foe. There were also those who made the city hell. Ruffians in bands and the sly who operated alone survived by taking from those who had. Some used skill and some used blunt force trauma. He was sharply aware of calculating eyes on certain street corners. Their greed disturbed him and forgetting himself once or twice he had stared them down. 

        He’d felt small as they sniggered quietly and sized him up though he hardly seemed worth the effort. When the authorities weren’t around they knew they owned the streets and continued to operate as if the Marchers weren’t even there. He learned fast to keep his head low. No point inviting trouble. Not while he was the newcomer. He didn’t want to attract attention either. Being incarcerated for involvement in a brawl might lead to his identity being revealed. He knew that most thuggery happened after dark so he thought he would be fairly safe until then. He thought wrong. 

        A shadowy figure loomed and dragged him across the threshold of a crooked doorway. The strength in his attacker’s arms was enormous and despite resisting Bolo was handled like a child. He was felled and sprawled on a stone floor littered with dried scraps. He looked up to see a heavily pregnant woman seated at a table with an infant in her fat arms. The boy began crying and tears cleaned streaks down both of his cheeks.

        A thump on the thick wooden table made him jump and Bolo turned around to see a mountain of a man with lank black hair, a belligerent expression and haphazard yellow teeth framed by sneering lips. He had the look of a fellow who hadn’t been fully sober for a long, long time. A dauntingly fetid smell emanated from every inch of his being. 

      

         “You are going to get us something to eat!” he bellowed. 

        “Well, of course I will. I just had that thought myself! What would you like?” Bolo asked, trying to negotiate a very quick exit. He realized it was no use appealing to the woman. She looked like someone had recently slapped her in the face with a wet fish. 

        “Something!” roared the man, not used to being given a choice. “Just be quick—or be dead. If you’re not back here in half an hour I’ll come looking for you and if I find you empty handed I’ll break every bone in your body.” He took a swig from an earthen flask. Bolo couldn’t help an involuntarily nervous laugh. If the man was going to go to the trouble of looking for him he could as well do his own food gathering. Bolo had no doubt though that the man could do as he threatened to and he probably already had on many an occasion. There would no treatment for broken bones available on Aurora’s back streets and no guarantee that the bones would heal straight, by themselves. Bolo had seen many deformities that day already. He quickly covered his nervous reflex up. 

        “I’m laughing … Well, I’m just laughing because people are so funny these days. They never really know what they want.” The big man looked at his wife to gauge whether he was being mocked. Luckily, she was too apathetic towards Bolo to realize what he truly meant. Bolo followed the man’s gaze and gestured to the little family instead.

         “Never fear, sir. I know exactly where good stock is to be had. We’ll feed that boy up so he’s big and strong like his Daddy. Just wait here and you’ll see me soon.” As Bolo tried to slip out the rancid man grabbed him by the collar and breathed the stench of his dead insides into Bolo’s face. It seemed like the fellow filled half the room.

      

         “I’m not his Daddy,” he grunted and tossed His Majesty out on his ass. Bolo was pretty sure he had narrowly avoided a very hard clout too and made a mental note to watch his back a lot more carefully from then on. Being back among more relatively normal citizens was somewhat reassuring and he made no intention of going back to that house by choice. The city was large enough to avoid encountering the man ever again—well, at least for a while. Bolo would just have to seem like a harder target without giving the fact away that in the right framework he was indeed an extremely hard target. 

        When he got back to the square the lady beggar was still sitting there, calling out. “Come on, come on. I haven’t had a bite today!” Bolo didn’t think hers was a very effective approach. Her attitude seemed ungracious and the mantra-like phrase she used was just plain rude. It only got worse though. “My dog’s got worms. They eat his food faster than he can!” What? Did she really think that was going to work? To his amazement several people shuffled as close as they dared to drop coins into her lap. The dog sat with his head up, his tail wagging and his ears alert. Business was booming and he did his bit to appear obedient and charm the customers. 

        Bolo’s bundle of food was gone, of course. He hadn’t wanted to expect it but it only made sense. There were many urchins who had to think on their feet. Finders keepers. Bolo looked around and made a note of where the square was situated. ‘Wall Street’ said the sign on a nearby building. He blamed the charms of palace life for not even knowing the layout of his own city. How will I eat today? 

        He looked again at the lady beggar who seemed like she could spare a bit but he didn’t want to approach her directly in case she caused another public scene. Instead, he watched and waited. There was obviously a redeeming quality to the girl since people were prepared to be so generous. Perhaps she had previously been well known and fell from grace somehow. Her voice cut cleanly through all the hustle and bustle around her—an ability developed with much practice, no doubt.

        People got to where they were going and the buzz of activity died down after a while. The square became almost quiet. It was then that Bolo saw a crow drop something from its perch on a roof. That something looked like meat. It gave him an idea and he picked it up on his way over to the dog. “Here boy,” he said and gestured with the cured flesh. 

        The dog immediately got up and took the meat. The lady smiled when she saw this but her mouth fell open when she recognized Bolo. She pursed her lips as if she was about to give him what for but he hushed her with a finger to his lips—it actually worked. The lady stared silently, her green eyes like cut glass, steady and fierce. Bolo held her gaze and tried to communicate friendship. It didn’t appear to be well received because she sourly looked away. Bolo kept petting the dog who had decided to let bygones be bygones, thanks to the offering of meat. 

        When the lady looked back, her expression had completely changed. Her countenance was more akin to a ray of sunshine and she moved her blanket a little, calling Bolo over with a pull of her head. “Sit,” she said and both he and the dog parked their posteriors simultaneously. She figured him for broke immediately so she ripped some bread from a larger hunk and gave it to him, along with a handful of grapes. Bolo tucked in voraciously without a second thought and allowed him a moment of peace. Then she broke the silence. 

        “Who are you anyway? I know everybody around here and their aunties too.” 

        “I’m just a blow-in,” he said. “I came around to see what’s happening here.” 

        “Why would you come now when you know we’re being occupied?” she asked. “And how did you get past them on the plains? Surely you were stopped for questioning?” 

        “I came by the mountains,” he said, eating the last of the grapes. 

        “You don’t sound like you’re from the North, Your accent is more like Western Plains.” 

        “Oh really?” Bolo found himself becoming defensive. His tutors had spent countless hours priming him on all the languages and dialects of the region and in his own opinion he had mastered a neutral and indecipherable mode of speaking but evidently that wasn’t clear. Instead he just shrugged and said “My Momma was from way out there.”

        “And your name, please?” she continued. 

        “Bolo,” he replied truthfully. 

        “Your name is Bolo?” she asked incredulously. “What kind of a name is that?” 

        “It is an old word for the point of a sword.” He smiled. 

        “Oh,” she said rather quietly and seemed a bit lost for words. The dynastic heirs were always named Bolo but to distinguish them their middle names were used by the public. The fact that she wasn’t familiar with the name placed her own origins way beyond Aurorean territory.

        “By the way,” he ventured brightly, “I didn’t see anything, you know, this morning. Your honor is still intact.”

        “Hardly,” she said, her eyes narrowing to slits with arrows poised behind them. “And I’ll thank you not to mention that and to drop it from your mind, please.” 

        “Of course,” Bolo replied meekly and they sat on in silence for a while before she got up to go. “Don’t leave,” he said weakly, suddenly reminded that his situation was quite desperate. He’d forgotten himself completely while sat next to her. The dog had wandered off as soon as he’d sensed his owner’s intent to move on and they both winced when they found him hydrating a trader’s cart wheel. “What’s his name?” Bolo asked. 

        “Shadow.” She smiled. “But I’ll tell you the story behind the name another good time.” 

        “And yours?” Bolo asked cautiously. 

        “Emba. Where will you sleep tonight, Bolo?” she said with a twinkle in her eye. His hesitation spoke volumes and she lowered her voice, looking around carefully. “Take my advice,” she murmured. “There are a couple of grain silos near the river docks. They’re almost empty but one of them is still locked. There’s a trap in one side just under the roof. You can climb down the inside of it. I used to stay there. You’ll be safe for tonight. I’ll spread the word. You might come in useful.” She winked at him and walked away.

        For a moment Bolo had the sense that there was more to the city than met the eye. He watched Emba go then found his way to the docks and marked out his hiding place while it was still daylight.

* * *

        Deep in the mine that night something shifted. It put the entire structure at risk. A shudder was felt up through a honeycomb of passages, closing some of them and burying people alive. Those closest to ground zero burned up in scorching gas that belched from the earth. Those fortunate enough to avoid having their lungs charred were poisoned by the same, deadly fumes. 

        When the Marchers descended and found a few survivors gasping for breath, they put them to death. The injured had served their purpose but could no more. Only those near the surface made it through the night. The deaths meant that a whole new generation of workers were required. Soldiers went to the city in the night and took people from their beds. There was no need for the smaller children. They were slaughtered where they lay. Those houses that were spared had become turncoats out of fear and marked their doors with the sign of the serpent, He who had tempted the Fallen Angels with mortal women.