the room continued until the man standing on the platform said the same words a few times, getting louder each time. A rush of attendees came late into the building. Vish noted the ripe aroma of unwashed bodies.
“Our first speaker tonight is Gerya of Fasthome. He will tell his story and then we will talk about what we can do.”
“Fasthome is in southern Serytar, is it not?” Vish said.
Sulm nodded his head. “He must have a grievance.”
“Grievance? Do all of these men protest the emperor’s rule?”
Sulm didn’t respond and looked towards the front. A bald-headed man walked up to platform. He raised his hands, except he only had one. The other forearm ended in a stump.
“Men of Baku, the Imperial City, I once had a lovely family. A wife and four daughters. I cut wood in the forests along the northern slopes of the mountains that separate Serytar from Dakkor and made enough dreks to get by. We had a cottage in the local lord’s woods and paid our taxes. We loved our life until Emperor Shalil claimed the forest for his own as tribute to the Emperor from my homeland.”
Vish stood by as the man continued to talk about his wife and daughters raped and killed as they drove him out of the forest. “As my penalty for stealing the Emperor’s trees?” He held up his hand.
The men roared in anger. A merchant jumped up on the platform and began to itemize the taxes that the Emperor had raised and the hardships that he had faced with the recent loss of his business. These weren’t just aired grievances. The speakers were riling up the crowd. Vish could feel violence stir in the air.
“Is this true?” Vish turned again to Sulm, but his tutor had left his side and headed back towards the exit. What about the meeting after? He’d seen enough. This was no place for him. Sulm’s long-standing relationship with the royal family had just come to an end, if Vish had anything to do with it.
As he fought his way back towards the entrance, he spotted the quick look back by Sulm as he exited ahead of him. The crowd became more intense as another man rose to disparage imperial rule. This meeting had turned out to be about rebellion.
Vish thought he heard a shout in Peleor’s voice. The roar of the crowd made it difficult for Vish to hear. He felt the sharp point of a knife penetrate his mail shirt and stop. He turned around and looked at yet another thug. He couldn’t use magic in a crowd of this size and doubted if Peleor could either.
Vish pulled his knife out and ran it across the hand of the man whose knife had hung up on the cloth of his cloak. Peleor’s doing or his mail shirt? The man punched Vish in the nose and all judgment left his mind as the dagger easily parted the man’s hard leather vest and plunged into his midsection. Vish slid the knife across and then pulled it out. He had read in a book on self-defense, that a long cut would be more effective than a single plunge of the knife.
His opponent grabbed his stomach and crouched down. The crowd drowned out his cries. A little space developed, so Vish quickly hid his knife and slipped through the crowd, stumbling out into the street. Men stood at the entrance to the hall gazing at the continuing complaints as Peleor grabbed Vish and led him around the building.
“There is Sulm,” Peleor said, pointing across the square.
The tutor stood talking to a man in a hooded cloak in the darkness. The guard entered the square carrying torches and passed the two men. Vish recognized Fenakyr’s face in the fleeting light of the torch. The guards proceeded to the packer guildhall.
“Can you stop Fenakyr and Sulm?” Vish asked. “I want to put an end to this, right now!”
“Only if we move closer.” Peleor said.
Vish followed him around the edges of the square, away from the entrance.
Voices began to emerge from the guildhall along with men running and yelling. “Someone’s been killed!” “The city guard is here!”
Men began to flow out of
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