22nd of Spring, 512 AV
Frothy swells crashed upon the strand, dully rumbling over a carpet of debris and tangled crafts. Hulks canted askew over pebbles, the last revenants of crews combing at kelp-mossed planks, mending a prevalence of busted strakes. The din swept over ramparts scaled by defiles of eroded, tumbled rocks, then further, through twists of blocky guts.
Fading.
Ulric’s jaw gave a jerk, and clasped a huge lump of slate, his smolder of coal-dark eyes raked sourly over the pewter-gray sky. These were uneasy bells, yielding to the sluggish plunge of dusk. The corridors were dejected, infused by a gloom that the rusty cages of braziers and their writhing, spitting nests of embers couldn’t banish from his bones. He’d abjure the gates presently, but for now, he’d another task. He hefted the chunk of slate, jagged corners trying to skewer the tough leather of his gloves, and hurled it into the already jumbles confines of a wagon. Nearby, throngs of grimy drudges toiled, dreary-eyed mules tugged on yokes, trundling away mounds of rubble for disposal. This region was suffused by a weary bedlam, all hoarse cries and low, testy grunts. They’d not recognize his visage, just peek warily at the lattice of scars over his exposed chest, vast swathes of hideous, flaying purple.
Idly, he spat out flecks of grit, the ridge of his spine curving as he grasped a buried boulder. They’d just blame me, he chewed at his lip, broad shelves of shoulder trembling as he yanked at the slab. The planes of rubble wouldn’t defer to his will, but he just jerked at them implacably. The boiling of guilt only fueled his thrashing. The fiery god, he grunted. That’s whose fury we felt, his and the priest, and the other priest. They sacrificed thousands of souls for power, but when together we gazed into the depths of inferno, and I perceived the gleam in their gimlets, did I reach for my maul? This is just as much my doing. Try as he might, he couldn’t banish the traces of flaky ashes from his mouth, not with swilled wine, nor prayer.
Ulric’s ligaments bulged in knotty cables, horridly twitching and bunching as the pulse of veins projected from livid forehead. Then the jumble shifted in grinding, scraping discord. The boulder lifted, shedding a grubby blanket of dirt. Then he twisted slowly, a large man bearing a large rock. There was a vague quaking in his knees, though they stayed rooted. “Shyke,” he grunted, and flung it at the wagon. The huge slab struck with a dull, delayed crunch. The planks gave a sulky groan, and the mule brayed as if protesting the indignity.
There wasn’t much of a rejoinder. Ulric just glared for an instant, then crawled over the broken knuckle of a rafter. The boulders were tediously subjugated, until he found himself facing a butte of tiles, their ruddy, glazed surfaces plunging from layers of crumby limestone. Furling into a squat, he squeezed aching palms over the pocks that fringed the press of gravel. That’s just life, he grunted, but even as he wrested up another rock, he found himself slipping. The disloyal ridge toppled in a pulverized, belching swirl of stone dust, the cage of his ribs jostling on the rocks. There was a flare of purple, coruscating anguish, and he grimaced.
“Petch that,” Ulric snarled, and clasped the large, iron-shod splinter that’d lodged in his flesh, his lips curling in the scar of a grin.
