Iron Quill (Absent Friends): Toast the Martyr

[Ierocis]

"Here's something for you to write about, Mr. Everett." The guardsman's rifle stock mercifully missed my ribs, which surely would have cracked one or two. Unfortunately in doing so, he ploughed into my guts with not much but my thin cotton shirt to soften the blow. I folded over like a house of cards. A boot added to my momentum, rolling me down an embankment so that I came to rest in the contents of someone's chamberpot, shovelled against a street curb.

 

Being already past sundown, and having been pulled from my bed, it was hard enough to get my bearings much less fight off my attackers.

 

Hands grabbed at me, ushering me back to my feet, though my innards denied any desire to stand. I blinked away the blurriness and tried to focus on something or someone other than the heaving pain. A burly form coalesced in front of me and yanked my head up with a firm grip on my soiled hair.

 

The hard set face bathed in stubble was as kind as one would expect from a Guild guard. When my brain stopped rattling about in my skull I remembered him as the man who had broken into my home to set upon my printing press with a menace usually reserved for murderers and thugs. The man seemed not to have settled all his frustrations though as he spat on my face.

 

"Bring him inside, we need to have a few words."

 

I should have held my tongue but my wit had a way of getting the better of me. "Should have thought of that before you saw fit to malign my print. Or perhaps your issue was with the complexity of the parlance, Captain."

 

The retaliation was swift and expected but I was unable to roll with it as my captors held me firmly so that this time I heard the crunch of bone under the swinging rifle. Having already been winded from the earlier assault, the broken ribs made any sort of breathing recovery a painful endeavour. I blacked out.

 

I awoke as my head was plunged into a bucket of, what I hoped was well water. The fire in my lungs would have had me believe I was drowning but I was uncertain given my other injuries. When my head was brought up, a blackened-toothy smile of a heavy tobacco chewer greeted me.

 

“He's awake, Cap'n” sour breath wafted over me adding to my agonizing laboured breathing.

 

“Jim, welcome to the Happy Hour Saloon! I can call you Jim, right? Mr. Everett is so formal.” the voice was the familiar gravelly tone of my earlier tormentor. I struggled to clear my vision and seek him out so I could at least prepare myself if he decided to rain down another beating. The saloon name was unfamiliar to me, an uncomfortable prospect since I knew most of them by heart. It was reasonably safe to assume they'd taken me somewhere isolated so they could string out my interrogation for as long as it needed to take.

 

“So we're friends now that we've traded a few barbs?”

 

My peripheral vision saw the flying fist just as it made contact with my head. “I ask the questions. We're here to discuss your rag sheet sources then we can debate your future, Jim.”

 

Not being the most hardy of sorts I feared I'd not hold out long for any line of questioning but giving up my sources would have been like breaching a sacred vow.

 

“Now why would my sources interest a man of integrity like you, given they only seem to utter lies and gossip?”

 

Steady pressure on my ribs caused me to cry out and lose my train of thought. For a moment I swore I smelt the comforting smell of a campfire before the unnamed Guild captain blocked my view.

 

“I ask the questions, Jim. Don't make this harder on you than it needs to be. We all know you academic types don't like to get dirty. So why not just come clean?”

 

“Uh, Captain?” the chewer put a hand on his boss' shoulder.

 

“Touch me again and you can join our friend here, Smithson.”

 

I wasn't dreaming, I could distinctly smell wood burning this time. I searched for the source given the room was cold and lit only by a couple lanterns hanging above a bar. In the mirror behind the bar all I could see was the reflection of an old rusted banjo.

 

“But Sir.”

 

“It can wait till we have settled matters with James, here.” The guild captain was getting increasingly irate and his temper threatened to manifest again in physical form.

 

“You should have learned to listen to your men, Captain. It might have saved your life.” The words were both seductively feminine yet frightfully cold. They came from somewhere behind me.

 

A sudden burst of light blinded me and I noted a dramatic increase in temperature to my surroundings. Fiery impish creatures were everywhere, setting floor boards and furniture a light with their passing.

 

“It's that witch, Kaeris! Get her!”

 

A rush of elation filled my being, the Arcanists hadn't abandoned me to my fate and would spring me to write of the Guild's iron-fisted injustice again.

 

Gunshots and screams rang in my ears while the stench of burning flesh and hair quickly drowned out the more pleasant charring lumber.

 

Occasionally I'd catch a glimpse of the battle behind me in the bar's mirror. Guild men flailing, consumed in flames as their flesh bubbled and boiled offer their bones. I was mostly left to my imagination and other senses to determine the fate of my rescuers and captors.

 

Finding myself unguarded and unbound, I slipped from my chair and crawled on my hands and knees towards the freedom that was so near. As was my luck since landing in Malifaux, it was not to be. A beam of considerable weight trap my legs and crush my spine, pinning me not 10 feet from the door.

 

I'd have to wait out the fate of the battle to either be saved or condemned. One by one the voices died out till only one remained.

 

“Now the people will rise up and punish the Guild for trying to silence the truth.” Although flowing like honey, there was a disturbing tinge of fanaticism to the pitch of the voice.”

 

I coughed as smoke sought out shelter in my chest.“Kaeris? Help me, I'm over here by the bar. I'm trapped.”

 

One of the fire gamin skipped by setting the door frame to the outdoors on fire.

 

“A great injustice is put right this night, Mr. Everett.”

 

I wanted to partake in her joy but my increasing pain at having not been extracted from under the heavy beam made me somewhat irritable.

 

“I'll be sure to write up a feature piece on your great victory as soon as we get out of here.”

 

There was a swooping rush of wind as Anasalea Kaeris of the Arcanists landed before me on a set of magnificent metallic wings. Resembling every bit the angel of vindication and freedom, her golden wings folded behind her slender back as she grabbed a shot glass off the ground. She straightened and turned to regard me with a degree of pity.

 

I felt dread slowly seep into my soul as the pity melted away into clinical detachment.

 

The fair-haired saint's predatory smile flitted in and out of shadows cast by the now raging inferno surrounding us both. "Oh, I didn't do it. You did." As the smoke billowed, filling the saloon, I felt myself slipping again into unconsciousness. “Your unjust death will stir the locals to arms allowing us the distraction we need to spring hundreds from gaol. I was just dispatched to ensure you died without giving away your benefactors.”

 

She walked slowly back to the bar and poured herself a drink, seemingly undisturbed by the flames licking at the very bar she stood at.“To the martyr of the revolution,” she raised her glass in toast.

 

“To absent friends
To those we have met
To those we have yet to meet
To those who have left us for a while
And to those who have left us forever
Let us lift our glasses
And drink a toast
That they may abide in our hearts forever
To absent friends."

 

 

 

 

 

 

1413 words

Theme: Absence (Sort of)
Character: The Academic
Line: "Oh, I didn't do it. You did."
Item:  A rusted banjo
Location: A Saloon

[Hateful Darkblack]

Wicked.

[afeinman]

Nice! Good pace, a straightforward narrative with tension and resolve. A few notes:

 

• refuted -> not the right word here. "Denied", maybe?
• captures -> captors
• his temper threatened to manifest again
• As they came from -> don't need the "As"; or, join this to the previous sentence?
• "I was mostly left" -> "It was"
• "I wanted to partake in her joy but my increasing pain and having not been extracted" -> reword, or add commas; or "at not having been extracted"?
• Don't be afraid of a few ", I asked." and ", he said." lines...it gets hard to tell who is speaking at times.
• You might review use of commas--there are a few comma-splice sentences and a few places where commas weren't needed. ("Don't use commas, which aren't necessary" is the mantra I use to remember where.)

[Ierocis]

Thanks for the critique, Afeinman.