Dusk Over Arcath

Chapter 8

A dribble of grease sizzled down Asters chin as he thrust a dagger full of pork into his mouth. Wafting scents of meat and herbs, honey and beer, and a medley of other delightful smells drifted through the dusty air. 

Hunching over a makeshift table, Aster let his eyes drift over the sea of bodies that filled the town. Huge Elderwood tables sat in a square around the stone pavilion in the center of the city with rows of workbench tables like the one he sat at assembled around them. Moonwalkers, still donned in the dull metal of their armor, sat or wandered around the inner tables - tables of high honor as they appeared. Around and beside them sat Endel and his officers, characterized as a vastness of white wolf pelt in contrast to the black of the moonwalker's garb. 

Eerie, he shivered, that the sun reflects nothing off their plate. 

He shook his head and turned back to the slab of dirty wood that held a heap of roast pork. 

"Keep eating," Canth suggested from beside him. "The meat's good. And the mead," he starred into a wooden flask beside him where a thick brown brew sloshed, "well - it's better than the dishwater at Ton's."

Aster licked a bead of hot grease from his steel. "I've lost much of my appetite." 

The smaller boy shook his head. "You will be hard pressed to find a meal like this again soon. Word has it Emereld ordered the fat sows from the south pastures butchered for the guests." He looked over his nearly empty plate. "Then again, our sup is probably some would-be shepherds crippled sow, but meat is meat." 

Aster was silent. 

"Look on the bright side," Canth insisted, "you joined the Watch so you might go into the woods. You finally can and -" he hesitated. "Well, you'll have a way out after its over." 

Dropping his dagger, Aster slowly turned to Canth. "You mean because I'll be dead?" 

"You - you don't know that for certain. We have no idea what awaits. It might be that a hundred and ninety nine axes beside you are able to turn any foul beast."

"You're right." At least I'm still alive, he considered. It had been a surprise when the Watchmen turned him and Castleia loose to the feast, but he supposed there was not much of anywhere for them to run. "If you'll excuse me," he pushed his bench back, "I'll go see to it that at least my ax is a fair bit sharper." 

Canth nodded a goodbye, snitching some strands of meat from his now-absent friend's plate. 

Arcath was as dead as the pigs sizzling in its square. Those with curiosity to see the moonwalker's or a stomach for orast had already made their way to the square. Those who feared or were unsettled by the elves' presence had already made themselves scarce. 

Pacing down the cobblestone side-road, Aster stopped by Ton's tavern to retrieve  his weapon. The innkeeper was absent. No doubt filling himself on the city's pork, he mused. A picture of the short, dim man chin deep in a pile of sizzling meat brought a ghost of a smile to his lips. 

A thin layer of water sloshed incompletely under his feet as he descended through the sweeping lowroad. Spring had brought more than wolf packs - rains seeped into the lower streets, filling the drainless mud and stone dikes like canals. Thankfully it had been a drier than normal spring, making the wild animals wilder but the water a bit tamer. 

He followed the path until it skirted the city's outer wall. Snippets of conversation occasionally drifted to his ear from bored Watchmen unlucky enough to draw the midday shift on the Wall. 

The West gate was a fair deal smaller than the North, its mouth wide and low with the metal portcullis biting into the stones below. Two Watchmen manned the post, idling on either side.