(THOB) Chapter 44: Grit (Patreon)

The streets, although not as choked as it would be on festivals, were swarmed with people trampling whatever was left of the snow scattered across the stone floor. It was Ezril’s worse part of the days of outing. A test of the crowd.

They’d walked a good distance through the swarm of bodies when Olufemi asked, “Have you heard the title of our next test, brother?”

A part of Ezril dreaded this test more than anything, and he found he didn’t want to give voice to it. But sometimes answers were required when the questions came from Olufemi. “Yes,” he said, eventually. “I have.”

Olufemi made an inarticulate sound, easy enough to be mistaken for a moment of thought. “Do you fear it?”

Ezril frowned. Sometimes Olufemi could be an animal, sniffing his fear no matter how best he tried to hide it.

“Not particularly…” … I am a Hallowed… Ezril thought, I have to be. “It is just another test, brother. One we do not yet know what it entails.”

Ezril couldn’t imagine himself in a life where he was not a part of the seminary anymore. I even speak like them. With the thought came a realization. And he banished it to the recesses of his mind as violently as a tempest.

Olufemi spared him a skeptical look but said nothing.

They walked a distance longer, taking a turn after journeying a mile or so. It relieved them into a gathering of lesser numbers. In it they walked a while longer. On this path they would find the bar. It was common knowledge.

Instead, Ezril caught sight of a familiar face from the edge of his vision and froze.

It can’t be. The words crawled from a part of his mind he knew all too well. The things he kept there were banished to it for a reason.

He watched and waited, willing what he saw to present itself clearly. His wait seemed to go on forever, though it proved only but a moment.

“Brother?”

Olufemi’s voice drew Seth from his compulsion. And only when he looked at his brother’s face did he know he had stopped moving. It was a breath longer when he realized his hand was on the hilt of his veil.

“What’s wrong?” Olufemi proved unperturbed by the eyes on them as the passers-by moved around them, doubling the distance they already gave them, widening the berth as one would a leprous man.

“I fear this is where we path ways, brother,” Ezril told Olufemi, keeping whatever he was feeling from his voice. He took his hand away from his veil cautiously, and stood straight, seeking to banish the tension in his shoulders. He didn’t take his eyes off what had caused him pause. “Return to our brothers,” he continued, “or join the ones at The Heart. But there is something I must do.”

“Then I will come with—”

He rounded on Olufemi. “Do not follow me!”

A moment later he saw the look on Olufemi’s face at his tone and checked his rising temper at the boy’s loyalty. When he spoke again, his voice was calm, but in it was still a hint of temper. “This is something I must do alone. Indulge me this selfishness, brother.”

Olufemi’s jaw twitched, then he gave a barely noticeable nod. He was suppressing a rage of his own. Considering how he had never directed such an emotion at him, Ezril found himself wondering the cause of it as the boy returned in the direction they’d come from.

Shade might be rubbing off on him too much, Ezril thought, following his new quarry.

He had been drawn by the man’s physique. The broad shoulders. The height. And though he held his hair longer, the shape of his head remained unchanged. Ezril saw nothing of his face. But he believed as surely as the church believed in Truth that it was who he thought him to be.

At fifteenth years Ezril stood an inch or two shorter than most men. While it helped him hide amongst the crowd of people, it made keeping track of the man a thing of difficulty. He followed for about an hour and the man seemed to have no defined goal. Ezril watched him talk to various people, stopping at a market stall once for rough minutes. Ezril’s frustration grew but he treated it like a hunt.

“Patience is the most important factor of a hunt,” Father Zakarid often told them. So he employed it as best he could.

Patiently, he followed, the man never presenting him a glimpse of his face.

It was another two hours before Ezril saw what he sought. He realized the man had led him through most parts of the quarter, talking to various individuals Ezril never knew resided within it. But then again, he didn’t know the people who did.

The man was talking to a rather large man endowed with rings fashioned from bronze adorning his lips as well as his brows. His skin was brown as mud and his lips proved fuller than most men’s. It was here that Ezril’s quarry finally gave him a view of his face.

The man snapped his head in his direction and Ezril darted into the alley beside him in a panicked speed. He moved with a speed so fast that he almost tripped over something he stepped on. It was slippery and gave way beneath his feet with an irritated squish. Sparing it a quick glance revealed a rotten fish no less than two days old amongst other detritus that seemed to excel at the job of covering the alley floor where the snow had failed.

Ezril’s heart beat wildly, but he did not have to fight the panic he felt. It was not the reason his heart beat. He had seen the man’s face, no matter how briefly. It was not a face he could mistake.

Grit. He gnashed his teeth as his heart beat a drum to his fury. His panic had propelled him to the alley, but in his motion he had seen it, and panic had fled like a deer from a lion. His rage—one he thought long dead—reared its ugly head.

Calm yourself! he ordered. The time spent in Green Horn as a pariah came to mind. Rage can only take you so far.

Ezril found himself with a new goal. He snuck out of the alley and assimilated himself into the crowd of people. He moved slowly, making sure to follow the flow of the crowd. Soon, he drew nearer and the contents of the man’s discussion with his companion made themselves audible.

“…but he is beginning to prove generous with the shadow fire,” the man with the rings said, the clanking of metals seeming to give his words a melody.

“He cannot burn it forever,” Grit replied. “In time, he will stop.”

“Then he best stop soon,” the man scowled, “for I won’t help your guild if I risk losing my soul.”

“It has not come to that, Neku.”

Something had Grit on edge. Ezril doubted the man knew he was being watched. Still, he lagged back, slowing his procession, and keeping his distance.

“Your prince will not have the satisfaction of my soul,” the man with the rings insisted. “He thinks to play me the fool, does he not?”

The next set of words spoken poured out in a language foreign to Ezril. But he did not need understanding to know the man spewed profanities.

“I will speak to him,” Grit assured the man, visibly seeking to placate him. “The prince will listen.”

“And if he does not?”

“Then he will be the problem of the guild. Not yours.”

Neku’s expression proved submissive at Grit’s words. For all his ranting, he seemed to fear him.

Grit scratched the back of his neck in discomfort. “Never liked this city,” he muttered, the words spoken like they were bitter in his mouth.

Neku chuckled. “Fear naught, brother. For even as they burn us, there are more men in this city that worship Arnesh than they can burn.”

“Don’t mean I have to like the lot of you.”

Neku frowned. “That is true, brother. You just keep your devotion. When the time comes you will not regret.”

It was an odd enough conversation not aided by the fact that he’d joined it quite belatedly. All Ezril had gathered were mere pieces. It was like being tossed random pieces of a puzzle he knew was incomplete and asked to piece them together. Speculations and assumptions would not suffice to craft the accurate picture.

Ezril had dallied all he could. So he passed them now, flowing with the moving crowd, committing Grit’s face to memory. He found their conversation troubling. It was something he could not report. He knew well that it was one thing to accuse a guild as large as Venin. It was another to accuse a prince. Besides, the kingdom had two of them. He knew not which prince the two men had spoken off. And the kingdom loved all two.

The sun had long begun its descent when Ezril noticed. Finding he had no knowledge of the part of the city he had followed Grit into, it took him a while to find his way back. He arrived at the seminary’s gate after nightfall. The journey was long and tiring, and walking the mist had his skin crawling.

At the gate, Father Ulrich awaited him.

“Where have you been, boy?”

Ezril kept his gaze on the ground as he spoke. “My apologies, Father, I lost track of time.”

Ulrich stepped forward, his nose flaring as he took a sniff of him. “You do not seem to have been drunk.” Ulrich sniffed again. Ezril stifled a reaction. “Neither were you asleep in yours or someone else’s vomit.” The priest fixed him with a questing stare.

“My apologies, Father,” Ezril repeated. “I lost track of time.”

Ulrich frowned. “You may not smell of alcohol or vomit, boy, but you smell of fear,” Ulrich said. “And not the type for a boy returning late.” His frown deepened and Ezril kept his gaze down, not because he sought to display submission. No. He just didn’t think he could face the priest’s dead eye. “Go inside, boy, and do not return late again.”

As simply as that, it ended. No punishments. No reprimands. Ezril was beginning to think the priest might have a soft spot for him. Then again, there was a better chance it was merely false speculation.

Olufemi and Darvi were the only brothers awake when Ezril walked into the room. Olufemi went to sleep soon after his entrance, perhaps content with the assurance that he was not dead.

Darvi, however, waited until he sat on his mattress. It was fatter than when he had first filled it with straw, proof there were benefits to being an accomplished thief. Even things as useless as torn pieces of clothing could serve as fillings for his bed. Ezril extricated his feet from his boots, and stretched his toes.

After a while Darvi asked, “Is there something I should know, brother?”

Ezril could see his eyes watching in the darkness. Searching. Certain his brother could barely see his face, he answered. “No.”

Darvi sighed, seeing the reply as some sort of attempt to keep a secret concealed. “Just remember, we are all brothers here. We help each other, no matter the foe.”

And how much of that do you truly believe, brother? Ezril thought as he lay in his bed in silence. His thoughts filled with one thing as he waited on sleep. Today he had seen someone he had once sought dead.

Tomorrow, they would begin training in preparation for the test of the Hallowed.