12. The Stamfield Scholars

Fernie son of Willis shuffled wearily down a dry creek bed, a threadbare bag with a few possessions slung over one shoulder and a nearly empty waterskin over the the other.  His tunic had seen better days,  and he had improvised a belt from a rope that frayed within an inch of its life.  He was too tired to go lightly or quietly: his feet scuffed on every few steps leaving a low-hanging cloud of dust behind him.

The boy’s destination was small pond that hadn’t yet managed to dry up in the autumn heat.  It was the only open source of water visible from the hills to the north, where Fernie had come from.  It was man-made, so it must act as a reservoir for livestock.  More importantly, it was screened from the town by a rocky outcropping and a stand of trees.  Grazing animals would gather there in the heat of the day and in the evenings some of the local children would be sent to fetch them back to their barns.  It was the children Fernie wanted: just someone to talk to about his troubles and get news of the town in return.  With any luck they would be wasting the afternoon away picking up the cool breezes that came over the water.

What Fernie found down by the pond was corpses: a bull, five cows, three horses.  They had deflated as the flies and buzzards did their work.  The lack of meat and the scattered scraps of hide said they had been dead for weeks, and the cause was hardly a mystery: the boy didn’t have to search long to find six manticore spikes.  One was embedded so deeply into a horse’s shoulder blade he couldn’t pull it out, but three of the others he retrieved and washed in the pond.  He saw they were half again as large as the one he already carried, and that caused him to scan the skies as he stuck them into his belt next to the pitted iron cooking knife he carried for protection.

Could the town be under siege by a pack of manticores?  That might explain the groups of armed men in the streets of town: they might be townsfolk gathered to keep the manticores at bay.

Fernie had passed a dozen farms so far, all of them empty.  At one farm he had approached the house loudly and knocked to avoid surprising anyone and thus provoke an attack.  Someone had lived there but they must have left weeks before. Two men and a woman.  They had taken with them clothes, perishable food and (judging by the barn) some tools, a mule, and maybe a few goats.  After that he kept his inspections brief: enough to verify they had the same forlorn silence of abandoned abodes everywhere.  In a few cases he found the remains of people scattered near their homes as if they had been killed while running to safety.

After the pond, Fernie decided the townsfolk of Stamfield would keep their livestock close, if there was any left, and their children closer.   He would have to go into town proper.  The boy filled up his waterskin from a farmer’s well, filled his bag from another farmer’s fruit trees, and picked up his pace.  Everywhere he looked he saw ripe barley and apples and grapes but nobody was harvesting.  A few plots of land had been harvested close to town, too few to feed so many.

There was a wall around most of the town proper, a stone structure only about seven feet high and too narrow for to walk on.  The wall did have a kind of gate that spanned the road and there Fernie got his first close look at the guards.  Like any newly homeless child hoping to find shelter Fernie walked up to the gate openly but shyly, unsure of his welcome.

There were eight men at the gate: humans in rusty chain mail and spiked clubs.  They gave Fernie a hard time for being out of town without permission and slapped him around the head a few times till he fell into the dirt.  The leader “taxed” him by dumping his bag of produce all over the street and taking all the best apples.  They took his knife (“But it was my mama’s knife, and she’s dead now” earned him another face full of dirt), but left him his manticore spikes.  Fernie gamely picked up all the apples left in the road and his clothes and stuffed them into the sack, all the while curious what happened when you stick a man in the kidneys with sharp objects.  They sent him into town with a warning not to leave until a harvest party was assembled, then he could pick all the apples he wanted.  They were definitely occupiers.

Padding nervously through town Fernie could hear people in some of the houses but the streets were empty.  Instead of a large gathering in the market square, a few people were going door to door to get the things they needed.  They moved quickly, shoulders hunched, not looking up.  The one woman who made eye contact with the boy recognized him instantly as a stranger and made the decision to move on.  He wasn’t her problem.  Maybe she had her own children at home who needed her and she didn’t want to get involved.  Every building’s shutters were closed. 

He made one detour to avoid a group of men on patrol.  They were loud and careless and easy to avoid.  Otherwise, he headed for the temple in the center of town.  Soon he could see the domed box down the street from him but then changed his mind to follow a street crusted in mud covered in hoof prints.  Finding the priest, if  would be good, if there was one, but finding children would still be better.  Children around Fernie’s age should be taking care of the animals.

The tracks led into a small square built around a well, milled all around the well aimlessly, then into a building that was most definitely not a barn.  It looked more like the typical residence for the local Arcanist: a large room on the bottom floor lined with narrow windows and a smaller second story to house the wizard and his personal study.  The front door lay in pieces in the street, and Fernie could hear then animals within.  A cart without a horse was parked to one side and held a sizable mound of manure.  The boy paused in the shadows of what must be tavern in better times to watch and listen.  The windows were all open in the schoolhouse to let the breezes in and the smells out.  Under the normal animal noises he could hear people talking.   Nobody showed themselves.

Convinced his situation wasn’t going to get any better the footsore boy approached and knocked on the empty doorframe.  One he was inside the doorway he could see the desks had been piled up against the walls to make room for a collection of goats and a couple cows which were doing what animals do: lying down; chewing; crapping on the floors.  A spiral staircase next to the door went up to the wizard’s apartment, where a fair-skinned human face popped into view.

“Who is it?  Hey, who are you?”  The face withdrew, “Someone’s here.”

“Well who is it?” asked a girl.

“I don’t know.  Some kid,” which was rich coming from someone who looked younger than Fernie.  “What’s your name?”  The boy had red hair, similar to the woman Fernie had seen on the street.

“I’m Fernie.  I came south over the hills.”

The face disappeared again, “says his name is Fernie.  He came over the hill,” he said, as if such a thing were barely heard of.

“We heard him,” said a third voice, a male one a little older sounding than the other two.  There was the sound of movement, then a second red headed face showed itself, “Are you friend or foe?”

“Friend,” said Fernie with the most confident tone he could muster, “and I brought apples.  What the guards didn’t take anyway.”

The girl’s face popped into view between the other two, “I nominate him to the Scholars if he shares his apples,”

“Seconded,” said the first boy with enthusiasm.  “All in favor?”

“Aye!” they said together.

“Welcome to the Scholars Club,” said the older boy, “you may enter.  Bring forth the apples!”