Wet Fire

An Ancient Inscription #2

It was Oysher's job again to empty the sewage.

"Oysher! Git ov'r here boy!" Auder Earthbrine seized Oysher by his tunic and dragged him over to the smelly barrel that stood outside the back door of his master's estate. "Do as yer told next time, boy, or i'll have 'im throw you out onto the streets with 'e rats!"

Oysher scrached his face and picked up a dirty bucket attached to a nearby pole. He held his breath as he opened the lid to the sewage barrel. The smell was so strong it seemed to become absorbed into his nose. He turned away and gagged.

When he got a hold of himself, Oysher managed to dip the bucket into the barrel. He waited until he felt the bucket fill up, then he took it out and closed the lid. Some of the contents of the bucket sloshed around and splashed on Oysher's tunic. Luckily he managed to dodge the rest of it.

"'Ey! Oysher! Don't think i'm not watchin' you, boy! Man up!"

Oysher gulped and picked up the bucket of feces with his scrawney arms. It was heavy, but he was able to place it onto a cart. He heaved the bucket upwards, using mostly his shoulders to do the work, and placed it onto a wooden-wheeled cart. One down, five more to go.

It seemed as if each bucket got heavier, though he could imagine it was because...nevermind. Oysher placed that thought out of his head. His master, Iffin Whitewood, always told him that he thought too much.

Now Oysher had been Iffin Whitewood's tenant for almost a year now, and had gotten to know most of the other people who worked around the manor. Iffin had about ten tenants who loved and worked on his manor, and each of them bared the name, 'Earthbrine'. Most familiar to Oysher was Auder Earthbrine, a thick man with a grizzly beard and a scar across his eye. Auder said that in his younger years, he traveled to Aura and was attacked by a group of bandits on the road. One of the bandits apparently slashed at his eye with a wooden stick, which created his infamous scar and made him partially blind. When he returned to his hometown, Earthbrine, he accepted his peasantry and became Iffin's tenant. Auder was in his mid-forties, but twenty years working on Iffin's estate made him look closer to sixty.

Like most of the other tenants, Oysher was born in Earthbrine, a small town with muddy cobblestone streets and a reputation for being exceptionally dirty. In the center of the town was a pettite marketplace, where the women and men from Earthbrine and the surrounding coutryside would come to buy and sell their goods. Behind that was the Baron's manor, and the town square with guillotine in the middle, probably to remind the townsmen to play by the law. Conveniently located near the gillotine was the town drain, a filthy drainage hole that seemed to suck everything into it, including people's belongings. Sometimes the town children could be caught down there, searching the filth for stray coins or jewelry.

After he loaded in the last bucket of sewage, Oysher moved around to the front of the cart and lifted it up by its two protruding wooden beams. His sandals immeadiately sunk into the mud, making it hard to move. He took a step, making a plop sound as he forced a foot out from the sludge. The weight of the cart wasn't unbearable, but it was awfully uncomfortable and hurt Oysher's scrawny shoulders.

Auder was watching him from a distance. His blind eye twitched as he bit into an apple. The juice stuck all over his beardOysher peeked over his shoulder and saw Auder just standing there. It made him angry that he was not helping him. But then again, Auder never helped him. "What are loy lookin' at, boy? You'd better get a move on if ya want to get rid o' that slop." Oysher turned away from him kept walking, with the cart on his back.

It wasn't unil he left the courtyard when he had to lower the cart to rest for a moment. He stood there for a moment, catching his breath, and then he glanced back towards the manor. Over the wall, he could see the top floor and the tall stone tower that stretched into the sky. The roof was made of a dark slate, which looked damp (probably because of last night's rain). Iffin's windows were dark--thank goodness that he was in Azure right now, Oysher hated that man. The Baron's Order Assembly happened once each moonturn, which actually meant that he was gone for nearly half a fortnight because the ride to Azure took three days. These where the best days for Iffin's tenants.

As he passed through the town square Oysher noticed Iffin's second in command, the exocutioner, Kraken Whitewood, leaning against a bale of hay in the corner of the square. He wore a black hood which covered most of his face, a dark brown tunic, and a pair of tall leather boots. His face was deathly pale and thin, and he looked like a corpse himself. Oysher heard the chilling scrape of metal as Kraken honed his large iron axe. Not one person who lived in town could figure out why Iffin kept Kraken Whitewood around, or why he had appointed him Keeper of the Peace.

"Good day, sir!" Oysher tried to sound cheery.

Kraken Whitewood looked up for a breif moment, grunted, then looked down again. He obviously had no time for kids, especially dirty peasant kids who emptied sewage.

Before he entered the market place, the butcher, who was gutting a boar outside of his shop, yelled at Oysher to take his load around the back into the alleyway--he didn't want the smell of slop to deter customers away from his fine meats. The last time Oysher passed through the market with his cart, he made a whole group of women be sick.

The alleyway was narrow and his cart barely fit through between the rows of shops and houses. The cobblestones were awfully uneven and Oysher was careful not to let the cart tip. The alley was already dirty enough with animal remains that he didn't think it mattered anyway if he let the cart tip. At the end of the alley, Oysher turned back out onto the main road, which wasn't much smoother.

Oysher passed underneath the gatehouse as he left town and looked up to find three men hanging from their necks, their bodies swinging in the wind. More of Kraken's work I suppose.

Right outside of the town gates was The Squealing Hog, a common inn which was filled with many people drinking, eating, and having a good time. The inn was in fact the most lively part of Earthbrine, and attracted locals as well as travellers. A pillar of smoke rose from the chimney, a sure sign that lunch was being made this very instant. Oysher's stomach growled, the only thing he had eaten today was a small piece of bread and a scrap of cheese that he took from the cellar. A nice roast pheasant sounded good to him, especially one seasoned with herbs and served with a portion of chopped potatoes.

"Careful with that now, lad." Qazakth strode over and made Oysher drop the cart. "Let me help you with that filth." The beggar had been camped in his usual spot, outside the inn in a makeshift tent. A weary fire was lit in a makeshift pit.

"I don't have any money this time, Qazakth, not a single coyn."

"Oh I don't want your money, Oysher. I just want to help you out that's all." Qazakth grinned a toothless smile and lifted the cart. His hunched back managed the weight with no problem. Oysher couldn't help but wonder why he was being so friendly today.

Qazakth and Oysher moved over to the nearby brook that flowed through a gulley by the main country road. They stopped there and began to empty the sewage one bucket at a time. The stream was really nothing more than a smelly stream of brown sludge that was the dumping ground for most of the town's sewage and wastes. A few miles down the road, the brook flowed into a quagmire that spanned a couple square acres in each direction. Most locals tended to avoid the quagmire, but travellers often passed into its stinky clutches and found themselves seeing their breakfast again.

As they emptied the last bucket, Qazakth turned around and bumped into Oysher, sending him flying into the mud. He gave no apolgy, but held out a hand, which Oysher gladly took. "Thank you."

"You had better get back to Iffin's palace, lad, before they wonder where you were." Qazakth said. He leaned over Oysher and stared at him with two tiny eyes. Oysher fet incredibly awkward so he sidestepped and grabbed hold the the lightened cart.

"Ill be off then. Good day."

"Good day to you too, laddie."

It wasn't until Oysher entered Iffin's courtyard that he realized his silver ring was missing.

____________

What do you guys think of Earthbrine? Let me know in the comments. ;D

- Rie