The Carrion's Craft

Chapter 10

After about fifteen minutes of waiting, Iric arrived in a frantic tirade of feathers and squawks. "Thank God, I found you! We have a problem, Fethis -" I made a bid to calm the bird down. His ramblings came out in rapid bursts of breath between his feverish pecks at his feathers.

"It's Simon, he..." His beak stopped wagging as he struggled to find the words. It was enough to make me worry and demand for him to answer. My arm raised with a wordless welcome for him perch himself onto me whilst I fidgeted on the pavement. He did so in with his booming wings. "I found the soup carriage, but Simon, he followed me. He wouldn't listen to me, the daft boy didn't have the patience to wait! He tried to get them to talk about Mishava and they took him." He practically breathed the words out in a single exhale of air, much to my queasiness. 

"Direct me." It was all the dialogue I could muster in my racing mind as I began my descent back down Ascension Slope.

About twenty minutes later and my lungs begged me to cease my jog down the hill. "So you're being blackmailed into hunting a serial killer?" Iric chirped into my ear. His solid black claws pinched tightly around the thin sleeves of my jacket as I haphazardly caught him up to speed. The crowds had thinned now, with most of the city's drones vanishing into the thousand doors lining the buildings. The emptiness of the desolate hill allowed the two of us to talk in earnest as we descended into the lower levels of the hill.

"Uh huh... A human at that, could you imagine it? Maybe men and folk aren't so different after all." I muttered, following the guidance of the crow's wing. The further down we went, the more dilapidated the scene became. Paint peeled off of the buildings like skin from a snake, thin and hanging. Cracks and craters lined the roads, and litter combed the walkways. We were moving back into the Mud Realm, this time our destination was Margaret's Street. This part of town was a historical sight. It was the first location that the humans had settled in the city, and as a result it had undergone the greatest transformation. 

What had once been a quaint little community with dainty architecture had now declined into a slum. Blown out windows were replace by brick, human effigies hung in open doorways and wooden walkways closed the open gaps between the roofs of the detached houses. Smoke stacks outnumbered us seven to one, imbuing the air with a layer of fog so thick that the air felt heavy, pressing down on us as it dimmed the light from the higher levels of the hill. It was no place for a child on their own, especially one so vulnerable to the pollution within the air.

"A human? What makes you so sure?" He asked.

"Stragard said they used magic. Last I checked that was beyond my folks' beliefs. Humans on the other hand..." I hadn't needed to finish that thought as my hand ran over a chalk pentagram on a brick wall. Such mysterious symbols of superstition could only have been identified in human neighbourhoods. It's why they wore those masks and thick materials, even the ones who had been around for decades and were safe to the toxins within the air around us. Their belief was in magic and tradition. It's what they clung to, for security and peace of mind, and with what the city had become, it wasn't hard to ponder on whether they were right. My people had become husks, mindlessly going wherever the medicine was. Now some of the humans were beginning to follow suit. Even going as far as crippling themselves on a single dose. Simply put, we were not the same.

Following the path, the road began to widen, broadening into a large district upon a flat dip in the surface. Some of the natural ground scabbed over the city's concrete skin. Dirty brown grass lulled in a desolate square within a prison of an iron fence. Two trees stood leaf-less at a haphazard interval. Iric let out a sigh, had I saw this place a day earlier, I would have wondered what I was supposed to be disappointed about. Afterall, this was one of the very few spots of natural land within the city, and the humans cherished it.

Even now a family moved about within the confines of the garden, children played and chased each other, while adults folded their hands and bowed their heads towards the two oak pillars. But I think I understand now, after my skirmish with Simon, I was granted the gift of viewing the most luscious scene imaginable. The sun had shone proper and the grass was soft and welcoming against your feet. Comparing the art that dazzled your eyes, this was a poor replication. Nature was precious to them, no doubt they had heard tales from their forefathers and longed for it, perhaps to an unreasonable extent.

"There it is!" Iric cawed, pointing towards a carriage on the other end of the square. It was a solitary thing, long and painted a deep blue. It had been converted into a kitchen with a thick stack of steam surging through a metal chimney drilled into the roof. A plethora of gas-fuelled apparati cluttered the interior with much of the walls being sawn out to provide some room. A human sat outside under a drab yellow sign flickering the name "Oven Cab" with a set of outdated lightbulbs - half of which had already died out. The man looked breathless and leant against his resting horse who nuzzled its face into the back of his neck. Worst of all, Simon was nowhere in sight.

"That's the man who took him," Iric whispered. His body trembled against me as I slowed myself. A small sigh escaped my lips, why did Simon have to pick a fight with the criminals? And how was I supposed to find him? Suddenly a plan wormed its way into my head and swelled my head with a rapid dissatisfaction. It was a risk, and there was no doubt that I going to regret it, but if the kid was in danger than what else was I supposed to do?

I whispered my plan to Iric and instructed him to take a post onto the nearby lamp-post. There was some resistance but he soon caved and we parted ways. The man noticed my approach, the bleached out circles of his mask stared into me with a hollow gaze. "Sorry fella, don't think my menu is partial to your palette." He said upon stopping. I wasn't even given a chance to identify myself.

"That's quite ok, I was just looking to try some of your soup". I replied with a smug tone. An attempt at a smile cracked my features whilst I leant on the warm exterior of the carriage.

The man stood up with a grunt, "Listen here, chem-head. I just told ya that you ain't welcome here. Now bugger off before I feed you to my horse." His blank mask jabbed itself into the thin space between us. It seemed pretty clear to me that for whatever reason this man wasn't very fond of folk. In all my life, I scarcely felt threatened, however when staring up at the man's lumbering frame, I could tell that whilst the horse behind him looked unbothered, it's master was prepared to feed me his white knuckles. 

"I wonder, would Orly have agreed to your opinions if he were still alive?" I said with some confidence. A second later and a heavy fist slammed into the side of my jaw, silencing me as my knees buckled beneath me. I felt weightless for a second, as if I were flying through Simon's portal once again, while my cheek slid down the side of the carriage. It didn't take much to annoy him, that's for sure. The knowledge of that fact deafened me with an overwhelming ring in my ear.

I tried to climb to my feet, loose pebbles and dirt surfed along my palms as I lifted my head up from where I knelt. Through the haze I witnessed the human children running into a nearby building as the two adults in the park walked towards me with balled fists.

"The hell do you know about him? You and that damn kid, you types always ask too many questions." Words jumbled together, Iric had shouted out, and the men barked orders to each other, none could quell the chaos. 

"Get the bird!" Somebody yelled out. I had just enough time to watch the black shape of the crow flap its wings as one of the bulky humans climbed halfway up the pole. He shouted out to me, but I heard none of it. There was a curse, a snort from the horse, and then a heavy boot connected with the side of my head. The world went black.