Night's Cold Embrace

Chapter 6

"Please! I didn't do anything! Y-you're making a mistake!"

"On your knees!"

After a blissful - albeit brief - period free of brutality, the Watch once again had the City by its throat. They were yet again an unwelcome presence on the streets, both protecting and terrorizing the City's citizens.

Easily unseen and unheard amidst the cries and pleas of the more than likely innocent citizens on the ground, Garrett slid behind a crate closer to the main square.

There were three men lined up in front of the gallows, their hands tied behind their backs and knees forced to the hard ground. Several guards surrounded the area, clearly amused by the event.

In a panicked frenzy, one man stood up and made the mistake of attempting to escape. Foolishly, Garrett noted, considering the fact that even if he could outrun the guards, there were still several archers nearby. Sure enough, the man promptly fell to the ground with a dull thud before he could take two steps, a crossbow bolt protruding grotesquely from the back of his head.

"Anyone else feel like running?" The Watch officer spat.

One of the remaining two men remained silent and bowed his head, but the other was trembling and mumbling to himself. The officer laughed derisively and walked in front of them. He crouched in front of them and spoke so quietly that Garrett had to strain his ears to make out the words.

"You see this?" He opened his hand and rubbed his fingers together. "It's wet. Fresh. Red paint." The officer rubbed his hand on one of the men's shirts, eliciting a small wracked sob from him. "I saw your little message on the wall. I know one of you did it. So who's going to confess?"

A moment of silence passed. The officer tapped his foot, the iron-toed boot clacking deafeningly against the quietness of night. "Or perhaps the two of you were working together?" When no response came, the officer sighed and righted himself again.

With a wave of his hand, the two prisoners were lifted onto their feet by other Watch members and dragged towards the gallows.

"Now, you understand, don't you? We cannot allow for this blasphemy to be displayed to the public. It would taint the people, twist their minds, undermine everything this city has built, everything that the Baron has worked so hard to give to you."

The trembling man's mumbling grew louder as a noose was tied around his neck. He continued mumbling until the push off of the platform silenced him. As the executioner moved onto the second man, who Garrett noticed was unusually composed, the prisoner calmly shouted, "And from the ashes we, the once oppressed, rise not so that we may build upon the bones of our predecessors but so that we may build a new life altogeth-"

A sharp crack resounded through the air. The body dangled limply from the rope.

"Well, I suppose we know who the culprit was now." The officer chuckled.

Garrett stepped back and retreated to the clock tower. He had seen enough violence for one day.

----------------------------

He had heard the indignant cries emanating from the town square the next day as more and more people discovered and began to gather around the corpses displayed for all to see. He purposely avoided that area of town as even in the dead of night people were swarming the streets, either angrily shouting at anyone who would listen or simply standing there to watch the show. The Watch had managed to subdue some of the crowd through the use of intimidation, but were struggling to clear much of it off of the streets.

Although Garrett mostly wanted to turn back and head towards a quieter area of town, a small part of him urged him to follow the trail of commoners. The last time that many people had been out at once in public was during the Summer Festival back before he even knew what the Primal power was.

The path of angry townspeople eventually led unsurprisingly, Garrett thought, to the Baron's high tower. He supposed that the commoners felt they had unfinished business with him. They were all gathered in the Baron's beloved garden, crushing the well-trimmed grass and plants in their anger. Garrett was just about to turn around and leave the commotion behind him when he saw a familiar mousy-haired figure bound in the middle of the crowd.

Of course, he thought, of course it's her again.