The War of Transition

Chapter Two (Valeroy)

     Valeroy watched from the crowd as the four men stood on the gallows, their hands secured behind their backs. A man swathed in a brown cloak approached each condemned in turn, placing a hood over their faces to hide their final moments of agony.

     Tiempas Port had never known hangings before the purge. There was a jail cell, but most criminals were sent to Tiannima or Tameria, away from the city of art and architecture. Today, as the sun was buried in a snowdrift of grey cloud, the citizens of Tiempas Port watched in sickly anticipation for the execution, an event held too often not to stain the city's reputation of beauty. Beside Valeroy, Daryn watched in fascination. Jarold's eyes were elsewhere.

     The cloaked man walked to the edge of the gallows with a small book in hand. He faced the crowd, sifted through a dozen pages and cleared his throat before speaking in a voice that rolled across the square. "These men face death for crimes too dark for retribution." A second man appeared on the gallows, tying a noose around the neck of the first man. Valeroy heard a terrified whimper from behind the black veil.

     The cloaked man continued. "Do not be angry with them. Blame the lives they lead. Lives of corruption, mysticism, and madness. Somewhere inside the hearts of these men, they yearn for some salvation, for an end to their misery. We are gathered here today to give them what they desire, to rid the world of this dark magic, to bring us closer to peace and a society governed by science and reason."

     The smoke and steam from a distant forge slithered between the legs of the onlookers; a fog of ash. "It must be true your final moments are the most peaceful." Daryn said ponderously.

     Jarold shot him a glance of disgust and kissed his teeth. "You must know only agony in your life, then. Peace is when a woman is screaming on top of you, my friend."

     "They just stand there, waiting for what's to come." Daryn ignored Jarold's comment. His eyes followed a small black crow as it circled against the grey sky before landing on the wooden beam that would support the weight of the condemned momentarily. The crow pecked at a noose before taking flight again. Several other crows hopped across the roofs of nearby buildings, awaiting their next feast.

     "I hear this city called the city of crows now." daryn's eyes jumped from crow to crow. "It's only fitting. Such magnificent creatures to take joy out of death. Strange how our bodies are needed to keep other things alive. It makes the world seem that much more interesting." 

     "I have never met a man as sick and twisted as you, my friend. With that kind of talk, you may find yourself standing up there with a rope around your neck. Tell me how beautiful it is when one of those crows feasts on your rotting eyes." Jarold snapped before turning his attention to Valeroy. "I'd sonner find myself elsewhere than here. Shall I search the camps outside the city? Perhaps one of the prisoners knows about these books."

     Valeroy sensed the sarcasm in his tone, but he ignored it. "Go, then. I'll meet you at the inn tonight." Jarold left without another word, gripping his swordbelt as if one of the crows would fly close enough for him to cut it mid flight.

     "Sometimes I think he doesn't understand a word I say." Daryn complained monotonously.

     "He was used to fine silks and palaces before leaving Oppalice." Valeroy smirked. By now, the man in the brown cloak had stopped speaking and left the gallows. All four men had a noose tightened around their neck. The crowd was silent. A cool breeze ruffled the black hoods on the soon-to-be-dead. "These men do not deserve to die. I've never known a purge to bring about peace."

     Valeroy had joined the Alchemists on the wishes of his father, but quickly found he hated reading and could not retain the amounf of information most in the guild do. He was sanctioned in the Victorians instead, a small military funded and controlled by the guild, and no matter how much his father protested, Valeroy was a fighter, not a scholar. After Warren Avyrentus initiated a golden age for the guild, Valeroy found himself scouting out locations of villages and hidden coves for the Victorians to pillage and burn in search of necromancers and mystics. Since then, every day of his life seemed to be a waking nightmare.