Planet B

Ch.21

Yank smelled the ruins of Lowden before he saw them. A week on the road created enough foulness to begin with, but there was no mistaking this particular odor of rot and decay. He'd never been to the city himself, something he was actually surprised about given his line of work. Everyone knew the stories of the city of death. Anyone who entered forfeited their lives. He knew that was superstition, Draxta herself had been and returned, but a stigma like that was hard to ignore.

Ahead, she, Melisandre, and Kyver rode near the front of their company. It still galled him that Kyver was included on the job. She was skilled and a good choice, yes, but the odds that she was the one chosen... he must have angered fate somehow. Maybe he urinated on plants in a past life. True to form, she'd hardly spoken a word to him the entire journey, save for predictable insults and innuendos. Did she have reason to be upset with him? Arguably yes. Maybe even yes without an argument. Should she have gotten over it by now? Why not? Besides, it was she who broke it off. He may have pushed her to it, but she did the deed.

The towers of the city began to peek out over the horizon, jagged bits of metal and stone standing defiantly against the world that ever so slowly battered them down. Ominous was not a strong enough word. Yank felt a cold wave course through his body. Lowden was right there, waiting for him, waiting to challenge his hold on life. He made a conscious effort to push the feeling aside. He was Yank. Yank the Unfalling. Yank of the Blue Blade. He'd survived certain death more than once, what was a dead city compared to the ire of so many once living, breathing enemies.

Around him he began to hear the mutterings of his company, the fear plain on their faces and in their words. That would not do. True, they were afraid for the same reasons he'd just been momentarily fearful himself, but it would not do to enter a potentially hostile area with troops who are anything less than committed.

Yank began to bellow with laughter.

All around his troops turned, confused at his actions. Yank was known to be occasionally eccentric, but this would seem like madness to them.

"Do you see that?" he called to them, shouting so many could hear. "The famed Lowden? Broken buildings be what I see." He looked around and found only perplexed faces.

"Surely you're not afraid of bedtime stories of your youth. Flying monsters that kill just by looking at you? Earth that bleeds acid to melt your feet? Fictional rubbish. And even if it not be, we've been through much worse than that." He turned to one of the closest to him. "Fankil, do you remember the time Old Man Wessel hired us for that job?"

"Aye," Fankil said.

"And what was it we be supposed to do?"

Fankil laughed and gestured broadly with his hands. "Kill the Great Kormeng, immortal beast of the north."

"And tell me, be it indeed immortal?"

"No sir," Fankil said, "your blade saw to that."

Yank pulled his sword out and held it above his head, blue blade glinting in the light. He noticed in front of them the procession had stopped and the three women were watching him. He didn't care though, this was not for them.

"This blade cut that beast's head from its shoulders. We bathed in its blood that day, though mostly because it be a bit of a gusher."

Laughs rose up around him and a few cheers. Yank turned and found another face in the crowd.

"Gertha, what happened when you and I be taken prisoner by the bandit Smythy and he promised us a certain death?" he asked.

"We broke his legs. Then we realized he didn't have the keys to our locks," she said, smiling evilly.