Displaced

Chapter 71

Looking down on the forest of tents and people, Sofie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, after days of traveling through the deserted plains of Eterium, it was wonderful to finally see some form of civilization again. On the other hand, the civilization in question didn't look particularly pleasant. A cloud of destitute desperation hung over the city of Obosall and the refugee slums that surrounded it. This was a city of cornered people, and everybody there knew it.

"Well, at least it's not Crirada," Sofie muttered, which brought an amused scoff from 'Jerithim' nearby.

"This place wasn't always like this. It used to be a small fortress city, quiet and out of the way," the elven agent stated. "It's no surprise that everything's gone to shit though. There's no way they'd be able to handle this many new people all at once."

To Sofie's surprise and enjoyment, Jerithim had turned out to be a surprisingly personable man, rather than the terse, business-like operative she'd expected. Though he'd kept talking to a minimum while they were on the move—his concentration reserved for avoiding bandits, Ubran patrols, and anything else that could pose a threat to them—when they'd settled down for the night he'd proven to be quite the conversation partner.

One of the many things he'd taught her during their trek was the Republic of Eterium's rather unique city-planning philosophy. Sofie had learned from Arlette long ago that the Eterians used their geographic monopoly to exact hefty taxes and tolls on all the goods moving through the continent, ensuring their economic supremacy. What she hadn't realized was just how far the nation had gone to put that system into practice.

In order to best police the flow of goods across its borders, many years ago Eterium had created a city practically sitting on its border with every other country. Not just any small city, either. Known as gatekeeper cities, they were some of the largest metropolises in Nocend. Agosa, the city on the Kutrad border, and Begale, the city bordering Gustil, each had nearly two million inhabitants. Even Drogan, the city bordering the isolationist Drayhadal, was nearly half a million people. Only one gatekeeper city stood out as different from the rest: Obosall. As the city bordering the xenophobic Otharians, whose country was supposedly so pathetic and unappealing that the rest of the world had basically ignored their existence for the last millennia, Obosall had never been a priority. In fact, the place, which harbored at most seventy thousand people, seemed to have been created almost as a formality.

That small city now stood like an island surrounded by a sea of humanity. As the trio of travelers had made their way southeast, they'd run across multiple villages. Some were barely populated, with only those too stubborn, too weak, or too ruined to leave still living there. The others had become literal ghost towns, completely devoid of inhabitants. All these people, from the smallest villages to the largest towns, had fled the Ubran menace to this one place, the city farthest from Crirada and the least likely to be the Ubrans' next destination.

The end result was... not pleasant to say the least. Sofie's grasp on Pari's hand tightened as the three made their way through the camps. She couldn't help but notice the way the nearby refugees were eyeing them and their packs. Even the children seemed to be watching and waiting for a sign of weakness or a chance to steal.

There was no mystery as to why those they passed possessed such wild, predatory gazes. Filthy clothes hung loosely on thin bodies everywhere she looked. She guessed that nobody here had eaten a good meal in a depressingly long time, and perhaps saw them as an oasis in the desert. To make matters worse, both Sofie and Pari were as thin, if not thinner, than those around them—they'd been living off of tiny rations for weeks and it wasn't like food had suddenly popped up during their travels either. Only Jerithim looked healthy, perhaps as a side effect of undoing his transformation when they'd escaped Crirada. Once more she thanked her lucky stars that he was there. Only his menacing presence seemed to keep the starving hordes from ripping them apart and taking everything they had. He walked with a wary gait, hands never leaving the two short swords that hung exposed at his sides as a warning to anybody who might get some bad ideas.