The guardsmen hadn’t brought any spare horses with them, so Quinn had been mounted in front on Evander’s saddle, but Maertn and Ross been forced to walk. Quinn hadn’t wanted to speak to the man, so instead she spent her time taking in her surroundings, finally getting her first look at the capital city of one of Sha’sek city states. Farn seemed imposing from a distance, and close-up it was awe-inspiring. If she had been in a talkative mood, Quinn would have been dumbstruck once they got to the wall. She thought Everfell’s walls were high, but they were dwarfed by comparison to this. The walls vaulting into the sky were grey stone, cleanly hewn and flat, not like the roughly chopped brickwork that made up the castle of Everfell. Even mounted on a horse next to the wall, Quinn had to squint to see men at the top of it. There were guardsmen all along those walls, though she didn’t see any way an attacking force could scale that sheer face.
Evander assured her that there was more than one entrance to the city, and all of these were just as securely guarded. They were coming to the main entrance, which led straight to the centre of the city. Much like Everfell, it was a wide archway with a lifted portcullis, with armed guards standing either side monitoring those who entered and left the city. The walls were thick, and the tunnel murky with guttering shadows thrown by the torches hung at sparse intervals. Quinn would hate to walk through this in the dead of night.
As she went through that tunnel out into the other side, Quinn’s jaw dropped. It was like she’d emerged into a new world. The first thing that hit her was the noise. Everywhere, and from all directions, she was bombarded. It was nothing like the port either, because Kahnel had felt like sheer chaos. Here, it seemed vaguely organised. The market lined the main roads, filtering off into the side streets. Civilised, calm people drifted from stall to stall. She could hear banter and bartering on top of that too. No one paid them any heed as they passed, as if Evander and his men were a common sight.
Perhaps the order came from the sheer number of guardsmen. As they came to a crossroads, the captain brought them to a halt. A smaller march, only six horses, came from a street to the east. They shared a hushed conversation in a tongue Quinn didn’t understand. Evander had been speaking to her in the language of Everfell, and she had just assumed that this language would be used throughout the city. That clearly wasn’t the case, and whilst some of the words seemed familiar, apparently she had more learning to do.
The got the other guards moved on, and Quinn found her voice. “What language did you use then?”
“A dialect particular to Farn, but not too dissimilar to the common tongue spoken by your people. You’ll get them all over Sha’sek, and it’s one reason why we often tend to use the common, instead. We all learn it as children. It’s key to us, because it is the only language consistent across all of the islands. Without it, there would be no kind of no alliances between any of the islands. We wouldn’t be able to talk, so how could we negotiate a peace?”
“Instead you can speak the language of Everfell and negotiate a war?”
The captain laughed. “I’ll never be senior enough to negotiate a war, girl, and you shouldn’t pretend to assume that we were the ones that caused it."
Quinn settled back into silence, taking in Farn’s details. She was obsessed with the colours. The walls had been grey and dull, like the Everfell stone, but inside was a totally different story.
The ground wasn’t cobbled, it was sandy and hard. Hued with browns and reds, it didn’t look like it belonged within city walls. The market stands were sheltered with silks in places, though most were covered by canvases dyed in what seemed like hundreds of different shades. The people, too, wore clothing with vibrant and even garish colours, in stark contrast to the boring grey trousers that she saw everywhere in Everfell. The only people at court who seem to echo the fashions here were the nobility, and sometimes that even seemed for the sake of being different to the commoners.
Here, it seemed to be the norm, even some sort of competition between people to see who could wear the most garishly outlandish garments. Quinn did realise that she was staring, but no one told her to stop, so she didn’t. Here and there, she did send out tendrils of her power, trying to see how people in the city thought and felt, rather than assuming their anonymous smiles and the occasional ripples of laughter were signs of contentment.
She couldn’t find much by way of ill-feeling, and decided to save her powers and her efforts for the council themselves. She wished she could see Maertn and Ross, if only to speak to them. She should be experiencing this with Maertn. She hoped that their sacrifice to protect her hadn’t all been in vain: that they wouldn’t be executed or banished as soon as they were presented to the council. Quinn didn’t think her life was in danger, but she couldn’t assume anything on the part of her friends.
Despite Evander’s truthful words, her deep-set fears were realised. Without warning, Evander kicked his horse into a gallop. He left his men, and Quinn’s friends, far behind. Ignoring the cries around him, Evander skilfully led his horse through a black opening in a grey wall and slowing down, placed a dirty wet rag over Quinn’s mouth. She choked, panicking. The darkness swallowed Quinn. She was alone.