Turning Point

Iron Age Media Prompt - The Homesick

Morvin watched columns of smoke rise from the chimneys of the great foundries surrounding him, and thought of jam.

Plum jam to be specific. Plum jam made from redstone plums harvested in the mid-summer to be precise. His father had always appreciated precision, and had, despite Morvin’s best efforts, imparted some of that appreciation onto his son. But while the exact measurements of tree spacing, soil composition and water intake had meant little to the then wild and rambunctious child, he could always appreciate the magic of precision when it came to jam making.

It had been like watching an alchemist in a laboratory, seeing his father at work. The way he’d measure the weight of the crushed plums, calculate the optimal ratio of sugar, source the best water, boil to the right temperature, and stir to perfect consistency. Morvin could of eaten it by the handful, and did in fact, despite the fear of his late mother’s spoon.

But now his father wouldn’t even look at him, and no jam maker in the city could compare. So he eats dry bread in the morning and washes it down with brandy. Plum brandy to be specific. Overpriced sewer water purchased from deceitful worms to be precise. He reached over the edge of his stone bench and pulled up the offending bottle. He read the slogan ‘Only the Finest!’ with a displeased sneer. The sheer gall of it.

He made to throw it off the edge before feeling the weight of the remaining brandy and thinking better of it. He’d need most of it today. He took several hearty gulps from the bottle just in time to hear the horns blow for the morning shifts at the foundries. The sound resonated from the dozens of spires that covered the mountaintop, each now bleeding out the previous nights workers into the city’s many alehouses. The day had officially begun in the Black Towers, and from his vantage Morvin could see the steady stream of day workers making their way up the spires and into the foundries. The great war’s insatiable hunger for iron meant the city never got a chance to catch its breath and rest.

Morvin followed winding steps down his own spire, reaching the common area at its center. The area itself was a literal hole piercing the east and west ends of the spire, its inside honeycombed with shops, alehouses, and tunnels leading every which way through the spire. He quickly blended into a crowd of outgoing refiners making pilgrimage to the alehouses. Like himself, a good portion of Grimnal Spire’s occupants were refugees from the Dead South, formally known as Blue Crown Mountains before witch-fire purged every breath of life from the rocks, plum trees and all.

He reached his destination just as the pilgrimage turned off the main path deeper into the spire. A small bakery was tucked into a corner of the crossroad, the smell of fresh bread bellowing out of the establishment like smoke from a fire. A scrawny dwarf, his beard a mess of twisted knots, sat at one of the many tables in front of the building, greedily slathering globs of jam onto a loaf of fresh bread.

‘Morvin’ the dwarf called out, his beady eyes darting between him and his food.

Thayne was a dwarf neither brave or strong. And certainly none too bright. What he was, essentially, was mean. He slapped the waitress’s thigh as she came to ask Morvin’s order, chuckling at her shriek and flashing a smug grin towards the baker, who clenched his fists with barely contained fury until his knuckles were white pearls. Membership in the Red Hand afforded many luxuries, provided you had at least a casual disdain for your fellow dwarfs.

Morvin denied the waitress’s offer, wanting to spare her a reason to return to the table. Thayne, bemused by the exchange, chuckled again. ‘Come now Morvin, this place ain’t that bad. ‘Least order something. “A full stomach for a full day’s work.” and all that.’

The phrase was a common adage in nearly all of dwarfdom. His mother had often quoted it at breakfast, her arms loaded with fresh biscuits and gravy, before his father and him would depart to the groves for the day. Coming out of Thayne’s mouth it was borderline blasphemy. You’ve never worked a full day in your life, scum.

Morvin lied about a prior breakfast and directed the conversation to the business at hand. Thayne smiled with open glee. Morvin recognized that smile, and felt the brandy in his gut turn and twist.

‘The cobbler in 5^th Hall decided to get stony on us. Thwacked one of our collectors a few good times with a hammer.’ He paused for dramatic effect, misreading Morvin’s scowl. ‘Nordrim didn’t care for that at all, not one bit.’ The dwarf flashed a toothy grin of misshapen teeth, Morvin’s scowl deepened.

Nordrim was the boss of the local chapter of the Red Hand, a gang of murderers and extortionists that styled itself as a ‘brotherhood’. Morvin has been a part of the Red Hand for four long, miserable years. He spends his days now making cowardly compromises to see the next. The only thing worse than the Red Hand’s ire as an outsider, was its ire as a member.

‘So after Nordrim finished whipping the idiot for embarrassing us, he called on yours truly to deal with the problem.’ Thayne paused to gobble down a couple mouthfuls of bread, his open-mouth chewing scattering crumbs over the table. Morvin thought of grabbing the dwarf’s knotty beard and slamming his face to the table.

‘So what’s the idea here? We setting a torch to it?’ Out of all the Red Hand’s methods, Morvin could tolerate arson the most. There was always a chance of survival with arson, a chance that the only things killed were dreams and livelihoods. That blood washed off easy with brandy.

Thayne let out a snicker that stilled Morvin’s blood to a cold paste. ‘Nordrim wants something more...expressive.’ Thayne eyed the baker and waitress until they understood the hint and turned their heads to the floor. Turning back to Morvin, Thayne opened his two-sizes-too-large coat to reveal a bundle of brown tubes, each topped with a fuse that was twisted with the others at the top. Father of All… swore Morvin.

Thayne interpreted his horror as awe. ‘Pretty nice, eh? Nordrim’s workshop is finally up and running.’

Morvin gulped and forced a sneering smile and nod. The workshop had been the boss’s project for a well over a year now. A factory of explosives, poisons, and other horrors; all in service to the Red Hand. Morvin recognized immediately that what he would be called upon to do would not be so easily drowned in brandy. He put on a gambler’s face.

‘Should be quick work at least. Let’s go.’ he said, holding back the quiver in his voice.

Thayne smiled. ‘Don’t act all aloof! You’re excited too, I can tell.’ He rose from his chair and slapped Morvin on the back, replacing the dwarf’s uneasiness with a hot flash of anger. DON’T TOUCH ME SCUM.

Morvin reached into his pouch to procure his unfinished brandy while Thayne staggered onto the main path. Without hesitation he brought it to his lips and drank it like a man dying of thirst. Thayne whistled and laughed behind him. ‘There’s a man’s breakfast!’ he yelled.

Morvin slammed the bottle on the table as he finished it, wiping the remaining droplets from his mouth. He looked over at the bakery, catching the baker’s glare. It was a painfully familiar face, the same his father gave him that first night he came home with pockets full of coins. ‘A protection service.’ he had explained, trying hard to forget how empty the coffers were when he reached his hand in to take the remains.

The rebuke hurt worse than the hand across his face. His anger flared. He was sick of poverty. Sick of begging. Sick of watching his father break himself night after night, working as a porter for fat, idiot merchants. A PORTER. He’d found a way to spare them both the misery, and this was his thanks? He lashed out.

Such a stupid, stupid thing to do.

As slyly as he could manage, he produced a golden coin from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of the bottle, out of sight from Thayne. It well overpaid for the bread and pasty jam, but did little to soothe his shame.

The walk to 5^th Hall was at the very least quiet, with Thayne being perfectly content to leer and flash the handle of his knife at every passerby. The Red Hand were infamous for their preference for knives, and every victim of theirs not burned by fire or flung off the edge of a balcony bore its mark. Morvin also carried one, out of sight in the small of his back. He’d swore never to hold one after the first time he saw it used, after he saw what the alemaster looked after they were done. But the knife was a shield against the other thugs and murderers the Red Hand frequently engaged with. So Morvin made another compromise, trading the peace of mind of good folk for the fear and jealousy of the foul. All the save his own miserable hide and purchase more brandy that he hated.

Morvin tried desperately to use the quiet to think of a plan. He had retaliated against “uncooperative” shopkeeps before. But it had been one thing to burn a shop in the dead of night. This was daytime, not even noon yet. Shops would be open, occupied. Morvin eyed Thayne’s trenchcoat. And this was no oil and torch job, this was a bomb.

Morvin could picture the devastation such a thing would wrought in the Black Towers. It wouldn’t just damage a single structure, but its neighbors on either side, the street in front of it, and every dwarf in-between. No amount of brandy would dull this horror.

He considered offering to give the cobbler a chance to make his payment, plus extra for the trouble, but quickly squashed the idea. It would be too suspicious of him to ask, and the idea had been defeated the moment the cobbler assaulted the collector. The Red Hand couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate that.

If he could get his hands on the bomb, feign excitement for Thayne, then maybe...Yes! If he were handling the bomb he could “miss” his throw, make the bomb land short of its mark and damage the walls of the shops more than the occupants. He worried about the crowds outside, but assured himself he could yell some vaguely informative threat (further proof of his eagerness) that would scatter the crowd away from the bomb.

Yes! That wouldn’t be too suspicious at all. A botched throw might earn him a beating, but with the building shaken and the crowd terrified, Nordrim would get what he was really after. A delicate optimism started to untwist the knot in his guts. Breathing deeply, he used that optimism to steel himself. It would have to do.

5^th Hall was as crowded as Mordrim feared. Passerbys crowded the storefronts, looking for employment as much as product. The war had reached the east, and now the dwarves of the Red Crag, draped in colorful ponchos dulled by travel dust, huddled in scattered pockets. Some were trying to hawk the last of their possessions for bread money, others tried to sell themselves off for meager employment. Most just stood among themselves, taking quiet comfort in familiar faces.

It had been the same for his family, his people, when they came to the Towers, their meager possessions scarred by witch-fire and road wear. His father had been like iron then, not giving so much as a whimper as he watched his life’s work immolate in scarlet fire. Morvin had been more like clay, every blow leaving its mark for all to see. He had wept when he saw his precious trees burn, he had wept when when the Blue Crown Mountains became a distant silhouette on a miserable dusty road, and he had wept when his mother spent her last moments hacking black filth out of her lungs in a dirty wagon.

The loss of his home had not been a slow realization, but an immediate, piercing wound. It gnawed at his heart like a beast with a bone. He had left his hopes and dreams dead and burnt among the black stumps of his father’s plum groves. His father who, despite such stalwart resilience, had to resort to low, demeaning work just to put food on the table.

As for Morvin himself, he bounced between the occasional odd job, often given out of pity, to genuine begging in the common halls. That was where the Red Hand had snatched him, flashing shiny coins and promising easy work.

‘That’s the place right there.’ cackled Thayne, his mirth proudly on display. Morvin snapped out of his mind to actually process his surroundings. The cobbler’s shop was across the road from them, crushed between a leather-worker and a tool seller. Morvin stomach twisted again at the crowds of commuters passing along that side of the road. This would be a massacre, far greater than anything Morvin had done before.

He had killed for the Red Hand before, but those had been...tolerable. He could lie to himself about those. Who would miss a gambler, or a drunkard? Their flaws he memorized in exacting detail, using them to obfuscate everything else about his victims until they became a shallow caricature from a bad play.

But these people walking by, what could he even say about them? That they were lazy for shopping instead of working? That they should be quicker, or more observant? And what of the cobbler himself? What could he even say? That he was too stubborn? That he had too much courage? He could drown himself in a bathtub of brandy and it wouldn’t be enough to forget this. He kept his eyes locked on the cobbler’s shop, afraid looking at his companion might betray his intentions.

‘Let me throw it.’ he finally said, putting on a fake smile and mustering as much false excitement into his voice as he was able. He heard a match light, and a fuse begin to burn.

‘It’s my bomb.’ Thayne replied. His tone was like that of a young boy who didn’t want to share his new toy.

Morvin spun toward the dwarf in a panic. This isn’t a game you degenerate! He reached for Thayne’s arm but found it already outstretched, the bomb sailing through the air.

‘Father of All!’ Morvin audibly swore. Despite the exclamation, he remained frozen next to Thayne, watching the bomb arc through the air towards the storefront. He want to chase after it, to shout to the crowd, to strangle Thayne right there in the street. But doubt and fear crept up his spine, nailing his feet to the ground and sewing his lips shut. In the end, he merely watched as the bomb burst through the storefront window and land in the shop.

Thunder shattered his ears.

A flash of light ripped the building apart, casting debris throughout the hall. Above the constant whine that flooded his ears, Morvin heard a woman’s scream and Thayne’s laughter. A hand grabbed his own and pulled him down the path. His legs naturally matched the pace of his companion, his mind too numb to process anything of worth.

After a short distance, he was pulled into an alleyway, his feet stomping over discarded refuse and scattering rats. He was aware of the fatigue in his legs, the shortness of his breath, but the feelings felt distant to him, like the feelings of a character in a book. He looked up at his companion.

Thayne’s eyes were wild, his mouth stretched wide into a grin. His breathing alternated between gasps of air and manic laughter.

‘By my boulders!’ he shouted, loud enough to startle Morvin. ‘What a rush!’

He whooped and howled in the alleyway, his voice echoing through the long hall. Were Morvin in his right mind, he would of slapped him. In his current state, he let himself be jostled and shook by the raving dwarf.

‘What’s with you?’ Thayne ceased his raving and looked over his companion with a critical eye. Morvin couldn’t even find the will to meet his gaze, instead focusing on a particularly brave rat who had refused to scatter at their presence.

A spark lit in Thayne’s eye. ‘Oooooooooooooh!’ he exclaimed.

‘You got that shocked shell, or whatever. Soldier Fatigue.’ He let go of Morvin and raked a hand through his knotty beard. ‘Thought you only got that from GETTING bombed, but hey, I’m no healer, am I?’ He slapped Morvin’s arm for emphasis. ‘Yeah, you get it.’

He waggled a disapproving finger at Morvin. ‘This is what you get for skipping breakfast for brandy, eh? You naughty boy!’ his tone was a playful mimicry of a schoolmaster.

‘No worries then. I can go report on my own. You get some rest, eh? Soothe those nerves.’ He pushed Morvin out into the main hall, who began to stumble in a random direction before having his shoulder grabbed and turned around.

‘Your place is that way.’ Thayne instructed him, pointing in the opposite direction of the hall. Morvin winced at the familiarity, imagining it as being hugged by a thorn bush.

Thayne laughed. ‘You’re a right mess right now, friend.’ The word “friend” made Morvin nauseous.

‘Get it together!’ his companion playfully shouted, shaking him. ‘I’m never going to let you throw your own if you don’t shape up!’

Morvin felt a cold knife dig into the small of his back, drawing blood. The sensation sparked a bitter and hollow realization that rose from his chest and flashed in his eyes. This had been a turning point. The blood that had once covered him now drowned him. Brandy had no more use to him anymore.

Thayne gave a toothy smile. ‘Thought that might get your attention. Now go home and sleep it off!’ he slapped Morvin on the rear to push him on his way and began walking the opposite way, chucking at his own humor.

Morvin’s hand reached for the knife, pulling it out in a swift and practiced motion. The fear that once clogged his chest was absent, instead substituted by a bitter numbness. He turned his head towards Thayne, watching the jolly dwarf begin to hum a misremembered tune. Wasting not a single breath, he turned and sprinted towards his foe, his blade poised for the middle of his back. No howls of indignation or righteous accusations accompanied the charge, just a murderers silent resolve to kill.

Thayne’s senses were better than he’d expected, and he turned just before Morvin’s blade could bury itself into him. With surprising agility, the wiry dwarf leapt to the side and bent his knees to brace against Morvin’s momentum.

Morvin’s chest collided with the dwarf’s shoulder, knocking the breath from his lungs and the knife from his fingers. He fell onto his back, gasping for air, his fingers grasping for the missing knife. The search cost him moments he didn’t have.

Thayne was atop him, his own knife displayed in his hand. There was no frustration or confusion in the dwarf’s eyes, only wild malice. He descended upon Morvin, knife aimed for his throat. Morvin sought to stop the blade with his free hand by grabbing Thayne’s wrist. The force of momentum was too great, however, and he could only divert the blade from his throat down to his chest.

Lances of fire danced in Morvin’s skin as a pool of blood began rapidly forming beneath him. He howled in agony, causing his opponent to cackle and lick his lips. Morvin’s eyes narrowed into pinpricks, his heart bubbling over with four years worth of repressed outrage. With a shout more furious than pained, he pulled his legs upwards and kicked at the dwarf atop him.

Thayne went flying a short distance from the bleeding dwarf and landed flat on his back. His knife remained embedded in the other dwarf’s chest. Seizing on the opportunity, Morvin leapt to his feet and ran towards the prone dwarf. Pulling out the embedded knife with a single movement, he leapt into the air and dived toward Thayne, driving the knife through his chest and into the ground beneath. Thayne’s eyes bulged, his flailing arms trying in vain to reach for the knife. He tried to speak, but his throat soon became clogged with blood, transforming obscenities into crude gurgles.

Morvin let out his stream of obscenities of his own at the dying dwarf, his fists striking him to accentuate each word. ‘Evil, murdering, bastard, SCUM!’

A coldness enveloped him as he finished his tirade. Turing around, Morvin could see a veritable river of blood trailing from where he was stabbed up to where he pulled out the knife and stabbed it himself. Blood continued to pour from the hole in his chest, blending with the pool of blood produced from Thayne’s death-wound. Words couldn’t do justice to how much that sight unsettled him.

The murderer fell off his victim and lay on the ground perpendicular to him, his eyes glazing over. He heard shouting close by, but it had begun to fade even as it approached. His breathing grew shallow, and he felt his mouth dry up. What I wouldn’t give for a spoonful of jam. The thought made him smile, and he closed his eyes and thought of plum trees in the summer, their leaves gently shifting in the breeze.