Lawspeaker Cyln

“Lawspeaker!” a voice cried out, and Cyln turned slowly to find a young Valdus boy running after her, the wide-brimmed hat he wore bobbing unceremoniously with each stride. Cyln grunted on seeing his small frame and turned back to the road, adjusting the staff balanced on her shoulder to make the load swinging from it more comfortable.

“Lawspeaker!” the cry came again, more incessant. Cyln set her jaw and continued to walk. Angry shouts had followed her out of the town, and she was in no mood to hear the admonishments of a child.

The manner of her retreat was still bitter in her mind. Following Laurelius’s attempted coup the man had continued to make trouble, forcing Cyln to order his execution. It had not been a celebrated decision, as half the town had been in favour of the more authoritarian control he had proposed. His popularity buoyed was by the security he promised.

News from the other townships was sporadic, but always bad. Reports filtered in of multiple uprisings, rampant banditry, and even genocide where the Gervian and Valdus populations violently clashed.

The final straw had been when a raving Valdus firebrand entered town screaming about treason by the Ursian garrison at the gate. He had whipped up a righteous fever among the Valdus population. A mob had crashed into the courthouse and flushed Cyln out of town. Their insults and jeering still rang in her ear, and now she found herself being chased by one of their spawn.

“Lawspeaker, please!”

“What!” Cyln snapped, rounding on the child who was engulfed in her massive ursine shadow.

The child recoiled at the vehemence of the response. His eyes watered with tears and his pointed ears quivered in alarm. Trying hard to control himself, the boy sniffed loudly, but then squared his shoulders to face the angry Ursian.

“What?” she repeated more softly. Despite herself, Cyln was impressed by his bravery and relaxed her glower a little.

It took a moment for the child to reply. He paused to take a deep breath, pretending to wipe an eyelash away. As he did, his hand banged into one of the little strings connected to his hat and which ended in small pieces of cork. The contact made it bounce around and it became twisted with its neighbor.

“Daddy went with the Past Speaker and I’m scared. Please stop him.”

With a snort, Cyln turned away again. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with the rhetoric of a lunatic. The problems facing the town were their own and she wanted no more part of it.

Shrugging her shoulders, Cyln marched on down the road envisioning the spires of the capital in her mind. There she hoped she would find peace among the Ursian government who ruled this land.

Behind her the calls continued, interspersed with loud wails but they faded with the distance.

Night fell quickly and Cyln began to set her camp, but her thoughts wandered. She was struggling to keep the face of the child out of her mind, the worry in his eyes had been real. She knew it had been wrong to turn her back on him, but there was little more she could do while chaos reigned.

"Anarchy!" she hissed, shaking her head at their stupidity. She remembered the voice of her old teacher, his dire preditons only too real in the current crisis.

"Remove law and there can be no order. Without order, annihilation will soon follow... Without law we be little better than animals!"

The crackle of thunder in the distance made her pause from her thoughts. She rose from the fire she had been trying to light and sniffed the air. There was no rain to be found and the air was not dry enough to cause lightning. Frequent flashes of light flickered in the distance, accompanied by a rolling din of thunder from the direction of the town.

With a start, Cyln realised it was not thunder, but gunfire. Dropping all but her quarterstaff, she set off at a lope towards the distant sound and flashes.

Cyln was a born wanderer. Years on the road had enhanced her already impressive fortitude so she covered the ground quickly with her long strides and relaxed breathing. She wasn’t sure how long she had run, but in the distance loomed a huge tower barely visible against the dark night sky.

The gunshots became less frequent as she neared the battle site. In the shadows around her, figures flashed, running away from the scene. Getting nearer still, she passed small fires sparked by the unrest. Tires and barricades were aflame, along with some small bushes and trees.

Smoke settled on the battlefield like a thick fog, making breathing difficult. In her single minded effort to reach the fight, Cyln had not even noticed the screams that now became muffled. She stumbled on the first corpse by accident. The pool of blood splashing up around her ankles made her recoil in horror.

Illuminated by the shadowy fires all around, she registered the mass of corpses into which she had blindly blundered. The sight stilled the breath in Cyln’s lungs, but she could not look away from the grisly scene. One figure in particular grabbed her attention; the small boy who had called her back to the town lay among the bodies. His golden hair stained red by the blood splattered all around.

Cyln stepped forward and bent down gently to smooth his hair, hiding the wound which had killed him. Cyln stared down at him for a moment longer before narrowing her eyes, the decision made.

On the ground beside the boy lay the hat he had worn, the corks entangled with each other. Grabbing it, Cyln straightened it out and flicked the strings apart. Solemnly, she placed it on her head like a crown, the small size fitting snugly between her ears. She then rose to her feet once more.

“The Law must be upheld,” Cyln said quietly as she turned her snout toward the town.

(by Gareth Kay)