12:00 a.m. by the Eastern Clock, 6 September, 2009 C.A.
DeMuer Exports' docks and warehouses kept strange hours. In realms only six hours away by sea it could be the middle of the day, and so departures and arrivals, loading and unloading paid no heed to sunrise and sunset. When night fell everyone worked with the aid of spell-lamps, strung together by rune-marked wires, swaying and casting long shadows whenever a body or a box bumped into them anywhere along the line.
Teams that had worked together for enough months or years knew the same songs, and the men and women that unloaded crates of precious spices from Xelandra's ship at a West End warehouse had worked together since DeMuer and Helston started the Kaldi shop two years ago. They sang what sounded like an Elvish variation on gospel music as they hauled the precious cargo into the warehouse, and the last of an old tea shipment for Skid Trak'kal into a trio of cargo trucks.
They had no idea that at that time, an 'unbiased journalist' had incited a riot at the Red Dragon Inn... or that similar unrest had popped up in other parts of the city, and a mob was headed their way. Only the gruff Aurk 'lackey' out front, Jack, had any idea: he spoke into a miniature radio in the form of a little black marble that hovered off to one side of his mouth, stayed close to cover, and still closer to the shotgun propped up between the warehouse wall and a broken crate.
Malcolm the 'leper,' one of the Baron's knights in deep cover as a diseased beggar to keep track of mob activity, tipped Jack off. Got their hands on Jaster's speech. Racist mob led by Soraf the Exile -- they've got clubs and knives, no guns... plenty of rope for all the 'blue devils and greenies at the Eighth Street Warehouse.' God be with you, Jack.
The Aurk snarled, his eyes narrowed on a faint orange glow down the street. He seized a nearby rope, swinging the giant bronze bell frantically, and called out, "MOB! THREE-SEVEN MOB!"
Every man and woman in the warehouse froze. Xelandra was one of the first to act, making the quick judgment call - "The old and crippled, y'all get back on the ship, yeah?! Get the hell ote on the water! Rest 'a y'all, stay wit' Jack and fight!"
Her sailors and a few dock workers went racing onto her ship first to supplement the warehouse's relatively small armory with additional guns, and by the time the mob was within three blocks, the ship was leaving the docks and everyone who remained had a firearm and no less than twenty rounds of ammunition. The mob moved to within two blocks, and they finished maneuvering trucks and crates to create barricades.
When the mob arrived to mete out justice to the Dujra and Aurkindri, they saw the barricades bristling with carbines and pistols. Every man and woman who found employment with DeMuer Exports was trained for one day each month with pistols, and the sailors and dock workers did the same with rifles, too. Some had seen this kind of violence before, others had not, but even though they were outnumbered ten-to-one, they were more prepared than the mob.
And the mob hesitated.
* * *
Soraf the Exile ("the Outcast" behind his back) stood in a crowd of what he considered to be very normal sentient beings. Most were human, and the rest were physiologically very similar, with only subtle differences in physical form setting them apart and none of the "freak powers" the Dujra and Aurkindri were rumored to have. "Blue devils," Soraf had warned the others who first gathered with him that evening, "can open gates to Hell, 'cause that's where they're from. Every D.E. freak-ship passes through Hell and back on their treasure trips, and if you ever dare speak out, the Dujra drag you down into eternal fires."
"Bull****, Sor," one of his friends had remarked.
"No, I've seen it done. Remember Reynald, and how he showed up in the water all burned up? Only blue devils could've done that Devil's work." That had silenced further objections.
And the Aurks? "Greenies are thieves, and long ago they stole gnome magic and put it in their blood. Ever wonder how they get so much money? Ever wonder how your money goes missing in the morning? They just snap their fingers," and he had snapped his own for emphasis, "and it's in their pockets. Tricky bastards."
This too had taken some convincing, but Soraf was a master at assembling little tales of personal troubles and pinning it all on the 'freaks.' He had been exiled two and a half years ago after leading a riot and butchering all the 'beastie' merchants in a small port town; when the Imperial authorities had shown up and figured out what went down, they had posted a bounty on his head.
And Soraf had fled to RhyDin.
"We'll find your money," he bellowed to the 'protesters,' frustrated that they had slowed down in fear, "and a Hellgate or two, I'll bet! Maybe find out where Reynald's cousins gone, yeah?! You too chicken to save 'em?!" He pointed at the warehouse-turned-fortress. "There's your troubles! There's the cause, those money-hogging DeMuers and their alien FREAK allies!"
The crowd roared, and yes, for most of the mob, their troubles were indeed very great. Many had been out drinking in Soraf's favorite bars, many of them unemployed or close to it, living in this neighborhood and dealing with elf squatters and trying to protect themselves every night against vampires in dark alleys. They surged forward, and under sharply barked orders from Jack the Aurk, no one in the warehouse fired.
They wouldn't fire until the other side attacked first. It tested everyone's mettle; soon that attack would come, or someone's trigger finger would slip, and...
"HO THERE!" The practiced shout of a military man cracked like a whip between the ragtag army and the besieged warehouse, and everyone stopped and looked. Torchlight caught the flash of a West End Watch badge, property of one Lt. O'Brien. While only in his mid thirties, he counted as a veteran of a guard unit with typically very short life expectancy; he was a known friend of Baron DeMuer, and also something of a local hero.
With eleven known kills to his name over the years, half of them supernatural beings on a rampage, O'Brien was a well-respected member of the community. All around him were only a dozen or so men and women, a few from the Watch, the rest leaders of a few local militias, but more than enough to match the mob were in sight already and closing fast. Members of the militias, locals that had their reasons to stop a mob from torching warehouses in the district and killing people in the street no matter how "magic" or "non-magic" they were.
"Call off your goons, O'Brien!" Soraf growled. "We've come for justice, and it's no business but ours!" Tensions were high. Soraf's 'soldiers' gripped their weapons and looked around, some of them angry, others uncertain.
"Justice?" O'Brien said. Someone on the other side lifted a crossbrow to point at his throat, but the lieutenant bravely proceeded forward, close in to Soraf. The man knew when to obey his fears, and when to show none. "Justice... that's what you're after. Is that right, Bill?" His eyes picked out an old man in the crowd, who looked away abashedly. "Christian... you're after justice, too?"
Christian quailed too for a moment, but after a nudge from the guys around him, he stepped forward and raised his club. "Yeah - that's right! Those freaks in there are thieves!"
"Really? What did they steal?" O'Brien looked around, his gaze challenging Christian first, then the others, one face after another. "Can you tell me...? Can anyone?"
"We're not here for your sermons, preacher!" Soraf yelled. "We're here for blood!" But already, his mob had lost some of its fire.
O'Brien ignored him: "You know, I remember... God, it must've been a year ago, right? And Christian, you and your brother-in-law were new in town and out of work... your wives were expecting, right? How are they?" Christian's club lowered; he looked away. "And this warehouse, it was a dump, about to fall down, and they hired you on to fix it up. You weren't carpenters, but they taught you, didn't they? And they paid you, right? How about your in-law, Robert... is he here?" His eyes searched the crowd again, and once more, there was one of them edging and turning away.
"And you, Leann. I'm surprised... Remember what happened to your niece a few weeks back?"
"You Watch people saved 'er," Leann protested, "and we haven't no quarrel with you!"
"Just one of us," O'Brien said, shaking his head. "It was a busy night, and the warehouse workers knew it, so they sent a couple dozen men out to join our patrols. If there'd been just one of us... you know what would've happened to him? What that gang would've done to him and your niece?"
"But the children--!" Soraf began, sputtering.
"You wouldn't know a thing about that," O'Brien countered, and spat at the man's feet, then looked at the others. "Yeah... your children. Probably wondering where their mothers and fathers are, why they spend every night in bars and out in the streets instead of at home with them. Where are your children? Zac... I know you and the Mrs. have four. Must be a handful. Don't they need a father around... doesn't she need her husband?"
The crowd was on the precipice, some already breaking off the edges, the rest looking around uncertainly, and O'Brien continued, "Go home! Go see your children, your spouses, your neighbors. You care about what happens to your community? Go home, and see that they're safe."
At once Soraf launched into a voracious verbal attack, standing up as tall as he could and spitting in O'Brien's face, cursing him, waving his arms, pointing emphatically over and over at the warehouse. It went on for what seemed like a very long time... "And all these people here...!" Soraf waved a hand over his shoulder and looked back, and saw his mob was gone.
He was alone in the street, an angry old butcher yelling in the face of a Watchman who'd just risked his life to stop a battle. He lowered his arms and looked around, suddenly dazed. But O'Brien wasn't at a loss for words:
"If you ever do that again... I'll see you hanged." The lieutenant shook his head and turned away, walking through the crowd behind him, the Watchmen and the three militias. "Come on. Let's go home."
