The Warrens

The bright morning sun woke Quin from a near stupor as she sat against the outside of the brothel. She tried to make herself as small as possible. As she watched the busy people going by, hoping to see Chinue's friendly face, Quin stood and tried to wipe the dust from her clothing and overcome the sleep debt she had been building. She knew she needed to move. Every person she saw was moving as if they were on their way somewhere very important.   Quin turned the corner and ran right into a thickset city guard. She was terrified by him. She had only been in this great city a short period and she had never met a city or town guard in her life. He sported expensive and well maintained armour as well as a sword and several smaller blades. He frowned at her. He pushed her away from him, put his hand on one of his weapons and said, “Where you going in such a hurry? Kids ain’t s’posed to be in this sector.”   Quin stuttered, trying to think of what lie she should tell him. “I’m lost!”   “Where ya s’posed to be ?”   Quin was slow in forming an answer and became more nervous.   “I was supposed to meet my cousin here. He’s a gnome and he never showed up and I think I’m on the wrong street. I just want to go home.“   That she wanted to go home was quite true but Quin knew at once that it was a terrible mistake to tell him she just wanted to go home. Because the city guard asked the obvious question.   “Where’s home?”   “I don’t know. I’m new. We are new. I think I should go to school or the library.”   Quin didn’t know why the guardsman started laughing but he did and then he blew a small wooden reed instrument that produced a ringing noise in her ears. Two more guards showed up.   Quin was shocked and the anxiety and nervousness that had been roiling in her belly became genuine fear that threatened to turn into terror.   “Take this thieving delinquent to the detention district. Little liar she is. She’s up to no good. Just look at her.” She knew she must be a mess. Her hair was probably wild and her clothes had been ripped and were dirty from being thrown on the floor.   The 2 guardsman moved to her sides and each took an arm as they began marching her along a narrow maze of streets with high walls on either side. She strained to see what was beyond them.She didn't know where she was but she had enough common sense to try to remember landmarks so she could get back to the brothel where Chinue would escort her home from this nightmare.   “Pete ‘us right. She trying to get into the housing district there.“ He yanked on her arm and said, “That’s for rich working people not for thieves like you. I think we ought to take her to the warren. Leave her with the rest of the lazy thieving no good ... “   “I get it, let’s hurry, I’m hoping to see that smithy today. If we gotta put up with her any much longer, I’m not gonna make it there in time.”   Quin was alarmed by their words. Something she had said gave them the idea she was a thief. “I’m not a thief! I’m a student!”   One laughed and poked at her torn clothes and the two men started trying to outdo each other with quips about her being the princess of Faerlight Castle or the long lost daughter of Mary Shelton.   “Ya stink lass. Ya smell like a brothel. “   The second guard said, “If I miss my smithy appointment, she’s gonna pay. Looks like she’s a whore without a job anyways.“ He leered at her with stained teeth and she shuddered at the smell of his breath.   They had stopped. The two men looked at each other without saying anything. Quin wasn’t sure what was happening. Abruptly they marched her through a small gate into a shed with rakes and tools. “You hold her while I get my kit off,” the one with the stained teeth said.   The first one managed to get one hand manacle on Quin’s right wrist and almost had her left hand manacled when she finally knew she needed to take action to try to save herself. She hit him over the head with a rake. The blow wasn't much, the rake was long and she had to wield it one handed.   “Godsdamn you little slut whore, I’m gonna kill you!” He shouted angrily.   She was building up an orb of chaotic arcane energy to fight while turning to run when the one with his pants down, stabbed her right in the middle of her belly. The other one hit her on the head with a scythe. Quin lost consciousness with the second quick stab to her kidney just as the orb of magic energy had begun to flow from her. Everything went black as she slipped into unconsciousness for the first time in her life.   She woke up disoriented with her head pounding. Several voices were talking near her. She tried to sit up and assess her situation. She wasn’t in the shed, the last place she remembered.   It was nightfall. She was wearing no clothes and blood matted her hair and seemed to cover half her torso. She was bruised and battered and cold. Her stomach hurt where she had been stabbed but even more painful was her side, she had been stabbed in the kidney it seemed.   Quin thought, ‘This is it. This is where it ends. I’m going to die and Caedmon will never know .’  Quin lost consciousness again.   She woke up sputtering as someone was trying to tip dank nasty tasting water from a dented tin cup down her throat. "I'm sorry, it's all I got." A child’s voice said.   She opened her eyes. A dirty faced boy of about 9 wearing nothing but underwear continued his effort to get her to drink the grey liquid in the cup.  "If you don't drink it, you’re gonna die.”   Her pain was intense but she tried to sit up. She tried to feel the kidney wound with her hand. It hurt and when she touched it, she felt a great welling of nausea that threatened to rise to her throat. She felt and then saw a ragged dirty shirt wrapped around her waist. The kid had taken his shirt off to try to keep her from bleeding out. The least she could do was try to stay alive.   Stunned and hurt as she was, Quin tried to look at her surroundings and assess where she was and what had happened. She was in a muddied trampled field with hundreds, maybe even thousands of other people. These were the most destitute people she had ever seen and they were looking at her with pity.   Quin forced herself to drink the rancid water out of the dented metal cup. "Thank you for helping me."   ”Where are we?"   The boy answered, "This ta warren. Once you in the warren, you don't never leave it.”   "What's your name?" She tried to smile but found her facial muscles weren't working right.   "Nobody knows and nobody cares. I just hated to see them guards kill a girl just for trying to get away." The boy continued matter of factly.   "To tell you the truth, I’m worried you're not gonna make it. You lost too much blood." But there's a fire over this way, Do you think you can walk a few feet?"   Quin tried to stand and found she couldn't. She crawled a few feet then rested. Crawled a few feet more then rested again.   She fell into unconsciousness again. She dreamed. She heard voices calling her. 'Quin. Come to me. Quin. Quin. Quin. Where are you. Quin’, and she knew she was dying.   It sounded like Caedmon. Maybe. She fell into dreamless slumber for a time. Suddenly she heard a loud voice in her head tell her to get the hell up and fight like a Demon. "You won't die like this and disappoint me."   Quin woke up and found herself alone in front of the fire with one other figure. It was, oh my, it was him. The Father. His eyes were blazing with anger. "I've killed them. I killed both of them. You should have been better prepared. Why didn't you use magic. Why did you use a puny human rake. What were you thinking! The demon Ecxtixcilin was there. He touched her and she felt his power course through her, curing her wounds. Then she felt his anger and it became hers.   "The boy, don't kill him. He helped me."   "The boy has been taken care of. He's one of ours now. Don't worry. Come with me. We are going to get a little extra payback.   Nobody treats one of mine like this. NOBODY.” He lifted her to her feet and she felt strong and well again. She was still naked but nobody seemed to care. She felt the Demon's rage course through her.   Ecxtixcilin said, ”That's it. Focus on the anger. Let it lead you. It will show you where it needs to go." And she understood. She began running. She jumped over a high wooden fence with spikes on top of it that never came close to touching her. She was a hundred feet in the air. She was strong and she was angry. The Father was right next to her the whole time.   Suddenly she saw something coming out of the sky that almost looked like a boat. There were many of them. They were sky boats. They were loaded with guards with weapons. She flew herself straight to them. Normally her mind would have scattered its focus on noticing she could fucking fly but not now. All her anger was focused on killing. And she did. She killed the guards on the three air boats in the sky. She flew to the tower where others were parked and picked them up like children's toys and threw them into the courtyard below that was full of men with little toy arrows trying to hit her and she laughed at them. The Father demon laughed with her as they wrought pure destruction on the guard of the city. He shouted to the tower guards who remained.   “Who do you think you are? "   A guard threw up his arms and showed he wouldn't fight them. Quin killed him. She threw him into the statue that arose from the center of their practice field. She laughed at his screams.   She let her anger take her where it would. She blew up the shed where she had been overcome. She flew towards the brothel where she had been abandoned the night before.   She was ready to destroy it completely when she heard in her head, "QUIN! Wake up NOW."   And she did wake up. She heard Caedmon telling Jir'lin to help him and Lena get her on to the blanket. She heard Spot growling and then whining, growling again.   "Caedmon" her voice was a croak. The boy who had given her his shirt and water sat nearby staring at the operation. She had been lifted onto a grey blanket that Jir'lin, Lena, and Caedmon each gripped firmly and lifted.   "Help.  The boy. Helped me. Help."   "Quin, you can't save everybody. I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do for the child, Caedmon muttered breathlessly."   "Please."   Caedmon sighed dramatically and Quin knew the boy would be helped somehow. Caedmon sounded normal. Like Caedmon, frustrated with her for not listening during a lesson, or telling her how she needed to be mindful. His voice told her she would live. It told her the boy would be rescued from this place. As her mind scurried into cobwebbed corners, she wondered if she had been raped. She fell asleep.