The Hollow City

The Hollow City

 

The road to Hollowdell was completely empty this time. There was no man standing in the middle of my path to stop me, there was no ghost waiting to set me on the right path, and there was no Piers.

Instead the road simply went off into a distance of receding brown and black earth. The desert was slowly starting to fade away just like the first of the ghosts who haunted me.

“How far is it to the city, Marcus?” asked Martyn from somewhere behind me.

I had chosen, as was the norm for me, to ride out in front of the group on Pandora. Samuel walked several meters behind me and Martyn, having lent his horse to pull the caravan, walked next to it and chatted with Marcus and his wife and daughter who sat inside.

“It’s not awfully far” replied Marcus. “We’ll reach the gates long before nightfall sufficing we have no further complications”

By that he meant that so long as the caravan held together and we were not attacked by raiders we would reach the city before nightfall. From the way he had nervously wiped the side of his face I could tell the man was having his doubts about one of those things, probably the latter.

“In fact, if you look just there” Marcus added, pointing into out at the horizon. “You can just make out a black splodge in the distance, that’s the city”

I looked out to where the man pointed and for a moment couldn’t see anything apart from dust and the sky. He was right though, just a little off centre of where the road touched the heavens there was a black spot.

“It’s just a little less imposing than I had imagined” I called out to the group. “I was just expecting… well I was expecting more than a black dot”

Martyn began to laugh, probably to be nice more than anything since my joke was, after all, terrible. Marcus on the other hand wore a stoic expression.

“Trust me Danny, when you actually arrive and look at the place you’ll probably be thinking the exact opposite” said Marcus. “The fortress as well as the entire city itself were designed to fend off enemy attacks”

If that was true than Symonds was going to have a hard time taking the place through a large scale siege. He may never even attack it all.

“If that’s the case than how does Symonds pose any kind of real threat to the duke?”

“Danny is right” said Martyn. “From what I’ve heard Hollowdell when properly defended is practically impregnable”

I picked up on the flaw in Martyn’s reasoning even before Marcus had pointed it out.

“Exactly the problem, Martyn”  Marcus said slowly in attempt to create suspense. “When ‘properly defended’ the places is, as you say, practically impregnable, however when Symonds rebelled against his father he took with him a large chunk of the army and in doing so crippled the duke’s ability to trust anyone, because for all he knows his closest friends could be loyal to his son”

“He has to watch out for normal citizens too you know” Samuel interjected. “I’ve overheard some of the kids I know talking about how they want Symonds as duke. Some of them have even tried to contact the rebels to try and join them, similar stuff could be going through the minds of lots of people”

Up until this point I had never once stopped to consider the fact that I could be joining the losing side of a war. Because, all things a side, when it really came down to it if that was the case than I would die before even catching sight of Symonds.

The same thought seemed to be occurring to Martyn as he nervously started to fiddle with his pipe.

“That being said young Samuel” said Marcus. “There are still many honourable men who’s support of our duke will never waver, and wars are about not only the quantity of men one has but also the quality, and although Symonds may have a larger force of men his father clearly has the better men”

That would have to be the small glimmer of hope I held onto as I entered into this war I decided while brushing some hair from out of my face. It was getting to be too long, it would need a cut soon.

“From what I’ve heard though” I said. “Symonds is the best man, according to many he’s a ‘god on the battlefield’, like what you pretty much said to me last night”

Marcus shook his head and sighed. “Although he might be a ‘good man’ in the fact that he’s an excellent warrior, Symonds has never and never will be a truly ‘good man’, and a truly good man can defeat even the greatest of warriors”

I knew that I was not a good man. I was still hedging my bets on the fact that I could be the greatest of warriors, because than even someone as horrible as me could kill him.

Over the next few hours the black spot upon the horizon that was the city of Hollowdell slowly expanded. And as it expanded it started to become darker and far more imposing, just as Marcus had said it would.

As we arrived at the edge of town, despite the extremely apparent sun over out heads, everything became a little darker. Water flowed between sections of buildings that stood upon dark brown soil, this water also flowed to a moat around the castle.

Everywhere I looked there was back alleys and dark pathways which would have been made to confuse attackers. There were no real clear paths that would allow you to get to your destination and even someone who knew their way around could become easily confused or be ambushed by someone waiting around the corner.

This would hopefully apply to Symonds and his men if they launched on attack on the duke. If they became entangled in the maze of streets it would become easier for me to find Symonds and kill him.

“The citizens dwellings were divided into three main sectors, with each of these being further divided by bridges that crossed over the river” Marcus had said.

The closer a sector was to the castle the richer it was, and as such the poorest people lived in old buildings on the outskirts of town.

“About halfway to the Duke’s citadel was when the ground started to have proper stone roads” he had later added.

This supposedly caused tensions between the two halves of the middle sector, especially since the town ‘centre’, sat in the centre of the upper middle sector. Generally speaking, the people who supported Symonds had come from the lower half of Hollowdell.

“We live in the… well the better half of the middle sector” Samuel had told me. “And kids from our half don’t really get along with those from the other half, we have kind of like turf wars which can get pretty brutal, luckily only one young boy has ever been killed that I know of”

Luckily he had said. Lucky. Lucky was finding some money on the side of the road so you could buy yourself a treat. Lucky was not only one kid dying, no one should have to die at all.

There were more than just a few men and women on the streets as we first entered town, young and old alike. Most of them were wiry and thin and many looked to be plagued by strange diseases and skin infections.

“They are the people who are worst off” mumbled Samuel beside me. “Times have been hard since Symonds rebelled and things only seem to be getting worse, these folks can’t even really decide what they want, they haven’t the strength nor the willpower for even a task as simple as that”

Something brushed past my leg as we continued on our way and I looked down to find an old skinny man grasping at my boots. Too weak to get a firm grasp he instead fell face first into the dirt. It looked like it was a struggle for him to rise.

I stopped. Like Sam had said, the man wasn’t even strong enough to beg for food or money. I took from my bag a not so old piece of bread and a few coins and left them to the poor b*****d before continuing on my way.

“Well that’s just s**t” I said in delayed response to Samuel. “Why doesn’t anyone help them?”

“We just can’t, Danny” he replied, shrugging. “Maybe some of the rich folk in the upper sector could, but my family, and most other families, are struggling as is, we couldn’t handle having another mouth to feed let alone pay for the treatment that some of these people need, we just can’t”

Samuel looked extremely troubled by the fact that he couldn’t help anyone, and yes it was a fact. I could tell from the pain in his honest blue eyes that he was telling the truth, he really could not help these people.

“What about the Duke?” I asked. “Couldn’t he help out?”

“He’s far too preoccupied” said Marcus from just in front of us. “Having to deal with his son throwing a tantrum and all”

“It’s more than just a little depressing” murmured Martyn. “This Symonds thinks he’s helping… but from the look of things he’s only making matters worse” he added quietly.

So Symonds was responsible for ruining the lives of many, everyone I could see here in Hollowdell who was suffering had him to blame for a lot of it. Yes, it was more important and far worse that he had murdered Katherine, but knowing he had ruined other people’s lives too would make his death that little bit sweeter.

The number of men and women who lined the streets started to thin as we approached the second bridge. I only saw a few in the higher parts of the lower sector of the city, and upon crossing the third bridge and entering the middle sector the beggar’s completely vanished.

“They don’t dare venture any higher than the… slums, as it were” said Samuel. “People from the lower half of our sector have been known to beat the poor b*****d’s for fun”

He stopped and shook his head.

“You never really know what a person is like until you take a look at them in the worst of times, some of the people I used to call friends… I saw them attacking a man far worse off than they for nothing more than a piece of bread which the threw away, really it was just for the fun of it”

“It’s always safer to never trust anyone” I replied. “Some people learn that in far harsher ways than others”

Getting stabbed by your own father as a kid was one of those harsher ways.

He nodded. “And girls like that one you were trying to comfort before, we all know what bad men do to women”

“I only helped her because she reminded me of someone” I snapped back.

Samuel recoiled and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“I wasn’t having a go at you for helping all those people...” he muttered under his breath.

The two of us spent the rest of the walk in silence, and instead listened to the Manhunter and Marcus talk.

“What’s with the name?” asked Martyn. “Hollowdell, I mean sure the name is gloomy and so is the place, but I still don’t get how someone would come up with the it”

“If you did not know already, the Hollow are the so called spirits of the dead who have not yet passed on to the next world, and a dell is like a small valley, so the name essentially means valley of the dead” Marcus replied.

Martyn scratched the back of his head intensely. “Yes yes that’s all good Marcus, but why did they call it that?”

Marcus cocked his head and took a quick glance up at the peak of the Duke’s citadel. Whatever he was craning his neck to see however, I myself could not discern.

“Well that was for two reasons actually” Marcus said returning his gaze from the citadel to Martyn. “I trust you know the reasons as to why the Iron Plains and the Hills of Blood were called by their names?”

“Because so much iron was used to spill so much blood around that area, but I fail to see what that has got to do with anything?”

“Well supposedly the spirits of all those who died on the Iron Plains or in the Hills of Blood, the Hollow. Collected here, in Hollowdell” Marcus answered.

He spoke as if he was telling a ghost story, I doubted his own belief in what he was saying.

“And the Hollow are supposedly attracted to one another, so the spirits of all dead men and women who have not yet left this life are drawn to the massive amounts of Hollow who reside here. Because of this people are able to communicate with the dead here in Hollowdell”

“Sounds like a load of s**t to me” Martyn grumbled.

Marcus shrugged and continued to walk at a steady pace, still glancing up at the Duke’s citadel every now and again.

“Personally I have never seen any kind of ghost or Hollow man” Marcus replied. “But people I know claim to have seen the spirit’s of their loved ones, and there are a few Seers scattered throughout the city”

“What’s a Seer?” Martyn asked abruptly.

Marcus snivelled his nose and shot a strange look at Martyn.

“Seers are women who can see the dead all around them and help people to communicate with those they have lost” he said with a tone of disbelief to his voice.  “I’ve never believed in it much myself but if it helps people to find closure than it can’t hurt I guess”

Sam mumbled something beside me and I looked at him, furled my eyebrows as a way of asking what he had said. However he simply patted me on the back and continued to walk behind his father.

“I guess so” said Martyn. “Well what’s this second reason for naming the place Hollowdell than?” he added after a moments pause.

“I’ll explain when it happens, it shouldn’t be too long now, an hour or so maybe” he replied.

After saying that the man took one last look at the Duke’s citadel, I could now see there was a large spire protruding from the top of the castle. I assumed the second reason would have something to do with that spire, or whatever was in it.

“In any case we’re almost home” said Gina. I had almost forgotten entirely about her and Lucy.

I looked over at her and she pointed to the ground, there was a path made out of stone. That meant we were entering the better half of the middle sector, this was the area I had been told they lived in.

“That’s our house just over there!” Lucy yelled to me, smiling. It was the first time I had heard her speak, it scared me more than just a little.

Scared by a little brown haired blue eyed girl who couldn’t be too far removed from ten years old. Yeah, good one Danny.

“If you two could just take the caravan around to the back there” said Marcus pointing down a street alongside his home. “Then you can tie your horses up their too”

Martyn nodded and left to take the rains of his horse from Gina while I waited at the entrance to the alleyway. He spent a few seconds nuzzling his horse and whispered something to it before walking over to where I stood.

“They seem nice enough” he mumbled as we watched the family enter their house.

Samuel lingered a moment longer than everyone else and nodded to me before walking inside.

“And Sammy has really taken a liking to you” he added. “You are a little bit alike I guess… he’s just younger and a little less moody”

“When am I ever ‘moody’, Manhunter?”

“C’mon Danny! I found you trying to drink yourself half to death in the corner of a bar, you were moody the first time I laid eyes upon you for crying out loud!”

I laughed, maybe the Manhunter was a little bit right.

“I guess so” I replied.

“Still sure that you want to join this war, Danny?” Martyn asked, quickly changing the subject of our conversation to something a little more serious. “I mean, it doesn’t seem like a good kind of war with all the-”

“No war is a good kind of war” I interrupted. “And I never said you had to come with me, you can still turn back if you want to, Martyn”

Martyn grabbed the pipe from his pocket and started to fiddle with it in his left hand while he lead the horses.

“After coming all this way I’m not about to turn back, and after all, who would look after your sorry arse if I left?” he replied jovially.

“You seem to be forgetting who exactly was the one who did the saving back in that mine, Manhunter”

“Well in any case I’m hungry” he said with a wink. “Let’s tie up these horses and go get something to eat before we decide what we’re actually going to do about this war”

“Sounds like a good a plan as any” I replied with a nod.

Out the back of Marcus’ house was practically a small stable, although we still had to tie up our horses there was a shelter for them. Alongside this shelter was another small building that housed the caravan and a variety of tools.

It was highly unlikely that his family was poor given the amount of money and time it would take to build your own stable. They couldn’t be too bad off even war time, they could just sell some of their things to buy food.

“Come on in” said Gina from an open doorway to the house. “We’ve only got a little bit of food but it will do for now” she added with a smile.

“They seem to have a nice enough house for people who don’t have enough food” I whispered to Martyn as I followed Gina into the house.

He simply shrugged and stepped through the door behind me.

The place was entirely centred around one massive room which we had just stepped into. This main room was divided into a lower and a higher half with a staircase interconnecting the two.

I stood on the higher half of the room, and a long rounded table stretched out in front of me. The table was set, however only an average sized piece of bread sat on the six plates. At least it looked fresh.

Gina took a seat beside her husband at the other end of the table while the two kids sat closer to us. Samuel motioned for me to sit next to him and I walked over and did so.

“So what exactly do you do for a living?” Martyn asked, looking around the large room.

Expensive looking ornaments hung from the walls and valuable looking furniture sat down by a fireplace in the lower half of the room. Everything looked rather expensive to me, not compared to my first home that was for sure, but compared to my second home, Rowan’s farm, it did.

“I’m a merchant” Marcus replied.

“Explains the caravan” Martyn mumbled, still inspecting every inch of the room. “And the nice house”

“If you’re running low on food why don’t you just sell some of your stuff?” I asked, looking at Marcus.

He laughed and waved a hand at me.

“When people don’t have enough food to go around they’re not going to buy anything that isn’t food” he replied. “No one would be willing to waste their money on anything we have”

“I still can’t see why there isn’t enough food in the first place” said Martyn. “I mean sure the nation is divided but that doesn’t mean they can’t eat”

Marcus tore off a piece of his bread and started to chew, as soon as he started Lucy, on his right-hand side, practically buried her face in the bread. She was finished and I hadn’t even started.

“Well the farms and pretty much all our sources of food exist out the city” said Marcus, placing a small piece of bread on his plate away from the main loaf. “Now Symonds and his followers are also outside the city” he added, tearing half of the bread off and placing it between the main loaf and the smaller piece.

I bit into the bread and started to chew slowly as I listened to Marcus, it was soft and still warm, fresh, just as I had said.

“So he controls the farms and has all the food basically” said Samuel.

“Exactly” Marcus nodded. “If you look here you can just pretend like Hollowdell is this big piece of bread, the farmland is this smaller piece here and Symonds is this piece that stands between us and the farmland”

Finishing my piece of bread I wiped the crumbs from my shirt and handed the plate to Gina as she walked past and collected everyone’s. She then proceeded to walk into a room I assumed was the kitchen.

“The Duke has launched a few attacks in an attempt to re-take the farmlands from his son’s grasp” said Marcus.

“I’m guessing that they were not so successful” said Martyn in reply.

Marcus shook his head. “On the few occasions when we have managed to take back any of the farmlands Symonds comes within the next few hours or so to reclaim what we’ve taken”

“We’re all fairly certain he’s just trying to starve us out by controlling all the food” Samuel added. “He has set himself up pretty well too since the only way we could properly seize the farmlands is to send out our entire army, which would leave the city open for him to take”

I sighed. Maybe this really was a war I could not win, and Symonds was an enemy that I would not be able to defeat. I would die trying if I had to though.

Martyn was once again playing with his pipe and scratching the back of his head across the table from me as he always did when deep in thought. Maybe he was realising the same thing that I was.

“If he launched a full scale at least we would have a chance than, a slim chance yes and at a large cost possibly, but it would be better than sitting here and waiting to starve” Marcus murmured. “It’s just a matter of figuring out a way to force the b*****d into attacking”

That was going to be my best bet at killing Symonds I decided. I just had to, as a lone warrior, figure out a way of forcing an entire army of men to besiege a city which they were opposed to attacking. Hard yes, but not impossible.

 I stared at my knife on the table whilst I thought. The silver of blade seemed to have a slight green tinge to it from certain angles as I moved my head around the table.

In fact the entire room seemed to have a slight green tinge to it, and so did everyone in it. Than I realised what I was actually seeing, there had been momentary flashes of green light shining in through the windows.

“What on earth is that?” I asked.

The cutlery lining the table was beginning to rattle slightly as I awaited an answer to my question.

“That would be the second reason for the name of our precious city” Marcus said with a smile. “C’mon, outside everyone, we’ll show our two guests what I mean”

The flashes of green light didn’t stop as I made my way outside and instead were intensifying. The entire street and the night sky turned green with each and every flash of light, it was nothing short of magical.

“Look there” said Marcus, pointing to the spire he had continued to steal glances of as we had walked to his house.

Now though, instead of a normal spire the entire thing was coated in a veil of green light that pulsed, releasing the flashes which I was seeing. The way it pulsed was exactly the same as the white metal I had found within the mine.

Maybe the spire is made out of a green version of my metal?

“As amazing as that thing is, I don’t see what it’s got to do with calling this place Hollowdell” Martyn mumbled. “Shouldn’t it be called Greendell or something?”

“It’s about what the flashes are, not how they look, Martyn” said Samuel.

“Yes exactly, they’re not just random flashes of green light” added Marcus.

“Well what are they than?” I asked slowly, entranced by the beauty of the green light.

Whenever the spire pulsed it shot a beam of green light into the air that exploded high in the heavens. Each of these explosions would let loose a blanket of green which fell over the city for a second before eviscerating.

“The spire is, according to ancient history, or myth, depending upon whether you believe the tales or not, a stairway from our world to the next for the Hollow” Marcus replied. “Each beam of light shot into the sky is a spirit leaping from the peak of the spire and towards the heavens, the explosion can either mean that the spirit has died and is being dispersed over the land, or that the spirit has passed onto the next world, even the Seers admit that they cannot tell whether a spirit has made it through or not”

“Regardless of whether that is true or not” said Gina. “It truly is a beautiful event”

Martyn nodded with his mouth wide open, in awe of the spectacular sight and I too stood and stared at the green spire for a moment before Samuel nudged me in the ribs.

“The stairway was apparently, originally a gigantic meteorite sent down from the heavens to help guide spirits there, and the spire was made out of that” he said so both Martyn and I could hear.

“I’ve been in there once” he added, a little more quietly so only I could hear. “Snuck in past all the guards and stuff, it wasn’t too hard actually… but yes, there’s still some of the original meteorite in there if that’s what it actually is, it’s just like a big green chunk of metal”

Like I had said, like a green version of my metal that was also a few hundred times bigger. So that meant that if Samuel had been telling the truth that my metal was in fact a meteorite, or a small piece of one at least.

The last pulse of the spire was especially bright, and the beam that shot up into the sky lasted longer than the others. For a split second the ‘spirit’ was exploding as well as still climbing from the spire. It was a big ‘spirit’ if that was even possible.

Most of the pulses unlike the white light of my metal had not been blinding, however I was forced to cover my face from the light of this one alongside everyone else. Except for Martyn, he continued to stare at the pulse until it was done with a smile on his face.

“I’m sure everyone’s just as tired as I am” Marcus said as the green light of the spire began to fade. “And you guys probably need to decide on what exactly you want to do, so we should probably get some rest”

“Especially you young miss” he added, sweeping Lucy up off the floor and into the air. She giggled and laughed as a little girl is wont to do.

The family went inside quickly, leaving myself and the Manhunter outside staring into the night sky.

“You know, Danny” Martyn said, placing a hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. “I could have sworn that last explosion looked like a cherry blossom”

I smiled and put my arm around the man’s shoulder before turning to walk towards the house with him.

“I know it did, Manhunter”

Oh and I forgot one thing; It never rained for Piers ever again.

Reviews

[Alleyway Rover]

Overall: Some new plot elements are emerging. You’ve got a city held captive by a despot. You have the spire constructed out of the same mysterious metal that Danny found. There’s some good imagery as well. (the old man grabbing Danny’s boot was among them)

So there’s some development there. But it’s wrapped in tons and tons of words that don’t need to be there and drag considerably. We don’t need, for example, to know the whole history of Hollowdell. Not unless something happens that requires Danny to understand that to accomplish his mission.

We don’t need a rehash of Danny and Martyn’s history up to this point. We were there.

Unless Marcus is going to be a major focus of the story from here on out, we don’t need a tour of his house and what he does for a living.

When it comes time to edit, focus on what is really important. What moves the story forward; what brings Danny closer to his goal. Eliminate the rest.

Additional Notes:

“That would have to be the small glimmer of hope I held onto as I entered into this war I decided while brushing some hair from out of my face. It was getting to be too long, it would need a cut soon.”

This statement just seems way out of place. If this information is important, and it feels like it is, having your main character thinking about something else is counter productive. Unless you are signaling that this isn’t important.

“Something brushed past my leg as we continued on our way and I looked down to find an old skinny man grasping at my boots. Too weak to get a firm grasp he instead fell face first into the dirt. It looked like it was a struggle for him to rise.”

I thought he was riding on a horse.

‘“The stairway was apparently, originally a gigantic meteorite sent down from the heavens to help guide spirits there, and the spire was made out of that” he said so both Martyn and I could hear.’

Given the technological level of this world, would Martyn have the scientific knowledge to be talking about a meteorite? That shows a relatively modern understanding of the cosmos and I don’t think these people would be there yet. Martyn probably wouldn’t be at any rate.