'A Chronicle of Ashes' is a series of short stories exploring the extended Foxhole universe. These are unrelenting tales of human struggle in the face of apathy and violence, borne by a world in a constant state of war.
Content Warning: A Chronicle of Ashes depicts scenes of violence and war.
Whedon's Row
Chapter VI
The Queen
Preparations had taken more than a year. Acquiring the package had only been a single step. Prey had been planning her Family Reunion—as she’d grown fond of calling it—with Archon Cillian Callahan for so long that an extra year wasn’t but a blink.
One more sleep remained.
Prey took her time striding through the piss-stained cobbles of the Raucous en route to the Whale’s Whisker. Sofie held her left, with Rumtooth following close behind. They were ten minutes behind schedule, and Prey meant to make it another five. In negotiations, it was important to ensure that one never seems more desperate than their opponent. Have them believe they’d gotten fleeced. Making them wait creates leverage. Especially do-gooders and sycophants who’d try to use punctuality to masquerade as a virtuous shield. What’s the value of virtue in war?
Sofie shuffled, fiddling with the holster on her belt. “Must I carry this bloody thing? I’m not even a good shot.”
Prey glanced sidelong at her. “It’s no matter to me if it rusts on your waist. It’s theatrics. I don’t want ol’ Rumtooth to dirty his hands, but I certainly won’t be shy about flashing his big arse about so no one thinks twice about getting heroic.”
“It digs into my gut.” With a flick of her wrist, Sofie loosened her belt and adjusted the holster to her side.
“Last you were face to face with the captain I suspect your arm would’ve thanked you for putting up with a little annoyance.” In truth, the strength in Sofie’s arm hadn’t fully recovered from the fight, and as much as she trusted her instincts, Prey wasn’t the type to gamble on instincts.
The Whale’s Whisker waited at the hill’s crest, its rusted sign making a crick crack in the wind. Rumtooth entered first. The big door caught a gust and slammed open. Only a few patrons drank at the smattering of tables. A sharp whistle from Prey had them scurrying out, a few scooped up their flagons trying not to spill any liquid gold. Left behind was a plainly dressed woman with fair hair fastened into a braid leaned back in a corner booth.
Sofie yanked Rumtooth by the arm and the pair split off towards the bar, which Alba tended. Sofie made a gesture, and the girl set two mugs in front of them, then hurried to the corner booth and set down two more. The heels of Alba’s fine leather boots cut through the stillness of the pub. Captain Katrine Varg shot Alba an icy glare. Her eyes stayed locked on the girl. Smart.
“I’ve no trust for the quiet one,” Varg said. “The lot of you, really.” She set her pistol on the table, fingers on the trigger guard, barrel trained on Alba. “Stand where I’ve got eyes on you.”
“This one here,” Prey said, pointing a thumb at Alba, “fleeced me out of that package she pilfered off you. I’d planned on taking her fingers, but the little devil earned tenfold what I’d offered her.” Prey sipped on lager head. “You’re right to mistrust her.”
Alba slipped in behind Prey’s chair.
Katrine’s gaze shifted from Alba across the pub to Sofie, then snapped to Prey—her pistol in lockstep with her eyes. “Your courier paid me for an hour. I’m here. So, talk.”
Prey tried not to be theatrical in these situations. She worried it bordered on tacky, but the thought of a flourish fire a heat through her scars. A funny sensation. It rushed from her toes to the silvered flesh marking the ridge of her brow. As if she felt the same heat, Alba produced a small box. Similar, but not unlike the one that travelled through the alleyways and sewers of Whedon’s Row and presented it to Prey. She unlatched and opened it methodically, set it on the oak table, then turned and slid it towards the captain. Varg pulled out a smattering of papers. Her bright eyes flicked back and forth. Prey said nothing while the captain poured over each document and photograph.
“This is…” Varg’s hand trembled. “We are…?”
“Indeed. Sofie too, by the way. And many of the orphans you’ve passed sleeping in the gutters coddling rat corpses for comfort. I bet you’ve only heard stories of your parents. Not considered high in status, but both slain by some southerners while carrying out one heroic deed or the other for our great country. These people became beacons of valour for one young upstart such as yourself to aspire to. Am I close?”
“There are so many names.”
Prey leaned back and tapped Alba’s shoulder. She disappeared as if she’d never been in the room. The girl always learned fast. “You’ll have to look beyond my… adornments, but our viciously pale skin is cursed by the sun with a matching museum of freckles. We share the same dull, ashy hair and those signature orphan’s green-grey eyes.”
The captain folded the papers and set them back into the box, clasped it shut with grace, crossed her hands, cleared her throat. Those selfsame eyes Prey described scanned her face, her jaw slackening as she recognized each similarity. Then she turned over to Sofie, who caught Varg’s glance and waved back with a goofy gesture.
“Are these—” Katrine started.
“Oh, I’ve many copies. These are yours.”
“No, I… What do you want from me?”
“Sister, I intend to have a dramatic confrontation with our father and would like for you to join me. Call it a… sick family reunion.” Okay, pull it back a notch. “We are sins that must be answered for. I regret the deception, but without official papers, I could never get the package into the city alongside a ranking officer—and make its existence known by the archon.”
“What if I had walked it straight to Callahan’s desk?”
Prey chortled. “You hardly made it off the boat before it slipped from your grasp. Did you think Alba was my only plant? You can’t piss in this city without my knowing its colour.”
The captain dropped her shoulders, the corners of her mouth relaxed. Her fingers tapped the table in a rhythmic one-two-three. It was important to give the opposition space to consider, but not so much as to get clever. Though, it was already clear they were no longer opposed. The rest was a matter of appearances.
Varg leaned in. “I’m listening. Tell me everything.”
Cál stared into her morning porridge. It was the colour of a dead fish and lumpy. Some oats were dry and hard. She sat alone at a corner table in the camp’s mess hall, where children aged eight to fourteen clad in pale blue camp uniforms had one hour to eat and socialize before morning drills. Bruises spider-webbed out from the edge of the bandages on Cál’s neck. Freckles and reddened burn scars dotted across her arms. She couldn’t tell the difference between them anymore.
A boy a few years older than Cál slipped into the empty chair next to her. She did not acknowledge him. A cigarette hung from his mouth. He blew rancid-smelling smoke into Prey’s face. When she didn’t so much as acknowledge his presence, the boy dipped his fingers into her porridge bowl and dragged it in front of him. Cál’s tightened the grip on her spoon.
“Little cabbage, I thought we made it clear at dinner last night,” He said, digging out a lump of cold porridge, “you don’t get to eat.” The boy shovelled out a glob of porridge. It dribbled onto the side of the bowl and the table. A heat curled up Cál’s spine, a serpent slithering towards her heart as other kids around them stifled back snickers and elbowed one another in conspiratorial knowing. The boy drove his porridge fingers deep into Cál’s ear, twisting and wrenching. She did not flinch. Nor did she flinch when a rock plinked off her temple thrown by a girl at the table behind her. Nor when a fresh gob of another kid’s porridge splashed across the side of her face. Not even when Cál slammed the boy’s head into the table, then gouged out both of his eyes with her porridge spoon. One right after the other.
Silence fell over the mess hall, save for the boy’s delicious screams. The wet splatting of Cál’s boot heel coming down on the boy’s eyeballs brought the slightest smile to the corner of her lips. Blood smeared across her cheeks as she wiped away the porridge. Cál dropped her heel hard on the boy’s jaw to quiet him.
Not a soul moved to help. Everyone returned to their breakfast.
Cál sat, wiped the spoon on her uniform, slid her porridge back in front of her. It was the tastiest porridge she’d ever had. She even licked the bowl clean.
The boy writhed and bled at Cál’s feet. It wasn’t until a guard on patrol called for a medic that anyone moved him out of the mess hall. She never found out if the boy survived, couldn’t remember his name.
Wind howled through the Raucous, knocking at the long collar of Prey’s jacket. She tugged it tight and slouched while descending the steps into Aidan’s place. A few raps at the door, and Aidan answered.
The old man was fit as the day Prey met him. A tattered blue vest clung to his chest in a flattering style, accentuating what abnormally good posture he held for his age. Nowhere in the world was safer than Aidan’s smile. His whiskers twitched as he waved Prey inside.
“Little one!”
Prey felt lanky next to Aidan. She was taller than he was, but growing up, she was always a runt. Kicked around like a ball. Not another soul in the world could get away with calling her little one.
“Catch.” Prey reached into her jacket and tossed Aidan a small pouch with an envelope. “For the month.”
Aidan leaned against a wall and weighed the pouch in his palm. “More than n’we agreed. You gone soft in your old age?” Aidan plucked a smoking pipe from the windowsill. The whole place smelled of sweet southern tobacco. It was the smell of safety. Of peace.
Two children, no older than eight, weaved between them and out the door. Their muffled giggles from outside brightened the dingy basement. It featured rows of cots set between a handful of nooks to cook or clean or pray. A bunk near the kitchen was Prey’s. That was a long time ago. The pipe above it dripped, no matter how many times Aidan tried to patch it. Every night her lullaby was the plink plonking of drops into a bucket. Anytime they’d got it to stop for a few days, Prey couldn’t sleep.
After serving one year in the Youth Labour Program for what she claimed to be self-defence—she’d only wanted to eat her breakfast, after all—They dumped Prey onto the streets wearing only her camp uniform. They gave her no food, no water, or direction. The streets of Whedon’s Row were unkind to the deadliest of killers, never mind a lone girl of twelve. Most weren’t offered such opportunities. It was bastard privilege that kept her from being executed.
Prey couldn’t find the fairness in that.
Before long, she stumbled into Aidan. This kind, pale-skinned fellow with long whiskers and a granite jaw offered bread and a bed. She accepted out of desperation rather than blind trust. It wasn’t until she met the other kids, felt the warmth of the furnace, and smelled that sweet smoke did she feel at home.
Aidan dropped a reassuring hand on Prey’s shoulder. “You’re peculiar t’day. Something on your mind, little one?”
“Nostalgia. I don’t need you worrying about me, old man.”
Wisps of grey smoke accompanied Aidan’s crusty laugh. “If you want me worried, you’re not payin’ enough!” He handed Prey the pipe. “Bah. Yet you do have a touch of melancholy about you, lass.”
“Listen, Aidan. There’s a rusty little tugboat out on the harbour. If I’m not back in a month, I want you to take the envelope I gave you to a small island outside the blockade. There’s a fisher’s license on the boat that’ll get you access, along with a map. The rest is easy enough from there.” Prey inhaled with her full chest, letting the smoke wreath around her lungs. For the briefest of moments, the serpent released its grip.
“I get your meaning,” Aidan said. “See you next month, kid.”
The Fastness was a tall, circular brick edifice, embedded inside the towering mountain range that gave the city of Whedon’s Row its namesake. Legend tells that the chieftains of the Old North constructed two hundred steps to the perron, so only the strongest and healthiest among them could hold the right to lead. If the city fell, the chieftains would use the perron to deliver a last stand before retreating into the Fastness. Whedon’s Row, however, has never been breached and has stood for over a millennium. It stood long before there was a Caoiva, and Prey would bet her fortune that it would stand long after no one remembered the name Callahan. Since the Witan had infested Whedon’s Row, they built many shorter, simpler paths to the Fastness—including a bloody lift.
Prey’s ancestors knew the same simple truth that she did: frail, cowardly old men are unfit for governance.
Flanked by Rumtooth and Captain Katrine Varg, Prey climbed each of the two hundred steps to the Fastness. The little chestnut box was weightless in her hands. So much time, gallons of blood and rivers of sweat led Prey to this very climb. The burning in her calves only reminded her how much she craved the taste of victory.
Again, the dramatics! she chastised herself. Bloody hell, why care now? Excitement was high, and the serpent slumbered. For now. Two Wardens stood guard at the grand hall’s entryway. Those giant doors must have been carved from an ancient oak, the kind you’d only read about in heroic myths. Upon sight of Prey and her retinue, the guards parted ways. The one to her left nodded. The path through the grand hall and into the Fastness was clear. They climbed to the third floor unobstructed and approached the Archon’s Solar.
Turning a corner, a struggle broke out behind her. Captain Varg surrendered to a Hand agent holding her at gunpoint while two other Hands tackled Rumtooth to the ground. Prey reached into her jacket for her pistol, backpedalling until something cracked her in the back of the head and the hallway spun into a blurry void.
Prey couldn’t move.
Well, she could move. It was more that she was bound and cuffed to a chair. Twisting and pulling was useless, but Prey had no intention of being a trapped rat. The cell had little light, which was of no help.
Prey twisted her left wrist until it made a satisfying pop sound. It slid out of the cuff. Her free hand throbbed, but it didn’t fully dislocate. Her hand needed a moment. She focused on controlled breathing. Half the pain had numbed, which was enough to tug at the rope. A bit of twisting and a few odd hand positions later, she freed herself of the bindings, then wrenched her other hand from its cuff.
The world swayed as she stood, still dizzy from the blow to the head. Something or someone had not been accounted for. All wasn’t ruined, as her bindings were looser than they ought to have been. The cell door had no handle from the inside. Pressing against it did nothing. What good was freedom in a windowless room? Did the captain turn on her after all? Perhaps Prey put too much faith in their shared lineage and a bastard’s rage.
No, that wasn’t it.
Prey paced in the cell, massaged her twisted arm.
The box will have made it to Callahan by now, unless one of her men diverted it. It didn’t matter if it got an audience with him one way or the other, but that was no guarantee.
Damn the Sun and curse the stars. It was a universal truth that not all could be controlled, but this was not an overnight scheme plotted in hushed tones by candlelight. She hadn’t burned millions of chips and several years leveraging contacts to track down the roots of her lineage, infiltrate the Hands through those disloyal to Callahan, and make a deal with Lord bloody Barrony only to wind up rotting in a cell beneath the Fastness.
Prey shoulder tackled the big oak door with the full weight of her rage behind it. Not even a shudder. No dust cloud. No one would know she’d touched it.
Then it swung open.
Captain Katrine Varg stepped into the dim-lit hallway.
“Ms. Prey.” Varg exhaled, ran her hands up through her hair. “Finally. Took a lifetime to find where they’d dumped you.”
“Just Prey, thanks,” she said. “What’s happened?”
The pair made their way out of the holding cells back up to the main floor of the Fastness and into the grand hall.
“A young officer in the Watchers recognized you as we entered the grand hall. Word is he served in some crackdown during a street clash between your people and a deserter gang by the warehouses. Reported you to the Hands,” Varg said.
They climbed the grand hall’s spiral staircase.
“Right. Okay. They had to act on that.” Varg padded her hands down the front of her jacket. Fuck, it’s gone. “Where’s Rumtooth? My package?”
They passed the second floor.
“At the Solar. I filled out paperwork identifying the two of you as my associates,” Varg said.
“I like you, Varg.”
“Let’s not get confused. You are now in my debt.”
“A woman after my own blood,” Prey said, then shot Varg a wolfish smile.
Upon reaching the third floor, they again rounded the corner towards the Archon’s Solar. This time, no one jumped them. No Rumtooth and no package, either. Two Hands flanked the door. Prey eyed one of them as they passed through.
Sunlight bathed the massive greeting room in warm, diffused light through an opening in the stone ceiling impossibly high above them. A marvel of ancient architecture. So much of the nuance of the Fastness’s design seemed lost to modern builders. If her heart were not beating to the tune of a war drum, she’d have basked in the awe of it all. Perhaps she would get the opportunity after she was through with everything.
The Hands followed them in. One kept to their rear, while the other led them through the first circular room, through a landing and into a brief, dimly lit hallway with a set of double doors at the end. It opened into a massive office with a stone desk adorned in bright blue fabrics. Cillian Callahan reclined in an ornate chair behind it, chestnut box open in one hand, and a photograph in the other. Before the desk, Rumtooth knelt with a Warden officer’s pistol against his head. Two Hands surrounded Callahan, which made four counting the two that led Prey and Varg in.
The fat, withered, piss-stain of an archon lit a match and put the photograph to flame. He tossed it in the box, then slid it away while it burned. Chemical smoke wisped around the office. That corrosive scent awoke the serpent.
If there was a true Callahan in the room, no one would admit it. Cillian struggled to fit in the chair he pretended to rule their dying country from. The silhouette of his shadow blemished the Caoivish standards draped behind him. Not even the most talented painter would find an ounce of nobility in Cillian Callahan.
The archon’s wattle flapped as he spoke. “It’s a rare treat when I get to stare down one of the most violent criminals to terrorize my city.”
“I promise. The pleasure is all yo—” Prey started.
He slammed the desk, then settled into an awkward, aggressive seated posture. “Filth will have no voice in my house. Why do you think you’re here? Why do you think I’ve granted an audience with you? Did you think you’d earned it? That your scheming and conning got you here? Foolish little girl. All of this for what? Blackmail?
“I’ve no memory of your mother’s face. Do you think I asked her name? She was a whore! Whores aren’t worth remembering. Neither are the bastards that slide out from between their legs.” Cillian gestured to Varg. “That one’s at least made something of herself. Captain, why do you lower your station and face execution by conspiring with a court jester?”
Prey shared a look with Varg. Uncertainty filled her eyes. Stick to the plan, Katrine. He’s all bluster.
“May I speak, sir?” Varg fell into an attentive stance, by impulse rather than a conscious move. Cillian flicked two fingers in approval. “Yesterday, I held photographs of myself that captured memories I do not remember. On the back of it, my name was there next to another name I did not recognize. There was another photograph of a woman that I also did not recognize. Her features were… well, sir, they were uncanny.”
“Make your point, captain,” Cillian said.
“Why did you take this office, sir?”
Cillian chortled. The high pitch of it roused the serpent entwined with Prey’s spine. It began its ascent.
Finally, the mass of flesh masquerading as a king stood holding onto the desk for stability. “It is my right to rule. I am Cillian of the Callahan clan, rightful founders of this country. Who are you but bastards lucky enough to have crawled from a gutter I spilled my seed into?”
The serpent pierced Prey’s ribs. It absorbed all the warmth that pulsed through her veins. “You are a disgrace. To our ancestors and to our blood. We both know the Powderkeg runs this country. Your blood is the only reason you’re in that seat—suffocating it. You are a ruse. Do you believe one as repugnant and miserable as you are truly commands respect?”
Cillian’s cheeks flared red, his massive head primed to pop. “What do you know of respect? Blathering pox, you are. Maybe it’s time someone taught you the meaning of respect.”
Prey smirked. “Alright, Pa. Show me.”
Cillian flicked his ballooned wrist towards Prey. “Hang them. Do it in the streets so all the other gutter rats can watch.”
Only the Hand nearest Prey moved. He paused in front of her, reached into his jacket, ignoring his holstered weapon to produce a Lynch 791 revolver. This particular revolver had a white, polished wood grip that contrasted its black-brushed muzzle. It was no subtle weapon, and certainly not in the class of firearms employed by the Hands. A show of force equal to the damage it inflicted. A serpent’s fangs. A predator’s weapon.
The Hand flipped over the revolver. Prey’s slender fingers wrapped around the grip, locking into grooves carved to match. The Hands dispersed, fell in behind Prey, who measured the weight of her revolver. She strode across the room towards the great stone desk of the archon.
Cillian blubbered. Prey cut him off. “Perhaps you’ve not learned the meaning of the word respect. This,” Prey gestured to the Hands in the room and Captain Varg behind her, “is what respect looks like.” Prey lifted the revolver to Cillian’s head and flicked it towards her. “Over here.”
The archon hobbled out from behind his desk, huffing and puffing and blustering about legal this and punish that and something about disgrace, but Prey stopped listening. The serpent was famished, and she meant to feed it.
“On your knees,” Prey said, hushed. Cillian didn’t comply. “Get on your fucking knees.”
Pain and fear slashed over the Cillian’s eyes. For a sack of arthritis, being in that position would’ve been torturous. Prey pressed her revolver’s muzzle to the archon’s forehead.
“You are a cockroach wearing the skin of a wolf whose maggot-riddled corpse you stumbled upon in a drunken stupor,” Prey hissed.
“What does that make you, then?” Cillian said.
What pitiful last words.
The serpent ate its fill.
Ears ringing and suit now sticky with dead archon, Prey knelt and cupped Rumtooth’s cheek. The officer kept his pistol trained on Rumtooth. He was as silent and trusting as he’d always been. “I’m sorry, my good friend,” Prey whispered. “Together, you and I turned hell into a home for castoffs like us. Please know that I wish there was any other way.”
Prey leaned in and embraced Rumtooth, who wrapped his mammoth arms around her. They fit together like pieces in a puzzle. She set the revolver against the base of Rumtooth’s skull. Pulling the trigger was the first time Prey cried. The ringing in her ears silenced the world as his body fell limp. She struggled to hold the weight of him as she sobbed into his shoulder. She wrapped his massive fingers around the revolver.
Prey wiped her tears, painting her face with a crimson mask. The officer and Hands hurried to arrange the two corpses in preparation for photographs that would go into official record. Prey’s feet carried her, as if possessed, around to the other side of the archon’s stone desk.
The chair was heavy, too large, and ancient, with evidence to suggest modern repairs and refurbishment. She dragged two fingers along ornate curls and knots in the wood. Prey’s body collapsed onto the archon’s chair.
Not because she wanted it for herself. Not because she had any political ambition. Not because she had any claim to it.
For that moment, she reigned at the top of the food chain.
Prey sat because there was no one left to stop her.
Written by Matthew Rigg
"Beneath the Bronze Mask" will release later this year.