Broken Lands

Sophia frowned internally. It was hard keeping the frown off her face. She could put things together from here and everything wasn’t adding up. From what Arryn said, the changes were cat-related. He’d strongly implied that Catshold was where Aymini was Warped and gained her catlike ears, but that didn’t make sense. She, along with the rest of her team, was gone when it happened.

This also didn’t seem to be leading up to a war. Sophia remembered that Aymini mentioned something called a Warped War, but also knew that Vramt said it wasn’t really a war. Maybe this was that situation?

“We followed the blood into the guardhouse, not because we thought there was any need to find the monster but because we thought someone there might know what was happening. We were right about that, but wrong about whether or not they’d talk to us. We found a body,” Aymini didn’t say the condition the body was in. Sophia knew enough to be grateful. “While we looked at it, we were surrounded. The people surrounding us seemed big, even for guardsmen and almost all of them had catlike features; several even had fully Warped faces. The thing is, people with catlike features flocked to Catshold and they were all in guards’ uniforms; it seemed strange but we still didn’t know what happened.”

Aymini paused for a moment. Unlike Arryn’s pauses, Aymini’s seemed to be more to regain her composure than to heighten the tension. “They ushered us into a jail cell and said they’d deal with us later. I think there was more, something about not having time and finding us over the Watch Captain’s body, but at least some of that was to convince us to come peacefully. If only we hadn’t.”

“You didn’t know,” Arryn told Aymini. “Catshold had an excellent reputation. It was the right choice at the time.”

“It wasn’t the right choice,” Aymini disagreed. “We should have seen that something was wrong. We did, really; we just didn’t believe it. We talked about it once we were in the cell. Why was the gate unguarded? Why did they take us into custody for killing the Watch Captain when there was blood everywhere and none of it on us? What were they so busy with other than what we’d seen? We came up with all sorts of questions and a bunch of answers, but none of them were the truth.”

Aymini sighed. She looked older than Sophia thought she was for a moment. “In the end, we slept. That was all it took. When we woke, it was clear that the men who captured us were, in fact, once guardsmen … and that they weren’t the men they once were. I was shorter, with far brighter hair and a second set of ears. My changes were less than the others’ other than my height. Dren, our frontliner, went the other way; he was about a foot taller than he had been and far more muscular. He also gained a coat of fur and his hands shifted into uselessness; he couldn’t hold anything in his new paws. They had claws, but he was definitely unhappy with the change.”

That was actually pretty horrifying. Effectively losing your hands because you slept for the night was terrible. Sophia suspected she had a new candidate for her rare nightmares.

“Jassyn was in trouble in a different way; he didn’t change in size much, but his entire shape changed. When he woke, he looked like a furless cat. His head was unchanged, and his hands were still shaped like hands, but he could no longer stand upright. He tried to make light of it, joked about how uncomfortable a tail was when you wore pants, but he was obviously panicking inside. He wasn’t the worst, though; that was Lahy Irmine. She woke up with the head of a giant cat growing out of her chest and no control over her magic. She said the cat was fighting her for it.” Aymini was out of breath by the time she finished.

“I had no idea Warps like that were possible.” Dav sounded almost interested, rather than horrified.

“They’re very rare,” Arryn contributed. “Few people survive them, so they’re generally considered a fatal magical side effect rather than a Warp.”

“I don’t know if Lady Irmine survived or not,” Aymini admitted. “What I do know is that I could fit through the cell’s bars. Everyone agreed I should run and get help; someone needed to and it was clear there was something very wrong with Catshold. So I did. It took two weeks to get to Hailport, but there weren’t any better options, so Hailport is where I went.”

Sophia was certain there was more to the story than that. You didn’t cross significant stretches or territory, especially not monster-infested territory, alone and without supplies and not end up with a longer story than that. It wasn’t relevant, so Sophia didn’t push. It might be an interesting story for another time.

“I wasn’t believed. I know that sounds strange now, but at the time it was thought to be impossible for people inside a Nexus to be Warped. It was far easier to believe that my obvious Warp confused me and made me see cats in shadows of nothing. No one blamed me for my missing team, but I couldn’t go rescue them. It was months before I was able to find a new team, too, because who wanted the tiny catgirl that had to learn how to fight again and didn’t have any kit that actually fit her, even if she wasn’t hallucinating anymore?” There was no doubt that Aymini was bitter about it.

Sophia could understand her situation and could also understand how it happened. People often failed badly when black swan events happened and this sounded like a completely unexpected event. That didn’t make the experience any better for Aymini.

Aymini waved off the experience. “The team that picked me up was the team Vramt was on; him and his wife and an old friend of theirs. By then, it was known that messages weren’t coming from Catshold and anyone who went there didn’t come back as planned. I think that was what made them take a chance on me, that and the fact that their scout decided to move on. They weren’t about to head to Catshold and I couldn’t argue with them, not months too late when teams far stronger than ours were disappearing. We found out why they disappeared a year after that, when Hailport was attacked.”

Aymini scooted her plate a little farther away from herself so that she could lean on the table. “This time, we were there. We saw the cats come over the wall. Giant cats ridden by catmen and women, some who looked like cats and some who looked like nightmares with cat ears. We beat them back that day, and the next, but by the third it was clear that all we were going to be able to do was buy time for the Professionals and the children to evacuate. Even at that, many Professionals who once held Vocations stepped up to fight, people who should never have used a weapon again. With the decision to fight, they gave up the Nexus’s protection. All too many died.”

“All too many Called died as well,” Arryn half-scolded Aymini. “You were no safer than they were.”

Aymini took a long, shuddering breath. “Right. Well, those who could afford it bought the spells to leave Hailport through portals; those who couldn’t manage that fled in refugee caravans, usually with far too few Called to keep them safe. Those of us who had spare Fragments donated them, but the portals …” Aymini shook her head. “It’s simply too expensive to travel that way and we had nowhere near enough Fragments to get everyone out. It would have taken more Called than the city had to protect everyone and we had to stay behind to delay the cats. There was no good choice.”

Aymini sounded like she was reassuring herself that they’d made the best choice possible in a bad situation. Sophia wasn’t there which made it hard to know, but it certainly sounded like there weren’t any good options.

“Evacuating a city is nearly impossible,” Dav rumbled. “Especially with very little warning. It’s worse when it’s through contested areas. I’ve seen it. To the last minute there are always people who think they can hide rather than run, people who can’t travel, and people who just don’t know they need to run. Then when the Dust comes through the air and-” He stopped and vigorously shook his head. “You were talking about catmen, not the Dust.”

Both Aymini and Arryn were staring at Dav with inquisitive expressions. Aymini seemed willing to leave well enough alone, but Arryn clearly wasn’t. “I’ve never heard of dust attacking a city. Was there something hidden in the dust or was it something big?”

Dav shook his head. “Call it something hidden, if you like. That’s more accurate than not. I’m from a long way away; there’s no chance of the Dust coming here.”

Sophia made a mental note to ask Dav about the Dust later. She was beginning to think that it meant more to his childhood than he’d said in his quick description.

“Hailport held for days, but it was never going to be long enough,” Aymini restarted. “We ended up with one of the last refugee caravans out of Hailport; because of Revina, we couldn’t stay to the end. I’m fairly confident I saw Dren die. I didn’t see Jessyn or Lady Irmine, but I’m certain they were both there as well. By then, it was too late to save them; it was all we could do to save ourselves and even that was not always possible. On the trip, Vramt and I were injured; his wife and friend were killed.”

It didn’t escape Sophia’s attention that while Aymini named the members of her team that were Warped into catlike beings, she didn’t name Revina’s mother or the “old friend” who was in the team with them. There was almost certainly a story there and it probably had to do with Revina and why Aymini didn’t like being called “mother.”

Of course, that was only a guess on Sophia’s part, one that was likely to stay a guess. She was leaving when Arryn did as long as they could arrive at some sort of agreement.

“We didn’t stop running in the next city we came to; there were too many refugees there already and staying would have meant trouble. By the time we did stop, we heard that two more cities fell before the advance was stopped. It took years for the fallen cities to be reclaimed, and the only reason people went to the effort was because the catfolk kept sending out raiding parties. They weren’t good neighbors. In many ways, defeating them was good. It came with new information; everyone who slept in a catkin-controlled Nexus started to Warp. More than one team fought themselves when some switched sides. It was a huge mess before the Nexuses were reclaimed, even Hailport’s. Even Catshold’s.” Aymini stopped talking and took a sip of her beer.

She shot a glance at Arryn; when he nodded, she shook her head and continued. “By then, I always wore a hat or a hairband to conceal my ears. No one cared that I carried the first warning, even if it wasn’t believed; I looked catlike and that was enough. Over the next few years, the fear grew: what other Warped were out there that could somehow corrupt Nexuses? In the end, that was all it took; we had to flee and we did. That’s why we’re here. That’s all there is to say.”

“You left the best part out,” Arryn objected.

Aymini snorted. “No, I didn’t. There isn’t a best part to the story.”

Arryn raised both of his eyebrows. “Not even the fact that you killed the Lion yourself? That was quite an accomplishment. He was Levels above you. You know as well as I do that until you did that, none of the captured Nexuses stopped Warping people.”

Aymini shrugged. “My hand may have been the one on the dagger, but I was more of a weapon than a fighter. It was a huge plan; they needed someone he’d overlook in the battle until it was too late. So no, I don’t count that as the best part. It’s not even worth mentioning.”