When the sun reached it’s peak in the sky Martuk could wait no longer and finally gave himself permission to do what he’d been planning since almost as soon as those coins had rattled into his bowl this morning. Tipping the few lonely coppers in his bowl into his hand he tucked them away and set his cart on the paved street before dragging himself off the gutter and on to it.

Breathing heavily after the exertion he set off through the thronging crowd that had overtaken the Grand Square. Most just stepped aside as he made his slow creaking way past them without actively noticing him, the ones who did notice him almost universally grimaced in distaste before deliberately turning away.

He sighed.

This was his life now, either an ignored nuisance or viewed with disgust. Truthfully the disgust was probably justified, he literally lived in garbage and couldn’t wash his clothes. He’d stopped smelling himself long ago but he was sure he stank. Oruc body odour smelled of sweet earth and fresh hewn wood to other races but he was sure that some of those stains ground into his clothing had bad smells associated with them, along with the bad memories.

He very deliberately put aside his morose thoughts, he was about to treat himself and he would not spoil it, no chance.

Rolling up to Azex’s stall he had to fight a little to get near because it was crowded as always, from when he opened to when he closed the crowd around his stall was never less than five deep… but it was only a very short time Martuk had to wait before he was served.

Greeting Azex he said, “Ho thief. How much are you going to overcharge me today?”

The man in the greasy and slightly bloodstained leather apron tending the spitted herdbeast and surrounded by clouds of delicious smelling smoke smiled and said, “Only twice as much for you today, I am in a good mood.”

“Good to hear... two large portions of herdbeast please.”

“Oh, another drunk Noble threw you a banana?” As the stallholder carved the two large juicy gobbets of steaming herdbeast he named the smallest of the gold coins minted in Kalstrasia, coins that were generally not liked because they were thin and bent much too easily.

“No, no drunk Noble this time. Just a generous person.”

“Nice. So it'll be herdbeast instead of monkey for a while then, hey?” he said as he handed over the two very large dripping portions on a paper plate and taking the silver platter gave back a several smaller silvers and some coppers.

“I'll be back to the cheap meat tomorrow sadly. I just felt a need to treat myself today.”

“Everybody deserves a treat now and then, enjoy it in good health my friend.” Azex smiled briefly but warmly before turning to serve another of the swarm of hungry demanding customers around his stall.

Martuk took his lunch to the park at the southern end of the Grand Square.

It was where he and many others had arrived in this Realm, a circle of standing stones carved with time blurred markings surrounded a dimensional locus. An area where the walls between the Realms were thin, he’d never been able to work out if that Cadogan bloodmage had intended him to come here or if his spell had just sent him to the nearest thin spot.

He was far from the only person or thing to cross the boundary here. Other things and people from the Fae Realm or the GodsRealm weren’t much trouble, they tended to get folded into the town or just wander around a bit before being killed or vanishing. But the things from the Realm of the Unmentioned were always hungry and they viewed people as food so the guard kept a fairly close eye on this park.

Sitting in the shade of a tree on the richly fragrant grass with his belly full of well cooked and well seasoned herdbeast Martuk didn't care about that, he just enjoyed the mildly uncomfortable feeling of being a little overfull. A very pleasant feeling he hadn't felt in far too long.

It seemed like moments later when he felt a tap against his foot and heard a voice asking, “Talker, you alright?”

Startled his eyes flew open and raising his head he saw a pair of guardsmen looking down at him with concern. Recognising them he relaxed, they were part of the detachment who patrolled the Grand Square as their beat.

“Yes, I'm fine Officer Jones. Thank you for asking. I just fell asleep after lunch, Azex's herdbeast, two larges.”

The guardsman nodded “Ah, perfectly understandable but better get yourself back to the stalls area. There's a lot of coalition soldiers roaming the market today. some Polity festival or something. I don't think they'd do anything in broad daylight but you'd be safer to not be caught alone and unaware.”

“I will Officer, thank you.”

As the guardsmen walked away Martuk pushed the cart back to the footpath and pulled himself back on, from long experience he knew the wheels would sink into the the grass if he tried to ride it and it would be a wearying time to free it.

As he moved through the seething crowds of late afternoon shoppers he could see that there were a lot more uniforms than usual. Worse, most of those uniforms were the crazed zig-zag of Polity uniform camouflage instead of the splotches or blocks of the other two coalition members.

In the Fae realm the lands the Polity occupied was his home, the Oruc plateau. There were many places on that plateau thin enough for creatures and people to leak through so the Polity had long experience with strange creatures and non-humans. It was odd to him how two cultures could end up so different even in the same place and under the same conditions. His own had embraced strangers unless they proved false or dangerous for the help they could bring in times of need but the Polity had instead embraced xenophobia and pure self-interest. Any but their own must be destroyed before they took anything the Polity held.

He made his slow and awkward way up the gutter and settled himself beside the tent again watching Jerri, who’d arrived to open up now that the day was wearing long. The smiling merchant waved him over once he had the flap up and the cheap trinkets he used as display goods set out and said, “I'd wondered where you were at and I must admit a little worried. The Pollies are swarming in a way I have not seen before so I asked around. Apparently it is the 250th anniversary of the Polities victory against a large Raelian force that attempted to colonise the mountains between the Plateau and the Empire. Be very careful my friend, the Polity Soldiers are feeling powerful and particularly xenophobic this night.”

Martuk smiled and said, “Thank you, I'd already been warned by the guard that the soldiers were around. I think I will hide myself away behind your stall, a generous donation has made my need of money much less for a tenday at least.”

“If you do not need to be seen, rather than hide behind it just put yourself behind the partition here in the stall. You will be as well hidden from the roadway but we can talk when I am not busy with customers.” Jerri lifted the entryway of the counter.

“Are you sure? If they see me in there they will assume I am friendly with you.”

“And you are not?”

“I would consider myself to be but I would also much rather not cause my friends trouble if I can avoid it.”

“Unless you draw their attention, you will not.”

Moving through the entry Martuk said, “I thank you, you are a true gentleman.”

“I can only try, my large friend. I can only try.”

Not much later as the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the very brief twilight spread over the town the feeling of the Market had changed. The air was tense, ugly feeling, and brawls erupted every few minutes between groups of drunk Polity soldiers and everyone else. Most, feeling the tenseness in the air, had fled but some groups of local toughs and a very few oblivious citizens remained. The Guard were in reinforced patrols and were breaking up the brawls as fast as they occurred but they couldn't be everywhere and slowly the brawls were taking longer and longer to break up as the Guard's attention was spread.

As another group of soldiers walked past Jerri shaking his head said quietly to Martuk, “I don't like this. It feels like a battle brewing and I know that feeling much too well. I have no wish to be here when it starts because many heads will be broken and I really don't want mine to be one of them.”

One of the soldiers walking past stopped and turning to look at Jerri said, “Who're you talking to? There's no battle coming here mate, there's no beasts or any of them damn Baas 'round here to fight because we've beat them bloody every time they stick their stinking noses out of the jungle.”

As the Soldier's friends drunkenly hooted and hoping to deflect his attention Jerri said, “I'm talking to my friend who is keeping me company while I tend my stall. Do you see anything you may need among my wares?”

The soldier ran his eye across the stall but he clearly wasn't seeing the trinkets and low end potions that was Jerri's display goods, instead he was thinking. Then he said, “Hang on... I know that accent. What's a piece of Empire trash doin' here? Spyin' for ya Baas out in the jungles are ya?”

Jerri's voice was harsh, ugly and angry as he said, “No! I am a Kalstrasian citizen.. I fled the dammed God-Emperor's impressment gangs and I hate him as much if not worse than any coalition citizen. I saw friends and family taken for his armies who never returned.”

Trinkets scattered, glittering in the light of the lanterns and cheap low power potions fell to the ground, shattering as the soldier lunged across the counter and punched Jerri full in the face. He stumbled backward, already falling with his senses fled as the soldier shouted “Liar! Kill this piece of shit Emperor's Hound boys!”

Martuk peeked under the flap he hid behind and saw the flashes as the soldier's knives came out then he heard the sound of tearing canvas as those knives were put to work and the front of the stall was torn free. He was dead, worse his friend was dead unless he did something. But he was a helpless cripple, unless, maybe...

He wouldn't have done it to save himself but Jerri had been a good friend the entire time he'd been exiled to this realm so he called to the spirits, oh not to the ones he used to when he was a whole Shaman of the Iniskirs tribe. Instead he called on the dark and twisted spirits who would come to the call of a crippled and ugly Shaman, they were hungry, malevolent, angry, spiteful, malicious, violent... and any Shaman who called them would become theirs, forever. This door once it was opened could never be closed again.

The things that responded were the nightmare visions only ever seen out of the corner of your eye but as a Shaman he saw them in full, their twisted bodies, their fang filled maws, their crazed hungry eyes devouring even the sight of him. He welcomed them and made the promise to be theirs as long as they gave him the power he needed and they responded.

Surging to his feet he tore the flimsy partition aside as the Mantle of the Shaman fell upon his shoulders. The half dozen soldiers gaped at him, the tallest of them would barely come to mid chest on him and he was more than three times their bulk. Using the power of the mantle he fed their sudden fear with a pulse of magic as he screamed, “Flee pathetic crawling insects, the spirits have bid me to destroy you.”

Half of them, the green recruits, turned and ran. The older ones who'd seen action against the God-Emperor's forces blanched slightly but stayed resolute.

The one who'd punched Jerri shouted, “’Ware, Husk! Rodrigo! Amane! Left.”

Knives out the soldiers split around him.

They were both right and wrong about him being a husk. He was spirit-ridden but he was no corpse and a spirit-ridden corpse certainly couldn't do what a full-fledged Shaman could, pulling hard on the well of his magic he slammed power into the mantle and borrowed the spirit power of imperceptibility.

To the soldiers he simply vanished, leaving no trace at all of where he was.

He felt another pulse of fear in the air and fed it, drawing even deeper on the well. He could feel himself closing rapidly on the limits of these pathetic spirit's strength to protect him from the touch of corruption.

But he didn't really care, he was damned anyway. Calling on these hungry vicious creatures of nightmares would kill him, sooner or later.

Drawing even more deeply he used the spirit powers of speed and intangibility to slide past the soldiers. Once behind them he dropped all the spirit attributes he'd borrowed.

Then he fed a touch more magic into the new pulse of fear his reappearance caused and touched one of the soldiers, just a light brushing of his fingers. But the contact let him banish the soldier's spirit, he fell and would be insensible for three days until his spirit returned.

Having used so much magic so quickly he felt the first pangs of corruption, a twisting in his gut and a feverish burn over his entire body. These were the warning signs he knew all too well.

Either these soldiers broke or he would die here in the next few minutes and die badly, because he would not let them win.

But it was much too much for them. While they were battle hardened veterans that experience also let them know when they were outmatched and they couldn't know he was at the limits of his strength. Grabbing the unconscious man's arms, they bolted with his feet dragging and kicking up as they hit the edges of the large cobbles in the road.

Martuk immediately slammed the gateway closed and felt the signs of impending corruption fade away but it had been close, much too close.