The wanderer arriving where the crowd had collected itself, was a moment Patnos awaited.
He called out, "what do you think boy? Are we going to pull this off?"
The wanderer, all drenched up, but his overcoat still looked drier than his hair. "If they do help, this will get over. But why are we preparing against this Kikren?"
A gasp ran through the crowd. The wanderer retorted, "ah, so people of the outskirts are the real city folk of Cleaving? Because that didn't seem like coming from people suffering from forgetfulness."
'Whatever works to get me some break', he thought to himself. The eyes of Talia flicked to him and back to the crowd.
She moved with grace, a cadence she had mastered over the decades of her life. "Do you realize this people? Whether the boy is from the city or not, even he knows. He knows the one who are the safest from a threat are the ones in power, are the ones in the city."
Patnos turned, faking him looking at the work the wanderer had done till now, to hide his disgust at Talia's lies. He knew very well, who the ones were in true power.
"Just look at it. Look at it, this is what he did alone. What more could he do with a few more extra hands?" Patnos glanced back at the crowd.
"That is all good and right, but I need a break and some good old enhancing drinks. Does anyone happen to know something like that?" The wanderer mused out, as he wiped his hands and face in his brown overcoat.
He settled onto the log he was going to drag out to the sea. But he felt it, he should be forgetting it. His memory of working again, fading a bit. Yet, it also didn't, his body was sore from resting, and it constantly reminded him moving right now was a better way to relax than sudden relaxation.
He felt his body's memory clashing against the memory that was attempting to get faded. He focused himself to remember it a bit more. This subtle sensation.
A younger man than Patnos chipped in, "we hear you, we hear you. We will help. And he can rest too. Does anyone want to make some demands? Because I can tell we don't have anyth—"
"A bit more trees to be chopped away, I need it. My cottage needs repair." Another voice called out.
"I need some of the larger rocks from some of those waterfalls from the cliff side. They—"
"I just need some roots and a bit of land made for farming. My family have been starving from the swimbeasts lack here."
This last voice unsettled the uprising in the crowd. They realized, what they have forgotten. The most important thing of their life. The meat of the swimbeasts.
The wanderer was a bit confused. "But, shouldn't there be other beasts and animals to hunt—"
"The decree targeted us", whispered Talia and Patnos both to the wanderer. A realization settled within him.
If all the swimbeasts are getting hunted before reaching the city of Cleaving, then local bigger sea animals, beasts and fishes will not roam here. He understood it now.
This was a simple and slow melody of the death's march.
Created none other than by the very people of the continent. Cleaving is already cut off, it's port empty. The cliff does not have any terrain that could be made into a road to connect.
Cleaving was a death trap, and its cage has been closed.
The wanderer's mind had only one thought, 'why is this angering me more? I don't know these people!'
He stood up from where he had settled himself on the log. Stretching himself, "Patnos, do you reckon we could get more of that drink of yours?"
Patnos turned fully towards him, "sure, why not! Let's go. To the Master Rhai in Fourth Library Street, it's not far from here. We still need you in better shape whether more pioneers come or not."
Patnos patted him, continuing forward towards nearby gate to the city. Aloud he went off, "History may never remember every deed of every pioneer. Maybe regimes hide them away. But the deeds only in writing can be hidden away, it can never be hidden away once it's in the people. In the land itself. "
He laughed out loud, "and yours boy, it may be considered foolish by some in the future. But it never was one to be forgotten, never may be one."
As they walked away, only when reaching the gate did the wanderer broke the one rule he had learned to heart. To never peek at something unless it has invited or given you permission.
He peeked back at the crowd.
He saw Talia, the crowd, but what he hadn't expected was a mist flowing out of Talia. She looked back and smiled.
He knew then, she could have done worse to him. She just chooses not to.
Master Rhai's store-cum-home gave not the emotions that the wanderer expected of someone being hailed as a Master of something.
It's aesthetics were all over the place. This building more deserved the name of ramshackle than the Pioneer Port Hall.
They were just about to enter the building, when both the wanderer and Patnos smelled the air filled with stench of blood.
They were alarmed. However, both could tell it wasn't from the Master Rhai's home. There was movement inside fast and loud. Someone was rushing out.
Rather than responding to the rushing sounds from the Rhai's home, they both turned and looked in the direction of a different street. A bypass to a different Library Street from the fourth.
A man in long overall jacket stepped out from the Rhai's home, "Patnos? What's that smell? I rushed out thinking there was a murder in the street. Where—"
Rhai also now looked into the same direction as the wanderer and Patnos. All three now saw the red that flowed out of the bypass road into this street. The red that matched Master Rhai's hair colour, the only kind a human blood makes.
They walked in a daze towards the next street, Patnos whispered to himself, "what—who—why is there…in the six—sixth street?"
They crossed the bypass road and into the next street over. Blood was all over the road, the buildings, and the windows open or closed. Everything was covered in red blood, a melody of blood and death had sung here.