Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [50]
“It doesn’t matter!” Max called aloud. “Any path, no matter how small, means I’m saved!” This path would lead to places where people lived, or at least to a bigger road where there would certainly be towns and farmsteads, somewhere down the line.
Since he was thoroughly lost by this time and had no idea in which direction the path ran, Max chose a direction at random and set out following it. Night fell quickly while he walked down the lane, as it always did in the deep forest. But in little more than an hour the path led to a small and tidy cottage tucked among the trees. There was a garden on one side of the cottage, and on the other side a small fenced-in yard, containing a milk cow and two fat pigs. A low shed anchored the far side of the fenced yard. Many clucking chickens wandered here and there around the homestead. A trail of inviting smoke rose out of the cottage’s stone chimney. Light flickered from the one window that he could see from the direction of his approach.
Max could hardly believe his turn of good fortune. He stepped forward at a lively, almost jaunty pace, drawing his blade as he did so. The evidence of fire made him think of cooked meals and a hot bath. While he was still at least a dozen paces away from the front door, he’d already begun to think of this place as his new home — his very private new home.
In which Peter
learns something of
the bureaucracy
of conquest,
commits a grave
crime and then
does it again.
PETER REALIZED HE WAS DYING. ONLY A month ago he’d presented himself at the south gates of the walled town of Hamelin, certain that all of his trials had come to an end. But instead of reaching the glorious refuge of his imagination, he’d found a Hamelin that had already been overrun by invader troops from the far Empire. These occupiers were a strange and frightening bunch, which he was able to examine up close for the first time. The human troops must have been the officers, because, like all leaders, they kept remote from the town’s general populace. But it was the horrific goblin soldiers who mixed with the townsfolk, patrolling the streets, and manning the gates and street corners.
Hamelin was a vast walled city, home to tens of thousands. It was roughly circular in shape and pressed up like a jealous lover against the eastern bank of the Weser River, which flowed almost due north at this point in its meanderings. A deep moat had been diverted from the river to ring the town, just outside of its high walls. Three great gate towers straddled both wall and moat at three of the four cardinal points of the compass; north, east and south. To the west there were two more gates; one opening onto a wide, fortified stone bridge that spanned the Weser, leading to a separate castle fortress on the west bank, and a second gate that opened onto a smaller bridge that led to a sliver of forested island in the middle of the river, dividing the river in twain for about five hundred meters. In addition to the gate towers, seventeen tall stone towers were spaced along the wall’s circumference, making Hamelin a truly imposing city.
A town like this could repel the direct attacks of any army and withstand a siege that lasted years, Peter had believed when he’d first arrived. But the enemy invaders who occupied Hamelin had apparently done so without inflicting any visible damage on its unscarred battlements.
Peter had arrived at the South Gate just as a long line of wagons, each piled high with the produce of the fall harvest, was entering the city. One of the rotund goblin guards simply waved him in as he approached, no doubt assuming he was part of the company of farmers delivering their goods.