Kaschar's Quarter Read Online Free PDF

trickle of wine must have been leaking out, for Matthieu could hear the soft patter of liquid on stone. Bracing himself against the sides with his arms, he prepared for one last kick against the wood. Sure enough, one more blow tore a hole in the barrel's end the size of his head. Hands feeble with fatigue ripped at the remaining boards until enough of them were gone to allow his whole body through, and he slid out onto the stony ground amidst a flood of Kamischkan’s finest wine. Looking down at his once fine clothes now stained a deep crimson, he was as a bloody newborn babe stepping out into the world.
    No sound came from the corridor outside or from the stairs beyond. Darkness met him on the other side of the splintered door; darkness and blood. Liesl Hardt had been a faithful cook, a lively talker, almost a second mother to Matthieu in the year since his own had succumbed to fever. Now here she was before him, her broad apron crusted with blood. He turned away in horror but could not lose the sight of her empty eyes on his own. What was that he had heard the Mentites say the night before? Kaschar’s quarter, they said. Kaschar, the Doromins’ grave.
    That was the moment it all began to come together in his mind. All those years of reports that the eastern lords were gathering masses to their cause. The many shipments of wool his father had spoken of that he once sent to Cyrnne and the dear price paid him to secure the necessary dyes; all the colors of the Houses of Ment, Garrand, Lemaste, and other lords either members of or sympathizers with the Mentite sect. The two men from the day before who came promising protection, but from what? Now Matthieu knew and it was too late to warn anyone.
    But why attack Heilicon? Treasure? The Cyrnnish had grown wealthy enough on their own industry and besides, they were safer in their city. Their fortress churches above the Alabaster Gates had stayed the might of Toris for nearly a year, and that had been well over a century ago. The only other solution Matthieu could imagine was the fulfillment of all Lord Leopold Ment’s renowned preaching: the end of the world. A day of cleansing for the wicked and triumph for the just. If this was his doing, as the two men the night before had said, then there was little chance of anything left in the city outside.
    He continued down the hallway, at first cautious of making a sound but gradually growing careless as his suspicion became knowledge: there was no one here left alive. He had not seen poor Anna Sartonné in death and now he felt himself pushing away the urge to find Martin, as a small voice giving him an even smaller hope. More silence met him in the dining hall, where broken tables and chairs littered the stone floor; this was where his father had been just moments before he had run screaming past the wine cellar. Behind one of the tables a familiar cloak mouldered in crimson and with that, Matthieu’s small hope was gone.
    This house which had once held his entire life held nothing for him now. His only solace lay beyond the market square and towards the Serpent Gate on the eastern edge of the city. If Beate Kerns was somehow still alive in all this… He could not dwell on the thought long; he could only discover the truth for himself.
    The sun that rose on the ruins of Heilicon seemed not to notice the scorched buildings or the corpses in the streets; it did not deign to pause for the smoke that still swirled around the collapsed, blackened shell of Saint Maunde’s cathedral or the blood that choked the canals and footpaths in the center of town. Neither did it halt in its course for the lone figure that trudged the muddy roads in search of anything left alive in the attack’s aftermath.
    Matthieu could not determine how many hours had passed since he first climbed out of his wine barrel. Upon leaving the remains of the only home he had ever known in this city, he had seen bodies uncounted strewn across his path. He recognized