Saga of the Old City

Chapter 1

The big, blackish rat sat upon the feast as a king upon his throne. Gord eyed the scene hungrily, his mouth watering at the sight of the trencher. Some incredibly wasteful person had discarded a slab of bread, soaked in rich meat juices and imbedded with succulent bits of things. It lay atop the garbage heap in the alleyway, and the rat sat peremptorily upon it. Gord stood nearby in jittery indecision-encouraged by hunger, restrained by fear. Then he decided to act. With a rapid motion he scooped up a pebble and flung it at the rodent. It struck the rat on its flank, but the creature didn’t run off as Gord had hoped. Instead, the rat bared its teeth viciously, voiced a horrid chittering noise, and advanced menacingly in Gord’s direction. With a frightened shriek, Gord leapt back, turned, and fled. Such a threat easily overcame the gnawing feeling in his stomach.

“Shiteater!” Gord screamed over his shoulder as he fled the huge rodent.

“Useless,” he thought to himself as he slowed and sought a meal elsewhere. “I am too small, too weak.” How often had this lesson been drummed into him?

Even as that thought came to mind, his brain fought to dismiss it, because the memories were too painful. Leena, the old scavenger woman who fostered him, had cuffed him and beat him at will-especially if he tried to hold out a scrap of food from her. Although Gord was quick and clever, he was small. He thought of himself as a runt, a coward, a failure. Now even a rat had made him run away, and Gord felt mean and miserable. He had to do something, anything; otherwise there was no reason to go on struggling to stay alive day to day.

Gord began running again, as if to escape from himself. “You’ll see! I’ll show you all! You’ll… see…” he chanted as he pounded through the narrow, dirty byways that were his home.

The twistings and turnings of the alleys and gangways of Greyhawk’s Slum Quarter were such that anyone not intimately familiar with them would be lost in minutes. Even the thieves avoided its crumbling ruins and decrepit shacks. Beggars, crazy men, and the desperate were the elite of its inhabitants. Gord, a short and skinny orphan, had spent all of his dozen years within this warren. Somehow he had managed to stay alive, thanks to his quickness, cleverness, and luck. Being called “Gord the Gutless” by the other urchins of the Slum Quarter didn’t bother him… much. At least he had managed to stay alive, unlike more of his fellow dwellers in this place than he cared to think about.

Gord slowed his pace abruptly, then stopped and huddled, gasping, under a partially collapsed wall of an ancient warehouse. He had been using various refuges of this sort, one after the other, for several months. Each gave him someplace to hide and be alone with his thoughts, and more recently, since he had been rid of Leena, served as his home for a while.

His panting subsided, but as his wind returned so did his hunger. The hollow ache of an empty stomach was nothing new to him. Even his earliest memories of Leena, the closest thing to a mother he had known, were linked with hunger. The main concern of all who lived within the decaying labyrinth of the Slum Quarter was getting food-each day enough to exist until the next.

Leena had died last winter. Many of the poor failed to survive that season, even though there were few really bitter days. The dampness and the weeks of nagging chill were sufficient to winnow out the weak. Gord had managed well enough without Leena since then, for he had actually been the provider for the last couple of years anyway. In fact, he had come to resent her whining and demands, her treating of him as something less than a son. Once, Leena had showed him a simple, unremarkable box, telling him that it had something to do with his natural parents. Then, with cruel glee, she took it outside and buried it deep in the ground near the shack they shared. “Best that this memory remain buried,” she had cackled, and she never spoke about the box again.

When Gord returned one day from his scavenging and found Leena’s stiffened corpse in the shack, his first and only thoughts were ones of relief: Now he could have the little scraps of food he found all for himself. After checking it carefully for any possible valuables, he had rolled Leena’s body out of the shack and left it for the mongrel dogs to take care of. Then he gathered up what little of value he could find and carry, and left the shack-but not the memories of it-behind him for good. As he recalled that day, Gord thought of what he possessed. Moving a board low on the good wall of his shelter, he drew out a bundle wrapped in a ragged square of cloth-his winter cloak.

He thought more about his past as he held the small parcel. “You are too small!” Leena would shriek at him when Gord failed to bring back anything worth selling or eating. Then the old hag would cuff and kick him into a huddled, blubbering ball of misery and… and hatred! Gord certainly did grow to hate his foster mother. Even at best, she was a despicable and wicked old crone.

“Clever Gord, sly Gord,” she would croon as she ate most of some scrap he would bring back. Leena would even pat him on the head and tell him to be quick and nimble, for a good head was better than a strong body, she would say-until he failed. Then he was a useless runt!

Inside the parcel were all his worldly possessions aside from the clothing he wore. The first thing Gord took out was a tiny, dried apple, which he ate in a single bite. As he munched on the withered fruit, he surveyed the remainder of the treasure. There were two drabs-nearly worthless iron coins of least value, but all the money he had ever owned. He remembered finding them hidden in the hem of Leena’s threadbare shawl. Beside them in the parcel was a small, chipped square of glass. Gord could use it to start a fire if the sun was brightly shining, and he thought it pretty besides. A longish coil of leather thong, a small, broken-tipped kitchen knife, and a cracked wooden box were all that remained. There was nothing more to eat, and nothing to sell. The two drabs wouldn’t buy Gord enough food to get him past tomorrow, and carrying them on his person invited danger.

Shortly after Leena’s death, a gang had invaded the area. They called themselves the Headsmen, because one of the bigger boys had discovered a large cleaver in one of the deserted shambles nearby. With this weapon, he had easily convinced the others to accept his leadership. These dozen hoodlums quickly established their own territory, even killing a crazy hermit who contested their domain. The gang members were all a bit older than Gord, bigger than he, and much more aggressive. They promptly proceeded to deliberately make life even more miserable for Gord. Not only did he have to find food or steal it, he then had to get it back to his place of refuge without one of the gang members stopping him and taking it away. They seemed to be everywhere, and no matter how careful Gord was, they had often caught him and stolen whatever he carried. Because there was no other area of the city where a homeless and friendless beggar-boy could go, Gord had accepted the new peril of the gang as yet another obstacle on the path of his hard and miserable life. Now, with Leena gone, Gord was able to devour anything he found, but that meant what he couldn’t eat then and there must be left behind, or he risked having it and himself fall into the clutches of the gang. There was no margin for Gord, no store of food against a leaner than usual day.

“No help for it,” Gord thought. He had stayed long enough in this hiding place. Now it was time to set out again, and he had to risk carrying his valuables with him. He tucked the two coins in the fold of his ragged shirt, added the knife, and set out to see if something couldn’t be salvaged out of the day.

Gord thought he had managed to sneak safely through the place of worst danger and was creeping along the front of a tenement, just a block away from the edge of the Headsmen’s territory, when a hand darted out of a doorway and grabbed him.

“Well, well! If it ain’t little Gord the Gutless! Where you sneakin’ off to this time, wee mouse?”

Gord’s heart sank as he looked from hand to arm to face. The broken-toothed grin that greeted his frightened gaze belonged to Snaggle. Full-grown and hulking, this stupid youth was the meanest of the gang members. As Gord tried to break away and run, Snaggle’s hand closed tightly on the collar of Gord’s shirt. While Gord hung helpless, his feet flailing several inches above the alley dirt, Snaggle frisked his person with his free hand.

“What the hell’s this, Gutless?” The lout held up the small knife, looking at its dulled and broken edge. “Planning murder, huh?” Laughing at his own witticism, Snaggle cast the blade aside and continued his search of Gord’s clothing. When his thick fingers found the two lumps that comprised Gord’s entire fortune, they froze for a second; then they clutched and tore. Gord looked down as his captor opened his fist. The drabs and a piece of his shirt were revealed. Snaggle abruptly straightened his other arm, and Gord flew sprawling into the alley, stunned.

“Listen, you little shit,” Snaggle said as he stepped to where his helpless victim lay, “holdin’ out on the Headsmen ain’t healthy!”

Gord, terrified, shut his eyes tight as Snaggle grabbed for him again. Then he felt himself being raised into the air, and he was sure the end had come. He felt the warmth of his own urine as his bladder, beyond his control, voided itself. The yellow trickle caught Snaggle’s attention and, ironically, saved Gord from a worse fate.

“Aw, haw, haw! Pissed your pants ’cause of me!” Snaggle laughed with real pleasure at the thought, and dropped the small boy with disdain. “Gutless piss-pants ain’t worth smashing anyway… too much fun to have around.” Still mirthful, Snaggle merely kicked Gord a couple of times, and not hard enough to break ribs at that. Gord lay still, too frightened to move.

“Listen, chicken-piss! I let you off easy this time. You made me laugh. Next time, I won’t be so nice, so you better watch out! When I see you ’round here again, if you ain’t got nothin’ better than a broken toothpick and a pair o’ drabs, I’ll bust you up good-an’ slow, too, so’s all us guys can enjoy it. Now get your yella ass outta my face, ’cause I hate gutless little punks!”

Gord scrambled away on all fours, clambered to his feet, and ran as fast as he could. As he fled, Gord heard: “Make it a handful o’ copper next time, piss-pants, and I’ll make ya our jester! Haw, haw, haw!”

Gord’s face was flushed with shame-a hot tingling that washed away the feeling, but not the memory, of the chill, pale fear he had just experienced. In the back of his mind Gord heard Leena cackling and screeching at him in her hag’s voice: “Gutless little runt, you ain’t even any use to yerself!”

It was true, for now he had nothing, no one. There was no place for him to go, nowhere to hide. His mind darted here and there, skittering from thought to thought like a mouse trapped in a box. The voice in his head kept cackling and berating him, though, underlying his frenzy, and this kept Gord from totally giving way to panic and despair. He was weak and lacked courage, but there was hatred to drive him!

What had just happened was too much for even Gord to pass off as merely another episode in a rotten life. Gutless or not, he had some bit of pride remaining. Somehow, Gord had to restore himself in his own eyes and settle with Snaggle in the process.

Fully returning to reality, Gord looked around and got his bearings. He was at the edge of the worst part of the Slum Quarter, near the better sector where menial laborers and others of that ilk lived. This was unsafe territory for an urchin; these working people didn’t want Gord’s kind around, knowing that they were there only to steal what little these poor folk possessed. He turned to retrace his steps and then stopped: At this point, he had nothing more to lose.

Gord slid into the shallow space of a boarded-up doorway and scrutinized the area, not knowing what he was looking for but willing to settle for anything promising. The narrow alley he was in gave onto a wider lane just ahead. He saw occasional figures passing the mouth of the passage. Anything else? Glancing up, Gord saw a series of moving shadows. It took only a moment or two for him to figure out that someone had a line of washing hung out to dry on the rooftop across the way.

“Now here’s a stroke of real luck,” he thought, as he ascended the gap by pressing his feet against one wall and his back and palms against the other.

A few minutes later, a shabbily dressed boy entered Killcat Lane from a disused alley. From the look of him he could have been one of dozens of lads who traveled in this vicinity, a link-boy or bound-boy of some sort on an errand for master or mistress-perhaps even the son of a local resident. A closer look might have brought a question to the observer’s mind, however. Although the worn blouse and baggy trousers were clean, the wearer most certainly was not. And where were the lad’s sandals?

Aware that his disguise was not perfect, Gord was feeling confident nonetheless. He had managed to steal a set of clothes better than any he had ever worn before. Although there had been nothing on the laundry line worth taking for sale somewhere, at least he could now move freely through this part of the quarter to the Foreign Quarter nearby. This opened up a whole realm of possibilities to him, and Gord’s mind raced over the more exciting ones. An unattended cash box would make him rich enough to live comfortably for months-and enable him to afford a ruffian to assassinate Snaggle. Perhaps he’d manage to find a jeweled weapon, a dagger or a small sword, left unguarded for a moment. After a grab and a fast getaway into the Slum Quarter’s byways, Gord figured he would be on easy street for life-and he would hire a personal attendant to dispatch all of the miserable Headsmen. The visions indeed were dancing deliciously in Gord’s mind as he skipped into the heart of that portion of Old Greyhawk City set aside for strangers.

At the Petit Bazaar, near the Black Gate, Gord came out of his wishful reverie and back into the real world. The worn cobbles of the rectangular plaza were crowded with colorfully draped and awninged booths, and rickety wagons and carts from which produce and handmade goods were hucked. The stone and brick buildings that walled the Petit Bazaar made the din of pedlars’ shouts and craftsmens’ calls, mixed with bargaining and insults yelled at the top of customers’ voices, fairly dizzy his head. Worse still, the sight of so many good things to eat-the aroma of broiling meat, bubbling soup, freshly baked bread, ripe galda fruit-caused Gord’s stomach to contract in waves of hunger. What should he do? Steal something to eat? Starvation was only a step behind-as always! Gord paused for a moment, invisible in an eddy where a buttress diverted the stream of human traffic elsewhere, a small, insignificant boy who was of no interest to anyone.