Ashy has crafted a work meant to give us a better understanding of what life is like in Crown. A departure from his calculating and cerebral detective, Tenet -- featured in the upcoming book -- Ashy shows us life through a wererat's eyes. About Crown will be a series featured exclusively on the Wandering Men website. Come back next month to read more!
Grakk’s sandaled feet splashed down sodden alleyways, spattering the hems of his tattered breeches with mud and filth. Cutting a corner - hard - the wererat tried to control his heaving chest as he threw himself back into a garbage-filled alcove created by stacked and abandoned shipping crates.
“Where'd'e go?” The harshly whispered voice of one of the Crown Watch carried across the still morning fog; the stupid human might as well been yelling, Grakk thought.
A shushing sound, followed by a small, hollow-sounding thump was the only retort. Grakk almost gave his position away snickering. It seemed that not all of the human members of the ‘Watch were as simple-minded as the first speaker, whom Grakk thought was called Jaek.
The echoing clamor of hobnailed boots told the wererat beggar-turned-cutpurse that he’d managed to give these two the slip, at least for now. Grakk knew, however, that he had to get out of plain sight, and quickly. He un-slung the leather backpack that he’d stolen from the lace-encrusted milksop, praying to anyone that would listen that there’d be something inside to help him.
“Bind me an’ bend me!” Grakk cursed, spitting with disgust. “Can’t a poor squatter like me ever get a lucky toss; shite!” Nothing, save several sets of fine clothes lay within the sack. Grakk, whose life had consisted mostly of living in the Sewer City deep beneath Crown’s streets, could not fathom why one would carry around extra clothes. There were more sets in this bag alone than he’d owned his whole life.
Grakk cursed again, slung the backpack over his shoulder, shaking his head. He was not far from Rooster’s, and he knew that the odd tiefling might be interested – or know someone who was – in buying the foppish lot. The peculiar innkeeper of Rooster’s Refuge kept strange company, but he was a good fellow to know on the streets. It was of’t said that those who called Rooster “friend” were “birds of a different feather”.
Grakk maintained his human form as he slipped from the shadows of cargo box towers and into the misty, muddy streets. While he loathed his smoothed-skin form - what wererats called their “lesser” shape – the average-looking, if not a bit too skinny, appearance usually afforded him the ability to move amongst Crown’s populace without attracting too much attention.
Grakk hated it, though. The short, blunted nose did not allow him to detect the acerbic scents of the sea breezes blowing into the Deep Harbor from the west, or the mouth-watering smells of rotting fish and spoiling fruit. The huge, watery eyes limited him to sight in only one spectrum of light and his teeth were small and barely sharp enough to cut through cooked meat! Grakk hated this form and he hated the weak humans that it favored; he truly had no idea how the creatures – humans – can come to rule over Crown in the grand scheme of things.
