Chronicles - Malifaux

‘The price was too high, eh?’ she cackled. ‘You looktroubled, boy. Is she not worth it?’‘Worth it and more,’ he said immediately, filled withrash bluster. ‘Were the price my whole hand, I wouldpay it.’The swamp witch displayed her horrible teeth and hereyes glinted. ‘You offer your hand for her love? What abeauty she must be. The eyes! Oh, the hair!’ She flickedat her ratty grey locks with sharp fingers in a coquettishgesture.Adulio only had eyes for the band around his wrist. ‘Iwill go to her tomorrow,’ he said half to himself. ‘I willtell her how I feel. And she will understand?’Zoraida gripped his injured hand with both of hers andheld it up to his face. ‘This is the bond,’ she said. ‘She isbound to you, and you to her. A price you have paid. Aboon you shall have. Death awaits the man who wouldseek to take her from you. So speaks Zoraida.’Adulio felt his heart swell with exhilaration.‘I will go to her tomorrow,’ he said again, excitedthoughts beginning to jumble in his head. ‘She will loveme and we will be together.’Adulio was so enraptured with his vision of the day tocome that he quite missed the look of devious cunningon the face of the Hag. Had he stopped to listen moreclosely to her words, he may have questioned the factthat she had mentioned nothing of reciprocal affectionfrom Lupita. Were he a more level-headed young man,he may have thought more carefully about what hehad asked for and perhaps found a more subtle way tounearth Lupita’s feelings for him, but his overriding fearhad been that she would fall for another and he hadpleaded that Zoraida ensure she would be for him andhim alone. Time would prove this a tragic oversight onhis part, compounded by the instinctive malice of theswamp witch, but at that moment Adulio truly believedthat his prayers had been answered. The events of thefollowing morning, however, would prove just howwrong he was.Thirty yards from the main doors to the Guild officesstood Curmudgeon Square. Ask any of Malifaux’steeming residents where this title had come from andyou would be rewarded with little more than a shrugor a blank look. Ask where this Square was to befound and that shrug or blank look would always beaccompanied by a pointing finger. Curmudgeon Squarewas one of those places with the dubious honor of beingwell-known among the denizens of the city withoutnecessarily having qualified for its notoriety.The fact that it governed the crossroads of two mainthoroughfares of the city, as well as its proximity to thehuge and brooding Guild offices and the wide-spreadknowledge of its location made Curmudgeon Square apopular favorite among meeting locations. The Squareitself was better than two hundred yards across andpaved in dark (and almost perpetually wet) granite. Thisexpanse was studded with a multitude of statues andobelisks, many of which were so weather-worn or timeeatenthan all features and detail had long since beenerased. On three sides loomed monolithic buildings ofacademia and bureaucracy, remarkable only for theirsize and grey uniformity. The fourth and south-facingside of the Square was open to the crossroads –two busythoroughfares that slashed and back-slashed diagonallythrough the city and sat like the crossed bones beneaththe Square’s granite skull.Despite this dour description, the Square was constantlypopulated by stall vendors, hawkers, jugglers andartisans of every stripe and color, transforming thesoulless expanse into a bustling hive of entrepreneurialcommerce. Cries of merchants and salesmen, soothsayersand mystics mingled with haggling customers and thelaughter of children that darted through the crowds liketiny fish through rough water: all these sounds werebuoyed up on air currents scented with roasted meatand nuts, alcohol, exotic spices and the constant sweetbreeze of honeysuckle and jasmine that drifted from theflower vendors across the southern-most edge of theSquare.Being the only area that escaped the perpetualshadows of the towers beyond, the southern edge ofCurmudgeon Square was where the flower vendorsplied their trade. At first light each morning, wagonsand hand-barrows would rattle into position and a vividexplosion of Nature’s finest would proceed to engulf thearea. There were pots of mauve and turquoise Bell-tops7 © Copyright Wyrd Miniatures, LLC