Date: March 22, 541, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
Noon in Ligra turned out to be unseasonably warm, and the city's central market resembled a giant, noisy beehive. Dur, pressed into the shadow of a dyer's wall, watched. He had already spent several hours here, absorbing the rhythm and rules of this place. His ears, trained by the forest for silence, now struggled to pick out individual sounds from the general din: the fractional tapping of coppersmiths' hammers, the screech of a wood saw, countless voices haggling, calling out, arguing. The air was a thick cocktail of smells: spices, raw fish, hot oil, leather, and human sweat.
He saw the Agrim guards making their rounds at a measured pace, and their presence, like yesterday, didn't sow fear, but merely slightly restrained the most desperate clamor. Order wasn't in silence, but in predictability. It seemed nothing could disturb this seething but well-oiled chaos.
That's why what happened next stood out so sharply from the picture.
First, Dur caught movement at the edge of his vision—a swift, low shadow darting between the fabric stalls. Then came a restrained, but by no means quiet, shout: "Stop! By order of the estate!"
A boy ran out onto the market square, pushing through the crowd. About sixteen years old, in a dark blue, expensively cut but now stained and torn-at-the-shoulder doublet. Short black hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, his brown eyes darted, searching for a way, but what burned in them was not panic, but a fierce, focused resolve. He moved with the agility of a pine marten, weaving between stalls, leaping over low barrels.
Chasing him, stomping heavily and cursing loudly, burst three fully armed guards. Their usually calm faces were twisted with annoyance and anger. This wasn't a planned raid or a calm arrest. This was a personal, hot pursuit.
"Maël! Stop messing around!" the largest of them, a man with graying mustaches, barked, trying to grab the boy's sleeve.
But Maël, without looking back, darted aside; the doublet tore with a crack along the seam in the guard's hand. A ripple of laughter passed through the crowd, instantly replaced by wary silence. People parted, making way for both the pursuit and the fugitive, but in their eyes, Dur detected not so much condemnation as curiosity, and even, from some, approval. It was strange. Why did they sympathize with someone who was clearly breaking "order"?
Dur froze. His instincts, honed in the forest, kicked in instantly. Before him were prey and hunters. But the prey didn't look like a victim. It looked... defiant. And the hunters, these embodiments of the Agrim system, were clearly irritated, even humiliated, by this defiance. Torm's thought flashed through his mind: "A strong beast, you won't even notice until it wants you to."
"They're taking him into service," Dur quickly deduced, remembering snatches of talk about "lists" and "taking to the estate." "By force. He doesn't want to. He's fighting."
And that was enough. He remembered his own humiliation before the wolf. Remembered Kaedan's rage defending him by the stream. He didn't know this Maël. But he saw in his eyes the same thing that had once burned in his own—a desperate desire not to be caught, not to lose his will.
The chase was heading straight for him. Maël, spotting a narrow passage between a potter's stall and a wall, darted into it. The guards, heavier, hesitated, trying to squeeze through.
Dur had three seconds. He looked around. Nearby stood a cart loaded with round, shiny heads of some resilient cabbage. The owner, a sweaty man in an apron, was watching the chase mesmerized.
Without further thought, Dur shoved the cart hard in the side, aiming it to block the narrow passage Maël had ducked into, tilting it right under the first guard's nose.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" the trader howled.
But it was too late. The wooden wheel ground against the cobblestone, and under the load of vegetables, the cart tipped over with a deafening crash. Dozens of cabbage heads rolled across the pavement like green balls under the feet of the pursuers. One guard slipped and landed with a splash in a puddle, another, trying to jump over, caught his cloak on a protruding axle. Shouts, curses, laughter from the crowd—all mixed together.
Using the momentary pause and general confusion, Dur didn't run. He did what he would have done to distract a predator from its prey. He threw up his hand and shouted at the top of his lungs, pointing in the opposite direction from Maël's actual hiding place:
"A caravan with game! From the hunt! Free giveaways at the western gates!"
The phrase, full of the crowd-pleasing words "free" and "game," worked like a spark in gunpowder. Several dozen people, especially from the poorest folk, rushed in the indicated direction, creating a new, unexpected wave of crush and finally burying the already disoriented guards in it.
Dur, without looking back, dove into another, dark and foul-smelling passage between houses where empty barrels were stored. His heart pounded, but his mind was cold. He hadn't committed a crime. He had just... caused a small market commotion. And he had just shouted what he'd heard from someone. That, at least, was what he planned to say if asked.
A few minutes later, listening to the distant noise and swearing, he realized the chase was completely thrown off. And only then did he notice, in the depths of the passage, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily, that same boy. Brown eyes, full of a mixture of amazement, gratitude, and a lively, unquenched fury, stared directly at him.