A bar­na­cle-crust­ed cog hung under Saint Pier­ro Bridge.

It hung on great chains, and folk climbed eager­ly up to it. Strange folk, up creaky scaf­folds nailed to the bridge’s piers, swag­ger­ing through the saloon doors set in the hull to join the ruckus of voic­es and strum­ming six-strings. In the win­dows, cob­bled from daub and ends of bot­tles, fig­ures shift­ed like smoke. By the swing­ing doors hung a sign paint­ed with a loung­ing, fin-legged woman: The Siren’s Rest.

“I don’t know about this, Elias,” said Per­al, frown­ing at the slight­ly sway­ing struc­ture.

Elias punched her in the shoul­der, grinned under his messy drapes of black hair. “Come on, tipa. This place is the most, and these fel­lows I know are some­thing,” he said, unbut­ton­ing his red cade­t’s jack­et. “At least, I think they’re fel­lows. I hope.”

“Micio,” grinned Per­al. She punched him back. “Fine. I want a drink.”

They braved the groan­ing scaf­fold, pushed past all manor of sway­ing, smoky crea­tures. Some­thing tugged Per­al’s sleeve, flashed her a hand sign she did­n’t com­pre­hend. A mouse spilled his wine on Elias’ boot. Up ahead, some­one keeled over the rail, top­pled with a shriek into the briny canal far below.

Per­al caught the saloon doors as they swung behind Elias. A wash of sound and pep­perelle smoke doused her, thick and thrum­ming. To the prow of the old hulk, a bus­tle of hands passed wine, rum, and sher­ry over a grainy bar­top made smooth by hands and pass­ing glass­es. A busty pub­li­can direct­ed glass­es and tin cups to the thirsty hands. Cir­cu­lar tables clut­tered the long hold, crowd­ed with shift­ing crea­tures. A trio of men in wide hats blurred their fin­gers on the frets of wide gui­tars, laughed at the mice who danced amidst the net­ting, ropes and smoky, sway­ing lamps of the low ceil­ing. Over the bar, gaz­ing dul­ly over the scene, was the mount­ed head of a siren. Lank, gold­en hair fell over her glass eyes. Small fangs showed under her shriv­eled lips. Per­al stared, agape. 

Grin­ning wide, Elias beck­oned Per­al to the bar. He tugged the pub­li­can’s sleeve, mouthed some­thing over the noise, held up two fin­gers. The apron-clad woman plucked two bowl glass­es from beneath the counter, wet the edges, and rolled them in a bed of gray salt. A splash of milky liquor and a squirt of lime graced the glass bowls. Elias flicked a sil­ver coin, plucked up the glass­es, prof­fered one to Per­al.

“This is what they’re drink­ing in Empereaux. Try it.”

Per­al squint­ed at the sour cock­tail. “Lord, tipo. Do the Emper­oussins must want to hurt this much?”

“Hah, well, they do,” said Elias, dis­tract­ed­ly. He was cran­ing his neck, look­ing over the tables. “There they are!” he exclaimed, point­ing to the back.

Elias took Per­al’s arm, split the crowd with his shoul­der, drink held over­head. As Per­al passed one table, a scarred man flipped his cards at his com­rade, who lunged in response. A mouse land­ed on her shoul­der, only to depart imme­di­ate­ly, leav­ing sooty foot­prints. Her boot trod on some­thing soft: a bare pair of legs stick­ing from under anoth­er table. Per­al frowned. Elias turned her about.

“Fel­lows, meet my friend Per­al,” he said, ges­tur­ing. Before them sat, at a round table, a trio of odd crea­tures: Thin, crooked, and entire­ly, intri­cate­ly wrapped in thin strips of leather and cloth. Bright, blood­shot eyes peered at Per­al from under ban­dan­nas and woven rags. One of them, a crea­ture with a bicorne hat crammed over his head wrap­pings, stood and offered a thin hand.

“A plea­sure, Seño­ra,” he said, bar­ing pink, sharp teeth.

Per­al shook the bony hand.

“Milne and his crew,” said Elias.

“Please,” said the raggedy man. “Join us.”

The cadets pulled up chairs, joined the table. Milne fixed Per­al with his red­dened eyes. “You are a friend from the naval acad­e­my, aye?”

“Yes,” said Per­al, look­ing to the still-grin­ning Elias, unsure.

“We, too, are sailors,” said Milne. His com­pa­tri­ots nod­ded in uni­son. One of them curled his lip, spat a gob of pink goo into a cop­per cup. “Recent­ly, we have returned from sea, eager for eggs and coqueli­cish.”

“Tipa, Milne sailed under Hog­ar of the High Steppe,” said Elias, nudg­ing his friend.

“Aye,” said Milne, hat bob­bing. “He was a fine and gen­er­ous cap­tain. We sailed before the Mas­cara­dos van­ished.”

Per­al raised her eye­brows. “That was before I was born. You’ve sailed a long while.”

“Age is not so obvi­ous, in us.”

A silence fell, stretched. “Um” said Per­al, shift­ing. “What, if you don’t mind my igno­rance, are your peo­ple called, Señor Milne?”

Beside Per­al, Elias choked on his drink. Milne pulled a wide smile at him, dis­play­ing crooked and point­ed teeth set in bright red gums. His com­pan­ions flashed sim­i­lar­ly sharp grins. “I’m glad tales of our North­ern cousins do not pre­cede us, Cadet. We are trap­er­os; ‘rag folk,’ in your Alagóri­an tongue.”

Elias pulled a pained smile. “I’m sor­ry, Milne. I should have explained to my friend.”

“No, let her ques­tion.”

“How,” said Per­al, lean­ing for­ward, curi­ous. “Do your cousins spoil your name?”

Beside Milne, the ragged sailors put hands to their cov­ered fore­heads, made signs like point­ed horns.

“You see,” said Milne, bar­ing his teeth again. “They eat peo­ple.”

Moon­light played over Meeve’s cot. Pale over the bur­gundy quilt. The lit­tle girl lay frozen, gog­gling at the open win­dow above the foot of her bed. Sil­hou­ettes of twigs wavered in the frame, swayed by sum­mer breeze. Meeve fol­lowed them with wide eyes. A mousy blonde lock stuck to her fore­head, quiv­er­ing with every qui­et breath. A dry odor of rot laced the wind. Faint, like a long-dead cat.

A scratch­ing broke the qui­et. Meeve flinched, screwed her eyes shut, screamed.

“Mum, Mum!”

Foot­steps in the hall. The bed­room door opened with a clunk and a creak. An arc of yel­low light fell into the room.

“Meeve, Dearie,” said Mum. She wore a pais­ley night­gown and held a low can­dle in a sil­ver cham­ber­stick. “What is it, Love?”

“A mon­ster’s come through my win­dow, Mum,” said Meeve, clutch­ing her quilt.

Mum pursed her lips and rubbed the bags under her eyes. “Dearie, you’ve had a night­mare. Try and sleep.”

“No, it’s gonna come through the win­dow. Check and see!” She point­ed.

Mum smiled thin­ly and stepped to the win­dow. Her can­dle made the dim frame into a deep, black rec­tan­gle. She bent and plucked some­thing from the floor.

“It’s just a twig, see?” She raised a crooked stick. “Fall­en in from the apple tree. Noth­ing to fear.” She tossed it out into the dark. “You must try and go back to sleep.”

“But I’m scared.”

“Well, maybe you should be,” said Mum, soft with exag­ger­at­ed fer­vor.

“Mum?” said Meeve, wring­ing under the quilt, eyes wide.

Mum sat beside her, hold­ing the can­dle in her lap. Its flame lent her a stark, shad­owed vis­age. “You know the game you play at the foun­tain wall, with Dosof and the school­child­ren?” she asked. Meeve nod­ded.

“And what do you call it?” said Mum.

“ ‘Who’s Afraid of the Rag­wretch,’ ” recit­ed Meeve.

“You know what a rag­wretch is?”

“Sort of,” said Meeve, eyes wide.

“A rag­wretch,” said Mum, “is a hun­gry, hun­gry crea­ture that comes out at night. It wears all rags and bits of cloth, because the sun burns it up. It’s got sharp horns on its head like spin­dles; and lit­tle red eyes like red­cur­rants; and sharp teeth like a cat’s, but big­ger and more crooked.” Meeve shud­dered. Mum smiled, con­tin­ued. “All wise lit­tle chil­dren know to keep qui­et and asleep at night, lest a rag­wretch hear them.”

“What hap­pens if a rag­wretch hears you?” said Meeve, whis­per­ing into her knot­ted quilt.

“Well,” said Mum, lean­ing over the flame. “It’ll creep up and stuff you in a sack with all the oth­er things it means to eat. But good chil­dren don’t need wor­ry if they stay qui­et, see?”

“Now,” said Mum, stand­ing to leave. “You know why you’d best stay qui­et and sleep?”

“Yes, Mum” mur­mured Meeve.

“Good. Nighty night, Love.”

Mum depart­ed, her can­dle­light fol­lowed. The bed­room was dark­er for its absence. In the gloom, Meeve smoothed her quilt, set­tling in, hold­ing it tight to her neck. Quite still, she peered at the win­dow through mousy locks. Breath shal­low and care­ful­ly silent. 

Slow­ly, Meeve’s eyes adapt­ed to the moon­light. She made out the pat­tern on the bur­gundy quilt, the crooked lines of the apple tree, and the glis­ten­ing, hun­gry teeth ris­ing neath her bed: Like a cat’s, but big­ger, and more crooked.

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Ragwretches

Pic­ture a rag­wretch: A hunched, crooked crea­ture wrapped in rags. A scut­tling beast bent under a wrig­gling sack. A pair of hun­gry eyes shin­ing in the dark under horns like spin­dles. This pic­ture haunts the cul­tur­al fears of the North. It is the bogey­man, the creep­ing rav­ager, the eater of human flesh.

Every North­ern child knows what rag­wretch­es are. They live in holes and huts deep in the wilder-woods. They sleep away the day because the sun burns their skin. At night, they come out to hunt, snatch up every­thing they can stran­gle and fit in their sacks. They are mon­sters both real and imag­ined, made ter­ri­fy­ing by the per­verse joy they find in mis­chief and mur­der.

Every Ward Ranger knows what rag­wretch­es are, too: Clever fiends that prowl the wilder­ness, prey­ing on set­tle­ments and farmer’s holds. They yearn, with every moment, to creep across the moors and devour the good folk of Fir­lund. The Rangers stand vig­i­lant, ready to put down invad­ing wretch­es with fire, fléchette, and blade.

Though they’d nev­er sup­pose it, South­ern­ers know rag­wretch­es, too. In the warm ports of Alagór, they are known as pinkspit­ters (for the coqueli­cish they chew,) rag­men, or trap­er­os (for their intri­cate­ly woven trap­pings.) They are wry and nim­ble crea­tures of the sea­side, not at all like their preda­to­ry North­ern cousins.

Trap­er­os have no horns on their skulls, for they do not con­sume the flesh of man. Instead, they are fond of eggs and fish and are as civ­i­lized as any mouse or human. Though the Church does not per­mit them in the Navy, any trad­er or pri­va­teer­ing cap­tain would con­sid­er him­self lucky to hire a crew of row­dy pinkspit­ters.

Though schol­ars agree rag­wretch­es and trap­er­os are undoubt­ed­ly the same species, none can real­ly say they are the same at all. One is a man, one is a mon­ster; and to mis­con­strue the two is to make an ene­my of all good rag­folk.

ragwretch facts

• Rag­wretch body odor con­tains putrescine. They smells like rot­ting meat, bad breath, and civet; grow­ing foulest when metab­o­liz­ing their favorite food—human flesh—and weak­est when deprived of it.
• Wretch­es exude a dense, greasy skin oil. Ter­a­tol­o­gists call it adipocere, though it bears no rela­tion to grave wax. This oil adheres wretch trap­pings to their flesh, cre­at­ing a seal that is both water resis­tant and antibac­te­r­i­al. Wretch­es avoid “break­ing the seal,” opt­ing to add addi­tion­al rags atop the old in lieu of re-bind­ing, leav­ing their “seba­ceous encrus­ta­tion” undis­turbed. Like their body odor, a wretch’s grease changes when recent­ly glut­ted on human flesh, grow­ing yel­low­er and more pun­gent.
• Rag­wretch­es are resource­ful proces­sors of human skin, uti­liz­ing lime, urine, brains, and dung in an odor­if­er­ous procedure—undertaken deep in forests, away from pry­ing noses—to trans­form man-hide into pli­able, red-brown, leather resem­bling hogskin. Adept wretch­es wear trap­pings com­posed entire­ly of the stuff.
• Well-fed wretch­es can grow mas­sive. They derive growth hor­mone from human tis­sues, achiev­ing pro­tract­ed, some­times gigan­tic statures. So-called “glut­ted” wretch­es are long of limb, heavy of brow, and apt to ambu­late on all fours, creep­ing low in a wide-armed gait rem­i­nis­cent of a bat’s. They are depen­dent on human flesh, becom­ing sedate and fee­ble when deprived, apt to bul­ly small­er wretch­es into feed­ing them. Glut­ted wretch­es are most com­mon upon the Moors so Sere, and are rarely seen out­side com­bat with Ranger or cut­ters in wilder­land locales.

Note

Due for a rewrite, in time?

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