Chapter 10: The Law of the Thirsty
On the third day, the first of the outer ring died. Not from a monster, but from thirst and exposure. His body was unceremoniously dragged to the edge of the plaza and tossed into a side alley. It was a quiet, shameful end. The message was clear: if you do not contribute to the defense, you are a drain on resources. You are expendable.
Ryley watched it all, his face a mask. This was the natural conclusion of their circumstances. Sentiment was a calorie they couldn't afford to burn. Yet, a cold, analytical part of his mind saw the flaw in this "law." A desperate man with nothing to lose was the most dangerous creature of all.
He saw the looks exchanged among the outer ring. Not just despair anymore, but a simmering, furtive resentment. They were being cast aside, and a cornered animal, even a weak one, will eventually bite.
The breaking point came at the next water distribution. Gregor was doling out the rations, sneering as a woman with a broken arm struggled to hold out her cup. "Hurry up, leech," he grunted, sloshing a pitiful amount into her container.
A gaunt man, who had once been a teacher, stepped forward. His voice was cracked but clear. "That's not enough. She needs more. We all need more. We're dying."
Gregor laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Then die faster and stop wasting our water." He gave the man a hard shove.
It was the wrong move.
The teacher stumbled back, but instead of falling, he let out a raw cry of fury and launched himself at Gregor. He had no weapon, only his hands, clawing at the bigger man's face. It was a futile, suicidal act, but it was a spark on tinder.
For a second, the plaza froze. Then, with a collective roar of long-suppressed rage, the outer ring surged forward. It wasn't a coordinated attack; it was a riot of the damned. They didn't have weapons, but they had numbers, and the sheer, shocking force of their desperation.
Gregor went down under a pile of bodies, his axe clattering on the stones. Borin and the other fighters reacted, wading into the fray with brutal efficiency, but they were outnumbered five to one. It was chaos—a bloody, brutal melee of fists, teeth, and stolen knives.
Ryley did not move from his perch. He watched the chaos unfold, his mind working. This was the collapse. This was the moment the herd turned on itself. He saw Elara, trying to use her healing light on a man with a gushing wound, only to be knocked aside by the surging crowd. He saw Borin, a bastion of order, being slowly overwhelmed by the tide of desperation.
Then, his eyes locked with the teacher's. The man was standing over Gregor's still form, a rock in his hand, his chest heaving. His eyes were wide, not with victory, but with the horrifying realization of what he had done. He had crossed a line from which there was no return.
In that moment, Ryley made a calculation. Borin's group, for all its flaws, was a known quantity. A chaotic, leaderless mob was a far greater threat to his own survival. Stability, even a brutal one, was preferable to anarchy.
He didn't join the fight. Instead, he stood up on the wall, and in a voice that cut through the din with cold, sharp authority, he shouted a single word.
"Enough."
The fighting faltered. All eyes turned to him, the silent watcher.
He pointed at the teacher. "You've made your point. You're not cattle." Then he looked at Borin, who was breathing heavily, his shield dented. "And you can't rule by thirst alone. They'll just die, or they'll do this again."
He jumped down from the wall, landing lightly amidst the carnage. "The law changes today. Everyone works. Everyone fights in their own way. The ones who can't hold a sword will gather rubble to reinforce the perimeter. Others will scout for food, even if it's just scraping moss off the north-side walls where the rust is thin. You fight, you get more water. You work, you get your share. You do nothing..." He let his gaze sweep over the outer ring. "...then you get nothing. That is the new law."
Silence. The riot was over, snuffed out by the sheer, pragmatic force of his words. He hadn't sided with the oppressed or the oppressors. He had proposed a system, a colder, more efficient machine where every part, no matter how small, had to turn.
Borin, after a long moment, gave a slow, reluctant nod. He saw the sense in it. Survival of the useful.
Ryley turned and walked away, leaving them to sort out the bloody aftermath. He had just seized a measure of control without throwing a single punch. He had prevented the total collapse of the only semblance of society he had, not out of altruism, but because a functional, fearful herd was easier to manipulate than a frenzied mob. He was not their leader. He was their mechanic, keeping the machine running just well enough to ensure his own place within it.