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Tracking a Stray
Great White Expanse - Seventh Sanctum
Lye stood just outside the banded gates of the longhouse in the stagnant winter air. His slow deliberate breaths escaped as the only clouds in the crystal blue sky. The chilling winds of the Great White Expanse rested today which only served to make the solitary man more restless. His half blind gaze listed blankly to the frigid horizon. The forest's usual melody of sparrows and finches remained silent and despite the usual business of the Seventh Sanctum, Lye heard only white noise.
"Master?" The voice came from Advencia's lips with an alien tone of concern. Her touch fell on the furs of his crossed arms and Lye breathed deeply.
"I'm fine." His reply fell shallow and flat. Advencia frowned.
"You've been standing here since daybreak. You're not fine." The sultry succubus girl pouted, brows bunched up. Irritation grated on the fringe of her words.
"Hmm." Lye's gaze remained fixed toward the jagged line where dusty tree tops met clear cerulean. Advencia huffed and took a step back.
"What's your fucking problem, damn it?!" she spat. All semblance of honey and sugar turned sour. The demoness inside now wore an angered expression on Advencia's flawless features.
Lye shifted in place, yet remained silent. Advencia snarled, ample chest heaving.
"Is it because of her?!" The succubus jabbed her finger to a wrecked cabin a few meters off. Lye's watch followed it to the shack where he kept and tortured prisoners or slaves. Advencia narrowed her eyes.
"It is, isn't it?" she growled. Her boot compacted the icy tundra with a crunch. "What is wrong with you?!"
Lye snapped his full attention to his colleague. His face remained cold and emotionless.
"What happened to the Scourge of Salvar? The Phantom Tyrant? The Crimson Assassin? Huh?" She prodded a finger into his chest, her talon of a nail threatening to pierce through fur and leather.
"No one talks about you anymore. No one. If they do, it's to underplay and undermine you. I'm sick of it!" Advencia's voice became a shout. The few men who sought to take advantage of the rare weather turned their heads to the pair.
"I've stuck this through for a whole year you were at the mercy of those two demons and watched this organization fall to pieces and for what? You emerge a wounded dog. You wander around for another three months with rarely a sighting from the ravens. Then--!" Advencia bitterly chuckled and shook her head. Locks of platinum blonde bounced and swayed, springing back to pristine. "Then you come back with some gutter whore and waste all of our assets on her."
She fell silent for a moment and cupped her face with her hand.
Mumbled, she continued, "She goes missing and you stand out here like some heartbroken teenager..."
The hand slipped from her face to see an unchanged expression on his face. Her teeth clenched.
"Fine, whatever." She threw her hands up only to have them limply slap against her wide hips. "Do what you want."
"So you're done?" Lye retorted. Advencia moved to aggressively toward him, arm cocked and ready to deliver a slap. "Do you know what the Crimson Hand needs, Advencia?"
She halted. Her brow raised, but her readied backhand remained tense.
"A purpose." His words slipped off his lips and fell flat judging by the scoff she gave him. "I don't have the respect I once had save for you and a limited handful."
Advencia lowered her arm. She knew the reality of his words, but failed to understand his point.
"You know that Amari is a noble of the Salvic Dukedom," Lye stated.
"So it is about her!" Advencia spat, face reddening with anger.
"We've been vying for control of a region since conception. Eiskalt fell flat, and after what those two did to me, I can't rule by fear any longer."
"Tch, you should have never gotten involved with Eiskalt. Your spat with that immortal bast--"
"You're right. Eiskalt was a mistake, but it proved invaluable none the less. I now know where all of my men stand and who commands the most respect. Felling the Ixians and opening us up for movement across Althanas wasn't a idea in their heads. Instead, they valued the lives of lost thieves and murderers -- something I found expendable but for the few."
Advencia crossed her arms. "What's your point?"
"My point is," Lye unfolded his arms. "If this group is going to go anywhere, I need to find them a cause they can follow instead of blindly obeying my commands. Amari is going to be that cause."
"Fuck that." Advencia retorted. "You'r delusional."
"Amari is the last remaining noble of her house. Right now, the other Dukes are fighting over the L'Olfsden estate. I've groomed her to be loyal to our cause at all costs, but I'm not so dense as to see my actions have been overlooked by prying eyes. If Elthas could breach our defenses, so could anyone. Not hard to imagine considering our current state."
The succubus shot him an apprehensive look. Lye stepped toward her and hostility quickly drained from her posture.
"Right now, she's missing at a critical point of us being able to finally make an influence on Salvar. The longer she's gone, the more time the Dukes have to write off the estate and our window closes."
Lye gripped Advencia by the shoulders, his grasp almost threateningly firm. She inhaled sharply, the rosen hue of her cheeks melting from anger to another origin.
"What you don't see, is the Crimson Hand finally has an opportunity to take control of Slavar. With Amari returning as Duchess of the L'Olfsden Estate, we'll have influence on the kingdom. With her loyalty to me, and our assets, we will take the other dukedoms one by one. Our influence will be too great for the King to ignore and in time, he too will be ours. We will have Knife's Edge. We'll turn away The Company, and we'll subjugate the Church. Salvar will be our nation."
He let Advencia free and she nearly buckled. Her chest heaved with heated breaths. The bloodline of her race beat fiercely in her chest and heated her body.
"And right now, we have no idea where she is."
"Well," Advencia struggled. Her master's touch played against her frustrations and arousal. "You let her free."
"Yes," Lye nodded. "I did. People value freedom. Caged animals serve no purpose than a living trophy. She has the tools now to topple kingdoms. She needs her own connections. My presence or that of the Hand will only hinder that."
Lye looked back to the jagged, southern horizon and he cupped his chin in thought.
"She should have come back by now."
"She won't." Advencia managed to compose herself. She stood upright and fiddled with the frills of her rather revealing skirt as if to rid it of wrinkles that didn't exist.
"Why do you say that?" Lye's interest piqued, eyes narrow.
"I--I put two of my men on her tail," Advencia confessed, unable to look him in the eye like a child to its parent.
"You what?" The assassin's words dripped with venom, well aware of the succubus's intent.
"I don't trust her!" she shouted back. "The moment she would betray us, they were to murder her on sight and carve out her sigil!"
Lye clenched his teeth. The cloudy glare of his scarred and blind eye pierced Advencia. She stepped back.
"Wait! Wait!" Her hands threw up defensively. "They saw something in Archen!"
"What." The tone bellowed as a command, forcing the succubus to wince and again heating her cheeks in red.
"A blue flash. She was gone. They said they saw her with another man and some manner of child. They couldn't lip read everything, but they mentioned Raiaera and the Forest."
"The Red Forrest?" Lye asked. His expression softened and became contemplative.
"Yes, that one. They got a name too."
"What was it?"
"Vincent."
Lye smirked.
"Do you know him?" Advencia asked.
"Yes, you do too. One of the 'heroes' like Madison. They felled Pode once and for all. Rumor is the trees are beginning to become green once again. There's a group in the south that's trying to make efforts to rebuild the elves, working very closely with the Bladesingers."
Advencia nodded. "I've heard of them. Very secretive. Very powerful."
"Their leader is a man named Vincent." Lye watched Advencia's memory connect the rumors and vague facts together. "We have a heading. I think I know where we can start looking. I want you and your most loyal -- we'll head out immediately."
Lye grinned. The thrill of the hunt warmed his chilled bones and if the rumors of Vincent proved true, Lye would have a new challenge to replace that posed by the Ixian Knights.
-
Raiaera - Galonan Outskirts
Raiaera's bright skies and green lands held stark contrast the the dreary gray of the Seventh Sanctum. The sun's warm rays often felt foreign and uncomfortable to Lye's palid skin. Fortunately the canopy of the forest above blocked much of the sun's influence. It's occasional rays peppered the leafy soil and illuminated the makeshift camp just outside the Elven city of Galonan. One of Advencia's colleague, Cain, sat hunched atop a stump, churning an improvised spit over a small, smokeless fire. The flames licked at the crisp flesh of an infant boar captured early in the dawn.
Compared to their home, meals like this came seldom and often after a long trek from the warmer climates of Slavar. Lye vaguely remembered the taste of pork. He anticipated the change. He placed his hand on Cain's shoulder who had been patiently churning the spit for what seemed hours.
"How's it coming?" Lye asked.
"Slow," came Cain's reply. "Better if we could use a real fire."
"It's not worth announcing ourselves." Lye walked over to a fallen log and took a seat beside another of Advencia's men, a man named Eglburt.
"Pah, I'm not a patient man," Eglburt spat in his thick, Dheathic accent as he pried a sharpened gutting knife between his nails to remove dried boar blood.
"Nor am I, but it has its purpose." Lye returned as he propped his chin onto the palm of his hand. Eglburt grunted in acknowledgement.
"Should be done in a few more minutes," Cain added. "But it'll be worth the wait."
The three men grinned and chuckled. The moment quickly grew tense as the brush began to rustle. Before any of them could blink, Cain had his bow in hand and drawn, Eglburt donned his axe and Lye readied a khukri.
"Easy boys," Advencia announced with a wave as her voluptuous figure crested through the bushes. She threw back her hood and sniffed at the air. "Smells good, Cain."
Cain's bowstring fell slack and the drawn arrow slipped back to the quiver on his hip.
"Thanks, mistress," he replied as he placed his bow beside the rotted stump and resumed his crouched position beside the spit.
Lye and Eglburt sheathed their weapons, and in a few moments, the small camp looked as if nothing happened. Eglburt pried his knife from the felled tree where he sat and resumed cleaning his nails.
"What news do you have?" Lye asked Advencia.
"Well, Markus and Liam remained in town and Ylisses hasn't returned from his forward scout yet. I did learn that Vincent's group has a few other notable people we might have to worry about." Advencia spoke as she pulled off her brown shawl to reveal her new attire. A little black number that hugged her form with slits and windows of skin in provocative, yet still tasteful places. She dropped the hooded robes to the floor with a look of disgust.
"Less skin than your white number. Taking this more seriously?" Lye asked. Eglburt's deep, rolling chuckle followed.
"It was cute, okay?" Advencia huffed. Her compulsive desire to shop tended to be a damper on the Hand's coffers, but while she worked the Market, Advencia always got the intel she wanted. "Anyway, there's a second in command. More like a peer but from the sounds of it, she hasn't been seen around here recently."
"She?"
"Her name is Alyssa Snow: a memorable name. Apparently easy on the eyes, or so the merchants tell me." Advencia walked beside Cain as he mundanely churned the spit over and over. His expression looked like that of someone ready to hang himself.
"She's some manner of mage, using strange wands to cast spells. They look like Aleran firearms."
Lye sat upright. "She's one of their leaders, now?"
"Yeah, do you know her?" Advencia cocked her head.
"She is another one of the Pode slayers, but I've met her a long time ago. I know what firearms you're talking about. Go on." Lye waved her on, taking mental note for later days.
"Hmm..." Advencia's jealous eyes narrowed on her master. After a sharp breath, and dismissal of her envy, she continued. "Another name that came up is Rayleigh. Didn't get a last name. It appears she's seen with Vincent often as of late. A brunette that has a fascination with tools and steam tech."
"Interesting," Lye cooed. The gears of his mind churned as he thumbed the stubble of his chin. "Potential leverage, maybe?"
"Perhaps." Advencia moved to behind Cain and placed her lithe hands on his shoulders. With small rotations, she began to massage him to which he seemed to appreciate. "I learned more about the little one we saw. It's not a child. Well, not literally. It's not demon or elvish, but has the pointed ears."
"A fae," Eglburt added as he blew some debris free from his nail. Advencia nodded.
"Most likely. It's often seen with a large dire wolf. Again, often with Vincent."
Lye shook his head and snickered. "Like a happy little family. Mother, father, son, and dog. How quaint," he mused. "What of Amari?"
Advencia flared her lip at the name but quickly bit it in an effort to correct herself. "No one's seen someone matching her description. I'm sure the lecherous men would remember a whore like that." The succubus's sharp tone revealed itself.
"Advencia!" Lye barked. She winced.
"Sorry..."
"So what?" The brutish words of Elgburt rang out as he slid his knife into his waistline. "We wait? We sit around playing camp? I want blood. I want to fight!"
Lye stood and placed his hand on the Dheathic's shoulder. "Patience, Eglburt. We discussed this."
"Pah." Eglburt dismissed the group. He rose and brushed Lye's hand from his shoulder. "Patience is boring. Call me when there are skulls to split." The brute spat into the fire for emphasis to which Cain witnessed and sighed disapprovingly. The broad warrior turned his back to them and began towards the depth of the woods, plucking his axe from the ground on the way. "Yell when we can eat."
Eglburt left.
"It's true, we don't have much now, but Markus and Liam will keep working the locals. Ylisses should have more insight when he returns. Many of the townsfolk mentioned a lot of activity near the forest. It looks like a reclamation effort." Advencia stopped tending to Cain's shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Her lavender lipstick left a faint impression that he removed almost as quickly as she placed it.
"Thanks, Cain!" she chimed.
"Done snacking?" He asked with a hint of ire and brow damp with perspiration. Advencia nodded and skipped to where Lye and Eglburt sat. She dusted off the bark with a few over-animated flicks of her wrist and perched herself with a soft hum.
"Good," Cain retorted. He too stood and kicked several boots of dirt over the fire to snuff it. "Food's ready."
"Want me to get Eglburt?" Advencia asked.
"Fuck'm. He spat in my fire. I'll shout for him after we've had our share."
