The Nomad Process

[Breaker]

Closed, all bunnying approved. This thread originated and takes place during the early days of the civil war.

Book 1 ~ Blood from the Tap


Ripples lapped restlessly at the oaken docks populating the banks of the Niema River. Miles to the west where earth became rocky cliffs the great ocean roared, volumes of wind and water giving voice to the ancient beast called the Nomad. In that mythical monster's domain chaos reigned, but nestled in the protected river valley the night wore a composed mask of peace. Moored vessels of different designs and woods wobbled in the agitated current. Their banners fluttered like enfeebled moths failing to take flight, their bows bumped against the wind worn docks in unsteady rhythm.

A road of hardpacked dirt ran parallel to the river, designed for easy offloading of produce and livestock. It stretched far enough to service the last, creakiest jetty in the harbour then dissolved into long grass and wild vegetation. To the east reached into darkness, eventually touching the cobblestone streets of Radasanth. Warehouses lined the north side of the dirt road, some designed for temporary storage of imports and exports. Others stockpiled fruits and berries harvested from the sprawling orchards which surrounded them. Iron pipes grew from the river like long back tentacles. Supported by squat, sturdy wooden towers they crossed the road at an altitude which allowed the tallest carts to pass beneath. They were irrigation systems with various models of pumps fitted at one or both ends, veins that brought life force to the local crops.

Apple trees flowered in the haphazard agricultural rows. Crickets nested among the rose hued buds, playing their symphonies instinctively in tune with the rise and fall of the distant ocean roar. Clouds shifted and moonlight filtered through, giving an incandescent glow to the orchards and a ghostly pallor to the deserted road. But in one shadowy spot just beyond of the most isolated warehouse, the moonbeams disappeared into nothingness.

A hole expanded in midair, seeming to swallow what limited light the night offered. It stretched upward and outwards, dilating like a cat's pupil until it was two meters high and three long. To a canny observer the air crackled with magical power channelled from the Eternal Tap.

With swift sure-footed efficiency a half dozen men poured from the gateway. Their heavy leather boots made little noise on the spectral hardpack, their light chain armor was muffled by black woolen shrouds. Each carried an Akashiman repeating crossbow, first class weaponry stolen from the Corone Armed Forces. They deployed in precise military fashion, securing the immediate area, scouring possible hiding places. They moved with the confidence of a fighting team, quivers of bolts and light mythril rapiers swinging from wide belts around their hips.

Their leader was a grizzled unshaven man whose limp did not slow him down at all. A shock of grey in his haggard black hair cradled the moonlight so he wore it like a crown. He stopped in the middle of the road and flipped the safety catch on his crossbow, then barked a short command towards the portal.

Slowly, prudently, two large grey geldings walked through, drawing a durable cart with armored axles and sides behind them. The horses were as well trained as their handlers; they did not shy or become skittish, even as they travelled from the fields of Yarborough to the outskirts of Radasanth in a single step. Another six soldiers followed behind the cart, outfitted identically to their comrades. They fanned alongside and behind their precious cargo, adding another layer to the perimeter established by the first six. Their heads and eyes swivelled, searching for movement, ears on alert for any anomalous sound.

Last through the portal came two men in simple leather jackets and long traveller's cloaks. The first was tall and barrel chested, with thick arms and wise eyes. He moved with an uncanny balance and timing to each step that suggested the broadsword sheathed on his back was as much a part of him as his calloused hands and coarse beard. His cloak bore a rifle crossed with a sword on the left breast, the insignia of the Corone Rangers.

As the portal winked out of sight, the smaller of the two stumbled, and the Ranger caught him easily. The shorter, slim man stayed bent double, panting. The amulet he had used to create the portal fell out of his collar and swung, suspended on a mythril chain. Even though they had only crossed a continent, the size and duration of the portal had devoured most of the young man’s strength. The Ranger looped a muscular forearm through the youth’s armpit and pulled him upright.

“Go on lad,” he said in a brisk but kind voice. “Climb on the back of the cart and rest awhile. Your part is done, ye’ may as well catch a nap. By the time ye’ wakes up we'll be in the City, and well paid for our efforts.” Still too breathless to respond, the youth heaved himself over the cart edge and into a vacant spot among the large cushiony vlince-wrapped packages. He was asleep in seconds.

The Ranger increased his stride to pass the cart, which trundled along at a decent rate, the geldings trotting in front.

“Are we secure, Commander?” He addressed the princely greying soldier, who led the steeds by a rope attached to both of their bridles.

“As secure as we can be, this deep in their territory,” the officer responded in a surprisingly smooth voice. “Six repeaters surrounding the cart, another six scouting in every direction.” While his second-in-command spoke, the Ranger regarded the crossbowmen with critical eyes. Seeing this, the second continued. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Deputy. When I abandoned the Empire and their Army to fight for freedom, I brought only the best with me. They're all from my old unit, experienced in urban and rural combat and concealment, and crack shots with ‘them crossbows.”

The Ranger nodded, but his expression did not change. He'd never doubt the efficiency of the soldiers, but worried about their allegiance. The CAF's Master General could easily have instructed a few loyal soldiers to defect and gather information on the rebels. It was a paranoid thought, but the hairs on the back of his neck told the Ranger something was amiss that night. So much depended on the successful completion of their task; they could not afford the liability of a double agent.

The orders had come down a long way. All the way from the missing Letho Ravenheart, some rumors claimed. He was given an armed escort and a cover story. The soldiers thought they were just a courier for the Keeper and his transport amulet. Although they still approached this mission with the same dead-serious attitude they approached everything, he couldn't help but think they'd have watched the shadows a little closer if they'd known what was in the packages.

The Deputy didn't want to think about the contents of the cart, for it clashed with his personal politics on combat, but it wasn’t tobacco as his orders claimed. In his opinion, the soldiers’ naivety came from their one-mindedness. The Ranger knew he and his brothers-at-arms could have done a better job. Six Rangers on individual battle mounts with the packages in saddlebags. That was how he’d have done it. The cart was big and obvious; slow and clunky. Very military, but what could he do? Six Rangers could not be spared. The free people of Corone needed their constant leadership, otherwise they might devolve into a rioting mob or worse, turn to the Empire's tyranny for guidance.

The scouting reports from the soldiers came like clockwork as they cycled through the perimeter, each man taking it in turn jog to the front of the cart, make a lateral hand sign, then return to his post. The pattern became so perfect that the Ranger struck a cold sweat when a scout came in a half minute late. The soldier was breathing hard, a bad sign. He still kept pace though, and delivered the report between staggered breaths.

“I couldn’t find Lasher,” he said, devoid of emotion. The Commander gestured and the covert operative jogged away. The Ranger and the Officer looked at each other, both knowing what a man missing in action meant. The leather scabbard whispered a note of foreboding as the Deputy freed his sword. It was an extension of his arm; a part of his hand. He knew its blade as a hawk knows its talons. The Commander flicked the selector-lever on his customised crossbow to its fastest rate of fire. The wooden switch on oiled dehlar wire resonated as the hour hand of a grandfather clock strikes midnight.

“How many d’you figure?” The commander deadpanned, his face drawn up in concentration.
“No way of telling how many or who.” The swordsman took a deep breath, then another.
“Reckon you can take more to the grave than me, Deputy?” The Officer eased the thin blade on his hip.
“Just focus on protecting the lad,” the Ranger said with unnerving calm as he slipped into the early stages of battle meditation. At the first sign of movement outside their perimeter he would be ready to spill enemy blood.

The Officer roared a string of orders to his men, any notion of stealth abandoned. The convoy accelerated in response, the horses cantering, the soldiers running, searching for targets in the shadows. Sweat soaked the collar of the Ranger’s shirt. He hadn't felt those icy fingers on his throat since the first time he pinned an enemy with one of his arrows. The taste of death was in the back of his mouth, so he spat on the road.

The cart’s heavy wheels struck a divet in the hardpack and the amulet Keeper woke from troubled dreams. Disoriented, he sat up from his bed of vlince parcels and scanned the area as cricket song crescendoed all around. Panic froze his insides as from his vantage point, he watched a soldier die.

[Shadar]

"Military defectors... just like he said," Adham Heydan droned to the man next him. The two knelt in the shadow of an age-twisted cart, parked amid the warehouses that grew more frequent as the supply road neared the main line along the moonlit river.

The other man was inexperienced, tight lines of anticipation throbbing under his dark hood and cloak, his black painted face drawn as snugly as his heavy crossbow's string. The only response he gave was an agitated grunt, eyes unwavering from where they had heard the harsh belting of orders.

Adham, as motionless as the wheel spokes he leaned against, frowned. This wasn't one of his usual crew. His men were -above all else- calm. As still as him, they waited in pairs amid the carts and lofty pipes that fed civilization; weevils invisible in the grain. The pounding of hooves and feet grew louder, though still as practiced as he expected from soldiers. Fight with dignity. Die with it. As softly as the midnight breeze swayed the sparse grass, he leaned from the cart and lifted from his knee a heavy Aleraran crossbow, wider than a man and as black as the two drow who had supplied them. Somewhere in the blocky shadows, that duo was loose. Not on his leash, but pointed securely at their prey. Bobbing shapes began to spill from the night, hastening their cargo through the gauntlet. If the reports continued to be accurate, one or two had already fallen.

The strongest storms always announce their arrival with a few stray drops.

Adham steadied his aim, sighting along the ebony shaft toward the single cloaked Ranger. He'd fought them before, on insignificant jobs for far less pay, and he knew that the success of their mission demanded a hole in that body before the moonlight-gleaming sword was put to work.

With a distracting rustle, the local beside him lifted his crossbow, rising with it as dumbly as a puppet on a string. The mercenary hissed, and so did two bolts in rapid succession. One disappeared into the man's face, becoming a grisly spur at the back of his skull. The other whistled above Adham's head and out over the Niema.

The grey-plumed soldier kept his repeater steady for a moment, watching the body fall. The piercing, scheming gaze of two generals nearly clashed. But, while Adham saw a weathered portrait of military breeding, the commander saw only shadows, unyielding and unsympathetic to the death inches away.

The moment passed. The veteran ran on at the core of his party, and Adham shifted his aim. The Ranger would live a moment longer, the mere second it would take to split that grey crown.

[Breaker]

The group of humans came closer, clustered around the cart, repeating crossbows at the ready. From the darkness, the drow assassins saw all. The pinklings wasted their superfluous ammunition, firing at shadows more often than agitators. The humans the drow had allied themselves with were spread well throughout the available hiding places. They held their fire, for the most part. But both the horses and the soldiers sensed their presence, and the cookie-cutter perimeter shrank like wet laundry. The final touch would come soon enough and then, extermination.

Kron Sh’aketh wore a robe as black as his skin, darker than the temperate Coronian night. He climbed the iron frame of a solid irrigation system. The thing was thick, strong enough to hold much more than his weight. Made by dwarves when they aided in Radasanth’s re-creation. Kron finished his climb and swung into a skydive position atop the large cast-iron pumpline. He had used the same relaxed sprawl when he leapt out of the Airship that had brought him and his brother to Corone. He still bore a long, aching bruise across his sternum where the chute sail had jerked. They had been sent by the High Graf as a gesture of goodwill in his negotiations with the Coalition. And to stealthily enforce Alerar's own agenda, first and foremost a steady source of information.

Kron lay with one cheek rested on the thick cord he had lashed around the pipe. He watched the faces of the approaching soldiers, for in the silver blessing of the moon he saw as a falcon at high noon. They looked nervous but focused, confident. Their foolishness would be demonstrated in their death. The pounding of hooves and stomping of boots, the heavy breathing of beast and man, emerged past a warehouse. Five seconds, Kron guessed. He slid a curved skinning knife with a blade forged in black diamond from a sheath on his shin. Breathed in and thanked the Dark Queen for her blessing.

The frontrunner in the wolf pack of soldiers stepped into Kron’s snare. He lost his crossbow as he swung upwards, but no cry of terror or shock escaped him. He was too busy curling upwards, fighting to free his rapier. Kron waited. The other soldiers reacted accordingly, watching their feet as they jogged beneath the pipeline overpass.

Shynt Sh’aketh unfolded from the shadows like an upside down jack-in-the-box. Hanging from a pair of boots which inexplicably clung to the belly of the irrigation system, he cast a noose around the neck of a second soldier. The man dropped his weapon and gurgled, failing to find space for his thumbs between the wire and his throat. As he staggered to one knee, the horses loomed and one kicked him instinctively. He went down hard, mouth torn in a silent scream as the front wheels of the cart shattered his legs. He was dead before the back wheels tore them off.

Like lambs herded by a wolf in shepherd’s clothing, the remaining soldiers grouped tightly around the cart as they approached the dead zone.

Sometime the previous autumn, a dock had been deemed too rotten for repairs. The bulk of its boards and beams were still piled along the wharf. Amongst the sodden timber no less than ten men lay or crouched, heavy crossbows trained on the inconspicuous iron spike Kron had driven into the centre of the road. As soon as the first soldier toed that spike, ten crossbows would fire.

The drow brothers tumbled soundlessly to the earth, Kron slashing the snared soldier’s carotid artery as he spun past. The curved blade was in its sheath by the time he landed in a shower of blood. Without a word the assassins melted into the shadows on either side of the road and sprinted after the cart. They ran with the carnal wisdom of hunting panthers; they would leave none alive.

~~~

The Commander saw the trap coming too late and knew there was no way to avoid it. With a combination of rigid arm signals and uttered barks he directed his men to into single columns on either side of the speeding cart that had bone fragments embedded in its wheels. The officer tried not to remember the sound of the man’s body being struck by the armored axle. He needed every bit of focus to survive the next few seconds. As they neared the piles of junk wood he had correctly identified as the archer nest, he stepped out of line with the carriage, to where the hardpack road became stony pier.

“Down!” His smooth voice sounded like an operatic bass singing the final note in a tragedy. As he and his men threw themselves flat amidst the twanging of crossbow strings, the officer remembered his orders; Protect the boy!

The Ranger could see better at night than most men, and he too watched the pile of debris for movement, one hand on the nearer horse’s saddle as he ran. His foxlike ears filtered out the white noise of the bumping cart and his own easy breathing. He saw an enemy rise to one knee, heard the low-toned twang as the first crossbow fired. Whirling his sword one-handed, he knocked the quarrel from the air and sheathed his blade in a single motion. Then as the rest of the ambushers loosed their deadly missiles he grasped the nearside stirrup and swung himself under the galloping horse. The heels of his heavy boots kicked up a curtain of dust which he choked on as he slid up and into the saddle with an additional jump. He remembered performing the same trick for awestruck children at summer celebrations. He smiled at the memories in his mind’s eye, bared cold steel and slashed three times to sever the slats that connected the beasts to their burden.

The civilian, the keeper with the shaggy hair, was already scrambling into the other horse’s saddle. He kicked into the stirrups and sawed the reigns with the air of an experienced rider close to panic. The final stroke of the broadsword freed them, and both steeds took off at a full gallop, riders pressed to their backs. One drooped drunkenly, still beyond fatigued. The other crouched; a soldier in the saddle with his broadsword held high, ready to strike at any who impeded them.

[Shadar]

Adham lost his chance. As the caravan charged past, two of the soldiers had stepped through the line of his shot, and he wasn't going to betray his position over them, not with the drow-planned ambush just ahead. It was composed entirely of those random men who had rallied to the cause, men who couldn't tell how expendable the drow considered them. He never argued with bidders, though, especially when his own team was spared from the sacrificial tactic.

Sliding his crossbow to one knee, Adham twisted low and sidled along the back of the lopsided cart. Beyond his cover, he heard muffled pain and the distinctive breaking of stride as bodies were wrestled into the air or crunched underfoot. The drow had gone to work, black hawks with diamond talons. Then, a whispering chorus of strings sounded as the trap sprang, followed immediately by the thunk-thunk-thunk of bolts missing flesh and finding the opposite side of his cart. That particular scheme had failed, and the nesting archers would no doubt have blades through them in seconds, if not for his own blades.

Without orders, they emerged from the night ahead of him, black pairs closing on the road. -Always pairs. Two sets of eyes and a man to take the retaliation shot if his partner fell- He bolted from cover, crossing behind them like an encouraging specter. Some felt his cloak snapping against their's, but none responded. They simply softened their steps, aiming to match his silence.

As the noose closed, his men upwind of the soldiers announced their presence. Like the first wave of a downpour, glass bulbs shattered on stone, releasing thick, viscous plums of smoke. Many soldiers turned, and a good number of them collected long bolts in their backs, punching clean through the chain mail at such close range.

The plumes of smoke drifted closer, distinct masses of darkness riding the breeze. Among them, so too did the men drift, their soft cloaks billowing open and mimicking the moonlit smoke. With the slow certainty of a glacier, the killers in the night met the soldiers. Where military swords licked at smoke, black-painted stilettos punished them, leaving fang marks in their throats and faces. Others in the black mob bided their time, hovering so close they must surely be the harmless distractions. Their thin blades rang against chain mail, burrowing toward the vitals.

Then, the hushed battle exploded. Adham glimpsed the cascade of moonbeam flickers as the soldiers' swords swept the smoke aside and beat down upon his men. This was the test. If their obfuscations had undone enough armored men, the battle was theirs. If not, they may very well fall to the skilled rapier blades. From the sound of metal clashing against his men's bracers and the hissing of knife after knife drawn from their multiple sheaths, he couldn't read the odds.

His destination was close now, a pitch black wall on the shadowed side of a warehouse, though he saw it as clearly as when he had scouted it in the daylight. With a quick, jagged stride of each boot, grinding the heel harshly into the stony earth, he flipped out the razor hooks in the soles and launched himself at the wall.

The biting teeth gave him three solid strides toward the starry sky, and his free hand found the darkened window sill. Grunting loudly, he hoisted himself into the loft at the same time that four other men, in four other buildings, were no doubt doing the same.

Landing on his shoulder, he rolled and slid to the large window above the warehouse's door. The battle lay bare below him, so starkly lit in the moonlight that he gave his eyes a moment to adjust as he hoisted the crossbow over his arm and braced it. Already, a round of bolts flickered out of the other buildings, and black bodies in the melee fell. He trusted them to be the right ones. The soldiers, aside from their leader, could only be differentiated from the mercenaries when they bared their blades to the sky.

The grey-crowned commander, predictably still alive, lunged about in the ringing brawl. He weaved and bobbed as spryly as a man one third his age, defying the archers their mark and ripping daggers from hands, hands from arms, with each strike of his sword. Adham saw two of his men, shimmer-less outlines, lifting their stilettos in unison behind the commander's shoulders, only to have him sweep around and catch both on the flat of his blade. In his other hand, a shorter knife appeared and was barely blocked on a mercenary’s notched bracer. The force sent one sprawling, and his partner’s dagger was just as suddenly batted aside, his gut run clean through.

For a fleeting moment, the body weighed down the grey champion, and Adham let fly a bolt of mercy. It bore clean through his man's head, relieving him of an agonizing death and delivering it instead to the commander. Finally, the old man relinquished his sword and fell, clinging to the bolt that stuck from his breast. A black funeral blossom, clutched tight in rigid hands, and already coated with another man's blood.

With no time for celebration, Adham turned his attention to the Ranger. However, he found nothing. There was no swath of broken men, nor an insignia among the dead; such would have been a bandit's luck. The horses were also gone, cut from the moored cart.

Had the man run? Did he not know what their precious cargo was? Such a lack of trust they place in their best men, Adham frowned as he sighted down the Aleraran bow and once more lent his skill to the storm of black hail.

[Breaker]

Ferrin May lay low against the horse’s neck, hiding from the cool slipstream that splayed his cloak behind him like a flag. His body still felt sapped of the energy he had poured into the amulet, but panic and adrenaline had bourne him into the saddle. He had hidden low in the cart until the fusillade of bolts finished, then scrambled forward to join the Ranger. If it hadn’t been for the vlince packaging on the cargo, one of those bolts might have stolen his life.

Almighty Am’aleh, the cargo! Ferrin brutalized himself mentally for having created it in the first place. True, the Rangers had provided all the resources he required, but it was his expertise in alchemy and botany that had blended the various forms of plant life to perfection. It was the anger that had made him do it. He had worked for years as Aidan Johnston’s most trusted civilian aide, his right hand man whenever something went wrong in the great forest of Concordia. When the Grand Marshal died- no, when he was murdered by his colleagues, Ferrin’s happy life had gone to hell. He was forced to pack up and leave Radasanth in the dead of night, taking with him his new wife and newer baby daughter. They had escaped to a stronghold in the fields of Yarborough, mercifully controlled by the Rangers. Thus enraged and in the company of warlike fanatics, Ferrin was all too willing to create for them a new weapon, something to help wipe out the soldiers of the Corone Empire before its disease covered the entire continent.

Ferrin nearly fell off his mount at the thought of his creation in the hands of the very people he had intended to use it against. The Armed Forces already had the advantage in the war for Corone, their large armies overwhelming the few freedom fighters. Ferrin blinked back tears, choking on the bile taste of frustration. He wanted to vomit. Focus, he heartened himself, focus on what’s most important now.

An accomplished jockey, Ferrin still felt a shock of fear as he leaned out towards the Ranger who rode beside him. The wind of their gallop threatened to tug him from the saddle, and the dizzying way the shadowy buildings flickered past rekindled his desire to empty his stomach. After a few careful breaths, he called out.

“Listen to me!” His words seemed lost in the slipstream, but the ever observant Ranger turned his head. “Listen carefully. It is imperative that you reach the conduit, the man we were meant to deliver the packages to. This way, at least our side is forewarned even if I don’t make it. The contact’s name is-” The Ranger cut him off with a bestial roar.

“Stow that talk, young’n! Ye’ll make it alright, now save yer’ breath for runnin’ in case that steed throws a shoe!”

The Ranger rode in a tense crouch, sword sheathed on his back so both hands could grip the reigns. He had seen what the civilian had not; a pair of fleet-footed pursuers leaping from shadow to shadow a few hundred yards behind. The chasers could not match the speed of the horses’ gallop, but then the horses were already coated in sweat and breathing hard. Based on the long smooth strides he witnessed in glances stolen over his shoulder, the Ranger knew their hunters were no ordinary runners. He shuddered to think who they might be. “Ye’ll make it alright,” he muttered under his breath, his mind made up. “I’ll take that vow to Haide.”

The shaggy-haired civilian gasped in fright as the Ranger rode close, leaned in and grasped the pommel of his saddle. With the ease of a master wrangler the Ranger looped his own reigns around the other’s pommel.

“Keep ‘em at a canter till this one winds, then leave it and take mine the rest of the way. Ye'll make it lad! Tell someone who can help what happened here, or our cause be finished!”

As the last foreboding word left his lips, the Ranger twisted and vaulted sideways out of his saddle, hearing the civilian’s cry of despair as the galloping horses carried him away.

He hit the ground curled in a ball, rolling to distribute the impact across his shoulders and back. The hardpack felt like stone, but he rose lithely to his feet all the same. He loosened the clasps on his cloak, shaking some of the grit off as he did so. He unsheathed his faithful blade for the last time and brushed dirt from the crest of the Rangers just as the enemy arrived.

Seeing the drow assassins in the moonlight, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks. He was eternally grateful that the black-cloaked figures were not Wraiths sent from the Scarlet Brigade. He had faced drow fighters before, and triumphed. But there were two of them, and only one of him. Deep in battle meditation, he watched the area between them and waited.

The taller of the two dodged left and drew a black glittering sword. He attacked sinuously, and it took all of the Ranger’s considerable skill to counter with a one-handed highblock. He heard nothing, but knew the other assassin would attack his exposed back. With his free hand he tore off his cloak and tossed it at the first drow, then whirled to face the biting daggers of the second. Delyn rang on black diamond, the sounds of a life-and-death struggle ringing through the deserted district.

[Shadar]

The warehouse district sang in the continuous rhythm of rapiers on bracers and stilettos in flesh. His men fell, their bodies carved as they lunged, finding their mark even as they crumpled. The needle-thin daggers sewed a quilt of blood in the silver light.

Adham's shoulder grew weary under the constant kicking of the bow, and his quiver was growing light. But, he didn't slow. He and the other archers had fallen into a sequence, one wailing bolt of metal flying every few seconds as the others reloaded. They could not afford to waste a single shot, not when the soldiers were adapting their motions to counter the mercenaries' two-step dance.

No screams filled the night, only clashing metal and heavy breathing. Every man in the melee had too much training to entertain fear. It was a series of prescribed motions, creating only a battle of attrition. Minutes passed, and the clashing slowed, the engine of war tiring. The remaining fighters sloshed about in the carpet of bodies, and the bolts filled the air in one more frenzy. Finally, movement stopped. The seven left standing drew their wet daggers along the clothes of corpses and sheathed them. Silence fell over the battlefield, lending weight to their somber victory. Five men, including Adham, scraped down from their nests, bringing the survival count of his crew to twelve. Half that number of locals emerged from the drow ambush; surprising, given how quickly the battle had swept over their location. If not for his own men taking the blades, those ones would have been eradicated. A fair trade? Hardly. But, that was the business.

Adham strode toward them, boots silent on the road and his crossbow hoisted over one shoulder. Despite fatigue, he appeared as solid as the hulking buildings. "You've survived more than your kind are likely to see," he said flatly. Ranging from merchants to sons of lords, they had the decency to not cheer. Perhaps they were still in shock. "Pray that this war never reaches your gilded doors." The children of wealth cast their eyes down, reminding themselves of the dead around their feet.

"We've accounted for every piece of our equipment, sir," said a black-faced mercenary behind him. Adham turned and eyed the man's upturned cloak, an impromptu sack to hold an assortment of sheathed daggers and toothed bracers. Striped of their equipment (all but the Coronian crossbows and the decoy rapiers on their hips, unused yet pre-bloodied) his men would pass for CAF. Even their paint was reminiscent of his own CAF training... back when military coin had been worth something to him.

In the garden of corpses, his remaining fellows were hunched like grave keepers, their battered hands laying the rapiers about in the final obfuscation of the night. "Double check the Aleraran bows. Leave none behind." His voice was quiet, but the night breeze, stinking of gore, carried it to every ear.

"Eleven," came the meek announcement from the locals, followed by his men accounting for their five. Sixteen of the wicked devices, and now his forces had shrunken enough that there would be one for each.

"Sir," said one of his men unsteadily, a bloodied arm indicating the contents of the cart.

Adham stepped around the bodies and leaned over the cart's armored side. He snatched one parcel, weighed it in his hands, and felt it give like a sack of grain. "The Rangers' newest weapon?" he asked aloud, bewilderment shaking his voice. His men stood from their work and turned weary, betrayed eyes to him. A fault in the information? Or the Rangers’ own decoy?

"Carry it all to the manor!" he commanded as he slammed the parcel back amid its kin. "Our bidder had better have answers."

[Breaker]

Am’aleh guide my blade.

The cold sweat on the Ranger’s collar soaked through his shirt in seconds. The drow wielding the daggers attacked with such speed and ferocity that he lost the range advantage his blade should have provided. The bastard sword became a blur of figure eight defense patterns, expertly deflecting both knives again and again.

As he called on the ocean God to help keep the crystalline blades at bay, he stared into the shadows of the drow’s hood and veil. He could barely hear the breathing beneath the folds of fabric, as if the hood were empty.

The Ranger was immune to fear, immune to pain inside a void as empty as those shadows. He did not react as thrice the swift assassin’s weapons sliced his forearms. If not for his deep state of meditation, he would not have been quick enough to ward of the low thrust to his thigh or the following slash aimed to blind him. Nor would he have seen the drow with the sword sprint after the two horses and their civilian rider. The taller elf’s footsteps were inaudible over the pall of delyn on diamond.

The Ranger acted on instinct. He pretended to stumble, then launched a foot up from the ground, a vicious stomp kick aimed for hi opponent's groin. The lithe drow leapt away, but it gave him all the space he needed to shuffle sideways, pivot, and throw.

The bastard sword spun one full rotation on a downward arc and impaled the runner’s leg. He dropped his long black blade and stumbled, uttering diabolic slurs as he tugged at the heavy projectile and tried to gauge the damage.

His brother leapt upon the deputy and buried a blade in his side. The Ranger went down on one knee with a groan, but rotated his shoulders as he did so and grasped the assassin’s wrist, turning it so he released the knife. The second blade came in vengeance of the other, slicing the deputy’s shirt as straight a line as any seamstress. The Ranger rolled to his back on the dusty road, still clutching the wrist, still turning it. His breath came in short gasps as the wound in his side sapped his strength. In the back of his mind he knew something vital had been punctured. But the pain was somewhere else, and the ocean’s roar filled his ears, urging him to fight.

He used his considerable core strength to apply unbearable to the trapped limb, forcing the drow to roll. The Aleraran scrambled and stabbed for his throat, but he caught that wrist too. He heaved the drow sideways and used the last of his strength to try to get on top of him, but at that moment the taller assasin stumbled back, trailing blood that shone black as his blade. He stabbed The Ranger through the ribcage and twisted the sword, killing him instantly.



Kron Sh’aketh sat with one leg extended as his brother wrapped strips torn from the Ranger's cloak in a temporary but tight dressing around his calf. The wound was not crippling; Kron’s muscles were dense and the throw had come from a distance. Any closer and it might have found a mark in his heart. He searched through the Ranger’s cloak and jacket pockets. He found some useless personal affects and a small gold pouch which he looked over disdainfully. Finally he grasped what he sought; an official sheaf of papers identifying the bearer as a Corone Ranger. Not so useful, he realized, with a civil war separating the state, but it would undoubtedly serve some purpose in the future. As Shynt tied the bandage off he took the curved dagger from the sheath on his uninjured leg and cut a patch of cloth around the crest on the dead man’s cloak. This he folded carefully and put in his pocket beside the documents. Shynt helped him to his feet then swiftly retrieved his daggers from the blood speckled road.

“He fought well. Not as slow as most humans,” Shynt muttered in their native tongue. He paced to the bastard sword that had wounded his brother. It lay like a slice of fallen star, casting ghotly moonlight upwards. In the glassy metal he saw himself as the Ranger had seen him; a short slim figure, shrouded by a black cloak, hood and veil. He looked to his brother, who wore the same garb. Kron had removed his scabbarded sword from its shoulder trap and tested its use as a walking stick.

“That should help you on the walk back. We will get that patched before we see our ambassador.” Shynt's whispered Aleraran words reached only the other elf's ears.

Kron tested his balance with the wooden scabbard's tip in the dirt and found it would aid his mobility.

“I’m sure he has a physician on staff,” he said, “We should go straight there.”

Kron limped faster than most people walked, down the centre of the road towards Radasanth. Shynt slipped into the shadows like a wraith, silently keeping a watch for anything living.

~~~

Ferrin May did his best to sit straight in the saddle. Since he had the presence of mind to switch horses often enough that neither of them faltered, he still had the second one in tow. Clouds rolled in over Radasanth, shutting the moon’ eye as if she had witnessed enough carnage. Ferrin, trying not to fall asleep, was glad for the darkness. It blanketed him as surely as his long cloak kept out the chill. He felt safer coddled beneath the clouds, and their cover allowed him to watch the flickering lantern lights of the City getting closer.

[Shadar]

A few hours march from the outskirts of the capital, behind a steep hill that heralded the Comb Mountains beyond, squatted the manor of Cornelius Reed. Its chimneys barely broke above the landscape of rolling fields, as subtle as if nothing but a few farm houses resided in the depression. However, a short stroll down the low road led visitors into the shadow of the hill and the refined buildings therein.

Just inside the main gate, a long servants' hall nestled against the right side of the road, large enough to house a handful of families in such a way that many Radasanthians would be jealous; and to the left, a narrow stretch of fenced pasture. A small herd of livestock dozed in the now-moonless night, nothing but passive black shapes against the uprising of the manor's guardian hill. The packed dirt road narrowed between the fence and the servants' quarters, curving ever so slightly as if it had been born from the rolling Radasanthian fields themselves.

Past the final corner of the log fence, the manor grounds sighed and opened. The tall red barn, a rust-colored sprawl in the darkness, lay against the hill, its wide doors yawning open. The light of a few lanterns flickered within, casting shapes of men upon the earthy umber run-up, as if even their shadows were doused in drying blood.

Beyond the reach of the barn's glowing maw, the manor house blinked fire-lit eyes. At a respectable two floors, it reached taller than any of the other buildings, but its soft architecture made it feel quant instead of imposing. The main door was inset, as cloistered as the entire grounds, yet the yellow glow of a lamp above the door made it a welcoming portal in the night.

In the good Lord Reed's study, he sat, half-sunken, in a chair that was more padding than wood. A bright fire crackled in the hearth before him, illuminating as clear as day his richly colored evening coat and the growing expanse of bare skin above his brow. He was a picture of aged comfort with gilded pipe perched on his lips and his jovial brown eyes lost in the flames.

"Ah, welcome back, my friend," he said around the pipe as the door creaked open, admitting a guest into the sanctuary of wood grain and silver-bordered softness.

Adham made no greeting as he stepped into the range of the firelight. The paint had been hastily scrubbed off, leaving only a black rim around a strict face that hadn't seen a razor in days but certainly wasn't unkempt.

"Let's have a sip and a puff to celebrate, shall we?" Reed chuckled with a gestured to a dark bottle on his chair-side table, then to a matching chair at the other side of the fire's warmth. Adham unceremoniously dropped a soft, wrapped package on the table, causing the bottle and its accompanying glasses to jump in alarm. Lord Reed reached for the pocket of his robe. "No thanks, I've already got a very woodsy blend right here," he held up a small pouch and tapped his pipe with a finger. "It's a gift from my Alerar friends, and it's quite delicious."

"This is the so-called weapon," Adham intoned sternly. His eyes remained dark in the firelight, as if he hadn't removed all the paint from around them.

Reed's pipe rolled along his lips as his eyes widened. "This is it?" He plucked the pipe from his mouth and used it to gesture at the package.

Adham nodded coldly. "There was a cart full of them. The Ranger cut the horses..." Adham trailed off, perhaps remembering the pathetic body they had stumbled across. "I lost nearly half my men in this operation," he said as he planted his hands on the table. For a man of modest height, he cast a very large shadow. "And we carried the whole shipment to your barn on our backs. Now, tell me this isn't tobacco."

The lord tamped his pipe into a bowl on the table and pocketed it. Then, he suddenly stood and walked heavily to the hearth, where he grabbed a candle and holder. After holding the wick to the dancing flames, he turned and carried both the light and the package to his desk in the back corner.

With thoughtful eyes, he stared down at the soft, diminutive parcel sitting on his strewn paperwork. "I believe you know the answer to that," he said in a far away voice without turning back to the mercenary. "There was an armed escort, black as night, correct? And they arrived through a portal?"

"One Ranger and a dozen military defectors," Adham answered, nodding toward Reed's wide, candlelit silhouette.

"Were they strong?"

Adham's voice lowered. "I would not have lost so many of my own if they were not."

Reed bobbed his head slowly, then rounded his desk and eased himself into the chair. "Then, it is a weapon. I have no idea what kind. But..." He rested his chin upon folded hands. "Better in our hands than the Rangers'." His gaze flicked back up toward the man whose hooded face showed nothing but suspicion. "I'm sorry for the loss of your men," he offered with convincing sincerity, "You can keep the crossbows as well as your payment. It's not as if the drow can take them back the way they came, anyway." He pulled open a drawer and laid a heavy bag of coins on the edge of the desk.

Adham made no move for it. "How did they..."

"No," Reed snapped with a glimmer of a joke reflecting in his eyes, "I never betray the tactical secrets of my friends."

A scowl crossed Adham's face, as if the idea of having such friends left a fowl taste in his mouth. He crossed the room and hefted the bag of coins, looking at it blankly. "I would like to remain involved in this," he said, and he tossed the bag alongside the mysterious parcel. "We can discuss amended terms after."

Reed leaned back, his chair creaking, and said with a knowing smile, "You want to make sure their deaths weren't in vain."

The mercenary shook his head. "No, they died as well as I would expect of anyone under my command. What I want... is to see the results."

"Isn't that," Reed pointed to the coins, "the result of a hired man's actions?" His smile widened as if he suddenly found their conversation highly amusing.

Adham's mouth remained set in a level line. "I've worked for every faction in this war, back when they were on friendlier terms. I know who can run Corone, and I know who needs to disappear from it. I just want to be there when it happens."

Reed flashed a set of ivory white teeth at the mercenary. "It will happen, my friend. Soon, it will happen."

[Breaker]

Kron Sh’aketh perched on one leg, back braced against the finely stained wood panel wall in the hallway of Reed’s manor. He had his injured leg crossed over his knee at a ninety degree angle, pulling at the makeshift bandages to tighten them. The wound had trickled blood through most of the long hike to this country estate. His soft soled boot was still warm with it. His veiled face, bowed attentively to his task, snapped upwards as the hinge of the heavy across the hall groaned.

The stocky human named Adham Heydan stormed out of the study. His arrogance poisoned the pleasant smells of tobacco and woodsmoke that wafted in his wake, for he strode past Kron without giving the hooded Aleraran a glance. The heavy door swung shut with another moan, revealing Shynt Sh’aketh, who leaned casually against the wall in a patch of darkness he had created by extinguishing two of the hall’s hanging lanterns. Kron’s brother pretended to draw one of his daggers then mimed throwing it at Heydan’s receding form. Kron grinned at the idea and pushed himself upright onto both legs. He shrugged his sword and scabbard off and again used it as a cane. Shynt grasped the cast-iron door handle, lifted upwards to take stress off the hinges, and opened the door silently. Kron limped in unannounced.

The flickering firelight played shadows on the soft colored walls like a child’s lullaby. Kron masked his disgust with a neutral expression. Everything in that study from the servant-stacked wood beside the hearth to the bed-like armchairs spoke of a pampered, participatory lifestyle. Treading only on the thick bear pelt rug so the tip of his temporary cane made no noise, Kron stumped to Reed’s desk and sat down sideway in the chair. Only then did Shynt let go of the door. It screamed on loose hinges and slammed shut, the wooden bang of door-on-frame severing the sound as a guillotine silences a wailing victim.

A gasp of pure terror exploded from the over-cushioned armchair, and moments later Reed managed to struggle out of its depths. His face and balding pate looked a white and round as the moon outside. When he saw the hooded drow sitting at his desk he sighed in relief. One liver spotted hand seized a bottle of amber liquid, the other an empty glass. Only after pouring and swallowing two fingers of brandy did he set the alcohol aside. Not wanting to stand awkwardly in his own home, he set about turning the armchair, grunting with exertion as the block legs scraped his fine wooden floors.

Collapsing anew into the confines of his voluptuous seat, he puffed rapidly on his pipe and some of the ruddy color returned to his face. Kron considered it an insult that the weevil of a man did not offer to share his tobacco, but ignored the sleight. Humans were ignorant as they were arrogant, but they must be tolerated, if only for the purpose of international politics.

“Well?” Reed demanded after another minute, unable to stand the extended silence and the drow’s unrelenting gaze. “Are you here to make a report or not?”

“We orchestrated an unavoidable trap using the resources you provided.” Kron coal eyes glowed with amusement. Even though he had interacted with Reed before, the middle-aged man always did a double take when he heard the elf speaking common. Kron had a gift for languages; beyond speaking many, he also picked up the idioms and accents quickly, had a knack for falling into whatever dialect an acquaintance understood best. Indeed, the only difference between his voice and that of a high ranking, well-educated Coronian lord was that on the rare occasion Kron rolled his Rs.

“Well done, well done,” Reed said somewhat dismissively. The attitude was understandable, since Adham Heydan had just finished his own report. “No survivors then.”

“I did not say that.” Kron said, nothing in his voice. Reed’s eyes bulged, his ruddy color turning crimson.

“What? How dare you? Who escaped? Did you let the Ranger…” The first word was an explosion of anger, but after that each syllable devolved until the lord trailed off. Kron had pulled back his hood and untied hi veil, allowing it to hang down to his chest. Tribal tattoos in red, yellow, and white ran up both sides of his neck, spilling across his angular cheekbones. They were inked in the abstract image of two identical snakes, mouths open wide. The bottom of their unhinged jaws ran along his own jawline, stopping just shy of his strong chin. The roofs of their maws were flared high enough that their long, murderous fangs pointed at the outside of Kron’s midnight eyes. Forked tongues slithered out of the snakes’ throats, licking at the corners of his mouth, drawing him a demonic perpetual smile.

A combination of the fearsome tattoos and Kron’s lethal glare had silenced the belligerent human.

“Have you ever fought an opponent formidable as a Corone Ranger, my lord? The drow’s smile made the snakes’ necks arch in preparation to strike. He shook his head as a matron admonishes a greedy child. “Of course not. The only time you take a blade to battle is when your chef overcooks a leg of lamb. You may continue giving commands from the swaddling of that ridiculous piece of furniture, but you will not condescend to me in matters of field work and combat.” The words carried the sting of the vipers on his face, and Kron paused for a moment to enjoy their effect. He waited until Reed’s scrabbling fingers found the bottle of brandy. This time, the lord did not bother using a glass.

“Now that we know where we stand… no, the Ranger did not escape. However, he put up enough of a fight,” he pointed with his scabbard at the droplets of blood which had dripped on the floor beneath his injured leg, “that the mage who created the portal made a getaway on horseback.” Although he was considerably cowed, a new self-righteous rage had begun building in Reed’s brain from the moment he saw his floorboards stained by black blood. He kept himself calm, kept his anger in check, his fear of the drow assassin omnipresent. But being demanding was as much a part of him as heat was part of the crackling fire.

“Well then you’d better find him and slit his throat! That’s what you two are here for, to tie up loose… wait, where is your brother?” Reed’s eyes darted like those of a startled rabbit, looking for the other elf in the shadowy corners of the room.

“Shynt is outside guarding the door.” Kron said with indelible patience. He folded his injured right leg over his left knee and laced his fingers, used both thumbs to apply pressure to the gash. The flickering firelight illuminated the back of his hands, showing the tattoos which ran the length of each of his fingers. They were extensions of the ones on his face. Those snakes climbed all the way down his arms then split into five tails apiece to decorate each of his digits. As if to confirm Shynt’s position, two soft knocks echoed from the portal.

“But that is irrelevant, as is your request.” Kron continued with his focus on his calf, his voice loud and clear. “I am injured; my brother and I have not slept nor had proper nourishment in a day and a half. More importantly we cannot search the streets of Radasanth in broad daylight, and the sun will rise in several hours. Our presence would be noted immediately, inquiries made, information eventually reaching the wrong people. Our presence must be clandestine.

“You will hire a local, someone who knows the streets well, who will blend in with the crowds. Choose a man of talent who will work quickly and efficiently, for it is imperative that he find the mage quickly. A professional if possible. Once he locates the target he may notify my brother and me, or bring the man in himself if he is competent. But he should be kept alive at all costs.” While he spoke Kron had picked up a quill, dipped it in the ink bottle bolted to Reed’s desk, and written rapidly on a spare roll of parchment, the feather whipping around as if still attached to an agitated bird. Finished, he set the quill down and left the parchment flat to dry. “I have written down everything the man you hire will need to know, including a full description of the mage.”

Although Reed detested being contradicted, he nodded pensively. Everything the frightful drow said made sense. A small smile formed on his lips, but did not reach his eyes, which were still dilated in fear.

“Very well. I pay many skilled men to provide me with information, and if none of them can find him well, they know others and so on. This mage will soon be found.”

Kron drove his scabbard into the floor as he stood up, the resounding clack a signal. The door opened silently, seemingly of its own accord.

“Excellent. My brother and I shall retire to the rooms you provided. Is there a physician on your payroll?” He limped to the door and turned, standing sideways in the spill of lantern light from the hall. Reed stood as well as the last ember in his gilded pipe went out. He set it on the end table next to the bottle then crossed his arms over the chest of his deep purple robe.

“Yes, but he lives about an hour’s walk from here, and would be damned unhappy if someone rouses him in the middle of the night.” A glint of challenge entered the old man’s eye.

“Perhaps you should double his usual fee to ease his feelings. Send a rider with two horses; I wish to be in bed sooner than two hours from now.” Kron’s dismissive attitude swept aside the human’s defiance like a thin layer of dust. As he raised his hood and reattached his veil Reed conceded, nodding wearily.

“All right; he’ll be here within the hour. I’ll have him sent to your rooms. Rest and eat well; you’ll need to be ready at a moment’s notice when my agents bring the mage’s whereabouts.

The last words from the hall before the door slammed shut were in Aleraran, a language unfamiliar to Reed, and yet somehow he understood their meaning.

We are always ready.

Knees shaking slightly, Lord Cornelius Reed sank into the depths of his favorite chair. As hands that trembled as fast as the fire flickered reached for his pipe and bottle, he wondered if he had made a mistake, going into business with drow.

[Shadar]

Reed was a salesman and a liar. The two were not always the same, but one woud be hard pressed to find a rich man anywhere near Radasanth who wasn't adept at both. Adham had nearly spit each time the lord called him 'friend', and nearly done worse when the drow were addressed as such. The thought of what adoring words he would lay on his dark visitors kept Adham's eyes locked forward until he was once more in the cool night air.

He inhaled deeply the scent of grass and animals, such natural smells that had been scoured from the manor house with perfume and wood smoke. If only the moon would peek out to clean away the suffocating atmosphere that still clung to him, the heavy weight of too many possessions and too few worries. But, alas, it was still hiding among the clouds. If Adham had the opportunity to look down upon Reed's decadent hole in the countryside, he would cover his eyes, too.

However, the plump hog living in that engorged house represented the lesser of the evils currently fighting for control. That said a lot about society, what it had come to. Or, perhaps it had always been this way, since the advent of coins and blades and egos.

Sighing and lowering his hood, he walked to the flickering light of the barn. Beyond the open doors, he saw five buckets of water sitting amid a spattering of dark puddles, the only imperfection upon the stone floor aside from the mass of supposedly dangerous packages heaped in the back. Stalls ran along the perimeter, each with their straw bedding as neatly tended as garden shrubbery, and not a single horse in sight. They had been moved to Reed's private stable behind the manor to make the barn a nondescript barracks. The only souls present were men sitting atop barrels or crates, their boots lifted from the pristine floor or deliberately scuffing it. Eleven pairs of eyes snapped to Adham, waiting. Six more faces, unmarred and soft, slowly turned, their quiet conversation halting.

Adham knelt over a bucket and watched his dark-fringed, dark-eyed reflection waver in the water that was already black from his men cleaning their faces. "You six," he commanded, "Go home." At the hesitance of the local men, he glared under dark lids without moving his head. A quick motion of his hand indicated the door. "What's left to do does not require your services." Six bodies, light-footed with relief, dodged out into the night.

When their footfalls had faded, Adham cupped the stale water up to his face and washed away the last of the paint that he had purposely allowed to remain. His features betrayed their world-weary softness. "The bows are ours," he announced to his men as he cast his gaze over each of their hard faces, "A trade, I suppose, for Gregor, Mandel, Chaim, Adair, Rey, Esmond, Cutter, and Blake."

Those who had laid their black bows on the ground took them up onto their laps. "Funny math," muttered someone too quietly to be identified. Adham nodded, and rivulets of black water ran off his chin.

~

Cornelius Reed hunched over his bedside desk, sharing his personal chamber with no one but the dancing light of a single candle. Ever the gracious host, he fed it a meal of parchment from his pinched fingers. Famished, the flame grabbed onto the bottom corner and washed over the upside-down page, consuming harsh, demanding words and the artfully scrawled signature of Faer Zurafin. It was a false name, he was certain, because the drow would never trust a Coronian lord with their true identities while discussing such sensitive matters.

The last corner slipped from his fingers, becoming ash in his pipe bowl on the desk. The small mound was as grey as dry bone atop the remains of rich tobacco. Reed shook the colors into a combined, muted tone and then placed the bowl at the far side of the desk again.

Leaning back in plushness, he rubbed one hand against his moist brow. Dealing with the drow was completely unlike any business he conducted within the refined society of Corone. Drow did not appreciate kindness. They did not give due respect. They simply demanded with the obstinacy of children, too blinded by their lives lived in dark industrial pits to even recognize their equals, or betters. Their first exchange had shown him as such. They had actually mocked him! The niceties of civil business escaped them so completely that they refused to deal with him until he 'stopped acting a fool'.

Fools don't acquire manors. Fools don't have influence in nearly every industry and institution from Radasanth to Gisela. A fool would have passed up the aid of Alerar. Already, he had received information and tools that would have been unattainable through any other channels, and he had secured an investment in the future, a veritable feast of resources that would be unshaken no matter how far the civil war pulled down Corone's markets. An investment that would have to be trimmed, tended, and eventually purged, of course. But, it would be invaluable for the first phase of Coalition rule.

Yet, paranoia tugged at him. It was a pull he so often heeded, and with sound reasoning. The dark heart at the center of the Coalition was dangerous and unpredictable. He knew that better than any member outside the inner-circles, and not through channels that would please his superiors. What if the drow, somehow, knew the truth; that he spied on his allies more fervently than his enemies, that he had compiled enough information to stab his own organization through its black heart. It was not a matter of whether or not they would turn him over. It was a matter of price. What bargain would bring a reaper to his door?

To still the shaking of his hands, Lord Reed hoisted himself from his chair, clutched up the candle, and walked to his decadently down-filled bed, so soft that to lay on it produced bulges around him like lithe silhouettes of lusty ventures in evenings long past. For what remained of this night, though, he would forgo the nostalgic imagery and lay with the candle lit on the nightstand. There was violence in the shadows, and he knew he would not sleep if that bloody bedfellow curled up against him in the dark.

[Breaker]

Book 2 ~ Scarlet Brigade We Are Not



The dance floor stormed, a jungle of gyrating bodies. Arms and legs whipped and lurched like vines and branches in the wind. Torsos swayed like rain-soaked tree trunks, thick with the perspiration of accumulated body heat. High powered colored lanterns flashed lightning through dense clouds of artificial fog pumped out by enchanted smoke machines burning scented herbs. The dancers thought and acted as animals, functioning on instinct more than anything. That tangle of grooving people contained both the exotic thrill and the illicit danger of any jungle, concealed amidst the foliage of shining silk and satin clothing.

Joshua Cronen reclined on a round padded stool, spine braced against the bar at the back of the massive club. His chiseled features, covered by tanned skin and a thin layer of stubble on his chin, remained stationary while hazel eyes scanned the room. A five man band played bass-heavy instruments on the elevated platform to his left. On his right a field of tables and chairs grew from the floor. The café section of The Flesh Failures was sparsely populated, most of the patrons a part of the thundering mass in the centre of the room. Overtop of their reaching hands he observed the double doors opening and closing intermittently as new guests entered. Radasanth’s premium nightclub neared its capacity of one hundred people. Soon the doors would be barred, adding weight to Cronen’s responsibility. As head of The Flesh Failures’ security, those hundred people’s safety rested in his palms.

Josh had his eye on a pair of men who slowly worked their way into the space of a lone woman. The first stood over six feet tall with heavy shouldered and bulging forearms rippling out of his wifebeater. The second was the one who had caught Cronen’s attention. He looked nondescript, average height and build, oily black hair that fell just far enough to touch his matching leather jacket. But the Martial Artist could feel a signature of arcane power radiating from the smaller man as surely as he could hear the guitar melody over the pounding bass. After a few minutes of concentrating on that power, he picked up its details. If the oily haired man managed to kiss the woman he was dancing with (or any other woman, for that matter) on the lips, she would fall temporarily under his spell, would respond to his suggestions as a private to a general’s commands. Five minutes… long enough to get her out of the club and alone somewhere. More elaborate than the standard methodology of slipping a sleeping elixir into someone’s drink, but it was still date rape, the intention clear as vodka.

In the few minutes it took him to read the man’s peculiar talent, Josh noticed his body language growing increasingly aggressive. He touched the unwary woman more often, his sticky fingers lingering longer and longer. His muscular wingman had sleazed his way behind her, blocking a potential retreat. Josh had no intention of letting the leather-jacketed man get his lips on anyone’s flesh. He deposited the glass of whisky he had been swirling on the bar and dropped his hand to waist level, made a fist, splayed his fingers, then pointed at his feet.

Two of the five bouncers under his command spotted the signal. Both burly men with heavy cudgels on their belts, they leaned close to each other and conferred for a moment then the shorter of the two ambled over to take Josh’s place at the head of the room. Nodding his thanks, the club’s protector strode into the thick of the dance floor. Bodies parted to let him through as birds flutter to avoid a panther; everyone at the club knew the man with the scar on his cheek and knew to make way. He stopped beside a willowy woman with long blonde hair and touched her elbow.

Angeline, the club owner’s daughter, turned to face him. She abandoned the two or three anonymous bodies who previously occupied her attention and turned to him, gorgeous features slack in a drunken smile. She laced her fingers around the back of his neck and ground her hips against his thigh, the sheer material of her sifan cloth dress grating his coarser black vlince pants.

“You finally decided to have some fun with me,” she shouted close to his ear. Her cherry tongue accidentally-on-purpose caressed the lobe.

“Not exactly,” he responded, hooked a sinewy forearm around her waist and dragged her to the fringe of the floor.

It was Angeline who had landed him the job after a shared night of passion at a nearby inn her father also owned. Subsequently she tried to get him fired when she spotted him kissing a beautiful drow woman, but her father had refused the whim due to Josh’s evident effectiveness as Head of Security. Since then the two had developed a friendly relationship, but she never stopped flirting with him. It wasn’t infatuation or love, or lust for that matter. He suspected that she enjoyed chasing anyone who said no.

“Where are you taking me? Up to your room? You’ll have to tie me up to get me there.” He smelled the alcohol on her breath but ignored it. She wasn’t as drunk or as shallow as she demonstrated. Obliging her continued grinding, he moved his feet in time to the music, following the sway of her firm body glued to his. As they danced he leaned in like a boyfriend whispering sweet nothing. The ditz-screen in her eyes evaporated as she listened to his instructions, responding with nods when necessary. Thirty seconds later he pecked her on the cheek and felt her palm smack his ass as he walked away. Resisting the urge to shake his head, he ignored it and strode past the bar. In his peripheral vision he saw the two-man abduction team, closing in for the kill on their hapless victim. Unseen by the occupied pair, he opened a door in the club’s back wall and slipped into a short hallway which led to the rear exit. The hall had two purposes; deliveries of imported alcohol going straight to the bar rather than through the cluttered kitchen, and throwing out unruly patrons.

He let the door close almost all the way but kept his right hand on the knob, a hawk peering at two rats through the thin crack that remained.

Angeline appeared between the two men like a wraith in a red dress. She pressed her torso against the woman they had cornered, allowing the heavy shouldered man to grind against her shapely backside. The sleazy pair registered surprise which quickly became the smiles of hyenas gazing at a wounded gazelle. As surely as a champion of the tango, Angeline guided the intended victim towards the rear of the building. The men followed, the shorter man with the incubus’ kiss backpedalling until he was just two feet from the wall.

The door opened. A black clad arm seized the collar of his leather jacket and hauled him outside.

[Breaker]

Josh pinned the oily haired man in the leather jacket against the stone wall of the alley behind The Flesh Failures. One immovable palm compressed the smaller man’s chest. He cut through the other’s whining with short, clipped words that buffeted him into silence as surely as a knockout punch.

“Quit proclaiming your innocence and wait patiently. If your buddy doesn’t follow us out here and take a swing at me, you’re free to go back inside and dance the night away.” He had barely finished when the club’s back door burst open. The heavy-shouldered man exploded into the night, the single lamp above the door casting him a demonic shadow. His thick muscles rippled as he threw a wide roundhouse punch.

Keeping his left hand on the weasel’s chest, Josh flared his right elbow up and blocked the blow with his triceps. His downward chop to the aggressor’s collarbone flowed as a part of the same motion. The big man’s arm dropped limp and Josh seized his wrist, turning it and spinning his body at the same time, attempting to drive him face-first into his comrade. But the weasel was swift, and danced away so his partner got a face full of brownstone. Oil-hair drew a switchblade and snicked it open, lunging in for a low thrust. Still pinning the big woozy man against the wall with a twisted chicken wing, Josh lashed out with his right foot. His soft-soled boot broke the weasel’s wrist, his weapon clattering along the alley. Before he could cry out in pain the foot whipped up again, delivering a stinging blow to the would-be rapist’s mouth. He collapsed with blood pouring from where his teeth had punctured his incubus lips. It would be a long time before he felt comfortable kissing anything.

With one quick torque Josh broke the heavy shouldered man’s wrist as well, propelling him onto the pavement beside his friend. Eyes blazing with disgust, he stood watching them until they regained enough sense to cower in fear.

“My psychic servers had me watching you both from the moment you got through the door. They read your filthy minds, and we know what you intended. Let me make this perfectly clear.” The martial artist crouched in front of the whimpering pair. His powerful hands seized them both by the throat in identical eagle-claw grips. He stared into their eyes one at a time as they gasped for air like grounded trout, cartilage flexing nervously against his fingers. He saw fear in those eyes, outright terror, but no questioning. He had frightened them enough to make them believe he actually had psychic servers.

“I’ve left you each one hand intact. I suggest you use them to get yourselves off rather than trying to kidnap young women. But if you ever set foot in my club again, I’ll see to it that neither of you ever get off again. You get me? Good.” With one might shove he sent them both scrambling on all fours over discarded bottles and shredded trash, finally finding their feet and sprinting awkwardly out of the alley, broken wrists cradled. The small man limped, the large one staggered, but eventually they made it around the corner and out of sight.

Josh wanted to scrub his hands with soap after touching the pair, but remembered the switchblade as he reached for the door. He found it beneath a crumpled up newspaper. It was a fine blade, especially considering the previous owner. Its five inch Delyn blade, still locked straight, glistened in the single lamp’s light. Josh picked it up and closed it, then touched the trigger that sprung the knife open. Since his return from Salvar, he ordinarily carried no weapons. Sssnick. The switchblade might be worth its risk, though. A knife found many uses in a security guard’s life. Sssnick. And switchblades made for excellent intimidation. He might twist fewer arms and crack fewer skulls if he could scare sleaze off just by flexing his muscles and opening the knife.

Sssnick.

Schnoff.

Josh’s head snapped up, eyes torn from his shiny new toy. The horse snorted again, its head just visible around the corner of the alley. It attempted to graze, nibbling at a few choked weeds which sprouted from a crack in the cobblestone. Apparently finding them unappetizing, it tossed its mane and trotted forwards. It wore no rider but a saddle with a line affixed to the pommel, which drew a second horse into view when pulled taut. The second animal repeated the same actions as the first, but when it moved out of sight it dragged a limp man behind it, his left leg entangled in the stirrup.

“Whoa there!” The cry seemed foolish, but it was all he could think of. It worked; the horses stopped dragging their helpless cargo as Josh darted towards them. The keen switchblade sliced through the stirrup, the man’s leg slipping to the ground with sickening slackness. Josh’s callused fingertips found a pulse on the man’s carotid, weak but regular.

“Hey! Buddy! Are you okay? Can you hear me? What’s your name?” He pinched the man’s ears and cheeks gently but got no response. Whoever he was, the rider was out for a long count.

With the patience of a surgeon he rolled up one of the victim’s pant legs and inflicted a short shallow scratch with the tip of his new knife. The man twitched and whimpered, a spasm of pain erupting on his face before it fell back to neutral unconsciousness. Good. He was not paralyzed, hopefully safe to move. Cronen lifted the listless figure as easily as a child and draped him across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. With one arm securing his burden, he used the other to gather the horses’ reigns and walked carefully towards the back door of the Flesh Failures.

[Breaker]

*

The moon shone her silver blessing on the slums of west Radasanth, bathing a depleted and forsaken warehouse. Its front, with illegible signs falling down and boarded up doorways, bordered on a dirt road. The rear looked down on a side street that was half the width of the main road and contained twice the litter.

The tall man trudged down the deserted back alley, hands buried in the pockets of his long coat. He reeked of alcohol but walked in a straight line with his head up and eyes roving. He breathed raggedly but his footsteps made no sound. The broad shoulders and clandestine demeanour covered by his foul stench would bring any observer to the conclusion that he was a soldier turned alcoholic.

But no living creature watched him as he paused to take a swig from a flask. It vanished into his hip pocket.

The tall man scrubbed a callused thumb through the thick stubble on his upper lip. He looked up and the moon lit his tan Akashiman face. Tired eyes tracked from the warehouse on his right to the row of shabby low-income houses on his left. Which would he like to sleep in tonight? The vermin had chased out most of the residents. His liquor-fogged eyes suddenly became sharp as a hawk's.

The Wraith appeared from the folds of the shadows. A breeze tugged at the trash but did not touch its long black cloak. It hung straight and seamless, as silent as the sinuous steps. It did not seem to breathe but still the tall man sensed It and turned around slowly. There was nothing drunk about his eyes or his gesture as he clutched at his chest. Black lungs gasped for air that seemed strangely scarce. He sank to one knee.

“Teod Goshawk.”

The Wraith’s voice was as dry as dead leaves and patient as time.

Goshawk seemed to control his ailment from the semi-fetal position. He put his hands back in his pockets then covered his mouth. Puffed the lit cigarette and tossed the match away. His breathing returned to its haggard metronome as smoke whirled in the moonlight.

“I thought we had no names in the Brigade,” he muttered from the corner of his mouth. Two thick fingers removed the cigarette. It was half gone from the speed at which he smoked.

“I dunno’ why they call it that anymore. By the Crystal Spire, you’re just a pack of ghouls.”

The Wraith waited almost politely as he finished the smoke; a farewell favour for a former comrade.

“By the way,” the tall man said as he reached down to snub his cigarette. Like lightning he tossed a handful of gravel with one hand. The other threw a knife drawn from the sole of his boot.

The gravel showered the warehouse wall as the Wraith slithered past it. A black gloved hand caught the pinwheeling blade. It returned the throw even as it flowed forwards. With a yell Teod Goshawk deflected his own knife. The iron bracer beneath his sleeve rang a hollow sombre sound in the empty street.

The Wraith attacked like an enraged panther. Its black gloves became molten metal. Claws that singed flesh as they slashed through it. Goshawk defended rapidly but found that every time he blocked a blow smoking lacerations opened his forearms. He gasped in agony but could not match the overwhelming speed of the attack. Spinning in to his enemy with the skill of a master judoka, he stooped for a shoulder throw.

The Wraith leapt onto his back. It clutched at his clothing and constricted around his abdomen like a python. Clawed hands seared the skin around his neck. A blob of thick blood gushed from his arteries as the Wraith tore his head off. It backed away from the draining body and tossed the head into a pile of wooden scraps. The blood pool on the ground glowed black by the moonlight. Not a drop stained the creature’s still cloak. It turned and vanished in two serpentine steps, melted into the shadows of the night.


*

[Breaker]

Leonard Silverton looked up from the smudged pages of the Radasanthian Reader. It covered a portion of his cluttered desk, open to the obituaries page. Powerful but grizzled hands gripped the arms of his wheelchair as tears blurred his view of the ornate oaken door, the artwork on his office walls. Those coloured oil masterpieces came to life in the sunlight that poured through the window. He focused on the depictions of battles from the Age of Darkness, hardy dwarves defending their stronghold against demon invaders, until his eyes cleared. Think about anything, he told himself, anything other than the name in the newspaper.

Teod Goshawk. A name he never should have known, but the man had been his closest friend for a long time. They had battled dark elves and orcs, saved each others’ lives a thousand times in the field. But that was years ago, and bygone memories had no place in his schedule.

Silverton’s grey sifan cloth shirt stretched across his barrel chest as he wheeled out from behind the desk. His short silver hair shone in the sunlight around his small reflective bald patch. He handled the awkward chair deftly, ignoring its squeaking as he reached the door. With one hand braced on the left wheel, he heaved the heavy door open and said a few words to his receptionist, then rolled across the room to fix himself a drink.

“He’ll see you now,” The receptionist said to the only person in the cozy leather-furnished waiting room.

Joshua Cronen rose wordlessly and gave her a grin of gratitude, but his eyes remained as sombre as if he shared the old man’s pain.

[The International]

Esme stepped out of the transport wagon and into the remains of a chaotic scene. His hazel eyes relished in the violent splendor of the canvas that was the ground beneath his feet, and the methodical strokes of several artists that used each others’ blood as a palette. There was a range of emotion being expressed in this masterpiece of war. Some artists managed to express extremes as they bludgeoned their subjects, creating a polka dot pattern on the gravel road. Others were methodical and tepid as their slashes were clearly indicated by straight splashes along the blades of grass and across the tree trunks. Someone was even hung, so said the bloody wire hanging off of the irrigation system. This work of art was topped off by a backdrop of an orchard full of apple trees, from which the ruby red fruit gave an extra dimension. One common thing that could be said about every artist here: nothing was personal.

“So I take it the bodies have been disposed of?” Esme turned and asked the nameless foot soldier of the City Guard.

“They have been taken away due to possible incrimination of those involved.” The red caped, armor clad peacekeeper and his comrades had taken on a few new jobs during the Empire’s reign of Radasanth, one of which being a secretive courier of those with influence. They quickly learned not to ask questions so long as they were sufficiently paid. He pointed to a young woman already examining the scene. “Is she with you or do I need to ask her to leave?”

“Consider her my assistant.” Esme glanced at the young woman clad in a midnight blue halter top and flamenco skirt. Her jet black hair hung as she bent over to examine a blood stained rock at the edge of Niema River. She looked up at Esme and the guard with a pair of glacial blue eyes, and greeted them with a crooked, but strangely cute smirk. Somewhere on her person, Esme had no idea where, was a sheathed wakizashi sword.

“She’s pretty.” Said the Guard as he lifted a hand to wave.

“She gets her good looks from me.” Esme said as they began to walk towards her. He didn’t have to see the man to know the surge of awkwardness that went through his body, which he immediately worked to remove. “Feel free to take a shot. She can take care of herself. Although I’m pretty sure she’d snap you like a twig.”

“I brought what you asked for.” Esme’s daughter, Ludivine said with a slightly raised voice as she held up a small pouch. “A veil of red wine vinegar, and ground wolf bone.”

“Good. Stay there by the river. And you.” Esme turned to the Guard and pointed at him. “You have to stay here. The information I’m about to gather is above your pay grade.”

The Guard took offence as he looked away to hide the face that indicated so, but he stayed put nonetheless. Esme stopped at the river beside his daughter and adjusted his crème doublet as he knelt down to examine the region’s best known body of water. At the same time he reached into his pocket and handed Ludivine Villeneuve an envelope. “Do you know whose seal that is on the front of the letter?”

“This looks like…” Ludivine put the broken red wax seal close to her porcelain face as she narrowed her eyes. “Cornelius Reed.” She said as she handed her father the letter and lowered her voice. “Do you know how many people wanted me to ‘take care’ of that guy? The only reason I haven’t is because they’re all poor. What are the ingredients for?”

“One is to activate my nose, and the other is to dial it up from one to twenty.” Esme said as he grabbed Ludivine’s tiny ankle. “But first I need the third ingredient, and I need a visual to get that ingredient.”

“Are you scrying?” Ludivine asked. Just then she felt a tingle in her ankle and the rest of her body go slightly loose. That answered her question. “Yes, you’re scrying. How far back was this?”

“Not far.” Esme said as he held Ludivine’s ankle with one hand and drew circles in the water with the other. “Late last night at the latest.”

The water near his hand began to darken, but within a few seconds it began to glow as it reflected the fickle silver moonlight of the previous night. The scene was exactly as he had depicted it, at least as far as he saw. Several soldiers of the Rangers and the Empire fought over the contents of a wagon in the Rangers’ possession, but that was none of Esme’s concern. There was a frail excuse of a man that he was looking for. A mage of great talent… and there he was retreating with a ranger on horseback. Esme watched as their reflections ran along with the flow of the river. They eventually stopped nearly a hundred yards down beyond a point of visual detail. He let go of his daughter and the Niema River resumed its daily routine of reflecting the sun and those closest to it. He took a look at his beard before he stood.

“They went west,” Esme started down the river. “Which was to be expected. Hopefully we’ll find something nearby; maybe something they dropped. This is… What’s wrong?” He turned to look at his daughter who hadn’t moved.

“Give me a second… You made my leg fall asleep.” The young assassin of the family shot her father a contemptuous look. Esme shot back a mischievous smile in a desperate attempt to mask the severe loss of comfort. It didn’t matter how well he knew her. Some of her ninja inspired habits gave him the creeps.

He made it no more than fifty yards west when he came across a follow up of the previously mentioned scene of chaos. There was less blood here, but he had his leads. The first of which was a peculiar blood stain along the gravel road. It was dark cherry red, indicating a member of a different species.

“Aleraran Elf.” Ludivine said over Esme’s shoulder. He made sure not to jump in surprise, but he made sure to address her hair-raising ways.

“You don’t have to do that.” Esme said as he tampered with his second lead, the bronze entrails of an apple that outlined the print of a horseshoe. He held them in his hand and held out his other. “Wolf bone and vinegar.”

“Here you are.” Ludivine dropped the contents into his free hand as he began a quiet chant. She stepped back as a flame ignited in his palm. Embers floated into the air for a moment or two before the flame went out and left a putrid hot chunky soup. “And what don’t I have to do?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Esme sipped the soup and made a dog’s face as the strong flavor of the vinegar and the awkward texture of the ground wolf bone burdened his mouth. He gave the ground up apple a good sniff before he emptied his hands and rinsed them off in the river. Soon the inside of his nose began to tingle. His sinuses became warm, and suddenly he knew where to go. Even when the horse tracks disappeared the scent of the apple and the horse that stepped on them would linger in his nose. “Let’s head to Radasanth.”

[Breaker]

Joshua Cronen paced across the spacious office's hardwood floor and accepted the glass of single malt whisky Silverton pressed upon him. With the sun still below its apex it seemed a little early to be drinking, but the quality of the booze and the company altered his decision. He sampled the expensive liquor, swirling its aged flavor across his palate as he sat in the room's only chair. Its back was straight, leather padded, and it swiveled on well oiled hinges. While Silverton established himself behind the desk and appeared to read or at least stare at the newspaper, Josh enjoyed the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the large bay window.

He had only visited Silverton's office on three previous occasions, but had fallen in love with the old man's base of operations after the first. The fine glass windows seemed to turn morning sunlight to golden vapor, and when the depleted rays touched him his skin tingled and his heart gladdened. Two masterpiece paintings hung either side of the office's entrance, the complexity of their colors matching the subtlety of the artist's brushstrokes. Josh had familiarized himself with Coronian history. He recognized the Battle for Teria on the left, during which demon forces had occupied the Dwarven stronghold in a single day. On the right he observed dwarves, elves and men led by a figure in shining armor. The well defined features were intimate to him, for he had seen the statue of Radasanth the Savior in the city’s center many times.

Josh found it curious that Silverton chose to hang the paintings on his front wall, while the paneled wood behind him was a mural of medals and awards. Silverton had been a successful soldier in Corone’s Armed Forces for many years. He had spent decades abroad in dangerous lands such as Salvar and Alerar, working undercover often as not with little to no reinforcement. The third time they met, the friends had drank long into the night while the older man related stories of his adventures. The tales had covered much of his career, detailing everything from a fiery love affair with a drow princess to the cannonball which had destroyed his legs. In Silverton Josh found a kindred spirit, a man he’d like to emulate one day if he lived long enough. In Josh the one time warrior found an unparalleled agent, not to mention a younger version of himself he could live vicariously through.

Silverton still seemed possessed by whatever he saw in the paper, so Josh finished his whisky and grabbed his friend’s empty glass as he stood. The fiery liquor had lent him unnatural warmth which spread from his cheeks all the way down to his toes. The enchanted black metal boots he wore made no noise as he strode to the dry bar in the corner of the room.

Unlike the old man’s desk, his bar was spotless and orderly. Rows of polished glasses were stacked behind military columns of minted bottles. Josh uncorked several which were not sealed, sampling their luxurious aromas. He found the right bottle by smell - the label read Yurik's Firewhisky in Aleraran scrawl - and poured them each a generous measure, then reorganized the bar to its regimental neatness. He returned and replaced Silverton’s glass then settled into the leather chair and sipped from his own, swiveling slightly toward the sunlight.

“There are many things I’ve kept secret from you, Josh.” The old man finally broke his silence. Josh stopped rotating the chair and looked up, but could not meet Silverton's eyes, for the old soldier stared at the shimmering liquid in his glass as he swirled it around. “Not because I didn’t trust you, understand, but for our mutual safety. Because I was afraid, I suppose, and I didn’t want to complicate your life any more than I already have.” Silverton took a deep breath and tossed back two fingers of whisky, staring out the window resolutely.

When Josh refilled his friend’s glass he had noticed that the old man was glaring at the obituaries as if to set them on fire by magic. He felt curious, and saddened by his friend’s emotional agony. He did not want to rush the respectable fellow though, so he swirled his drink patiently.

He was unsurprised that the crippled aristocrat had kept secrets from him; it seemed perfectly natural that some facts from his history of violence would go with him to the grave. What Josh didn’t understand was how a name in the obituaries could inspire Silverton to bring him closer in his circle of confidence.

“It’s imperative now though," Silverton said suddenly, "it’s necessary. Heed me well my friend,” The old man slammed his glass down on the desk and scratched at his shoulder where an old scar still tormented him. “Please Josh, think before you answer what I’m about to ask you. I have a mission, perhaps the most vital undertaking this civil war has seen. You’re the best man for the job, but it will put you under the scrutiny of the Viceroys themselves, and therefore the most dangerous assassins in Corone. I’ll gladly find someone else to do it if you say no.” Silverton stopped himself from scratching just shy of putting a hole in his shirt. He reached for his glass but found it empty, and so snatched up a gold fountain pen and tapped a military tattoo on the arm of his chair.

Josh immediately opened his mouth to agree, but paused. Out of respect for his friend’s request, he reflected briefly on it.

Silverton had indeed complicated his life a great deal. Months prior, after leaving Scara Brae and the life of a Dajas Pagoda Master behind, Josh had travelled to Radasanth to accept a long-standing job offer at The Flesh Failures. He'd felt happy there, running the popular establishment’s security by night and teaching martial arts in the basement by day. For a time his life was peaceful and simple, but then a series of freelance jobs had brought him into Leonard Silverton’s circle. Combining the old man’s wisdom and social contacts with Joshua’s relentless desire for justice, the two had nurtured the eyes and ears of the rebellion in Radasanth, and assisted many unwilling citizens of the Empire in escaping to the Ranger-controlled lands further south.

For Josh, there had only ever been one side to the civil war. The very name of the Freedom Fighters spoke of his life’s work, although he hadn’t joined them until personally invited by Leonard. But his life had recently gained a degree normalcy he hadn't felt in years. Could he knowingly sacrifice his peace amidst the chaos, his sanctuary, to follow a path which might very well banish him from Corone?

“Stop trying to dissuade me Leon, if you say I’m the man for the job then I want it. I want this country's freedom as much as you do.” As if to seal an oath, Josh downed the last of his whisky and placed the glass on Leonard’s desk. The old man relaxed visibly, dropped his gold pen on a pile of papers and stopped fidgeting. The worry left his shadowed hazel eyes, replaced by a grim determination.

“I know you looked over my awards,” he said, waving one hand in a careless gesture at the wall behind him. “But one of my… no, my greatest accomplishment, is not among them.” He leaned forward candidly, and Josh mirrored the action, intrigued. Irrepressible pride swelled in the old warrior’s chest, and a red glint tinted his eyes.

“I am, or so I believe, the only man to have received an honorable discharge from the Scarlet Brigade.”

[The International]

Sorry for the wait. I was trying to give it some more meat, but I couldn't.
The scent that tickled Esme’s nose so led them to a stone edifice. Esme scowled at the words Flesh Failures ostentatiously over the set of double doors that led inside. Even they couldn’t save the muted grey building from looking cold and dead within the radiance of the day. Perhaps it looked better in the Anti-Firmament. At night it probably rose from the dead like a flamboyantly dressed vampire ready to suck everything but blood from its patrons; sweat, tears, and lots of money. The proper and indecent alike probably convened here, and then it occurred to him.

“Before we go in…” Esme held a hand out to stop his daughter. “No one in there’s going to recognize you, are they?”

“This is Vespasian’s kind of place.” Ludvine said. “He’s the dancer in the family.”

Esme rolled his eyes. “I’m so proud of my manly son right now.” He looked at Ludivine. “Just follow my lead, and act sad and scared. I know grifting isn’t your thing, but we need to make this work. Shed some tears if you can.”

“Ouch. Tears.” Ludivine gritted her teeth. “I’m not a fan of tears. How about I just disappear?”

“That works.” Esme started for the door again. “And stay close okay?” He turned to look at his daughter again, but this time she was nowhere to be seen. He shrugged his shoulders and stopped at the door for a moment.

His head dropped, his breathing became shallow, his eyes welled up with would be tears, and his eyebrows curved up as he pushed open the double doors.

“Is anyone here?” Esme’s voice, which now squeaked with weakness, bounced off multicolored walls and luxurious countertops. It was all dampened by the darkness of the dormant dancehall’s innards. “Please! Anyone!”

“Sir…” A large fellow appeared from a back room somewhere. “This establishment is of the nocturnal kind. If you seek aid, find it elsewhere.”

“I know. I know. It’s just that.” Esme feigned a loss for words as his jaw dropped and his hands rose. “There was a guy who was here last night. I’m sure of it. Yea tall, tougher than he looks I hope. He’s got to be in a world of pain right now. He’s in danger, and if he was here then you’re in danger too.”

The man Esme assumed to be a bouncer rubbed his chin. “Was he accompanied by two mounts?”

“Yes!” The spy’s eyes twinkled with hope. “You saw him?”

The bouncer popped his head back into the door from which he came. “Joshua!”

[Breaker]

Josh blinked, but not from the sunlight streaming in the office window.

It seemed Leonard Silverton was made from more layers than an onion.

To Radasanth at large the aristocrat hid behind the guise of a semi-bitter, partially senile war hero. He seldom left his mansion estates on the north edge of the city, appearing in public only to give short speeches at military ceremonies or donate at charity events. Rumors circulated throughout the city that he was close to death and paranoid, that he re-wrote his will each day and slept in a different room each night, always with guards on the other side of the door. Silverton manufactured many such rumors himself to justify his reclusiveness to the public domain and because he only enjoyed the company of a choice few people. Remembering the way Leon had grinned and tapped his nose when he shared this particular tidbit, Josh suspected that the old man enjoyed deception as much as glass of Yurik's.

Now like a quick change artist Silverton had thrown off yet another costume; that of the ex-military tactician. Joshua’s eyes flashed and one eyebrow arched as he realized how closely attached Silverton was to clandestine affairs in Radasanth.

“Josh… do you know what the Scarlet Brigade is?” Silverton looked almost crestfallen until Cronen responded.

“I've heard they were an elite group of warriors shrouded in secrecy. Lots of fanciful tales about initiation rites. But I also know what the former means.” The two men met each other’s gaze. A lesser individual standing in between them might have been fried to a crisp, but the intensity was one of trust between comrades strengthening.

“Assassins.” Josh finished.

Silverton nodded and abruptly wheeled himself out from behind the desk. He collected both glasses and squeaked to the bar. Josh stood up and stretched like a tiger, flexing his back. He strode two steps to the window and looked out. A private hemp plantation stretched for an acre around the house in every direction, deep green bushes taller than a man. Every so often a branch would sway against the gentle breeze, and Josh wondered what was hidden beneath the leafy camouflage. Most likely an equal number of guards and traps, given what I just learned. The east-facing window was wide enough that he could observe both north and southern horizons. To the north beyond the stone wall which surrounded Silverton’s estates rose the Jagged Mountains. Josh knew that a district of warehouses and a long pier lay between the two impassive stone shapes, but he could not see them due to the height and proximity of the wall. To the south over the same cordon construction he caught a glimpse of the Citadel’s awe-inspiring towers.

The squeaking of the wheelchair subsided, and Josh turned to find Silverton back behind his desk, the glasses back on it, each one a quarter full of the amber liquid. Leon stared at the eddying ripples in his cup until they subsided, until the surface stood still and glassy.

“Some of us were assassins,” the old man admitted. “Not me though. I was always the anchor. My skills with weapons never quite paralleled my-” a ghoulish grin crinkled his face, adding years to his apparent age- “communications efficiency.” As he continued the story he pushed his glass around the desktop in tiny increments, like a general moving markers of troops across a map.

“The stories I've told you were all true, however I omitted key elements. It was Teod Goshawk and another man who carried me out of the harbor in Alerar, holding my guts in with their bare hands. But that is ancient history.” Silverton leaned forward and sniffed the whisky, as if its vintage could bring him back to his healthy youth.

“More recently,” he continued, reclining anew and lacing his fingers, “The Brigade became something else entirely. I don’t know all the details, but…”

As words failed him he spun the newspaper across the desk, knocking several less important bits of parchment askew in the process. Josh sat and picked up the obituaries page. For an instant he sensed the dry suppleness of the newsprint and the ink sinking into his skin. Then the adjacent headline hoarded his full attention.


Demon Hellcat Strikes Again!

Found in a back alley of our unsafe city’s northern warehouse district were the separated body and head of one Teod Goshawk. Formerly a Major in the Corone Armed Forces, Goshawk was dishonorably discharged for skimming funds and goods from supply trains under his supervision. His whereabouts were unknown until this morning when a CAF patrol found his remains. Based on the claw marks which cover his body in burned flesh, the investigating officers determined Goshawk to have been the eighth known victim of the Hellcat, a Haidian man-beast who roams the nighttime streets on a murderous rampage.

Wading through the stiff passive prose, Josh smelled bullshit as surely as if he’d stepped in it. He had made it an intentional habit to not keep up with the news, and as such hadn’t heard of the Hellcat before.

“Why don’t they just toss the bodies in the sea, or burn them?” He asked as casually as if he were critiquing the quality of writing. “Why use such an elaborate ruse?”

The knuckles of Silverton’s laced fingers turned a ghostly white in the bright sunlight, and his ruddy face deepened in hue.

“Fear,” he said. “That story has run the day after each victim’s death. Each week, they add something new. The Hellcat only preys on individuals alone at night, between the hours of one and four. It prefers the blood of the damned, so the virtuous are safe. Virtuous in this sense meaning those who obey the Empire.” He snorted like a stallion with a spike in its hoof.

“Exactly what happened to the Brigade, I cannot determine. But something caused a schism, and while some of my old comrades deserted, the majority remained. And they’ve become more powerful since then.” He leaned forward, expelling a breath as he tapped the section of the page which specified how the “Demon Hellcat” tore Goshawk’s head off. “None of the men I knew in my day were capable of that. Are you?”

Josh did not respond, hoping the question was rhetorical. He had never tried to rip a man’s head off, but he could break an unsuspecting sentry's neck one-handed. Uncomfortable by the stirred memories of his own violent past, he rose and paced to the window, to the bar, and back again. He felt like a caged animal; he wanted to get out of the office’s calm environment and beat the streets, start the operation Silverton had yet to outline for him. The older man noticed his friend’s restlessness and hastened towards the end.

“ I need you to find the surviving members of the former Brigade. They are my oldest friends, and they are being picked off one by one. What’s more, their experience will be invaluable to our cause. I need you to find them,” his voice nearly broke with sorrow as he finished, “before the Empire’s new pet killers can.” The contents of his tumbler disappeared down his throat, and Silverton sighed mightily. "If you can convince them you represent me, I believe they will join us."

Josh nodded a simple symbol of understanding. He strode to the desk and stooped forward, reaching out as if to shake Silverton’s hand. The two clasped arms instead, a soldier’s greeting and farewell. Then Leon opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a slim leather folder.

“All the intelligence I have is in these documents. It isn’t very much, but it’s a place to start. If you need anything…”

Josh was already halfway out the door, but he turned and met the older man’s gaze with an equally solemn look.

“Don’t worry, I know the right people to ask.”

The streets of Radasanth were a cacophony of hagglers and gossips, horses and heat, and beneath it all the ring of his metal boots on cobblestone. Josh wanted to follow his gut - he happened to know the editor of the Radasanthian Reader, and Peabody Polk owed him a number of debts. In previous times Josh had supported the rotund little man, but the shoe was on the wrong foot with the Reader publishing such smut. He needed to stop by the Flesh Failures first, if only to inform the staff he'd be out for the night, and they'd need to call in another man or five to replace him. Finding a pair of guests waiting not-so patiently at the bar (one sipping water, the other gin and tonic) was a mild surprise, considering Silvterton's revelations, but one he wanted to deal with quickly.

"Can I help you?" He directed the question to the middle aged gentleman rather than the surly faced girl, face open, mind already beating the streets.

[The International]

The man who went by the name of Joshua stepped out of the light of the employee’s entrance. The receding afternoon light made a spectacle of his light amber hair, reaching for every shimmering strand as the closing door took it away. His eyes of emerald and bronze were almost incandescent with single-minded intensity even in the dimness of the dormant night club. They were a stark contrast to his nonchalant strut across the main room to shake hands with Esme, who made no attempt to look taller than he was against the six foot tower of a Human. Sure, he would have liked to, but he was in character, and his character was under too much duress to submit to such vanity.

“Yes, my name is Erick Vanderbilt.” He said as he intentionally allowed Joshua to grasp the thinnest part of his fingers. A firm, manly handshake was not what this character called for. He motioned towards Ludivine who sat shyly on one of the barstools. “This is my daughter, Lyanna. We’re looking for a young man by the name of Ferrin Mae.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Vanderbilt.” The man said after a moment of contemplation. He opened his hands in a quizzical gesture. “I don’t recall anyone by that name. We have almost a thousand people who frequent this establishment every night.”

Esme peered off into the distance. Something was wrong here. This Joshua had to have been in a managerial position or else the other bouncer wouldn’t have called him. There was no doubt the young arcane master made it here last night, and given the theme of the establishment he would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Someone was lying to him. He threw a tiny pebble in the pond. “Maybe he used another name. He had to have been severely fatigued.”

“I’m sure a mature man such as yourself doesn’t frequent a place like this. We lack the sophistication and class you seem to require.” Joshua said as he went around to the other side of the bar and fetched a thin stack of papers riddled with ink and handed it to his subordinate, who immediately scanned them for the name in question. “But everyone is severely fatigued after a night at the Flesh Failures. That doesn’t narrow the lot down much.”

The flattery was cute. The invented effort was as well. They weren’t getting off that easily. Esme decided to throw another tiny pebble in the pond. “He was wearing a cloak.”

“A common garment in Radasanth.” The bouncer said as his eyes darted back and forth on a page of last night’s guest list. He flipped to the next page and started again. “Especially if the man you speak of arrived here at night.”

“Emphasis on if.” Joshua waited a few moments as they watched the bouncer finish scanning the list. He looked up with an apologetic face and shook his head. Joshua spoke for him as he made his way to the main entrance. “Once again I’m sorry, but if that’s all you have about this Ferrin Mae I can’t help you.” He opened the pair of heavy oak doors and the sunlight came pouring in as a white curtain that outlined his black masculine silhouette. “Now if you and your daughter will excuse me, I must be on my way.”

It was time to drop the rock. “Two horses!” Esme’s voice echoed around the room and rang with desperation. It managed to freeze Joshua like a time spell from the Tap. “He had two horses with him. One belonged to him and another belonged to…” Esme lowered his head, as did Ludivine. “A brother in arms. Blessings of the Thayne be upon him.”

“Ah the horses. I remember the lad, Cronen!” The bouncer said in all his good-willed naïveté . “You brought him just before last call. Frail little thing he was, but obviously smart. His name is nowhere to be found on the list.”

Both Esme and Ludivine stood up and exuded smiles of excitement. Not because they had a new lead, but because of the man that stood before them. This bouncer may not have known who his boss was, but they did. Joshua “Breaker” Cronen was a big name in the intelligence community, almost as big as Izvilvin Kazizzrym. Esme knew what his smile was about. Even after seven thousand years of being a spy, meeting another in the field was, how the kids put it, cool, whether they were on the same side or not. He could only guess at Ludivine’s smile. Perhaps she wanted the pleasure of mounting him. Perhaps she wanted the honor of killing him. Perhaps she wanted both. Esme capitalized on this outpour of excitement. “You saw him? He’s in danger.”

The light began to narrow as the double doors closed, and Esme could have sworn he saw a sigh from Cronen just as he said. “Come with me.”

Esme and Ludivine stepped into the light and started after Joshua, who didn’t seem to bother to slow down. The streets of Corone’s capital were very much alive with activity, but not exactly bustling due to it being the weekend. Shopkeepers took this time to clean up their vendors. A low baritone hum of conversation surrounded them. They stayed on the side of the street as the equine drawn transports dominated the center of the human river, making their presence known with horseshoes that sounded off like snare drums.

Joshua had to speak loud enough to be heard over Radasanth’s commotion. “So where do you know Ferrin from?” he said as he tossed Esme a glance like one would toss a coin to a beggar on the street. His eyes were daggers, but the spy was used to that. What made him uncomfortable was the fact that Cronen had no reservations about showing his suspicion.

“Actually, we barely know one another.” The best lie bore a bit of truth. “But we have many mutual friends – brothers in arms one might say. He’d barely remember me if he saw me.” Esme didn’t know for sure where Cronen stood in the politics of the region, but one thing was for sure; he felt it necessary to hide the young mage.

Joshua nodded his head and crossed his arms as they stopped to cross a street. He did a double-take at Ludivine, who didn’t stop, but simply changed her walking speed to barely miss the riders on horseback and carriages whizzing by. “Why didn’t one of them come for him? Don’t you think he’d be better off in the protection of someone he knows and trusts?”

“As you know the postage network isn’t as efficient as it used to be.” Traffic finally gave way and the two men made a brisk jog across the street in a brief moment of tranquility. It seemed to have stopped just for them. Just as they reached the corner of the next street a, caravan came charging through to churn up a cloud of dust behind them. “Word hasn’t gotten to his closes allies yet, but the message has been sent. He was supposed to meet me this morning, and when he didn’t show I got worried and sent word.”

“Is that so?” Joshua said as he once again made no attempt to put a mask on his skepticism. Esme didn’t take it personally. If he were in Joshua’s position, he’d be skeptical as well, but it was his job to get to the young man and his precious cargo.

“Yes…” He stopped just across the street from the great ziggurat known as the Citadel. “Mr. Cronen, I get the feeling that you don’t trust my intentions.”

“ He doesn’t know you. You don’t know him. Is there any way to prove that your intentions are just?” Cronen scratched his head as he finally gave Esme a look.

“No way that would be sufficient for you.” Esme said with a sigh. “How about this? He’s probably safer in the care of a bouncer than that of a noble, so all I need to do is see him, hear from him that he’s safe, and that he trusts you. You can take safety precautions from there. Hell, relocate him if you feel it’s necessary.”

Joshua said nothing. He simply started up the massive stone steps of the Citadel… clever.

[Breaker]

"We're called Doormen," Josh said as he grasped a heavy iron ring and heaved the thick half-moon door open, holding it for them with a mock bow.

"Pardon?" The man quorked, all honest bemusement, as he strolled to the torchlit interior. The girl made as if to tug the door's twin open for herself, but before her hand reached the ring she decided walking past Josh quick was better than standing next to him for the fraction of a second it would take to tug open the door. She tugged the neck of her halter top. If Josh hadn't looked before, he did then, and something stirred. The girl who seemed strangely familiar increased her speed and followed the man. A small victory, like capturing a bishop in chess..

"Doormen, not bouncers." Josh repeated as he resumed the lead. The entry hall was a hive of monks speaking with warriors and leading them down the honeycomb halls. Other Brothers attended to the daily chores, sleeves of their brown habits rolled up as they replaced guttering torches and dusted old paintings, their sandals slapping on the smooth marble floor. I stopped one slight monk with a hand on his shoulder and muttered something next to his ear. He responded, quiet and complacent, then folded his hands into his sleeves and swept off towards a young hedge-mage who wore a longsword on his hip and had smoke wafting out his ears.

"Why is that?" the man who called himself Vanderbilt asked, like he needed something to say. The two of them followed Josh down a red brick hall lined with bronze suits of armour and tall whickering torches. He had already dismissed the fake names they'd given. The man's grief had been too perfectly balanced, almost metered, an exact emulation rather than a natural spasm. The girl didn't seem to care much for the effectiveness of the ruse. She acted more like she wanted to slit Breaker's belly with the blade under her skirt and move on to more pressing business. The recognition came suddenly, almost violently. Kyosku Tetsoma. Josh rolled his shoulders to feel the weight of the tanto strapped to his back. The little warrior ninja had given him the red-tasselled blade after their romp in the Citadel, entreating him to join her bandit brotherhood. No, Kyo had dark eyes, he remembered. Unless... Cronen glanced at not-Vanderbilt, studying the older man's hazel eyes. Like mine. Best colour for an undercover operative, because they're easy to disguise.

Too many questions, and he had more pressing business to attend. Stopping suddenly in a long, narrow stretch of the corridor, Josh opened the only door in sight. It was a heavy oak piece with knobby iron hinges, but it opened smooth and soundless. Josh gave a mock bow again, hoping that the recurring action would disarm the others' defences.

It did. Shoulders hunched and eyes all weepy, putting on a performance to shame the Tantalum or even the Tireless Travelling Troupe, the old guy stepped over the oaken threshold. Josh shoved him in the small of the back and spun, boot sweeping the door shut as his free hand enveloped the girl's neck and rammed her against the far wall. The door slammed, echoing down the hall and extinguishing a torch.

She twisted like a snake, down and sideways, wrenching out of his grip and reaching between her legs with both hands. Josh jammed his knee hard against her wrists, pinning the sword back in its sheathe after glimpsing the wakizashi hilt. She abandoned the blade and struck at his face with both hands, one a crane the other a tiger, thrusting at his eyes and gouging at his throat. Josh dropped his weight and lowered his head and let her fingers glance and graze his hair like a lover's caress. He spun to the ground and snared her ankle and suddenly she was tumbling over her shoulder and racing down the hall, laughter echoing after her steps.

"Were you pouting because Daddy didn't let you take point on this job?" He called after her. The tanto with the red tassel rasped as it left its sheathe and sang as he threw overhand. Its razor sharp blade split the hafts of three torches ahead of the little ninja, their flaming heads bursting on the floor amidst the clatter of steel on stone. She only paused for a second, more of a mid-stride slowdown than anything else, to crouch and leap over the sparking embers.

Long enough. He caught her in a single bound and coiled his arms around her midsection, then arched and turned and sprawled and suplexed her onto the marble.

"I have no taste for the theatrical bits," she panted, writhing in the bear hug and hammering him with upward elbows. Josh caught the blows on his shoulder but had to backflip away as she found room to draw her wakizashi and thrust for his groin.

"Who hired you?" Josh demanded, still pressing forward. He evaded a pair of chest-opening angular slashes. "Give me a name, a place, anything." She swung horizontally and he got under it, pinning arm and sword against the wall. "Tell me." His own arm twined around hers as he leaned into the shoulder lock. "You'll save innocent lives."

Rather than a cry of pain she laughed, and her arm dissolved in a pink mist before he could apply pressure. Her arm re-materialised as she stepped back and swayed like a yew in a summer storm.

"Innocent who? Imperials or rebels? They're all the same to me." She aimed a perfect sidekick at his chest, voice like chimes on a breezy day as it bounced down the hall.

Enough of this. Josh felt the impact of the kick all the way through his sternum to his spine. It felt like getting speared by a knight with a blunted lance. He bulled forward against the pain, driving her over the dying embers and turning her back to the wall and crushing her against it. He swatted away her dainty strikes and snapped her head down into a constricting front choke, cutting off blood flow to her brain as sure as a guillotine beheads the guilty. Nowhere to go but to sleep.

"You're an insult to your peers," Josh said as he squeezed, hearing her breath catch, feeling her struggles in weaken. "Do you even know who you are?"

She vanished, her entire body melting into that rose hued cloud. It rushed past his face, blinding him for a moment, and by the time he turned she had reappeared.

"A ninja," she said, reaching for Joshua's tanto, but he pinned the polished blade flat with a black boot. "a spy, a lover," her elbow came up like the arm of a trebuchet, aiming to shatter his nose. "An assasin," she growled as Josh took the shot on his chin. Seeing stars for a moment didn't stop him landing a solid two-handed palm strike to her chest.

When his head cleared Kyo - no, not Kyo, it couldn't be - was sprawled on the marble next to the door her partner had disappeared through. The last blow had thrown her over the dead remains of torch heads and past her dropped wakisashi. She was slightly winded, and Josh seized the moment's respite.

"Add fool to the list," he said, and pushed off from a torch bracket. He slid away as if on ice, enchanted boots smooth as glass. As he reached the corner he dove and rolled, hearing the wakizashi clatter behind him. Didn't learn much, Josh reflected as he raced through the bustling antechamber and out into the afternoon sun.

But it would be enough.

[Breaker]

Book 3 ~ Shadows of Dawn



"Any word on the Brigade?" Silverton demanded the moment Cronen entered his office. The wheels of his chair creaked faintly as he rolled to the bar, already fixing his guest a drink. He may be a tough boss, but at least he's got great manners. Although the afternoon had grown dim, enough light filtered through the windows to shine off the wispy layer of white hair pasted to Leon's crown. The old man steadied shaking hands as he poured the whisky, placed the twin tumblers on a tray on his lap, and rotated his chair to roll to the centre of the room.

Josh breathed deeply, enforcing calm on his overstressed nervous system. The battle at the Citadel had opened the floodgates to his near endless supply of adrenaline. Accepting the glass, he drank briefly before setting the whisky aside and wiping his mouth.

"Something better, I hope. A pair of agents looking for the boy caught up with me at the club. One was a middle aged man, the other a young woman." Josh scratched his chin, remembering the tone of their skin, the shapes of their faces, and the familiar rapport between them. "I think they were a father-daughter team, if you can believe it." Josh snatched his tumbler and swirled the contents so swiftly they formed a whirlpool straight to the bottom of the dark glass.

The office darkened a shade as clouds gathered and daylight waned, but Silverton's face brightened by contrast, a stack of worry lines evaporating.

"Did you kill them, by any chance?" The old man mused, wheeling himself behind the desk and setting down his drink to free both hands. Like a thief scouring for coins, he searched the papers spread across the oaken surface.

"No, I managed to trick the man into a delay at the Citadel, and gleaned a little more from the daughter." Placing his palms on the corners of the desk, he leaned over and joined Silverton in scanning the documents. "They were definitely professionals, though. She probably wouldn't have let slip word about her employers, even under the knife." Josh rocked back on his heels, remembering the young lady's fervour. "She couldn't resist letting slip that she's a spy, and Akashiman-trained." Josh snapped to attention as Silverton slammed both hands down, scattering several scrolls.

"Are you sure?" The former Brigadier asked, a sudden fire melting the glaze in his old eyes. He pushed back a hand's length from the desk and pulled open a bottom drawer, thumb flitting through rows and rows of files, some yellow with age. "Can you be certain she wasn't just boasting, or throwing you a false trail?" Sighing with exasperation, Silverton heaved a stack of parchment out of the file drawer and began leafing through them carefully, muttering about his own carelessness.

Pacing to the hearth and lighting a pair of wax candles from the well-supplied box there, Josh wedged them into a brass holder and carried the flickering light back to help Silverton make out the words. As the old man licked ink-stained fingers and grumbled, Cronen reflected on each blow and counter of his battle with the woman who'd named herself a spy. Finally he nodded.

"Not only did I believe what she said, her fighting and fashion style reminded me of the best ninja I ever knew, Kyosku Tetsoma." Cronen spoke carefully, but Silverton thrived on the information. Finding the file he wanted, the former Brigadier threw back his head and all but cackled. Josh waited patiently as his friend took a celebratory swig of Yurik's, leaning over the desk once more to scan the triumphantly displayed sheaf of parchment.

"I received notification almost a month ago that some of the Villeneuves were available for hire," Silverton said, once more composed, rubbing his hands together slowly. "I wouldn't have hired them for any of this business - they're loyal only to themselves." Cramming papers back into the emptied drawer, Silverton fished a key out of his inner pocket. Leaning down to unlock the lower drawer on the opposite side of his desk made his voice echo hollowly. "But I'm not surprised the Coalition would hire them, and I may just be able to discover who supplied the gold."

Joshua's heart raced with excitement, and nearly punched through his breastbone when someone knocked on the office door.

"Master Silverton," came the secretary's voice, "my apologies for disturbing you in a meeting, but the patient is awake."

Guys, I'm gonna finish this thread one way or another. If either of you feels like makin a comeback to help me with it, that'd be awesome!

[Breaker]

A single glass-fluted lamp illuminated the bedchamber on the second floor of Silverton's estate. Its flickering shadows embellished the dark patches beneath Ferrin May's eyes, and the flatness of his brown shoulder-length hair. The nightshirt he wore hung slack across hunched shoulders, and the blankets tucked around his hips seemed to cover nothing but bones. The downy pillows he leaned against threatened to swallow his narrow chest. He was awake though, and slurping tepid tea with enough gusto for three men, when Cronen entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Who's there?" Ferrin called, clutching the clay mug so suddenly it slopped a drop down his front. "Name yourself!" Knuckles white on the earthenware, he looked ready to use it as a weapon.

"Joshua Cronen. I saved your life last night," the martial artist said casually. He sat on a three legged stool next to the bed, letting the lamplight wash his sweat and dust stained face.

Ferrin barked a laugh, a single syllable that may just as well have been a sob. "I had a dozen saviours lay down their lives for mine, and their faces burn in my memory." Ferrin's neck popped as he turned and gazed into the shadows, as if his ghostly comrades looked back from the darkness. "You weren't one of them." He lapsed into silence and sipped his tea.

Cronen counted thirty seconds and then stood. He paced the small room in a slow circle, past the mirror and washstand and marble chamber pot, and stopped directly in the surly youth's line of vision. He swivelled the knob on the fluted lamp's base, and the flame doubled in size, beating the shadows back to the room's well dusted corners.

"You must have been the only one to escape, and only just." Josh's hard hazel eyes bored into May's grey ones. "I found you unconscious, being dragged through back alleys by a pair of horses." He leaned closer, until less than a shin's span separated them. "I risked my own life and my job bringing you here. You're being cared for by one of the Rangers' most secretive and influential allies. He is risking more than his life just letting you stay here." Josh straightened and sighed, paced back to the stool and sat facing Ferrin May. "You're among friends. There should be a hot meal for you soon, and you'll be welcome to stay here as long as you need to recover." The sharp edge appeared in Cronen's voice again as he finished. "But right now, I need to know what you know. Tell me what happened last night."

Ferrin tensed like a cornered animal, but then took a deep breath and relaxed. Between mouthfuls of tea he told of his alliance with the Rangers, the portal that had brought them to Radasanth, and the bloody attack by the mercenaries and Aleraran assassins. Cronen refilled his mug from the teapot which rested on a low bedside table, and listened attentively. Not until Ferrin mentioned the vlince-wrapped cargo the cart had contained did the martial artist pose a question.

"It's a weapon," Ferrin answered, a pink hue rising in his pale cheeks as he turned his face away, ashamed. "I should never have created it, but I was so angry, and it seemed such a sure path to victory." Josh shook his head but said nothing. "It's harmless ordinarily, but when properly cured and burned it produces smoke so volatile a single whiff could paralyse a man." Each word seemed to come from deep within the brilliant young botanist, from a time he'd rather not remember. But he continued. "Prolonged exposure brings certain death. In an enclosed area, a single parcel could kill hundreds. And there were dozens of parcels--" he cut off suddenly, shoulders shaking, throat retching as his stomach heaved. Did he truly never consider the repercussions of such a creation? Ferrin managed to calm himself without vomiting and took another sip of tea. He then set the mug aside and scrubbed a fist across leaking eyes. "We were to deliver the cart to the conduit, a man with the expertise to conceal the parcels throughout the Armed Forces' barracks. I personally cured the plant matter to ensure it was dry as tinder. A single match one night..."

"And the Empire no longer has such vast armies. It was... an elegant idea." Josh reached down and gripped two of the stool's legs, uncertain how to feel about such a drastic - and effective - tactic. Far from a perfect plan, but if it had worked... "What was the conduit's name?" He asked.

Ferrin hesitated only a moment before answering.

"Teod Goshawk."

[Breaker]

Silverton waited until the depths of the mansion swallowed Breaker's footsteps, and then opened the lower left-hand cupboard of his custom-carpentered desk. I would not have hesitated to show this to Joshua, he reflected as he drew out an object covered by a black silken slip. His back popped as he grunted and straightened and set the piece on the desk. A sly smile stole across his face. Even so, an old man likes to have his secrets. Especially this old man.

He drew away the cover and gazed upon his reflection in the ornate mirror, preening his whiskers and pawing at his thinning hair. Precious stones of all colours and shades surrounded the mirror like a clock's numerals. An aged talymer support cradled the mirror, growing seamlessly from the base of swirling obsidian and white marble. Silverton let his tired eyes fall shut as he caressed the jewel-encrusted outer face of the mirror, feeling a familiar tingle mount his fingers and spread across his entire body. He could never use it without recalling the image of his mother, hair shining in the candlelight as she brushed it one hundred times, telling him stories of his father's bravery. Her stories had always ended with a song and a kiss on the brow, and intoned a strong moral; all men and women must be free. A familiar thrill rippled through Silverton's muscles as he touched each gemstone in a sequence long memorized. His mother had used the mirror to covertly assist the development of the Republic whilst his father fought to make the dream possible. All men and women must be free. Following the path forged by his parents, Leon used the mirror to shine light on the Empire's cracks and flaws. The combination complete, he rested a liver-spotted hand on the diamond at the mirror's midnight and rotated it halfway round.

The reflection of an old soldier and his war trophies dissolved into swirling grey mist. Slowly shapes emerged and settled, solidified, becoming a recognizable setting. The mirror showed an old but meticulously maintained divan and a small mahogany table. The twin mirror he looked out of was similarly designed but bordered only by ordinary stones. They chattered noisily to announce the activation of the link, and before long Silverton heard the approach of shuffling footsteps.

"Hope I finds ye' well, Milord. What might I assist you wif' today" The bald old man said, sitting on the sofa and squinting into the enchanted mirror. He could see nothing but a mist on his end, but always gazed respectfully back as if looking at an old friend. "The Missus won't be a moment, just settin' out the 'fings for tea. Join us in a cuppa' Milord?" The old man chuckled, and Silverton joined in. He had done so the first fifty times he'd heard the joke, and felt it would be rude not to continue.

He knew them only as the Mister and the Missus, pet names they called each other. They knew him as a good man who could see to it the coffers they kept with Corone's bankers never emptied. They spoke often of children, but only to assure him their many sons and daughters were healthy and appreciative of the higher education his gold provided. Silverton liked believing their tales, but at the end of the day he paid them for their services, not conversation. They were professional blinds - the middle men of countless clandestine operations. Strictly speaking they did not inform on any of their clients. Under ordinary circumstances they couldn't, since any prudent man would make them the middle link in a chain of six or seven blinds. But Silverton had discovered in the past that it paid to make direct contact.

"Being an old man never feels well," he griped. The Mister flinched at the sudden sound of his voice coming from an empty mirror, but then chuckled again. "But if one old man starts telling another of his aches and pains, they'll both be buried before they hear and end of it." They shared another laugh as a kettle whistled, the sound barely audible in Silverton's office. "I do have need of immediate information however." That sapped the Mister's jocularity. He pursed his lips and nodded, wrinkled hands folded on the knees of his woollen trousers. They never spoke of money or fees, but understood that a matter's urgency would be matched by its weight in gold when dealing with the mysterious Lord in the mirror. Silverton took a deep breath and went on.

"I attempted to contact Esme Villeneuve through his usual handler," he said, stroking his beard and choosing words as carefully as soldiers, "and received word that the spy and one of his daughters were quite suddenly engaged earlier today, for an undetermined amount of time." Silverton paused, a few threads of his wispy beard wrapped round one finger, to gauge his conduit's reaction.

The Mister had not survived to such an age working in clandestine affairs by being rash or unwise. He nodded twice and waited while the whistling of the kettle cut off. When it became apparent an answer was expected, he wet his lips and spoke five words.

"I may have heard that."

"It is a pressing matter that requires the specific skills of the Villeneuves." Silverton said, touching his voice with desperation. "If I might discover who enlisted Esme's assistance - in order to approach them and offer to purchase the contract - my appreciation will know no limit." Removing his spectacles, the former Brigadier breathed a blast of steam across the lenses and polished them swiftly with his shirt.

When he slid the wire frames back across his nose he saw the Mister wiping sweaty palms on the pressed cotton sleeves of his shirt.

"I visited the market for eggs and flour this mornin' Milord. The Missus was 'ere dealin' wif' all those who dropped by." The Mister's legs stirred and he levered himself upright off the arm of the divan. "Might be she knows somefin' could 'elp ye Milord, I won't be two shakes now." He shuffled out of Silverton's line of sight, presumably toward the kitchen.

Leon forced himself to breathe easy, and rested both hands atop the mirrors lavish frame. Feeling its power flow through him helped to slow his heart. He had risked losing the service of his two best informants simply by hailing them and asking for such information. He drummed his fingers on a set of yellow topazes bigger than his arthritic knuckles. He had chosen to test their faith in him, judging that the reward would outweigh the risk. They must give me something. Otherwise we shall be back where we--"

"That's not 'is right to be askin' now then is it?" The shrill voice of the Missus emanated suddenly through the linked mirrors. A few moments of silence while her husband responded, and then, "Oh I know that rightly enough, it's just common decency is all!" More silence and the burble of water pouring from kettle to cup. "Well he is a funny ol' codger isn't he? Still, just like you and all other men. Must have his own way, must have it now! No no, you sit here and enjoy. Let yore missus 'andle this!"

A rotund old woman in a layered woollen dress trounced into sight and flopped onto the divan, somehow not upsetting the steaming mug she carried. "'Ello Milord!" She shrieked, leaning in until he could see the moles beneath her greying hair. "I do 'ope this war hasn't got ye down!" She wiggled herself into a more comfortable position and sipped daintily, pinky extended.

Silverton uncovered his ears and gingerly checked the mirror for cracks. The Missus had never quite managed to shatter it with her screams, but not for lack of trying.

"Delightful to - I said, delightful to hear your voice again!" Silverton said as loudly as he could without shouting. The door is thick, but I can't have my secretary thinking I'm speaking to myself. "I trust you have some information that could be to the benefit of all of us!"

She peered upwards and then to both sides, as if checking for eavesdroppers, and then whispered in what would have been a conversational tone from anyone else.

"T'aint normal I'd know somefing like this Milord. Most days the only folk that brings us messages to pass along is folk we never seen afore or afterward." She took her time in organizing her splitting grey bangs behind both ears and continued. "Only, this mornin' a young groom who used to be sweet on one of our lil' girls stopped by. Looked like he'd been up most of the night, and sayin' 'is master had need of an investigator quick as y'like. I sent 'im off to contact the Villeneuves - they're always ready at short notice."

She told Silverton the name of the lord who had hired the Villeneuves, and after a few shouted pleasantries he closed the connection. The mist in the mirror morphed back into the face of a tired old Brigadier, and he sat and stared at his reflection until the metallic click of the breaker boots sounded down the hall.

[Breaker]

Even with urgent news from Ferrin May to pass along, Josh paused with the study door half-open to smile at Silverton's secretary. She had perhaps the most spectacular hair he'd ever seen, including the upper class elven women who slummed at The Flesh Failures sometimes.

Silverton was straightening up in his chair, most likely putting some of the files that littered his desk away, as Josh closed the heavy door. They had a matching spirit in their posture and spark in their eyes. Josh retrieved his drink from the bar, added more ice chips from the insulated box, and paced a long loop past the warmth of the hearth while Silverton made a show of organizing his papers. Finally they both spoke, almost as one.

"Cornelius Reed."

"Teod Goshawk." Josh didn't recognize the first name, but Silverton snapped to attention at the mention of his fallen comrade.

"Goshawk the conduit? But what could they have been transporting?"

Josh took a deep breath and then powered through a full explanation of his conversation with May. His mind ticked off the facts as he expressed them, and he finished with an overall assessment of Ferrin's condition, which amounted to little more than severely fatigued. Silverton steepled his fingers and stared into the fire, digesting the information, and Cronen lit more candles to combat the gathering darkness pressed against the window.

"Let me see if I have it," Leon said at last, wetting his lips with the drink he'd been nursing for hours. "A group of extremists from our side, including Goshawk and Ferrin May, cooked up a scheme to decimate the Armed Forces." Silverton grimaced and scrubbed the grey stubble on his chin. "May came through a portal last night with an escort, but a group of mercenaries led by dark elves slew them to a man and stole their cart. May alone escapes... and the same night, Teod is assassinated by the Coalition's wraith. And now," the old Brigadier drained his glass and set it down with a snap, "Someone, whom we must assume is Cornelius Reed, possesses May's weapon."

The facts flitted and revolved in Cronen's mind and fit together like a three dimensional puzzle. He took the visitor's chair opposite the large desk and nodded.

"That's as near as I can figure it. Can you think of any reason for Alerar's involvement?" The martial artist asked.

"A promise of priority trade relations over Raiaera would certainly do it, or perhaps a parcel of land near a port city." Leon smiled ghoulishly. "We must be pressing them harder in the field than we thought, if they're looking overseas for reinforcements." He made as if to rub his palms together but froze as if praying, the gleam gone from his eye. "We must retrieve May's weapon, Josh. Tonight."

Cronen nodded.

"I will," he said with simple certainty, chest and shoulders expanding, "what do you know about Cornelius Reed?"

"One moment," Silverton grinned, and wheeled to his filing cabinet.

[Shadar]

“To preparation,” Cornelius Reed toasted to his empty study. A beam of late afternoon light cut through the small window above his desk and made the glass of brandy, held aloft, look like a dark gemstone among the floating dust motes. He downed half of it in one gulp, then leaned back into plushness and gazed smugly into the unlit hearth.

Numerous folders remained open on the desk, spread out like a gambler's winning hand. At the bottom was his file on Teod Goshawk. He had drawn it from its hiding place behind the wall-length bookshelf while the newspaper was still warm from his servant's hand. “Hellcat”; a quaint name, and a childish ruse. But, perhaps that was just because he knew too much.

Other folders had followed, each for a former Brigade member. His records on them were no less dense than those on his current compatriots, for the shift from ally to enemy could take years, even decades, to fester. He almost hit a wall, there. Yet, a small note was all it took to continue.

“We are unable to continue the investigation. Seek the Breaker,” read the skilled penmanship of the elder Villeneuve.

Reed had no files on Joshua “Breaker” Cronen, but anyone who knew Radasanth knew of its sturdiest doorman. In younger days, he might have visited the man personally, taken in some of that night life he heard such debaucherous things about.

He finished the brandy. That was a dream for another day, and perhaps another glass. He poured it with a slight wobble to his grip. Sinful young damsels aside, he had all that he needed. Cronen's name was found only in one veteran's file. Why Leonard Silverton would associate with the boy, he had no idea. Perhaps Adham would decipher that before his return.

Outside the closed study door, footsteps patted softly as one of the mercenaries made his way down the hall. Whether they were guards or guests, Reed couldn't say. They were certainly louder than his servants, and nosey enough to suss out his drink cabinet in the den. He could count two blessings, though. The liquor out there was swill compared to the bottle on his side table, and only five of the men were present to bother him. The others were with the drow. In spite of their insistence on finishing the ambush's work, they had taken an interest in identifying the weapon, even going so far as to take a parcel to a supposed botanist contact of theirs. The escort of six of Adham's men was insurance, but more importantly, an insult. He remembered with some pleasure their dark, offended expressions.

Someday, perhaps not too far off, they would be amusing enemies.

~

As Joshua Cronen left the Silverton estate, he passed a number of groundskeepers, their noses in the trees or bowed to the hedges. One paused just a moment as he passed, world-weary face tight under the brim of a shady hat, then went back about his business. He moved no slower or faster than the others, but seemed to relish each stroke of the shears. It was as if the motion represented something long forgotten. A simpler time. A hard, clean day's work.

Smells of the evening meal's preparation wafted out of the estate's kitchen door as the pruning flock broke upon the manor's facade. The satisfied groundskeeper squared the final corner of the last hedge, nodded, then walked around the darker side of the building. His heels scuffed against the pristine grass, producing a metallic shick-shick from the toes of his shoes.

His bloody business resumed.

[Breaker]

The run northward from Radasanth proper in cool evening air blasted nervous tension from Joshua's mind. He kept to the setting sun's lazily stretching shadows and avoided main roads entirely. He vaulted over fences and scaled stone walls, raced across rooftops and tumbled harmlessly from heights. He was one with the breath and blood that flowed and throbbed with each racing step. Peace claimed his core as he focused on silence and movement and nothing else. His long strides devoured distance at a rate exhausting to most men in minutes. And yet the sun gave a final wolfish wink and sank behind the horizon to this left, and still he breathed easy.

Josh paused as he crested the final hill and crouched in a young cyper thicket bordering the hardpack road. Reed's manor had crept up on him, and he marshaled his surprised as sweat dripped from the point of his chin to muddy the dirt.

It was the end of the road. The same earthen path that serviced several small farmhouses surrounded by acres of crops curled into the lord's gate as if licking his boots. In the semi-dark between sunset and nightfall lanterns signaled life from many windows in the massive servants' quarters, but only two in the main manse. The barn beyond stood dark and was nearly lost against the Jagged Mountains beyond, its outline barely distinguishable in the day's dying aura.

Cronen picked his way through the sparse woodlands surrounding Reed's fenced property, crawling behind rocky abrasions and inching through fields of cracked leaves. He made no more noise than the wind, and soon found himself flattened against Reed's solid back fence. Josh had considered the defensive options as he circled the estate and concluded that he'd want a watcher with a good crossbow in the darkened barn loft. And since Reed had already demonstrated considerable resources and the cunning to purchase an inconspicuous residence despite them, Josh figured he'd have his guards well placed. He breathed as quietly as he could, willing his heart beat to silence, and was rewarded by shuffling footsteps some minutes later.

The sentry wasn't just dragging his feet, he muttered darkly to himself as he went about his rounds.

Bad night to slack off, Josh thought as he stretched to is toes and reached both palms atop the sanded oaken fence. He tracked the guardsman's movement through three long seconds then dipped his knees and sprang upwards, pushing off with both palms and somersaulting smoothly over the barrier.

The guard heard his back graze the vines that laced the fence, and looked up as a shadowy hand seized his collar and heaved him to the ground. But rather than the dull thud of head on dirt, a wet slap emanated as his skull met a broad stone half-buried in the field.

Josh tumbled away, unharmed but inwardly cursing his carelessness. He'd already spilled more blood than he intended that night, and the man's death had changed more than just the span of his life. Cronen could no longer call himself a spy or a bodyguard or a doorman. A single stone set in the wrong spot had changed the very nature of his presence on the estate.

He was an assassin.

[Shadar]

Ferrin woke from medicine-addled sleep with a hand tight around his throat and the point of a blade playing among the unshaven hair on his upper lip. He sucked in a greedy breath, widening his eyes in shock. But, he could only make out the shape of a head blocking the moonlight. Breath tickled his nose, yet he couldn't identify its smell over the lingering aura of sap and fresh-cut flowers.

“You're the last one,” the reaper said dryly.

Ferrin whispered, “Please. I didn't want any of this,” as quietly as he had ever whispered anything in his life. The blade, a sliver of moonlight, seemed to pin his upper lip in place. His words slipped through gritted teeth, slurred with the fog of sleep and calming herbal tea.

“Tell me everything.”

There was no further instruction needed. Ferrin hissed out every word he had shared with his caretaker. Earlier, it had felt like a confession, but the jumping of his heart and the night-sweat blurring his eyes told him that this was the true judge, jury, and executioner. He bared himself before the court; the court took it all in with the impassiveness of a stone.

Only when he finished describing the weapon did he get a response. It began with the lines of a scowl, visible only in the moonlight that crept around the edges of the dark face. “You destroyed all your notes?” said the shadowed lips, just daring him to lie. The blade's tip played just below one nostril.

“Yes. All of them.”

“You are the only one who could recreate it?”

“Yes. Only me.”

Ferrin wheezed sharply as he realized the implications. The knife slipped down toward his lips. “I have a wife and child,” he pleaded. The hand left his throat and seized his face roughly, squeezing his jaw open like a fish. The blade played the hook, straight instead of curved, and traced its tip along the roof of his mouth. Words hid in the back of his throat. His tongue, though fidgeting, tried to lay low from the knife's edge.

Emotion finally crept in the assassin's voice. A bitter, time-worn resentment. “Do you think that makes you special?”

Ferrin breathed harder, arching his head back into the pillow as if he might disappear into it. The blade bit into his palate.

“War makes many widows.”

~

Reed closed the hidden wall safe, sealing in a life's worth of clandestine information. A dangerous amount, he tried to remind himself, though the thought never lasted long. If he had been able to, he would have spread every piece of incriminating paper over his study and rolled on it like a dragon on its treasure horde. He giggled, then reassured himself that the bout of whimsy was not from him, but from the empty bottle on his side table. The fireplace's waning glow danced within the dark glass, giving the illusion that, for only a moment here and there, there was another sip to be had. Reed had fallen for that trick too many times to try again.

Gingerly, she pressed a finger to the edge of the askew bookcase and slide it up and down until he found the perfect place, the weak point in its balance, and the massive piece of gilded redwood slid back on hidden wheels. It pressed itself to the wall with a satisfying thunk.

Reed stepped into the center of the study. One hand encircled his brow. It ached. It begged him for sleep, but he knew he could not sleep yet. The drow and Adham had yet to return, and both would surely bring news that needed his immediate attention.

[Rayleigh]

Thread: The Nomad Process (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?19188-The-Nomad-Process)
Participants: Breaker, The International, Shader
Type: No Judgment

Breaker receives:
3400 EXP
210 GP

Shader receives:
1010 EXP
85 GP

The International receives:
320 EXP
40 GP

[Rayleigh]

All EXP and GP have been added!