Where Eagles Dare

[Letho]

((Closed to Duffy Bracken, Atzar Kellon and Relt Peltfelter))


PROLOGUE: Gather the troops

“I see not much has changed in Ravenheart Manor,” Lorelei commented as she walked through the foyer, vacantly skimming over the silver embroidery of the tapestries that hung from the walls. Each one was the same, boasting the howling wolf emblem of Savion, kingdom of her father that she herself never visited. There was little else worth of noting in the anteroom aside from the soft carpet of the same colors as the tapestries, giving the entire room a frigid, almost clinical look. She always hated the foyer. Instead of a place that was supposed to be welcoming with homey warmth, her father always kept it cold and professional, as if it was a military complex where one was supposed to get in line, get with the program, or get the hell out.

“Lord Ravenheart prefers it that way,” an aged butler, dressed in neat black and white suit, said as he led the way in measured strides. His hands were busy trying to maintain a firm hold on the four suitcases which Lorelei brought with her.

“Don’t I know it,” Lorelei mumbled, shaking her head. If the balding servant heard her words, he made no note of them. “Where is he? The living room?”

“I believe he’s in the study, little lady,” the man said, stopping at the bottom of the curved staircase that led to the second floor. “You know the way?”

Lorelei nodded with a smirk. The manor wasn’t that big and she had only been away for six months, so she left the butler and his struggle with her wardrobe and made her way to the study. Beyond the double doors at the end of the foyer was a large reception room that was supposed to double as a dining room for a larger number of visitors, but Lorelei doubted that there had ever been a party large enough to fill even a quarter of those vacant seats since they moved in. Letho Ravenheart wasn’t a terribly sociable person, especially after the War. It wasn’t surprising to see that the room itself suffered from the same condition as the foyer, the utter lack of the personal touch almost enough to give her a shiver. She knew that the doors on the left led to the lounge and further to the kitchen and the servant’s quarters. She went right instead, pushed the ajar door open and entered the study.

Her father wasn’t there. The musty scent of old tomes and oiled skin struck her immediately, but it drew a smile on her face. The study had been without a doubt her favorite room in the whole manor, with its multitude of books and rare tomes that her father had gathered during his adventurous days. They were all arranged alphabetically, of course, standing on their designated places on the shelves like good soldiers. The huge mahogany writing desk was at the center of this nexus of knowledge, a beautiful lacquered thing with an equally lavish cushioned chair. There was a single opened tome on the desk, a stack of blank papers, an ink well with a brown feather and an oil lamp, all neatly arranged. Beyond the desk was the door leading to the balcony, and the chilly breeze it let in played with the heavy scarlet draperies. She pushed them aside and stepped onto the balcony.

Letho Ravenheart stood on the balcony with his arms folded in front of him, larger than life the way he always was in her eyes, observing the green valley that spread below the balcony like a rolled out carpet of green and blue and golden yellow. The manor stood at the precipice of one of the rocky hills surrounding the Dol Andana, the Valley of the Gods as the elves who lived here called it. There was a steep drop of some five hundred meters from the manor to the valley floor, riddled with other manors and paths chiseled into the rock face. It was a beautiful place, an oasis of perfect tranquility amidst the peaks of the Jagged Mountains, a place that warmed the soul and made the heart beat faster. It made her hate the stark contrast of the manor’s interior so much more because of that.

“Father?” she called out. He knew she was there, and she knew he was aware, but still he didn’t turn around until she spoke. Once he did, the face that looked towards her was unchanged, firm, stoic, like the rocks in which the foundations of the house were struck. It was thus for a moment before a smile cracked it, allowed a little bit of fire in those keen brown eyes.

“Lorelei,” Letho said. His huge arms spread wide and wrapped around her, and she breathed in the scent of his leather jerkin and he breathed in the sweet perfume of lavender in her hair. She hugged him back, his embrace reminding her that she still loved him very much. Her father was never an easy man to handle. For the first fifteen years of her life, he disregarded her completely, leaving her in a monastery while he sought revenge for the death of her mother. And even when he accomplished his goal and reentered her life, they didn’t exactly click from the get go. He was never doting, seldom kind and often harsh, his soldier mannerisms spilling over to his personal life to the point when she frequently felt as if he was drilling her instead of trying to be a part of her life. And there were times she hated him for it. And then there were times she thanked him for it. He wasn’t perfect, but he was still her father.

“How was your trip?” he asked once they separated and made way to one of the stone benches that were lined up against the wall of the balcony.

“Fast. As teleporting tends to be,” the young girl said with a smirk. She let her eyes wander to the cloudy peaks on the other side of the valley, opting not to meet Letho’s eyes that were regarding her closely. She knew why he sometimes looked at her long and hard, with that misty look in his eyes. Lorelei wasn’t the spitting image of Myrhianna Bastillien, but she was still pretty damn close. Her hair was brown and not mahogany red, and her eyes were brown and sharp instead of emerald and innocent, but everything else she got from her mother. Well, except the attitude.

“I reckon your studies are going well then, if you are able to jump halfway across the world like that,” Letho further said, finally taking his eyes off her and joining her in observing the magnificent panorama. It was Lorelei’s second year studying magic with the elves at Tor Elythis and her powers seemed to grow exponentially. She had already been a powerful – albeit misdirected – sorceress when he got her in the Raiaeran Academy. With the control and the knowledge of the elves, there were no limits to what she might achieve.

“They are. There are some very powerful mages at the Academy. And the library is just massive, just walls upon walls of books and tomes. You should come visit. You’d like it,” Lorelei said.

“Ah, I wanted to,” Letho said. “But I have been busy.”

“Doing what, exactly?” she challenged him with a quizzical look and a raised eyebrow.

“The usual.”

“So that would be cleaning your arsenal, reading and taking long walks,” Lorelei said, her words somewhere between a statement and a question. There was no malice in her voice, and yet it was still a jab at his current lack of actual life beyond the walls of the manor. “You need to get out more.”

“And what? See the world?” he responded, a faint grin on his face as well. “I have seen it. All its faces. And now I and old and tired and just want some peace. I reckon I earned it.”

“Oh, please, don’t try to sell me the old-and-tired balderdash! You have the blood of Chodan in your veins, as do I. You’re not old. You’re in your prime... old man,” she teased, striking him lightly in the shoulder. “You just need something new to focus on. A new mission of sorts.”

“You know, this is starting to sound like a recruitment. Are you hiring?”

“No,” she fired immediately. Then, after a pause, added: “Maybe. Well, not me technically. See there’s this thing that they need back at the Tol Elythis.”

“Yes, some hundred thousand soldiers to chase the dark elves out of Raiaera,” Letho said with a stifled chuckle.

“That too. You don’t happen to have those lying around? Didn’t think so. So in lieu of a hundred thousand soldiers, they need someone to help them take away another of Alerar’s advantages,” Lorelei said, her eyes searching and finding Letho’s. “They need someone to steal the blueprints for one of the experimental airships.”

“And there is nobody in whole Raiaera capable of doing this?”

“Well, there probably is. But they have a slew of other things to deal with. Oh father, you should see the state that land is in right now,” the girl implored, her hands taking a hold of one of Letho’s forearms. “Their beautiful cities are being burned to the ground, their people fighting a losing war at every step, the skies orange with flames, the air filled with smoke, the women...”

“I understand. It is wartime. Beautiful things always suffer in wartime. But it is not my war. I do not want to get involved.”

“But you wouldn’t, not really. I’m not asking you to ride with them like you did with the Rangers. Just help them with this. I... I’m asking you to help them.” Her eyes, big and moist, were cutting at his heart like daggers. Ever since the end of the Corone Civil War, Letho Ravenheart swore to himself that he was done with fighting someone else’s battles, done with getting elbow-deep in blood, fighting over different ideologies or beliefs or other such trivialities. He had seen enough... caused enough death for three lifetimes, went on enough adventures to fill a row of books on his shelf, and had enough close encounters with death to make his hair gray. And now his own daughter was asking him to pick up the sword again, hit the road and restart the good old carnage machine.

He stared at the mountains long and hard, the silence between the two stretching on and on like molasses as the sun slowly dipped from the zenith above their heads and started its inevitable daily descent. He knew it wouldn’t be hard to agree to this. Ever since he domesticated himself in Dol Andana there was a scratch that he couldn’t itch regardless of how ardently he trained, how far from home he rode. It wasn’t the journey he was longing for, not for the lousy inns and lice-ridden beds, not the cheap ale and gut-wrenching food, not even the unpredictability of the open road and the roof made of clouds and stars. It was the conflict he desired. Letho Ravenheart was a soldier, a fighter, born with a sword in his hand, his old mentor had said back in the days of his youth. It would be so easy to fall back into those old shoes. That was why he was trying so hard not to, isolating himself in this manor high in the inaccessible mountains, where nobody cared about who he was or what he did or could do.

But then he looked back at his daughter, met her sincere gaze and inevitably his thoughts went to Myrhia. He could never truly say no to Myrhianna, his beloved, and her legacy seemed to continue through Lorelei.

“Fine,” he almost growled in surrender. “But just this once.”

“Truly?” his daughter asked him, and when the legendary Marshal smiled and nodded, she hugged him again with all the might in her arms.

“If I am going to do this, I will a decent group,” Letho said once Lorelei settled, leaning on his shoulder.

“You have someone in mind?”

“Oh, I have a few names...”

[Duffy]

A new marque had appeared in Scara Brae overnight. Its tall pavilion spires in red and white striped canvas had attracted a bustling and varied crowd. Pinafore dressed harlots, well-worn suits and the occasional parasol covering a nobleman’s brow formed a tapestry of colour, poverty and wealth at the foot of the raised stage. It represented the wide variety of people that made up the populous of the island’s largest city, and represented just how powerful the performance of a theatre troupe could be in bringing people together in appreciation of an art form.

Performing was an ancient and well respected but difficult art form. This was not because it required attention to detail or the dedication of a thespian’s heart. Performing was difficult because there were beauties to be witnessed in the madness of co-ordinating so many people. There was simplicity in the chaos of lines and props working together on such a small stage. Duffy Bracken had been a troupe master for five centuries but he still got a thrill from seeing all the pieces of a rehearsal come together. He got a sense of being from being someone else, from living out their lives for others to live through their tragedies and triumphs.

The wondrous glory of people places and things made him wondrously giddy. The fact that it was a glorious day and the people had come in their droves only served to raise the ego of the troupe to new and lofty heights of hedonism and self-indulgence.

Logistics were not something that came naturally to everyone, but somehow he had it running through his veins. Though being born for the theatre had its perks he liked to try and forget his nature. The people of Scara Brae believed he put the lines on the paper, that he was the orator of all these ancient lines and wondrous tales. In truth Duffy Bracken was a fraud. He was just channelling the ancient legacy of every poet, dramatics fan and playwright to have ever lived.

“It is a very heavy burden to bear,” he mumbled with a canker to his words. They struggled to fall from his lips, only to tumble sideways over the edge of the backstage area.

Ruby rolled her eyes even though her thoughts were heavily set on her own lines. The matriarch’s eyes were ever watchful of the thirty or so members of the troupe that had been called in to perform I Want to Be Your Canary. With a smile, she pushed away the gaggle of orphans that were tending to her costume with eager fingers and pointy steel needles and strolled over to her leading man.

“Am I mistaken Duffy, or did you just mutter a line of regret before walking out onto the stage?” Her red hair stood in stark contrast to the ochre and lime tones of her ball gown. It was deliberately garish to highlight the beauty and heroism of the main male character Marcus and to portray her onstage daughter Celia in a heavenly glow of splendour.

He shrugged.

“I say this only because I care but don’t want to hear another word about it.” If she had been a phoenix the flames that wreathed about her flaxen hair would have grown brighter and cast a golden glow over the poky curtained stage.

“I’m sorry Ruby; I’m just a bit phased by the return to normality.”

The Tantalum Troupe had been defunct for over a year. It’s happy brood absent from the stage, its light-hearted comedies missing from the streets. Since they defeated their enemy and their personal war had been won, they had feebly scrabbled at the ink and the quill to try and return to their routine.

“Look around you Duffy and tell me what do you see?” She clipped her heels several times against the floor, testing their measure for the dance scene to come. Without meaning to she gave off an impression of disinterest. Duffy picked up on it hastily in his heightened state of irritation.

“I see you trying to get the better of me with your arrogant smarm,” he bit his lips and tried to retract his statement, but found it too loose and already flashing violently through the summer air.

From behind the large red curtain that ran along the back of the stage a loud voice boomed with far too much enthusiasm and conviction. Duffy heard a salvation cry, and glazed over the meaning of the words themselves.

“Where is Marcus, the brogue who would steal my daughter from my grasp?” Though the crowd would know the actor only by the name given on the script, Arden was giving Duffy his cue to appear.

“Saved by the stage as ever,” Ruby snapped and turned away. The gaggle of orphans returned as she clicked her fingers. With diligence they tended to the last amendments to her dress in silence. Duffy was reminded of a suckling gaggle of piglets as he looked over his shoulder.

“That is the story of our lives,” no sooner than he finished his put down he scooped up the crimson folds of cloth and slipped through the centre divider into the spotlight. The roar of the crowd and the instantaneous clash of starkly real swords drowned out the crimson mistress’s swearing.

In a flurry of movement he tumbled, rolled and ducked left and right. Arden and Duffy exchanged a series of carefully rehearsed sword strikes, tiny dance movements of war that only served to bring the crowd to a new level of zeal and rage. Scara Brae had seen this particular scene enough times know each exchange by heart, to have practised each line themselves in front of dusty mirrors and before drunken friends many times before. Veterans of the play spoke along with every line, and those new to its wonders were mesmerised for the very first time.

“Marcus!” Lillith entered stage left with arms waving and lungs flaring with anger and emotion. No sooner than she screamed Duffy and Arden stepped away from one another. Their swords remained readied but no longer lashing out in defence of freedom and family respectively.

The sun kissed stage froze for a moment. There were only three characters standing on its well-trodden surface, but their immensity was so great they swelled it to capacity. The swarm of grubby, hard-working faces stared eagle eyed at their heroes.

“Cast away thy trappings of royalty Celia!” Duffy roared his heart's desire. His simple brown tunic and trousers were already swaddled with the sweat of his engagement with the so called king of the free kingdoms. His true love stood behind the tall imposing man who bared his path. His behemoth form, clad in heavy robes of gold and azure reflected a light in his menacing eyes. He assaulted Duffy’s composure with a stern grimace of contempt.

“Oh Marcus…I would, but my father!” Lillith had played this role only once, but she had sprung with a light step into it in her sister’s stead. Ruby had become too old and wise to play the young princess. She had succumbed to the fickle nature of the stage. With much brooding she had agreed to step back to play the queen’s role.

“I shall swaddle thou in a gown of pure love! Never again will part from thee! Pray, my love, make me thy canary to keep forever in the cage of my bosom! Let us embark on the first ship tomorrow, before dawn can tell of our elopement!”

Each member of the crowd tensed its breath in unison.

“No rogue of the streets of this foul city will marry my daughter.”

“I am no rogue sir. I am the call of the wild.” Duffy smiled. He danced from toe to toe in a way only he knew how, before he blew a kiss through the air in an arc around the king.

Lillith dutifully swooned a second later, mocking the art of love with her amateur dramatics. She wiped her delicate porcelain skin with her white cotton clove and coyly spun around with a giggle. Half of the crowd, mostly women and a few dandy men swooned, screamed with excitement or outright fainted.

“Then I shall hunt you to the ends of the earth with a spear of righteous fury!” Arden rasped the words with the same malice he applied to his victim’s moments before he drove the tip of his blade through their clavicle. Duffy would have shivered at the thought once, but an actor had to draw on his experiences to empower his words.

Duffy slipped away through the red wall of the stage divider before the king could swipe his sword. As the curtain stilled the crowd booed and hissed and heckled the king. Turnips and tomatoes, Scara Brae’s usual theatrical interlude snacks flew through the air with far too much accuracy. As they pattered against the stage and actors and knocked the various flimsy cardboard cut-outs of castle furniture down the curtains descended over the makeshift stage. Their crimson swathes hid the Tantalum and it’s carefully produced dramaturgy from the blood thirsty view of the audience.

Duffy hung his shoulders as if the relief of privacy were all he had wished for since birth. He smiled warmly at Arden and Lillith who returned the curtsy. There was always good spirited warmth between the trio that reflected their relationship on and off stage. They had been through thick and thin, and understood one another’s depression which resulted from those shared experiences. Death had bound them, and the stage was their relief from the darkness in their hearts.

“It’s a tough crowd today,” Lillith stooped with an elegance and speed and picked up a ripe looking tomato to snack on. Though it was sunny in the city and the heat bore down on their sweating brows from above, in the world of the stage – tonight was to be her wedding to an uncouth and underserving man. A silver ball covered in thin silver paper hung over head, turning slowly on a piece of string from the stage supports to represent the full moon.

“It is not as tough as the audience I have in mind for you.” A husky voice broke the composure of the trio, cutting in from stage right like a rusty blade driven between the shoulder blades.

For a moment, Duffy fought with the urge to turn on a quick silver reflex and throw the blade hidden beneath his waistcoat directly into the region the words originated from. When he analysed the expression of gentle surprise on Lillith’s face coupled with the pucker lipped grimace of familiarity from Arden, he settled on turning slowly and surely to meet the interrupting party.

There were many faces he could have expected to see, from a debtor to a nobleman wishing to hire the troupe for a private function. He had become bored with the trivial scenes they had asked him to write over the years, love sonatas and family troubles that reflected nothing about the true lives of the city folk he had represented for centuries.

“Letho Ravenheart?” He cocked his head as if he didn’t quite believe the sight before his eyes.

Though Duffy’s involvement in the Corone civil war had been brief to say the least he knew the captain on deeds alone. He had seen the man in the flesh throughout the war-torn countryside, eternally on the move between ranger outpost and battlefront. He had seen him much closer and much more viscerally during the tournament known as the Cell. Though he had been occupied with his gambit against the hero of Radasanth Sei Orlougne, the power the man had displayed during the tournament had been recounted to the bard in great and raucous detail. The story had been retold over and over and alongside many a pint of ale into the light of dawn.

“Forgive the intrusion Mr Bracken. I have been told you have certain talents,” the gruff and rugged appearance of the captain belied his calm and diplomatic tone. “I am talking about the sort of certain talents that might be of value to me.” He supplemented his opening line with a generous amount off hand movements which weighed invisible balls of lead with battle scarred fingers and blistered skin.

“Go on Captain, I’m listening?” He genuinely was, with every inch of his being. He even went as far as stepping closer as if he were craning his ears to catch every detail and syllable of every world.

Whilst the roar of the crowd kept the atmosphere electric with its incessant interlude chatter, Duffy could hear only one other sound. The beating of his heart in his chest made the world seem faint, distant and unimportant. All he could concentrate on now was the man standing before him, and the swooning adoration he felt for his exploits throughout the course of the war. Unlike Sei Orlougne, Letho Ravenheart was a true hero – he was selfless, dedicated, unflinching, unending.

He also carried a very big sword. That spoke volumes about the outcome of rejecting his offer lightly.

“I have a need to acquire something. It is for the war effort, and perhaps to indulge a flight of fancy of mine.” He produced a small slip of paper which he held out for Duffy to take with darting fingers. “My daughter no less thinks your infamy and your exploits here and afar would be of use to me.” His words did not seem to carry as much enthusiasm as Duffy might have liked to hear.

“I’m not sure that’s convincing, but I like your daughter already,” he smiled nervously. Arden and Lillith both rolled their eyes, and moved towards one another to lean on one another’s shoulders warmly. Duffy scanned the paper, which detailed the location of a ship departing at first light.

Whilst his porcelain white teeth flashed with glamour, Letho could only think about what a mistake this going to be. The youth before him couldn’t have been older than twenty five, and from the look of him, he had not seen a blade draw blood in earnest in far too long.

“I would like it very much if you could come to the docklands at dawn in a week from now, where a ship will be waiting to depart for the elven kingdoms. If you can beg, steal, bedazzle and borrow then I want you to depart at dawn for an elopement of another sort.” It had been a long time since Letho had watched a play, and a much longer time since he had dared to play with a poet’s words. He very much appreciated the irony in using the words of I Want to Be Your Canary to convince the bard to join him in his quest.

It worked very well. With those words Duffy would have jumped through loops of flame without a question of doubt. He would have torn the curtain divider down and burned the stage to cinders with an eagerly lit match.

Duffy smiled with a curled beam of a smile. There were two types of offers the bard could not refuse. One was alcohol, which always came with ready acceptance and no inch of remorse. Gin, whiskey, bourbon, wine, whatever was in the glass – Duffy drank it. The second was the opportunity to embark on a new adventure in a land unfamiliar and a time uncertain. To do both alongside a hero since childhood was almost orgasmic, an offer he could not only refuse, but couldn’t wait to take up.

“Look around you Letho; does it look like I’m struggling to tear myself away from the world I’ve created for myself?” Lillith and Arden patted one another on the back and exited stage left, leaving their leading man to his idolisation and flattery. They had fifteen minutes to change and take another draft of Ruby’s amber wine before they returned to the stage and continued with their matinee.

Letho smiled with the sort of veteran warmth that Duffy could only dream of possessing. It came with the same sort of adoration that a family’s patriarch possessed, the uncle everyone loved, the brother everyone cared for. Though the surroundings were nothing more than a simple wooden stage aglow with the red caress of velvet curtain, to Duffy, it felt like the perfect back drop to something special.

He felt like he was soaring through the stratosphere, or at least a very good gin rush.

“How long will we be gone for dare I ask?” He patted his simple dress down and tried to tuck his matted hair behind his ears to clean up his appearance. Without a shadow of a doubt he felt nervous, uncomfortable and inadequate. For Duffy this was business as usual.

Letho did not have an answer to that particular question. He still doubted his daughter’s opinion. This kid was a plucky sort, by all means, and he admired that energy but he could not help but feel as if he were leading him to the slaughter. “If I knew that it wouldn’t be an adventure,” from Duffy’s smile, the captain knew his words had not only hooked the little prat, but drawn him in and started gutting it for the fire.

The bard found his cockles warmed by the veteran’s smile. It was an endearing, scintillating expression that lured young recruits to the front line and lead freedom fighters to the Empire’s door.

“Today is the last matinee of our season. Tonight is the grand closing before the Queen herself,” he cocked a cheeky grin and walked to the edge of the stage exit left. “I will be free in the morning and thus ready and waiting on the docks to see what you have to offer, Letho Ravenheart.” He glanced down at the impression tip of the sword called Lawmaker and was instantly lost in a boyhood fantasy.

“I expect to see you at sunrise bright eyed and bushy tailed. I hope you will be better dressed for high altitude.” He did not waste time in allowing Duffy to hassle him with prying questions. Letho’s heavy muddy boots descended down the steps leading from stage right in a blur, a fur lined cloak and greying matt of hair fled behind the curtain divider without a fanfare; the smell of heroism lingered in his wake through labyrinthine expanse of the costume and prop store.

The smell of whiskey and wood smoke lingered in Duffy’s nostrils for several minutes before he shook off his haze and remembered he was in the middle of a performance. He could not wait to get drunk with the rest of the troupe in their post season celebrations. He would wake up with a hangover. He would struggle to arrive at the docklands just in time for the ship’s departure and then promptly be on his way. He felt sick at the thought of the ship’s toing and froing.

“Why don’t you occasionally say no to people you fucking idiot…” he wrinkled his lips again and rubbed his hands together to calm his nerves.

He puckered his lips and freed them from their doubt. He rolled his head left to right and bounced from toe to toe, just like Marcus had done before his engagement with the stubborn king. After the performance he would have to dance another duet with a ruler of another sort; he would have to convince Ruby Winchester to give him permission to leave Scara Brae the very second the troupe had finally found their feet again.

“Which will be harder than flying,” he craned his neck and stared longingly up at the clear blue sky. There were a few meagre clouds scattered through the heavens, white wisps tinged with the flame hue of the midday sun as it threatened to strike the island with the first drought of the dry season. The old saying about where eagles dare came to the front of his mind. He smiled, took a deep breath then bounced off the stage and disappeared into the under croft of the performance marque. Even as he burst into a medley of whistling to keep his throat clear and to liven up the place, he couldn’t help but think of himself in a different way than the saying intended.

You’re less an eagle and more a canary.

[Atzar]

Atzar Kellon glared at the unoffending stone ceiling, as if seeking fault in something, anything aside from himself. A brown-cowled Ai’Brone monk toiled stoicly about him, a muttered incantation here, a light touch there. On better days, the healing was relaxing; now, it just irritated him further.

He’d won, of course; he hadn’t actually lost in months. With the Civil War foremost in the minds of all of the movers and shakers of Corone, few skilled fighters were left in Radasanth. Fewer still had the stomach for casual butchery in the Citadel when so many lives were touched by the ongoing discord, were ripped apart with no Ai’Brone monks to put them back together. The remnant roaming the fabled halls to challenge him was pitifully weak: a has-been yesterday, a never-was today, and a never-will-be tomorrow.

All that meant to Atzar was that he’d come perilously close to defeat at the hands of a never-was.

The thought brought his blood to a boil. He’d practiced, and studied, and practiced some more. And this was what he had achieved? To barely scrape by an old man with starry-eyed dreams of one last shot at grandeur?

Without warning the monk took hold of his right arm, a delicate touch that nonetheless made Atzar grit his teeth in pain. It had been shattered by the old coot’s cudgel. Never-was or not, the mage grudgingly admired the elder’s strength and tenacity; had he not shielded himself with his arm, the monk would be working on his skull instead. Gradually the pain subsided as the Ai’Brone’s magic did its job.

Atzar shifted uncomfortably on his bare granite slab, prompting a curt admonishment from his healer. The monks were a utilitarian bunch, he’d noticed; they provided enough to allow them to practice their craft and no more. Gray stone walls, gray stone ceiling, gray stone floor, and a gray stone bed that felt more like something to die on than something to sleep on… This room had witnessed wondrous magic innumerable times, and yet it felt like a dungeon.

In time the Ai’Brone monk finished his work and left without another word. Atzar decided to remain awhile longer. His wounds had been healed, but his injured pride still ached. He wasn’t ready to deal with the chaotic mobs in Radasanth’s streets just yet. Instead he sat up and checked himself over, flexing and bending his right arm gingerly. He was stripped to the waist, and his chest was swathed in white linen bandages. More wraps enfolded his arm and his left knee. Idly the mage wondered why they were even necessary; didn’t the monks use magic to do their healing? He cleared his long, black hair from his face, satisfied that he felt no pain or soreness as he did so.

“Am I interrupting anything?” The voice startled him, and he looked up sharply. There was something familiar about the burly, leather-clad man who stood in the doorway, but Atzar couldn’t quite put his finger on who he was.

“…No, not really. What do you need?” Atzar stared at the man. He was middle-aged; the first signs of gray peeked through in his hair and beard. Sharp, serious brown eyes gazed calmly back at the mage.

A ghost of a smile played about his bearded face, as if he sensed the wizard’s perplexity. “You don’t recognize me,” he said. “Understandable; we only met once, and not in the friendliest of circumstances.” The man took a few steps into the room. “Letho Ravenheart.”

Of course. He looked different in traveller's garb than he did in his red glass armor, but Atzar recognized the man now. Once upon a time, the name would have left the mage star-struck or even intimidated. The Cell had fixed all of that. He had shared the blood-spattered arena with the living legend. He had witnessed his power, his skill. He had come away duly impressed, but even a grasshopper is awesome to an ant. Many things had changed since then.

“Good timing. I need somebody else to fight.” Nothing can adequately explain why the mage said what he did. Perhaps it was defiance. Perhaps it was frustration, or some vain search for validation after perceived failure. But even as the words left his lips, Atzar knew that he had just invited trouble.

To his relief, however, Letho just chuckled. “I’m not here to fight, and by the look of it you could use a break yourself. I’m just here to talk.”

The mage noted the barb with a grimace. “Sorry. Last battle wasn’t one of my best.” He paused. “At least I won, though,” he added. He didn’t want Letho to believe he'd lost, after all. He stood and offered a hand. “I’m Atzar Kellon, as I’m sure you know. It’s an honor to meet you on better terms this time.” Civility, if not warmth, had returned to his tone.

“Indeed it is,” Letho answered politely, accepting the handshake with a grip so strong that the mage thought blood would spurt from his fingertips. “I’ll cut to the chase: I have an offer for you.” He pointed to the stone slab. “May I sit?”

Kellon nodded. “Sure. It’s not my room.”

The burly man flickered a smile in response and then took a seat. “Atzar, have you ever been to Alerar?” When the mage shook his head, he continued. “It’s unlike any other place on Althanas. Their technology is incredible. Guns, engines, machines, other things that I’ll never understand.” He paused. “And airships. Ships that can actually fly on the winds. I don’t know how they work, but I do want one.”

The idea hooked Atzar almost immediately, although he tried not to let it show. “Never been to Alerar myself, but I’ve heard of the airships, yes,” he admitted. He had read about Alerar’s strange machinery in his studies, and the prospect of flying through the clouds on an airship was the stuff of daydreams.

The big man nodded. “You’re a powerful magician, Atzar – a fact that I can attest to personally.” Uh, no I wasn’t – not back then. “I think your skills complement my own very well. I want you to come with me to Alerar to get one of these ships. It’ll probably be dangerous – I won’t lie to you about that – but between us and a select few others, we should be able to handle anything we face.”

To buy himself time to think, the mage began unwrapping the bandage from his arm. White cloth dangled closer and closer to the ground before he finally broke the silence. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but you want me to face danger with you, to – um, find – one airship. And I know who is keeping that airship. So what’s in this for me?” He shrugged.

Letho scratched his beard. “Rest assured that I have no intention of screwing you over. You’ll be paid. Money or something else – perhaps as simple as an exchange of favors, if you happen to need my help sometime in the future. We can figure out the business side of this later, though, I hope. Are you interested?”

The unraveled bandage fell to the floor. Atzar Kellon paused, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m interested. When are you planning to leave?”

“Two weeks from today.” Letho stood up. “I have a few preparations to make before we leave. This should also give you time to set your own affairs in order.” The big man reached into a pocket and handed Atzar a slip of paper. “These are directions to a small port town not too far from here, as well as the name of an inn where we’ll meet in two weeks’ time. What do you think?”

For the first time, the mage grinned. “I’m in,” he declared. At the very least, it sounded better than fighting some never-will-be in the Citadel again...

[Relt PeltFelter]

In Akashima, there is a certain mountaintop renowned for its tranquility. It is not the highest of peaks, or the most rugged, or the most beautiful, but it is the most welcoming. Over the years a small shrine has grown up around it, and cushions are left at the eastern precipice so that travelers may meditate before the rising sun, and let the day end at their back. It was a place of supreme serenity, a bastion of calm in the otherwise wild forest that circled the mountain like the back-hair of a giant. Three pilgrims sat on the cushions, all of whom visited the mountain regularly. They agreed, through a language of meaningful gestures and distraught frowns, that the small brown girl who sat on the fourth cushion was rather ruining the ambience for everyone.

Relt Peltfelter, being as she was an itinerant layabout, had managed to stumble into some kind of bargain-bin Japan that some careless person had evidently dropped in the middle of a continent-straddling Renaissance festival. Her jeering and eye-rolling had not been welcomed by many of its urban inhabitants, so Relt had climbed what seemed to be the least stressful mountain. Whereas the three annoyed pilgrims sat cross-legged on a single flimsy cushion, Relt had snatched nearly half a dozen and built a little mattress out of them, sprawling across it like a wet spider. Her cocoa skin still glistened with sweat from her ascent of the forested peak, and the degree to which said skin was revealed seemed to be putting the two male pilgrims (neither of whom would admit to the frequency of their disapproving glances) off their metaphysical stroke.

Relt set her bong down, still-smoking, and scratched her boob as she flicked through her phone's library of illegally downloaded movies. She settled on perennial favorite Weekend at Bernie's, and as the sound of a filmmaker's bad life choices fought the cicadas for control of the evening air, one of the pilgrims had finally worked up the courage to break her cultural imperative of politeness and approached the horrible, loud, smoking girl.

"Excuse me," the pilgrim muttered, her brow furrowed due to unaccustomed conflict, "But this is a place of meditation and inner reflection, do you mind perhaps keeping your magic gem quiet? We are trying to reach a oneness between our souls and the universe and that is difficult when you are scrying so loudly,"

Relt paused her movie and looked up at the pilgrim. The woman was only a few years older than Relt herself, but the ankle-length purple hair made her resemble a high school student trying to say, not in so many words, "Fuck you, dad!" Relt sniffed and stood up, her eyes level with the complaint-lodger's chin and hidden behind her mirrored sunglasses. She had found a toothpick somewhere, and this now made the circuit from the left side of her mouth to the right. Her short, spiky hair failed to whip dramatically in the wind, while that of the pilgrim girl threatened to pull her down the mountain like a sail.

"Listen, lady," Relt began, not knowing where she was going with this but determined to go for it anyways, "It's a free mountain. If I feel like watching shitty eighties movies and getting high for the first time in weeks, by the way, then I will. Like anybody really meditates. You're probably just doing it because it beats farming melons all damn day, and those two jagoffs are just looking for an opportunity to farm your melons. Right?" The other two pilgrims, who had turned away to stare resolutely at the sunset, blushed furiously.

"B-be that as it may, I am going to have to ask you to leave, please. You've ruined nearly the whole day!"

"Bitch, I ain't going anywhere. I got a nice little cushion nest going on here, I'm about to find something to snack on, and these two guys-" Relt waved her phone in the air, a freeze-frame of a pair of eighties-dressed morons clearly visible, "-are about to play puppet show with their boss's dead body. Now why don't you go find some rice to ball, comprendes?"

The female pilgrim scowled, and stormed down the mountain. She was going to speak to the shrine priests. Surely they would help her get rid of this nuisance of a girl. The other two travelers, young monks in training as it happened, followed her at speed, insisting in the back of their heads that they also wanted to get rid of the loud, buxom brown girl and not that they merely wanted to get intimate with any girl they could.

Relt snorted and stole their cushions, adding them to the nest she had built. She went back to watching her terrible movie. After a few scenes of a dead man being treated as a marionette, and a few more bong hits, the girl became aware of a presence behind her. She turned, already forming a few words of defensive irritability, which died in her throat as she saw the man standing there. An enormous man, dressed well and heavily bearded, and armed to the teeth.

"Oh, it's you. Pigeonvagina," she managed, turning back to her movie. "What, is there big trouble in little China down there? More zombies?"

"Not exactly. And it's Ravenheart, by the way. That one wasn't even close,"

"Yeah, I'm not good with names," Relt muttered, "What do you want?"

"You are aware," Letho Ravenheart said with a very small smile, "That in the shrine just a few yards down the mountain, there is currently a debate about the karmic consequences of hitting you over the head and stuffing you in a sack?"

"Eh, bunch of dildos," Relt said dismissively, "I can take 'em,"

"Listen," Letho continued, "You are far from my favorite person in the world. Half of me insists I should be holding the sack open for them. But the other half knows that you have a peculiar talent for staying alive in dangerous circumstances, by unconventional means. For that, I can use your help,"

"Help?" Relt asked, standing and facing Letho for the first time, "Wait, how the fuck did you find me? Did you plant a tracking device on me, all Batman-style?"

"It's not difficult," Letho replied, "One need merely follow the trail of people who, when asked about a small, loud, brown girl, become violently angry. You leave an impression,"

"Hm," Relt thought about this. She wasn't entirely sure it was a good thing. "So what do you need my help with?"

"Do you know anything about Alerar?"

"What's that, like sheep's milk?"

"It is a country, a nation of dark elves,"

"Oh fuck, dark elves?" Relt laughed, "Why don't you just break out the hobbits and moomintrolls up in here, we can have a party for made-up things. Get their spider-worshiping asses to bring the cake, all made of cobwebs and dog farts. Seriously, you expect me to believe that dark elves are, like, a real thing?"

"I assure you that they are. To put it simply, they have advanced technology, and I am putting together a team for the purposes of stealing a rather significant piece of it; an airship,"

"Like a zeppelin? You want me to help you snatch the Hindenburg from a bunch of DnD fanfiction jerkoffs?"

"As always," Letho said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "You speak constantly and confusingly. If you don't intend to join me-"

"Whoa, slow down there, big guy, I didn't say I wouldn't help. Not like I'm doing anything else worthwhile right now, anyway. Fine, what's the details? I mean, how are we gonna steal this thing from these honkies?"

"I'll be giving the details once the whole team is together and we have set sail for Alerar," Letho said, handing her a piece of paper, "This is the rendezvous point, a small port town back in Corone proper. Meet me at this dock in ten days,"

"Shit, whatever," Relt rolled her eyes, "Make it more dramatic, Laurence Olivier, because clearly that is what we need here. Geez,"

"If I were you," Letho added as he walked away, "I would leave now. The priests appear to have found a sack,"

Relt laughed, genuinely, and shook her head. Well, this was great. Some kind of crazy hijacking. She assumed he'd probably pay her, but she still had most of the giant sack of gold he'd given her last time they met, so she didn't really care about the money. Relt was more interested in doing something crazy, because sitting on a mountain and irritating spiritual tourists was child's play compared to stealing a sky boat from a whole race of people invented by pimply fourteen year olds with crippling inferiority complexes.

And so, stealing as many cushions as she could carry, Relt set off toward a ridiculous adventure. She liked ridiculous adventures; they reminded her why she wasn't looking for a way home.

[Letho]

Four strangers sat in the Siren’s Lament, huddled around a table in the corner of the main room like conspirators, exchanging words in inaudible whispers. The most prominent of the quartet was a tall, bearded gunslinger, most of his aging face hidden in the shadow of his wide-brimmed cowboy hat. Next to him sat a youthful hellion maybe half the gunman’s age, a tiny, antsy looking thing that kept biting her nails as her eyes darted from one of her companions to the other. Two young men sat further down the circular edge of the table, one lounging leisurely with his boots up next to his drink and his arms folded behind his head, the other a shadowy hooded figure leaning heavily over his mug. They seemed to attract no unwanted attention from the rest of the patrons. And why would they? The mismatched foursome was hardly an uncommon sight. After all, there was an oddly similar group in a tiny niche at the other end of the room, gathered around a similar table in a similar manner, speaking in similarly hushed tones.

“Now that we are all here, I will speed up the introductions if you do not mind,” Letho Ravenheart started in a low, husky voice. There wasn’t much of him to be seen other that the fading brown of his worn, woolen cloak which shrouded his head with a wide cowl. But despite lacking his uniform and armaments, the baritone of his voice seemed to be more than enough to capture the attention of the other three. “Atzar Kellon.” He pointed at the long-haired wizard with one meaty finger, then proceeded to move it around the table. “Duffy Bracken. Relt Peltfelter. We can do additional introductions during the week-long voyage to Alerar. Right now, we shall discuss business.”

“Shit, I see you haven’t changed much, Captain Blackbeard. Always serious as cancer, this dude,” Relt said, bumping Atzar with her elbow. The mage responded with a smirk which was more courtesy than anything, opting not to add to her remark.

“Right. Anyways, onto the mission. As you might or might not have assumed, this will not be a simple snatch-and-run. This is our target,” the burly Marshal continued, providing a rolled up parchment from the insides of his tawny cloak. He unrolled it, turned it towards the other three and put a mug on each end so it doesn’t shrivel back up. His new companions leant closer to inspect the yellow piece of paper and the charcoal-made sketch.

“The design... I’ve never seen something like it,” Duffy was the first to comment, his finger tracing the sleek lines and the shallow keel.

“Is the size correct?” Atzar asked, taking note of the approximate scale jotted down in the bottom left corner of the scroll. “I thought the airships were larger than that.”

“They usually are. Twice as large at least,” Letho responded, leaning back a bit. He felt a bit more content with the whole idea after the obvious interest that the sketch sparked in their eyes. “They are also usually relatively slow, inert and man a crew of at least fifty. This one is somewhat of a prototype. I was told that only one of these has been produced so far, with another currently in production. This unfinished airship will be our target, together with the accompanying blueprints for it.”

“Looks like some Star Wars fanboy bullshit to me,” Relt interjected with an observation that made perfect sense to nobody but herself.

“Regardless of what it looks like, it is supposed to be able to outrun anything Alerar currently has on land, sea or air,” Letho said, taking the mouthy girl’s comment in stride without assigning it too much significance. From his experience, such an approach resulted in least headaches. “So if we manage to get our hands on it, our getaway should be relatively simple.”

“Something like that is bound to be locked up tight,” Atzar said.

“Very tight indeed. The air docks are in the middle of the Arkeen military base, which as you might know is the very center of their current war operations in Raiaera. Two full brigades are stationed in Arkeen at any given time, and a whole wing of airships that patrol the western border with Raiaera.” Letho paused his disposition as a gnarly drunkard careened past their table, mumbling something as he stumbled towards the privy. Once the man was gone, he turned back to the issue at hand. “As if that is not enough, the docks are patrolled by the Dey’ran, the Elite Guard, the same group that protects their high government officials.”

“I reckon you don’t plan to attack this head on. What’s our angle? Cloak and dagger can only take us so far in such a setup,” Duffy asked. Letho grinned with a barely noticeable nod, the proceeded to roll up the parchment. Bit by bit, his confidence in this little infiltration unit of his was growing. They seemed to be asking the right questions, and that was something he could only hope for, especially from someone like the thespian.

“Oh, it gets worse. See, they don’t allow civilians in Arkeen, or anywhere within a hundred miles of it.”

“It would be great if we had an airship. We could fly in unnoticed,” Relt quipped, and even Letho allowed a chuckle.

“Yes, well, maybe next time. As it stands now, we cannot get close enough to even get a glimpse. But there are people that can. In fact, there are people right here that plan to do just so. Check the group in the northwest corner of the room,” Letho nodded in the direction of the quartet some six occupied tables from their own, then immediately growled as the three started to turn their heads. “Gods, one at a time!”

A couple of moments worth of awkward looking glimpses and scratched backs and dropped invisible things later, he continued: “Notice the uncanny resemblance? Those four are agents of the Coalition, on their way to negotiate purchase of armaments from Alerar. And while Alerarians might not be keen on sightseeing in their military facilities, they are most certainly keen on making money. The war effort is a strain no matter how much you have in your coffers, and the Coalition has quite a few coins to rub together.”

“What is this coalition? A coalition of what?” Atzar asked, and the question actually brought an audible laugh from the bulky cloaked swordsman.

“Now, that is a long tale to tell,” Letho said, folding his arms and taking a more relaxed posture. “I spent half my life chasing the shadows of the Coalition and don’t have much to show for it. Let us just say they are the bad folk, nobody is going to miss their envoys and they are our only ticket in Arkeen. The rest does not pertain to the mission. Ask about it some other time.”

“Their ship leaves tomorrow at dawn,” Letho finally said after a short pause filled with unspoken questions. “They are not to make it. I had a little chat with the innkeeper earlier today. Those four paid their room in advance, so nobody is going to cause a stir if they disappear overnight. Pick one and eliminate him once they leave to their rooms. We drop their bodies in the sea before daybreak and the tide should take care of them, take them to the open sea.”

Letho’s eyes, visible even in the shadow that his hood cast over his face, went from one face to the next, measuring their reactions. “If you are feeling squeamish about this, do say so now. Because there is bound to be more death down the path and I can afford no hesitation. You will get yourself killed, and what is worse, you will get me killed. And I promised my little girl an airship.”

[Duffy]

Duffy was many things, but a cold killer he was not. As he sipped his drink with the soft touch of lips against cool iron, he secretly eyed his mark and contemplated wherever or not he could live with driving his daggers through any orifice or slither of exposed skin.

He shrugged.

They were criminals, and that was justifiable in his heavy and difficult to read book.

“I have no complaints, they’re not innocent, and they are in the running for a comeuppance so I’m game.”

He did not mean to sound so cold or so callous, but he set his drink onto the edge of the table and unsheathed his dagger to slice through a ripe peach he produced from the folds of his scarf; a tinkle of a melody drifted out awkwardly from the cloth, the remnants of the spell song he had wielded on his way to meet with his new associates dropping to the floor with heavy melody and hearty rhythm.

“If you will excuse me gentlemen, I will retire now and see you all in the morning.” He rose from his seat, half disinterested in his fellows and half chomping through the first chunk of ripe, sweet and amber coloured flesh. The slight tartness to the fruit reminded him of home, and the juxtaposition between the good and the bad that surrounded the solid stone of his home. He was far from that sanctuary now, so he plastered his face with a stern mask to hide the fact that underneath, he was just a boy in a man’s body – over excited and over eager to impress the great men that had gathered beneath Letho Ravenheart’s ragged banner.

He nodded and stepped away from the table. With dainty steps and much speed, he wove through the tables and avoided the bulkier customers as he made his way to the bar. When he arrived, he popped the stone into his mouth and sucked the remnants of the fruit from it, before spitting it into one of the refuse slop buckets at the foot of each bar stool. Tobacco was a new fashion in these parts, and thick brown gloop rested at the bottom of each receptacle.

“Barman,” he flagged a tall spindly man with a moustache you could hang clothes from to his needs and smiled with an elbow cocked on the mahogany surface. Duffy made a mental note to wash his arms when he got to his room, as the wood was sticky with liquor and something he could only assume was blood. “I’d like a room please, above the kitchen if possible?”

The man nodded, and turned to grab a key before spiralling back with an autonomous movement to drop it onto the wooden surface.

“That’ll be four gold.” The flat statement made Duffy flinch. Though Scara Brae was not exactly the height of hospitality, the bar staff there had basic etiquette this hovel obviously did not.

He rummaged in his pockets, slipping his knife into his belt with the same series of movements.

“Thanking you kindly, which room is it?” He cocked his head with a questioning smarm. He pointed to the stairs suggestively, and made to step towards it.

“Second on the right,” and with that, the moustached man walked off along the length of the bar to serve another round to the men that very soon would find themselves bereft of a ship, a blade or two and most hap hazardless, without their lives.

With a cheeky grin Duffy nodded his thanks, scooped up the key, waved over his shoulder his farewell to the mage, the erratic, likeable girl and the haggard warrior and skipped up the stairs into the residential hollow of the sleepy inn. There was much planning to do if he was to succeed in his task without selling his reputation or his morals short, much planning to do indeed.

[Atzar]

Duffy left, and Letho was unwilling to engage Relt in her nonsense, friendly though it seemed. The awkward moments that followed were nonetheless peaceful enough for Atzar to ponder the big hero’s task. His face wore a deep frown, and his fingers tapped a nervous staccato on the wooden tabletop. It presented a problem.

He wasn’t squeamish; not at all. Letho’s hasty description of the ‘Coalition’ was vague but acceptable for now, and a year of training and killing in the Citadel had long since banished any aversion to shedding blood. No, his issue was far more elementary: his personal brand of magic wasn’t so good at the whole ‘stealth’ thing. Want somebody impaled with a giant icicle? He was the man for the job. Fiery explosion? He had it covered. Need to conjure up a thunderstorm? That was harder, but the mage would figure out a way to make it happen. But subtle, Atzar was not. His bag of tricks contained crashes, bangs, booms, bright flashes and occasional tremors. Side effects included screaming, scorch marks, and more injured bystanders than the wizard cared to admit. Silence and secrecy were alien concepts and, frankly, sounded boring.

“Something wrong?” Letho asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Not really,” Atzar replied. Then he grinned. “Honestly, I’m just trying to decide how to burn someone without the mess or the screaming.” He realized how barbaric it sounded just as the words left his tongue, and the big man’s raised eyebrows indicated his own surprise.

Relt laughed. “Here.” In a swift motion she produced a small blade, flipped it open and stabbed it into the table. “No need for nukes when a knife’ll do.”

The mage shook his head. “Uh, thanks, but that’s not really my thing.” Just then, the cowled figure at the far end of the dark, smoky room stood and made for the stairs. Atzar stood up. “Let’s get this over with. See you in a bit.” He followed the man, trying not to look in his direction and feeling all the while like he might as well have been decked in lights and bright colors.

Fortunately, nobody spared a glance in his direction, and he climbed the stairs to the second floor. A long hallway extended from the stair landing, several rooms on each side. Bronze sconces provided meager lighting from the dark, wooden walls. The robed man strode down the hall, oblivious to the ill-intentioned mage drawing closer and closer. The figure stopped in front of the third door on the left, fumbling in a pocket for a moment. He still hadn’t looked back. Atzar’s heart began to pound. Could it be this easy? Mentally he thanked the silent floorboards beneath his feet. Ten feet away. Eight. Six. Still unaware.

Any semblance of a plan flew from his mind. As the key turned and the door opened, the mage abandoned his craft. He reached out and, with a sudden jerk, yanked the brim of the cloaked man’s hood down over his face. His hand clamped tight over his nose and mouth. His victim jumped with surprise, and Atzar quickly bodied him into the room. He flicked the door shut with the heel of one foot. Muffled screams died in the mage’s fingers.

With one hand his prey reached up, prying fruitlessly at the death grip across his face, and the other... The mage gasped as a blow struck his right side, and several sharp pains seared through his flesh. The robed man was already winding up for another punch, a set of spiked iron knuckles glinting in the candlelight.

He had no choice. He relinquished his hold on his victim and jumped back, avoiding another painful wound from the knuckles. His combat instincts took over, and he moved on to Plan B. As the man coughed and tore at the hood jammed down to his throat, Atzar searched within.

Barbaric piercings and hideous tattoos demonized the gasping man’s face, and he whirled with hate in his eyes. Immediately he sputtered incantations in between great breaths, but as fast as he was, Atzar was faster. A watermelon-sized block of ice slammed into his face at frightening speed, snapping his neck and cutting short his sorcerous utterances. The force of the blow split the chunk down the middle, and both halves fell to the floor with heavy thuds as the dead spellcaster sank onto the bed behind him.

Kellon sat heavily on the lumpy mattress beside the body, wincing at the pain in his side. Gingerly he lifted his shirt to inspect the wound beneath. Damn it. Four identical wounds punctured his flesh, oozing blood. They hadn’t even boarded the boat to Alerar yet, and the mage was already injured. Great. He would need treatment, and he would likely...

No.

Atzar would hide this; nobody would know of it. This is nothing. His partners didn’t need to know that he’d found a way to botch such a simple task. The wounds would stop bleeding and heal on their own in time. Until then, he would tough it out. This is nothing. I can handle this.

With resolve, the proud mage stood up. After a glance at the body and brief deliberation, he tugged the knuckles off of the dead man’s hand and slipped them into his own pocket. He then left the room, locking the door and taking the key with him before returning to the lounge below.

[Relt PeltFelter]

Despite her bluster and bravado, Relt had never killed anyone. She tried not to reveal this as she smirked, took her knife back, swaggered towards the stairwell. As soon as she was sure that she was out of sight of Larry, Curly, and Moe, she bit her knuckle and inhaled sharply. Relt was not sure she could stone-cold murder a person, much less do it quietly. Letho had made an assumption which she had never bothered to clarify, and it was catching up with her.

She figured that her target was the shrimpy-looking chick who kept peering around anxiously, as if she expected some kind of attack at any moment. Relt assumed she must also be new to the whole international espionage thing, and tried to fight down a surge of fellow-feeling. This was a Coalition agent, and while Relt had no idea what the hell that was, if you can hear the capital C when it's said, it's probably bad. What's more, this was the person Relt had to...do the k-word to, Relt couldn't be sympathizing with her problems. Relt needed to put on the game face to end all game faces.

At the top of the stairs, just before the hallway leading to the rooms, there was an alcove. In the reality that Relt originated from, such an alcove would probably have housed a public telephone, a painting of a duck, and a houseplant. Althanas lacked at least two of these things, but the proprietor of the establishment had, in a rare moment of decorative concern, hung a moth-eaten old taxidermy elk head from the wall. Its antlers cast strange shadows in the light of the guttering candle sconces. It was an excellent place to lurk suspiciously, and so Relt avoided it and just stood in the full candlelight next to it. Even she knew that there is nothing so suspicious as lurking in the shadows.

She did, however, put her sunglasses on the elk head, for reasons of comedy.

As Relt leaned casually against the wall and fiddled with her phone, an activity that she considered commonplace and natural (her failure to consider the context notwithstanding), she found herself quite alone. The bar (Why is it always bars? Relt wondered, Do people's shady dealings just default to that when there are no train stations, warehouses, or gross strip clubs with sixteen arthritic pole dancers all named Shazazz?) was not playing host to terribly many guests tonight. If this went on much longer, Relt would doubtless get bored and find some other, highly unsuccessful strategy to try. Fortunately, it was only about ten minutes before Relt's mark came up the stairs, biting her nails.

The nervous woman gave Relt a worried glance. Who was this person and why were they just waiting in the hallway? Relt looked up and smiled weakly, giving a little wave before going back to her phone. This seemed to disarm the Coalition agent somewhat, and she merely bustled into her room. Relt tensed; she heard the doorknob turn back to its neutral position, and she was sure she could hear the pressure of a hand on the lock, juuuust about to turn it; there was a strange moment where the flickering of the candle light seemed to freeze in place, and in an impossible instant Relt crossed the ten feet between herself and the targeted room, wrapped her hand around the doorknob, and shoved it open just as the world snapped back into motion.

The Coalition girl had not been expecting someone to slam her door open, and was sent sprawling on her back. Relt took a moment to recover. "What the fuck," she murmured, "Did everything just go kind of grey and fish-eyed for you too, for a second there?"

"Who the devil are you?" the woman hissed, nervousness traded for anger. She pulled a knife from her belt and held it, expertly; for all her jitters, this woman had killed before, and was prepared to do so again. Relt's eyes locked onto it, and though she knew it was the worst possible time and the worst possible thing to do, some primal force bubbled up through her, some long-ingrained element of herself she could neither understand nor control grabbed her by the brain stem and forced her into action.

"You call that a knife?" she said, an incredibly fake Australian accent entering her speech unbidden, "This is a knife," she finished, her hand suddenly wielding the metal implement.

"But that..." the Coalition agent paused, confused and nervous again, "That's a spoon,"

"I see you've played knifey-spoony before," Relt said, and tossed the spoon like a lawn dart. It bounced off the woman's face, and she fumbled in a moment of confusion; just long enough for Relt to give her a solid uppercut and slap the knife out of her hand. The Coalition agent reeled, her jaw hurt, she'd been hit, and-


-she was at the bottom of a pond, wrapped in a home-made shell of bark chips and pebbles-

-she was lying in a sandbox, staring at the world through hard plastic eyes-

-she was running, pursued from all sides by bizarre metal men with crossbows that shot fire-



-and she threw up on the floor. Relt backed away from the spew, muffling a shout of "Holy fuck!" with her hands. She hadn't hit her that hard, had she? The agent slumped forward into the puddle of her own sick. She was unconscious, the dizziness induced by having your mind detach from your body and run the gauntlet of several alternate selves having been too much to cope with.

Relt tip-toed around the vomit puddle and pulled the woman out of it. "Fuck," Relt breathed, and sat down heavily on the incredibly uncomfortable little bed, "I probably should kill you. At least then you couldn't tell people that, in a life or death situation, I referenced a cartoon from thirty years ago and threw a frigging spoon at you,"

She sighed. This was not what she had had in mind. You were supposed to follow the person into their room, there were, like, a couple of thuds, and then you walked out wearing their clothes. Relt had always been unclear on the origin of the thuds; getting dressed didn't make that much noise. Now she had to figure out how to keep Barfing Betty quiet without shanking her up, because looking at her now, Relt knew she couldn't just kill a person. It wouldn't be self defense now, and it wouldn't be for any cause, it'd just be murder, and Relt wasn't ready to be a murderer.

A thought occurred to her, as she looked around the dinky little room. The curtains were hung over the window with a long piece of thick, scratchy hempen rope, and the unconscious woman's luggage, which sat open on a little bench by the door, was a thick canvas bag that was, essentially, well, to get right down to it...

...person-sized.


- - -

Relt staggered down the stairs, bent almost double under the weight. She plodded back to the table where Letho still sat (the whole misadventure having taken less than half an hour, all told), and plopped the bag into a chair, which rocked back and forth. Relt gave a huge huff and grinned sheepishly. The bag slid down the chair and bumped the floor. There was a muffled groan, which Relt covered up with an unnecessarily loud yawn. "All taken care of, bro-dawg," she whispered, "Totes KIA, blood everywhere, all that shit, no harm done, all resolved, we should probably go, huh? I wanna go, we should go,"

[Duffy]

There were many benefits to being able to steal Ruby’s spell singing. One, held between fore finger and thumb was the ability to conjure objects from distant hiding places with a few well timed, slightly altered verses. Though Duffy had never intended to hide his poison in a peach, it had served his purpose and allowed him the privilege of working undetected. The stone was still wet to the touch, covered in the sinewy flesh of the fruit that had been born from its bounty and it still smelt of spring, but it was just a façade.

With a gentle squeeze, Duffy pushed in on its shell, and with a soft click, the stone fell apart. Its sides dropped to the bed with a soft bounce, soundless, silent descents. Remaining between his digits shone a small vial, a stopper made of the stone’s pointed tip and a base of the same holding the crystal in place. Whilst he had shown bravado, callous calls to arms and murder in front of the others, he had no intention of killing in cold blood, at least, he sighed, “at least not today.”

He tossed the vial into the air and let it drop to the cloth. It caught the candlelight and shone brilliantly and wildly for a moment. The bard stared at it longingly for several moments, a solemn vigil over his secret weapon, before he picked it up and deposited it into the folds of his loose fitting black trousers. It had been many hours since he had departed, and the sounds of the busy kitchen below told Duffy that the time to act was now. He had to be quick, confident and calm to pull off his subterfuge. He stepped away from the bed and adjusted the creases in his tight fitting blue top, complete with gold swirl trim and set his black hair eschew to seem busy and distracted.

“Here goes,” he said meekly, his words failing to convince their speaker as he sprang upwards and fell back to the floorboards.

Convention told of a soft landing and a shudder up a sprung spine, but Duffy, ever unconventional, fell cleanly through the floor and landed squarely onto the kitchen floor below. Spirals of blue later heralded his disappearance and reappearance, and he rose silently upright to face the inner door of the kitchen’s larder. He had dropped, with excellent planning right into the only part of the kitchen that allowed him safe and secret passage.

“Thank you Blank,” he mumbled softly, fumbling through the piles of boxes, packages and neatly wrapped joints of meat. He tried to push aside the thoughts about what he was touching, be it cow or crab or kobold. Though the Peaceful Promenade was a well to do tavern, much respected by its patrons; its food left a lot to be desired. Eventually, he found what he was looking for and pulled out the vial from his pocket.

Early that evening he had listened from the balcony, half suspended on a string of bed clothes and hopes, to the conversation raging between the Coalition members. What strange bravado let them speak so openly of their exploits Duffy could only imagine, but he presumed the copious amounts of alcohol had something to do with it. As he listened to daggers punching, maidens spoiled and dragons slain (though he assumed that meant old men with tempers, not actual dragons) he picked out the information he needed.

The cock sure man he had picked out as his target liked pigeon pie, one of the tavern’s specialities. He found one such pie on the third shelf up, tucked away between a bowl of apples and a cheese platter. He pulled it into his arms and rested it on his left fore-arm, draped with a white tea towel in the manner of a butler. It did not take long for the bard to slip the contents of his vial between the steam vents on the bronzed and perfectly cooked pastry lid.

“A pie for a ship’s passage seems fair to me,” he shrugged, undid the door’s bolt and stepped out into the busy kitchen. The cacophony of smells he had been confronted with in the larder suddenly seemed mild compared to the sweltering heat and cloud of stew, pie, beer and fat cooking on the many hobs in the cramped cook house.

“Oi, you little shit, get that pie to table three!” A large, rotund man with a curled moustache and chef whites laden with enough food to feed an army in the form of stains, crusty circlets of spillage and crowns of noodles and broccoli waved a hefty rolling pin at Duffy. “You there,” it moved to another lanky looking youth, laden with plates and plateaus of dirty glasses, “get a bloody move on – we have three more hours of orders and you are fucking slacking!” The wooden utensil rose and slammed onto a nearby work top, denting it further. Clearly, this task master was a veteran of the art of running a busy kitchen. Either that or he was a slave driver in another life, born of the desert and too fond of whips and chains.

Duffy nodded hastily and sped through the kitchen, swerving in and out of the staff, dodging and ducking turning pan handles, agile knife blades and over rigorous kneading. He would never forgive himself if he failed in his mission because of a well-timed elbow to the face.

“Out we go,” he wheezed as he pushed open the door to the behind the bar area with his shoulder. He resisted the urge to see if his companions were still at their table, and swerved to the left, around Molly’s confused and slightly bemused form before he stepped out onto the tavern’s floor. He froze with terror.

There was acting, and then there was acting for your life. He was not sure, despite being a veteran of five centuries of matinees and premiere performances, which of the two was more terrifying. The barrage of laughter, cries and drunken grumbles swooned the bard, until he could suffer the noise no more. With suddenly found confidence rising in his stomach (which might have been vomit, the two were indistinguishable) he stepped up to the table where his target was still kicking back and drinking fine wine and slid the pie before him.

“Our finest Pigeon Profiteer,” his accent slipped into low Corone, to disguise his otherwise conspicuous Scara Braen twang. With a dutiful bow, he stepped back.

Duffy had been in and around taverns longs enough to know that it was customary to receive a tip, and to not leave the customer’s side until he got one, or a blade was waved cheatingly at him. When the man glared at him, the bard’s heart sunk, forever on the lookout to profit wherever he went – there were plenty of hungry mouths to feed back home.

“Run the fuck along, I ain’t tipping you,” he looked at his companions for consensus, and their combined stares forced Duffy to retreat in a hurry back into the kitchen. He managed to wink at Molly en-route, who twirled in a fizz as he passed, still none wiser.

Slipping back into the kitchen with a disgruntled look on his now sweating face, the bard wove through the kitchen, dropped his towel onto the edge of a grubby, food littered work top and slipped back into the larder. He felt a wave of relief as the door clicked closed behind him, and the noise level dropped to something approaching manageable. Heavy breaths made his chest expand and retract, his shirt rippled under the pressure. He bounced from foot to foot and heel to heel to limber up and then, as if he had not just delivered a deadly toxin coated pigeon to a soon to be knocked out target, he vaulted up the shelves and disappeared once more.

With a heavy crash, the bard landed sprawled onto the floor of his meagre quarters. Face down and tasting the dust of the multi-coloured rag rug, he finally shuddered.

“Next time a hero asks you for help, say fucking no!” He thumped the floor and pounced upright, before he flopped like a rag doll into his own bed.

He had about three hours to kill before the poison took effect, and he could sneak into the man’s room, tie him to the bed posts, rob him blind, and lie to his companion’s face that he had ‘disposed of the body’ as they went about their journey on a stolen ship. Everyone would be cool, he would save face, be richer, and have a new pair of boots.

“What could possibly go wrong?”

***

Duffy appeared wearing the aforementioned new boots. They were tall, slap dash and bent at the brim, but they were a considerable improvement on the previous evening’s footwear. He bowed at Relt, who appeared to have taken on the burden a little too literally. With a smooth operation, he sat at the table and chuckled as she spoke in her unusual but enigmatic way.

Whatever rock she had crawled out, she could bloody well stay.

“That was not something I’d like to engage in again, but all in all, job done.” He smiled, juggled the coins in his pocket and stroked the hilt of his new daggers. They weren’t as powerful, sharp or useful as his own enchanted blades, but he thought they’d make a fitting tribute to the naked, spread eagled man only feet above their heads.

Somebody had once said to be brave, you had to go where eagles bared…

Or was it dared?

He chuckled to himself and waved the breakfast waiter over to take a bowl of oatmeal from his steaming tray. The morning was setting off to a good start, especially as he'd gotten his tip after all.

[Letho]

There were still some solid two hours until daybreak, but already the main room of the Siren’s Lament was getting busy. The early risers were dockhands and deckhands, trying to get a head start on their daily toil be it loading up a boat or preparing it for the morning tide and the departure. The atmosphere was significantly different than several hours before, when the whole place was bustling with loud laughter, calls for more ale and an occasional bard stringing his lute much to the mockery of most of the hard folk here. Mornings were usually sullen and dreary, with people speaking in hushed whispers over their bowls of porridge and slices of tough, dark bread if they spoke at all. Most had a hard time keeping their eyes open, though, and that included the inn’s service, most of whom looked like they didn’t get more than a couple of hours of shuteye as they moved sluggishly between tables with laden trays.

Letho and his little group were livelier than most, though, but whether this was due to the adrenaline from the last night kill or the predicament over such a deed he couldn’t say. What he did know was that he wouldn’t be losing any sleep over the corpse that was slowly soaking the mattress in one of the rooms upstairs. He knew what the Coalition was all about. Perhaps they weren’t all trained, merciless killers, but there was one thing they excelled at and it was causing mischief, all for the gain of their precious clandestine organization. Such people stopped at nothing in order to achieve their goal, they trampled over the just and unjust alike, and they deserved neither mercy nor pity.

The gunslinger had been the last of the targeted group to retire last night, but by then Letho Ravenheart was nowhere to be seen. By then, he was already in the man’s room, setting up a neat little gadget that the merchant in the Bazaar’s Auction House called Your Own Device. What this thingamajig did was envelop whoever activated it in a force field that was virtually indestructible for a couple of minutes. Nothing got through. Not swords, not bullets, not air and not even the spewed curses of the Coalition members who got themselves stuck in this energy cubicle. Not that the gunman actually managed to spew one. Letho had set it up beneath one of the floorboards near the door, the wooden plank leaning on the activation button like a pressure plate, and then sat back in the armchair on the other side of the room.

About half an hour worth of twiddling thumbs later, the gunslinger had entered and then everything happened in a heartbeat, faster than even Letho was able to acknowledge it. Only later he was able to dissect all of the events that transpired in that fraction of a second. The gunslinger’s eye caught the figure of a man sitting in on the other side of the room. His hand drew the pistol. His foot landed on the switch. His finger squeezed the trigger. The forcefield went up. The muzzle flash was there, but the sound was not and the bullet never struck the Marshal. It ricocheted against the walls of the newly erect field, bouncing all over the little energy cube, riddling the gunman with holes. The man slumped to his knees, coughing up blood all over the translucent barrier as his face slid down its humming surface. Letho hadn’t been able to hide his surprise. He had expected to have to deal with the Coalition’s agent once the field went down, even devised a simple albeit effective way to do so that involved some sheets covering the cube and sword held at the ready somewhere where the gunslinger couldn’t see him, but much to his surprise, the man took care of himself. And it was quite a surprise. It was a stroke of luck, and that was something that didn’t happen to the Letho Ravenheart all that often.

It wasn’t surprising then that it didn’t last too long.

Tipping his new cowboy hat back with his forefinger, he placed his elbows on the table surface and leant closer to the trio. He wasn’t terribly comfortable with the hat, never really found it terribly useful, especially on horseback when wind constantly threw it back and the leather strap cut into his chin. But it came with the new outfit, most importantly the gray duster he relinquished from the gunslinger’s wardrobe that was supposed to help him play the part. He didn’t necessarily need it – he doubted the folks in Alerar were given an exact description of the envoys – but it never hurt to play it safe. Plus, the duster was a damn fine piece of clothing, finely woven vlince padded on the inside with several layers of sifan. It was bound to offer some decent protection against a wayward arrow or three should the need arise, and it did a good job of covering the pair of revolvers at his hips. The guns he disliked even more than the hat, but again, it was hard to pass as a gunslinger without the proper apparel.

“So, everything taken care of?” he asked. Affirmative answers came from all around the table in one form or other, Letho gauging each and every one of them. There seemed to be some disquiet in some of them, but for the most part they all seemed sincere. Relt even went as far to bring the corpse with her in the main room, which was ill advised but ultimately of little consequence. Nobody asked questions at this ungodly hour and if you carried a huge sack on your back, you probably had a good reason for it. Atzar seemed a bit discomforted as well, but it looked more like indigestion than some sort of a ploy.

“Good. Now, we still have a couple of hours until the ship sets sail. Relax and enjoy your breakfast. It might be the last decent meal you get for a week,” he said, keeping his tone as low as possible. It was much harder to keep the reach of your words limited only to the ears you wanted to hear them with such silence reigning in the room. He checked the sandglass behind the counter and the blackboard above it. There were four scratches on the board and the glass was mostly full, meaning it was a little past four in the morning.

“In about an hour we shall leave, dispose of our... packages and get on board.” There were no objections. They broke their fast in silence, a simple meal of rye bread and cheese washed down with a beverage of their choice. They were just about done with it when their luck took a turn for the worse. First there was a sound, something tumbling down the stairs like a sack of potatoes, then a muffled groan, then a figure of a man crawling back to his feet, reaching up for the counter top.

“Barkeep! Where are you, lout?” the man demanded, barely managing to pull himself up on one of the stools. Immediately every eye in the room was upon him, most amused by the display that diverged from the usual eventless mornings. “Call the city guard! My comrades have been slain and I’ve been robbed.”

Letho’s eyes went to Duffy momentarily. They bore down onto the younger man not with anger, but disappointment. “Took care of it, did you, Mister Bracken?”

Duffy offered a sheepish smile. “I was fairly certain I did. The poison and the rope should’ve been enough to keep him out of our hair.”

“Apparently they are not,” Letho said, eyes back on the groggy talking corpse at the bar. “He was most likely conditioned against poison, probably taught a thing or two about knots as well.”

“Uhm, might not be the best time to reveal this,” Relt said, leaning closer to Letho so her whisper was enough to reach his ears and pointing at the huge bag that accompanied them at the table. “But my little bundle of joy here isn’t exactly dead either.”

Letho exhaled audibly through his nostrils, one hand reaching for his temples. They haven’t even set foot outside Corone, haven’t even gone further than the first step of their plan, and already they made a major blunder. It wasn’t just the matter of dealing with the fallout of this particular situation. The word would get out and the Coalition will come asking questions. And even if they did manage to get on the boat under false identities, all it took was one letter, one bird arriving ahead of them to Alerar or even during their stay there, and they would be as exposed as a hooker on a busy night. He had to fix this, had to act while there was still time. He took the hat and the duster off and squeezed out of the bench.

“Upstairs, five minutes, bring my hat and coat. And your bundle of joy,” he said to them, the last words directed at the only girl by the table. He made his way to the man who seemed in the process of screaming at a very apathetic barkeep.

“Marshal Goodwine, what seems to be the problem, sir?” Letho said, fishing his old Ranger’s badge out of his pocket and placing it on the counter. The prattling man ceased his barrage of curses to look at him with glassy eyes that seemed to need a whole second to gain enough focus to actually see anything.

“The problem, sir, is that someone killed my companions in their fucking beds, poisoned me, tied me down and robbed me blind. Even took my bloody boots.” Letho looked down at the wiggling toes and found the statement true enough.

“Do you know who did this?”

“How the hell could I? I woke up tied to a bed, understand? And I once I managed to free myself, I checked my companions and found them dead. Well, mostly dead. Adrina is missing. But that’s beside the point! Go, get your troops! Do something about it!” the man yelled, getting closer to Letho’s face with every word until the reek of his breath almost made the Marshal crinkle his nose.

“I need to check this first. Come with me, sir,” he said to the man, and then turned to the rest of the room. “Back to your meals, folks. Nothing to see here.” The last glance before he disappeared upstairs with the Coalition man swerving all over the floor in front of him was reserved for the trio in the alcove, saturated with careful urgency. They needed to make this disappear and fast. The sand was mercilessly pouring and they had a single window of opportunity before it all fell through.

[Duffy]

Duffy was many things, but he was not a murderer. Duffy could pretend to be many things, but play acting only went so far. Staring at Letho with the dead pan expression he had practised a thousand times to no avail on Ruby Winchester, his estranged feminine counterpart, he started to question the reasons why he could never do that one, small thing.

Kill in cold blood.

The bard guessed that it wasn’t such a small thing, after all. He had killed, by all means, but only ever in self-defence, or that much maligned and misconceived notion of the ‘greater good’. He had taken so many lives standing behind those two shields, or perhaps, if he had explained that to the man standing in front of him, with those two bloodied swords. The captain had given him a quick dressing down, the sort Ruby would have been drunk to dare try with him; somehow, the grizzled veteran quelled the inner anarchist in Duffy, leaving him powerless to raise any sort of defiance in front of all that…man.

“Yes sir, sorry – it’s just, I ain’t no killer.”

“That’s all well and good, Duffy, but if you don’t aspire to be something more…difficult and challenging and uncongenial to your every day, this mission will fail.”

Letho seemed like the sort of person to tag that sort of comment with a ‘and I don’t like failure.’ True to form, the man’s face turned momentarily sour, a wrinkled smile plastered over years of experience. Usually confident and overbearingly happy to be doing, well, anything except the washing up, Duffy swallowed a lump in his throat. “I know, it’s just…I can’t kill someone in cold blood.”

“If they find us out, discover who we are or more importantly, what we are doing here,” Duffy assumed Letho supplanted his own ideas, because of course people knew who he and the captain were,” it will be…” he minced his words, clearly a man used to saying things and people getting the meaning. He was dealing with a thespian now though, who would see through any long syllabled walls. “Catastrophic.”

Even Duffy could understand that sort of sentiment.

“I’ll do it your way if there’s no other choice, but it won’t and doesn’t do you credit to get me wrong – I have more riding on my conduct than my reckless demeanour might indicate.” The plucky verbosity left his voice when Letho turned away. Apparently, there was no way out of this dressing down.

Duffy reminded himself to ask Ruby if her way with winning arguments was an acquired skill, because clearly, men could lay the female wiles down thick too. He raised an eyebrow, listened to his command as he left them to their own devices and bounded up the stairs without further indication that he was annoyed.

“I want to get one thing straight with you, Letho Ravenheart,” Duffy mouthed the words over and over, hopping from toe to toe in the cramped upstairs corridor. He had done as he had been asked, and was waiting upstairs for his follow up. “I am a man of my…” he wanted to say word, but he couldn’t pluck up the courage to say it. What he said in his head and what he said with his lips had a long history of not adding up.

“Okay, forgive me for asking,” he turned to the girl, rolling his eyes over her bundle as she carried it with far more strength than her lanky frame should have allowed. “Am I the only one with a conscience here?” Clearly he wasn’t, given the living state of her captive and Atzar’s skittish personality. He had fought with him, long ago; he did not seem like a cold-hearted killer. It didn’t let the bard trust him anymore than he trusted most mages, but it was a slow, long thaw towards counting him amongst his close acquaintances.

“Caus’ I left this guy like this to,” as the door opened, he fell silent.

“Was that…a scream?” He heard a soul die through The Aria, a sound only he heard.

Letho it seemed did not share Duffy’s reservations about killing the man the bard had tied to the bed. “It doesn’t matter…what did you do with yours Atzar?” He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, trying not to watch Relt’s cankerous motions too much.

He continued to wait, wondering what the day had in store for him next.

[Atzar]

“I left him dead in a room upstairs. I can follow orders,” the mage replied to Duffy. Unlike you. Truth be told, had his victim not injured him, he probably would have felt similar. He would have still killed the man, of course, but he would have been perturbed. A row of holes in the abdomen, however, was exactly the sort of thing to cure a man of that sort of emotion.

Just then a door opened further down the corridor, spilling the soft glimmer of dawn’s first light onto the floor and opposing wall. Out stepped Letho, jaw set in a grim, businesslike expression that spoke volumes. “Come in.” His voice scarcely exceeded a whisper. “We need to talk.”

“Change of plans,” he said after he had closed the door behind them. “The owner knows that something is going on now. He heard the accusations our escape artist made. If he sees us with our four ‘packages’, he’ll ask questions that we really don’t want to answer.” He paused, and then ground his teeth. “I’m open to suggestions,” he admitted.

A moment of silence hung between them all before Atzar spoke. “Burn the place.” He said it with a gruff indifference that he didn’t feel. He received exactly three looks of revulsion in response.

“Surely that ain’t the best way to do this,” Duffy objected. “We have no quarrel with the barkeep, why bring him into our mess?”

“We have no choice,” Atzar answered in the same cold tone. He had already noted that Duffy and Relt didn’t have the disposition for this sort of task. And Letho couldn’t start a blaze with a simple thought. The mage didn’t relish the idea either, but if he had to be the bad guy of this group, then so be it. “We can’t get the bodies out of here, but we can’t just leave them here either. A devastating fire will cover our tracks better than anything else.”

Ravenheart grimaced, and then nodded. "I have to agree with Atzar. Fire will take care of the bodies and the commotion would divert attention from us."

Duffy found his courage amidst his outrage. “Surely you don’t think this is the best solution, Letho! This inn is a man’s life! We can’t just immolate the bloody place on nothing more than an ill-conceived whim!”

Letho shook his head. "Worry not about the barkeep, Mister Bracken. We shall compensate him for the damage appropriately. Out of our own pockets. Your wages just got halved due to this mess."

The mage couldn’t believe his ears. He had done his job; his man was dead. But now this thief known as Letho Ravenheart proposed to cut his payment because of the idiocy of his partners? Just as Duffy and Relt voiced their acquiescence, Atzar cut across them. “No!” he protested. “My man is dead, just like you asked. I did my job, Letho.”

The big man shrugged his burly shoulders. "And I did my job. Yet this expense will come out of my pocket as well. Let this be a lesson to all of you: we are a team, and if one of us fails to do his designated task, we all suffer."

What could Atzar say to that? Letho had won, and he knew it. Any response that came immediately to mind would have alienated his teammates even further. Whether he liked it or not, he needed these people. He turned away, snorting his disgust and frustration.

Wrong answer. A strong hand spun him face-to-face with Letho, and his wound panged at the sudden movement. “This is how it will be, Atzar.” His words were deceptively calm. “If you disapprove, you are free to leave. I’d advise against it, though. After all this hubbub, the local authorities are going to ask questions, so it would be wise to be as far away from here as possible. As far as Alerar, perhaps.”

“Fine. I get it.” Again Atzar averted his gaze. He knew it was childish, and that knowledge angered him even further.

The big man chose not to belabor the point. He dropped his hand from the young man’s shoulder and stepped back. "Now, onto the second order of business." When he said nothing else, the mage looked back at him questioningly, and then followed his gaze to Relt’s pack.

The girl’s face paled visibly. “Me – wait – what?! Letho, I couldn’t pull the one-eight-seven in the first place! What makes you think I could do the deed now?”

“Better a quick end now than just being left here to burn,” Duffy replied miserably. It seemed as if reality had caught up with their naïve little group. Letho lived in a different world than the rest of them, and they were quickly learning what it was like there.

With a shaky hand, Relt pulled her knife from her belt. She moved slowly across the room, each step a trial, until she crouched over the canvas bag, trembling blade positioned behind the neck of their victim. Atzar looked away not because of the death that would follow, but because of the dread and anguish written upon the girl’s face. A moment passed. She was faltering. I can do it. The mage stepped forward to take the knife from her, but Letho beat him to it.

“It gets easier after the first time,” he whispered. He put his hand over hers and pushed the blade into the bag. It went in with a steely hiss, and the body stiffened and jerked before going still once more.





His companions had left the inn already; they had agreed to wait for him outside. Atzar sat alone at a table in the common room, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. It should be strong enough that nobody can stop it, he reasoned. At the same time, he didn’t want to start it upstairs. While the chances were good that it would have grown beyond control before anybody noticed it, the chances were also good that sleeping innocents would be trapped with no escape. For an instant the mage nearly caved. Despite his façade, he wasn’t evil; far from it. And this was really, really hard to justify.

His eyes settled on the butt a burnt-out cigar butt resting on the wooden floor at the other end of the room . As good a scapegoat as any. With one last deep, trembling breath, Atzar steeled himself for a single thought.

The cigar caught fire, cutting like a knife through the gloom of early morning. Even so, it was several seconds before the sleepy-eyed barkeep or patrons took notice. By then, it was too late. With the mage’s invisible influence the flame crawled across the floor, setting alight everything it encountered. Men shouted and milled about in panic. The fire crackled, licking at the walls and engulfing the nearest tables. It shot up a curtain like an arrow, and the burgeoning inferno now cast its red glow across the room, the air filled with sparks and the acrid stench of smoke.

That was enough. Satisfied that the blaze could do the rest with no further instruction, Atzar put on his best ‘panicked’ face and ran out the door with a yell.

[Relt PeltFelter]

Relt stared at the knife in her hand for what felt like months. She had killed giant barnacle monsters, and maybe a gnome one time when she was shitfaced and the gnobbled-up little critter-guy kept giggling and trying to shove beets down her shirt, but never another human being. It would be a sobering moment, if Relt had any full awareness of how sobriety felt. After a long moment, she carefully wiped the blood off on her shirt, flipped the knife shut, and sealed the whole sordid memory into a psychological compartment which could be dealt with later, preferably through inebriation, sobbing, and pornography.

The sound of a burning inn is always exciting; the gentle crackle of old timber as the flames licked it, punctuated every so often by a keg exploding like a turtle in a microwave. Relt idly wished she had some popcorn, but then had to keep pushing from her mind the image of a dead body in a sack expanding from all the corpse gasses until it went off like a bag of Orville Reddenbacher. She coughed and turned to Letho. A number of emotions crossed her features - gratitude, anger, and finally, resignation. "Well, fuck," she said, chasing the tremor from her voice as she looked back to the burning public house, "Pretty much took a hefty dook all over step one,"

"Speak for yourself," Atzar said as he trotted up to the group, "Some of us follow orders,"

"I was speaking for myself, baby-dick," Relt snarled, "Did you hear a 'we' in there?"

"Listen, girl, I just set fire to an inn to cover up your mistake, not to mention the actor's, and because of you, I'm out a sizable chunk of my pay. My temper is a little short,"

"So's your fat momma, but she still gets plenty of-,"

Letho cleared his throat. It was a particularly successful throat-clearing, as it actually halted Relt mid-momma-joke. "We've wasted enough time as it stands. If the two youngest of our party could place a hold on their bickering, we should continue onward. Dawn approaches, and we have a boat to catch,"

Relt waited until Letho had walked some distance away before lunging up to Atzar. "Listen, kid, keep your bullshit attitude to yourself for the rest of this thing or I'll bust your idiot face with a rock and sell your fat nasty trash corpse to a creepy boner goblin, comprendes?"

"Charming. I'll see what I can do about it," Atzar retaliated before swanning off after the leader. Relt noticed that he seemed to be favoring one side as he walked. She filed that under 'potentially suspicious', and placed that file into her 'guys I hate' repository alongside such luminaries as Bilbo Skeetz, the guy who sold shitty skunk weed for like fifty percent over market price, and Richard Chughampton, president of the campus Young Republican group and owner of the world's most oily combover.

"If there is a silver lining to this business," Letho's voice boomed back along the path as the foursome approached the docks, "It is that we no longer have to make a detour to dispose of the evidence of our evening,"

"Hooraaaaay," Relt murmured weakly. The sound of the knife puncturing another human being kept flittering around her ears like a moth. She figured it might be better to stick with using her nightstick for a while, instead of the switchblade...just until her brain came to terms with the whole thing. The whole murder thing. The blood spill burn corpse murder thing.

Relt bit her tongue to keep from screaming, and trudged ahead as if going to the gallows.