Journey to the North

[Warpath]

The stone cannot know why the chisel cleaves it. The iron cannot know why the fire scorches it. When thy life is cleft and scorched, when death and despair leap at thee, beat not thy breast and curse thy evil fate, but thank The Builder for the trials that shape thee.

“Mister Flint,� one of the twins said. “Mister Talus wishes to congratulate you on a job well done…personally.�

Flint turned around slowly, stroking his beard just beneath the chin as he did. He looked from one twin to the other, and then back again, wondering which one was the talker. He couldn’t tell, but one thing was sure: a good poker face wasn’t in their shared genes.

“Splendid,� the brute said. “Will he be joining us out here?�

Flint indicated the crowded common room of the inn with one outstretched hand. The twins glanced at one another, and then quickly adopted gracious smiles. “I’m afraid not,� the talker said. He was the one on the right. “This meeting is to be an intimate affair, as the subject is quite delicate. Of course you understand.�

“Of course,� Flint said. He wasn’t smiling, and he let the tense moment drag for a moment. “Lead on,� he said at last.

The talker took the lead, but the other lingered behind. Flint squared his shoulders as he allowed himself to be escorted down a hall, through a locked door, and then to a guarded door. The man there nodded solemnly at the twins, unlocked the door, and then opened it to reveal a descending staircase.

“After you,� the talker said.

Flint did not hesitate. He took the stairs, and listened as the twins’ heavy footfalls followed him down. They had fifteen pounds on him, each, and at least a foot in height. It was hard to gauge because he was wearing his stomping boots, and any good stomping boot has a very thick sole. The guard closed and locked the door, and the light level in the cellar dropped. A single lamp hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, illuminating the dirt floor, and the wooden frame walls that held back packed earth. On the far side, opposite the staircase, there was an upraised well full to the rim of black water.

Otherwise, the room was empty.

“Yes,� Flint said, offended. “A personal touch is clearly very important to Mister Talus.�

The talker punched Flint in the stomach wearing a set of knuckledusters.

He doubled over with a sharp wheeze, and the twins caught him up before he fell and dragged him over to the well.

[Warpath]

The twins dragged him, one on each arm, right up to the well. Gripping his wrists and shoulders, they forced his face down into the well water and held him there. Flint did not struggle, not yet. He closed his eyes and held his breath, and then he waited, urging himself not to panic.

I am fear.

He heard the confusion in their voices, but the words were muffled and distorted by the water. The content didn’t matter, the brute decided: they weren’t smart enough to react as they should. When a man without breath is being drowned and does not react, the clear answer is to kill him some other way, and quickly. Whether the man is taking an unlikely gambit or has some unseen trick up his sleeve is unimportant – safe is always better than sorry.

Flint curled his fingers into the twins’ shirts, and dragged his legs up under himself to push his boots against the edge of the well. Sometimes it was better to be short, and the twins were beginning to realize that they were not safe. Flint pushed with his legs and kept his arms tense, and surged backward away from the well. The twins were sorry, now, but it was too late.

There was a wooden beam suspended over the well, perhaps where a bucket could be suspended during drier times. The back of the talker’s head struck the beam with a disquieting crack, and his limbs went rubbery. The remaining enforcer put up a fight, but despite the difference in size Flint was stronger. He wrenched his arm free, slipped it under the twin’s, and then grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his head.

“This is why I shave,” he said.

Then he forced both men headfirst into the well and held them there no matter how desperately they struggled, until they struggled no more. Blood from the talker’s head clouded in the well water and swirled, making abstract designs around the brute’s wrists. He watched it for a long time.

[Warpath]

Flint was wiggling his fingers into the knuckledusters when he heard the cellar door open.

“Guys?” the guard called down. “Hey, how’s it going down there?”

Flint turned and looked over his shoulder, where two soggy corpses were leaning tête-Ã*-tête and facedown in bloody water. “Come see,” he called back.

The guard cursed and slammed the door, and Flint smiled to himself while he waited. He regarded the brass knuckles like a lady with a new diamond ring, pursed lips and all.

The door swung open again and the guard rushed down the steps. Flint raised his eyes, curious, and folded his hands in front of himself politely. The brute had a number of habits he’d fostered in himself, paranoid tics that routinely saved his life. One was to quickly note every object being carried by another human being in his proximity, and every object had a type: blunt, sharp, or irrelevant. He had a fraction of a second to glimpse the cudgel before the guard started swinging it.

Flint raised his forearm, fleshy side out. Had the cudgel been a knife, the bone side would have been best, since the radius would stop most knives and limit the blood loss. In this case though, the fleshy side was best. The meat and muscle absorbed most of the impact and, though it hurt, both the ulna and the radius went unbroken. He now revealed a second habit, nearly as important as the first: he did not express pain. Instead he lowered his arm and stared, unblinking. The product was fear, and fear - more than weapons or armor or all the physical strength in the universe - fear was the most important tool in Flint’s arsenal.

Fear made the guard hesitate, heart sinking. In that moment’s reprieve Flint struck, landing a solid blow to the man’s ribs. One cracked under the impact, and the guard doubled over. Flint grabbed him by the back of the neck and swung again, aiming to shatter a cheekbone. The knuckles struck the chin instead, and again he heard bone crack. Good enough. He dropped the hapless hireling to the dirt and left him there whining: a message to Radasanth’s underworld. They hadn’t known not to cross Flint Skovik yet, and now they did.

[Warpath]

Flint ascended the stairs, ignoring the blood that dripped and dribbled from the armored knuckles of his right hand. The door had been left open a crack, so he pushed it aside quietly and returned the way the twins had lead him. He didn’t know this man Talus – he didn’t even have a reputation, as far as Flint was able to glean from his few and as-yet unreliable contacts – so it was impossible to know if the inn remained dangerous. He had to hope he hadn’t stumbled onto the bad side of Radasanth’s answer to Swanra’ann, but it didn’t seem likely. When the Queen of the Pit wanted someone dead, she sent more than three hapless hoodlums.

So, all things considered, Flint felt pretty good about the whole thing. He had taken the first step to establishing himself in Corone, and now the work would inevitably come to him. He pointedly tried to avoid thinking beyond that eventuality. Radasanth was a new playground, but it couldn’t be home. If he stayed, he would cross paths with Luned again, and the little scribe made things…confusing.

It had only been a few weeks since he’d left her home in Radasanth, and thus only a little longer than that since they’d narrowly made their escape from Ettermire (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25044-Child-of-Darkness). He thought about how close he’d come to death, and of the monsters still out there: Swanra’ann, an ancient criminal mogul-queen who wanted him dead, Aurelianus, a twisted psychopath who he now owed an ill-defined favor to, and not least of all Helethra, an angry mutated child whose mother he’d murdered. So much had gone wrong in Ettermire, so many ghosts eager to come back and haunt him.

If not for Luned he’d be dead, and that made him feel guilty. He could have repaid her with the vial he now carried in his pocket – an otherworldly substance she’d suffered for – but he hadn’t. He’d chosen to be selfish instead, and in the process he’d chosen to keep this life of dank cellars and drowned men. Choosing peace meant losing Luned, he told himself, and yet here he was avoiding her. Women like Luned had no place around men like Flint. So why hadn’t he given her the vial?

Flint sneered and shook his head, chasing away all thought. Luned made things confusing. Hurting people, building a reputation as a bruiser, making money, these things were simple. That’s what he’d focus on.

He nodded and muttered to himself as he rounded the corner and entered the common room of the inn, and only then did he realize the place was completely silent. He stopped dead in his tracks, and tightened his fingers around the knuckles. This room had been bustling not fifteen minutes ago, and now it was deserted.

Deserted, except for one table, where three men sat facing him.

[Warpath]

“Talus, I presume,” Flint said.

The man in the center smiled affably and held his hands out as if to say, in the flesh. Talus was a tall man, narrow but athletically built, and effortlessly charismatic. Even before he spoke, Flint recognized in him the ability to sway the hearts and minds of the people around him. His smooth-shaven face was warm and expressive, and it was easy to empathize with whatever expression it affected. His easy confidence in the face of a proven murderer, and the ability to clear out an entire common room during happy hour, revealed him as a man not to be trifled with. And yet, somehow, he did not seem dangerous. Flint didn’t feel threatened.

“And what name do you prefer?” the man to Talus’ right asked. “Stone was it? Boulder? Little Mountain? You don’t look so hard to me. To me you look like a little white ape. King of the Apes.”

“Shasande,” Talus said, holding his hand out soothingly. His voice was a deep baritone, amused but also gently chiding. “Don’t antagonize the man.”

“I like him,” the third man declared after taking a giant mouthful off a leg of turkey.

“There is nothing you don’t like, Bor,” Shasande said accusingly. “That is why you’re here.”

Bor shrugged as he chewed. He was a big man, too wide to be thought athletic, but the weight made him solid rather than shapeless. Bor was easily two heads taller than Talus, who was himself more than a head taller than Flint.

“Hush now, my friends,” Talus said. “Let me talk business. Please, Flint, come sit.”

“I feel like standing,” Flint said. “I don’t want to get water everywhere.”

Talus chuckled good-naturedly. “Don’t be sour about all that. We’d done our research, but we had to be sure Ettermire hadn’t reduced you. It was a simple test, and you passed.”

“And if I’d failed?”

“It seemed unlikely they could kill you. In the worst case scenario the fight would have taken more out of you than it did, and you would have been shown to be unsuitable for our needs. And would that have been so bad? You would have learned as much about yourself as us.”

The brute looked between the three strangers one by one, weighing the queer situation he found himself in. “Okay,” he said at length. “Why test me?”

“The ape finally comes to a valid line of questioning,” Shasande said. “Astounding, there is a brain behind that Neanderthal brow. I suppose I owe you a day’s ration, Talus.”

“We have a proposition for you,” Talus said, ignoring his companion. “My compatriots and I intend to partake of some revelry tomorrow night and, well, we expect things to get out of hand. We need someone to keep an eye on us, to be our eye of the storm. We need a bodyguard we can trust to stay above the nonsense. Somebody sober.”

“A fuddy-duddy,” Bor offered.

“I’m better at breaking bodies than I am at guarding them,” Flint said.

“Luned Bleddyn might say otherwise,” Talus said.

Flint narrowed his eyes. “You know Luned?”

“Oh, no, don’t misunderstand me. We know of her, but we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. I’m sure she’s quite lovely though.”

The brute tightened his fingers around the knuckles, eyeing Talus critically. Were they threatening him now? Using Luned to compel him?

“No,” Talus said, as if he could read Flint’s mind. He held out a placating hand. “I only mean to demonstrate familiarity with your history. We have extensive means of learning, and we have turned those means toward finding the ideal employee for this task. The job is simple and, compared to your recent exploits, exceedingly safe. Suffice it to say that our situation is delicate, and we wish to place ourselves in a very indelicate environment. Thus, we’ll need a handler. You will be compensated generously.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t start with that line,” Shasande said.

“He’s not a pawn to be moved, Shasande. He’s to be our friend.”

“Wanna arm wrestle?” Bor asked Flint.

“I will befriend no ape,” Shasande said.

“Fine,” Talus sighed. “He’ll be a friend to Bor and I, and an employee to you. What do you say, Flint?”

“How much are you paying,” Flint said, “where are we going, and when do you need me to be there?”

[Warpath]

Every fop, bootlick, and toady of Radasanth converged upon a riverside manor as the sun descended over the city. The house stood stately, settled into the side and ascending an emerald hill. A pair of marble staircases reached out from the house proper like arms embracing a grassy, circular yard, which opened up into a rocky beach and the long dock extended from it. Paper lamps had been released upstream, and continually drifted past the house, which was throwing off its own inviting firelight from its multitude of windows.

Flint hated what the manor, the party, and the attendees symbolized, but he was also quietly impressed. Everyone was beautiful and beautifully dressed: the women were works of art draped in precious stones with their hair like silken sculptures, and the men wore jackets cut to perfection in colors of every subtle tone. Tassels, ties, frills, and ribbons abounded. Naked men and women of impressive physique wandered amongst the guests painted silver and gold, and they tirelessly carried platters covered in food Flint didn’t have names for. He envied their freedom to walk barefoot in the grass.

Talus had supplied formalwear to the brute without any talk of measurements or a tailor. Despite it all, the suit was a perfect fit and was, by far, the finest set of clothing Flint had ever had the displeasure of donning. His mysterious employer and his companions were similarly attired, though their outfits were finer by degrees. Talus was regal in a long red great coat embroidered in gold; Shasande was dapper beneath a top hat and behind a monocle, and Bor’s girth was accented by a tremendous fur-lined tailcoat and a cravat big enough to strangle a horse with.

A tall gentleman stood on the veranda overlooking the yard, precisely where the two staircases met. Beside him was a voluptuous, ageless blonde in a sheer, shimmering dress looking every bit the goddess, and she smiled down upon the throng with all the benevolent grace necessary to cement the notion. The gentleman raised his hands in greeting and spoke loud and clear.

“I am Nathanial Festian,� he declared, “and it’s with joy and excitement that I welcome you into my humble home for a night of profound merriment and sacred celebration. Please be my guests.�

“Festian,� Flint muttered. “Why do I know that name?�

“Poor Ape,� Shasande sighed. “How you get by will forever be a mystery to me.�

“Perhaps you’re thinking of Leeahn Festian, the Commander of Radasanth’s City Watch,� Talus said. “He’s our host’s brother.�

“Fuck,� Flint sighed.

[Warpath]

Flint’s trepidation melted away quickly once the party moved inside. A party is a party, gilded or no: people got drunk and said and did stupid things, and soon he passed unnoticed amongst the multitude. The mysterious trio spread out throughout the room but remained in sight: Shasande stood with a large group of men by an Aleraran clock debating politics, Talus stood near the foot of a tremendous staircase entertaining a small crowd gathered around him in a semicircle, and Bor settled himself in next to a table of hors d’oeuvres. To Flint’s surprise, Bor attracted a gaggle of tittering women, and had a gold-painted serving girl on his knee. She was blushing so bold that it was obvious even beneath the paint.

The brute, in turn, stationed himself at the bar. It seemed that Nathanial Festian, whoever he was, was taking his job as host very seriously. The party was centered in the vast main hall, where Festian apparently commissioned a very fine and fully-stocked wooden bar to be constructed for the occasion. The fixture was of such quality as to be considered permanent, but Flint had no doubt that it would be dismantled as soon as the party was over.

Early on, Flint purchased an entire bottle of Salvic vodka on Talus’ tab, and promptly dumped it out in a tin bucket behind the bar, ignoring the tender’s objections. He then filled it with ice cold water and paid the tender to serve him only from that bottle, paying for each glass as if the liquid hadn’t been switched out. The people around him got inebriated and as long as he kept sipping, they didn’t wonder at his presence. He endured drunken flirtations from men and women alike, but kept his employers in sight.

An uneventful hour passed, and the brute began to relax. Talus had been right – this was the easiest and safest job he’d ever taken. He was seriously considering a permanent switch from thug to professional bodyguard when someone spoke up behind him.

“Excuse me, sir,� came the voice, warm and friendly, “have we had the pleasure of meeting personally?�

Flint peered over his shoulder disinterestedly. “No,� he said curtly, just as he had to every previous suitor, from effete men to plump women, but this one was neither. This one was Nathanial Festian.

The brute cleared his throat and turned himself around, standing up straight and stepping away from the bar. “No, Mister Festian, we haven’t yet…�

“Oh, Nathan,� Talus called out, scarcely concealing the panic in his eyes as he edged away from his audience. “I see you’ve met Mister Flint, he’s uh…�

Nathanial looked from Flint to Talus, cocking an eyebrow and steadily tensing his shoulders.

“I’m a good friend of Mister Talus,� Flint said, grasping Festian’s hand and giving it a firm shake. “We became acquainted in Tirel, being mutually familiar to Vasily Dmitriev.�

“Ah, a Salvarman! Why, Talus, I had no idea you were so widely traveled,� Nathanial said, smiling brightly. “I have heard of Vasily Dmitriev. He’s a noble of some renown, isn’t he? A great merchant-lord, if I’m not mistaken. Yes, I think my father had some dealings with him.�

“Of course,� Flint said. “Lord Dmitriev is a great patron of the arts, and has of late developed an unhealthy obsession with certain Radasanthian sculptors, particularly your John Desmond. As a matter of fact, Talus and I were attending one of Vasily’s little fetes a few years ago before this civil war nonsense and he made mention of his friends in Radasanth. He made claims about the parties here that had us laughing, I hope you don’t mind my saying so. I am pleased to say that he has proven me quite wrong. You throw an impressive gala, Master Festian. I am humbled to have been invited.�

“Not at all, sir!� Festian declared. “In fact, consider me humbled, to be visited by such a distant friend! I apologize that I hadn’t known you, though I should have. I hope it’s not offensive for me to say so, but the way you keep your hair shorn reminds me of another Salvarman I met some time ago. Aleksandr Sergeevich, do you know him? He kept his head quite like you, I should have guessed at a shared heritage.�

“Alek, of course,� Flint said, beaming. “I hope it is not too shocking for you, I forget all about it. After all, it is very cold in Salvar, so it is easy for us mad northmen to feel a little overheated here in the south. I fear we don’t have your southron constitutions.�

“Oh, not at all! I hesitated to mention it but, well, it’s so striking! My wife was mentioning it, in fact. A moment?�

“Of course.�

Nathanial turned away and began to wave at someone in the crowd, and Flint glanced over at Talus. The man was tense, gripping the sleeves of his coat. He spared a glance toward Flint, but as a new figure approached his attention was entirely stolen.

The brute couldn’t blame him. It was one thing to behold a goddess from a distance, but to be in her presence was thoroughly terrifying. She was like a living statue, supple yet truly and effortlessly flawless – easily the most gorgeous human being Flint had ever laid eyes upon. Despite his best efforts to remain focused, she stole his breath just by laying her eyes on him while she approached, and only now did he realize how tall she was. Her dress was devil-made, surely: it was sheer, offering a tantalizing suggestion of the body beneath while revealing absolutely nothing and it seemed in perpetual danger of slipping off of her. It was impossible to determine how the thing was held up.

Even if not for the shimmering diamond ring on her finger, she was too beautiful to be attainable. This was the kind of woman gods stole from the earth.

“Have you met Victoria?�

“Huh?� Flint said. “I mean, no.�

“Hello,� she said, smiling.

“Hi,� Flint and Talus said in unison.

[Warpath]

“That was…unexpected,� Talus said after the host and his spouse moved on. They were seated at the bar again, and Flint was rubbing his face. Maintaining a convincing smile always made his face ache.

“I’m full of surprises,� Flint said.

“I apologize. I was trying to ensure that you would be free to do your job without interruption, but I was…distracted.�

“I saw that.�

Talus opened his mouth, stopped, closed it again, and thought on that. “I have cultivated a close friendship with Master Festian. The closest I’ve ever had with a human being. I have a blind spot for him and his family.�

Flint waved his hand dismissively. “I can handle myself with the upper crust.�

“Yes, well…do you really know Vasily Dmitriev?�

“I did,� Flint said. “I pulled his tongue out through a hole in his throat. We were very close.�

Talus was flustered at that, glancing at the partygoers surrounding them nervously.

“Relax,� Flint said, sipping his water. “They’ve been taking turns sneaking off to lick drops of niphena off the help. I don’t know what they’re seeing or hearing, but it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than my misdeeds.�

Talus watched the woman immediately to his right for a long moment, until she finally started laughing a little too boisterously at her companion’s joke. Sure enough, her tongue was silver. “Well,� he said, “to each their own.�

Flint shrugged. “Go back to your party. I promise not to regale your host with any true stories while you’re gone.�

Talus patted his bodyguard on the shoulder appreciatively and then he did as he was told. An excited chatter went up as he positioned himself for his audience once again, and apparently the addition of an opiate only served to increase his charm in the eyes of his admirers.

[Warpath]

The hours dragged on, and the revelry grew more chaotic until it struck a ceiling of propriety. The paint-clad servants prevented amorous couples from sneaking out of the hall in search of more private locales, and there was nothing to break but glass-wear – a distant threat, since the drug of choice had shifted away from alcohol and toward more illicit things. Everyone became a little bit more insistent with their come-ons, but Flint had the unique advantages of sobriety and great physical strength. When a young lady tried to nuzzle up to his neck, he sat her firmly down in the seat beside him and gave her a stern look, and there she stayed like a scolded child.

It was about that time that Flint noticed Victoria Festian steadily making her way across the room on a social tour. Her path would soon bring her fairly close to the bar, so the brute decided to relocate. Even from across the room she distracted him from his duty, and she made him as inarticulate as a schoolboy in conversation, so he abandoned his perch and repositioned himself near Bor with his glass in hand.

“Try this,� the rotund giant said, offering what looked like a chunk of lobster wrapped in cheese.

Flint ate it obediently. “It’s good,� he said. “I think she’s had enough.�

He pointed at the serving girl on Bor’s knee, who was now sprawled out unflatteringly against his belly. Closer examination revealed plenty of tongue-shaped holes in her paint, and the skin beneath was pale. She was out, and Flint wondered if small amounts of niphena could be absorbed through the skin.

“Yeah,� Bor sighed. “We only did it twice, too.�

“Oh.�

“I think we’re just about done here.�

Good, Flint thought. He was getting bored, but he thought it unprofessional to say so.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention!� Nathanial called out, standing midway up the stairs so that he overlooked the sprawling hall. He had to announce himself twice more before the revelers quieted down enough for him to make his proclamation heard.

“Told ya,� Bor said while nibbling on a cracker. “Finally.�

“I thank you all so much for coming,� Festian was saying, clasping his hands in front of him and then shaking them at the crowd once for emphasis. “This has already been a night to remember for years to come. I’ve reconnected with so many old friends, and gained so very many new ones.�

A cheer went up from the crowd, and glass broke somewhere.

“Hear hear!� Bor cried, raising the arm supporting the serving girl instead of the one holding his snack. When she tumbled out of his lap, Flint caught her, dragged her behind the table, and let her curl up against the wall.

“It’s with a heavy heart that I declare this party over,� Festian continued, “and thus we must bid farewell to my familial manse...�

“Stay close to me when the crowd leaves,� Flint told Bor. “I don’t want us getting separated. Let’s just get you home…�

“…and renew this celebration in the city!�

Flint’s jaw snapped shut and he raised his head, eyebrows up. The crowd roared this time, and ladies’ undergarments were thrown into the air, and Bor rubbed his gargantuan paws together in anticipation.

“Grab a bottle on your way out,� Nathanial shouted over the din. “You know where we’re going. Follow the lanterns, boys and girls!�

“Fuck,� Flint sighed.

[Warpath]

The over-advantaged youth of Radasanth spilled into the streets like an invading horde and unlike the Rangers, they were uncontainable and unrelenting. Flint had some knowledge of pub crawls, but this was something else. The party had a mind of its own, and went where it pleased no matter the impediment. The first tavern they came across was closed for the night, but they battered down the door, roused the keep from his bed by force, and made themselves at home. Complaints were silenced by coins, which were literally thrown at the first sign of resistance.

He was no longer bored. It was a struggle to keep his charges in sight, nevermind keeping them from harm. First he had to stop a fop from strangling Shasande with the chain of his own monocle, and that debacle was scarcely resolved before he had to roll a sleeping Bor off the tavern keeper’s daughter before she died of him. He put his eyes on Talus for a fraction of a second, and then, like a flock of birds abruptly changing direction, the party moved on.

The next place was a pub, which was still open when they arrived but too small to accommodate the crowd. The windows were shattered and the door ripped from its hinges so that more people could cram in until it became obvious that there was no more space – even to them. Rather than move on or accept the street as an equally viable venue, the houses to either side of the pub were invaded and their inhabitants thrown out into the street and then peppered with coins as they screamed and cried.

Bor and Talus had been some of the first few into the pub, but Shasande had stumbled into one of the houses. Flint forcibly retrieved him, and by the time the cussing drunk was extracted the party was moving on down the street, and it was growing larger. Men and women in rags and sleeping gowns danced amongst their silk-clad betters. A middle-aged milkmaid was fumbling with a tax-collector’s belt in the middle of the road, and a teenage carpenter went running past stark naked with a giggling baroness on his back.

A street-dweller cornered Nathanial and Talus in the mouth of an alley, brandishing a knife at them, oblivious to the commons Nathanial tried to shove at him. Flint alleviated his frustration by punching the man in the back of the head, and thought to do the same to Talus, but the pair had already moved on. Bor was shaking a lamp post because a woman had climbed it and was baring one of her breasts at him, just out of reach. She fell and landed on her ankle with a sickening crack, and the crowd moved on without her while she wailed.

“What’s wrong with you people?!� someone cried from a high window overlooking the street.

“We’re alive!� someone cried back. “We survived war and the end of the world! What’s wrong with you?�

Somebody was trying to drown Shasande in a horse trough, and Bor downed a whole bottle of niphena at once and began to chew on his own boot.

[Warpath]

The party never did disperse – it was too chaotic for that, too organic. It protected itself like a living thing; consuming everyone and everything it encountered to fuel its own existence. It might have gone on forever if not for its ravenous greed, which caused it to spread its tendrils too wide too fast. It reached a critical mass, branches of chaos stretched too thin across the city streets until the bedlam stopped circulating upon itself. The sun was rising and the streets were quiet, littered with evidence of the otherwise unbelievable.

“Quickly, quickly,� Shasande was saying, hurrying across the street. Flint followed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Some city watchman was blowing a whistle two or three streets over, and there was a thick column of smoke rising from the direction of the river.

They stepped over a sleeping reveler and entered a looted house through the shattered front window. There were bodies everywhere in varying degrees of undress, and the interior of the house reeked of a horrifying medley of bodily fluids, despite the gaping holes in the wall where windows once were. They ascended a staircase and navigated a cramped hallway. Shasande carefully stepped around sprawling limbs, but Flint was past caring. He stepped where he pleased and ignored the groans and squeals.

“I don’t think he’s…I didn’t know what to do,� Shasande said.

Bor raised his head, mouth gaping. There was confusion in his little eyes, a look of complete uncertainty. He was standing over a bed, where the mattress had half fallen to the floor. There were a pair of shapely bodies all tangled up there, one frozen in the process of tumbling from the mattress to the floor, the other half-draped over the bed frame. Flint narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, and he let the corners of his mouth droop.

Talus and Victoria Festian were naked together, and the smell of sex permeated the room. The sheets were tangled up with them, preserving modesty here and boldly failing it there, and there were dozens of empty vials all around them. Her hair shimmered in the first light of morning, naturally smooth and pleasing and augmented by little gold flecks. Flint wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the flecks were actual gold.

They were both dead.

“Fuck,� Flint said, throwing up his hands.

[Warpath]

Flint stared at the corpses, struggling with a profound sense of regret and defeat – a sense that something intensely wrong had transpired and he was waiting for the evidence to change. A few short hours ago he’d been intimidated by the otherworldliness of Victoria Festian, and now she was a corpse. It was a tremendous waste.

“He’s gone,” Bor said, looking up at Shasande as if hoping the statement could be refuted.

Shasande couldn’t do it. Instead he just stared at Bor, wide-eyed.

A voice came from outside, shouting Victoria’s name, and Flint hissed under his breath, shoving his surviving charges away from the window. It was Nathanial, jogging down the street with a small gang of his fellows, still dressed in tattered finery. He called for her again, and alarm whistles sounded in the distance, growing ever-nearer.

“Check in there!” Nathanial said to one of his friends, pointing at the house.

“Go,” Flint said.

“But Talus,” Bor said, but Flint was already pushing him.

They hid in another room until Nathanial’s man found the corpses. When he rushed out screaming Festian’s name, the trio slipped down the staircase and escaped out the back of the house. When they heard the noble rushing in with his entourage in tow, they rounded the house and escaped up the street.

Flint took the erstwhile pair to his flat, which was really the highest level of an abandoned temple he’d appropriated for his own use. There was a single, huge, circular stained glass window there, looking out over the city streets. Shasande positioned himself there, staring down upon Radasanth while Flint changed out of his costume and back into his leathers. He slipped the stolen set of brass knuckles into one pocket, checked to make sure neither of his charges was watching, and then retrieved the Swaysong and put that into the opposite pocket. While he was neatly folding the formalwear and stuffing it into his rucksack, Shasande turned to Bor.

“We have to go back. If we just explain…just tell them that Talus made us desert, maybe they’ll waive the standard punishment.”

Flint paused, peering over his shoulder.

Bor shook his head. “That might work for you, but not for me. I burned my bridges, remember? More even than Talus.”

“You’re Rangers?” Flint said, scowling.

“What?” Shasande said, and then he twisted his face up in disgust. “No. Be quiet, your betters are talking.”

“You’re feeling better, at least,” Flint muttered.

“Different army,” Bor explained. “We’re not from Corone, we’re just…uh…visiting.”

“Hiding,” Shasande spat bitterly. “And now we’re without Talus. How can we possibly survive here without Talus? That selfish bastard, this was always about the girl to him. It was always Althanas, it had to be Althanas, and why if not for…damn him.”

“We all had our reasons,” Bor said.

“No, you two had your reasons,” Shasande hissed. “I didn’t want this. We have to go back to our holdings at the inn, take stock…”

“What?” Flint said. “No. You can’t go back there.”

“You have no authority over us, Ape,” Shasande said imperiously. “You failed in your appointed task. We no longer require your services.”

Flint shrugged. “Do as you wish, but if you go anywhere familiar to Nathanial Festian, you’re both dead.”

The pair stared, uncomprehending.

“Talus was just found dead in bed with his best friend’s wife…by his best friend,” Flint explained, “who is also closely related to the captain of the notoriously abusive City Guard of Radasanth.”

“Heavens,” Shasande breathed.

“I don’t get it,” Bor said.

“We were all seen in Talus’ close company,” Shasande said. “The guard will already be incensed because of the party; they will blame Talus for Missus Festian’s death. Talus is already dead, don’t you imagine they’ll find somebody else to punish?”

“Why us?”

“Because you’re Talus’ only family,” Flint said.

“You really think so?” Bor said, touched by the sentiment. Then his face drooped. “Oh, wait. That’s not good.”

“We’re destitute,” Shasande said. “We’re undone. We have to go back to the Host.”

“The Seekers will kill us dead if we try,” Bor said.

“So what do we do?”

“We get the hell out of the city,” Flint said bitterly.

[Warpath]

The trio pooled what money they had. They found that a majority of it had been recovered from the mad partygoers, but there wasn’t much to speak of. They stopped in a number of supply shops on the way out of the city, piecing together a respectable collection of traveling clothes, rations, and amenities. To Flint’s annoyance, Shasande and Bor insisted on finding and purchasing walking sticks, which were not, in fact, regularly sold commodities. He told them they could find sticks on the road, but they wasted their money anyway. Shasande bought a shovel and Bor bought a rake, and Bor, feeling especially infuriating, did not once use the rake as a walking stick. Instead he filled an old sheet with food, and then tied it to the rake to make a bindle out of it.

At that point, Flint began to wonder why he was traveling with the pair at all. By then it was too late.

By midday they officially set out, using the last of their money to charter a fishing boat to take them well up the Niema. Flint spent the ride sleeping away the rest of that day and then the night. Bor promptly ate everything in his bindle, and then spent the rest of the day speaking forlornly about the party, the women he’d met there, and the food he’d tried. Shasande stared out over the river sullenly, and did not speak. When morning came the fisherman insisted on dropping anchor and spending a few hours at the net, which delighted Bor, but not so much so that he could be convinced to pitch in.

When Flint decided they were far enough upriver, Bor insisted upon reloading his bindle with raw fish, which the brute refused to allow. They argued for half of an hour before Shasande sided with Flint, and by then the fisherman was so happy to be rid of them that he refunded a small handful of coins to get them off his boat.

They found a desolate country road and followed it east, and then Flint took a southern bend.

“That’s not the most efficient route,” Shasande called from the crossroads.

“I know,” Flint said over his shoulder, and he kept walking with Bor in tow.

Shasande sighed, looked heavenward for a long time, and then hurried to follow.

[Warpath]

A faded wooden signpost beside the road welcomed the party to Holmstock, which was somewhere on the civilization spectrum between village and tiny town. It was located right on a crossroads between four sprawling farm territories, and to Shasande it was unforgivably quaint. Bor was quietly observant as they strolled in, but when he spotted a tavern he began to beg like a bored child. Shasande was of the mind to resist, but Flint gave in immediately.

They acquired a corner table, and the brute demanded the door-facing seat. He ordered food, but his mysterious companions only asked for alcohol and spent the meal nursing their grief. They told stories of Talus’ cunning and prowess in battle, but their stories turned pointedly vague when Flint pried for details. They were certainly not Salvic, and even if they were Fallieni or Scarabraen, he knew of no major armies or wars in those countries – certainly nothing a man would call a ‘Host.’ The mystery remained.

“When was the last time you ate?� Flint asked Shasande.

“That’s none of your business, Ape,� Shasande replied curtly. The next time the serving girl passed close he ordered himself a meal though, and Bor ordered two despite being short four commons.

Mealtime came and went, and Flint ordered a variety of pointedly non-alcoholic drinks as the day stretched on. He showed no signs of moving on.

“Why Akashima?� Shasande asked at last.

“I have been meaning to visit for some time,� Flint said. “There are certain facets of that culture I am interested in exploring. I just wasn’t ready to leave Radasanth.�

“You mean the girl,� Shasande mused. “What did Talus call her? Lynnette.�

“Luned,� Flint corrected. “Don’t talk about her.�

“Why not?� Bor asked. “What does she look like?�

Flint went on watching the room, unblinking.

“Talus would always talk about Victoria,� Bor said sadly. “He was very descriptive.�

“Don’t say that witch’s name,� Shasande said. “She killed him, like a moth to an open flame.�

“She wasn’t a witch,� Bor said, “she was very nice.�

“No, she was vapid and untrue, a cruel seductress.�

“No, she was beautiful. It’s really very sad that she died.�

“I wish she’d done it a day earlier,� Shasande said. “Then we wouldn’t be in this mess.�

“That would have made Talus very sad,� Bor said. “He loved her very much. Remember? He said he wanted to die in her arms. It was very romantic.�

Shasande was silent for a long moment, lost in his memories. The pause finally drew a curious glance from Flint, who did his best to disguise it by sipping at a cup of milk.

“He seemed tired,� the brute said at last.

“He was,� Shasande said quietly. “It may be difficult for you to comprehend, but he was a very old being, and had seen so much. And you saw how…persuasive he could be, even without trying. He would just talk about his longings, and that would be enough to make you pine right along with him.�

“She was very pretty,� Bor agreed.

“I’m not talking about that, you idiot,� Shasande said, sneering. “It wasn’t just about the girl. He wanted something more than the endless war, despite being a creature of it. She encapsulated a dream of peace for him, another potential life, and that was the universal concept that appealed to us.�

Flint found himself nodding, thinking back to those weeks in Luned’s care and the constant longing to stay. Even now, he felt a pang of regret: he could have stayed. He’d constructed an alternate world for himself in his mind, one as a common laborer with a woman waiting for him – maybe even a child. That which seemed a life forbidden to him had suddenly seemed attainable, but he had walked away, and now he didn’t know how dangerous Radasanth was for him. What if he couldn’t go back?

“At least, it’s what appealed to me,� Shasande continued. “I don’t know what possessed you to abandon your duties.�

“What?� Flint said, glancing over at Bor. “I’ve only known this man for a few days, and I’m surprised anyone would even try to assign him duties.�

“He’s got a point,� the idiot said.

“You haven’t seen him fight,� Shasande said dismissively.

“I do like fighting,� Bor said thoughtfully. “But I like parties more, and lady-folk, and liquor. Did you know I met Talus in detention? I asked a Moon Lady to lay with me, and it turned out she was a general.�

“Of course you did,� Shasande said, rolling his eyes.

“Why did you desert, then?� Flint asked casually, pleased to be getting details out of the pair at last.

“Unlike my esteemed colleagues, I never enjoyed fighting. I am better suited to contemplation, perhaps even tactics. I didn’t care for this plan of celebrating ourselves, but I could have attended a university after, or found a monastery, or just…gardened.�

Flint narrowed his eyes. “Plan. You planned that riot?�

“It wasn’t a riot,� Shasande said. “Talus just wanted…� The strange man paused, thinking, and then furrowed his brow. “He planned it. He…oh.�

“What?� Bor said.

“The party, the girl,� Shasande said. “He convinced Festian to throw the party with talk of defying the civil war, but the goal was always to incite madness, and to seduce the Lady Festian in the chaos. You said it yourself, he wanted to die. He orchestrated his last night alive, and we were just along for the ride.�

Bor thought on that for a moment. “Well that wasn’t very nice,� he decided.

[Warpath]

Flint kept them in the tavern until the evening hours, but his companions could not discern the reason. They ate lunch there and ultimately had their dinner there too, and almost two hours after that the brute suddenly stood up to leave. Bor and Shasande followed.

Holmstock was too small and out-of-the-way to have a dedicated inn or flophouse, but they were told that a widow of indeterminate but undoubtedly prehistoric age rented rooms to nomads and itinerant workers for a fair price. With no other choice besides the gutter, the trio negotiated with the old woman for a single cramped room, one night only. They were still in the process of judging its value when Flint suddenly turned around and left, saying he’d be back later.

Shasande and Bor looked to one another, and then traded shrugs.

[Warpath]

There was a shack on the outskirts of Holmstock, a pile of wood planks with a door. The windows were long gone, and rather than replace the glass the owner opted to board them up. The roof was steadily failing, the shingles sloughing off like hair on a diseased scalp, revealing patches of fresher wood underneath where somebody was trying to stave off the inevitable. Man and nature were at war for that house, and nature was one good wallop from winning.

The man in question was a tall, lanky, grey-haired figure, and his clothes were for wool what the house was for wood. As the sun set over Holmstock, the old man hawked and spat while ascending the rickety, disconnected stairs to his home. He did not bother to close the door behind him, because the house was leaning forward on its foundations and thus the door swung closed on its own.

The brute watched from the shadows, and a cool evening breeze tossed dried leaves and grass shavings around his ankles. He was solid and oblivious, a marble sentinel, a chunk of flint cut right out of a mountain.

Just like Kentigern taught him.

[Warpath]

Flint pushed the door open some long moments later, and he stood in the frame. The old man sat upon a stained, flat, and naked mattress, which itself was resting on a rotting frame, all thin legs and missing crossbeams. Kentigern was almost unrecognizable, so emaciated that his watery eyes disappeared into their sockets. He had a beard now, long and wild and grey-white, and what hair he had was long and tangled. The top of his head was bald, but that old scar was still there.

“Who’s ‘at?” the old man said. There was a can and a knife in his hands; he had been in the process of carving it open for dinner. There were empty cans everywhere around the bed.

“Fear,” Flint said, nudging some of the detritus aside to step into the room. The door creaked slowly closed behind him.

Kentigern stared, mouth gaping, for a long moment.

“I ain’t got anyt’ing ta steal, I don’t,” Kentigern said, narrowing his eyes.

“You have your life,” Flint said, stepping into the light.

The old man stared for a long time. “I dunno yeh.”

“It’ll come back to you,” Flint promised. “Trust me. I hadn’t thought of you in years, either. Decades.”

“Lissen boy, I been a lo’ o’ places, seen a lo’ o’ fellers. Done a lo’ o’ t’ings.”

“Yes. And you survived it all, and came here. To…this. Is this retirement?”

“I din’t ‘ave many choices. Look a’ me. I’m not strong like I was.”

“Oh, you’ve forgotten,” Flint said, lurching forward. Kentigern tried to stab him, but Flint caught his arm at the wrist and squeezed until the bones shifted and he dropped the knife whimpering. Flint came close, his eyes wide and burning in the dim light of the shack. “There’s no man born strong in the world, Kentigern. You get strong by trying.”

The old man sniveled, and then his watery eyes widened. “Rauk?” he whispered. “Rauk s’at you, boy?”

“They call me Flint now.”

“Wha’ the ‘ell ‘appened to you, boy?” Kentigern whispered.

Flint stared for a long moment. His face was neutral, but all the hate and fury in the world was in his eyes. “You did.”

“I din’t mean…I din’t know…”

“Didn’t you?” Flint said. He pulled Kentigern off the bed by his arm and shoved him to the floor. The old man yelped as he struck the floorboards, and then he crawled through the empty cans, cradling his wrist to his chest. Flint watched him for a time, rubbing his fingers together. Kentigern’s arm had been so thin, so frail, like there was nothing under his spotted, wrinkled skin but pudding and bird bones. The brute gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs with the tip of his boot, but it was enough to topple him over wheezing, and then Flint bent down and hoisted him up effortlessly, and shoved him against the wall. His head lolled on his neck and he whimpered, tears running through the crags on his cheeks. “You didn’t know what slavers do? Where they take lost boys? What they do to the ones too slow and cold and hungry to keep up? Are you weeping?”

“Please,” Kentigern whined. “Please.”

“I said that, too. Do you know what it got me?”

Flint drew back his fist, and then threw it. Kentigern cried out, cringing away, but the brute’s fist had gone through the wall a few inches to the right of his head. His skull was still intact. For now.

“Rauk,” he blubbered. “Rauk ‘ave mercy. I did the best I could, I did. You gotta believe me, I did. I looked out for yeh, don’ you remember ‘ow I looked out for yeh?”

“How do you want to die?” Flint said.

“Oh no, oh please no.”

“That’s not an answer,” Flint growled. “Look at you. Look at this place. Everything you are now, you chose. I know exactly how I will die: bleeding, broken, scarred, alone. Screaming, if I’m lucky. You chose that for me. Don’t you think it fair I choose for you?”

“Please Rauk,” Kentigern whimpered, lips quivering. “Jus’ think a minute…”

“I have been thinking,” the brute said. “How could I not? Ever since I found out you were still alive, I’ve been thinking of just what choices I’m going to make for you.”

“Jus’ do it fast boy, jus’ do that for me.”

“No,” Flint said. “No, you get no mercy. It won’t be fast, and it won’t be easy. It’ll be slow and long and agonizing and humiliating, and you’ll go broken and alone. Are you ready?”

Flint released the old man’s shirt and watched him slide down the wall trembling, raising his large, frail hands to protect his head and face while he wept. Flint stood over him, flexing his fingers, and he waited. Kentigern curled up upon himself and braced himself for the inevitable. He tried to summon the breath to scream – maybe his neighbors would come before it was too late – but the air burned his lungs and he doubled over coughing, choking. When the fit subsided he peered out between his fingers, and tensed.

Slowly, so slowly, he uncovered his face and looked around the room, and stared at the dark corners. He was alone.

The door was steadily drifting closed.

[Warpath]

Shasande and Bor lifted their heads and turned toward the door, curious when the old matron started shouting. It was well into the evening now, and the woman had been very clear that she expected the lamps doused no later than an hour after sunset. Her shouting and grousing got louder and louder, and as the pair watched a long light stretched across from the room from under the door.

“It’s extra to check out early,� the old woman was saying.

The door swung open and Flint entered. “No,� he said, retrieving his rucksack from where he’d left it.

“It’s the rules,� she said. She was right behind him, holding a lit lantern high. The light made the deep crags of her face all the deeper, and her visage was terrifying for it. She was very angry.

“Say another word and I’ll take back what I already gave you,� Flint said.

“You can’t!� the woman shrieked.

“I can,� Flint said, pausing to look at her. When she saw his eyes, there was no room for doubt.

“How dare you,� the woman said imperiously, standing up very straight. She was still much shorter than even the brute. “I’m calling the constable! You can spend the night in the jail.�

“Call him,� Flint said with a shrug.

The woman’s mouth worked silently, and then she stomped off cursing as loud as she could. The doors to the other rooms began to crack open, and Shasande and Bor looked to Flint wide-eyed.

“Are we leaving?� Bor said.

“I am,� Flint said, already moving toward the door. The pair began to assemble their belongings.

“But we haven’t slept,� Shasande said.

“I am not stupid,� Flint said over his shoulder. “Neither of you have slept since I met you.�

Shasande looked to Bor, and Bor looked helplessly back.

[Warpath]

“Poor old Kentigern,� the goodwife said, pressing her kerchief to her lips while looking at the old man, concern in her lantern-lit eyes. Her husband nodded his agreement.

Kentigern sat on his stoop, surrounded by his neighbors, nursing a cup of warm tea. When he reached out his hand shook, and his eyes were watery with fear. How anybody could assault such a frail and innocent being was beyond the people of Holmstock.

“I told yeh, Isidore, I told yeh I lived a rough life ‘fore I came to yeh good folks ‘ere. It jus’ caught up to me,� Kentigern told the constable, who patted his shoulder.

“It don’t matter where you come from, Kentigern,� the constable said. “You’re one of us now, and we take care of our own. You know that.�

“Do yeh know where ‘e went?�

“Not yet. He was staying at Millie’s with two others. Apparently they breezed right out of town after he left your house. They got old Millie in a real tizzy. Seems they bilked her out of the full rate for their room. These are some characters, Kentigern.�

The old man nodded solemnly, sipping from his mug.

“Once the sun comes up, we’ll get after them. From the sound if it they were headed northeast, they can’t have gone far in this dark before needing to set up some sort of camp. We’ll catch up to them.�

“Nor’eas’?� Kentigern said, squinting. “Towar’ Akash'ma? Tell yeh what, Isidore, yeh le’ me at a pig’un tomorra.�

“A pigeon?� the constable said. “Is somebody else in trouble, Kentigern? If you think these guys are going after somebody else, I’ll double up on the search.�

“I dunno ‘bout that,� Kentigern said. “But I know I ain’t safe. Tha’ man’ll come af’er me, ‘e said so. No, I go’ a friend from the old life out there in Akash'ma, and ‘e owes me a favor.�

“Now Kentigern,� the constable said sternly. “I don’t want you taking the law into your own hands here. You let us take care of you.�

“Yeh done good by me, constable,� Kentigern said. “I ain’t gonna do anythin’ but ask for tha’ favor back. I jus’ wanna keep tha’ man away, and keep these folks safe, same as yeh.�

“Well, you think on that tonight, and if you still want one I’ll get you set up with a messenger pigeon first thing in the morning,� the constable said. “Now listen Kentigern, I’m going to leave John Mayes here to keep an eye over you tonight.�

Kentigern looked over at young John Mayes, a willowy boy with arms as thin as his club. Mayes had a newborn with his young wife, their first, and the young man had dark rings under his eyes already. Rauk had a hundred pounds on him, easy, and Kentigern knew well that no three men in Holmstock had what it took to stop that brute, least of all John Mayes.

“I thank yeh,� Kentigern said nonetheless, “truly, so much, I thank yeh. You do this old man kind, yeh do.�

The constable smiled and patted Kentigern’s shoulder, and he gave his own broken-tooth smile back. He only hoped John Mayes made a lot of noise when Rauk got him. He needed all the warning he could get.

[Warpath]

“This climb would be easier,� Bor was saying, “if we were on the road.�

Shasande was holding onto a tough sapling with one hand and helping Bor ascend a steep rise with the other. It was a job made more difficult by the idiot’s refusal to leave his rake behind, stuffed as his bindle was with pilfered bread. Flint did not wait for them, trudging up the hill alone.

“That won’t be an option, I’m afraid,� Shasande told him. “Our guide has seen to that.�

“Eh?�

“Flint,� Shasande sighed, picking up his shovel to continue the climb. “Flint is our guide. The ape.�

“Oh,� Bor said. “Right. Hey, why are they chasing us?�

Flint didn’t answer.

“I suspect the ape killed someone.�

“I didn’t,� Flint growled. “I should have, but I didn’t.�

“Why not?� Bor asked, huffing. They’d nearly reached the top of the hill.

“It seemed crueler to let him live,� Flint said, almost to himself. “I didn’t expect that.�

“I see,� Bor said.

“I doubt that,� Flint said, sneering.

Bor hesitated, screwing up his face in thought. When the other two realized he’d stopped following, they stopped to turn back and regard him. “Death is always an end,� he said at last. “To put an end to joy is a punishment, but to end suffering is a mercy. You had hoped to bring punishment, though it meant happiness for your enemy.�

Flint’s brow furrowed at that, and his eyes snapped to the side as new and uncomfortable thoughts occurred to him. He twitched the fingers of his right hand, as if struggling with the urge to strangle something, and then he grunted and turned, paused, and then continued ascending the hill. Shasande stared blankly at Bor, who hummed to himself and retrieved a morsel from his bindle.

“Thinking,� the idiot declared, “is hungry work.�

[Warpath]

The trio came upon a river almost immediately upon surmounting the hill, and it was too fast to cross. They trudged upstream in search of a place to cross, quiet and miserable as the layers of mud on their clothing compounded upon themselves. The trees grew denser and the way harder, and while Shasande and Bor felt it prudent to complain they kept it to themselves. Flint, light on sleep and short on patience, did not react well to it.

They eventually did spot a sturdy wooden bridge, but it was high above them atop a rocky ridge, and the incline was too steep to climb from where they were. Instead, they spent the better part of an hour going up and around, where they eventually stumbled upon a road. By that time they were scratched, sweaty, exhausted, and covered in all manner of weed, leaf, bramble, spore, and nettle.

“We should stop for lunch,� Bor suggested.

“No,� Flint said.

“Okay,� Bor sighed, and on they went, because it was a long walk back to where they saw the bridge.

Once they reached it again, Shasande remarked that up close it seemed a lot larger than it had from down below. This delighted Bor, and he took a long moment to look down the ridge to try and spot the place from whence they’d come. It wasn’t hard to find, and later Flint would mentally kick himself for not thinking more of that.

But as it was, he was mentally and emotionally exhausted and preoccupied with deep thoughts, so he only stopped a moment to rest while Bor played his game, and then he proceeded to cross the bridge. Shasande and Bor followed a short distance behind, commenting on the speed of the river below and the beauty of their surroundings.

And then, abruptly, Shasande called Flint’s name.

“I wonder if they’d like to share dinner,� Bor said at about the same time, and Flint raised his eyes.

There were five or six men gathered at the far side of the bridge, dressed in weatherworn leathers and rags, all sporting months’-old beards and sunburns, and they were armed. Flint muttered to himself and turned to peer over his shoulder, where distant figures were already converging on the road from the surrounding woods.

“They seem…uncouth,� Shasande said under his breath. “Should we be alarmed?�

Flint nodded, fastening his rucksack a bit tighter to his back. “They are bandits,� he said.

“Well, that’s fine,� Shasande said. “We don’t have anything to steal. What are you doing?�

“I’m getting ready to fight,� Flint said. “As should you. It isn’t stealing to them, it’s tribute, and we have nothing to give but our lives.�

“Oh,� Shasande said.

Flint tore his eyes off of the distant bandits to glance at his companion. “What?�

“I realize this is rather short notice,� he said, hesitantly, “but Bor and I cannot fight. For any reason.�

Flint stared.

“I would have told you sooner, but…�

“Come on, boys!� someone shouted from the far side of the bridge. “There’s nowhere to go! Come on down, let’s talk.�

“You have no choice,� Flint said. “They will kill us.�

“I realize that,� Shasande said, “but it simply isn’t within our power. I’m sorry, but there are far worse things than death, and we shall suffer them if we resort to violence. If we cannot solve this with words, I fear we will have to depend on you completely.�

“There are at least fifteen of them, and half of them are at my back,� Flint growled. “They have bows.�

“Perhaps we can work out some sort of deal,� Shasande suggested. “Talus…�

“Isn’t here,� Flint said. “The only leverage I would have in negotiation is my strength, and that isn’t sufficient. Our best chance is that they will underestimate us.�

“They will simply have to underestimate you,� Shasande said sympathetically.

An arrow appeared with a sudden deep thunk, wedged in the planks just behind Bor. They turned to look at it, and when they turned back, Flint was in midair, bounding over the side of the bridge. Shasande reacted with incredible speed, dropping his spade and lashing out to catch Flint by the rucksack. It was very nearly not enough, as the brute’s arms slipped out of the straps, but he twisted just as he fell into the water and grabbed hold of the rucksack.

“Let go,� he tried to yell over the rushing water, but it splashed against his face and forced him to close his mouth.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,� Shasande called back.

“No, you fucking…� Flint sputtered, roaring as a fresh surge of water attempted to force its way down his throat. “I didn’t fall, I jum…�

But the force of the water overwhelmed him and he lost his grip on the rucksack, and disappeared beneath the rapids. Shasande stumbled backward, holding up the rucksack dumbfounded.

“That’s not good,� Bor said.

[Warpath]

“Perhaps,� Bor said, “it is time to put a stop to our ruse. Perhaps the Seekers will be lenient.�

“Hush now,� Shasande sighed. “When have Seekers ever been lenient, old friend?�

They were tied to a pole stuck upright in the mud, back-to-back. It was dark and late, and they were both mentally and emotionally exhausted. Just when one bandit grew tired of endless interrogation, another one showed up with all the same questions, and despite appearances and general dearth of literacy they were relentless in their pursuit of knowledge.

While Shasande had expected a camp, the reality was more impressive. His understanding of highwaymen was limited to stories and common talk at Festian’s parties, but the truth was more…mundane. They were people, he saw now, crude but common, hardened by their lot but no less human for it. They didn’t crouch in darkened caves chewing bones, but lived in what was essentially a village, some in shacks and others in tents. They had families, wives and children and neighbors, and when they gathered around campfires it was to laugh and share.

These creatures were so varied, so complex, so fascinating. He was beginning to understand why Talus watched them with such admiration – why he chose to die as one.

He was beginning to feel sad about his loss when a blessed distraction emerged from the underbrush, looking surly. Now he felt a bit nervous.

“Oh good,� Shasande said with the best, truest smile he could muster. “Look Bor, Mister Flint survived his fall. We’re very happy to see you.�

“We really are,� Bor said.

Flint stopped and stared at them, shoulders still and square. He’d never looked a happy man, but now he was most certainly cross. The thought occurred to Shasande that he and Bor had put upon the man somewhat since they’d met him, and part of him worried that Flint might actually raise his voice at them.

“Don’t hit me,� Bor said. “It’s Shasande’s fault, he’s so stupid.�

“I am not stupid,� Shasande hissed. “How dare you. Stupid!�

“Where is my rucksack,� Flint growled quietly, crouching down nearby. This close, Shasande saw that he was flecked with mud and covered on the arms with small cuts, but his skin was much cleaner than the last time they’d been together. His time in the river had done him some good, it seemed.

Shasande thought better of saying so, just before he was going to say so. Instead he took a moment to think and considered the brute’s face, and his current predicament. “I don’t think I should tell you until you untie us,� he said quietly.

“What?�

“I um,� Shasande said, suddenly interested in his boots. “I said I would be happy to tell you, but if you could kindly untie us…�

“I will begin breaking your fingers,� Flint said.

“Now there’s no need for…�

Flint grabbed Shasande’s shoulder with one hand and began reaching in behind him with the other, and the skinnier man yelped and began to wiggle. “It’s in the tent! It’s…stop, it’s in the tent!�

The brute relented in his pursuit of fingers to break, albeit reluctantly, and instead moved to his feet with a pained grunt. His time in the river hadn’t been all good, it seemed. Without another word to either of them he stalked over to the tent nearest them and slipped silently inside. After a very long time he emerged, slipping the straps of his rucksack over his shoulders with a grimace.

Then he began to walk away.

“Flint. Flint. Flint!� Shasande hissed, beginning to slam his heels into the mud with wet slaps. “You can’t. You can’t leave us, dammit!�

“You can leave just Shasande,� Bor said. “That would be okay. You and me though, Mister Flint. You like me! Everybody likes me.�

Flint kept on walking.

“I will wake this whole gods-damn village,� Shasande said, already louder than he should have. Flint hesitated, and then stopped. He took a deep, steadying breath, and then walked back over to the pair.

Shasande felt a subtle chill as he watched the man, concerned suddenly that Flint could do something else to ensure their silence. Instead, the brute took hold of the strips of rope that bound them and snapped them, one by one, until they were free.

Flint did his best to walk away from them, to march away too fast to be followed, but they slid and stumbled after him on stiff, aching legs, and the trio disappeared into the night.

[Warpath]

They had emerged from the hills and entered the wide grass flats over night, and now that the first suggestions of sunlight were beginning to show on the horizon, Shasande looked back. The hills were far, far behind them, and the river branched and split in two places, and the water began to shimmer.

“We should take a moment,� Shasande said. “We’re tired.�

Flint marched on for awhile as if oblivious to the words, as silently angry as he’d been since the bandit village. His rage made him indefatigable, unstoppable, and he walked as if he hated the earth and his boots could pummel it to dust given time.

“Flint.�

“No,� the brute growled, turning at last. His arms came up, tense and iron-thewed, and he railed on them. His jaw worked soundlessly for an uncomfortably wordless moment, and then the anger poured out of him behind a pointed finger. “You’re not tired,� he roared. “You’re not because you don’t sleep. You don’t hunger, you just eat, you don’t rest, you just wait. You don’t act, you just watch. Don’t tell me you’re tired, don’t lie to me. I don’t know what you are but you’re not tired.�

Shasande stared wide-eyed, and Bor did his best to disappear behind a shorter and much thinner man.

“You ruined everything,� Flint sighed. “Everything, and you do nothing to help me. You lie and you hang on me like leeches.�

“You were the one that caused that,� Shasande said, pointing straight back at the hills. “They came after us because you assaulted an old man. They were going to sell us to the town because of you. That’s not our fault.�

“We wouldn’t be here if not for you. Anything that happens to us out here is your fault!�

“You were the one that dragged us out of Radasanth!�

“If not for me, you’d both be dead or rotting in a cell, waiting to die.�

“Talus brought us here,� Bor said, holding up one large hand. “Talus compelled us to leave our posts. Talus brought us to Radasanth, and compelled Flint into service, and incited a riot. Talus seduced Festian’s wife, and quit his life with her, and Talus’ actions drove us all out of Radasanth and into the country. Neither of you are to blame for this.�

Shasande and Flint stared at Bor for a long moment, the former’s shoulders drooping, the latter panting as he mastered his emotions.

“Can you not see that?� the rotund giant said. “How can either of you not see it? We are where he wanted us to be. We are going where we were intended to go.�

“What are you saying?� Shasande said, sneering. “We’re here because Flint…�

“…happened to hear that a man he thought was long-dead was, in fact, alive, and not far from where he found himself, immediately after Talus died?�

Shasande’s eyes wandered as he considered it. “I’m sorry,� he said at last, after a very long moment of consideration. “I am so sorry we’ve done this to you. I am sorry for the part I’ve played, the events I helped put into motion. The possible life I took away from you.�

Flint narrowed his eyes.

“We didn’t choose you because we knew your history, as impressive as it is. We didn’t choose you because you were a rising name in Radasanth. We chose you because of what’s in your pocket,� Shasande said.

Flint took a cautious step backward, glancing between the pair.

Bor shook his head. “You’re in no danger from us, Flint,� he said. “It’s just, you can’t carry stuff like that around without drawing some attention to yourself. It isn’t meant to be loose in the hands of…well, people like you.�

“Who are you?� Flint said. “What are you?�

“We can no more tell you that than we can bring our strength to bear, I’m afraid,� Shasande sighed. “The obscured truths we provide you will have to suffice, Mister Flint. Know that we’re more than what you’ve seen, and less, and that we’ve given up much to walk as you walk.�

“What do you know about Swaysong?� Flint asked.

“What is…? Oh, is that what you call it?� Shasande chuckled, shaking his head and looking exhausted. “I know everything about it. Or I did at one point, at least. I know enough now to say that it changed your fate, that the man you might have been is lost to you. I know it wasn’t meant to fall into your hands, but now that is has you’re walking a new road.�

“The man I might have been?�

“The man in Radasanth, of course,� Bor said. “The dockworker, the one you’ve been dreaming of. The one you were fated to be, before that vial found its way into your pocket.�

“How can anybody know that?� Flint said. “How can anybody know what a man will do before he does it? What his choices will lead to?�

“We could, before Talus led us to this,� Shasande said. “Leave it at that. We both know what you were meant to do. We all know, because you saw it laid out in front of you when that possible future died and we saw it when Talus chose you. You were meant to fall in love with the girl, and change your ways far from Salvar. You were meant to work the docks by day and visit her library to woo her by night, and eventually, after too long because you hate yourself and you’re a fool, you’d let yourself experience some iota of humanity. You’d ask her to marry you, but by then she’d be pregnant with your first whelp. You were meant to die in Radasanth, old and happy and very, very human.�

Flint looked between them, his breathing shallow and his eyes wide. For the first time since they met him, he looked as young as he was, as frail and vulnerable and human as any other of his kind. They knew without knowing that they were seeing him laid bare, the first eyes to behold the boy he was since Kentigern decades past. He was afraid.

“I can go back,� he murmured finally, the statement almost a question.

“No,� Bor said. “I’m sorry. You haven’t been able to go back since you killed the twins.�

“Why would you take her away from me?� Flint said, the pain in his eyes. “When will I ever…who could see me that way again? Who could accept…�

Shasande shook his head again. “We can tell you no more, my friend. This path has been chosen, put in motion, and there are landmarks and scenes on it that must happen as they were intended.�

“Intended by who? You? Talus?�

“No, no,� Shasande said. “We never had such authority. No, we only saw the possibility of parts to be played, nascent dominoes we could put in play for our own purposes. No, I only saw how your fate could be diverged to align with ours. But Talus…well.�

Shasande nodded out past Flint’s shoulder. He slowly turned to regard what Shasande saw coming, and his brow furrowed.

“Talus saw more than we did,� Bor said. “And his plan is still in motion. That is why you cannot go back, Mister Flint. The only way forward is forward.�

There was a cloud of dust on the horizon, and dozens of hooves thundering across the valley.

[Warpath]

Penny was so excited she might die.

The circus had come to town almost a week ago now, and all that time she’d seen them building their tents and feeding their ponies. They were Akashiman, and the men had long mustaches and the women were painted all sorts of colors, and most of them had exotic almond-shaped eyes and straight hair as black as midnight. She’d never seen adults with so much verve and athleticism, and she dreamed every night of running away with them. She could feed the ponies.

The circus was open now, though, and Papa and Uncle Jonah were taking her to see the sights and that would have to do. A sweet smiling girl with very long black hair and a snake around her shoulders let Penny feed an apple to one of the ponies, and she saw a skinny man do a back-flip and somersaults, and one girl could breathe fire and she was only a year or two older than Penny herself. She asked Papa if she could learn to breathe fire and he laughed.

They saw a woman ride a horse in a hundred dangerous ways, standing in her saddle and turning herself backward and climbing across the horse’s belly while he was running as fast as he could, and once she dropped her scarf and hung from the saddle with one hand to pick it up again, all without the horse ever slowing down.

They saw weird things too, like a puppy with two heads and a lady with a beard, and a man with weird hands, and a man who they said was the tallest man in the world. She believed them, because he was almost twice as tall as Uncle Jonah and Uncle Jonah was huge. They saw the fattest man in the world too, and he was very nice and winked at Penny, and they saw the world’s smartest man, who wore half a pair of glasses and guessed everybody’s age and profession just by looking at them, and made mean jokes that made everybody laugh, but Penny didn’t get it.

Her favorite was the world’s strongest man, though.

The world’s strongest man sat in the middle of his ring looking mean, but Penny thought that maybe he was just sad. Anyway, there were a bunch of rocks there and they were all different shapes and sizes, and some were heavier than others, and all the men from town were invited to lift the rocks to see how heavy they were, and then the world’s strongest man would tell two of the men from town to lift a rock, and then he would lift it himself. Uncle Jonah wasn’t impressed by that though, and he lifted the rock by himself too.

Penny was afraid at first, because Papa told Uncle Jonah to knock it off, and the world’s strongest man didn’t think it was funny even though Uncle Jonah did. So the world’s strongest man lifted up an even bigger rock over his head, and then dropped it and stared at Uncle Jonah. The world’s strongest man was bald, which Penny had never seen before, and he had very angry eyes, but Uncle Jonah wasn’t scared. He picked up the bigger rock too.

Now the world’s strongest man looked like one of Penny’s brothers, and she was worried he might hit Uncle Jonah, but he didn’t. Instead he pointed at the biggest rock Penny ever saw, and raised his eyebrows like he was saying “Can you lift that one?�

Uncle Jonah started rubbing his hands together staring at the rock, and he rolled it around a little. While he did that, the world’s strongest man took his shirt off and stretched, and some of the ladies turned red and started giggling and being silly, and Penny never saw anybody that looked like that. At first she thought he was fat, but he wasn’t fat at all, he was just big, really big.

Finally Uncle Jonah lifted up the big rock, hugging it to his chest and grunting and spitting and cussing, and his face turned all red and he kept using his knees to get the rock up until finally he had it on his chest, and then the world’s strongest man came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Uncle Jonah’s middle, and then he lifted Uncle Jonah while Uncle Jonah was lifting the rock. He lifted him way up high, and Uncle Jonah shouted and dropped the rock because he was afraid, and the world’s strongest man put him down again, and for a minute it looked like Uncle Jonah was going to hit him.

And then the world’s strongest man lifted the biggest rock, and it was a lot easier for him than Uncle Jonah. It was so easy for him that he held it up above his head with one hand, and then he carefully picked up the next biggest rock and held that up with one hand too. He really was the world’s strongest man, he was even stronger than Uncle Jonah, which made Uncle Jonah really mad but it made Papa laugh a lot.

At the end of the night, Papa wanted to go home and Uncle Jonah started drinking, but Penny saw the world’s strongest man sitting on his rocks eating strawberries. She walked up to him and tried to think of what to say, but she forgot how to talk for awhile so she looked at him until he looked at her. He offered her a strawberry but she politely declined, even though she wanted one. It was rude to take things when you didn’t need them.

“I wish I were a boy,� she said.

“Why?� the world’s strongest man said.

“Because then I could lift up Uncle Jonah like you, and nobody could tell me what to do.�

“Can you lift that rock?� he said, pointing at a small rock.

She laughed. “Of course I can, that’s different.�

“What about that one?� he said, pointing at a bigger one.

“I think so,� she said. “But that’s a lot smaller than Uncle Jonah.�

“I will tell you a secret,� the world’s strongest man said.

“About how to be strong?� Penny asked, going wide-eyed.

“Yes,� he said. “The secret is that nobody is born strong, not even boys. The secret is that you get strong by trying, even when it hurts, and the more you try, the easier it is next time. The secret is that you’re not strong enough to lift your uncle yet, but you can be.�

“How?�

“You lift the biggest rock you can find over and over until you’re too tired to lift it again, wait a day to rest, and then you lift a bigger rock, and a bigger one after that.�

“Is that what Uncle Jonah did?�

“Maybe.�

“But you’re stronger than he is, and he’s bigger than you.�

The world’s strongest man nodded thoughtfully, and then said, “I am stronger than he is because at some point, someone told him he was not strong enough, and he believed them. Take a strawberry.�

She took a strawberry, and popped it into her mouth, and the world’s strongest man looked right at her like he was going to tell her the most important thing ever, and he did.

“Never let anyone tell you that you are not strong enough. You might not be strong, not yet, but you can always be stronger.�

“Even me?�

“Especially you.�

[Warpath]

Flint wandered back toward the common tent wiping strawberry juice on his pants, his shirt thrown over one shoulder. The circus folk nodded at him in passing, and he returned the favor, though he still didn’t know most of their names. It would be decades before he could fit in here. They were family, most of them having joined the troupe as children, and they’d grown up side-by-side, or watched one another grow up. Still, they hadn’t turned him out since they'd found him wandering the flatlands.

“Mister Flint,� one of them said, and Flint almost responded in greeting until he caught a glimpse of a monocle. He grunted.

“Enough of your childishness,� Shasande sighed. “Come, Bor and I want to share dinner with you. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.�

Flint relented. Strawberries were his dinner tonight, and had been the last three or four nights – it was not a viable diet to maintain his act, and the act was the only reason the circus kept him.

As he imagined, the chiefs saw fit to grant Bor’s ridiculous requests for food. The world’s fattest man needed to be full of something, after all, and they were doing a good job of stuffing him with turkey breast, ham, and grilled pineapple. Bor was so happy to see Flint that he stopped the pretense of eating to cut off generous slices, which he pushed at the brute every time a plate was finished.

“How long are we going to stay here, Flint?� Shasande asked at last.

“What a stupid question! Why would we ever leave?� Bor said, patting his belly.

“You can stay or go,� Flint said. “I’m going to stay. This isn’t the life you took away from me, but it’s a good one. I pick up rocks, and nobody gets hurt. I make children smile. I have a decent bed and food.�

“This is a limbo,� Shasande said. “You eat fruit and sleep on a cot. Your future is not here.�

“You’re wrong,� Flint said, stabbing a slice of ham emphatically. “I can fit in here, the way Miles did. He's not Akashiman.�

“Miles is a freak of nature,� Shasande said dismissively. “You weren’t born freakishly tall. You don’t have a deformity. One day your strength will wane, and then what good will you be to an Akashiman circus?�

“Miko is teaching me acrobatics,� Flint said. “I’ll be an acrobat. She’s…healthy. Perhaps I will marry her, have children with her, the way I was supposed to in Radasanth, before I met you.�

“Healthy?� Bor guffawed. “Healthy?! Miko is a fine dish to be savored. You know I love you, Mister Flint, but Miko is far too much for you. How can she think of poor Mister Flint when she has Bor’s attentions?�

“Yes,� Flint said dryly, “who could imagine a beautiful acrobat falling in love with the world’s strongest man when she can have the world’s fattest man.�

“Well,� Bor said, chewing on some turkey thoughtfully, “it’s alright. I forgive you for your lack of imagination. You have a lot on your mind, after all. Put little Miko out of it, though. I do not wish to see your heart broken.�

Flint grunted, glaring at Bor while he chewed.

“I’ll be moving on in the morning, then,� Shasande announced suddenly. “I won’t watch you languish here, chasing some dream of smallness. I don’t owe you my time.�

Flint shrugged. “Go where you want,� he said. “I have been trying to rid myself of you for months now.�

“Sixty-six days,� Shasande said, “since we became friends. Since Talus’ party.�

“We are not friends,� Flint said. “But thank you for the food.�

And then he stood up and left, and Shasande watched him go.

[Warpath]

Shasande did not leave in the morning, or the next. In fact, Flint had given up any concern of it happening a full three weeks before it actually did. He had spent the morning under Miko’s tutelage – climbing, that day - and was on the way back to his tent when he saw Shasande in his traveling clothes.

By that time, the circus had uprooted from the first town and moved to another, larger venue, farther east. This place had a bustling square with all manner of vendors throughout the afternoon, and Shasande was wandering between them buying up various goods. Flint watched him for a time.

“You there, I know you,� one vendor called after him. “The world’s smartest man! That’s you! Preparing for a trip, smart man? Surely you know all about blood flies!�

“Blood flies?� Shasande asked, looking concerned. “I don’t like the sound of that. What are blood flies?�

“They drink your blood! Terrible around here, this time of year! Terrible.�

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a blood fly.�

“Of course not! You’re in town. Blood flies avoid the cities and the towns, but they gather in buzzing swarms, right at sunset. A good-size swarm can set upon an undefended camp and drain a man dry in his sleep, if his fellows aren’t watchful.�

“What a dreadful place, this,� Shasande said. “Ghastly.�

“Well, don’t judge us too harshly,� the vendor said, “it’s just the place we live in, and of course we’ve found ways to keep ourselves safe. This extract, for example, painstakingly squeezed from the leaves of the saltweed plant. A few drops of this on one’s wrist and neck, and a single drop upon the tongue at bedtime – this will deter blood fly swarms.�

“Fascinating,� Shasande said. “How does that work?�

The vendor stared at him for a beat, then smiled wide. “Why, you are the world’s smartest man, aren’t you?�

“A silly title, that’s all,� Shasande said, waving dismissively, but he smiled all the same. “Suffice it to say that I pride myself on my intellect and my curiosity. One can never know enough, can he?�

“Indeed not,� the vendor said. “Let me tell you, you are as wise as you are sharp. As for the saltweed extract, it works by filtering into the blood through one’s skin. It makes the blood quite unpalatable for the blood flies. They can smell it on you, I suppose.�

“Well!� Shasande said. “It is lucky I encountered you. How much do you suppose I’ll need?�

“How far do you intend to go?�

“That’s hard to say,� Shasande sighed. “I may be on the road for some time. A few weeks at least.�

“That’s quite a walk. I suggest a bottle for every week, and since saltweed is rare it may be worthwhile to stock up. You may have trouble finding another salesperson with it in stock, and this is a bad year for blood flies.�

“Oh dear.�

“I’m afraid so. It is lucky I received a shipment just last night, since I expect to sell out by nightfall.�

“Well, how much?�

The vendor considered it. “Thirty a bottle, I should think, considering the shortage.�

Shasande raised his eyebrows. “Preparing for the road is going to be more costly than I realized,� he said.

The vendor squinted one eye at Shasande. “Look, I like you and I don’t want to hear about somebody finding your corpse out there, drained of blood. I don’t need that on my conscience. I’ll sell you a pack of ten for twenty a bottle; just to be sure you’re safe.�

“I am touched by your generosity,� Shasande said sincerely. “I accept your deal. Let me count out a little extra for your trouble, it’s the least I can do.�

The vendor held out his hand, smiling widely. The smile quickly turned to dismay when he found his hand caught by another, and twisted at an unnatural angle. He dropped to one knee squealing, and Flint stared down at him growling.

“What the hell are you doing, Ape?!� Shasande shouted, outraged.

“Shut up,� Flint said.

“Please!� the vendor squeaked, and Flint released his hand and shoved him to the dirt all in one movement. A couple passersby glanced over at the scene and looked away, shaking their heads. It was not the first time this vendor had been abused.

“You are not even a mile away from me and you are already wasting every coin you have on snake oil,� Flint said, disgusted. “After all your hollow talk of your superiority, of being something more than men, you are as much an idiot as Bor.�

“Don’t insult me. Don’t insult him. You don’t know what you’re talking about,� Shasande said imperiously. “You are an ape. You are a gnat upon an ape.�

“And yet I know better than to give my money to the likes of him,� Flint said. “You are weak.�

“I am no such thing!� Shasande thundered. “Do not mistake my lack of familiarity for foolishness, Ape. I’m not weak and you are not strong. You are adapted to this environment, and I am a stranger to it. I am a man in a minnow’s body, being told to breathe a puddle. Host damn you, Ape, you putrid sack of sloshing meat and bile. If I had half the…if I were half the…�

Flint popped open one of the bottles and sniffed it, ignoring Shasande’s tirade. He snuffed and tossed the bottle so hard it shattered. “It’s crushed weeds,� he said. “And there are no blood flies.�

“I thought we could depend on you,� Shasande said bitterly. “I thought you’d protect us. You’ve torn everything I’ve ever known to pieces.�

Flint shrugged and continued on his way back to the circus.

“Why are you even here?� Shasande said, but by that time Flint was too far to hear.

He looked down at the vendor, who was crawling away on his hands and knees.

“Why would you even help me?�

[Warpath]

Flint was surprised when he learned that the circus caravan had passed into Akashima two days earlier. There had been no gates, no walls, no fences or border patrols, and the cultural transition was subtle and gradual. It was only when he thought to pay attention that he realized the people and the architecture had been slowly changing from town to town. Still, even here there were the hallmarks of Radasanth and Serenti and Jadet: stone buildings mixed in with the wood, churches sharing town squares with koi ponds and severe shrines.

There was no hard line between what was Akashima and what was the rest of Corone, no matter how seemingly alien their culture. The brute decided he had much to learn.

It had been almost a month since Shasande had parted ways with the circus, shovel in hand. Flint had thought that the incident in the market would have taken some of the wind out of his sails, but Bor had come that night to share dinner, complaining of loneliness. They had become something of an odd pair since then, sharing meals and playing games of strategy. Skovik was beginning to think he knew nothing of this idiot, who was most certainly not an idiot. Bor seemed to enjoy an inexhaustible quantity of beginners luck when it came to chess, and no matter how much he spoke of his one-time companions he let nothing of substance slip. Flint had thought himself a masterful manipulator, but this hulking glutton managed to drunkenly stumble right out of every logical snare the brute laid out for him, no matter how clever the ploy.

Still, it was something to occupy his mind. Miko, while lithe and soft, did not think overmuch and thus had little of interest to say. And besides, lately she only seemed to wonder what Bor was doing or thinking when they were together. That the idiot might be right about her only reduced Flint's opinion of her more.

And besides: she was not Luned. That was an immutable and endlessly relevant fact, stubbornly refusing to be lessened by time. Always and inexplicably his thoughts went back to the mousy scribe from Radasanth, and when he wasn't careful he found himself again daydreaming about the man he could have been. It was a scab he couldn't stop picking at, no matter how much he tried to occupy himself. He was throwing himself headlong into his exertions today, pulling himself up from a tree branch with a small boulder tied to his ankles. The effort was distracting him well enough until he was interrupted by a timid voice coming from behind him.

"E-excuse me, sir?"

Flint grunted, let the boulder drop, and then followed it to the ground. He stretched his arms out to the sides with a sigh and turned to regard his guest. It was an Akashiman boy, fiddling nervously with a hat he held in both hands. He wore a pack and short leggings, and there was something lean and hard in his bearing. A runner.

"Are you Skovik Flint?"

Flint grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead. The runner was unpracticed with common, speaking slowly and struggling with the L in the brute's name. "I am Flint," he said.

"If you please, I carry a communication recently arrived. It is addressed to Skovik Flint. It is a mere common."

Flint eyed the boy critically. Commons were not so common in circus work, but curiosity got the better of him. He retrieved his rucksack from its place beside the tree, dug out a single common, and tossed it to the runner. The boy caught it deftly and it disappeared instantly, and then a neat envelope was retrieved from the pack and dutifully delivered.

Flint was impressed. The envelope was a fine specimen: thick, perfumed paper, with a wax seal the brute did not recognize. It looked like a locust, but Flint hadn't heard of anybody that claimed that sign. He shrugged. Easy enough to find out.

He ran his thumb under the seal until the fold tore, and then he slid the letter out. It was dated in thin, ornate text, and below said:

My Friend,

That this letter finds you well pleases me. That it finds you troubled is unfortunate. I know that the events of recent months have tried you, and I am sincerely sorry that I am responsible for setting you adrift. Know that my part in your suffering will soon be finished, but the job for which I hired you is not yet complete. Proceed immediately to the shrine in the town called Swohning. If you refuse, Shasande will die, and thus you will have failed in your appointed task. I have faith.

Your friend,

Talus

[Warpath]

Miko was giggling and feeding Bor whole pastries when Flint barged in. The girl squeaked and rolled off of the idiot, and he was big enough that she could hide herself completely behind him.

"Why is she naked?" Flint said, but he held up a warning hand before Bor responded. Instead, he handed the letter over.

"What's this?" Bor said while chewing, and he licked the fingers of one hand while he read. His chewing gradually slowed, and his eyes widened.

"Talus is alive," Flint said. "And he expects me to pull Shasande's ass out of whatever fire he has put it in."

"But..."

"He all but admits to manipulating us all, and he expects me to continue dancing to his tune just because he asks?" Flint spat, pacing back and forth in the glutton's tent. He kicked a necessarily sturdy-legged chair over.

"So you're not going to go?"

"Fuck no!" Flint shouted. There was a tiny squeak from behind Bor's rippling bulk. "I am no man's chess piece. 'My friend.' My 'appointed task'," Flint sneered. "He stole a life from me. He robbed me of everything."

Bor nodded. "And he died."

Flint closed his eyes for a moment, and then shook his head in disgust. "No, Bor, he...read the letter again."

"But it..."

"The gall, Bor!" The brute threw a half-full bottle of wine out of the tent. "To admit to being a deceiver and a liar, and to hand out requests in the same sentence."

"I think he's trying to say that Shasande is going to die if you don't go, in this part here," Bor said, putting his finger against the letter.

Flint stopped and stared at Bor, panting.

"The world's smartest man?" Miko said, popping up from behind Bor while wrapping a sheet around her torso. "He is a terrible person. Nobody likes him."

"I like him," Bor said.

"You like everyone," Miko said. "But not everyone is so kind and patient as you. I just mean, who would save him?"

Flint sighed. "His bodyguard." The brute turned and left the tent.

Bor stared after him for a long moment. "Oh!" he said at last. "I think he means we're going now, after all. That's nice. Do you know where my rake is, little Miko? Do we have any pastries left? Let's get them together, so I have a snack for the road."

"The road?" Miko said, frowning. "Where are you going?"

"It says here," Bor said, "that Shasande is in Swohning. Is that far?"

Miko giggled. "Silly man," she said. "Swohning is just over the hill. It's where we've been performing all week."

"Oh I see," Bor said, relieved. "That is very convenient. I'd still better pack some pastries though, just in case."

[Warpath]

The sun was low in the sky as Flint approached the shrine.

It was set apart from Swohning, where a forest of tall and well-trimmed trees abutted the town proper. There was a stone path looping into the woods, watched over by a long series of pristine red torii gates. The common sounds of the town faded away behind him, replaced by little but the wind, the ubiquitous buzz of cicadas, and the mournful cry of some distant bird. The path curved until it didn't anymore, and Flint stood at the apex of a hill looking down on the shrine itself while a cloud of pink-white lotus blossoms wound its way around him.

The shrine was humble, beautiful in its stark simplicity. Four tall stone walls surrounded a stout red structure on three sides, not unlike the torii gates. At the foot of the structure was a dais, upon and before which people left offerings and burnt incense. Perched atop the walls on either side were stylized stone dogs or lions, it was hard to tell, one with mouth gaping and the other with mouth firmly closed. There was a man leaning against the wall beneath the open-mouthed figure, hidden beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Flint rolled his head on his shoulders and sighed, and then made his way down toward the shrine. As he approached, the man lifted his head. He was Akashiman and dressed in the expected style: loose blue pants, tall-laced sandals, and a short brown tunic. He carried a curved Akashiman sword in his right hand, sheathed, and he made no show of bringing it to the ready as Flint approached. He did, however, narrow his eyes.

"Fate tells a strange story sometimes," the Akashiman mused in perfect common. "We are toys to her, and often she does not treat her playthings well."

"You get used to it," Flint said.

The Akashiman smirked. "Perhaps. What choice do we have, after all, Mister...Flint, is it?"

Flint grunted. "Do we know one another?"

"You are Flint, and I am Fo. Now we know one another, we two who fate treats so poorly. Though it seems she regards you lower than even I, whom I was given to believe she hates above all."

Flint let out a wry half-chuckle. "How lucky for me. Where is Shasande?"

"Who knows?" Fo said. "Not I. Who is Shasande?"

Flint frowned. "I am in no mood for puzzles."

"Nor I, though fate's jest grows all the more amusing to me. You did not come here seeking Fo, did you?"

"I have never heard of you."

Fo's shoulders shook with silent laughter, and he rubbed at a wispy moustache. "How sad for you," he said at last.

"I am not so sure," Flint said, annoyed. "I think I was doing fine before I met you."

"Oh, you misunderstand," Fo said. "It is not sad that you have never heard of me. That is my way. I take great care to ensure that nobody hears my name until it is time. No, I say that it is sad because I understand you have lived a hard life. Some might say it has been an unlucky one, and today I would agree with them. You are cursed, maybe. It would be better if you had been born on a different path. Better maybe if you had never been born, as it would have been better had I never been born. Don't you agree?"

"No," Flint said immediately.

Fo raised his eyebrows, surprised or impressed. "No?" he said. "What good is a life of so many winters, and so few summers?"

Flint shrugged. "Winter makes us strong. Look at you southrons. Your summers are long and your winters mild, but every storm is a tragedy. In Salvar, we weather storms better."

Fo scoffed. "What is good about strength? You misplace your pride. A man should be proud that he has been happy, and has made others happy. A man should die comfortable, with a straight back, without calluses. Would not a world without storms be a better place?"

"There would be no point," Flint said. "How does a man appreciate summer if he has never been cold? Would a blue sky be so precious without a grey one?

"Of course it would," Fo said, frowning. "One does not seek out suffering for variety, you fool. It is not for a love of change that we smile when the rain ends. It is relief."

"The relief is greater when the winter is longer and colder," Flint said.

"The sum happiness of man would be greater," Fo said, "if there were no winter. This is true."

"I disagree," Flint said with a shrug. "And besides, you argue as if happiness is all that matters. I would rather be strong than happy. A strong man is content in any weather. It is the weak man whose mood shifts with the wind."

"And you have contempt for the weak, don't you Mister Flint?" Fo said. "You, who threaten old men."

Flint frowned and cocked his head to one side. "Wh...Kentigern?"

Fo nodded slowly. "A mutual friend, it seems," the Akashiman said. "He sends his regards."

And then he pressed his thumb to the guard of his katana so that it slid an inch up in its scabbard.

[Warpath]

"Tell it again, Mister Sandy!"

The whole bar went up in a cheer, and Shasande sighed and let his monocle drop so he could rub the bridge of his nose. "It's Shasande, if you please. And which part would you care to hear again?"

The serving wench, who was now perched upon a farmer's knee, squealed in delight. "The part about Monkey riding the cloud! Oh, tell that one again. A monkey riding a cloud, can you imagine!"

"Well, no, he wasn't actually riding a cloud. I said he went down the waterfall as if atop a cloud. It's an embellishment, you see..."

"No!" the cooper shouted. "No, tell the part about the hog in the circus!"

"I called him a pig, actually..."

"I like the one where Monkey changes into a different person so he can go to the party, that's my favorite part," someone else said, from the back.

"No, he didn't ever actually change his face. I just said that we dressed him up so well that it was like he was a different man, unrecognizable. You know, I think you people hear only what you want to hear. You've turned my tale into something mad!"

"It's a strange one, true," the bartender said from behind Shasande, "but it's the best one I ever heard, too. Why'd you ever part ways with characters like that, Mister Sandy?"

"Well, I..." Shasande paused, and after a moment he frowned. "That, my friends, is another long story."

A thrill went through the assembled crowd, but Shasande shook his head. "And not one I'm telling tonight, I'm afraid, for it makes me curmudgeonly. Now if you will all excuse me for a moment, I need some air."

A sad groan followed, but the patrons slid out of his way as he made for the door. The sun was on its way down, and it was through great experience and practice that every bar regular turned his head away from the door as Shasande opened it so that the sunlight did not strike them in the face. Most of them were past drunk into hung over and were rushing toward drunk again, and not one of them was interested in a migraine.

Shasande was hardly onto the street when a tired man in a cap stepped into his path.

"Are you Sha...sandy?"

"Uh, yes, but no more stories today, friend."

"Stories? No sir, I got a letter for you, as it were."

"A letter?" Shasande raised a skeptical eyebrow. He'd been cheated three times a day on average up and down the road from Akashima, in increasingly clever ways, and he wondered what game this one was playing. Still, curiosity won him over. "A letter from whom?"

"Hard to say, sir," the apparent messenger said. "The letter is sealed, you see? It's a queer one, too, some kind of winged bug."

Shasande narrowed his eyes. "What did you say?"

"It's a bug, see?"

"How much?" Shasande said at once.

The man told him, and Shasande paid him without hesitation, and then snatched the letter away from him. He scarcely considered the envelope before tearing it open, and the paper within was crumpled and torn by the time he got it free and unfolded.

To Shasande, it said, My Closest Friend,

You were right. Our foreknowledge has always been a curse and it is only now, as mine fades, that I fully realize it. I feel profound grief for the knowledge that by the time you read this, you will hate the memory of me. Ignorance would have been a blessing, for I could have died never knowing. Alas, that was not to be. I am to be selfish. By the time you read this, I will have been selfish, and it is past time and beyond my ability to make it right.

I am so sorry.

Know that the friendship I share with you and Bor has been the single most important facet of my existence. My love for you both is great enough that I would have gladly served at your sides for eternity. Sadly, my love for Victoria brings me in conflict with eternity. I will miss you. I hope you will miss me, when the pain of my betrayal fades.

By the time you read this, I will have committed a great sin. I have set events into motion in an effort to counteract that sin. I must balance the scales, and Rauk is the key.

He is in a town in Akashima called Swohning. As you read this, both he and Bor face imminent death. Only your sacrifice can prevent this.

Have faith, as I do in you.

Talus

Shasande read the letter twice, and after a long moment he let out a single bark of laughter and blinked away tears.

"Are you alright, sir...?" the messenger furrowed his brow.

"Oh, yes," Shasande said. "It's just, I'll miss this. Humanity. Even tears. Especially tears."

"Sir...?"

"You may want to step away, friend," Shasande said with genuine warmth. "You are to be witness to something singular. I will not blame you if you want to run. Know that it will haunt you if you stay - your life will change."

"What are you going to do?" the messenger said, his voice small.

"I am going to shed this mask."

[Warpath]

The katana split the wind a hair's breadth out from Flint's nose, and he grunted as he leaned out of its path. This man Fo was as fast as he was insane: his blade was out of its sheath and in the brute's face in a fraction of a second. But this was not the first time an assassin of some skill had been sent for his head, and he was confident it would not be the last.

Flint stepped in to deliver his fist to the swordsman's face, but was again forced to step aside as Fo brought the blade up again in a deft slash. By centimeters, he missed.

"So I see," Fo said, returning his sword to a ready position, "why Kentigern did not kill you himself.

Flint scoffed. "When did you last see him? He is pathetic. A child could break him now. That is the only reason he is still breathing."

Fo grunted. "The decades have not been kind to him, but fate has. He has found some modicum of peace. Who are you to threaten that?"

Flint growled, surging forward. Fo slashed twice, but Flint weaved to one side and then the other, grabbed the wrist of Fo's sword-hand, and shoved his forehead directly into his opponent's face. Fo's head snapped back and he made a strangled noise as his nose broke. "I am the past," he said.

Fo cocked his head back and prepared to spit blood into the brute's eyes, but he'd seen that trick before. His hand snapped up over the Akashiman's mouth in time to intercept the viscous projectile, and then he lifted the man off the ground by his jaw and shoved him up and backward across the shrine.

The assassin stumbled but, to his credit, did not fall. He was panting, and his face from the nose down was a mask of gleaming red-black blood. Flint flexed his fingers and gradually let the tension roll out of his shoulders. He would wait for the next attack.

"I think," Fo said nasally, and he paused to hawk and spit the blood from his throat. "I think you misjudge this situation, Mister Flint."

"Oh?" Flint said dryly, cocking an eyebrow. "Kentigern did not send you to kill me?"

"That you judged right," Fo said, smirking. "What you misjudged are your chances. I am no mere assassin. I am a vessel of retribution."

"If only you killed as well as you speak."

"And if only wisdom came as quick to you as words," Fo said. "I have seen thousands punished. No one can elude fate. It would go gentler for you, faster, to submit to me."

Flint laughed. He couldn't help it.

He was still laughing when Fo tried to capitalize on his distraction. The swordsman thrust the end of his sword forward faster than the eye could track, but Flint wasn't watching the sword. The body's language told him all he needed to know with time to spare: he stepped to the right, and sent a cruel hook into Fo's jaw. The Akashiman lost teeth and more blood, and stumbled.

"Thousands!" Flint said. He caught Fo by the shirt and lifted him high and close. "Thousands just laid down and died because you told them it would be easier?"

The brute grabbed him by the sword-hand and squeezed until he felt the small bones of his fingers pop and snap. Fo struggled, but it was futile. Flint was so much stronger. "I did not expect any among your people to match me in strength," he said lowly. "But I had heard you were intelligent. If you are any indication, I wasted my time coming here."

Effortlessly he tossed the assassin's body, until it collided against the inner wall of the shrine and then crumpled to the stones blow. Flint crossed the shrine, swaggering as he did. "I will send your tongue back to Kentigern," he decided.

He lifted his boot, and brought it down on the Akashiman's head.

...or would have, if a gnarled, broken hand hadn't snapped up and caught his boot. Flint cocked his head to one side and leaned forward, but the man's arm would not budge under his weight. Only now, too late, could he see the broken bones twisting and stretching, tearing the assassin's flesh from the inside.

"You should have come seeking wisdom," Fo said, and his voice was a pained whimper. "I told you my mercy would have been easier. I told you to submit. I told you I was a vessel...just a vessel."

Fo turned his face up, and Flint tried to recoil. Something was growing from within the Akashiman, something bubbling up from the surface of his bones and the tissue of his muscle, pulsating tumors that strained against his skin and squirmed. Blood oozed from his eyes and ears, and his teeth were dropping from his gums one by one.

Fo shoved Flint up and back by his boot, and it was the brute's turn to go airborne.

[Warpath]

"That's enough with them rocks for one day," Mama called from the doorway of the house. "Get in here and you get cleaned up for bed."

"But Mama!" Penny said, pointing to the south. "Look! The sun's coming up again!"

Mama stepped out on the porch, curious, and looked south. The sun was sitting very low on the horizon behind the house to the west, sending long blue-grey shadows across the yard. To the south, though, there was a second blazing golden light, smaller, narrower, rising into the heavens from the horizon with impossible speed.

"Penny," she said as she watched it, moving into the yard slowly. "Penny, you come here now."

She didn't know what it was, but it wasn't anything she'd ever seen or heard of before. Somehow she knew, down into her bones and into something more ethereal and intangible - a part of her she'd never felt before, but a part she suddenly knew had always been there - she knew it was something beyond her. It was beyond her, beyond farms and trees, beyond knights and ladies, kings and nations. Beyond dreams. Beyond nightmares.

It streaked across the sky from the south, cracking and booming like thunder. Penny ran across the yard and buried her face in her mother's legs, but when the thing flew overhead she lifted her eyes. It was blazing through the clouds like a golden comet, and in its wake came a warm wind and a sound like a hundred thousand trumpets sounding a low, low tone from an incredible distance.

It was faster than anything, and it was going north.

[Warpath]

Bleeding, broken, scarred, alone, and no doubt screaming. Flint had told Kentigern exactly how he expected to die, and the guess was looking increasingly prophetic. Whatever was literally growing from Fo - bubbling up from inside him like a demonic cancer in fast forward - it was stronger than Flint could hope to be even at his most desperate.

And it was getting stronger.

That he was still whole was owed entirely to the abomination's struggle with itself. Whatever 'It' was wanted to rampage and spread, but Flint could hear Fo arguing with it, fighting it, pushing it back down to wherever it had been lurking inside him. Still, every few moments it seemed to become newly aware of the brute, and like a dog on a leash it lost all attention for Fo and lashed out at him.

The shrine had been constructed around a small dais, upon which had been set little offerings of flowers, coins, bowls of rice, and incense. Flint's body shattered it entirely, and he hit the ground rolling amidst crumbled stone and debris. He hissed and arched his back, teeth bared, and for a moment he could not move.

Fo and his horrific passenger resumed their argument. The assassin was bent over in agony, his limbs twisting in all the wrong ways. His clothing did not fit whatever he was becoming, it stretched and tore in some place and hug loose in others, and something from beneath grew to an alarming size and then shrank again. The sound of bones cracking and grinding was constant. Everywhere he stepped, he left footprints of blood and bile. The brute could smell it from any distance - it only seemed to grow more malodorous.

Fear overcame pain. Something might have been broken, but his need was desperate - he didn't want that thing close to him. The brute surged to his feet and threw his shoulder against the pillars of the stout torii-like structure and pushed, and need gave him the necessary might to send it toppling over onto the abomination.

There was a horrifying squelch, but the pillar that had fallen on top of Fo began to shift and move almost immediately. Flint leapt up onto the cylinder and sprinted to the end, and he'd hardly reached it before he jumped straight up into the air and brought both boots down on it again, stomping and crushing the monster beneath it. More of that unholy mixture of humors oozed from somewhere out of sight, and the stench was enough that even iron-willed Flint had to stop, fall to one knee, and gag.

The pillar surged upward during that pause, with so much force that Flint was launched into the air, limbs flailing.

The pillar fell aside, and the thing was up again. It twitched and shivered and struggled with its own pulsating bulk, rocking up and down like an old man with a bad back he was trying to force straight again. With one final haul, it forced itself upright with a sickening crack, and as Flint crawled to his feet some distance away, he realized its uppermost point was not Fo's head - he could see the Akashiman's hair swaying somewhere down it's upper right shoulder, his straw hat hanging loose from a broken, wagging jaw. Its new head was just another tumor, straining against the skin until it began to split, oh-so slowly, and something writhed within, too big still to get out.

Flint forced himself to his feet again, and this time swayed unsteadily. One glance at the Thing granted him the necessary resolve, and he bent down and wrapped his arms around the pillar. He roared as he lifted it, legs and shoulders straining, face reddening. The abomination didn't seem aware of him anymore, not until he drove the gold-banded end of the pillar into it like a battering ram.

Again the creature squished and squelched and whined as its body was crushed between the end of the pillar and the brick wall nearest to it. The bricks sagged, and the creature's innards squished outward, making it stretch and warp grotesquely. It wasn't unlike squeezing any other fluid trapped inside a malleable container: whatever was inside it just oozed out to the nearest extremity not being crushed by the pillar, and the flesh ballooned outward to accommodate it.

Repulsed, terrified, and infuriated, Flint drove the end of the pillar into the thing over and over and over until the wall collapsed behind it, and he lost sight of it in a cloud of crumbling bricks and mortar dust.

He knew better than to believe it was dead, but he prayed he'd slowed it down. He hurried away from the wrecked shrine, wincing with every step. Now he was sure he had broken ribs. If he could reach the town, though...the thing could not chase him far there. Even if the villagers were wise enough to run instead of help, there would be enough bodies to lose himself in a crowd. There would be buildings to hide in, weapons to...

And then something wrapped around his neck from behind. From a distance the smell was nauseating, but from this close Flint immediately felt consciousness waver. He kicked his legs uselessly as he was lifted high. The world spun and lurched, and then he was driven with incredible force backward into the ground. The impact was incredible, cracking his skull, and if his ribs hadn't been snapped before they certainly were now.

His vision swam amidst a kaleidoscope of blooming colors, and through it he thought he could see unearthly eyes peering at him from between the rents in Fo's mangled flesh, lost somewhere amid drooling maws and blisters that festered and popped and oozed and scabbed over in scant seconds.

"Fate," Fo's voice intoned from somewhere behind the abomination. "Cruel fate. What good is strength now? What good is struggle? Futile. Futile. Should have chosen my mercy. Peace in the grave...peace now...peace for you, never for me, but for you, yes, yes."

The monster lifted one foot, now the size and shape of a tree trunk. Flint caught a glimpse of what was once a toe, but it lost its shape as a pustule swelled up around it and ballooned to the size of a large apple. The trunk-foot blotted out the fading light of the sun as it came firmly down, but Flint would not go easy.

He pressed his hands into the necrotic flesh and pushed. At first it sank, but then something shifted beneath the flesh and shoved back, and the weight steadily increased. The brute retched, and then he roared, and he pushed and pushed and pushed. His arms quaked and the veins strained and sweat beaded everywhere across his body, but slowly, gradually, the foot came down anyway.

"Submit," Fo intoned. "Submit. Submit. Struggle no more. Submit. Submit."

"Shut up and kill me!" Flint roared his defiance. "Do it! Do it if you can! Do it!"

It could, and it would, but he would make it work for it, pushing and straining against his failing arms.

And then the weight lifted.

"Oh...oh! Such...impossible?"

The thing that was Fo took a single step back, and his shadow fell away, and the noontime sun was scorching-hot on Flint's battered skin.

He was deafened by the call of low horns in the distance, and his vision went perfectly and completely white.

He was blind and he was deaf. He felt blood leaking from his ears, and it felt like his lungs had burst in his chest because they had. He was insensible to the world, and he did not know the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness, not until the former faded away.

[Warpath]

"Wake up now, Mister Flint."

The voice came from another world. After what he'd seen and failed to see, words held no meaning. He was aware first, and then terrified to the core of his being. His very essence demanded escape, but his body wouldn't obey him, not yet. His mind threatened to crack instead. Madness was its own kind of escape.

But he didn't run, and he didn't fight, and he didn't go insane.

He opened his eyes, and then squeezed them closed again.

"I know it hurts," Bor said, gently taking hold of Flint's arm. "They're new, after all."

"Do not crank on that," Flint croaked. "Slow down...Bor, it's broken, stop pulling..."

He winced as the idiot helped him sit up.

"It still smarts, I bet, but it's not broken. Not anymore. Shasande's got you all fixed up."

Flint slowly opened his eyes again, and winced as the light threatened to overwhelm them. By the time they adjusted, tears were rolling down the brute's face into his beard, and he blinked frequently. It was just moonlight.

"What...? Where?"

"Try to speak Trade," Bor said gently. "I taught myself Salvic, but I forgot most of it. Look here, my little friend. You understand me? Good. No, no, relax. It's gone. Dead and gone. Shasande is disposing of the corpse now. You have to be careful with oni, or they'll find something else to root in."

"Oni?" Flint squinted at the larger man, putting one hand on his shoulder to steady himself. His back was against a tree, and he was sitting in a pile of cherry blossoms.

Bor nodded. "That's what you call them here. Oni. A demon dies and his essence gets stuck in the wrong plane, and if it's strong enough it binds to an item. It haunts it, gets strong, and if it's lucky somebody comes along and develops a bond to that item. Through that bond, the oni can possess the host and change him. Troublesome pest, an oni. You have to dispose of it carefully, so it doesn't just move into something else."

"Shasande...where did he take it?"

"Oh," Bor said, sitting himself down heavily on the ground. "The sun, I expect."

Flint blinked.

"I...what?"

Bor smiled kindly, and there was something wise and gentle in his face that Flint hadn't seen there before.

[Warpath]

"He's on his way back now, I think," Bor said thoughtfully.

Flint shook his head. "I do not understand...anything."

"You're trying too hard," Bor said gently. "Just orient yourself with what you've got, hmm?"

Flint blinked at him.

"Well, I'm here, aren't I? I was right behind you when you came to the shrine. Well, mostly. Miko and I...well, I might have stopped to indulge myself, but only for a moment. I thought, Talus usually leaves a bit of wiggle room when he calls a shot, and I was right. Mostly."

"Talus...Shasande...is he here?"

Bor's smile turned sad. "Talus is dead, Mister Flint. You saw him."

"The note," Flint growled.

"I tried to tell you in the tent," Bor said, reproducing the letter from somewhere on his person. It took him a moment to unfold it. "Look at the date, there, see?"

The gears in Flint's head had taken some effort to get moving again, so it took him longer to come to it than he wanted to admit to himself. The letter was dated for weeks before...the day before the party, he realized.

"He knew what was coming," Bor said. "He set us moving like clockwork men on little rails, all going in every direction. The letter made sure we all ended up in the same place. Here. Now. We all have a touch of foresight, but it fades when you settle into a host body. I don't think a mortal mind is right for it. Somehow, though, Talus retained enough...or maybe he set us moving before we ever got to Althanas."

Questions raced through Flint's head, all muddled by the phantom pain.

"The oni...Shasande killed it?"

Bor nodded. "He...made a sacrifice. You have to understand, violence is not just any act for us. It's a choice we have to commit to, a switch, and it doesn't come without consequences. We are meant to fight as part of a...an army. When the switch is thrown, it alerts the army as a whole so no soldier fights alone, or is lost in anonymity."

"And you deserted," Flint said. "So they can find you now."

Bor nodded. "I guess they already have, but...well." The big man smiled contentedly, and turned his face up to start searching the sky. "I can't see the end of this story, but I know somebody who could. I have faith."

Flint took a steadying breath. "What are you?"

"That's a good question. If you just wait a moment, I think we can show you...for now, though, you might want to shield your eyes. And block up your ears. Tight."

[Warpath]

Even with his eyes squeezed shut and his face buried in his arm, he knew it came down from the sky clad in light. He could sense it, feel it on his skin, and the nameless terror returned - the urge to run for soul and sanity. The sound was there too, even with his hands over his ears. He knew it was a sound that could kill, and that it was quieting itself, but even so the roar vibrated in his chest like horns blasting a single ominous low note.

The sound faded, and the light faded, and like a frightened child he refused to look. He was in the presence of something...else, and every fiber of his being resisted the revelation of it.

But even in the face of heaven and hell, Flint was stubborn. He reminded himself that he was fear, even to demons. Even to...whatever this was.

So he forced his eyes open.

He caught it in glimpses - always in glimpses. It was as if his eyes refused to focus on it, no matter how determined he was to stare. It was the size of a large horse, or a little bigger. It wasn't bigger than a carriage or cart, but it was close. It was covered in armor, or it was armor, some places distinctly alive and others metallic, but even the metal of it seemed...wrong. Wet. Alive. And it was always moving, like the innards of a complex machine, but the workings of it were so complicated as to boggle the senses. Components seemed always to slide over others, plates rising and falling, steam hissing from hidden vents and seams, grooves full of thin rings that spun, stopped, reversed, and spun again.

It seemed to have no face or front. It could move comfortably and immediately in every direction, and it had long, thin arms everywhere, all held at the ready, all covered in joints and pinchers and wicked gleaming claws. It had a head, but it always swiveled and turned and cocked this way and that, and it had eyes...so many eyes, like...

And it struck Flint all at once: it was an insect. A tremendous insect, not at all unlike the colossal cockroach he'd battled in the sewers of Ettermire, except its carapace was like some black steel...black steel that had been grown instead of forged. Its head was like that of a wasp, but it had no discernable mouth parts, only eyes - hundreds of thousands of gleaming eyes, set in groups that covered its narrow head in oblong patches.

He would never understand its mind, its perception was beyond anything he could conceive. He could guess that he was just a tiny speck in its full awareness. The way it clicked and twitched and whirred...it was clinically and methodically examining the whole universe while it stood there before him.

And when it first spoke, Flint winced and, though he'd never admit it, yelped.

"You have survived, Rauk of Andvall. This one is pleased."

The brute had to work at the words in his mind, decipher them. It spoke trade aloud, but not with any mouth. He couldn't imagine the mechanical process that approximated the sounds, but there was a constant low drone, and clicks and snaps and whirrs that punctuated the consonants, and a hissing that separated the vowels.

"Shasande...?" he managed at last, struggling in vain to squint at the thing. Nothing helped. His eyes slid off of it of their own accord, eager to focus on anything else - a blade of grass, a single blossom, his own boots, a spot of blood on his forearm.

"This one was known to you by that designation. That is just a fraction of this one's true designation. You do not have the requisite organs to reproduce the sounds. The derivative will suffice. Are you unharmed?"

"I..."

"He's fine," Bor said gently. "But my friend, you took longer to return than I expected. The Host...?"

"This one has lost perspective. Apologies. This one was intercepted by Seekers of the Celestial Host en route to the nearest star. This one prevaricated. The Seekers were mollified."

"What did you tell them?" Bor said.

"This one indicated that Our Wing of Three disengaged from the Celestial Host to investigate this world after detecting signs of infernal activity. This one indicated that the oni was the sole source of those signs. This one indicated that the oni had irreparably dismantled all members of Our Wing of Three, save this one. This one incinerated the oni in a coronal mass ejection before the Seekers could investigate it and discover this one's deception. This one has been ordered to return to the Swarm for service."

"I...but...you're going to leave me?" Bor said.

"This one must. Find happiness...Bor. This one will maintain the deception. This one will preserve the secret of your status here. This one is content. You will be better served here. This pleases this one. Is this agreeable?"

There were tears in Bor's eyes. "I...yes. Yes, thank you, my friend."

"This one will note the loss of your presence often. This one will not be whole without its Wing of Three. This one will endure, however. This one is content. This one foresees...amusing possibilities and eventualities."

"I'll miss you too, Shasande," Bor said, smiling though tears ran down his face. Flint noticed that he had trouble looking at the thing, too. Only now did he fully realize what Shasande meant - how much they'd given up to become human.

"This one has foreseen eventualities and possibilities for you as well, Rauk of Andvall. This one is aggrieved for you, and pleased for you. This one foresees events of remarkable scale, as the First of Our Wing of Three must have."

"Talus," Bor explained quietly.

Flint didn't know what to say. Should he ask what lay in store for him? Would Shasande tell him? Would it change everything if he knew, or would he be bound for some horror he could not avoid?

"This one will tell you what it can," Shasande said as if reading his thoughts, "for this one still has tasks designated to it in regards to you. You will face a choice, but to you it will not seem like a choice at all. This one regained comprehension of the skeins put in motion by the First of Our Wing of Three. As such, this one discovered the true resting place of the First of Our Wing of Three. This one interred the remains of Victoria Festian with the true, extinguished shell of the First of Our Wing of Three. This one also retrieved components of the First of Our Wing of Three and fashioned them into tools. These tools will ensure life for you, Rauk of Andvall, at the moment when the skeins have preordained certain death. This moment will soon follow the choice you will have made. This one would provide you with a wider scope of being. This one would help you in your vulnerability, as you helped this one, despite its indelicate mien."

The being moved for the first time, and if it was hard to keep track of in stillness, it was a physical impossibility in motion. To Flint it seemed as though there were just blurs and snapshots of motion, moments in time when he was aware of a limb moving, but only long seconds after it had already happened. Clearly aware of itself in relation to the mortals in its midst, the being had carefully deposited a pair of objects near Flint's feet without coming anywhere near close enough to touch him.

Flint recognized them as pieces of armor immediately, gauntlets or vambraces, and they were unmistakably made of the same material that covered the being - the thing he could not accept as Shasande, though something in its alien voice and bearing reminded him of the fop. He felt a keen and unexpected sense of loss, somehow knowing that the man he'd known was gone forever.

"You...do you mean to tell me these are pieces of Talus?" Flint said.

"An accurate simplification. They are components reconstituted from the First of Our Wing of Three. They are a gift from this one. However, this one believes that the First of Our Wing of Three intended the giving of this gift. Flint of Andvall, you might consider this a gift from Two of Our Wing. Please accept it. Keep it in your possession always. There will come a point in your skein when it will become necessary for your survival. Will you accept it?"

"Yes," Flint said. He didn't see a choice, even if he didn't understand.

"This one is pleased. This one is relieved. This one has faith. This one looks forward to following your skein, Rauk of Andvall. And yours, Bor...of Radasanth."

Shasande's head cocked suddenly to one side, and it rose gradually up on its legs. It could have been two feet or six, Flint couldn't tell, but he was aware of the change.

"The Celestial Host moves. The Swarm is called. This one must rejoin at once. Enjoy your respite from service, Bor of Radasanth. This one will never see you again. Endure, Rauk of Andvall. This one will see you again. Please vacate this area. This one must assume an extreme trajectory of escape. Goodbye."

Bor yelped and scrambled to his feet, and Flint glanced from the thing to him and back again, confused. "Up!" Bor urged. "Up, up. When he says go, you go. Don't leave your...things. Go!"

Flint scrambled, gathering up the vambraces and stumbling to his feet as Bor manhandled him, and the pair began to run up the path toward the village. Behind them, they could hear a low drone, rising steadily in volume. Flint risked one last glance over his shoulder. The last thing he saw was a glimpse, a blurred impression of something terrifying and insectile but unmistakably divine. It was rising up on its legs - six or eight or twelve, who could say? - and the metallic plates that covered it were steadily parting, and long straight blades were emerging from it. When Flint finally tore his eyes away, the blades began to vibrate with a distinct and familiar sound, only amplified a thousand times.

It sounded like a fly or a bee taking flight.

As they crashed through the forest, Flint felt a blazing light on his back, and it was like night had given way immediately to noontime, and he knew better than to look back again - not yet. It wasn't until they were beyond and through the village that either of them dared to glance, but when they did they saw a blazing golden pillar rising into the heavens. Slowly, silently, its light softened and shortened until it was a fast-moving star, and then it was indistinguishable from any other in the night sky.

"Goodbye, old friend," Bor whispered.

[Warpath]

"It is weird," Bor insisted.

It was a week since the battle with Fo. Flint was gathering up all his possessions - a meager showing, but the act was no less significant for it - and he did it with deliberate ponderousness. Mostly he was avoiding picking up his rucksack because the otherworldly vambraces were bundled up inside it. The weight of them felt like fate, and he was putting off hefting that burden.

"No less 'weird' than you returning to Radasanth," Flint said. "You will be a wanted man there."

Bor shrugged his big shoulders and popped another date into his mouth. He talked around it while he chewed. "We made a lot of friends there. Not just Nathanial. In fact, I'm thinking of opening a business."

"Hire a bodyguard," Flint said as he continued to pack. "A real one. And keep your head down. Avoid the City Watch."

"Yes, Mother," Bor said, licking his fingers off one by one. "We'll be fine."

"We?"

"Oh yes, I didn't tell you? Little Miko is coming with me. The circus will begin wandering south in a month's time. It will take a good while before we're near Radasanth, so we'll scrimp and we'll save, and then split off at the southernmost stop. I'm quite fond of her, as it happens."

"Settling down already?"

Bor smiled contentedly to himself. "Anyway, you changed the subject. Why go farther into Akashima? This country already killed you once. It's weird."

Flint shrugged. "If I flinch, Fo would be right. Akashima is a challenge, I will master it."

"There are more oni up there, you know."

Flint nodded. "I guessed. I will avoid them."

Bor leaned forward and slapped Flint on the shoulder jovially, and the brute nearly toppled over despite his own considerable weight. "Good old Mister Flint," he boomed. "Nothing will change you."

Flint eyed his rucksack. "And yet, everything you and your...Wing...have told me suggests otherwise."

"Me? I don't have wings!" Bor rumbled out a chuckle. "What a silly thought."

Flint sighed. "So we are back to that game. If I had known I was playing with a...whatever you are, I would not have bothered."

"I'm just an idiot," Bor said cheerily, popping two dates into his mouth at once. He leaned forward conspiratorially. "If it makes you feel any better, I only kept it up because you made it challenging. I mean, as much as a mortal man can."

Flint cocked an eyebrow. "Now you sound like Shasande."

Bor smiled and shrugged. "The world's smartest man left the world," he said. "Someone else will have to take up the mantle. They're not going to bite, you know."

Flint glanced at the big man, who nodded toward his rucksack. "His gifts. You can't avoid them forever."

"I am not avoiding them."

"Yes you are. Here, eat a date."

Flint stared at the proffered snack. "No."

"You're going to wish you'd had one, once you're on the road," Bor sighed. "Do you still regret it?"

"Not having a date?"

Bor giggled. "No, no. Helping us. Getting caught up in our schemes."

Flint thought about it for a moment, then shook his head slightly. "I still do not understand it all, but it sounds as though I was caught up in schemes before I met you. I have traded one...what did he call it? Skein? I have traded one for another."

Bor shook his head. "It isn't so simple as all that. Your life was a redirected river, we just put a few more knots in it. But for the most part, it flows in one direction. You are who you are."

Flint sighed. "And who is that?"

"You know that," Bor said dismissively, waving his hand.

"Do I?"

"Somewhere in that naked noggin, yes. You might not realize it yet, but it'll come to you."

Flint grunted in response.

"See? That? That is Flint. But the man asking the questions? The man full of doubt and fear and pain and loss? That is Rauk. Rauk on the inside, Flint on the outside. That is who you are."

Flint shook his head again. "That makes no more sense than 'you are who you are.'"

Bor paused a moment, tapping his chin with one thick, stubby finger. "Perhaps the answer you're looking for is not, 'who am I?' but 'who should I be?' Yes? And that I will not answer for you." He nodded toward the rucksack, which had by this time become a weighty presence in the room. "Fate will dictate some of it, and your past will dictate another large part. There will be hardships that will contain you, forge you, shape you. But in the end, it will be your choices that add up to you. The hammer will fall on you, but you will decide what will bend and where and in what way. So perhaps it will make more sense to you if I say this: you are who you will be - and who you will to be."

Bor sat quietly for a long moment, fat finger pressed to his chin, staring into space, and then he nodded once and popped another date into his mouth.

Flint went on staring at him while he chewed. A long moment passed, and then the brute nodded slowly. He stood, crossed the room, and slid the rucksack up onto his back while Bor looked on approvingly.

"So be it," Flint said.

"I won't tell you to be safe," Bor said. "But be...well. Be you."

Flint nodded. "Goodbye, Bor."

"Goodbye, my friend."

And then the brute left the tent, and stood thinking at the crossroads for a minute before turning north.

He did not look back.

[Warpath]

The sun was setting now, casting warm orange tones over the river. The fishmongers were packing up for the day, their voices ringing out up and down the port. It took Flint a moment to decipher their cries - the language of Akashima required an adroit tongue and a sharp ear - but he soon figured they were offering steep discounts on what was left of the day's catch. He would soon need to take advantage.

Not yet though.

He leaned on a wooden railing overlooking the wooden street below, which ran alongside a broad river he couldn't pronounce the name of. A young girl in a kimono hurried past him. Every few feet there were colorful paper lanterns hanging from the awning above. When the girl whispered to them they emitted an ethereal light, and on she'd go.

The brothel barges were drifting in from open water, and even from this distance the brute could see the painted faces and wild colors worn by the girls aboard. Soon they'd be giggling demurely from behind their fans, timidly inviting men up from the docks.

He breathed in the late summer air and ruminated over the myriad of strange happenings that saw him to the here and now. He thought of dark days in wild Salvar, and of the bright nights spent performing in the circus. He thought of the people he'd hurt and the lives he'd ended, the brief flashes of happiness and companionship he'd had - flaring up and sputtering out like a candle's last. He thought of a whole swarm of godlike creatures, streaking across the stars in an eternal and unknowable crusade against horrors he could not imagine.

And then there were the horrors he could imagine, like the ones he'd seen in Ettermire.

And his thoughts always came back to Ettermire, in the end.

It wasn't because that's where things first changed, though there was that too. It wasn't that he still woke in a cold sweat some nights, imagining he heard some monstrous hiss in the dark, or that one of Swanra'ann's spies was lurking in some shadowed corner. It wasn't even the haunting memory of poor Helethra, or what he'd done to her mother.

What he couldn't let go of wasn't a bad memory, but a good one: the first time he'd seen a grime-soaked woman in one of the darkest corners of the world, shining like a ghost. Or an angel. She wasn't like the women that had caught his eye before. She was small and polite, kind and intelligent and good. She was better than him. She had friends, he knew, good friends that were better than him, too. He hadn't deserved her companionship.

He held a blank sheet of paper in his hands, and there was a small ink pot balanced on the railing beside him with a quill sticking out of it.

He'd struggled with a hundred thousand words and a hundred thousand doubts, and they were rushing through his head all at once in a cacophonous tumult. Tonight would probably be like every other night: he'd put the paper and the ink away without writing anything. That seemed the wisest thing, didn't it? She'd given it to him as an act of friendship, because that was the right thing to do. Perhaps one day she'd like to hear from him, to know whatever became of that strange ruffian she'd shared an adventure with. Or perhaps she had the nightmares too. Perhaps she never wanted to think of that place again. Perhaps he was better off not reminding her of himself, and of that place by association. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

So he made a choice.

He pinned the paper to a pillar beside him, tapped the end of the quill on the edge of the bottle, and wrote three words as quickly as he could - faster than fear, faster than doubt.

I am alive.

He stared at the words, and felt a chill down his spine. What had he done? Stupid, stupid. Those were not the words he'd planned on, the ones he'd rehearsed. What did she care if he was alive? It was a banal message, a pointless one. He could have written literally anything and conveyed the same along with something of value.

He stared at the paper for an hour, feeling nothing like himself. There was no confidence, no swagger, no strength - just bated breath and self-berating mutters.

And then, when it was unbearable, he looked at the page again and froze until the meaning of the new words sank in.

I'm glad.

Rauk smiled wide.




While I'm only asking for GP as a spoil, I do need to point out that this is technically where Flint earns his vambraces. For future reference, I purchased them OOC from the Bazaar so that I would have them for The Cell.

Thanks for reading!

[Philomel]

Thread Title: Thread Link (http://www.althanas.com/)
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants:



Plot: 20/30

Your storytelling and plot themselves were excellent portrayed. However, as a weakness, some effect was lost in the initial pacing of the piece, where it took almost a page to get into the real depth of the story. Overall the setting was excellent, and you managed to use the background of Radasanth well to suit your needs.



Character: 24/30

You scored high here mainly because of consistency and the power of Flint's character. Throughout he showed to be a resolved, and strangely caring character (towards Bor) with depth and different sides to him. An enjoyable read because of this.



Prose: 18/30

One thing that could have made the story more compelling is a stronger use of literary techniques. Although there was minor use of imagery, and the description in the fight upon page 4 was excellent, there was a shortage of metaphor and experimental. This did display the character of Flint stronger, however, with his stoic attitude but try to add more range of sentences. Your strengths for this section lay in clearly writing what you wanted to show, and portraying a strength of spirit and vitality throughout.



Wildcard: 6/10

The wildcard here goes to the beauty of Flint and his reactions to the drunkness of the party. The read was thoroughly enjoyable because of subtle details, such as swapping alcohol for water, and the effects of the drug on the people.



Final Score: 68/100

Warpath (http://www.althanas.com/) receives:


5520EXP!
520GP!

Congratulations!

*Note: EXP and GP is so high because of the amount of posts (38 in total)
** Little bit more given at my discretion for the ability to write such a long story. Well done, Warpath.

[Alyssa Snow]

EXP & GP Added!

Congratulations Warpath!

You leveled up!