A Stitch in Time

[Saxon]

(Closed and all Bunnying has been approved)

The sound of heavy hail grating against the roof caused a man sitting in a lotus position to lose focus again," Fuck," the man muttered as he toyed with forsaking the idea of meditation. Cold azure eyes probed the wide room once used as a meeting hall. A sea of candles surrounded the pale stranger, the jolt in sweltering heat steady until a swift breeze slipping through the cracks of the doorway behind him cascading the illumination into flickering chaos. Stifling a breath, the man felt his mind slowly drift away as the herbs he had taken slowly begin to take affect. It'd been this way for over four days, and frankly, Saxon was growing tired of the alleged tradition.

Learned from some pang of realization, the eldritch had rushed across the face of the world into the frigid reaches of Salvar and smack dab in the middle of the Salvarian civil war. In due time, the weird had come more then prepared and was waiting promptly for the ritual to begin. But it wasn't the circumstances that bothered him; not the lack of food that had not touched his stomach since he walked into the room almost a week ago, to the creaking migraine that drummed his patience. It was the city. Never before had Saxon gotten the feeling he had had since he first stepped into a place like this that was over halfway across the globe. But little of it matter, life goes on.

Fathulsaar was a rather bustling town compared to the other city-states that dotted the surrounding area, and it seemed as if word from the conflict between Church and State had not yet reached this quiet community. When the weird had first arrived, he had brought with him enough stolen gold to fill a duke's ransom, and it wasn't until Saxon had paid off most of the town to rent this forsaken hall that it's residents began to grow suspicious. Word spread faster than fanned flames across the city and the eldritch had to pull drapes across the windows in order to keep the secret of his fasting meditation to and only to himself.

Feeling his stomach growl menacingly, the weird gripped his pale flesh and groaned as he pulled a skin of water from nearby and plucked the cork, the cool, nourishing water meeting his hungry lips. Can't go on for much longer, the weird mused, but he already knew the answer. Strange words from thoughts not his own slipped into Saxon's mind from memory for the thousandth time, its' mantra slowly soothing the weird's grief:

O, Strange One, animal flesh must not pass your lips, nor shall

You drift into Sleep's idle hands until it is upon the witching hour.

Only shall the Speaker arise once more when the Stranger is upon

The threshold of Death's door and the way to hallowed Tsep shall

Call out and then and only then shall it be mended.

" Whatever the Hell that means," the eldritch growled sardonically. Almost had his patience ran out several times before this, and if it hadn't been for the fear that if he got up that a candle would tip over, Saxon would've quit this place long ago. What did it matter to him if something knew of Tsep? What did it matter that this city was one of the few places in the world that hinted of the realm of darkness? Slowly letting out a hissing sigh between clenched teeth, the weird already knew the answer.

It meant everything.

Being an eldritch didn't come with a guide book, and rarely did Saxon ever get thrown a bone such as this without having to finagle some mythical being into enlightening him. Surely anybody could see the signs were there. A war was being waged outside these very doors; the eldritch hadn't rid himself of a recurring nightmare ever since the months slowly drifted into annual decay. No matter how long it took, the eldritch had to wait for this thing to show up, and as a show of good faith he had bought himself a genuine sword for such an occasion.

Slowly bobbing his head downward to glance at the bastardized sword, the weird's long, ashen beard scraped gingerly across his hungry chest and the blade seemed to respond in kind. Made from common steel, the sword didn't look like much, but after some necessary enchantments had been placed upon the weapon did Saxon feel slightly safe. Feeling his eyes begin to grow heavy, the eldritch began to feel his mind slowly drift as some dark, erotic desire taunted him with sleep. Feeling the sound of the pelting hail grow faint, the only sound that escaped the eldritch's lips was a methodical hum as his mind wavered on the brink of slumber.

It wasn't time yet.

~*~

[Saxon]

Lithe fingers drummed across a tabletop as Fibonacchi slowly tried to stave off insomnia, almost half a world away from his alter ego. Sitting quietly in a one-room apartment that he had rented for the month for only a week's worth of stories and odd-jobs, it felt as if storyteller's sanity was slowly slipping away. Never had he cared too much about the falling months into another Coronian winter, but it never normally seemed to matter.

The link between himself and Saxon felt strained, as if the symbiotic relationship was being pulled apart by some unknown force. Regardless, heavy eyes probed the room as the peddler felt his insomnia continue on strong and a sickness begin to fester within him. What would it take?, Fibonacchi thought idly, and it wasn't until a soft voice from across the room spoke to him that he jumped.

" Ya'll gonna untie me now, aintcha?", a feminine voice cooed seductively as sleep decided to play tricks with him. Turning to the old hay mattress that sat stubbornly upon the bed, Fibonacchi saw the tall, enigmatic beauty that was his wife, ropes catching her hands to either side of the banister, her pale naked form causing old temptations to become aroused.

But it was a ruse, or so Fibonacchi thought. Suddenly words left his lips that were not of his own volition," A minute Daliya, just a minute longer.". Thrusting his hand upon his mouth with a smack, the frightened eyes of the storyteller taking in the lush brown hair of his wife to the seductive gaze as she licked her lips longingly to him.

" Com'n, baby, hurry up! I didn't put the kids to bed early for nothing!", she called out. Old passions mused as his eyes slowly creased into slits as memories of sexual adventure crossed his supple mind. The hallucination was vivid, and slowly the storyteller knew when it was from. It was their seventh wedding anniversary. It had been a long, long night, he recalled, and it was the first memory Fibonacchi could remember of his wife that he truly, wholeheartedly loved her.

Tugging on his beard be musingly he felt the hallucination take it's wanton course as a younger, naked figure similar to himself roused from the chair and jogged over to the bed, the pair giggling and cackling as they caught each other in their loving embrace. Slowly turning away to leave the couple to their own passions, Fibonacchi glanced back down into the leather-bound tome that sat in front of him. It was a package that had been delivered to him with no return address, and the storyteller was hesitant to open such things with such a link between him and a danger that had often threatened to take everything from him.

" Oh, Oh! Fuck," his wife's voice called from behind him, the squeaking springs trailing into the answer of Fibonacchi's immediate question.

With mirth, the peddler examined the books subtle edges, to the worn leather finish that told of it's subtle ancient background. Fibonacchi had once worked for a library when he was younger, and it wasn't until his memories drifted to it that the idea of such a book coming into his possession was ludicrous. He had heard of such tales from his employer of traveling books that appeared upon his doorstep desiring to be read and drifting away once the deed had been done. But it wasn't all good.

" Fuck! Fuck!", his younger self chanted as the burning passion between the two lovers conformed, and they both became one in the erotic dance they had made hundreds of times before. The memories still beginning to drift across his glazed expression, for some reason a peck of irritation roused his anger as the sound of flesh upon flesh caused him to turn around and roar," Stop it!".

Just like that the images faded from view as his younger self thrusted while his wife struggled to keep her grip upon either banister. It had been a year since he had last seen Daliya and his kids, and these thoughts of idle sex and memories of things long past truly bugged him.

Returning his train of thought to the traveling book, the storyteller felt himself slowly recant the old twisted horror stories that followed such things. Sometimes these books were benevolent, whatever making them find new owners granted them earthly wisdom and a better understanding of the world around them. But, not all were like that. Not at all. Attendents used to whisper the rumors behind closed doors of books that would drive a man insane and cause him to turn upon his loved ones, of books that held such dangerous ideas that people were executed upon the spot for owning up to them.

Which one was this?

Only reading the first page, the storyteller had felt the incantation to be a bit sublime for his tastes, and the prophetic words were not something he wanted to take lightly. But then it happened. The visions had stopped and the link that nourished the eldritch and the storyteller began to wither. It had been almost a week since Fibonacchi had touched the book, something about it was just ominous. What if the stories were true? What if the incantations were correct? Slowly grazing his finger across the hard cover, the peddler thought aloud," And who the fuck is this Strange One?".

Before getting his answer, the sound of writhing passionate cries filled his ears as the lovers came back into view, the lovemaking causing Fibonacchi's nerves to dance on edge. Not turning to look, the storyteller chose to ignore it. The idea was preposterous, the hallucination was a hallucination! But suddenly the sounds of passionate sex and smacking thrusts turned into a gag and a stifled cry as the sound of something wet being sawed stubbornly through caused the storyteller to grip his ears.

Again and again the sound came through as wet liquid spattered over the area. Unable to take it any longer, the peddler turned with a look of anger fixed upon his face that turned instantly into revolting horror. Straddling his wife, the younger man forced his hand against the woman's mouth as a jagged saw blade came down upon her thin neck, blood spurting and gushing upon the hay mattress. A look of inextricable rage was masked upon Fibonacchi's double, and Daliya couldn't help herself as her head slowly lolled to the side as her flesh parted and her brainstem snapping like a twig.

" What the fuck are you doing?!", the storyteller roared as he jumped to his feet, his eyes pooled with tears of anger. Never in his life had he seen such a revolting image, and it shook him to his very core.

Slowly coming to a stop, the man's naked form began to cackle as he pulled Daliya's head from her body with a sickening pop and wrenched it upward to inspect his work carefully," Ah, yes. How about it now, Daliya?". Pulling himself out and off of the corpse, the pale, emaciated figure of himself was spattered in blood, his face stretched into a wicked smile.

Backing away in black terror, the storyteller watched as the man slowly stole upon him, his doppelganger encompassing the room and slowly everything began to fade from view. Holding the head by the hair, the murderer spun it carelessly until it twisted and quickly began to turn the other way," Funny, isn't it?".

" W-who are you?!", Fibonacchi managed to whisper.

Watching the man's expression quickly turn from sadistic glee to savage anger nearly caused the storyteller to jump as the man's familiar voice spoke out," You know damn well who I am. What gives you the fucking right to ask that question? What?!".

Feeling the sleep snap away as realization dawned on him, the storyteller whispered," No..".

The man nodded, grinning like a child as he idly played with his new toy. The peddler didn't know what was worse, staring at his wife's head, or looking at his naked double covered in his lover's blood. Pulling himself away the storyteller whispered," Why?".

The man dropped the head to the side and mused carefully, pushing the dull end of the saw against his chin," Hm, I'm sure you know, you fucking coward. You're no saint, you know nothing of what is in that book!", pulling himself forward, the storyteller began to catch onto the game, his fear slowly beginning to evaporate.

" I haven't slept in four fucking nights ever since I picked up that stupid book, and I can't get in touch with Saxon either. Tell me?! What is so damn important about it," he growled while turning on his heel, but the storyteller instantly knew his mistake as his double crossed the gap between them in a bound and the warm, rusty saw that was supposed to be an illusion grazed across his neck. Caught in his grasp, the storyteller couldn't even let out a whimper.

" It means everything, little one. And only by reading it shall you rid yourself of me and perhaps save that poor family of yours," the double said with a twinge of finality. Starting to pull away, Fibonacchi was held immediately tight as he felt the hot breath of his doppelganger breathe into his right ear," Read the fucking book, and you won't have to find out the price for disobeying your nightmares. Don't make me come back again!".

In an instant the grip was relinquished and the fear-stricken storyteller felt the figment fade into nothingness. He had gotten off easy this time, nobody in the tales the peddler had heard of had ever escaped with their life when beings such as these were involved. Quickly turning to the sight of an empty bed and to the table where the strange book laid, Fibonacchi stormed to it and scooped it up into his arms, his eyes panic-stricken as he remembered the threat upon his family. Pulling the olive-green duster off the rack, the peddler growled menacingly as he wrenched upon the door and didn't dare turn off the lights. Superstition absorbing him, the peddler slammed the door shut and ran down the hallway toward the stairs to the lower half of the inn.

Radasanth was only a few miles inland, and if Fibonacchi calculated correctly, he'd be on Daliya's doorstep by morning. Something told him however, that if he didn't start reading, the idea of protecting his family was moot. Pulling a lantern from off the wall and tossing silver onto the bar as he weaved his way to the door, the storyteller wasn't going to be taking any chances.

Setting the book gently down upon the corner, he pulled a match from his pocket and opened the rusted hinge to the lantern stubbornly to light the candle. Without waiting to watch the flickering ember roar into flame, the storyteller quickly shut the hinge and pulled the heavy lantern off the bar. Looking up for the first time in ages since he cleared the staircase, Fibonacchi saw the perplexed look upon the patron's faces. Not willing to stop to relieve them of their suspicions, he began to walk away when he turned and pounced back on the book.

Picking it up and out the door, the sound of rain hit his lazy fedora, the peddler moved forward, cracked the tome open and growled," Saxon you'd better have got a good reason for this.". Slowly his eyes scanned line after line as he worked his way out of the abandoned hamlet and into the dark road ahead, surrounded on either side with suspiciously high corn stalks. Feeling his mind begin to drift, Fibonacchi felt the power of the mysterious book take affect. From out of the corner of his eye, a tall figure shadowed his window and the peddler could hear a faint sound of maniacal laughter.

It left the peddler to wonder as he made his way down the dark winding road what exactly it was he pissed off to recieve such a cruel punishment.

~*~

[Saxon]

A wiry man stood bunched up in a coat as thick as a mammoth's wool at the mouth of a gaping abyss. Under the fur cap that cradled his pate, the old explorer was reaching his pique. Graying hairs gave him a daily reminder that his days were numbered, but it wasn't that that had pressed him to do this. It was the hunt for treasure. Feeling his thoughts drift into nostalgia, the man began to remember a passage from the journal that had brought him here. Lazy brown eyes glazed over as they stared into the darkness, the trip upon memory lane holding his entire attention.

~*~


The Road to El Camora, Entry 8

1483 CP, the 7th of Y'edda's Guile with Kurept & Company

The face of the city was beautiful, and its glorious golden sheen was awe-inspiring. Upon the bejeweled walls of every edifice lay encrusted diamonds, emeralds, and rubies that shined like tears of the sun. Spires and towers stretched over the mist that enshrouded the sky above the city, they were like fingers trying to touch the face of Y'edda and my colleagues and I were ecstatic to see that we have finally found it. It was true from the language of the natives who dwelled within this city that Camora roughly translated into Coronian as "Paradise".

We had finally found El Camora.

As I and the expedition carried onward to the city, we were on our guard. The tracker, Salwe, said that blood had sullied the trail upon this city and that made our captain of the guard uneasy. Three score men had accompanied us, about a third of which were armed to Hromagh's teeth with the finest steel, so the more scholarly of us were held in ease. With the gold supplied from the coffers by the Church, we had the best of everything. Water and food to last us for months, weapons to fend off any Evil beset upon us and even tools for excavation when we had reached the city. But, I had my own suspicions.

As I had said before to my fellow explorer, Faust, the day before; why in the world would the Church hire those of us who were devout to the Thayne and not their hypocritical religion? It was the time of the great Purge after all, and if anything, I had expected the lot of us to be hauled off and tortured by inquisitors in the hope we might export our beliefs else where and adopt their silly faith. But, as before, Faust explained in his earthly wisdom that such fortune does not rain upon fellows such as us every day, and we'd best take off our boots and wallow in it while it’s still good for the taking.

Alas, I shall never speak again of such heresy while I dwell within those hallowed walls, and never again shall I whisper behind Father Gulseppi's back. They had been right, and with Fate finally dealing a hand of fortune, I'm eager to lap it up. Having spent most of the day traveling across the jagged foothills, however, I'm exhausted. Setting behind my own prejudices I began to feel the spark of knowledge alight like that of a torch within a dark cavern as a gazed upon the ruin around the city.

For such enigmatic beauty, El Camora's surroundings didn't look much better. All around us jagged rocks and fissures stuck from the broken earth like that of an open wound, the scorched face of those that I could see were only shown away from the city. Whatever had happened here all those thousands of years ago had caused El Camora's descent was a mystery, and the pool of ugly ruin it now drowned in perplexed me. Had a mysterious titan swept it's hand across the land and spared the city from annihilation? Was it so lucky? Or was their Evil at work?

I'm afraid either way; I'll have to wait to inspect the pictographs upon the gilded walls within the beloved city. I myself cannot wait, but I shall retire once more and dream the dreams of kings, for this is truly a blessing handed down from the Thaynes themselves.

~*~

Gerrad Van Heim had read the journal of the legendary explorer Ulysses Kurept a thousand times, and in its burnt pages laid a mystery of its own. This entry had been his favorite part as a student of exploration. Not for the wealth it contained, or the musings of a fellow explorer. The reason was simple.

They were the pages with the least blood upon them.

“Professor, three minutes until we begin, loosen up!", an enforcer had called, but the explorer simply ignored him.

Whatever had caused this journal to fall from Ulysses' hands and into that of the Church was a mystery, but Gerrad wasn't paid to spelunk the depths of his employer's pockets. The Ethereal Sway had paid handsomely, by the pound in fact. And as the treasure-hunter recalled, the priest who had spoken to him had called him the best. And it was true, he was. Whenever something needed to be found, Van Heim stumbled upon it. Whatever exotic treasure needed to be dug up from the bowels of the earth, Gerrad had supervised the excavation. It transcended skill, it had took a step above Fate; It was luck.

The same could not be said for the rest of his team, however, for any exploration Gerrad Van Heim had participated in had succeeded in spades and that was the only reason the explorer's terrible losses had been dwarfed. Any explorer could tell you that Gerrad was world renowned for having the greatest luck, but only to himself. They called him the one that inexperienced fools were encouraged to rush to because they'd never be seen again. Save one colleague, Van Heim has never successfully returned with his fellow treasure-hunters alive.

But as the explorer gazed into the wide gaping mouth of the cavern ahead of him, Gerrad could only smile. A sea of light bathed him and the steep entry way under the inky dark that engulfed the frigid tundra, and a team of over a hundred people accompanied him. Guards, students of the arts, fellow explorers, all had been hired by the Church to help Van Heim in his quest for El Camor. It wouldn't be all for nothing, nobody would leave home empty handed. And it had been guaranteed by the Church itself that Gerrad would be rewarded tenfold for finding what they were looking for.

A simple bauble they had put it.

Bullshit, he thought. Even Van Heim wasn't ignorant enough to believe a lie as convenient as that. Every expedition he had gone on, the explorer had never heard the word 'Simple' and applied it to his profession. Whatever was down there was savage, dangerous, and would be used for slaughter as depicted by Kurept's failed expedition. But turning away from a mountain of gold and a new, untarnished reputation was hard to do considering he had found it.

El Camor.

There wasn't a lot anybody could do about it, but as the guards began to suit up and mount the caravan, the treasure-hunter could feel the familiar tingle run up his spine. The same tingle he got on every expedition, and it either led to fortune or death to one of his many colleagues. Whichever came first.

" Van Heim, lets go!", roared Sylvester, the head enforcer, over the blizzard. Reluctantly stepping away from the cave, the explorer began to make his way back through the knee-high snow again and into the carriage of the main excavation machine, it's boring drill dripping with greasy oil. As the machine began to roar as the engine reheated the entire compartment, the trak that looked similar to conveyer belts found in a factory began to turn over the slick ice across the freshly dug trenches, giving a succession of satisfying crunches. Peering out the window as the world became eclipsed in darkness and the wide cavern swallowing the exploration team whole caused excitement the old treasure-hunter's fingers to twitch longingly. It wasn't going to be like last time. There would be no deaths. No mistakes. No fumbles. Only glory.

~*~

[Saxon]

Clutching the steel cover to an elongated tube tangled in a wild mess of machinery, the engineer gave it a hard twist and heard a satisfying pop as the air rushed into the greasy depths of the engine. Pulling the cover up until it was at eye level, the man saw the flimsy dip attached to it almost bone dry," Shit," he muttered.

Standing nearby, a young woman barely into her twenties gazed at the dip curiously, clad in a denim overalls fit for a mechanic, she looked like a fish out of water," How bad is it?", the woman yelled over the roar of the hissing pistons of the machinery.

" Pushing the limit here," the engineer shouted as he shoved the dip defiantly back into the canister. Grabbing his crutches, the man shoved them under his arm pits and began to hobble away, the woman following closely by. Standing a head shorter than most people, Norman Gates was a man that seemed larger than life after you first met him. His face grizzled with scars and pock marks from childhood illnesses were hidden under a haggard, graying beard and bifocals. Crippled at a young age by polio, the engineer had managed to carve a life out for himself in mechanics and engineering and had winded up here for no better reason then the above-average pay and the chance to tinker with some of the finest machinery he had ever seen.

Ducking over a low pipe, the crippled mechanic growled under his breath, there wasn't going to be enough time to make it, and he knew it," I fucking told Paulus that we should've refueled three days ago, but no, there is no turning back. If I can't find a way to water down the fuel and get us to the next supply cache, we might as well go out into the wastes and dig our own graves.". The engineer hadn't been lying, either, the caravan had become more and more careless as of late, and for some reason the merchant, Paulus, who led the entire operation didn't seem to care what happened to them just as long as they maintained the supply line. But whatever the case was, Norman knew he wasn't paid to sit and sulk over spilled milk.

" What about if we mix water into the fuel, think we can stretch it?", Ktaya shouted in mid-thought, her naivety governed only by her limited experience. To her credit, she was the only apprentice Norman was given that he had actually liked. Pulling random citizens out of the oppressed Salvarian states was bad enough, but the engineer hated training them. They didn't know the first thing about machinery, had no faith or trust in mathematics, and contributed the lot of it to their whimsical magic. Ktaya was a different story. The salvarian was obedient and willing to learn in many of the ways that her fellow countrymen seemed to despise. She was fit enough to crawl through the labyrinth of pipes to fix any leak or release any valve, and the engineer knew she had saved them from disaster more times than he could count. But the fact she was also eye-candy was a bonus of the job, and Norman always appreciated the good looks of any woman who wasn't shocked by his condition.

Shaking his head he turned and shouted," No way, we'd flood the engine and lose what little fuel we have left. By my count we have a day-and-a-half left before we're sitting ducks, so you better make sure Paulus knows that we're traveling on thin ice. I'll get back to my office and try to figure a way out of this shit we dug ourselves into.".

Nodding obediently, the woman's brown bangs clumsily hit her brow. She'd do as she was told, with room and board being paid for and the threat of starvation no longer a real possibility, the apprentice had no reason to defy the engineer. Without another word the woman gave one last curt nod and rushed forward, expertly jumping over the mess of pipes that fueled the heart of the machinery and disappeared over the next bend. Slowly hobbling after her, Norman couldn't help but feel that they had bitten off more than they could chew this time.

~*~

[Saxon]

Standing in a room filled with the captains from the other vehicles of the convoy, a man in his fifties stood clutching a cigar stubbornly as he looked over the carefully gauged map of Salvar, his hooded eyes turning to see his crew huddled about him," Well, let’s have it.".

A bald, stocky man dressed in Kevlar and armed to the teeth, known simply as 'Smitty', coughed and pointed to the map," Rig Three has about half a day left in fuel and we're almost out of food and ammunition, what about here?"

Another man shook his head, his curly black bangs bouncing off his brow," No can do, Rig Two has about a quarter of a tank left, but the peasants of Gulsan have already revolted against their master, it'd be suicide to go there.". The other captains nodded and muttered with hesitation, knowing they were all in dire straits.

Now annoyed, Smitty pointed to another the location under the watchful eye of the merchant," And here? Dolas has three of our supply caches and word of the civil war probably hasn't hit it yet.”

" Too far," another captain called Nick muttered, his single eye unable to gaze at the map. They all knew it by now; Salvar was a bad place to be in to begin with, it was much worse knowing you were about to be stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Unable to give up, the bald man angrily poked at the nearby city that stood off the coast near the frigid seas and said," Rkam? Its only two clicks east." The atmosphere grew uneasily quiet at the suggestion, and Smitty felt as if he had made a critical error as even Paulus widened his eyes at the prospect," What?"

The leader of Rig Two spoke up, his voice hesitant," Rkam was the site of one of the first revolts, Smitty. The only people who go there now are the ones trying to join Wkigi's militant army," The entire compartment knew all too well of the deranged salvarian, his track record extended to the start of the civil war. Once a farmer attempting to support a family of twelve, Fateus Wkigi was the leader of the local militia and had been one of the first peasants persuaded by the Church to overthrow their masters. He had started a mob that tore through the town and butchered the entire port of Rkam, throwing nobles; men, women, and children alike screaming into the rumbling, cold seas. The only language Wkigi spoke nowadays started and ended with bloodshed.

" What other choice do we have," a female captain known as Zaya spoke from behind the crowd. Leaning against the far wall of the war room, the woman had been the only captain Paulus had picked solely because of her fierce determination in situations such as these," We can't go anywhere else, and if we do, we're fucked. We still have to deliver supplies to Fathulsaar before they blink out, and half a dozen other states."

Nodding in agreement the leaders of the various members of the convoy turned to the merchant. Taking a long draw on his cigar, he rubbed it into the desk, his brown eyes carefully gazing across the room. Now balding, the old man had a natural presence of leadership about him. Still fit even in his age, the merchant often included himself in the meetings between his convoy and the states gripped by attrition, it was a tireless job, but somebody had to do it. He was often terse and to-the-point when it came to issuing orders, and his sole leadership in this ordeal was the only reason most of the people standing in this room were still alive. Stuffing his hand into the pocket of his leather vest, he sighed," Well-"

Stopping as he saw Norman's attendant rush into the room, the merchant waited until she made her way to him and said," Yes?"

Leaning over to him she whispered a couple things in the keen salvarian dialect. Nodding carefully as she finished, the merchant watched her backed away and stand at attention. Addressing the entire compartment, Paulus looked irritated," Alright, gentlemen. We're in the thick of it now, I've just gotten word that Rig One has a day-and-a-half left before we're dry. It's settled, plot the course to Rkam and prep the mercs, we're going into hostile territory and we ain't coming out until we've refueled. Wkigi be damned."

A murmur of uneasy acceptance flooded the merchant's ears, he knew their spirits were low, but if they didn't make it to Rkam it didn't matter what they thought, the savage tundra would wipe them off the face of Althanas as it had done to countless others. Paulus made a mental note never to make the same mistake twice, and as he guided Ktaya out of the room he spoke under his breath in salvarian so only she could hear him," Tell Norman not to worry, and that we've found a destination. Should keep the old fart from stroking out, eh?" Watching the young woman smile he patted her shoulder," Get to it!"

Watching the mechanic-in-training run off to do her master's bidding, Paulus continued down the narrow hallway and into his room, closing the door. Unable to keep up with the charade, the man toppled over to the side of his bed and gripped his stomach as the same sickness that chewed on his innards came back in full force. Quickly scrambling towards the nightstand, the man felt his pride get the better of him as he wrenched upon the drawer and pulled a glass bottle from the mess of his belongings. Unscrewing the cap, the merchant watched three large, plump pills tumble out of the bottle.

Reaching over the stand for a crystal bottle, Paulus spinned the top and tossed it to the side, the brown, fermented liquid wafting in his nostrils. Throwing each pill in succession with a swag of scotch, the merchant felt the growling pain slowly subside. Staring at the closed door as his mind began to drift over how long he kept his crew in the dark, the merchant knew he was now out of time in more ways than one. It wouldn't be long until the pain came back, and it always did. The merchant felt a pang of regret for what he was putting his crew through. He needed to find what he was looking for, and if it meant racing against time and Death themselves to reach it, so be it. Throwing the glass bottle into the drawer, the man crawled into bed as he felt the medicine do its work, the roaring sound of the blizzard outside caused him to forget and slowly drift into quiet slumber.

~*~

[Osato]

Osato felt the warmth travel tersely through his body. It warmed him, but it was a false comfort to take part in. He could not help it; things had gone sour for the young, handsome mercenary far too quickly. ‘The lands of Salvar!’ they had all cried ‘Promise, prestige, money to be had!’ The false promises had lured him to the cursed lands of the frozen tundra. Initially he had found a little work, enough to keep him housed in a reputable in. As the money dwindled so had the ‘reputable’ state of the inns, leaving him in little more than trash heaps. They quickly became less and less interesting, much less clean, till he was eventually just another random vagabond sleeping on the streets and wandering through the markets during the day.

The only difference that set him apart, drew the eyes and attention of passing people, were his distinctive features. He was attractive no matter what. His heavy set face never paled and black blurs never streaked the underside of his deep blue eyes. His body never lost its perfection. The toned muscles remained firm, despite a copious amount of alcohol and little work to further build on top of the solid foundation. His hair remained in near perfection, a few loose strand of the dull brown and blonde streaked crown were out of place. A steady hand was all it required to replace them, though any later in the day and a steady hand would not be found on the mercenary.

Atop that, no random bum was nearly so well strapped as the man. At his side, on twin hooks were two unloaded and unstrung crossbows. They hung effortlessly, dangling at his side and tapping against his firm legs when he walked. In a cross-slung leather sheath he kept his weapon of choice, the heavy longsword that he had come to love. It was three feet in length, in the shape of a diamond. Just below the handle it extended to three inches from the center point, to form a cross shaped diamond. It was raised at the center, roughly three inches thick, and tapered down to a point from there to the edge of the blade. In battle, and indeed in its sheath, it had the appearance of a thin kite shield, with a handle and bladed edge.

It was early in the day. Barely noon. The sun hung high overhead, beaming down but offering little warmth. He could feel the chill of the night before, only barely fought off with a pit fire, shaking loose from him. A coating of soft melting frost dripped from his steel breastplate, pauldrons, and plated gauntlets. In Corone, the haphazardly assembled suit of armor was interesting and set him apart from the other mercenaries and the city guard as well. In Salvar, the banded steel made him look like a fresh recruit to the warrior trade. It was a false façade, which he could do little to escape.

He took another swig as a mob of angry citizens walked by. Resting against the warming bricks of a random inn, as he was accustomed to at night, he watched the men and women pass. Their faces were streaked with anger, torn with civil unrest. It was like that all across the tundra, city to city it would seem no different. The Church of the Ethereal Sway had denied the right of the king to his thrown. They had cast him down, but the movement had not been without conflict. The conflict was very bloody as well. Osato thought, that with the world reducing itself to mindless violence, there would be profit to be made more so than before.

It was not the case.

A couple of the people towards the rear, wielding blood stained butchers knives and sap strewn woodsman’s axes turned towards him. They were in a frenzied state, roaring and angry. He smiled at them, lazily. They slowed to a stuttering stop, one bumping into the back of the other. “Good day chaps,” the mercenary called out with a laugh. “Off to kill the monarchy? Or perhaps you are opposed to the decadence of the Church and the outcry that’s risen from their… rather unpatriotic appeals? Hell, you’re probably out for a bit of blood… don’t even know where you’re going… just following the leader…”

“What are you doing here?” One of the men responded, ignoring the questions but obviously taking note of the mocking tone. They were both men of labor, worn and haggard from years of service to society. One was heavy set, with a gut that gave little imagination as to the fact that he ate half of the meats – or more – that he cut and served. The other was older, with a scraggly beard. Wrinkles of age streaked his face, worn lines sagged in rows under his eye… much like the extra chins the other had. “You should be helpin’ us, or at least doing something!”

Instead of paying attention, Osato was focused on the woodsman’s beard. It was streaked with white, and long enough to touch his upper pecks if he nodded. He stroked his own hairless chin with his gloved hands, pondering over what it would be like to have one of his own. “What?” he said as he looked at the butcher. “Oh… yes, well it would be just peachy if I was hired to do work. But why waste my time on pointless, and in all honesty, rather trivial arguments over state affairs?”

“Fuckin’ merc’s,” the other, ‘Mr. Woodsman’, responded in a low growl. “Good for nothing. Your only interested in your money, your fame… if people see you do something or if they pay you to do it. Others like you are helping, others that give a fuck.”

“Well,” Osato said. He placed his hand on the bricks behind him and pushed himself up, spilling a little of the amber alcohol on the ground. “Oops,” he said with a snicker and took another quick sip. “You should count yourselves lucky that I don’t give a shit. Why would I waste my life trying to fight the power? Why would I put my future on the line for something that would give me no satisfaction, and isn’t bothering me in any way?”

“Money,” the woodsman grunted again. “Yeah, all you care about is your own profit… it’s pathetic,” the butcher chimed in.

Osato just laughed. He could not help it. “So I should be like you two, prime fucking examples of how societies should be run. Civil matters go to hell, why not riot? Run the streets yourself with a bloody hand and a stupidly ignorant view on everything, right?” The man placed his bottle on the ground before continuing on. He slowly slid his blade up enough for the light to catch its steel face and glint. “Instead of working for money you riot? I take it you don’t have families, children sitting at home and crying because their fathers are roaming the streets with their fucking work tools? Instead of making money, keeping society in a state of piece, you tear things apart and give your family little more to look forward to when the months come and you have no income, much less a town of people to sell it to.”

One of them took a step back as he continued to slowly remove the blade from the leather sheath. “Now,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t you have some mob to be running around stupidly with? I have a drink waiting for me…”

And with that the two moved on, giving sidelong glances at the mercenary as he sat back down and took another grimacing swig. Rkam was in no better a state of affairs as the rest of the realm, broken, shattered, and pathetic in every sense of the word. To have men and women abandoning their occupations for little more than screaming and idle threats, it was little more than a harbinger for the downfall of a society already hard pressed to survive. Osato could only wonder how long it would last, and how long the embargo on ships would last. Without any passenger transports leaving, or being allowed to leave, it was getting quite annoying.

He didn’t really know how much longer he could deal with sleeping on the ground and not working. Pretty soon he would be starting his own faction to riot, one against the Church, government, and the other rioters. At least he would be able to get some food from the riots, while the rest just acted the fool.

[Camella]

Lately, Camella didn't feel satisfied. She had resorted to squeezing her sources to lure her bounties out, and it usually just seemed to leave a bad taste in her mouth. But as an after thought, the bounty hunter was left to wonder what exactly it was that she was doing wrong. She didn't seem to be able to hit her mark and at the end of the day, all it did was leave the blood of the innocent on her hands. Not to say that everyone she had tortured or killed was completely innocent, but it made little difference. Blood was blood.

Because of this, she started to notice a new bounty everywhere she went. It was the first bounty that had frightened her in a long time. She had fought some losing battles before, but nothing scared her as much as the picture on the latest wanted posters.

It was her. She was now a wanted woman.

Now, for a wholesome sum, Camella could find herself on half the wanted posters in the lands to the south, but that wasn't what truly frightened her. The true scare came from how quickly the word of her bounty had spread.

The snowy reaches of Salvar had it's price, and the solitude she longed for had been marked with the spatters of blood. Word seemed to travel fast, even in the tundra, and now the bounty hunter had to run from her fellow compatriots and the marks she hadn't been able to catch. Both were eager to end her, and they seemed to come about in spades.

After a year of running away from both sides of the law, Camella finally managed to slip away. She had managed to put enough distance between the bounty hunter and the mobs hunting her that they were just three days behind. If Camella kept up this pace, however, she'd be able to get to the frozen seas first and find a way to circle back to the south while she left her hunters scratching their heads.

It was around sunset when she had reached the city of Rkam, and she could already tell something was wrong. Chaos lined the streets wherever she looked. The port seemed to be the punchline to some sick joke. Everything from the dead bodies strewn across the avenues to the mobs rioting seemed to give Camella the chills, yet at the same time, she felt strangely at home. Somehow, though, when she thought about it. Being hunted in a town like this was at the bottom of the list of things she'd have to worry about.

Feeling a presence behind her, Camella sidestepped, narrowly avoiding a punch thrown at her by a man in a red shirt and ripped, denim pants as she entered the town.

The fuck?, she thought to herself, Why am I being attacked?. Camella was willing to let the attack on her pass without much of a thought, since it could have been just a wild punch from some drunk rioters in the middle of a fight, but when she saw the man barreling toward her, the bounty hunter became enraged.

"Don't piss me off!", Camella hissed, just before the 'welcoming committee' had landed a right hook to the jaw. "Fuck you then!", she growled as a spittle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. Grabbing for her weapons, the bounty hunter was pushed to the side as someone else swooped down and swiped her daggers from her.

"I got her knives," A kid clad in rags said from behind her. Trying to recover from the surprise of the pickpocket, Camella didn't even have time to react to the drunk who slammed his fist into her gut, causing her to double over.


Delivering a savage kick to the side of the rioter's left knee, the mercenary hopped to her feet only to catch the thief as he tried to rush by. Holding him by the scruff of the neck, she wrenched the daggers from his hands and threw him aside, "If you do that again, don't expect to leave unscathed." Camella threatened

Whirling around just a few seconds too late, the mercenary caught another blow to the chest, knocking her to the ground. "Fuck you, cripple!", she spat as air rushed into her bruised lungs.

"I'm not a crip-", the drunk had managed to sputter before the bounty hunter lunged forward and shoved her daggers into his knees. Standing in a state of shock, the rioter let out an agonizing scream as she plucked them from him just as savagely as she had put them there.

"You are now.", Camella said with a sneer as she watched him fall.

Camella leaned on the wooden sign that said "Welcome to Rkam". She was going to fit in with the crowd here just fine. She wiped herself off, and moved toward the inn. After that little skirmish she just had, all she really wanted to do was nap.

"Excuse me," Camella said to the innkeeper. "I need a room for the night."

"I doubt you have enough money, Missy. Do to the damage that all these ruffians have caused, our cheapest rooms are 1000 gold. I could, however sell you a blanket for 50 gold if you wanted."

"Fine, I'll take the blanket." Camella said, realizing that she would likely not want to sleep in a shack that was full of dried blood spatters and broken windows after all.

Camella placed 50 gold on the table, grabbed her blanket, and headed to the back of the inn and attempted to sleep against the back wall. As she was drifting off, she heard the scream of a girl, who was likely being raped.

"Shut up! I'm trying to get some sleep over here!" Camella yelled out and then closed her eyes again, ready to nod off despite the frigid air hitting her face.

[Saxon]

Plumes of smoke hung in the distance as greedy flames ate at the smoldering buildings of Rkam, the sounds of screams from the population similar to that of people trying to escape a capsized ship. Cresting waves from the rolling, frigid seas bit and tore at the edge of the city as streaks of fierce, booming lightning ripped through the dark sky. Nature obviously wasn't too concerned with the state's well being, and seemed eager to wipe the stain of it off the face of the continent. It was unfortunate for such an important piece of Salvar to fall in such an indignified way. The port-city had been constructed long ago by a group of Coronian nobles that had trade interests in their southern homes and in the frigid wastes, so they had spared no expense fortifying and pouring money into the city to ensure it could survive anything they could think of.

They had constructed high, sheer walls made of the finest stone that had weathered many an attack by both foreign states and barbarian raids from the hostile tribes that dotted the unforgiving tundra. A barracks had been constructed in the center of the town with choke points along the narrow streets to ensure the guards that had been employed would have full control in times of crisis. Buildings were built to code and their roofs were insulated with the finest materials so the citizens could endure the harsh, bitter salvic storms. Ships had been built at great expense as soon as the fledgling town first erected its towering buildings, sailors hired from across Althanas to navigate and tame the wild, howling seas of the north. Farmers had set out throughout the state and bought up acres of land to plant and harvest whatever food that took in the uncultured soil during the short summer months. The city had survived for over three centuries. The families who held it in their grip prospered and had succeeded in protecting and nurturing their foothold on Salvar. It was unfortunate, however, that they had not considered one thing during their long, long rule. They had forgotten of nations that had fallen even after longer, more savage reigns, and all seemed to follow the same pattern.

Their leaders grew careless.

But, as time reclaims all things, Rkam was of no exception. Eventually when the savage raids had stopped after the city had proved its dominance in the tundra; the guards began to grow lazy and corrupt. The walls were not kept up with, and eventually were on the verge of crumbling in another bitter winter or an attack from a foreign nation. Buildings became dilapidated and decrepit with age, the citizens steamrolled under a crushing poverty that seemed to trickle down to every social class save those rich enough to stave off the heavy taxes.

Ships and sailors were both claimed by the savage seas as the captains grew ludicrous and poisoned with greed, their shortcuts to make an extra profit often ending them before they had reached either port, until all but the oldest of trading companies had abandoned the town for good. The land around the port became harsh and barren as farmers were slowly enslaved by debtors and the taxmen in labor camps that mined iron and precious metals despite Rkam's withering grip as famine and disease slowly began to take hold.

The nobles ignored these problems as their concerns turned to other exotic continents that proved to have more promising trade. These problems compounded each other and eventually any citizen who lived past the age of thirty would've been lucky to have been claimed in their sleep, the alternatives far, far worse. Who could've known that after braving three hundred years of attacks from both rival nations and the tundra itself that Rkam would fall to its own people. All it took was for someone to speak up, someone to say that this state had grown lazy and was on the brink of collapse. That person was Fateus Wkigi. The farmer had taken to the city like fire to kindling, and his voice was the only one that people seemed to listen to. He gave them hope. He gave them a reason to fight. He had raised his army of farmers and peasants like taking a stick to a hornet's nest and had razed the city in a matter of hours.

As night slowly began to creep towards its resting place, a group of gargantuan metal behemoths that rivaled mammoths rolled across the wastes one right after another. The roar of the engines had always managed to scare off the wildlife, and under the careful guidance of Paulus' captains, they had managed to reach their way to the city in the throes of death. The four huge vehicles that dominated the landscape were fitted for the harsh climates, things the merchant had called APCs that had once been able to carry soldiers across hostile territory at a moment's notice. Now it was so much more. Built over five times their original size, the newly dubbed Rigs were mobile fortresses that protected and housed both its shipments and the crews that piloted them. However, it wasn't the only thing Paulus had brought with him, the mysterious trader had three smaller, armored vehicles called hummers that followed in the Rig's wake, acting as scouts and the cavalry in case of battle.

But with technology like this, mercenaries that had been employed by Paulus were left to wonder why they had so much trouble crossing the tundra on fuel called gasoline and the only explanation had been provided by Norman. Who, like them, had been learned by Paulus and knew that the bitter climate gelled the fuel that wasn't already in the engine. But other things didn't sit well with the crew, questions they couldn't possibly have known the answers to. Where had the merchant gotten technology like this? Who was Paulus really and why was he so bent on trading with these cities that had almost nothing to offer in return? As the screams of Rkam's citizens grew louder, these glaring questions became harder and harder to ignore.

[Saxon]

A blinding sea of fluorescent light poured from the headlights of Rig One and into the frozen, gloomy wastes as it lumbered forward into the outskirts of Rkam. Slamming a clip into a sleek, black submachine gun she had heard Paulus call a 'Scorpion' and a bunch of numbers and letters rattled off what she thought to be 'SA 361'. Zaya flicked the greased safety back on out of habit; it hadn't mattered what the weapon was called after witnessing first hand the number the weapon could do on the human body. The handheld weapon could fit comfortably in either hand, quickly becoming the captain's favorite due to how often she had used it on the field. Standing about as tall as Norman, the woman was intimidating in both voice and appearance. Decked in kevlar and banded leather, the woman was approaching her early thirties, but looked to have weathered far more. Laced combat boots clacked against the metallic floor as she moved across the cabin, her thick, woolen duster hung to her ankles, swaying gently. Locks of raven black hair hung over the mercenary's pale face, hiding the eye patch that covered a grisly scar and her missing eye. Aside from that oversight, she was in excellent shape, her lithe body chiseled in muscle and covered with a fair share of 'battle scars', most having occurred before the war had broken out. Born and raised in Salvar, Zaya was as tough as the forsaken tundra, and had the drive and ferocity to get things done.

Recruited like almost everybody aboard the convoy, the captain had worked her way up the ranks and had a hand in almost every fire fight between now and the day she had joined. Nostalgia caused her to grin as the mercenary recalled a younger self in torn garments, clutching a weapon alien to her and listening to the old man and his second-in-command, Darrel barked orders at her," I was so naive," she muttered under her breath.

Glancing out of the wired window and into the twilight, the captain gave a grunt as she saw another explosion erupt near the docks of the city. This is beyond stupid, the mercenary had thought as she watched black specks against the fiery backdrop run about wildly. Normally, the Zaya wouldn't have given it a second thought, but she knew Paulus far too well to not be able to connect the dots. He was desperate, and he was preparing to put everything at risk for this, but the thoughts of mutiny seemed to flicker and snuff out when the mercenary realized she had fought for this plan.

Slipping her trusty kukri into its scabbard, the captain latched it to the side of her hip, a brief flash of the armory concealed away in the lining of her coat. She was prepared, probably even rivaling Smitty, the resident survivalist who didn't know the meaning of 'too much ammo'. Holstering the scorpion, the mercenary gave one last look at the flickering torrent of chaos they had approached, and she had an inkling that when it was all said and done that not everybody would be walking out of this virtual Hell alive. Grabbing her fur cap and her fingerless gloves, the mercenary shoved open the door to her cabin and slipped outside," Time to go to work."

~*~

" Alright!", Paulus roared over the pulsing engine and at the rest of the mercenaries assembled before him in the docking bay. Gripping the silver-steel barrel of a Remington 870 in one hand and decked in kevlar of his own, the merchant shoved his hand inside his pocket and pulled out several dull, red plastic cartridges and shoved them in hastily," Wkigi has probably sent the bulk of his kill squads over in our vicinity, and by now they're probably almost here. With the streets too narrow to fit the Rigs or the hummers, we're goin' on foot. His men will probably be on horseback and equipped with anything, so don’t be fooled. We’re goin’ to the warehouse across the city, and since I’m the only one who knows the codes to the door and how to work the damn keypad, I’m taggin’ along too.

Now, don't think for a second that just because this town has gone to shit that it's open season on everybody and anybody. There are still innocents out there, and I don't want that kinda blood sullying my caravan, so shoot hostiles only. Any failure to cooperate with this order and you'll soon find my shells in your chest. We have a lot of ground to cover between here and the warehouse at the docks, so we're splitting up, and the less of the men I have to kill to get there the better."

There was a murmur of anxiety as men and women armed to the teeth glanced at each other warily. Staring at the old man, the crew quickly fell silent when a giant of a man glared down at them from under red, bushy eyebrows. Boxes and crates sat in rows, strapped securely to the hull of the Rig, their contents almost depleted. Paulus glowered," Gonna have Four teams of three. Chuck, Vince, your with Darrel. Harry, Olivia, yer with Smitty. Sam, Eustus, your with Zaya," a bunch of wolf-whistles erupted across the deck but were quickly stifled as a single green eye leveled them with an icy stare," Alright, alright. Finally, Stan and Dya, your with me," the merchant said, a smug look upon his face.

As the crew shuffled about to their perspective party members, Paulus' hand disappeared inside his gray, water-stained duster and tugged out a fat cigar. Match in hand, he waited for them to fall into rank before he dragged a match across the hull and covered his mouth, cinders erupting as smoke plumed from his vice. Suddenly the entire cabin lurched as the Rig came to a stop and the engine whirred into silence," Ladies," the merchant said as he held his hand above the large red button that would open the hatch and release them into the city," You wanna eat? You wanna live in my house to fight another day? It's time to fucking earn it! Go! Go!". Pounding the button, the trader had barely gotten his goggles over his eyes after juggling with his shotgun when an icy chill burrowed deep into his bones. A roar of approval flooded the cabin and into the city as the mercenaries pounded down the ramp and into Rkam, soon lost in the heavy blizzard that had begun to pelt the city.

[Camella]

Between the noise and the cold, it was nigh impossible for Camella to get any sleep. She had to find a better place to rest, but there seemed to be a bit more discord than usual. This made it rather hard to sleep since in a town full of hell, this much noise was usually bad. She kept trying to convince herself that it was nothing to lose sleep over, but in the end there was only one way she could do so.

Camella checked to make sure she had all her daggers. At first she only counted three, but she was soon to realize one fell into the snow. After picking her dagger up, Camella decided to check to see what all the fuss was about.

Turning invisible would have been a wasted effort since she was leaving footprints in the snow. There was a way she could make it work, though. Camella headed back inside the inn and spoke to the innkeeper again.

"Do you have a bathroom I could use? I really have to go." Camella lied.

"Sure, upstairs and to your left, Ma'am."

Camella rushed up the stairs and kept going until she got to the roof. When she arrived she went invisible. This way, no one could see her or her footprints in the snow unless they came from behind her. What she saw shocked her beyond belief.

There was a convoy parked just outside the city and soldiers holding personal items she didn't recognize. Camella was pretty sure that what each of the mercenaries held was a weapon, but she had no clue how it worked. Suddenly, she realized that with all the snow falling on her, she was likely to be spotted. A chill ran down her spine when she thought about this. For some reason, this thought scared her stiff.

Camella went back to her visible self and ran down the stairs and into the bathroom. Even the bathroom reeked of havoc. The mirrors were broken, the walls had blood on them, it looked like a bar fight had taken place in there. Any hopes she had of holding fear inside her were now gone. Camella turned on the faucet and splashed some water on her face to try to calm her nerves. It didn't work.

"What the hell is going on with this place!" Camella yelled out in a panic. Soon realizing that this wasn't a good idea since it likely woke some criminals sleeping there, Camella hurried out of the inn and ran as far away from it and the caravan as she could while still staying within the city walls. Eventually she lay down behind a house to catch her breath. She had never been so afraid in her life. From her perspective, this was definitely worth losing sleep over.

[Saxon]

The slums of Rkam sat in wreckage as buildings sagged into ruin and the streets ran slick with blood. Corpses littered the street like trash, each and everyone posed in gruesome macabre. It was as if Hell itself had descended upon the city and held it in its jaws, ravaging it to the core. Except for the occasional drunk, the port was a ghost town. It was as if the citizens themselves had scurried into the shadows like cockroaches upon Paulus' arrival.

Crouching low against the back of a butcher's shop that had been looted, a tall, hawk-faced man held a carbine tight in his hands. Appearing to be in his early forties, Eustus Metzger was the oldest of all the mercenaries to have been recruited onto Paulus' convoy. He had entered the service just before Zaya, and had been a drunken farmer beforehand who had a knack for pot shots," Where'd they all fucking up and go to," he asked.

Squatting next to him, Zaya took a peek around the corner and held her scorpion close as she signaled Smitty and his team the 'all-clear'," Dunno, but I don't like it. Chaos like this doesn't erupt in a city out of the fucking blue, it festers. Look at the corpses; they've been mutilated. Look at the buildings; they're being burnt to the ground. No mob runs the streets red with blood then takes off. Somethin' is up," the warrior said with a bitter tone. Smitty and a pair of lean, enamored twins, each gripping a B76 beretta quickly followed after him into the alleyway.

Paulus and his group had ducked into an abandoned tavern across the street while Darrel and his team circled around the back. It'd take a couple hours to make it to the warehouses at the port, but when the mercenary looked at it, it was the smart play. Whatever Wkigi was up to was going to end up being messy, and from the merchant's point-of-view, the rebel leader probably would've gathered his men at some sort of public place to re-group. No matter how they looked at it though, the entire city would have converged upon them in a matter of minutes when the first shots went off. Crossing over the threshold and into the alley, Zaya didn't waste a second as her comrades followed quickly after her.

Pulling up behind her, the pair of mercenaries stood stock still as they saw Smitty and the others ahead of them, everybody glancing up in horror. Holstering his revolver, the survivalist walked up to the bricked wall and whispered," What in Hromag's name..?"

Zaya pulled the slide back on her gun as she felt herself stifle a breath. The warrior was tough as nails, but what she saw could make even Darrel, the demolitions expert, shudder. Scaled far above the wall, hanging in rows, men and women were eviscerated and dangled like withered grapes upon a vine. Dried blood stained the graying bricks and crimson, sticky lifeblood dripped to the ground. Horrible gashes had been savagely cut into the victims' faces, mutilating them into horrifying grins. Tied to the pole stretching over them by their own rubbery entrails, the bodies hung like broken marionettes waiting to be playing in whatever grim puppetry they were meant for.

Pushing through the men, Zaya raised her arm and shouted," Look, one of them is still breathing," Pointing at a husk of a man, whose chest was spattered in scarlet which slowly rose against his organic tethers. Unsheathing her kukri, the woman rushed forward and started to climb the heaps of trash that sat against the wall. Gaining a foothold she turned back and roared," Don't just stand there!"

As the various members from both parties sprang forward to help, they were halfway up the mound of trash and to the emaciated victim when a loud boom echoed into the bend. Several cries rang out as a series of muffled coughs from an automatic rifle caused Zaya to freeze. As quickly as realization trickled into her mind, a drop of scarlet lifeblood hit the warrior in the face. Halfway to saving their first casualty, the groups of mercenaries were caught with blood on their hands as the fight for Rkam had just begun.

~*~

[Saxon]

The soft pitter patter of rain dripped and pooled inside the cracked window sills as a small toe headed boy, barely old enough to walk, stared out into the slumbering city of Radasanth. The sun began to crest over the horizon and the first rays of daylight peered into the small hovel. Surviving a family of six, the four bedroom apartment was riddled with age. Pock marks made from bruised wallpaper littered the walls while water leaked methodically into iron buckets from the splotched ceiling. Littered with furniture and possessions usually accustomed to a family, the sitting room was cluttered and aged. Faded orange shagged carpeting stretched across the room and competed with hardwood planked hallways for dominance of the household. Wearing the same teal, water-stained frocked coat his father had left him, the boy didn't stir as the sounds of footsteps upon rugged carpet reached his ears. Pale, withered hands touched the boy's shoulder and a voice gently called out," Noah?".

Without turning, the boy looked down and spoke, his voice barely above a whisper," Go away, Gramma."

Moving over to face him, the elderly woman with wild, snow-white hair sat upon the edge of the window sill, still clutching her bathrobe. This caused the small boy to glance off to the side, trying to get a better view out onto the soaken sidewalk. Staring up into cavernous dining room where the boy was sure her mother would be sitting, his grandmother mouthed a few words and shook her head before looking back down at her grandson," Com'n, Bubby. Let me get you some warm milk and read you a story. You need your sleep," she reasoned in a way only a grandmother could.

Breaking his gaze at the sound of his pet nickname, the boys once rosy cheeks didn't change as he clutched the hem of his jacket all the tighter," No, Gramma. Papa is coming home, I can feel it."

Quickly, the old matron's expression soured at the mention of the child's father. Tightly clutching her faded lilac-hued robe with rheumatic fingers, the grandmother shot a venomous glance upward and said," Child. He isn't coming back; he quit his only family and ran like a coward. Forget him!"

" Silvia," a shocked voice called out from the dining room, the name underlined with tones of absolute disgust.

" What? It’s true! Fibonacchi has abandoned you, your children, and me because of what he has done. Why doesn't the boy just realize that in move on," the matron snapped at an age-old argument.

There was a shuffle of feet as an olive-skinned woman with curly, basalt hair that fell to her shoulders picked up the small boy," He's six, Silvia," she hissed.

" And? Fibonacchi abandoned him as well as the girls! Let the Thaynes' bless Louis, because if he hadn't taken a leave from his studies in Fallien, we might very well be having this conversation in the streets," the grandmother screamed, more hurt than angry.

" Fibonacchi is your son," Daliya reminded plaintively," Don't yell at Noah for what his father did. It ain't his fault! And another thing, Lou is sacrificing his dreams to support this family until word gets to Viktor about Fibonacchi's disappearing act!"

Looking to find any sort of chink in her argument, the grandmother squinted and opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the sound of raps upon the front door. Jerking their heads towards the source of the noise, the two women fought for who would hold the boy as they rushed to the doorway. Making it to the door first, Dailya put her hand upon the cold, brass knob when she heard a sound atop the stairs to the next level of the apartment. Rubbing her eye as she roused from slumber, a small girl with plaits of beautiful brown hair looked to her and said," Mommy?".

Attempting to console her youngest and put her back to bed, Daliya lost the advantage as Silvia rushed forward and gripped the door knob, holding the small boy like a suitcase," Aha!".

Wrenching the door open, the old woman gasped while Daliya had to do a double-take before taking a step back with her hands covering her mouth," Oh my God.."

Two sets of watery, gray-stained eyes looked longingly at the stranger upon the doorstep and screamed in unison," Papa!"

[Saxon]

Wiping cold sweat from his brow, Fibonacchi lifted his battered fedora from his head and continued to pant as he attempted to catch his breath. The storyteller had broken into a run the moment he entered the crowded city, and had not stopped until he reached Daliya's doorstep. Gazing upward into the household he abandoned what seemed a lifetime ago, the peddler stood stock still as he stared into the gray-stained eyes of his little boy. His mind raced and his vision blurred as tears flooded his eyes, spilling over the purple, sickly bags and onto his gaunt cheeks.

It had been almost a year since he had run from his family, he remembered the day to its exact detail. He had saved a newfound friend from certain death, who had helped him dupe a mercenary from a small fortune in a botched card game. Fibonacchi had made his way slowly home before dawn arrived and to his horror, his daughter, barely three years old, had been murdered upon the steps before his household by the same man he had cheated in cards. Unable to face what he had done, the peddler had ran headlong out of Radasanth and from his family in the hopes that he might be able to one day cope with what he had done. He hadn't.

" Daliya," he rasped as he clutched onto the threshold of the door and began to hack weakly. Holding the ancient grimoire in one hand just out of view of his loved ones, the peddler could only be grateful that his soon-to-be ex-wife had not slammed the door in his face the moment he had shown his ugly face.

" What're you doing here," Daliya managed to whisper in a bitter tone. Expecting a look of inexplicable rage, of unknown sadness, or a combination of both, the only thing Fibonacchi saw in his wife's eyes was pity.

The words didn't seem to come as storyteller felt himself swoon, unable to keep a grip on reality as he remembered the horrifying images that had plagued him. He had been right, the traveling books were a curse upon the world, and whoever had chosen him was eager to watch what was left of his sanity slip away. Devastated by how really pathetic he must of been, the peddler took one painful step forward as he turned and saw his withering mother not even consider him as she looked abruptly away. As his foot landed over the threshold, however, the storyteller realized that the only thing that had kept him going was the safety of his family, and now he had taken one step too many.

Crumpling to his knees, Fibonacchi found the hard, maple floor as it hit him in the face with a loud smack. There was a collective of gasps attempting to be stifled, but he was too tired to care who had shown sympathy upon his wretched soul. To his surprise there was a soft thud followed by a patter of feet, and as he summoned the last of the strength to tilt his head upward, his head swam and the sight of Noah caused him to lose whatever grasp of consciousness he had left," I'm finally home," he whispered hoarsely.

~*~

Beads of water trickled over the rusted gutters and onto the glossy windows as daylight passed Fibonacchi by. Slowly opening his eyes, the storyteller felt heavy linen covers over him and glanced around the familiar, shadowed room that had once been the bedroom he had shared with his wife. Cabinets and dressers lined the walls where their clothes sat idly by, piles of junk and other knick-knacks reminded him greatly of what a slob he had always been. Starting up, the peddler gripped his head and growled as his brain bobbed dizzyingly inside of his skull. Clenching his matted hair, he attempted to drive off a jarring headache when the peddler heard a familiar voice far across the small bedroom," Careful now, wouldn't want you to collapse a second time."

Startled, Fibonacchi stared upward and peered into the shadows of the far-end of the room where a figure rested in the shadows. Pulling himself backwards until he hit the headboard of his bed, the peddler forced the words from his jibbering lips as he whispered," W-who are you?"

Pulling itself upward, the figure that remained hidden behind the adjacent cabinets stepped forward so that the sunlight traced an outline of its body. Holding some sort of cigarette in its hands, the stranger scraped a match against the cabinet and waved it across its vice, strange eyes glowing wickedly under the weak light," Fibonacchi, you know better than to ask that question, don't you?"

The storyteller was terrified, and he had no idea why, the fear seeped into every pore of his being and muddled what courage he had left. Something about this stranger didn't seem safe in any sense of the word, and even though he hadn't slept in days, Fibonacchi wasn't stupid enough to even hazard a guess who was watching him," What do you want?"

" All in due time, boy," the figure mused in a thick accent that was unknown to the peddler. Taking a step forward, the stalker's bulk slowly appeared in the dim light, revealing his masculinity. Waving the cigarette in his hand as he spoke, the stranger gave an air of somebody that knew what he was talking about," Fibonacchi, you and I are facing a problem here."

" Yea," the peddler mumbled as he followed the figure while he moved around the shadowy realm of his room. He was petrified, and any cunning the storyteller possessed slipped from his mind's grasp.

" You see," the stranger began as he wandered over to the darkened mirror and gazed at his shadowed reflection," You’re a man of convictions, son. I can see that in you, and I admire that. But one thing I've been quickly reminded of, time and time again, is how stubborn you people can be when you aren't persuaded to do as I ask."

Feeling the nostalgic feeling of sleep ooze out of him, Fibonacchi didn't have the courage to answer as the figure continued to prattle on," Now, when put in a position such as you’re presently in, I would think that a man such as yourself would be able to recognize what is at stake. That book of yours isn't a toy, Fibonacchi, and you shouldn't be ignoring something as old and powerful as a traveling book, do you understand?"

A long while passed before the storyteller registered what the stranger was asking him, and hesitantly he felt the terror that had seeped into him bolster and press forward. He couldn't run, he couldn't think, all the peddler could do was nod silently. Stopping in mid-motion, the dim shadow's voice grew in a tight, tense whisper," Then why haven't you read? Why are you waiting here? Why have you entered the only place where we don't think you're welcome. Hm, Fibonacchi? You're a coward, and you should be following your best interests by doing as I ask," he growled.

Unable to retort, the storyteller's thoughts were lost to him as he felt the strange presence begin to fade away into the void it had crawled out of with an unintelligible whisper. As he let out a long, painful sigh, the storyteller stooped forward with his head in his hands and attempted to make sense of his madness. Who is following me? No, a better question, who sent me this fucking book, and why won't they leave me alone?!, he reasoned pathetically.

Suddenly there was a stirring out of the corner of his eye followed by a loud thump. Summoning his enfeebled courage, the peddler called out," Whose there," Feeling the move to be a complete mistake as he heard a soft patter of feet against the wooden floors and terror trickling within him, Fibonacchi couldn't have even guessed what he had stirred.

Pulling the covers off himself after a long moment, the storyteller grappled with his fears as he swung himself towards the end of the bed and whispered," Show no fear, com'n, Nachi' quit being a coward and stand up for yourself!"

" I wouldn't do that," the same, strange voice whispered directly behind him, the man's voice now deeper and more sinister than before. Continuing without a beat the man spoke," Don't bother yourself by turning around. You won't like what you see."

Compelled to follow the wishes of the stranger, Fibonacchi kept his eyes affixed upon the door as it sat slightly ajar as something scrabbled across the shadows of the hallway, out of reach of both recognition and reason. Standing upward, the peddler growled," I can't do this anymore."

" Oh yes you can," the man laughed jovially as the peddler spun around to see nothing but empty air and the dreaded rays of sun as they poked through the glass," I told you," he cackled.

Fibonacchi only made a quarter of a turn before the horror that had been stalking him burst through the door with a screaming howl and shoved him onto the bed. Unable to see his assailant, the storyteller swung his right arm backwards and caught the creature off guard and glanced back to see the jeering face of his wife, shoving a thick pillow onto his face. Gasping in fright, the peddler couldn't help what he had seen as he tried desperately to wrestle his way out of Dailya's suffocating grasp.

Softer and softer the curses from his wife grew as Fibonacchi began to feel himself lose the fight with his enraged Daliya, the peddler's mind unable to understand what was happening to him. Slowly slipping from life's grasp, the darkness slipped from his vision as his eyes snapped open and he could see his withered hands upon his wife's long, thin neck. Reason flooded within him, and as soon as he released his grip, Fibonacchi felt a savage kick as Daliya flopped backwards off the bed and gasped for air.

Leaning over the bed, Fibonacchi watched his wife flip over onto her back and crawl quickly to the wall, staring at him in horror as what had been a dream slowly oozed into reality. Trying to make sense what had happen, the peddler could only whisper," What've I done?!"

~*~

[Camella]

Let's try to put things into perspective, Camella thought, trying to calm herself down. When I arrived in this place, I was immediately introduced to the discord of the town via a cripple and a kid who thought he was a thief. I really shouldn't be shocked with how much blood there is around here because of all the thugs, mobs, and murderers that seem to be dominating the place. Those soldiers may look dangerous, but I have no Idea of their intentions. The bathroom was a bloody hell, but It could have been from multiple fights over the years. Honestly, I see no reason I should be afraid yet.

This seemed to calm her down for a bit. She had somehow convinced herself that she had blown the whole situation way out of proportion and that anything she encountered here was nothing compared to having around thirty assassins on her ass at all times. Just as she was beginning to relax, though, Camella heard a loud bang. It was unlike anything she had ever heard before. It was similar to an explosion, but less drawn out. Something like a door being slammed, but twenty times louder. She did not know that it was the sound of a gunshot, but at the same time She was sure the sound couldn't be good.

"FUCK ME!!!" Camella yelled out before she could stop herself. The fear that she was trying to hide quickly turned into panic, the panic into paranoia, the paranoia into mental instability. This had to be the scariest day of her life. There was no way this day could get any worse for her, was there? Camella knew what she had to do, she had to get out of this city no matter what.

[Saxon]

Clarence Smultz had been the local creditor to Rkam for decades, and he had remained loyal to the city-state until the bitter end. Plump and a man in his early fifties, Clarence was of small wealth, and he had lived in an estate with his family upon the Hill, where the rich sat in judgment over their serfs and fiefdoms. For a heavy set man, the creditor had lived comfortably and had his fair share of setbacks. By no means had he ever been a man of virtue; he had evicted many families from their homes within the city, ignored men and women alike who had groveled at his feet like followers supplicating to their lord and master, and it was the creditor who had watched hundreds of the citizens wallowing in the streets as they died from starvation during the Great Famine a decade back. But despite his shortcomings and his greed; Clarence, the father of four children and a beloved husband, hadn't deserved to see his own innards as he hanged alongside his colleagues and family.

The emaciated man could barely breathe as sharp stabbing pains kept reminding him his body, his sacred temple, had been ravaged and left for the world to see. Unable to feel the cold, barren soil beneath him, the former creditor knew he was going to die. He had known it when the rioters had stolen him and his family from his home kicking and screaming into the filthy streets of the lower city. He had known it when the dull, rusty sickle cut into him and countless hands pulled and wrenched his organs free from their slumber. He knew it when he felt the first flies weather the cold in the streets to nest within the warmth, lengthy recesses of his body. He had known it when he felt frostbite set in upon his extremities and maggot larvae feast upon the gooey, grisly portions of his physical being. Clarence Smultz, a creditor and loyal member of the Rathaxian commonwealth, was going to die in this shithole of a town that he and his colleagues had produced with the coupling of virtual slave labor and petty greed.

Withered and upon the verge of death, the creditor's jibbering lips and shattered psyche barely allowed him to speak. He couldn't even share his story with the people who had saved him, the same people who looked so similar to those that had left him and his family to die. Watching as a young man with wispy blonde hair shake his head at the one-eyed woman who cut him loose, Clarence felt his warm tears freeze upon his wretched face. Slowly looking to the young woman who had been so kind to him, the man parted his purple lips, crusty with dried blood, and began to sputter incoherently. Slowly the men and women around him parted as the steely warrior bent over to try and shush him, comforting him upon his death bed. Unable to stop him, the woman leaned over and listened to the pathetic whispers of a servant of the fallen nobles. With his last remaining breath the creditor felt it his duty to share the deepest, darkest secret of the man who had killed him.

~*~

" Should we tell him," Smitty asked as he followed Zaya out of the alleyway and watched her pull a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her vest. The nipping cold bit at their faces as the burning sun refused to rise and dispel the greasy darkness, the weather far more harsh in the wasteland than usual. The pair knew each other like the back of their hands, and their short, terse conversations meant far more to one another than the one night stands they had had with various members of the crew since they had gotten aboard.

Plucking two cigarettes from the pack, the mercenary proffered one to him and nodded," Coffin nail?"

Taking it and pulling out his lighter the mercenary nodded," Thanks, Zaya."

" No problem," she said as the warrior puffed away and tried desperately to digest what she had just been told. After a long while she looked up from the ground and considered Smitty carefully," What if we don't?"

" We're going to have to," the survivalist said as he looked away from the tavern his employer was holed up in," He needs to know and if we don't tell him, he’s going to find out anyway. I don't know about you, but I don't want lashes after this shit has gone down."

" If you make it through," Zaya corrected. The woman felt a pang of anger as her single eye burned with fury while she tried to contemplate the ramifications. Giving a bitter sigh the warrior looked from street to street and took another draw on her cigarette," I'll tell him. In person."

Smitty's eyes widened as he instinctively thought of the devices called radios they had been given and whispered," You sure?"

Tossing the stick of tobacco away she snorted," Like I'm gonna tell that to Paulus over the radio. Get the men and move to the next block and set up on the rooftops. Streets ain't safe anymore with Wkigi's men. Gonna be on our ass any minute now," before her fellow captain could respond, Zaya straightened the collar of her duster and took one last look at the alley before jogging to the tavern, she grimaced as she saw her fellow mercenaries prepare to burn the gruesome scene to ashes.

~*~

From the greasy tabletops to the thick layer of filth that covered every corner of the tavern, the Crow's Wing was a mess. Nobody had been around in ages since Wkigi got his claws into the city, and with the rioting and the looting, the tavern was the only thing that seemed to be left untouched. That was until Paulus and his men came. Flickering torchlight cast a dim radiance upon the grim scene, spatters of scarlet left the decadent floors slick and ragged bodies, all ravaged by gunfire, were scattered around the bar.

The tense, bitter silence was shattered as the tall, ebony man carefully placed the smoking barrel of his AK-47 onto the small of the bartender's neck, causing a bloodcurdling scream that was mixed with the stink of roasting flesh. Seated in a chair, Paulus leaned forward and raised his hand," Alright, alright. Darrel, that’s enough," Watching his second-in-command pull the barrel away with a sickening pop, the merchant considered the wretched creature they were interrogating. The skeleton of a man hissed through clenched rows of grimy, green teeth as he tried desperately to tug himself free from his bonds that tied him to the chair he had been forced to sit on. Far older than most residents in lower Rkam, the bartender who had been called Slash knew too much for his own good. Watching him writhe like a worm, the entrepreneur already knew he couldn't get the slimeball to say anything more, but he'd try anyway," Would you care to run the last bit by me again?"

Tilting his head mockingly on his neck's good side, the bartender stayed silent for a minute before he spat," Make me."

" Aren't we a little old to be playing that game," Paulus said as he held Darrel's heavy hand back with an icy stare," One way or another, Mr. Slash, yer gonna tell me what I want to know. Or else I'll turn Darrel here loose on ya'," Not waiting to see how his captive would choose to retort, the merchant continued," Tell me what Wkigi stole from my warehouses, and I'll let you go."

" Liar," the bartender growled under his fetid breath," You'll kill me like you did all my patrons. We ain't never done anythin' to you or yer kin."

Picking up a 9mm glock that was standard issue for all his men, Paulus waved it in front of his face and looked at him indifferently," Then where'd you and your bastardized version of 'patrons' find these?"

Staring at the weapon longingly, Slash made an effort to close his mouth and grinned devilishly at his captor. Pushing the chair back, the merchant stood up and sighed as he looked to his fellow commander and shrugged," Do whatever you can to open him up. If he doesn't talk within the next ten minutes, shoot him."

Turning to the rest of the tavern as he forsook the gratuitous screams, Paulus slowly looked about his men until he settled on the pair he had been looking for and moved to them in a few long, powerful strides. Taking a long swig from a bottle of whiskey, a curly redheaded male stood attentively over a woman who clutched a bloody cloth against her arm that hung listlessly by a few strands of flesh and bone. The slanted-eye beauty clenched her teeth as her face darkened while she watched her caretaker," Ey' Paulus," she said as she turned and saw her boss saunter over to them," Tell this bastard to stop chugging the alcohol and use it on me, will ya'?"

" You heard the woman, Stan," the merchant smirked as he felt himself in the shallow pools of thought. Taking a seat next to them he sighed," Whats the prognosis?"

Arching an eyebrow she growled," How bout' I cut into yer arm with a rusty sickle and see how you li-"

Throwing a dash of the burning spirits into the woman's wound, more to shut her up than anything else, Stan watched as she bit her lip and hissed at him," Can't treat this thing here, chief. Gonna have to take her back to the rig," he said.

Looking around, Paulus nodded to the door and tried to look away from the ugly gash as he spoke," Go ahead and get goin'. Can't use either of you anyway when your wasted and the other is about to have one of her arms fall off. Be sure to let Norman know I'm in need of more men, and have them armed with some of the 'rifles. I have a feeling there won't be a place that bastard can hide when we have our sights on him."

Staring at him complacently, the mercenary wasn't even aware of his companion as she laughed at him in victory. Quickly gasping in pain as her companion helped her support the wounded arm, Dya tried her best to pull herself to her feet," Easy," she growled as the she snatched the bottle of whiskey away and began to chug it. Slowly walking to the end of the bar they opened the bolted door and nodded to Zaya as she slipped by and walked briskly over to the merchant.

Glancing at her and knowing the moment she walked in that the mercenary didn't have any good news to share, Paulus leaned back and offered her a chair that wasn't blood spattered," What is it," he said finally as she sat before him.

A long moment passed as she looked at him with her single, jade-hued eye before the warrior said as she tried to ignore Slash's screams," Paulus, we've just discovered something about Wkigi."

Offering his attention to her, the merchant spread his hands and said plaintively," And?"

" And.." Zaya continued as she tried to search for the words to say what she and the crew had dreaded the most," I don't know how to tell ya' this, Paul. So I'm just gonna say come out and say it; Wkigi's got hold of the warehouses. He's usin' em' to fuel his little war with the nobles."

" Shit," Paulus had managed to growl before a loud shot rang out in the bar that caught the pair by surprise. Slumping over in his chair, the crater in Slash's head wisped with smoke as Darrel glanced at them and shrugged before holstering his revolver and walking back to the bar. Looking at each other, the merchant and captain knew there was little left to do now but to act.

~*~

[Camella]

Camella was in more than just a bit of a panic at the moment. She was going to need to be a miracle-worker if she hoped to escape the city with her life. It had gotten to the point where she was unable to even move without half-expecting someone to jump her. She was an extremely dangerous woman at all times, but now she was even more so. Walking around with her hands on her daggers, she was ready to attack anything that made even the slightest movement toward her.

The caravan was still outside the entrance to the city, and she wasn't about to go near that thing, so she was stuck in this hellhole for a while yet. A dog barked at her as she passed by, and she nearly had a heart attack from the scare.

This is not good, Camella thought to herself as she trudged her way through the snow. I'm losing my composure and my sanity in this extreme display of survival of the fittest. I may as well already be dead if this keeps up.

It was the truth and she was unable to hide from it any longer. Her struggles over the past years seemed like nothing compared to this. What she needed was something to distract her from these problems. Some blood dripped down from a rooftop onto her shoulders, it was not the type of distraction she needed.

"You aren't helping any!" Camella yelled at the blood as it hit her.

"That's the Bitch!" A familiar voice yelled out from behind her. Around twenty feet behind her, she saw the man she had crippled earlier using crutches to hold himself up. He was standing next to what appeared to be a well armed friends of his. The man was outfitted with a weapon she had never seen before. To her it looked like a black crossbow minus the bow part but modified to be quite mechanical.

Come to think of it, there were similar weapons aboard that Caravan. She wasn't sure how it worked, but she was pretty sure it made him extremely dangerous. Camella charged in to attack the man with her daggers, only to get shot by the man with the pistol. The same man she had been attacking just sent some condensed lead into her right shoulder almost instantaneously forcing her to drop her dagger. At least she knew what that loud noise was from earlier.

Camella continued to close the distance between herself and the man as in a panic, he fired off three more bullets, two of which narrowly missed her head, while the third hit her in the right shoulder. The pain was getting to be too much, but she was now in his face. Camella tackled the man and knocked the gun out of his hands. When the man went to reach for it, she nailed his hand to the ground with a her dagger.

The Cripple picked up the gun and shot one bullet in each knee, sendin Camella to the ground. He aimed at her head and attempted to fire only to realize that there were no bullets left in the gun. It didn't take Camella long to realize this either. It was the only reason he wouldn't have fired his weapon.

Camella had to chuckle at the fact that there was an opening, and she could DO nothing about it.

[Saxon]

A crisp, bitter wind whipped at the torches that hung affixed to the dilapidated rooftops, causing the fiery embers to bite and nick at the cold gale in a futile attempt to survive. Concealed by the greasy darkness, a shadowy figure leveled the barrel of his weapon at the scene below him. Looking through the dark, troublesome scope of the rifle, the sniper heard wretched gunfire break the eerie silence and cause him to choke up on the weapon. Below him on the dismal streets, a woman slashed and cut defiantly at a pair of ragged looking men as they advanced on her. She acted and fought like a wolf that had caught itself in the jaws of a bear trap, biting and growling at everything around it as it tried desperately to gnaw its own leg off. Staring at her coldly, the mercenary grit his teeth as blood spewed from behind her, a bullet ripping a gaping hole through her shoulder.

Moving into a better light, the man scratched his shoulder as he stared intently down at the trio as they fought and wrestled like the ebb and flow of a small inlet river bleeding into the cold sea. The woman grappled with the assailant as more shots rang out, and she closed the gap between them in one last ditch effort to charge. Staring in mild amusement, the sniper gazed at the mysterious woman as she knocked her attacker off his feet and onto his rear, leaving him helpless as the gun flew from his hand as she wrenched it and pinned it to the floor with her a silvery, metallic flick that had to be a dagger.

" Too cocky," the mercenary breathed with a wheeze as he watched the other attacker circle behind her and stumble to pick up the weapon, and popped off two shots in each knee of his victim. The woman screamed as the bullets ripped through her knees, and caused her to fall to the ground as the man continued to pull the trigger of the pistol only to hear several quiet clicks. Upon his crutches the figure staggered towards her, continuing to pull the trigger as he cackled at her. The other assailant wrenched the dagger free from his palm with an agonized gasp, the whites of his eyes rolling towards to his victim as he tried to stand.

Often when the mercenary saw scenes like this, he felt like a god weighing lives in his hands as he witnessed terrible deeds with the option to intervene. Putting his finger upon the trigger, he watched as the familiar black lines painted upon the lens of the scope etch across the back of the head of the rioter who gripped the gleaming dagger of the woman. Out of habit the sniper stifled a breath as he saw the alien look upon the wretched woman's face as she laughed at the rioters. Had she known she was about to be saved? Did she understand the gravity of her situation? The sniper gave one last dismissive grunt as he squeezed the trigger and a terrific shot rang from between his ears.

A gaping hole upon the forehead of the sniper bled as he slumped, his eyes growing listless and his face placid. Melting from the darkness, the dense shadow of Zaya came into view as she moved quickly across the roof and wrenched the rifle from the grasp of her victim," That one was for Chuck for shooting him in the back, you fucking coward," she said coolly.

Biting on a cigarette between her teeth, smoke whistled in front of the warrior's face as she gazed upon the alien insignia of one of Paulus' top competitors plastered upon the mercenary's back," Shit," she growled under her breath. Alarming thoughts coursed through her mind as a part of herself made the warrior glance instinctively over the edge. Leaning over the woman, the man raised the dagger high into the air and over the woman as she sneered at him. Realizing her plight, the mercenary raised the stolen Dragunov SVD and leveling it at the scene below her, Zaya squeezed the trigger and a powerful blast ripped through the air and the assailant's head exploded in a crimson spray.

The crippled rioter caught sight of the mercenary before he toppled over with a wet slap as a bullet ripped through the darkness and bit into what Zaya thought to be his good leg. Parting at the knee, the bloody leg gushed as the cripple fell pathetically to the ground. Across the grisly scene, the mercenary lowered the rifle and nodded to the woman as their eyes met before disappearing into the darkness again. Making it the other side, the warrior pulled a strange device called a radio from her pocket and pressed the button as she said," Got a civilian down in the alley on the southeast corner of Main Street. She's wounded and needs a lift back to the Rig to be treated. Over."

Pausing for a moment as she listened to the crisp, unintelligible static across the radio, Zaya waited a couple moments before a haggard voice called over the link," Yer growin' soft, Zaya. Savin' civilians from problems they've caused. Yew sure it ain't time to retire?"

" Fuck you, Nick," the mercenary said playfully into the radio, her thoughts wandering towards the familiar insignia as she felt Rkam becoming too hot to handle.

" Roger that," a mechanical voice wheezed over the radio before static hissed into Zaya's ear. Putting the radio back into her pocket she reached the other end of the roof and peered over the edge before climbing over the cold granite. Taking one last breath in the biting gale, the woman flicked her cigarette away and leapt into the shadows and was engulfed into the darkness of waning nightfall.

~*~

Moving quickly across the alley upon booted feet, a tall mercenary nodded to his team as he broke off and slipped into the dull light of the grisly scene. It had taken them minutes to respond, and as far as they knew, the woman could've been long gone by now. Standing like faceless sentries, the mercenaries watched from the shadows as their leader moved towards the girl. He was a head shorter than Darrel, and his curly black hair gave a natural shadow over his hazel eyes. Standing in a thick, woolen jacket, dark-green cargo pants and steel-capped combat boots, the warrior looked completely devoid of any appearance of where he had hailed from.

Relaxing his grip on his beretta, the man saw the two corpses of the rioters but no woman that needed saving. Holstering the weapon, the man looked from the mounds of waste and filth and into the dark shadows where he saw something stir. Raising his hands in neutrality, the mercenary gave a soft smile," Hello? My name is Nick, hello? Yeah, you can come out. We're not here to hurt you. You are that girl that needed helped... right?"

[Camella]

Right after she was saved, Camella also realized she was screwed over big time. She couldn't move anywhere very fast, if at all. She knew that if she didn't hide herself, more would likely come along to finish her off. With a lot of difficulty, she managed to hide herself beneath the snow, or at least the injured parts of her body. She then turned her body completely white with her chameleon-like abilities. It was the perfect camouflage until she could heal enough to move again. In the meantime, she closed her eyes to completely blend in.

When Nick announced his presence, Camella's hopes of surviving went downhill. She was scared and more than a bit paranoid. In her opinion, this guy was likely going to kill her as soon as she showed herself, despite what she said. It didn't help any when she heard Nick call in on the radio.

"I don't see her. You sure this is the right place?"

"Just keep searching, she can't be too far away, what with her injuries and all."

Nick started to head back behind the house to see if she had hidden there when he accidentally stepped on Camella's right shoulder. Camella couldn't keep herself from screaming out in pain. She was royally fucked over unless Nick was telling the truth about wanting to help her.

-----------

Nick pulled Camella out of the snow and looked her up and down. Her wounds seemed pretty bad, and she was lucky to have survived at all. Snatching Camella up, he was quick to realize that she was heavier than he expected. After a bit of a trek, he brought her back to the Caravan. It was the safest place he knew of, and they had the supplies to help her wounds heal stored away there as well, but even with the best medical aid, she was in no condition to fight for at least two days. Nick pulled out his radio to update Zaya on the situation.

"She's pretty banged up, but I got her to the caravan. You want me to meet you at the warehouse or take care of her here?"

[Saxon]

Almost by clockwork they had come en masse. Carrying weapons ranging from pistols and rifles to pitch-forks and sickles, the poor peasants of the city that had been touched by morality and stricken with poverty had been reduced to a heathenism that knew no bounds. To Paulus' credit, the sacking of the Crow's Wing had proved to be the thing that rattled Wkigi's rebels like angry hornets from their nest. The narrow, filthy streets were flooded with a sea of jeering peasants, armed to the teeth in what had to be the merchant's reserves. They had been lucky to have gotten off the streets when they had, because the rioters traveled across the city like a pack of wild wolves, tearing and ravaging whatever victim came their way, and the intoxicating scent of blood nipping at their nostrils. They had turned everything upside down in the search of the people who had destroyed the tavern, which had been one of the many ammo dumps Wkigi had strategically placed.

Drawing a sharp breath, Smitty looked on in horror from the safety of a rooftop as the men, women, and children of this bloody rebellion blew each other to pieces, banged and damaged anything they got their mangy hands on, and pulled what innocents there were left into the undertow of the fanatical swarm. Virtually torn limb from limb by muffled spray of bullets, a woman crumpled to the ground as a series of knee-jerking coughs sputtered from what had to be one of the sub-machine guns while blood splurted from the masses like a severed limb attempting to clot. Witnessing the rebels in the throes of their lunacy, the warrior's blood ran cold as several rioters splintered from the chaotic mob to feast on the scarlet ruin of the female. This wasn't madness caused by war, Smitty thought, No man's will shatters like glass that easily.

" Savages," the mercenary growled under his breath as the wrinkles upon his face crinkled in disgust. Turning his back to the scene, the survivalist walked down the mound of trash he had been standing on and passed many of his fellow mercenaries. They sat or crouched in wait for the next order with dark, sinister hopes that made their trigger fingers twitchy. Blocked from view by a wall of aged tin and a mound of filth, the rooftop of what had once been a pharmacy sheltered the bulk of Paulus' forces.

Looking over to the crowd huddled by a nearby crate, Smitty watched as the merchant pushed a tin can over a make-shift map. Paulus had been circled by many of his captains once more, and though his voice was low, everybody around the merchant could hear his every syllable over the sound of clashing steel and rumbling slaughter," The left quadrant here is under heavy guard, don't think the turret is still operational, but I wouldn't count on anything since those monkeys moved in."

Glancing at Smitty as he approached, Zaya pointed with her chin to the space of the map where the tin can now squatted on," You sure that's the right play, chief?"

" What do you mean," A curly-haired captain tried to ask from over the sounds of gratuitous gunfire.

Tracing the lines of a large rectangle with a finger, Zaya looked to her fellow captains," Look. The perimeter for our old guard issue was on the rooftops, it doesn't take a scientist to figure out that they'd have an advantage over the rest of us if we were to approach from the south side of the docks. If we were to cut through the fencing there, we'd be riddled full of holes before we even made it to the door."

" What about here," Smitty said as he traced a line from the street they stood a few yards away from to a large half circle around the docks and to the warehouses," With the turrets guarding the entrance and the south side being watched, the eastern side wouldn't even have been considered as a possible entry point."

" Course'," said the curly-haired captain as he nudged a fellow captain and pointed to the spot," Thats where we put a lot of the tripwire. The poor bastards who don't know where they're goin' will be blowin' to pieces before he makes it six yards from the wall."

" We wouldn't have to deal with the pricks if we blew a hole in the back of the 'house," Zaya interjected as she calculated the risks," Could take em' by surprise and overwhelm them."

Looking at each other in muddled amazement, the captains turned their attention to Paulus who was stroking a stubble of graying whiskers. Nodding in approvingly, the merchant shrugged," Suppose so. Take a few folks to blow a hole on the east side and have the rest of us flank the west with another explosion ten seconds later. Would knock all the sentries off guard and give us enough time to make a pincer movement."

" I'll be damned if Wkigi isn't in the control room listenin' to the pipes," Smitty said as his shadowy face grimaced in the dim candle light.

" If we got to the controls in time, we could turn on the security and cut down whatever lay in wait at the front of the warehouse. After that, I've got a little somethin' in there to carry the supplies back to the rig if those bastards hadn't already managed to get to it already," Paulus mused as his old mind began to churn like a thresher with the inkling of a plan.

As Zaya opened her mouth to retort, her pocket hissed with static as her radio flickered with life. Pulling it out she heard the faint voice of Nick and his request. Handing the device over to her boss, the mercenary watched as Paulus held the button and said," Nick, this is Paulus. Maintain your position, tell Norman to rev up the Rigs and tell Chase and Alexa to circle the city with the humvees towards either side of the docks. We're gonna need an escort. Over."

" Roger that, chief," Nick said after a long pause and then the radio died with a hiss of static.

Handing it back to Zaya, Paulus nodded to the map," Well then, its settled. Suit up and get ready to ship out in ten minutes. We're getting into that warehouse, one way or another."

~*~

[Saxon]

Under the cover of darkness and chilled to the bone as the temperature plummeted while dawn slowly approached, massive shadows painted the walls under the dim torchlight. The port of the city was virtually abandoned during the riots; most of the rebels were content with pillaging and raping the lands of their oppressors, and had no need to come back to such a place. The howl of the biting winds and the sharp, teeth-chattering snap of cold was all it took for most of the mercenaries to figure out where they stood. Safe in the shadows, every single one of the warriors scurried for cover as flashes of white-hot streaks of lightening contrasted against the murky, black gloom.

Massive, elongated buildings constructed from granite and thick, steel checkered roofs that sat atop the building as it was wedged in the remains of the barren landscape. Rolls of the rumbling seas crashed against the decadent shipyard, the groan of the remaining wooden vessels ringed within the residents' ears and rattled their ignorance. Upon every flicker of lightning, Zaya could almost see the shattered masts of a graveyard of ships and wide, planked docks that were being buried under thousands of pounds of frigid, brackish waves. The rancid stench of fish was almost unbearable; heaps of what was left of a once populous and successful fish market were left to rot and carried atop the smell of the salty air only to waft in the nostrils of the steadfast mercenaries.

Able to see wisps of her hot breath, even in the black darkness, Zaya stole a glance behind her to check the progress of her squad. Divided right down the center, Zaya and Paulus each led a score of mercenaries across the constricted, clogged streets as they searched for their vantage point. Darrel had managed to grab a couple of explosive devices known as claymores from the ruined stores of the Crow's Wing and had given Paulus and Zaya one each before taking his squad to meet with the cavalry if they were truly needed. Feeling the heavy burden within the knapsack strapped to her back, the mercenary knew all too well of the awesome power and destruction such devices were capable of. Images of chunks of granite masonry whipped in and out of her mind as Zaya had imagined a gargantuan hole being punched into the warehouse's foundation as if a giant, all too-curious, had poked a hole into the building to get a better view.

Flickering, diminished torchlight revealed the web of tall, steel-meshed fence that circled the merchant's property. Light flooded from amber-hued windows into parts of the apparently wide perimeter with florescent light, revealing chunks of red, frozen meat tossed haphazardly upon the white, powdery soil. Zaya and the entire crew knew better then to assume anything of Paulus' was that easy to get a hold of, as black soot that was scorched in a blast pattern stood apparent for all to see. Grenades and other devices called land mines laid buried under the cover of frozen, meaty soil and powdery chunks of snow. Each had been armed by the mercenaries themselves before the foundation of the masonry had time to even gel under the bitter cold. Every trap was deep enough to ignore the attention of Salvar's hazardous weather, but shallow enough to blow up on contact if enough pressure was applied.

Warriors in our own wasteland, Zaya thought, Trained to fight in alien ways and with weapons as foreign and sparse as the nations themselves. One day the mercenary would work up the nerve to ask Paulus the question she dreaded the most. Who was he? A benevolent figure that owned a trading company that had its hand in almost every sentient nation upon Althanas, and yet he was far more alien to his crew than they were to him. Each warrior had once been a peasant or citizen slowly strangled by poverty, many hailing from either Corone or Salvar, some even from the blistering sands of Fallien. Handpicked, trained in combat, and trusted with her boss' very life, Zaya took every bit of her job seriously.

Slowly slipping from the familiar sense of nostalgia, the warrior dismissed her suspicion. There would be no questioning of Paulus' generosity, at least not while Zaya and the captains were still around, and to think otherwise left a bitter taste in her mouth that tasted like the grim fruits of sacrilege. Pulling out a pair of long, scarlet shears designed to cut into the wiry mesh, the mercenary and her colleagues grappled with the fence as they peered into the darkness of the rebel's blindspot.

" Take it, and careful with it now!" Zaya whispered harshly as she and two others passed a giant piece of wiry web of steel off to the rest of their squad to dispose of. Tucking the shears back into her knapsack, Zaya fished around for a moment before she managed to pull a single black goggle from the shadow depths of her belongings. Lowering her hood and holding her fur cap in her arm pit, the mercenary carefully slung the single goggle over her eye and stifled a breath as everything seemed to be cast in a bright, unnatural green.

" Lens workin', boss?" a crewmate whispered quietly as the squad watched their leader tuck the cap over her dark, raven-hued scalp.

With a rush of vertigo that filled her head when she snapped her head too quickly in the direction of the voice, Zaya's vision swam dizzyingly as it attempted to level itself out," Like a charm," she snapped.

Steadying her sights upon the strip of cold, narrow strip of ground between her and the crew's collective objective, the mercenary saw the familiar slivery twinges of tripwire meant to guide the crew across the mine field and into the building. Keeping her gaze fixed ahead of her, the captain took one crunchy step forward and stopped. Looking back into the dozens of sickly green orbs that stuck out of the shadows like sore thumbs, Zaya whispered," Stay here and stick to the shadows. Can't be huddlin' against that wall when the 'more goes off."

Without another word Zaya turned back and drew one final breath before she forsook her squad for the mine field. Each step caused the mercenary's heart to leap as she made her way across the maze of tripwire. Slowly but surely, her footsteps rippled like rumbling thunder as the warrior could distantly hear the steel twine tinkle in a sharp gust of wind.

~*~

[Camella]

Nick got on his radio quickly and relayed the orders from Paulus, before he turned his attention to Camella. She was being antisocial, but he couldn't blame her. It was he who had stepped on her bullet wound, after all, which had to hurt like a bitch. It also didn't help anything that she was around people she didn't recognize.

"You know, right now you are lucky to be alive." Nick said, trying to break the ice with her for the third time. He couldn't think of much else to say at the time being, but he was pretty sure he didn't deserve the rude remarks she was giving him everytime he tried to speak to her before.

"Do you like making a fool out of yourself by stating the obvious, you jerk?"

"I told you before, my name is Nick and I never had any intention of hurting you. I can help your body heal it's own wounds, but you are going to have to trust that I mean you no harm, Miss... You know, I never got your name"

"My name is Camella, and trusting you would be a hell of a lot easier had you not stepped on me earlier."

Nick sighed, this conversation was going nowhere.

"Will you please let me treat your wounds?"

The girl named Camella hesitated a bit then nodded. Nick quickly and carefully treated her wounds and bandaged her up as best he could. He gave hersoome splints for her legs as well. This took all of ten minutes.

"Don't try to walk, by the way." Nick warned, "You will likely only injure yourself more."

[Saxon]

Hearing the heavy, icy white crunch beneath his footsteps, Smitty carefully pulled one foot in front of the other as he side-stepped a tripwire. Each step seemed to put a greater burden upon his weakened heart, the survivalist walked like a man whose last plea for clemency had been wrenched from his grip. Damn it, the mercenary thought with a pang of realization, The bastard cheated! Smitty and three others had drawn straws to see who would take up this miserable trek, and he should've known better then to believe Vince, the local card shark, had been playing straight.

Smitty growled under his breath as he looked behind him, his comrades urging him on with silent whispers and obscene gestures. I'll knock his teeth out for this, he resolved. With plans of cold revenge gripping his attention, the mercenary turned back to the scene at hand and continued to move about the steel web. Marked in squares, the tripwires served much more as a guideline for the mercenaries, rather than a deterrent for intruders. Taking steps in a continuous L-shaped pattern, Smitty had steeled himself for situations like this.

Hearing the sound of footsteps other than his own over the blaring sound of shouts and maniacal laughter from inside the building, the survivalist chanced a look up and stopped dead. Bathed in lime-light, the mercenary had seen the barrel of the rifle first that bore down on him. Behind the gun, a woman decked in kevlar not unlike his own was aiming at him with the precision of someone who had a certain military expertise. The most peculiar thing was that she hadn't been wearing the goggles that allowed her night vision, let alone did she look all the bright anyway. How does she..?, Smitty thought before it struck him like lightning.

In a split second the goggles were in the air, the luminescent green lens that had given the sniper the unfair edge she needed were shattered at the sound of a jarring crack that could only be deduced as to be a gunshot. Only a few feet too many stood between Smitty and the wall of the warehouse, the survivalist ran haphazardly into the same darkness that blinded him. Stumbling over his own feet, the mercenary felt plumes of frigid snow shoot up behind him as the woman set after him in a trail of gunfire.

Had it been luck or fate, Smitty hadn't the slightest, but he staggered back at the slap of cold, unforgiving masonry of the eastern wall. Taking a few seconds to recover, the mercenary rubbed the side of his head and tried to get a firm grip back on reality. Letting a rush of air hiss through his clenched teeth, Smitty dug into his pack for the claymore, the survivalist could feel the hard plastic of the heavy burden and hoisted it from its resting place. The explosive device felt cold and unfeeling in his hands, but pulling the four clamps from either side of the octagonal, the mercenary's thoughts dwelled only on how close he had been to death. If I had only been a few seconds off, he began to think but dismissed it instantly. There wasn't any need to dredge up the past with questions like 'what if' or 'what could've been'. Shoving the claymore against the reinforced granite with a satisfying crunch, Smitty looked from either side of him and began to push on the hard rubber keys until red numbers flashed before him.

00:45

" Just like clockwork," Smitty scoffed as he pulled out his glock and heard the grim, foreboding beep of the device as it ticked away. The mercenary put his left hand against the wall and felt the cold, smooth texture of the granite as he slowly edged his way towards what he thought to be a safe place to hide. Faster and faster the survivalist walked until he broke into a brisk jog and then into a run. More and more Smitty felt confidence quell within him until his empty hand stabbed at the web of mesh that had to be the fencing.

In seconds the mercenary was up and over the fence, his knees the first to come in contact with a rough patch of frozen snow," Oof!"

" Gotta get the fuck out of here," Smitty wheezed as he got to his feet, the idea of shrapnel being flung at him entirely unacceptable. Not after all that, the survivalist reasoned as he shot up and began to search for Paulus under the sight of dim torchlight. As he made it around the bend of the warehouse and out of sight of his own squad, the heavy blow that caught the survivalist in the head wasn't as jarring as the explosion from the chorus of shattering explosions coming from the western side. Crumpling to the ground, Smitty felt darkness rush towards him and the last thing he heard before his own claymore went off was the ominous chuckle of a mysterious gravelly voice.

~*~

[Saxon]

The gray, opaque dust that had once been a solid wall of granite, and four feet thick, had smothered the raiders and rioters alike in a dense fog that no man could escape. As predicted by Darrel, the walls had been pulverized by the combined concussion of the claymore and the homemade mines that had sat in the fields for months. Crumbling masonry fell in a pattern that could only have been made by raw, awesome power of destruction. The first thing to enter the minds of rebels as they stared into the graying fog and into the twilight of dawn was the spine-chilling cold and crackling fear that simultaneously bit into them.

Armed to the teeth with mysterious weapons, the dire intentions of Wkigi's men had been all but crushed along with the walls that had helped blanket their fear and paranoia and feed the kind of madness only desperate men could know. Either blown to smithereens by the initial blast or pan caked under the same thick, rocky exterior designed to protect them, the corpses of hundreds of the rioters hanged about the depot and painted it in red ruin. Long moments passed that boggled the mind; It had been sheer jubilee a few seconds ago. A lifetime ago.

Men and women alike had laughed and danced to the caterwauling sounds of grating music. People hid in the sacred, graying shadows to commit their deepest, darkest desires without fear of being reprimanded for it. Men's throats were slit for loot or swag they had obtained during the sacking of the city. Chaos reigned and for the first time in decades, the citizens of Rkam could confide in their dark, twisted fantasies. Their leader, Wkigi, had forsaken them to his office where he enjoyed the fruits of his own pre-pubescent harem, the husk of a man fully content on savoring the ripe, bruised fruit of his hard labor. As all of these things coalesced and mixed into some sort of primitive quittance, the deafening explosion that followed caused the rioters to scatter like cockroaches caught under blinding lamp light.

The few that screamed listlessly ran about wildly, and hid in the very darkness they still held sacred. The rest were in a state of utter shellshock and bedazzled to the point of becoming catatonic. These people weren't soldiers; they were peasants. They were God-fearing men and women that had been twisted by a desperate man and decades of unrelenting abuse and neglect. They weren't experienced or even had the inkling of what it was to see an explosion of that magnitude. The claymore had destroyed more than just those walls. They'd crushed the spirit of Rkam's last-ditch effort to become free. They hadn't a chance as they stood in awe and watched as the world around them came crashing down. Some wept; others convulsed from hysterical shock, but most simply stared on into the abyss wondering what cruelty the Thaynes or Sway had wrought upon them.

~*~

The mixture of brackish blood and the faint odor of asbestos wafted in Paulus' nostrils as he walked across the charred crater that had once been his first and last line of defense. Gripping the Remington tightly in a stony, calloused hand, the middle-aged merchant strolled onward as he watched his mercenaries dash towards the ravaged opening and became lost in the pewter-hued fog. It wasn't before long before he heard the sound of gunfire rattling off inside cavernous depths of the depot he had built. An alien, high-pitched wail hissed in the air with an eerie similarity of a cat being caught in a conveyer belt. It sounded alien and foreign to the trader who had a almost unsurmountable knowledge when it came to his armory.

" That can't possibly be good," Paulus growled under his breath to nobody. Stopping suddenly to listen to the noise once more, the commander fought reason and logic before bellowing instinctively," Go!"

Paulus watched as two of his most trusted cadets left his aside to attend the battle, leaving him to his own devices. Ambling up the mound of rocky, basalt ruin of granite, the merchant and two of his most trusted cadets disappeared into the remnants of his property.

~*~

[Saxon]

If the outside of the trader's warehouses contrasted with Rkam, then even in ruin, the insides were still a wonder to behold. Steel-bound crates twice the size of an average man laid stacked precariously about the place, that had created a sort of complexity akin to a labyrinth before the resulting explosion had blown most of what was left of the stores to pieces. The place looked reminiscent to some sort of abandoned factory, where rails and steel catwalks criss-crossed over, under, and around the merchant's wares in order to access them without much need for machinery. Everything one could think of could be found here; weapons, food, clothing, and fuel that had lain stacked in the crates now most of it was either gone or covering the floor in a mess of junk. It was a wonder in itself how Paulus could afford nearly a dozen of these warehouses that dotted around Salvar inside carefully chosen city-states as a sort of supply depot when times were rough, let alone his ventures into the desolate wasteland itself.

It stood as a testament to the merchant's rivals of his obvious superiority and even behind a chain-linked fence, no less. They had been well protected, in fact, it was still a mystery as to how Wkigi had gotten past a small brigade of mercenaries that had been stationed there, the complex security system, and the six-inches of steel barricaded doors that separated the rest the supplies from Rkam. Pushing his way through the blinding gray soot that hovered in the air, however, the first of Paulus' mercenaries erupted from the small pocket of gas carrying a carbine in one hand and a hunting knife in another.

Putut, tut, tut, tut!

Bullets were the last sound a man Zaya knew to be Harry Mckenzie heard as hundreds of them tore through the mercenary as soon as he emerged from the dense, suffocating mist. Spattered red, Zaya could only look on in horror as she witnessed the innards of her crewmate splatter the surrounding area in slow motion with a sound not unlike rotten milk being hurled from a glass and onto the ground. Still standing, the warrior's bifurcated remains wisped with remnants of smoke as the legs slowly gave and what was left of Harry crumpled to the ground.

Slowly the whir and whining grind of the unfamiliar weapon ceased, and instinctively Zaya seized the opportunity to turn right and break into a haphazard dash as she roared," Get to cover! Hide, damn it, hid-" Not getting to hear the rest of her own sentence, the captain felt her legs pump harder than they ever had before as she heard the weapon begin to grind again. Quickly bits of hot lead zipped into the ground and trailed plumes of debris behind the mercenary until she disappeared around a gargantuan overturned mound of rock. The pop and crack of granite becoming gravel under the barrage of bullets caused Zaya to hit the cold ground with a thud and covered her head, closing her eye as bits of dust painted her form a strange and unnatural gray. Opening her eyes, the warrior hoped to Hromag that her squad was smart enough to stay out of the open.

Instantly the entire fringe of an exposed hunk of granite was sheared off by the awful power of the mysterious gunner that took to the captain like a wolf to lamb. Pulling herself up, Zaya sat against the cold rock as she caught sight of a pair of whimpering peasants cowering in the corner. Check, reload, contact, sang the mercenary's old mantra within her mind. Realizing she was still holding her scorpion in a white-knuckle grip, the captain eased and tried to relax as she could feel herself shake uncontrollably. Pulling out the narrow clip of her machine gun reflexively, checking the ammo, and then shoving it back in with a click, Zaya snapped back the slide of her weapon and reached for her radio inside her pocket as she carefully watched the cowering rioters out of the corner of her eye.

" Agh! This is Matt here commanding for the right flank, covering for you, Smitty, where the fuck are you! Over," the radio reverberated over the echo of gunfire and hiss of static.

Pushing the black plastic button of the device Zaya looked whence she had come before saying," Matt, this is Zaya; I'm pinned down by some sort of gunner and I'm in need of assistance. The bastard blew Harry to bits before he could even flinch and I was right behind him. I managed to stow away and I need somebody to come dig me out and probably the entire left flank. Does anybody copy?"

" We're under the same fucking treatment, Cap'n, any sort of plan coming to mind? Over," Matt's voice answered.

The tumblers within Zaya's mind began to turn as she considered her options and the thought came to her and she responded," I've got an idea. Standby, over."

Pulling a round pocket mirror from her coat, the captain held it in one hand as she grabbed a nearby piece of long, broken steel rebar and a hunk of plastique within another pocket she had been saving for the right occasion. Clumping the dense, stable explosive onto one side of the piece of steel, the mercenary carefully pressed the back of the mirror to it until she was sure it was stick. Sliding toward the end of the mound, she carefully stuck the mirror from safety and steered the mirror from the reflection of her own face and into the dreaded gloom.

Zaya held her breath as she looked about and it took her several long moments before she could see the giant figure on the catwalk that had contrasted with the shadows. Whoever he was, the assailant bore a weapon that the captain had never even seen before, and was willing to bet half her crew hadn't either. Seven, huge greased cylinders shot from some sort of base from the darkness, even in the dark the obvious wisps of smoke gushed from the barrels indicating the awesome power of such a weapon. Positioned in such a way, the looming figure had a panoramic view of the entire warehouse, making him far more deadly than if he had been on the ground.

It wasn't until she saw them that Zaya couldn't believe it; skulking amongst the shadows more than three scores of men crept gingerly about the catwalks, armored with kevlar and armed with more alien weaponry. It wouldn't be too long until the managed to encroach on her squad's position and destroy whatever foothold they had. Tilting the mirror inch by agonizing inch, the mercenary followed one of the skulking defenders and watched as his dark outline in the dull gray moved slowly in her direction," Who the fuck are these guys," Zaya asked with a perplexed look on her face.

It wasn't until the figure walked through a glimmer of flames that the mercenary spotted what she had secretly feared. Embroidered on the kevlar vest of the strange man was the same blood-red insignia she had found on the sniper. Morgan's men, she scorned. Witnessing one of Paulus' rivals was like spotting a lioness prowling in the tall grass; it never led anywhere good-- especially somebody belonging to Morgan Price.

Fishing for her radio, Zaya held it close as she barked," Morgan's in town, ladies. He's got his meatheads all bunked up in the catwalks looking to pick a fight. The bastard is probably the one who opened up the warehouse in the fucking first place. Over."

There was a long pause before Paulus' familiar voice erupted over the radio, his commanding demeanor even present from behind a faceless machine," Morgan? That prick. We'll deal with him later, but have you managed to find the gunner? Over."

Squinting into the mirror as she aimed it towards the gargantuan figure, Zaya managed to spot him a split-second before she could see the hint of a glimmering puff in the nearby area before her mirror exploded into shards. Covering her eye instinctively with her other hand, the mercenary's rebar was wrenched from her grip by the impact of the sniper's bullet, causing it to clatter noisily to the floor," Shit," she exclaimed.

Ignoring the whimpers of the huddled peasants, the captain stooped into a low crouch as she pressed the button of the radio," Seven cylinders that look to be rooted together, smoke was pourin' from it. The guy handling the damn thing must be a fucking mountain of muscle. Ov-"

" Damn it," Paulus blared over the radio," Where the Hell did Price manage to find it? A Minigun?!"

All of the color drained from Zaya's face as she heard these words. She hadn't the slightest what a minigun was, but it was the first time the captain had heard that pang of something in the merchant's voice she was too familiar with. Fear. Whatever this weapon was, it scared the shit out of Paulus, and the old buzzard was as tough as nails to boot. Standing, the mercenary made sure her head was hidden by the granite as she spoke into the radio," I'm not sitting around to find out whatever this is, Paulus. Western squads, take out Morgan's goons and try to get the gunner's attention, I'll try to circle around the bastard and put one between his eyes before I meet up with the eastern flank. Don't go to sleep now, boys. Over."

There was a round of 'Hoo-Ahs' before the radio fell into static, but it didn't drown out the unwanted footsteps clanging against the steel walkways the captain overheard. Zaya took the initiative this time and broke into another run as she wrestled her scorpion free from its holster. She wasn't about to let a bunch of religious nuts put a bullet in her head before she could return the favor.