(Art source unknown)
Index: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15
Chapter 10
For whom the Sword falls
Streets made clean of random people, the three men approached their target. Red Hoods in ordinary attire, yet well armed and clad in light chain shirts, roamed key intersections. Lady Thaliel’s entire cleansing band was mobilized for this operation. Just in case, at Joel’s behest, one of her sons went to warn Captain Brelain’s troop. Vigilantes and city guards more often than not did work hand in hand and especially in potentially deadly dangerous stakeouts like this one.
Officially, it was a Temple request for extra security, following an investigation by privately hired professionals. Bounty hunters like Dalen were the citizenry’s first line of defense, yet law demanded they reported serious issues to the city guard. No one wished for magical accidents like the one he barely stopped to occur again. Therefore, every precaution was taken and there were seemingly idle-looking armed to the teeth patrols resting at various food stalls and eateries, a mere street running distance away.
Yet when Dalen led the three across towards the backstreet where master Hierth witnessed the ensorcelled, his pace was not calm, nor was it sure. Instead, the experienced warrior hesitated and, following one glance at some random passer-by on the street, winced. That otherwise mundane-looking human man reeked danger and the bounty hunter immediately acted on his gut feeling.
Quickly, he approached an intersection, where the Red Hoods had established one of their discreet blockades.
“Follow that grizzled human, see where he goes and report back. That’s Brolf the underhanded or I am not a bounty hunter of twenty Turns.” – ordered he and they picked the three most skilled among them, as he gave more instructions – “Be careful and keep yer distance! He is one of them mercs who works as a watchman for murderers and thieves.”
When the men slinked into a wynd nearby, Dalen canted his head, addressing his companions’ unspoken questions – “Rolan, I know your wife’s men have most wanted posters memorized, but my mind’s eye does not err. That bastard... he prolly had a potion of alter self or grafted some poor sod’s face over his own ugly mug. Seen it happen a few times.”
Rolan grimaced as he cracked his fists – “Now, that is just vile.”
“In my youth I helped the Red Hoods track one mass murderer who’d slain over sixty people. Couldn’t catch the wretch since she changed her entire skin over ten times with the aid of some poor healer.” – agreed Joel and his face was plastered with disgust when he added – “But Dalen, how did you even know it was him, that Brolf guy?”
“The eyes.” – whispered the bounty hunter as he pointed his own – “Changed his face he did, but not those heartless peerers.”
Meanwhile, to replace those who went away, another three Hoods casually emerged from a house nearby. Joel and Rolan noticed they were much younger, which made the first sigh and the second frown.
Dalen scribbled a note for the youngest Hood, giving him a chore – “Boy, ye be swift on yer legs and run over to the House of Glimmering Leaves. There are seven bounty hunters billeted there, led by a bulky dwarf knight named Lian. Give the stocky bugger me note and tell him that his brother’s slayer is lurking ‘ere and ‘bout. That should be reinforcement enough to snag that murderer and his friends.”
The youth’s face strained, yet he gave a resolute nod and stashed Dalen’s note.
“Somehow, that does not feel very right.” – said Joel and whispered a short prayer as the youngster ran on his way – “All of this feels like a trap... almost.”
“Come,” – Dalen beckoned his companions – “our boys can and will do their jobs without us. Trap or no trap, we have our duty.”
The three made their way towards the storehouse’s backstreet, casually, as if a group of people on the stroll. In this part of the Worker’s District there were a number of big wholesale stores, alchemical retails, and workshops. Therefore, an overabundance of street food stalls beautified the wynds with their aromatic, hunger inducing presence. A few more men on the look for food during early afternoon’s work break would not raise suspicion.
What would, however, was the fact these three appeared bulkier than most. Though Rolan made sure to employ an illusionary chant to soften their features and made them look a bit more inconspicuous, there was a limit to all sorcery. It would help make them appear mundane, yet the second they made their entry into the storehouse, all bets were off.
“Dalen, I sense only a few workaday magics within.” – whispered Rolan, as they slowly got near, the backdoor of the storehouse only a few steps away.
“Probably the rest of Brolf’s crew are lurking inside.” – mumbled the bounty hunter, keeping his pace short and as casual as humanly possible – “Sporting a couple low yield magical weapons like enchanted arrows, maces, polearms, and a battleaxe... or two.”
“Weird magic?” – asked Dalen a few seconds later.
“Not yet, no.” – replied the wizard.
“I’m making sure that neither we, nor our Hood friends bleed.” – said Joel when they were practically an arm’s reach from the locked shut door, ready to ask for Mara’s special blessing.
“And I, that we don’t break the old man’s beloved storehouse.” – whispered the brawny wizard, his lips muttering a quick chant which silently unlocked the back entrance.
The bounty hunter produced his already loaded crossbow from its hiding place under the cloak with a practiced move. Shoulder pushing the door open, he knelt and aimed the weapon ready to loose the bolt, while Joel made one further step inside, Deliverer unsheathed and lips uttering a prayer of protection. The Castigator made his nimble Zweihänder invisible before leaving the Red Hood safehouse and held the unseen blade as inconspicuous as possible.
Before them laid bare the main floor’s gloomy dark insides, stacked crates and dusty bales as far as their eye could glimpse, the only light coming from the street outside. There was no bloodthirsty welcoming party of mercenaries waiting for them, their arrows nocked and ready to shoot, nor clever traps laid upon the dusty floor. Eyes played tricks on them and even the bounty hunter, whose sight was trained in many an ambush or stakeout, he could not glimpse nary a single man.
Rolan, however, felt where the mundane magics lingered and, following a short exchange of hand signs, expelled one of his mass identification spells. This could tell only between the lowest kinds of magical things, yet in a situation such as this, worked perfectly well. In the gloom, his fingers pointed at two convenient hiding places so Joel and Dalen would not be surprised when those well armed thuggish mercs attacked.
Pretending they were duped and sure there was no one hiding inside, the three actually walked straight into the ambush. Leaping out of their hiding spots, nine mercenaries assailed the trio, peppering them with an assortment of arrows, bolts, and throwing knives. Projectiles, which, repelled by Joel’s kinetic protection field fell harmlessly to the dusty floor.
“Nice trick, gramps! – grumbled one scruffy ork, his shifty eyes and pimpled lips betraying an addiction to alchemical stimulants – “But that won’t save ya. I gon’ splay yer guts all over the floor.”
“My, that’s mighty strong language for such a stumpy snotling.” – and the dwarven priest mocked him, sword raised overhead – “Why don’t you come splay me then?”
“Go’on, dere’s onleh three of em!” – shouted another, a human armed with longish pike, who appeared to be in charge.
Dalen shot him in the neck and as the mercs dashed forth, drew his sword and long dagger. Only Joel remained where he stood, for the dwarf’s battle stance was, as all Marrite priests and Paladins, defensive. The mercenaries soon discovered that those before them were not some mundane adventurers or snooping around Red Hood informants.
Rolan attacked swirling an invisible blade, much longer than the swords the two mercenaries who charged him aimed to poke his belly with. Before the Zweihänder made itself fully visible, only their blood and guts signified its presence. A third merc attempted to cleave the wizard’s head open with his halberd, yet he soon discovered an inch of enchanted steel firmly implanted in his own skull.
Dalen took on two of the mercenaries, stabbing one in the leg and as he parried the sword of the second with his dagger, Joel steadfastly blocked the rest of the thugs. They did attack and with confidence, which melted as soon as the dwarf showed his red Marrite robes. A rain of swings, stabs, and slashes they did deliver and yet, the old priest either evaded them with a skilled step or parried. The first of the three whose heart quivered and tried running away lost his head a second later.
Wailing, the otherwise obnoxiously sure of himself ork, the same who promised Joel a splaying, tried lobbing some kind of a flask at him. Not one moment later and the goon watched his chopped off limb twitch on the dusty floor, said flask still intact and tightly clutched in its fingers.
The ork, in his indignant impudence, hid behind his fellow merc, trying to use him as a shield to ensure his escape. Dalen, who had swirled around his painfully bleeding opponents, dagger stabbing and sword slashing, finished them off with a single strike to their throats. He’d pointed the handless ork and shouted – “Nab him!”
Joel, far from being a one trick gramps, proceeded to batter his last armed opponent dead, caving his skull in with a brutal pommel strike. As the wounded ork ran, leaving a thick bloody trail in the dust, one priestly finger aimed at him and a word in the olden tongue echoed across the storehouse:
“Feablithe!”
A ray of glittering golden light manifested itself by the will of Priest and Mara to chase the running thug. Squealing, the ork lost his strength and knees buckling, fell on the floor. The mercenaries all slain, Dalen produced his bounty hunter shackles and, locked the bleeding man’s legs with his one remaining arm.
Sheathing his blade, Joel knelt next and pointed at the profusely bleeding stump, healing potion in hand – “I say, tell us everything you know and live to see another day.”
The bounty hunter sniffed the air and winced once more – “You speak to the good priest and best be telling him all truths or mortal pain shall befell ye.”
“No torture, p-please! I speak...” – squirmed the ork with the enthusiasm of the dying and opened his mouth so Joel can pour the elixir – “I’m not payed enough, anyways!”
With a nasty squelch his open wound closed and, panting, the cowardly man explained:
“Hired by Brolf to guard dis place and make sure no people snoop ‘round. The rich, armored ork wohman mage said we stays hiar ‘til last shipment before the Frost. Then... then we get the rest of our pay and scram.”
The three gave him a terrifying look and he pissed himself.
“Not even what is in these shipments, not the name of said ork ‘wohman’?” – Dalen inquired with calm viciousness as he slowly reloaded his crossbow.
“Honest, this all I k-knows!” – tears in his eyes mumbled the merc, warm piss forming a puddle around his buttocks.
“You want to tell me that no one, literally not a single soul peeked inside the crates?” – asked Joel, the disbelief in his voice so thick one could cut it with a sword.
“They sais no moneys if we open them crates! What I am, a stupid?” – said the ork as he vigorously nodded, a painful grimace on his pimpled gob.
“Jog your memory stinker,” – asked Joel with a half-smile as he picked up the ork’s bloody limb – “tell us when that ork woman came, describe her in minute detail, and I may even attach your hand.”
The ork proceeded to share what few distinctive features he noticed, including said woman’s shapely shapes and her noble crest. The latter was a clue of great importance, which the lying peddler of stolen goods Joel had to so painfully interrogate, could not provide. Somehow, that cowardly merc had remembered the exact days when said woman graced them with her wizardly presence.
Captain Brelain’s people could, discreetly of course, check their noblesse records and that would speed up Lady Thaliel’s investigation.
“What is this nasty stench?” – asked Rolan, looking at the bodies first and then, the crates stacked nearby.
“One prolly shat himself. It happens. Now, grab a pike and help me open this crate.” – said Dalen and sheathed his dagger, ogling said container with suspicion – “I don’t intent on springing any traps.”
“I could call one of our nimble fingers.” – suggested the wizard, yet Dalen shook his head and this one shrugged as he grabbed a bloodied polearm giving the air one more long sniff.
“Their time is best spent having our backs safe, Rolan. I fear something ain’t right here...” – and the bounty hunter graced each of the dead mercenaries with another good look before he added – “Didn’t you think it was way too easy?”
“Naaah, we were simply too strong for them.” – snickering said the wizard and proceeded to join Dalen in his attempt to safely pry open a lonely crate.
“Wait,” – began the dwarf as he snatched the flask from the chopped off hand – “if you are all here, guarding, then Brolf and his buddies are the night shift.”
“We are... we was the day shift and sleeps at night.” – the ork was quick to answer.
“Then who unloads all the shipments?” – asked Joel and sniffed the air since the smell which Rolan sensed was now strong enough even his dwarven nose could pick it up.
“Don’t knows an thats the truth!” – exclaimed the scared ork whose pain had returned full force and pleaded – “Please, I tolds you everything! Now stitch me arm and give me to them guards. I ain’t kill no one, I swears!”
Dalen and the wizard had successfully pried open the lid and since this did not trigger poisonous clouds, acid splashes, magic missiles, or spikes, they peeked inside. Emptiness peeked back. Bar one tiny wooden comb, the crate was void of anything of interest. Just to be sure, they opened another crate and it too was empty.
“I don’t feel anything from this comb. Not even a tiny bit of mana, I am sure of it.” – Rolan said and the bounty hunter picked it up, examining the item with care.
“The thing was made by unskilled hands. It bears initials paired together with a single hieroglyph.” – said Dalen and when he found the notches his gruff face livened a tad bit – “A boy’s first woodcarving I’d say. Joel, your son may...”
The muffled creak of wood and soft clank of metal came forth from deep within the storehouse’s bowels. In a few seconds there was another and then another, until the three heard a multitude of sounds disturbing. Steps... there were hundreds of steps joining with the creaks and the clinks.
Flinching, Dalen reached for his crossbow, Joel unsheathed the Deliverer, and Rolan’s closed fist became shrouded with a magical shimmer. Shadows emerged from the gloom, multiplying with each passing second, as more and more crates opened from the inside. Broken words became alive with whispered pains; a small army of ensorcelled fast approaching them.
A blast split the air and Joel was bathed in the ork’s thinking meat.
As the door was being slammed shut, blocking their exit, they saw Brolf’s burly figure, a smoking alchemist gun in his hand.
“Come now, entertain us.” – ordered a sneering, magically empowered voice coming from above.
The three spared a few seconds to look up, noticing a dozen masked figures clad in colorful robes. The weird bunch floated between and around the roof’s metallic supports, their demeanor oozing joyful anticipation. Only then did they feel their breath labored, eyes stinging, and lips dry.
They’ve been breathing poison...
[Ninth] — Krartian weeks are nine days.
[Turn] — This is a planetary rotation numbering seventeen thirty five day months.
[MWF] — The greatest magical wrestling federation ever!
Oooh…. Cliffhanger! Can’t wait for the next episode!
The eyes do indeed have a way of revealing the true monster inside. Well done!