Tir Ral-Nor
‘Dar’ Eherdir O’ Lome
Fae O’ Elum
Fifth Servant of the Circle
Certain quiet noons can kill you
Taras Centre
3rd of Sextus 195
3rd Norui (Sixth Moon of the year) 3401 IC
Early summer
Noon
Old Dar snorted in protest and shook his grey mane, the giant old-flies annoying the horse as they came out of the West Gate Tower’s shade, across 2nd Street that curved towards the Adventurer’s Guild in order to reach Main Street.
The strong heat bothered the horse as much as the native bugs of Goras, so Ralnor had led them near the pedestrian tiled sidewalk and the shade of the walls securing the front yards of the rich villas renovated there. The width of Main Street –over forty meters from side to side, - ensured they couldn’t find any proper shade despite his efforts and the relative heavy traffic on the sidewalk itself by the obnoxious Taras pedestrians, prevented the mounted Ralnor from moving fast. He didn’t want to use the street and get stuck between carriages and wagons, potentially exposed to scrutiny from both sides. By sticking to the right side and the street’s sidewalk, he could at least keep everyone in full view to his left.
So much to Dar’s delight he was forced to dismount and walk the rest of the way towards Jinx’s villa. Soon, sweat rivulets started trickling down his snarling face and the soaked hood plastered on the master assassin’s shaved head.
While Larn habitually kept a gnarly expression on to deter casual talk from the nosy Zilan passersby –they kept staring rudely his way, noticing his darker than usual complexion-, this time he was genuine about it as the level of annoyance had risen at dangerous levels. Larn had a Mori-Zilan’s darker skin, but at a colorless almost ashen skin tone, similar to a corpse’s and it piqued his compatriots’ interest.
“They sell health tonics in the market. They’ll boost your immune system,” a fancy dressed Taras’ citizen informed him when Ralnor pushed ahead to avoid the Zilan blocking his path. The citizen had decided to take his newly bought Ostrich out for a stroll. It wasn’t that Ralnor had become a seer all of a sudden, far from it. The nosy Zilan had divulged the information voluntarily, despite Larn not wanting to talk with him. “Hannah likes walking after breakfast,” the Zilan explained whilst Larn dragged Dar forward and past the unlikely pair that refused to take the hint. “You’ll find somewhere to stay easily. It’s much quieter after Valimae Lilt.”
Larn grunted a response and opened his stride, flinching to avoid the Ostrich’s beak that went to chew on his maimed ear. Cursing under his breath, the assassin spotted Jinx’s villa and the Governor’s guarded estate’s entrance across from it, and had to refrain from killing both the bird and its handler amidst the crowd.
Dar neighed -now pleased- when they cut right, the sidewalk ended at a grass-covered open area south of Jinx’s villa and quickly paused to catch their breath, finally out of the slowly moving away citizen and his Ostrich. The bouncing bird’s ugly head stood out of the surrounding crowd and gave Larn a last mean glare as it slowly strolled away.
Feathered fiend.
Larn grimaced and then loosely tied -the already grazing- Dar’s reins on a nearby post belonging to a smaller villa. It was built ten meters inwards from the Main Street and five from the garden walls of Jinx’s place. Initially Larn considered climbing the four meter tall wall and flank the villa as he had a loop of climbing rope around his waist, but decided he could just walk in from the front gates –facing the Main Street- and avoid the hustle. He could work the field next, and then look for a backdoor to enter the villa, without the fear that someone might notice him from the street.
It was a quiet noon on a hot day.
Nothing appeared out of place.
He was still banged up from crashing through a window and his three severed fingers –now stitched- were barely working. So, Larn walked back on the sidewalk next to the large street and headed for the Gish’s wide open front gates. Jinx doesn’t seem to bother at all with security, he mused still annoyed and despite his earlier thoughts.
Certain quiet noons can kill you.
The scowling Larn walked with steady strides, keeping his right shoulder close to the yard’s wall, avoiding the passersby, whilst having an eye on the guards in front of the dvarf’s estate. The usual two city guards were numbering four now, as if Larn had caught them on the change of the shift, but as usual Oras’ numbers popped up in his mind, which forced him to pay attention.
Two instead of four.
Larn slowed down his strides to a crawl, keeping the guards in his peripheral vision with the left eye and ogling with the right straight forward, not to bump on some of Taras’ mouth-breathers out in force days after the festival. Fifty meters ahead of him and the villa’s gates a mounted Rokae in full panoply had arrived to join another group of city guards. They seemed to direct the citizens on foot and the wagons occupying the road west towards the park. Another group of four guards appeared from the corner of Lord Shield’s outer wall and a carriage joined the Rokae with a couple of officials stepping out.
Four times two.
The royal knight, a man with a lute and an old Zilan with a staff, dressed as a magician.
What in witch’s tits is this malarkey? Larn wondered and noticed one of the guards in front of the Lord Shield’s building turn his head to look his way.
Hmm.
The troubled Larn, who had all but stopped walking forward, opened up his stride again under the guard’s scrutiny, walked past Jinx’s open door, reached the corner of the fence where the copse started –south of the villa and made a sharp turn there.
Larn walked briskly with a glance back to check whether the guard had moved –he hadn’t- and took a deep breath under the tree branches heavy shade, his maimed ears catching a couple of songbirds chirping nearby and a human’s voice.
Directed at him.
“Hey mister. Better keep on walking down the path now. You look sick, so you better hurry,” the man said in rough Imperial. He was hidden behind the shrubs growing at the base of Jinx’s unkempt stone fence directly ahead of Larn and the assassin pursed his mouth, afore reaching for a throwing blade. The man took a step on the dirt path and came to full view, though still under the shade, about five meters away now. Larn’s hurting fingers paused unsure for several reasons.
He was another of Taras’ soldiers and he was standing next to a ladder set on the wall before he’d moved. Holding it in place apparently for a second soldier to climb it. His colleague had reached the top of the stone wall and was ready to jump into Jinx’s yard.
Since the crooked guards of Taras –given their leader’s character- probably wouldn’t break in the Gish’s place to rob her silly in the middle of the day, this was something else, especially since they could have just used the open gates to pay the pink cunt a visit if this was a ‘social’ call of sorts.
Or Moira, I guess.
Nobody will bat an eyelash on the latter for sure.
Eh.
Two instead of four guards at the dwarf’s door across the street.
Four times two soldiers watching Jinx’s villa and not Larn passing by.
Another two trying to sneak inside from the side alley.
The alarmed Larn was dead certain that motherfucker Rokae knight was about to head straight for the gates as well.
If I find out them stupid wenches opened a brothel to make coin I’ll be furious.
“I live in the villa with the blue windows. Over there,” Larn forced himself to reply casually and pointed at Jinx’s nosy neighbor, the latter busy sweeping her second floor balcony energetically, but casting glances at the two soldiers with the ladder from a good thirty meters away.
“Ah… wait a minute,” the soldier said half-turning his head, but snapped it back forward immediately, already equally spooked and nervous by Larn’s ghastly countenance, but quite possibly because he knew Jinx’s neighbors well for some absurd reason. He caught Larn still pointing with his left hand towards the backyard facing villa, but with his right now armed with the Kopis, Dar Eherdir had unsheathed in the same action, since he’d noticed the Zilan with the broom return inside her house. “Son of a…” the man cried out afore the forward-curving blade caught him above the left cheekbone and gouged most of his face out.
Skin, eyes and nose.
Blood gushed out and Ralnor’s blade returned to open the gurgling soldier’s neck this time from right to left, chopping his raised to the first wound left arm off at the wrist. The bloody hand flew over both their heads and it sprayed gore everywhere, but Larn was already slashing wide and to the right towards the soldier climbing the ladder.
The Taras soldier had paused hearing the exchange and started coming down, but Ralnor’s sword caught both his legs above the heel bone and severed the tendons. The splash of blood painted a two meter long erratic line on the stone fence just to the right of the ladder, and the crippled soldier toppled backwards with a desperate yelp of pain.
The man hit the ground with his back and the tensed Larn flipped the Kopis upside down in order to punch the facing downwards blade’s point through the soldier’s carotid, with such force it severed the spine’s connection to the base of the cranium. Larn had to put both hands on the handle to dig it out of the ground and the ghastly wound. Always keeping an eye on the empty balcony and after a brief check on both sides of the side path, Larn dragged the dead soldiers deeper inside the nearby bushes under the trees, one body at a time.
Working fast, the assassin checked the bleeding-out bodies for valuables, found a purse with several coins inside and took it to make it seem like a careless robbery had gone bad –as unlikely as the latter might look it didn’t matter to him, then used a razor to collect two pairs of ears for his troubles. Two meat cubes worth of food.
After proper mincing.
Taking a deep breath he got out from behind the shrubbery, glanced at the balcony for the nosy Zilan and not seeing her there, Larn climbed the ladder quickly. He paused at the top of the stone fence circling Jinx’s yard to raise the wooden ladder over it and then position it on the internal side of the wall. Without hesitation he used it again to climb down.
When you find a sturdy ladder use it.
Jumping from heights is for younger lads or showoffs and Ralnor hadn’t been either for at least a dozen centuries.
Sometimes he missed those earlier times.
Larn walked towards the back entrance of the villa, leading to the kitchen -unless some serious redecoration has occurred, but four strides in he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves clip-clopping from the gates and had to duck behind a vanilla tree to see who it was.
Ah.
The Rokae had entered the villa, pulled at the reins to stop his horse about five meters from the entrance and turned on the saddle to wave for a group of soldiers to follow him.
Larn didn’t need to guess numbers to see the future. This was a large taskforce ordered to take over the villa for whatever reason. The official with the shifty face of a dice-stealing crook or a brothel-owner and the grey-haired idiot wearing the garish blue and yellow satin robes as if he was a wizard of the Ancient Era, following right after the dozen or so soldiers.
“Rik and Tom are looking for the back door,” a sergeant grunted. “You four spread about and cover the sides of the villa, the rest we’ll follow Sir Nyvorlas inside.”
Rik and Tom found a door indeed, Larn thought and dashed towards the wall of the villa, unlooping the rope from his waist whilst sprinting and tossing it towards the first balcony’s rails facing north. The ‘hook’ –more like a dagger tied at the end of the rope, as Larn had to improvise after losing a lot of weapons the last couple of days- caught between two marble bannisters badly, but Larn yanked it just the same to give him enough of a momentum and leaped for the wall. He walked upwards using the dangling and losing its grip grappling hook, reached the balcony rails in a breath –the tied but now dislodged dagger bouncing off of his left shoulder- and heaved himself over them.
Breathing heavy, the sweaty Larn stared a little peeved at the wide open balcony doors and under the sound of the knight pounding with a fist at the villa’s front door underneath him, the Zilan assassin calmly pulled the rope he still held with his other hand and looping it around his waist again walked inside.
Larn stepped out of the empty bedroom into a corridor and came face to face with a skinny, pale-skinned girl with black hair and completely black eyes eating a fresh, large lake sturgeon. She had a firm hold on the half-eaten red-skinned sturgeon’s headless body with both hands and her simple tunic was covered in stains and gory pieces of fish intestines. The weird girl blinked like a real fish, her eyes missing a pupil framing it even more, and finished the remaining two-kilo sturgeon shoving tail and mid body into the cavernous mouth of a Ticu. The rows of small pointy teeth getting to work immediately, blood, juices, scaled skin and torn fins, spraying about as she examined the frozen Larn curious.
Who in their right mind? Larn wondered, then remembered this was a place where a crazy Gish lived, together with a foul-mouthed cat and an unstable Witch, and forced himself to calm down, despite the ruckus of the soldiers downstairs that had switched to kicking at the door to break it.
“We need to get Moira out of here,” Larn started explaining with a glance behind his back to make sure no other domesticated Ticu had snuck up on him and when he looked to the front again, the Ticu had moved closer to loudly sniff at his garbs before slipping away. Larn saw her four meters to his right near the half-balcony rails facing the main entrance and the strong smell of fish engulfed him.
She’s starved. Is that cruel Gish keeping her on a diet?
“Can you stall them?” Larn asked reaching for a small leather bag he used to keep fresh meat.
“Good food,” the covered in fish gore Ticu noticed and Larn tossed her a bloody ear he dug out of the bag.
“I need three to five minutes,” Larn explained, not wanting to attempt to dispose of the Ticu, as they were tricky difficult to best and personally he didn’t carry any animosity towards their species in general. Ticu could be crazy dangerous, but also mostly naive and territorial. The Ticu chewed and then gulped down the human ear, letting out a small burp at the end.
“More food?” She queried with a gnarly big grin and Larn sighed. He then dropped the bag in the middle of the corridor, five meters from the internal staircase, and moved past the Ticu that immediately went to pick up the bag. She sat on the floor with her legs crossed and opened it curious. The young female Ticu sniffed inside and let out a small happy sound before digging in.
Larn reached the sorceress’ first floor bedroom and opened the half-closed door to get inside. The cat woke up from its slumber and eyed the scowling assassin judgmentally.
“Can someone get the fucking door?” Melon wondered with a loud meow and then licked at his paw with a pink tongue afore letting it rip. “WE BE TRYING TO TAKE A BEAUTY NAP, YE DARN BIRD-FUCKERS!”
Larn ignored the cat’s vulgar shouting, and walked to the sorceress’ side. The sleeping in her true form Aelrindel, without the make-up and all the illusion spells, caught his breath. Each tiny imperfection of her tanned skin, the hint of wrinkles at the corner of the marred with black circles closed eyes, adding to the peacefully resting Elderborn’s splendor.
The sorceress slept like the dead.
Ralnor felt a shiver tickle his spine, the hairs raised on his arms as if the air was charged with magic energy and he was witnessing the future through a crack in space and time.
Come on sweet girl.
Wake up.
The worried assassin’s words vibrated taking on a life of their own, then carried back and forth, as the distant western wind screamed through the cracks in the witch’s shared dream and spilled out touching Larn’s sweaty face, before everything quieted back down abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” The spooked Larn asked in disbelief and rattled by the brief shared vision, even more so because the sorceress should have woken up with the amount of noise that resonated throughout the empty villa.
Or Melon’s loud voice.
“Big-tits had her bell rang ayup,” the badly burned but now recovering portions of its fur cat explained getting up to approach. “Hey, CUT IT OUT, YE RUSTIC CUNTS!” He roared turning his head, when the soldiers broke down the entrance doors to enter Jinx’s villa.
Their words reached Larn’s ears.
“Well?” One of them asked a little nervous. “Is that her sir?”
“Negative. We’re looking for a Cofol wench. She ain’t her Barkley. This must be the Gish’s Ticu according to the memo,” another replied with a third one asking guardedly curious.
“What is that she’s chewing on sarge?”
“Wake up doll,” Larn whispered in Aelrinder’s long graceful ear and it finally moved, turning towards him, the pointy upper portion folding under the assassin’s soft touch. “We need to go.”
“Go,” the sorceress murmured raspingly, coming about.
“The Monarch’s soldiers are here for you.”
Aelrindel opened her sky silver with touches of azure eyes and stared in Larn’s anxious face, her gaze foggy and confused as she came out of her deep slumber.
“Tir Ral-Nor?” She asked groggily. “You need to warn my mother.”
Ugh?
Shite.
“That’s the Gish’s Ticu,” a voice said from downstairs. “Sir Nyvorlas head up there first, the rest move non-threateningly past her.”
“Gish are so weird man,” a soldier muttered.
Larn breathed out and then forced the sorceress up grabbing her arm.
“Ouch, why are you still here?” Aelrindel asked trying to sit on the bed with time trickling away. “Go find my mother!”
Oras Shades in Witch’s visions!
“Your mother is dead,” Larn grunted harshly and the sorceress paled in shock.
“No. Why would you say that?” She protested and tried to slap him. Larn dodged and she missed partially because she was still not fully awakened.
Unless she has brain damage.
“It’s been a while doll. You need to snap out of your dream.”
“Naay,” Aelrindel cried out suddenly hysterical. “Oi, my goddess, this is so sad,” she covered her head with her hands. “My mother is dead? Why?”
Eah.
Ralnor’s face got ravaged by a severe spasm and a terrible scream of pain rang down the first floor’s corridor, not even twenty meters away from their room.
“SHE BIT MY WHOLE EAR OFF! HELP!” A man desperately cried out, under the sound of boots running up the stairs and the corridor.
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“Fuck! How did she move over there?” A second gasped sounding rattled.
“Spit it out girl,” another advised the Ticu. “Here, have some dry lard.”
“ARGH!” The injured soldier screamed in pain.
“Where did you find the lard sarge?” A calmer person queried sounding genuinely curious.
“I have a dog at home,” the sergeant snapped. “Fuck off!”
“Good food,” the Ticu agreed, in between chomps and screams from the mutilated soldier. It wasn’t clear on what she was referring to, the dog or the piece of lard.
“Step aside sergeant,” a muffled voice ordered, probably the Rokae knight wearing the sober silver mask.
“I’ll handle the Ticu,” the first male voice said, trying to maintain a semblance of calmness “I’ve a calming song for it! You lads search the rooms at the end of the corridor!”
“Hey,” Melon told the grieving with loud sobs witch and jumped next to her on the bed, whilst Larn stared at the open door, then the bedroom, trying to find a way to hide her. “This sad motherfucker is right mistress.”
The Rokae’s ringing spurs had all but reached their door and a moment later the Zilan knight’s large armoured frame appeared at the threshold, forcing Larn to leap in the space left from the open door and a large dresser.
Sir Nyvorlas entered the bedroom, his left shoulder facing the hidden manically snarling Ralnor and the ruckus from outside not dying down, with people hunting the Ticu, whilst others searched up and down the corridor.
“Ah,” the Zilan knight grunted seeing the crying Aelrindel sitting on her bed. “Don’t be scared lass, we are looking for the Cofol.”
“My mother died,” Aelrindel told him sadly and the knight stood back to stare at the devastated sorceress. Then at the scarred black cat.
“Crying pussy speaks the truth,” Melon assured him with a slow blink. “We are still shaken by the news.”
“My condolences pet. Where is Moira?” Sir Nyvorlas asked soberly and Larn unhooked the peleg with a sweaty hand.
“Hugh?” Aelrindel stood up from the bed, the strong summer sun highlighting her divine figure under the flimsy night tunic. “I’m Moira silly… oh, wait… am I?” She mumbled, most likely because at last her mind had cleared from the fog. Which of course offers us little advantage, as we now have fully entered blunder territory, Larn thought with a fresh scowl.
“Who is in there?” A voice asked from outside the door and Nyvorlas turned his head to reply.
“A Zilan lass,” the knight retorted staring at the cornered between the door sheet and the bulky closet Ralnor ogling back at him. The Zilan’s words trailed, his eyes narrowing in the slits of the silver mask, just as the warning came from the corridor, amidst all the ruckus ravaging the villa.
“She’s a witch!”
I’ll play the Cofol slave. It’s not that difficult to blend in with my talents, Larn thought sourly repeating Ael’s words from a year back. They’ll never see through me silly.
They won’t have to doll, he added. You’ll tell them everything and whatever they might miss, you’ll just show them!
You just can’t help yourself!
Larn surged out of his poor hiding spot to attack the reacting Rokae, but bumped his right shoulder on the door and his misjudged hack got deflected by the knight’s forearm –encased in fine Imperial steel vambrace.
Affluent sons of bitches! Larn cursed and got smashed by Nyvorlas right gauntlet, the blow to the chest so powerful he got hurled back inside the small opening between the door and the closet. His back rattling the wall behind him.
Nyvorlas took a step back and unsheathed his sword, but got smacked by Dar Eherdir’s hurled peleg on the helm, the metal denting on impact. The Rokae stumbled back and Larn got out from his corner again, a dagger in hand.
The longsword slashed to cut off his advance, screaming towards the attacking assassin, but Larn leaped over the blade, his nape hitting the ceiling and fell on top of the buckling backwards stunned Rokae. He stabbed Nyvorlas under the mask’s chin as they both went down, felt the blade hitting bone and turned it right and left, before yanking it out with blood spraying out of the silver mask’s mouth and nostrils slits.
“Goodness me,” the witch gasped at the brief violent display. “You killed him.”
“Eh,” Larn grunted unable to reply and retrieving his peleg moved fast towards the door. He kicked it close just as someone appeared there ready to enter. The door slammed shut with a bang, the cat leapt towards the open south side window overlooking the yard and a human groaned in pain outside the now closed door.
“Get her out…!” Larn’s bark was cut short when the door came apart by a heavy mace another Rokae knight had used to break through and the assassin rolled left on the floor to get out of the attacking Zilan’s way, with wood splinters and parts of the shattered door raining on him. He reached Nyvorlas’ longsword and slashed low -keeping the blade parallel to the floor- at the charging Rokae’s legs.
The Knight dodged -moving fast or already juiced up, because why not? - And then attacked Larn in the tight confines of the bedroom –it was a large room but not suited for proper combat. The mace clanged on the longsword’s blade and took it out of Larn’s hand and the assassin had to duck under the return, in order to avoid having his skull caved in.
“Eh,” the Rokae grunted and got a shortsword out, but a knife stuck at the seams between the shoulder pauldron and the breastplate near the armpit made him drop it, Larn’s small throwing blade first –masterfully- ricocheting on the elbow’s couter to find the opening.
The Zilan Rokae retreated to extract the knife from the wound –too drugged to feel a thing- and the snarling Ralnor went to get the Kopis out, but didn’t, as he caught sight of the robed idiot standing two meters from the door chanting, hands moving before his chest in tiny circles.
What is he doing?
Oh Fuck.
He’s a moron!
“Calae Coron,” the grey-haired Zilan said in a much younger male’s voice, the air igniting inside the corridor and a small ball of fire forming between the mage’s dancing fingers. Larn ducked to grab a hefty piece of wood and hurled it towards the mage, just as the fireball started moving towards him. The wood smacked the chanting mage on the forehead, snapped it back splitting the skin down to the nose -drawing blood and the fireball got extinguished.
“CALAE CORON!” The bleeding fanatic roared as a livid Larn rolled on the floor to put a wall between him and the frantic mage, the fireball sizzling –ever growing- as it rushed inside the bedroom from the open door.
The air crackled, Larn felt the back of his cloak igniting, but then a sudden gust of wind plastered him on the now moving closet, as if a tornado had decided to form inside the villa. Furniture tumbled about, chairs banging on the walls and the heavy closet –with Larn still hanging on it- started tilting sideways.
Don’t do it doll.
The fireball resisted the powerful wind for a short moment, but then it was hurled upwards and struck the ceiling. It exploded through plaster, wood and tiles, the whole villa shaking to its foundation. Then part of the ceiling collapsed, with fire, smoke and debris flying everywhere. It left a giant hole over their heads, covering most of the bedroom, but for the wall with the window that allowed some sunlight to highlight the covered in smoke and dust Aelrindel’s figure, standing in front of it.
“CALAE!” The stubborn mage bellowed, just as Larn moved –the second Rokae also slowly getting up from the floor- despite several angry voices –both human and Zilan- trying to prevent the magic-wielding lunatic from using another spell inside the villa with them present.
Dar Eherdir sprinted towards the also chanting sorceress, now fully awakened, Aelrindel’s glowing eyes urging the snarling Larn to get out of her way, but then slowly turning huge, when she realized he wasn’t going to.
Firing an even bigger fireball –or starting a proper cyclone- inside the villa to counter the mage’s magic was a recipe for disaster.
Yeah.
So, Larn un-looped the rope from his waist with a hand, used the other to grab the hissing witch by her slender waist, Ael’s naked feet kicking at the air when he crashed onto to her and then hurled them both out of the open window. The twisting assassin stabbed the tied to the rope dagger on the window’s frame on their way out, then flinched when a cat’s paw stepped on his mouth and now airborne, he let go of the yelping Aelrindel.
The taut rope slipping the grip of his wounded fingers.
“SEE YA LATER FUCKER!” The excited Melon roared, jumping from the cratering towards the yard Larn.
Hell’s fiends! Ralnor cursed half-gathering his legs before hitting the ground, felt a bone in his spine popping in and out of position and then rolled with a pained groan under the levitating Aelrindel, who now had the meowing cat in her arms.
Argh.
“Get… to the garden’s… wall,” the grimacing in head-throbbing pain Larn spat -in between gasps for air- to the softly landing witch, standing up on shaking legs and wincing on every faltering step. “We need… eh… to get out of here, whilst they are still confused!”
“I can bring the villa down?” Aelrindel countered, but seeing Larn’s manic glare, the disheveled witch sighed and turned around to lightly trot barefooted towards the wall circling the villa’s yard.
The grimacing Larn limping as fast as he could after them and the weakened south side of villa crumbling down with a ruckus behind them. It took a part of the lower floor’s walls down, and left a smoking cratering hole behind.
“Man, they destroyed the Gish’s home he-he,” Melon commented looking back over the witch’s right shoulder, sporting an amused cat’s expression. “I bet she’ll hate that, ha-ha!”
Larn whistled for Dar to approach, when he finally got over the wall and landed on the other side, but soon as the horse neighed spotting them, he heard calls from inside the villa and noticed a whole lot of city guards blocking the Main Street.
The assassin grabbed the witch’s hand and dragged her behind the trunk of a nearby tree, whilst trying to find a distant shadow to get out of during a sunny day. The heaviest he could spot, well over a kilometer away, near the ruins of Goras giant towers.
Might be five kilometers, Larn thought and searched his satchel with a hand, the other pressing the hurting bones in his spine to get everything back in place. A long way to travel amidst the fiends.
“What a mess,” Aelrindel said, while Larn eyed the soldiers and citizens rushing inside the villa to help. Everyone appearing stunned at the sudden collapse. A part of the rooftop was still burning and black smoke mixed with dust had risen over the stone fence hiding the lower part of the building from them.
“Mm,” Larn grunted and signed for Dar to head for the ancient gates. “We’ll need to put some distance between them and us,” he told her getting a handful of incense out.
“I left all my stuff in the villa,” the witch told him accusingly. “Someone needs to go back there and get them. My potion bag, my clothes and shoes.”
If they catch us in the open we’re dead.
“Sure. Let’s go now,” Larn replied and offered her his hand, already reciting the walk under the in-between Realms’ shades spell. He dragged the protesting witch after him, casually delivering a hard kick on Melon that send the meowing cat soaring five meters away, when the sneaky feline attempted to follow after them.
The bright day turned to the time just after sunrise only much darker and the black soil of Goras became a soft powdery ash under his boots. A faint strangely glowing road extended through the flat desert straight ahead and the shimmering portal popped out of the blackness far enough to be only a tiny dot in the horizon, lost under the looming shade of the gigantic mountain range.
Blackness.
A strange dark this, thick as grease.
Deceptive.
“Wow,” Aelrindel huffed stumbling a couple of steps ahead of Larn. “Witches aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Move,” Larn replied with a grunt and forced the excited sorceress to head towards the portal. “Don’t talk for they will listen. We need to move fast through this part.”
When inside the in-between realms move and never linger.
In and out.
Follow the trail, not imprints left o’ shoes akin to befit your own, for you will walk in circles.
See the door and never lose it, for the shades are doors also, leading to all places.
Already the seemingly quiet and empty desert surrounding the hurrying pair shifted around them. The sand dunes and the ground moving like waves in the ocean, giant sand-squints swimming underneath. Shapes morphing into figures, others human-like and others resembling naught one could describe.
The souls of demons and the cursed gathering, drawn to the soft glow of the path Dar Eherdir had opened to guide them towards the distant portal. Screams came and menacing growls. Conversations in lost languages and strange songs.
“You see that?” Aelrindel asked seeing a cockatrice trailing after them in her awkward trait, trying to find a way to cut them off.
“Keep moving!” Larn growled and reached to get his Kopis out, snapping his head left and right nervously as the road dipped following a dunes’ slope and brought them in another flat area right under it, amidst a crowd of shadowy figures.
“Don’t stare,” Larn hissed and pressed on hard, opening his stride despite the discomfort –he’d a turned ankle from the drop and felt a sharp jolt of pain down his hurt spine with every stride- and dragged the sorceress with him.
“I can’t make a light sphere. No good magic allowed here,” Aelrindel griped glancing behind them and paused momentarily, until Larn heaved her forward again that is, to gawk at a bizarre figure stepping onto the glowing path without any hesitation. It looked like a giant werewolf with four arms covered in gore, but if one watched closely enough he could spot the tear down the middle of the hairy body and a bloody face lurking behind the flaps of gory skin at the beast’s neck.
Ah, it’s him again.
Great.
A blasted familiar face, not that Larn knew a lot of sick bastards who gored out and wore werewolves’ pelts over them as coats.
The masqueraded freak whistled sharply and four runners jumped on the glowing path with manic screams. Then started sprinting after Larn and Aelrindel.
“The door,” Larn bellowed, in order to snap the shocked sorceress out of her torpor-like state at the sight of the onrushing grotesque creatures, and he turned around to cut them off. “Don’t cross over without me!”
“Hey! That’s enough, go back now!” Aelrindel yelled stopping as well to turn around –despite Larn’s bristle of frustration- and the masqueraded figure paused as if shocked upon hearing her voice.
Or seeing her more clearly.
“EAAARRHGH!” The first arriving human-like creature gurgled. Head and arms stitched on the torso of a young Varg, the legs that of a giant scorpion. Larn went for the head, after dodging a wild swipe. He missed, de-fleshing part of the left shoulder instead, rolled under another swipe to gut the second arriving creature and jumped out of the gory spillage just in time to avoid getting trampled over the last opponent’s hooves.
He landed with a grunt of pain, his spine locking up momentarily, until he snapped it back straight with a loud crack and kicked a ‘man’ wearing the head of a chimera at the right knee. The savage blow shattered the bones at the joint, ripped the tendons and forced everything out the other way, almost severing the leg completely. The chimera-man went down with a small grip-less blade lodged at the top of his cranium as a parting gift, and the first Frankenstein-creature came at Larn again mindlessly attacking with wild swings of his badly attached arms.
Larn had to chop them both off at the elbow to stop him and then swung savagely holding the sword with both hands like a bat, to decapitate the screaming in agonizing pain creature.
These aren’t fiends or monsters, the assassin thought when the realization what they were really fighting hit him. They don’t belong here also. These are constructs of sorts. Larn quickly dispatched of the final creature –Aelrindel had knocked it down with a backhand- and pushed her towards the portal that was still quite the distance away.
Not souls of constructs trapped in the Desert of Souls, but random souls caught and forced to serve that strange freak.
Bound with mancer’s magic.
He glanced back a couple of more times as they gained on the masqueraded stranger, but quickly a Hydra was drawn to the light and Larn had to keep his attention elsewhere.
“I looked inside the Monarch’s head,” Aelrindel told him as they finally approached the shimmering white portal.
Ugh?
“What do you mean…? Never mind, just leave it for later,” the injured Larn dismissed her with a grunt, but she slowed down to talk some more instead. “We need to get out of here doll,” Larn reminded the pouting Elderborn.
“It was Glenavon all along,” she continued with a deep sigh.
Oh, for crying out loud.
“We all know that. Matter of blasted fact, it’s not a secret in our circles,” Larn hissed and grimaced in discomfort. The stiches on the index finger had broken and didn’t look good. The digit held by the broken bone. “For years. Maybe not the scoundrel’s full story, but we know it’s him.”
“No, damn it. The adventurer Rhu?” The witch insisted with a puff of frustration.
Larn paused a meter from the portal to glare at her. “Rhu works for the Monarch, and ratted you out is your meaning.”
“Nay. He’s the Monarch silly,” Aelrindel managed to chuckle amidst the hellish screams and otherworldly cries all about them. The desert had come alive. Thousands slowly gathering around the glowing portal. A sea of tortured souls stirring in the dark. She frowned and assumed a pissed off expression. “A clever liar. Um. So yeah.”
A thoughtful, silent Larn licked his bitter lips and then spat it all down with a grimace, as he was covered in different types of gore, nigh unpleasant even for a flesh-eater’s palate.
“You looked into the Monarch’s head,” he repeated her previous words slowly, a spasm ravaging his tarnished face, trying to find reason -where there was none.
“Pretending to be Rhu,” the witch added cutely and with a sigh of worry added. “You don’t think, he hurt him? The real Rhu?”
There was never a real Fareno.
“Friend of the guild?” Ralnor had asked with an eye at the group of adventurers coming towards them. Toutatis had half-unsheathed his shortsword next to him and he’d a hand ready to reach for Dar Lingos’ much larger blade, now secured on his back.
“The Monarch?” Mulligan had queried. “You can say he built it. Sam Mathews here, is one of his good friends. Right Sam?”
Well, he played her like a fiddle to no one’s surprise, so I was right in a sense.
He didn’t feel any joy about the fact unfortunately.
Only anger and a hefty dose of disappointment.
“Whilst fucking?” Larn growled saying the quiet part out loud.
“It was just a quick thing,” Aelrindel assured him, as if this was any better. “I was drunk and half-willing,” she added, piling up on the excuses.
Whilst it could hold up in court, Larn knew her well enough by now.
So does the Monarch, apparently.
Ah… well.
“Half-willing, but willing enough to dig inside his head, ahm… for long enough to end up in a coma?”
“Didn’t I say I had a lot to drink? It was Goras wine by the way!”
“You can drink a river doll. Come on.”
“Not this river,” Larn frowned at her awkward retort and she raised her hands to prevent a snarky comment. “And I hadn’t had strong wine for a while!” She added in a squeal.
“Right. So you were drunk enough to forget bonded mating is a two way thing?” Larn blasted her before he could control himself. “Why would you even try it with him? It’s a sacred Zilan reproductive ritual. No one knows if it even works anymore! Not to mention, it hadn’t worked with the Prince, or any other human!”
Or Zilan.
He was pretty certain the witch had tried it with a good number of other species.
“I’m going out, this place is awful,” Aelrindel snapped and walked towards the portal stiffly.
Why you obnoxious…
Oras hells.
“You didn’t try it with Sahand, didn’t you?” Larn barked at her back furious and then realizing the witch was about to leave him behind, he hurried after the disappearing Aelrindel.
The moment Ralnor stepped through the portal after her, the portal blinked out of existence. Not long after, the masqueraded figure approached the spot and knelt to touch the burning sands with long and nimble fingers. He brought the powdery grit near the gory small opening, kept closed with crude thread made out of intestines and worked beast-skin, to sniff at the scent best he could and then pursed a hidden under torn beast-skin and gore wrinkled human-like mouth. The still-living tortured boneless werewolf’s rugged breathing, kept forcing air through the ghastly slit.
That voice.
Hmm.
Just like her mother’s.
The stranger stood up hearing the Fiends approach uncertain with what they were dealing with. In time, even beasts learn to fear you. They behave like dogs, he thought pleased when they retreated to allow him passage through their ranks. He walked unhurriedly, since time was unimportant to him, away from the spot where the portal had appeared.
The antediluvian painted God stirred over the monstrous mountain peaks hundreds of kilometers away, curious about the disturbance, but also willing to accept a transgression or two from his bound subjects. Blind to the untethered figure walking up the slope and whistling a creepy childish tune.
‘Here’s a shiny trinket just for you
Wish and squish, till thee die of bliss
All yer pretty things kept in a zoo
Under lock & key, drop of blood on your shoe
Here’s to help your garden grow
Wish and squish, till thee die of bliss
All yer pretty slaves dangling from the bow
Dead birds, cats & herds, eyelids stuck with glue.’
Three hours later...
Familiar sound, dropping to the ground, the blind, ‘cultivated’, Wraith-Arachne Szilhali told Dar Nym, when the Monarch and his men had departed. The mysterious Dar Nalta was Nym’s most trusted friend and mentor. The last of its kind. Szilhali tic-tacked up and down the still smoking collapsed walls of the villa searching for clues, but Berthas had destroyed almost all evidence from Moira’s room.
“Anything?” A bothered by the strong sun Nym asked Dar Fenog. Born Dinmeathor, a Priest of Oras. He had come with Lady Aerien, who wanted to talk to Aenymriel about Labriel, her daughter and Nym’s grandniece.
“Found her bag,” Dinmeathor said in his ghostly spell-voice, since he lacked a tongue to speak properly.
“It’s not a witch’s bag. The Monarch lusts after a simple healer. Just find him another,” Aerien told Aenymriel and she grimaced, then walked near Dar Nalta, the Arachne and the beefy Dar Draug, the old Varg.
Nym petted the werewolf’s muscular arm once and then her nails dug deep in the moist pelt before she moved them about in a sensual scratching.
“The half-breed’s… har… scent… argh… on the blade,” Draug rustled, breathing heavy. “Eherdir… O’ Lome… har… was here, mistress.”
Good boy.
“Hmm,” Nym murmured staring at the Arachne blinking out of existence when a patrol appeared to secure the half-destroyed villa.
“My Labriel,” Aerien was heard saying to Dhin, and Nym grimaced, her fingers working on the beast’s beefy muscles absentmindedly, still deep in thought.
“He wouldn’t come here, unless the witch is in Taras also,” Nym finally said and the raucously-breathing bulky Varg –in its sort of human form- started huffing and puffing excited, both from Nym’s ministrations, and the opportunity to get on her good graces again.
A silly thought, since Draug had always been Aenymriel’s favorite.
How did I miss her, whilst standing so close? Aenymriel wondered a little surprised with the answer the nervous Nym gave her. For they were two different people inside the same body.
We’ve met her, when she was very young, Nym said.
Whatever, she’s not that pretty, Aenymriel argued.
“You have that Cofol girl’s scent,” Nym told the slowly getting angrier and letting out guttural growls Varg, “Track her down with the pack, before the Monarch’s men find her.”
Garth doesn’t need this kind of headache in his life.
Aerien, surprisingly, had been right earlier.
The Monarch will just have to indulge himself with a different healer for his own good.