Chapter Twenty-Nine: Trail in the Slick

  The foreboding silence rolled in as the hum of arcane and holy energy faded away. The cool, damp air of the warehouse carried not just the scent of rust and rotting wood but also indescribable tension. That etched itself onto the face of everyone present in the warehouse, although their visages mixed it with something else, from surprise, focused appraisal, or anger from betrayal.

  Most unnerving of all, a sly grin.

  Selriph held his sword behind him, ready to thrust at the approaching figure of Derren, bandages unravelling around his arm from the impact of his spell.

  The mark was there, plain to see. Hagan stepped back, hand now firmly on his sickle.

  “Derren…? What’s the meaning of this?” Hagan’s shaking voice inflected upward.

  Around him, the other figures in the room brandished their weapons. They raised swords, axes, and bows, ready to strike.

  Not at the figure bearing the silver glyph on their arm.

  But at Hagan and Selriph.

  With a confident strut, Derren advanced, his eyes resting on his luminous hand, then he flicked his other hand downwards. Immediately, the others in the room lowered their weapons, obeying his gesture.

  Their unquestioned conformity to the gesture did not go unnoticed.

  Selriph glimpsed Hagan’s, contorting into a realisation..

  “Derren, you.... This.” His gruff voice caught, betraying his uncertainty.

  Dreth did not aim his next words at the woodsman; instead, they were directed at the nascent mage standing behind him.

  “You are something … my brother was right; in another life, perhaps you truly could have been one of us,” as he looked down at his arm, dark red wounds running from shoulder to forearm.

  As his eyes fixed on Selriph, the glyph began to glow. “Shame, your lack of faith and devotion,” a soft hum, almost like a wind horn, came as the wounds healed, the red skin giving way to healthy pink.

  As the last of the burns faded into memory, Derren held his arm before him, twisting it around as his gaze traced every knuckle, vein, and faint marks of his former wounds, like a jeweller studying a precious stone.

  “Thankfully, mine is aplenty,” as he focused back on the duo, accompanied by the sound of steel on leather.

  “This… was this all an act, a farce? Even your wounds…?” Hagan drew his sickle, his voice bubbling with anger.

  Derren’s focus snapped to Hagan before plastering on Selriph, with the briefest acknowledgement of the Woodsman’s query.

  “An act? Hagan, this boy tricked us once before. You’re just a casualty of our overdue justice.” His voice was low and menacing, his gaze looking past Selriph, his hands raising.

  Us…? Is he with—

  Hagan paced up towards him, his gaze staring straight at the Inquisitor. “Is that it? I am just a casualty?”

  Derren replied coldly, “The boy’s crimes require justice; your association is simply an unfortunate outcome.”

  Hagan’s muscles clenched, veins bulging with bare restraint. “Damn your justice!” he roared, lunging at Derren, his sickle flashing.

  Selriph jerked forward, his palm outstretched. “Hagan, wait—”

  Derren’s eyes widened as he jerked defensively to deflect the blow, his blade just catching the sickle. Hagan twisted the curve of his sickle as it caught the sword at its base, a quick jerk disarming Derren.

  Hagan then raised his sickle for another strike.

  Selriph, seeing Hagan’s swift act of defiance, arcane energy a mere moment from sparkling in his hand, ready to join Hagan. His eyes scanned the other complicit figures in the room, ready to assault them with steel and spark.

  Take out the archer, then swiftly kill those bastards.

  But in that split, infinitesimal second before Selriph’s assault of blade and sorcery should have materialised, his instincts screamed at him to sidestep; a command which he obeyed without question.

  For he felt it, the distinct tingle of holy magic.

  And it wasn’t from the inquisitor in front of him.

  It came from behind, an energy that made every hair on his body stand on end.

  As Hagan’s blade cleaved down towards Derren, two golden bolts of light passed Selriph almost simultaneously. Just before the woodman’s attack connected with flesh and bone, it struck the woodsman square in the chest.

  The woodsman grunted in pain as the impact knocked him off his feet, sending him sprawling to the floor, his sickle clattering towards the spectating ‘resistant fighters’.

  Selriph turned, a sinking feeling building in his gut. The presence behind him was familiar, something that he could easily recognise even with his nascent senses.

  His eyes landed on three figures standing at the door.

  Two inquisitors, hands outstretched, pass in their silver robes—one with an eyepatch—bearing the visage of the men who’d cornered him in the tunnels the night of his escape and the scuffle in the ratways.

  Leading them, a figure adorned in black armour, the chest plate marred by surface scratches, as if struck by a crude blacksmith.

  “Enough games, Brother Dreth. Your plan has borne fruit. Now we simply enact retribution,” the figure with the eyepatch’s voice commanded, yet tinged with respect.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Peace, Brother Varos, we would not have located the runaway if it weren’t for him,” the other silver-robed figure said.

  Selriph felt all the blood run cold in his veins. Around him, the ‘resistance fighters’ once more bore their weapons, surrounding them as if he were the subject of a ritual altar.

  Then, the figure in the black armour stepped forward, bearing the face of someone all too familiar to him.

  “Well, look what we found….” Thorne’s face twisted in restrained glee.

  [Two days ago: Sewers of Caer Eldralis]

  “You are certain of this, Brother Varos? The same stench?” Brother Yuldric’s voice, echoing with the damp chill of the tunnels, appraised the jumble of dirt and broken stone before them. The air hung heavy with the cloying sweetness of decay, a familiar, nauseating perfume.

  “It is faint, but it has to be his handiwork. It is fortuitous that Brother Dreth chanced upon this.” Varos replied, his eyes closed, glyphs glowing faintly over the first mounds, protruding out of the ground.

  “With due respect, Brother Varos, this wasn’t chance. The good captain and you dismissed the notion, saying he would not be foolish enough to return, that he would not risk going after his new master during the feast.” Inquisitor Dreth’s eyes traced the ceiling, noting the indentations just above the dirt mounds.

  “I duly note your point… but even if we track his whereabouts, he will be hard to pin; he has already proven elusive on two occasions.” Varos’s voice was low, his hand moving towards his eyepatch.

  “I concur with Brother Varos. These prints in the slick…. He isn’t alone; someone, maybe two, accompanies him.” Yuldric walked along the tunnel’s dirty floor, studying the footprints.

  “And we must presume that they have emboldened the boy. He would not return otherwise.” As if speaking to the rubble, Varos’s gaze and words fixed in front of him.

  Inquisitor Dreth eyed Varos as he rose, saying, “Had we caught him that night, we wouldn’t be hunting him now. We should have taken him in for questioning. Then—”

  “Enough, you made your point once before. Perhaps in a few years, when you rise in station, you can preach about it in a sermon.” Yuldric’s open hand raised in a pacifying gesture.

  For a second, silence fell upon the tunnel, broken only by the faint rustle of fabric and metal as Varos rose from his squat.

  “Perhaps... It was an error in judgment to dismiss young Dreth’s concerns…” his voice came softly, almost conceding. He drew a glint of surprise from his colleagues.

  He turned and appraised the young inquisitor. “You have proven Vireon touched you, guiding us here. So…” he stepped towards Dreth, the faintest hint of a smile building on his face.

  He stopped two paces from the young man, placing his hand gently on Dreth’s shoulder. “How do you propose we catch the rat?”

  The half elf pointed towards the faecal slick, the prints beyond the remnants of disturbed stonework and dirt, a trail to their runaway fugitive.

  Yuldric and Varos glanced at each other in understanding as they paced ahead, giving space to their trailing colleague, still in contemplation.

  Dreth looked down at the silver glyph, unreadable thoughts churning as the loose wisp of a plan took shape, one that would render the fugitive incapable of escaping from their long-delayed justice.

  However, that hinged on gauging the inclinations not just of the newfound accomplices that accompanied the heretical mage, but also the challenge of somehow luring the fugitive.

  Which would no doubt involve gaining his trust or at least one of his retinue.

  Would that even be possible? After all, the boy would be on alert. Even if he could approach him under the guise of fruitful assistance, there remained a mark that would give away his allegiance.

  The very sigil he was staring at in the gloom.

  Dreth balled up his hand into a fist, the wretched stench of the sewers flowing into his nostrils as he steeled himself for the laceration—no, the immolation his senior brothers would need to subject him to.

  All to lure the wayward initiate into an inescapable trap.

  [Present moment: The Warehouse.]

  The scent of damp earth and stale sweat hung heavy. A chill, deeper than the stone, snaked through the boy as the inquisitors stepped forward, the metallic rasp of the steel armour like a shriek in his ears, a prelude to violence.

  Selriph retreated, flame crackling in his offhand, cold sweat beading across his face, his eyes darting at the myriad of hostile figures now adorning his vision.

  Amongst them, Hagan stumbled to his feet, his tunic torn and burnt at the point of impact from the radiant spellwork. His hands clenched into fists.

  “Derren, you traitorous cur, I trusted you. You…!”

  Another scream of pain cut through his words as an arrow tore through his shoulder.

  Dreth glanced back words the woodsman, arrow protruding from the woodsman’s slumped figure. “Cease your prattle, savage, and you might survive to see your friend on the pyre.” Dreth scoffed as he strolled toward his comrades.

  “Ah…you must be a good friend of that old mage. Told me a lot of interesting things under divine scrutiny,” Thorne’s voice rang, pleasure seeping through every word as he walked over the Hagan, every strut heavy. “Every truth laid bare.”

  “You... you’re a fiend.” Hagan staggered in a desperate lunge towards Thorne.

  Thorne casually sidestepped the lethargic attempt at defiance as his fist met Hagan’s abdomen hard. The impact knocked the air out of the woodsman’s lungs.

  “Your fellow had similar remarks; let’s see if you last as long as he did,” as Thorne threw another punch, a sickening crunch emanating as the dark gauntlets met bone and flesh.

  Selriph felt his blood boil at every motion Thorne threw, his fist now clenched, knuckles whitening. He felt the pain in his bones; every deafening crack came from the sick display in front of him.

  Yet he felt a lattice of invisible chains around him, brought about by the network of gazes and armed figures in his vision. He was helpless, able only to stare and watch as Thorne continued his sadistic display.

  The rhythmic sound of steel on bone continued unabated.

  Selriph felt his voice catch in his throat, unable to articulate a word of protest. His mind was caught in a deadlock.

  Hagan is going to die from the beating at this rate.

  Selriph frantically scanned his surroundings. His eyes darted around, flashing between the surrounding figures, desperately looking for any escape from his predicament—and to avoid the spectacle unfolding before him.

  Damn it, there’s no opening … Just too many of them.

  The relentless percussion mirrored Hagan’s loss of tautness as his body slumped, the resistance in his muscles gradually ebbing away with his life.

  Is this it? Just like that…?

  Selriph’s gaze returned to the brutal scene, but he willed his mind not to follow, placing it in his periphery by focusing on a corner at the far end of the warehouse.

  All he could do was watch, or rather, listen.

  He did not know how long it lasted, the sound of steel on bone; the splintered, shattering, sickening crunches seemed to go on for eternity.

  But he knew when the end came: the seizure of Thorne’s brutal assault. Selriph’s eyes landed on the once-proud woodsman, now reduced to a crumpled mess sprawled on the floor.

  Just in time to witness his final, barely intelligible words: “Lad… I am so—”

  Then, there was an indescribable gurgle, a death rattle which no scribe could dictate.

  The body lost any remaining strength, and blood pooled at its mouth, dripping freely to the cold stone below.

  Eyes wide, lifeless, a trail of crimson oozing from the mangled facade, towards the boy.

  Then silence. It probably lasted only mere seconds, but it felt like an eternity in the boy’s mind, a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts: regret, anger, shame, fear, and dread.

  Then a sound echoed in the warehouse: the blackguard spat, and the gauntlets clattered as he flicked blood from his hand onto the earth, as if it were water.

  Thorne then trained his gaze on Selriph, an orchestra of eyes followed suit, as if cued by a conductor.

  “Now … onto the main event.”