-From Canticles: 3:5
In the Northwest sector of the Old City district in the capital city of Salkov, north of the Bathhouse reconstruction being done by the Belmaian gang known as ‘The Syndicate’, Albert Ironmantle meditated.
Deep in his organization’s hidden stronghold, the human leader of the assassins of the Dark Estuary contemplated The Dark. The dim flickering candles allowed the master to reach into that domain at a whim, if he so chose. Because of the nature of the space he was focused on, it led him to meditate on the idea of death, which in turn circled to its inevitability.
How Morte slowly took you into her embrace.
He wasn’t truly old just yet, being only forty-seven, but he was already starting to feel the drag of time. Daily training kept the worst of it at bay, but the unyielding progression of the hours, the days, the weeks, the years all frustrated him. Certain joints aching a little in the morning, old wounds layering more and more upon themselves.
To have learned these skills in my youth… To have been skilled enough to avoid some of those injuries. To know how to be more efficient with his techniques. He could have carved out his own hidden kingdom across the world. Not just this rotting city’s dark underbelly.
He sighed, opening his pale gray eyes.
The flat black marble platform he sat on, his legs crossed, was in the center of the large space. It allowed him to feel the gentle pressure of the quiet and clear his thoughts, and focus on more important tasks. More immediate issues.
We are spread too thin.
The bald human stood, black robes rustling as he stepped into the Dark and shifted through it to his office. Flying through the too empty halls of the monastery he and his students used as their abode far faster than he would have traveling outside of that Space. Striding out of the Dark and over to his desk, brushing past the mementoes of jobs well done, he looked down at the map of the city, thinking.
They had lost several members recently. Some to age. Others to their own ambition. And it affected how easily he could assert control over the other criminal elements in Salkov.
What he needed was a fresh influx of students. Ones that knew the ways of stealth already, that wouldn’t have qualms about taking a life. Or were young enough to be trained in such things.
Naturally strong, naturally fast, ones that knew how to escape the guards and escape notice.
In a perfect world, ones that are already weapons to one extent or another. Survivors.
His grey eyes shifted to the signet district, contemplative.
Yes…
There was a knock at his door.
“Enter.” He said. He knew who it was, he had seen him coming this way through the veil of the Dark.
Klein walked in, a bundle of red robes under one arm.
“Teacher.” He said, bowing.
Ironmantle didn’t look at him. Ambition dripped from Klein just as thick as it always had.
He’ll have to be disposed of eventually. Until then, he was a useful tool.
“Well?” Ironmantle said.
“It is done. Floss is dead.”
“And the notes?”
“There… wasn’t time to destroy them, the guards arrived and-”
“And you were not strong enough to face them alone.” Ironmantle finished, voice soft, like a blade sliding along a leather strop.
“I-I have them sir, here.” His pupil pulled a thick bundle of papers from inside his coat and Ironmantle took them, glancing down.
Why did you want them? The master assassin’s mind always was suspicious. It had kept him alive all this time, so he saw no need to change that.
He’d have to check later that they were all there.
“How goes your other mission.” He asked, starting to walk, skimming the papers. It seemed like they were all there. It was dense reading. Klein probably didn’t have time to pick out the sections he wanted.
Klein followed. “The Bookkeepers seem to be fully enthralled by that snake-cult sir. Usual promises, power, knowledge, that sort of thing.” His voice echoed slightly in the huge space, stained glass windows painting them in a vibrant mess of colors.
“And what of the rumors of them becoming snakelike? Gaining scales and turning into Leatherbacks?” That would be useful if true, if such beings could undergo the process and maintain their sanity. Then Klein could do so and be an even deadlier tool for me…
“Only rumors as far as I know sir, but I could be too low in their hierarchy to know for sure.”
Ironmantle looked at the man, staring, taking a small pleasure in the slight unease he created in others. “Good work. Now, the Delmarva’s. Are they still a target of these Bookkeepers?”
“Sir?”
“The children, the pickpockets and burglars.” Ironmantle said slowly, as if he were talking to a particularly dense child, “Are the Bookkeepers still trying to take over their territory?”
The Delmarva’s were a new group, and Ironmantle thought they might just be what he was looking for. Young enough to be molded, with street smarts, and old enough to not have to wait long for most to grow into their strength. And the Bookkeepers were gaining influence too quickly for his liking.
They need to have their power checked. He enjoyed his position as arbiter over the criminal element. Having any one of them gain advantage threatened that position.
“Yes sir… I believe sometime soon, perhaps today, but why-?”
“Because we need fresh blood. New students. And they have acquired some of the skills they will need to become a part of our order.” He would have preferred if they all had specific training in death, but that wasn’t something that could be helped.
Nobody in the civilized world had that kind of upbringing.
He glanced down at the papers again.
This is! No, later… Controlling his expression as he carefully folded them and placed them inside his robe, he lifted his head to look out of one of the windows.
The old city sprawled before them. Derelict buildings, cramped alleyways, and a general sense of squaller. A good training ground.
Workmen were shifting stones and beams all over that massive ruin of the ancient Salkovian public baths. Refurbishing it to allow the old city to wash again, as well as to ‘wash’ their coin.
There would be spaces underneath there. Parts of the undercity that were more stable than the newer sections. Close to the Dark Estuary. Close enough to keep an eye on them.
Yes… there… that would work.
“You mentioned a dwarf.” He said, finding his thoughts again.
“Yes sir, a clanless one. Delre.” Klein was at least good at maintaining a respectful tone.
“And you are certain that she has the ability to make runes?” That would be another boon, runic weapons and armor for his most trusted killers.
“Yes sir, but I don’t think that-”
“Thank you, Klein.” He placed his hands behind his back, watching the construction. Sensing the clear dismissal, his underling bowed and left.
Ironmantle forced himself to walk back to his office, though he wanted to slip into the Dark right there in the atrium. He could barely contain his interest given what he had seen in his short glimpse at the documents.
Closing the door, he did slide into the Dark, the only guarantee of privacy he had, and read the papers more thoroughly. Each person had their own personal version of the Dark, and none could enter the Dark of another.
‘Ways to refine Aether. It’s applications. Mechanical. Architectural. And Biological. Cessation of atrophy...’
So that is why the emperor wanted you dead, Floss.
He continued reading, ‘The use of runes in such applications appears promising…’ The dwarf just became quite important to him. Essential even. He paused in the monochrome space between, the one that was his and his alone. The way it read, it sounded like there were other aspects of the processes that were missing. Areas that had not been things that Floss would have known.
But that could wait.
What had Klein said?
Sometime soon.
Experience told the master assassin that the Bookkeepers would attack today. The two groups had clashed before, but it had been months. Long enough for the children to get comfortable again. And it would most likely result in all the children being killed.
Unless someone intervenes.
He shifted through the dark quickly, back up to his rooms, back through the hidden space, reaching out of the dark and sliding the papers into a hidden compartment within his rooms. He would need to search for others with related knowledge.
But later, he also had to maintain the organization for long enough to achieve that goal.
The black clad man then zipped around the converted temple, gathering the other members of his personal fist and rushing over to get to the signet district. He remembered the vague area that they occupied. He would just have to look for one of the members.
And if it was their leader, Rose, he had the perfect knowledge to dangle in front of her.
He didn’t smile outside of the Dark, so none saw just how horrible it was when he did.
“I-is there… sap?”
Vivex whirled to her feet, facing the voice, black blade brandished before she registered by the creaking and groaning that it had to be another barkskin.
Where?
“Yes, sapling Arubra.” Shashk hissed, using placating prefixes in response to the fearful ones that the disembodied voice had used.
Something about the timbre of the voice made the Initiate think it was female, though she still couldn’t spot it…
Matches the tree. Her Instinct suggested.
She looked at the tree where the portal had come out, mottled ashy gray, a shy color, almost submissive white but not quite. Black spots denoting determination in a vaguely oxymoronic way. Serrated leaves.
Red Alder. Her Instinct named it.
Then she saw the barkskin.
Arubra spotted Vivex staring and the wind picked up as she gasped, rustling the serrated leaves of her tree. She leapt behind the trunk, peering around it, examining the Initiate. Thorns in the shape of claws resting against the bark as she did. Her eyes had the same starfield sclera as Cydis, but the pupils glowed katydid green.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
This one vaguely looked like one of the brood, but she borrowed features from several species in a new and interesting way. She had the neck frill of the Redscale, made from leaves, and they fluttered as the frill spread in shock.
She was small, like a Greenscale, but with the blunter jaw of a Blackscale. And something about the neck made her think that it was from the anatomy of a Bluescale, slightly longer than typical for any of the others.
Also, much to the Initiate’s annoyance, the barkskin was still taller than her.
Then Arubra noticed the wound on Vivex’s wrist.
She screamed, and a gale blew through the forest, several branches of other trees bending almost to the point of snapping. Without hesitation the clearly adolescent barkskin jumped at her tree. Vivex had expected her to climb it, or crash into it at least, but the barkskin instead slid into it as if the tree wasn’t there.
What? How was that possible?
Tree. Body? Her Instinct speculated. Another question for Tok.
“Please leave…” The tree groaned before continuing in barely a creek of its branches “I don’t like seeing sap…”
“Come on fodder!” Shashk hissed to the Initiate, frill flapping in irritation and giving her a shove.
Kill.
No, she does so out of respect for the barkskin. She felt a quiet growl grow in her chest. And the fight isn’t over.
Tok had claimed his own rights, though Vivex wished she knew more about what was happening so she could exercise her own judgment.
When they arrived at Shashk’s dwelling, the wind died back down.
The dwelling itself was made from huge reeds. Bamboo her Instinct named them after some struggling. There were two levels to the structure, and a tall peaked roof. It was very similar to what Tok’s shelter, and by some extension, her shelter before it was burnt down, looked. There were a few differences though.
The bamboo poles, almost fifty feet long, spanned both floors, and were angled outwards so that the roof had an overhang past the floors of the structure. And at first, Vivex thought there were no walls at all. It was only after they got closer that she saw that there were bundles of reeds that spanned the squarish structure of each floor. Each was currently lashed to the ceiling at the moment, but they looked like they could be lowered to block out the elements if needed.
She couldn’t really see what was on the second floor easily, but she guessed that that was where the Redscales nest was.
Good vantage point.
Cold in the wind.
She is bigger, might retain heat better.
Her Instinct grunted in agreement.
She could see that the fire was encased in an earthen construction, smoke gently wafting up through an earthbone lattice. With a wooden slab for preparing and butchering food right next to it.
The space around the building was cleared, large slates and the occasional large smooth stone placed in the area so that there were multiple basking locations were around the outside.
Taking the two short steps up and into the structure, and once again Vivex was surrounded by wonderous things.
Beautiful idols of the yellow earthbone, encrusted with gems gleamed in the light. Vivex inspected one, noting that it was of a very different style to the ones she had seen in the temple.
Look! See!
It looked like a squat one could possibly open, there was a seam along the middle of the strange figurine.
I wonder what’s inside…
Crack the shell!
She reached for it slowly.
The Redscale growled “I will claim a finger if you touch anything in here, fodder.”
Vivex hesitated and looked at the Redscale, trying to come up with a reason to be allowed to test her theory.
“Ambassador, I was just-”
“Do I have to repeat myself..?” Shashk’s tail swished, cracking this time, not just popping. It made the Greenscale flinch, it was as loud as the smoothskin’s tubeweapon!
She had been holding back…
Vivex stepped away from the tables, her eyes narrowing at the Redscale.
Shashk ignored her and stormed to a set of wooden stairs up, glaring at Tok through the open walls of her nesting site. “So why do you have such an idiot notion as to exercise your rights as Provider in this moment? With this runt?” She snapped at the Blackscale.
Vivex glared at Shashk even harder.
How dare she use those prefixes with my Provider!
Attack! Kill!
Tok’s lazy eyes narrowed slightly as he followed Shashk’s ascent with them. He looked at Vivex, his eyes widening, and she flickered apology and forced the black and red out of her pattern.
Fine. She would wait.
“Well?” The other female snarled, unaware of their interaction.
“She is worthy.” He rumbled, sitting down on a massive boulder with a bowl at its peak, his weight making the ground tremble as he did. It was in the middle of several other basking stones, and looked like a warm place to rest in.
A seat for Blackscale visitors? Interesting.
Fight! Compete!
No! Not yet. She could tell that Tok was still laying the groundwork for his plan, and she doubted this was all on a whim at this point.
She occupied herself by returning to her study of the space as she heard the Redscale female striding with purpose above her.
“Oh she is, well that answers everything. Thank you so much for such insight.” Shashk’s sarcastic prefixes nearly made the neonate charge up there. Nobody was allowed to talk to the Provider that way! She had to force herself to the other side of the dwelling, away from the stairs. Forcing herself not to listen for a moment so she could hopefully calm herself.
Shashk’s voice was muffled but still audible as she continued her discussion with the Blackscale through the dwelling and the open windows. Vivex listened to the conversation as she looked around, curious.
Strange skulls, as big as her torso, and with massive spiraling horns, or as small as her palm with predatory teeth, and everything in between rested on shelves.
Trophies of previous hunts?
It seemed a bit gaudy to her, but it showed her something else.
Shashk traveled.
Her Instinct couldn’t name any of the creatures the bones came from. And there were at least fifty different skulls alone. There was some order to everything, but with no walls to divide up the space it felt like some sections bled into others.
That or Shashk was in the middle of rearranging everything…
Meanwhile, the conversation between her Provider and the Ambassador continued.
“She competed against the apex competitors of her cohort.” Tok hissed, a single prefix of impatience denoting his mood.
She could hear the clattering of other objects as well upstairs. “So? You are defining the purpose of-”
“Directly, Ambassador.”
The movement upstairs paused.
“At a disadvantage of two against one in the final fight alone. I suspect at other times as well. And given her scars I would not be surprised if she was at an even greater disadvantage at times too.”
Vivex felt her skin turn orange in a couple places as she continued to inspect the first floor.
Chew on that gristle. She hoped that the Redscale choked.
Interesting pieces of art were all over the place, strange shapes and lines, smoothskin runes written here and there on them. She supposed it was like the depictions down in the temple, more symbolic than true to life, as she was having a hard time discerning what each was supposed to be.
“Where did she get that blacksteel blade? Hmm? You know that is not from the Truescale Territory. An unfair advantage agains-”
“The hero Gix had it on her person.” Tok said. Vivex glanced outside, and saw that his tail was moving in that same distinctive way again.
Hiding some of the conversation from me?
“And you know that any hatchling can knap a stone. And any can use a branch as a club. She thought to dig up that grave, she is not to blame that other hatchlings didn’t think to do so before her.”
A growl from above.
“I am still not convinced. But we shall see about that shortly.” Shashk hissed, and the Initiate moved closer to the stairs, wondering what was up there.
Tok’s staring crimson eyes slid to look at her, narrowing in a clear denial for just a moment.
Flashing pale deference to him she returned to her study of the room.
There were also weapons of all kinds. Strange blades, axes, even earthbone clubs, elegant with ornamental sheets of metal forming the business end. She started to reach for them, wanting to feel the heft.
No! She stopped herself short, her forebrain remembering Shashk’s threat.
It was so tempting, and her Instinct snarled to take one. Won’t remember! So many! Gone before missed.
Some of the earthbone clubs would be spectacular at cracking open the shells of snapping turtles, and that was just the first thing that came to her mind.
And I need a second weapon… She still hadn’t had time to grind a new head for her ax.
She jerked, spotting that there were earthbone axes as well. Some even with two blades, wide and wicked. Earthbone hafted. Incredibly durable, and covered with symmetrical designs and angular decorations. And runes.
Third genera! Dwarven made! The warrior didn’t know what they did, but she knew her knife could chip stone with no damage.
Take! Mine!
Her hand trembled. There was even one without a haft, just waiting for her to claim. The edge bright and shiny. Her greed filled her, radiating from her hindbrain.
She closed her hand into a fist.
No. She would notice, and she was sure Shashk would too.
Vivex forced herself to move to something less tempting before she gave in to the impulse, returning to the art pieces for a closer examination. She leaned forward, looking at the shapes, trying to discern if it was depicting an animal of some-kind.
No…
The little shapes coating much of it…
Those are supposed to be trees!
Her eyes widened, lingering on a distinctive shape.
The hatchery island?
She leaned back, looking at it again with that new understanding, relying on the fact that she had to memorize so much of it during her trial. Following the coastline, looking at the minute representations of the ruins on the island, the far side of the bank, all of it. It all matched. There was even a minuscule depiction of the nearby island Vuthsesk had been carried to by the river when she had been known by Vivex as Fisher.
That meant that this was a depiction of-
“The world…” she hissed softly. It was huge! Enormous! If the tiny speck there near the middle was the hatchery, and the depiction was to scale anyway.
A map… It showed just how much there was to see, to explore! There was just so much to learn still in the world. She looked around and realized that the others were also maps of yet more places! She moved from one to the next, studying, inspecting, feeding her ravenous curiosity which only screamed for more.
So many places away from the judgement of all her kin. Of… She paused. There was a small disk of carved wood, lain flat on a small surface with four legs. There was a string on the back of it, perhaps to hang it from a peg or branch?
What is on the other side? Her tongue fluttered out.
She lifted it to see what she assumed was a fairly accurate depiction of what was commonly known as an orc.
Female..? She couldn’t see any facial hair, and it looked like the figure had the strange parasitic growths on her chest under her garments.
Scars across the face denoted toughness. Tusks, knowing eyes, broad shoulders like the apexes from her trial. Even the skin color was more pleasing than that of the humans she had seen. Even if she had an ugly flat face like all smoothskins.
Looks like she can bite worth a damn too. The jaw was strong and square. But why would Shashk have a portrait of some hideous female parasite?
Ambassador? Her Instinct wondered. Shashk certainly was a traveler.
Perhaps…
“So many places! So many smoothskins! So many maps!” she hissed softly, marveling at them more than anything else.
“Yes, my maps, and that is a portrait of an acquaintance of mine. Step away or I will enact my threat, fodder.” Shashk snarled.
Vivex had been too engrossed in it to notice the sound of the Redscale’s descent, and she twitched back away from the map and portrait. It was less about following directions and more because she felt like she was under attack.
Unconsciously, she reached for the black blade, but the taller female already had her wrist.
Vivex hissed, but the Redscale pulled her closer, her grip like earthbone. She twisted the Initiate’s wrist to show that the split skin from the Ambassador’s tailstrike crusty with dried blood now. All while her other hand pulled the matte black blade free and tossed it onto the table of weapons.
“Mine!” Vivex snarled, starting to push forward before Shashk backhanded her painfully.
“Quiet. You shall get it back when I say so, fodder.”
The Redscale uncorked a clear container, like the ones that held the firehoney and the pigment-liquid that had been in with Gix’s belongings. It was filled with a dark red liquid of its own.
Same hue as the leaves and berries mixed.
Shashk scraped the scabs away painfully with a claw before pouring it onto the now freshly bleeding wound. It had a cloying reek and seared like coals! She started to yelp and pull away and the Redscale shoved the end of the bottle into her mouth. Almost knocking teeth free as she did and tilting it up, grabbing Vivex by the throat to hold her there.
“Swallow twice, fodder.”
It was so much worse to drink, and she coughed and some dribbled down her chin. She lifted her hands to try and push it away, only to have Shashk snap her jaws loudly and flare her frill for a moment.
“If you waste my possessions I will claim recompense somehow, idiot.”
She was about to kick out with her toeclaws, when Tok shifted into her vision.
“Drink it, neonate.” he rumbled arms crossed. “It is medicine.”
What?! No!
Yes! Her Instinct forced itself forward, making her swallow, eager for that feeling of blissful thoughtlessness once more.
It didn't come. Instead there was just incredible bitter flavors, and more searing pain inside. Her stomach roiled and she pulled away forcefully, coughing and trying not to wretch on the floor as she fell to her knees.
As Vivex coughed and stared at the flat stones set into the earth, she felt something curious. All along her back and shoulder, one after the other, the ant-head stitches popped loose. She stared at her wrist, watching it knit back together before her eyes.
What?!
“It is what happens when you fully process the leaves, little one.” Tok said.
Shashk hissed. “Enough. How did you know that was a map, fodder? Where have you seen one before.”
Still coughing slightly Vivex fought to keep her black and red from flickering across her body. “I recognized the layout of the island.”
Shashk looked at the map, then to Tok.
“Downstream of Cydis.” He said.
Vivex was still marveling at how much better she felt. She stretched her shoulder. It was like months of recovery had passed. She wasn’t so distracted that she didn’t notice the surprise in Shashk’s prefixes and fluttering frill, and she savored them.
“Where have you seen a map before, fodder.”
“I haven’t.”
Shashk’s eyes narrowed, then she glared at Tok. “You expect me to use those two things alone to convince the council to intercede? For this waste of resources? So you can leave today and make it to Szez’tek-Shrahaam-”
“We aren’t there already?” Vivex asked, incredulous.
Duck!
Shashk’s second casual backhand whistled over her head as she crouched under it, and the Ambassador growled. “Speak when spoken to, fodder.”
“We could not travel directly there, Vivex. The rootway is disrupted by the city itself.” Tok explained.
“Do not encourage such behavior!” Shashk snarled, turning her hateful turquoise glare on the Blackscale again.
“She learns quickly. More quickly than any other hatchling I have raised.”
“Oh? And how do we test that, Provider?”
Tok grunted. “I have a few ideas.”
“Wonderful. Hopefully they are of a higher caste than your last one.”
“Teach Vivex the smoothskin language, and the dehk-zuir. See how fast she learns.”
Tail-language? So, they had been sharing more information.
Shashk glared at Tok, her tail cracking even louder. She glared at Vivex next, growling. “This is some scheme.”
Vivex’s tongue flickered out, waiting.
Her Instinct growled. Deference. For a purpose.
The Initiate’s jaw clenched, and she forced down a growl. Agreed. For now.
She lowered her gaze and flashed respect at Shashk. “Please… Ambassador.” Something pushed her to keep going. “I… I ask for the right to better myself through struggle, prove that I am more than just fodder to the brood.”
Shashk was quiet for a long time. Vivex heard her tail whistling softly through the air over her bowed head. She forced herself to not look up.
“Why, runt?”
Vivex wasn’t sure what to say, outside things that would get her punished. Call me a runt?!
Calm. Think. Wait.
“For. What. Purpose?” The prefixes signaled to not waste Shashk’s time.
“To keep learning. To see. To find my own way in the world so that I may help all the broods.”
There was another longer pause, and then they all spun as they heard Arubra’s screams.
Go! Now! Fight! Her Instinct snarled, something primal inside of her filling her up. A calling that could not be denied.
The Initiate didn’t hesitate, grabbing an earthbone handax and her black blade as she sprinted out and up into the canopy towards the sound.
PATREON! It is at least 15 chapters ahead, and I am working hard to get it permanently up to 20, with plans to add even more! All money there goes right back into making the series as good as I can, and every cent of it is appreciated more than I can say.