-From Aphorisms: 1:36
“Die, grist-grinder!” The scrawny bookkeeper hissed from behind his red kerchief.
“Could have waited!” Del shouted, fuming, back on her feet with smoke drifting around her head from the cigar, pulling her buckler from her belt. “Every damn time I meet a pretty girl!”
Clang!
She swung the buckler like a set of knuckles, smashing it against the idiot’s knife point on.
The tip pinged off, sticking into one of the candles, while the rest of the knife was twisted out of his hand, his fingers getting smashed. Kerchief screamed in pain as his digits bent in all kinds of directions except the right ones. His knife spun off behind him, crashing through one of the windowpanes, clattering into the street with tinkling shards of glass.
If they’re here, they are making a move now! She had to deal with this quick, the Delmarva’s weren’t exactly thugs, most of them were street kids, pickpockets. They’d need me there.
Out loud she screamed, “Now I got to deal with you fuckwits!”
Del kicked Scrawny’s leg out from under him, hobnailed boots shredding the one leg of his trousers and forcing him down to one knee to bring his head in the right position. Muscles in her thick blacksmith’s shoulders coiled as she clenched her other fist. Shouldn’t have gone out alone. Tydrik’s burning eyes.
CRUNCH!
She dismantled the thug’s jaw, making him bounce twice off of the floor, most of what few teeth he had had in his head scattered on the floor. He was still breathing, but he wasn’t moving. More of the patrons screamed and staggered to their feet, rushing for the exits, pushing against the bouncers who were trying to get in to ‘solve the problem’.
“Bastard!” she snarled, spitting on the unconscious assailant.
She wanted to kill him, if only to be sure the problem was dealt with, but then the guard could arrest her, and the last thing she wanted was to go back to prison. She heard the other man step forward, and she turned, hand lifting.
Smack!
She caught the cudgel, thick callouses protecting her hand from the blow. It still stung like everything, but it was better than getting knocked on the head.
She yanked Red-Shirt closer to give him a good ol’ Salkovian kiss.
Thwack!
Her forehead smashed into his face, breaking his nose and sending him sprawling. She kept a hold of the business end of the cudgel in the process. Del flipped the weapon with a quick spin, the handle slapping into her palm. It twinged when she did, her whole hand throbbing, but she fought through it.
Just these two..? Why just these two..? It couldn’t just be two… that would be insulting.
Her eyes narrowed and she spun, even as Telianna screamed “Look out!”
Crash!
Broken crockery shattered against the back of her head as a third assailant hurled a mug at her, coat opening to show a red vest. He had a scar on his forehead. Del staggered, clenching her jaw shaking her head to clear her thoughts.
Bastard!
Her foot was yanked, she fell backwards!
“Tydrik’s sack!”
She yanked her boot free and glared down to find the cause. Red-shirt had grabbed one of her feet and pulled, trails of blood dribbling down his chin from his shattered nose.
Scar lifted a sword and brought it down in silence. Del Swung the cudgel.
Clang!
The strike got knocked aside!
Furious, the Dvundae warrior kicked Red-shirt right in his broken nose, making him howl, the hobnails of her boot scraping his face.
“You fuckin stumpy bitch! Fuck! I’ll kill-”
“Oh shut up!” She kicked him again, harder, feeling something else break as she did, and one more time for good measure. He too went limp and silent.
Scar was swinging again!
Tydrik! She twisted.
Clang!
She knocked another slash aside with the buckler and spun to her feet, knowing the floor was a deathtrap.
The two bouncers at the door finally got past the crowd, stomping in, glaring around. Del didn’t have time to wait for them, the swordsman slashing and thrusting, hunting for her blood.
“What, got your tongue cut out?” Del taunted catching the sword on her buckler, the runes she had carved into the back of it glowing bright silver. Nothing overly fancy, she still had more to learn, just something to increase durability.
Del stepped forward, shoving with the help of the bind, forcing Scar to backpedal.
“Think fast!” She threw the cudgel, charging forward. Her knuckles popped as her fist clenched.
Clang!
Scar deflected it.
Thwack!
Her fist found his ribs, and she felt one of them snap. He gasped and held them, glaring at her as he fought to get his wind back. Del didn’t let him, grabbing a stool with her buckler still in hand.
Crack!
Delre rammed the seat of a stool, still warm from being sat on, right up under his chin. Scar staggered and fell down, dazed.
Before he could stand, Delre lifted the stool two handed over her head and shattered it against his skull. The seat burst into splinters, fragments sailing through the air. Knocking the third attacker out and probably concussing him in the process.
She took a sharp pull on the cigar, thinking as fast as she could even as the bouncers closed in on her, though they were clearly smart, doing so cautiously. Smoke billowed out of her flared nostrils.
Probably have people watching the front.
She took her hatchet and cut Scar’s coin purse from his belt, opening it up to see how much was in it, hopeful as ever.
“Fuckin cheep bastards.” She grumbled. There wasn’t enough to cover the damage and take some for herself. She tossed it to the one bouncer and said “Here’s for the mess. Got one last thing to do before I’m out.”
She strode over to the bar, leaving the pair of them staring at her back. Her boots were loud on the wood as she got to Telianna, who was shivering slightly. Del took her hand, and held it gently in hers, ignoring her own split knuckles.
“Sorry about that, really. I need to go.” The Belmaian didn’t respond. Staring out with wide terror filled eyes.
Tydrik… not again. She sighed. She didn’t have time!
She kissed the woman on the cheek, hoping to shake her out of her shock more than anything else. “Wish I could have earned that better, so find me if you wanna let me, okay?” It was a little encouraging that the woman didn’t pull away, that she blinked and noticed Del, but the Dvundae knew better. She wouldn’t see that woman again.
Not if Delre wanted to keep her from being hurt.
Delre pushed lifted the flap that let her behind the bar, startling Telianna before heading out through the kitchen into the alleyway behind the pub, giving the cooks in the back a nod as she left.
She had to make it to the inner wall, fast!
Vivex rolled under the cart as the bowman turned to see what the noise was.
Kill!
Not yet! She needed to do this right, or it would alert the whole camp. She knew that was inevitable, but until that happened she could keep picking them off.
The thief walked around the side of the cart, still looking. She could see up to about his waist under there, and watched his hand move down to the sword hilt at his side. Ready to draw it.
Ambush… Her Instinct growled, filling her hind legs, ready to spring. The predator waited, hoping against hope that she could bait a response. She scrambled into a crouch, taking the rope into her hands.
The gale surged and she saw the other humans stumble and turn away from it.
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Away from them!
Now!
The Greenscale launched herself at her target's back, pulling the rope tight, wrapping it around her hands and wrenching down on it so that he gagged and choked.
Her feet pressed against his spine, and she levered backwards so that it bent. His eyes bulged, face turning red in challenge. She snarled quietly in his ear for that.
She swung back by the rope, and kicked both of the backs of his knees. He crumpled to the ground with a high pitched grunt and continued to try to slap at her.
Get out of sight, visible!
Snarling quietly again she dragged him under the cart, wrenching at his neck with the rope, keeping the pressure on.
Die, traitor!
He kicked and attempted to scratch at her with pitiful claws, foolishly not trying to draw his blade. As if the observation had transferred the idea, he slapped at his belt looking for it.
The wind howled, louder still as the hammer started to beat another tap into Arubra’s tree.
Where are the others?!
She couldn’t do all this on her own.
She pulled tighter on the rope, slashing at the man’s wrist with her toe claws, ripping into tendons. He grunted and punched her in the snout, knocking her away. He coughed and gasped, voice like shifting gravel.
“Gods, help…” It was barely more than a whisper as he fought to clamber back out.
“Bastard.” She hissed, grabbing his shoulder and pulling out her knife, lifting it high.
He lifted his hand, trying to stop her, “Please! I don’t want to be here!”
Squirk!
Vivex slammed the knife down! The obsidian sharp tip sliding through his hand and into his eye, puncturing the brain, pinning his arm there in an odd position while she looked around to see if she had been noticed, pleased to see she hadn’t been. The Initiate pulled the weapon free with at growl, wiping the blade on his garments.
She leaned close to the corpse, whispering, “Idiot, I don’t speak Parasite.” Even if she had understood him, her response would not have changed.
Vivex searched him too, taking the arrows but not the quiver, and finding a fine hatchet at his belt.
Mine!
For now. She might just need to throw it at one of them, and she couldn’t throw Shashk’s hatchet.
She needed to hide the body. Quickly in another burst of wind she grabbed the tarp that had hidden the containers on the cart and placed it over the corpse. She tucked it in to make it look like it was lazily folded, even replacing the stone the smoothskin had used the first time to weigh it down.
Good enough. She needed another target, so she slipped out from under the cart, actively blending the whole time.
Vivex stayed low, finding some ferns to slink through before she climbed back up into the canopy. She saw two of the other archers following their broodmate’s trail. The one who had been marking the territory.
Shit. Both were too close to the main group to kill just yet, and the one was hanging back, bow already in hand, arrow knocked.
Unless… Quickly she caught up to that one, taking out the rope again, tying it into a quick slipknot. She glanced at where the other one was. Not too far from the first corpse.
Kill!
This time she listened to her Instinct.
She tossed the improvised noose down and managed to loop it around the human's chin before she leapt off the side of the branch, meaning to strangle them, drawing the hatchet she had found. Holding it like Erthung had every time the broad-shouldered female had thrown one in the trial.
The rope jerked taut.
Crack!
The human’s neck snapped! The corpse went limp, the greater weight pulling Vivex back up as she hissed in surprize. The other poacher spun at the sound, and started shouting.
“Attack! Murder! We’re under attack! Beasts!” The interloper pulled out his bow, staggering as he kept screaming.
Fuck! She hoped that they couldn’t understand him, she didn’t think there was any way they didn’t hear him though. Vivex dropped, his first shot sticking into the trunk of the tree behind her. She charged, arm pulling back.
Zigzagging forward, the warrior managed to dodge the arrow as she closed in on him. She threw the hatchet! Running behind it.
Her enemy’s bow lifted again, feather to his cheek.
Thurk!
The hatchet sank deep in the parasite's shoulder, sending the shot wide as he screamed in pain.
She glanced quickly over her shoulder as the arrow zipped by her face, and saw one of the other humans drop. An arrow sprouting from the back of his bloody head.
Damn them all.
The bowman screamed in pain, “Help!”
“Silence!” she hissed, pouncing on him he kept screaming. “Shut the fuck up you dirty eighth!” She snarled under her breath, ripping through his ribs and vitals with the black blade, snapping her jaws into his throat, hot blood spraying against her, sweet on her tongue. But the damage was done.
Back at the main camp she heard the others start to call as well. “What was that? Quick! Come on! Sounded like Neil!”
“The leatherbacks shot Daniel!”
Fuck!
But then she remembered Scithaan and his decoys.
Make it look like something else! A beast! She could do that.
The Initiate wrenched her head back and forth, tearing a hunk free out of the throat, swallowing.
Still hissing with rage, Vivex grabbed his arrows too so that her quiver was totally full. Then she tore at both corpses with her claws, only using four to try and make it look like the work of a swampcat.
She could hear them getting closer. Shouting at each other, weapons clattering. Vivex unlooped the rope, leaning down to bite out the throat of that corpse too before scrambling up the tree. Again, she used four claws to try and sell the illusion.
“Hurry up! Check it out! Unhitch the damn Runeslave too! We need this Aethersap!” The mage was screaming, hammering a third tap into Arubra and giving orders from the sounds of it.
She glanced around the trunk. A squad of ten humans marched forward, eight spears, two more archers.
Just what I need.
Not looking up!
That was perfect!
The hidden predator slipped around the trunk of the tree, scrubbing off the blood with scentmoss before she slunk through the canopy. She started slow, letting the group of humans pass under her, speeding up once they did. She wanted to get to the barge.
Need to make sure none can get away with what they’ve stollen already.
She could hear the rattling of the earthbone. A sort of heavy chiming sound was followed by a heavy splash from that direction. The wind howled, and she was assaulted by a new reek.
What in the name of the Gods is that?
But she was distracted from her pondering almost immediately as there was yet another scream from below. She looked.
Damn.
They had found the corpse under the cart.
The entire group of them had gone onto high alert, the mage screaming more.
“By command of the Emperor, unit two seven nine zero, hunt and destroy all enemies! You understand me? Kill!”
There was a rumbling hum and several pops and snaps. Not like branches, it was something else. Closer to the pops and crackles of wet firewood.
What? She slowed to a halt. Something was wrong.
Slosssshhh-Thum!
Slosssshhh-Thum!
Tok? Why was he in the river? And why was he walking that slow? She looked above the tree line and felt her eyes go wide.
It wasn't Tok.
Fighting back fear, she stared as a smoothskin sloshed from out in front of the barge. Manacles wrapped around the thing's wrists, big enough to clasp over Arubra’s tree.
Just as tall as Tok, if not a bit taller, the Giant drooled slowly with despondent eyes. It was missing its nose and ears, making its grotesque head even moreso. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Its naked body was covered in terrible scars, some freshly stitched with thick ropes rather than fine fibers. Wide hands with knuckles like turtle shells cracked as fists clenched. But that wasn’t the worst of it either.
The front two thirds of the beast's head had been removed.
Completely gone.
She saw it when it turned its head to step over one of the carts. In its place were two rows of brass sheets, gleaming bright. Looking like the gills of a fish almost. And by the way that they sparkled in the light, she knew that they had been stamped with runes.
Bright sickening red and ominous purple lightning crackled between them for a moment. It opened its mouth, and she could see its teeth had been replaced with earthbone spikes. Its gums black with some sort of infection.
“Understood. Kill enemies.” It rumbled, still drooling, eyes still blank. The thing’s voice was deep enough that it resonated in her chest. It strode forward, lifting a massive club made from a tree and earthbone bands. The eyes swiveled, the head lifted, and it sniffed the air.
“Blood detected. Leatherback detected. Engaging.”
What in the name of the Gods is that!?
RUN! Her Instinct screamed as the club lifted high.
Fuck! She could do with some support right now.
Del’s boots clacked as she jogged towards their secret entrance into the undercity. She hated that she couldn’t just take one that was closer, it was a true rat’s nest below the cobbles. She wouldn’t get lost, she couldn’t underground, but it was much faster to get there using the proper way in.
Old sections of city, ancient ruins, dead ends, and subterranean horrors were all down there. It really wasn’t completely safe, but that was why their base was so great. It kept most people who didn’t know the way, like the guards, from hassling them. And their base was more secure than most, almost isolated from most of the subterranean threats.
She started to cross one of the main roads before she stopped and pulled herself back into the alleyway, narrowly avoiding the scrutiny of a full unit of guards on patrol. Gleaming in armor, halberds polished. Grim faced and looking for an excuse to take violent action.
It was because it was the signet district. The rich expected their streets to be clean of all ‘criminals’. Including orphans and the homeless.
Or idiot dwarves with a split scalp from a damned brawl. It was a fact that never failed to stoke the Dwarf’s anger, violating her sense of morality. Or what was left of it.
She touched the back of her head where the mug had smashed against it and winced. Her fingers came back bloody. She’d have to wait, and the guards took their sweet time to pass.
Come on! Move! Haul your asses out of my fucking way! Every moment was another that could be the last for the others.
With the guards gone she jogged across the street, turning west towards the second wall of the New City, almost directly across from the Temple of the Ten, the shadow of the middle tallest tower not that far off from the passageway down.
Delre turned the corner, and found herself right next to a pair of red-robes, who looked about as startled as she felt.
But the dwarf was the first to react to the surprise.
Del strode grimly forward, kicking the first, an orc woman, in the stomach. Not daring to shout a battle cry with the guards just having passed. Her nailed boots punched a mass of tiny holes into the Orshkar woman’s abdomen. Just a flesh wound, but it made her double over and groan.
The other, a male Belmaian, grabbed at a full-sized ax hidden under his robes.
“Not today bucko!” Del snarled and her hatchet flashed.
It lopped his hand off at the wrist like it wasn’t there. He howled as blood sprayed out, and the orc staggered up pulling a pair of shortswords.
“I’ll skin you for this, dwarf!” She snarled around her tusks.
“Sure you will.” Del said with a grin.
No time for mercy now!
Sclork!
The dwarven warrior smashed the edge of the buckler into the fiendkin’s temple, cracking the skull so that one of the horns bent at an odd angle. Del backed away from the orc. She could see that the other woman also didn’t have any armor.
“You guys need to come up with better lines.”
The orc leaned forward and rushed in, realizing the same thing about Delre. Probably going to rely on her reach because of that.
The dwarf didn’t move, judging distances, and then-
Thurk!
With a practiced flick the hatchet sank deep into the woman’s sternum, just a bit left. She gasped, grabbing at it, her short swords clattering to the ground as she fell down face first.
Delre kicked the dead fiendkin over, grabbing his ax. The orc gurgled, still struggling, her blood looking too bright on the white granite. Del lifted her new ax and slammed it into the orc’s skull with a wet crunch killing her. She didn’t enjoy it, but she had to get to the others, and didn’t trust the cultists to stay down.
The dwarf pulled her hatchet free, sliding the ax into her belt, ruining her clothes with the blood before moving over to the fountain. She pressed on a crab next to the Sallinnia statue, and with a soft click the hidden door opened up.
Grabbing the corpses she yanked them into the passageway. The blood was there, but that was preferable to just leaving two dead bodies for everyone and the Gods to stare at.
“Sallinnia’s port you fuckers are heavy.” She grumped as she dragged both. Delre didn’t take them far, leaving both just inside the doorway as it closed shut, already forgetting them as she headed deeper into the gloom, rushing to help the team.
Rushing to help the Delmarva gang.
Hang in there! I’m coming! She had a chain shirt stashed on the way down. She wouldn’t have time for anything more.
The eyes of the statue twinkled for a moment. Hmmmm… Perhaps… Yes… With a quiet grinding sound, the eyes shifted, looking down. The blood from the two kills vanished just before a guard patrol passed.
The usually hidden door though didn’t latch fully. It wasn’t ajar, it was barely noticeable, unless you were looking for it. A quarter of an hour later, when the figure dressed in all black arrived, it didn’t take him long to find it, and follow the dwarf down.
The statue smiled with a sharky grin before returning to its original shape, pleased that Ironmantle had found his way in.
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.