-From Canticles: 3:23
Raimond stared at the charred Nissar skull, helm hanging from his belt, trying not to think about how it reminded him of the crusade. How the size of the bones made him think of killed and eaten Pages.
Back then something like this was a sign of honor. Respected foes. Something to bury. He hadn’t known that at first, hadn’t known that for most of the conflict. But he had learned it before the end. And it had reframed every memory where there had been a pile of skulls in the center of a killzone.
This though… This was butchery.
He could hear the snarls and screams, the snapping jaws. Hewing through scaled foes like a butcher because that was the only way to keep breathing. Doing it over and over for endless days. Losing everything, friends, comrades, honor… even parts of his soul it seemed sometimes.
If the hells were on earth, they would be that swamp.
He shivered and shook his head.
Limma Ovamus’s death hadn’t been a suicide, he had to focus on that. It was a week later, but fortunately the Nissar woman didn’t have any surviving kin to baulk at them opening up the tomb. And he was glad he did as he stared at the hole smashed into the woman’s skull.
“Raimond, you alright?” Niniane asked, her voice deep for a woman, an old enticement, full of the history between them. The aethergems they had borrowed reflecting off of her armor in the mausoleum, but he remembered other times, in warm candlelight.
Why did it have to be Nin?
He knew why, it was because Hector was on patrol over in The Dregs, being observed by Sir Clarance, who was acting as a third party to see if there was anything missing in the boy’s training.
And Dame Niniane was capable, intelligent, and dutiful. He knew better than most that she was. How capable she always had been. It was what had made her stand out to him. He remembered their dalliance, decades ago now, how sure he had been then. So different from now.
“I’ll be fine, Nin.” He said, running his hand over his face.
He could feel her wanting to press the issue, but thankfully she didn’t.
“There wasn’t anything in the room that could have made that hole.” Niniane said, pulling out her notepad, flipping it to a page covered in her elegant handwriting. She placed her other hand on her side-sword.
“And there were plenty of chemicals that would have led to a much more pleasant death based on the manifest.” Raimond stood, sighing.
“A gun?” She asked, moving closer, book still in hand, looking down at the skull. Raimond could smell her soap, the soft scent of lemon she favored.
“It would make sense, but no shot was heard. And with how strict the guard is about them, who would dare carry one inside the city? Especially since the first thing they’d do probably is signal for the Magistaria.” The Magical arm of the Salkov’s law keepers. He had yet to meet one of those he trusted in the slightest.
“What else could it have been though?”
“The pommel of a blade, a hammer, something concealable.” He turned the skull, frowning as he heard something rattling inside it.
“Because of the possible intruder.”
“Exactly.” He shook the skull, and into his open palm, out of the entry wound, came several blackened shards of bone. “Maybe a longer poll? Though this does point to a gun, but if it was, where is the bullet?”
Dame Ninian sighed. “A real mystery.” She turned the page of her notebook, looking down at it, “Captain Ross says the given name of the stranger given name was “Silo”, and that he went to talk with her.”
Raimond grunted.
“Human man, bald, long nose, and glasses.” Niniane looked at Raimond, “Didn’t notice an eye color for him though.”
Hers were light brown. Almost amber. Deep and beautiful. Focus. Just, keep the topic about the job.
Raimond looked back at the skull, “He said the man kept adjusting his glasses, and the glare shining into his eyes. Probably did it to obscure things. And it’s easy enough to disguise oneself.”
“Well, then what do we use to figure this out?”
Raimond reverently replaced the skull with the rest of the remains inside the stone casket. “May the hero stand vigil over your soul. And may you find peace.” He whispered, shifting the lid back into place. He heard Nin join him.
Continuing their discussion, he said “We know it was a human, he was tall, and bald.”
“Great, so we start by getting you to look in the mirror then?” she said it lightly, smiling.
“Amusing.” Raimond said, “No, we can’t rely on that, especially with a possible disguise. A man could shave their head then grow it back. What we need to use is the methodology of the crimes exhibited. Things that make them different from just a case of murder.”
“So, it’s the Floss theory again?” She pushed some stray hairs from her face. She caught him staring and he looked away.
“Documents taken or destroyed? And then we find out from Floss’s assistant that these two were romantically involved?” They both walked up the stairs and into the light of day, and Raimond squinted with the sudden change of brightness. “I would say so.”
“That does tend to make people act foolishly.”
Damn.
“Nin-”
“No, it is fine, Raimond, just an observation. The sky is blue. The cobbles are gray. Men are idiots when it comes to romance.”
“I-” He didn’t know what to say to that. They hadn’t been together for… years… No, decades. It made him very aware of his age. She had said it all lightly, but Raimond could feel her hurt in those words. His foot caught on the top step and he nearly went down in a clatter of armor.
“See. Infallible logic.” She said, then smiled.
“Clearly.” He said flatly, and she started laughing. After a moment he couldn’t help but join her. Something from the past returned, a familiarity, a warmth. But he wasn’t ready for it. He wouldn’t ever be.
I don’t deserve her…
“Where to next?” she said, becoming serious again. She mounted her steed, Stoic, while Raimond mounted Henrik. The warhorse snorted, ears twitching, though one always was pointed back towards him. Ready for battle as always.
“Steady boy…” Raimond said, patting the warhorse’s neck, “I think we head back to the Sanctum. Go over our notes and records, see if we can put some pieces together there.”
They rode along, chatting, discussing Hector’s patrol and how it might have gone. Tristian’s progress though his training as a page. But the whole while Raimond couldn’t keep his mind off of one thing about the case, and soon they both rode in thoughtful silence.
The locked door. The only way out would have been a third story window, which would have broken the attacker’s legs at the very least.
“Raimond, you do realize that there is another thing.” Niniane said as they came up to the Sanctum and dismounted.
“The locked door, yes…”
“I was thinking of the previous murders, actually. The ones before Floss. But that is also a good point.”
He blinked. Of course! They might be connected as well. Then he thought about it. Were there other cases where the only way out of the location was seemingly impossible? He would have to dig through his notes, but he thought so… And that meant…
“The Assassins…” He muttered, then explained his reasoning to Nin.
“I agree…” She said, guiding Stoic into his stall, the pair of them having arrived back at the sanctum.
Raimond tied Hendrik and made sure he had enough hay.
“If it is the assassins, why would they target a healer? Someone that the world owes a great debt to? Who would want to kill her?”
“We know one thing for sure. Her death was profitable to their organization in some way.” She said, “Though I can’t imagine valuing something more than the life of anyone.”
“It’s because you are a good person, Nin.” Raimond said, taking off his gauntlets.
“And you are too, Rai…” She whispered, stepping closer, and Raimond was very aware that they were quite alone. He started to pull away but she grabbed him by the collar of his breastplate, holding him there.
She looked up at him, with those deep amber eyes.
He felt his breath quicken.
His hand cupped her cheek before he knew what he was doing. She stepped closer still, pulling him so that their armor bumped togheter.
No. I… I can’t. But he wanted to, needed to, craving her like a drug.
She had gotten a little scar on her lower lip so long ago. It was now faded with age. A part of her face.
And his lips pressed softly against it.
She pressed back, head tilted up, holding him there.
But guilt burned in his chest and he jerked back away from her, made all the more difficult because of her response, the mirrored yearning there. But it was as if his guilt and sin could contaminate something so good and kind as her. He couldn’t let it happen, wouldn’t let it happen.
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Why can’t she just forget me?
“Nin… I… I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You are too hard on yourself, Raimond.”
“You know my sin though!”
She pulled away from him, face a mask. “I’ve waited this long.”
“You should have moved on years ago.” He wished she had, though he knew it would have torn him apart to see her with anyone else.
The horses whickered.
“Like I said, love makes people do stupid things.” She left him there with those words. Later, when he finally came back in from the stables, she acted like nothing had happened.
They only talked about the case, catching Hector up when he returned. Sir Clarance said he had done an exemplary job.
There was one moment though, from the way she looked at him, that told him that her resolve had redoubled.
Vivex eyed Gekki and Zathaan, eyes narrowed, snout crinkling.
“What distracts you, my Pupil.” Keshka hissed, looking up from the ground, eighth genera arrows in her hands.
Idiot, focus! Her Instinct chided, angry that the Tutor had noticed her lapse in attention.
It was after the evening meal, and the Initiate was supposed to be helping to go through the ammunition they had reclaimed from the smoothskins. Checking the fletchings, see how straight the shafts were, make sure they weren’t cracked, that sort of thing.
Apparently, this was another skill she would need if she was to fight the parasites effectively.
But that smell… I can ask at least.
“Gekki and Zathaan have an unpleasant odor.” Vivex said, glancing at Keshka and then looking back at the pair. “And they act strange. Why?”
Zathaan’s pattern shifted slightly as he and Gekki worked through the dead, naught left but bones and their gear. He had been collecting the smoothskin’s teeth. Gekki, for her part, continued to look at him, her own pattern retaining the default colors, but more saturated, brighter, a more vibrant green like freshly sprouted vines.
It was like both were signaling a greeting to each other, though they were hardly more than a foot apart at one time.
And both stank. A cloying scent that her Instinct couldn’t let her ignore. She almost gagged at one point.
Keshka looked over at the pair, then grunted, a flicker of orange amusement flickering through her sparse areas of camouflage around her eyes. “Yes. Both tend to be slightly early for the season.”
Mating. Vivex’s Instinct hissed, finally finding the reason the scent was important, and instantly joining her forebrain in the opinion that such things were utterly distasteful.
Zathaan moved closer, his own pattern shifting into the brighter greens. The pair moved away from the clearing as he did.
“At least this will calm her down.” Keshka hissed. “Come, we must hunt.”
Vivex’s Instinct hissed, displeased at the display, though she wasn’t sure why as she followed Keshka in the opposite direction.
“Does it hurt?” She found herself asking.
Keshka glanced down at the subadult. Tongue flickering.
“It isn’t pleasant or unpleasant. A transaction. Gekki may be a fool, but her choice of mate is a sound one. And Zathaan managing to breed above his caste is good for his line as well.” She growled, putting on her constructed camouflage. “We hunt a squirrel tonight. And then we find some birds.” She waited next to one of the trees.
Vivex grunted, glad to get away from the stink of their pheromones, clambering up into the canopy, her Tutor following.
The Initiate lined up the shot, aware of Keshka watching her, focusing on the gray-brown furred parasite, picking through a pinecone for the nuts inside with clever claws.
She breathed out. Then in slowly.
Yes… good.
She pulled back the string, the blunt arrow ready to kill the squirrel from impact alone. They had made arrows the other night, and she was excited to see how well this design worked.
A smooth river pebble was glued with pitch to the end of the shaft, and should, in theory, kill the little beast without harming the hide too much.
Now!
Twang! Thmmk!
The arrow flew true! And with hardly a sound the little beast fell from the tree, dead.
“Good.” Keshka hissed, lifting her own bow and firing into something else in a slightly different direction.
Her Instinct was pleased, despite a squirrel being small game. Killed!
Or stunned, not in my claws yet!
She tore after it, racing through the canopy, hearing her tutor head over to collect her own kill.
Vivex found the little creature after she collected her arrow, and the little rodent was snagged up in a vine. She snatched it, and was already up and pulling out her knife when Keshka joined her, carrying a mawfrog with her as well.
“Come, fire is needed for this. Gather tinder and start one.”
Vivex had learned how to quickly make fresh fires as needed in the past week, one of the things she was required to do over and over again in her spare time. Because of this it was only mere moments before she had one crackling. Bright and hungry for fuel.
Keshka grunted, cutting into the amphibian first. “Get eggs. Six of them. Or four larger ones if you can find them.” Her tutor held out her hands, about four to five inches apart.
Kill! Her Instinct knew exactly what to search for.
She hurried off towards a section of taller grasses, where the kingbills nested.
RADADADADADADADADAT!
She looked out on the small colony. About forty birds, all still taller than her, nested in shifts.
She slunk through the grass, hidden by it, hissing softly while she could.
Kill! Hunt! All!
No. Wasteful. Only need one nest’s worth. And the parent. She had always wondered what the big avians tasted like. She crouched, blending, spotting where the idiot creatures were.
She drew back her bow slowly. Fletching to shoulder. To cheek.
Now!
Twang! Shlunk! The big bird crumpled in death!
She sneered and started to move forward to collect-
Thwump! RADADADADADAT!
One landed right on top of her, rattling, making her stagger and fall to the ground!
Shit! Must have followed the sound!
DAT! DAT DAT!
Pain!
The bill shot down, snapping at her shoulder three times, tearing into the flesh with the cruel hook at the tip of the thick beak.
Fight!
Blood oozed out of the wound.
She snarled, twisting into a deathroll!
Snap!
She had its leg pinned in her jaws!
Her claws gleaming in the night!
THRASHK!
It was easy, she mangled the thing’s throat in one swipe, arterial blood spraying her scales in a satisfying way. Revealing her position! A crimson stain in the bright moonlight!
RADADADAT!
RADADADADADADADAT!
RADAT-DAT!
They swarmed her, like the otters had the crocodile, all those months ago!
I won’t be overcome! She crouched low, spitting her kill out of her mouth and leaving it for now. She dove into the thickest grass and rolling in it, wiping the blood off of her. Flattening the grass as she did.
Sky!
She looked up, following her Instinct’s warning. They were tracking her by how she disturbed the grass!
Shit!
She hissed and pulled out her blade, slashing at them as they dove at her, too fast to catch in the air as they wooshed by. Each time leaving a gash in her scales.
If they had been any smaller, the Initiate wouldn’t have needed to worry, but the birds were as big as her and bigger, snapping and tearing into her with a vehemence that was painful and relentless.
Protecting their offspring.
And she couldn’t just kill them all, or rather, she couldn’t bring herself to. No waste. Only what I can use or hoard. These weren’t like the parasites. The kingbills were a part of the swamp. Prey to be hunted, but as with all prey overhunting led to never having any.
That, and with them all there, she couldn’t deny that she might be sorely hurt if she tried to be greedy.
I’m already lucky that they haven’t aimed for a tendon or anything else important yet.
But she had to retaliate! To force them back and make an opening for her to get to her target.
Squirrel arrow! Her Instinct crowed.
Vivex grabbed the blunt arrow from her quiver, loosing it at the next one that dove at her.
Twang! Thock!
It hit the beast in the beak, making it twitch left, catching on a branch and forcing the kingbill to smash into the brush as it veered off course. Creating a tremendous racket as it squawked.
The din startled more of the of the creatures into the air. She blended in with the ground more thoroughly, and those already in fight were misled by the crash, swooping in on their fellow. She hurried into some undisturbed grass.
Vivex scrambled under the verdant cover, making a point to not flatten any of it. Sliding through it like a fish slid through the water. Her tongue flickering out rapidly, relying on smell alone to finish her hunt, following the scent of eggs.
Weaklings. Teaming up against a clearly superior being. Luckily she was smarter than they were, stronger too. She had her chance now!
And knowing them their nests are all unguarde-
Bursting out of the grass, she came face to face with one of the parents.
Snap!
It missed her by the width of a scale!
It held its wings wide, showing her that it was huge, towering and filling her entire vision! Creating a mighty gale with them as they flapped, its beak rattling like the thunder.
A demon of her nightmares!
It raddled its beak again, glaring down at her with evil gray eyes. Huge with its wings spread!
Flee! Her Instinct yelped, remembering her first encounter. Remembering Shashk’s frill, the promise of a painful whipping! Of the hissing three eyed colossus hunting her from the river before Tok saved her.
She was surprised when she snapped her own jaws.
No! I am stronger now! She drew her blade, and it was like a spell had been broken once it realized its display wouldn’t work on her! It wasn’t even as big as Vuthra with its wings folded, and Vivex had beaten her with a stone!
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
It pecked at her, lightning quick, and she dodged, thrusting, and it moved in kind, as if knowing she was able to kill it made it more weary of counterattack. It snapped at her again, kicking with its clawed feet, scraping her muzzle.
A mirror match in style, darting, weaving, snapping, slashing, jumping. She tried to sweep the legs, but it just flapped once to dodge it. It snapped at her forearm as it did, scoring another hit that made her snarl. Vivex could hear the others of its kind taking flight again, lifting above the grass, swooping in the night.
Need to end this before they spot me again!
She spun, remembering Zegoth’s method, aiming for the center of mass.
Thwump! Her tail collided and smashed the beast to the muddy ground. With a snarl she was on top of it, pinning the pecking head and thrusting deep into its chest with the matte black blade.
With a hiss of air it crumpled, still flapping, smashing one of its own eggs in its death throes. She hauled it off of the nest and shoved the rest of the eggs into her bag, only three of them, stuffing the nesting material in as well for padding.
This is enough.
More!
They are big, and I am getting torn up. She winced, several of her wounds starting to throb now that her blood wasn’t pumping so hard.
RADADADADADADADAT!
That settled it. She had to leave with more coming!
No matter how tough the crocodile was, the otters always win.
Her Instinct hissed, frustrated by that analogy. Partly because it knew it to be true, as it ever was.
More of the flock swooped down, pecking, biting, rattling. They tore free hunks of her hide before she grabbed the leg of the second dead adult and fled, barely finding the other to carry off as well too, sprinting into the deeper foliage as fast as she could.
They followed her through to the trees, but it wasn’t long before they all circled back to their young.
Ducks next time… She thought to herself.
Agreed.
Keshka looked at Vivex, eyeing the wounds and the pair of Kingbill carcasses.
“The eggs?”
“In my bag.” Vivex hissed. She had already put the herb on her wounds, using a stone and a puddle to make the poultice.
Radadadadadat..!
Vivex flinched at the sound.
Keshka watched, then grunted.
“Good. Watch.”
Keshka took the eggs, determining that three would be enough. Taking the yolks, mixing in one of the purple glands of the mawfrog Vivex knew would protect her bowstring from the damp, Keshka spread that on the hide sides of both the mawfrog, and the squirrel, coating it thickly before sending the Initiate to gather materials to use to stretch the hide.
That too didn’t take long, two green boughs, bent into a loop, and fresh bow-vine, cut and spun easily into strong cordage. They roasted the pair of kingbills, which were not as tasty as Vivex could have hoped, though they weren’t unappetizing either. Because they were not among the group, Keshka allowed Vivex to eat her fill.
While they waited for the stretched hides to dry in the smoke of their fire, Vivex thought she might try to learn more about other things from her tutor.
“Does laying eggs hurt?” She asked, using the pommel of her blade to crack into the skull of one of the kingbills, using her claws to scoop out the gelatinous brain.
“It can.” Keshka hissed. “If you stay stunted, it will for you.”
Vivex fought down a growl, the prefixes clearly apologetic on ‘stunted’, watching her tutor place the skins back into the smoke.
“You ask things you will likely not deal with for years at least, my Pupil.”
“Is curiosity a crime?” She asked, taking another scoop of brains.
“No. It can be a concern however. Impertinence can be deadly.”
She hissed thoughtfully as they waited for the hides to finish tanning.
Keshka guided Vivex in how to use the tanned squirrel hide to muffle the string of her bow. Cutting it into smaller pieces, each piece was curled into a ball through the twist of the bowstring, leaving her with two little puffs of fur on either side of the bow.
The Initiate examined the ombre of the fur, from dark gray, to brown, to an almost translucent clear-white. They were interesting to say the least.
“Thank you for this lesson, my tutor.”
“Next time, my Pupil, be satisfied hunting smaller prey.”
Vivex saw Keshka’s eyes examine her injuries in the dark.
“I must prove my worth, Tutor. To prove I am not Fodder.”
“Just that? Just not Fodder?”
Compete!
Vivex didn’t answer. She couldn’t say what was in her heart of hearts, but she couldn’t leave a question unanswered. Vivex growled “I will prove myself to be myself, my Tutor.”
Keshka hissed, then turned to head back to the gathering of Truescales.
Vivex followed, worried she misspoke.
“Be careful to not overdo it. A remembered grave helps you little, my Pupil.”