by Dan Brigman
“Is it bad?” Einar whispered.
“Worse,” Quint began. “I’m surprised you’re standing, but you’ll need to stay on your feet for a bit longer.”
Saen heard cloth ripping before Quint continued, “Here. Hold your hand there. It’ll help stop that gusher you got.”
Saen’s imagination replaced her sight at Quint’s comment, yet she wanted to scream in frustration at her blindness and the lingering pain of the brightness. I’m useless now. Why did I come along on this fool’s errand?
In the span of a few breaths, more thoughts of despair inundated her primary consciousness. She felt her heartbeat, which quickened her breath. Saen’s mind tore into pieces held together only by desperate tendrils of mental fortitude. The tearing ripped at her psyche more than any bright flash of light an Alterator could produce. With each tear, another tendril appeared to help seal her mind back to whole. The tears, she realized, originated from outside her own mind. Saen’s mind moved beyond her own reckoning, repairing damage she could not understand. Then, finally, she focused on one of the tendrils to bore through the pain, the blindness, and the continuous barrage of thoughts of futility. Through the blossoming restoration, Quint’s voice breached her focus.
“I managed to get passage on an old ship before you both arrived earlier. I’ll thank my fine luck for having the ability to think ahead since it seems you both lack foresight.”
Saen heard a few more tears of the cloth, then movement toward her. Two sets of boots scraped along the floor, and she sighed when a hand grasped her shoulder.
“Take my hand,” Einar uttered through gritted teeth.
“Fine, fine,” Quint noted. “Let’s move, now.” Moving to the open doorway, they felt the chilled wind of the early spring’s night brush past.
Saen cringed as Einar said, through chattering teeth, “I’m much too weak to fend off the cold this night.”
Each step brought a groan from Einar—that and his clicking teeth chipped away at Saen’s mind. She felt herself being pulled forward, and she could do nothing but follow. Through the enlarging haze in her mind and the blackness enshrouding her vision, she heard her voice. The words’ indistinctness faded as her brain suddenly felt aflame and torn asunder.
“Something’s wrong, Quint…”
The words trailed off and reached Quint’s numbed ears while they trudged down a side alley. The tone offered no comfort to his already-rising burden.
Just as the words, “What now?” left his mouth, Quint knew he would not get an answer. Saen’s face paled, her eyes shut tight, and her lips became a thin line, the cold already turning them blue. Einar stood holding her hand, and through Einar’s stricken gaze at Saen, Quint realized not all his pain came from the sword wound. He turned and nodded at Quint to keep moving. Quint led them along the blackened paving stones. Light glinted off the slow-moving river, providing enough illumination to keep from falling into the depths. Quint made out the putrefaction of dead fish before whispering, “Thank the Originators that the inn isn’t far from the docks.”
Loud yelling reached Quint’s ears.
“They’re headed that way! The Guardians won’t blame us for this. Find them!”
The voice reverberated off the stones just as Quint heard boot steps heading their way. Further past the townsfolk searching for the three companions, pulsating blackness and two familiar shouts gave Quint pause.
Melek and Kiran waited outside and across the street from The Last Hope. The night’s cold forced them to occasionally stomp their feet as small streams of white breath pushed out of their nostrils with each exhalation. A small metal brazier, for the town’s guards to warm themselves on their rounds, stood nearby to offer some respite. Quint had asked them to keep watch until they departed in the morning. Kirian hoped all of them would travel together. Neither Melek nor Kirian questioned the older man’s request until Loken shuffled his feet, more than a simple feet-warming stomp, an hour into their posting.
“What are we doing here?” Melek asked, his eyes never stopping a continuous scan of the street. “Those three Guardians are going to be trouble if they see your friend.”
Kirian ignored it as he had ignored all his companion’s mutterings. His eyes scanned the rooftops. While most shingled rooftops slanted to keep the snow and rain from ruining it, a few flat tops, such as The Last Hope, offered perfect vantage points for assassins. I should know. Enough of them—
Shouting from the now-open doorway interrupted Kirian’s thoughts and pulled his gaze downward. Pulses of light within and inn patrons rushing out like hornets from a kicked nest offered only one conclusion.
“It seems you’re right.” Kirian glanced askance and put a warning hand on Melek’s wrist. Melek’s hand had already been placed on one of the daggers sheathed on his belt. “We watch, remember,” Kirian continued. “Einar can take care of himself.”
“Against three Guardians maybe,” Melek replied, “But probably not against that thing.”
Kirian’s brow furrowed until he followed Melek’s focus. A black-clad figure crouched on The Last Hope’s roof staring downward at the crush of people. The sheer black cloth and hood of an assassin blocked the figure’s face, yet Kirian and Melek noticed no weapons in the figure’s hands. Tight-fitting black gloves clutched the roof’s low wooden wall.
A breath later, Quint sprinted past the escaping throng, barely hindered by the people spreading outward and away. A few seconds later the street had cleared in front of The Lost Hope, offering Loken and Kirian a clearer view.
Quint, Einar Amakiir, and Saen Lorst stepped from the inn. Of the three, only Quint seemed unfazed by whatever had occurred inside. Einar grasped his side with one hand, while leading Saen with the other hand. Melek and Kirian could only look upon them helplessly until Quint mouthed to the two waiting companions, “Protect our escape,” before streaming away toward the river.
They nodded and glanced upward. The black-clad figure now crouched on the edge of the low wall, its head turning with each passing step of the three fleeing companions. Melek and Kirian pushed away from the wall and halted a pace later as they watched the figure shift. A breath later it jumped down from the inn’s roof, perhaps thirty feet high, and rolled forward into a jog, seemingly undaunted by the fall. Neither companion noticed a weapon. A breath later, they realized why the assassin had no need for material weapons. The figure held up one hand high enough for them to recognize the beginnings of an inscribed rune from at least two of its fingers. A Blighter’s rune.
“We’re in trouble,” Kirian muttered. The blackness enveloping the Blighter’s hand erased any semblance of a curse upon Kirian’s lips. A massive blur of movement ten paces ahead ripped away his initial shock.
“Melek! Wait!”
Melek’s eyes fixed upon the Blighter and its glowing black hand. To him, Kirian seemed mired in a morass of surprise. Melek’s focus homed in on the Blighter, his feet carrying him forward as Kirian’s idea of trouble reached Melek’s ears. At ten paces from the Blight-spawn near the alleyway, the damnable thing had entered. Melek tossed the first dagger, then the second, with snaps of each wrist. Ten paces meant he would not miss or so he had come to trust.
Melek called out, “Bastard Blight-spawn,” as the second dagger flipped through the air in a hope to distract it.
Instead, the sound pushed the creature forward into another graceful roll under the dagger’s path. A waist-high wooden crate three paces away allowed the creature a shield. The dagger deflected off the wood and careened further down the alley out of sight into piles of debris. Thundering steps down the alley brought the creature’s attention to his newfound attackers.
“For the Olst!” Melek cried out in the final step before swinging the greatsword at the Blighter’s head. As the blade sliced down, the smell of incoming rain faintly infused the air.
Despite the interrupted rune, blackness still enveloped the Blighter’s hand, but he could only shift his weight enough to dodge the swing mean
t to decapitate him. The sword’s faint smell of ozone assaulted the Blighter’s nose, yet the foulness of the Alterator’s work brought a grin to his hidden face.
“My master will enjoy tearing you apart.”
Despite the rasped words dripping with hatred, the Blighter could only dodge to keep the sword from ripping him apart. With each swing, something odd permeated within the Blighter’s nose and his smile widened.
“Odd,” the Unnamed began. “An altered being wielding such a—”
The words cut off as a dagger pierced the Blighter’s shoulder. A wordless cry of hatred behind Melek drew the Unnamed’s focus.
Even just a scant five paces away, Kirian raced toward the two combatants. His mouth wide, still shouting while he slowed at Melek’s side. A kukri in either hand would have made the Unnamed chuckle in derision on a normal day. Wide-eyed fascination at the onslaught tempered his indifference to the attack. Melek swung the blade without a hint of its weight tiring him, and Kirian swiped at each opening. As the Unnamed inscribed, waves of stench like roiling fields of burning crops struck the companions. Each line of the rune intensified the odor. Their faces paled to a greenish-gray giving the Unnamed a slight respite.
The Unnamed rolled backward, still inscribing frenetically. A few more seconds of the three weapons slicing and he would be lost. Ducking under the greatsword again once the Olst recovered, followed by Melek’s grunt of disgust, the Unnamed released the rune. It held tiny cross-stitched lines within a palms-width three-dimensional box. The rune meant death.
Inscribing this particular symbol thousands of times over the years had brought a measure of comfort to the Unnamed. The certainty of its method as familiar as its exacting disintegration of flesh. Only this time, the Unnamed could only stared open-mouthed at its effect. The small gray-black box shot through the passing air stopping only at Melek’s left leg. He had tried to side-step the box, yet the rune’s swiftness slapped into the thigh, throwing Melek backward twenty feet into the street. The massive greatsword clattered to the ground near Kirian. He could only stare as Melek landed in a heap. Both the Unnamed and Kirian stared—the Unnamed waited for the Olst’s ensuing and inevitable disintegration while Kirian paused long enough only to recover from the shock.
“You won’t have a chance to do that again, Blighter!” Kirian shouted, as he threw another kukri. The Unnamed’s eyes still held fast upon the Olst’s body until the kukri hit the other shoulder.
Pain reached the Unnamed’s mind for the first time in decades, the feeling nearly a forgotten memory. Irritation intermixed with the pain as he uttered, “I am no mere blighter.” He then shifted his focus to Kirian and said, “Thank you.”
“For what, you bastard?” Kirian shouted, his energy waning.
“Helping me to remember what this feels like. So that I can enjoy your final moments when I’ve gained my Name.”
A blink later the Unnamed inscribed again, adding subtle complexities to the same rune that would compensate for any mistakes in the previous iterations. While Melek had been knocked out or dead perhaps, he had not disintegrated, as should have occurred. Kirian scrutinized the inscribing while he reached down for the greatsword. A hand grasped the hilt, then Kirian shot forward across the short gap. He clutched the hilt with both hands. The blade swung in a wide horizontal arc level with the Unnamed’s face.
The Unnamed stepped backward to continue inscribing. After half a step, the blade’s tip nicked across his nose, ripping the sheer black cloth away, along with a chunk of flesh. Despite the blossoming pain within his face, the Unnamed continued. Just a few more lines remained, but he nearly hesitated at the mask of horror upon Kirian’s face. He smiled knowing it would enhance the effect.
Kirian blinked as the cloth ripped away, expecting to be sprayed with blood—black, red, or whatever color flowed within the bastard. Instead the glancing blow revealed a horror, worse than anything his parents may have tried to scare him with as a child. Worse than anything Arstle had trained him to prepare against, or anything he or Einar had fought against in the war. The creature’s face, if it could be called that now, undulated with thick black scars and unrecognizable symbols, disguising whatever humanity once lay within the creature’s physique. While Kirian could not make out the symbols’ specific meaning, their profaneness—a hatred of life itself—held no mistake to Kirian’s quick glance. The Unnamed’s eyes, still bearing a semblance of its once-humanity, had black pupils wreathed with whiteness of a field of freshly fallen snow.
When the Unnamed smiled, teeth befouled by decay and rot filled his mouth. His inscribing continued unabated while Kirian stood startled long enough for the Unnamed to wrap up this distraction. Before the last line of the runic box, Kirian leapt forward and sent his greatsword swinging downward at the Unnamed’s arm.
The Unnamed’s cry of, “No!” matched the intensity of Kirian’s, “By the Originators!” just before the Unnamed released the rune. A visage of fear washed over the Unnamed as he watched the blade connect with his outstretched arm. The blurring gray metal sliced cleanly through the elbow; flesh and bone tore showing the grayness of the Unnamed’s blood. The blood sprayed downward splattering the street as the still-held rune enveloped the now dismembered forearm.
“You’ve killed us—” the Unnamed began with shock and disbelief wiping away his smile.
The rune’s lack of a final focus unleashed its fury. The ensuing explosion rippled outward to Kirian. After landing less than a foot from the Unnamed, Kirian’s face shifted from elation to confusion. No noise emitted at the pent-up energy release of the rune, yet the shockwave of rippling gray-blackness poured outward twenty feet from the imploding Unnamed’s arm.
Kirian’s body flew up and backward, bouncing off the corner of The Last Hope’s front. Before he landed, unconsciousness claimed him.
The force flung the Unnamed backward and high, end over end, his own arm a betrayer. He laughed as his body reacted, not letting unconsciousness claim him yet. Able to only observe the buildings and night sky streaking by underneath his path, the Unnamed struck the river. The impact snapped tendons and bones with pops echoing off the river’s water. Before consciousness slipped away, even the Unnamed’s broken neck could not stop his gurgling laughs—the gray-black blood coating his lips before the river’s darker waters washed his face clean.
“Blasted villagers,” Quint sighed as he looked back at his two destitute companions. I can’t leave them to the mercy of those people. He tugged Einar along, who, in turn, pulled Saen.
“Pick up your feet,” Quint hissed. “Or I’ll leave the both of you here to those fools and whatever your friends battle. The boat’s only halfway down the first dock. We’ll make it.” Then, under his breath, he let slip, “We need to make it.” Quint hoped their dark cloaks would at least hide their passage along the dock. The torch light should weaken their gaze, I hope.
Einar brushed against Quint’s shoulder while they clambered along the wooden dock’s planks. “I didn’t catch that last—” Einar began but stopped as a groan of pain hummed in his throat.
“Nothing, Einar.” I’ve got to keep my mouth shut, Quint thought. “Just concern yourself with getting off this dock.”
He paused long enough to see a small bead of light appear two paces ahead faintly illuminating a bearded man’s face. The figure, cloaked in near-blackness, sat on a piling, virtually invisible until they almost ran over him. The light glowed red again, and through gritted teeth the man said, “Get in the boat.” When the three paused, the man continued, “Now. I won’t say it again.”
Quint gazed back down the dock. A group of at least five men, maybe more, lit up by individual torches, had reached the dock’s edge. A curse reached Quint’s mouth, but the cloaked figure forestalled the oath by whispering, “Quiet,” and moving past the three companions toward the villagers. Quint noticed a small window, lower than the boat’s railing, only seen as he moved closer. Soft lights passed through the clear glass, providing enou
gh light to see the outline of a wooden door. Looking askance at Einar, Quint saw recognition in his face.
“What are you waiting for? Move. Take her inside. I’ll be right after you.”
Einar hesitated, and Quint shoved him and Saen along the short plank leading out to the ship. Quint watched as they made their way, and he held back another curse when Saen slipped on the plank’s far edge. Einar grabbed her arm, opened the door, and within two breaths they disappeared. Quint let loose a breath he didn’t realize he had held before scanning back down the dock.
In that time, the cloaked figure stood in front of the villagers. Quint heard muffled voices and saw anger bristling over the villagers’ faces. The torchlight exacerbated their heated glances past the man’s shoulder. Quint moved to the boat’s wooden door, felt for the handle, and took one more look at the scene. One of the torch bearers, who stood taller than the others moved to the forefront of the group. The man’s face had twisted with anger.
Interlaced with the anger, fear cracked his voice when Quint heard plainly, “We will not forget this, river man.” Quint cringed at the inflection. The villager may as well have spit on his face.
The boat captain responded by turning and striding down the length of the dock to the boat. Quint could hear only the lapping of the water against the boat and the nearly-muted conversation between the men. By the look on their faces, even though vague in the torchlight, Quint saw the leader’s face move from resignation to renewed diligence in the time it took for the captain to reach him. The captain caught Quint’s gray eyes and motioned him into the boat.
Quint pushed through the opening with the captain right behind him. The door clicked shut and the captain uttered, his voice rumbling, “Be still. We’ll give those fools a bit to come to their senses, and we’ll be drifting down the Vespow.” He glanced at the two companions sitting on a wooden bench, ten feet long, behind Quint, and Quint followed his gaze. “You may want to check on those two. The man looks,” he paused, his eyes locked on Einar. The captain’s gaze narrowed, and he continued, “Well, you just better take a look.”
