“I heard some screams earlier this morning. The noise grew louder for a few minutes, then…this. It's been this way for about half an hour now,” said Hawke.
“You haven't gone to check on things yet?”
He shook his head. “I didn't want to leave you alone here. You think you'll be okay?”
“I'm fine,” I grumbled, feeling very not fine. “You should have woken me up when you heard the screams.”
“And have you stumbling around groggy and hungover?” Hawke looked at me sternly. “You needed all the rest you could get. Shake it off as best you can. We'll go investigate as soon as possible.”
I helped myself to another tall glass of water. It was stale from sitting out all night, but my dry throat welcomed it all the same.
“Ugh,” I muttered, “I wish I had your healing right now. Probably stops you from dealing with this.”
He smirked. “Yeah, but it keeps me from getting drunk, too. I haven't gotten to really enjoy alcohol in centuries.”
“I wouldn't mind laying off the stuff for a few hundred years myself, after last night.” I spent a few minutes doing some light exercise, anything to help shake off the feeling. Eventually, my headache weakened to a dull throb.
“I think I'll manage,” I declared. I picked up my sword belt and buckled it on. I didn't want to waste any more time, so I refused changing my clothes. My nice dress robe was wrinkled from spending the night in it, but it wouldn't hamper my movement, so it was good enough.
Hawke grabbed up Symphony and tucked it into his belt, leading the way out of our lodgings and into the inn's common room. Talas was hunkering down behind the front desk, tightly gripping a warhammer with a head bigger than my own.
“You know what's going on?” Hawke asked him.
“No clue, but I've never heard a commotion like that around here,” said Talas. “Care out there.”
Hawke threw open the door and peered into the street. There wasn't a soul to be seen; no vendors, no passerby, not even a beggar to be found. The cobbled way was completely deserted.
We braved a few steps out from the inn, both of us listening for any sign of trouble, any sign at all, really. The quiet seemed absolute, but then we heard it: a distant sound something cracking or breaking. It was coming from the direction of the Last Call.
Hawke and I looked at each other, then tore down the street as fast as our feet would carry us. I drew my short sword with a steely hiss, and Hawke already had Symphony in hand. We rounded the corner and caught sight of the shabby bar just down the way. With the town all but deserted, we could clearly see the building even at a distance.
We could also see the bodies strewn about the outside. From the crimson blotches covering the cobblestones around them, I got the sick feeling that they weren't just a bunch of passed out drunks.
The crashing got louder as we approached. Something was going on inside, on the second floor, by the sounds of it. I approached one of the bodies on the street and took a peek. They were quite dead, and very recently. A single bloody gash had opened the poor victim from collar to groin. A quick glance told me all the dead had suffered the same fate.
Hawke was making his way carefully towards the door when one of the second-floor windows exploded outward, raining broken glass and wooden shrapnel down on us. Something large came flying through, landing in a crumpled heap a few feet away from me. I recognized the black cloak immediately.
“Fasketel!” I cried, rushing to check on him. He moaned and rolled over, leaving another red smear on the street. Splinters and shards of glass covered his body, but when I tried to help pull them out he jerked away and surged to his feet. He had turned pale, or as pale as his green tint would let him, and he eyed me with terror for a second.
“You.” He blinked a few times as he slowly recognized who I was. “Help me, please. He's a monster. He killed my workers, all of them, he'll kill me too. By the Lord Ordained, you have to—”
He stopped rambling, his gaze locked with abject terror on the upper floor of the Last Call. I turned to see a man standing at the hole caused by Fasketel's fall.
He was tall, possibly as tall as Hawke, though I couldn't tell with the way he stooped over. His dark ebon skin was wrapped in a tattered beige cloak, and he leaned heavily on a strangely shaped wooden cane. His head was covered in a half-helm, and it looked like blood poured over his shoulders from underneath it.
The man took a single step out of the hole, falling ten feet to the ground. He landed as lightly as a cat and casually started walking towards Fasketel.
The assassin grunted and thrust his fist into the road with enough force to break his hand. Instead, his attacker staggered backward a few steps. After a few moments, the flame-haired man raised his head, grinned, and started forward again.
Sweat sheened on Fasketel's skin. He turned and ran, faster than I'd expected someone of his size to move. I could feel the assassin drawing on his essence to make him swifter, swift enough to outrun his attacker.
In the blink of an eye, the newcomer was in front of Fasketel, his grin replaced with grim determination.
“Now, now,” the man said softly, “time for this unseemliness to end. You didn't expect to be able to run from justice for the rest of your life, did you?” Fasketel cowered away, his whole body visibly shaking.
The man just then seemed to notice Hawke and I were watching. He only spared me a passing glance, but when he saw Hawke he sucked in a breath.
“Well, wouldn't you know it,” he said. “What's the Scholar doing in a cesspool of scum like this?”
The warrior removed his half-helm, holding it in the crook of his arm. Now I saw that the red spilling out from it before wasn't blood, but wild ropes of hair, as dazzling red as a drop of blood and flame.
“You're…Anonce, right?” said Hawke. I knew I had recognized those features before; Anonce was just one of the many people Hawke and I had encountered when I was younger.
“Then that must mean you're Micasa.” Anonce turned to me and smiled, genuine and warm. “Goodness, it has been some time since we've met? You're such a lovely young lady now.”
“Uh, hi,” I managed to stammer. His casual attitude in the face of everything we just witnessed was more than a bit unnerving.
In the midst of our short conversation, Fasketel saw his chance. He turned back towards me and bolted, flying past at incredible speed.
“Hold on, we can talk more in a moment,” said Anonce. He slammed his helm back on his head, crouched a bit, and leaped into the air. To be fair, leaping is a bit of an understatement. He shot up so high and so fast, I would have thought him to have the power of flight, if I hadn't seen Hawke do the same thing before.
Fasketel was already several hundred feet away, but again Anonce landed right in front of him. With a cry of desperation, the half-grinel whipped out a dagger and stabbed at his attacker. It was lightning quick, and with Fasketel's strength I wouldn't doubt him able to easily punch through even chainmail with so much force.
The steel blade shattered against Anonce's chest like it had struck solid stone. The useless hilt slipped from Fasketel's numb fingers. He turned to flee again, but in his panic, he tripped on a cobblestone and fell hard enough to knock the wind from him.
Anonce raised his cane high over his head, the tip of it pointed straight down. Fasketel raised his head and looked at me, tears shining in his eyes. His mouth moved, a plea for help I couldn't hear. He raised a hand towards me, reaching for me.
Then the cane shot downward. It struck through Fasketel's heart, quicker and deadlier than the sharpest blade. The assassin's eyes bulged, his extended arm twitched for a few seconds, and then he fell limp all at once.
I didn't know what to do. I looked to Hawke, but he looked just as confounded as I felt. What was Anonce doing here in the first place? What urged him to hunt down Fasketel like he just did?
I caught a flit of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned, just in time to see a face disappear behind the curtains of
a window. It was only then I noticed the dozens of faces peering from windows or narrowly cracked doors all up and down the street. At least that answered where the usual Hafwei crowds had gone.
“It's good to see you again, Scholar,” said Anonce as he slipped the half-helm off and tucked it into a cloth wrap tied to his belt. He approached Hawke and shook his hand with gusto, a beaming smile on his face. “I've been wanting to talk to you for ages.”
“I'm sorry, what's this about?” said Hawke.
“I owe you an apology!” said Anonce. “All those years ago back in Nostromos, where I called you out as a coward. I saw what you did to that demon that was terrorizing the town.”
He must have been talking about Hawke's fight with Killer Mapta, a bloodthirsty grinel who had been leading a band of brigands out west. I had seen what Hawke had done to it too, and I still wished to this day I hadn't succumbed to my curiosity.
“I'd been heading out that way to take care of that monster when I met you,” Anonce continued on. “Hoped that you would have joined with me. I should have known, someone of your ability didn't need my help.” He chuckled a bit. I couldn't take my eyes from the blood still coating the tip of his cane, a cane that looked more like a wooden sword the harder I stared at it.
“Why did he have to die?” The words came out of my mouth on their own. Anonce turned to me, his smile faltering a bit.
“You were there in Nostromos, Micasa. You saw why that demon had to die.”
“Not Killer Mapta,” I said. I pointed to where Fasketel still lay. “Him. Why did you kill him?”
Anonce looked at Fasketel, then back at me. His eyes grew sad. “Sweet child, you have no idea what that monster was, do you?”
“He was an assassin, a killer, a womanizer,” I said without hesitation. “He was also a friend of someone I care deeply about. He was going to help us.”
He looked like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. “I assure you, that beast has never helped anything but itself in all its miserable life. I did the world a favor destroying it, just as I always have.”
“You've done this before?” asked Hawke.
“Of course,” said Anonce. “Whenever I hear of a demon's whereabouts, I set out to kill it, or die trying.” He gave a knowing smile. “You do the same, don't you, Scholar? Protecting the people from the creatures that threaten our existence; a noble goal. You were the one who inspired me to do the same, to throw aside my old life in pursuit of true justice.”
“You're the Vagrant Knight, aren't you?” said Hawke.
“Ah, I'd hoped you wouldn't have heard that embarrassing name,” Anonce said with a shrug. “What can I do, though? People so enjoy their tales, and if it brings them hope to discover the heroes of their stories are real, then I'm certainly not the one to let them down.”
The wanderer looked back to me. “I've seen its type so many times in my life, child. A demon will make any promise to avoid what's due to it. Whatever it said to you, it was naught but honeyed words in your ears.”
Anonce was wrong. I knew that I had reached Fasketel, even if just a little. If I just had a bit more time to talk, I might have given him a chance to find something worthwhile to work towards. Now, he would never have that chance.
“I'm impressed you two can even stand to be here,” Anonce said. He painted the town with a loathing glare. “This place is a hive of decadence and deceit. Just coming through the gates, three different people tried to rob me. I ask you, what would I, a humble wanderer, have that's worth stealing?”
I remembered what Hawke had said after I'd woken up, and I dreaded the answer to the question on my lips. “What did you do to them?”
“I made sure they'd never steal again,” he said plainly. His hand tightened on the grip of his cane. I knew exactly what he meant. “The throng ran before me afterward. Undoubtedly, most were just as guilty. They fear the wrath of righteousness, even now.”
He looked around again, meeting the peeping eyes filling the windows and doors around us. There was a ripple of movement through the buildings as curtains were dropped and doors slammed shut, desperately trying to avoid catching his attention.
“Speaking of righteous paths,” Anonce said, “I found something interesting in there, Scholar.” He reached into the small rucksack tied to his belt and pulled something out, holding it towards Hawke. Hawke glanced curiously and sucked in his breath. I rushed over to see what it was and was caught flat footed.
It was Fasketel's nullstone.
“Your reaction tells me this is what I believed it to be, then?” said Anonce. There was a mad hunger in his eyes.
“You know about the nullstones?” said Hawke.
“I've seen these tokens, yes. An old acquaintance of mine once used it to go to the demon lands.” Anonce looked at it with glee. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I can walk straight into the heart of darkness that blackens the world and finally destroy them all myself.”
He was speaking madness. Anonce was planning on marching into Grankul by himself and killing the grinel off utterly. Surely, he wasn't so delusional as to think he could actually pull it off?
Yet I'd seen his strength firsthand. He had killed Fasketel so effortlessly, without suffering even a scratch. I couldn't even begin to imagine the depths of his power.
“Will you join me, Scholar?”
His question was so unexpected I rocked back a step.
“You understand, much better than that fool, the Forge, that these demons must be destroyed.” A fevered zeal gleamed in Anonce's eyes. “Our strength combined should be more than enough to eradicate them all. I assume that you will be going?”
Hawke was at a loss for words. “I-I suppose I am,” was all he could stammer.
“Splendid!” Anonce pulled up Hawke's hand and clasped it in his own. “Finally, we can put an end to all this horror and free the people once and for all!”
I wanted to tell him off, to scream at him, but to be honest, I was frightened. This wasn't the same kindly man we had met on the road to Nostromos; Anonce was a warrior of incredible power, and he looked to be just as mad as Bojangles had been. He was someone with no scruples about murdering pickpockets, and if he thought I was going to stand between him and his goal, he might very well try to murder me, too.
What was worse, though, was that Hawke had yet to object to anything he had said.
“Gah, look at how much time I've wasted,” Anonce mumbled to himself as he looked skyward. “I need to get going. I've got some business to finish before I can think about preparing for that great undertaking.”
“Business?” Hawke said stupidly.
“Yes, I'm afraid. There's another demon I've heard about that I need to exterminate. Been hunting it for years, but I finally got a solid lead. If I could bother you, do you know which direction the Ururu lies in?”
“Uh, it's about six days south by southwest here on horse. At least, I think it is.”
“Much obliged,” Anonce said. “Not much for riding, but I'll get there one way or another. When I'm finished, I'll await you in Damkarei. We have much to discuss, my good Scholar, much to discuss indeed!”
He patted Hawke on the arm genially and gave me a deep bow, then set off down the road, whistling merrily. When he rounded the corner and disappeared, I felt safe enough to turn around, grab Hawke's shoulders, and proceed to shake him.
“What is wrong with you!?” I said as loudly as I could without shouting. I didn't want Anonce overhearing me and coming back. “How could you even think about dealing with that loony!?”
Hawke didn't even try to stop me. His eyes met mine, full of shame and chagrin and disgust. I shook him far longer than I needed to, but I eventually relented to give him a chance to try and explain.
“I wanted to do something, Micasa, I really did,” he insisted.
“Then why didn't you!?”
“He's just like I was.” He looked to where Anonce had disappeared. “The same sense of justice, th
e same desire to see humans free from the grinel. I was pretty much the same person, before my soul broke. To be honest, he's a lot like I am now, too.”
“No,” I said forcefully, “you are not that. You wouldn't do this.” I pointed to Fasketel.
“Wouldn't I, though?” he said. “I never talked to Fasketel. I never saw this side of him that you saw. I was ready to kill him and take his nullstone last night, at the first sign that he might hurt you.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Even I was ready to do the same thing, to fight Fasketel tooth and nail for that damned nullstone. Almighty, was that what I was becoming? Willing to murder someone for my own gains?
The nausea of the situation joined with my hangover, and I ran off to a nearby alley to be violently ill. When I was well and certain that my stomach had been emptied, I walked to Fasketel's body and tried to carry him back to his bar. It was tough going; Fasketel far outweighed me, and the best I could do was drag him by his shoulders inch by inch.
I'd only made it halfway back to the Last Call when Hawke strode up and hoisted the remains of the Giant's Shadow over his shoulder. The blood from the body's wound still ran fresh, staining dark rivulets down his shirt, but he paid it no mind as he carried the body indoors.
The building was torn apart from the fighting, and the rest of Fasketel's gang lay motionless all over the place. I saw the body of the girl who had served me just last night slumped across the bar, her eyes wide with terror.
“All this in the name of justice,” I muttered under my breath. Hawke didn't seem to hear me, instead laying Fasketel's body gently onto the floor.
With his help, we were able to bring in the other bodies that had been left on the street. We arranged all of them, as well as all those killed inside, side by side on the floor.
“We should go,” said Hawke. “With Anonce gone, people will start showing up and asking questions.”
“I didn't think there'd be police in this town,” I said.
“No, but somebody has to keep the peace when things get out of hand. I don't want to deal with whoever finds this mess.”
Savants of Humanity (The Scholar's Legacy Book 2) Page 20
