by Jesse Teller
He turned to a piss bucket and relieved himself. The other occupant left, opening the door and throwing brilliant light on the filth of the room. Two patrons rushed in, one pressing the other against the back wall, shoving her feet deep in a pile of feces. Rayph turned away as she pressed against the wall, ripped her shirt off and tossed it to the floor. The man pulled his pants off and, in moments, penetrated her.
Rayph fought back a gag and left the room. He glanced about. Many and more men came to relieve themselves, some with the ruddy complexions of vampires half-fed. As they stalked past Rayph, they bore along with them the stench of old blood.
Rayph stepped back into the toilet and pushed himself to the back of the room to vomit. He touched the back of his throat and purged as the group stepped into the gloom and began to talk.
“How many can you take?” a red-faced man said. “I need you to take as many as possible. Twenty, thirty if possible.”
“What are they?” another man asked.
“We pay you not to have to tell you.”
“Well, we are trapped in this port now and will likely be searched, so we are needing to know what is in the crates.”
“Soil, clay, and other meaningless things.”
Rayph could not hear the words of the next speaker over the sound of his own vomiting. It was getting easier to purge the more he bent over.
“We will wait to discuss the rest until this wretch is gone,” a man said, kicking Rayph in the ass. Rayph grunted before breaking out in a drunken version of an old song he had learned a few years back.
“This rummy won’t remember anything to tell. What is the cargo? Tell us now. No more stalling.”
“Ask again and I will tell you everything. I will show you why you never wanted to know what is in those crates, and you will long for your ignorance back.”
“I will do it, but I must have twice the promised gold.”
“Done. Be ready to take custody of the goods tomorrow night. Don’t disappoint.” All the men left the room, and Rayph fought to settle his stomach back to what it had been. He returned to his table and plopped down in his chair. The whole of the table was eating roasted fowl and oily vegetables. He could smell garlic, and he wondered at the presence of the element. How much would that cost after the fires that had claimed this year’s crop? Rayph did not want to think about it. He grabbed his drink and washed his mouth out, spitting to the floor and wiping his lips. He eyed the food again, and his stomach rolled.
“You look a little queasy, boy,” Avent said. “You need some food.”
Rayph gagged, and the table laughed. “These peppers are good with this saucy meat, and this slippery chicken skin just slides down the throat,” Oak said. Everyone laughed again.
“To the hells with all of you,” Rayph said. They all laughed again. “You sea dogs are disgusting.”
Oak lifted his mug in the air. “To new allies, to tonight’s dinner, and to our pirate queen. Whatever hell-spawned sea she rides is lucky to have her.”
Rayph lifted his mug and drank deep. He nearly spat it out before looking Oak in the eye again. “It’s Lockian?” he said.
Oak grinned, his fangs gleaming in the light of the torch fires. “All of it is. Cheapest brew in the city, accounting for the fact it is made here. Grabble sells it and nothing more. You should see what he passes for food.”
Rayph set the mug down in disgust. “It’s brewed from poison. To drink too much of it is death.”
Horsehair set his mug down on its face empty and tapped the bottom. “Yeah, but it has a punch you can’t get anywhere else.”
“The contact, where is he?”
“It’s a she actually, and she is up there.” Avent nodded at the balcony and a woman bent over Grabble’s ear. She turned around, and her face seemed bruised and nearly purple. It was thick with heavy features, and Rayph looked at Oak.
“She always look like that?”
“No, looks like she got a whooping from someone.”
“Or like she just fed,” Rayph said.
“Vampires?” Horsehair asked.
Rayph nodded at him. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“Rumors and hearsay but nothing firm.” He looked at Oak who was growling. “Didn’t tell you ’cause I thought there was no foundation to it.”
“Rayph, you have to get us out of this city,” Avent said.
“I want the names and faces of the captains in this bar,” Rayph said. “Show them all to me and I will thin out your competition for you.”
“Killing all the captains will lock these ships up here for days while they sort out ranks and orders,” Avent said.
Rayph nodded grimly. Oak began to talk, walking Rayph all around the room, showing him every other captain in the place. “How are you going to get them all?”
“Haven’t decided yet, but I run with two of the best killers in the business.”
“You will need help,” Oak said. “You can’t take them all with your pitiful crew.”
“Pitiful?”
“Numbers, Rayph, not quality. And yeah, Rayph, pitiful. Vampires are bad for everyone. If we can help you clean up that mess, we will do it. I’ll give you Aaron and Horsehair.”
“Aaron, huh?” Rayph said.
The Reefs of Blister Bay
“Twelve wagons with four horses each. They are all waiting outside this warehouse bought a week ago by your drone’s wife. Across town there is another warehouse that has been collecting cords and cords of wood, uncut and raw,” Smear said.
“How long have they been collecting it?” Rayph said.
“Months,” Smear said. “Now, I go by there day and night. They are sawing up the logs and building long narrow crates.”
“Coffins.”
“Yeah.”
“I need to check this warehouse out,” Rayph said. “How’s the hunting?”
“I have killed two of the captains Oak pointed out. I have five more to go. I need to hit them soon. I have four figured out, but the fifth is a little trickier. Not to mention I’ve run into that damn stone bastard a few more times.”
Rayph cursed. They’d have to figure out that golem soon.
“Trysliana?” Rayph said. He waited but heard no response.
“Boss, I gotta go check up on her.”
“Just wait.”
“Boss?”
“Hold on, give her time.”
Smear sighed but said nothing. They waited for a long time before Trysliana could be heard over the fetish.
“Hey, boys,” she said.
“Are you okay?” Smear asked.
“Four deaths finished. That’s six captains gone and ships working out a new order. They will be hemmed in from even trying to leave for a while.”
“You are done?” Smear asked.
“Yeah, just finished up the last one while you two were bickering in my ear, fretting like a bunch of old mothers,” Trysliana said. “I’m done. I’m coming to you. You can give me half of what you have left.”
“No, I got it,” Smear said. “I will get this done.”
“Trys, you can come with me. I may need you,” Rayph said.
They arrived at the warehouse Smear told him about and stood outside its walls, looking at the boarded-up windows and reinforced doors. What Rayph could only imagine were drones unloaded coffins from wagons, carrying them into the building. They looked heavy, and many sifted dirt and dust from between the boards.
“If they slumber for many nights, they must sleep in soil regional to their homes,” Rayph said. “These here are being shipped. They won’t wake tonight. They will have drones that travel with them to whatever destination Kat has chosen for them, and once there, they will begin to infect everything around them.”
“How do we stop them?” Trysliana said.
“Not sure what we are dealing with yet. We must win that building.”
“They will have it guarded,” she said.
“Yup.”
“Wit
h both vampires at night and drones during the day.”
“Probably worse than that. These will be no ordinary drones. These will be warriors from around the city. It will be hell in there,” Rayph said.
“Who are we bringing in?” she said.
“Me and you.”
Trysliana smiled a maniac’s smile and nodded. “Sounds fun.”
“Yeah,” Rayph said, shaking his head. “Not really. We must do better at winning the place than we did last time. They mustn’t see us this time. How well do you know the sewers?”
“Around this district, not well, but I can fake it. Give me a minute to get my bearings and I can maybe get us there.”
Rayph nodded but added, “We don’t have much time.”
She grinned and ran to the end of the alley they stood in to the grate that waited there. They dropped in and were instantly rushed in the darkness. Trysliana spun, stabbing out with a dagger and swiping with a sword. Rayph grabbed the one nearest him and, taking his arm, directed the weapon in it to the throat of the man beside him. He elbowed the other in the neck and grabbed the dagger. In seconds, they stood alone.
Near silence. Trysliana fixed her hair and stepped forward soundlessly. Rayph, with his lame leg, made a bit more noise and cursed at the ruckus. They came around corners guarded by warriors, cutting men and women down with little effort and ending lives without much noise. Trysliana got lost once for nearly ten minutes. Rayph could do nothing but wait for her to get it right. When finally she did sort it all out, they came upon a man-sized hole punched into the wall of the sewer with darkness gaping beyond. Rayph looked at the ten men there and growled. Trysliana slowly pulled her sword and rubbed the crossbar. The sewers filled with a dense fog, and Rayph and Trysliana moved forward.
Four died before the first alarm was raised, but Rayph could not stop it. It lifted to rattle through the sewers, and Rayph heard many men running from deeper into the muck. Trysliana and Rayph moved perfectly beside one another, slicing warriors down until they stood alone outside the hole.
They could hear commotion at the end of the hole, and Rayph clenched his jaw and stepped forward. They walked a rough cut uneven tunnel before they came to a slight hole being covered up from the other side. The light was quickly blotted out by the shifting of objects before it. Rayph cursed as he turned, men running from behind them.
“Not how I wanted to do this,” Rayph said.
“Maybe call for help?” Trysliana said.
“Dissonance is talking to the church of The Pale. That cannot be interrupted. Dreark is busy, and Smear is killing.”
“Sisalyyon?” Trysliana said.
Rayph grinned. “Sis, wanna get wet?”
A portal opened, and Sisalyyon stepped through. Her skin was the deep reddish brown of cherry wood, her hair green foliage. She wore an opened cloak that covered none of her wooden form, and she pulled from her hips two small clubs, thin and fast. She wrinkled up her nose and shook her green hair.
“You bring me to a rot-infested cave, dank and away from the light?” She grinned and giggled. “You sure know how to spoil a lady, Rayph Ivoryfist.” She kissed his cheek with wooden lips, and Rayph laughed.
The enemy was suddenly on them. Trysliana stepped from the hole, back out into the sewers to meet the coming warriors. Sisalyyon followed suit, and the killing began.
Rayph turned to the obstruction and spoke a word, producing a light blue flame that hovered before him. The hole to the inside of the warehouse was stoppered by coffins, stuffed and piled to halt any advance. Rayph filled his aura. The darkness of the sewers and the lives lost here filled him with a dark power eager to be unleashed. Rayph pulled a cloth from his waist and ripped it in two. He stuffed both pieces into his ears, shouting to the girls.
“Loud coming.” He planted his feet on the most solid ground he could find in this rough-hewn terrain. With a shout and a press forward with both hands, power flowed from his aura, out past his shoulders, locking his elbows and shooting out through his outspread hands. The coffins before him, and everything in them, exploded forward, firing violently into the warehouse with a deafening blast of concussive force that brought Rayph’s stoppered ears to ringing and filled the air with a cloud of dust.
Trysliana coughed and Sisa giggled as the last of the men was knocked to the ground. Trys’s blade claimed his life, and Rayph turned to his two warrior women and screamed over the ringing in his ears. “Charge!” The three of them rushed into the gap.
Rayph tossed up a great magical shield before him as arrows slammed into it to splinter and shatter. Broken wood rained for long moments before the firing stopped.
Three main steel catwalks crossed the top level of the warehouse, holding more than twenty archers. From around shattered coffins filled with dirt came dozens of warriors screaming, and Rayph pulled his shield down tapping himself, Trysliana, and Sisa lightly with his fingers as he cast a more complicated spell.
He felt dizzy, then gained his feet an instant before a sword swipe that would have claimed his life. Arrows filled the sky again, slamming into his spell and ricocheting from his body. Trysliana took an arrow to the eye that bounced from her face before she laughed and waded into the killing.
With one great leap, Rayph bounded from the floor to the top of a stack of coffins in the center of the room. His magic ripped Trysliana and Sisa from the ground, dropping them on a pile beside him. Arrows slammed into them to no effect as an army of warriors climbed the coffins to reach them.
“Split up, use the terrain, and don’t get killed. The arrow shield will not last forever, so keep something between you and those archers as much as you can.”
“Quite a party,” Trysliana said. They leapt down and began the killing.
Rayph dropped flat to his back between two coffins and ripped open a pocket of air. His bow fell in his hand with two arrows in his other. Both arrowheads were porcelain ivory-colored hollow fists. He nocked the first and sat up. He drew and fired, aiming for a support to the catwalk that went past the center of the ceiling. The fist exploded with the spell placed inside when the porcelain shattered. The explosion ripped a hole through the roof, and the catwalk collapsed. It swung down, slicing across the center of the room. The end crashed into a collection of coffins, and Rayph jumped to his feet and leapt from the top as they shattered.
He listened for Trysliana and Sisa, heard them laughing and coughing on billowing dust. Trysliana rubbed her sword crossbar somewhere out there. A fog joined the dust in the air, taking over the entire warehouse. Rayph leapt to the leaning catwalk, landing halfway up its length and sliding toward where the archers had fallen. As he slid, he fired his mundane arrows, striking archers as they scrambled for safety. Rayph killed maybe six and wounded more before he hit the ground among them. He dropped his bow, hearing it fall and zip closed into a pocket of air, and he freed his sword and began his dance of death.
Rayph could not see Trysliana or Sisa from the coffins obstructing all views, but he could hear men screaming. He looked to the second and third catwalks and reached for his bow again and his ivory porcelain-fisted arrows. As he took aim, the archers scrambled to escape the walkways, but his arrows were faster. After two more wicked explosions, all three catwalks swung half-collapsed. The archers were running. The door to the warehouse opened, and drones ran for their lives.
He stowed his bow and leapt atop the pile again to find more warriors to kill. He dove behind coffins and rolled on top of them. He dropped between them and climbed up them, escaping hits and placing devastating attacks on warriors who had no chance in the labyrinth of coffins. In moments, all were either dead or fleeing.
“They gone?” Rayph asked.
“All clear here,” Trysliana said.
“I’m good,” Sisa said with a husky voice that spoke of pain. Rayph climbed to the top of the coffin hill and looked for his girls. Trysliana showed up with a few minor wounds but covered with her enemies’ blood. Sisalyyon shielded her face with her gre
en hair. She held her hand up to her cheek, and she was weeping.
Rayph went to her and gently pulled back her hair. He took her hands away carefully to expose a deep gash in the side of her cheek. The wood there was chipped away as if one large axe had made a vicious chop to her wooden flesh.
Sap rolled freely from the wound, and Rayph took her face in his hands and lifted her eyes to his. “It will heal. You will not see the scar.”
Rayph knew his friend to be a touch on the vain side, and he knew she was worried about her beauty. Rayph kissed her cheek. She smiled up at him with sap tears.
“You are still breathtaking, and over time you will heal.”
She nodded, but when she turned away, she pulled her hair across her face again.
“Crack these coffins open and take a look inside.” Rayph cast a spell that crafted a wind that ripped through the warehouse quickly. It came back to him with a number that chilled his blood.
“There are over 800 here. That is enough to infect the whole of the world.”
“We need to get them back to Ironfall,” Trys said.
“Too many, and night is falling fast. They will send an irrepressible number here to save these. They will carry them out to the ships in these wagons. With each ship taking between twenty and thirty coffins, and with thirty-nine ships, we are talking about 1,200 or more vampires on boats by the end of the night. They must have warehouses like this set up all over town.”
“Dreark can seize wagons and stop the loading of the ships. He has his blockade up and will stop them from escaping,” Trysliana said.
“I have not the authority to seize that cargo, and I am stretched keeping them here. I have sixty guards on those ships holding up a blockade that will fall if they all charge at once. Which they will do. I have another fifty guards in my jails holding prisoners, and that leaves me fifty-five to patrol the streets and keep the whole of the city safe. That is a paltry number. If I seize those wagons, it will cause a fight that will overwhelm my fifty-five guards and we will lose them all. They have numbers on us. It is simply impossible for me to do this thing you suggest.”
