by Joe Jackson
Kari came to attention as Devin finished speaking and the worshipers began making their way from the church. The elder human beckoned the demonhunter and her guest to come speak to him. “Lady Vanador,” Devin greeted her. Kari saluted the priest, and Eli nodded respectfully. “It is so wonderful to see you again. I understand you are in town for a hunt; how may we be of assistance?”
“Master, I was wondering if you can put a warding spell or something around the inn where we’re staying,” Kari said. “The demoness we’re hunting is an assassin, and she seems to be pretty good at slipping into peoples’ rooms at night. I want to make sure we’re not in danger when we’re sleeping, and that the inn and its customers are protected.”
“Around the inn?” Devin repeated, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’m afraid we can’t ward anything quite that large, though we should be able to ward a room or two.”
Kari nodded. “That will do. I suppose you’d better ward my room and the innkeeper’s room; we don’t want her getting hurt either,” she said, and she turned to Eli. “You can stay in my room so you’re within the ward, too.”
Eli shrugged. “If things go the way I expect, I doubt I’ll be at the inn most nights,” he said. “But when I am, I can sleep on the floor in your room, that’s not an issue.”
“I was also wondering if you’ve heard anything that might give us a place to start looking for this assassin,” Kari continued. “Kaelin Black said that there have only been two killings in the last few weeks, and that both of them were guards. Have you heard anything else?”
“You may want to check with Kaelariel’s church,” Devin answered. “I understand there were some disturbances at the graveyard in the last week, but since they are the experts in dealing with the undead, we have left them to that task unless they ask for our help. Also, I understand there are some young paladins in the city, working on finding what I suspect is the same demoness that you are hunting.”
“Yes, they’re friends of mine I brought to help me. Please give them any help they need, as if they’re part of the Order,” she said, and Devin nodded. While the priesthood technically had more authority than the Demonhunter Order, demonhunters could enlist the aid of local priests as though they were law enforcement when on a hunt. “Eli, do you have any questions?”
“What do you know about BlackWing and his relationship with Kaelin Black?” the half-corlyps asked, and Devin’s brows arched. “There’re a lot of forces at work here, and the Lady suspects that any number of them could be involved with this assassin’s plans. I know the Order thinks Kaelin Black and BlackWing are the same person, so I’m interested in what you’ve seen and heard firsthand down here.”
Devin sat down on one of the stone benches, and Kari and Eli sat across from the human as he thought to himself. “Yes. For the longest time, many assumed that Lord Black and BlackWing were the same man,” he began. “We believed that Lord Black was running his legitimate businesses as the Earl of Southwick, but that under the alter-ego called BlackWing, he was also head of the illicit assassin’s guild and black market known as the Black Dragon Society. It was this supposition that led the Demonhunter Order to list Kaelin Black as one of its most prominent mortal problems, and generally refuse him or his city help when requested. This has led to strained relations not only between Lord Black and the Order, but also between Lord Black and all of the other nobles of Askies.”
“Several years ago, however, the people of this city witnessed a most improbable event: Lord Black and BlackWing in the market square at the same time,” the human continued, and he held his hand up to stave off any interruptions. “It is a rare enough thing for the people of the city to see Lord Black on his own streets: he is quite reclusive, and does not spend much time among his people. But for him to be met and waylaid by BlackWing was something no one would have ever seen coming. We initially suspected that the entire incident was set up by Lord Black to mask his wrongdoings, but the subsequent use of numerous divinations revealed that while they look exactly alike – BlackWing is virtually a twin of Lord Black – neither of them was under the effects of illusion or shape-altering magics. They were two separate, very unique individuals, and furthermore, their fight was no sham or show: they were trying to kill each other. It is also important to note that BlackWing has poisonous fangs and claws, and he nearly killed Lord Black but for the timely intervention of the guards.”
“Poisonous fangs,” Eli repeated to Kari, and Devin paused for a moment. “Might explain where the succubus got it from.”
Kari nodded, but gestured for Devin to continue. “BlackWing is by and large considered the deadliest assassin in the known world,” the priest said. “For Lord Black to have held out this long against so deadly an adversary seemed to point to some sort of collusion, but the way the Black Dragon Society undermines Lord Black and his men does suggest otherwise. Either Lord Black is truly at war with BlackWing and his guild, or he represents a cunning that even Seril lacked when she sought to take over our world.”
“But he said that BlackWing wasn’t always the head of the Black Dragon Society, and that he only appeared a little less than sixty years ago,” Kari offered.
“That may or may not be true; our church and your Order have never learned much about the Black Dragon Society, other than that it has been around at least as long as Lord Black has been the Earl,” Devin returned. “We know the name BlackWing, but nothing of the man behind the nickname, other than that he is a deadly assassin. Further, we know virtually nothing of the people who work for him.”
“Black also said he believes BlackWing is actually a black dragon who’s assumed his form to try to take over the city. But you said neither of them was under any sort of shape-shifting enchantment when they fought?” Kari prodded.
The priest nodded. “Correct. However, if he is a natural shape-shifter, our divinations wouldn’t detect that; they only detect the use of magic to enact such effects. I am afraid I do not know enough about black dragons to tell you whether or not they are, or at least can be, natural shape-shifters.”
Kari considered that for a moment; she had known a black dragon in her prior life. Ashurinax the Black, he’d been called, and he definitely possessed some ability to change shape, because he’d sired a half-dragon daughter. The dragon theory was an interesting development in what she’d thought was a fairly straight-forward scheme in the beginning. “I have a feeling that’ll get revealed when we wrap up this hunt,” Kari said. “Is there anything else you can tell us that might be useful in dealing with Black, the Society, or the assassin?”
“Unlike the Blood Order or the Five Clans, the Black Dragon Society is very secretive, which is why we have never really learned much about them,” Devin answered. “You will not find them patrolling the streets with tattoos or markings on their clothing: they do not want anyone to know who they are. You will likely be unable to find them unless they want to be found. Likewise, however, you will not find them plying their trade at random against the citizens of the city. They target Lord Black and his operations specifically, and if you ever see BlackWing, it will likely be because he has come to kill you. I do not imagine they will give you much grief while you are hunting a demon, but they will also not offer you any aid whatsoever.”
“We’ll see about that,” Eli said, but he waved off his own comment when Devin fixed him with a curious stare. “Well then, shall we go see what Kaelariel’s people have to say?”
“Yea, let’s just hope we don’t get mixed up with undead in all this,” Kari said, and she rose to her feet. She saluted Devin again, and Eli bowed his head. The priest bid them farewell. With the sun retreating rapidly toward the western horizon, they walked down the road and across the street to the building marked with the winged focus: Kaelariel’s church.
Chapter XII – The Wolf’s Hour
Darkness had fallen almost completely by the time they left the warm confines of Kaelariel’s church. The church itself was tiny compared to the one
Grakin and Kyrie served in back home in DarkWind: it was little more than a gathering place for prayer, where the priests could offer aid and alms to the poor and widowed. It was staffed by serilian-rir, though that wasn’t unusual for Kaelariel’s churches: service to him came easily to those who were of both cultures. It was, however, quite unusual for a city that had ‘banned’ serilian-rir, and the priests explained that they were among the only permanent exceptions made – and then only so long as they confined themselves to the temple district or work at the cemetery. The serilian-rir priests were warriors as well and, as Devin had hinted, their service was as much to root out and destroy undead threats in Southwick County as to spread the word of Kaelariel. Kari supposed that was the type of help even Kaelin Black appreciated.
The two head priests, Piotyr and Deirdre, were both half-elite, and they took a great interest in Eli. It was surprising to Kari in one sense, since half-corlypsi were typically looked down upon by other serilian-rir, though she supposed the fact that they were priests of Kaelariel had a lot to do with it. Kaelariel was bringing all of the serilis-rir and the serilian-rir into his fold where possible, and Kari had little doubt that the god of freedom was trying to stamp out the rivalry and racism even among his own charges. Still, she got the impression that where Piotyr and Deirdre were concerned, it was more that they were people of strong character and that they based their judgments on reality rather than perception.
Kari, Eli, Piotyr, and Deirdre traded stories about their efforts combating the undead in various situations. Kari had very rarely encountered the undead in either of her lives, and even when she had, it was typically the most basic sort: zombies. She was never fazed by the walking dead, since in the end, they were just people that were already dead and thus a little harder to disable. There was virtually no intelligence behind the actions of zombies or animated skeletons, and so Kari found herself less scared than angry when she encountered them. To her, it was unfathomable that someone would disturb the dead, whether it had any effect on the soul’s rest or not. That was a sentiment she’d developed before she’d even died and been brought back against her will.
The stories Eli and the two half-elite priests shared were far scarier to Kari. It turned out that Piotyr and Deirdre had heard of Eli and his companions, because they’d battled a wraith in the barrows outside of DarkWind during their service to Bosimar. Wraiths were like ghosts in a sense: both were disembodied spirits that lingered on after death. Wraiths, however, were far more terrifying, possessing malice and a hatred for all living things that rivaled even that of the most depraved of demons. They were one of Kari’s biggest phobias where enemies were concerned: ghosts, wraiths, and specters had no physical form to fight, being incorporeal. As such, weapons passed through them, and they could likewise pass through armor and even one’s body, leaving a cold behind that sapped the life right out of a person. It gave Kari shivers just to think of facing one.
Eli’s tale did little to dispel her fear of such creatures. As he recounted his experience, he freely admitted that the one he and his companions had encountered drew the heat and the life right out of him, and he hadn’t regained consciousness for several hours after the creature was defeated. In the end, he explained, it had been the faith and the strength of their party’s priestess, Danilynn, that had destroyed the creature utterly. Eli said the group’s weapons and magic had failed to harm or even slow the creature down except for one type: light sources.
Piotyr and Deirdre acknowledged the usefulness of strong, warm light sources against all three types of incorporeal undead. They said that in a worst-case scenario, simply keeping strong light sources – even just a massive bonfire – handy could keep the evil spirits at bay until sunrise, when they would be powerless and disperse until nightfall. Kari was glad to know there was something she could do to chase such foul spirits off, assuming her weapons would be of little use. When the priests saw Kari’s weapons, though, they explained that it was entirely possible that her weapons could harm the incorporeal undead, as they were apparently an angel’s weapons. Kari was hoping she’d never have cause to find out, and Piotyr assured her that their graveyard had never seen anything worse than zombies and skeletons.
Piotyr and Deirdre spent a while detailing the most recent events: there had been several disturbances in the city’s graveyard over the years, but the most recent one was different. They explained that it was not all that unusual for necromancers to practice their trade in the cemetery; raising corpses and exercising their will to try to enslave the undead. This latest time, however, whoever had disturbed the dead had curiously drawn the attention of a local pack of werewolves, and pandemonium had erupted when lycanthropes were discovered within the city limits. The priests explained that the werewolves had returned to the darkness of the plains when confronted, but they also said that werewolves being drawn to a necromantic ritual was as alarming as it was puzzling, particularly since the necromancer had yet to be caught.
Eli then told a short tale about how he and his companions came into contact with a pack of ravenous werewolves while on another mission for Bosimar. Kari could only wonder at how many different creatures and demons the warrior had faced; it seemed no matter what sort of creatures came up in conversation, Eli had a tale about fighting one. His particular tale about werewolves didn’t provide any clues as to why lycanthropes might be drawn to a necromantic ritual. In fact, by his recounting, he and his friends had battled the beasts by daylight. Most common tales and legends spoke of werewolves being creatures of the night, enslaved to the will of the phasing moon, and that they were almost completely insane by civilization’s standards. Many of those tales were old folklore brought to Citaria by the humans, though, and since Citaria had three moons instead of just one, it left a lot to speculation with regard to lycanthropes.
Kari knew that the Beast – the minotaur-like deity of shape-shifters and lycanthropes – had werewolves among his followers. It was said that many of them had mastered their curse, but they were still far from normal members of society. They kept mostly to the wilds of the Great Forest and the hills, where they could live and hunt and rarely come into contact with other civilizations. Kari always found it interesting that the Beast was the god of lycanthropes and shape-shifters: it left her to wonder what other types of shape-shifters were out there.
“So we’ve got assassins, demons, necromancers, and werewolves all involved here,” Eli said. He and Kari were headed toward the graveyard to see if they could find any other clues about whether the necromancer might be mixed up with the succubus. “Now we just need a vampire to show up, and we’ll have a nice little miniature apocalypse.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Kari said, her mind flashing briefly to Annabelle before she pushed the thoughts of her old friend down again. “Why would werewolves be attracted to a necromantic ritual? Do you think maybe it was dead werewolves that were getting raised?”
Eli shrugged. “It’s possible,” he said. “I don’t really know much more than the lore and legends surrounding werewolves. Sure, I fought a bunch of them, but corpses don’t tell much in the way of tales. I couldn’t even tell you where they came from or why they attacked us, let alone what their interests were or why they don’t like necromancy.”
“They used to have problems with necromancers in Solaris from time to time when I was young,” Kari mused aloud. “Any time you have a big city like this, the size of the graveyards is too much for them to pass up, though I wonder where these idiots learn their craft, or where they come from.”
The half-corlyps shrugged again. “Probably just failures at the arcane arts that think having power over something, even if it’s dead, is better than being a nobody,” he mused.
Kari let forth a grunt and let the matter drop. After nearly a half hour, they passed into the southwest district, where it seemed most of the businesses were located. The smells of a tannery dominated the cool spring night air, and Kari noted the usual direction of the blowing
wind before she understood why the tannery was located here. It was doubtful anyone in the cemetery would complain about the smell, and there were no houses anywhere in sight as they passed deeper into the southwest district. Large mills and warehouses lined the streets, there was little in the way of vegetation of any kind, and trash seemed to be a problem in the area. It wasn’t any worse than the more industrial parts of DarkWind, but the emptiness of the streets struck Kari as odd and somewhat alarming. With no residences in the southwest district, the streets were devoid of any life aside from vermin. Kari kept on her guard, as did Eli, until they finally came to the gates of the graveyard.
The cemetery was definitely what Kari would described as creepy, especially in the light of the rising moons. Its outer walls were lined with bright torches, and there were heavy metal gates that closed it off from the city proper. A pair of guards stood watch across the street, and Kari wondered if they were afraid to stand too close in the dark. She drew forth her dog tags and let them fall over her breastplate, and once the guards saw them in the torchlight, the humans saluted her respectfully.
