The Unseen

by Gregory Blackman

  “Aye, ‘tis a rotten place,” said the dwarf, wistfully, “yet there’s no place on this world where I feel more at home.”

  Once, upon an age lost to time, the lands now known as Kaffrika belonged to a mighty dwarven empire. They built massive cities both above and below the ground, but after the wars with men began, only those above surface remained intact. It was in the walled city of Slav that the dwarves made their final stand, but that only incensed the humans further. The humans stole their homeland, from Lowgard to Highgard, built a massive city atop the ruins of Slav, all to debase those they had taken so much from already; and when the dwarves continued to refuse the authority of their oppressors they were branded and put to slavery.

  Slaven, a city named from the ruins that bore it, was a city known well throughout Amor’s seedy underbelly, for if a smuggler hadn’t been to the city before, his credibility was considered invalid and a shame. Much of that prestige came from its proximity to the empire, which made it the closest destination for thieves to fence their goods and pirates to wait off the royal fleet.

  If the nation of Kaffrika saw a dime from the city of Slaven, and it saw plenty, one wouldn’t know by the sight of its capital city. It was an expansive city, one to rival the largest the empire had to offer, but a pretty sight it was not. Most of the homes, if one could call them homes, were no larger than a royal’s closet. They clung to its winding streets that sprawled from the pool of wealth in the center, homes barely held together, but against all odds, homes that stood to shelter generations of cutthroats and slavers.

  The many homes of Slaven were nothing more than cheap hovels of rotten wood and rusted tin, not meant for any honorable sort. Luckily that didn’t prove an issue to the kind of people that lived in such a place, and like the rats the lived among them, the denizens of Slaven lived on what little they could manage to find or pilfer. It was a city of poverty that stretched on for miles, packed with as many as its walls could hold, where the only thing to keep its citizens from spilling into the waters was its dock that stretched from one side of the city to the other.

  The group of four entered the city of Slaven through one of its many entrances to the south, for the walls that once held the dwarves hadn’t stood since that final battle over one thousand cycles ago. Now its exterior lay rife with entrances both hidden and in plain sight, free of guards and the questions they brought with them.

  No sooner than they had crossed into Slaven did Axel Thorogard bring them to a halt. He spun around on sore heels, shoved his weighted sack in Dashe’s direction, and stated, “I’ll be at the tavern.”

  “Which one?” a bemused Dashe asked.

  Axel had already begun his journey to the local watering hole, when he turned back to his young companion, and said, “You know the one.”

  “Can I come?” Finley jumped up and down, to the many clanks and clashes of his knapsack, all at the prospects of joining his irritable companion on a quest to forget the troubles of the world. “Oh, can I come? Can I, Axel? I do miss our old friends.”

  “They’re my friends, you insufferable lout,” barked Axel Thorogard, “and what do you think?”

  The moment Axel stormed off Finley’s heart sank ever so slightly. It didn’t matter if the dwarf spurned his advances a hundred times over. He would gain the respect of Axel Thorogard if it was the last thing in this world he did. Taller, men of more importance had aspirations towards greater things in this life and the one hereafter. The kaern had the dwarf and his nonsensical ramblings. That was all Finley Mudbottom needed from this world.

  “Well,” Axel asked as he stopped and turned to Finley, “are you coming, or what? Give the lass your pack and let’s be off. I don’t have all day now.”

  Korine graciously accepted the knapsack of the gleeful beastkind and watched as her two nonhuman companions made off into the setting sun. That left an over encumbered pair to find their way for themselves, through seedy streets and their sordid tenants, back alleys and their assuming dealings, but the two made the journey swiftly for they knew both those seedy streets and their sordid tenants well. They even counted themselves among them.

  Korine Dorset’s shack wasn’t worth much, but neither did it contain much past a wood stove and single occupant bed. She dropped her sacks on the floor, and without a word between them, went to work on the floorboards under the stove.

  “So,” said Dashe as he looked for someplace to sit down, “what happens now?”

  Korine hid every piece of their stolen artifacts into nook beneath the floorboards, and when she completed the task she turned to Dashe, and said, “We find someone to fence the goods, of course. Now hand me your damned sacks.”

  Dashe did as commanded and tossed both his knapsack and Axel’s towards the hole in the ground. He paced back and forth around the hovel, unsure where to put himself while his leader tended to the chores. “You know, I’ve been thinking about things—.

  As Korine replaced the floorboards and lifted herself up from the floor she crashed into her dumbfounded companion. The two of them fell onto the bed, where they stayed for all but a moment before a tongue-tied Dashe Kol leapt up in embarrassment. Korine, still sprawled on the bed and in no hurry to move, looked him dead in the eyes, and asked, “Well?”

  “Well,” said Dashe as he coughed twice to clear a lump in his throat, “well what?”

  “You were saying something,” Korine said.

  “Oh, yeah,” replied Dashe, befuddled and unsure where to lead the conversation. “I was thinking that we should… we should keep away from the docks. If the sultan catches us sniffing around his wharf we’re not going to be able to talk ourselves out of it this time.”

  “That’s smart,” said Korine Dorset, less than impressed and caught in an embarrassing entanglement of her own. She shimmed to the end of the bed and lifted herself up to get a better look at her companion in thievery. “Are you going to see if your brother is around this time? We missed him the last two times we were in Slaven. You want to make it a third?”

  Dashe Kol became flushed with emotion and he was forced to turn his back to Korine so that she wouldn’t see the toll this topic took on him. “It’s probably best if I don’t. Not after the way we left things.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me about it one of these days,” Korine said. “Then you’re going to have to tell him.”

  “Why?” Dashe asked. “So I can watch as his lust for power sends him to the brink of death or insanity?”

  “One could say similar things of our profession,” Korine said, “could they not?”

  Dashe’s older brother was a touchy subject at the best of times. Rarely did the two of them get along, and when they did, it was only a matter of time until their next blowup threatened all of those in the group.

  “You don’t know magic, Kor,” said Dashe, visibly shaken and locked in place in front of the door. “There’s no amount of gold great enough, no woman bountiful enough, and no position of power high enough to satisfy the pulls of the dark arts. It didn’t just change him, it’s constantly changing him, into something I recognize less and less every day. I can’t watch that… I just can’t—.”

  The door burst open and struck Dashe Kol square in the jaw. He fell back into Korine and both continued to the floor where they found a merry kaern standing above them.

  “You’ll never guess what Axel and I found on our way to the tavern,” Finley said, but no sooner than those words left his lips did he answer his own question. “We found a buyer!”

  Korine was red with embarrassment, Dashe’s chin was aching, and still the two of them couldn’t keep the laughter from filling the room.

  “I’m serious!” Finley shouted. “We stumbled into a merchant on the way into the tavern. Yes we did, don’t try and say we didn’t!”

  “We believe you,” Korine said, softly.

  “Good,” said Finley, his lips still pouted. “Axel and the merchant are at the tavern now. They’re waiting for us, so we�
�ll have to hurry if we want to make this deal. He’s headed to Consorta soon and wants to be done with this before the mid night sky.”

  Korine looked to her companion on the floor and it wasn’t soon after that a wide-set smirk carved its way across her face. “How do you feel about this?”

  “Oh,” said Dashe, pensively, “you know how much I adore our many back alley dealings.”

  With those words the group was off to rendezvous with the grumpy and likely drunk dwarf. The way to Axel’s local bar was known well to them, but the shady faces they passed were not. It should have been a warning call to the group, but the shady sort were the only kind to be found. The party kept on their path, led by the kaern, all the way to the Nagging Battle Axe where one of them awaited with a stout mug in hand.

  “There’s the guy!” Finley hollered.

  Dashe looked coyly at his leader, certain the beastkind had the right man, but unsure whether or not this deal would be the saving grace. The man was clad in rusted chainmail, a belly that bulged from one too many bottles of mead, and straw wedged into the gap where one of his incisors used to sit. Dashe turned back to Finley, and asked, “That’s your merchant?”

  “Well, no,” said the defensive kaern, “That’s one of the mercenaries he’s hired so he can get into Consorta with his blood still in his veins.”

  “Of course,” said Korine with a roll of her eyes. “He looks like the sort you’d want watching your back as a pack of nosferatu tears into your caravan.”

  “Knock it off,” Finley said as the group neared the mercenary. “We’ve got dealings to conduct.”

  They approached the man as discreetly as possible, but for a group of two humans and a beastkind that proved difficult even without the portly dwarf beside them. The mercenary took a long hard look at group before he removed the straw from his mouth, and said, “You three with the dwarf?”

  “That would be us!” Finley exclaimed.

  The mercenary motioned for them to enter the Nagging Battle Axe through the alley entrance. Finley was only too eager to oblige, but Korine and Dashe would need a little more to sway them to his cause.

  “Say,” said Dashe, “where is that lovable dwarf anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said, one foot in the street and the other in the alleyway. “He’s in the bar or something. Are you coming or what?”

  “Come on, guys,” an exasperated Finley Mudbottom said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  Whether it was at the behest of their tiniest companion or the need to make a quick buck, the party was ushered into the alleyway beside the bar. It was a dreary dirt lane, better suited to those that spilled their guts rather than the ones inside that filled them.

  Debris and waste lay all about that made it hard for the group to see just who waited for them at the end. Not that they didn’t try. Dashe searched the rooftops, Korine covered the ground, and then there was Finley, who hadn’t eyes for anything other than the gold he was likely to procure.

  “Where’s this merchant of yours?” Dashe Kol asked.

  “He’s right here, mate,” answered a man from behind a black shroud at the end of the alleyway. He grabbed hold of Dashe before a weapon could be raised, kicked the dwarf’s knapsack from the grifter’s side, and cut the other one from his back for good measure.

  Before the stranger’s hand clasped over his mouth, Dashe managed a warning, “Run! Get out of here while you can!” He tried to fight the man off, but it amounted to little as dark figures rushed them from all sides.

  Korine was able to get to her sword in time and managed to cut her nearest aggressor a wide swath across the chest. When the path to Dashe became clear she took a stride in his direction, but didn’t get another one before her legs were swept out from under her. She hit the ground hard, her blade ripped from her hands, and there was nothing that could be done to stop a masked man’s gauntlet from striking her repeatedly in the face.

  Korine looked over to kaern, who was helpless to act but refused to look away while his companions suffered. She could see Finley’s hands go towards the small dagger he kept by his waistband, but she couldn’t bring herself to see him use it in battle.

  She could take a beating for the both of them. What she couldn’t take was the knowledge that she allowed the beastkind she loved as family to become some exhibit in a traveling zoo.

  “Run!” she cried. “Get the dwarf and get as far away as you can!”

  Finley wasn’t the quickest when it came to following a command. He stood there, motionless, hand on his blade and not likely to move anytime soon. It wasn’t until the burly arms of the mercenary in rusted chainmail were wrapped around Finley that he made a move for his escape.

  He struck at his aggressor and took him to the ground with a well placed heel to the family jewels. When the mercenary relinquished his grasp, the limber kaern ducked between his legs and made a mad dash out of the alleyway, cloaked men in hot pursuit.

  “Get that dwarf!” the mercenary shouted. He pointed towards the end of the alleyway, but it was too late to catch the flight footed kaern who had already rounded the corner. “Don’t let him escape!”

  There were few things in this world Finley Mudbottom did well. He wasn’t good with a blade. He couldn’t remember the modern dwarven alphabet; no matter how many times Axel would teach it to him. But when being chased by a mob of angry strangers there were few that could match his speed and perseverance.

  Had Finley kept his eyes in front of him, instead of on the men a street behind, he would’ve noticed the stumbling dwarf directly in his path. They collided with a thud in the middle of the street that caused others to look in their direction, but their gaze didn’t last long as the kaern shoved him into the first alleyway they came across.

  “You filthy beast,” the dwarf said with a mug raised high above his head, “you’re going to spill my drink!”

  “We got to get out of here!” said Finley, urging him down the alleyway.

  “Why would we do such a daft thing?”

  Finley ceased his actions and gave the dwarf a somber stare of reflection. He couldn’t explain what happened. Not the entirety of it and not while there were men hot on their heels. After the briefest of moments, Finley summed it up as best he could, and said, “Because Korine and Dashe need us to be strong.”

  Axel and Finley made their way out of the alley, down another, and through as many side streets they could to avoid capture. The two of them were nearly out of the city by the time they contemplated what came next, both of them pulled up and looked back at the city that raised them.

  “Where should we go?” Axel asked.

  “Nowhere sounds good,” Finley answered.

  Axel took a hearty swig of his mead and tossed the goblet to the ground. He looked to his diminutive companion, flashed him a toothy smile, and said, “You read my mind.”

  They never were very good at taking orders.

  * * * *

  It wasn’t the first time Dashe Kol awoke to find his hands bound in chains, and probably, it wouldn’t be the last, either. He dangled in his chains, suspended above the ground, and helpless to remove himself from the situation. His prison was dark, humid, likely the dungeon of some Slaven aristocrat. Whomever he crossed this time it was a man of pull and power. Still, he was alive. So he had that going for him.

  “You’re finally awake?” asked Korine, swinging in the air with her feet above her head. “It took you bloody long enough.”

  He watched her struggle for some time with a smarmy grin on his bruised, beaten face. If he remembered correctly, and he probably didn’t, she tried the same thing last time and the time before that. One more wouldn’t hurt, he told himself, and watched as her struggle continued.

  “The infamous group of four,” said a hoarse voice in a room devoid of anyone other than the two in chains. “You’ve made something of a name for yourselves in my fair city so I thought it only fitting that I greet the lot of you before it all comes to an end.�
��

  They were greeted by a tall, slender man with the darkened face of a Highgardian mountaineer. This was no ordinary person. He was Sultan Akbart Yutpan, ruler of Kaffrika, a man known as both savior and oppressor by the population he ruled over, but those that favored him did so only at the end of a curved blade. Upon every finger was a jeweled ring, each of a different chromatic color and encased in ebony. This was a man of wealthy stock and he wanted the world to know. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a man of taste, and not one of his jewels managed to match the color of his robes, woven of the finest silk from the provinces of Han, lavishly expensive but lacking in cohesion and taste.

  “I see that two of your group still elude my men,” the sultan said. “Not a worry. That shall be corrected in time. A couple of times now you’ve meddled in my business, but never have I bothered to enter the dregs and come search you out. Until now, that is. Now you’ve really gone and stepped in it.”

  Korine finally gave up her upside down attempt to free herself, and shouted, “I know our charter! You’ve got no claim on our goods—!”

  The sultan gave Korine the back of one of his jeweled hands that quieted one but brought another to life.

  “Leave her alone,” Dashe warned.

  “Or you’ll do what?” Akbart asked as his gaze turned towards the more feminine of the two prisoners. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do, Dashe Kol, younger brother of Rasmus Kol and known associate of the eighth most wanted man in the empire, Balder Hunnam. Yes, I’ve done my homework on your group.”

  “Although your roguish upbringing would suggest you be able to grasp the intricacies of a heated discussion on the matter,” the sultan continued, “I feel as though I can communicate to you on a relatively gentler manner. Can I, Dashe Kol?”

  He received no response for Dashe was still trying to accumulate the necessary saliva to make a proper go of it.

  “Good,” he said. “You see, I’ve had my men rummage through your belongings. I even checked them once over, myself, but we didn’t find what you were promised to deliver and that represents a problem. My partners don’t take kindly to setbacks, and I’ll make sure as shit it doesn’t land in my back alley.”