Six months he had been traveling; by sea, by airship, but mostly on the back of his horse. In that time he had crossed hundreds of miles and dozens of languages such that now he was fairly sure no man of the Western Kingdoms had traveled this far in the three centuries since the War of the Corpse. The people here were far darker of skin than he, their language incomprehensible, and their clothing far more suited to the heat of the desert than his wool tunic and plate armor. But still he stayed in his uniform, that of a knight-paladin in service to the Flayed God, despite the blisters, the pain, and the many tears and holes it now suffered from. Such was the dedication to his god. He had a mission, and he would see his duty done.
Six months of travel had brought him to the gates of the ancient city of Yeesalle, old when the Western Kingdoms were little more than chiefs squabbling over hillforts. It was a city of legend, a city of a thousand gods and claimed by a thousand kings, but tamed by none save the Dragon Empress. Its walls had broken armies and would-be emperors, its once orderly cobblestone streets had seen murder and revolution, and its palace had experienced far too much history for one structure. But that was all in the past; now its walls were broken and peasants use the holes for gates; now its streets were filled with filth and blood; now its palace the home of a weakling with delusions of godhood, or at least that’s what the rumors told the man from the west. But he would set these things right.
The gate he entered the city through, called the Moon Gate though he did not know this, was open but empty. The people of the city fled from him. He assumed this was due to his dress, which to them was probably strange and warlike, plus his horse was far larger than any of the local breeds he had seen. The enchanted blade at his side, the ancient and powerful law-blade Tamerill Who Knows All Crimes, glowed, no doubt further spreading fear in the locals. But he was accepting of this. While he came here to help these people out of love for all, fear would be his first weapon to help them. Love would come later.
The Moon Gate itself was a massive structure that in its heyday could have withstood the efforts of a horde of siege engineers. The doors were ten feet thick and made of layered timber wrapped in bronze, but now they sat idle next to their broken hinges. The gatehouse’s height, fully three stories taller than the five story walls that flanked it, cast the street beyond in the darkness of long shadows born from the setting sun. The walls and gatehouse were made of the same red stone that seemed to be the only material available for fortifications in this land, while the buildings within the city were nearly all built of the ubiquitous red brick used for lesser structures.
He stopped just inside the gate and surveyed the scene. The street had once been level and precise, but now was pock-marked and pitted. Filth built up in every crevice and eddy. All the streets were lined in buildings ranging from two to five stories tall, none of which seemed to have been built in the last century. They leaned on each other heavily, some with wooden props to further hold them up, all united by a web of laundry lines. It was a city past its prime, but a city of life. Every corner was crammed with someone’s living space and scores of people bustled to and fro. But they were all bustling away from him. And they were silent.
He unhooked his helmet, far too hot to wear in the desert, from his saddle and strapped it on. He knew trouble was coming. He knew coming here to this place to help these people would involve some violence; he just did not expect it so soon. He was no stranger to bloodshed; before joining the ranks of the Flayed God’s knight-paladins he had served ten years in the Black Wolves, Queen Ostra of Dorwinam’s personal guard. In that time had ended more lives than he cared to remember. It was the lessons of these many years that whispered to him now, warnings that put his shield and the first-iron forged Tamerill to his hand.
“Outlander.” The voice was not only in the knight’s own language, but with an accent he recognized. The speaker was from Tephrum, the great city of Dorwinam, and some low rent corner at that. The source of the voice was not hard to find as the man stood only a short distance away, perched atop cart holding some manner of local fruit that to the knight’s eyes was primarily bulbous and sickly green. The man on the cart had one of these fruit in hand and took a large bite, the juice of the oddly shaped fruit running through his luxuriant gray mustache and onto his once regal but now threadbare clothes. Everything about the man spoke of past greatness except the thin-bladed sword on his hip and the loaded crossbow sitting idly on his lap. His skin was sun darkened, but he was no native.
“You’re a long way from home, knight-paladin,” the fruit-eating man said, taking another bite. “I didn’t think your god could see this far from the Rend.”
“The Flayed God sees all,” the knight-paladin said, releasing his shield grip to dig through a pouch on his saddle. “You, sir, look familiar.”
“I’ll save you the effort,” the man said, hopping down from the wagon. “It’s me you’re looking for. Brax Fayne, Butcher of Cordbindale. I figured they’d send someone like you sooner or later no matter how far I went.”
As the paladin-knight turned back, wanted poster in hand, he noticed a crowd had returned to the streets of the city. But this crowd was different from the one that had scattered before him, clad in leather and carrying clubs, daggers, and a great many crossbows. He could feel their fear; all but a handful were coming not out of hatred or dedication but fear. These were not evil men and women; these were victims. “Indeed, I have come to deliver the Queen’s and the Flayed God’s justice upon you for the murder of thirty men, women, and children in the village of Corbindale.” With that the knight-paladin unfurled the poster, which had a crude caricature of Brax Fayne upon it, shorter of hair and slightly askew in the eyes, but still accurate.
“I bet they didn’t even tell you why I did it,” Fayne said, watching his followers flow into the streets like a mighty wave. “Well, I’m not going to waste my time now. I’m just going to kill you. As I’m sure you’ve figured, these folks are innocents I’ve forced into doing this by kidnapping their families, so your mighty god-given powers won’t do much here. Sad really, you gave up part of your soul to that misshapen thing you call a god and it can’t save you.”
“I may die, but I will find my reward in time,” the knight-paladin said, eyeing the crowd, trying to think of a way out of this. Nothing was coming to mind. He could not hurt these people, but as they were already lined up behind him he could not even escape. “People of Yeesalle, listen-
“Kill him!” Fayne cried out, lowering his own crossbow and firing before the knight-paladin could begin his plea. The first bolt thunked solidly into the knight-paladin’s shield, and it took a breath for more to follow. Those mostly glanced off his armor, hit his shield, or inflicted injuries that were nothing compared to the eternal agony of the Flayed God. But after two breaths, the crossbow bolts came like rain, killing both man and mount despite armor, shield, or the wishes of a god. In among the death throes and the flurry of crossbow bolts few noticed the knight-paladin rear his hand back and throw his sword with what remained of his might, sending it sailing over the city. Brax Fayne specifically did not notice as he was too busy keeping an eye on his cowed flock to make sure they all did their part.
Within four breaths from the first shot both the knight-paladin and his horse were dead, but the shooting did not stop until the tenth breath. By that point the entire horde of over two hundred had discharged their weapons; a second volley was unnecessary. Fayne stepped closer to inspect to corpse, but there was little to see among the blood and gore.
“Anyone get his name?” Fayne yelled back to the locals in their native Yaeril. He poked the corpse with his boot, pushing what remained of its sword arm out into the open. The corpse’s sword hand fell empty. With an annoyed groan Fayne turned back to the crowd of fearful peasants, workers, and corpse touchers.
“And did anyone see where his sword went?”
******
Quettig wasn’t sure how long the beating on his door had continued before he woke. He did not have the ears of his youth, and his slumber had grown deep in his middling years. Once he did register the noise, he slowly sat up in his bed, joints far more stiff than a man of his age should face. But that was true for so many things. The noise came from his front door on the first floor of his three story shop, the solid wood door reverberating deep and long through the brick building. But not as deep as he expected; he had been hearing knocks on that door for almost twenty years, and they did not normally sound like this.
Dressed in his bed clothes he made his way down the stairs, resting heavily on his cane as he did so. He peered down into his shop, past the scrolls, shelves, books, maps, tables, inks, sextants, and other devices to the door. The door he had taken from a mighty pirate galleon that he once had the pleasure to conquer; it now served his far humbler map shop. But the door was not as precious to him as the thing that was so effectively muffling the knocking.
“Miza,” Quettig said with exhaustion one just getting out of bed should not possess. The girl huddled against the door looked up wide eyed and tried to smile. Despite being so close to the floor, her great height was evident by how far her sprawled limbs reached across the door, walls, and floor.
“Honored father,” she began, which was the immediate sign something was wrong and she wanted him not to worry.
“Disobedient daughter, what trouble did you bring to my door this day?” Quettig said as he picked up his Cartographer’s Brotherhood robe from where it hung on a brass hook at the bottom of the stairs, sliding its faded silk over his brown, tattooed, and wrinkled flesh. He was more accustomed to answering his door in his robe and little else than he would like to admit.
“This time, it is not my fault,” she began, the pounding on the door growing louder. “You really do not want to open the door, father. Please.”
“And why not? Who have you beaten up now?” Quettig said as he reached the door, towering above where she crouched on the floor. Despite his health and the bent of pseudo-age, he was still an immense man, which his daughter had obviously inherited when she wasn’t crouching on the floor. “I did not teach you the ways of the ka-kari so you could pick fights-”
“Father, I did not pick a fight, I swear by the Mountain of Fire, may it burn me if I lie.” This caused Quettig to pause. Such oaths were not taken lightly in this house even if they meant nothing to the rest of Yeesalle. “The Dragon Guard has been going around this morning rounding up family members of underfoots of fighting age. Story is they’re getting another murder mob together.”
“Open in the name of the Dragon Empress!” the voice came through the door accompanied with several additional blows to the door. There was some further murmur of conversation, but neither Miza nor Quettig could make it out.
“Harumph,” Quettig said, straightening his robe and putting his cane aside. “Step side Miza.”
“Pa, this is not the past. These are not civil men who will respect your guild standing,” Miza pleaded, looking up at him with love and pity. He shared the love, but hated the pity; he was not yet as old nor as foolish as she seemed to think. “They will take you to the palace to be killed if I don’t join whatever murder mob they need today if you open the door.”
Quettig had long been a man of pride; pride in his profession, his rank, his skills, his name, short though it be. He did not care for hiding in his own house, but if anything would move him to break his pride it was his daughter. He sighed, picked up his cane again, and braced it against the door and floor in notches cut for just such purpose, well-worn on both ends from use. “Come daughter, leave them to it then and join me for some tea.” And by join, she knew he meant “Make me some tea.”
The two retreated to the back room of the shop, leaving the guards to bang uselessly on the door for a few more moments before continuing on to easier fair. Last year some of the Red Cutlass college had tried to break the door down with an axe after Miza had roughed up some of their members, and had done little more than put some scars in it. The guards were not looking to put in even that effort to break it down when far flimsier doors were available just down the street. This thought troubled both Miza and Quettig no small amount, but they were only two underfoots. At least Miza had made sure that the Red Cutlass college regretted making such an egregious assault on her father’s shop.
Within ten minutes the two were seated at the shin height table Quettig kept in his back room for business meetings. Pillows were present, but neither Quettig nor Miza sat on them; those were for visitors. Quettig had not seen a pillow until he was nearly twenty years old and cared little for them; his bed was little more than a wooden board with a few blankets lain across it. The two sipped their gorzan tea from hand carved wooden cups, savoring the steaming, spicy liquid as was their normal morning routine. While Quettig had long ago accepted his daughter would be coming and going at all hours of the day or night, he had made it clear she would not do so without sharing tea with him each morning. This was not just tea, but the truce of a long standing conflict of father and daughter. Order and chaos. Rules and rebellion. All was forgotten during tea.
“And what will you be doing today, honored daughter?“ Quettig began, the first step in their now highly ritualized tea process. He poked the coals in the small stone stove situated against a nearby wall as he did so, not wanting the tea remaining in the pot to cool.
“Only things that bring honor to our family and will earn me a name of respect.” They both knew this was probably a lie, but it was a comfortable one. Besides, there were no ancients in this place to bestow on either of them names of respect, so they would almost certainly enter the Great Fire with only one name. This caused Quettig great concern on the nights the call of the ocean and the song of the mountain kept him awake, but Miza gave it barely a thought. She did not hear them. Her service to her father’s faith traveled not past her lips, though she loved him dearly.
“Good,” Quettig said, sipping his tea. Before he could continue a low wail began to echo through windows of the shop and through the papers and maps, causing them to whip around as if alive. Quettig watched them with annoyance. “Seems an easterly wind to the songtower today. I hope your friends have it under control before I lose any maps to it.” One map fluttered loose from the wall it had been tacked too and landed in front of Quettig, the letters of the map slowly changing. It was already bordering on illegible. Quettig frowned and let loose with a “Harumph,” that could have communicated his displeasure at a range of several hundred paces.
“I will make sure they are handling this, father!” Miza said, suddenly brightening at having a father-approved reason to leave tea early and go hang out with her friends. In a blur she strapped on her belt, threw on her sun mantle, strapped on her backpack, and slung her glaive over her shoulder. It had been a gift from Quettig for her tenth birthday, when it had been nearly as large as her, but now eight scant years later she could swing it with ease, as more than a small army of local troublemakers had found out. Before Miza leapt out the back door she gave her father a quick kiss on the cheek and he put his hand softly on her cheek; his was not a face made for affection, so it came through his hand. She left him alone with his tea, which he finished before rousing the strength to head back upstairs and get dressed.