James Davis: Bloodwalk

The shadows dispersed, exposing the damp, translucent skin of the man beneath. A crack in the white mask offered a glimpse of the disfigured face within.

Quinsareth swiftly abandoned any thought of the horrors that could have inflicted such injury and looked up to the balcony. Vesk stood there waiting, drawing his arm back to throw knives as the darkness disappeared. The assassin's wrist flicked like lightning, loosing three blades in the space of a heartbeat.

Bedlam danced upward to block the first knife as Quinsareth rolled sideways, dodging the second. The third opened a ragged gash across his collarbone. He winced at the pain of the wound, but jumped forward, tumbling as he ran for the stone column at the base of the stairs. The last of Vesk's knives sang against the floor as he moved.

Putting his back to the column, Quinsareth caught his breath. He reached up to the bleeding wound on his collarbone with his right hand, which also bled from many small cuts inflicted by the bladed chain. Bedlam seemed to feel these pains and its handle twitched in Quinsareth's left hand, a sibilant hum emanating along its length.

Quinsareth looked to the front door. It was still covered by the tanglefoot mass, but he knew he didn't have much time left. The exposed liquid could last only so long before it would grow brittle and flake away. He'd tracked the Fallen Few's assassins for too long to allow these last two to escape.

He turned and ran up the stairs, Bedlam raised defensively and prepared to strike. Blue-Eyes awaited him at the top, smiling ominously with purple gums and inhaling a deep breath, mist curling at the edges of his mouth.

As the yellow mist belched from the maw of the assassin, Quinsareth charged through, heedless of the sulfurous smell and disorienting nature of the vapor. He threw his weight and momentum into a punch. The blow landed squarely on the pale man's chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. Quin held his own breath, but his eyes still burned in the yellow mist. He followed the punch with another, slamming Blue-Eyes against the wall. Bedlam immediately followed the strike, thrusting into the heaving chest of the deformed man. Blood and mist flowed freely from the wound once Quinsareth withdrew the blade.

When he turned around, Vesk was gone. Quinsareth cautiously sidestepped along the rail, peering into the shadows near the balcony.

He caught a flash of bright eyes watching him in the darkness, tucked in a corner between a stone column and the wall. Then they disappeared on a sudden breeze, causing the torches nearby to flicker and wave. A strange sensation passed through him, a kindred chill that he both loathed and recognized at the same time. He shook the feeling off quickly as Vesk's silhouette appeared on the balcony near the top of the ancient altar.

Long ago, the stone building had been a temple to a dark deity, a fiendish lord demanding sacrifice and blood. In recent years, the remote location of the temple and the ruins that surrounded it had become a prime location for secret and unscrupulous meetings, catering to those with no wish to be found or heard. Much of the temple's macabre elements had been stolen or carted off as building materials, but the large sacrificial bowl and the twisted statue that supported it remained. Stained by years of spilled blood and now filled with a deep red wine called erskilye, or the oathwater, it was a reminder of the nature of the Border Kingdoms, a symbol of false permanence and ruin.

The unlit ground between the two attackers drew them forth. For Vesk, the darkness was a familiar field of killing and revelry, a place to contact the Lower Planes and bargain for the lives of those his masters wished dead. For Quinsareth, the darkness echoed a familiarity with the hunt, conjured a home for the part of him that called Bedlam brother, and played a dirge for the man he might have been.

The men ran to meet in the middle, Vesk's crawling tattoos glowing a faint green to mirror the turquoise glimmer of Quinsareth's shrieking bastard sword. Their blades clashed in a blur of slicing steel and sparks. Though he'd charged to meet the assassin, Quinsareth focused on defending himself, destroying those few moments in which Vesk was most effective. Assassins struck to kill, exploiting immediate weaknesses and imbalance. Quinsareth knew a prolonged fight would wear his opponent down. He could see frustration in Vesk's face already, the assassin's tattoos writhing and twitching.

Bedlam's magic tingled along Quinsareth's arm, infecting his senses with its voice and drawing forth his hidden emotions. He swayed forward as he pressed the attack back to Vesk, swinging his sword faster and more precisely. Vesk cursed as he was pushed back, backpedaling to avoid the shrill voice of Bedlam and its master's well-trained arm.

With two sudden strokes, Quinsareth disarmed the assassin leader.

The first knocked his sword to the ground, which slid to rest in a corner. The second opened a deep wound in Vesk's arm as it swung wide without the weight of a blade. Bedlam halted before the middle of Vesk's chest, humming ominously and lying uncharacteristically still in Quinsareth's hand. Slowly he pushed the assassin back the few remaining feet to the wine-filled altar.

Quinsareth was reminded of the nobles in some of the larger cities to the north who trained hunting dogs to sit unmoving while small morsels were placed on top of their muzzles. The dogs would sit still until given permission to eat the tempting treats. He had needed several years to teach Bedlam the same trick, and even longer before that to teach himself.

Vesk took a breath, but found no words waiting to save his life.

No bargain, no blackmail, nothing came to mind to sway the intent behind those pale, white eyes that stared at him.

Quin could smell the stink of the Lower Planes on Vesk, that faint aura of the fiendish. He did not begrudge the assassin for making unwholesome choices, but neither would he spare him. No quarter, no surrender, and no mercy would be offered. He imagined Vesk had never considered begging for his own life before that moment.

Bedlam scraped along the edge of the altar's bowl as it pushed through Vesk's chest with lightning speed. Quinsareth watched as the assassin's eyes faded and his head slumped. The strange living tattoos tried to crawl along the now-quieting blade of their master's killer, but they faded and turned black as they dripped to the floor, mingling with Vesk's blood.

Quinsareth pulled Bedlam free, cleaned and sheathed the sword, and let the assassin fall to the ground. He stood, smelling the horrible scent of the dying tattoos with grim satisfaction. They had provided the link between the Fallen Few and their fiendish lords, infesting the body of Vesk and making a once small-time cutthroat into an ambassador to the dark courts. His nature, like that of those who followed him, was a twisted, perverse mockery of the man he had once been.

As the long-held chill in his body faded, Quinsareth felt his stomach turn. Fatigue claimed him, and he collapsed into a chair, breathing heavily and squeezing his eyes shut, his pulse pounding behind them. Sweat beaded on his forehead as the trapped heat of the underground temple-turned-tavern returned in a wave, and he rested, quiet in the knowledge that this long work was over.

He feared opening his eyes again, feared the hush, wind, and swirling darkness that would come soon, calling him elsewhere. The will of Hoar, a poetry of anger and sorrow burning in his heart like a dark prayer, telling him where he had to go, what he had to do, and who he had to kill next.

He stood lazily, stretching and flexing his sore muscles. The wound across his collarbone ached, and the blood was sticky beneath his breastplate. He winced and pressed down on the gash as he walked away from the gruesome altar. Though the remaining inebriated had not awoken and innkeeper was nowhere to be seen, he tossed several coins onto the table. The tanglefoot on the front door had turned gray, and it crumbled to a flaky dust as he pulled on the door's handle. The temporary seal had been unnecessary. The Fallen Few had been more confident than he'd expected, apparently not having heard of the fate of their brethren in Theymarsh only a tenday earlier, but Quinsareth had been prepared. He'd spent long enough tracking them down and had no wish for them to escape and be aware of what pursued them. Outside, at the top of the deep stairwell that served as the Red Cup's entrance, Quinsareth inhaled deeply, smelling the fresh night air. He could hear the crashing waves of the Lake of Steam from the abandoned town's north side, the water swaying the wrecks of the formerly swift boats that littered the small harbor. Those rotten hulls, bumping one another in the tide, were the only sounds that disturbed the peace of the ruins. The town was one of many that dotted the lands of the Border Kingdoms, overthrown, forgotten, and left to collect dust and fall apart-home only intermittently to those seeking solace between fell deeds. Quinsareth had come to enjoy them since arriving in the region and felt he might miss their emptiness when called away by the will of Hoar. As if listening to his thoughts, the wind picked up, whistling through the broken windows of hollow buildings and rustling the tall brown grass that grew through cracks in the cobbled streets.