Chapter 13
Team Dark set off as the fourth bell tolled, breaking the pre-dawn silence of the city. Raven made it a point to look outside the open slats of the armored carriage as they sped down the empty streets. He had expected the transition to be a gradual thing, where the safe and peaceful streets of the nineteenth district, home to strike team Dark, would slowly devolve into the lawlessness that made up the vast majority of the outer ring. That was not the case. As they swept through the nineteenth, twentieth, and entered the twenty-first district, everything looked exactly the same. The first sword’s effect was palpable. But the moment they crossed the widened avenue that separated the twenty-first and twenty-second districts, the destitution and desperation returned.
The change was so jarring Raven had to turn away, bringing his attention back to the interior of the carriage, where team Dark sat with looks of grim determination.
Directly across from him, First Sword Abon stared into his eyes. It was an intense look that somehow Raven understood, because it matched his own expression. The first sword made no gestures and offered no comment, but the silence communicated a lot. Above all, the first sword now knew that Raven understood the importance of the work the team did.
It was First Sword Abon that broke eye contact first, turning away after a nod of satisfaction and raised the black on white grinning skull kerchief tied about his neck. The rest of the team took followed the first sword, Raven included, raising the cloth to cover their mouth and noses. The tension was so thick in the bed of the vehicle that no one spoke, and the silence leveled a weight on everyone that silence lasted the entire ride to the twenty-sixth district, even after the team dismounted and fanned out in a wedge formation.
Breeze took but a moment to hobble the horses, and then the team set off. The guarded and fearful looks from the few residents out in the early hour was jarring, heartbreaking even. His reaction surprised him, considering it had been the normal reaction to even a single peacekeeper, let alone an entire unit, from as far back as he could remember. But now, after seeing what was possible, the proof of even a desperate people’s willingness to change, Raven knew the possibility for better.
What’s more, he was left with a deepening conviction that the First Sword, known as the Peacemaker by the residents near the team’s district, just might be the best thing to ever happen to the outer ring. Even now, the First Sword walked at the head of the wedge, with his strike team flanking him three at each side, greeting the occasional passerby with a genuine smile.
The massive Kulthenian Titan walked a step behind the first sword with his towering shield on one arm and the glaive resting on the opposite. Rail and Breach, the team’s strikers, took up position closest behind Titan, staggered to either side. Next came Breeze along the wedge formation, then Raven on the opposite side, and lastly Mixer opposite him at the rear. Raven had wanted to guard the rear himself, but when he fell to the back, the first sword made a cutting motion with his hand, pointed at Mixer, then jabbed a finger to the rear. It was a clear indication the first sword didn’t want a member he didn’t trust guarding the team’s rear.
Which reminded Raven of his present problem. First Sword Abon, true to his word, held the bandoleer of the Bloody Murder’s high-grade munitions in the team quarters back at the garrison. That was a considerable blow to his effectiveness, but not such a critical blow for this assignment. This Crimson Ring was a major threat, to be sure, but not based on raw strength of affinity. He’d terminated threats Carrion had rated far stronger in raw power with only his knives.
Besides, Raven still had perhaps his most important alchemicals at his disposal, the more support oriented brews he kept at his waist pouch. If he hadn’t used them when he first met up with the team, those quarrels would have taken him out.
He glanced at mixer who walked just behind him off to the side. The alchemist was shuffling ahead, eye lids low and head pitched toward the ground. Raven considered the wisdom of having the perpetually absent alchemist covering the team’s rear, but he shrugged at the good fortune. He didn’t have to worry about trying to hide his movement too much.
He withdrew a pair of vials from his belt. Quickly, he threw back half the contents of the thick gold elixir, then followed it up with a sip of the clear activating fluid. The flush hit him immediately, and his body came alive with energy, to the point he had trouble maintaining a normal stride as the elixir dissolved on his pallet.
Finally, after his wrestled command of his body, he turned his hyper-focused attention to scanning the doorways, windows, and rooftops, looking for any sign of danger. He felt exposed, but not because he walked with the unit. He was on a contract and not only was he not discretely tracking and approaching his target under cover and concealment, but he was quite literally strolling down the avenue announcing his presence. It went against his every instinct.
For a full bell, the team wound their way street by street, scanning and searching. Over the course of the hour, the morning rush of people began making their way from the buildings with an eagerness caused by the desire to have all affairs in order prior to retreating back indoors for the hottest parts of the day. And all the while, First Sword Abon tried and failed to establish communication with any and every person the team passed.
None of the people cooperated. Some, in bold defiance, brandished tattoos of a blazing sun on their arms, chests, backs. Others gestured toward the same symbol painted across the sides of the clay buildings or the occasional flags that hung from windows or across storefronts. It was the symbol of the Desert Sons, a sight so common enough throughout the outer ring to not warrant particular attention. But something about the prominence here in this district was unnerving. It was as though the people did not simply live amongst the violent gang, tolerating the brutality because they had not other choice in the matter. Instead, these people seemed to wholly embrace the Desert Sons.
Anyone showing the blazing sun, either tattooed or flying the flag, could have warranted arrest. Even Raven knew proven criminal affiliation was crime enough for imprisonment, and he wasn’t even a real peaceman–or corpsman, as the team was quick to correct. But team Dark had a bigger purpose out on the sands this morning. On this day, the first sword would not be derailed by the more petty criminal elements. The Crimson Ring was close.
A quarter of a bell later, the team turned onto a street and Raven stiffened. He sniffed the air and frowned. From the edges of his senses, he caught the first stench of sorcery. A mage had tapped their affinity. It was too faint to identify the particular flavor, but even that said much. He could identify any common affinity, even from this distance, like identifying an old song after hearing only the first few notes. In fact, it might have been the first time he’d ever encountered the particular mix of iron, rust, and dry soil surrounding a sorcerous unveiling.
~ * * * ~
As the strike team made their way down the street, Raven focused on his sharpened vision and more focused hearing as he scanned every ally, window, and rooftop. Typically, this would be when he’d take the opportunity to find the deepest shadows to conceal his approach. Instead here he was strolling down the main avenue feeling like an easy target for the mage that had tapped their affinity.
He couldn’t quite place his finger on the flavor of sorcery. It was like nothing he’d sensed before. Even as the strike team made their way onward and the sensation of sorcery sharpened as he drew closer to the source, he couldn’t even place a finger on the family of affinity. Elemental affinities like fire, water, terran, and all the others all had a familiar undercurrent to them. So too did the less common corporeal affinities that enhanced the mind and body. The family of affinity was usually identifiable even if the specific implementation was still too nebulous to detect.
This added an element of nervous energy to Raven’s current state of enhanced focus. When they crossed the intersection into the next street, his instinct screamed in warning.
The first sword held out a hand and the team slowed. It showed good instincts. Had he not done so, Raven himself would have signaled the team to be alert. The atmosphere was off, and it took a moment for Raven to put a finger on exactly what had made him uneasy, but then it clicked.
None of the local toughs were anywhere in sight. The urchins were gone. Every window and door was shuttered or covered, even as the heat of the day had already risen to an uncomfortable temperature. These signs alone were enough to raise mental alarms, but the sorcery now rode the air in a thick miasma that made it hard to focus on anything else.
Motion from Raven’s periphery brought his attention from scanning the windows and rooftops to the far intersection up ahead. A lone figure approached, struggling under the load of a hand drawn wagon. The person leaned so far into pulling the burden that he was near parallel with the ground.
First Sword Abon came to a stop and held up a hand. He called out to the approaching man, his voice even yet stern, with the thinnest hint of warning. “That’s far enough, friend.”
The man ignored the First Sword and continued his lurching progress closer. Raven could now hear the heavy grunts that emphasized each surge of movement.
“Did you hear me?” The First Sword said, this time louder. The threat in his voice was unmistakable. Barely perceptibly, the first sword motioned with a flick of each wrist, one at a time, then called out again. “No closer.”
Titan and Breeze stepped forward, around the First Sword, and stopped just a few strides ahead to either side. Titan slammed his heavy shield into the dirt, the pointed bottom digging into the sand. And at the same time Breeze shook out her hands and rolled her head on her shoulders, and then her aeromancy affinity blossomed in Raven’s awareness.
Breeze’s power was weak by the standard that Raven was used to facing down. But it was powerful enough to match the potency of that new affinity that hovered over the area. Having sorcery on his side for a change was such an odd but wholly welcomed occurrence that Raven wasn’t sure he knew how to process it. He hated sorcery of any kind, to be sure, but he had to admit, even if begrudgingly, that there was a comfort in the power being on his side for a change.
“You put those clay pots back in your pockets or I’ll break your damn hands.”
It was Breach’s voice. Her words came at such a surprise it pulled Raven’s focus from the still approaching man to the striker. Her deep brown skin had gone pale, and she was turned fully around toward Mixer. Raven followed her gaze and saw Mixer frozen in place with a small pot in each hand.
Mixer’s scowl deepened. “Hey! I don’t tell you bruisers how to do your job, do I? I’m the team alchemist, right. These brews,” Mixer said, shaking the pots for emphasis, “is why I’m with the team.”
Breach and Rail both took a step away, and Rail swung her weapon around toward Mixer. “Now, you put that alchemy away, nice and easy, or I’ll put a quarrel through you myself. You set me on fire again and this time Titan and Breeze together won’t be enough to keep me off you, love.”
Mixer rolled his eyes. “Will you never live that down? I put you out though didn’t I? And I healed your burns.”
Rail growled and brought her crossbow up to take aim at Mixer. “My hair still hasn’t grown back yet.”
Mixer flinched and crouched down, as if ducking behind cover that wasn’t there. “Fine, fine. But remember this if you need my healing. The both of you.”
Breach took a step toward Mixer, but First Sword Abon spoke up. “Not the time, Dark. Extra duty for the next person to say another word.
In all Raven’s years of work, he had never allowed himself to become distracted on assignment. This team had not only distracted him, but taken his full attention from the present situation. It was…oddly refreshing, if he was honest. But as he refocused on the man still pulling the cart closer, the renewed perspective allowed him to notice something he had not realized until just then. The exotic affinity that rode the air wasn’t centered on a singular location, like the aeromancy that came from Breeze. Instead, it blanketed the entire area, which was what made it difficult to pinpoint, even if he couldn’t identify it.
Narrowing his eyes, Raven studied the nature of the power under a renewed lens, ignoring the increasingly threatening commands from the first sword. In another seed of insight, Raven realized it wasn’t so much that the sorcery blanketed the area. It was more like the power stretched across a wide area of his senses. But he could see it started with the approaching man and stretched away. It felt like a tether of sorts. It stretched away in a specific direction. He had a hunch what, or who, he might find at the other end of invisible bond. If he could follow that tether, then he was almost certain it would lead him—
The man released the twin handholds of the wagon and took off in a sprint back down the street in the direction he had come from.
“Stack!” Came a call from what Raven believed was Breach, and then the team broke into sudden motion. Breeze’s Aeromancy surged in strength and sent a rush through Raven’s body.
A hand in his back shoved him forward into motion. “Let’s go, recruit.” Mixer’s voice was more alert than at any point he’d ever heard. “Get right up behind Rail. Tight!”
Moving on his sudden adrenaline surge, Raven went into motion along with the rest of the team. Not knowing the formation, Raven did as Mixer said and sprinted across the sand to Rail and pressed close behind her, mirroring the way she herself had huddled behind Breach. He was pressed tighter into Rail’s back as Mixer crashed into him and pressed close.
A chest rumbling roar of wind drowned out all sound as a wall of sand rose up on all sides. It took a moment to realize it was Breeze, who had whipped up the wind to a sudden vortex that surrounded the team, centering them within an opaque wall of churning ocher.
And then a massive detonation sent a concussive blast through the formation that temporarily drowned out even the deafening roar of Breeze’s unveiling. The sand and rock underfoot trembled and the rotating wall of sand flared bright red, with the occasional tongue of flame breaking through the center and scorching the team.
The world had turned into a chaotic fury of fire and sorcery that stretched for several seconds, and then a second rumbling shook the world. Slowly, Breeze’s aeromancy began to subside, and with it, the sounds of the city reached the team still huddled in the center. One sound dominated all others as the world slowly returned. Screams.
Breeze’s affinity cut short, but the world was still obscured by a thick cloud of fine sand that clung to the air.
“The people!” A voice shouted. First Sword Abon.
Team Dark responded at once, breaking formation and rushing out into the gloom toward the tenement buildings closest to the wagon. Raven ignored the first sword, and instead sprinted headlong in the direction the man who had pulled the cart headed.
The First Sword’s voice filled the air again from behind. “The people! They need help. On me! On me!”
Raven ignored him, focusing instead on the exotic affinity that still rode the air. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see more than a few strides in any direction. He had the man’s trail. As he peered through the rapidly thinning cloud of sand, getting farther and farther from the epicenter of the attack, he knew it was just a matter of time before he would lay eyes on his quarry.
Midway through the next block, Raven turned into a narrow gap between two buildings and sprinted hard down the alley, pushing himself faster with every stride. The ally split up ahead. He took the left turn without breaking stride and, finally, caught the first glimpse of the fleeing man near the far end of the narrow alley.
Raven smoothly slipped a pair of throwing knives from the many sheaths along his vest and sent both flying, one after the other, in quick flicks of his wrist. Twin streaks of metal flew forth. One sank into his left thigh, causing the limb to buckle and his body to careen into the the opposite wall, where the second knife punched deep into shoulder blade.
Perfect throws, both. Raven looked to disable the man, not to kill him. And even through the man turned yet another corner in the network of alleys, he knew he had done just that.
But the fleeing man surprised him. Limping heavily, his entire body hunched over, he never broke stride. A second surprise came just after he turned the corner and Raven sensed the man stop. Did the man actually think to try and ambush him?
Raven drew his fighting knives from the sheaths at his waist as he exploded around the corner, to see the man in the middle of an awkward swing with a heavy object of some sort. As Raven pivoted away from the attack, he spun one of his knives in his hand, and counter-attacked with a backhanded blow to the side of the man’s head with the pommel of his knife, sending him to the ground in a crumple.
An eager grin tugged at the corners of Raven’s mouth. The fleeing man was now disabled and the tether to the Crimson Ring, his true target, was still strong. He slammed his knives back into their sheaths and bound the man’s hands behind his back with a length of hempen rope, then took off at a trot in the same direction the now unconscious man had been headed. The man would answer for what he had done, to be sure, but he would save that for team Dark. The other end of the tether was close, giving him a clear trail.
Three turns later and he spilled out from the mouth of the alley back onto the Bhadestani streets, the trail closer than ever. Another block, and then the affinity pointed dead ahead, toward the closest thing the outer ring had to a market district.
The buildings were the same squat construction as any other in the district, only, the ground level of these were gutted, the walls crudely knocked down, and the interior fitted out as store fronts. Most had either residences on the upper levels, or any number of gambling halls or pleasure houses, both of which were illegal in the Free Cities. It was these establishments that brought the inhabitants of the inner districts to the outer ring.
He fully expected to find himself barreling into the entrance of one of these seedy places, cutting down scores of Desert Sons. Or, more in line with his style, sneak his way past to get to within assassination range.
Slowing to a walk, Raven made his way down the avenue, staying close to the buildings to avoid detection. He scanning the press of people as he flowed between and around them until, Raven paused, there was but one single person in his direct line of sight, at the end of the magical tether. The woman perusing the stand before him was in fact the Crimson Ring.
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