Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Character portraits
Glen
Mister Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
Guild’s man and the one that wasn’t
Part II
-Eight’s right hand-
Sensing danger Flix frowned, hand dropping to his harness where he kept his throwing knives. Fikumin, halfway up the saddle let go and dropped down, then turned around alarmed. Nigel –fucking- Grim narrowed his light brown eyes and looked at a pale-faced Glen inquiringly. Ottis grimaced unsure and Alix had still that surprised expression on his face, still focused on the newcomer. Soren didn’t get what was going on and Brock Olin just froze in place for the briefest of moments, still holding Sen’s hand. He then twisted his head around and stared at Glen in turn.
Eyes the color of grass, hazy and unfocused, before clearing up, his bland face ‘changing’ into that of a different character. It wasn’t a pure metamorphosis, nothing Glen could describe with simple words. More a reshuffling of subtle things, along with many insignificant details that were previously missing, or lacking, coming back. Little things filling up the empty spots, livening up the thief’s face. Brock’s upper lip was now pulled back slightly in a half-snarl and his interest had shifted to Glen.
That is, all of Brock’s body parts were still there, but the thief was gone.
Someone else was living now under his skin.
“Who art thou Garth?” The fake Brock asked in a foreign unrecognizable accent. Everything was wrong, down to the color of his voice.
Glen reached for his sword, but Sen’s cry of pain stopped him.
“GLEN!” His wife screamed and tried to pull her hand away from Brock’s steely grip, but failed. Brock smacked his lips pleased hearing the name.
“No secrets,” he crackled in his strange accent and then something opened up a monstrous wound starting on his left shoulder. All the way down in an oblique course, splitting the clavicle and breaking his sternum. It went through the upper rib bones, ruining lungs and peeling flesh and skin outwards in an explosion of blood and bodily fluids.
What in all hells?
Sen snapped away from him, covered in gore, but free and Brock went down on his knees, the hideous face of Gimoss appearing behind him. The corpse pulled hard at the bloody shovel to dislodge it making the wound even worse, Brock’s upper torso now almost split in half.
“Gurth mahta Urdu, Zargatoh O’ Galith!” Gimoss bellowed and kicked the horrifically mutilated Brock down, just as everyone reacted to what they had just witnessed.
“Uher’s light upon us!” Ottis gasped and run to help a shocked Sen.
“Fuckin’ cunt,” that was Jinx.
“Shite,” Alix said, standing next to her.
Glen moved like an automaton towards Gimoss, the living corpse dragging the bleeding body of Brock on the street, heading towards the Mastaba. Flix and Fikumin following after him, with Nigel Grim watching the scene unfolding intrigued, but only mildly surprised.
“Wait!” Glen barked at the back of Gimoss and the corpse stopped and turned his head around, freakish sole eye glaring.
“Move back idiot!” He blasted him and hurled the clearly dead Brock a couple of meters away. “Everyone stay away!”
“The fuck just happened?” Glen growled, not in the mood to entertain his craziness. “What did he do to Sen? The hells is he?”
Gimoss grunted and turned to stare at the disfigured fresh corpse of Brock Olin. Flix that had arrived next to Glen put a hand on his elbow to get his attention. Fikumin had appeared to the old Gish’s right side, the usual scowl on his face transformed into pure rage.
“What’s wrong with the dwarf?” Glen asked still shocked and glanced back at Sen trying to clean herself up, but appearing unharmed. Ottis and the others were standing protectively around her.
Fikumin only managed a low guttural snarl, his eyes peeled on the dead thief.
“Gurth mahta Urdu, translates to ‘Elder Bonemancer’ from Imperial,” Flix explained. “The name I don’t know. The Dwarf has lost a loved one to them. You never forget that.”
Dammit.
Glen remembered it then. The details of the story horrific. He smacked his lips, mouth dry and still in a state of mild shock, turned to the silent Gimoss again.
“Who was that guy? What just happened here for crying out loud?”
Gimoss snorted and the dead body that was, or wasn’t Brock Olin started shaking allover violently and then attempted to get up.
Good fuckin’ grief, what is this shite?
Brock still almost split down the middle, the cratering wound ending above his midriff and the whole left part of him floundering back and forth, snapped white bones and ruined internal organs visible, gasped a gurgling incoherent sound. He’d run out of blood to spill, a dark stain on the street where Gimoss had dragged him, but still fleshly bits kept dropping off as he stood up.
“How in Luthos shriveled balls,” a freaked out Glen murmured, remembering the corpse in Lebesos coming back to life and Flix bumped onto him, as he moved to attack again.
“Stay back!” Gimoss blasted the old Gish, who hissed but paused with his daggers in hand. “I need to know where the fucker is!”
“What?” Glen gasped and raised his sword. “Move aside yer insane bag of rot!”
Brock stumbled forward, eyes bloodshot and mouth hanging open, blood on his teeth. He made two steps past a scowling Gimoss and then Fikumin appeared in front of him, a hammer in hand. He swung at the faltering Brock and got him at his right knee, the sound of bone breaking crackling in the shocked to silence street disturbing. It brought him down again, piece of bone protruding out of his torn pants, but Brock kept moving using his right hand to drag himself forward. Glen advanced on him in turn, vomit in his throat and hacked at the crawling impostor’s back once.
His blade severed the maimed Brock’s spine and Glen pulled back, when that didn’t stop him. The former thief glanced back saw a pale-faced Jinx approach carrying a lit torch and grunted. The Gish tossed him the torch and Glen caught it, sparks dancing over his head, the night dark around them and eerie quiet, but for Brock’s creepy guttural sounds.
“He’s gone,” Gimoss snorted, watching them. He had the shovel stabbed on the street and his arms crossed on his chest. “This is pointless!”
“The fuck are ye talking about?” Jinx snapped at him. “That bloody cunt is still moving!”
“So what?” Gimoss snapped back at her. “Everyone here is moving!”
Glen stooped and dropped the oil-drenched torch on Brock setting his clothes on fire. They needed more oil, he decided.
“Didn’t you just said he’s dangerous?” Jinx asked the other corpse present.
“That was then, stupid harlot!” Gimoss barked, enraged at her stupidity.
“Did ye just call… ye ugly one-eyed cunt!” Jinx hissed and rushed him. Gimoss took a punch on the mouth, lip splitting, then a kick to the jewels and an elbow to the chest, before backhanding the small Gish and sending her plummeting down the street’s gravel senseless.
“Enough!” Glen rustled and glared at Gimoss. “Don’t ever hit her again!”
“Or what?” Gimoss retorted with a bloody grin.
He had a point there.
Still Glen couldn’t allow him to keep on slapping his friends around.
“Don’t push it you fuckin’ freak!” Glen growled and walked up to him, grinding his teeth. “You’ll regret it.”
“Hah…haha…Ahahaha!” Gimoss roared in his face, not intimidated at all.
“Garth,” Flix said from behind his back. “This is not the place to solve this. Check on your wife. I’ll take care of young Jinx.”
Sen kept wiping her stained face with a cloth, her hands shaking, when Glen reached this separate group near the wagons. Ottis made room for him and Glen kneeled next to his shaken wife.
“He’s dead,” he told her and Sen nodded. “Come, let me get you inside,” Glen murmured and helped her up. They crossed the street and stopped at the entrance of the Watchtower. Sen sat down on the step and stared at the bloody cloth in her hands.
“I’m fine,” she told him, sensing his eyes on her. “He just grabbed me too hard. I got scared more than hurt,” Sen breathed once and exhaled trying to calm herself down. “Who was he?”
Glen pressed his lips tight. “Not who he said obviously.”
“But you know,” Sen murmured.
“No sweetheart, I don’t,” Glen admitted. “I have an idea, but this was the first time…” He paused and grimaced, feeling a chill despite the night being warm.
“I have blood on me,” Sen said.
“We’ll get it cleaned.”
“Is that the bounty hunter?” She asked.
“No. That was something different,” Glen murmured.
“What did you mean before? Whatever you asked, it triggered that thing,” she raised her eyes on him. “Was that magic?”
Not any magic I’ve ever seen before. Although Fikumin has apparently.
Could he tell her any of that?
“I’ll find out,” Glen replied finally. “At this point I don’t know.”
“Did the dagger warn you?”
No it didn’t.
No one did, other than Gimoss who knew.
“Instinct,” Glen said and it was closer to the truth than anything else at that moment.
Glen burst inside the Mastaba, the caravan’s departure postponed and headed straight for the large pit burning bright inside. Fikumin kept adding firewood, with Gimoss and Flix standing to the side and watching. Biscuit was nowhere to be seen.
“How the fuck did you know?” Glen growled, his shock turning slowly to a seething anger.
“Garth,” Flix warned him, but Glen had enough.
“Are you going to answer?” He asked the possessed corpse they’d brought back from the Desert.
“Why? It won’t help you,” Gimoss grunted. “Or me.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I do. You can’t bullshit me fool! Fraud!”
“Gimoss,” Flix admonished him. “He needs to know.”
“As do you,” Fikumin said to the corpse, stepping away from the fire.
“Me?” Gimoss asked. “None stupider than the Folk, with the dwarfs the kings of the lot. You run out of stones use a dwarf!”
Fikumin glared at Glen. “What in Luthos’ beard did you bring with you?”
“He’s a Wyvern,” Glen explained. “A dead one. Ye need some time to get used to his character.”
A lot of it.
The dwarf stared at him blankly.
“They are Aken on Eplas. Bonemancers, does he know it?” He finally said.
“Where?” Gimoss asked.
“We killed one on the mountains near Hellfort,” Fikumin explained.
“Haha…Ahahaha…Hah!”
Fikumin blinked, not expecting the corpse’s response.
“He’s a bit difficult to deal with,” Glen elucidated. “I swear he’s aged me a couple of years since I’ve met him.”
“Gimoss please explain to them, even if it’s elementary, or demeaning for you,” Flix said patiently. “They are too young.”
“Why?” Gimoss asked him and then clenching his jaw. “It’s a waste of time!”
“Sometimes it isn’t. You know that,” Flix replied calmly.
Gimoss grunted and grabbed the iron shaft of his shovel with both hands.
“You can’t kill an Aken that easy. Not unless it’s an idiot, or you corner it. Even then, it’s paramount to destroy everything in a great area, just to be certain they haven’t gotten away.”
“I’m pretty sure we did,” Fikumin countered.
“Because it looked like one?” Gimoss grinned hideously. “Was he missing any bones?”
“A couple of fingers.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. What does it mean?” Fikumin asked, crooking his mouth.
“The bones you use, can’t be remade on the construct. What you killed had at least two made,” Gimoss said. “But it doesn’t mean anything. An Elder could have had ten copies of himself running about, or more. It’s a matter of pain resistance and skill.”
Fikumin frowned.
“What about this one? He looked like a man,” Glen asked.
“Same principle, just different bones. The artist behind though leaves a sign. I knew him,” Gimoss finally said, unbothered at the leaking split lip he sported. “The moment I heard his voice, it came to me.”
“Brock was thirty years old at the most,” Glen argued. “You were a ghost for a millennia.”
“Bodiless,” Gimoss said. “It’s not the same!”
“Fine,” Glen yielded. “What about what I said?”
Gimoss smacked his lips. “You expect an answer?”
“Yes?”
“That wasn’t Brock,” Gimoss explained. “It was a copy of Brock. But what made him tick is the same in every body. The same set of simple instructions to get them through life and perform their missions. Everyone has their touches. Distinct. But for a while Zargatoh himself was here. I need to find him!”
“I’ve no idea what the fuck yer talkin’ about,” Glen blurted.
“A construct,” Fikumin agreed with Gimoss, apparently an expert on the topic as well. Glen grimaced exasperated. “Made by the same bonemancer. After a while, they are impossible to separate from humans.”
Made he says. Fantastic.
Just like a kettle of soup.
“This dwarf isn’t completely stupid,” Gimoss said. “I’m astounded.”
Glen couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept and puffed out even more confused than before. “So what do we do? We run around asking people, how they died?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Gimoss said. “You won’t be able to surprise him again.”
“Why?”
“Every one of his creatures knows you now,” Gimoss explained. “They don’t really, but he does so they’ll know if you cross paths with one when he’s looking through them. It’s simple!”
It was the most confusing shit Glen had ever heard in his life.
“What does he know?” Glen asked tiredly not likening the sound of what he managed to glean and with a groan of frustration the corpse had answered him.
A troubled Glen walked out of the Mastaba and crossed the street again to head for the Watch Tower, a patrol of Gallant Dogs greeting him on the way. At the entrance Alix was waiting for him, Nigel Grim standing about a meter apart and to the side, with his back on the wall of the tower and that hood still over his head. A whiff of white hair showing under it.
“Where’s Whisper?” Glen asked the male Gish and he raised a questioning brow.
“Few call her that, Mister Garth,” Alix noticed. “It’s a human name. Gish have only one. Like me she’s taken it to blend in.”
“It’s her name, all of it. I’ll call her whatever I plaguin’ like,” Glen argued brusquely. “And there’s no way you’d ever blend in Gish. You’re like a white turd in a tomato soup.”
“She’s upstairs with Lady Sen-Iv,” Alix said riding the insult like a pro.
“Move aside,” Glen rustled, not in the mood for his shenanigans.
“A word, Mister Garth, if I may,” Nigel said in common. Glen stared at him.
“Nigel Grim,” he said and the man nodded. Glen made him around forty, but he had the vigor of a younger man. “How did you get through my wall and patrols?”
“Come on,” Nigel said getting off the wall. He had a fantastic pair of soft leather boots on, Glen noticed. “The wall is full of holes, brimming wit blind spots and the guards are too few and between. Even so, when you finish it, people will still come to visit unannounced I’m certain.”
“What kind of people?” Glen asked him.
“Curious. Greedy,” Nigel had a pleasant smile, his teeth well preserved. “Sometimes dangerous.”
“What kind are you?”
“A little bit of everything I suppose. But I wasn’t here for you Garth,” Nigel replied.
“Go on,” Glen said crossing his arms on his chest.
“I was looking for the man your people killed earlier, Brock Olin. And another matter, of more personal nature.”
“You’ve seen what he was,” Glen noted.
Nigel shrugged his shoulders, the knives on the harness he wore underneath his cape making a clinking sound.
“I’m not sure what I saw, but I know this wasn’t Brock.”
“Really? Care to elaborate?”
“I recruited Brock myself in the business,” Nigel said, glancing at a silently watching Alix.
“Garth is a friend of the Guild,” the Gish said.
“As I said,” Nigel continued a little more relaxed. “I recruited him about ten years back. Brock had talent aye. Pulled off some crazy… jobs in his time. He also died trying to navigate a tight hemp rope, about five years back to the date.”
“They hanged him?” Glen chanced and Nigel frowned.
“Nay, I meant navigate a tight rope literally, as from one building to another across a large street. It seemed like a good idea.”
Ah.
“He slipped?” Glen hazarded a guess.
“The rope failed. It snapped. A touch of bad luck. He dropped three stories on to freshly installed cobblestone. Too hard for his bones.”
“Where was that?”
“A city with a port,” Nigel replied vaguely. “The man was killed instantly. I was there.”
“Then Brock popped up in Eikenport again,” Glen said.
“A couple of years ago,” Nigel continued with a nod of agreement. “An… associate of sorts visited the place and talked with him. Reported of a Guild’s member loitering in Eikenport. The word made the rounds and it reached my ears.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Glen asked with a sigh.
“I haven’t. Then again, perhaps killing him wasn’t the right idea.”
“He didn’t give me much choice,” Glen rustled.
“I understand,” Nigel said reassuringly. “I would’ve done the same in your place.”
“What personal business?” Glen asked him, not wanting to talk about Sen with him.
“I have a younger brother sailing in these ports. Thought I could catch up with him,” Nigel Grim replied and crooked his mouth, face shaven underneath. “Next time, I guess.”
Glen caught Alix’s stare and frowned.
“Brock was to be a guide of sorts,” he said instead, leaving the matter aside.
“I heard,” Nigel scratched around the knob at his throat with a couple of gloved fingers. “A risky job what you have planned Mister Garth.”
“The Guild is not interested then?”
“Ah, of course they are. But this a dangerous one. Thieves don’t like danger.”
“We find a road, a passage, a tunnel that’s all of it,” Glen said.
“Say that you do find a road,” Nigel noted. “What happens next? There are things beyond the mountains…, people say even trees can kill you in Wetull.”
“I’ve seen stuff in the Desert that will make your blood freeze,” Glen countered. “People didn’t anything about them, so I don’t trust their words here too.”
“And I believe you, Mister Garth,” Nigel replied. “You obviously made a ton of coins out of that, still… I don’t favor such perilous jobs. Even this,” he pointed around them. “While ambitious, is risky. The war is next door. Why not take your business on Jelin? Or the Peninsula?”
“I’ll think about it,” Glen rustled.
Nigel nodded and tended a hand. “Well, I won’t keep you. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance, Mister Garth. I assure you the Guild will have its door open for you. May Luthos bring you great fortune in your future endeavors and protect your own from harm.”
“Appreciate it Mister Grim,” Glen replied courtly and shook his hand. “I will hold ye to that.”
“You should catch a rest milord,” Alix said after their visitor had vanished behind a dark corner. “The night is still young.”
“Who was that?” Glen asked, the last thing in his mind resting.
“Nigel ‘Nightingale’ Grim is a member of the Thieves Guild obviously,” Alix explained. “Some would say the most important one in the last twenty years.”
“Why is that?” Glen asked with a tired smirk. “Is he a great thief?”
“Sure, but that’s not the reason for it,” Alix explained with an annoying Gish chuckle. “Nigel is Eight’s right hand man.”
“Who the fuck is Eight?” Glen hissed and Alix showed him his small hands, the rosy palms facing away from Glen and the fingers extended, but for both thumbs that were kept hidden.
Get the fuck out!
No fucking way.
Glen always thought Eight was a myth.
Luthos kicked in the soft sand with his big toe
Found a granite boulder under it.
But obviously he wasn’t.
Outlaw shook his mane right then left a day later, his tail following, with every animal in the line mimicking Glen’s horse. Flix was standing on top of the second carriage and checked on everyone arriving for the journey. Soren, big battleaxe over his armoured shoulder. Jinx and Alix already fighting on the first carriage and Sam Mathews, an adventurer from Lesia that had sought out work with the Gallant Dogs hearing good things about them. Crafton had assigned him as guard on the second closed wagon as the man had a very good reputation with the Adventurer’s Guild. Fikumin on his horse, the dwarf looking tiny. Norec wouldn’t make the journey, as he’d business for the Masons Guild to attend to in the city. Another two full blown Gallant Dogs (ex-guards) soldiers that Ottis insisted on bringing along as extra hands, Glen knew from Rida and Sen of course.
His wife stepped out in the early morning sun, face cleaned up and her eyes beaming. Glen pressed his mouth tight, the scare of the previous night still vivid in his memory.
“Don’t go for that grin,” Sen offered a husky warning. “Give me a kiss instead.”
Glen cleared his throat and checked on the still empty road. “There will be time for that—”
Sen stopped him placing a ring-adorned hand on his. She had a white-gold pendant hanging from a chain in it. A beautiful piece of jewelry. It depicted a Capricorn, the emblem of the house Sopat. Glen stared at the expensive pendant, she always wore on her.
“What’s this?” He croaked.
“You gave me a ring in Rida,” Sen whispered and kissed his lips softly. “And a lord’s power. This on the other hand is a reminder. I have another to wear, but this was mine and now it’s yours.”
Glen pulled back, his eyes hazy. “Sen… what are you saying?”
She smiled and gave the stubble on his tanned face a caress. “You haven’t slept in days. Leaving in the middle of the night to stay with the Wyvern. Eyes kept open, when you are not, staring at the ceiling. Your worry, is tearing you down love. I shan’t have it.”
“Once we’re on the road—”
“Once you’re on the road, you will worry even more,” she explained and sighed, looking at the expecting caravan. “I won’t be your shackles. Keeping an eye on me all the time, will have you killed out there. I rather die, than let it happen.”
Glen gulped down, suddenly feeling very weak, almost sick. “I can’t leave you here. I don’t want to.”
“I’m safe here, husband. You build a wall for me, a tower to live in and an army to guard me,” Sen said evenly, as if she’d thought all about it already. “Find that trail my dashing adventurer, open the road for us to follow. Do what you have to do without looking over your shoulder,” his wife had told him her eyes gleaming. “When you do sent for me and I’ll be there as fast as I can. This is my promise. This Capricorn will never break a promise.”
“Three months at the most,” Glen had replied too emotional to say anything more. “I’ll make sure it’s safe and I’ll send a bird to Crafton.”
Mister Garth was never seen again after his explosive premiere in the autumn of 189 NC. The shadowy figure was obviously alive, as deals were struck, trade routes established and tons of loot flooded the markets. His people traveled extensively in the years to come, as they appeared to have shady contacts in almost every port, or friends in high places. Rumors on where he’d gone, or where Garth’s real base of operations was, is a tale of caution. What is truth and what’s not lost in the long nights and the many lies, of the criminal underworld of our Realm, of which the man was a towering figure.
Some of the tales bordering the absurd.
Such as the story that in the winter of 190 NC Mister Garth funded an expedition to Wetull by land, following on the steps of the mythical Ebenezer Framtond. While the famed adventurer left back his journals and a bard’s tales, to keep his adventures well known, nothing came out of the crimelord’s expedition. Some say they were the first victims of the danger that came from the far south, or the idiots that caused it.
Lord Sirio Veturius
Circa 206 NC
The Fall of Heroes
Chapter L
Addendum
-Volume III -
(The Onyx Wyvern’s origins,
Prelude on the mystery of Hardir O’ Fardor,
First month of winter,
190 NC)
Gimoss in Eikenport
artwork by @intheblackcveil based on Grimdux's original concept
Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Character portraits
Glen
Mister Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
Guild’s man and the one that wasn’t
Part II
-Eight’s right hand-
Sensing danger Flix frowned, hand dropping to his harness where he kept his throwing knives. Fikumin, halfway up the saddle let go and dropped down, then turned around alarmed. Nigel –fucking- Grim narrowed his light brown eyes and looked at a pale-faced Glen inquiringly. Ottis grimaced unsure and Alix had still that surprised expression on his face, still focused on the newcomer. Soren didn’t get what was going on and Brock Olin just froze in place for the briefest of moments, still holding Sen’s hand. He then twisted his head around and stared at Glen in turn.
Eyes the color of grass, hazy and unfocused, before clearing up, his bland face ‘changing’ into that of a different character. It wasn’t a pure metamorphosis, nothing Glen could describe with simple words. More a reshuffling of subtle things, along with many insignificant details that were previously missing, or lacking, coming back. Little things filling up the empty spots, livening up the thief’s face. Brock’s upper lip was now pulled back slightly in a half-snarl and his interest had shifted to Glen.
That is, all of Brock’s body parts were still there, but the thief was gone.
Someone else was living now under his skin.
“Who art thou Garth?” The fake Brock asked in a foreign unrecognizable accent. Everything was wrong, down to the color of his voice.
Glen reached for his sword, but Sen’s cry of pain stopped him.
“GLEN!” His wife screamed and tried to pull her hand away from Brock’s steely grip, but failed. Brock smacked his lips pleased hearing the name.
“No secrets,” he crackled in his strange accent and then something opened up a monstrous wound starting on his left shoulder. All the way down in an oblique course, splitting the clavicle and breaking his sternum. It went through the upper rib bones, ruining lungs and peeling flesh and skin outwards in an explosion of blood and bodily fluids.
What in all hells?
Sen snapped away from him, covered in gore, but free and Brock went down on his knees, the hideous face of Gimoss appearing behind him. The corpse pulled hard at the bloody shovel to dislodge it making the wound even worse, Brock’s upper torso now almost split in half.
“Gurth mahta Urdu, Zargatoh O’ Galith!” Gimoss bellowed and kicked the horrifically mutilated Brock down, just as everyone reacted to what they had just witnessed.
“Uher’s light upon us!” Ottis gasped and run to help a shocked Sen.
“Fuckin’ cunt,” that was Jinx.
“Shite,” Alix said, standing next to her.
Glen moved like an automaton towards Gimoss, the living corpse dragging the bleeding body of Brock on the street, heading towards the Mastaba. Flix and Fikumin following after him, with Nigel Grim watching the scene unfolding intrigued, but only mildly surprised.
“Wait!” Glen barked at the back of Gimoss and the corpse stopped and turned his head around, freakish sole eye glaring.
“Move back idiot!” He blasted him and hurled the clearly dead Brock a couple of meters away. “Everyone stay away!”
“The fuck just happened?” Glen growled, not in the mood to entertain his craziness. “What did he do to Sen? The hells is he?”
Gimoss grunted and turned to stare at the disfigured fresh corpse of Brock Olin. Flix that had arrived next to Glen put a hand on his elbow to get his attention. Fikumin had appeared to the old Gish’s right side, the usual scowl on his face transformed into pure rage.
“What’s wrong with the dwarf?” Glen asked still shocked and glanced back at Sen trying to clean herself up, but appearing unharmed. Ottis and the others were standing protectively around her.
Fikumin only managed a low guttural snarl, his eyes peeled on the dead thief.
“Gurth mahta Urdu, translates to ‘Elder Bonemancer’ from Imperial,” Flix explained. “The name I don’t know. The Dwarf has lost a loved one to them. You never forget that.”
Dammit.
Glen remembered it then. The details of the story horrific. He smacked his lips, mouth dry and still in a state of mild shock, turned to the silent Gimoss again.
“Who was that guy? What just happened here for crying out loud?”
Gimoss snorted and the dead body that was, or wasn’t Brock Olin started shaking allover violently and then attempted to get up.
Good fuckin’ grief, what is this shite?
Brock still almost split down the middle, the cratering wound ending above his midriff and the whole left part of him floundering back and forth, snapped white bones and ruined internal organs visible, gasped a gurgling incoherent sound. He’d run out of blood to spill, a dark stain on the street where Gimoss had dragged him, but still fleshly bits kept dropping off as he stood up.
“How in Luthos shriveled balls,” a freaked out Glen murmured, remembering the corpse in Lebesos coming back to life and Flix bumped onto him, as he moved to attack again.
“Stay back!” Gimoss blasted the old Gish, who hissed but paused with his daggers in hand. “I need to know where the fucker is!”
“What?” Glen gasped and raised his sword. “Move aside yer insane bag of rot!”
Brock stumbled forward, eyes bloodshot and mouth hanging open, blood on his teeth. He made two steps past a scowling Gimoss and then Fikumin appeared in front of him, a hammer in hand. He swung at the faltering Brock and got him at his right knee, the sound of bone breaking crackling in the shocked to silence street disturbing. It brought him down again, piece of bone protruding out of his torn pants, but Brock kept moving using his right hand to drag himself forward. Glen advanced on him in turn, vomit in his throat and hacked at the crawling impostor’s back once.
His blade severed the maimed Brock’s spine and Glen pulled back, when that didn’t stop him. The former thief glanced back saw a pale-faced Jinx approach carrying a lit torch and grunted. The Gish tossed him the torch and Glen caught it, sparks dancing over his head, the night dark around them and eerie quiet, but for Brock’s creepy guttural sounds.
“He’s gone,” Gimoss snorted, watching them. He had the shovel stabbed on the street and his arms crossed on his chest. “This is pointless!”
“The fuck are ye talking about?” Jinx snapped at him. “That bloody cunt is still moving!”
“So what?” Gimoss snapped back at her. “Everyone here is moving!”
Glen stooped and dropped the oil-drenched torch on Brock setting his clothes on fire. They needed more oil, he decided.
“Didn’t you just said he’s dangerous?” Jinx asked the other corpse present.
“That was then, stupid harlot!” Gimoss barked, enraged at her stupidity.
“Did ye just call… ye ugly one-eyed cunt!” Jinx hissed and rushed him. Gimoss took a punch on the mouth, lip splitting, then a kick to the jewels and an elbow to the chest, before backhanding the small Gish and sending her plummeting down the street’s gravel senseless.
“Enough!” Glen rustled and glared at Gimoss. “Don’t ever hit her again!”
“Or what?” Gimoss retorted with a bloody grin.
He had a point there.
Still Glen couldn’t allow him to keep on slapping his friends around.
“Don’t push it you fuckin’ freak!” Glen growled and walked up to him, grinding his teeth. “You’ll regret it.”
“Hah…haha…Ahahaha!” Gimoss roared in his face, not intimidated at all.
“Garth,” Flix said from behind his back. “This is not the place to solve this. Check on your wife. I’ll take care of young Jinx.”
Sen kept wiping her stained face with a cloth, her hands shaking, when Glen reached this separate group near the wagons. Ottis made room for him and Glen kneeled next to his shaken wife.
“He’s dead,” he told her and Sen nodded. “Come, let me get you inside,” Glen murmured and helped her up. They crossed the street and stopped at the entrance of the Watchtower. Sen sat down on the step and stared at the bloody cloth in her hands.
“I’m fine,” she told him, sensing his eyes on her. “He just grabbed me too hard. I got scared more than hurt,” Sen breathed once and exhaled trying to calm herself down. “Who was he?”
Glen pressed his lips tight. “Not who he said obviously.”
“But you know,” Sen murmured.
“No sweetheart, I don’t,” Glen admitted. “I have an idea, but this was the first time…” He paused and grimaced, feeling a chill despite the night being warm.
“I have blood on me,” Sen said.
“We’ll get it cleaned.”
“Is that the bounty hunter?” She asked.
“No. That was something different,” Glen murmured.
“What did you mean before? Whatever you asked, it triggered that thing,” she raised her eyes on him. “Was that magic?”
Not any magic I’ve ever seen before. Although Fikumin has apparently.
Could he tell her any of that?
“I’ll find out,” Glen replied finally. “At this point I don’t know.”
“Did the dagger warn you?”
No it didn’t.
No one did, other than Gimoss who knew.
“Instinct,” Glen said and it was closer to the truth than anything else at that moment.
Glen burst inside the Mastaba, the caravan’s departure postponed and headed straight for the large pit burning bright inside. Fikumin kept adding firewood, with Gimoss and Flix standing to the side and watching. Biscuit was nowhere to be seen.
“How the fuck did you know?” Glen growled, his shock turning slowly to a seething anger.
“Garth,” Flix warned him, but Glen had enough.
“Are you going to answer?” He asked the possessed corpse they’d brought back from the Desert.
“Why? It won’t help you,” Gimoss grunted. “Or me.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I do. You can’t bullshit me fool! Fraud!”
“Gimoss,” Flix admonished him. “He needs to know.”
“As do you,” Fikumin said to the corpse, stepping away from the fire.
“Me?” Gimoss asked. “None stupider than the Folk, with the dwarfs the kings of the lot. You run out of stones use a dwarf!”
Fikumin glared at Glen. “What in Luthos’ beard did you bring with you?”
“He’s a Wyvern,” Glen explained. “A dead one. Ye need some time to get used to his character.”
A lot of it.
The dwarf stared at him blankly.
“They are Aken on Eplas. Bonemancers, does he know it?” He finally said.
“Where?” Gimoss asked.
“We killed one on the mountains near Hellfort,” Fikumin explained.
“Haha…Ahahaha…Hah!”
Fikumin blinked, not expecting the corpse’s response.
“He’s a bit difficult to deal with,” Glen elucidated. “I swear he’s aged me a couple of years since I’ve met him.”
“Gimoss please explain to them, even if it’s elementary, or demeaning for you,” Flix said patiently. “They are too young.”
“Why?” Gimoss asked him and then clenching his jaw. “It’s a waste of time!”
“Sometimes it isn’t. You know that,” Flix replied calmly.
Gimoss grunted and grabbed the iron shaft of his shovel with both hands.
“You can’t kill an Aken that easy. Not unless it’s an idiot, or you corner it. Even then, it’s paramount to destroy everything in a great area, just to be certain they haven’t gotten away.”
“I’m pretty sure we did,” Fikumin countered.
“Because it looked like one?” Gimoss grinned hideously. “Was he missing any bones?”
“A couple of fingers.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. What does it mean?” Fikumin asked, crooking his mouth.
“The bones you use, can’t be remade on the construct. What you killed had at least two made,” Gimoss said. “But it doesn’t mean anything. An Elder could have had ten copies of himself running about, or more. It’s a matter of pain resistance and skill.”
Fikumin frowned.
“What about this one? He looked like a man,” Glen asked.
“Same principle, just different bones. The artist behind though leaves a sign. I knew him,” Gimoss finally said, unbothered at the leaking split lip he sported. “The moment I heard his voice, it came to me.”
“Brock was thirty years old at the most,” Glen argued. “You were a ghost for a millennia.”
“Bodiless,” Gimoss said. “It’s not the same!”
“Fine,” Glen yielded. “What about what I said?”
Gimoss smacked his lips. “You expect an answer?”
“Yes?”
“That wasn’t Brock,” Gimoss explained. “It was a copy of Brock. But what made him tick is the same in every body. The same set of simple instructions to get them through life and perform their missions. Everyone has their touches. Distinct. But for a while Zargatoh himself was here. I need to find him!”
“I’ve no idea what the fuck yer talkin’ about,” Glen blurted.
“A construct,” Fikumin agreed with Gimoss, apparently an expert on the topic as well. Glen grimaced exasperated. “Made by the same bonemancer. After a while, they are impossible to separate from humans.”
Made he says. Fantastic.
Just like a kettle of soup.
“This dwarf isn’t completely stupid,” Gimoss said. “I’m astounded.”
Glen couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept and puffed out even more confused than before. “So what do we do? We run around asking people, how they died?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Gimoss said. “You won’t be able to surprise him again.”
“Why?”
“Every one of his creatures knows you now,” Gimoss explained. “They don’t really, but he does so they’ll know if you cross paths with one when he’s looking through them. It’s simple!”
It was the most confusing shit Glen had ever heard in his life.
“What does he know?” Glen asked tiredly not likening the sound of what he managed to glean and with a groan of frustration the corpse had answered him.
A troubled Glen walked out of the Mastaba and crossed the street again to head for the Watch Tower, a patrol of Gallant Dogs greeting him on the way. At the entrance Alix was waiting for him, Nigel Grim standing about a meter apart and to the side, with his back on the wall of the tower and that hood still over his head. A whiff of white hair showing under it.
“Where’s Whisper?” Glen asked the male Gish and he raised a questioning brow.
“Few call her that, Mister Garth,” Alix noticed. “It’s a human name. Gish have only one. Like me she’s taken it to blend in.”
“It’s her name, all of it. I’ll call her whatever I plaguin’ like,” Glen argued brusquely. “And there’s no way you’d ever blend in Gish. You’re like a white turd in a tomato soup.”
“She’s upstairs with Lady Sen-Iv,” Alix said riding the insult like a pro.
“Move aside,” Glen rustled, not in the mood for his shenanigans.
“A word, Mister Garth, if I may,” Nigel said in common. Glen stared at him.
“Nigel Grim,” he said and the man nodded. Glen made him around forty, but he had the vigor of a younger man. “How did you get through my wall and patrols?”
“Come on,” Nigel said getting off the wall. He had a fantastic pair of soft leather boots on, Glen noticed. “The wall is full of holes, brimming wit blind spots and the guards are too few and between. Even so, when you finish it, people will still come to visit unannounced I’m certain.”
“What kind of people?” Glen asked him.
“Curious. Greedy,” Nigel had a pleasant smile, his teeth well preserved. “Sometimes dangerous.”
“What kind are you?”
“A little bit of everything I suppose. But I wasn’t here for you Garth,” Nigel replied.
“Go on,” Glen said crossing his arms on his chest.
“I was looking for the man your people killed earlier, Brock Olin. And another matter, of more personal nature.”
“You’ve seen what he was,” Glen noted.
Nigel shrugged his shoulders, the knives on the harness he wore underneath his cape making a clinking sound.
“I’m not sure what I saw, but I know this wasn’t Brock.”
“Really? Care to elaborate?”
“I recruited Brock myself in the business,” Nigel said, glancing at a silently watching Alix.
“Garth is a friend of the Guild,” the Gish said.
“As I said,” Nigel continued a little more relaxed. “I recruited him about ten years back. Brock had talent aye. Pulled off some crazy… jobs in his time. He also died trying to navigate a tight hemp rope, about five years back to the date.”
“They hanged him?” Glen chanced and Nigel frowned.
“Nay, I meant navigate a tight rope literally, as from one building to another across a large street. It seemed like a good idea.”
Ah.
“He slipped?” Glen hazarded a guess.
“The rope failed. It snapped. A touch of bad luck. He dropped three stories on to freshly installed cobblestone. Too hard for his bones.”
“Where was that?”
“A city with a port,” Nigel replied vaguely. “The man was killed instantly. I was there.”
“Then Brock popped up in Eikenport again,” Glen said.
“A couple of years ago,” Nigel continued with a nod of agreement. “An… associate of sorts visited the place and talked with him. Reported of a Guild’s member loitering in Eikenport. The word made the rounds and it reached my ears.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Glen asked with a sigh.
“I haven’t. Then again, perhaps killing him wasn’t the right idea.”
“He didn’t give me much choice,” Glen rustled.
“I understand,” Nigel said reassuringly. “I would’ve done the same in your place.”
“What personal business?” Glen asked him, not wanting to talk about Sen with him.
“I have a younger brother sailing in these ports. Thought I could catch up with him,” Nigel Grim replied and crooked his mouth, face shaven underneath. “Next time, I guess.”
Glen caught Alix’s stare and frowned.
“Brock was to be a guide of sorts,” he said instead, leaving the matter aside.
“I heard,” Nigel scratched around the knob at his throat with a couple of gloved fingers. “A risky job what you have planned Mister Garth.”
“The Guild is not interested then?”
“Ah, of course they are. But this a dangerous one. Thieves don’t like danger.”
“We find a road, a passage, a tunnel that’s all of it,” Glen said.
“Say that you do find a road,” Nigel noted. “What happens next? There are things beyond the mountains…, people say even trees can kill you in Wetull.”
“I’ve seen stuff in the Desert that will make your blood freeze,” Glen countered. “People didn’t anything about them, so I don’t trust their words here too.”
“And I believe you, Mister Garth,” Nigel replied. “You obviously made a ton of coins out of that, still… I don’t favor such perilous jobs. Even this,” he pointed around them. “While ambitious, is risky. The war is next door. Why not take your business on Jelin? Or the Peninsula?”
“I’ll think about it,” Glen rustled.
Nigel nodded and tended a hand. “Well, I won’t keep you. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance, Mister Garth. I assure you the Guild will have its door open for you. May Luthos bring you great fortune in your future endeavors and protect your own from harm.”
“Appreciate it Mister Grim,” Glen replied courtly and shook his hand. “I will hold ye to that.”
“You should catch a rest milord,” Alix said after their visitor had vanished behind a dark corner. “The night is still young.”
“Who was that?” Glen asked, the last thing in his mind resting.
“Nigel ‘Nightingale’ Grim is a member of the Thieves Guild obviously,” Alix explained. “Some would say the most important one in the last twenty years.”
“Why is that?” Glen asked with a tired smirk. “Is he a great thief?”
“Sure, but that’s not the reason for it,” Alix explained with an annoying Gish chuckle. “Nigel is Eight’s right hand man.”
“Who the fuck is Eight?” Glen hissed and Alix showed him his small hands, the rosy palms facing away from Glen and the fingers extended, but for both thumbs that were kept hidden.
Get the fuck out!
No fucking way.
Glen always thought Eight was a myth.
Luthos kicked in the soft sand with his big toe
Found a granite boulder under it.
But obviously he wasn’t.
Outlaw shook his mane right then left a day later, his tail following, with every animal in the line mimicking Glen’s horse. Flix was standing on top of the second carriage and checked on everyone arriving for the journey. Soren, big battleaxe over his armoured shoulder. Jinx and Alix already fighting on the first carriage and Sam Mathews, an adventurer from Lesia that had sought out work with the Gallant Dogs hearing good things about them. Crafton had assigned him as guard on the second closed wagon as the man had a very good reputation with the Adventurer’s Guild. Fikumin on his horse, the dwarf looking tiny. Norec wouldn’t make the journey, as he’d business for the Masons Guild to attend to in the city. Another two full blown Gallant Dogs (ex-guards) soldiers that Ottis insisted on bringing along as extra hands, Glen knew from Rida and Sen of course.
His wife stepped out in the early morning sun, face cleaned up and her eyes beaming. Glen pressed his mouth tight, the scare of the previous night still vivid in his memory.
“Don’t go for that grin,” Sen offered a husky warning. “Give me a kiss instead.”
Glen cleared his throat and checked on the still empty road. “There will be time for that—”
Sen stopped him placing a ring-adorned hand on his. She had a white-gold pendant hanging from a chain in it. A beautiful piece of jewelry. It depicted a Capricorn, the emblem of the house Sopat. Glen stared at the expensive pendant, she always wore on her.
“What’s this?” He croaked.
“You gave me a ring in Rida,” Sen whispered and kissed his lips softly. “And a lord’s power. This on the other hand is a reminder. I have another to wear, but this was mine and now it’s yours.”
Glen pulled back, his eyes hazy. “Sen… what are you saying?”
She smiled and gave the stubble on his tanned face a caress. “You haven’t slept in days. Leaving in the middle of the night to stay with the Wyvern. Eyes kept open, when you are not, staring at the ceiling. Your worry, is tearing you down love. I shan’t have it.”
“Once we’re on the road—”
“Once you’re on the road, you will worry even more,” she explained and sighed, looking at the expecting caravan. “I won’t be your shackles. Keeping an eye on me all the time, will have you killed out there. I rather die, than let it happen.”
Glen gulped down, suddenly feeling very weak, almost sick. “I can’t leave you here. I don’t want to.”
“I’m safe here, husband. You build a wall for me, a tower to live in and an army to guard me,” Sen said evenly, as if she’d thought all about it already. “Find that trail my dashing adventurer, open the road for us to follow. Do what you have to do without looking over your shoulder,” his wife had told him her eyes gleaming. “When you do sent for me and I’ll be there as fast as I can. This is my promise. This Capricorn will never break a promise.”
“Three months at the most,” Glen had replied too emotional to say anything more. “I’ll make sure it’s safe and I’ll send a bird to Crafton.”
Mister Garth was never seen again after his explosive premiere in the autumn of 189 NC. The shadowy figure was obviously alive, as deals were struck, trade routes established and tons of loot flooded the markets. His people traveled extensively in the years to come, as they appeared to have shady contacts in almost every port, or friends in high places. Rumors on where he’d gone, or where Garth’s real base of operations was, is a tale of caution. What is truth and what’s not lost in the long nights and the many lies, of the criminal underworld of our Realm, of which the man was a towering figure.
Some of the tales bordering the absurd.
Such as the story that in the winter of 190 NC Mister Garth funded an expedition to Wetull by land, following on the steps of the mythical Ebenezer Framtond. While the famed adventurer left back his journals and a bard’s tales, to keep his adventures well known, nothing came out of the crimelord’s expedition. Some say they were the first victims of the danger that came from the far south, or the idiots that caused it.
Lord Sirio Veturius
Circa 206 NC
The Fall of Heroes
Chapter L
Addendum
-Volume III -
(The Onyx Wyvern’s origins,
Prelude on the mystery of Hardir O’ Fardor,
First month of winter,
190 NC)
Gimoss in Eikenport
artwork by @intheblackcveil based on Grimdux's original concept
