Finally, I heard the scream I was waiting for. It was a woman’s voice, as expected. The fiends never attack men. All men of Delnash are warriors. However, a single man isn’t strong enough to face a fiend; hence men always roam in numbers. As friends can’t ambush a group of men, they prey on the woman. Unlike other nations of Iram, Delnashs do not train their women in combat. They believe women are weak, and only good for breeding and nurturing. It costs them valuable lives and has made Delnash, the fiends’ heaven, unacceptable to the Mer Society. Therefore, they sent me. My name is Tal Odis. People have many names for me, mostly bad. Still, they don’t doubt I am the best fiend-killer in Iram.

I jumped down from the Temple of Goddess Nira. Rune-embroidered clothes slowed my descent, so I fell silent as a cat. I ran southward. I heard the boots of Delnash warriors running over cobbled streets. I ran faster to avoid them. The fiend howled. The fiend has killed its prey already! I heard another fiend howling in the west. Great Krutus, there is more than one! 

I picked up speed and climbed over the red wall of one of the numerous cloth factories. I found the fiend kneeling over a prone woman, feasting on her heart. As almost all the factory workers are women, I was not surprised to see that the fiend had attacked the factory. Since the woman had never stayed in the factory this late, I wondered what she was doing there. As I jumped over the bales of cotton stacked against the factory wall, I pulled my katana from the sheath on my back and raised it high.

Fiend hissed at me. A forked tongue flicked out to taste my scent. It crawled back, not liking what it found. As I reached the woman’s corpse, the fiend lunged at me. Without pause, I swept my blade through its neck. Fiend’s head rolled away. I jumped sideways to avoid a spurt of blood. 

Fiend’s flattened face is a cross between wolf and bat, but its body is man-shaped with long arms and muscular legs. Its long yellow claws can tear a man in half, but the most frightening feature of the fiend is the red runes tattooed on its body. Who has made friends? Mer Society is dying to know, but we have found no clue. Once dead, fiends’ corpses rot quickly, so it is difficult to study the runes. No one has ever captured a live fiend.

Hearing a scream from the west, I jumped over the wall into the street and sprinted toward Marble Town. I found a second fiend in the back alley, the shredded body of a harlot at its feet. Three warriors were struggling to pin it to the wall with spears. As I watched, fiend clawed at the wood of a spear and broke it in half. Before it could lunge at the unfortunate man, two more warriors rushed into the alley and thrust their spears into the fiend’s belly. A fiend cannot die with normal steel, so I grabbed my throwing knife carved with the rune of death and launched it at the fiend. The knife pierced its left eye. Fiend coughed and died. Before warriors could see me, I scampered. 

Mer society has sent me to rid Delnash of the fiends, but they have not asked anybody’s permission. As far as Delnash’s constabulary was concerned, I was as much nuisance as the fiends. They hated vigilantes, and their concern was genuine. Seeing that the last man they let run amuck delivering justice overthrew their council and proclaimed himself King. Hence, I ran away and returned to my perch in Goddess Nira’s temple.

Fiends always attack at dusk, so at half past nine, I abandoned my watch over Temple’s roof, climbed down, and disappeared in Delni’s numerous alleys. City Delni is warren of narrow streets. Some scholars believe that humanity started here. Countless ruins surrounding the city have solidified their claims. They claim that at least five civilizations have lived and died on the banks of River Nira. Seeing Delnash’s vibrant culture, with seven different religions and at least twenty castes living side by side, I believe them. King Yasuka might have plunged the nation in blood in his unification war, but he has brought the castes together. Hundred and five years ago, Delnash was a bad place where caste wars and religious riots were commonplace, and sacrificing outsiders to their hungry gods like chattel wasn’t forbidden. At least they only sacrifice criminals now.

I reached my two-story home an hour later, exhausted from the hunt. Delni is a big city, so it is hard to protect alone if one doesn’t know where friends will attack. Fortunately, Mer has taught me scrying, so I roughly knew where friends would attack. 

Most people believed that scrying is demonic art. They believe the god of fate, Timastu’s curse will fall on anyone playing with threads of fate. Mer Society doesn’t believe in gods, so we never cared. As scrying has saved society from attacks from Monarchs multiple times, those who learned this art have a special place in Society. Hence, I was surprised when the arch-hunter sent me to Delnash. Society has no shortage of hunters. We can easily spare four or five hunters for Delnash, but the arch-hunter has refused to change my mission. I have been in Delnash for a year and a half, killing fiends. Saving people’s lives is rewarding work, but I knew it was beneath me. Society could use me in more important missions like keeping Monarchs in control.

Monarchs of Iram do not like Mer Society. Other than Lithia, all eleven countries of Iram have banned the society. Their soldiers pursued Society members. They have never caught a single genuine member of Mer Society, so we tolerate the Monarch, but sometimes we have to send a strong message. Society is not evil, but we can’t let Monarchs wrongly persecute innocent people in the name of Society.

When I returned, the stew I had left to simmer had thickened to jelly. Still, it was better than Delni’s favored pickled fish. Before going to bed, I climbed into my attic. There I lit a cigarette of blue leaves, which calmed the mind and helped in scrying. As I gazed into the depths of a crystal ball, clouds in the ball swirled like a storm, but they remained pristine white. The near future seemed turbulent but not evil. Delnash is a pot of snakes where no day passes by without loot, murder, and raping of some unfortunate, so the clouds in my crystal ball always kept roiling. Until the clouds turned red, I never bared my katana, as I hadn’t come to avenge the poor. I came to kill fiends.

My dreams were full of jagged mountains and deep valleys where Mer trains their hunters. I remembered the pain of my master’s lashes and my fellows’ taunts. The years I spent in the mountains were the best and worst of my life. Sometimes I wanted to forget those years, but I could not, as I was nothing without society.

I woke at dawn drenched in sweat, remembering vividly the slaughter of my village to fiends’ claws and canines. Mer hunter has pulled me out of the wreckage of my father’s hut and recruited me, thus starting my brutal journey. I prayed to Krutus that no child has to face my fate again. 

After ablutions, I went to Ulmi’s home to fetch a pail of cow’s milk. She was of the Murdu caste, which rears milk-bearing animals and worships goddess Nira’s second avatar Murmi. Murmi’s statutes depict her as a woman having a cow’s torso. It is a bizarre religion, but I stay away from other religions. Ulmi was an old woman who ran a farm of several hundred cows, goats, and sheep. While her many sons guarded their livestock in pastures outside the city, Ulmi and her daughters came to Lim’s square, where I lived, to sell milk, cheese, and butter. Like the milk, Ulmi’s daughters were also pale with big blue eyes and brown-golden hair. If flirting with Murdu women was not an immediate death sentence, I might have risked it.  

After returning home, I made porridge and ate it with honey. Climbing the stairs, I opened my pawnshop, the only way to hide my identity. No one knew how long the pawnshop had stood in Delni before I came. People knew me as Tal Benif, Ola Benif’s nephew, a Society member before me running the pawnshop. Surgeons have alerted my face enough to legitimize my claim. No one can accuse Society of not thinking ahead. Before I knew I was to come to Delnash, the people of Lim’s Town knew that Ola’s nephew would one day come here to take over her business. The big portrait of Ola and her nephew Tal hanging on the wall was proof of Society’s cunning. Now another portrait depicting Tal and his sister Tani hung beside Olaf’s. In the last ten years, I have changed so many faces and names that I have forgotten what I originally looked like. 

My shop was in a poor part of the city, so I rarely found anything more expensive than a thousand Tanas. The junk in my shop, like old copper, bronze, and rare silver jewelry cost less than the boots I wore, so I never worried about thieves. However, running a pawnshop was boring work. Nothing exciting happened in the shop. Soon I doze off.

A chime sounded, and I jerked awake. I looked up and found a bronze-skinned woman wearing a blue skirt and white blouse entering my shop. A seven-colored scarf covered her head, as is the custom of the Siran people. Siran are mainly aristocrats of Delnash, as King Yasuka belonged to Siran. However, he has appeased other castes by marrying his sons, daughters, nephews, and nieces into them. He has begun a new religion combining all seven gods that have gained popularity among opportunists. Siran woman’s eyes were green like moss, which told me the impurity of her blood. A few strands of red hair escaped her scarf. She was the first Hini I had seen in Lim’s Square. This part of the city was poor because they had denied King Yasuka’s liberal policies of multi-religion and intermarriage. Hence, they were intolerant of Hini. Why has she risked her life coming here?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

She approached my counter, licked her cherry lips, and breathed deeply. Why is she nervous? I glanced at my open doorway and found a brown-skinned Bani boy leaning against the bakery wall, staring at my shop. Ignoring him, I turned to the woman rubbing her hands together and slightly shivering. 

“How can I help you?” I asked her.

She jumped a little. “Huh?” she uttered, then sighed. “Um…do you pawn…things?” she asked me, then chuckled. “Of course, you pawn things. Sorry, I am a little tired. It’s hot today.”

“Do you have something for me?”

She nodded and gulped. Unclenching her hands, she pulled a silver figurine of a charging lion from her pouch. It was a small piece, but the emeralds in its eyes piqued my interest. If emeralds were real, they would cost more than my shop. I hefted the silver lion and inspected the gems under the mirror. Gems were genuine. However, I hid my interest. In this poor town, I couldn’t keep such expensive jewels. Even if I wanted to buy the piece, I couldn’t explain the high price I would pay.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“It is a fine piece of jewelry,” I said. “What are you looking for?”

She perked up. “It is at least thirty thousand tanas, but I am asking only twenty-five,” she pled. “I am in dire need, as you can guess.”

I scoffed. “You don’t say.” 

“I am not lying,” she protested. “I have made inquiries.”

“Miss…,” I said. “…I don’t mistrust you. I know the lion’s value, but I am surprised that you think I have this much money to give you. Haven’t you noticed? This is Lim’s Town. You can buy all ten shops on this street with twenty-five thousand tanas. This piece will fetch a great price in the harbor bazaar or Marble District.”

She withered a little. “I cannot go there,” she told me. “Please, I am open to negotiation.”

Taken aback by her desperation and her academic language, I sighed. I wanted to help this woman. I can tell lies most of the time. Scrying tunes a mind to seek truths. “Is it stolen?” I asked her, but I knew she was telling the truth.

“NO…,” she cried.

 “Can you tell me why you can’t sell it elsewhere?” I asked, convinced by her reaction that she hadn’t stolen the carving.

She bit her lip. My heart raced a little. Being an owner of a pawnshop who dealt with morally degraded individuals has left me starved for decent women’s intimacy. Since I hated using harlots, it has been a long time. “…my family wants this piece too, and they will find out if I sell it there.”

Her answer put more questions in my head. Will her family follow her here? Who is her family anyway? Her beauty has stirred my loins, so I agreed to buy from her against my best judgment. I wrote her a cheque of twenty thousand tanas, then paid the hopeful Bani ten tanas to follow her. No careless person can survive in Mer Society.

A Bani boy named Vilat whistled to my shop in the late afternoon, waking me up. “Whadyu duat nighttime?” he asked.

I blinked several times before I got his meaning. “As you can see, customers aren’t lining up to meet me,” I said, stretching. I glanced at Bani’s mud-stained shoes and wrinkled my nose as he yawned, assaulting me with a fish smell. There is only one place in Delni where fresh fish and mud can be found. “She bordered a ship?” I surmised. 

Boy’s eyes went wide, and he nodded. “How’unow?”

“Speak slowly,” I scolded him, but he just shrugged. “Did she go to the bank?”

“Straight away…,” he said slowly.

“So you can speak plainly,” I said. Bani is a clever person and master of deception. I’ve seen none using their brains for honest work, though. “Did she go somewhere else?”

“Naa,” he drawled. “Took moony’ then took caach for harboor.”

I sighed. “Which ship did she take?”

He chuckled. “The moon bound,” he said.

“Ranim’s ship…!” I yelled.

He laughed harder. “You won’t be seeing her again,” he said in clear Nashin language. “Shudda lemmy steal ur’moony,” he drawled in his strange slang again and strode out the door. 

I breathed in deep and let out slowly, then I closed my shop and climbed the stairs to my home upstairs. Poor girl, I hoped she had someone looking after her. Ranim is known for ripping his clients off and stranding them on islands if they are lucky. He has been running his dirty business for years, but no one has complained about him. I suspected he was paying the dock master and head constable. Corruption is so rampant in Delnash that no one can pull out this weed that’s been choking Delni’s poor. Nira’s tears! I hope she is okay. I scryed the ball again in the evening and saw no red clouds. First time in years, I wished for friends to attack. I wanted to kill something. I slept fitfully, plagued by nightmares of a red-haired woman drowning in the sea. 

A week I was passed without fiends' attack for the first time in a year and a half. Sometimes I worried if my scrying skill had waned, but I didn’t hear of any fiend attacks either. Why have they stopped attacking? I didn’t believe that I had killed all my friends. Friends weren’t natural beasts but manmade weapons. THEY WERE STILL ALIVE unless I or some other hunter had killed the man responsible for making friends. Have they gone somewhere else? I didn’t believe that I had scared the fiends away. 

Freed up from killing fiends, I have plenty of time to pursue other interests. Since I wasn’t interested in my shop or normal people’s other interests. I decided to find out what happened to the red-haired Sorin girl. 

Tal Benif’s account was with the Bank of Delni, which was in Harbour Bazaar, surrounded by offices of various shipping and trading companies. Thankfully, unlike other cities, Delni’s harbor lacked warehouses; hence harbor was relatively clean. The northern bank of the River was covered in various bazaars. In contrast, the southern bank was dedicated to the temple of Goddess Nira, Shina, and Nagi- the holy trinity of three sisters- making the Delnashi religion’s base. Their avatars, Murmi, Jimani, and Elna, have large following also, but most of their temples were outside the city. Some scholars have argued that Murmi, Jimani, and Elna were tribal goddesses that the holy trinity had accumulated in their religion to negate the influence of tribal goddesses. Nira, Shina, and Nagi followers have stoned those scholars to death and burned their books. I doubted anyone else outside Society even knew about those poor scholars. 

The Bank of Delni was a five-story building made of granite and surrounded by guards wearing steel armor. As I stepped into the building, a chilling sensation passed over me. I have become used to the sensation; however, the first time I discovered the runes carved into the doorway, I almost lost my balance. I didn’t know that anyone outside Society also possessed knowledge of rune carving. Since then, I have seen many temples, company buildings, banks, and ships carved with powerful runes. Delnash truly is the progenitor of civilization. No other nation has so many secrets and surprises stored in its belly. 

I went straight to the bank’s teller Jinesh who kept my books with the bank. The man was portly with a receding hairline but wore blue robes of shiny silver with the bank’s logo of the coiled dragon sitting atop gold on his back. He adjusted his spectacles as I walked into his office and smiled. “I was wondering when you will show up,” he said.

I wasn’t surprised. Bankers were manly spies whose job was to determine how much money a person had and where he was spending it. “What was her name?”

Jinesh snorted. “For a pawnshop owner, you are not…very perceptive,” he said and smiled. “Sit down, please. Shall I pour you something?”

“No,” I said. “I have come to stave my curiosity.” I sighed. “Truthfully, I was swayed by her beauty and want to make acquaintance with her again.”

Jinesh hummed leaned back in his seat, and watched me like an eagle watches its prey. I sat down and stretched my neck. I have been very tense lately. I wasn’t used to this feeling. “I don’t believe you don’t know where she went,” Jinesh said when he saw I had relaxed somewhat.

“Ranim…,” I said as I gazed at the golden sunlight painted on the ceiling of the banker’s office.

“His ship hasn’t…returned yet,” he told me.

I looked down at him. “Will you tell me who she is?”

Jinesh glanced at his door and licked his lips. He leaned forward and beckoned me closer. I bent my ear toward him. “No one but I know. Make sure it doesn’t get out,” he whispered. “She is the king’s youngest daughter, and you gave her money to run away. We can both end up hanging by the pole if we aren’t careful.”

My heart raced for a few seconds, but it calmed instantly. Finally, I have found something interesting. Maybe Delnash isn’t going to become a boring mission.