Shylldra

They'd saved as much of the indricotherium as they could and pulled the carcass well off the road before moving on. They'd also put up a few markers to warn of a big kill in the area that might attract predators. Word would spread, and before too long scavengers and time would take the problem away. There wasn't room for four in the front of the cart, so Norak and Dyryl traveled in the back while Hallek took the reins.

“We are messengers,” Norak said as they traveled. “I am grandson of the Birdfang chieftain, Dyryl is daughter of our greatest priestess. A week or two ago a meeting was held, and Birdfang was chosen by the three great tribes to submit our complaints to your emperor. They sent us. But we never got to see anyone worth talking to, just a bunch of functionaries.”

“What's going on with the tribes?” Shylldra asked.

“Lekarik hasn't been very...energetic about keeping up the empire's end of the treaty,” Dyryl said. “We're not talking about twelfth emperor Shakk or anything, he doesn't hate us. He just doesn't seem to care. Our petitions haven't been getting heard by local magistrates, the empire's end of some of the land work hasn't been getting done, things like that. It's not a catastrophe but when things start breaking down between the tribes and the empire we get nervous.”

“And some of our people start talking like idiots,” Norak growled. “Why's everyone so obsessed with the idea of war, anyway?”

“It's not that bad is it?” Shylldra gasped.

“No,” Norak said. “It's just hotheads. But Lekarik's been giving them more excuse than usual. Refusing to see us will not help. Especially since I don't think anyone bothered to tell him we were there.”

The thought was a little somber for the bright afternoon, so Shylldra decided to try and change the subject.

“So your mother is a priestess?” Shylldra asked.

“Oh yeah,” Dyryl said excitedly. “One of the greatest. Of the Hunt Spirits. The tribes honor Maia but we prefer the souls of the great hunters or the great beasts. Gods a little lower down, you know? Closer to us mortals.”

“It doesn't bother me,” Shylldra shrugged. “Maia's not a particularly jealous god. And if you want to get into a religious argument I could point out how your obvious respect for your mother honors Maia...”

“I don't. That kind of thing makes my head hurt. I leave the gods to her. Though Norak and I were lucky enough to talk her into infusing our tattoos herself.”

“They do look beautiful,” Shylldra said. Infusing the body was...tricky. Not unheard of, some cultures made it a ritual or a rite of passage. But there a very high chance the person being infused would die. If they were lucky. If they were unlucky the result was a monster. And every so often someone would try to infuse with human bone and blood and soul. The resulting horrors were always killed immediately. Except for the ones rumors said still lurked in the dark somewhere, which should give you an impression of the kind of thing we're talking about.

But the soul of a dinosaur could grant powers. Strength, speed, senses, or even more strange and exotic things. Most people used an infused weapon, armor, or something similar to gain those powers. Some took the risk and infused their bodies, sometimes catastrophically failing. The forest tribes had a different answer. The tattoos on their bodies were special ink mixed with dinosaur blood. A one-useinfusion that could be called on for a few seconds of power, burning the tattoo away and leaving a scar. It was why they were called the Scarred Men.

“Are you two married?” Shylldra asked. They both burst into laughter.

“What's so funny?” Hallek asked. “I think you two make a cute couple.”

“Spirits I hope not,” Dyryl giggled. “He's my half brother.”

“Oh gods,” Shylldra groaned, hiding her face in her hands. “You did say he was your brother, I'm so sorry!”

“Don't be,” Dyryl laughed. “So where are the both of you headed?”

“Well I'm going to Tivik,” Hallek said. “I don't know...”

“I'm going to Tivik too,” Shylldra said.

“Really?” Hallek asked. “Are you sure?”

“For now anyway,” she shrugged. It wasn't like she had any further direction. Maybe in Tivik the path would become clear.

“That's right on the way back to Birdfang,” Norak said. “And even closer to Maukra's home. Dyryl wants to visit.”

“We should travel together!” Dyryl said. “Something's been wrong with the forest lately, it's safer in a group.”

“Besides,” Norak grinned. “Hallek here has a good sword arm for a city man. I'd like a chance to spar.”

“That's terrifying. But sure, why not?”

It would be safer that way. They could all feel it. Hidden under the laughter and merriment. Somewhere, and maybe not just in the forest, something was very, very, very wrong.

Verris

Fylati was obviously confused. Well she had been kidnapped. Verris tore the hood off her head and watched her expression go from fear to bafflement and back again.

“V-Verris?” she said. They'd parted just a few hours ago, at the end of the party. They'd spent most of the time talking and realized they had a lot in common. At a basic level, they both hated people. Specific people and people in general. It had done Verris good to see that kind of bitterness and spite in another human being. “If you wanted to sleep with me you just had to ask...”

“We can do that, but no. Did you mean what you said? About wanting Gargez dead?”

“Yes,” Fylati snarled. Verris smiled.

“I have powerful friends,” Verris said, gesturing to a corner of the room where an unconscious figure sat bound to a chair. They were naked except for a loincloth, muscular and flabby at the same time with the soft skin of someone who'd never had to do hard work in the hot sun. “One of them is a warrior from...very far away. I convinced him to help me get you a present.”

“Is that...” Fylati stammered.

“It's him. I've got his ears stuffed as well. He has no idea who's kidnapped him. If you want to bow out, we can just let him go.”

It would have been easy to say there was a part of him that wanted to let Gargez go. There wasn't. Verris had never killed anyone before but he found himself...eager. He'd only bothered to hood and deafen Gargez for Fylati's sake.

“This is just a little sudden. We met this afternoon, you saved me, and now you're asking me to kill someone with you.”

“Most people would call it crazy. But they've thought that about me for a long time. I've embraced my hate these past few weeks. I've embraced Kuraga. I understand my own mind better than I ever have before. I saved you because I was selfish. The chance to kill your enemy is my gift to you.”

He pulled a dagger from a pocket and handed it to her. She turned it over in her hands a few times.

“Take his hood off,” she said. She might have been going along to save her own life if it wasn't for her eyes. There was something hungry there, the sadistic glee of a rat who realizes she's got the cat by the throat at last. He tore off the hood and let Gargez see where he was at last, the wide eyed noble glaring around the room. He tried to scream around the cloth tucked in his mouth, but whether it was rage or terror Verris couldn't tell.

“Want his gag off?” Verris offered.

“No he'd just say something stupid.” She stabbed him in the throat. It was so sudden it surprised Verris, a causal motion that send the dagger slamming into the right side of his neck. She left it dangling there and looked at it almost curiously as his eyes went bloodshot and ichor seeped down his naked chest. Then she turned to Verris. “You've never killed anyone before either, have you?”

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“No,” Verris admitted.

“Your turn,” Fylati said.

“He's dead enough,” Verris shrugged.

“Don't be a coward now,” Fylati said sharply. “Take the knife and stab him again. Or are you trying to ruin my present?”

Verris grabbed the knife and pulled it from Gargez's throat. Maybe, just maybe, he thought he might have hesitated a little. Not that he planned on ever admitting that. His hate for Gargez was more than pure. He jammed the knife into the exact center of Gargez's neck and pulled to the left. Blood sprayed from the wound.

“The wound you left could have been healed,” Verris said. “If you really want to kill something, cut the jugular. I've never killed a human before but I've killed enough eoraptors to know that.”

“Forgive me,” Fylati smiled. “Thank you for the lesson.”

Gargex was oddly silent. He thrashed in his chair, but the gag and blood in his threat kept him from making much sound. Finally, his struggles slowed and stopped.

“Our clothes are covered in blood.”

“We'll have to burn them. I've brought us both a change.”

“Oh good. Then we can take these off.”

In the pale moonlight coming through the storehouse window she looked like a blood soaked wraith, red making her thin dress cling to her body. Her eyes sparkled with lust and madness, and Verris suddenly realized she wasn't just beautiful. She was perfect. She melted into his arms as he crossed the floor and tore her dress away.

Master Infuser Brank

And that was murder, and it was evil, but it wasn't the only death that night.

Master Infuser Brank was finally ready to head back to the village. His work in the city had taken much longer than he planned for. He hoped things were going alright with the shop. Dalluth was a good apprentice, and would make a fine master someday, but he still had a tendency to rush his work. Well, anyone who came in would be from the village, and they'd know they were getting the apprentice's work. His reputation should be fine, and Dalluth might learn a few lessons on the way.

Thwek.

It was a quiet noise but something about it bothered Master Brank, that tickling spike between the shoulder blades that warns you of a predator close behind. He waited for a moment and heard only silence, but the quiet just increased his sense of unease until he felt the need to pick up the old wooden staff that doubled as cane and protection on his journey and went to investigate.

The “inn” was really just a house owned by an older couple who happened to live near the road. The husband tended to talk too much, but from his pleasant if slightly boring chatter Brank had learned that in addition to renting their spare room to travelers the man was a retired soldier still living off his discharge pay and his wife sold cakes from a stall by the arena. Brank had bought a few himself, pulled from the stone oven built into one wall of the house's main room.

The oven was cold now, and the lamps were all dark, but as Brank wandered into the room he stepped in something wet covering the floor. There were no candles handy, but he found a wooden dowel easily to hand. Urgency made him tear a strip of cloth off his sleeve and wrap it around the head, then light it with the tinderbox he always kept in his pocket when he traveled. The flames from the makeshift torch bathed the room in orange light, revealing the sticky red mess covering the floor.

I was right, Brank thought, forcing down the acid that tried to rise in his throat. This whole room smells like blood.

The baker woman's body lay on the ground beneath the kitchen table, oozing blood from the stump of her neck. Her head sat in the cold oven, eyes and mouth wide in shock as if all she'd had time to register before she died was something coming at her out of the darkness.

Brank gripped his staff, feeling the soul inside respond. He usually avoided fusing soul, but he'd wanted the best protection he could when he made his staff. The infused lump of bone atop the wood was carved from the horn of a clunkily named estemmenosuchus, a kind of huge fat grazing lizard the northern reaches of the empire kept as herd animals. They were tame enough to infuse soul without much issue, but aggressive enough to use their odd collection of horns and tusks when threatened, making them a good choice for a defensive weapon.

Brank wasn't stupid enough to try and lock himself in his room. Whatever had done such a vicious act so quickly and quietly wasn't going to be deterred by a door. His only hope was to fight. The bull lizard in his staff heartily agreed. His feet slapped wetly in the blood covering the floor as he made his way towards the exit. There, in the small entrance room, something horrible was tearing out the innkeeper’sbones. It ripped them from his body one by one with an almost clinical attachment, claws tearing aside muscle and flesh and tendon to rip them free from the corpse and drop them in the growing pile at its feet. Its claws were all Brank could make out.

No wait,Brank thought. Not claws. Gloves. Hooks of bone with lizard skulls on the back. I know those gloves...

“Dalluth?” Brank gasped incredulously. The figure turned to face him, and Brank saw under the hood for the first time.

There was no stopping it now. He threw up.

“It's not my fault,” the thing that used be Dalluth said sullenly, blood seeping out of the corners of its mouth. He dropped the corpse he had been dismembering and took a step towards Brank.

“Dalluth what...” Brank spat out a little more of the bile that had filled his throat. The pastries he'd bought earlier, coming up again.

“It all went wrong. So wrong. My leather is my face now, they know it at the palace. I can't be seen here. But you can't know about it. Can't hear my name and remember, tell them stories. Make them think I'm responsible.”

“Responsible for what?” Brank gasped.

“And why shouldyou be alive?” Dalluth demanded. “Who says you get to live when the others are all dead? The whole village gone and they'll all say, they'll say I did it. Try to stop me. But I can make it right. I can make it better. I'm going to create wonders.”

“Gods Dalluth,” Ballum said. “Dalluth please, stop. Slow down. Dead? Everyone's dead? What happened?”

It was the wrong question. “It's not my fault!” The Dalluth thing screamed, exploding towards Brank in a spatter of blood and fluids, cloak billowing behind him as his claws closed around the master infuser's throat.

Mylia, a Palace Servant

And at the risk of becoming monotonous, another three days later.

Mylia straightened her tunic and tried to look presentable. If the matron came by she might point out Mylia's hair looked like it had had fingers tangled in it and that the dust on the front of her tunic looked suspiciously like she'd been awkwardly bent over something in a storage closet. She'd have sniffed in disapproval until Mylia told her it had been Consul Urden, at which point the Matron would have gone back to complaining about her appearance.

A few extra coins made off the generosity and baser instincts of the nobles and diplomats in the palace was a tradition so old it was considered one of the perks of the job. Milia was especially well qualified (take that exactly as it sounds) making her unofficially one of the highest paid servants in the entire empire. A favorite of some of the most powerful diplomats in the world, for that matter. Which didn't mean she could avoid a scolding by the matron if she wasn't presentable, but she had some hope of job security if it came down to it.

She tried to adjust her tunic again, overfilling it as usual. She bought them tight because it helped with the perks, but they could be absolutely hell to get back on. Then again a little visible wiggling didn't hurt even when you were just cleaning the fourth floor guest rooms. They weren't much better than closets with a bed and a table each, only better than the servants’ quartersbecause they had the table in place of a second bed, but just because they never housed anyone currently important didn't make them a waste of time. After all, anyone staying as a guest of the place had to be a little bit important, and anyone who was a little bit important could end up being very much important later on. She wasn't supposed to clean any of the occupied rooms of course, but you never know who you might meet in the hall...

Occupied rooms are...eight, seven, and twelve. I'll start with room four...

She shrieked as something scuttled out from under a door, backing away and almost dropping her cleaning rags. The thing hurried across the floor, hissing and clicking and...chiming? Before it ran right into a wall and fell on its side.

What she'd at first thought was a stray compy in the palace turned out to be a compy skeleton, covered in infusion runes. Somehow it had been designed to run along the floor, waving its arms to shake the clusters of little tinkling bells that had been place there. Its legs and arms twitched like something still dying.

“Sorry!” an eerie, echoing voice said. “I'm afraid it isn't perfected yet.”

Milia turned to the door. Room 5 was supposed to be empty but there in the doorway stood a strange man in a pointed leather hood and cloak that covered his entire body.

“I-I'm sorry my lord,” she said, with a quick bow. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“I should be saying that,” the hooded figure said, scooping up the compy. “It ought to run in a circle. I've been working all night. And I'm not any kind of lord. I'm Master Infuser Dalluth. I gave my masterwork to the emperor as a gift and he was kind enough to offer me a place to stay for the past few nights.”

“Oh!” Milia said, her eyes lighting up. “You mean that big walking band thing? With the horns and the drum and the bells? I saw that walk up to the palace yesterday, it was beautiful!”

“I'm glad you think so! But it's just the start. I've been dreaming about all the wonderful things I could make ever since I carved my first rune. I've got big hopes for the future!”

Milia smiled. The weirdly dressed little man just seemed so excited. And the things he made really were wonderful, even if the little bell toy had startled her. There was a good chance he really would go far—in fact, she wouldn't be surprised if there was a title in his future, if he could keep making things as impressive as the walking band. And even if there wasn't an infuser like that could easily find himself becoming one of the richest men in the entire empire.

And I got to him first! Milia could barely contain her excitement. I wonder what he looks like under that hood? Oh who cares! He's going to be rich. Feels like I'm finally getting one over on Aran for Master Teth the other day. The man owns fifty brothels across the empire and he doesn't like girls? How is that any kind of fair?

“Can I see some more of your work?” Milia said, stepping close enough to press her chest against Dalluth's arm. “The things you make are so beautiful, I'm curious.”

“Well I havebeen working on something. And you do have lovely skin. Would you like to come in?”

“Of course I would!” Mylia said, following him into the room. She wasn't worried at all. Men paid her stranger compliments all the time.

Of course if you've been paying attention, you know that no one saw her ever again.