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Valydra*
Toloth Ama Erea**
Eight’s ‘Rules of the Trade’
Part II
-Eight plus One-
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> * Full ‘trade name’ Valydra O’ Nulanos – in the Old Ways pre-Imperial tradition the pupil always assumed the name of its teacher irregardless of status or legitimacy of the profession. High born Zilan and pre-modernists as well as Imperials refrained from the practice opting to highlight their lineage instead. It created a rigid caste system not based on meritocracy but pureness of blood although additions due to extraordinary feats were permitted, which birthed the ‘Favored’.
>
> ** Ancient Imperial (Cydonia Cazan Mori-Zilan jargon). Translated ‘Eight plus One.’
image [https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUpKt3F_WAYtKm_omr0AdmjYpNMsEVh8vzyPhIYAoKa_RRKOi3gQePM1yw-WmBUf8GLuNGvka2pdpCfjX3Wfyvi-BHb9VBYTQWaD9HLZy87BZkEFIJffMkEi8XF0QbkWitwa4x_QEhoa1AhE1GC-XSOgm_tdzD00F6hs3mMiQqW0ZlsppMWMu1IJW8-ZI]
> Six Peak Isles (Cydonia Cazan) Pre-Fall (here 2nd Era circa 2100 IC)
-
> 2nd Era
>
> Mori Osto
>
> (The twin cities at Long River)
>
> Coal Isle
> “Lord Calamer is here,” Sorn told her sounding quite tensed whilst trimming his nails with the thin straight blade, dark face half-lost in the pyramid temple’s shades. “Brought lots of army brats with him. Also a gaggle of Imperial rangers.”
>
> “I haven’t decided yet,” Valydra hissed and stole the wings of an Oldfly with a snap of her fingers, then snatched the buzzing whilst dropping insect out of the air and felt it moving all mad inside her loose fist. It’ll have new wings afore the day is over. That’s how nature works, the Mori-Zilan female thought.
>
> You’re caught in a trap and you could survive to fly again.
>
> Or you won’t and your journey comes to an end.
>
> “Our people at Bird’s Watch reported they saw Nenderu flying towards Aiwenor,” Sorn continued seeing her still thinking it over. “This means the Queen follows with Ovinet and she might come straight here afore heading for Urma Port. She just executes people right and left. You’ll kill us all Valydra.”
>
> “Argh…” Valydra snarled throwing her arms up. “I can’t do it Sorn.”
>
> “It’s a done deal. If the Queen lands here this place will be flooded with Assassins. They might be here already. Calamer is probably on his way as well. We’re not fighters’ mistress,” Sorn insisted. “What does it matter?”
>
> Valydra walked at the corner of the last house before the last bridge and stared beyond the river’s surface at the opposite banks.
>
> “They don’t want you,” Sorn insisted hoarsely.
>
> Valydra licked her dry lips staring at the setting sun. “You talked with someone already. Who was it Sorn?”
>
> “Minuet Mol,” Sorn replied and she recoiled away from the corner. Valydra twisted around to glare at his tensed face. “They want Nulanos to get to Dudrina. The Mori-Zilan will revolt if they touch her without a valid reason.”
>
> “She’s not political. Never was,” Valydra hissed a hand clasping at her throat as she couldn’t breathe. “He’ll never turn on her. They go way back. Why are they doing this?”
>
> “The Queen doesn’t trust the Coven after what happened with Edlenn.”
>
> “Does Nulanos know?”
>
> “Minuet said he stole Sigel O’ Nyel, Kallister’s precious necklace ring from Elas Study. You know the story behind it. A single fact revealed to balance one loss. He might even do it. Then spill the beans to Edlenn’s people. You know how he is. The Queen decreed the Guild works henceforth for the throne or is no more. They won’t lose their time searching the city for our people, it’s easier to just kill everyone.”
>
> “No.”
>
> “They spilled blood in Nesande’s Garden mistress. Who’s is going to care about a gang of Mori-Zilan?”
>
> “They’ll never catch him, even with the Wyverns,” she whispered shaking.
>
> “Elas told Calamer to use you.”
>
> “Who told Elas?” Valydra snarled and reached for her dagger. Sorn stood back pursing his mouth, feet standing slightly apart and that thin knife still in hand. More a rogue than a thief. Not great in either but still a better killer than her.
>
> There’s no honor among thieves.
>
> A warning. Not a dictum.
>
> “We help them get Neil Toloth and then we’ll just work under the Queen. Food, horses and steady pay. Suraer’s your uncle. In twenty years, a hundred, no one will even remember what happened. The Guild will survive. Eight will give back what he took or rat the crazy sorceress out. Who cares? Then he’ll get to stroll away into the annals of history. Forever praised as the greatest thief of all time. But we need you mistress. You are the only pupil he has ever taken.”
>
> I’m not just his pupil, Valydra’s striped black eyes told him and Sorn nodded since he knew that. Every tidbit of knowledge was valuable. ‘Sometime down the line, you might need to use it Milva’, Nulanos used to say. ‘In order to balance the scales and make things right.’
>
> ‘Kill your love to stay alive.’
>
> No.
>
> “A life in exile,” Valydra murmured and it was a query.
>
> A hope.
>
> “The Queen’s guarantee. He loves traveling. Meet new peoples,” Sorn droned with a forced smile. “Don’t you?”
>
>
>
> Valydra saw Nulanos crossing the bridge coming from the south city just after midnight and she stepped on the north edge of the stone structure to be visible. He spotted her familiar figure immediately but paused mid-stride seeing the squad of Imperial Rangers standing twenty meters behind her.
>
> Nulanos pushed the hood on his head back to reveal his face and looked in hers from about a dozen feet away. Dark black hair peppered with white. My old head matches your eyes, he used to tease her. He was still on the stone bridge. Eight glanced at the dark sky over their heads and probably caught sight of the lurking wyvern flying high as it passed in front of the two moons.
>
> “Milva. You brought high company,” Nulanos said calmly, a hint of razz in his voice, using a moniker that joined the words lover and the first syllable of her name. A very private moniker. Valydra shuddered almost losing it, nails digging at her palms and lips splitting in a distorted smile.
>
> “They are not here for you,” she croaked with her heart hurting and the burly squad leader stepped forward barking a loud order ruining that particular lie. “They want the witch.” Valydra said quickly.
>
> “Buridor, Serdel and Maeriel aim your bows!”
>
> “You all shall miss,” Nulanos informed them with a solemn smile in his usual manner and took two quick backwards steps towards the middle point of the stone bridge. But then he paused there despite Valydra’s eyes urging him to get away.
>
> Valydra felt the night air shifting all around her, getting heavier, the confusing sound of many small feet or just a single pair, tip-tapping on the cobblestone and mixing with the sound of the Rangers’ bowstrings getting drawn.
>
> “Halt,” the squad leader ordered and a cold blade touched Valydra’s neck. She smelled the assassin more than she felt the sinister presence. Sandalwood. A featureless mask and a pair of indigo cold eyes glancing her way as the lithe dark figure took a taunting -now silent- large step forward to come next to her shoulder, keeping the sword’s blade under Valydra’s chin.
>
> “The Sigel O’ Nyel returned,” the assassin said and it was like many people were speaking all at once. Old and young. Male or female. Children. “And the Black Sorceress’ whereabouts.”
>
> “You’ll just kill her anyway. Then me. Death is your only trade Nym,” Nulanos retorted. “And while she and I may deserve it, the Witch has done nothing wrong.”
>
> “The Queen shall let you live,” Nym countered dispassionately. “Both. This is not a death sentence.”
>
> “I don’t have the necklace ring,” Nulanos said and Valydra felt blood running down her chin where the blade had nicked the skin.
>
> She flinched back but Nym’s sword followed Valydra’s reaction, even without the standing next to her assassin looking that way.
>
> “Half a deal then,” Nym chuckled. “You give us the witch for the black bitch. Only hurry, for the latter might bleed out.”
>
> “What happens to me?” Nulanos asked pursing his mouth and Nym turned to Valydra.
>
> “Come on royal collaborator, tell him what your Queen decreed,” she taunted Valydra sounding mirthful.
>
> “You get to live in exile. A Queen’s promise,” Valydra croaked desperately, feeling the blood trickling down between her heaving breasts.
>
> Nulanos nodded. “It’s too good a deal to turn down I suppose,” he said mockingly and extended both arms away from his body. “We’ll always have the lake’s songs Milva,” Eight added and dropped to his knees on the bridge. Two of the support pillars shadows coming to life not even two horse bodies away and leaping on the bridge to land a meter away from the kneeling Thief’s Guild leader, the sinister dark figures hiding him from the ogling Valydra’s eyes. One of them more beast than a person.
>
> “Ah,” Nym purred overcome with excitement. “I just love a good romance story,” she added keeping the sword on Valydra’s throat. “With a tragic ending. Mmm, am I close? Look at you about to cry. He’s not worth it Mori-sister. Eight has many lovers. You did the right thing.”
>
> “May you rot in Abrakas deepest hells,” Valydra spat and made to raise a hand to remove the sword but Nym slapped it away with the flat of the blade.
>
> “Been there, done that and got a tattoo. You have to guess where it is.” The assassin retorted and then asked with a child’s naughty chuckle. “Which lake?”
>
> “Eh, I don’t know what he meant. He’s just angry with me.” Valydra lied using all her emotion to sell it better.
>
>
>
> A day later…
>
>
>
> Moisture had gathered over the great lake. The calm waters splashing over colorful sheets of water-lilies that covered its surface near every crook and cranny of the shallow banks. Insects buzzed like crazy in the calm night enjoying the humidity and water-snakes moved fast through the lukewarm light waves splashing on moss-covered giant roots of dark trees that were attached to the lake’s bottom.
>
> Valydra got off her horse, feeling her thighs numb from riding hard for hours. She looped the reins on a dry branch, broke a couple of rotten ones using hands and feet to move through the natural barrier that hugged the narrow path leading to the banks of the lake. The ancient willow trees sweeping branches blocking sight to this denser part of the forest that thrived in this very fertile terrain.
>
> Dudrina had a battered giant straw hat on her head and nothing else. The naked but covered in black sludge, rotten leaves, broken stems and soggy grime Mori-Zilan sorceress was busy working on her potions behind the crude table, a red viper with black spots wrapped around her left forearm, the snake’s head clasped between thumb and index finger with its jaws hanging open. Fangs dripping poison inside a glass vial.
>
> “Oi,” Dudrina murmured and sniffed at the concoction. “This might be deadly.” She added and downed it all at once with a grimace and a pained groan. “Goddess’ tits! Wow!”
>
> She started coughing, eyes glowing in the dark and noticed Valydra watching her standing under the willow trees that surrounded her ‘field office’.
>
> “What you looking at kid?” Dudrina asked in semi-coherent Imperial with a croaky voice and knowing her the ancient witch was probably heavily drugged already.
>
> “Why the hat old girl? You ditched everything else,” Valydra teased and approached with her eyes scanning the terrain for any more lurking venomous serpents.
>
> Dudrina grimaced a little agitated, an eye firmly closed and the other ogling like a plate. Could have been the aftereffect of the potion also. The witch burped loudly next and then chucked the viper her way with an alert Valydra ducking under the flying serpent that hissed angrily over her head.
>
> But beat a hasty retreat upon landing in the bushes instead of attacking the female thief.
>
> “Darn it!” Valydra cursed just the same and Dudrina flashed her a lecherous crooked smile. There was something moving behind the witch’s teeth and it better be her black tongue, Valydra thought.
>
> “The sun was in my eyes all day,” Dudrina explained and removed the hat from her disheveled head. The big hat just came apart in her hands as it was beset by rot and old age.
>
> “It’s well after midnight,” Valydra noticed and pointed at the general darkness surrounding the lake’s misty banks.
>
> “It is,” Dudrina decided and puffed out staring down at her own naked chest for a while quite perturbed. “I think this latest batch made my tits smaller?”
>
> Eh.
>
> “Wanna have a feel?” Dudrina offered with a wink, a hand palming her right tit.
>
> “I don’t,” she cut her off immediately and changed the subject. “When was the last time you had something to eat?” Valydra asked looking at the ‘mostly’ animal cadavers tossed haphazardly around the witch’s field workshop. The hut she lived in, almost visible five meters behind the big crude table. “That you know… didn’t try to kill you first?”
>
> “Hah. You brought me food then?” The witch asked and tossed a tattered robe over her thin shoulders covering her filled with intricate tattoos body. While outrageously filthy and probably older than the toxic dirt she had on her, Dudrina was easily the prettiest Mori-Zilan alive not that the witch cared about that. ‘I need test subjects more than lovers,’ she always told Valydra when the latter was younger. ‘Both, is the ideal mix. Ayup, but my kind of science tends to kill romance. Literally.’
>
> “The Queen arrested Nulanos yesterday,” Valydra blurted out anxiously. “They have him aboard Larea Macar the war galleon. It departs in the morning.”
>
> “Uhm,” Dudrina hummed distractedly whilst searching at her robe’s opening for something stuck on her chest and upon finding it she brought the bloody leech before her face for a closer examination. “I heard the wyvern earlier. Both of them.”
>
> “Mori-Osto is packed with soldiers and assassins,” Valydra hissed and the witch tossed the quivering leech into her mouth without replying. “They are coming after the Guild and you.”
>
> “Baltoris wants my head?” Dudrina asked gulping down the probably still living leech.
>
> “Are you listening to me?” Valydra snapped angrily. “They are going to use… what’s so blasted funny Drina?”
>
> “The war is over and she came upon the throne early,” Dudrina replied and walked to the edge of the lake to splash some water on her mud-covered legs and groin. “I was never part of the main circle dear. Tinyssos they liked because he had a phallus and was enthralled with the Elderbloods. Now them white-skinned witches can take a pounding! He-he! The army likes me more than the other witches ever did or the palace. We’re Mori-Zilan, we know how the realm works and have no delusions of grandeur.”
>
> “Edlenn was murdered,” Valydra hissed. “They are hunting the witches off of the mainland and now the Queen came here for you. As long as old Dudrina breathes the old ways will never go away.” She droned the local saying. “Don’t you fucking understand that?”
>
> “Edlenn probably set herself on fire. She lost a daughter. What is it a hundred years? Pfft. Uhm. It don’t take much to kill yourself you know. I almost did it a couple of weeks back by accident.”
>
> “They say the garden was burning for half a month. It was no fucking accident. Edlenn would never risk harming a single flower!”
>
> “What nonsense! People really believe that? Edlenn harmed way more than that just to make her other daughter giggle.”
>
> “You are not listening to me!” Valydra roared in exasperation. He voice bouncing on the trees and dancing over the nearby lake’s surface.
>
> Dudrina smacked her lips and used a wet index finger to scratch something out of her teeth. “Where is Galadriel? The Queen will go for her first, since she was part of the first coven that gave her father the throne. Assuming you are correct.”
>
> “Galadriel is gone and so are most of Edlenn’s acolytes or they are already dead,” Valydra snapped furious and she wanted to slap some urgency into Dudrina’s head but feared the witch might turn her into a frog.
>
> Then eat her.
>
> “Why is the Thief’s Guild involved in this? Nulanos has nothing on me night’s child,” Dudrina noted. “What does he have on the Queen? Better yet why are you here and not in the port helping him?”
>
> Valydra gulped down and looked away at the moonlit lake’s surface that could be glimpsed behind the foliage.
>
> “Mmm.” Dudrina murmured and Valydra glanced her way. The witch walked to the door of her hut and pushed to open it. She failed as several living roots had nested there laying a trap and keeping the door blocked. Dudrina sighed, whispered a spell that caused a giant Willow tree to die and crack right the middle with an otherworldly ruckus. The hut, the stuck door and the cluster of living roots that had now looped around the witch’s body turned to pure white ice. A cold breeze smacked the stunned Valydra in the face and hurled her back over five meters. Almost into the disturbed lake. She groaned in pain and stood up, the giant tree snapping in two and collapsing into the lake a moment later, sending an angry wave to splash on the faltering to safety thief’s back.
>
> “Fucking hells!” Valydra cursed, stumbling in the mud, almost stepping on the shuddering, utterly confused red viper that had been brought back ashore.
>
> “There,” a frost-covered Dudrina announced, kicking the broken hut’s door away to step out. She had something in her arms bathed in the moonlight that could now freely shine over the opening the sorceress’ careless magic spells had created. “I knew he was up to something. That naughty boy was always in trouble.”
>
> Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
>
> “Is that?” Valydra asked with a shocked gasp and the witch nodded. “How did you know?”
>
> “That you lied and set him up?” Dudrina queried with a smirk. “He told me the other day. Eight feared they’ll try to get to him through you.”
>
> “You crazy fool! I had no other choice! You think I enjoy this?” A hurt Valydra protested, her voice breaking.
>
> “Because Baltoris might burn Mori Osto? The Thieves capital,” Dudrina mocked her and raised the platinum-made circlet near her mouth. It could be worn around the neck as it was two pieces connected with clasps in reality. She gave it a bite and then a good lick, immediately spitting down disgusted. “Soft metals make my teeth tingle,” she explained.
>
> “Drina!” Valydra snarled irate.
>
> “You think this is a one way trip for our suave burglar,” Dudrina said without losing her composure and a very short creature popped its wild head from the now gapping opening of the hut behind her. Is this a god darn Gnome? A bewildered Valydra wondered and the tiny chubby creature raised his right arm in some sort of greeting, clenched fist leaving only the stumpy very dirty middle finger extended. What the…? “Here,” the dripping, slowly thawing witch said and tossed her the Sigel O’ Nyel. “To get something worthy out of it you must lose something valuable to your profession. Kallister never made anything for free. He called it balance but the truth is that vile son of a bitch was just a well-spoken sadist. May white worms eat the flesh off of his bones, spit the chewed material out and then slurp it all back in… for a hundred years. Two hundred. Hmm.”
>
> “What about Eight? What about you?” Valydra croaked snatching the valuable magic item out of the air.
>
> “Worry about yourself kid,” Dudrina replied indifferently and cracked away the frosty mustache of ice from her upper lip with a finger. “A thief that walks the palace grounds has a short life ahead of him. As for me, you coming here sealed my fate I reckon. The night wolves are coming after your scent Valydra O’ Nulanos and to be frank, I don’t much care. None of these fools are a danger to the realm. The most vicious monsters are already dead.”
>
> “How do you know?” Valydra asked her and Dudrina, who had already started to head towards her lowly hut paused and turned to look at the old member of the Thieves Guild.
>
> “There’s a dungeon…” Dudrina started reminiscing of the distant past and the preoccupied Valydra thought it a waste of precious time at first but she was to change her mind upon learning of Larea Macar’s eventual fate sixteen years later.
-
image [https://i.postimg.cc/mBNDPqMg/Goras-194-NC.jpg]
A millennia and over three centuries later
Ruined Great Port City of Cyran
Witchwood Gulf
Cyran Isle in Cydonia Cazan
The half-sunken Six Peaks Isles complex
Old Imperial Wetull
The tired Valydra sucked a rugged breath in and then send a quick prayer to the Trickster God, her eyes set on the great docks visible from the ruined rooftop of the old Terfas Emporium building beyond the ruined port’s morning mist. She wrapped her fingers in the thin leather straps carefully and checked all her gear were properly secured on the harness before putting a foot on the edge.
A pebble rolling down the half-destroyed and half-sunken stairs before hitting the still water’s surface stopping her short of attempting the leap across the flooded street. She turned around and waited for the soaked head of Kumra O’ Valydra to appear out of the moldy opening that was once upon a time hidden under the roof tiles. Her young pupil now in his fourth century, peeked over the lip of the opening carefully which brought a smile on her face.
“We’re alone Kumra,” Valydra said and used index and thumb to fix the soft-leather eye patch over her empty socket, the fingers lowering to push the sparkling circlet under her worn-out leather collar. A jewelry she would have never dared to wear on the job back in the day, but it had been centuries with no one missing their stolen valuables or coming after her since then. Eventually the old rules were slowly pushed back like the necklace ring under layers of old cloth, ancient dust or tons of rust.
“Val,” Kumra replied and jumped on the old rooftop. He landed with a thud that made both of them flinch and then chuckle in relief.
“Don’t do that again,” Valydra warned him and then probed. “I told to you wait for me to cross the street.”
“Were you gonna swim?”
“Jump,” Valydra retorted. “Did you swim across?”
“Yeah,” an embarrassed and very wet Kumra admitted rubbing at the back of his head.
“Why?” Valydra asked him.
“Heard a ship in the old port,” Kumra said sounding haunted. “The wind carried the sound.”
“You heard the wind and ghosts of eons past,” Valydra corrected him. Coming to the shores was always traumatic for the young Mori-Zilan. Not that it wasn’t for her. But she had been forced not to show it for the others back in Coal Isle.
That was almost five years back but they hadn’t made it too far from the shores on foot.
Or they had but it was difficult to tell as nothing was the same but here at the mostly sunken ruins of Cyran.
This mission might have been a mistake. Cyran had been a coastal, very flat island. All its cities and settlements along the capital build near the water. Not much had survived the rapidly raising seas and the Old Sharks or sea monsters just as back home. But they had the mountain and the mines. Mori-Zilan are a hardened kind of folk.
“I know what I heard. Voices and chains dropped. They found our boat,” Kumra insisted and Valydra puffed out a thoughtful expression on her moist dark face.
“A big ship?”
“I can’t tell in the mist. Don’t think so.”
“Humans?”
“Yeah.”
Valydra had feared that. They had spotted sails from afar stubbornly attempting to cross the reefs in the blind before. A ship each year. Two. Three at times. She didn’t know if they had succeeded but they probably hadn’t. Knowing the Sinya Nore, if they had managed it then they would have returned in armed greed-induced force again.
“Stay close.” Valydra cautioned him and cracked the old sword, she’d found eighty years back inside a floating barrel, a little out of its sheath. Then puffed her cheeks out and pushed the blade back in. Raised the hood over her head to cover the ears, braided black curls spilling out of the hood as she used her fingers to brush them out. “We don’t fight them. If it comes to that, you run and I’ll hold them back.”
“I’m not leaving you…” Kumra protested, blushing fiercely when she grabbed his right hand tight enough so it would hurt.
“I can’t be your tutor when your mind goes there all the time,” she reminded him and felt her stomach turning at the hypocrisy in the simple words. Kumra was old enough to venture on his own and what she cautioned him against now, Valydra had done aplenty in her youth and a bit after that.
“Yes mistress.”
“Let me do the talking if they spot us.”
“You think they are pirates?”
All humans are pirates.
----------------------------------------
There were no docks left. The harbor’s brines had incorporated all the old city initially with the waters gradually retreating but not by much. Most of the streets had turned into treacherous canals, the buildings crumbling down although an astounding number of them still stood tall and silent. Birds had returned, flesh-eating fish and carnivore animals.
That now hunted one another. They had killed everything else.
But a few of the old imperial inhabitants were still around. Those that had survived had fought a losing battle against the elements on the north side of the island where only hunters could survive without any infrastructure. Valydra had decided that braving a meeting with those semi-wild Zilan of the interior was just too much of a risk.
They had two large bags of loot hidden in the ‘second floor’ of a building near their moored custom-made crude boat. In the blasted open! So getting to them now was out of the question. Valydra reached and unclasped the Sigel O’ Nyel from her neck and hid it under her leather shirt. With a grimace she buttoned it up again to avoid Kumra’s scrutiny or not to give him the temptation. There were females in the old Kobold Mines of course, way younger than her and nearer to Kumra’s years. Way more eager. Despite that the allure of the one-eyed, old Mori-Zilan, his Guild’s leader no less was too much for him to overcome.
Unfortunately for him Valydra was too old to try and play around the rules for a second time. Not the way the first time around had gone. She had never recovered from that.
Been there, done that. She thought bitterly, the old pun slipping through the cracks of her buried memories and making her lose a step. The many-a-times repaired old boot lodging between two loose stone bricks and forcing one of them to move out of its position on the wall. The ancient stone crackled, an exhaling Valydra stooped, folding at the waist and put a hand on the cut stone to prevent it from toppling down the pile of debris.
She felt sweat rivulets running down her neck, the humidity of ancient Cyran otherworldly and the scalding winds bringing even more heat ashore. The mist moved revealing a large building’s corner and behind it a long expanse of shallow brines that reached as far out as the original deep port waters. A boat’s small lights reaching the foot deep part of the ‘docks’ and the sound of heavy rowing. Voices heard speaking in Common. A ton of different accents and for a moment she couldn’t understand what they were saying at all.
Valydra licked her salty lips slowly, still folded in two to prevent the loosened brick from tumbling down and waiting for the perfect opportunity to release it.
You move immediately. Fast as the wind. Light as a bird. All will come back the moment you commit. It’s like firing a bow. You never forget that. Or fucking. Though you can turn rusty to that and put enthusiasm in to mask it, she completed the diatribe to herself and Kumra whistled from further back to warn her of the approaching boat, making a bird sound. A mountain bird living at the heights of Coal Mountain but these were humans so it wasn’t that much of a problem.
Hopefully.
Luthos you’ve been idle on me for decades and still you have poor Milva holding a brick with the toes of a foot, another with a hand on top of the remnants of a half collapsed wall.
Be gentle.
The boat’s keel scratched the shallow part of the ancient city and an anchor was thrown out immediately. The heavy iron anchor splashed inside the water and a moment later it stroke the tiled pavement with a cracking boom.
Go.
Valydra let go of the four-kilo heavy stone brick and leaped like a leopard just as she was standing upright, arms and legs beating at the air and the hood blasting back making the sound of a taut sail snapping violently.
The brick tumbled down with a ruckus right when the men jumped out of the boat themselves and the silence of the dead city got interrupted violently. The next moment Valydra reached the wall, clearing what had been an old living room that missed its roof, two walls and a corner. This wall quite taller than the previous one, so she immediately started ‘walking’ vertically on the crumbling old surface to traverse the final two meters to the top.
In theory.
Yeah.
Valydra hadn’t tried to play a skilled acrobat in thirty-six years and it had been a demonstration for smaller kids to learn the ropes of ‘entering a structure with a wall’ with a hemp net underneath it. Anyways, safety net absent she gave it her all, nails scrapping at the crumbling surface and toes trying to find purchase where there was none.
Note to self.
This long a jump is better to be attempted with a bit of ‘spell assistance.’
But she had nothing available.
With a drawn out feline hiss that turned into a pained yelp the haplessly out of form thief, slid all the way to the bottom of the wall, leaving dignity, some skin and valuable pieces of clothing behind. The burning on her arms and fingers maddening. Valydra rolled on the dirty floor, a fist lodged in her mouth to keep the screams in and her only eye flooded with enough tears for the both of them.
Eh.
They were humans on the other side of the wall.
Valydra bit on her hand, until her fangs pierced the skin.
“I told Rigger Vance dis,” a man griped gravely, pausing to spit whatever had lodged in his throat.
“I’m right here Tack,” another replied sounding miffed. “I don’t appreciate dis passive-aggressive third person tone.”
“That’s a bunch of Cofol 'soul healing' bullshit,” Tack retorted. “Get wit the times Vance.”
“What times be that?” Vance probed and the grimacing in pain Valydra would love to know that as well.
“Horace Burton swore on his mother’s grave—”
“Are ye seriously bringing him in the plaguing parley?” A third man interrupted Tack afore he could finish. “They call him Trickster for a reason Tack!”
“Ayup,” Vance agreed. “Damned Safford is in the right in dis. Burton can’t be trusted.”
“Can you two let me finish me point here?” Tack protested.
“Just saying… ye need to keep these things in the open.” Safford argued.
“Didn’t I do that?” Tack snapped. “I mentioned my sources.”
“Horace ain’t much of a source Tack. That Gish he sleeps with claimed the darn dog is fifty years old at least!” Vance protested.
“Now don’t be going around spreading such slander,” Tack admonished him.
“About whom?” Vance asked sounding perturbed. “The dog? What are ye, a dog maven or some shite?”
Tack let out a loud sigh. “The Gish.”
Valydra crawled to the edge of the wall and stole a glimpse of the colorful group of humans arguing loudly. Shit. They were all armed to their teeth. She got up and ran stooped the length of the wall –about ten meters- reaching the other edge. Valydra popped her head out in the direction of the group but she couldn’t see them from there. She breathed out relaxed and then pressed her hurting back on the edge of the wall, grimacing when the pain from her knees and arms also made its ugly return.
“Oras fiends in the night,” Valydra cursed and a man that had approached from the other side of the building, from where she’d leaped from, responded in a teasing voice.
“Aye.”
Auburn hair, small-stature and smart brown eyes. Wearing a longish dark coat and leather pants. A heavy bag over his shoulder.
Valydra’s big bag of loot.
“This place is pretty shit all things considered,” the man said casually as if continuing a conversation they had and dropped the bag between them.
Valydra stared at the man and then at the bag.
Back and forth energetically.
“This yours?” The human asked pretending to be friendly.
Valydra shrugged her shoulders indifferently and remembered that her long ears were popping out of the sides of her uncovered head. She flinched and the man stepped back raising his hands non-threateningly. Both thumbs folded behind the palms with only the thin digits extended. All eight of them.
“You are a Zilan,” the man said speaking slowly to make certain she could understand him. “But you’re special aren’t you?”
“I’m Mori-Zilan,” Valydra replied in Common trying not to make any mistake or say the wrong word. “From Coal Isle.”
The man nodded and tended a hand but she didn’t take it.
“Name is Ryker Phantom,” the human said and gave her bag a light kick. “What manner of smart girl picks up plates, utensils, tools and puts them in a bag but just leaves her jewelry behind?” He asked and showed the platinum circlet with his left hand. Valydra gasped and checked her shirt and of course half the buttons were gone with the lower part of the shirt missing as well.
“I want that back,” she hissed showing him her teeth in a threatening snarl.
Valydra had lost too much for that fucking thing to give it away.
“Here’s your problem,” Ryker told her calmly. “If I yell or one of them boys turns that corner, then this dynamic we have here will change in an instance. I’m curious. You seem smart. Roughed up…” He glanced at the missing eye. “Smart people always have a plan,” Ryker added staring in her face intently.
Four.
Valydra licked her lips unsure. “Don’t get caught with the loot,” she translated in Common.
Three.
Ryker’s mouth split in a crooked smile. He twirled the expensive jewelry in his fingers and caught it sharply. “There’s no honor among thieves.”
No way.
Rule six.
Valydra stumbled back not expecting it and trying to keep her heart from bursting out of her chest. A human. In the Guild. How?
“If you think you haven’t fucked up,” she croaked. “Then ye already have.”
“Seven,” Ryker said and wore the circlet on his left wrist to repeat his previous mysterious greeting. “Do you want to hear number eight?”
Be ready to split in a breath, when you sense peril’s shade coming from around the corner.
Good gods!
A gasp escaped the Mori-Zilan’s lips and felt the ground moving under her feet. “How did you get in?” She asked raspingly.
Ryker nodded quite pleased but also very surprised himself. “The real query here is,” he countered curious. “How did you get in sister of the trade? I’m the first man the guild sent here.”
Valydra found the edge of the wall and pressed her back on it. She could barely stand up. “The Guild,” she whispered. “Sent you here?”
“The Reefs.” Ryker explained. “The Blasted Lands and the lost isles. The Monarch will open a trade route to Greenwhale Peninsula, all the way to Goras and beyond. He’s a friend of the Guild.”
“There’s a monarch in Goras…” Valydra murmured trying to put everything together and failing.
“What be that now Ryker?” Vance asked coming around the corner and stopping seeing the lanky dark-skinned Zilan female.
“This good sister of the trade is…” Ryker started and paused looking at her.
Jitters.
Valydra cleared her throat. Just get it out girl!
“I’m Valydra O’ Nulanos,” she told the pirate and Ryker whistled impressed.
“I love your species naming schemes Valydra,” he told her and returned the circlet to her. “Do you have a moniker?”
“Toloth Ama Erea,” Valydra replied taken aback from the whole encounter. The mystery of the Thieves Guild spreading beyond Wetull whilst maintaining its little characteristics or building up on them quite astounding to her.
“Huh,” Ryker said while Vance sprinted back to his friends to inform they had found someone local on the island. Eh. Valydra wasn’t exactly local and she was there for much the same reason as them. “What does it mean?”
“Eight plus One. It’s a very old jest really,” Valydra explained and stooped to pick up her heavy bag waving an arm to Kumra that she was alright.
“I figured as much since Toloth means eight.” Ryker grinned. “That adds to a nine right? Do you know what old Toloth has at number nine in the Rules of the Trade? It’s a bit of an esoteric supplementary rule, ha-ha. Aye, despite him preaching to use eight ‘fingers’ to leave yourself some wiggle room and all that.”
Valydra’s brain took a while to translate the words from Common. And then all those jitters came right back. The worst pain because it was masked as unlikely hope.
Do you know what old Toloth has at number nine…?
-
> “Stay,” the Queen said austerely and Valydra bowed her head. She returned to the high back and covered in golden sheets chair. “Calamer we have a development?”
>
> “We do Great Monarch,” the rigid Elderblood reported briefly and Lord Onas who was sitting across from her at the table turned his sole eye on him.
>
> “We found the witch. Unfortunately we were there too late,” Calamer reported and one of the minor scribes named Vulreon blinked in shock afore he could catch himself. “Alas, it is as we feared and many had guessed when she went missing. Predators got to her first but auspiciously she had expired aforehand.”
>
> Valydra bit her lip and clenched a fist she had placed on the massive conference table. Both her eyes ogling trying to keep the tears in. The Queen’s voice coming from the gilded wyvern’s throne sounding sympathetic.
>
> “Always careless our Mori-Zilan witch,” Baltoris said and a pale Valydra stared at the grim face of Lord Onas. She hadn’t seen the old general emotional before. “Once you throw caution to the wind, you turn prey to all manner of beasts.”
>
> “Absolutely. Great Monarch,” Calamer bowed and turned around to walk away.
>
> “We share your anguish for your friend,” Baltoris told Valydra who nodded. “Who here knows what she was working on? Maybe we should have Elas search her… is anyone aware on where she had her laboratory?”
>
> “I believe she worked a lot in the field,” Lord Onas grunted keeping his eye on Valydra.
>
> “Mmm,” the Queen murmured. “You haven’t touched your wine Valydra.” She noticed.
>
> “Queen Baltoris,” Valydra gulped down nervously. “Dudrina wouldn’t have succumbed to the elements. She was immune to everything.”
>
> “No one really is.” The Queen said sadly and pulled at the single braid in her short cut blue hair. She played with it with her fingers.
>
> The effort to suppress her rage at the blatant tasteless theater almost killed Valydra on the spot.
>
> “Both witches… Edlenn was eaten by animals also,” Valydra croaked and Lord Onas intervened slapping his hand on the table.
>
> “Enough! The High Priestess was burned lass,” he grunted angrily.
>
> “It’s quite alright Lord Onas. She’s from Coal Isle. They are a distrustful bunch,” Baltoris assured him. “Maybe she holds a grunge here, years after the fact? Eh? Speak up dear Valydra. The scribes don’t write anything without my permission.”
>
> “I don’t…” Valydra paused. “…your grace.”
>
> “It was also an accident,” Baltoris explained patiently. “These things happen. Now I know an accident from an assassination since that’s how I lost my parents. Is that clear?”
>
> “Yes my Queen,” Valydra croaked. “What accident?”
>
> Baltoris sighed and glanced towards the scribes gathered at a small table about forty meters away. She raised her arm and Vulreon sprinted the distance, the distant rumbling of the clouds almost tripping the scribe up.
>
> “You,” Baltoris ordered. “Answer her.”
>
> “The topic Great Monarch?” The judicious young scribe asked politely.
>
> “Tell her of Nulanos’ fate,” the Queen of Queens said and the startled Valydra snapped her head back. Striped with touches of white black eyes opened wide.
-
The grieving Gold Wyvern caught the ship returning to Goras, the scribe had reported with a clinical dispassionate voice recounting from memory. There were no survivors and the vessel was written off your majesty.
“Don’t fall in love on the job or outside of it,” Ryker continued shaking his head and missing the paling Zilan that collapsed to her knees under the weight of the bag seemingly. The circlet leaving her numb fingers and clattering down the cracked old granite tiles, the happy jingling sound the expensive ornament made laced with touches of the macabre and reverberating down the empty streets of the dead city.
“For it shall get you killed,” the Thieves Guild member had told her and it was like Nulanos himself was once again speaking to Valydra from beyond the grave.
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
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