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Nulanos
‘Neil Toloth’
‘Eight Fingers’
‘8’
Eight’s Second Rule
Part I
-Wolves on our trail-
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A strange, loud and wolf-like, distant howling was heard over the mangled but still standing ruins of the old Zilan capital. Another answering it from the southernmost part of the city, a third much more animalistic, deeper and irregular coming from the nearby shores about fifty meters away.
The tiny Gnome’s apocryphal and unintelligible words aboard the sinking Larea Macar now holding a whole different meaning. Granted Nulanos was busy trying to save himself at that time to delve deeper into his unlikely companion’s mumblings. The talking Gnome had spent most of its time whilst Eight fought with the angry waves for several days, parked on his shoulder, pissing down his neck and pointing at sea birds.
Telling Eight a story about tiny lights blinking in a moon-less night.
Anyhow.
Wolf-made-escort-to-pack-witch, the Gnome had told him back in the ship’s bowels.
It wasn’t Valydra bringing a ‘wolf escort’ to 'bag' the witch.
But that the Wolfpack had followed Valydra and had found Dudrina.
Wolves in plural.
Nulanos jumped to his feet, right hand snatching Sorn’s sword from the cracked roof and Valydra’s eye opening and closing still in shock. The Werewolf’s hairy raised ears appeared first, a strong neck supporting a beastly head, yellow eyes glowing and large fangs sprouting under black, saliva-dripping lips.
“Varg!” Nulanos roared to snap the injured female out of her dazed state and closed the distance with the ever rising over the edge of the wall hairy monster. Eight leaped from his left leg, both hands raised over the head and clutching at the handle of the sword, right boot connecting with the beast’s muzzle with a sharp thud when he landed.
The werewolf’s head was snapped to the right from the hook kick and Eight’s blade came down on a leather-encased very-wide left shoulder, sliced down and stopped at the clavicle bone. A splash of gore spurting out of the ghastly wound. Half-a-second later Nulanos’ raised left boot lodged on the faltering beast’s muscular chest and heaved it back over the edge, yanking the stuck sword out of the wound whilst sawing at the flesh and bone.
The seven-foot tall Varg toppled backwards, an ogling Eight snapped his head hard to the left wanting to check on the shuddering in the attempt to get on her feet Valydra and a clawed hand grabbed at his foot. The falling werewolf had managed to drag him off of the edge on his way down. The grunting Nulanos’ nape hit the lip of the half-collapsed roof almost breaking his neck and then plummeted for the ground after the beast.
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A dazed Nulanos rolled on a shoulder afore hitting the ground with a rugged gasp just after the Nauro-Varg crashed a foot from him with a pained growl. Eight’s roll ended three meters away and he jumped on his feet at the end it, every part of his body hurting.
The bleeding werewolf pushed his right hand down and got up with a drawn-out growl that shook the ancient wall to its foundations. Eight faltered backwards across the road to draw it away from Valydra, the injured beast turning to come after him. While wearing a crude hardened-leather half-piece of armour and a belt of sorts, this wasn’t Dar Draug.
For starters the werewolf was about a head shorter and more muscular. The beast paused, nostrils expanding to snort loudly and made to turn its monstrous wolf’s head around.
When they had locked in on a scent during a hunt it was very difficult to make them disengage.
Supposedly. No one really had firsthand experience with fighting against them because the Varg came from across the Unknown Ocean and liked the wilderness.
There is a murky shallow lake dominating the narrow valleys carving the high elongated desolate peaks that ended at the upper jaw of Nasto Cas Gulf in the uppermost north of Mistland, the saying went according to Dudrina. Into those valleys and the arboreal ravines, up the rocky slopes and the rich over a hundred-meter tall trees the Nauro-Varg roam free. An ancient kingdom of humanoids that had been afflicted by a terrible curse by their mortal enemies. Thousands of years later they still guarded those distant northern shores of Mistland from the horrors of the interior. It is said, the Black Witch had added, that if one cuts straight through the middle of Nasto Cas Gulf, scales over the summits and swims across the Round Sea he’ll reach the isolated island of Galith where the Aken live. But veer too much to the east or the west and you’ll miss it, come upon the Great South Desert and the decadent demesnes of the Alafern instead.
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“Hey!” Nulanos rustled to get its attention and stepped forward flipping the sword in his hand. The werewolf turned its monstrous head to glare at the approaching thief leader and then leaped from a standing position without any warning to barrel onto him. Eight twisted away from a swinging claw, the beast smelling of wet fur, blood and earth, his blade cutting through the pelt right at the Varg’s ribs. Nulanos sidestepped away from a vicious backhand, but it came back and caught him a hand-breadth under the left armpit. The sharp claw-like fingers ripping part of the leather shirt away and carving four deep gouges on Eight’s sides.
A grimacing Nulanos scrambled to get away, boots slipping on the petrified street afore he dropped on a knee and saw the following after him werewolf’s ghastly mouth opening above his head. But then it snapped shut with a pained guttural growl. The beast took a backwards step and reached with his good arm to extract a spoon of all cursed things buried deep in the right side of its neck. Valydra rolling on its other side, a short-sword in her hand she used to sneak-attack the beast again, this time aiming for the Varg’s thigh.
The werewolf groaned, now bleeding from several places and jumped away dropping to all fours.
“Ouch. Oi,” Valydra gasped a hoarse groan, keeping a hand on her wound, comely face ravaged by a grimace of agony.
“You were supposed to stay on the blasted roof—!” A scowling Nulanos grunted at the still staring in his manic face bewildered female and heard a series of angry rapid snarls coming up from behind him. The sound of paws thudding on the ground and branches snapping. Eight grabbed Valydra’s elbow, shoved her away like a ragdoll and turned around, just as the massive Direwolf burst out of the brushwood that had blocked the alley next to the ruins.
And galloped towards him. The giant mutated predator standing at almost two-meters tall and three long, enraged at her injured brood’s pained growls.
The pack’s female.
Fuck.
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A desperate Nulanos whipped a hand down and into his satchel looking for a dark place to skedaddle away, the other switching the grip on the handle to have the rising blade point down –in a shield of sorts for his arm- and half-turned his torso. He had even less time than he’d initially thought. The Direwolf’s monstrous jaws snapped shut on his forearm –near the wrist- despite the angled steel blade in its way. Eight had tried to swing it but it had lodged sideways into its closing mouth instead. The sharp fangs ravaged flesh and bones and then the massive body of the furry predator barreled on a yelping Eight and brought the Zilan down.
The growling and bleeding Direwolf yanked Eight’s arm first right then left savagely, dragging the flaying under it Zilan along for the ride. Flesh ripped away from the bone or got mauled, but each powerful bite hurt the Direwolf as the blade cut at both sides of its mouth. A few agonizing moments later –but it felt much longer than that to the squealing Zilan- the beast let go of Eight’s ravaged forearm to spit the bloody sword out and they both jumped away -to lick at their wounds sort of speak.
A shortsword rattling on the ground next to the soaked in sweat, blood and groaning Nulanos that could see with gawking eyes the gore spurting out of his mauled forearm. Anytime you spot your own broken bones fully exposed under the missing flesh, you know it’s going to be a long day of hurt ahead of you.
A week more like.
Quite a bit more or worse if you don’t have a healing potion at the near.
Not that the latter will spare you the agony.
Nulanos reached for the shortsword with clenched teeth, ears ringing and head spinning, the adrenalin boiling in his veins and eyed the ogling Valydra that had tossed it watching him encouragingly from ten meters away.
The Mori-Zilan female pointed with a finger at the growling Direwolf nearing Eight whilst he was distracted.
The Direwolf leaped on Nulanos again, a black mountain of furry flesh and a bloody cavernous mouth snapping an inch from his ear as the thief sidestepped out of the beast’s way. The Direwolf stumbled on its four legs for a couple of meters, Valydra’s shortsword buried deep below its left hairy ear and then let out a whiny groan. With a protracted guttural growl the Direwolf sat down and stared at the faltering to his feet Nulanos, its breath coming out fast and rugged.
“You’re hurt,” Valydra gasped and rushed near him but the grimacing Eight shushed her trying to listen beyond the beast’s heavy breathing and whining.
“They are coming here,” Nulanos grunted looping a piece of his ravaged outer shirt over the wound. While he’d arrived fully dressed into this remote part of Goras, Eight had only his leather pants on now and part of the shirt’s shoulder along the left sleeve. Valydra had his red inner cotton shirt wrapped around her bleeding torso. How about you worry about your blasted ruined wardrobe later? You’re not on a fucking date shits for brains! “Get to the horses,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“What are you going to do?” She asked with a grimace and tried to touch him as if she didn’t believe he was really there.
“I must distract Dar Draug,” Nulanos grunted and grabbed his satchel from the ground with a groan. The leather strap had snapped in the struggle. He could barely walk. Nulanos stared at the shades extending as far back as the start of the coastal road they had left behind them and he could now barely see from the ground. “How far you think until that oil lamp?”
“What?” A bewildered Valydra asked and Eight spotted something speedily approaching from the southwestern parts of the ruined city. The black figure stopped near the arched wall where he’d fought with Din and the assassin appeared again about twenty meters from their position. Din was heading towards them. He stopped upon hearing Dar Draug’s menacing growl and turned around to wave his arm to the ancient werewolf.
“Go now,” Nulanos hissed and ignited the incense he’d gotten out of the satchel’s sheath.
This is going to hurt a lot.
Petrified coastal street. Find the oil lamp left on the ground, with the beach a hundred meters away.
A sixty meters trip into the dark.
You got this.
> Blackness.
>
> Everywhere around him. A pure black this, thick as grease. The narrow path lit up barely in front of him with a soft ashen glow. Brittle pebbles underfoot as he walked briskly to preserve his strength. The in-between realms calling him. Out of the corners of his eyes the strained Nulanos could see figures approaching and slowly gathering on both sides of the barely visible narrow path. Most keeping a good five meters away but even so some of them reaching with long limbs for the hurrying thief ‘walking the shades’.
>
> The curious fiends querying in strange tongues.
>
> In the distance a series of tiny lights could be seen on the dark sky. Eight realized this was a flat featureless terrain he was traversing. A black desert of sorts. He blinked trying to keep following the ever-dimming path and the tiny lights multiplied all about him distractedly. More details emerging. Each tiny light connected with a very-thin white thread, all threads coalescing to a point in the sky.
>
> ‘Tiny-lights-souls-tied-with-can’t-Eatoth-escape.
>
> One-hidden-lingers-ever-is not-unless!’
>
> Souls tied with tiny lights can’t escape Eatoth, the Gnome’s story went. Unless one is not and ever lingers hidden.
>
> Tied that is.
>
> Fuck’s sake Dudrina you could’ve given him a thesaurus or something.
>
> Nulanos heard something running on the narrow path right next to him shoulder to shoulder. A moment later he noticed the murky figure that had sneaked up on him for some reason already grasping at his naked shoulder with weightless ghostly fingers. The distorted smoke-like semi-corporeal fiend had a glowing eye of sorts where its head would have been, but no thin thread attached to it leading to the skies. The fleshless fingers on Eight’s shoulder solidifying as the creature attempted to latch on to the now running as fast as he could thief.
>
> Health be damned.
>
> The fingers shadowy flesh tearing, the joints snapping as Nulanos burst out of the shades and the fiend’s scream forming semi-coherent words in Imperial.
>
> Laebae… Aniculo sangane.
>
> Find wyvern’s tongue.
Oras fiends in the dark! A freaked out Nulanos thought and tumbled out of the shade cast by an old calcified beam still lodged on the top of an ancient wall. The wrong edge of it, five meters above the ground. Eight’s feet slid to the narrow stone-like beam’s edge and stopped on the tips of his boots. The sound of crackling reaching him as the other edge of the beam that was still attached suddenly moved back and forth. It then ripped itself out of the weakened wall.
The thief jumped away and plummeted down for the second time inside five minutes, hitting the ground with an oomph and then tumbling sideways to avoid the falling debris that crashed all about him.
A cursing Eight faltered to his feet amidst the raised dust cloud, made two uncertain steps and then stooped between his shaking legs to puke. A torrent of phlegm and stomach fluids exploding out of his mouth and a wave of dizziness flooding his overwhelmed senses. His badly injured right forearm had turned into a black piece of coal, the aftereffects of the spell reaching as far up as his shoulder.
Damn it.
I pushed myself too far. No more fancy magic for you tonight mate, Nulanos thought trying to forget what had almost happened back there and stood up trying to locate the oil lamp. Out of the corner of his right eye he saw Dar Fenog pausing for a second time about forty meters away and behind him the werewolf twisting around alarmed, ears turned to the ruckus that the collapsed part of the wall had created.
Nulanos moved fast, which wasn’t fast at all as he almost went down immediately, his legs locking up and not listening to commands. He got extra motivation hearing the werewolf coming towards him. Dar Draug had a long cloak on and wore pieces of armour under it which could probably hide him inside a crowd of blind people. He now stood well-over seven feet tall, a lean but chiseled hairy body underneath the cloak, with long arms and powerful legs complimenting it. Some grey sprinkled on the once shiny black fur.
Move you darn fool!
A groaning Eight stumbled towards the still lit and glowing in the middle of the street oil lamp which Dar Fenog had used earlier to signal the approaching ship. He could see Celeste’s lights coming nearer inside the natural port carved out of the remnants of the old one.
Nulanos swung his head back and spotted the hobbling Dar Fenog now twenty meters away, blood still covering his gaunt face but he couldn’t see any sign of the Varg Nym had saved and nurtured from a young age instead of slitting its throat.
A cultured Varg, a pleased Nym had told him on the bridge allowing the werewolf to drool all over her neck whilst rubbing at his huge hairy head with both hands. Most of her other pupils and Eight visibly disturbed at the spectacle.
Oh, for crying out loud, a sweaty, hurt and grimacing Nulanos cursed and dived for the oil lamp just as Dar Draug leaped out of the shades Neil had used earlier but without any of Eight’s problems. The leaping werewolf had also covered the distance to the middle of the road much faster than Nulanos.
Without hesitation Dar Draug hacked with a large custom sword he carried on his back, just as Eight landed not a meter away from him. Nulanos twisted away from the long blade, swung the sword with his left but Draug parried it away and then retaliated with a vicious swipe of the clawed fingers trying to tear Nulanos’ face away. Eight jerked spastically backwards, the claws missed but did carve then ripped flesh and skin away from his left pec to the shoulder. The force of the blow shoving Neil violently to the ground.
“Killed her… hrr… you did…hrr… sneaky thief,” Dar Draug rustled gutturally, eons later still has trouble getting the words out, but unlike the brainless Gnome the werewolf had some smarts. Nulanos hurled the sword at him to gauge the beast’s reaction and Draug slapped it away with his, snapping the monstrous jaws shut angrily at the crawling back with the use of his legs snarling Nulanos. “But I caught… hrr… your bitch’s scent… hrr…” Draug growled and licked those gory long clawed fingers with a rough tongue, eyes glowing in the dark. “The pack will have her… hrr… make more… hrr… make strong.”
“Hirsute primordial brute,” Neil grunted hoarsely and hurled the oil lamp on the hideously smirking werewolf assassin. “Catch this.”
Dar Draug frowned seeing the glowing flying canister and closing his fist punched it aside. The bronze and ceramic bowl came apart unable to withstand the blow and the glass chimney shattered in many pieces as the lamp exploded before it ever reached the werewolf’s face.
The burning oil did though and the next moment Draug’s torso and face were set alight.
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Dar Draug let out a howling roar and stumbled back, flaying his arms to douse the flames out, before dropping to all fours. Din, who had reached about ten meters away from the rolling away from the exploding flames Nulanos, stopped as well with ogling eyes and then ducked for the ground.
Which was bizarre to witness the thief thought, for a brief moment quite perturbed with the injured second assassin’s reaction.
The next a trumpeting shriek was heard coming from the skies -ever closing in and before Neil could realize what was going on, the Onyx Wyvern landed narrowly missing them with its talons and the swipe of its stinger that followed soon after. It then crashed on the ground infuriated at the fail, demolishing the weakened wall Eight had plummeted from earlier and continued using its hind legs and extended winged forelimbs to break its momentum.
Behind Eight Dar Draug raced towards the ocean on all fours burning like a torch and wailing as much as the annoyed Wyvern shrieked, the two werewolves that had approached from the site where the female Direwolf had expired earlier, stopping to reevaluate things. The Onyx Wyvern turned its horned head, it stood over three meters tall on all fours, radiant rubicund eyes examining the grimacing Nulanos and the injured retreating assassin.
RRRRREEEEE
The Wyvern trumpeted gutturally, the raised stinger dancing ominously behind it, its elongated neck turning to eye the two werewolves, one of them badly injured from Nulanos, as if unsure on what was easier to catch.
Good grief, the wyvern is loose, Nulanos thought with a shiver, desperately trying to get his frozen and turned into a dead piece of coal right arm going. It feeds on its own and doesn’t sleep locked in the Den.
With a loud snort the wyvern moved east -awkwardly but quite fast- towards the half collapsed building Eight had leaped back and forth twice that night where it finally stopped over the dead Direwolf’s corpse. The Wyvern reached low and took a good crunching bite out of the carcass, eyes set on the two growling werewolves that watched the wyvern eat their mother tauntingly. One after the other the two Varg retreated and galloped away, their howls reverberating inside the desolate ruins of Old East City.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
When Nulanos checked to see where Dar Fenog was he realized the assassin had disappeared as well not wanting to risk staying near the feasting wyvern. Neil decided that Din’s idea was the best of the wild night and with a groan of pain followed after the assassin’s example going for his borrowed horse.
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Valydra waited by her horse under the shade of a ruined villa that had a distant view of the wyvern and what now was the seaside neighborhood of the old city. The injured Nulanos, his right arm had been ravaged by the Direwolf and the spell sickness had turned it useless, with several other parts of his body feeling mauled because they were, paused for a moment to watch her work on the wound she had sustained with string and needle.
“It’s going to leave a mark,” he noted when Valydra raised her head to look at him after hearing the horse. She pursed her mouth and got up all tensed. “But Draug might literally need to always wear a hood from now on. And buy salve for severe burns in bulk.”
“He got away?” She asked with a frown looking at him hobbling near her.
Come on Milva, give me a grin dear.
“No one back there believed the wyvern was about to talk it out,” Nulanos tried again with a pained smile. “Where did he find a Direwolf?”
“It has been quite a lot of time Neil,” Valydra replied guardedly and there was a bit of depth in her reply.
“It has and yet you still find yourself in trouble,” Nulanos teased and Valydra sobered up. “That spoon trick was neat back there. Where did you find it?” He added and this time she chuckled, although it was ruined by a jolt of pain.
“Silver makes them sick,” Valydra rustled through a grimace of pain. “But I really liked the design on it.”
Nulanos nodded. “The Monarch’s silverware. Eilven has been given the green light. A bit of an artistic vein in the princess too.”
“You dine with the Monarch now?” Valydra asked a little impressed whilst raising a thin black brow.
“Nah, don’t believe the nasty rumors,” Eight teased. “I’m still single.”
And in superb condition considering the mileage with plenty left in the tank.
Excellent… eh.
Plenty… well, the will is there for sure.
Valydra nodded not fully in the mood still and showed him a healing potion she had gotten out of her satchel. Homegrown brew, all ingredients hand-picked from the old place. Custom wooden cork, stained old glass vial and everything.
The girl is not half bad either.
“I just had one. It looks worse than it really is.” He politely declined.
Valydra closed the satchel and returned it to the saddle. Eight’s intense scrutiny of her face was making it uncomfortable for the female Mori-Zilan. Yes, they were both still alive. Yes, she hadn’t betrayed him and he still had her back, but Neil wanted to know what had happened to her other eye. All the other things. Like why would a thief pick up a sword?
“He trusts his wyvern a lot,” she noted hoarsely pressing a cloth on her leaking wound.
“I don’t believe he gives a damn. If Ninthalor was in the middle and Baltoris the one edge, then Garth is the complete other.”
“What edge be that?”
“Do whatever you darn like just stay out of his… or the wyvern’s way.” Nulanos replied and pointed at her horse. “Want help with that?”
Toloth Ama Erea said nothing. She climbed on the saddle easily and turned it to give him a strange look. He just couldn’t help but think she looked the same but also very different.
“Is the arm okay?” Valydra murmured, her tone a bit defensive the rest worried.
The arm is pretty fucked up dear.
But we’ll be alright.
“I’ll sleep it off,” Nulanos assured her with a shit-eating grin and he had to clench his jaw tightly to pull it off.
-
> First Era
>
> Spring of 1992 IC
>
> 20 centuries into King Ninthalor’s reign
>
> 194 years into the war with the Aken
>
> 199 since the start of the Plague Isles campaign
>
> During ‘Raid of Bariesha Lake’ event, Nureria Island
>
> Elas Study tower
>
> Midnight
> Nulanos peeked behind the corner and saw the corridor was clear. Elas was heard talking from his hall/office. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw Valydra waving at him to get going already. The scowl on her face comical.
>
> He raised two fingers to ask for two minutes. The Marines were engaged with the Aken fifty kilometers away and he’d expected everyone in the tower to have followed its guard detail when they left the previous morning. Give it another day and then move in for a looksee.
>
> For some reason Elas had stayed behind.
>
> Valydra hissed in frustration and turned around to secure their rope a bit better. Scaling the wall had been pretty exciting initially but she had almost tumbled down due to a slip and while he had tried to make light of it, she didn’t see it that way at all.
>
> “I’ll find an escort for you in the morning,” Elas said opening the door. “But I have to check for news from Lord Sulynor. The King will be here by morrow and everything will be resolved.”
>
> Right.
>
> Let’s have a long meeting to discuss how the Aken got their hands on ships and what does it mean going forward. Blame the human greed or just blame gold.
>
> This war might never end.
>
> The clad in long dark-blue robes Elderblood walked past the glued on the wall sneering Nulanos and went down the stairs hurriedly. Eight waited a minute and then tip-toed to the closed door of the hall. He turned the knob with the outmost care not to make noise and cracked it open.
>
> “Hey,” Valydra hissed a whisper behind him. “We need to go. Your plan sucked and Dudrina might want her ‘burning water’ back. She’ll put those buzzing bugs in my hair again Neil.”
>
> Hah-ha.
>
> “Worry not. She’ll just make more and I didn’t know the locks were reinforced dear. This was but a minor setback,” Nulanos said and waved her back to the other room. “Keep an eye for the alchemist might return.”
>
> “He’s Lord Transcriber now,” Valydra jested and turned around to head back to her spot with attitude, giving him a good view of those hips.
>
> Better hurry it up was her meaning.
>
> “Yeah right. Everyone is a lord of something,” Eight retorted and opened the door to step inside the hall-sized office. A wall covered with tomes, the large desk and Elas laboratory right behind it. Cupboards and armoires on the other wall, several tables packed with vials in between and open manuscripts.
>
> Nulanos walked inside looking for another door out of the tower’s corner room but didn’t spot it immediately. Hmm. Wasn’t that fool talking with someone?
>
> Is he chaperoning a kid or something? A lover?
>
> You old dog.
>
> Eight checked a couple of the scribbled pages, lifted a vial to examine its contents and then put it back. He smacked his lips and then walked towards a large window with heavy curtains. Nulanos drew the right side curtains back and a cat jumped down with a meow. A black cat airing itself near an open window, he thought. What a fucking waste.
>
> Was Elas an animal lover? Doubtful.
>
> Eight glanced outside the open window and he could see the crystal clear lake and beyond it in the distance the mist of Elas Port. The lake named after his sister, since Elderbloods liked that sort of thing. Aenymriel’s Bath.
>
> Had no one knew of the lass he’d be fooled to think of the place enticing. But it wasn’t. Aenymriel was a very weird lass. Nulanos sighed and turned to check the contents of the lockers.
>
> Check the god darn desk first!
>
> Yeah. You’re a nervous wreck, he scolded himself. Why?
>
> There was something about this unassuming room that unnerved him.
>
> He walked there and cracked the first drawer open. Closed it with a hiss and checked the other one. Only this had no visible knob or keyhole. Eight run his fingers on the smooth surface for any hidden buttons but found nothing. Checked the edges of the drawer next and stooped under it. A little frustrated he stood up and recoiled seeing the black cat standing on the corner of the desk judiciously watching his actions.
>
> Meow.
>
> Nulanos scratched his nose and the cat raised a paw to lick it. Used the same paw to comb its brows carefully and then grinned… like a cat.
>
> Fuck’s sake.
>
> Grinding his teeth Eight eyed the cat warningly and then turned around to walk away but paused to stare at the window again. He’d pulled one of the curtains to the side to reveal it but something was off. There were three curtains there. Two on one side.
>
> The right.
>
> The thief lowered his eyes and caught a glimpse of something under the hem of the outer of two heavy curtains.
>
> Meow?
>
> He reached for a lightstone lamp left on the desk and directed its light on the curtain. Up and down.
>
> “Aww,” the curtain said in a female voice a little annoyed. “My toe-rings sparkled.”
>
> Eight made to bolt it for the door but the curtain added. “Stay, a while longer.”
>
> Fuck.
>
> An immobilizing spell casually tossed around. Eight couldn’t move. He needed to knock himself out somehow to break it. Topple sideways. Crack your head on the side of the desk. This might be deadly though. Eh. The curtain moved changing color from golden velvet to a yellowish satin. It also shrunk and morphed into a short tunic. The tunic ended a meter above the floor where a pair of well-shaped legs started. Knees, calves and ankles perfectly constructed, high silver-thread sandals barely covering a pair of small feet with painted white toes. Each toe adorned with a different diamond ring.
>
> They sparkled but not like the young female’s eyes did. Liquid silver with touches of blue, ever changing hues on purpose. Her long blue curls combing themselves back to leave a long graceful neck and a pair of soft creamy ears exposed.
>
> “A Mori-Zilan. You are not supposed to be here,” the female Zilan hummed with a melodic voice and in perfectly enunciated though a bit exaggerated court Imperial accent. A wildness underneath barely hidden. Nulanos could feel the witch’s aura pressing on him, small invisible tendrils touching his skin.
>
> She took one small step forward, then another. When the witch moved, all of her body was in motion as well and not only her legs. The hands, head and all visible or hidden curves on her figure. You’re not so young, the sweaty and immobilized Nulanos thought watching her approach. But you smell of peaches.
>
> And sweet cream.
>
> The witch stopped in front of him and he was a good head taller than her. Until he wasn’t. She chuckled at his reaction, lips splitting to reveal perfect pointy fangs and a pink tongue. A healthy laughter full of promises.
>
> “You should call the guards,” the cat said and waved a paw tauntingly at the ogling Nulanos. “Tough luck buddy. Fuck off to the dungeons now.”
>
> “Don’t mind Melon,” the witch said with a cute pout. “I shall let you go if you tell me why you are really here.”
>
> “He’s a thief you darn cunt—” the male cat screamed the rest of it as he went flying out of the open window.
>
> “He’s an uncouth cat,” the witch explained at the worried Nulanos. “He can’t fly but he does have nine lives.” She paused thoughtfully for a moment, the sound of Melon splattering in the yard barely reaching their sensitive ears, afore she added. “Eight.”
>
> Then she snapped her fingers and Nulanos almost dropped to his knees not expecting it. But he could move again.
>
> “That’s my name sweet lass,” Neil said recovering and grinned fiercely. “I came here to see you.”
>
> “Hmm.” She hummed with a smile. “You are lying. But it’s a charming lie. My visit was kept a secret.”
>
> “It’s a crime your stay was interrupted,” Nulanos teased.
>
> “Only the war has touched my family already and I was already pretty bored in Lord Elas’ company. This was a less pleasurable attempt Eight.”
>
> “Does this charming Lady have a name?”
>
> “The most charming of all ladies does. Do all thieves have numbers as names I wonder? Or is it just you?” The comely witch dodged.
>
> Oh my. You don’t hold back awed in your own splendor honey.
>
> ‘Magic mirror hanged on your lavish wall, who is the prettiest of them all?’ must be your favorite tale.
>
> “Just me.” He replied confidently working his charm on her. “But we have rigid rules in my guild.”
>
> For the most part.
>
> Some more than others.
>
> “Only noble lords can set rules others follow.”
>
> “How about noble pretty witches?”
>
> The attractive Elderborn stood back and stared in his face for a long moment. “Elas keeps the keys to the vault in that drawer but if you take them I’ll stop you and then inform Lord Elas. You’ll live knowing where your prize is but be unable to touch it.”
>
> You don’t say. How… childishly cruel dear and foolish.
>
> Nulanos glanced at the desk. “Why would you…?”
>
> “My rules are egocentric justly. They must be for Night Moon’s daughter,” she told him emotively. “I’m also curious if you’ll try it anyway.”
>
> Hah, well then. You’ll be prettier than your mother, I’ll give you that.
>
> But you have still a lot to learn about people, Nulanos decided and bowed his head.
>
> Especially crooks in general.
>
> “Then I must assure the fair Lady that I won’t get into the vault. It’ll be our secret,” he had told the young sorceress in Elas office.
>
> Tonight was his meaning.
>
>
>
> After they reached the north base of the tower, the task much easier for half the way down with the use of the rope, they both headed for their horses through the rich garden of Vaelerthiel ‘of the woods’. Elas and Aenymriel’s mother. Eight felt Valydra’s glare piercing the back of his head the whole journey.
>
> “Milva of the mines,” he told her in one of the stops with the first light touching the side of the road leading to the port. A scowling squad of Imperial Hoplites tasked with reinforcing Lord Sulynor at Lake Bariesha marching on the tiled path going the opposite way. “I just teased the little witch a bit. Learned how to get into Elas Vault without burning my fingers off. We play the mark dear to get what we want.”
>
> Valydra had turned her back now and worked on the straps of her horse in silence. Eight walked near the smaller female and hugged her waist. His nose teasing the beaded braids tail. Thin and intricately fashioned she had gathered them at the top of the head and caught them there with a leather strap.
>
> “Neil gets what he wants,” Valydra murmured and half-turned to look him with those special eyes.
>
> “At this point… I can only think of you,” Nulanos flirted. It was a wrongly worded admission. “At any blasted point,” he added with a knowing stare –not well received- and Valydra put a hand on his chest to push him away. The other in one of the saddlebags. “What do you have in there?”
>
> “An old hammer. I need to fix a loose horseshoe,” Valydra retorted and it could be interpreted a number of ways this last part.
>
> “Whose hammer is it?” Nulanos probed and she showed him the old military hammer Eight still owed to Unor. Old Unor playing the hero in the Plague Isles now and he had been there for years but still it was a lame excuse for keeping the tool.
>
> Eight just liked it. It was useful.
>
> “You’re my sweet partner in crime,” he told the hammer-wielding frowned Mori-Zilan hoarsely. “Not a tool, another mark or a trinket. But a piece of gleaming Mithril rising from the ashes. No alluring little witch can top that.”
>
> He had gone in for a kiss then feeling very moved in the moment, but Valydra had stopped him placing the steel hammer under his chin.
>
> “Alluring?”
>
> Ugh.
>
> “Aelrindel used a spell and she’s probably covered with enchanting words and stones under all that glitter,” Neil rustled and pressed against the tool until she finally yielded and lowered it to give him access. “I was fucking coerced.”
-
Third Era
The 14th of Neter 3400 IC
Denis was snoring loudly behind the counter when they entered the Black Door tavern. Hearing the door close, the alarmed thief let out a gasp and dived out of sight forgetting where he was. They heard him roll on the ground for a couple of meters and then a disheveled Denis peeked from the other edge of the counter.
“Chief?” He croaked.
“Another liar,” Valydra commented sourly and limped to a chair with Nulanos heading straight for the bar with a deep sigh.
Denis got up and rubbed his face with both hands. “Ryker got them all riled up and they left armed Eight,” he explained.
Sorn.
“Get some water on your face. You need to go and find them,” Nulanos ordered and unwrapped the bandage on his right arm to check on the damage. The blackened skin still hard but it had started returning to life slowly. The jolts of pain also returning to the awakened necrotic flesh. “Bring me that medic’s kit I keep around first.”
“What do I tell them?”
“I’ll deal with it,” Eight replied. “Soon.”
Denis nodded and left to head down to the ‘cellar’.
“What’s the problem?” Valydra asked on his back tiredly.
“Not many know I’m around. Not many that Dar Fenog would have trusted enough to go on a night excursion.”
Then again Din might have nothing better to do these days.
“Are we doing this again? I didn’t sell you out,” Valydra hissed. “I made a fucking deal. To save everyone!”
“Sorn talked with the Circle. Why?”
“Sorn lives?” Valydra gasped. “Whoa. That’s… news to me. I haven’t spoken to him in centuries.”
Nulanos turned around to stare at the worn out and injured female thief intently.
“You piece of shit,” she hissed irate and got up with a grimace. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”
“You walked away,” Nulanos replied stiffly.
“You disappeared for fifty years!” Valydra snapped angrily in Imperial. “Wait. You did it again not soon after that!”
“I had a job left unfinished on Jelin. Soon as I finished it, I came back.”
“With a half-breed thing!”
“Humans are ridiculously easy to propagate,” Eight said with a scowl and walked slowly to her table with a bottle of black whiskey Nigel had brought the other day. “His name was Anval and he wasn’t a thing. He just didn’t have Zilan ears or much of a skill.”
The word being Nata in Imperial and it had stuck with Anval.
“That’s your excuse?”
“I’m an old soul,” Neil admitted and poured himself a bronze cup of whiskey. “Long before we found each other in those tunnels. Set in my ways. That don’t mean I ever stopped caring for you.”
Valydra pressed her mouth tightly and reached to grab the cup from him. She glugged down the strong drink until her sole eye watered and she had to wipe a tear away.
“What happened to the boy?” Nulanos asked stiffly.
“We got him out. I think he finally settled near the Lesia Lords lands. That was eleven centuries ago Neil.”
“It’s a Kingdom now. Quite far from here,” Nulanos replied and brought the bottle to his lips to have another mouthful. “I made a lot of mistakes. All Elderbloods are like that but won’t admit it out of pride. But you were never one of them.”
A silent Valydra signed for him to refill her cup and a sober Nulanos did.
“Sorn had talked with the Servants before. He was preternaturally scared of Nym. Always freaked him out.”
“She was pretty scary to all normal people. Why risk nearing Din again?”
“You know better. What happened? Did you threaten him?”
Not enough apparently or… Sorn had no other choice. He was in too deep.
“Did he sell me out back then as well?”
Knowing they’ll probably have old Eight killed?
“He talked with Minuet Mol and Nym,” Valydra explained. “No sane person would talk with Din when that Varg is still around. Then again the Thieves Guild is on good terms with the Monarch again. Sorn had nothing to gain here. Did he?”
Eh. Hmm… Sorn actually believed that? That the Guild was working for the throne?
“What is it?” Valydra asked scrunching her small nose.
“If I’m in the palace then what the Monarch knows, I know theoretically.” Nulanos said. “The Circle reports to him or so it was back then. Din said that Nym will know all about it. About me. Why would the throne bother with me? Or maybe the throne isn’t aware or even remotely interested. Nym works for the Monarch sure but perhaps they don’t have the same rapport as she had with late Baltoris.”
Or the Circle’s leader is still looking to decipher that old riddle. The ghosts of eons past are still lurking in the shadows. An ageless crazy killer still following a long dead and vengeful Queen’s orders.
> ‘In metal it whispers an ever-weaving thread,’ the unseen creature escorting Dar Nym had divined all those centuries ago.
>
> ‘If left, its influence shall spread and come for his daughter’s head.
>
> If left, it shall birth cursed dead flesh,
>
> Feed in lover’s envy or bereft.
>
> If left, then the realm shall bled,
>
> For it ever wants its shackles shed.’
“We’ll rest in another place for a couple of days. Everyone will move out,” a solemn Nulanos told the worried Valydra. “This place is burned and there are wolves on our trail led by a traitor’s words. I’m not really that sad about the bloody tavern. It was a money-sink really.”