“Here.” A small canvas sack containing freshly chiseled pieces of ice from the large block in the nearby sink was offered. Tyras accepted it gracefully and pressed it to his brow. His wife did not much approve of his pugilistic hobby, so he was eager to treat even the slightest bruise that her hawkish and caring eye would undoubtedly notice, especially as a medical woman.
The moose for his part shoved some pieces of cotton into his bloodied nostrils and prepared a similar ice pack for his ribs. He’d invited Tyras to his own room after the fight, which was one of the few proper cabins on this old floating vessel. It was far from luxurious, the room being about the size of a decent bathroom in a well to do but not opulent home. Yet, compared to the dreary crew quarters he’d been obliged to sleep in for the past two nights, it felt kingly.
A cheap, sky-blue carpet covered the floor, an opened untidy drawer, a study upon which a few fiction books and an open journal lay, a sofa faced with a bare coffee table, a bed which looked decidedly too small for the moose’s mountainous physique and a small ashwood table with two seats and a yet unopened wine bottle completed the homely feeling of humble comfort like one may find in a workman’s dwellings.
Well, with the singular exception of a massive spherical porthole which took the place of the far wall, allowing a near perfect view of the sun’s dying embers vying for but a few more moments of warmth upon the world before the inevitable icy waters of night were poured upon its celestial fireplace. The first few stars shone upon the canvas of dying burnt orange and onyx black, as well as a different kind of stars shining just as brightly far below. Judging by how fast they’d been moving thus far and the crew’s prediction that they’d reach their destination come morning, they were above Katoi, a relatively small town known mostly for its small yet exquisite stationery industry. A quaint little settlement, one which many would have called “middle of nowhere”, yet one which buzzed with evidence of life.
Every single tiny firefly was a Bestia Sapiens life, quite a few in motion, which represented trains, carriages and skytrams, equipped with the new electric lights, judging by the sharper, harsher glimmer of a few.
Tyras once again found himself wondering how the world had gone from primarily cart and equistilio transportation, perhaps a dragon for the rich or the Pilgrim packs lucky enough to own them, to this in a mere forty or so years since the first railway was established in Nyter to speed up the transportation of building material in aid of the construction of the young Union of city-states.
“You know, I really ought to thank you, lion,” the man began in a decidedly East-Nyterian accent, yet with hints of something else. “This ship was boring me to tears. And I’ve seen cubs stickfighting with more grace and strategy than these drunken sailors.” he chuckled before answering a knock at the door. It was the first mate with two covered trays that were decidedly too large for the small saiga. He was thanked briefly and the two dinners were placed upon the small table.
“I see you took the liberty of also offering me dinner aside from inviting me to recuperate in your cabin.” Tyras said. “Oh, by Sapistia, we’ve never been properly introduced! We naturally know each other’s names from the fight announcer, yet I believe that hardly equals a proper introduction! I am Tyras Maloko, Lieutenant-Inspector.” His paw was shaken with a restrained strength which let him know could have easily crushed it.
“Achlos Dribas… civilian.” He added after a half second with a smirk. “If you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Maloko, I find it quite peculiar that you felt the need to bring your hat and cane for but a two hour visit to my cabin.”
Tyras smirked back and set his gray bowler hat down on the table. It was heavier than normal, with something tied inside of it weighing it down.
“Well, you see, sir, the captain offered you the second best room in the ship, for, I assume, gratitude from previous services rendered. Therefore, that makes this your temporary abode. And when a gentleman visits another, he is all but obligated to come fully dressed with hat, gloves and cane.”
Achlos laughed heartily.
“You Osnyans and your rituals! You people won’t do as little as eat a fig without some code of conduct or prayer first performed!”
“It makes sense you would think so. You lived among us and even fought for us, so you’ve experienced and even partaken in our way of life, and I believe, respect it, in your own way. However, your nomadic nature and your time spent in Nyter have given you a certain disdain for strictures.”
Achlos was in the process of lifting the lid from his meal, then he hovered it above the vegetable casserole while staring at the lion dumbfounded and with a hint of suspicion in his blue-gray eyes.
“I didn’t know the Osnyan PD had such a detailed file on me,” a touch of fear soon joined the suspicion, and he glanced round, either for a way out, or for a weapon.
Tyras let loose a hearty laugh and put his open hands forward as the universal sign of “calm down, man!”
“Oh, believe me, sir, I knew nothing of you before setting foot on the ship. However, I was given two whole days to study you, and I dare say, you are the most interesting man on this ship.”
That seemed to bring back the mirthful mood, for the larger man smiled and his posture relaxed.
“Huh. Well, they do say Osnyan cops are among the best in the world." The moose said with some amusement. "Alright, then: let’s hear it.”
Tyras smirked like a magician above to show a previously disappeared card.
“The fact that you fought in the War is the most obvious thing to me. There is a certain quiet confidence and discipline the experience ingrained in our very posture and gait which is quite impossible to unlearn and which no discipline instills other than soldiering. Then that you fought for us specifically was child’s play. You are in the habit of sharpening your dagger when bored, alongside the other sailors with their own knives. The triangular double edge of the slender blade and the solid pommel made for bashing are quite distinctive of the Dekinais Fighting Knife issued to many specialist troops on the side of the Light. I should know, I used one myself extensively, and Dekinais’s ingenious design saved my hide more than once.”
“Perhaps I fought for the Lunists, killed one of your Fakonan comrades and took their knife as war booty.” the stout cervine challenged.
“That was a possibility, yes. But I chanced to also notice the scar upon the bottom of your left palm. It is a very common scar for us Osnyan soldiers. The Tarbus Autoloading Carbine is a fantastic infantry rifle, the first widely adopted military semi automatic, and I dare say it gave our enemy hell, yet it has one flaw: when one inserts the six round clip into the internal magazine below the chamber and closes the loading gate, a spring causes it to snap shut with considerable force. This speeds up reloading, yet it also risks injury to a hastened infantryman not paying attention during a rapid reload.” Tyras opened up his right palm, showing a near-identical crescent moon scar.
“Took some flesh off during a rather embarrassing training accident when we got the new rifles. ‘Tarbus palm’ we called it.” he said with a chuckle. “And the chances you were allowed both enemy dagger and rifle as standard equipment are quite slim indeed.”
Achlos chuckled then seemed deep in thought.
“Wait.. you never were close enough close enough to see my palm before now, yet the conviction with which you said it makes me think you’ve known since you first laid eyes on me… no one sees that good. I knew it: you have the Forte Of Sight!”
Tyras’s lips formed a thin line. His powers were no huge secret, anyone who cared enough to pull up his employment file at the constabulary or his military records would have known, yet it was something he preferred to be on a need to know basis. Osnya, and most kingdoms and city-states of the Fakonan religion, never burned the Forted at the stake and acknowledged that their powers were from the Gods, yet there were quite a few, mostly simple folk, who found Forted to be untrustworthy. Especially one with his powers, who could see through walls or read what a certain person felt without the slightest hint that they were doing so.
The moose continued: “I figured as much when you switched to fighting right-handed and blocked blows in your blindspot without a hitch. You’re not the only one who pays attention to strangers, you know. And those air sailors you fought, you kept your right eye blind. You simply favored your left side, angled yourself in such a way as to see more of your opponent, and more or less anticipated the hits coming for your blindspot. I was the only one you used your Forte on. I suppose I ought to feel flattered.” Achlos grinned, finally lifting the lid off his dinner. Tyras did likewise.
“I see. I have found not only a former comrade-in-arms, but also a colleague.” Tyras smiled, picking at his own simple yet hearty dinner of steak, potatoes and baked onions.
“You cops don’t have a monopoly on paying attention.” The moose grinned. “Though, I’m curious: how’d you guess I was raised a Stateless and that I spent time in Nyter?”
“Well, it comes with the fact that I myself was raised a Pilgrim, or “Stateless” as you insist on calling the Nomadic peoples, and I know their habits. Your luggage is light and minimalistic. Of course, this alone does not prove that you are a Nomad, you may just be a regular traveler, yet among your luggage is included a tent, a firestarter kit and an emergency supply of food. You will never see a businessman with such knowledge of what is needed of living in the Wilds, and since you are traveling to the Capital, you’d have no immediate need for such things.
Furthermore, your accent does not come from anywhere in particular. It’s mostly Nyteri, but the way you pronounce the “e” and “a” are distinctly Osnyan, and the way you have trouble pronouncing the “r” makes me think your first language was Deflua, from which many residents choose a nomadic lifestyle to escape the oppressive island nation.
And lastly, your coat on the hanger has a cutaway for the rather large holster for a Tezcat Stopping Autopistol, the weapon undoubtedly on a luggage ship for you to pick up once you arrive, as you wouldn’t have been able to smuggle such a formidable weapon onboard even if you wanted to. This weapon was sold up until a few months ago solely in Nyter, and since the coat is at least two years old and the holster was a special order to the tailor, that means you undoubtedly spent time there not too long ago. Bounty hunter, most likely, given your need for such an exotic and powerful weapon.”
Achlos whistled. “Gotta say, I’m not much of a religious man, but if the gods do give their Fortes to those who can best use ‘em, well, they picked the right cat to give the Sight to!” He chuckled.
“In war, an observation, and what you make of it, means the difference between life and death" The lion said. "Particularly in the Pugnazuras regiment I was eventually chosen for. Speaking of which, if I may continue by analysis of your person, you were a Mountain Hunter, if I may venture a guess? Given your nomadic past and nature-granted proclivities towards mountaineering.”
“Indeed I was. Sniper commando.”
“Ah. And I assume your Chrono-dilation Forte made you one of our best marksmen, able to line up the perfect shot on moving targets.” Tyras said dryly. So that was what happened when he miraculously recovered and turned the fight around…
Achlos gave a sheepish, apologetic smirk.
“Okay, look… first off, it’s not time-dilation or anything like that. It slows down our perception of time. We move just as slowly, we are just able to think faster and plan out our next move to-”
“You cheated.” Tyras said matter of factly with some asperity.
Achlos chuckled innocently and raised his hands in mock surrender.
“Hey, look, I just thought that after you used your powers to see out of your right eye, it was fair game to also apply my own!”
“I merely equaled myself to you. While you utilized your Forte in such a way as to unnaturally exceed me.”
“Well… next time be sure to say “hey, now I can see out of my right eye” so all’s fair.” Achlos said with only the slightest condescension.
In spite of being cheated, Tyras couldn’t bring himself to keep any ill-will towards this fellow warrior of the Light with his roguish speech and Nyerian accent.
“Very well. Once we land however, I will insist on a rematch. Boxing, wrestling or fencing. No magic from either side.” Tyras challenged with a glint in his earth-colored eye. Achlos returned the gaze.
“I have some business in the city and I shall afterwards be obliged to take you up on that.” The moose filled the two wine glasses and lifted his own.
“To then.”
“To a not so distant future gentlemanly duel.” Tyras completed, taking a sip of the almost black deep red wine. It sent a much needed jolt of warmth down his throat, eventually settling into his belly.
“Speaking of this trip,” Achlos began after putting down his own glass. “Why are you on this flying shithole in the first place? I mean, judging by your clothes, you’re not exactly a toff, but you’d more than certainly easily afford such a trip in some comfort.”
“Why should I? I would be throwing away money I could use better otherwise. It may not be evident to you, but I grew up a Stateless, just like you. You are very quickly taught to not overly indulge in wasteful pleasures. Eat as much as your body needs and save the rest for later. Indulge in some entertainment, but never splurge for the lust of pleasure. Efficiency and economy should always trump momentary comfort.
Now, I shan’t be a hypocrite, I enjoy the finer things in life. A good meal, an evening at a play and respectable clothes warm the heart and feed the soul. Yet, for a few days’ travel, why spend fifty Krata on a luxurious trip, when I was able to barter with the captain for a bed and three daily meals on his ship for three days for the price of a good luncheon? I have slept on worse beds and eaten worse food, or indeed, was obliged to fast for days on end. A short period of slight discomfort won’t kill me. And the remaining money I may use to purchase a new hat, the building blocks I promised for my son’s birthday, a pleasant dinner and an opera with my wife…
Indeed, I should be most careless to spend good money on such a trifle. Besides… I very much doubt I could have engaged in such active sports on a first class trip.” he smirked at his new companion. The moose snickered.
“Can’t argue with that logic.” he said through a mouthful of leek and cheese.
“Speaking of sleeping in rough beds, you said you were a Scout Raider? Or… Pugnazuras, if we’re to use their more spiritual name?”
Tyras was halfway through chewing a forkful of fatty steak then stopped for but a second. His singular eye formed an expression of grief, sorrow, fear, yet strangely enough, also longing.
“Yes.” He replied after swallowing his food. “We were the front of the frontline. The regular infantry provided suppressive fire via artillery and machineguns, which allowed us to infiltrate enemy trenches or engage in street fights. We were specially trained in close quarters shooting techniques, hand to hand combat, stealth and room clearing. I helped develop some of the new doctrines myself. Most of the fighting I had to engage in during my youth in the Wilds was up close and personal, as I’m sure you know as a fellow former Pilgrim. We were armed with top of the line weapons specially designed for fighting within two hundred meters, like submachine guns, shotguns and stocked pistols. Considering where our country lies now, and that our former invaders’ nation no longer is shown on any modern map or globe, I’d say we were quite successful.” There was no pride in his voice as he talked. He spoke with the distantly sorrowful tone of a man reading the obituary in a newspaper at the breakfast table.
Achlos nodded. “We fought alongside the Scout Raiders quite a few times, usually when we were recapturing mountain towns. We handled the rough terrain while they stormed the city itself with support from infantry, artillery and aerial bombardment.” He smiled, hoping to lighten the gloomy mood. “Fought like dragons, the lot of you! Frozen Gehl, I’d say more so than the dragons who actually were there!” He raised his wine glass expecting a toast. Tyras didn’t notice, or if he did, he cared little, and kept picking at his food in quantities that seemed more suitable for a sparrow than a lion.
“They all fought like dragons.” He replied distantly, not taking his singular eye off the plate. Achlos was silent for a moment, twirling his half full glass between his fingers.
“Well, you can’t deny units like yours were given the most dangerous of assignments and you still pulled through. Just acknowledge you had merits above the grunts, man!”
It was then that Tyras looked up, with enough fire in his eyes of deep brown and lifeless silver that for a moment, Achlos thought that he would strike him. But instead, he sighed sadly, like a weary parent about to deliver a stern, yet heartfelt lecture to an unruly child.
“I see this opinion quite often repeated in sensationalist newspapers, dime novels and moving pictures, particularly among foreigners when talking about the Scout Raiders or our Lunist counterparts, the Storm Troopers, with near eulogizing admiration. How valiant must we have been to storm trenches, half burned out houses and carbonized, cracked streets that we may have once played on as kits in a past life, fighting hand to hand, blade to throat and engaging in gunfights at a mere few dozen of feet away, with pistols and short carbines like the Trailblazers of the Wild West of Nyter. That we were somehow better or more valorous than the average soldier. Picturebook heroes in the flesh! Yet nothing could be further from the truth.”
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He raised his glass, not to toast, but to down it in one tilt, wincing slightly at the strong wine. The captain may have had tastes more refined than mere gin or rum, but he was still a sailor and liked his liquor excessively potent. Though at that moment, he didn’t feel the extra rush of wooziness inside his skull.
“Getting assigned to such a unit was a blessing. For mortal combat up close, blade to blade and club to jaw, is something we can comprehend. Something Bestia Sapiens have evolved to control and understand. The armored knight swinging a sword for your entrails, an arrow whizzing for your throat, even a dragon aiming its wicked searing flame for you, is something we have known and evolved to do for centuries.
Yet seeing all your comrades cut down by machinegun fire in one fell swoop, entire units getting turned to gory chunks by artillery, watching your own slimy pieces of lung coughed out after inhaling the blood red mist of a gas attack? How can that be? You and your comrades fought valiantly, you should have at least gotten a hero’s death, that is what you were taught all your life from the school benches to history studied as an adult, that if you fight with honor, you die with honor! Why have the laws changed?
It is of little wonder so many of us are clawing at whitewashed padded walls in asylums. It was not fought with the laws mutually respected and expected for millenia. And that broke those lucky enough to survive the nightmare.
While we, as well instructed and skillful in the art of killing as we were, fought by and large by the old laws. Comprehensive, fair and manly. We were lucky.”
Both men lay in mournful silence for a good five minutes, the faint gaslight doing very little to dispel the gloom with which the now fully formed dark shroud of night enveloped the airship. A massive cargo hauler to its inhabitants, nary a speck of dust upon the night’s panoply of mauve skies and stars of a white beryl shattered into millions of tiny pieces by a god’s hammer.
“You know, Tyras,” said Achlos, suddenly breaking the silence. “I have no connection to Osnya or your Fakonan religion, as you’ve already deduced, neither blood nor culture. I merely needed something to steer my life towards. My parents led, and I guess still lead, a troupe of mercenaries. They had no goal, no ambition, no true meaning in life other than the next contract from some petty warlord to stamp out the armies of smaller city-states wishing to throw off the shackles of tyranny. And I wished to free myself from that suffocating stillness of evil. And it just so happened that when I abandoned them, and had to find something quick lest they look for and discover me, I was in a Nomad Market looking to purchase a beast of burden to assist me in my travels with the paltry sum of blood money I was able to liberate from my parents’ coffers without risking apprehension.
Then, as I was enjoying a paltry lunch, the restrained chatter of the taverna turned to horrified gasps as rumors turned to tangible news that the Lunists of Alexandrios had marched across the border and war had begun. Ere had I finished half my meal, the chatter turned into all out pandemonium on the improvised streets, tents and hastily built temporary buildings of the Market. Outside, a rather massive polar bear, whom I later learned was General Vakmu, had arrived on a superb Greenback Dragon, alongside several mean-looking soldiers riding smaller, yet still powerful flying beasts and from his great steed’s back he repeated what the patrons of the sloppy tavern had already informed me of, albeit with considerably more passion.
He called upon the defense of a country I was not a citizen of and a religion of gods I did not worship. He reminded the collection of wandering merchants, tradesmen, rogues and guns for hire of the Luniusts’ hostility towards the Stateless, and it was foolish to believe that should the enemy occupy these lands, they’d be anything but tyrannical towards them. And, well… needless to say, amongst the throng of enthusiastic young men and women who enlisted, I was there too. I reiterate that it was completely by chance. Really, if I’d been wandering in Alexandrios instead when the War began, I may have joined them instead.” He chuckled dryly, and to his surprise, so did the brooding white lion.
“Well, they were the most awful years of my life. All that you described I felt on my own skin. There were many a time I thought of desertion. Why was I risking life and limb, driving my soul to the edge of madness, for a cause which was not mine? Yet, always, an unseen hand stayed me. I cared not for your nation, it made no difference to me whether the Arrow or the Plenilune flew over your capital. And yet, the stoicism and pluck these strange men and women of faith showed in the face of fierce fanatics, having to abandon their home cities as commoners threw themselves at their feet begging them vainly to stay, even dark magic which still haunts my nightmares, it made me wish to accompany and assist them in their quest more so than I ever felt for my own blood, like one stays by the bedside of an invalid brother, seeing them through their arduous recuperation.
And the day Alexandrios laid down its arms, none in the barracks cheered louder than I.” Achlos smiled as he saw Tyras again raise his head, smiling sadly at this outsider’s praise for his kingdom’s mettle. Achlos topped off the glasses once again, raising his crystal goblet.
“To the fallen.” he proposed solemnly. The glasses clinked gently.
“May the earth above the slain warriors of both the Arrow and the Moon be light.” Tyras lifted the glass to his lips to take a conservative sip, yet as he did so, his trained eye noticed something through the wall-sized rounded porthole behind his new friend. A singular queer gleam among the thousands of stars, the same way a home with electricity stands out among a row of dwellings with only gaslight.
The lion frowned, squinting at the light. It shifted and moved slightly. Not quick enough to be a plane, and they were too high for it to be the spotlight of a dragonrider. Another airship, then. Before he could focus on it, it disappeared behind a leaden cloud. Tyras felt a chill of foreboding form at the base of his neck and flow down his spine like icy water.
He got up, his dinner forgotten, and walked over to the outwardly bulged window. Achlos remained silent and got up himself to see what had roused his companion so. One of the things you learned quickly in war was to trust your comrades’ instincts. If you saw them put on their helmet and load their rifle, you didn’t ask what was going on, you did the same yourself.
As much as he hoped it was just his nerves which never truly went untaut after the war, part of him wished not to have alarmed his new friend merely to look at another cargo or passenger airship.
“Is it that one?” The big moose asked, pointing at the peculiar light which once again appeared from behind the cloud. It had gotten a tiny bit larger and brighter. Then, suddenly, it went out. There was no cloud nearby now it could have disappeared behind. Turning off your light during the dark hours was an offense for which an airship pilot could lose their license in nearly any jurisdiction. Either they were dealing with a freak malfunction (for which event he slovenliest of airships had at least one spare), or with someone who purposefully did not wish to be seen.
“Make room.” Tyras said, pushing the larger man aside and putting his palms against the window. He took in a deep breath, steeling his mind for the arduous task it had ahead of it.
Fill the lungs, count to four, exhale, count to four, inhale. Repeat. He closed his eye, visualizing the air entering his body as a pure blue-white mist, enveloping the black muck and grime from within him, expelling it out of his body as he breathed out, leaving only what was pure and right in his soul. Then, he opened his Eye.
The well known smoky blue enveloped his entire vision, yet he was now well beyond the dingy room. His eyes no longer acknowledged the smudged window, he was a full two hundred meters away from the airship. Physically, he was still in the ship, unblinking and stiff as a board, yet his Mind’s Eye was hundreds of yards away, wading through the night’s leaden clouds, searching the countless stars for the one singular imposter glow. Ere had it been thirty seconds, his physical body already felt the strain, yet he forced himself to shut it out for now, searching the endless abstract canvas. There it was! They’d turned every major light down, yet a few were still visible from individual lamps around the foreign ship, even lit pipes and cigarettes.
His Mind’s Eye went closer, the ship now forming itself into details rather than just an abstract blob of obscure light. He focused to see clearer in the darkness, seeing the dirigible now as clearly as if it were high noon on a cloudless day. It was a small, pointy ugly thing, built for speed and maneuverability rather than hauling a large number of passengers or cargo. However, the gondola seemed to have been expanded to hold at least a few more tons of cargo. The stabilizing fins had been fixed at least once by not very skilled workmen, and a third engine had been fixed above it, standing out from the other two, a welded-together monstrosity of salvaged metal parts, the propellor connected to it looking like it had been taken from a biplane, absurdly small attached to the large misshapen engine, belching out thick black smoke and sparking with worrying frequency.
With that, his fears had already been confirmed. Yet he needed more intel. Never engage in any mission with no intel. He strained to look inside the blimp. There were ten men he could see, most of them Class II sizes like wolves, a couple of smaller deer and a lynx, yet there was also a massive brown-skinned rhinoceros, loading a light machine gun with a sloppily shortened barrel and something which looked like a doorknob added as a crude foregrip, inserting a massive half moon-shaped magazine and racking the charging handle. The others were likewise loading firearms and sheathing blades. Tyras reached out briefly to sense their motives and feelings, and he felt his physical body recoil with disgust as he felt the bloodlust and anticipation for plunder that these men felt as they approached the hapless airship. He had seen enough.
Tyras released his powers, returning to his physical body, and instantly regretted doing so. During his military service and years as a constable, he’d been struck in the head with a club more than once, but even that paled in comparison with the absolute splitting agony that was going through his skull and he couldn’t suppress a whine of agony. He felt his legs go soft and he was vaguely aware of his new friend supporting him and guiding him to a chair. A napkin was pressed under his nostrils and he realized with a strange sense of detachment that his nose was bleeding profusely.
He felt the strong tang of brandy pressed to his lips and he accepted gracefully, downing the revigorating spirit, which gave his beaten body a much needed jolt of consciousness.
“How many are there?” asked Achlos. Still panting, Tyras looked up at him with some confusion. The moose gave a sardonic smile. “You wouldn’t have exerted your powers such unless you’d truly seen something. You’ve said it yourself: your nature denies wasting resources on trifles.”
Tyras blew his nose clear of the blood into the napkin and took in a ragged breath before speaking.
“Ten of them, likely many more. Small rapid ship, no way to outrun them. At least one Class IV with an MG, two SMGs that I saw, the rest have standard pistols and longarms. Lightly armored.” He ran everything down in the hurried, minimalist vocabulary of a mission briefing they were both accustomed to.
Achlos grit his flat teeth. “Shit.”
“I believe there’s more useful ways you may spend your energy than profanity,” Tyras said dryly. “Are you armed?”
The large moose hesitated. “I… have my knife.”
“Come now, you know I’m not asking about your blade, I said already I’d seen it, don’t insult my intelligence.”
“It’s illegal for civilians to carry firearms on airships.” Achlos probed. Comrade or not, the steppe lion was still a cop.
“I didn’t ask you if you obeyed the law, I asked if you were armed. I hope you don’t believe I’d be so petty as to arrest you for a weapons charge at a time like this.”
With some reluctance, Achlos parted a secret pocket from within his waistcoat and retrieved a small strange white-beige pistol with wild sharp angles and a wooden grip. Tyras knew instantly what he was looking at. While metal detectors were an invention of only five years and so large and expensive that only the largest air docks could have them, the underworld wasted no time in developing a countermeasure in the form of firearms made of non-ferrous metals such as brass or copper. Known as “zip guns” thanks to the criminal usually dumping the gun after they were done, due to their brittleness.
However, the one exception to this were dragon bone guns. Which is exactly what this pearl-like surfaced snub nosed revolver was. Boasting the hardiest skeleton of any land creature, a dragon’s bones could make guns which were nearly as reliable as any of its steel-framed counterparts. Yet due to the increasing rarity of the creatures, the difficulty and risk of hunting one, and the punishment for dragon poaching in Osnya being the rope, it made them extremely scarce and sought after tools of the veteran rogue.
It seemed like his new companion’s bounty hunting was not always strictly in favor of the law, yet Tyras couldn’t have cared less in that moment. Whatever his clouded past or morals, he had as much interest in surviving this as he did.
“What about you, cop?” asked the mercenary, opening the bone cylinder and checking the bullets’ primers. “You armed?”
It was now Tyras’s turn to hesitate before answering.
“I am. In my footlocker in the crew quarters down the hall.” Achlos made a face. Tyras agreed with his unspoken reproach.
What exactly was the point of going through the trouble of getting a license to carry on an airship, the hardest gun license to acquire even for a policeman with a pristine military record such as himself, only to leave it in a locked box where it may as well have been on the moon for all the good it did him?
“Well, better go get it.” said Achlos.
“First we need to warn the crew. They’ll be on us at any moment. There’s no one on this deck, they’re all on the bridge, up in the control gondola or down in the cargo deck. There’s phones to contact the maintenance staff or the captain down the hall, maybe we can-” Tyras was interrupted by two sharp deafening bangs which reverberated through the cramped room. Two tiny holes had pierced the wall, the blue-purple night sky barely visible through the pair of jagged metal cavities.
“Achlos, what in the ices of Gehledna was that!?”
“Quicker and more efficient way of warning the ship.” replied the cervine, flicking open the cylinder and prying out the two spent steaming shell casings. “Relax, I fired straight out the ship, couldn’t have hit anyone. And there’s no engine or wiring down here to screw up.”
He was correct. In an instant, whatever vague din of chatter and laughter there was exploded into a cacophonous waterfall of frightened questions, followed by orders given by the more level headed and senior crew.
“Well, perhaps not the most elegant of solutions,” muttered Tyras. “but it’s difficult to argue with the results.” He jumped off his chair, fighting back the headache and nausea from having exerted his powers to such an extent. He made a mental note to practice his Forte’s endurance more. Throwing open the door, he sprinted through the hallway which connected the few private cabins of the ship. The next room was the galley, the most spacious and open room on this deck. The fatty smell of poorly spiced food, cheap beer and rough tobacco still hung in the air like the aftermath of a gas attack which had by now permanently permeated the unpolished wooden floor and grease-stained brass wall panels. No one was here, all hands were on the upper deck or down in cargo preparing for landing, currently on edge and preparing for the worst after hearing the pair of gunshots.
Tyras bolted across the dim room, cane in hand, vaulting over a table of half eaten cabbage soups and unfinished card games, at a pace which left the heavier moose struggling to keep up.
At the end of the room were two doors, one noticeably taller and wider than the other. One was for the Class I-II sized crew, which covered any sapient creature between and including hare and puma, so anyone between 140cm and two meters in height, the other for Class III-IV, which included any creature larger than that, up to the Bestia Sapiens evolved elephants, who while thankfully nowhere near as prodigious in size as their feral mammoth cousins which still roamed the icy wastes of the North, still regularly achieved sizes of three meters in height and half a ton in weight.
Some better funded public buildings or means of transportation had facilities for all four size classes individually, yet for the sake of streamlining and cost saving, most places from apartment buildings to trains only split things down the middle. It was far from ideal, yet it had more or less worked as a global standard for centuries.
Tyras burst through the larger door, nearly knocking it off its hinges despite it being made to accommodate creatures up to three times his weight. He found himself again in the dimly lit bunk room smelling of sweat and lamp oil which had been his dwellings for the past three days. A tea kettle was boiling on the cooker in the corner.
He instantly identified his footlocker and rushed to it, running his hand across his watchchain to find the tiny brass key which fit into it. Then, all was dark. For but a moment, Tyras felt transported into a dimension of pure unreality, where time itself ceased as he was gently lifted away from his locker by an unseen hand.
The deafening explosion from the frangible cannon shell was only heard a half second before his strange out of body experience was cut short from his back slamming into the bunk bed behind him, grunting as his not-inconsiderable weight snapped the upper bunk like a matchstick. Rough stinging pieces of wood had battered his body like the baton strikes of a constable, and a jagged, spear-like plank of snapped wood jutted out between his torso and right arm, having been mere inches away from impaling him.
His dream-like incoherent thoughts in the full two seconds since the frangible shattered the airship wall finally coalesced into a single, inevitable chilling conclusion as he struggled to get up off the rough pile of hay mattress and shattered lumber: “They’re here”.