Excerpt From Private Maloko’s War Journal (133rd Year Of The Fifth Era, 20th day of the Third Month Of Harvest)
I have never seen a Lunist. Before the day is out, that will change, and I hope my rifle and bayonet will claim as many as I see as they charge across No Man’s Land.
It seems unreal to write this. I have been fighting them for three weeks, how come I hadn’t seen my foe’s face, the hatred in their eyes, the heathen symbols upon their uniforms? Have I just been a coward shirking my duties? The answer is yes. Every time the Eclipse Empire’s onslaught caught up with us, we turned tail and ran, evacuating the cities we’re meant to protect. We corral a sea of mammals with the meager belongings they could carry, watching women sob, children looking up at their distressed parents and thousands of people with luggage and pushcarts, unsure if it’s a game, and the men trying to maintain a mask of stoicism for their family as they leave all they have in the world to the heathen armada.
Others throw themselves at the feet of their supposed protectors, begging us to stand and fight, to not let our people lose their homesteads, their temples, their livelihoods. Others berate and curse us, pelting us with rotten food and waste, reviling us for our cowardice in the face of the very thing we’re meant to stop. Yet we did it all the same. We evacuated populations, talked down local civilian militias and police constabularies who wanted to stand and fight, then left behind a dead city. Sometimes we had to quell minor riots, using rifle butts and pick handles on our own countrymen.
One time, a desperate man, a large ram, pulled a knife on us as we were trying to convince him to leave his house. The one he’d worked his paws to the bone for 20 years to build. The one which his daughter would one day inherit. We wanted him to leave it to an invading army who would use it for debaucherous victory parties, as a minor fortification later and burn it down once if we took the city back. He could not stand for it and did the only thing he could do to defend his family’s honor, and the sergeant shot him in the neck for it.
Our unit’s first kill. A fellow countryman in front of his family.
House after house, street after street, city after city. Rinse and repeat.
I would rather have been assigned to the 23rd Rifle Brigade, or the 4th Grenadiers, who fought to the last and were wiped out, the last group rigging their bunker with mines as the Lunists breached the perimeter, taking the heathens with them. Even if it’s fated that this is the war to bring the Light to its knees, I would be remembered as a thorn in the side of the Dark, a warrior who clung tooth and claw to the love for his people, his gods and his country, whose last breaths were pants in the heat of combat and last heartbeat was from love for his kingdom. Instead, I am cursed by my own people, and myself.
The orders are to retreat into the Dainamal Mountains to set a proper defensive line to negate the Lunists’ mobility. They fight unlike anything we’ve seen before. From what I hear, Military Intelligence had reported changes to the doctrines of the Eclipse Empire’s military for months before the invasion, but nothing could have prepared us for this. Their tactics defy any logic. They do not move as a whole, but individual small squads each with a different goal, the sergeants given leeway to command however they see fit. They use their smaller and faster Class I and II troops to flank our main lines and take out vital positions like artillery batteries or command posts. They have done this on a macro level as well, part of their army bypassing our defensive fortifications altogether and sewing destruction while the main contingent kept us busy.
The poisonous branches of the gnarled heathen tree grow deeper into our garden every day, like weeds growing from sprouts to destroy any plant in its way.
High Command is hurriedly changing our own doctrines to be more mobile, but we all quietly know it’s closing the barn doors after the dragon’s already flown away. We’re the primitives who chose to stagnate in caves while the Lunists went outside, discovered the fire, then set the cave ablaze.
The last city we evacuated well into its shelling, three days ago. I had spent most of my life on the Steppe, only properly seeing a city once I was sent to University. Aside from gaping at the towering buildings, the gaslights, the endless cacophony of speech, equistilio neighs and ringing bells, the glow of electric lights and prayer fires, the single greatest change were the streets. In the Open Range, there are no streets. You can always go where you please, when you please.
Even in Greatmarkets, where some semblance of paths are erected to guide travelers to various stores, craftsmen or guilds, they’re more merely a suggestion. In cities, you walk on streets or you don’t walk at all. It always felt suffocating and sequestrous to me.
Now, the streets no longer had any meaning.
What had once been a thriving metropolis now more resembled the forests I had grown up in. The shelling has reduced the entire city to a mass of gnarled, gray trees of concrete and brick, wettened rubble representing the mossy ground, scavengers picking apart remains of apartments, restaurants, stores in hopes of finding a scrap of food like frightened lost cubs without their mother.
I walked through the skull of a great slain beast, its broken ivory teeth jutting every which way, the tongue the muddy earth I crawled through, its brain blazing away as the blackened library, the vault of knowledge and civilization it represented now reduced to bonfires for civilians to warm themselves. I do not remember what my purpose was. It does not matter. My usefulness was that of a fifth wheel. I was probably walking around aimlessly like so many of the former citizens of the ruins, their homes, schools, temples, places of labor, all destroyed. They were like chickens escaped from their cages after the peasants’ buggy had collapsed, not being able to make sense of their new world, merely taking steps for the sole purpose of doing something.
Then I heard it. A wail. Not like the endless sobs and cries which had replaced the songs and chatter of the city, but a desperate shriek of a helpless little creature struggling in the maw of death.
I ran with renewed purpose, my heart pounding as I scaled a ruined wall into the half collapsed three story building the desperate cries were coming from. My sole purpose was to save that helpless little cub, no matter the peril it was in. I strained my Forted sight, yet seeing through rubble several meters thick is like trying to cut through thick shrub with a fork. Best I could see was the warm glow of life and I decided to fatigue my Mana no further.
I went through what had once been a dining room and stepped through a crumbling wall into a different world. The choking scent of brick dust and scorched wood still hung in the air, yet the walls were painted a cheerful bright pink, toys and plushies that would never bring joy again scattered and broken.
My eyes were set on the area I had seen the warm glow of life. Among the stillness of crumbled bricks and mortar was a tiny bundle giving the faintest signs of movement and life.
A wolf pup in a pink bundle cried feverishly, her lower half buried in rubble. Sparing a look with my Forte, I saw with horror that her tiny legs were mangled beneath the stones. Whatever happened next, she would never walk again.
I rushed down to her, caressing her face screwed up with pain and grief her infant brain could not comprehend.
“Hey… it’s okay.” I whispered, unsure of what else to say. I felt my bosom swell with purpose and hope. This child would not die on my watch. I would do something good in this accursed city. Its wailing stopped as if by a miracle and it looked up at me with wide, curious blue eyes. It caught my finger in a tiny fist and held it with a strength belying her age of a few months.
I tried lifting up the debris off her. It wouldn’t budge. I safed my rifle and wedged it beneath, trying to lever it off. The piece of roof must have weighed near a ton, as I felt my weapon’s stock giving way and it still didn’t falter.
Panting, I caressed her face again. She cooed and touched my hand. “I will return, little one. I’ll get you to your mama, wherever she is.” I promised. I got up, taking my hand off her. Her tiny paw hung in the air with confusion, swiping around for the source of momentary warmth and love she was offered, looking at me with a mixture of puzzlement and grief. I looked down at the innocent cub one last time and turned around to leave.
In an instant, she began to wail once again, not only in agony, but in betrayal. I had offered her but a moment of love in the hell she was trapped in, then I had taken it away. My bleeding heart was screaming at me to return, to try and free her again, but my brain reasoned that I couldn’t do it on my own. I had to get help. I quickened my pace, feeling as if stakes were being driven into my kneecaps as the sobs and screams begging me to return drilled into my skull.
I exited the crumbling building. Distant booms were heard once again, inching closer and closer. The bombardment had resumed. Hurrying through the crowd, I ran through the unfamiliar streets searching for my comrades.
“My child, my child! Have you seen my child?” A woman begged. Hope blazing in my bosom, I whipped around, seeing with my Forte through the crowd a canine woman being appeased by a group of soldiers. I ran towards them, wishing to just scream at the top of my lungs that her baby was fine. Except that… looking closer with my Sight, she couldn’t be the mother. She was a jackal.
“My child!” Another voice cried.
“My child!” “My baby!” “Have you seen my son!” “Where are my daughters?”
It was a cacophony of pain and grief as women and several men of all species begged the soldiers escorting them towards the evacuation wagons and few trucks we had. I was focusing on but a spark in a forest fire.
“Private Maloko! We’re leaving the city now! Rejoin your squad.” Lieutenant Phoebus grabbed me from behind, the horse urging me on to join the ranks.
“Sir!” I saluted hastily and pointed to the crumbling building I had just vacated. “A child is trapped in there! I need two strong men with shovels and picks, quickly!” I felt a chill down my spine as he made no move and his green eyes turned into wells of grief.
“Tyras… we can’t afford to. There are thousands of other innocent children at stake. The Lunists will assault the city at any moment and our last lines of defense are retreating. We have to finish the evacuation.” I brushed his hand off my shoulder with enough force to bruise. He looked at me in utter shock as I snarled at him.
“I’m not leaving another innocent soul behind! If we’re not gonna stand and fight those bastards, our duty is at least to our citizens!”
“We’ll fight them soon enough, soldier, and our duty is being done now! We’ve evacuated most of the city. My heart aches for the innocents we couldn’t get to as much as yours, but-”
I wasn’t listening anymore. I was rushing back to the building. I would do it myself. I didn’t care if I’d be left behind and the heathens would find me. I’d take as many as I could down with me, but by the Architect, that child would not die under my watch! I ignored the pleas, orders and threats behind me as I ran, almost at the building when-
“ARTILLERY!”
Instinctively, I jumped flat on my stomach as the whistle of death sounded far above, closer than I’d have liked. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, bracing myself for the shock.
The merciless boom grinded my teeth and rattled my insides, the shockwave hitting me like the hammer of a god. I was launched backwards several meters, my back slamming into a blackened wreck that had once been a hansom. Breathing heavily, I tried moving all of my limbs to ensure they were all still there.
I used my rifle as a crutch to get up and opened my eyes. I then wished the bomb had taken my eyes.
The building was gone. The shell had hit it directly, masonry and lumber littering the streets like broken teeth. The three stories had collapsed, crushing a group of soldiers and civilians into a formless pulp, what was left of the building not standing higher than my waist.
I awfully wondered if she had instantly been crushed by the rubble or was slowly perishing into the fire now forming in bright, fat tongues of black, greasy flame. I couldn’t bring myself to use my Forte to check.
I looked dumbly at the remains of the building as my comrades ran around me, offering first aid to survivors and carrying them back to the evacuation vehicles.
I wanted to cry. To scream, to sob my eyes out, to fall to my knees in grief, to slam my fist into a wall until it was pulp, to rush outside the city to the Lunist lines and rip them all limb from limb myself.
Yet I did none of those things. I simply walked back to my men, helped the last few stragglers onto some evacuation carriages and one dragon, then got on a truck myself as the city burned behind us.
Lieutenant Phoebus gripped my shoulder on the ride back to our main lines, promising vengeance against the heathens who’d done this and praising me for my bravery.
Bravery… what a joke.
What difference does it make? I had still failed to save the most innocent of souls caught in a heathen death trap. If only I had tried lifting the rubble again… would I have succeeded?
When we camped, I saw the Lieutenant regularly come into the barracks past bedtime, staying by my bunk. My eyes were closed, yet there was no chance of sleep that night. With my Forte, I saw through my eyelids how he took away my knife and revolver, leaving a note telling me to come see him if I wanted them back. The rifle he didn’t bother, it was too long and awkward for the act he was afraid I’d commit.
Bless his soul, but he needn’t have bothered. My hatred for myself was nothing compared to the hatred I felt for the lightless bastards who had killed her. In my mind, every single Lunist soldier had launched that artillery shell. They had all conspired specifically to murder an innocent child.
Part of me knows how false that is. Even Lunists have their values and they’ve been worthy foes throughout history.
Yet I cannot dwell on that. They are all monsters. They are all here to destroy our nation, burn down our temples, bring about the return of their dark god and stamp out all that is good. That must be the only truth my mind and soul accepts. My goal is to defend my nation. I have seen what happens should I fail that. Mercy is a comfort long trampled under their feet.
They deserve to die. They all deserve to die.
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The use of the whistle was a complete mystery to Achlos Dribas. For such an innocuous tool, it seemed to wish to mean everything. Steam whistles on trains meant “stay clear of the tracks” while in factories it was used to signify both the beginning and the end of work shifts. For sports games, there was seldom an incident it couldn’t be used for: starting and ending the game, penalizing a player or pausing the game for whatever reason the referee saw fit.
For the moose, however, the whistle meant a single thing: death.
The whistle was the signal to go ‘over the top’. The whistle rang and hundreds of men eagerly clawed up the mud, always a few getting shot right back into the trench by rifle or machinegun fire. Sometimes half the regiment, sometimes only a few, but whenever the whistle rang, it meant blood was to be spilled before the shrill ring of it had a chance to end.
Whenever Achlos heard a whistle it meant “Kill or die soldier. Free yourself from this womb of mud, wood and tangled wire and spring forth like infants of Khudur. Do not stop for your fallen comrade, let their death be felt in the bark of your rifle and the swing of your sharpened spade into your foe’s skull. Run, kill, run, kill, run, kill!”
The whistle was the sharpening of Death’s scythe as it prepared for its grim, plentiful harvest. For him, it never meant “stop”, it always made his chest go tight and blood to flow to his legs in preparation for the sprint of slaughter.
Which was just as well. As the constables’ whistles got closer and closer behind him, in spite of their signal being “Stop!”, all that Achlos could understand was “Run, run, run, run…”
After shooting Hintoz “Stiletto” Risuldis dead, the self proclaimed King Of The Dark Zone, all went wrong fast. The seldom used clocktower he’d picked as a sniper’s nest just happened to be inhabited by a fox vagabond who’d picked its basement as a shelter away from the rain and rival vagrants, and the shot had woken him up, causing him to spring from his hiding place to warn the nearest constable. He barely had time to toss his rifle into the river and slide down the drainpipe before the rozzers began closing in. One of those thousands of tiny screws which when thrown into a formidable motor causes the entire device to go up in flames. At least he’d had the presence of mind to put on his silk mask.
He was running through a street of Class II dwellings, each door two feet shorter than he and the windows too small to jump through. Not for the first time in his life, he cursed his prodigious size, something which was often more a hindrance than an aid in his line of work. He shoved and bludgeoned his way through the crowd of smaller mammals, sending a few sprawling on the concrete, curses and waved canes being sent his way, while the smaller constables were able to finesse their way through, their whistles and uniforms doing the rest to give them a clear path. He needed more space, they’d be on him any minute.
His keen nose picked up the savory smell of bread, pies and meats. A market… That sort of place almost always was designed with all size classes in mind, he had a better chance there.
He twisted on his heel, skillfully climbing up the walls of a brewery where a windowsill and several loose bricks made perfect handholds. He ran across the roof, feeling his lungs protesting more with each step, his breaths coming in shallow gasps.
He jumped off, rolling gracelessly between two stalls, ankles smarting. He surged forwards, knocking aside the sizzling pot of some poor street food vendor and disappearing into a dank alleyway. His shoes splashed mud and filth thrown from the upper floors. The whistles of death were still audible, echoing off the crumbling walls.
Picking a turn at random, he saw an exit into a crowded boulevard, until a hulking polar bear constable blocked it with his bulk, his three foot long blackjack eagerly cocked. He could have probably taken him, but it’d have taken time and the ursine’s friends were no doubt close behind. Achlos cursed and turned back around, taking turns at random, unsure if he was just circling back, the whistles boring into his skull with maddening consistency.
Then, he heard something alongside the banshee-like screeches: the patter of hooves. A carriage! Maybe even a cab! He could dive into one and disappear. With newfound strength, he ran towards the sound, ignoring the mounting agony in the side of his abdomen. He didn’t survive the War to rot in an Osnyan prison…
He emerged from the foul-smelling side streets into a busy working class boulevard. There were flat caps and worn top hats as far as the eye could see, tired men and women paying him no heed, clutching tool boxes, penny newspapers and alcohol flasks. He caught his breath and looked around the sea of souls, his head sticking well above most of the crowd, searching for the source of the liberating hooves. He saw it.
Clearing its way through the crowd, nearly three meters tall on all fours, a police equistilio faced him, its rider an armored ram with a carbine on his back. The red-scaled equine creature reared on its hindlegs, casting a dark shadow over Achlos with its towering gaunt form, its dark eyes glinting as it angled its short blunted horns for its target.
“Oh, give me a fucking break!” Achlos growled to no one in particular, shoving his way through the tidal wave of workers, trying to disappear. Yet it was impossible. The constable riding the reptilian equine could always see him, and the sleepy workers began taking note, parting for the officer’s beast, not wishing to get trampled.
He had no hope of outrunning that thing. He looked around for salvation and spotted a cheap lunch house. Gritting his teeth, he redoubled his efforts, shoving his way through the crowd like a castaway paddling his way through a storm. The shriek of the brass whistles shook his skull once again and he saw a lithe snow cheetah effortlessly making his way through the crowd, closing in on his target like a dragon descending upon an enemy trench with its belching flame.
His heart hammering in his chest, his aching lungs convulsing, he lunged for the double doors, hearing the feline’s unnaturally rapid pace. He opened the door into a world of muddy floorboards and grimy gas lamps with the stench of burnt cabbage and cheap beer. He was hardly able to take a step when a giant fist seemed to slam into his back, his elbows taking the brunt of the fall as the constable tackled him.
“I got the son of a whore!” The cheetah conner said, his truncheon scything to his face. Achlos dodged at the last minute and his chest instead took the blow, knocking out what little oxygen was left in it. With renewed effort, the small feline sprung like a cord upon him, pinning him to the ground, keeping the baton into his throat as he reached for his manacles.
Achlos reached for his opponent’s sidearm, and the cop instantly grabbed one of his fingers, ready to break it. Now he was distracted. A beer keg from the nearby table smashed into the side of the cop’s head, his helmet barely saving him from a nasty concussion. He fell off the larger moose onto the filthy floor, beer and mud covering his face. A shattering uppercut to the chin put the small cop out of the fight for good, sending him up in the air a good three feet and onto the sloppy lunch of a pair of bewildered swine laborers.
The ram on equiback was dismounting, more constables pouring from every street, even an automobile steaming its way from the distance, sirens blaring.
Achlos rushed up, the patrons of the sloppy eatery giving him flummoxed looks, but making no move to stop him. These people had little love for the law. He shouldered his way into the kitchen, slamming straight into a table full of tasteless cabbage soup. The obese cow cook launched a stream of hateful curses, waving her massive ladle. In an instant, he snatched it from her hand, causing her to scream as he raised it to smash the large window above the cooker. Shards of glass exploded outwards, some falling into the smelly soup boiling away. Briefly hoping the cook would have the common sense to throw it away, he jumped through.
The sense of weightlessness lasted longer than the split second he expected, and then he saw that he was falling three entire stories. The slophouse was built on the lip of a steep hill. He squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth, fully expecting the merciless crushing force of the pavement to shatter his bones into flour. Instead, he fell into a yielding, marsh-like pond.
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He was in a dumpster. Great… what a wonderful fuckin’ analogy for how his day had been.
A repulsive slurry of rotten food, rusted cans and other shit was up to his waist. His eyes watered and he gagged, rushing to get out, feeling lightheaded from the overpowering stench. He stood up, futilely brushing some brown sludge of an origin he didn’t want to think of off his jacket, as if it weren’t completely ruined.
“Don’t move!” A commanding voice bellowed. He froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a thin pistol barrel glinting in the sun. They had him. But… why wasn’t it pointed at him?
A familiar towering gaunt figure loomed over him, his gun pointed safely away from him.
“Tyras!?”
“Stay right there and don’t make a sound.” The dumpster’s lid was unceremoniously slammed shut, leaving him in a humid, putrid darkness. The old rusted trashcan couldn’t properly close, and he was left with an opening of about a centimeter to look through.
Tyras let his gun hand go slack beside his body, waiting for the other bobbies to come. They didn’t delay, the ram, polar bear and the cheetah with a large bruise forming on his cheekbone and a snarl of vengeance on his bloodied fangs.
“I saw him!” Tyras pointed to a street which at first was barely visible from how dark it was. “He ran through there, but I don’t know which turn he took.”
The other cops took a look, then their eager expressions quickly changed to pale dread as they looked at the foreboding street. The dark crumbling walls, still cratered intersection courtesy of a Lunist bomber plane and pale ancient gaslamps seemed to suck in the radiant light so characteristic of Ignisdava, mashing it into an inescapable gloom, like a gateway to Gehl right here in the Capital Of Light.
The Dark Zone. The still bombed out, halfway crumbled neighborhoods the city had forgotten about, choosing instead to cut off any supply of electricity, gas or water and let the locals fend for themselves.
The bear lawman, who’d seemed so eager to put that heavy blackjack of his to good use, now timidly backed off as if that accursed street could leap out and swallow him whole.
“Aww, bollocks that. I ain’t goin’ in there.”
“Me neither. None of us are.” The cheetah said, rubbing his swollen chin. “Hopefully he’ll get killed in there. We think he shot someone from the Zone from the abandoned clocktower on Pretzel Street.”
“Well, then,” Tyras shrugged. “Perhaps the issue shall resolve itself. Either way, I shall stay here for another hour in case he decides to circle back. I suggest you likewise block other entrances to the Zone nearby.”
“Right, sir…” The cheetah said, licking some blood off his split lip. “Are you… going to be alright? You sure you don’t want-”
“That was an order, constable.” Tyras said icily. The conners looked at each other for a moment, then nodded and ran in the opposite direction. The Inspector waited for a full two minutes before saying “You can come out, now.”
Achlos emerged, grunting once again from the stench, as he’d been subconsciously holding his breath while hiding. He finally took off his stuffy mask. Tyras gave him a hand, yet kept a respectable distance, not wishing to get any of the filth Achlos was covered in on his suit. The moose couldn’t blame him.
“Thank you,” He said at length, unsure of what else to say. “But… why?”
“Why? For one, you saved my life, and two, I can think of far better ways for you to spend your next twenty years than a cell.”
“If they ever find out-”
“We would share the same cell. But they won’t.” Tyras said with conviction.
“How… how did you know where I’d be?” Achlos asked.
Tyras chuckled. “You said we’d meet up at the Grand Light Hotel at six o’clock and you mentioned that you should be done with your… ‘business’ by five. Given the uncertainty of your profession, you’d leave at least forty minutes of wiggle room. That means wherever the deed would take place, it was twenty minutes away from the hotel. Furthermore, it would be twenty minutes by cab. Electric trams go only on set rails and any constable worth his salts would know to stop nearby trams when conducting a search, and someone as experienced as yourself knows this. So, I now had a reliable circle of where you’d do the deed. Now, who was your target? Given the location, doubtlessly some Dark Zone prominent, since you traveled for days. You do not seem to me the type to take on blood contracts for rich businessmen. And you and any outsiders are quickly spotted in that accursed place, and given your specialty in the war, you’d have selected a good vantage point and taken them out from a distance. The only prominent Dark Zone ganger in that area is Hintoz “Stilleto”. And as I know where his base is and that he is always there at this hour, that tower was the only logical location in the entire city where you could be.”
Achlos tried his best not to remain slack jawed. This lion’s brain was downright scary. Since first laying eyes on him on the ship he had the impression he could see right through him, and not just because he had a Forte that could do that.
A long silence passed, Tyras as elegant and straight as always, Achlos shamefully covered in waste and rotten food.
“What do you want from me, Maloko?” Achlos asked.
“A roommate.” He answered casually. The moose’s eyes widened.
Tyras explained. “I’m moving here. In this city. And I wish to provide my family with something better than they are accustomed to. I have found a promising apartment in the Apricot Trees sky-tower, yet it would hardly allow me to save anything each month with just me and my wife's wages. The apartment has a large study which could easily be converted into a bedroom.”
Achlos almost burst out in laughter. Was Tyras the kind of cop to get high off his own impound?
“I… appreciate the offer. But… it’d get a bit crowded. I once had to lodge with a pride of lions and-” Tyras burst out in hearty laughter, then gave his friend a beaming smile.
“Oh, please! I am dedicated to a single woman and we only have one son and an infant daughter. I know most of my species prefer to live in arrangements such as you’ve described, but I do not count myself among them. I am Fakonan-Orthodox.”
Most lions who were of the Fakonan Faith were also followers of Imnera, the Goddess Of Love who permitted such conjugal arrangements. Millions of years of evolution prompting them to live in prides were a difficult thing to overcome after all, and even the most faithful of Fakonans who believed that love and marriage was to be dedicated to a single mate, quietly accepted this as a fact of life. But, a small minority of lions, rabbits, hyenas and other mammals who naturally lived in polyamorous arrangements chose to disobey nature and pursue a singular mate, either out of religious convictions or simply because they felt love for a single person.
“Ah,” Achlos said, feeling a little embarrassed for assuming
“Still… it’s a lot to ask for.” He continued. “Not that I’m not grateful for the offer, but my... work necessitates me to travel nearly constantly.”
“Yet you are not content with your… ‘work’.” Tyras replied as if it were a fact of nature. “You yearn for the order and camaraderie that fighting in the war provided. I could see it in your eyes when you were talking about it. And you fought as well as any soldier of Light that I have seen. And assassinating street roughs for coins is quite frankly, a waste of your talents. Which is why I am also here for a job offer.”
Achlos frowned. “A… job offer?”
“Indeed,” Tyras said. “Unfortunately, you probably know as well as I do that the pirate attack we were subjected to was not a one-off event. It is a regular occurrence and it is only growing in scale. My purpose for my trip to the capital was to propose to the Chief Superintendent the formation of a new squad specialized in tackling such threats wherever and whenever they may arise. And, I am pleased to say, he has given his blessings, and I am to begin selection for the first constables tomorrow. And I wish you to be one of them.”
The moose chortled, which turned into a humorless laughter.
“Let me get this straight, Inspector: You want me… an assassin who just escaped the Law… to become a conner?”
“I don’t see the issue. They haven’t seen your face and-”
“That’s not what I meant!” Achlos snapped with more anger than he’d intended. “Even if I was on board with this, and for the record I’m not, how can you think of offering a professional cutthroat a position within your ranks, and offering him to lodge with your family on top of it?”
Tyras stood with both hands on his cane, patiently waiting for Achlos to finish.
“Cutthroat or not, I judge people by their actions. I approach an individual the same way I approach any case: I gather all the evidence and combine them into a single logical conclusion.” He said. “And so far what have you done? You have selflessly put your life on the line to save innocents on an airship while hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned by boarding pirates. What do I know of you? You fled your parents’ sellsword group despite them being the only family and friends you had because you found their actions repulsive and you wished to contribute to them no longer. You have fought to save my country from invasion even if you knew little to nothing of it. And after that, you journeyed to Nyter to serve as a bounty hunter, and I assume eventually into a hitman once money became tight. Yet regardless, you choose your clients and targets carefully, only eliminating those you know to be a scourge upon innocent folk.” He let silence hang in the air for a second. After receiving no response he continued:
“Well, sir, given all this evidence, what conclusion should I draw about you?”
Achlos said nothing, busying himself with brushing some filth off his suit, as if that would change the fact it was due for the incinerator. He sighed and finally looked the inspector in the eye.
“I… I’m hardly as noble as you imagine me to be.”
“Neither I.” Replied Tyras softly. “We are both guilty of terrible transgressions and horrid sins. I was, however, offered a chance to atone. And I believe it is my duty to extend that same chance to others. You require redemption and a direction for your life’s journey, I require a good gunfighter. I believe this situation can be mutually beneficial.”
Achlos thought over everything that Tyras had spoken. All that he’d said was true. He wanted out of the “game”, as the denizens of the underworld called it. Thankfully, unlike them, he’d been freelance from day one. He didn’t have to worry about angering any mob boss with his departure from the world of organized crime, nor watch his back for any would-be assassins.
He’d never imagined himself a constable. Unlike most who were part of his dark trade, he held no grudge for lawmen, but it didn’t change the fact that they were there to stop him, as today’s events had proven. And under the wrong leaders, police were the long arm of tyranny. He’d seen it often enough when his parents’ sellsword group were hired by authoritarian city states.
Yet, that was also true for soldiers, and he’d been one. In fact, as Tyras pointed out, his life made the most sense in that period, for all the horrors and hardships he’d endured.
Yes… becoming a lawman didn’t sound that bad. More than that, it’s what his life needed. But that didn’t mean he deserved it.
“Are you… sure, Tyras?” The large moose asked, looking into the feline’s deep brown and shimmering silver eyes. “You’ve known me for less than a day. And you offer me all this? More than that, you want me to lodge with you? Are you sure you want your wife and children to share the same room with a killer?”
“They already do,” The lion replied grimly. “It never seemed to bother them.”
Achlos snorted.
“You can’t compare what you did to defend your people and your way of life with me killing for money! You did what you were ordered to, and did it damn well!”
Tyras broke his gaze for only a second to look down at his cufflinks.
“You are wrong, my friend,” He said in a slow, almost resentful tone. “It is not what I did which I was ordered to do which haunts me… it’s what I did which I was not ordered to do.” The look in his eyes sent a shiver down the large moose’s spine.
“So…” Tyras said, swinging his cane round to head down the alleyway. “Shall we go? Though, I suggest we stop at a bathhouse and a tailor’s on the way. I somehow doubt your new attire shall make the right impression.”
Achlos cringed and chuckled humorlessly as he smelled himself again. Despite being battered and bruised and covered in filth, he felt as if a rock had been lifted off his chest that he hadn't even known was there.
“I agree. Go ahead and lead the-” He stopped as he saw Tyras looking up intently at a distant rooftop. His remaining eye was unblinking and focused on that point, and Achlos knew he was using his Forte.
“You see anything?” The moose asked nervously. Did one of the conners decide to spy on them.
Tyras maintained his unmoving gaze for a good twenty seconds. However, he then broke away, putting his hand to his forehead from the mental strain the Forte had on him.
“Doesn’t matter. Thought I saw something. Just a shadow…”
----------------------------------------
There were all kinds of legends about the Sea Of Trees. That it was without end, and once someone who wasn’t a Child Of Luna entered it, they would never find their way back out. That it was where the Harbingers were created through blood rituals, where they were violently murdered then reborn as the powerful Warlocks the Light feared so much. That it was home to eldritch creatures from beyond the Pale, that made any faithful Fakonan go insane by merely gazing upon it. That it affected all navigational instruments to prevent even the scantest hope of returning.
Well… the last one was true, but only because of magnetic rocks making compasses go haywire, Hiram Grainger mused as his pencil crossed out names of firms and companies from his ledger. Businesses worth thousands, or even millions of Krata were being instantly condemned with the slow, efficient rasp of his pen. Insufficient returns.
And the timberwolf had little patience for business partners that were slow to benefit him. Especially now that he was Speaker Of Luna.
The gaslamp on his desk illuminated the large wolf’s features. His gray and brown fur seemed to disappear into the scant pitch black he had around his muzzle and ears. His keen, honey-colored eyes scanned the endless pages of bookkeeping and financial reports, calculations of investments going well into the nine digits being processed in his keen mind before his golden pen either crossed out or spared a firm, every now and then digging into his silk midnight-blue smoking jacket for tobacco to refill his pipe.
His office, elegant in appearance with the dark blues and blacks characteristic of Lunism being all-encompassing, was nonetheless modest for one of the wealthiest mammals in the world, and the leader of one of the world’s major empires. Something the world, particularly Fakonan nations, thought was an empire in the past tense. Their historical nemesis, defeated in a war to such a humiliating extent that they were forced to accept a strangulating peace treaty which reduced Alexandrios, the Eclipse Empire’s crowning jewel, to less than a client state, carved up and split between the various powers of the Zurafodus Alliance.
Yet they couldn’t just play colonizer with their defeated nemesis, at least not immediately. Even the most zealous Fakonan knew that forcing their religion and culture upon Alexandrios would have spelled disaster and a new war immediately after. And among many of the things their conquerors did to appease them was allow a new Speaker to be appointed. Of course, only after the previous Speaker was forced to abdicate and sent into exile and pressured not to pick any of his immediate offspring or advisors.
And so, Hiram Grainger was picked. A distant nephew who’d left the Alexandrian royalty at a young age to run off into Nyter in search of adventure and riches. He emerged ten years later as the leader of a gold and lumber trust, dabbling as well in everything from canned food to firearms. Rumors were abound that his initial wealth had been amassed by being the ringleader of a gang which robbed banks, trains and stagecoaches. Hiram had entertained himself greatly playing the rough, dim-witted gunslinger to the powers of the Osnyan-formed Zurafodus Alliance, who instantly allowed him to become Speaker, convinced they'd appointed a cretin as a puppet-king.
Surrendered to their historical rival, and now, led by a former outlaw and current robber baron. Alexandrios, and the Eclipse Empire at large, couldn’t have been in a more humiliating and weak state as far as the rest of the world was concerned.
And that was good. Let them throw their victory parades. Let them inebriate themselves with the drug of victory and let them fall languorously into the claws of overconfidence.
Many fellow Lunists, particularly what remained of the nobility, may consider him a buffoon savaged by the Wild Range of Nyter, but he loved them as much as any father loved his children.
The orange glow of the gaslight was briefly disturbed by a passing shadow. Being this deep into the Sea Of Trees, his ancestral home unknown to all but his closest associates couldn’t get electricity, yet it had the advantage that any disturbance upon gaslight was far more noticeable.
His Dragoon revolver, which had served him as both outlaw and lawman, was in his paw faster than any conventional gunslinger could have drawn it.
“I am sorry for startling you, your Radiance,” The shadows said as they moved to form a red-furred she wolf, crouched on one knee as she bowed, the shade gradually dripping off her form to reveal light, dark armor adorned with magical charms, a large silver Plenilune pendant studded with red jewels hanging off her neck. “,but you told me it was best for your domestic staff to not know of our meetings.”
“You did well,” He said, the old heavy revolver rested on the desk. He regarded his servant with his piercing gold eyes, a faint purple sclera visible to those who looked close enough. “What have you for me, Paloma?” he asked as he closed his massive ledger and pulled another, smaller one, similarly dotted with various names and figures, yet of infinitely more importance.
The woman rose, keeping her paws behind her back as she spoke to her king.
“Hintoz ‘Stilleto’ is dead. The assassin was successful.” The fountain pen glided gleefully over the pages, circling several names. This was perfect. Hintoz controlled most of the Dark Zone within Ignisdava, having united several gangs and ruling with a crude and authoritarian, yet effective pseudo-regime where he was the self-appointed monarch.
Wretch as he was, he’d made the Dark Zone more peaceful, and many smaller gangs calmed down with their forays into the greater city as his rule, such as it was, provided stability and routine. With him gone, there would be a massive power vacuum and his gang would once again fracture into a dozen warring factions and the violence wouldn’t delay spilling out into Ignisdava itself. Just one tiny cog in the machine he was manufacturing to destabilize Osnya. And the fools wouldn’t realize it was right there until he’d already turned it on and let it ravage their brittle peace.
“There is a complication, however,” She continued. “The assassin we hired to do the deed has escaped."
Hiram did not react to this complication at all. His pen merely went down a few lines and crossed out another fictitious name with an efficient rasp. Just one tiny failed investment.
“I knew that was a possibility,” He said. “He is a gifted killer. It’s why I chose him.”
“Not only that, Radiance, but he had help. A constable in civilian clothes.” She pulled a slim folder from her travel bag and tossed it on the desk.
“And he had the Forte of Sight. He nearly spotted me from half a mile away, but thankfully there was shade nearby I could draw upon. Tyras Maloko. Lieutenant-Inspector in the Constabulary. Osnyan veteran of the War. Fought since the beginning and eventually became a Scout Raider. Was decorated thirteen times, including the Moonkiller Order Medal.”
That got Hiram’s attention.
“He was awarded the Moonkiller? That’s very interesting…” There were only ten recipients of the award, and most were shrouded in secrecy. The danger of receiving it meant few tried, and all who won it did so barely alive and shaken.
“I have met him, actually,” She added. “During the war when I led a prisoner exchange. He seemed to me like an exceptional soldier.”
“No doubt,” Hiram replied dryly. “Too bad he was born Osnyan.”
Silence grew as the Speaker leafed through the file his servant had hastily produced, stopping to study the yellowed out picture of a tall lion in a constable’s uniform dated five years ago.
“Radiance, if you like, I can eliminate both Dribas and Maloko. I made sure the assassin knew nothing of us or why he was doing the deed, but he still could tell-”
“No.” Hiram answered sharply. “Maloko is a smart and forward thinking man. The little you compiled here shows it. He saved Dribas for a reason. I should very much like to wait and see what that reason is.” He took one last look at the lion’s picture, his determined half-mutilated gaze seeming to stare right through him even through the frayed black and white picture.
“Continue with your duties in Ignisdava, but keep tabs on Maloko and Dribas.” He didn’t know what the veteran was up to, but he’d first see if he could use or exploit his actions before taking any decision on what to do with the man. Besides, Maloko was relatively well known in the Constabulary. If he turned up dead, people would ask questions.
“Thank you, Paloma.” He said gratefully.
She bowed once again, putting her hand over her heart and tilting it towards her king. "I give my heart, I give my life."
The shadows slowly enveloping her until she was a formless puff of black smoke, then she disappeared.