…..:::::|. Cloudsfall: West End .|:::::…..

They all saw them now, the figures, and Kodlaa gave a leery hum. Siin also walked with a much more guarded stride as both lots walked to the western end of Cloudsfall, neither acknowledging the other. As the group loosed familiarities and walked in more of an order for combat advantage, Siin tried to continue normally with conversation but this ever present shadow of slim figures was beginning to make him stutter.

Percival decided the nervous-new were going to soon bring attention to their lot and he spoke.

“Dead Ranks.”

Siin sighed fully now and went on with his conversation smoothly. There was so much fog here he hadn't recognized the figures as the fighting fox-women he’d been introduced to sometime back. Siin tapped the girls to relax. Halycind made her mind known.

“Um, I've heard Taph talk about whatever that is...do you mind, please, Exemplariat,” Halycind started, moving her had to her blade as she spoke. “...as I'm two seconds from stabbing whatever they are over there.”

“Never act in nervousness, pup. Your blade is an extension of your will not a defensive urination.”

Halycind felt fully and wholly scolded. Never had she been so upbraided when training in Ashok or with Veygornne, yet the reprimand slid so easily from Percival's tongue she felt this was the hundredth time he'd stated it.

“I've not read of them before.” Kodlaa whispered.

“There's no written description of the Dead Ranks because they don't exist.”

“Clearly they do.” Halycind pointed out with a purse and an irritated eyebrow.

Kodlaa flattened her eyes. “Then what government's nether did they leak from?”

“They service no government, regime, or council. You'll find even we are not as autonomous as we're portrayed, but the Dead Ranks are. Very long ago, there were certain Kings who befriended certain mages that knew certain agents with certain friends training certain operatives....the Dead Ranks are those operatives. A militarized jam assisting the Agency. They always run in packs. And they are always female. If you've seen one, best believe the rest of the jam has seen you.”

“Those were the scouts who had collected Marvynn.”

“Yes. Dedin scouts. Or, Dead-End, scouts. About five others with completely different combat skills were waiting in the woods just in case things had gone way too far.”

“Way too far?! Marvynn almost petrified everyone and got away again!” Kodlaa flared in protest.

All three men gave some sort of perfunctory chuckle or wave of the hand when Percival corrected her. “I was being nice. I needed him alive. And I like Ladi Gru Has. He and that entire city would have been a mist of blood if it were my call.”

“Oh.” She shrank. “So these...Ranky-things are some sort of faction?” Kodlaa summed.

“Like the faction that is the aBn Tera?” Halycind added.

“No, the Villa Magi have a chain of command we report to, albeit loose. The Dead Ranks have none. They are our operatives....because they want to be.”

“Well, where do they come from?” Kodlaa questioned.

“I don't know.”

“Who trains them, then?” Halycind asked.

“I don't know.”

“Aren't you suppose to know everything...you're Exemplariat.” Kodlaa blurted.

“Don't confuse my words, I have my suspicions of who it is. But I've not seen them, so I can't be sure, so I won't say. The Ranks were around even before the Agency was.”

“Oh.”

The two groups walked for what seemed an eternity through town toward Cloudsfall's outer reaches. Lanterns lined the edges of every wall and corner and every sharp and perilous thing that one could impale themselves on. From what they could tell, Cloudsfall was far larger than it seemed and completely laden with bridges which made the ascending and descending of the town seem larger. There was a healthy population rummaging about in the clouds on the ground and even moreso now that travellers had been arriving steadily but few figures could actually be seen, as the mists were just too thick.

Halycind heard women tripping over things, newcomers, she surmised as those that lived in Cloudsfall walked with brisk pace into and out of buildings she hadn't even noticed existed until the doors of the places were opened. There was no persuasion Halycind could have been given to convince her to settle here.

When there was no other footfall but their own for a time longer than she counted, she saw Percival turn the ring on his wrist once more. About seventy or so Grui hit the ground.

“Ok, I'm with Siin on this, now I want one.” Kodlaa acceded.

“It'll ruin your dreams.” An unfamiliar accent spake against the mists. The wolaenki looked about themselves. Halycind almost snatched out her dagger if not for having heard Percival's clear reprimand in her memory.

A mass of floating cloaks, strings of velvet and a form they all almost reared away from, became the colourful visage of a giant hawk lowering from the sky. Mists swirled all about it hugging its curious form as it descended. It landed two booted feet to the grasses as it collected its attire together behind a frighteningly large mask. There, it rested in a bobbing stand like a bird on the water's surface. And that's just what the horrified wolaenki stared at it as, a giant bird of prey.

Halycind couldn't help but take a very slow step backward. Percival approached it; the ring on his wrist twisting and turning itself as if searching for something.

As smoothly as he'd always spoken, Percival addressed the bestial thing in velvety cloaks.

“They're still wolaenki, wet with mother's milk.”

“Ha, as you are to me, Perceev.”

Perceev? That was not a name Percival seemed he would ever answer to but he seemed to not loathe it as much as the three wolaenki suddenly did.

“You're resonating.”

The mask of the thing, that now almost seemed in movement as natural a face as a real hawk, tilted toward the three behind the two Agents. It took everything in them not to be taken to fright and run back toward town.

“They are...learning.” Percival answered its unspoken nod.

“Then they shall be privy.” Its accent was extremely foreign and as it spoke the words slowly, the form under its cloaks straighten into a familiar shape and the mask lowered until it settled on what was now the arm of a man. An olive man with very long wavy black hair parted down the middle, a sharp-ended mustache, and keen greyish-blue eyes. He turned his gaze to the one he called Perceev.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I resonate with the magery of the Enchantress, yet again.”

Even the way he spoke was extraordinarily foreign.

“How'd that go?”

“Horribly regretful. The woman is a cull of many roots. If we did not need her to poof our gear, we would hang her up by nails.”

Both 'Perceev' and Veygornne laughed. The other three didn't.

“As we would most of the Scerci.” Veygornne quipped.

“But I get it done lest I be bare-backsided every time I molt.”

Again the two men laughed. The three wolaenki just stood there, staring. Worry and reticence blanketed their faces. What were they now being introduced to? The ‘Venge was the only thing this Moss-bend was to be about...what was this that they'd been dragged across the sea for to witness? Where was the Stainpull?

“Hmm, was this your...accident?” Siin asked almost knowing the answer. Percival affirmed with his sharp blue eyes. “Guess this postpones the 'Venge again, a bit?”

“A bit.” Percival answered, hesitantly.

“We are unsure how much, however. Your Dun'ahka ceased time to wipe a King's Court of...troubling events with the Scerci Kaehn.” The birdish man offered.

“And the King?”

“He remembers only some, the Kingly bits, but Jarko says the King's people will need for him to stay. Guard the King for a while.”

“At Killingmoon's behest, probably?”

“Yes.”

“You sound...different.” Kodlaa had been staring long at this strange royal looking bird man.

“I am...I am from a place that no longer exists.”

“Are you from Khartoum?”

“No, but your Exemplariat is...”

The girls shot pained and sorrowful looks to Percival. Percival tilted his head, as if to wave off the trouble. They're palms were covering their mouths and they were whispering condolences to him for not having understood sooner. No wondered he’d been so cross with Marvynn. That was Percival’s home he destroyed.

“...There were few fair-hairs before…” The bird-like man stroked Percival’s head as if to smooth him like a little boy. “There are much fewer now. I, however, am from a place called Espana...Long dead, well remembered.”

“He now calls The Ealdormany of Empty Solemn home along with the Bird of Blooms, and the Bird of Heirs.” Percival added.

“Soooo, where's the Stainpull?” Siin asked eyes darting under a furrowed brow.

“I am he. But I pull no stains.”

Percival could feel the mounding nerves building in each of them. “It was a ruse, Siin.”

“You knew this?”

“I had an inkling. When no chatter on the docks spoke of an accident with cargo.”

“Oh, right.” Siin smacked himself in the brow. “Become more contextually observant.”

As if prodded by Siin's reproach, the girls noticed that the mists had fallen away just enough to see they stood in the clearing of a forest.

Percival handed him the scroll case for Gauriasse and Kodlaa exploded in sudden realization. “Oh! He's the Bird!”

“Correct. This is Lucian de Monroy. The Bird of Gems in a sibling trio known as the Fjadrhamr.”

“That name is much longer, Perceev, but it is of little relevance here. You, children, may address me as Lukke, as your Agency does. Or Luci as my sister does. Or Gems as Dome’nce does. Or--”

“Lukke is fine, for them.” Percival watched their faces turn all sorts of expressions.

“Whichever.”

“Though this meeting is coincidental.” Percival mused in wonder. “I expected to cross you in Havvenchael. Even so, I want you to take this to Gauriasse, Lukke. Tell him Marvynn's ashes await a King.”

Lucian nodded and stuffed the case inside of his cloaks.

“Then you should know why I summoned you. And why the foxes follow.” Lucian’s fine features went cold with a certain annoyance. “Dome'nce has charged the Fjardhamr with uncovering a plot. It stinks of death and armies and enslavement beyond what the Scerci have already garnered. While Dome'nce lives with his Indigo Hand, he is again racked with dreams of the Universes. They tell him a twist is coming and his kin will face unconquerable peril.”

“He’s dreaming again? Then this is worse than it smells?”

“Fouler yet. We think the plot is on you.”

“Me? Myself?”

“No, simpleton. Your Agency.”

They’d never heard anyone address Percival in such a manner and Halycind wanted to laugh.

“The Agency? That's absurd. Understandable but absurd.”

“When was the last child of their accursed blood-hood born?”

Both of Percival's eyebrows rose.

“Exactly. Back when you joined the Agency. You all haven't had to worry with being chased or gathering candles for generations. Wyyt'Phyr's wasting away warding cities and playing benevolent benefactor and Daemphred's had too much time to fester their hate toward every living thing...so they've all started to garner what they call 'sympathizers'.”

“We've caught wind of these...nuisances.”

“Well, those nuisances are growing at an alarming rate. The Brandywine Scourge is at the top of the board.”

“Brandywine Scourge, that sounds ominous.” Halycind interjected.

“He is a general lust-driven with the prospect of war. Monger's it, cultivates it, sells it like a courtesan. And many a mortal are buying into it like drunken children.”

“And the rest of Sons of the Dicus?” Veygornne questioned.

“Ride along side him whenever he calls. Half a Giant's blood and all, the sordid lot. The Hallowed-Shadow shrouds them in their wake of movement. So their travels have been very hard to follow.”

The skin on Halycind's arms and chest grew cold and seemed to crawl at his words. She didn't understand any of what he referenced but she suddenly remembered how large the necromancer's steed was and how dark the city center had been.

“I don't like any of what you're saying.” Percival's disapproving tone brought her back to the moment. “The last thing Dureyr needs is interloper gods influencing free-thinking dureyns.”

“'Tis true. But none of the Scerci Kaehn want you hunters around anymore to foster such freedoms.”

“We’ve been through this, Lukke. We've been hit before.”

“I'm saying they've had too much time now to think. And now they're starting to talk. And be they Immortal or not, bored people should never talk.”

Percival held his brow and sighed for a long time. His eyes seemed to pass back to the wolaenki standing there with hastened breaths.

Only question arose in their heads. No answers.

Kodlaa, having stared at this bird-man the whole time with hand on her dagger, addressed him. “Why the mask?”

“Hm, little one?” His head turned to her in a suave lean. She was unimpressed by all his regalia.

“Why the mask? It's bright. Easy to see. Showy, even...If we're to remain covert, why have a mask like that?”

“I like her.” He nodded to Percival. “Strike it.”

Without hesitation and flat-out waiting for this moment, the small tan girl took a full wolf's dash to slice it and this man clean. Lucian flipped the mask around deftly to hold as a shield for her impact.

Sparks. A flurry of them and the mask bore now a new mark made in the paint by her blade's edge.

“Oh.” She said stepping back to her place beside Halycind. Kodlaa then noticed her left arm was stinging with a new set of pains. She bore fangs up at him after seeing the tiny slashes her offhand now bled with.

“It is made the way it is because we prefer to be seen by some...and felt by others.” On the side where his sword sat, his gloved hand was dripping with fresh blood from what looked to be a set of forty or so small talons in his gloves. He turned it for them to see, openly.

She understood, hated and liked this man's explanation.

Siin darted to her arm and clasped his hands around it. A cool rush, of what she could almost taste as mint, spread up her veins and she could see her skin sealing itself over. Both Halycind and Kodlaa flashed strange looks to the battlemage, as they'd never witnessed a weave to heal wounds. When completed, Siin shook out his palms and swiftly shoved a vial into Kodlaa's hands. He urged her to drink it so to quell the rush of hunger she was about to feel from her body using energy to heal so fast.

Wounds sealed and vials drank, the wolaenki all cut harsh eyes to these men in the know. There would soon have to be some solid explanations for everything. Not much more would any of them take of remaining in the dark.

And as the mists rolled over this dark clearing, they heard the faintest of sobs. Percival winced as he sensed something odd in the weave of la'as. Veygornne looked to the ring on his wrist. It was slowly shifting to another rune.

The others watched as the Grui that had dropped on the ground and the rings on both Agents wrists lit to a glow.

“What's that mean?” Halycind frowned dropping into a stance.

Whimpers and sobs and uneven breaths came running into the clearing dragging mists behind it. A girl looked up frightened to a freezing stop as the lot glared at her. She was clothed in rags, the child. Scraggly and heavily scarred. The Grui on the ground hummed with an almost audible buzz.

The lot backed away from her.