Far from the warmth and light and life of the village, a lone man watched the great and ephemeral plumes of bonfire’s smoke waft away into the moonlit sky. He watched them dissipate, disappear among the lustrous stars and into the void between them.

What a lovely night, he thought.

He closed thin eyes fouled with sleep at the crinkles and corners, for a moment. He drank deep of the crisp, cool air.

What a lovely, lovely night.

He was clad for battle, this man.

Clad for battle, but light, in a skin-tight truss of leathers and straps. It was streamlined, his wear, athletic in a way that mirrored his own lithe build. He had black, windblown hair bound up in a single tail. Twin long daggers, gleaming sharp and polished like wolves’ teeth, hung from each of his hips. Here, and again, there was a flicker of deep, rich, ruby-red lightning about him, a crack that ran from nape to elbow, or codpiece, or hip. But then present so briefly, and gone so breathtakingly, one might scarcely be sure to have noticed it, at all.

He was clad for battle, but roughly.

His armor was awash with nicks and cuts and burns, all poorly mended. Smeared with soil, and grease, and dried blood. His hair was slick and oily, his skin glistened in the wan moonlight. Even his smile was filthy. The only thing clean about him were his weapons.

His name was Surge, this man, and he was here for glory.

He stood not far from a fire, himself.

Albeit, quite different from the one that he beheld. His own was smaller, humbler, clandestine. Around it, fifteen men had clustered themselves, huddled and hunkered down all about one another in a haphazard arrangement of packs, gear, arms, and armor.

His men.

Some bore leathers, others mail, a couple even boasted plate, but, in the end, all were just as dirty, oily, and filthy as he. Their voices, not quite raised, produced a gentle hum of conversation that drifted out into the night.

Their disposition was unassuming, but their eyes were not.

They were sharp.

Alert, and hungry. Vicious, and greedy. There was no fear here. No anemic anticipation. Not in these men, and not around this fire. They knew well enough what tomorrow would bring them. They knew from experience. They couldn’t wait.

Surge smiled sweetly at his band of butchers, and set off with a jaunty tune playing about his lips, making for the ridge nearby. It was a nice spot, a good overlook. It allowed one an almost unparalleled view of the village far beyond.

Burrick. Their golden goose.

Their latest raid had met with hearty disappointment, both in carnage and compensation. Rather than plunder the valuable electronics and entropic tinkertech they’d hoped might be bound on the caravan toward Uther’s heart, they’d found naught but foodstuffs, and meager ones at that.

The grub had gone quickly, leaving them hungry and disheartened at having to return home so soon. Their spirits turned, however, when they happened upon the small village.

At first, they’d been happy enough just to find something so close to Uther’s borders after days of travel. Happier still, once they noted the state of the hamlet’s defenses, or lack thereof. Food enough to replenish their supplies, and slaves to boot. Bloodshed aplenty for those accompanying elements of a more…truculent persuasion. And, of course, women never went amiss.

Then they’d learned about the Maw.

Oh, the Maw.

It was a chance thing, really. It had been. One of their rangers, veritably stumbling upon the large party mid-return to the village, and managing to trace their tracks back the way they came. It was pure coincidence.

Oh, the Maw.

The Maw changed everything. Everything. Mutated this little escapade of theirs from pleasant detour to manna heavens-sent by the Priest himself. Their personal ticket to elevation, ascendancy.

To Aristocracy.

Labyrinth loot was significant.

Second to none. And, this Maw was fresh. Far from depletion, secluded from civilization. They could farm it, delve it, plumb it, for years. Plenty long enough to get what they needed.

Then it was back to Nycta, and their perfect future.

Surge sung aloud as he reached the ridge, stomping the ground, snapping his fingers, jubilant under the light of the pale spring moon. He clapped the sole figure standing there on its back heartily, producing a loud, shrieking clang.

“Flange,” he smirked. “Are we enjoying the view?”

The object of his affectations turned slow.

It was reasonable, really. Donned as he was presently, of his full war regalia, Surge’s partner was more mountain than man. A summit wrought of steel, with somber, plain visage and shavepate head.

Flange stood at nearly seven-and-a-half paces.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

He was clad in metal from tip to toe, his ever-present namesake planted firmly in the ground. His face alone was exposed at the moment, his helm resting easy in his palm.

Flange frowned, a sluggish procedure underwent by thick eyebrows and thicker lips.

“I don’t like it,” the mountain muttered.

Surge’s broad grin lost some of its luster.

“What?” He snapped.

“I don’t like it,” Flange repeated, vexingly.

“You don’t…like it?” Surge echoed. “What do you mean, you don’t like it? What don’t you, like, about it?”

He stabbed a thin, wiry digit in the vague direction of the fading plume of bonfire-smoke, and shook it emphatically about.

“You have…seen it? You have seen it, haven’t you?”

His partner gave no reply.

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” Surge pressed, more insistently, more frustratedly. “You’ve seen it, same as I. There it sits, after all. There. Just there.” He began to list items irately off his fingers.

“You’ve seen it, same as I,” Surge accused. “Its defenses, rotten. Rotten! Fucked to the sodding bone. Its men-at-arms…octogenarian. Fit to collapse before the walls do. There it sits. There it sits. Just there.”

Surge strode up to his partner, clapped his own palms together, then smoothly opened them.

“It is spread out before us,” he enunciated, slowly, “like a whore’s fucking legs. What is it, pray tell, that you don’t…like?”

Flange regarded him, impassively. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes, bagged and weary from days of ceaseless march, then gestured broadly, unhelpfully, to the woods surrounding them.

“Too far north,” he declared.

“Too far north?” Surge repeated, incredulous. “Why, we’re scarcely at the borde-”

“Uther territory.” Flange cut him off, meeting his eyes directly this time. Firm. Insistent. “Don’t like it,” he went on. “Been here too long. We should leave.”

Surge narrowed his eyes, and snorted.

“So? Soultaker hates those shits, anyway,” he reasoned.

Flange regarded him, unimpressed.

“Soultaker hates everyone,” he replied.

“And Soultaker loves money,” Surge countered. “And Soultaker loves power. And Soultaker most especially loves taking that money, and that power, from his foes, direct.”

He clasped his palms together once more, and batted his eyes.

“Oh, Flange. Oh, my dear Flange. Think, merely think, of the possibilities. Think of what Soultaker would give to deprive them of this. Think of how pleased he’d be to accept treasure stolen from under their very noses.”

Surge shrugged.

“Forever is a long time. Too long, perhaps. But a year is a long time, too. I know the villages, the wilds, like this. I know them, well. Their men will be gone until the summer’s holiday. That’s six months, at the least. That’s time. That’s time aplenty. Time to enjoy the fruits of our labours. Time to milk that Maw for all its worth.”

Surge’s gaze returned to the smoke plume, and the village below. His smile grew yearning, longing.

“Soultaker won’t protect us,” he agreed, happily. “But we do this, and we won’t need his protection. Never again.”

He glanced at Flange, still smiling.

“And if he won’t uplift us, well, then…I hear Syn is always recruiting.”

Flange turned back to the village silently, still unconvinced.

“Tell me, then. Tell me that I’m wrong,” Surge pressed.

“Uther’ll find out,” Flange replied.

“And by the time they do, we’ll be long gone,” Surge countered.

His partner sighed deeply, hefting his planted mace into the air, gazing upon its surface consideringly. Haltingly, he spoke.

“Flange’s…givin’ me a feeling.”

Surge’s face twisted in annoyance. He bit his lip.

“You know, sometimes, my dear friend,” he spoke softly, dangerously, “I think you trust that…fucking thing more than you trust me.”

Flange raised a big, bushy eyebrow, still staring at his weapon.

“Flange’s…not a thing. Flange’s a mace.” His partner turned slowly, locking eyes with Surge and holding his gaze this time.

Surge didn’t scare easily. He had seen too much, done too much, for that. He knew plenty of pain and how best to inflict it. He even enjoyed it. But for him, it had always been a means to an end. A way to get what he really wanted. Money, power, women, respect.

Flange was different.

Flange was…broken.

In some way. This slow violence. Sometimes, when he stared right at you, it felt as if he was choking the life out of you from afar. He didn’t look at you like another human being. He looked at you like prey. Like his next meal.

Surge’s partner continued, still speaking calmly, but not so casually as before.

“People lie all the time,” he said, “Like breathin’.”

He tapped his mace.

“But Flange never does.”

He sniffed the air, once, twice.

“Flange’s givin’ me red. Blood. Lotsa blood gonna be spilled in that village.”

He smiled, an ugly thing that made Surge’s mind conjure images of boars and black sausage.

“But I don’t mind that.”

He slammed his helm into place, whereupon it covered up his head entirely, save for a single pair of beady, awful eyes.

“You just stay sharp,” Flange told him, as he marched back towards their camp. “Be an awful shame, any of that blood bein’ yours.”

Surge watched his colleague depart.

He glanced upwards, to the sky. The plumes of smoke had petered out, and clouds had blocked the moon. The stars were dim, and darkness encroached once more.

The night no longer felt so welcoming, and his smile was not so big as it had been before.

“Oh, don’t you worry, partner,” Surge muttered to the empty air, his entire body seething with red, livid lightning for but a moment.

“They’ll never see me coming.”