Year E4320—Klysturn 3rd
Imbral Industrial Quarter
Behind Garrot lay a thriving city, its residents rising to meet the bright morning sun. Ahead of him lay the dismal remains of that morning’s carnage.
He had been slower than his friend to ready his Legionnaire’s tabard and armor at the morning call to arms, and was now shuffling his feet through the deep morning snow, taking a shortcut through one of the open lots on the edge of the Imbral Barrows. By now, the reason for their morning summons had been made clear as he inspected the building in front of him.
Morabine Foundry No. 8 had had a giant, smoldering hole carved in its side by the reported explosion, exposing collapsed mechanisms inside. The Foundry was normally a source of smoke, but the foul smell of its current emissions evoked a nauseating effect on the senses.
Near the perimeter of the compound, Garrot passed several of the escaped workers nursing injuries. Mercifully, none of their bruises looked life-threatening. Still, several were applying snow to swollen extremities suffered in their flight from the installation.
“Are all of you all right?” asked Garrot. He lowered his musket to his side.
The workers simply glared back at him.
“Why? You a doctor?” asked a man holding a snowball to the pit of his knee.
“Oh-...no,” admitted Garrot. “Th-They'll be along shortly, sir, I promise.”
“Just get the Dark Spawn bast’ds that did this,” muttered a bearded man next to him.
Deserved or not, Garrot decided to accept their ire; anyone was bound to be irritable after a morning like they had had. At least, giving them a target to vent to was likely to help their mood.
At the entrance to the Foundry, his companion, Private Bran Sternen tapped his foot impatiently in the Imbral morning powder, leaning on his musket. Though Bran was almost unendingly a fighter in Garrot’s corner, on this occasion his impatience shone through, if only slightly.
“Finally…! I was getting worried, buddy,” called Bran. “Sergeant already put the rest of the team on the other gates.”
Garrot bowed in apology as he arrived, catching his breath and pulling up his Legionnaire’s scarf to stifle the burning smell from the earlier explosion.
In the labor yard, a small crowd of workers sat on steelsmithing materials left abandoned from the sudden halt to their shift. They were surrounded by a tall, concrete wall with steel-tipped wire along its rim. The steel production of foundries like this one represented the Empire’s strength itself, that had allowed its centuries-long dominance upon the Western Frostscape, and turned it into a target for the Empire’s enemies.
“Dark Spawn does a thing like this, and they call in their own kind to dry our fecking tears?” cursed one of the idle workers.
“He’s not Dark Spawn,” insisted Bran. “We don't even know it was them just yet. Inquisitors will be here soon.”
“We all know it was,” spat one of his colleagues. “That’s what the foreman gets for hiring their kind.”
The inflammatory colleague, sporting a lopsided, scraggly beard, stood up.
“Boss either makes them go, or I’m handing in my hammer,” he announced. “I’ll find work somewhere else in the capital that has some sense. No overtime pay is worth losing a limb to one of their gzildamn bombs.”
Bran briefly thought about making some remark back to him, but calmed himself, unsure what to say as the worker before him left to rejoin his colleagues. They had a right to be frustrated. He ended up regretting the timing of his cowardice.
“Our jobs here might be gone anyway. Foreman was looking over the damages. The pressure feed system’s totalled, and parts have to be custom-made from a shop all the way out in Woulstan. They’re looking at a month’s shutdown, at least.”
In the face of the remorse for their destroyed industrial shop, Bran lowered his voice towards Garrot.
“They’re upset either way, but it probably didn't help their opinion of us for you to show up late.”
“But we were supposed to give directions…! It’s a Legionnaire’s duty, isn’t it?”
At sunbreak, the two of them had headed out together in response to the foundry bombing. But Garrot had chosen to stop for an elderly couple having lost their way – an act of compassion Bran now scrutinized him for.
“Duty and our asshole Sergeant are two separate concerns, Garrot.”
“I-I’m sorry!” protested Garrot.
He thought better of defending himself. The couple had traveled all the way from Almensk, a city in the Halehearth’s rival empire, Elmira. Now that a period of peace had risen between the two empires, such tourists had become more common.
Garrot had found the two after they’d spent several hours trying to find someone that spoke Elman for assistance locating their lodgings; and had stopped out of worry of leaving them standed.”
Bran heaved a sigh.
“You really wouldn’t be able to just forget a person in need like that, could you? You at least get them on the right street?”
Garrot gave an uneasy, guilty smirk.
“To be honest, I...wasn’t really able to help much with that, either. They knew the street’s name, but it wasn’t familiar to me.”
Bran raised an eyebrow.
“Then what the hell took you so long??”
“Well, we...the three of us kind of just got into a conversation! About rail travel, about the food they’d been eating here—about their cousin, who came to the Empire to study before them. She’s studying rail engineering, and apparently even in Elmira they feel that the Halehearth-”
A shrill rebuff came from behind them.
“How in the FUCK do you two have time to chat like this??”
The two of them snapped a salute on instinct in response to the familiar, overbearing voice, whose owner had snuck up on them from the foundry’s main door, through the soft snow. Their superior officer circled around them, examining their guilty looks. The upturned, disapproving chin of Sergeant Williams was always discernible to the two of them no matter how thickly layered his outerwear. It didn’t help that he held a height advantage over them both. He sneered at them in disgust.
“If the Dark Spawn pull off another attack out here, I’m going to make sure to let command know it was because the fag and klyskin were too busy gossiping they couldn’t even see their Sergeant walking up behind them.”
Bran winced. Garrot knew from experience his friend was more sensitive about the way their Sergeant addressed Garrot than himself. Klyskin immigrants had more than a hard enough time in the Imperial Halehearth without Garrot's own superior laying into him.
“Better yet,” continued Williams, peering at Garrot. “I’m thinking of asking the Inquisitors to figure out if this one could’ve been their inside man.”
“Sergeant...?” called Garrot, respectfully.
“What?!”
Garrot paced his answer; giving Williams a moment to breath through his frustration.
“You and the foundry workers have a right to be upset about this attack. But, sir...I’m frustrated too. There were J’halan workers hurt by the explosion too. They’re all out being treated by the emergency responders. At best, they’re relieved no one was killed. If you haven’t spoken to them, I think they’d be glad to help us figure out the cause of this and track down the bombers.”
Williams’ expression remained nonplussed.
“You telling me how to do my job, Private?” he accused.
“Of course not!” replied Garrot, smiling without missing a beat. “If you’d like, I’d be happy to do it myself and report back to you!”
“Listen here-”
“It’s not either of your jobs,” interrupted a man in a black trenchcoat.
Garrot’s attention rose from the newcomer’s shining badge to the sharp tools on his waistcoat, to his look of annoyance at the three of them. The assuming air made even clearer than the badge that this was an Inquisitor - investigators for the Halehearth Empire. While not considered a part of the Steel Legion, the Legionnaires were expected to acknowledge their requests at any time when it pertained to keeping the Emperor’s peace. He too had arrived from inside the foundry; and addressed the three of them with a tired air.
“Hey. Guardsman. Anyone come in or out since you took point?”
Bran snapped his M2 musket to attention.
“No sir!” replied Bran.
The Inquisitor shuffled past him out of the foundry’s grounds.
“We’re not done at the scene, but I need to search the burrows, turn over a few stones. We’re pretty sure he didn’t go to the outskirts.”
“Do we know who we’re looking for, sir?” asked Williams.
The inquisitor grumbled back at him.
“You are looking for anyone, Sergeant. Man, woman, fuckin’ baby in a sailsled. No one leaves the foundry grounds.”
“I know, b-…" muttered Williams hesitantly. Shaking his head, he relented, turning to the two privates. “Fuck it. You two numbskulls heard him.”
As the Inquisitor left to conduct his investigation, Williams marched off to check on the other perimeter guards, leaving Garrot and Bran alone again.
Bran released a pained exasperation, free from the burden of their Sergeant’s presence.
“...Three more days. Three more days until Sergeant Dickless finally transfers over to Breaker Company. Then he’ll finally be out of our hair...”
“Oh!” remarked Garrot. “That’s...too bad.”
“Too bad?”
Garrot shrugged, unsure how to justify his offhand statement.
“I just...feel like we’re still not on great terms with the Sergeant. I was hoping to get a chance to patch things up with him before he left the company.”
Bran turned to square himself with his companion.
“Garrot, you know you’re never going to be friends with everyone in the world, right? Much as you might seem to try. The Sarge is just forever going to be an asshole.”
"I...I don’t like to think that,” said Garrot. “I’m sorry.”
“Someday, you need to learn not to apologize so much. You’re Legion, remember. Next war the Empire is sucked into, you’re going to be shooting someone with that musket. Who knows. Maybe today, if that bomber comes back. Don’t have ‘sorry’ on your lips when that happens.”
Garrot hugged his shoulders inward.
“Do you...think they’d come back?”
“Maybe...” said Bran, noncommittally. “The Barrows—the place that Inquisitor went to check—that's that neighborhood over there, right...? The Emergency Response Agency was bringing their sleds up the main road to put out the fires, so I guess he’d cross that big open field out of the wall.”
Bran motioned out, left of the long road, walled off by fence posts, to what had formerly been a blank, white, snowy field spacing the foundry from the street bordering the Barrows. Now, the bootprints of the arriving squadron had left a long impression.
“Hm...that’s pretty exposed, isn’t it...?” suggested Bran.
“That’s how I got here, too,” admitted Garrot. “I saw there were already bootprints in the snow from the rest of the squadron.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“Leave it to you Legion boys to trample the last bit of peace we have!!” grumbled one of the workers nearby, having apparently overheard them.
Garrot turned, bowing in apology.
“I-I’m sorry for that...! I tried to follow the other footprints...!”
“You’re telling him sorry...?” muttered Bran. “What...for?”
“...Well, think about it,” said Garrot. “You work in a sweltering-hot foundry all day, surrounded by rust and fumes. This place is far enough away, I imagine a lot of the workers don’t have time to go out someplace like Amber Square for lunch on their schedule. So at most, when they bring sandwiches to work, they can at least look out over that big white field of snow, and watch the snowfall. It seems like it’d be calming. But...that’s not as appealing with the mess of footprints, and it’ll take time for those to wipe over.”
“I...guess...?” shrugged Bran. “You’d think the explosion would be far more of a damper on their day.”
Garrot shrugged.
“Sometimes it’s the patterns—the two things happening at once—that really makes people’s mood sink.”
Bran wasn’t sure he’d been convinced, but decided to accept Garrot’s judgment. If there was one thing his colleague was far better at, it was seeing things from other people’s point of view.
The morning silence loomed over them. Bran tapped his feet, his mind processing Garrot’s comment.
“Hey!” he called suddenly to the idle workers. “When did you first see footprints in that big field going to the Barrows?”
The perturbed factory worker blinked twice, caught off-guard by the question.
“It...Like I said, it was you numbskulls! Even the flakes of white ash from the explosion didn’t ruin that perfect white!”
Bran hefted his musket, turning to Garrot.
“Garrot...? Can you stand guard here?”
“What’s wrong?”
Bran pursed his lips in consideration.
“Could be just a hunch, but...I think that Inquisitor’s searching the wrong way for that bomber. Neighborhoods along the city rim would call in a suspicious person straight away, and he didn’t take that field going to the Barrows.”
“Oh...!” realized Garrot. “Because of the footprints...!”
“He would have had to run before the explosion went off,” explained Bran. “But if he didn’t...”
“So you think he’s...”
Garrot put both hands on his musket as he examined the smoking foundry building.
“I’m just going to do a quick search around the interior,” assured Bran, as he trotted off into the building.
“But we...the Sergeant’s orders-!”
“Don’t care,” insisted Bran. “He’s just a glory hog anyway.”
Garrot realized his motions were going to be ignored, as Bran slipped away, leaving him to guard the front of the foundry on his own.
It was hard to tell who was more dedicated as a Legionnaire between the two of them. Garrot was dutiful and eager, ready to take on any task put upon him; but his longtime friend went above and beyond—even when it might differ from his exact orders.
For several minutes, he could observe Bran through the door, evading the Sergeant as he made his own inquiries. Garrot shuffled nervously under the observation of the beleaguered workers, as the only remaining patrolman watching the foundry’s west gate. After several minutes, one of the factory workers, another klyskin like himself, approached Garrot with a look of concern.
“Can I help you?” asked Garrot.
The nervous worker pointed cautiously, as though he didn’t want to be seen.
“Excuse me...can you...ask that man over there who he is? I...don’t think I recognize him.”
Garrot turned to follow the man’s inquiry, but had trouble locating the subject.
“Who do you mean? We could ask them togeth-”
Garrot suddenly received a hard shove on his back. The world became muffled as his face fell deep into a mound of snow. He floundered helplessly in the unpacked, powdery mix for several seconds. When he finally extricated himself, he was entreated to the sight of the workers gazing at him in curiosity, and his attacker rushing down the lane to the barrows.
Garrot cupped his hands as he struggled to his feet.
“HELP!! WEST GATE!!”
In a few seconds, Bran had burst outside, his musket at the ready, and caught sight of Garrot.
“That way-!!” he cried, pointing out in the escaped worker’s direction.
“That J’halan just let him through!!” shouted one of the workers. “The gzildamn immigrants were collaborating on it!!”
Garrot could sense Bran's anger seething over from the charged comment, having already reached a tipping point from the comments earlier. Before he could say anything he'd regret, Garrot grabbed his arm, shifting his attention.
“Come on!! It’s our fault he got out!!”
Bran swallowed.
“I messed up...! I shouldn’t have left you alone at your post...”
“You what??”
The call came from the Inqusitor that had spoken to them earlier. He had just approached them, coming from one of the homes in the Barrows, his notepad in hand. Grumbling, he waved after the unknown figure.
“That’s our guy? And you let-!...You damn MORONS!! Go!”
Dutifully, Bran and Garrot continued the chase into an alleyway, trying their best to keep up with the frantic figure through the thick morning snow.
Bran skidded to a halt to raise the sights on his M2—‘Magazined Musket’ at their quarry. The weapon afforded 5 icy rounds; far more than most firearms in production could accomplish. He could afford to miss.
However, aiming the shot turned out to be a mistake—their target had run out from the other side of the alley into a busy street. As pedestrians caught sight of Bran’s aimed musket, several of them flew into a panic. A reindeer-drawn carriage proceeding down the street skewed into the sidewalk, its wheels shuddering to a halt, as its steeds whined in protest at the sudden obstacles.
“Dammit...!”
Bran tensed, reconsidering the shot rather than risk hitting an innocent bystander. Garrot was ahead of him, and hadn’t broken stride. A white-clad nobleman staggered out of the stopped carriage, confused about the commotion. Garrot motioned him back.
“Please, sir...! Stay in your carriage!! He could be dangerous!”
The bomber had already vaulted a collection of barrels facing a fenced alleyway, leaving Bran and Garrot, in their heavy Legionnaire gear, struggling to catch up. Garrot offered a hand back to Bran as he reached the tip of the fence.
“C’mere...!”
“Stop...worrying about me!!” spat Bran. “Fecking hell, he’s gonna get away!”
The two of them eventually slumped into a small yard. Beyond the set of fresh footprints before them, the fence at the opposite end of the empty lot was made of ice links—water frozen through a special process that hardened it as though it were metal. At its top, razor-sharpened ice glimmered threateningly.
The bomber had instead chosen to pass through a small gate in the fence—and had hastily slammed its door behind him, thrusting a shovel against it and the snow at his feet, to wedge it shut.
“Shit...no...!” panted Bran.
He thrust himself against the fence, watching as the terrorist widened the gap ever farther from them.
“This...it’s my fault he got away...” lamented Bran. “I’m-...”
“It was my fault. I’m sorry,” said Garrot.
Then, without warning, the ground fell apart.
A loud rumbling accompanied the formation of a giant fissure ahead of the bomber. He backpedaled, panicking as a chasm split the city before them in two.
“Wha-…? How...?”
The two Legionnaires lost focus on their objective as destruction reigned before them. The bomber retreated to the fence, removing the shovel and hurtling the door back open.
Bran and Garrot, still stunned at the sight of the fissure. The urgency of the bomber they were chasing left them, and he slipped past their inattentive fingers.
Without warning, the wooden fence behind them erupted into pieces from an electrifying blast, cutting off the bomber’s escape. Splinters of wood showered through the yard. In the fence’s place, a towering, armored knight, bearing a terrifyingly large greathammer and a brilliant white beard, stomped into the alleyway.
“...Giant fissure?” teased the knight, directing his attention to a man behind him. “Isn’t that a bit melodramatic, Lord Juuko? You could cause panic.”
From behind the knight, the white-dressed nobleman that Garrot had warned away stepped into the alley, an elegant cane in his hand.
“You’d prefer a nice, simple brick wall, Lord Klaus? People tend to try to climb walls. Illusions need a bit of melodrama to have their effect.”
“Sir!! It’s not safe!” called Garrot in panic. A chasm has opened in-!!”
He stopped himself. The nobleman’s word erupted in his mind—Illusions. He now knew exactly who these two men were.
The men before them could be none other than two of the Three Imperial Scions—omnipotent keepers of the Empire, wielders of sacred, ne’er-else-seen magical arts said to be bestowed upon none other than the Emperor’s distant bloodlines.
The old knight was Lord Wallace Leonaste, the latest in his family line to hold the title of the Second Scion: ‘Lord Klaus’. To the two of them, however, he was ‘General’ Klaus—keeper of the Empire’s army, the Steel Legion. Bearing powers of thunderstorms on his own, his very presence had forced entire armies into surrender—or slaughter.
Beside him, the middle-aged, elegantly-styled man was known as Mikael Wersten, and wielded supreme power of illusion—conjuring even the most impossible images and sounds to the eyes of all around him. Even such eclipsing visions as the chasm that had erupted across the city were well within his power. To the Halehearth Empire, he was known as the First Scion, Lord Juuko.
The First Scion peered in bemusement at the chasm ahead.
“I suppose I’ll clean that eyesore up. Sorry to panic you footsoldiers.”
The First Scion ‘pulled’ at the air with his clean, gloved hand. The rumbling sound quieted—and Garrot looked back to see the fissure ahead calmly and mysteriously shrinking down to a point, before dissipating into the ether. In mere moments, the entire alley ahead bore no more disturbance in its snow than the footprints of a panicked bomber.
“M-...My Lord!” stammered Bran. “L-Lords!!”
“Well, don’t tell everyone,” chuckled Lord Klaus. “Mikael. Get the Inquisitors over here, would you?”
Uncurling his hand skyward, Juuko snapped a finger, sending an illusory flare skyward from his bare hand. Its trail formed an arrow down to their position, as a firework in the sky burst into bright, shining letters:
HE’S OVER HERE, INQUISITORS!
“Who would have thought our ride to the Emperor’s Hearth would take us past a bit of brief excitement like this?” mused Lord Klaus, jovially.
“Seems like violence managed to sooth you, General?” sighed Lord Juuko. “I remember you being somewhat irate at the sudden carriage stop.”
Knowing himself to be hopelessly outmatched, and sensing his captors were distracted through banter, the bomber changed course again, making a desperate bid past Bran and Garrot for escape. No sooner had he taken two steps than a jolt of electricity connected from Lord Klaus’s hammer to the man’s back, causing him to falter into the snow in pain. Klaus grunted.
“Just a love tap, little fiend. Don’t want these two budding young Legionnaires to get jolted by the static when they grab you.”
Taking it as a suggestion, Bran and Garrot each grabbed an arm of the cloaked figure. Bran threw the hood of his robe off, exposing the man’s klyskin face. Lord Klaus’s jesting manner dissipated as he met the terrorist’s eyes with a grimace.
“We give your kind a home...and this is how you’ve repaid us.”
From behind the Scions, the Inquisitor that had yelled at Bran reappeared, offering a bow to the two Scions.
“Your Lordships! I-I’m humbled by your assistance. Please, do not let us bother you further. You can leave this to me.”
“Oh, give him his moment, Inquisitor,” protested Juuko. “It's probably been decades since grandpa here has had a chance to use his magic beyond entertaining at parties.”
“Son, we DO need to be getting to the Hearth. The Emperor awaits us.”
Klaus rolled his eyes, giving a contemptful look to the huddled bomber beneath them.
“Not...as though a single fleeing suspect gives the same rush of blood as facing down armies on our threesome,” he added remorsefully.
“The thing is, sirs...I have some arrests to make,” grumbled the Inquisitor, doing his best to project a polite, but unwelcome atmosphere to the Scions.
“Arrests? You think there’s others...?” asked Bran.
The Inquisitor shifted his glance determinedly to Garrot and Bran—then unfurled multiple pairs of steel cuffs from his coat.
“...Yes. I do.”
Garrot, Bran, and even the Scions were taken aback by the accusing implication. Several of the Inquisitor’s colleagues arrived from the nearby street, and deferred to the Inquisitor’s lead.
“I specifically remember asking you two to keep watch at that wall. We had a bulletproof perimeter around the foundry. And you expect me to believe this man walked right out without scratching you?”
“I-…!” stammered Bran. “Well, the field-...there were footpri-...I mean, NO footp-...I-I realized he might not have been at the Burrows as you thought! See, he was hiding inside th-”
“Making it all the more important to keep that perimeter. That possibility had not been lost on me, Private, we were covering all angles. And you.”
The Inquisitor turned to Garrot, and began twirling his cuffs.
“Wouldn’t surprise me that another of their kind made sure to secure that so-convenient escape.”
Garrot glanced fleetingly to the mighty figure of Lord Klaus—who served as their ultimate superior. The General offered nothing more than an uncertain grimace in return.
“Il terradvoco krit neha,” breathed the bomber. “Sovoca mun rio haya.”
The Dark Spawn will never die, interpreted Garrot in shock. Even if I do.
Garrot timidly called out to the frustrated Inquisitor.
“Sir-!...I think-!”
As the Inquisitor approached with his cuffs, the bomber kicked forward amid Garrot’s distraction, then ruffled himself out of his cloak, freeing himself from Garrot and Bran’s grasp. He dropped to his knees, and tugged free a thin, ice-forged knife hidden in his boot.
The members of the alley took a step back as their enemy brought the knife upward—and centered it upon his own throat, preparing to slam it through.
Midway through the unexpected motion, the bomber’s arms were caught by a pair of flaming ropes that sprang from the ground, and curled around his arms, producing a hissing sizzle of burning clothing and flesh. The J'halan bomber cried out in howling agony from the heat, releasing the knife into the snow. Even the two Scions recoiled at the apparent intense pain of their victim as he fell to his knees, the sickening implements tugging his arms down.
“...How many of you blithering idiots does it take to apprehend one filthy terrorist...?” hissed a woman on the street.
Each of them turned in a synchronized movement, to catch the looming appearance of a tall, dominant figure, dressed in dark furs. Her shoulders rose almost a full head over the men around her. Where her face would have been visible, instead a gleaming white falcon mask revealed only her infuriated crimson eyes. The woman’s fingers were curled outward, holding a furious grip upon the air, directed towards the flame-embroiled bomber.
Her target never even had a chance to turn his head up to see the Lady Phaeriga, third of the Imperial Scions. Still, he appeared all too aware of his woeful impending fate, given the wild, pained, and suddenly deathly-frightened look in his eyes.
The Lady Phaeriga stepped past her colleagues in irritation.
“Juuko...I would have thought all your gzildamn work as Foreign Minister would help you accidentally learn a fucking word of Elman.”
“S-Sorry, miss...” stammered Juuko. “I didn’t learn the phrase for ‘Excuse me, I’m about to bleeding kill myself.’ “
Phaeriga knelt down before the bomber, never deigning to make eye contact with the other occupants of the small yard. She lifted his chin up, causing a small gasp of pain from him as the flaming ropes dug in again.
“You die...when I say you get to die, klyskin filth.”
The flaming strands dissipated, and Phaeriga lifted the cowering man up by his robes, hurling him into the street.
“My Department will take him. Consider it my repayment for wasting my time coming all the way out to the fucking capital on ceremony.”
“Y-Yes, ma’am...!” said the Inquisitor. He jabbed a nod towards Bran and Garrot. “I'll just be bringing these two to the Red Quarter for-”
“The Legionnaires...? Have the Inquisitors fallen this far?” sneered Phaeriga. “Desperate for scraps and scapegoats? Your failure was your own, Inquisitor. If I had even the slightest suspicion that these two hopeless saps were his cohorts, they’d have already been cremated. Far more likely that his Lord Klaus is simply incapable of beating them into shape.”
Several of the other approaching Inquisitors wrapped shackles around the bomber, under the Third Scion’s watchful eye.
“We only need one of their kind to answer questions, after all.”
She stepped back out through the destroyed fence to the street, wary of any further motions of the bomber—though he had become completely docile, petrified in fear of the towering woman above him.
Hesitant about rejoining her, Lord Juuko let out a sigh.
“It’s...never going to feel how it used to, did it...?” he lamented. “The three of us, heroes against the bad guys of the world.”
Klaus dropped his greathammer to his side, shaking his head.
“...Not since Francis left her to us, Mhira rest his soul. Juuko...we’d better get going. His Highness expects us.”
The Lord Juuko flipped a smile to the two Legionnaires behind him as he followed Phaeriga out.
“Sorry, Privates. No autographs today.”
Timidly, Garrot and Bran exited the yard, and observed the receding chaos from the street they had just chased through. Already, traffic was resuming as Inquisitors cleared the area and pedestrians worked to upright scattered belongings.
As they surveyed the scene, a shadow cast over them. Garrot realized it was the Lady Phaeriga herself—she had been looming out of sight before walking back towards her own carriage, when she’d caught sight of his klyskin flesh.
Garrot, meekly, offered a smile. Even through her mask, the Scion was clearly not amused by it.
Bran elbowed him.
“Garrot-…!” he whispered. “You sh-”
Too late, Garrot realized the problem. Bran had adopted the two-fisted salute of the Empire. Garrot, meanwhile, had acted too late. The Scion marched past them, irritated.
“You’re supposed to salute, caveman.”