Getting ripped out of an underground tomb only to then be unceremoniously dropped on the open street was enough to give a person whiplash. Memphis blinked away the spots swimming in his vision as his eyes struggled against the onslaught of sunlight. Somewhere behind him, he could hear Lily retching. To his right, Anujak was shaking his feline head as if to clear it.
The perpetrator of their distress stood off to the side, studying her laquered fingernails.
“What the hell was that,” the captain demanded shakily as Memphis picked himself up from the cobblestones.
Eko looked up with a baleful gleam in her black on grey eyes. “A shortcut.” The mage lifted a questioning brow. “Or did you want us to waste hours back tracing our steps? I thought time was of the essence?”
“You promised to be nice,” Syd warned at her shoulder. Now in the daylight, he looked even worse. Darkening blood painted his skin and clothes. It looked as if he had at one time tried to wipe it away from his face, but the merc had only succeeded in smearing it. People passing them on the street stopped to openly gawk at him. If the merc noticed or cared, he didn’t let on.
“I most certainly did not,” Eko sniffed. “I promised to be civil.”
Memphis realized he recognized where they were. The weatherbeaten doors of the Scarecrow’s headquarters loomed large behind them. It seemed that the merc was surprised too. Syd frowned down at Eko, “You dropped us back at the guildhall?”
“Options were limited, and I certainly wasn’t bringing them back to my place.”
Memphis did not care where they were, so long as it was aboveground. He could have done without the violent switch; his stomach was still sour. Syd shrugged and offered the lot of them a sharp-toothed grin. “Welcome I guess,” he said, before pushing the doors open.
This morning, when Memphis had come to the Scarecrow’s base, there had been maybe three or four sleepy mercenaries on the main floor. Now, the place was bedlam. The main hall was packed with bodies. Folks were rushing around, shouting orders, hastily strapping equipment to their bodies before rushing out of the now open door. A gangly young man with pale skin and the brightest red hair Memphis had ever seen raced past them carrying an armload of loose weapons. Syd’s arm reached out and snagged him by one arm. “What’s going on?”
The kid blinked, obvious relief sloping his shoulders as he recognized his Vicemaster. “Syd! Thank the Saints you’re back,” he exclaimed. “A girl came here about ten minutes ago, she says the West Central Temple’s under attack by monsters.”
“Monsters?” That question came from Lily. She stepped forward and Memphis caught a tightening in Syd’s stance as she came further into the guildhall. Still in his Vicemaster’s grip, the young man angled his body towards the captain now, words tumbling out one right after the other in his excitement.
“Yeah. Apparently, a bunch of ghouls. They busted in during afternoon prayer and started chewing on people.”
“What a coincidence,” Eko said drily. “That we are currently hunting for a necromage.”
The young man’s brown eyes went wide. “Wait, really?”
“How far away is the West Central Temple,” Memphis asked.
“It’s across the river, twenty minutes if we run flat out,” Syd told him. The big merc frowned in thought. “Me and your furry friend there could probably make it in ten.”
“I don’t think they have that long,” the young man said hurriedly. “It sounded like things had already gotten pretty bad by the time the girl got to us. Half the Scarecrows are already on their way over. The rest of us are on our way.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Syd declared. “You and the rest of the fledges are staying right here out of trouble. I don’t have time to babysit you three right now.”
“C’mon, Syd!” the younger merc squawked. “How many times do we get a chance to fight real undead?! You gotta let us go.”
“Nope,” the Vicemaster cut in. “You’re not ready for something like this, Red. You’re staying here. Tell Uzon and Tanya. Their asses stay at base.”
The boy called Red looked positively mutinous, but when Syd released him, he dutifully walked deeper into the guild.
“Ten silver tiles says you have to pull a ghoul off them before the day’s out,” Memphis said. Red’s disappointment had been damn near palpable.
“Don’t tempt it,” Syd sighed.
Lily scowled. “So if we can’t waste time running, how do we get there?”
A hard smile flared onto Syd’s face. “That’s where wheels come in.”
Which was how merely two minutes later, Memphis found himself clambering into a mule-cart. He squeezed onto the bench between Lily and Eko, the latter of which looked as if she’d found cat shit in her shoe as his shoulder bumped against hers. They had seemed to come to an agreement underground, but given Eko’s expression, Memphis wondered if he would survive the ride. That sentiment persisted when Syd hopped on and the cart took off, the mules’, steel-shod hooves beating at the pavement as they pulled it for all they were worth. The driver did not slow for turns and more than once, the cart took an angle that would have spilled them all out onto the pavement if they had been a hair less lucky. Teeth rattling at the cart’s jolting, Memphis took stock. Lily was looking a little worse for wear, covered in plaster dust, her once sleek braid having lost most of its structural integrity. Anujak had found a space on the floor, muscles bunched and ready to spring into action the moment he got the all-clear. The mage paid none of them any attention, choosing instead to rifle through her pack for something Memphis could only hope would be useful. On his end, Memphis only had a handful of shots left in his hip-kit. He would have to be strategic and make them count.
They were still blocks away when the screams hit Memphis’ ears. And he was not the only one; the merc driving the cart spurred the mules on even faster at the sound. Finally, they came to a screeching halt in a small plaza, the cart lurching dangerously to one side as the driver pulled the mules up short. Memphis leapt over the side, his knees protesting as the force of his landing shot through them. “Shit.” Thirty-five wasn’t old, but there had once been a time where that move wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest. Memphis would pay for that jump in the morning. One good thing about Osso, there would be ice aplenty for his bones later.
All around them, people were shrieking and fleeing the temple in all directions with ghouls hot on their heels. He watched as a Nhedii man tripped over a curb and fell. A ghoul was on him in a heartbeat, grabbing at his ankles, teeth ripping into his leg. Memphis moved to help, but someone got there first.
The hulking frame of Lieutenant Jakkor came around the corner, and he bore down on the ghoul. In his fists he held a wicked looking warhammer. It struck the ghoul right between the shoulders, crushing it flat like a roach. It was enough to get the monster’s jaws loose. The Nhedii man scrambled away and Jakkor’s next blow smashed its skull.
Jakkor looked up, wild eyes rounding. “Captain,” he called, breathless. “Thank the stars you’re back!”
“Status report, Lieutenant,” Lily barked.
Jakkor snapped to attention. “We have multiple undead hostiles, and civilians fleeing in everywhere. We’ve set up a two-block perimeter around the area. Non-combatants are being ushered inside any building that can take them, and anyone found with injuries is being placed under quarantine.”
Well, no one could say the good Lieutenant was not efficient.
Jakkor paused before continuing, hesitantly, “The Scarecrows are helping with the blockade and the hostiles. In a situation like this, I didn’t think it was wise to turn them away.”
Lily’s face turned sour, but she did not object. How could she? That was exactly the right move in this situation. “What about the situation inside the temple?”
“Unclear,” the Lieutenant admitted. “It seems our suspect interrupted services and absconded with the Head Preacher. No one has seen them leave, but it’s a madhouse and we’ve had our hands full corralling the situation out here.”
The captain nodded. “Good work,” she said before turning Memphis’ way. “You know this man,” she said. “What would he want with a temple?”
Memphis had no worldly idea. In all the times hunting Jeriko, the necromage had done nothing like this. Up until now, Jeriko had been firmly set on fleeing capture. The only time civilians had gotten involved on this scale was when they had managed to corner him. But Memphis knew they were not going to get any answers just standing around. “We’re about to find out,” he told Lily. “Our primary goal should be containment. If any more ghouls get added to the roster, that will make our job that much harder. Help your people shore up defenses and I’ll bring Jeriko out so he can tell us himself.”
“Go help out here where you can,” Memphis told Anujak. His partner nodded his feline head before tearing off into the mob.
Memphis turned to Syd. “Looks like you got what you wanted; the Scarecrows are officially in Magehound business.”
A bit of dried blood cracked on Syd’s face as he grinned. “Y’all are shit at saying ‘thank you’.”
“Prove to me your people are worth their name and I’ll thank you all you want,” said Memphis as he cocked his grandfather’s gun.
All humor left Syd’s face. “Don’t shoot my mercs.”
“Keep them out of my way.”
XXX
It was probably a side effect of spending the day working spells based on his magic, but Eko swore she could nearly taste the necromage, he was so close. It sat on the back of her tongue like oil, filling her nose with rancid, burning magic. So, the second their cart had come to a stop, she left Syd and the Magehounds to make plans and had headed straight for the temple.
The people of Tolko did not worship gods the way people did in other parts of Roa. They acknowledged the hand of the Creator, the Builder of All Things with all the reverence such a looming being was due. Their prayers, however, were directed to smaller entities - the seasons that touched their daily lives and the spirits who laid claim to the angles within them. Temples were places of reverence and reflection with sermons that followed the themes of the calendar, and each person was welcome to come and give the spirits ascendant in their lives proper due.
There were six temples scattered across Osso with West Central being the largest. The Head Preacher here, Vieol, was something of a local celebrity in his own right. Everyone who was anyone in this city came to West Central for worship and claimed Vieol as a spiritual advisor. But as far as Eko knew, he had lived his entire life in Osso, so what then could Jeriko possibly want with him?
The sanctuary was silent, save for the wet sounds of ghouls devouring those who had been unfortunate enough to get caught. The polished marble floors were slick with blood and offal. With the windows tightly shut against the autumn cold, there was no breeze to clear the stench. It hung thick in the air as Eko entered and she couldn’t help the small gag that escaped as her stomach heaved against the smell.
At her noise, a ghoul looked up from the belly of an open child. With a chill, Eko realized she recognized its face. This ghoul was one of the people from Syd’s lost and found notices. Rhitna Yelconne, aged forty-two. Her wives had declared her missing after she did not come home from getting groceries. A heaviness settled over the mage’s heart. Eko had found her, feasting on entrails, in thrall to a madman.
Heedless of the entrails glittering wetly in her teeth, Rhitna screeched and lunged for her, scrambling over an upturned bench.
Eko raised her left hand, sniffing against a suspicious burn in her eyes. “Collapse.”
The shadows directly surrounding the ghoul once known as Rhitna toppled in on themselves, sucking her in, crushing her instantly. There was the sick crack of crumbling bones. Thick, old blood sprayed wildly, some of it catching Eko on the chin.
Rhitna was no more.
The mage took in a tight inhale and squared her shoulders. The other ghouls in the room had seen her now. They rose from their respective meals, rotten teeth on display as they howled against her intrusion.
Eko raised her hand again. The candles dotting the sanctuary threw off plenty of shadows for her to claim. The rest of the ghouls went the way of Rhitna, and more blood pooled along the floor.
The door to the temple opened, slamming against the stone walls with a loud bang. Eko turned to see Memphis and Syd rush inside. Memphis held his rifle high, finger resting just near the trigger. The candlelight glinted across Syd’s swords. She saw them take in the scene, confusion coloring their features.
It was Syd who spoke first. “You good?”
“Fine,” Eko lied. “I just got tired of waiting on you all to make a decision.”
“Where’s Jeriko,” Memphis demanded.
Eko rose a finger towards the door swinging off its hinges at the back of the room.
Jeriko had not been stealthy. As the trio raced through the temple’s winding halls and hidden backrooms, they found the bodies of acolytes littered everywhere. The survivors they came across were few and fearful, many of them unable to speak.
“No more ghouls,” Syd muttered as they rounded a corner.
“Jeriko mut be keeping them close for protection,” Memphis guessed.
As the fastest of them, Syd took point. Human as he was, Memphis’ long strides put up an impressive pace anyway. Eko brought up the rear. It had been a very long time since she had been forced into sprinting anywhere, her lungs reminded her testily. They burned with the exertion, her poor heart hammering with all the force it could muster.
They found Vieol in the basement. Or rather, they found his blood trail first. He had managed to drag himself towards the nearest wall and sat in slumped heap against it. Large pieces had been torn from his flesh, as if Jeriko had let his ghouls chew on him a bit before discarding him. Credit where it was due, the fact that Vieol was still alive was more than impressive.
There was no Jeriko.
“Fuck,” Syd snarled as he swept through the room. “He’s not here.”
Memphis shook his head. “He has to be. There was nowhere else to go.”
Eko looked up from where she was crouched next to the Preacher. The walls around them were built-in shelves stuffed full of old texts, some appearing to be ancient, with heavy metal hinges and flaking leather covers. One of the shelves was angled inward, revealing a dark space beyond it. A secret passage. “I think I know where he went,” Eko said, jerking her chin towards it.
As the old man sat moaning on the floor, both Memphis and Syd shot pensive glances towards the Jeriko’s only escape route.
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“Go,” Eko told them, “I’ll see what I can do for the Preacher.”
Neither of them even spared her a second glance. Lucky for her, because if they had, they would have realized that there was nothing to be done for Vieol. Eko was no healer, but she knew enough to see that the old man had only minutes left on this side of life. But since he was alive, Eko planned to find out however much she could with his last breaths. The new weight in her pocket made itself known as she shifted to kneel at the preacher’s side.
Somewhere beyond them, gunshots rang out. But Eko would not be deterred. She met the old preacher’s eyes. When she spoke, her words were low and measured. “You are dying, Preacher Vieol,” she said.
The old man’s chest expanded on a huff. “How…astute…of you...young lady.”
Sarcasm even at the bitter end. Eko’s respect for the man grew. “The man who did this to you, what did he want?”
The preacher braced himself, taking long, shaking breaths. “He took… a book…The tome of the first priest.”
Eko frowned. “What would he want with a two-hundred year-old memoir?”
“Not…us…hermit crabs,” Vieol wheezed. “The one who…built…this place.”
The mage swore. Not a hundred year-old tome, a potentially thousands year-old one. That was a different matter entirely. The mage’s mind filled with questions, very few of which she figured the priest could help her with. She had little time; Vieol was fading right in front of her. Eko reached into her pocket. “Would it have anything to do with this?”
In the tomb underground, there had been the carefully mummified body of a priestess. She had been tall when she was alive, nearly seven feet. Every inch of her lovingly preserved skin had been tattooed with runic arrays much like the ones in the walls of the city. She had been buried in a plain white shift and no adornments save for a decorative comb made of stone. It was a beautiful piece, perfectly square, with mineral deposits that created a smoky grey gradient that gave way to browns and blacks. A small serpent had been carved on the display half, inlaid with silver. Magic hummed from the little comb, although there were no runes carved that Eko could see.
Vieol’s clouding eyes grew wide. “You have…The Serpent’s Teeth?”
“What is it?”
Thick blood bubbled up in Vieol’s mouth. “It…is…permission,” he told her.
Eko opened her mouth to ask another question but it was too late. The last wisps of light had faded from the old priest’s eyes. He was gone, taking his answers with him.
A frustrated screech tore its way through Eko’s clenched teeth. “Shit!”
She ground her palms into her knees, unable to stave off the weight of failure sitting on her chest. The tears that hand been threatening since Eko recognized Rhitna in the sanctuary finally slipped free, tearing hot and fast down her cheeks. All these lives lost, and Eko was barely any closer to uncovering why.
The Serpent’s Teeth, a vicious name for such a small object. The mage suspected that the name was important and not just a bit of drama from its makers. But her best chance of finding out was now lying cold on the temple floor.
She shoved the comb back into her pocket.
A large bang came from the tunnel. The room shook, Eko ignored it.
She was unsure of how long she sat there, thoughts tangling in her mind like thorny brambles. It was the sound of swearing and footsteps that made her look up.
Syd and Memphis emerged from the escape tunnel, twin expressions of rage on their faces along with a new coat of dirt and dust.
“Where is he,” Eko demanded. Had she stopped to think about it, Eko would have been shocked at the roughness in her voice. The emotion gripping her was deeper than disappointment as she saw two men and not three.
“This hallway leads down into the tunnels,” Memphis spat. “Jeriko collapsed a cave and escaped.”
Without another word, the Magehound turned to head out. Eko rose to follow, but Syd stepped into her path. She watched the wrath on his face shift into concern as he took her in. Before he could speak, Eko gave a small shake of her head. ‘Later,’ she mouthed to him. They all might be aimed in the same direction at the moment, but Eko wasn’t naive enough to assume that Memphis – a person who had dedicated his life to keeping mages in check – would respond well to her holding on to what was clearly a significant magical artifact. There was no way in this world or any other that Eko was giving the comb up. Not before she knew absolutely everything about it.
XXX
The fight was over by the time they stepped back outside.
Their hunt had been cut short. The second Jeriko spotted them, he set ghouls on them. He’d only had three with him, but dealing with them had given Jeriko the time he needed to set an explosive and blow the tunnel. Syd wanted to tear into something, anything to get this itch of failure out of his skin.
Eko trailed behind him, a somber shadow. She hadn’t said a word since the basement, choosing instead to scowl at her feet as they walked. He saw the tracks of tears that had carved streaks through the mortar dust caked on her face. Asking about them would get him nowhere and she wouldn’t appreciate him mentioning it in public. She probably wouldn’t appreciate him asking in private, either. His mage preferred to take an unaffected stance about most things, but if today had shown Syd anything, he had seen into the cracks of emotion she tried to hide beneath general irritation. Even still, witnessing Eko’s tears shook something in him.
They made their way to the small knot of people standing near the center of the plaza.
“All the bodies will need to be burned,” Anujak was saying as they approached. Syd was surprised to find him out of his jaguar skin, but he figured there was little need for it now. The chaos they had pulled up to had given way to the shaky energy that came after a disaster. All of the damage had been done and people were either sitting in shock or hustling around in cleanup efforts.
Lily looked up as they joined the group. “No necromage?”
Memphis shook his head. Syd stayed silent, not trusting his tongue to do anything other than snarl right now. He remained that way while the rest of them talked through the cleanup. The numbers were bad. Thirty people confirmed dead. At least a hundred were injured, either by the ghouls themselves or from the panic as people rushed to get away.
And just when he had wrestled his mounting temper into something manageable, Syd caught a flash of flame red hair in the sunlight. His head snapped around. Sure enough, there was Red, getting his arm wrapped by one of the guards. Just behind him stood a gangly Ku’uda boy and a Nhedii girl. Uzon and Tanya. It was Tanya that saw him first, her usually mahogany skin going ashen. “Syd – ”
He was not having any of it. Syd was across the courtyard in seconds. “What the fuck did I tell you?”
His voice was loud even to his ears, but it was too late. All three of his fledges looked down at the cobblestones. “Somebody say somethin’.”
Uzon tried next. “We just wanted – “
“I don’t give a shit what you wanted. What where your orders?”
“Stay at the hall,” all three chorused.
“Stay at the hall,” Syd repeated. “So why then, are you out here?”
Uzon, who usually had the most sense, shrugged. “The other recruits got to go.”
Syd ground his teeth so hard, his jaw cracked. Uzon was right, the other recurits did get to go. But the other recruits were grown and had combat experience before they joined up with the Scarecrows. These three, ‘the fledges’ as they were known, were the youngest. Red and Uzon were eighteen, Tanya only sixteen. They each had their own reasons for joining up with the Scarecrows, good reasons. But they had no experience. It was his job to make sure they knew enough to survive a mercenary’s life, and he took it incredibly seriously. Right now, looking at them, all he could hear were the ghosts of former subordinates he failed to protect howling in his ear.
Footsteps sounded behind him, Memphis. “We need to figure out next steps,” the Magehound said.
“You will wait,” Syd’s monster snarled. He turned back to Red. “Are you bit?”
The kid’s voice was small. “Yes.”
“EKO!”
The mage gave a long whistle as she approached. “You, boy, are surely a genius,” she said to Red. Syd watched as she snatched the kids arm and quickly undid his wrappings. When the guard began to stutter in protest, she pointed to the ravaged bite on Red’s arm. Sickly purples and greens stood out against the boy’s pale skin. “In less than twelve hours, this would have turned him into a ghoul,” she said cold. Red whitened further. “Anybody who was bit, scratched or so much as touched by one of those things, you bring them here now.”
Eko’s tone left no room for argument and the guard ran off.
Syd waited until she was finished before starting up again.
He turned back the fledges. “Latrine duty, all of you.”
That earned him a chorus of groans. “For how long,” Uzon demanded.
“Until I get tired,” Syd snapped. “Now get back to base. I don’t want to see hide or hair of you for the rest of the day.”
Not willing to test him any further, the fledges ran off, leaving Syd once again to wrestle with his temper. Eko stood next to him. She let him seethe for all of ten seconds before she spoke, “They’re not little kids, Syd. Did you really expect them to be content being left behind while the rest of you go went out into danger?”
“I expected them to follow a simple order.”
The laugh that she gave him was only a little mocking. “I don’t know a single teenager who does what they’re told,” she challenged. “Especially ones who spend their days in the company of mercs.” Her smile wilted, and those midnight eyes grew grave. “They are young, and they are stupid, and they will stay that way unless you give them some room to grow.”
“They could have died today.” Syd and his monster felt sick at that. “Eko they’re my fledges. I’m supposed to keep them safe.”
She shifted an inch closer and laid her bandaged hand on his shoulder. “They’re old enough to keep themselves safe,” she said gently. “And they did a pretty good job of it. A lot of the guards look worse off than those three did. That’s your work Syd. You taught them to handle themselves. They might not be ready completely, but they’re not as helpless as you think.”
She was making sense, but Syd wasn’t ready to be done being angry. “They’re still gonna scrub toilets until I say stop.”
Eko’s grin quirked back into place. “There he is.”
Syd stood there, taking in the warmth of her touch while they waited for the infected to gather up. So it was there, in the shadow of an alley where they heard a loud voice boom through the air. “What the hell is going on?”
Eko jumped, her hand hand slipped away before she turned toward the sound. Then, in in a sheepish voice Syd had never heard from her said, “Hey there, da.”
Eko did not talk a lot about her family, but everyone knew Councilman Itzak Odzobek, Speaker for the Obsihichee Confederation. Word was, he was shrewd and ruthless, ensuring his people’s interests above all else. Itzak had the same grey on black eyes as his daughter, and the glittering intelligence in them was a little too much like Eko’s to be completely comfortable. He was built like a brick wall, with a silver-streaked black beard that flowed partway down his chest. A bearskin coat sat on his broad shoulders, its black fur ruff dotted with snowflakes.
Jakkor jogged up behind him “Sir this is an active emergency situation,” the lieutenant was saying. “I have to ask you to vacate the premises until we have it cleared.”
Itzak craned his head back, a scowl very much like his daughter’s on his face. “I am not going anywhere until someone tells me why my child is in the middle of a bloodbath?”
They all turned to Eko, who was slowly shuffling away.
“I can explain,” she said calmly. “But it will have to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
She jerked a thumb over to where the guard from earlier was waving them down. “I have to go take care of that.” Then without another, word, she fled.
All at once, Syd became aware of what he must look like. He cleared his throat, never hating his ruined voice more than at that moment. “Councilman,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”
“Ah, yes, Syd Tejin,” Itzak said, sounding unimpressed. “Why am I not surprised to find you in the middle of this? Your reputation precedes you.”
Syd smiled and then like an idiot, blurted, “Your wife said almost the exact same thing.”
That had been the exactly wrong thing to say. The councilman’s face only tightened. “My wife?”
“Uh, yeah,” Syd said, scrambling for a recovery. “Eko took me to the bakery, and she gave us food.”
The councilman’s expression eased, if only by a fraction.
It took Eko twenty minutes to work her magic on the afflicted. Twenty minutes in which Itzak scowled at nothing and Syd tried to keep his foot out of his mouth. When she came back to them, Syd could have kissed her feet in relief.
“Do you have time to explain now,” the councilman said, not quite asking.
“We really need to talk about next steps,” Memphis interrupted. Syd had all but forgotten he was nearby.
“I don’t see why he can’t sit in,” Eko said. “He’s on Osso’s council, after all. He could be helpful.” She turned back to her father. “Come with us. You’ll get your explanation, and we can sort the rest of this mess out.”
“My office is around the corner,” said Eko’s father. “We will talk there.”
It seemed that no one was in the mood to argue. Five minutes later, Syd found himself in Itzak Odzobek’s office. The young man that greeted them at the front of the councilman’s door looked shocked as their bloody and bedraggled group came stumbling inside. It was a nice little space, decorated with woven textiles and paintings of the northwest wilderness.
It was interesting to see how the room sorted itself. Syd leaned against the doorjamb, taking in the scene. Eko sat perched on her father’s desk. She was looking for a little pale, and weary. Her fatigue made sense; she had been throwing spells left and right since they had gotten started this morning. She had not given up her human shape yet, and even Syd could see that it was costing her. Behind the desk, the councilman sat in a high backed, maroon leather chair, glowering across the room at the lot of them. Lily stood to the other side, Jakkor at her back. Memphis and Anujak took up the far wall.
“So,” Itzak said, folding his arms over his wide chest. “Who would like to start?”
Eko’s eyes grew wide, and she bent towards her father, shooting off a string of Obsihichee. The councilman responded in kind, and they went back and forth for a bit before he called for his assistant.
“Yes, sir?”
Itzak snatched up pen and paper, scrawling hastily. He folded the note in three and handed it over. “Take that to my wife,” he said.
The young man scurried out of the room.
“Would you like to explain what that was all about,” Lily demanded.
“Not particularly,” Eko said. “Besides, there are more important matters to deal with.”
The mage arched her eyebrow Memphis’ way, expectant. The Magehound sighed, “Guess I’ll go first. Syd and were pursuing Jeriko in an escape tunnel located beneath the temple when he produced an explosive and cut us off.”
“An explosive?”
“It was a seed bomb,” Syd jumped in. “They’re not uncommon around here. Miners and excavators use them to clear tunnelways.”
“But they are not available for public purchase,” Lily said. “Vendors have to be licensed, and their clientele permitted.”
Syd snickered; he couldn’t help it. He didn’t have a real problem with the new Captain like some of the other Scarecrows did, but Lily was so damn idealistic it was funny. She said that like a bit of paperwork stopped anything. A little cash under the table fixed most of Osso’s problems. That was true today as it had been forever. But if you were a mage on the run, coming to Osso specifically to root around underground, there was a different option. “Anybody on Forge Street gotten robbed lately?”
The lieutenant started, straightening in surprise. “Yes actually,” he said. “About ten days ago, and alchemist had his shop turned over. He hadn’t gotten around to cataloging his inventory and claimed he didn’t want any action taken. He just wanted the report to send to his client to explain why the shipment would be late. I was planning to do a follow up at the end of the week.”
“He wouldn’t have happened to be one of those ‘licensed vendors’ of yours, would he?”
The big guard’s shoulders fell into a slump. “Yes, he was.”
Syd looked over towards the Magehounds. “It seems that your necromage is doing more than just hiding out in Osso.”
“That’s been made abundantly clear at this point.” Memphis sighed, blowing out a fresh plume of smoke. “I hate this,” he said. “Two months of chasing him and we’re still in the dark.”
“Not entirely,” Eko said. “Preacher Vieol said a couple of interesting things before he died. Apparently, Jeriko ran off with a text from one of the priests of the original city.”
Jakkor frowned. “What could that possibly be of use for?”
“For whatever he was searching for under the city,” Memphis guessed. He scowled over at Eko “What was he looking for in that room we found you in?”
“No clue, since I couldn’t get the damn coffin open. Jeriko’s blood was all over it though, whatever it was, it had to be important.” The disgust in her tone was convincing enough that it took Syd a full second to remember that he had been in the room with Eko and saw her open the coffin. It took Syd another second to decide to let her run with the grift. The mage hadn’t had time to share what she had found with him yet, but if she did not want to let the others in on it, Syd figured there was a good reason.
The Magehounds and the guards bought it completely.
“I’d say that it’s a safe bet to say he’s probably going back underground,” Syd offered.
“Then we can catch him,” Lily cut in, hastily. “He will most likely be going to the same room we were in. If Anujak is willing to be a guide I can have a team ready in under an hour.”
“What’s to stop him from blowing the tunnel the second he sees you again,” Itzak said.
Everyone turned to face the councilman. He simply reclined into his chair. “Let me see if I have this correct,” he said. “This ‘necromage’ is running around Osso. He has evaded capture for multiple months and is in the city pursuing an unknown goal. He has proven more than capable of thwarting a direct chase and you want to try to simply run him down again? Forgive me, Captain, if that does not inspire confidence.”
The councilman had a point, and it looked like Memphis agreed. The Magehound shook his head. “We can’t risk him escaping again. He’s in town to accomplish something but there’s nothing to stop him from abandoning it and running again if we play this wrong.”
Lily grimaced in frustration. “Well, we have to do something.”
“He is going to come to us,” Eko said firmly.
“And how do you propose to do that,” the captain demanded.
Eko’s brow furrowed. “I am still working on the details.”
“Great,” Lily spat. “And I guess we are all just supposed to sit on our hands and wait for you to ‘work out the details’ while a madman sets undead across the city while you. Who are you anyway?”
At the heat in the captain’s tone, Syd snarled. The councilman shifted to rise from his chair.
Eko merely straightened her spine, cutting her eyes Lily’s way. It should have been hard to look imposing while seated on the edge of a desk, but his mage managed it. “I am Eko Sulio,” she said darkly. “And before I came back to Osso, I was a Tower mage of the Jadcrö Guild. The youngest in seventy years to hold that title.
“More than that, I am someone who has family here. And the longer Jeriko remains loose in this city, the more in danger they become. I cannot afford for you all to waste time chasing his tail. So, we will be taking another approach.”
She swiveled to face Syd. “I need time,” she told him.
“You’ll have it,” he promised. He turned to Memphis. “The first ghoul Eko and I came across was loose on the surface. No necromage in sight. We have to assume there could be more like that around the city.”
“Everyone could be at risk if there are,” Memphis said. “What would really make things easier is to get civilians off the street.”
“That I can help with,” the councilman said. “I need to call an emergency council meeting. Getting Osso’s council to point their swords in the same direction is no small task, but I think I can manage it.” He pointed to Memphis and Lily. “I will need you two in attendance to really sell it.
“I’ll let the boss know,” Syd said, pushing off the wall. “She’s not a council member, but she’s hard to ignore.”
Itzak nodded.
Memphis tugged impatiently at his headband. “In the meantime,” he said. “We’ll need patrols to sweep the city, just in case.”
“The guard can handle that part,” Jakkor piped up.
Itzak steepled his fingers. “Osso is not a small city,” he said. “How many officers do you have, Captain?”
“A hundred and fifty” she gritted.
“I’ll send some Scarecrows your way,” Syd said. “I think we’ve got about forty members in town right now.”
Memphis grimaced at the number. “So that’s a force of a hundred and ninety meant to protect a city of nearly two hundred thousand. Them is bad odds.”
Lily sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s us or it’s nothing. Will your mercs follow orders, Syd?”
Syd thought about his fledges, so ready to get into the thick of it, they had been willing to face his wrath. He remembered the speed at which the rest of his Scarecrows hopped to action. What was a little pride when their home was in trouble? “They know what’s at stake. They’ll behave, enough.”