CHAPTER FOUR
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Alaric Sampson
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13th of Decepter, 935 PC
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“Who’s there?” a woman said from the other side of the door. Her voice revealed her old and withered age.
No one was quite sure what to say. Sure, they’d done their reconnaissance and yes, they were magnificently skilled individuals, but they hadn’t a name for their ragtag group, nor did they want one. All they wanted was to get out of the cold and this was the only house they’d seen in miles. Rather than make a spectacle of it, Alaric had decided to take an honest approach to breaking and entering.
Elgar was the first to speak up. “Your daughter.” He made sure not to sound the least bit feminine.
Nothing came from the other side of the door.
Alaric gently nudged Diedro aside and spoke. “Ma’am, there’s a group of us out here. Ugly and crude, I must admit, but we are perfectly harmless.”
“Speak for yourself,” Elgar whispered, meaning what, no one was sure, but if pressed Alaric would have guessed he was talking about his looks.
“Go away,” the woman said.
“Ma’am if you’d-” This time it was Alaric being moved out of the way. Roughly. Elgar’s boot hit the door with a booming thud that rang through the night, but it didn’t give.
Another boom.
“Open the fucking door, old woman. Or we’re coming through the windows!”
“Three hells, Elgar,” Alaric said, turning to his men. “Someone grab him.”
A third kick sent the door flying open before anyone could stop the angry blonde. He grinned at Alaric, presenting the open doorway sarcastically. “After you, big brother.”
The Sampson brothers were as opposite as night and day. Where Alaric had spent his entire life trying to earn his father’s praise, and getting it, Elgar had enjoyed the unbeaten path of mischief and failure at an early age. He’d followed it for years until he became a petty criminal, using his shapeshifting to steal valuables out of homes and shops without the faintest trace.
Diedro led them into the quiet home, his remarkable reflexes paving a safe path. The old woman stood in the corner, acting surprisingly composed. However, upon further scrutiny, it was clear a single prick of the dullest pin would deflate the facade.
“Spread out,” Alaric said. “Check all rooms and report back here.” Diedro moved with purpose while Elgar and Jameson expressed their annoyance through curse words and rolling eyes, but they obeyed, as they always did. “Please forgive them, ma’am. We’ve been on the road for quite some time and even grown men can get a bit cranky when they’ve been through what we’ve been through. A nice meal and a comfortable place to sleep is all we’re after. Be a pleasant host and you’ll no doubt be pleased with your guests.” She gulped, then nodded.
“Do you have any bread?” Therrin asked the woman. Maddy could barely be seen behind the healer. She slowly pointed toward an opening that separated the front room from the kitchen. “Come on little man, let’s eat.” He went to move but quickly turned back to the woman. “Thank you. You have a lovely home.”
Alaric turned to the woman. “Please, sit,” he said as if he owned the house. They sat down in chairs not terribly far from one another. Much closer for her than him, he could tell. The purple cushion beneath his ass was so soft and comfortable he considered asking if he could take it with him on the road.
The old woman’s eyes never left him as he studied the unimpressive room. There was a makeshift table held up by portable sawhorses in one corner, a stone floor that was covered in a thin layer of brown dirt, and a staircase that looked too steep for the old woman to climb anymore.
They went on like that, sitting on either end of an awkward silence, for several minutes. He played this game often; see who could tolerate the uncomfortable tension of silence longer. He was yet to lose.
“Wh-who are you?” she finally asked.
“Ah,” Alaric said. “I never introduce myself until I’m well aware of who I’m with. A bad habit, but one I can’t seem to break.” He brought his foot across his knee and held his ankle. “So, who are you?”
“My name is Marcy Cowen”
He didn’t recognize the name, which was neither good nor bad. His informants were excellent at providing him knowledge of commoners that were on the Lotus payroll, but every so often a few fell through the cracks. “Why are you living alone out here in the woods?”
Marcy frowned. “I used to live here with my husband. Before they took him. He was a carpenter and the trees around us are oak. He loved working with oak.”
The odds of they being anyone other than the Lotus Army were low but he liked to be diligent. “The Lotus took your husband?” She nodded. “And why would they do that?” She tilted her head in a way that asked him if he’d been living under a rock for the last five years. “A Purist?” She nodded. The scar on Alaric’s chest throbbed at the thought of what the Lotus would surely do to Marcy’s husband. “You’re lucky. They don’t often spare lives when they show up.” A strange enough occurrence to raise a hint of suspicion but her demeanor and the vibes of the household were enough to believe the story. That, and stopping any attack the woman might have up her sleeve was as simple as clenching his fist.
“I was off in the woods gathering berries and checking my garden. I hid until I heard their horrible beast on wheels drive away.” The horrible beast she spoke of was a Wrecker. An armored vehicle propelled by alchemicals he’d never claim to understand. The vehicles were just one of Donovan Rellin’s many inventions that were wreaking havoc all over the empire.
“Wise choice… to hide that is. You couldn’t have done anything for him.” She stared at him, using silence as a way to keep from bursting into tears. The remnants of a stunning woman still lingered in her face, just beneath the wrinkles and sunspots. Her gray hair made his own look youthful though and her clothes made nuns look scandalous. “Unless of course, you’re magical as well?” Marcy continued to demonstrate her skill in communicating through silence with a disappointed shake of her head. “A shame. We could use more magic in the world. Real magic. Not that powder the Lotus Queen created.” He dipped his fingers into his breast pocket and pulled out two cinnamon hard candies. He dropped one back in when Marcy didn’t want it. “I think you’ll find we can get along quite well, Mrs. Cowen. Surely you resent the false mages and I’ve always considered Lotus pathetic people… a scab on the ass of society, so to speak. I hate them dearly, and I intend to do something about it.”
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Mrs. Cowen sounded nearly as spiteful as him when she said, “I’d round them all up and drown them in the ocean if I could.”
“Glad to hear that,” he said, feeling better about his host.
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Alaric had never been a large man, always casting a bigger shadow with his status than his figure, but at least his footsteps used to create a sound. Now, he moved with the stealth that came with being frail and deprived of pace. Not entirely a bad thing, but he’d trade it for his strength any day.
Unfortunately, with no such trade on the table, he entered the front room silently to see Elgar and Jameson sleeping in the chairs he and Mrs. Cowen had sat in the night before. Elgar’s arms hung beside him, his mouth was half-open, allowing a gargled noise to escape with each breath. Jameson’s hands were wrapped around two bottles of wine he’d taken from the kitchen. His head slouched forward, appearing as though he may have drank himself to death. Jameson wasn’t lucky enough for that though. The Creator had a painfully obvious way of making the man’s life one horrible event after another. He wouldn’t die until she was tired of the entertainment.
He left the two friends to their slumber and made his way toward the backdoor, rubbing at the scars beneath his tunic and mulling over what needed done in the following weeks. When Alaric was a child he’d get so excited in the days leading up to the new year celebrations that his mother would have to tire him out with small amounts of alcohol. Later in life, she’d tell him that those times were some of her favorites with him which had created a brew of embarrassment and warmth within him. Acting wild and crazy was hardly his idea of proper behavior and he was ashamed that he’d ever allowed himself to do so. He couldn’t help it back then though, his mind would fixate on what gift he might receive and what he would do with each of the possibilities. And though he could hide his anxiousness better now, he’d never broken that habit. In fact, by the time he was set to enter the real world, he’d turned fantasies of toys and tools into ideas that could change the world. A good thing too because if there was anything he would attribute to why he’d been given a seat with the Crimson Nine, it would be that trait. Those in the High Chamber had viewed him as a man who could mold a bright future for Locke, and he was doing just that when Iris came along. Unfortunately, after his run-in with her, forward thinking had become crippling paranoia. He was still fixated on the future, but now the future was dark and gray. And bloody. Whose blood it was depended on how quickly he could kill her.
He smiled as the rain pounded harder on the roof. A storm had shown up in the middle of the night and there were few things he enjoyed more than sitting on a porch during a heavy rain. He was surprised to find Diedro already planted in one of the less than stellar chairs on the back porch. There was no doubt woodworking had been Mr. Cowen’s hobby rather than his profession based on the quality of the furniture.
“Can’t sleep?” Diedro asked as Alaric sat down. The wide hood of his gray cloak was folded low over his face to protect from the bite of the wind that swept across the porch. One hand held a mug firmly on the arm of his chair, the other pinched his dagger between his thumb and finger. The weapon swung back and forth like a pendulum, counting the seconds until it killed again.
“I enjoy a good storm,” Alaric said, trying to get comfortable in the oddly made chair. Diedro scoffed, clearly having had a similar struggle with his own chair.
“Built for a man with no curve in his back,” Diedro said.
By Alaric’s estimation he and Diedro were two of the deadliest men in the empire and yet, the atmosphere belonged to the storm – its thunder grumbled louder than any war cry and its lightning lit up the sky so bright nothing could hide from its eye. It was an interesting feeling to be put in your place by something that had no intention of doing so.
No one would mistake Diedro for a gossip but there was a thicker layer of stone between them than usual. He could only imagine the ghostly thoughts and memories that were floating around beneath the man’s hood. “Something bothering you?” Alaric asked.
“Nothing’s wrong, but nothing’s right either.” If someday he is unable to kill with a blade, perhaps he can confuse Iris to death with riddles. Unlikely given the woman’s brilliance, but stranger things had happened.
He couldn’t decide if Diedro’s intellect made him more interesting or more threatening, but either way, he could relate to the notion presented. “I know what you mean.” Diedro looked up. His features were hidden in the shadows beneath his hood but his skepticism was legible in his body language. “What troubles us may not sound the same when put into words, but I can assure you the troubles of men like us all boil down to the same truth.”
“And what truth is that?” Diedro asked.
“We’ve been forced to do things we wouldn’t have done if not for particularly difficult circumstances.” Alaric paused, continuing when Diedro didn’t reply. “Maybe it’s just me, but I know that everything I find myself doing nowadays is merely what must be done, not what I wish to do. And sadly, what must be done often makes me feel as though I’ve done something terribly wrong.”
Diedro’s hood stretched subtly with the gentle nod of his head. “Sounds about right.”
Alaric waited enough time to feel comfortable asking, “Do your current circumstances feel particularly difficult?”
“Can’t say they’re much different than before. Guess that may be the problem.” Alaric didn’t like that answer. “For years I’ve been fighting for causes I don’t care nothin’ about…. I’ve killed men, women, and children for men, women, and children. All because they thought their lives would be better off without a certain set of eyes lookin’ at ‘em or a certain mouth talkin’ about ‘em. I’ve helped men kill their brothers, their mothers, strangers, friends, whole scores of people that never saw it comin’. I even helped kill a noble king that was replaced by a piece of shit. And almost every time I helped take a life I’d find myself looking in a mirror later that night.”
“And what did you see?”
“At first… myself, or at least the man I had come to know. But by the time you came around… a whole different man lived up here.” He pointed at his temple with the tip of his dagger.
“Didn’t like what you had become. I can understand that.”
Diedro shook his head. “That’s not it at all.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve made myself a better man. One that understands right from wrong. Maybe not by the standards set by war, but certainly by the ones I’ve set for myself.” He lowered his hood. Alaric’s father often said a person’s true age could be determined by the sorrow in their eyes. If that was true, Diedro could have been his grandfather. “Choosing to kill the boy's mother… That was wrong. A man that kills an innocent woman is either scared or evil. I ain’t either.”
Alaric hadn’t even considered that Diedro may have the feelings of a normal man. “I’m… I’m sorry,” he said quietly, genuinely.
Diedro shook his head, frowning as he did. “Nah. Don’t be sorry. It ain’t your fault.”
“Of course it is.”
Diedro stood and stared at him with hardened eyes. He looked like a man that had stopped worrying about death a long time ago. “Not as much as you think. You weren’t cut from a cloth meant for war. That can make it hard to make good decisions when you’re caught up in all this. Three hells, I was cut from that cloth and it still took me years to figure it out.” He paused briefly. “You got me out of a shitty situation and I appreciate that like you wouldn’t believe, but I ain’t ever gonna do something I don’t think is right ever again. That clear?” He didn’t wait for a response before he walked down the stairs and into the rain.