Athena was panting by the time she made it to the cemetery. The night was cold, the rain fierce and unyielding yet she was being cooked alive in her heavy steel after the long, weighty run. I knew that weasel was up to more than he was letting on; she thought as she ground her teeth. It had angered Athena greatly that they had to release Wes from custody, thanks to the help of some fat toad-like lawyer from Stone Sparkles that the henchman somehow had the Denarii to afford. Ostensibly, there wasn’t enough evidence that Wes and his men started the brawl in the Pax chapel as they claimed the Ninja attacked them first. She knew it was all horseshit. Apparently, the word of a priestess couldn’t be relied upon. It was all very suspicious, but also so ludicrous. Ninja assassins buying lawyers seems almost as preposterous as my forming an alliance with one of them. Yet here she was, hoping she wasn’t too late to catch up with this black and sapphire assassin, wondering why she was even doing this in the first place. She should have called the City Watch, and sent word to Sheriff, yet how many watchmen could she trust?
The cemetery was desolate and the night sky above the dark leafless trees was assorted with an orange hue as dawn was nearing its birth. Drakelyn Cemetery was the largest in New Jade. Tombs and gravestones stretched over uneven hillsides for miles and in every mile, the grass was scant and decayed due to past excavation. It truly was a miserable place. There must have been at least a hundred bodies under her.
As she explored the deathly landscape, she heard a slushing sound and soon eyed two men in dirty, torn jerkins and coifs digging into the earth beside a nobleman’s tombstone. They swiftly caught sight of her and fled, abandoning their shovels. Luckily for the grave robbers, they were not Athena’s priority tonight.
The crows swarmed and sang around a nearby church, where she finally found the Ninja waiting for her, standing beside a weeping angel that was sobbing into her marble hands. In the dawning light, Athena finally got a clear look at his armour. One side of his chest plate was black as night whilst the other was crystallised sapphire, as was his mask, glowing from one side like a half-zaffre moon. What Athena didn’t get a good view of in the darkness previously was the silver symbol on his chest. That of a snarling and horned tiger. Witnessing a Ninja was surreal enough, but this thing was another world of strange. There aren’t many ninjas with wild lightning flying around their hands. She pondered if he was even human, especially with that strange ghostly voice. Of course, it was most likely some sort of illusion or trickery. Witches aren’t real. Why would ghost ninjas be? Sober up, you stupid woman.
“I appreciate you waiting for me,” Athena greeted, with a much-needed hint of sarcasm.
The eyebrows under his black and sapphire mask squinted into a frown. “Only because it’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” he said. “I see no sight of the Duke or duchess.”
“I know the crypt they’re in.”
She led him into the gothic ruins of the cemetery church. Inside, they were only three rows of wooden benches that had been chipped and broken away by the cruelty of time. A marble tomb stood at the end, being watched over by three gods and goddesses in stained glassed windows. On the left window, there was Pax, the peace goddess. One of her many bronze faces appeared sorrowful and her four hands were clasped together as if in prayer. On the left window, there was Areos, Crimsonaria’s golden wolf with a red wreath placed above the godly beast’s head. His eyes were beaming pure white and his disapproving scowl mirrored Athena’s as this hellish night went on. Most of the Crimsonarion temples around the city had been burnt down by arsonists.
Citizens that migrated to New Jade from Crimsonaria were left with little choice but to keep it to themselves. The centre window depicted a woman with flowing white hair and robes. Her eyes were kinder than the other deities. In her hands, she held a ball of pure light. “Here’s your chance to say a prayer before we descend,” Athena commented, indicating to the white-haired Goddess. Snow Binder was a prominent Arkovian spirit.
“I don’t worship her,” the Ninja echoed stiffly. “Where are they, Deputy?”
He’s to the point. I’ll give him that. Athena approached the marble tomb and lightly brushed her fingers over the dusty surface. They glided on until she felt a small protrusion. A small rock stuck underneath the tomb’s edge. Athena twisted it and the stone floor in front ground and heaved. A strong rumbling, enough to make the church mildly shake. The stone stairway revealed itself below.
She used a torch to light their way down into the darkness. Cobwebs covered the walls and large spiders scurried away from the torchlight and escaped into the underground crevices. The descent was narrow and suffocating.
A melodious whistle drifted around the cold crypts. The air was damp and decrepit and a pungent, rotting smell slowly emerged as they made their way past the rows of tombs. There were stone pillars carved and moulded into what appeared to be dozens of watching skulls. They looked real enough to make Athena look away, or else she may see some arachnid crawling out one of the eyeless sockets. There was still no sight of the Duke or the Duchess. Only the dead were present. They ventured through narrow tunnels until they found another stairway, tighter and more confined than the one before. When they finally descended, Athena found the stone chamber she was looking for.
The coffin that lay at the end of the underground chamber was bronze and adorned with rubies and gemstones. In the centre of the chamber, surrounded by skull pillars, there was a circular mahogany table, where some new souls had recently joined the crypt’s occupants in death. Duke Hugo Barlet was sitting on one side, his head hanging back and his mouth gaped open. There was a deep red streak wrapped around his throat and his beard was flecked with specks of his own blood. His Duchess lay on his lap, the blood from her frail neck leaking onto the Duke’s robes. The remaining three seats around the mahogany table belonged to the city watchmen who were acting as the Duke and Duchess’ escorts. Their necks were hanging and contorted in various ways, the same red slash across each of their throats, their eyes wide open and their mouths agape. Athena saw a fly crawling around a watchman’s open eye, rubbing its hands together in glee. She grunted in disgust.
The Ninja whacked a silver tankard off the table and cursed loudly in Arkovian. “I’ve failed two more of them,” he echoed with melancholy.
Athena raised a curious eyebrow at the Assassin before she felt something tight grasp her ankle, followed by a sharp clicking noise. She looked down to notice the thin brownish string she had just snapped in half.
“Get down!” the Ninja yelled hellishly before tackling her to the ground. There were sounds of mechanisms turning, grinding, and clicking into place, but she could not see where they were coming from. She expected to be impaled from spikes emerging from under her, for arrows to start flying from every wall, for a pendulum saw to swing and deprive her of a torso. Something hairy fell from above and splattered into the centre of the table, covering the deceased Duke and Duchess in a blanket of blood.
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The Ninja stood and offered his hand to lift the Deputy to her feet. “Apologies,” he said. “I thought that-”
“We both thought it,” she said. The Deputy then turned her attention to what landed on the table. “What the shit is that?”
Dead in the centre of the circular table sat the decapitated head of a ram. Its tongue was hanging out of its mouth and the bodyless beast was missing one-half of its horn. Athena started gagging at the putrid smell. The aroma was far worse than anything else in the crypts, a pungent decay of rotting flesh and iron scents of blood.
“A ram’s head is the Inferno Clan’s signature,” the Ninja informed her distantly.
The Deputy was too busy holding back dry heaves to notice the letter that had been pinned into the ram’s forehead with a dagger. The Ninja pried the blade out and studied the text. Athena soon grabbed a hold of herself and peaked over the Assassin’s shoulder. The writing was in the poor animal’s blood and was a simple statement. Burn for your bride.
“What ‘bride’ are they referring to?” Athena asked over the Ninja’s shoulder.
The Assassin murmured something incomprehensible and approached the bronze tomb with encrusted rubies around its sides. He observed the silver plaque and glanced at the dead bouquets that were once lush and green. “Who is Cynthia?” the Ninja asked her.
“Hugo Barlet’s former wife,” the Deputy informed him with a shrug. “She died of plague some years back.”
“She was wed to a royal,” he said askance. “How could she not have been able to afford treatment?”
Athena frowned. She was the one who was meant to be doing the questioning. “This was before I was even a watchwoman, Assassin. I don’t know the finer details.”
The Ninja grunted and began to pry the top of the coffin, lifting it with his gauntleted forearms. She yelled in protest, but before she could pull him away, the coffin’s cap was discarded. The Deputy shoved the Ninja back. She was about to admonish, perhaps even arrest him. Then she glanced at the coffin’s contents to find nothing but dust.
“Tell me, Deputy,” the Ninja asked sceptically. “If she died of the plague, then why is there nobody in the coffin?” With his strange un-human voice, she struggled to discern if he was speaking normally or heatedly.
She did not have an answer to the question. She was just as perplexed as her inhuman companion. This is my investigation, you little shit, she thought, chastising herself for not thinking of checking the coffin herself. “Perhaps this clan of yours took the body after they killed Hugo and Ada?” she posited.
“They are not my clan,” the Ninja echoed, this time clearly heatedly, before making his way to the bodies of the fallen Duke and Duchess. He observed the deep gashes of red around Duke Hugo Barlet’s neck. “A curved blade did this,” he concluded, “and there seem to be burns around the wounds. The killing weapon had something hot, or toxic, laced with it.”
“A most unpleasant way to go,” Athena commented, but with little empathy in her voice. She felt as though she should have been more remorseful over the Duke and Duchess’ deaths. By the spirits, even the Ninja appeared more troubled than she was over the murders. In truth, she had found Hugo and Ada to be too snobbish for her liking. Their Duchy that occupied the outskirts of Stone Sparkles and the lush verdant lands outside the city seemed reluctant to welcome anyone who so much as possessed a singular speck of mud on their shoe. Duke Hugo was the Royalist that advised his dear cousin, King Sigismund, to raise taxation in every borough of the city and the Duchess advised an increase in rent in Drakelyn, leaving desperate tenants who barely made enough Denarii to survive the winter to move to the poorest borough in the city. The crime rate in the Shards only doubled down since the Duchess’ decision was made, but what irked Athena the most was the cut-off funds to the City Watch that Ada Barlet had implemented. Small wonder so many watchmen were turning corrupt when their pay and resources were being slashed with the mercilessness of a reaper.
Athena’s disdainful musings were abruptly cut short by a shark crackling sound. She could not identify the source. She gave the Ninja a questioning look, yet he also appeared perplexed. His blue eyes, the only human thing visible on his masked face, appeared sharp and on edge.
The ram’s head burst into flames and the fires consumed the mahogany circle and its dead occupants with an unnatural ferocity. The Duke’s long grey beard was the first to go ablaze. Burn with your bride. The fires spread wildly.
The crypt was alive with light. The skulls adorning the pillars watched the flames dance with disinterest. Soon, fires started to appear from the gaping mouths of the two watchmen. It was only then that Athena realised that she recognised one of the dead watchmen. Hemlock had a daughter at home with no mother. The orphanages would be gaming another orphan tomorrow.
The Ninja pulled her away as the orange flames crawled towards them. They fled up the confined stairs and through the hollow tunnels. As they escaped back out into the safety of the church and strode out into the embracing cold air, Athena was not afraid to display her aggravation. “That was evidence!” she complained.
“Be grateful we aren’t down there burning with them,” the Assassin responded in an echo.
“Was it meant to be some flimsy trap?”
“No. Just a part of the same message.”
The stained-glass windows of the cemetery church blew open, and each god fell asunder. Large red flames replaced them, curved and pointed, giving the church a flashy pair of demon horns. One glass shard landed by Athena’s boot. A quarter of Snow Binder’s fractured head was looking up at the Deputy with a pleading eye.
“That is no normal fire,” Athena whispered, struggling to hide her horror.
“The Inferno Clan are pyromancers,” the Assassin said as he watched the church succumb to the red blaze.
Athena scowled at him. “You’re telling me they use some kind of dark sorcery?”
“Of course not,” the Ninja replied sharply and with a hint of condescension. “It’s merely skilled alchemy.” He looked away from the towering flames and his lightning-blue eyes peered at her with disconcertion. “You need to gather the surviving Royalists and keep them safe and locked away at the Jade Palace.”
“You must have me mistaken for the King. I can’t order them to do that.”
“Then convince them,” the Ninja snapped. His words were more inhuman and sonorous than before.
Athena frowned at the Assassin. She should have been hauling him to the gallows, not allowing herself to be ordered about by him as if she was his serving wench. “And what of you, Assassin?” she asked through a clenched jaw. “I should be having you executed for trespassing on the King’s property, vigilantism, and ruining evidence. Because of you, Wes escaped a hanging.”
“Because of me, no one died in that chapel,” he echoed, taking a step closer to her. Then, despite the brewing heat of their exchanged words, the lightning in the Ninja’s eyes began to fade. “Please, Deputy,” he spoke quietly. The echo in his voice had begun to fade, but not enough for her to discern his true voice. “I need someone defending them whilst I make an offence on the Inferno. Doing both is proving challenging.” He offered his hand to be shaken. It was masked by his sapphire gauntlet and soot black fingerless glove, yet Athena noticed the strange wild scars around the edges of each of his fingers. “We can help each other, Deputy. I know you to be an honest lawwoman. Help me defend Sigismund and his council, and I’ll give you whatever useful information I can.”
Athena hesitated. The dark dawn was starting to dissolve into the morning twilight. The crows were beginning to swarm around the burning church, cawing a song of mourning. Athena gazed at the burning building, the tomb below most likely crumbling and falling to pieces. She looked back at this Assassin whose identity she didn’t know, this Ninja that sounded more monster than man. “You know I can’t call the City Watch off you. Just allowing you to leave is borderline treasonous of me.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll still have to come after you whenever Redtower’s eyes are on me.”
“I won’t expect anything different.”
“You better not make me regret this,” she said as she accepted his hand in agreement.
“I’ll do my best not to,” the Ninja echoed. “Now let me offer you my first piece of useful intelligence, Deputy. Don’t trust your fellow watch guards. The Inferno will have already tainted some of them by now with an abundance of Denarii and Gold Bears. They most likely burnt Adrian Thorne and they will most certainly be looking for a reason to burn you too.”