Art by Clea Harris

Chapter 6

Bonus

OUTSIDE OF CLARANEL CAVES

West Æshorenth, Æshorenth, Vol’Tyr

Caliz woke to a foot nudging him. He stared up at a woman decked out in studded black leather, intricately crafted to hug her every curve. Two hatchets hung at her hips, with knives in her belted boots. The only skin he could see was her face, her hood hanging back. She was a Nojern woman with what looked to be a ponytail, completely undyed and without makeup. She was a shadow in black armor.

“You the newbie?”

“Mm,” he muttered, sitting up. “Yeah, sorry. Mok Caliz Hats’ik, Journeyman of Stealth from the Guardian Guild in Terathor, SUA[1].”

“Yeah, I got the missive.” She offered him a hand, and he took it, rising.

“May I put on clothes?”

“Yeah,” she turned as he dressed.

“We were due in Unalon shortly, but found Miss Claranel on the road begging for help. My partner and I agreed to help her right as your help showed up, Lili Carver and Alara Skagit.”

“And where are they?”

“At camp, a short distance away. I prefer to sleep away from camp.”

“Good way to get killed.”

“Probably. You can turn around.” He was dressed in his loose clothes rather than his armor, but he figured that was acceptable until they suited up to go back in. He rolled up his bedroll as they talked. She stuck out a hand to shake, and he took it.

“Faelana Hagaan, Journeyman of Agile Combat for Farrow’s Guard.”

“Pleasure. Here, follow me.”

They walked back to camp, and Akala Claranel jumped with a start.

“Akala,” Faelana said with a smile in her voice. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Faelana!” The two hugged before Akala set to waking the party. “We have backup from the guild!”

“I thought we were the backup,” Lili said groggily.

“Farrow decided that this mission sounded a little out of your… paygrade, so to speak.”

“Faelana!” Lili stood to a start, barely clothed.

“Carver, you can ease up. Clothe yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As Naevys started on a breakfast, Lili and Caliz caught Faelana up on what had transpired so far in the caves, and she nodded along wordlessly until the finish.

“I’m impressed you negotiated without words, Hats’ik. It’s a good sign.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“And Viaxy, it sounds like you were invaluable in the cafeteria fight. Good work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Carver, good work as always. What’s Skagit’s status?”

“Well, she still hasn’t woken up.”

“Well wake her up, then!”

“No, not since the fight.”

“Oh. That’s a bad sign. I took a wagon out here, to take it back to town and bring her to the healer. We have this under control.”

“Not to speak out of turn, but we have the culture. We’re done here.”

“The Claranels don’t have their bulwark back, nor their axe, nor their first bottle. Sounds like our job is not yet done. Yours, however, is. Go home, Carver, and get Skagit to the healer.”

“Yes, ma’am. Grymwold, help me with this.” The Havlin assisted her with bringing Alara out toward the road.

“Viaxy, you good to go back in?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Hats’ik?”

“Absolutely, ma’am.”

“How’s your hand?”

“Better,” he flexed his left hand. “Looks like I can dual wield again.”

“Good. You’ll need it. Come, then. Let’s head in.”

They snuck in through the stables, and hit the barricade at the junction.

“What’s this?”

“I blocked off access points to the cafeteria, so we couldn’t have anyone lying in wait to ambush us.”

“Fair enough. Her office is past this, though, so help me dismantle it.”

They tore down his barricade as quietly as they could, then moved down the corridor past the doors written in Kilio. She stopped them at one and peeked in. She carefully drew two black hatchets from her hips, held one up by her head, and eased the door open.

Caliz saw a lizardfolk standing behind the desk fiddling with the door into the armory. Faelana tightened her grip, and the blade in her hand started to glow with blue runework across the blade and handle. She stared hard, and chucked the hatchet. It lit up with blue arcane light, and in the split second he saw it, cobalt wisps fell off the blade as it soared through the air. It tumbled with wicked speed through the air, and hit the lizard’s head, cleaving the skull clean at the crown.

The body toppled, and she moved in.

“Wonder what these even are,” she muttered as she picked up a bottle of mead off the shelf above the desk. She slid it into her pack and looked down at the body, wrenching the hatchet from its skull. “Never heard of such a thing.”

“They’re wide and varied,” Caliz mentioned, looking around for a giant axe. “Some are lean, some huge, but all of them are tall and muscled. And feathered. But all sorts of colors. Some have spiky shells.”

“Strange,” she muttered, moving to the armory. “Shh.” She put an ear to the door, waited, then tried the handle. That failing, she dropped to a knee, pulled out a kit, and picked the lock. The door swung open in under fifteen seconds, and she peered inside. “Remind me to chastise Glam for her crap lock on the armory.”

She stood and walked in, and Caliz followed. Swords and bows were mounted to the walls and on racks, many missing, but as his eye went to the center of the room, Osa slithered past and grabbed the enormous axe off the wall. It was made of a stony metal, had two giant blades with jagged points and a flowing red ribbon on the handle. She attached it to her back harness as Faelana turned to Caliz.

“No shield in here. What’cha think, Hats’ik?”

“Let’s check the other rooms around here. Failing that, check the cafeteria?”

“Sounds good. Let’s split up, cover more ground that way.”

Caliz searched high and low, but found nothing. He arrived in the cafeteria with Faelana, but without sign of Osa.

“Scoat’s ghost, it’s a shitshow in this place.”

“Yeah…”

“I assume all the dead Nojis are employees of the caves.”

“Yeah. Hey, maybe could you not use that word around me?”

“What, Nojis? I’m a Noji, in case you missed that.”

“It just makes me uncomfortable is all.”

“You’re Ironborn, you don’t get to feel uncomfortable with it.”

“I’m allowed to feel uncomfortable about slurs regarding anyone, respectfully. Ma’am.”

She stared him down with her blank starfield of a face before turning to the room. “So, I suppose all the dead Watchers here are employees?”

“Yeah. The lizard corpses are our doing.”

“I figured. So, Hats’ik—”

“You can call me Caliz if you like, ma’am.”

“I’ll call you by your surname when on the job, Hats’ik. But we can banter while we wait, I suppose. How long have you two been a pair?”

“A pair?”

“Partners, Hats’ik. Keep up. Viaxy.”

“Oh! Right. We got assigned for a few jobs in Gorenya, mostly out of town, though. We got a rapport, then got sent to Unalon.”

“So, you’ve at least learned each other’s idiosyncrasies.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“What drives you nuts?”

“Hm?”

“Your partner. Every pairing’s got shitty little things that get on your nerves. Vent. What’s hers’?”

He thought for a second, and took a swig of his waterskin. “Probably the gore.”

“Hm?”

“The gore. The needless gore. She takes glee in it, showering in their blood, tearing them apart, stringing them up as ‘Art,’ she calls it. It’s grotesque. I wish she wouldn’t. Our third assignment, she strung intestines across a village’s houses like festival ribbon. I just— I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Well, that beats my partner’s ear-piercing laugh. That’s a harder one. Steel your stomach, I guess. Or request a partner transfer. But frankly, you guys are a good pair. I haven’t even seen you in action, but your files say it all. You’re a stealth machine, never seen, and she’s a beast to tear through crowds, bring down giants. It’s a good pairing. Balance.”

“I suppose.”

Osa slithered into the room in the silence and looked back and forth. “What?”

“Just figuring out our next move. We’ve checked the rooms, though avoided the lower floors. Only dorms down there. Seems absurd for a lizard to steal a shield, then stash it in a random bunk. Ideas, Caliz?”

“Well,” he pointed across the room, “we haven’t checked that door.”

“The one with the giant ‘Condemned’ sign on it? The one with the splintered wood and broken lock? That one?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems sensible.” She walked to it, and wrenched the door open. “No light down here. Anyone got a lantern?”

“Never leave without it,” Caliz hauled a silver lantern out of his pack and lit it. “Let’s hit it.”

They slipped through the busted door and found themselves in a roughshod tunnel. The walls were jagged with wooden supports.

“Looks like they were planning an expansion.”

“Looks like,” Faelana confirmed. “Didn’t mention that.”

“No, they didn’t. Think the lizards came from underground?”

“Possibly. Who knows, maybe they’re Vok Archons that are pissed that they dug too deep?”

“Vokheia’s dead,” Caliz said, confused.

“The Deserters aren’t dead,” she said, her head turned to face his, “just missing. And their archons never left.”

“Good point. It’s a meadery, though, not a mining operation, how deep could they have dug?”

“Good question,” she muttered, walking on.

The tunnels moved in relatively straight lines with roughly carved walls in hallway-like fashions, occasionally opening into a room or revealing a doorway into another carved room. They passed more Nojern bodies as they moved, most carrying tunneling equipment.

After a few minutes of searching, Faelana held a hand back, stopping the other two. “Hey.” She pointed forward at a collection of five bloody bodies at the end of a tunnel, right in front of a hole in the ground, and Caliz smirked.

“Looks like they must have gone a little deeper.”

Faelana turned back, putting her face close to his. “People are dead, Hats’ik. Have some decorum.” She held her face there in front of his until a snicker came out of her mouth. She laughed lightly as she went to the hole.

“Did we find the entrypoint?”

“Looks like,” Faelana repeated herself. “Seems they were mining along and accidentally wore their rock too thin. Hit a cavity. Shall we investigate?”

“What else would we do,” Caliz sighed as they lowered into the hole.

They were met with a smooth, perfectly carved room with a hole in its center. The hole had a ladder mounted to it, and otherwise was decorated with old tapestries and a few rugs. The tapestries had language none of them recognized.

“What is this?”

“A lizardfolk room,” Faelana stated dryly. “Worship, maybe? That tapestry there looks a bit deific. Not one I know, though.”

“Shaadrizahg,” Osa intoned from the back. The two turned to look at her. “God of Beasts.”

“That one of the Deserters?” Caliz asked.

“Yeh.”

“How do you know that?” Faelana asked quietly.

“Tribe. All.”

“Your tribe worshipped Shaad… a deserter?”

“Weren’t you the one invoking ‘Scoat’s Ghost’ earlier?”

“I mean, yeah, but…” she trailed off.

“Who’s… the one you said, Osa?”

“Shaadrizahg. God of Beasts. Animals.”

“Interesting,” he pondered. “Lizardfolk worshipping the beast god makes sense. Maybe we can ask the other two, see if they know anything.”

“Doubt it,” Faelana spat. “Not much love for Deserter worship around here.”

“Personal experience?”

“So to speak,” she muttered. “Let’s just get on with it, shall we?”

[1] The Separatist Union of Antra, a confederation founded 303 turn ago, from the dismantling of the Cooperative Protectorate of Antra, founded by former separatist senator, now Queen Toba Roth. The country makes up the majority of the northwestern continent.