H - 97: Of All People (Patreon)

“What.” The unseen voice was deadpan in sheer incredulity.

“Who?” the swordswoman demanded with open exasperation.

“Why?” Cora exclaimed. “How?”

“The Lone Wolves of Destiny!” This time they all three said it in chorus. With precisely the same inflection. It sounded rehearsed.

“Boss,” the barrier mage growled while dislodging a pear from the collar of his cloak, “Herons. Younglings. If we set them off…”

“The Herons know better than to stick their noses into what’s none of their business,” the disembodied voice said curtly. “Nice entrance, kids. Really, one for the books. Now go away. Meddle in our affairs and your seniors will be less inclined to have your back.”

“Wherever the innocent suffer!” Greg declaimed.

“Wherever the guilty prosper!” Lilith rasped.

“There shall the Lone Wolves howl!” Riocco declared.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the hidden leader of the Crows said in disgust. “Everyone, converge and dispatch. No killing! Bring the mage, and leave the brats on the ground to contemplate their actions.”

Shadows moved all around them, but the Crows were not even the first to react; the speaker’s last syllables were drowned by a sudden torrent of noise, a shrill cacophony that sounded like a slightly off-key pipe organ playing some kind of carnival theme. Cora only realized she was listing sideways after noticing the same happening to the three Crows blocking her path; it was embarrassingly belatedly that she recognized sonic magic at work. Greg was continuously turning a handle which had sprouted from the side of the preposterous machine strapped to him, and a tuba-like apparatus had emerged from its top to rotate above his head in conjunction, blaring the sound.

Then Riocco shot past Cora fast enough that the wind ruffled her coat; their blades flashed in the dim light in a series of strikes which took less than a second and left all three of the Crows disarmed and slumping to the ground with groans of pain.

“Come on!” Lilith urged, grabbing Cora by the wrist. She found herself dragged along in the midst of the Lone Wolves, who had, incredibly, actually extracted her from that ambush.

“Greg’s music will keep all foes confused and befuddled,” Riocco said from just ahead of her, “but they know this warren of alleys better than we, and that will still matter. As with any technique, the longer it is in play, the more likely they will find a countermeasure.”

“Sooner than some would,” Greg himself added, still turning the crank that produced that godawful music. “Shadow Guilds aren’t to be trifled with any more than the legal kind, Lady Cora. But I suspect you’ve found that out yourself.”

Her thoughts were still moving far more sluggishly than she liked or was used to; the sudden explosion of action in the last few seconds was not helping, and the effects of Greg’s noise were even worse. It took Cora a longer span of moments than it should have to mentally catch up with her recent change in situation, but she got there.

“Wh—no!” Furiously, she yanked her arm out of Lilith’s grasp and skidded to a halt, staggering away from the three young adventurers, who likewise stopped and turned reproachful looks on her. “How the hells did you—absolutely not, there is no way. You three, out of all people, just suddenly stepped into— No, I’m not buying it. Who sent you? What do you know? What are you up to?”

Despite the urgency of their flight, the three glanced uncertainly at each other. They had paused in a relatively clear intersection where three different alleys met at odd angles; it meant there was space to stand, but also multiple avenues of attack by their pursuers. There was, at the moment, no sign of any Crows, likely thanks to Greg’s ongoing music.

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Riocco said, “but we also weren’t exactly expecting to see you, Lady Cora. We were eight blocks away in the shopping district when Greg suddenly said we needed to head over here and help someone.”

“He—what? You? Why?” Cora turned her glare on Greg, who had the effrontery to grin at her.

“He’s a bard,” Lilith explained.

Cora felt her mouth drop open, and for the moment, couldn’t be arsed to close it. A bard? This guy? She’d assumed him a Machannite, what with that preposterous contraption. But if he was an actual bard, and had urged them to come here…

That meant he was sworn to one of the bardic gods. A bardic god who had now decided that her business was a good story. This could only be worse if her hand had been tipped to the dragons directly.

“It’s an adventurer thing,” Riocco explained, misinterpreting her silence. “When the party’s bard suddenly wants to go somewhere, you go there. When they can’t explain why, you go there faster.”

Cora squeezed her eyes shut, struggling for patience. If he would just stop playing that shit—no, wait, that was all that was keeping them safe right now. She still couldn’t get her mind to focus properly, couldn’t make her thoughts stop sliding away like eels.

She fumbled out another of the vials from her vest pocket, tipping it up to—

Suddenly it was snatched from her fingers and a hand grabbed the collar of her shirt, hauling her bodily forward until she stood directly under the moonlight penetrating between the overhanging eaves. It was Lilith, the scrawny overly-affected teenager, who had yanked her around and now had the gall to press a hand to Cora’s face, forcibly pulling one of her eyelids up.

“Wh—how dare you—get your damned hands off—”

“Lady Cora!” the girl barked, every hint of her usual performance absent. She glared up at her with furious intensity and gave her a rough shake by the grip she still held on the older mage’s collar. “How long have you been trying to substitute stamina potions for sleep?”

“That is none of your—”

Lilith cut her off with another violent shake. “If they made you Court Mage, you are too educated a woman not to understand that is not how it works! Your brain needs rest, or it will cease to function! Countless hells, those were magnesium flares I saw in that alley—right where that explosion was. Were you trying to conjure flares and messed one up?”

“You mean she blew us up by accident?” demanded the faceless voice from the shadows all around them. Cora and the Wolves jumped and reflexively circled up, facing outward, but there was still nothing to see. “I honestly can’t decide it that makes it better or worse. It doesn’t affect our need to secure a private discussion with the good Court Mage and whap some ill-trained puppies, however.”

Shadows moved; probably thanks to Greg’s musical countermeasures, they were not moving as quickly or capably this time. In a bare few seconds, Riocco darted back and forth across the junction, blades flashing in the thin shafts of moonlight. Before Cora could even process what was happening, no fewer than seven cowled shapes lay on the ground, at least one howling in pain.

“Come on!” Greg urged, setting off. Lilith grabbed Cora’s arm again, more firmly this time, and suddenly she was once more being tugged along so fast it was all she could do to keep her feet under her.

Fortunately, or perhaps not, she didn’t have to struggle for long. Moments later, the group skidded to a halt again, finding themselves in a cul-de-sac surrounded by high walls with no alleys.

“Bollocks,” Greg commented.

“We only need one unlocked door,” Riocco said, zipping back and forth across the space to try every one in turn.

“This is Boisverd, boss, people don’t leave their doors unlocked. In a neighborhood like this they’ll have much worse than locks holding them shut.”

Riocco seemed to concede his point before he’d finished speaking, returning to them with a grim expression and drawing the blade they’d sheathed to try door handles.

“Well, at least you took out a few of them,” Cora said grimly, turning along with the Lone Wolves to face the only alley leading into this trap.

Riocco shook their head. “Momentarily. I expect most of them will be back upright by now—all, if they carry healing potions.”

“How do you swing those swords the way you do without killing any of them.”

“I have sworn never to take a sapient life,” Riocco stated solemnly, holding out one of their short swords in front of Cora’s face.

It took her a full second for her wavering vision to focus on it properly.

“…this… Single-edged swords are supposed to be sharpened on the convex side. That’s what makes them work, it concentrates force into—have you just been whacking people with blunt metal sticks?”

“I have sworn,” Riocco repeated, “never to take a sapient life.” The other two both nodded gravely, as if this weren’t the most asinine thing any of them had ever seen.

“I think I’ll just blow us all up,” Cora said thoughtfully. “I think that would be…cleaner.”

“Now, now,” Greg said merrily, still turning his crank and blasting them all with that atrocious music, “nothing is over until it ends!”

“They have one avenue of attack,” Riocco agreed. “Four can hold a gap against dozens.”

“Three,” Lilith corrected, leveling a finger at Cora. “A sleep-deprived conjurer is as much of a threat to her allies as to enemies. You stay behind us. Also, Rio, they can come at us from the roofs.”

“How surprisingly minimally competent of you to notice,” said the enigmatic voice, still sounding as if it came from every direction around them. “Since we have come to a lull in the festivities, I am going to offer you clowns another chance to surrender. One I know you don’t have the sense to take, but still. Proprieties must be observed. What are we without our chivalry, eh?”

“It seems we understand one another clearly, then,” Riocco replied, sliding into a ready stance with blades up, between the rest of the group and the alley that was now teeming with moving shadows.

Lilith brandished her staff in a posture from which it was utterly impossible to use it as a blunt weapon, and merely silly to do so as an aid to casting. “Then it seems my time has come.”

Greg threw out an arm in front of her, turning to grin at her over his shoulder. “Oh, come now, Lilith. Your destiny is far greater than dealing with these dregs. Save it for the right time.”

“You are all just so ridiculous,” Cora breathed.

“I, though, am prepared to spend some stored up narrative tension here and now,” the bard continued, his grin widening. He made a sharp movement with one leg and his opposite arm in conjunction, and a panel opened on the back of his mechanical apparatus, from which a single lever emerged, its tip a knob of glowing crystal. “Lilith, I think the time has come for you to pull my lever.”

“Are you sure, Greg?” she rasped. “We don’t even know what that will do.”

“If there was ever a moment to risk the unknown,” he replied, “surely this is it!”

“Crows,” the voice said from all around them, “I want you to beat these kids up like you’re bullies at a boarding school and they’re transfer students two years below you. I take no pleasure in this and I hope none of you will either, but we may very well be saving their lives tonight. Somebody is gonna murder these little goobers in this business if some sense is not pounded into them.”

Light burst in the mouth of the alley, eliciting yells of protest as everyone was blinded.

“Damn it, Cora!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

In the aftermath of the burst of illumination, though, there were trails of sparkles like tiny fireworks and a few lingering figures—tiny butterflies of pure light, which gradually dissipated upon the air. And in the center stood a new figure.

He was tall and lean as a stork, wearing an exquisite tailored suit in deep purple, accented with a walking stick polished to a warm glow and a truly ostentatious top hat.

“What’s all this?” the new arrival demanded, turning toward Cora and the Wolves to tip them a wink. “You were about to start without me? My feelings! They are wounded!”

“I am forced to admit we have not been in control of the timing,” Riocco replied. “I’m glad you made it regardless, Pfasz.”

“A magician is never late, my young friend,” he replied with a jaunty grin, tipping his hat, “nor is he early. It’s so refreshing to work with those who appreciate proper timing.”

“Strut and pose on your own time, Pfasz,” purred a sulty voice from above. Two figures were now on the eaves, peering down at them—a woman in impractically tight leather showing off an even more impractical amount of cleavage, and a slightly grizzled man in contrastingly drab leather armor, both holding long knives.

“Rooftops are clear,” he stated. “You all right, kids?”

“We are now!” Riocco replied, grinning. “Never been happier to see you, Roscoe, Morvaine.”

“Did you really think we just charged over here with no plan or backup?” Greg added smugly to Cora.

“Of course I did! I’ve met you!”

Two slim figures landed to either size of Pfasz in catlike silence—not the pair of rogues still holding the high ground above them, but short and slight elves who wore matching leather armor and identical hairstyles, both wielding rapiers. They said nothing, just grinned unsettlingly at the crowd of black-hooded Crows assembling in the mouth of the alley.

“We have numbers,” a slightly muffled voice insisted from within their ranks. “This lot can’t—”

“You just lost a week of talking privileges,” snapped the Crows’ invisible leader. “If you don’t know who these are, remember their faces and mind your manners around them in the future.”

There came another thump as one more body hit the cobblestones. This time it was a capybara, which now trotted serenely forward. Pfasz and the two elves respectfully made way, leaving the animal to face the assembled Shadow Guild.

“The hells is that thing?” demanded another voice from within the throng.

“Bronzmun,” said their hidden leader, her voice now annoyed…and wary. “It galls me down to the very pit of my soul to say the words, but it is both true and relevant so…here they are. This is not how it looks.”

The capybara reared up on its hind legs, and transformed.

He was a man, apparently a human, but it might have been reasonable to conclude he had some giant in him. His deeply-lined brown face was well above the heads of any others present, partially obscured behind an enormous bushy beard and a wild mane of unkempt hair, both pure gray and starting to show white. His build was powerful to suit his height, hugely broad in the shoulders and with arms like tree trunks, but also quite round about the middle. Bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem of the ragged sackcloth robe which was his only garment.

“So I assumed,” he replied in a deep baritone that seemed to make the very air around them resonate. “We both know better than to invite the sort of problem that seems on the verge of occurring here, Seta.”

“My business is only with the Court Mage,” the still-unseen leader of the Crows said tersely. “It involves slain members of my guild, and answers which only she has. Your three younglings there saw fit to thrust themselves into the middle of it. I would take it as a kindness if you would remove them.”

“Yes, clearly I shall,” Bronzmun agreed. “Along with the Court Mage herself, obviously.”

“The kids are one thing,” Seta said, the tension in her voice ratcheting up a further notch. “I would be most chagrined to learn that you’ve grown senile enough to thrust your guild into my business.”

“I could say the same,” he replied in utter serenity. “I would not presume to suggest that you cease whatever business you have with Lady Cora, merely that you acknowledge the present situation. However it has come about, we are here. The Herons cannot just hand over one of the highest ranking officials of the royal court to a Shadow Guild. That would be as good as a declaration of war by us against the state itself. We do not all have the option of disappearing into the shadows when threatened, Seta.”

There was silence, a moment of quiet which vibrated with deadly possibility. The handful of Verdi Herons, including several of their most dangerous combatants, stared down thrice their number of black-cowled Crows, all of them with anticipation and very little fear.

“So,” Seta said finally, “that is the situation, then.”

“Situations do change,” Bronzmun rumbled, “but that does not mean they needn’t be accepted for what they are. This is…a compromise, for both of us. It is one I am willing to make, for now, because I know what it would mean for Boisverd to have Herons and Crows pecking at one another in the streets. I have always taken you for someone with a similarly long view, old friend.”

“The truly aggravating thing about you, Bronzmun,” Seta said with audible annoyance, “is that you are usually correct, and usually when it’s the most inconvenient.”

“So I am told,” he agreed in a grave tone.

“We will have to continue our discussion at a later time, Lady Cora,” Seta said. “Crows, back to the shadows.”

Dark figures slunk backward, dissipating with astonishing alacrity—almost as if they truly were merging with the deep shadows cast by the crowded eaves of Boisverd.

“Bronzmun,” Seta added, her voice fading in volume as if she were growing more distant by the word, “do teach those kids of yours how to behave. Not everyone in the business shares my sense of humor. They’re going to get slaughtered, acting like that.”

He stood in silence, chin lifted as if listening to the very air, for a long span of seconds.

“Looks clear from up here,” Morvaine drawled, “but you know Crows. Not many can sneak up on me, but I wouldn’t put it past some of them.”

“They are nothing if not circumspect,” Bronzmun said. “Here and now, I think the flock will threaten us no more. But situations do change, and I would like to be in our nest rather than theirs when this one does. Lady Cora, forgive me for saying it, but you look like a hot meal and a cup of tea would do you a world of good.”

“And a nap,” Lilith grated.

Cora’s mind seemed like a white haze of meaningless words and formulae. She was gradually catching up to the new reality in which she did not appear to be in mortal danger. And for now…that would have to do.

“I think,” she said, “that would be…a start.”