TBOTH: Pandora's Box

[Mark S]

I don't suppose you are planning on parralelling Lonestar's tale since that would keep you in the same Company even after the war?

I can tell you that at this point, my plans have nothing to do with the Citadel.

[Knife]

It's been interesting writing this. I want to be able to comment on the major events, so I have to be there, and I have to put myself in interesting situation so people will continue to read, but at the same time I sure as hell don't want to turn the character of, well, me, into a huge glob of my own sploog running around.

Tough isn't it? One of the reasons I went with first person is so I could be the narrarator and see all the heroes rather than third person seeing all the heroes. It does take a certain amount of mental gymnastics to cover all the situations. The whole chapter we've been talking about in the original about the Battle Mounds is a perfect example. All the 'action' was told after the fact from the narrorator.

As for the parallels, I can tell you that I have a bit of a tangent planned for the next chapter, then the next will be pretty much the final battle (which I'm not sure how much I'll get into), then we get started with all new...

I have your original PM about what and where you wanted to go, so I'm looking forward to that, just curious how you'd fill in the other bits of my story too. I like my cake especially when I can eat it too.

[Knife]

*tap tap tap*

[Mark S]

*tap tap tap*

I haven't forgotten. A just haven't had much writing time between a pregnant wife and a son with the ragin' terrible two's. All in good time...

[Darth Yoshi]

Man, for a moment there I thought there'd been an update.

No worries, Mark.

[Knife]

*tap tap tap*

I haven't forgotten. A just haven't had much writing time between a pregnant wife and a son with the ragin' terrible two's. All in good time...

Oh, I remember those days. Terrible, terrible. (*shudders*)

[Mark S]

It's been taking so long to get this next chapter together I decided to break it into two and give you the first half. The next half is currently in a pile of notes. Hopefully it won't take to long to get a chance to type it up.


Trouble with the Neighbours Part 1 (Chardok Shanghai)


Lindar was on duty at the gate when I rode through, the grime of war still clinging to me. We met eyes and nodded dourly in passing. I could not help but think about how she had changed. Her once soft, playful features had hardened, complete with the cliched angry red scar down the right side of her face. Her manner had become just as stony. As that steely gaze cut into me I could also not help but wonder if she was seeing the same in me.

But matters such as these were soon forgotten on such a day as our return to Avalon. Word was floating all over the city, but not of our victory at the Mound, that paltry event was but an afterthought. In Bravo Company’s absence, a stranger had entered our midst. For the first time in our years on this strange land, there was a stranger. When I eventually learned the details, I was not elated, as were most, but quite the opposite. It only served to strengthen my bitter dismay.

Every hundred years or so, we were to find from this man, this anachronism seemingly from Victorian England, another group of people from Earth was brought here. Every hundred years since who knew when? At least a thousand years, from what we were first told. And none of them, not in the five hundred years since the founding of the first of the Riverland towns, not in the centuries before with the coming of the men of the Citadel further west, not one, was any closer to finding out why or getting home. More over, they barely seemed to be advancing beyond a state of agrarian pre-industry. To my mind we were more trapped than ever.

Granted, I can not deny the blessings that the five towns of the Riverlands were to us. Their builders and craftsmen alone were an incredible boon. Together, the wonders of Avalon that you know today began to first come to their true glory. We were more than lucky to have them, not to mention their generous tradition of providing help to new arrivals. I think history shows though, that they were just as lucky to have us.

On a national level, they were a blessing. Personally, I didn’t care much for them. From Venito to New London, they were ignorant, dirty and backward thinking, to a man. The sanitary standards of Avalon were nothing compared to those most of us were taken from, but those of the Riverlands quite literally stank. To me, walking into Languedoc was like walking into an open sewer grate. We didn’t have much but at least we believed in bathing and removing our waste from the city regularly. Thank god we didn’t live down stream of them. And don’t get me started on the medical practices. I would take the ‘gentle’ hands of any one of our field medics, trained only in basic first aid, over the hack-saw and snake-oil, cowboy medicine of the finest ‘doctors’ in New London. Bloody, bumbling witchdoctors.

It would be two years between clearing the plains and the assault on our city by the Morlocks. Two years to catch our breath, some would say. Two years to learn about our new found neighbours, forge alliances and begin mutual trade. Two years of possible defensive construction on the Eastern Approach totally wasted, it would turn out. Two years of relative peace and prosperity.

People sometimes like to equate meeting the five towns with that two year reprieve, downplaying the Battle of the Mound because of its one-sidedness. They do not give the Morlocks enough credit. They were not there.

They also forget that, in fact, there was no real peace. We had no great battles to be named in that time, nothing to ‘make the news’, but there was no less work for men of arms. The Night Watch still skirmished with the Morlocks to the east, business as usual, and now our new friends brought with them new concerns. Civilizations as established as those in the west invariably have outlaws, and trade with them meant highwaymen and banditry. No, we still had plenty to do.

Not that anybody making decisions listened at the time, as I recall. Morlocks were no longer a worry, they said. Our operations in the western woods were merely ‘Police Actions’, they dismissed. Avalon had its walls and its watch towers and more than enough soldiers to man them and that was good enough. Resources were put to better use in other areas, they decided. I encourage anyone reading to visit the wall at the mounds and see the names of everyone who died in a Police Action during this time of reprieve.

Never the less, our world was expanded, and travel and commerce became steady. My own first visit was to New London, as part of an escort for a contingent from the University. For days we rode through the forests of the western foothills wondering what we would find at our destination and what the people would be like. Cresting that last ridge and looking down into the basin of the Riverlands, the wide silver belts of water glistening in the sunlight, the city sprawling in all directions, it was more than we could have hoped.

Travelling closer, through thriving farmlands and past quaint cottages, it felt like something out of an idyllic fantasy. The magnificent royal blue of the crops stretched high to the sky. Animals, livestock and wild, grazed contentedly. Everyone we saw waved happily from their work as their children chased behind our wagons. It was overwhelming.

Reaching the city proper was a little more of a slap of reality. New London, busy as a hive and bustling with more people than I had seen in years, was gray and dust-choked. And with the crowds and the dust, the sounds and scents of the days business washed over us as well, battering our senses and waking in us memories of a world long gone. All of us, to a person, had to stop to digest what was spread out before our eyes. An actual city! One out of our past, to be sure, but a city none the less. I remember feeling what I can only describe as motion sickness from the pace of it all.

The leader of the delegation, Innerbrat, came up next to me. “Any idea who any of these people are?” She echoed our first shared words absently, taking everything in at once.

“Not a clue,” I returned, just the same.

She got us into some trouble politically on that trip, the Brat did. I’m pretty sure it was unavoidable though. She would have said what she did whether she had the armed guard or not. The fact that she pointed out to the esteemed Professor Whoever-it-was, Esquire, that everyone in her retinue had knowledge far beyond his, including the guardsmen, was neither here nor there. It was an entertaining conversation to listen to though.

That sort of ferrying duty became fairly common, especially when regular travel back and forth was established. To begin with it was usually an uneventful trip, but that became less and less the norm as time passed. As I said, the Riverlands had their share of brigands and it was inevitable that they would migrate over to the Avalon Trail, as the Towns used to call Route 66 back in those days. By the end of the first year after contact they had become a legitimate concern. I think that was part of the reason why so many joined the Home Guard. People just felt they needed to know how to protect themselves on the road.

As if we weren’t working hard enough to keep them safe.

It was now Spring of the second year after contact. I was riding “shotgun” on a hard top covered wagon full of... well, tourists basically, dragging my mount begrudgingly behind. Butch, SQ and Ford rode perimeter. At my side, a young Watchman, Charlie, anxiously drove. We were deep into the woods, two days out of Avalon, making slow time. The rain had actually been staying away, keeping the weather under the canopy of the purple wood fair, but even that could not help make the trip pleasant.

The trail was rough and the slow pace made each bump and dip all the more jarring. My armour, oversized for this outing, weighed heavily on me and further accentuated the jolts. Add to that the fact that I had to keep an arrow at the ready in my bow and an eye on the trees amid the distraction of the braying, barking passengers, and the days became very tiring. Nights taking turns at watch were no less so.

It was enough to make you want to be attacked. At least something to make it worth while. And we were, of course. Right where you would expect, where the trail crossed through a flooded stream. Not deep enough to be dangerous, but perfectly placed for slowing a wagon to be waylaid. Just as we fought through to the other side, the arrows began to fly from the surrounding trees, springing up around us, vibrating on the wagon’s sturdy walls and making our tauns dance. Another volley followed, hot on the heels of the first.

With staccato timing the second hail pounded against us from both sides, felling the riders and throwing me from my seat to the echoing sound of terrible, thunderous cracks. Three shafts sprouted from me as I hit the ground painfully, each from my torso. The highwaymen had learned long ago the strength of our helmets and preferred the larger target of the body. My vision was now only dirt and the wincing backs of my eyelids. I hadn’t even been able to get a shot off of my own. It was a job well done if I do say so myself.

Brigands. They were mostly comprised of men who’s people had been brought to Terra long ago and who had been displaced by the warriors of the Citadel. The rest were those criminals outlawed by the Riverlands. This being the medieval definition of Outlaw, while they were generally not actively hunted by the Five Towns, these people had no rights or protection under their laws. An outlaw can be killed by anyone, for any reason and there are no repercussions. They are literally outside the law.

These were not “Merry Men”. There was no Robin Hood among them. They robbed from everybody and sold the goods off on the black market to the highest bidder. They would just as quickly kidnap a traveller for ransom, if you were worth it, or to sell, if the rumours could be trusted. Even with their old ways, we never saw slavery in any of the Towns though. At any rate, hold no fairy tale illusions of noble woodsmen. These men deserved all the justice we gave them.

With the wagon’s driver and guardsmen no longer a threat, the bowmen in hiding immerged from the thick, purple growth to reveal themselves. A rangy mob of about a dozen men, they circled the wagon casually and held their bows loosely, hollering taunts and bravado in the pigeon dialect we’ve all come to know. They didn’t even bother to check whether I was alive or not, so pleased with themselves and their prize were they.

After two of their number made their way to the rear of the wagon to bring out the passengers, only to disappear into the darkness inside, they finally remembered themselves. After two more met the same fate, they were not so confident. When the slats on the vehicle’s sides opened and the crossbow bolts began to fly, they realized their fatal error. It was too late then, though. Far too late.

You see, our armour was large and cumbersome to fit the thick planks of blackwood underneath. Planks that did their job in stopping arrows quite admirably. Our pace had been slow and our passengers loud to attract as much attention as possible. Those passengers, no mere tourists, but a half a dozen armed and armoured Watchmen of Coyote’s Jackals. Even the location of the attack had been so ripely offered up as if to make it an almost certainty. It was a trap that could not have been orchestrated better if our victims had been willing players.

The fact that we were all pretty much hung out as bait didn’t really bother me, but did they have to do it before I was supposed to go on leave? The unit is taking leave in New London? Why don’t you escort this wagon along the way? We’re pretty sure you’ll get ambushed but that’s what we’re hoping for. Great.

The Night Watch took a much more pro-active approach to the banditry in the western woods than the Five Towns and it was Captain Coyote’s Alpha Company that was assigned the brunt of the task, though as you can see, that did not stop others of us from being rented out from time to time. There were patrols ranging the forest all the time but we simply did not know the land as well as these rogues who lived on it day in and day out. We could not seem to track them back to their base of operations, if indeed such a thing existed. Tricks such as the one I described kept them on their toes and leery of The Black Riders of Avalon, but they could not last forever either. Tricks are quickly learned and countered and these Outlaws were nothing if not crafty.

That being said, as the last of the dirty lot fell I picked myself up from the ground and began breaking arrow shafts off my armour. One of the heads had broken through the hard blackwood to bury the edge of its tip in my shoulder but that was the worst of my injuries. A far better showing than Ford, who had been trying to make the top of the bank when the attack started and who’s mount had fallen back on him down the slope. His left arm was crushed. It was a terrible thing to see but we all thought he’d survive it if we made New London and amputated before gangrene set in.

As luck would have it, we met no further resistance and, making more haste, arrived at the Consulate barracks in the city by mid morning of the next day. After we had made sure Ford was squared away in the hands of the infirmary, had reported in, and stowed our gear, it was getting into late afternoon. Finally free, Butch, Singular Quartet and I wasted little time finding the nearest public house to wash the dust of the road from our throats and raise a mug to our hapless friend in his absence. In my mind the injury was senseless and did not put me in the mood for happy drinking, but Butch would not be daunted. This was the business Ford was in and his being injured would not get in the way of Butch’s good time. SQ was in between. He was tired of worrying about other people and just wanted to relax.

The place we found was what some would describe as ‘colourful.’ The Oxford, or simply The Ox to the locals, overlooked the river amid the ebb and flow of the docks. If its weathered exterior matched that of many of the patrons, its inside showed the same stoic determination to keep alive amid hard struggles as well. Dim, flickering oil lamps and dark wood cast a feeling of shadow and cover for those that sought it while the large fire place opposite the bar provided warms and atmosphere. As would be expected, the whole place smelled of stale beer and sausage and murmured with a dozen different conversations in half as many dialects.

We found a table off to the side of the room and with a stitched shoulder still throbbing and a friend in the process of having his arm removed, I propped my back against the wall and pulled my hood up over my head. I drank in silence, listening to Butch and SQ trying to lighten their souls with one joke or another, and watched the crowd around us. A rough looking bunch, they were mostly sailors off the river and dockhands, with a few obvious goons from the local criminal underworld thrown in for good measure.

I noticed more than a few off duty Night Watch as well. It was inevitable with the proximity of this place to that of what passed for our consulate. They drifted to and from our table as if by some unseen current. I paid it little more mind than the rest of the room, content to listen and drink and watch and wait for the trouble to start. Avalonians in a crowd like this made that just as inevitable.

I remember we used to get in trouble a lot in the Riverlands. We were civilized men and women of the twenty-first century and these people looked down on us like we were barbarians. They could not imagine the things that we had seen on Earth at our time, good or ill, and yet they held us all as peasants. That did not sit well with many of us, especially not the women. As a result, we had a reputation in the early days for being argumentative brutes. The fact that most of the first visitors were of the Watch, dressed in uniform black armour, did not help matters. Whatever. I didn’t survive this place this long to take shit from the Renaissance Fair.

So I watched the slow eddy of the throng and listened to its hum, waiting of the tell-tale cues. And in listening I heard a distinct sound that I had no patience for on that evening. In watching, I saw the table next to us clear and quickly refill, revealing the source of that sound. A panting whine issuing from a creature as it sat at its master’s feet next to me. I drank in disgust as I tried to move my attention elsewhere.

Our interactions with the Riverlands introduced us to all manner of domesticated crops and animals that are now as much a part of our lives as the tauns had been in the beginning. One of these animals is a Western Lowlands cousin of the targ that the Riverlands folk use in much the same way as the dogs of old Earth. That was the beast that now rested under the table next to me. Call it what you want, it was still a targ to me and my mood was not helped by its presence.

Then the thing started taking a shine to me.

First it was hot breath on my thigh, then the thing rested its head on my lap. Looking back, it had no ill intent toward me, seeking only a calm spot in the milling sea of people. When my gaze fell upon it however, there was nothing from me but malice. I shoved the animal away roughly.

“Way there, Avy,” its owner, a man who’s face showed in it the expectation of his reputation to have proceeded him, said genially from the seat beside me, mistakenly thinking I had been startled. “He’s friendly as a pup. Seems to have fallen right wit ya.”

“Probably smells your boots,” SQ piped in. “Thinks they’re his mama.”

In the meantime, the dogzard wasn’t taking no for an answer. It had moved in closer and plopped its head right back on my lap. My heart did not melt with the sweetness of it all.

“Get that fucking thing away from me,” I growled, putting my stein down definitively. When I pushed it away this time there was a yelp of pain.

The man was out of his chair in an instant, no longer so genial.

“Mind it!” he yelled, putting himself fully before our table. A solid man to be sure, I took him for some thug who thought himself important in the area. At the very least he was some local blowhard brawler. At any rate, he looked like he had seen more than a few scuffles in his day and his three friends looked about the same. I couldn’t bring myself to be worried.

“What did you say?!” he demanded. “Do you know who I am?!”

Surprisingly, the reply came from the bar before I could speak. It was Chardok, a sergeant under Coyote. I had noticed him there but he had been keeping to himself. I didn’t think he had been paying attention to this end of the room.

“You heard the man,” he bellowed. “Get that stinkin’ mutt outta here. Some of us are trying to eat!”

Silence rippled out from our table until all attention was on us. For one angered breath of the large man standing over me, the only sound in the room came from the whimper of his ‘zard under the table and the clamour of the kitchen intruding through the side door. Before the next could be taken Butch had already lost his patience for it all.

“Oh, to hell with this,” he said in annoyance, reaching up to grab the man by the collar and slam his head down into the table.

The room erupted into a sea of fists and flying metal tankards. I’m still not sure why everyone else had to get in on it, but I suppose that was just the type of people that frequented The Ox. It certainly wasn’t the first scuffle the place had seen, that week even. Maybe they just all loved dogzards.

I don’t think there was anyone there that couldn’t handle themselves in a fight, but none of them were professional soldiers. And yes, I lump the few New London Regulars that were present into that as well. Not enough to have any sort of continued, regimented training in unarmed combat from what I’ve seen. Not to say we had an easy time of it. Seasoned brawlers may be crude but they’re effective. Especially in a crowd.

Suffice it to say, the Night Watch gave as good, if not better, than they got, and all in defence of my hatred of targs and their various bastard genetic off-shoots, of all things. I don’t know where else you could find loyalty like that. Suffice it to say also, that we marked The Oxford off as yet another establishment that the Night Watch was no longer welcome.

“Shame,” Butch said as we sat on the docks, planning our next stop of the night. “I kind of liked that place.”

“You know something, Mark,” SQ added. “You’re going to turn into one of those crazy old guys that hates all animals pretty soon. I was thinking about getting one of those things. If it dies of some mysterious poisoning at any time, I’m blaming you.”

“And that’s why, when I saw you all come in, I knew I hit the jackpot.”

The statement was Chardok’s, as he walked up grinning ear to ear. He held something tightly in one hand and patted my back with the other.

“I knew as soon as that ‘zard poked its nose through the door that sooner or later it would get too close and you’d start some shit. God damn, it was perfect.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Butch cut to the point.

In response, the sergeant opened his hand and showed us the iron key hidden within.

“So?”

“You don’t know how long I’ve been trying to get this key. The guy who’s mutt you so rudely manhandled is part of a group running the local black market. They sell what the bandits steal. This key opens the lock on the safe in the warehouse they’ve been using. Now we can get into it without anyone noticing that we did.”

“Why would you want to do that?” SQ asked.

“What do you men, ‘we?’” was Butch’s question.

“A, because inside there is a map that will show us where the brigand encampment is,” he replied, “and B, I say ‘we’ because you’re going to help me.”

“Doesn’t this fall into the category of, ‘operations inside foreign territory?’” I suggested casually.

“Yeah,” he answered. “That’s why I’m getting you fucks to help me instead of real men.”

“Such a sweet talker,” SQ rolled his eyes. “Sorry Sergeant, we’re on leave.”

Chardok only smiled at the argument. He looked around the docks, now draped in the shadows of early night, and shivered, rubbing his arms briskly against a cold that was somehow not touching the rest of us. “You feel that? No? You don’t feel that? Feels like a draft to me, boys!”

The smile dropped as quickly as it had come. “Leave’s been revoked. Go get your blades. You’re coming with me.”

At this point I should fill you in on the political situation of the time. As I said before, the Night Watch was taking a much more aggressive approach to the Outlaw situation than the Riverlands. Unfortunately it was clear that any permanent encampment they might have was not within our borders, but somewhere further into the territory of the Five Towns. Even if we knew where it was, we could not prosecute without fielding soldiers on another’s soil.

This would not be allowed by the Council. Having lived with the shadow of the Citadel their whole lives, the people of the Riverlands were already skittish about foreign powers exerting military force within their borders. And understandably so. We could not be seen as aggressors to our new allies, not with our treaties so freshly inked. We were to guard our people on the roads but keep our actions in the western woods within our own lands. There were to be no hostile operations inside foreign territory.

That decree did not sit well with the commanders of the Watch. It was obvious from early on that these brigands were a clear and present danger to the people of Avalon and the growth of our city. Taking them on piecemeal was not a solution. So, to put it bluntly, we went ahead and hunted them into the Riverlands anyway. While the Council was distracted by Captain Knife and his constant haranguing for more defence along the Eastern Approach, Captain Coyote’s men were making covert insertions all the time. They came even into the city limits of the towns themselves, as you now know. The Five Towns believed they held their borders firmly and that they were keeping the Outlaws at bay, the Council had plausible deniability, the people of Avalon were that much safer and no one as any the wiser. To tell you the truth, I had no idea any of this was going on until that very night.

That night, on that dock however, I was balls deep in it.

So, in the darkness of night, cloaked in black and feeling the weight of our steel on our hips, the four of us flitted down the cobbled streets of New London, from shadow to shadow like a band of thieves. Poetic irony. I was quickly lost amid the turns and alleys and tightly packed buildings along our path but it made little difference. I hadn’t been told where this warehouse was supposed to be anyway. I didn’t expect to be. I didn’t need to know. That’s not why I was there.

We came to a halt crouched in the darkness around the front door to a ramshackle townhouse. Just the sort of place you would expect to be bordering the foundries and warehouses of the city. With a sharp motion for us to follow, Chardok rolled into an opening under the steps to the door. It led to a slope and a sudden drop into pitch black. The stone floor below was not forgiving. Neither were the rough hands that pulled me away before the next man could land on me.

A moment later a small lamp was lit, casting dancing light across the Sergeant’s face. “Up to the attic,” he said in a hush. “Follow me.”

We did, as quickly and quietly as we could. Winding through the abandoned house to its topmost level, we pushed past all manor of scuttling vermin. Those garbage-eating landcrabs that are always all over the Towns give me the creeps, but they got out of our way swiftly enough. At the top, it was the tiny shrills that had made their homes amongst the falling roof and broken rafters. From their nests they had a clear view of a long, squat building on the other side of a dilapidated fence. So did we.

“That’s it,” our guide said matter-of-factly.

“And you know where this safe is that we’re looking for?” Quartet studied the dark building as best he could as he spoke.

“Should be in the offices on the north side. We’ve got Butters going to make deals every time the place is full. He’s picked up that goofy talk pretty well. He says he’s seen the teamsters bring it there when they’re unloading.

“We insert through the fence, there,” Chardok indicated the darkness below. “To the left, at the end of the building is their coal drop off. We can gain entry at the doors there. Inside, we’ll be below the offices where we’ll find the map.”

“Security?” Butch asked.

“A few dogzards walking the grounds. Probably a few people inside if your friend has realized he lost his keys and suspects something.” There was an accompanying shrug. “If not, most likely no one inside. This is just an empty warehouse right now, remember. Having people in an empty warehouse around here would just make people think it wasn’t empty.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Probably not. Let’s get moving.”

Back through the house and out one of its broken rear windows, the gloom of the overcast night took us into its embrace once again. We crawled amid the remains of the meagre back garden and out under its wooden fence, once tall and proud, long since given up its fight to keep the world at bay. On the other side, the alley behind the warehouse was barren and still. The scuffle of our boots on the dirt thundered in our ears.

After a careful look around, SQ was hoisted up to a low overhanging roof. From there he quickly slithered to the top of the building’s squat height while the rest of us waited. He soon returned with a series of signals.

No people on the grounds. One carriage ready at the front.

Chardok signalled for him to maintain his watch position and led the remainder of us through the shadows.

The door at the coal depot was not locked. Whether this was luck, or part of Chardok’s plan, he didn’t explain. It opened to us at any rate, and our leader was not surprised. He simply signed for us to follow.

Inside, the expanse of the warehouse was all but empty, scattered stacks of crates here and there the only things to mar the hollow feel of the man-made cavern. What little light fought against the gloom did so filtered through the high windows from the yard lamp outside. It did more to deepen the blackness than stave it off though, its dim streams permeated with motes of dust. Another signal and Butch was dispatched into the silent surroundings. He had disappeared before I had a chance to turn and ascend the well-worn stairs to the office.

Slinking upward, we wasted little time on the landing to admire the view of the darkened interior, all too conscious of our exposed position. Instead, Chardok pushed through the lone door straight away. I gave another scan of our rear before following. All was still clear. No sight or sound from Butch or SQ.

The office area proper was quite what you would expect; utilitarian and functional, unapologetically cluttered with the on-going business of the warehouse. Shelving took up most of the wall space, leaving only room for a window overlooking the yard to the front, a coal stove and chute to the stores below, and two doors, one of which we had just entered. A large table, seemingly used as a desk, occupied much of the rest of the room’s space. It blocked us from the window, and more importantly, the man silhouetted in front of it.

“How did I know you would come here, Mister Chardok?” he said with annoying civility. “You do not disappoint.”

Not overly large, this man that seemed to know the Sergeant did not bother to turn as he spoke, simply keeping watch out the window, perhaps staring into his own reflection in the leaded glass. From what I could tell through the shadows, he was dressed well, but conservatively. Not like some of the garish lordlings that can be seen strutting about.

If he even knew I was there, he did not indicate it, but went on with his speech. I silently drew my steel dagger and backed into the concealing darkness of the corner nearest the room’s other door. If I was needed, I would be ready. If anything or anyone came through that door, I would be waiting.

“I’m a simple man, Sinclare,” the Sergeant replied evenly, stepping in front of the desk, opposite the other man. “You shouldn’t get too excited about figuring me out.”

“You’re looking for the map locating my supplier,” this Sinclare continued. “No doubt it is you that has the key my man so oafishly lost this evening. You’ve been biding your time, making your plans, but I have been following you every step of the way. Oh, don’t sell yourself short, Mister Chardok. You are far from simple.”

He motioned to the door next to me, still not turning to see his opponent. “With but one word from me, a half dozen of my men will be in here and our game will be at an end. I...”

Before another word could be spoken, Chardok picked a suitably heavy paper weight from the desk and launched it at the silhouette. Only the thud and subsequent rebound in the darkness indicated that it had sailed true, but the figure crumpled to the floor just the same.

“And that... is how you do that,” he said, turning to me with a nod.

The victory was short lived however, as the abruptly cut off monologue and the sound of the collapse alerted the waiting enforcers and they came streaming dutifully out to do their night’s work. Hulking goons to a man, they were as intimidating as they come and no doubt quite good at what they did. Unfortunately for them, they were also obviously not use to having to look behind them.

Focussed solely on Chardok, the lot of them passed my cloaked form completely by, readying clubs and muttering various promised injuries. I had already slipped my blade into the rearmost thug’s lung before they had even started flanking. The distraction the Sergeant made ensured that another two met the same silent fate.

They came at him all at once, raining blows down and trying to manoeuver around to entangle him for a more one-sided fight. Each one was a seasoned killer, veteran to countless underworld wars, but this was not the same thing. This was not the ambush battle they were use to and Chardok was not a rival enforcer trying to earn respect and a name. There would be no one left here to know his name.

Flashing in the light from the window, Chardok’s sword, Mantis, drove swiftly into its first target’s throat. At the same instant, another man’s knee was kicked out from under him and a third was landing a blow to the back. That man was one of the one’s that met my dagger.

Again, Mantis struck, stabbing like lightning down through the grounded one’s chest and then up again to slash the arm off of the remaining enemy. His head rolled before he could scream his pain.

It was over in seconds. Faster than I could think, six men were dead. It struck me then for some reason. We weren’t killing monsters anymore, but men. Sure, I had felled my share of Outlaws on the road, but for some reason, with the stink of the dead so confined I suppose, it was only hitting me then. And you know what? It just made me angrier at them for making me do it.

How dare they act like this? How dare they prey upon their fellow man in a place like this? How could they?

“He should’a brought more men,” Chardok commented grimly, motioning to the unconscious form of Sinclare. “Tie him up while I look for this safe.”

I scowled and went to work. We were back at the consulate with the map and Sinclare before dawn. I never learned who he was or his importance to all this, but whatever the Night Watch powers-that-be did with him, I never saw or heard tell of him again. I didn’t have time to ponder the issue however. Chardok only allowed us four hours sleep before we were leaving to scout the validity of the map.

[LadyTevar]

Great chapter, hon.

[Knife]

Out standing. And I'm glad my rhetoric was able to distract the politico's.

[Mark S]

Out standing. And I'm glad my rhetoric was able to distract the politico's.

I love being able to take things and put just the slightest twist on them.

[Darth Yoshi]

Ooh, nice. Avalonian black ops makes for some interesting reading. Can't wait for the second part, Mark.

I like how Chardok interrupted the guy's monologue. Very classy.

[CmdrWilkens]

Again I think its great not just because it has hilarious moments but because it is so incredibly believable. Each character has a reason and purpose that drives them and it makes sense, all flows from what came before and in my mind that is the mark of a great narrative.